Sorren
The door at the top of the steps opens, a beam of light brightens the basement before disappearing. The stairs creak as quiet footsteps make their way down. I can tell from the magick that it’s not Lena, but I can’t quite name the feeling.
“Eva?” I rattle the chains, reaching for her. “What are you doing here?”
She cups my face with ice-cold hands.
“What does it look like?” she says. “I’m saving your ass.” The aether around her crackles like a thunderstorm.
Despite it all, I laugh. Of course she would find me.
“You need to leave, Lena is around here somewhere. It’s not safe,” I say.
“I’ll take care of her. But first, let’s get you out of here.” She runs her hands across my arms and stops on the iron manacles.
“Iron depleting
Release your command.
Unbind your chains.
Free the hand.”
The metal splits down the center and falls to the ground with a clang. “Impressive, right?” she says with a grin. I reach up and yank the knife out of the wall keeping me in place. Eva ducks under my shoulder and props me up on her. Still weak and drained, I hobble forward.
“How did you find me?” Now that the copper chains are gone, I can feel my strength returning.
“You’ll never guess. The grimoire that started this whole thing.” She laughs quietly. Eva runs her hands across the scar on my chest from the gash Lena took pleasure in cutting, healing, and reopening over the last few hours.
The lightbulb overhead blinks on as Lena’s heavy magick slithers into the air. Eva puts me behind her, my back against the wall. My brave little witch is here to save me.
“It is my lucky day,” Lena says with a sneer, appearing in the center of the basement. “I’ve been looking for that. Who knew that all I had to do was kidnap your demon, and you would bring it right to me.”
Eva looks down at the scale in her hand, slippery with my blood. “All of this for a broken scale?”
“Oh honey, it’s not broken. It’s bent. Two very different things.” Lena reaches out, the veil already slipping away, revealing her bony, mangled hand covered in age spots and bulging blue veins. “Hand it over, and you can keep your demon. A fair trade, I think.”
Eva slowly looks down at the scale and takes a deep breath. She better not be thinking about handing over that relic. I’d take eternal torture than let Lena get her hands on that. Whatever her plans are for it have got to be catastrophic if she’d give it up for a Prince of Hell.
In a flash of movement, Eva throws the scales to me, hitting me in the chest. Without missing a beat she draws a rune in the air with her first two fingers, a counterclockwise spiral, with a line going straight down in the center.
Three downward strokes follow. Sparks fly from the completed sigil, and Eva blows it to Lena.
It hits the old witch in the face, cutting off the ear-piercing scream.
Lena freezes with a distant look in her eye. Eva cautiously approaches the center of the room. Lena shakes her head and smiles blandly at Eva.
“Where am I?” The veil completely slips away, revealing an old woman with stringy silver hair.
“You’re at home. Everything is okay. I’ll find someone to help you.” Eva takes her by the elbow and helps her up the stairs.
“Thank you, dear. I don’t know what happened. Do I know you?” Lena asks, sounding every bit the confused elderly woman.
“No, you don’t know me. Let’s have some tea, shall we?” Eva suggests.
What the fuck just happened?
I follow the two witches upstairs and into the kitchen. This must be Lena’s house, but there is nothing to indicate the darkness that has been lurking in its walls. It’s dark outside and impossible to tell how long she’s had me locked up down there.
Eva places Lena on a chair at the table and looks over at me. “Are you okay?” she asks me, her voice full of concern.
“I’m okay. How long was I down there?”
“A few hours, I think.” She rubs her hand down my arm and grasps my hand. “Let’s make this nice lady some tea, shall we?” Together we go to the kitchen.
She grabs the tea kettle and fills it up. “I don’t know what happened, I just did a simple memory wiping spell. I’ve done oblivia a hundred times. It never happened like this.”
“Is she going to wake up and remember?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the witch who is staring blankly out the window.
“I don’t know. It was way more powerful than any time I’d done it before.”
She sets the kettle on the burner. It clicks to life with the turn of a dial. Eva wipes her hands on her jeans.
“I think it was my blood.” I turn her hand over, showing her where it’s dried on her skin.
Her eyes go wide. “Sorren, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about it.” Huge tears pool in her eyes. “I did dark magick.” One tear streaks down her face. I wipe it away, unable to bear the sight of her crying.
“No, it’s okay. You didn’t take it from me. You didn’t do anything wrong. It just happened.” I try to reassure her, but the devastation across her face tells me that my words are not penetrating the horror in her mind.
I pull her phone out of her back pocket and hold it out for her to unlock. Eva presses her finger on the screen and it lights up.
I tap the phone icon and select the top number. It only rings once before a desperate voice picks up. “Eva? Where are you? Is everything okay?” Riley yells into my ear.
“Riley, it’s Sorren. Everything is okay. Eva is fine, but we need your help.” I try to keep my voice even and calm, but I am being ripped apart. I’d give Eva every ounce of my magick willingly if it would take away her pain.
“The fog has lifted!” I hear another voice in the background.
“We’re at Lena’s house. Do you know where that is?” I ask, completely helpless to give any other context on how to find us.
“I do,” a woman says.
“Hurry.” I hang up the phone, and turn my undivided attention back to Eva.
“Why are you crying, dear?” Lena asks sweetly. No trace of the evil that had occupied her up until a few minutes ago.
Eva wipes her tears away and clears her throat. “I’m okay. That tea should be ready soon.”
I search the kitchen, leaving Eva to deal with Lena. I set down two cups and drop a chamomile tea bag in each. When the tea kettle whistles, I pour the boiling water. It’s probably not the right temperature, but Eva is too distracted to correct me on the proper way to make chamomile tea.
I put one in her cold hands and place the second on the table in front of Lena.
“You stay right there, we’ll be back in a minute,” I tell Lena and drag Eva outside into the pitch black night.
“It had to be your blood. It enhanced my power. I’m no better than Lena,” she says and buries her tear-streaked face in my chest.
I hold her head to me, feeling complete with her in my arms. “No. Not at all. You did what was right. She can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
I stroke her head, shushing her until a car pulls up. Riley, trailed by two other witches, runs to us. Eva pulls away, wipes her face, and takes a deep breath.
“What happened?” Riley asks breathlessly.
“I did an oblivia spell, and it completely wiped her memory. I don’t think she even knows who she is anymore.” Eva looks down at her hands, still covered in my blood. “Mom, can you go check on her?” she says to one of the women behind Riley. The witch scrutinizes me on her way into the house.
Not an ideal way to meet my girlfriend’s mom.
The other witch, whose magick feels similar to Eva’s, pulls her into a hug.
“It’s okay, Evie.”
Eva’s mom comes out of the house seconds later. “Everything is okay. Lena is fine. Her mind was completely wiped of all memory, but she’s fine.”
Eva covers her face with her hands and erupts into another set of sobs.
“You did the right thing. She’s no longer a threat.” Eva’s mother pulls her into an embrace, smoothing a trembling hand through her hair as she whispers words too soft for me to hear. The tenderness catches me off guard.
I’ve never seen a mother comfort her child before.
The moment is interrupted by a banging coming from the barn on the other side of the driveway.
“Help me!” A male voice calls out.
I know that voice. It’s a voice that has driven me crazy for years.
“Jeff?” I run toward the barn and pull off the padlock on the door. I swing it open and a very demon-looking Jeff from logistics staggers forward.
“That witch kidnapped me!” he yells, pointing toward the house. “Where is she? Wait until I get my hands on her.”
I stop him with a hand on his chest. “She can’t hurt anyone anymore. Eva cleared her memory of everything.”
“Who is Eva?” he screams, still incensed.
“I’m Eva,” she says, stepping forward. “I used Sorren’s blood to enhance my magick. And I’ll take whatever punishment is necessary.” I repress the anger that boils up at the thought that Eva would need to justify her actions to Jeff, of all people.
I run back to Eva. “No. No punishments, you didn’t know. I would give you all the magick in the underworld, freely.”
She looks at me with sad eyes. “I’ll deal with the consequences. It’s the season of Mabon. Justice, reaping what you sow. I’m not going to hide from it.”
“Jeff, a word?” I pull him aside, not waiting for an answer, because it’s not really a question. I need to get him away from Eva before she makes the situation worse.
“Sorren, what is going on? You look like a human! Are you helping that witch?” he whispers and points his red demon finger toward Eva. Every protective instinct roars, I don’t even want him looking at her. Lena must have trapped him in his demon form when she summoned him.
“I took this form when I got here. Looks like Lena put your horns to work.” I point to the chipped and damaged left horn on his head. “Let’s stay aligned with our designated roles.” I slip into corporate speak, essentially telling him to mind his own damn business.
“If you think I won’t tell the Board what happened up here—”
“The Board?” I laugh darkly. “Your ‘best friends,’ the Board of Directors?” I remind him of their contentious relationship.
“Well, they should know,” he snivels.
“They will. But not from you. Malachi and I have this handled. You are going to go back, lick your wounds, and wait until you hear from me or my brother. If you try anything before then, I will cast you so far deep into the fires of Hell, you’ll pray for the days of fighting about budget line items.”
His tail curls between his legs. He averts his gaze to my feet. I hate to pull rank, but I don’t need fucking Jeff sticking his nose in this.
“Yes, my Prince.”
We return to the group of witches.
“Everything okay?” Eva asks.
“Yep. Peachy,” I say with a broad smile that no one has the courage to question.
“I’ll stay behind and figure out what to do with Lena, but the rest of you should go back to Raincrest,” the other witch says.
“What are we going to do about that guy?” Riley asks, pointing at Jeff, who is still fuming.
“You can send him back.” It’s the quickest way to get him away from all of us.
“How do we do that?” Eva asks, staring up at me with sad, tear filled eyes. I grab her hand tightly, a reminder that I’m here with her.
“Maybe.” I search my brain for a solution. “Just tell him to go back,” I say ironically, a joke just for Eva about that first night back at her house.
“Go back from whence you came,” she says sarcastically.
For a second, nothing happens. Then thunder cracks overhead, breaking the silence. The ground trembles under our feet, and Jeff is sucked through a pinpoint behind him in an instant. We all stand there, stunned and staring at the empty space where he had just been.
The first night she summoned me, she’d spoken those same words in a desperate, half-hearted attempt to undo the spell. Tonight, they held a power that crossed through realms at the slightest suggestion.
“You all go. I’ve got it from here,” another witch with a family resemblance says, dismissing us.
“Thank you, Paige,” Eva says.
I decline when Riley offers me the front seat of the SUV.
Instead, I sit in the back with Eva, not wanting to let go of her for even a second.
I could leave. I’m not bound to Eva’s house anymore, courtesy of Lena’s curse.
However, there is a stronger bond keeping me here now, my desire to see this through.
On the drive back to Raincrest, I catch them up on what happened. How Lena showed up at the house, broke the binding spell, and knocked me out. How Lena confessed to killing my father. My impression is that she was acting alone.
“Do you think the rest of the coven is in on all this?” Riley asks Eva’s mom.
“We’ll find out,” she says cryptically.
Eva stairs straight ahead, silent the whole drive home.