Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Well, that doesn’t look good,” Narcissa observed, as she glided over to the coach ahead of me, quickly adjusting to her new bat wings, each the length of her entire body.
She tucked her wings in at her sides, and she sniffed around the undercarriage as I reached the crash site.
I leaned my broom against a boulder and set down my bag; Therese squirmed out to observe the goings-on.
“‘This job will be rather pedestrian,’” I mimicked Lucifer. “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
Narcissa nosed around the wheels, batting one playfully to send it spinning, then lifted her head toward me. “Tantrums won’t help the situation, Callum. Lucky for you, you brought me along.”
I perked up. “You can track him then?”
“Like a bloodhound,” Narcissa agreed, then wrinkled her nose. “Not that I give any credit to their species. They just happen to smell significantly better than other animals. Probably so they can smell more pleasant things than themselves.”
“Okay. Get to it then.”
Narcissa blinked at me, then sat on her haunches, watching me expectantly. “Are you giving me orders now? We’re partners, Callum. We make joint decisions.”
I smiled tightly. “Narcissa, I think this would be in both of our best interests. You don’t want to be chained to Lucifer through me any more than I do. We will be free to do as we please once we see this through.”
Narcissa tilted her head. “True. But if you want me to cavort about the countryside with my nose down like some … canine … I deserve a reward.”
“A reward,” I scoffed. “And just what …” I realized what she was saying. “I am not going to reward you with breathing fire just because you’re being stubborn.”
She lifted a paw and began to lick it, then swiped at her face, as if demonstrating that she could sit here all night.
“Narcissa.” I gritted my teeth when she didn’t reply. “Narcissa!”
“I’m really not asking for much. I merely want the ability to defend myself during this excursion. It’s a perfectly reasonable request.”
I grumbled, but I didn’t see that I had much choice but to comply. I would merely have to negate the potion at the first opportunity. Narcissa probably wouldn’t abuse the power, but she was also rather fickle.
I took off my cloak and shoved my hand into a back pocket.
There were a dozen pockets in my cloak in total, but appearances were rather deceiving, for each pocket was spelled to open into a pocket dimension.
Just small pockets, each the size of small cupboards.
One I used for a mortar and pestle to grind any ingredients on the go, along with dozens of bottles and vials, most with water to easily mix potions in a hurry.
Another held duplicates of my parents’ grimoires, along with those of several ancestors, and a few daggers should I find them necessary to defend myself.
Three had potions premade, ready to go into vials.
The others were all raw ingredients, many of them already reduced to powder, in pouches or parchment, or loose, depending on its storage needs.
I knew where everything was by heart. The cloak was a very convenient piece of clothing, gifted to me by my parents on my tenth birthday.
I prized it above everything else I owned, save my parents’ potion books themselves.
It only took three minutes to prepare the potion in question. I presented it to Narcissa in the mortar.
She smiled lazily up at me. “You really would save yourself time if you listened to me more often.”
“Just drink it,” I said, lips curled.
She did so happily, her pink tongue lapping at the blue liquid until it was gone.
Once she’d finished, she let out a disturbing belch, complete with a sliver of orange flame.
“Lovely,” she said, drawing back and puffing out a more sustained stream of fire.
She laughed, licking her lips. “I could get used to this.”
“Don’t,” I said, crossing my arms. “Now, if you have no more requests, can we move this along before the boy is beyond saving and our lives are completely ruined?”
Narcissa lifted her head. “Yes.”
I rolled my eyes as she bent her nose close to the ground to begin tracking.
“Do you think Auggie is all right?” Therese asked, concerned.
“I hope so,” I said slowly. “Ambrosia doesn’t have a stellar reputation.
She’s very self-serving from what I’ve gathered.
I don’t know if she’d hurt Auggie if it didn’t serve her purposes, but Auggie could provoke her.
I don’t think he has a sense of self-preservation, even though he’s clearly intelligent enough to be doing the research he is.
” I sighed. “He doesn’t exactly strike me as the sort of person who would make a deal with the Devil either, but humans are fickle creatures, I suppose. ”
The front of the coach suddenly shifted, and a man pulled himself out from beneath the carriage.
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t given the driver a second thought.
He dragged himself across the ground with one arm, clearly dead, blood trailing him in a wide swath of gore that included the random bit of intestine.
His head was no longer on his neck but was cradled in the nook of his free arm, like a baby.
As soon as he’d managed to clear the carriage, he set his head down on the ground before him, upright.
The foggy eyes from that severed head blinked at us for a moment before the face twisted into a grimace.
“You will leave this place forthright. This will be your final warning.” Then his body went limp, his face slumping in death and tumbling over.
“Well,” Therese breathed, “that was a fine show.”
“The witch Ambrosia is a necromancer,” I said, as I stared down at the crumpled body of the carriage driver. “Rather unfortunate that she’s involved in this.”
“But you have your papers from Lucifer to venture into her territory,” Narcissa pointed out.
“I do. And she clearly left her domain to abduct Auggie from neutral territory.” I tapped my lips thoughtfully. “I wonder why she would go to the trouble. She must know who Auggie is, or that Lucifer wants him.”
“Does it matter?” Narcissa asked, lowering her nose to the ground once more, sniffing around for a scent trail. She began to lead us away from the carriage. “So long as….” Her voice faded in my head all at once, leaving only yowls and mews from her physical body.
I smiled, feeling myself relax. Thank the Gods that spell didn’t last long.
I wasn’t sure how much sass I could take from Narcissa.
As much as I loved her, she knew exactly how to get under my skin.
The last time I’d used that spell on her, she’d given a running commentary of how horrible my flying was, interspersed with tirades of everything I was doing wrong in the management of my shop.
“That means I won’t be able to speak to you much longer either, Mr. Witch,” Therese said as her frog body ribbitted along, perched on the bag at my back.
“I wanted to apologize for being such a bother. I never meant to get into such a bind, but I appreciate your attempts to return me to my human form.”
“It won’t be long,” I promised. “We’ll find everything we need during our travels.”
“I hope that’s the case. This skin is itchy, and I hate that these arms can’t reach everywhere. I hate even more that my tongue can. I don’t particularly like how I taste. I don’t think I would like supping in Paris.”
I chuckled. “When we get back, I’ll bring you to Paris and show you delicacies I’m sure you would enjoy much more.”
“I …” Therese shifted, and I could hear her continue to croak upon my bag. The spell had worn off on her too. It was just as well. I needed to focus.
Necromancers were some of the most feared witches, so I was concerned.
With any luck, Auggie was still in the hands of only one of Ambrosia’s lackeys.
If I had to go head-to-head with an actual necromancer, I wasn’t sure how I’d fare, at least not without aid.
I tilted my head. Lexi was just outside Bristol.
Perhaps I could persuade her to help me see Auggie to safety if this was an indication of the trouble I had to look forward to. She owed me, after all.
As Narcissa entered an opening through a stone wall, I hesitated, eyeing the grass beyond. Even with Lucifer’s note, I wasn’t going to be welcome in another witch’s domain. But I had little choice.
I stepped through the gap in the wall and let out a breath, gazing around the field dotted by the random tree.
A breeze blew across the grass, reeds bowing as if some invisible hand were running its fingers through it.
Therese croaked at my back. “It’ll be all right,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
“I don’t expect to be trespassing for long. ”
Narcissa had noticed me linger near the wall and stopped to mew loudly at me. I could practically hear her words in my head, even though the spell had worn off: Step lively, Callum. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can move on.
I noticed hoofprints in the dirt. A horse had been through here recently, and even though it hadn’t seemed to be in a hurry, it would likely be faster than us if we continued to go by foot.
I straddled my broom and streaked ahead of Narcissa, trying to get a sense of our surroundings.
The horse marks were even easier to pick out once the green grass gave way to a dirt road.
Narcissa yowled beside me as she beat her wings to match my speed.
Thanks to a potion of oil I’d coated along the bottom of my broom, I would appear invisible to those looking up at me.
So I shouldn’t attract unwanted attention if I decided to climb higher into the air.
Here, it might have the added advantage of allowing me to escape Ambrosia’s territory. If only I should be so lucky.
A fog began to rise ahead of us, which gave me pause. Just because this was Ambrosia’s territory didn’t mean that she was the only witch around. Nothing about this mist in particular made me think it was anything supernatural, but it made me nervous, nonetheless.
A forest appeared ahead, and of course, the hoofprints disappeared within. I watched the dark trees, tall and spindly, with bare arms reaching out as if to grab passersby, leaves conspicuously missing from their branches.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” I murmured to my companions and slowed as I approached the first row of trees, descending to only a few feet off the ground.
We flew slowly on, sticking to the path as the light was shadowed by the branches overhead. After a moment, Narcissa touched down on the end of my broom and stared up at me, mewing. I stopped midair to regard her.
“What is it?” I asked.
She lifted her head and let out a stream of fire to the side, then gestured to the trees.
I lifted my nose to take a sniff. Yes, I could smell it just barely, the scent of burnt wood. “But who would burn a forest?” I asked.
A series of loud creaks behind me drew my attention, and I looked back to find the trees bowing to block our path back the way we’d come.
Then the trees alongside us reached out their branches, swinging at us.
One branch glanced my broom, nearly knocking me off, but I steered out of its path.
The trees ahead were shifting as well, making to block our way.
“Hold on tight,” I ordered, grabbing Narcissa with little ceremony and pulling her to my lap. I shot forward on my broom, twisting and turning to elude the branches of the trees.
It hadn’t occurred to me that a necromancer could control dead plants, but of course, plants were a form of life as well.
Narrowly missing a collision with a particularly large branch, I had to fly nearly sideways to squeeze through a dense patch of branches.
I noted some trees were lifting their roots to further impede my progress.
Thick roots tore from the soil as the trees shimmied into my path.
My instinct was to slow sufficiently to calculate my way through the trees, but that would only give them more time to block my escape.
Already, the path was nearly impossible to make out from the rest of the forest.
I was so preoccupied with navigating through the shifting forest that I nearly missed a branch as it shot out, making for my throat. If I hadn’t ducked, it would have taken my head clear off. As it was, it nicked my cheek, a painful slice that served to sharpen my focus.
Narcissa mewed loudly from my lap and, as I twisted around another dense collection of trees, I saw what she’d seen.
The way ahead was completely blocked, trees falling over themselves to create a near-solid wall.
There were not going to be any holes large enough for me to squeeze through on my broom.
“Hold on,” I grunted, eyes shifting to the sky beyond the gnarled branches.
I pulled the broom into a near-vertical flight, Narcissa yowling as she was flung back into me.
I roared as we ascended, branches realizing what I was doing and desperately shifting their focus to try to stop me.
I shot out from the canopy of trees with a sigh of relief, giving myself plenty of space to fly overhead without fear of them reaching out to snatch me from the sky.
Narcissa glared up at me, and I shrugged at her. “Hey, we’re alive, aren’t we?” I asked. As if in reply, she leapt from the broom, opting to fly at my back.
I squinted below to find that we’d nearly made it out of the forest. The black trees thinned out ahead and became lively trees with arms full of leaves once more. “That’s more like it,” I murmured, flying over the remaining dead trees before descending once more to find the path.
“And that’s as far as you go,” a voice ahead called out.
I stopped my broom to regard the road. It was still foggy, but not nearly as dense as before venturing into the forest. It was enough to make the scene before me appear surreal, however.
A woman rode atop a horse. Or rather, what had once been a horse.
It was a horse’s skeletal remains now, a red glow burning from its eye sockets.
And lying motionless across its back, like a sack of grain, was Auggie.