Chapter Nineteen
Istood outside the ring of stones.
Ida had taken Meredith into the house, so it was only Red and me.
Birds chirped above my head. I stared up at the gilded azure expanse of morning sky. The day was heating up, and it’d probably hit a hundred by noon. Not ideal for comfort, but not nearly as bad as it would be in another month or so…
I was stalling.
My top and bra lay in a pile on the ground. It hadn’t been easy to get out of them one-handed, but I’d managed it. My battered jeans were next. I dropped them to my ankles, taking note of the one-inch brown patch stuck to my Achilles tendon.
The pain spell that had been keeping me on my feet was a Cecil special—a flat, sticky patch of natural burlap that looked like a hex bag that had been run over a few dozen times.
It was ingenious, and I’d be asking for crafting lessons from him, if he ever spoke to me again.
Chittered. Threw rocks. I’d take anything, at this point.
I took off the heal charm, dropped it on top of my clothing. If I wanted to do this right, I couldn’t have any other magic protecting me. I had to trust my soil only—no fallbacks. I stepped out of my jeans, drew in a lung-filling breath of heated desert air, and rrrripped the hex bag off my ankle.
Pain crashed into my body, and I was thrown into a head-on collision with reality, feeling everything, all at once. Not only the agony of my injuries, but the emotional pain, too.
My toes curled into the soil, and I gritted my teeth through the pain to remain upright. The soles of my feet tingled as the sun-warmed earth pulsed beneath me. Faint. Muffled.
But there.
The demon writhed. She was terrified of what came next and what it meant for us—for her.
"I know you're scared." Her terror—our terror—raked its claws across my insides, but the earth beneath me and Red’s steady presence behind me gave me the courage I needed. I could do this—had to do this. "You think if I get my magic back, I won't need you anymore. That I'll cut you off."
Her fear was warranted. It was tempting to banish her to wherever it was she went when not wearing my skin.
It felt like the answer to every problem I had.
Then I remembered the kintsugi mirror and Ida’s words: “You didn’t choose to let the demon in.
It’s not possible, because just like your witch, she’s you. ”
There was really no Demon Betty, any more than there was a Witch Betty. It was my brain’s way of making sense of it all, but it wasn’t reality. There weren’t three of us.
There was only one fragmented me.
“I won’t cut you off,” I said. “I can’t.”
Beneath my feet, the earth began to hum, vibrating with a frequency that made my teeth ache. I could feel the two sides of me—earth witch and demon, growth and destruction, peace and war—colliding against each other like tectonic plates.
Green tendrils sprouted up between my toes—weak, struggling, but alive.
The demon recoiled, the witch advanced, and the battle inside me intensified. My elemental side—buried, but still a part of me—reached for the familiar energy. My demon side tightened her grip.
"Let go," I whispered. “You have to trust me. This is the only way it works.”
The demon hesitated then reluctantly released me. I felt her confusion, her disbelief.
"Please forgive me," I begged the soil, "and accept what I am—demon, witch—all of it."
I pulled harder on my earth magic, but this time, instead of keeping my demon side separated, I let it flow through both of us. The warmth surging through me after hours of icy cold—gods, it hurt—felt like being turned inside out. But underneath the pain, something new was being created.
The shoots between my toes lengthened into vines, wrapped around my feet and ankles, snaked up my legs. They grew faster now, stronger, vines with flowers that bloomed a dark and vivid green. This was not the witch, nor the demon. Something between. Something more.
"This is us. Together.”
The demon's presence shifted, cautious but curious.
I opened myself completely—not just to the earth or her, but to both at once. The soil exploded with power. Thick vines erupted from the ground, wrapping my body in flower and leaf and stem. The air smelled of soil and sulfur, of growth and rot, of life and death.
My magic had returned—not as it had been but transformed. Evolved.
A sigh poured from the earth as her soothing arms enfolded me. The dirt under me liquified, dust flying up in a showgirl’s feathery splash as I sank into its cool, yielding depths.
Please heal me.
The soil seemed to understand that this was a spiritual healing as well as a physical one. It held me close as my soul mended, soaked up my screams as it knit flesh, muscles, and bones, rebuilding some parts, filling the holes in others.
It was agonizing, but it lent me a strange clarity. With every electric sting of my raw nerves, snippets of conversations—outside and inside my head—returned to me.
Sexton: “Before I take my leave, I must again stress how important it is that you reach out to your demon side. You cannot continue to suppress her. She will grow restless.”
And:
“It is tempting to strip yourself of emotion, is it not?” he asked. “To consider how best to proceed using only logic? Simple. Clean.”
Gods, I’d been so dumb. Worse yet, I’d allowed myself to be manipulated at a time when I should’ve been doubly on guard for it.
The grandpa, the sage mentor … he’d used my grief from the loss of my family to ingratiate himself into my life, and the second I’d allowed myself to care, he’d turned on me.
Mom’s words, the ones I’d repeated to myself over the years, tormented me now.
No good ever comes from dealing with demons, mija. Remember that.
One of the first questions Sexton had asked me, months ago, in Ronan’s pub: “Do you have concerns about my intentions?”
There had been no turning point. He’d planned this all along. Right from the beginning.
Sexton is a demon. Time barely affects him. He can do anything he wants. He can do anything he wants.
ANYTHING he wants.
Roots wrapped around my throat, wrists, and ankles. The surrounding soil heated up the way it did when it vaporized on my skin. Electricity crackled in my veins. Magic and heat and power jolted into me as if a high-voltage line had made contact with my entire nervous system.
And then, it was over.
The roots released me, and the soil returned to its normal, chilly temperature. The magic sparking in my bloodstream remained, a reminder of the power grounding my soul.
It was closer to sunset than sunrise when I finally resurfaced, healed and whole.
Ida was waiting for me. She set her book—The Art of War by Sun Tzu—down and leapt off the porch swing, a bath sheet and my phone clutched in her hands.
“Did you find your witch?” she asked.
I nodded and wrapped the towel around me. “You were right. There was always only me. The soil forgave me, as you said it would.”
“It’s tough being right all the time, but I live with the burden.”
I smiled then let it fade away. “While I was under, I had an epiphany of sorts. It’s about Sexton. I think he’s been—"
My cell rang.
Ida handed it to me. “Eh, you’d better grab that. Your messages have been going bonkers all afternoon.”
“Why? What time is it? Why didn’t anyone wake me up?” My throat was dry, but my voice was back to full power.
“It’s six, and we tried. The earth wouldn’t let you go.”
I answered the call, set the phone to my ear. “Hello, it’s Betty.”
“About time you answered. The Pallás wolves made a move,” Alpha Lydia spoke in short, angry bursts.
“I’ve got at least three dead rats, five more gravely injured, and another eleven badly shaken up.
He attacked a pack neighborhood on the east side of La Paloma, and one on the south side of Smokethorn. ”
I sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry. When did this happen?”
“La Paloma was around three this afternoon. Smokethorn was about an hour ago, so five, five-fifteen. Maya Reeves agreed to go sit with the families. The omega’s presence will help to calm them. Damn, I wish she’d let me bring her into our pack. We could all use her natural calm right now.”
After the way she’d reacted to Bronwyn’s deception, I was surprised Maya was still in town at all. “Why would Floyd go after the rats now?”
“Something must have set him off.”
Visions of dead wolves on the floor of Floyd’s basement swam into my brain.
“It wasn’t only us, either,” the alpha continued. “He’s hit every shifter group in the county today—except Sundance, of course. He’s not stupid enough to go after Alpha Blacke’s group—Blacke’s shifters keep their town locked down. Their security teams are constantly patrolling.”
“Again, why attack other shifter groups?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” She let out an impatient sigh. “I keep forgetting you aren’t an alpha leader.”
“I’m not even a shifter,” I said, “and I’ve been buried for half a day. So, please tell me what I’m missing.”
“Buried? Oh, right. Earth witch,” she said, answering her own question. “It’s a battle strategy. Shitty, but effective. Burn it all to the ground, so even if Ronan Pallás wins, he loses. Floyd Pallás is turning the county shifters against his wolves, so they’ll feel emboldened to attack them.”
“I’m not getting it. If Floyd destroys the pack, what will he rule?”
Her first response was another impatient sigh, her second a calming breath, and her third was, “Think about it. The non-wolf shifters won’t go after the strongest alphas. They’ll pick off the betas and weaker alphas first. Another battle strategy.”
“Ronan’s allies,” I said, understanding dawning.