21. A Knife to a Magicks Fight This Time
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A KNIFE TO A MAGICKS FIGHT THIS TIME
AURORA
F ive days.
It’d been five very long days since Deke disappeared.
Which, coincidentally, meant it’d been five days since I’d had a good night’s sleep.
A decent one.
Just any, really.
Surprisingly, I was doing okay on very little rest. Or sleep deprivation had kicked in and was making me think that.
Either way.
What I wasn’t handling well was Deke’s continued absence. I missed him. I wanted him back. I wanted to finish what we’d started.
Badly.
Lilith bumped her shoulder into mine, her gaze on where I was yet again rubbing my chest. “He’ll be back soon. Time passes differently there.”
“Did you or Lennon go to Heaven?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Rafe—Raphael, my archangel—came to Earth. It was right before my dad passed away, and they didn’t want me gone when that happened.”
I expected to see anger or even hurt on her face. After all, her mate was Pestilence and she had an archangel, yet her father was still gone.
But there was no bitterness. Just appreciation that she hadn’t missed that goodbye.
“I went,” Juno said. “Hell, too. Stellan only went to Heaven.”
“Nate went when he got his memories back,” Denny added. “He was able to get a message to me through his mind connection to Juno, but it was still a long wait for him to return.”
I tried forcing a message through my thoughts. “Where are you?”
Like when his siblings had tried over the previous few days, nothing happened.
“Where is that bossy bastard of a mate?” Juno asked Denny. As the only one without a mortal job, he usually accompanied her to the training sessions.
“At the station with your mate, actually.”
Lilith pretended to check a watch. “Oh, is it Take Your Death to Work Day already?”
“There’s been another surge of missing people,” Denny said.
“Well, damn, why didn’t you tell me before I made that heartless joke. Now I feel like an asshole.”
“Says the princess of joking at inappropriate times,” Juno said. “The queen is still your mom for making that boner joke at the hospital.”
Lilith tried to force a scowl, but there was too much warmth. She smoothed it out. “Okay, missing people.”
“Stellan says he isn’t sure if they’re related to this or just an unfortunate side effect of normal, everyday evil. Nate went to look through the files to see if anything jumped out, just in case.”
From what I gathered, Lennon was almost done at the hospital, but it’d been decided that Stellan should keep working as a detective since it gave him access to possible clues and connections.
I wonder if Deke will be able to open another restaurant. I hope so. That’s the only time I’ve seen him look fulfilled.
Well, other than…
“What’s on the training agenda today?” I asked, needing a distraction.
Since returning to Salem without Deke, I’d spent my sleepless nights watching TV at Stellan’s cute house with Victoria. I’d spent my days training with Juno, Lilith, and Denny. Lilith was usually parked in front of one of Juno’s magicks books, testing out what magicks she could do. While she did that, she guided a boot camp in kicking ass.
Juno and Denny weren’t as established in fighting as Lilith, but they were still miles above me. It made me more determined to catch up.
I didn’t want to be the one dragging everyone down because I was an easy target.
Denny also worked on trying to create a larger, more powerful electric surge from her palm, but she hadn’t had much success.
I, on the other hand, had no success bringing on a vision. Not a single one.
“Stellan’s hung—” Juno started.
“We know, we know,” Denny muttered with a teasing smile.
“Ha, ha. It’s true, though.” Juno got a dreamy look on her face before giving her head a shake. “Anyway, he hung a couple of punching bags in the back room because we need to work on hitting without holding back. Denny and I will do that. I want you to read one of my books with Lilith.”
“I’m so bad, I’m being benched from fake fighting?” I asked.
“No, you’re being benched because you haven’t had a vision since you got here. I’m hoping something in one of those passages can trigger one.”
Since the accident, I’d prayed for my curse to go away. Now that I’d accepted the possibility that it wasn’t a curse after all, it was still radio silence.
I just had to hope my prayers hadn’t worked, and it wasn’t permanent.
While Denny and Juno were distracted by whether they should wear boxing gloves since they wouldn’t have them during a real fight, I asked Lilith, “Is Lennon done at the hospital?”
“Today is his last day. Why?”
“Is he still able to prescribe medicine?”
“I think so. But again I ask… Why?”
“Do you think he’d be willing to write a script for my old sleeping pills?”
“Probably. What’re they gonna do, fire him?” She pulled her phone out. “What’re the names?”
I rattled off the names and doses from the bottles, likely butchering the pronunciation since they always made them weird.
“Sent. We’ll see what he says. Are you tired? We can probably use that to get out of training today.” She grinned. “Kidding… Kind of.”
“I’m not tired, but I haven’t really slept.”
Her face softened. “It’s got to be hard with Deke literally a heaven away.”
I shook my head, but it turned into a nod. “It’s not that. I mean, it is. But I’ve never been a good sleeper. It can’t be healthy.”
“None of us require much sleep,” she shared. “And it gets less the longer we’ve been together. But we’ll still see what he says, just in case.”
It helped knowing I wasn’t alone. Not with my weird sleep. Not with my powers. And not at all. I had Deke—whenever he returned—and friends.
Actual friends.
Leaving Tom and Victoria in the apartment to snore the day away in their still uneasy friendship, we made our way down the steps that led to the street.
Lilith’s phone beeped, and her steps slowed. “Uh, Aurora?”
Dread swirled in my stomach, mixing with something else unpleasant. “Yes?”
“Have you ever been diagnosed with anxiety?”
“I’ve never been diagnosed with anything. I’ve never even been to the doctor. Why do you ask?”
“Lennon said only one of those pills is a sleep aid. The rest are strong benzos.” She whistled. “And much higher quantities than someone your size needs.” She halted abruptly on the sidewalk outside of Novel Idea, her gaze rising from the screen to look at me. “He said if you were a normal human, you’d be dead. Did you never look them up?”
“I wasn’t allowed to have a phone or full internet access.”
“Whhaaaaaa…”
Together.
Together.
Togethertogethertogether.
Their voices warbled behind the refrain in my head before fading completely. Hazy edges of my sight brightened. Pushed in as a vision took over. Not of the future, but of the past.
Ryan talking to a doctor in the congregation at one of the smaller churches we’d attended after fleeing Arkansas. Condescendingly laughing at my fragile female disposition. Portraying me like I was overwrought, and he was the selfless man who shouldered the burden.
Then him with other doctors from our different churches or neighborhoods, each conversation the same. The longer I watched, the more the color faded. Everything slowed. Voices were dull and emotionless.
Pleasant, obedient smiles curved Ryan’s mouth, and it was echoed in my memories. It was my automatic smile.
The brighter colors.
Stronger emotions.
My disobedience.
The fog that’s lifted without my nightly regimen of sleep meds .
The image rippled like a rock thrown into still water.
That time when I saw Ryan, he wasn’t artfully disheveled in his usual way—the curated persona that framed him as the cool everyman. He was just disheveled. Stressed. Angry.
Scared.
Overpowering me, he worked to shove those pills down my throat. To drug me back into submission.
A booming voice filled my head. Not Ryan or Past Gideon. It was my own voice, but different. Stronger.
It isn’t the future written as fact, but as a choose-your-own-adventure. Flip to page thirty or page ninety-two.
Which way it goes depends on…
Together.
Together.
Togethertogethertogether.
Together!
“You think there’s some water around her we can throw at her? I can’t see shit down here.”
“There is, but it’s stagnant rainwater that’s leaked in and probably contains brain-eating parasites.”
“Eh, she can survive that. At least she wouldn’t be catatonic.” Someone harrumphed. “How can I be all powerful but not have night vision?”
“You’re not the night monster.”
“La-de-da.”
“And you were there,” I muttered to the familiar voices as I came to. “And you. And you. Together.”
Togethertogethertogether.
I rapidly blinked, my dry eyes burning with each rise and fall of my lids. I could barely see the three of them in the dark, dank room. “What happened? Where are we?”
“We were talking on the sidewalk, and you just went blank,” Juno said, pacing the dark, dank space. “What happened?”
“A vision.”
I think.
“If that was a vision, I take back what I said. I don’t want you to trigger one. Ever. We’ll figure something else out. How are you at stabbing? Maybe a flamethrower?—”
“Where are we?” I repeated, cutting her hysterics short.
“While you were frozen, an Absolve dick-pickle squealed up in a van to grab you. We jumped in, too.”
That was… oddly touching.
Stupid.
Idiotic.
But I couldn’t deny it made me all warm and fuzzy inside.
“Can either of you transport us out of here?” I asked.
“We tried. There are wards carved into the wall,” Lilith said.
“They’re not invisible? Odd. Primitive. And another perk of your night vision. I’m doing two-day delivery on some goggles as soon as we get out of here.” Juno put her hand on my forehead. “Are you okay? You didn’t blink once. And then you got this creepy Stepford Wives smile. My heebies are officially fucking jeebied.”
“I’m fine. That was… different. My visions are usually short. Fleeting little glimpses.”
“Something to look into later. Once we’re out of this basement, my goggles are on their way, and… Oh no, she’s frozen again. It’s starting.”
“Shh,” I whispered seconds before footsteps sounded above us.
“What’s happening?” Juno asked Lilith, but she just shrugged.
“You don’t hear that?”
Everyone shook their heads.
My mind raced.
These women—the first true friends I’d ever had in my life—were there because of me. To protect me when I’d been vulnerable. I couldn’t let something happen to them.
My chest tightened at the thought, but before panic could fully flare, it seemed to kickstart something. The right half of my vision went fuzzy.
Oh hell, I’m having a stroke.
Isn’t it supposed to be the left side?
And I don’t smell toast.
When it came into focus, I still saw the dark basement on the left side. On the right, though, two suited men stood in a nasty kitchen. Dishes were piled high, all of them caked in moldy food and crawling insects. Rodents scurried by, but the men didn’t notice.
Not even when a massive rat went over one of their feet.
I hadn’t been cognizant, but I somehow knew the scrawny guy was the one who’d taken us.
My suspicion was confirmed when the bigger man shoved him and shouted, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Your assignment was to watch them. Watch . That’s all.”
“I was watching. But all of a sudden, the one the boss wants was just standing there.” Weasley guy shuddered. “Weirdo eyes totally blank like she was dead. It was my chance to fulfill my destiny.”
“So you decided to try to take all of them?”
Our kidnapper’s chest was puffed out as he gripped his lapels and bragged, “There was no try . I grabbed the one, and the rest followed. They must’ve known they had no chance against me.”
“A and Z are not gonna be happy about this. We need all eight. Together .”
Togethertogethertogether.
Scrawny shrugged. “So we’re halfway there.”
The angry one took out his phone. “I already called the boss to tell him we have her. He’s sending help.”
“What do you mean we ?”
“Well, we’re both here. You’ll need me in case those devil spawns call in demons or—” His words cut off, turning into a gurgle. His sharp inhale was a wet squelch as his lungs flooded with blood. It traveled up to pour from his mouth. He stumbled, knocking filth from the counters before falling to the stained linoleum.
Roaches, rats, and who knew what else descended instantly on the warm feast barely clinging to life.
Our kidnapper pointed his bloody dagger down at the prone body. “You think you can treat me like I’m stupid and then try to take credit for my service? I am God’s servant against evil. I am mankind’s protector. I am the one who apprehended Satan’s jezebels. The honor and the glory and the accolades are for me and me alone.”
Then, like he hadn’t just murdered someone from his own side of the perilous game, he tucked the dagger into the sheath at the waistband of his dress slacks and began whistling the theme song to a sitcom from the eighties.
My partial view of the kitchen faded to just the basement.
What the hell was that?
“Aurora, if you don’t answer us, I’m waterboarding you in that hot water tank,” Juno threatened, shaking my shoulders. “And I can already tell it’s rusty as hell.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I grabbed her arms to stop the shaking, but I kept hold of her even when she was done. That feeling of gratitude and friendship went through me again. If it weren’t for the dagger-wielding murderer headed our way, I might’ve hugged her.
“Two smudgy auras turned to one,” Lilith frantically whispered to fill me in.
“I know. He killed his buddy. I’ll explain later, but he’s coming.” I took a shaky breath and pushed my shoulders back. For the first time since my accident, I didn’t feel alone. And I also didn’t feel like a coward. “He wants me. As soon as he takes me upstairs, find a way to get free.”
“If you think we’re handing you over without a fight, you’re out of your mind.”
“But he has a knife.”
“And I have magicks.” She held her arms. “What kind of thundercunt brings a knife to a magicks fight?”
“But if he’s warded?—”
“We’ll figure it out,” Juno said.
“Together,” Lilith added as she stepped next to her.
Togethertogethertogether.
“What they said,” Denny agreed, taking her place on the other side.
Juno gave a firm nod that I could barely make out in the dark. “That was corny as shit and very Lifetime movie special of us, but I stand by it.”
A door creaked open, and the light buzzed, flickered, and eventually turned on to illuminate the small space.
I wished it hadn’t.
The kitchen had been bad, but double the amount of bugs and rodents scurried in the dilapidated basement.
I need ten showers.
“You.” The man pointed at me. “Let’s go.”
“Good luck with that,” Juno scoffed as she inched over to block me. She gestured to the single bulb that hung from the naked light feature. “I give you points for committing fully to the creeper theme, but have you never heard of a mop? Broom? Raid?” She lifted her chin in a slow, exaggerated show of understanding. “I get it. You use bug spray, you disappear. Makes sense.”
He whipped his suit jacket back like a cheesy magician doing a flourish. His hand hovered over the dagger. “You got a death wish?”
“If I wanted to die, I’d just jump from my IQ down to yours.”
“You asked for it.” He unsheathed the weapon and wiggled his fingers. “Who first?”
Someone started laughing in the face of danger but, shockingly, it wasn’t Juno.
It was Lilith.
She gasped and softly snorted, which just made the other two laugh.
They’ve lost their minds.
“Sorry,” she wheezed. “Do you think this is a bad action movie where we’ll attack you one at a time while the others patiently wait their turn? Fuck that.”
Finally giving in to my brain’s demands, Juno, Lilith, and I charged the man together.
And we weren’t the only ones.
The rats and mice moved, too.
He scrambled as he tried to kick the rodents and lash out at the three of us at the same time, missing each time. Lilith ducked and weaved, easily dodging his lunge. Moving faster than his eyes could track, she knocked his knife from his hand before kicking the side of his knee to drop him.
Red smoke shimmered out of Juno, a tentative tendril to assess for blowback.
And I was also there.
Not that I was totally useless. I’d seen the conversation upstairs. Plus, I’d landed a kick to his shin. It’d probably hurt me more than him, but it’d been a good distraction so the other two could do their thing.
I really need more training.
No more getting distracted talking books with Denny.
Or drinking pi?a coladas with Juno.
Or bonding over tuna melts with Lilith.
As the red fully encompassed him, the rodents stopped biting his exposed flesh to retreat.
“What the hell is with that?” Denny asked, kicking out her feet like she was worried they’d scamper up her leggings next.
Juno’s gaze darted to me, but she shrugged before focusing on the man. “Who is coming to help?”
“Fuck you.” He spit, but it hit red and bounced back on him. “I die knowing I’m going to heaven while you cunts will burn for eternity in?—”
“The preachy hypocrisy. I can’t listen to it again.” Denny finally stomped forward and paused with her hand outstretched. Waiting.
“I don’t have Lennon’s truth lasso skills, but I don’t think we’re getting anything out of this guy anyway. He’s too far gone.” Juno dipped her head. “Have at it.”
“Any last words?” Denny asked.
“Burn in?—”
“Hell. Yes, we know.” She ducked down so her face was level with him. “This gives me great pleasure to inform you that the soulless don’t go to Heaven. Or Hell. You will just cease to exist, and the world will be better for it.”
“Z and A?—”
“Will make our lives miserable. Torture us. Grind our bones to make their overnight oats. Heard it all before.” Denny touched the man’s forehead.
And he turned to dust.
She stepped over the pile of soot. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Moving quickly but quietly, we climbed the steps, pausing every so often to listen for movement or feel for presences. We were nearly to the door when it opened.
And my nightmare began.