by Cate Corvin
Good Kitty’s ears pricked and he looked down the path, his pupils widening. With a last bump of his warm nose on my cheek, he vanished back into the brush. “I’m aware that was super weird, but I’ve met him before,” I said. “I’d be embarrassed if he was one of the Black’s familiars and they got to watch me get all mushy, though.”
“I’m into a girl who likes dangerous animals. Look, I wanted to talk to you about something else, too,” he said, taking my arm again as we walked. Good Kitty had disappeared completely, and a prickly ball of anxiety filled my stomach. What else could go wrong that he needed to talk to me about? “I know Vivienne started this whole mess of the covens hunting you down, and you don’t appreciate it much, but the thing is… Adrian came here for the same reason I did, and you shouldn’t believe the rumors. He’s a guy you want on your side.”
Rumors of necromancy, communing with spirits, and unwilling sacrifices colored the history of the Wolfe coven. Vivienne had never quashed rumors outright, preferring to give her secretive, tight-lipped smile instead.
“Are you looking for competition?” I asked, glancing up at him. Joss’s dark skin was even duskier in the forest shadows. He grinned at me, those damned dimples showing.
“It’s not a competition if you’re on the same team,” he said. My step faltered.
“What do you mean by that?”
Joss’s arm flexed, squeezing me gently. “I’m saying that Wolfe is as close to me as my own brother,” he said, his eyes nervous now, as though expecting pushback from me. “And you’re going to want to meet him, Morena- there’s so much he could teach you. He’s definitely interested, and so am I.”
My expression felt like it was frozen stone. “So… you’re telling me that you and Adrian are… a package deal?” What could he possibly be getting at? A proposal, like their shared girlfriend?
Joss looked frustrated, but we saw a flash of red ahead of us, catching the dappled rays of light from the pond, and my heart dropped to my stomach like a stone. Roses?
A redheaded woman turned towards us, her hazel eyes haughty. Tourmaline rings flashed on her fingers. Sophia.
“I’ll talk to you about it later,” he muttered.
“I’ve been waiting for you for an hour,” she said, as though it were our fault we hadn’t been on time to an unknown appointment. “I… oh. You’re not alone.”
Sophia had flashes of foresight, like Eric’s premonitions cranked to eleven. She must have Seen that we’d be here. Or that I would, at least.
Strangely, Samara was absent. It wasn’t often that the twins separated, but Sophia might’ve been looking to needle at me alone, without Samara to hold her back.
“No, she’s definitely not,” Joss said easily.
“My grandfather refused to rescind the invitation,” Sophia said. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her entire body telling me she was at odds with his decision. “You’re still welcome at the Circle, as well as our Sabbats. We’ll be celebrating the Skye handfasting at this Circle meeting.”
All covens put aside grievances to host holidays and handfastings. I wondered who had married into Farskye.
I smiled at her sweetly, refusing to be riled. “Perhaps I will attend.”
She glared at me, hazel eyes flashing. For a moment I caught a glimpse of the true Sophia, the one who was terrified of losing her twin and being alone in the world, afraid their grandfather would find a new witch to replace them. What did she deal with under Edgar’s thumb?
“He’ll be glad to hear it,” she said stiffly. “A word of advice, Morena. You’re already an outcast in our world. You’re an outcast among humans as well. It might be time to reform your coven before you find yourself completely alone among strangers.”
I stared at her as she walked away, arms wrapped around herself. She must be desperate to prevent me from considering adoption into her own coven, possibly pushing her aside for her grandfather’s affection…
Joss was frowning as well, but I didn’t have time to think about trying to kiss him again now that Sophia was gone. My cell phone rang and I fished it from my pocket to answer.
Soft sobs crackled down the line. “Morena Bell?” A woman’s voice, breathy and raw.
“Yes, this is her,” I answered, and a whimper of fear cut me off.
“It’s Cecily Cole,” she said thickly. “She’s come back.”
9
Joss dropped me off in front of Eric’s house. I was off the motorbike and waving before he’d even pulled to a stop, but a line of fire snaked through the air, cutting me off.
“Let me help you,” he said, blue eyes piercing me.
I considered it for a brief moment, but I wasn’t ready for that step. It would be tantamount to declaring myself a team player again. Bell, Book, & Candle’s business was still mine, and mine alone.
“I’ll text you when I’m done,” I said, softening the rejection with a smile. It was hard enough to walk away from Joss after so many years of missing him. Shame about the coffee date being ruined. “And I’ll hear you out about Adrian, even if it sounds totally nuts. I promise.”
His dimples showed, but there was worry in his eyes. A returned spirit was seriously bad news. I hoped my own nervousness wasn’t obvious; this could be named spirit territory I was stepping into. “Deal, but be careful, Mor.”
“Careful is my middle name.”
“No, it’s not,” he yelled after me.
Eric opened the door before I began pounding on it as Joss’s motorcycle roaring into the distance. My servitor’s dark eyes followed him as the Thorne witch drove around a corner.
“I got the call as well,” he said grimly. He had a bag over his shoulder, keys flashing in his hand.
We piled in the van and he wasted no time in pushing the bedraggled vehicle to its limits. I felt the presence of the spirit like a blast of cold air as soon as we turned on Azalea Street.
“Damn spirits don’t know when to quit,” I muttered, looking down. My tourmaline beads were coated with a thin layer of ice.
Cecily was standing by her mailbox, her arms wrapped around herself. Tears streaked her pale face.
I drew my sickle as I approached. She stared at me with wide, shell-shocked eyes. “It’s not as bad as last time, but it’s definitely her,” she said, voice scratchy from sobbing. “She whispered to me all night. I was just… frozen in place. I couldn’t do anything.”
I wasn’t going to tell Cecily what it looked like when a haunted person experienced sleep paralysis. The spirit would’ve been laying atop her, or sitting on her chest, as she slept. I almost shivered myself when I imagined the multitude of hands curled around Cecily all night. Ick.
“Stay out here,” I said. “I’m going back in, but don’t come near the house.”
I walked in alone as Eric reassured her and led her to the van. The aura of hostility was stronger now, radiating from every wall and buzzing against my wards.
The mirror over the mantel was still intact, as well as the bathroom mirror. I peeked into Cecily’s bedroom: her fluffy white bedding was thrown around in disarray. The lampshade was crooked. It was completely unlike the pin-neat, if haunted, cottage I’d seen the first time around.
The vase on the coffee table was missing. She must’ve thrown away the wilting flowers once she believed her house to be cleansed. That was a small spot of relief. I had no desire to see if another rose would be left for me inside Death.
Eric caught up to me, his broad shoulders seeming to fill the cottage. “Smells like spoiled meat,” he said quietly.
“The spirit is pissed,” I told him. “I don’t know how it came back from ashes, but something is pretty fucking amiss here.”
I didn’t want to speak my fear aloud: that I’d finally met my match. That I wouldn’t be enough and I’d be forced to call on another coven to combine strength, whether I wanted to or not.
All my life I’d been held in high esteem as the best of John and Rosalind combined. They had both been po
werful forces in their own right. I hadn’t realized how much I’d relied on that reputation until I found myself facing a spirit that refused to stay dead, which was a galling thought, because it meant Warden Stone was right. I’d relied too much on my family name.
We wasted no time in setting up. I would enter the deadside through the bathroom mirror again, which granted me a small amount of cover and was easier to reach than the high mantel.
I stood close to the mirror, my heart pounding as Eric stood behind me, his arms a protective circle. I met his dark brown eyes in the mirror, reading the worry there. For once, my body seemed immune to his proximity, which was saying something.
The candle flared before me as I fell from my body and climbed through, gripping the edges of the mirror as I clambered over the dusty sink into the deadside. I had my sickle out before my boots even touched the floor.
The scratches on the bathroom door were deeper, etched wildly one over another. A throaty chuckle reached me, the sound of several voices overlaying each other in a rusty squeal.
The spirit was waiting for me. She knew that the living had entered Death.
I burst through the door, striding into the living room, and stopped dead in my tracks.
Green vines had burst through the parquet floor. Chips of rotting wood scattered in mounds as brambles took over the walls, sinking long thorns into the plaster where they climbed. All around me crimson roses bloomed, their vivid redness an affront to the dim forgetfulness of the deadside.
The drapes of the window had been drawn back once more, revealing the twitching spirit standing in the milky light. She shuddered as she faced me, unable to stand fully upright, her many arms wrapped around herself like a cocoon.
“Back again?” I asked, injecting as much false bravado into my voice as I could. I wished I’d thought of a better line as soon as the words left my mouth.
That gash of a mouth wavered and I realized she was trying to smile. It was terrible, made worse by the sound coming from deep within her chest. The words were a grating garble, the edges of the syllables digging into my ears like thorns.
Some spirits were able to speak clearly, in whatever language they used in life. Others, after far too long or too deep in the deadside, were only able to speak the language of death. It hurt the living just to hear it.
It was at least proof that this spirit was far, far older, and possibly stronger, than I had first believed. The newly-dead rarely managed to return from an exorcism, but a spirit with plenty of power and blood sacrifices under its belt...
The words rumbled from her, the sound making me vaguely nauseated. For all I knew she was taunting me, insulting my ancestors, maybe telling me Cecily’s secret recipe for chocolate chip cookies. The living could never understand the tongue of the dead.
“I’m not here to talk,” I said quietly, tasting sourness in the back of my throat. I raised my sickle, angling myself for the best line of attack. I’d make sure to use extra nails and salt this time, and maybe stick around for a few hours to ensure her ashes were inert.
The spirit unfurled herself and for a moment my mind went blank. She’d… grown. Her torso had stretched another foot, and her arms had doubled themselves. They writhed around her in a perverse imitation of an anemone.
She spoke again, grating out a raspy chuckle when she was done.
Old and powerful, and probably being actively fed by someone. Or something, which was worse.
She writhed in place for a moment, the calm before the storm, staring at me with those lopsided eyes. A long black tongue, snake-like and glistening with saliva, ran over her ragged lips as she considered me.
Then she fell forward and scrabbled towards me on her hands, looking far too much like an overgrown centipede.
I kicked hard in a repeat gesture of our last meeting, my boot crunching into her face and tossing her aside. She rolled as I speared downwards with the sword, intending to pin her to the carpet. With a hiss she slithered away, climbing the wall of roses and clinging to the ceiling, eyes fixed on me and burning with deep hatred.
I stepped back, trying to find a clear area, an avenue of advantage. If she dropped, I’d hook the blade right through her.
Something bumped the bay windows behind us. I took my eyes off the spirit for only a second, shock coursing through me.
A dark shape bumped into the window again before disappearing into the mist. Another slowed as it passed the glass.
The walkers never paid attention to the doings inside houses, away from the land of Death. The concept of it wasn’t even discussed amongst witches, because it simply didn’t happen.
I turned back too late, realizing the centipede-like spirit was no longer staring at me from her perch. I whirled as a white flash barreled towards me along the ceiling, grabbing me around the neck, ice-cold hands encircling my chest, grabbing my hair-
She lifted me from the dusty carpet with a bodily jerk and tore forward, propelling both of us through the mirror over the mantel.
I was dropped without ceremony in the middle of the room, landing with a heavy thump in a cloud of grime that reeked of flyblown meat. Gagging as dust rose around me in a thick cloud, I got to my feet, blade at the ready in shaky hands.
This was the second level. A forbidden layer of the deadside, further into the darkness of the Death, where the living weren’t permitted to tread without consequence. The light had grown even dimmer here, the wallpaper of the identical living room peeling away in thick, mildewed sheets.
My hands shook as I turned, scanning for any sign of the spirit.
I couldn’t even breathe here. The air was still and warm, thick with the sweet-rotten scent permeating the air. The roses grew thickly here, vines curling down the hallway from the dark and flickering bathroom, their life somehow even brighter despite how far we were into the deadside. The third level lay beyond that mirror.
There was no sign of my abductor. She could clearly move through the cycle of mirrors at will, traveling deeper into the dark bowels of the deadside.
I couldn’t fight her here. Even unsure that she had left me, I looked through the mirror over the mantel, showing the lighter, dusty, and slightly less rotten room of the first level.
I dragged the splintering coffee table in front of the mantel with one hand, holding the sickle out in case she rushed me again. I could only hope the table would hold my weight, or I’d be forced to sheathe my sickle to drag the rotten couch over, leaving myself defenseless.
Another bump accompanied the sound of glass creaking in its panes. Almost against my will, I glanced up at the bay windows that were caked with dirt. The mist had grown even thicker further into the deadside, an almost solid presence outside the windows. A dark form stood outside, long fingers splayed against the glass as it peered in at me hungrily. Round white eyes like marbles tracked my every move.
I fought the urge to vomit, the taste of my own fear metallic in the back of my throat. I climbed on the coffee table, which groaned alarmingly, and swung one leg over the mantel through the mirror.
“Morena.”
The voice was sweet, soft, echoing down the darkened hallway. I froze, halfway through the mirror, halfway to safety, as Mom’s voice called to me from the next mirror. “Morena, honey, I’m almost there.”
No. No way. Ultra-fucking-nope. If Rosalind’s spirit was trying to reach me, we sure as hell weren’t having that conversation here on the forbidden second level of the deadside.
Tears spilled over my cheeks, cutting trails through the dust caked on my face as I climbed through the mantel mirror and fell to the floor, sobbing with relief as I got to my feet and sprinted to the bathroom mirror, to safety, to Eric.
I still heard her, the faintest whisper following me as I clambered into the sink and fell back into my living body, into Eric’s waiting arms.
I shook as I clutched a mug of tea, trying to ignore Cecily’s overlarge blue eyes staring at me as we huddled in Eric’s spare living room. My entire body
was a nest of aches and pains, the shadow of bruising wrapped around my pale throat.
The dust didn’t carry over, but the injuries did. Rapidly purpling handprints were visible across my back and shoulders, my legs sore from where the spirit had dropped me from ceiling-height.
Eric had carried me from Cecily’s house, forcing us both into the van and driving away at top speed. We hadn’t even locked the front door, but she didn’t seem to care.
“You’re welcome to stay here,” he told her. He’d made tea for us both, but Cecily couldn’t tear her eyes from my bruises long enough to drink hers. “Or we’ll find you a hotel. Until we get the danger in your house sorted out.”
She finally pulled her eyes away from me long enough to look up at him. Shadowy bags hung under her own eyes. I probably didn’t look much better. “I’d prefer to stay here for now,” she whispered. “I want to be with people who… who understand all this.”
I couldn’t blame her in the slightest. Despite its lack of amenities, Eric’s house felt safe and protected thanks to his layers of warding. The mousy woman had almost collapsed with relief as soon as we walked in.
It was embarrassing to have gotten my ass thoroughly kicked, complete with subsequent emotional overflow, in front of a human. I avoided her overlarge gaze studiously, my cheeks burning.
He filled my cup with fresh tea, the faintest pearly sheen sliding over the brown surface of the liquid. He kept a store of hedgewitch-brewed potions for times like these, when I needed to recover quickly, even though he disapproved of taking shortcuts.
The faintest hint of violets overlaid the dark taste of the tea. I drank it quickly, willing my limbs to stop shaking, but even the sweet herbal taste couldn’t wash away the gall of defeat.
Never, in all of my training and education, had my parents ever mentioned a spirit that could force a witch deeper into the deadside. I hadn’t even known it was possible to traverse further outside of one’s own free will.
