Chapter 3 Going to Die #2
Layer three required a finesse neither of us possessed. Picture Van Gogh painting during an earthquake, if the canvas was Casimir’s arm and the paint was my own O-negative. Every brushstroke sparked miniature supernovae under his skin.
“Hold your damn lightning!” I barked, nearly taking an arc to the eyebrow.
“Trying… to.” Sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. “Fucking… herding… cats.”
By the time we slapped the last containment sigil over the wound, the floor resembled a Jackson Pollock tribute in hemoglobin. Ko pulled out the stupid silver hand mirror and holier-than-thou water bottle.
“Really?” Cas groaned. “The Vatican special, too?”
Holy water hit the mirror. Smoke curled from the glass. No shadows. No hex residue. Just our three exhausted mugs looking like extras from a zombie flick.
“Clean.” Koa smiled.
“Great.” I lobbed a gauze pad at his head. “Now about this hawk construct…”
“Burn it,” Cas rasped. “All of it. Now.”
“Or we could return the hex to sender. Use the residual energy in the bones.” Koa’s shadow fell across the dissection slab as he adjusted the UV lamps. “Hit them with their own poison.”
“Too risky. Constructs self-destruct to prevent tracing. You’d get three seconds of screaming before—”
A hollow pop interrupted Cas as one of the hawk’s detached talons liquefied.
“Point taken,” I said. “The feathers could still—”
“Are you two allergic to simple solutions?” Cas snatched the fireproof tongs and slapped them into my palm. “Burn protocol. Iron crucible. Alchemical accelerant. Controlled incineration. All in favor? Unanimous. Good. Do it.”
“Always knew you’d embrace dictatorship eventually.” Using the tongs, I lobbed a desiccated wing into the crucible. “But fine. Let’s barbecue the bitch.”
Cas gripped the table edge for balance, then staggered toward the reinforced cabinet marked Combustibles—Do Not Taunt.
“Koa, iron filings. Zane, start layering the crucible.”
We moved together as easily as a pit crew. Koa sprinkled black filings in precise geometric patterns while I dumped enough Himalayan salt into the crucible to bankrupt a pretzel factory. Casimir lurched back with an armload of alchemical accelerants.
“Anyone want to say a few words?” I asked as I dropped the last of the remains into the crucible.
“Burn in every hell there is,” Cas growled.
“Amen.” I folded my hands together and bowed.
The flames caught with a shriek that set my fangs vibrating. We watched in silence as feathers curled into glowing runes, bones cracking like gunshots in the inferno. That’s when the smoke started whispering.
W o r t h l e s s
The word slithered through the crackling, a serpent made of ash and old bruises. Koa stared at the empty air where the message had hung. Casimir went rigid.
“Well, that’s not creepy at all.” I threw another handful of salt into the fire. Just to make sure.
“The stepbitches called her that?” Ko guessed.
“We’ve got air witch signatures and the same rancid magic stench from the day we got here.” I kicked the crucible stand harder than necessary. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, confirmation matters!” Cas snapped. “If they used that phrase specifically—”
“No.” I scowled him. “We’re not herding her into that particular minefield right now.”
“Seri deserves to know her stepsisters are—”
“Not until she’s recovered from the siphoning.” At least Ko was on my side.
“Bullshit. She’s stronger than you think,” Cas argued.
“You want to drop this on her now?” The room temperature dropped ten degrees as I faced him. “When she can’t even make it through a full day without two naps minimum? While she’s vulnerable without her magic—”
A shrill beep cut through the tension. Koa’s laptop screen flashed red. Security alert from the library. We all lunged for the monitor. Seri’s sleepy face filled the feed. Brumous lifted his head beside her, squinting at the camera hidden in the bookshelf.
“Motion trigger,” Ko breathed. “False alarm. She just knocked her teacup over when she shifted.”
We watched in silence as Seri patted the wolf’s flank, murmuring nonsense. The dark circles under her eyes looked heavier in the infrared glow.
“I’ll check on her.” Cas turned toward the door, and my hand closed over his wrist.
“Brum-Brum’s got it. You’ll just wake her.”
“That mutt’s a glorified space heater.” His jaw muscle twitched. “Not a guardian.”
“What’s next, big bro? Marking your territory on her favorite chair?” I grinned at his murderous expression. “You gonna pee in a circle around her tonight?”
“Not now, Z!” he barked. “We’re telling her tomorrow!”
“Fine, but if those bitches send so much as a cursed paper airplane before sunrise…” I trailed off.
“We kill it.” Ko shrugged as he reset the alarms.
“Wards.” Cas paced faster. “Perimeter sensors. Motion-capture on every damn tree.”
My eyes flickered to our security monitors. Six different angles of the Harrow house filled the screens.
“Pull up whatever your mechanical cockroaches recorded before the attack,” I said. “Timestamp minus ninety minutes.”
“You mean my elegant spy eyes?” Koa flopped into his desk chair, fingers flying across three keyboards at once. “The ones someone compared to a dysentery outbreak in clockwork form?”
“Focus, tech wiz.” I dragged a stool next to him. “You ever consider outsourcing, bro? That nino, Addison, got time on his hands. He could—”
“Absolutely not.” Casimir’s boot connected with my stool leg. “Kitchen boy stays far away from—”
“He’s fourteen, not a suicide bomber,” I snorted, and Koa froze mid-keystroke.
“Actually, he could—”
“No.”
Ko and I exchanged a look. We’d fight that battle later.
The flat screen flickered as Koa queued up footage. I drummed fingers against my thigh—three beats, pause, two beats—the rhythm syncopating with Casimir’s unsteady pacing on my other side.
“Need a hamster wheel for that nervous energy, Golden Boy?”
Cas paused mid-stride, blond ponytail swinging like a pendulum, his breathing uneven. He dropped his head back, perspiration trickling down his face like tears. And maybe real tears. Even with lightning in your veins, purification was never fun.
“You gonna make it through a footage review, grandpa?” I dragged a stool over and shoved him into it. “Or should I fetch the fainting couch?”
His middle finger spoke volumes.
A monitor froze on Amabel Harrow. The witch-bitch dipped her hand into her pocket, withdrawing a silver pendant shaped like a talon.
“Freeze it.” I leaned close to the screen. “Enlarge on the pendant.”
The image rippled. The talon’s surface resolved into tiny, vicious runes.
“Audio.” My knuckles cracked. “Now.”
“Working.” Koa’s ear cuff flashed as he synced with the system. “Spy eyes prioritize stealth and visual over sound quality, but—”
The speakers spat static. Then Amabel’s voice, tinny but triumphant.
“—little cinderwhore won’t know what struck her.”
“Perfect.” Eluned’s laughter skittered through the room like broken glass. “Let the dhampirs chew on The Withering Veil’s leftovers while we—”
“Withering what?” I scowled when the audio fuzzed out.
“Never heard of it,” Ko admitted. “Have to look that one up.”
“Whatever it does, they meant it for Seri.” Face bloodless, Cas slumped to the side, nearly falling out of his chair.
“You good, Cas?” Ko asked as I grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him upright again. “What do you need?”
“What do I need?” He squinted at the ceiling, words slurring together. “A peppermint. No, popcorn. No, peppermint-flavored popcorn. And possibly, no, definitely synchronized flamingos.”
“Flamingos.” Koa’s typing stuttered. “We are never like this after a purification. Why is he?”
“Why is he what? Adorably chatty?” I glanced between my brothers, one vibrating with grim focus, the other looking two breaths from a coma. “Hold that thought. Popcorn sounds perfect. Yeah, I’m instituting mandatory snackage for surveillance duty.”
It took me less than five minutes to sprint to the kitchen, snag a tin of three popcorn flavors and three beers, and sprint back. I palmed open the security room door to find disaster.
Casimir had commandeered Koa’s chair, spinning slowly clockwise, his usually perfect posture gone to hell, a dopey smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His first ever purification had left our unflappable brother decidedly flapped.
“—like carousel horses made of fire,” he was saying, index finger tracing a spiral in the air. “But sadder. With tiny hats. Tiny hats, Koa!”
“Zane Dorian Cimmerian!” Koa massaged his temple. “What did you put in that elixir?”
“Nothing, Koa Rain Cimmerian!” I lobbed a beer at each brother, Cas catching his without breaking rotational momentum. “Although there was a questionable glitter at the bottom…”
“Isn’t anyone going to say my middle name?” Cas demanded as he used his teeth to open his bottle.
“No, Casimir Leif Cimmerian,” I sneered. “It’s a dumb name, and no one wants to say it.”
“It’s not dumb! Now say it!” Cas pouted. Actually full on pouted with folded arms, pooched lip, beetled brow, and everything.
“Tenebris me devoret,” Ko sighed.
“Bro, you better be recording this!” I grinned widely as I sat down.
“I confirmed the Harrow twins brewed up a curse and sent in the hawk,” he said.
“Scried through the robin’s eyes with Arabesque in her study.
Sisters argued and are now venting their frustrations.
I refuse to watch that, but my bot is scanning the audio for key words and phrases.
If it finds anything, it’ll alert our phones. ”
“Doing the hired help, huh?” I shoved a handful of popcorn in my mouth. “Anyone say what that curse does? Lemme guess. Full Sleeping Beauty. Prick a vein, eternal coma, poison spindle optional.”
“Dunno. Something bad.” Cas stopped spinning, shoulders vibrating. “Should’ve burned those bitches when we first smelled their rot.” His growl dropped an octave, electricity crackling through the vowels. “Instead of planting clicky-clacky buggies—”
“Spy eyes,” Ko corrected.