Death Card

Chapter 1

Alarm bells echo off the walls of my skull, reverberating throughout my body as I sit up in bed. A sense of utter dread settles itself in my chest as my heart thuds against my rib cage.

The energy in the air is…off. The only way I can explain it is to conjure up an image of a gentle breeze on a warm day and that moment when the wind shifts direction, picking up speed, letting you know that a storm isn’t far.

Slowly, I tuck my bookmark into my library book and strain to listen.

Besides the low ocean sounds from my noise machine, the house is silent.

Eerily so. There’s no arguing between Gramps and my brother, no music from the radio in the living room.

I don’t even hear the usual creak of the floorboards as the old bones of the house settle.

Something’s wrong. I just don’t know what.

Gran was the one who taught me to trust my gut. As leader of our coven and the strongest among us, she could practically see the future. Between her skills in tarot and a sharp intuition, there was nothing my twin brother and I could hide from her.

The difference between Gran and me is that she respected the order of things.

According to her, the universe isn’t meant to be changed by human hands, so she viewed herself as powerless to stop the tidal wave of life.

Sure, she could sense when something was coming, but she didn’t take any steps to change or prevent it.

That’s never been my way, though, especially now that Gran isn’t here anymore.

Sleep won’t come with a feeling like this, so I slip on a pair of socks and creep to my bedroom door. The hinges whine as I peer into the hallway. Shadows from the night-light splay across the walls, but there’s no movement.

I drift down the hall to Orion’s room. My brother doesn’t have a knack for this sort of thing at all, but I’ll feel less creeped out with him around.

A draft of wind cracks his door before I even have a chance to knock. I push it open farther and peer inside. Empty. Of course it is.

In the year since we lost Gran, Orion’s spent fewer and fewer nights at home. He’s either out drinking at a party, kissing his latest fling, or smoking weed in our cousins’ attic.

It’s frustrating the way he’s shut me out, as if he’s the only one who lost her.

You don’t see me sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Gramps has enough on his plate. He doesn’t need to deal with the constant fallout of my brother’s self-destruction on top of leading the coven and running for city council.

Orion doesn’t seem to care or even notice the extra wrinkles in Gramps’s face, but I do.

I’m halfway back to my room when the doorbell rings, shattering the silence.

Air whooshes from my lungs. There it is.

Nothing good can come of a midnight house call. If it’s one of my brother’s latest hookups, I’m going to strangle him.

With a sigh, I stomp down the stairs and throw open the door to find Theresa LeBlanc standing on our front porch with her young daughter wrapped up in her arms.

Theresa is my third or fourth cousin; honestly, when you’ve got an extended family as large as mine, no one really knows the specifics of how we’re all related to one another.

She’s in her midthirties, but the grimace etched into her skin ages her by a decade.

She hasn’t been involved much in the coven since she got married; I actually don’t know if I’ve seen her at all in the last two years.

We stare at each other as my mind attempts to calculate what she could be doing here. The silence is broken when her daughter lets out a pained moan.

“Please,” Theresa begs. “You have to help us. She needs healing.”

My mouth drops open and shuts again before I find my words. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I don’t know how we can help.”

Gran was the healer of this coven. She tended to the sick until she fell ill herself. Since her death, other members have tried to take her place, but no one else’s magic has proven to be as strong as the former Witch Queen’s.

The little girl writhes in pain, and Theresa winces at every whimper. “Get Ezekiel,” she begs, stomping her foot in frustration. “He’s gotta try. I can’t lose my Marian!”

Guilt sinks in as Gran’s voice echoes in the back of my mind: The coven is family. We never leave a fellow witch out in the cold.

“All right. Come in.”

She sweeps into the house and sets Marian down on the couch. When Theresa pulls the blanket away from her daughter’s face, I get my first full look at the little girl.

Marian’s breathing is labored and heavy. Crystals of sweat glisten on her forehead. Other than the occasional moan and the air wheezing out of her lungs, she’s silent and still. Her eyes remain firmly shut. It’s clear the girl is gravely ill.

More importantly, when I look at her, I can sense the utter wrongness of her situation. Marian’s the shift in the wind I felt.

“What happened to her?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.” Theresa wrings her hands while pacing beside the couch.

“She was perfectly fine all day, but then tonight, she didn’t touch her dinner at all.

She went to bed right away, but when I checked on her an hour ago, her eyes were…

Well, you’ll see.” Theresa rests her hand on Marian’s forehead, and a sob escapes her throat as the girl’s eyes flutter open.

Marian’s irises are the color of molten lava, and the whites of her eyes are stained a radioactive shade of blue. I stagger backward, nearly tripping over a cord.

“Now you see why we couldn’t go to the hospital,” Theresa cries. “Nothing about this is natural!”

I’ve never seen anything like this before. I stagger to the stairs and grip the banister. “Gramps! I could use some help down here!”

The stairs creak as Gramps descends. He comes into view just as the ancient grandfather clock in the corner strikes midnight.

Standing well over six feet tall, Gramps commands any room he walks into.

Not only with his height but with the magic that rolls off him in waves.

Those without magic don’t know what it is they feel, but even they can tell he’s a confident, powerful man.

He’s dark-skinned with closely cropped white hair. While he may be a few months shy of seventy, the way he carries himself makes him look decades younger.

Theresa’s head swivels toward him and her eyes widen slightly. “Zeke,” she murmurs. “I know I haven’t been around, but you’ve gotta help my girl. Please—”

Gramps holds up a hand to silence her. “It’s water under the bridge.” He turns his gaze on me. “What’s the matter?”

I lead Gramps over to the couch, where little Marian grows weaker and paler by the minute. Her brown skin has taken on a sallow complexion, and her breath hitches in her throat. “Something’s wrong with her, Gramps. Her eyes are these weird shades of blue and orange.”

Gramps rests a hand on Marian’s forehead, and it comes away slick with sweat. “Unwrap the girl. She’s overheating.”

I do as he says, nearly cringing from how thoroughly soaked the blankets are. Dumping the soggy fabric on the ground, I gasp when the full extent of her mysterious illness is unveiled.

Her veins glow in the same shade as her irises. Golden streaks of light shimmer beneath her skin as her limbs violently twitch. When I reach out to touch her, a burst of electricity shocks me. I inadvertently take a step back.

The magic that courses through our veins smolders right beneath our skin, igniting in a tiny pop of static when we touch. Mortals won’t feel a thing. It’s a calling card solely for us.

Usually, the sensation is pleasant and barely noticeable. But when I touched Marian, her magic burned. The tips of my fingers still sting from the ache. Whatever’s going on with her has something to do with her magic.

I turn to Gramps and ask, “What is this?”

His expression is grave. He lays his hand on Marian’s forehead and slips his eyes shut. “There’s a darkness swirling within this child alongside the vestiges of her magic.” He opens his eyes and fixes me with his gaze. “We need to pull it out.”

I freeze, panic washing over me. This isn’t the sort of thing I’m skilled in. “I—What?”

“Think of it like sucking out snake venom from a wound.” My eyes grow even wider. A scowl flashes across his face for a moment as his patience is tested. “Where’s your brother? Out again?”

I nod.

His scowl reappears. “Fine. Then it’s you and me, Mikaela. We need to use our own magic as a magnet to draw out the poison in the girl’s blood. Come quick. Lay your hands on her.”

Hesitantly, I do as he says, taking up a position opposite him. My brother’s always been the stronger of the two of us when it comes to healing. Actually, he can best me in most forms of magic. I silently curse him for not being here.

Gently, I remove Marian’s shoes and socks and lay my hands on the bottoms of her feet, ignoring the ache that spreads through my fingers. Marian’s feet glow like the rest of her body. As soon as I touch her, my eyelids droop and my instincts take over.

Gramps was right. I can feel something inside pushing against me. It’s a foul cloud of darkness unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. It nearly overwhelms my magic.

My stomach roils as I fold in half, gagging from the sensation. Whatever has a hold of this little girl is pure evil.

“Marian!” Theresa screams. When I open my eyes, I see that she’s darted forward to take Marian’s hand in hers. The little girl’s body is still. I keep watching her chest to see it rise and fall, and it does—barely.

“Quickly!” Gramps says. He moves his hands from Marian’s forehead to her chest. “Our window to help this child is closing.”

My heart races as I tighten my grip on Marian’s feet. I close my eyes and visualize the darkness swirling within her body. I picture myself using my magic to scoop it out. I don’t know if I’ll be able to offer much help, but I have to try, for little Marian’s sake.

Ancestors, I beg you. Give me the strength to do this.

And then I force my magic into her body.

My breathing quickens as I picture a giant magnet latching on to the darkness and sucking it out. Sweat beads on my forehead as my magic crowds out the darkness until all I sense is Gramps pushing from the other side.

This time, when I open my eyes, Marian is breathing, and her mother’s body sags with relief. “Thank you,” Theresa whispers. “I owe you everything.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, clutching my head as the room spins. I have to grip the couch to remain upright. That burst of magic took everything I have.

Gramps takes my elbow and leads me to Gran’s worn armchair. “Breathe,” he instructs. “Take deep breaths.”

Even after all the effort we both had to exert, his face only looks slightly more weathered than usual, and his legs aren’t shaking like mine. The effort of saving Marian’s life didn’t fully deplete him like it did me.

“What was that?” I ask between breaths. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“No, not in all my years.” He crosses the room to kneel next to Marian, who’s sitting up now, looking around in awe. She takes in the family portraits lining the walls and the small trinkets arranged inside the glass cabinet.

“Little one,” Gramps says, “let me feel your forehead.”

She looks to her mother first for permission before nodding. “Okay,” she says in her tiny voice.

Gramps rests his palm against Marian’s forehead for what feels like an eternity before beckoning me over. My legs don’t feel like jelly anymore, so I walk over to join him.

“Touch her skin and tell me what you notice,” he instructs solemnly.

I do as he says, giving Marian a big smile before taking her hand. This time when I touch her skin, there’s no shock. No pulse of electricity present at all. I close my eyes and let my senses take over.

Yes, there’s Gramps’s aura, strong as ever, and Theresa’s behind me. But that’s it.

“Her magic!” I exclaim. “It’s gone.”

“What?!” Theresa shrieks. “That’s not possible!” She collapses onto the couch, crushing her daughter to her chest.

The trace of magic I sensed within Marian before has completely disappeared along with the darkness that sickened her. But that doesn’t make any sense. Gramps and I don’t have the ability to take away someone’s magic. So, where did it go?

Magic simmers within me. It makes up every fiber of my being, from the marrow of my bones to the blood flowing through my veins.

Thanks to the generations of witches who came before me, I’m forever bound to it.

Once you’re born with magic, you can never escape the slight feeling of heaviness in your middle.

It’s always churning inside, like the sea on a stormy day.

I can’t imagine losing such an integral piece of myself.

“Theresa,” Gramps begins. “Is her father a witch?”

Theresa shakes her head, tears streaming down her face. “He’s mortal.”

When I look at Gramps, his forehead is creased with concern. Gramps has lived a long life and seen a lot in his time. If even he has never seen something like this, then I’m right to be worried.

And my senses are now telling me: The energy shift I felt earlier isn’t resolved. Something bigger is coming.