Courts and Cabals 3

by G. S. D'Moore

  “No,” the witch’s words killed that feeling. “You, Aveena Foxbelle, don’t keep your promises.”

  A searing pain radiated out from her gut like someone had taken a chainsaw to her. She screamed as the witch watched with a detached expression. After a few moments, the pain faded, and Aveena gasped for breath. She fought back the tears pooling in her eyes. It was resisting interrogation 101 to not let the bitch see you cry.

  Van Helsing ignored her as she walked in a circle around the chair. There was sloshing, splattering, and the scent of rust filled the room. Aveena looked down to see a thick circle of blood slowly icing over on the floor around her.

  “That’s not good,” she gulped. Being at the center of some circle magic spell was the last thing she wanted to do today.

  The amount of blood also told her what had happened to the squatters who’d infiltrated her apartment. Poor bastards. They were just looking for a roof over their head, and a quiet place to cook their meth. They ran into a nightmare.

  “How’d you find me?” Aveena changed tactics. “I thought I had this placed tucked away.”

  “You thought wrong,” the witch didn’t elaborate, as she finished the circle, and walked to five black candles sitting on the wooden dresser.

  You’d think with the freezing temperature it would be hard to light them, but a wave of the witch’s hand, and they blazed to life. She walked them to five separate points in the circle and put them into place. If Aveena drew lines between them, she saw they were laid out in a perfect pentagram. She already knew they weren’t normal candles, but seeing was believing. First, the flame was purple and rose halfway to the ceiling. If they weren’t careful, they’d burn the whole building down. Second, wherever the light hit, the frost melted. Third, when the light hit her, she felt it pass through her, fill her, and brought a sense of peace she’d never felt before.

  “That’s a shame,” Van Helsing gave her a hard look before stepping into the circle and closing it behind her with a snap of power.

  “Wha . . .what’s happening?” Aveena felt like she was being gradually submerged in a hot tub, with a strong drink in her hand, and a small army of cabana boys fulfilling her every desire.

  “Normally, this spell would be completely useless,” now that the circle was closed, and the trap sprung, the witch seemed inclined to clue Aveena in. “But you broke your word. The gea makes you vulnerable, and I intend to collect the debt.”

  A sense of cold dread threatened to overwhelm her, but the candle’s peace dulled the growing fear. It was like her mind knew what was going to happen, but the message got lost somewhere along the way.

  “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show,” Van Helsing gave her shoulder a pat, and then started walking counterclockwise around her.

  The sounds that came out of her mouth were nothing Aveena had ever heard before, and she was pretty knowledgeable of most human languages. It was harsh, guttural, barbaric, and belonged in the mouth of Neanderthals. Not the ageless, naked witch strutting around the circle; and she was strutting. Whatever was happening was a big fucking deal. Aveena just didn’t know how big.

  The grunting seemed to come to a crescendo at the same time the witch drew even with Aveena’s face. With a throaty syllable, Van Helsing spun to face her, bent over, and pressed her lips against Aveena’s.

  It was a simple, almost tender kiss. Their lips barely touched, but it still felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to her sensitive nipples. She screamed as she felt something reach down into the very core of her being and start to rip her to shreds. She screamed and screamed and screamed until her voice went horse, and then she screamed some more until she couldn’t draw any breath. She sobbed hysterically, and ripped at the bindings, but that only made it worse.

  Van Helsing just stood in front of her, arms outstretched, drinking it all in . . . literally. The warm and fuzzies had vanished the moment they kissed, and now Aveena knew exactly what was happening.

  It was a power transfer. Her mind made the connection as she sobbed uncontrollably. Snot streamed down her face and onto her torso; which was now smaller and thinner than it had been a second ago.

  “No!” she screamed. “Don’t do this. Anything but this. I’ll do whatever you want. Just, please,” she groveled and debased herself in front of the witch.

  Van Helsing just stood there watching her. Her skin shown in the purple light. Old scars and wounds were gone, wiped away by the ingested power. Her eyes flickered with the same purple light, and if Aveena looked closely enough, they almost looked like the same fractal patterns that randomly moved across her flesh.

  “Why should I believe you?” the witch spat back. “You promised me Cameron Dupree would die. You promised me he would never again threaten my realm. You violated your sacred oath made thrice. Now, you will pay what is owed.”

  She started to chant again and circle; which made Aveena wail and struggle harder. She felt like the ropes were going to slice off her hands, but she didn’t care. What was happening to her was so much worse than she could ever imagine.

  It was the final betrayal. First, her mother turned her back on her for simply doing what she was ordered to do. All because it made her look bad. Next, her queen feigned mercy before sending the Wild Hunt after her. She knew Maeve could be fair or cruel depending on her mood, and she knew being banished and released came with strings attached. It still hurt to have her grandmother send executioners chasing after her. Now, the final betrayal was the betrayal of herself. She’d given her word, thrice; just like Van Helsing said. It was an unbreakable vow, and she’d made it cavalierly before victory had been achieved. She had no one to blame but herself, and the price of that betrayal was the only thing left that was truly hers: her power.

  Her mother could banish her. Her Queen could order her hunted to the ends of the realms, but no matter what they said or did, she was still a noble Fae. Now . . . she shuddered to think of what came next. If there even was a next. So, as she struggled, and Van Helsing chanted, she thought of a way to escape. It was either that, or sit there and die.

  She had an inkling of a possibility on the tip of her tongue when the witch leaned in for their second kiss. Aveena leaned back as far as the chair would allow, and turned her head. The witch’s hand lashed out, grabbed her by the jaw in an inhumanly strong grip, and straightened her neck before she roughly kissed her.

  Aveena’s throat had recovered enough that her screams shook the whole room as her insides were ripped asunder. She could physically feel her well of power lessening, shrinking, and the mantle of winter moaning in agony. The witch kept her lips locked to Aveena’s, and even tried to slip her tongue inside her mouth.

  Power transfers were always a deeply intimate act. Cam’s power transfer came from one of the most intimate acts possible: taking a life. This was an entirely different situation, but no less personal. When the witch finally pulled away, her eyes glowed an eerie violet, and her pupils were bigger than a crack whore’s in the middle of a binge.

  “She’s drunk on power,” Aveena struggled to piece her mind back together. It took critical moments to get coherent enough to think, but Van Helsing wasn’t exactly all there either. “Gotta get out . . . Gotta get out,” she repeated her mantra as she inspected the circle, candles, and ropes.

  Two of the candles were gone. You could say they were extinguished, but a more apt description was exploded. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see it was a magical countdown. Two down, three to go; and then bye bye Aveena.

  “If I can break the circle . . .” it was a possibility, but not a great one. There was a lot of power contained in the circle. If she broke it, it would look like a Manhattan Project mishap.

  In her weakened state, she wasn’t sure if she’d survive. She’d probably look like one of those candles. That left the Wonder Woman’s S&M devices securing her hands and legs. It only took her a moment to find the flaw.

  “Thank the gods,” she didn’t let the flare of hope show on h
er face. That wasn’t hard. Everything still hurt like a motherfucker.

  The bindings were both physical and magical. She could easily overcome the physical if she could slip the magical aspects, and despite how good the wicked witch was; her own paranoia would be her undoing. The ropes were calibrated to hogtie a noble Fae. Not the lesser creature she was becoming.

  That kind of magic took some serious mojo, and it was not flexible. It was almost as if Van Helsing didn’t think she’d pull this off, and now that she was, it gave Aveena a chance to escape.

  “A little more,” she estimated.

  If the witch ripped a little more power out of her, the bindings would be too big. She’d be loose enough to wiggle free. She shuddered at the thought. She’d have to give up more of herself, and then fight through the pain of transference if she wanted to live. She’d never stopped crying, and the tears had never stopped coming as she looked down at herself. After two candles, she wasn’t even sure she counted as a giant anymore.

  “P . . . please,” she kept up the charade she knew the witch expected to hear. “No more.”

  Van Helsing didn’t even look at her as she completed her third round of chanting and turned to her. Aveena turned her head away, knowing it was pointless, but the witch did something the Fae never expected. Instead of grabbing her skull to force another kiss, the woman got on her knees and torqued the Fae’s legs open. To say Aveena was surprised was an understatement. Van Helsing thought the Fae were a vile race; lesser than humans, so if she was about to do what Aveena thought she was going to do . . . whoa.

  As far as intimate power transfers went, a simple kiss was inefficient, and it seemed the witch had finally figured that out. Needless to say, after the day she’d had, Aveena was as dry as Death Valley on the Fourth of July. That didn’t stop the witch’s tongue from lashing out and flicking her clit.

  “Aah,” this time, it didn’t feel like some rabid wolverine had been released inside her.

  It was worse. There was still pain, but it comingled with pleasure as the spell’s magic took an ice cream scoop to her soul. The biggest chunk of power yet left her in a rush that left her lightheaded. It must have done the same to the witch, because Van Helsing let out a moan; and at that moment, the bindings became too big.

  In one smooth motion, Aveena slipped her emaciated magical and physical self out of the bindings, ripped the witch’s face out of her pussy, and punched her in the face.

  “Fuck!” the Fae whimpered. It felt like she’d punched a concrete wall, but the witch still stumbled back, her broken nose bleeding all over the place.

  Aveena stood up from the chair and stumbled on wobbly legs. It would be so easy to just lie down and take a load off, but she knew she had to keep moving. There was only one exit she could see, and she took it. She broke the threshold of the circle, stepped, and vanished between just as the rumble of dispersed magic started to tear the apartment apart. Not that she gave two shits about the apartment building or anyone in it. If she was lucky, the outpouring of magic would buy her some time.

  That was only against the witch. The hunt would be waiting, so she only took a couple of long strides before diving back into the mortal realm. She landed on the other side of town near the highway. Even from her emergence point, she could see flames rising into the air in the direction of the apartment. There was a muted boom as something went up. If she had to guess, it was the gas line; which was even better in this case. A gas leak was a much better explanation for the explosion than magic fire. The last thing she needed was the UN poking around.

  She stumbled upon reentry, fell, and scraped her hands on the asphalt. She pulled them up in shock. Silver blood oozed from several scrapes across her palms. “What did she do to me?” she wailed, but didn’t make a sound to draw attention.

  Without thinking, she tried to weave a glamour around herself. Instead of radiating out to protect her with nothing but a mere thought, it took three tries, was sluggish, and left her doubled over and winded. Van Helsing had ripped so much power out of her, and the rest of her mind and body made Ozzy Osborne look sane and healthy. She was the definition of a walking clusterfuck, but she had to walk.

  She couldn’t use any serious magic or the witch would find her. If she stepped between again, the hunt would catch her, and she’d wish the witch finished the job. She had no power, no allies, no resources, no one to turn to, and . . .

  “Wait . . .” an idea flashed through her mind, and she automatically dismissed it. “I’d rather die.”

  “Would you?” it was never a good sign when you were talking to yourself out loud, but she gave zero fucks at this point. “Would you really rather die? Would you allow the hunt to peel the flesh from your bones for a thousand years before slowly sawing through your neck and mounting your head in the Queen’s palace? Would you really have the wicked witch drain you dry like a two-dollar vamp ho? Would you really suffer all of that before doing it?”

  “Fuck you,” she spat.

  “Yeah, fuck you to,” her subconscious replied, but that didn’t make its point any less valid.

  All she had was a long shot at making it out of this with what power she had left intact, and her head still attached to her shoulders. She’d lose all pride and honor in the process, but that was the price to keep breathing.

  “I’ll think about it,” she told herself.

  If this whole experience taught her anything it was not to rush to conclusions. She’d done that once with her oath, and it had royally fucked her.

  “At the very least we can start moving in the right direction,” her brain helpfully offered.

  So, dressed like a bum in need of a good shower, she started to hobble down the interstate, her thumb out, and hoping against hope that some trucker stopped to give her a lift. If not, she’d have to figure out something before either the witch or the hunt caught up to her.

  Chapter 13

  There was blood. A lot of blood. Too much blood. I felt like I should be yelling “medic” at the top of my lungs while Tom Hanks stormed the beach beside me. Of course, no one shot Tom Hanks, because he was Tom fucking Hanks. He was too busy saving Matt Damon to be inconvenienced by bullets. The bullets flew all around good, old Tom and hit people like Ivanna. Poor Ivanna.

  “Move!” Ariana screamed, throwing her shoulder into the door to plow back into the gym’s reception area.

  The battered, warded glass finally had enough, and cracked. Neither of us gave two shits. Blood squirted out of the imp with each beat of her heart. Don’t get me wrong, guys enjoy a good squirt, but it shouldn’t be into my mouth and taste like rust.

  “Oh no, Ivanna.” It was the first time I heard fear in Thomas’s voice.

  The incubus had been calm and collected until now, minus the few seconds I was inside Ariana; but this was totally different. I could see tears welling in the stalwart man’s eyes. Eyes that could ensnare a person’s mind so he could do unspeakable things to them. I quickly averted my gaze. I didn’t blame the man. No one should see their kid die, and from what I’d heard, this would be his second.

  “Speaking of Matt Damon,” my mind did its best to disassociate me from this painful episode. “Between Saving Private Ryan and The Martian, America has spent billions of dollars trying to save that loveable son of a bitch. What the hell’s up with that?”

  The crash as Thomas swept everything off the reception desk snapped me back into the moment. Ariana laid her sister down, and looked at her father in wordless panic.

  “Apply pressure,” he said, as he grabbed towels and tossed them to her. The imp put her whole bodyweight into trying to shove the blood back into the blonde’s body. Even from ten feet away, I could see the white cotton turning red.

  “There’s too much blood.” I was pretty sure, supernatural or not, if you lost too much blood you were a goner.

  “Dupree,” Thomas snapped. “Get your ass over here!”

  Despite my original hesitation, I didn’t fuck around. I practicall
y blurred to his side. He handed me more towels, and took a few deep breaths. “On the count of three, I want you to release pressure. I’m going to dig in there and see what’s wrong, and then you both will reapply pressure. I don’t care if you crack her chest plate and every rib, you will keep that blood in her body. Understand?”

  I nodded, stone-faced. Ariana had tears leaking down her cheeks, and looked on the edge of hysteria. She’d gone from badass, kung-fu, imp ninja to blubbering mess in a few minutes. War was like that. Again, I didn’t blame her. No one should see their sibling die like this.

  Thomas counted down and she ripped away the towel. A geyser of blood ruined the incubus’s shirt, but he ignored it. His hands started rooting around in his daughter’s chest, and I felt like I was going to puke. For the most part Ivanna just laid there. If she was human, she’d have died the moment she was shot. Her half-succubus part was keeping her alive, but not for much longer. She gave a weak groan at some point, but that was it.

  “Okay, pressure!” he suddenly ripped his hands out, and I slammed my bundle of towels over the open wound.

  Thomas’s hands were solid red up to the wrist and dripping. “You!” he turned and pointed at the waiting area; flinging droplets in a splatter pattern Dexter would have to work to deduce.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the coeds standing there in frightened shock. Thank all the gods above and below they weren’t looking at me like I was a monster. That meant they hadn’t seen the freakshow I’d become while out there taking on the Tikal’s probe.

  “Let’s think about that,” my subconscious chose the worst possible time to be reminisce.

  Don’t get me wrong, I had no pity for that cartel gunman. He brought his mortality to a supernatural fight and tried to kill me. He was going to die one way or another. “But did it have to be that way?” I grimaced, and it had nothing to do with the blood starting to leak out from beneath my clump of towels.