Chapter Forty-Three #2
‘As far as I’m concerned, they’re all dead in the ground.
My mother, my family, the whole pack.’ His words were flat and dull.
‘It’s fucked up, all their fake rules, their self-imposed laws.
Wolves should be free to do as they wish.
We’re stronger than ordinary humans, stronger than witches, but we’re punished for exercising our natural advantage.
I never fit in with them, never felt this supposed kinship they all talked about.
Astrid’s pack exiled her for asking questions, for being curious about magic.
She wanted to make them stronger and they cast her out.
What kind of family is that? She helped me see it’s all a lie.
Weres are nature itself, no one can control us.
No egos, no leaders, and the sooner we end the packs, the better. ’
‘They’re worse than witches,’ Astrid muttered to herself. ‘Always breeding like roaches. You have to cut off the head then make sure you clean up every last one or there will always be another hiding in the shadows, ready to start again.’
‘How’d you two crazy kids meet anyhow?’
Cole’s head whipped around to see Lydia pushing herself into an upright position, swiping at her bloody mouth with the back of her hand and smearing it all over her face. She looked terrifying.
‘Had to be the apps,’ she guessed. ‘Tinder? Hinge? Psychopaths R Us?’
‘That one is weak, ignore her,’ Astrid commanded without looking up when Cole sent a menacing howl in her direction. ‘Stick to the plan.’
Lydia caught my eye and I nodded as she rolled her mother’s ring between her fingers. They couldn’t sense the full strength of her magic.
‘Astrid found me the first night I arrived in Savannah,’ Cole said, gazing at his love with devotion.
‘She saw me for who I really was and she didn’t turn away.
I’d always been unhappy. Difficult, they called me in school, disruptive.
Truth is, I was meant for bigger things, we both were. We were meant to be.’
His story was a dark distortion of mine and Wyn’s. How could the same universe that brought the two of us together put these monsters in the same place, at the same time?
Astrid approached me, a disappointed look on her face and a glass vial in her hand.
‘It would have been nice to have more time with you,’ she said, crouching down and brushing her long dark hair behind her ears.
‘Natural-born witches are fascinating. I wish I could learn more about your connection to, what do you call it, the blessing? So pretty. It is a blessing, to be one with magic the way you are. One you do not deserve. Your magic is too much for you, I think. My way is better.’
‘And what exactly is your way?’ I jerked away when she raised a hand to my face, touched a finger to my bloody lip then put it in her mouth. Her eyes closed and she sighed with bliss.
‘It’s a shame, it really is,’ she whispered, eyes still closed.
‘When you first arrived and I saw you step out of that car, all sweaty and sad, all your belongings in one tiny suitcase, I thought we were the same. Lost. Lonely. I thought maybe we could be friends. So I sent Cole to kill your grandmother and bring you to me, but instead, you killed him. How could I love you after that?’
‘Wha – what are you talking about?’ I stammered. ‘What do you mean?’
Her laugh this time was too close to a cackle.
‘Strong but not observant,’ she said on a sigh. ‘If only you had opened your eyes to the world beyond your grief, beyond yourself. If only you had seen me first.’
Astrid had been watching me all this time. She’d been watching me since my first night in Savannah and I hadn’t even noticed. With one delicate finger, she began to paint swirls on my face with the green paste, each swipe bringing fresh tears to my eyes.
‘Your grandmother was no better. Self-centred. Impressive,’ she admitted with reluctance. ‘But ultimately arrogant, like you. Imagine if the three of us could’ve worked together. What might that have been like?’
‘If you were watching, where were you when Catherine tried to drain my magic?’ I asked, as defiant as I could be when the thought of this monster lurking in the shadows of Savannah soaked through my skin and into my bones, chilling me to the marrow.
‘I was in the Stovell woman’s beach house making sure Cole did not die!
’ Astrid screamed, slapping me so hard my ears rang.
‘Because you, always you, have to make things complicated. I had to take the shop to get the supplies I needed to heal him. I could’ve let the owners live, but once you decided to pay the island a visit, we needed a new place to hide.
More death on your hands, Emily, that can’t feel good. ’
Nothing felt good. The pain that raged around my body came with an unwelcome dose of existential agony and as my vision began to darken and narrow, I felt sure there would never be anything good in the world, ever again.
‘Thank you for this.’ Astrid recovered herself as she uncorked the glass vial and held it up to my temple, squeezing the broken skin to encourage the trickle of blood.
‘My former mentor’s blood helped me so much and she did not have half the power you hold.
I had not planned to kill her so quickly but perhaps she always knew I would.
You could have taught me many things, I think, we could’ve learned together. ’
I laid on my back, staring up at the sky.
My magic felt so far away and the pain that sliced through my skin wherever her spell touched was so intense I could hardly think straight.
On one side of me, the river rushed onwards, on the other, the city of Savannah lay still.
I should’ve been able to draw power from both, but until I could wash away her spell, I was as good as dead.
‘Put the witches together,’ Astrid instructed, carefully placing the vial filled with my blood in her suitcase and taking out another. ‘We’re running out of time before you phase.’
‘You said we would do them one at a time,’ Cole protested. ‘I want the Bell bitch to go last.’
His complaint stood for less than a second.
Astrid glared in his direction and immediately Cole grabbed me under my arms, dragging me to where Lydia lay, right between both cages.
The post that dug into me didn’t fully register until he pulled us up, back to back, and I felt it pressing between both our shoulder blades.
He bound us together with thin, plastic-coated wire that cut into the skin at my wrists, my ankles, around my waist and finally, around my throat.
Once we were upright, resting against each other, he began to pile up branches of live oak at our feet, concentrating wholly on his task, as if we weren’t there.
Because we weren’t tied to a post, we were tied to a stake.
Astrid and Cole were going to burn us at the stake.
I reached into my closest pocket and fumbled with the hidden zipper that held my silver pin.
Tucking it away in the palm of my hand, I squeezed until it cut my skin, clenching my jaw as the new, sharp pain sliced through Astrid’s spell.
Only for a split second, but long enough for me to see a chance.
‘Lyds?’ I pushed backwards into her and felt her head turn towards me. ‘Can you still feel your magic?’
‘Only just,’ she replied weakly. ‘It’s not clear but it’s there.’
‘Good enough,’ I said. ‘Stay with me.’
The cord around me pulled tight as she brought up her arms in a shrug.
‘Where am I going to go?’
‘Good point,’ I whispered. ‘On my cue, you know what to do.’
‘Get the bloodstone,’ Astrid barked at Cole. ‘I need it to spark the flame. Quickly, before the phase begins.’
‘You can’t control his phase,’ I said, Lydia writhing against her ropes behind me.
‘Astrid can force my phase but she can’t stop it on the full moon, no one could, not even you. I’m too strong,’ Cole crowed. ‘Which means any minute now, I’m going to tear your head clean off your shoulders.’
‘Was it you?’ I asked him, my chin jutting out with defiance. I just needed a few more seconds. ‘Who attacked me at the DeSoto?’
‘And last night,’ he confirmed. ‘Astrid at the beach, though. I wasn’t fully healed or I’d have eviscerated you.’
‘Stop telling her things she doesn’t need to know!’ Astrid yelled. ‘Just watch them.’
‘Good boy,’ Lydia cooed when Cole backed away, his top lip twitching into a snarl. ‘Do you know any other tricks? Sit? Fetch? Fuck off?’
The look he gave her made my blood run cold.
‘I can’t wait to see what your insides look like.’
When he growled this time, it was more animalistic than before. His phase was coming, even without my magic I could see it. But Cole wasn’t my only concern. If Wyn and the other wolf phased while locked in their silver cages, Jackson and Alex were as good as dead.
‘Cool that you managed to find each other though,’ Lydia went on, somehow forcing out a bored yawn. ‘The dating pool has to be pretty small when it comes to cry-baby wolf boys and psychotic Eurotrash witch wannabes.’
She’d finally crossed the line. Cole whirled around, arm outstretched and slapped Lydia across the face with the back of his hand.
‘I told you to ignore her,’ Astrid snapped when he followed up with a boot to the guts. ‘This is what she wants. She’s new and weak, she doesn’t have the same magic as the other one. They’re trying to distract you.’
Still half delirious under the fog of her spell, I felt Lydia’s hand encircle my wrist and squeeze. Astrid would regret underestimating my friend.
‘Bloodstone,’ she shouted at him again before approaching me with a pair of gold scissors and a glass vial. ‘If you don’t mind, Emily, I would like to take a memento.’
‘By all means,’ I replied, my eyes still on Wyn and Alex as Astrid snipped off a chunk of my red hair before unbuttoning one of my sleeves, sucking in her breath as the aconite in the fabric burned her skin.
I waited, holding my own breath until she was close enough, until I could feel the blade of her scissors cold against my throat.
Looking deep into her violent, violet eyes, I jabbed the silver pin into her thigh as deep as it would go.
‘Lydia!’ I yelled over her howl of pain. ‘Now!’
A clap of deafening thunder shook the park and a bolt of lightning split the sky in two.
As the heavens opened and rain poured down, I saw the precision of her strike.
The lightning hit the lock on Jackson’s cage and the door swung open.
He rolled out onto the wet grass, tearing the tape from his mouth and stumbling straight over to the other cage where Wyn and his mother were beginning to stir.
‘Cole!’ Astrid’s wail was almost as loud as the thunder. ‘Help me!’
But he couldn’t see her. Lydia’s storm thrashed down and the two of them covered their faces with their arms, ducking from raindrops as hard as bullets, rain that saturated Astrid’s suitcase, soaking the notebooks full of stolen magic, sweeping the piles of wood at our feet off into the river, and washing away every trace of her spell from my skin.
The confusion cleared, searing agony replaced with white-hot anger as I peeled the wires away from my limbs like pieces of wet tissue paper and stepped down from the pyre.
I raised my arms to the sky as my magic returned thanks to the rush of the river and thrash of the rain, and stood in front of Astrid Hansen, a witch reborn.