by Nicole Thorn
Once she told me, we got into Benjamin’s car. I could have teleported, but I thought her friends should be there when I saw her.
We pulled up in front of her old house, and I broke the front door when it wouldn’t open. I ran up to her bedroom, her friends on my heel.
The door stood open, and Anna sat on her bed, hands on her lap, and cheeks stained with tears.
I rushed to her and knelt down in front of her bed. “Anna.”
“She killed me…” Anna said without an ounce of life in her voice.
I held her hands tighter. “I am so sorry, Anna.”
She popped her head up. “I need to hear it from her. I need proof. I won’t believe that my best friend killed me until I get proof. Please, Ezra,” she begged.
Stubborn. Always so stubborn.
“Okay.” I nodded and stood. “We’ll talk to her.”
Poppy walked over and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll tell her to come here. I want answers too.”
“Elisa,” the girl said after her call had been answered. “We need to talk to you about something.”
Elisa sounded agitated, “I’m in the middle of something. I don’t really have time for a play date.”
“I don’t care what you’re doing. We’re talking to you one way or another.”
“No means no, Poppy. I’m hanging up now.”
“Listen to me.” Poppy gripped the phone and I thought she might crush it in her hands. “We have things to discuss. If you don’t wanna show up, then we’ll just come to you.”
“N-no,” the girl sounded panicked. “Not here. Where are you?”
Poppy relaxed slightly. “Annie’s house.”
“I’ll be there soon.” The line went dead.
Elisa was as guilty as could be. I knew it. These friends of hers wanted to believe that people weren’t as evil as they were, but I’m an old man. I knew how the world worked.
We waited for the bitch to show up, and I saw the anger seething in Poppy. She paced and stared at the floor so hard that I thought it might catch fire.
The hardest thing would be me not killing Elisa when she walked through the door. She’d killed the love of my life, and I’d killed for that reason before. But I needed Anna to believe this first. I couldn’t risk being wrong and losing her just when I’d gotten her.
We heard the car pull up, and my hand instinctively went to the dagger at my side.
“Ezra.” Poppy held a hand out. “Don’t. If we let you do the interrogating, she’ll never give us a straight answer. Best not to let the angry husband handle this.”
I frowned and left my hand on my dagger.
She flashed a chilling smile that reminded me of the Devil himself. “Let the angry best friend do it.”
I took a step back and went to sit on the bed by Anna. Then Elisa came through the door with dark circles under her dead eyes. I felt the rage spiking again, and I had to remind myself that I took the backseat.
“What do you want?” Elisa barked at Poppy, then glared at me.
Poppy crossed the room, and Benjamin joined me and Anna.
“We needed to talk to you about Annie,” Poppy said, calmer than I expected from her.
“What about Anna?” Elisa said like the girl didn’t sit next to me.
“That spell that she died during, where did you find it?”
Elisa tensed, and I saw a flash of fear in her eyes for just a second. “I heard about it online. In a forum.”
“And you knew where to get the book?”
“Yeah.”
“And the spell itself, you knew what it said?”
Elisa shifted around on her heels. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you know what it said? You read it. Did you understand it? Did you know what it would do?”
Elisa got defensive. “You mean like, did I know it would kill her?”
“Yes,” Poppy growled. “Did you know it would kill her?”
Elisa took a step forward. “No. I didn’t know. I don’t speak the language it was in.”
Anna stood up and joined Poppy. “But you knew it was the right spell? And you knew that I had to cut my hand and bleed into the earth? You knew to make the circle and light the candles. How could you know all of that if you couldn’t read the instructions?”
Elisa tried to backpedal. “I didn’t know I needed the candles. I just did it, and I just read the words.”
“Doesn’t explain the rest,” Benjamin jumped in. “You told us that the spell needed virgin blood. You couldn’t have known that if you didn’t understand the book. You directed us, Elisa.”
Elisa stammered. “I-I just…” The panic evaporated and turned into something else. “Ya know what?” Her eyebrows went up. “It all worked out, didn’t it? Annie is alive and we all have power. That’s what we wanted.”
“You.” Poppy pointed to her. “You wanted the power. You made us keep going when Annie was coughing up blood and going blind. You wouldn’t stop and help me.”
“If I didn’t finish, then we wouldn’t have our magic,” Elisa bit out.
“Annie might not have died! Do you even care?”
“I brought her back, didn’t I? I did what I had to because you were too scared to.”
“I didn’t want to murder someone!”
“Sometimes people need to die to get what you want.”
“Like me.” Anna said, hardly a whisper.
The air went still and cold. Everything felt frozen in the room, and all eyes went to Elisa.
“Don’t make an enemy today, Anastasia,” the witch said to my wife. I couldn’t kill her yet. Not till she admitted it.
“Did you kill me?” Anna asked flat out.
“I brought you back from the dead.”
Not a no.
“Did you know I would die that night?”
The anger didn’t leave Elisa’s face as she said, “I knew once we got the power that I could bring you back.”
There. She killed her best friend. My wife. That was all I needed to hear.
I stood and pulled my dagger out as I ran to her, but she reacted too fast. Elisa threw her hand up and the room filled with black smoke, blinding and choking me. By the sound of it, everyone else too.
I couldn’t find Anna in the black cloud, but I heard the car outside burn rubber on its way out.
Suddenly the smoke cleared, and I saw Anna breathing fast with her hands up.
“Fuck,” I said when I got to the window. The car was long gone along with the soon to be dead witch. “I knew it.”
I turned to see the three of them all with fists clenched and blood red fury in their eyes. I couldn’t imagine I looked any less angry.
Poppy covered her eyes. “I should be more surprised, right? I shouldn’t think this makes sense. I should be trying to prove that this was all a misunderstanding, and Elisa didn’t just confess to murdering you,” she said to Anna.
Anna shook her head weakly. “I don’t know what to think. She’s always been obsessed with witchcraft, but I never thought she’d do something like this to be a witch.”
Benjamin said, “We should have realized something was up when she killed those other people without hesitating. She just used her powers to knock them out, and she sliced their throats open. Like it was nothing…”
“We need to find her. Now,” I thundered, and everyone jumped. “Where would she go right now?”
Anna shrugged. “No clue. Would she be stupid enough to go home?”
Benjamin dug his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s find out.”
We got to Elisa’s house and walked around back. Anna said that there was a way into her room from the backyard. Where she died.
Anna broke the latch on the wooden fence, and we went inside. The backyard was huge and part of it had been sectioned off. The part by Elisa’s room. We approached the door that led into her room, but the curtain on the other side blocked our view in. Easily fixed.
I sent my foot through the sl
iding glass door and it shattered to the ground. Then I took the curtain in my hand and yanked it down and out the door.
The girl wasn’t in her room unfortunately. No matter; I’d kill her later.
I looked at the room, and it was obnoxious. She had a candle on every surface, all of them mostly burned.
We stepped into the room, and I started searching for something that might’ve been helpful in finding Elisa.
“What the fuck?” Poppy said, making me turn. She stood next to the bed, holding up a lock of blond hair tied with a ribbon. Another lock rested on the bed, but it looked brown and curly.
“Is that our hair?” Anna asked.
Benjamin and I walked over, and I glanced at the hair in each of their hands. Then my eyes went to the open book on the bed. I sat down and started reading.
“More Gaelic,” I said. Of course. We already knew she had been lying about being able to read it. My eyes scanned the page as I figured out what the spell did.
“You have to be kidding me,” I sighed.
“Ugh.” Poppy threw her head back. “This is about to get worse isn’t it?”
“Sorry.” I nodded. “This spell describes how to absorb another witch’s powers. At least this one doesn’t guarantee death. It’s just a potential side effect…” I read more. “You get very, very sick. If you wake up, then you’re one of the lucky ones.”
I moved my foot and something on the floor got knocked over. I bent down and found a jar. The one she filled with dirt from Anna’s grave. It looked like some of the dirt had gone missing.
“Dirt?” Benjamin said.
I took a breath. “From a grave. Wanna guess whose?”
Anna’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “I saw her getting it. I didn’t tell you because… it was before. I didn’t know what it meant, but by the looks of it, I’d say she has something special planned for you.”
My anger ignited again, but I pushed it down. I’d need it later.
“Why would she need that?” Anna asked herself.
“No clue, but it must be connected to your death. Maybe the spell to take your powers is different now that you’re not human.”
“Do you think she tried this today?” Anna pointed to the book.
“Maybe. Why?”
She held her elbows in her hands. “Earlier, just before I screamed, I felt a tugging. Like something was trying to get out of me. And again, in the grave yard.”
Poppy gasped and turned to her. “Me too. Like it was crawling under your skin?”
Anna bit her lip and nodded.
“That bitch is trying to steal our powers. Killing you and getting her own wasn’t enough. She wants what isn’t hers.” Poppy fumed.
“Why not me?” Benjamin asked.
“What?” Poppy blinked.
“My hair isn’t here. Do you think she doesn’t want my magic?”
Anna’s heart picked up and she sat on the bed. “Maybe she tried already, and she failed.”
“Excuse me?” he said.
Anna looked at him with heavy eyes. “Those people, she knocked them out with magic?”
“Yeah.” His eyes darted around before he settled. “We were alone in the apartment. That day.”
The day he had been attacked. When Elisa claimed that I tried to kill him. In reality, it appeared that she had been trying to take his magic. She had been interrupted when the girls came home.
“She doesn’t care if she kills us all, does she?” Anna hung her head, and I moved to hold her. Poppy beat me to the punch.
“Annie,” she said with her hands on my wife’s shoulders. “Nothing will happen to you. Any of us. We’re gonna end this. She can’t just go around killing people for her own gain.”
“Are we supposed to kill her? Our friend?” Anna asked.
“She stopped being our friend the second she decided that your life was worth trading for magic. I held you that night. I held you while you faded away. She never stopped the spell. She didn’t care. She was getting what she wanted. I will never forget what it was like to hold someone I love, helpless as they die in my arms. It might as well have been me.”
I knew better than anyone what that agony felt like. Poppy and I had a bond that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. “So, we’re on the same page.” I stood up.
“Yes.” Poppy looked at me. She didn’t look scared or resistant. She wanted blood for blood. And I was more than willing to give it to her.
I picked up the book on the bed, the locks of hair, and a Zippo on the nightstand. I flipped it open and lit the book up. It was probably older than me and priceless, but who gave a fuck.
I dropped the book and the hair into the metal, wax covered trashcan, and we all walked out of the room.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Until the Bitter End
Anastasia
I woke up with Ezra attached to me. His arm draped over my stomach, and I could feel his heart beating against my back.
He’d forced me to go to sleep. The four of us had been trying to come up with a plan. I had also been trying to understand how we got here. How I went from a normal human being, to a walking talking corpse, to a demon. Then I remembered. Elisa. She killed me, and started this whole chain of death and misery. The only good thing to come out of it was Ezra. He was the only thing that kept me from the rage I should’ve felt. Even though what Elisa did had been evil and selfish, it got me Ezra. Could I be angry with her without feeling like it made me regret him? I didn’t know. I just knew that I’d go through it all again for him.
Ezra’s hand moved, and I heard his breathing change.
“How long have you been up?” he asked, still half asleep.
“Few minutes,” I said. I turned onto my back and held Ezra’s hand to me. I couldn’t risk him moving it away. I thought it might be the only thing keeping me together.
I wanted to keep lying there, but it felt like stalling. I’d get up, shower, eat, we’d leave. Then I’d go and kill one of my best friends. I knew that there wasn’t a way around it. She had been willing to kill people for what she wanted. Kill her best friend. Who knew who else she’d kill. Anyone that stood between her and what she wanted. If we just let her go, then she’d keep gaining power. We wouldn’t be able to stop her when she inevitably decided to do something even bigger and even badder.
Any minute now, Ezra would try and get me out of bed to do what we had to do. But I needed more time. I needed to feel connected to something real.
Ezra must have caught something on my face, because he leaned down to kiss me. I heard a quiet sound of surprise when I pulled him down. He was kind enough to just roll with it.
***
I leaned against the dresser when Ezra walked out of the bathroom, fully dressed for the day. I was only mostly ready. I suppose I still tried to buy time. “Pet,” Ezra said as he crossed the room. “You know that it’s time.”
I nodded and sat on the corner of the bed. “I know.”
He walked over to the dresser and knelt down to pick my boots up. He put them on the floor in front of me. “Poppy and Benjamin are waiting for us. If we stay much longer then they might go after her alone.”
That did it.
I put my shoes on and stood up. I started walking to the door when I stopped and looked back.
My dagger remained in the box, and I went over to it, flipping the lid open. “Now is a good a time as any.”
I turned with the dagger in my hands as Ezra moved to me. “You’re not the one who is going to do the killing today. I won’t put you through that.”
“But I should put you though it?”
“You know it’s not the same.”
I sighed. “This is my fight, Ezra.”
“It’s not.” He lightly shook his head and took my free hand. “She killed you, but that’s not all she did. She took you from your family and your friends. It’s just as much Poppy and Benjamin’s fight. And mine, because that power hungry little witch killed the only per
son in the world that I love. She’s still trying to take pieces of you. I know that you never really wanted the magic you have, but it’s part of you. I know that if she’d succeeded in taking it, it would have hurt you.”
He was right. The magic had been woven into my being. If she took it from me, it would be taking part of my soul.
“She was my friend.” I didn’t even know who I tried to convince.
“Was, being the key word, Anna. She succeeded in killing you, and she didn’t care that she might have killed Benjamin when she was trying to take his magic. Or Poppy’s.”
All very good points, but I couldn’t move past the fact that I once loved Elisa like a sister.
He moved closer. “I know you’ve never been through something like this before, but it needs to be done. I know firsthand what happens when bad people aren’t stopped when they could be.”
I stuck the dagger in my boot. “Then let’s stop her.”
We left for Poppy and Oswald’s, and it only took one knock for the door to open. Poppy stood on the other side in battle clothes. She wore pants for once, and her dark hair had been pulled back into a bun. Not an ounce of makeup decorated her face either. Her green eyes looked more serious than I’d ever seen.
She seemed more than ready for this. Once she figured out that Elisa not only killed me, but almost killed Oswald, that had been it for her.
“Come in.” She held the door open, and we walked inside.
Oswald stood in the kitchen, trying to eat. He kept looking down at the plate of pancakes with disgust. Once he saw us, he dumped it in the trashcan.
“Ossy,” Poppy said in a warning tone. “Eat something please.”
He grumbled at her and went to the fridge. He grabbed a cold slice of pizza and nibbled on it. Poppy crinkled her nose, but kept quiet as she went to sit on the couch.
She looked tense but somehow so sure of herself, ready for the task at hand. One that I was still not sure of myself.
“When?” she said out of nowhere.
I blinked. “When what?”
She tapped on her leg. “When do we go? And how do we find her? She could be anywhere.”
Ezra gave me a knowing look, and I said, “I can track her.” Oswald and Poppy stopped moving, and their eyes went to me like I just snapped a puppy’s neck. I shrugged. “I learned some things when I was away.”
