Chapter 30
thirty
LIZZY
We do a mad dash down to the main floor. It’s just as Rachel said—muddy footprints everywhere, back door swinging on its hinges, banging against the house.
“I’ll check the basement,” Merrick says, and Rachel and I do another search of the main floor, the bedrooms, the porch. Kate’s Prius is still in the turnabout. Her purse hanging off the back of a kitchen chair, phone tucked inside.
Rachel and I grab our boots, but Merrick is back, shaking his head.
“Stay indoors. Keep the house locked.” He shifts into demon form, comically huge in our small kitchen. “I’ll send one of the others back to look after you.”
I shove my feet into my boots. “We’re not going to stand around with our thumbs up our asses while Kate’s out there and—”
“Elizabeth, please listen. It’s far too dangerous. I will find your sister. I will bring her back to you. But I can’t be worried about you two while—”
“We can handle ourselves.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
“Merrick—”
“Do this for me, Elizabeth. Please.” He holds my gaze another beat, and then he’s out the door, his black shadows trailing swiftly behind him.
“We can’t leave her out there,” Rachel says.
“No shit.”
We give Merrick a two-minute head start that feels like an eternity, then we’re out the door, dashing around the house, scanning for any signs of our sister. It’s raining again, thick, fat drops that turn everything into a swamp, swallowing up any footprints she might’ve left.
“Do you think she went into town?” Rachel asks, peering through the sluicing rain. “Or the woods?”
I close my eyes. Breathe in the scent of the rain, the mud, the decay of autumn leaves. Reach out for Kate with my energy. There’s a faint flicker, a subtle warmth leading toward the woods.
Hoping I’m making the right call, I head in that direction. We can’t risk more than a whisper-shout, but we do our best to call out for Kate.
“It’s no use,” Rachel says. “She won’t be able to hear us through the rain.”
I nod and keep going, trudging along the path. We scan the darkness, hoping against the odds, even as the trees grow thicker, the woods more tangled and slippery, sapping us of strength.
Somewhere in the distance, I catch the faint sound of male voices. Shouting. I cock my ear and try to track the direction, but the relentless rain makes it impossible.
We have to keep going. We can’t leave Kate out here alone.
“Lizzy, look!” Rachel grabs my arm and points to a denser part of the woods.
I squint in the direction she indicated, finally spotting it for myself—a trail of unseasonably bright green ferns, lined with blooms in a riot of pinks and yellows and reds. Spring and summer flowers blossoming to life in the dead of fall.
“Kate,” I breathe, the warmth in my chest intensifying, and we take off at a run, sloshing through the mud, following the path of strange flowers uphill.
“There!” Rachel says, and I see her, too, sitting at the base of a hawthorn tree, barefoot and jacketless, cradling an armload of flowers. The grass and shrubs beneath her are the lush, impossible green of a fairytale garden.
When Kate sees us, she smiles beatifically. A painting come to life. “They were calling for me,” she says. “I had to come.”
“I know, sweetie.” I crouch down beside her. Touch her shoulder. “But now we need to go back home.”
She looks at me with abject agony. “They’re my babies. They need me.”
Voices again, this time from up ahead. Closer now. The sky flickers orange and purple. Seconds later, an explosion rips through the night, reverberating off the trees. I can’t tell whether it’s thunder or a gunshot.
“Why don’t you bring them with you?” I say.
Another flash. Another crack. Rachel’s eyes widen, frantically scanning the woods.
“The trees are too big to carry.” Kate leans her head back against the trunk of the hawthorn. The leaves, withered and brown a second ago, turn green with new life.
Rachel gasps. “Lizzy, what the fuck is going on?”
“Her magic,” I reply. “Her innate power must have something to do with plants. Growing things.”
“Does anyone have innate power with something to do with bullets? Because I’m pretty sure we—”
“Come out, come out, little witch whores!” comes the dark call, echoing through the trees and drilling deep into my skull. “The hunters want to play.”
The voice is strange and raspy, but I’d recognize it anywhere.
Brendan.
That motherfucker is still alive.
“Get her arms!” I shout-whisper at Rachel. “Come on!”
We haul Kate to her feet, her flowers scattering. She tries to grab for them, but we’re already dragging her away.
“My babies!” she cries. “My precious babies!”
Everywhere her feet touch the earth, more flowers bloom.
So, yay for cool plant magic? But I seriously hope this little side trip to la-la land is a temporary vacation and not a permanent stay.
“We’ll come back for them later,” I say, attempting to soothe her. “Right now we have to hide.”
“From what?” Her voice is dreamy, her limbs like overcooked noodles.
“From—”
“Dizzy. So nice to see you again.”
My stomach drops to my feet, and I release Kate’s arm and shift in front of her just as Brendan steps out from behind a tree.
His hair is gone, half his face mangled beyond recognition. His clothing is a patchwork of scorched, tattered scraps, blistered skin oozing beneath. Both of his hands are bleeding.
Clutched between them, blackened around the edges but still intact, is the Bonnivarde grimoire.
Blood of our blood of our blood…
My heart pounds.
“You fucked up tonight, witch,” he rasps. “Now, it’s time to pay.”
“Sorry! I know!” I make a cringey face and lift my hands in mock surrender, taking a step toward him. “I really thought I nailed the whole transfer spell thingy.”
“Lizzy, no!” Rachel hisses, grabbing for me, but I swat her arm away and shoot her a glance that says, get ready to run.
“Clearly, you didn’t,” Brendan says. “But like I keep telling you, I’m a good fucking guy, so you get another chance.” With a slight turn of his head, he calls out, “Got ‘em, boys. Over here.”
There’s a sharp whistle, then another. Some kind of signal. One of his goons steps out from the darkness, then one more, maybe twenty feet back.
Behind me, Kate’s still muttering about her flowers.
I chance another step closer to Brendan. Through a contrite smile, I say, “Oh, you have the book with you? Can I see it? Please?”
He clutches it tighter to his chest, the dumb fuck. “Don’t even try—”
I launch myself at him, smashing my muddy palms into his eyes and kneeing him in the dick. He doubles over and drops the book, but there’s no time to grab it. Using the precious seconds we have before he recovers, I bolt for my sisters, grabbing hold of Kate’s arm.
“Run,” I grind out, and we take off, Rachel and I half-dragging Kate further up the hill, the goons charging up behind us, closing in fast. From the corner of my eye, I catch two more slithering from the shadows.
And still, more fighting in the distance. A separate group. Gunshots for sure.
Fuck!
“Slow down, Lizzy!” Rachel pants. “I can’t—”
“Rachel? Time to take that metabolic health journey for a test drive. Fucking run!”
She groans and we push harder, our boots squelching in the mud. Brendan is up and running—I can hear his taunts, his curses—but my sisters and I are faster, following the tug of my magic to a place I’m hoping will give us some cover.
I chance a quick glance behind us, spot the men scrambling up the trail like rats. They’re too close for comfort, but there’s a slim chance they won’t see where we’re headed.
Seconds later, the stone angels of Hawthorn Cemetery come into view.
“This way.” I lead us to the gate, to the sacred place where I first truly connected with my magic. The place that went from creepy abandoned graveyard to one of my most cherished spots. The place where Merrick spent more hours than I can count helping me find and trust my magic.
It’s that feeling I’m trusting now, hoping I’m not leading us into a death trap.
We slip through the gate and run to the back of the cemetery, ducking behind one of the larger headstones, taking a moment to catch our breath. Kate drops to her hands and knees, the foliage blooming at her touch. While she coos over her new “babies,” Rachel and I watch the trail.
“Can we get out the back way?” Rachel asks.
“Yeah, but it’s even more treacherous back there. Plus, there’s more hunters around. I feel like the whole damn forest is crawling with them.” I swallow hard, the realization hitting me. “We’re gonna have to fight, Rach. Or die trying.”
She picks up a chunk of stone. “Don’t say the D-word. Not yet.”
“Fair enough.”
“Where are the demons?”
As if in response, a great inhuman roar rips through the darkness, chilling me to the marrow. Medusa.
I can only hope that means the good guys are winning.
“Lizzy.” Rachel clutches my arm, her eyes wide. I follow her gaze to the trail. The men have crested the hill, their dark shadows slithering along the rise, heads swiveling. It’s only a matter of minutes before they figure out where we are.
“We will purge you!” Brendan shouts.
Rachel shoots me an incredulous look. “You seriously fucked that guy?”
“Not my proudest moment.”
“For over a year?”
“Bigger fish, Rach.” I find two more big rocks, one for myself and one for Kate, who glances at it and shrugs, returning to her flowers.
“What do we do?” Rachel whispers. And that, more than the goons and Brendan’s face and the gunfire, is what truly terrifies me.
Rachel is supposed to know what to do. Rachel always knows what to do.
But now she’s looking at me like she’s counting on me. Like she actually believes I’m a person who can be counted on.
“I smell wet cunt!” one of the goon’s shouts. Another starts catcalling. They’re moving in on us from behind, Brendan and the others from the front, all of them taunting and whistling, telling us in excruciating detail what they plan to do once they get their hands on us.
There are at least a dozen now. Maybe more. I’ve lost count of their shadows and shapes, the cold, wet smother of their dark energy.