Chapter Thirty-five
Every part of her body aching, Reena weakly lifted her head from the cold, hard ground. A ground she’d pitilessly been dumped on by one of the people now lined up in front of the manor. Her ears ringing, she blinked to clear her blurred vision and focused on the scene playing out in front of her.
Eight robed witches stood with their feet planted and their hands extended. All bloated with power that didn’t belong to them, they were chanting fast beneath their breath as they worked to take down the manor’s shield.
The taut air crackled with magick, hot and sticky and very other. A force not of this world. Not meant for this world.
They’d ‘borrowed’ it, she thought. Borrowed it from some creature or deity they’d summoned, and probably in exchange for a sliver of their soul.
They had to be members of the rebel faction.
She couldn’t tell who exactly they were because each wore an animal mask.
Going by the length of their hair and how slender their hands were, she felt sure that the goat, cat, rabbit and blackbird were female.
The rest – a fox, wolf, deer and owl – appeared to be male.
Though the power they wielded only danced along the manor’s shield, dread licked through her. It wasn’t so much these assholes who worried her. It was that they each had a Rabid on a magickal leash that currently kept them docile.
Currently.
They likely wouldn’t remain that way for long. Reena was in no state to fight them. She could barely move.
The witches had come at her from behind, the little cowardly bastards. They’d not only attacked her with magick and sapped her of virtually all strength, they had also managed to suppress her own magick, leaving her weak and defenseless.
She had no idea how they’d managed to draw Ripper away from the manor, though she’d heard them gloating about it.
Heard enough to understand they’d come here because the rest of the coven now wanted their heads on a silver platter.
Only earning respect and fear would make the coven accept the faction as worthy.
In these witches’ view, defeating Emberlyn Vautier would earn them both.
Reena inwardly snorted. They were underestimating just how powerful the lone witch truly was.
Eight witches, twenty witches, forty witches – it would make no difference.
Not even while they were tanked up on borrowed magick.
They were fools if they thought differently.
It was just as foolish of them to think that getting her alone would turn things in their favor.
Emberlyn didn’t need werewolf muscle at her back.
Trying to sit up a little straighter, Reena winced as pain bloomed through her head again. Her belly churned and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Closing her eyes, she tried accessing her magick again. Failed. It was still buried too deep.
Hearing a flutter of wings, she looked upward. Three crows had gathered on the roof of the manor. Another soared down and settled on the porch rail. A fourth circled the building before landing on a turret.
If the faction noticed, they didn’t show it. They were focused on lowering the shield – their chanting growing louder, faster, more intense.
Reena’s gaze slipped down . . . and stopped as she did a double-take. Several partly transparent people stood in the manor’s windows, staring out at the scene below. Women and men dressed in clothes from varying eras.
Two in particular caught her attention – Lilith and Millicent side by side, shooting daggers at the faction.
Well, hell.
Magick hissed. Popped. Crackled. Sparked and spluttered in the air. Then the front door swung open . . . just as the manor’s shield fell.
And there stood Emberlyn. She took in everything with a glance – the masked witches, the leashed Rabid, Reena on the ground.
Did Emberlyn tense? No. Did she curse? No? Did she look in the least bit bothered or even remotely interested? No.
Her expression remained neutral. No surprise. No fear. No anger. Not even a hint of unease. ‘Well, that was rude,’ she remarked.
‘We couldn’t have exactly knocked on your front door,’ said the ‘goat’, her voice carrying a deep, almost mechanical echo that made it hard to identify her – a sure sign that she was struggling to ‘digest’ the power she’d borrowed. ‘Until now, that is.’
‘What do you want?’ Emberlyn asked them, appearing bored. ‘I’m busy.’
‘We mean you no harm,’ the wolf said, the same echo in his voice that made it as indistinguishable as that of the goat.
Emberlyn shot him an incredulous glance. ‘You attacked the shield around my home, which is no different than battering my front door.’
‘We merely meant to get your attention,’ the wolf assured her.
‘Right,’ drawled Emberlyn, all skepticism.
The goat lifted her chin as she spoke. ‘We came here to invite you to join us.’
Emberlyn’s brow pinched. ‘Excuse me?’
‘As of this night onward, I will lead the coven. Join it. Be part of my inner circle. You will find belonging to the coven more palatable without Reena at its helm. We will have killed her before the night is over. Her time has passed. The old ways are dead.’
Oh, they planned to kill Reena? Good to know. She supposed the only reason they’d brought her here alive was so that Emberlyn would see what these people could do; that they collectively had the power to take down a powerful witch. It was a subtle threat, really.
‘So many in town have scorned you for the types of magick you practice,’ the goat said to Emberlyn. ‘Not us. We understand you. Applaud you. Relate to you. Join us,’ she pressed. ‘You need not be alone anymore. You can work magick alongside likeminded witches who accept you.’
‘You think I’m like you?’ Emberlyn chuckled.
‘That’s . . . that’s funny. Not in a million years would I show up at a person’s house wearing a goat mask, bloated on loaned power.
It’ll leach from your system soon enough, but you won’t regain whatever parts of your soul you gave up in payment.
And if you had to borrow power just to subdue Reena, well, can’t say I’m impressed. ’
Reena almost smiled. Emberlyn sure knew how to deliver an insult in a way that put a true dent in a person’s ego.
There were more flutters of wings just before three more crows appeared, all settling on the porch roof, their beady eyes focused on the faction.
‘If you are not with us, you are against us,’ said the wolf, his tone clipped.
‘And you’re against me, in truth,’ began Emberlyn.
‘You don’t really want me to join your little cabal.
You think to get me on side so that I don’t interfere with your plans.
What you all truly want is me out of the picture.
You’d turn on me the first chance you got, but you’d wait until you thought I’d never expect it. ’
Agreed, thought Reena. The faction would likely seek to learn from Emberlyn first, but they would eventually get rid of her.
‘Our overture is sincere,’ the wolf argued.
‘If you do not join us, you will leave us no choice but to ensure that you meet the same fate she will meet,’ the goat threatened, gesturing at Reena.
‘Thanks, but I’ll pass . . . Penelope,’ Emberlyn added, her voice hardening. She flapped her hand and – that easily – masks began flicking off, revealing surprised face after surprised face.
Penelope. Ames. Bennet. Ethel. Thad. Getty. Ruben. And lastly—
Reena gasped. ‘Ward?’
Her husband glared at her, his expression sour. ‘Betrayal is like a hot blade to the heart, isn’t it? I felt it knife through me when I heard about you and Carver. A year you spent in his bed. A year.’
Reena stared at him, shocked. No, beyond shocked. He’d given her not the faintest clue that he’d learned about her . . . indiscretion.
‘You were so good at hiding it that I might never have known if it hadn’t been for Penny,’ he said.
The look he and her sister exchanged, the sheer intimacy in it, was indication enough that . . . ‘So you had your own affair. But that was not enough payback for you, it would seem.’
‘The position of High Priestess is the only thing that ever really mattered to you,’ Ward spat. ‘So now I’m going to make sure that you lose it.’
‘No,’ Emberlyn casually contradicted, ‘that’s not how things are going to play out.’
‘You’re outnumbered eight to one,’ Ames taunted. ‘Reena can’t help you – she can’t even access her magick right now.’ He cocked his head. ‘It’s funny. Grams mentored you but not me because she said that I had no real potential. Look at me now; look at what I can do.’
Emberlyn snorted. ‘You can only do it because you’re filled with borrowed power.
That’s nothing to brag about.’ She swept her gaze along the line of witches.
‘You’re not scary. You’re not powerful. You’re not even a real threat.
And if you had any sense, you would have let me be.
’ Her expression hardened. ‘But you didn’t.
That was a grave mistake, and it’s one that you’ll pay for. ’
Shadows moved behind her as wicked little giggles sounded. Giggles that gave Reena the honest to God’s chills.
Those shadows trickled out of the house, at which point Reena could make out several short, skeletal, grotesque creatures.
The security lights poured down on them, illuminating their deep-red skin, black twisting horns, yellow eyes, bulbous noses, oversized ears, stinger-topped tails and bat-like wings.
Reena gaped, weakly scrambling backwards. What in the fresh hell?
‘Just so you know,’ Emberlyn added, again casual, ‘you didn’t hammer the shield down. I lowered it. This seemed a good a time as any to finally get rid of you all. I have to say, I’m going to enjoy it.’
Penelope spat a curse. ‘Now!’
The Rabid were released.
The crows swooped down.
The creatures shot through the air like bullets.
The faction released streams of borrowed magick.
Emberlyn threw up her palms, slamming up an invisible shield that swallowed the power, causing every faction member to gasp in alarm.
Smiling, she thrust her palms forward, emitting glittering rivulets of magick that turned into hundreds of black and silver and teal-blue locusts. ‘Now let’s have some fun, shall we?’
Stood inside his aunt’s diner, Ripper swept a glare over the ten bloody and bruised werewolves lined up in front of him.
The last thing he’d expected to find was that the disturbance was caused by members of his own clan; people who would normally respect and protect Yvette and her property.
Yet, they’d been practically piled on top of each other as fists swung and feet kicked.
More, they hadn’t paid any attention to Crew or Logan when ordered to break up the fight. No amount of shouting at them or trying to pull them away from the pile-on had been successful. As if the wolves had been caught up in some kind of bloodthirsty frenzy.
Ripper’s command for them to stop had sliced through it, causing the wolves to back off. But they hadn’t said a single word since, too busy panting and blinking, seeming confused and disoriented.
‘What in the fuck possessed you to do this?’ he demanded.
The wolves exchanged sheepish looks, shuffling their feet or holding themselves unnaturally still.
Ripper felt his jaw tighten. ‘Somebody needs to answer my question,’ he bit off.
Neal snapped up his head and pointed at Caspian. ‘He started it,’ he proclaimed in a whiny tattle-tale voice. ‘He shoved me.’
Ripper cut his gaze to Caspian, surprised. This particular werewolf could fight, but he wasn’t the type to cause trouble, only to end it. ‘Why?’
Rubbing at his nape, Caspian raised his shoulders. ‘Someone told me that I should shove him. And I thought . . . “Yeah, yeah, I really should.”’ He frowned, blinking hard. ‘Which makes no sense now, but it did then.’
‘Who told you that?’ Ripper asked him, narrowing his eyes.
Caspian’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. I don’t remember what their voice sounded like, either. I just remember what they said.’
Kerr looked from Neal to Caspian. ‘When you two started brawling, someone told me that I should join in. At that moment, it honestly felt like a natural thing to do. So I did. I can’t recall if the voice was male or female.’
The other wolves also claimed to have heard a voice.
Logan sidled up to Ripper. ‘I’m thinking a witch – or more than one – sparked this off somehow.’
Ripper’s thoughts exactly. ‘There aren’t any witches here, though.’
‘They could have left fast,’ said Logan. ‘Why would they want to cause a scene, though?’
‘And why do it at Yvette’s diner, of all places?’ asked Crew, stood on Ripper’s other side. ‘It’s a surefire way to piss you off and ensure that you find out who is responsible.’
‘I suppose it could be revenge for how you went knocking on the doors of the witches who confronted Emberlyn,’ Kerr mused.
Ripper stiffened. ‘Emberlyn,’ he said under his breath, his scalp prickling with suspicion. He stalked straight to the counter and slapped his palms on it. ‘I need to use your phone,’ he told Yvette, his stomach hardening as a sense of urgency began to ride him.
His aunt hurried off and quickly returned with the cordless phone.
He punched in Emberlyn’s number and held the phone to his ear. It rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. Nothing. He hung up. Tried again. Still nothing.
Ripper swore. ‘She’s not answering.’ He set the phone down on the counter as he realized. ‘Bait. This scene here was bait to draw me away from her. Fuck.’
He rushed out of the diner, aware of Kerr and Logan hot on his heels, and practically jumped into his truck.
Yvette appeared at Ripper’s open window just as he switched on the engine. ‘Don’t panic, your witch is strong. I’ve heard about a lot of the things she’s been able to do. Only one other witch had that ease with magick.’
‘Millicent.’
Yvette shook her head. ‘Lilith.’