Page 13 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

My lovers are psychotic.

I mean, I knew that already, but this shit is on a whole other level.

“Come ‘ere, Kate,” Marlowe murmurs, twisting a knife around his fingers. He’s got some skills with that blade, knows a few magic tricks. I bet Tanner taught him all that. “If you don’t show yourself in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to stab myself right here.” He taps at his thigh with his left hand. “Probably won’t die, but if I hit an artery …” He trails off, pausing in the middle of the grass with a mausoleum at his back and spirits hovering over his head.

Thousands of them, glowing orbs bobbing gently in the starry night sky.

We’re in the Ferndale Cemetery. It’s Lo’s turn to chase me, so I’m hiding on the top of a mausoleum. He’s easier to hide from than Tanner or Brooks. Running from him is hard, even with my wings. This is a better strategy.

I’d have to be insane to miss the giant pentagram drawn through the cemetery in blood. I didn’t see who drew it, but it must’ve been Brooks. Tanner was sleeping this morning and Marlowe’s been chasing me since. I should’ve known he was herding me over here.

My ending up here wasn’t by accident.

They’re preparing a spell, but I’m not sure what it is. I don’t recognize any of the ingredients. I’m fine with that, but I can’t let them catch me. What if they’re only pretending to have a spell, using that to lure me out of hiding so they can grab me?

I bite my lip, shifting around and then freezing when a pebble gets knocked off the roof and goes bouncing. It pings against a gravestone as Marlowe spins, slamming the blade into a wooden post. We’re at the very edge of the cemetery with a chicken wire fence that’s seen better days.

“You think I’m fucking around?” he asks me, dark eyes darting around the perfectly silent space. Graveyards are quiet on a good day, but tonight, it’s positively wicked with the thick fog and the heavy stars and the murmuring spirits. I had no idea so many of them would gather at their own graves. They’re the only things moving besides us, just the Hag Wytch, her coven, and the restless spirits of the dead.

A spirit flickers to life on a mausoleum close to mine, raising her finger to her lips. Shh. She mouths the sound and then flickers out of sight. I’m sure that she’s the same ghost that tried to sign to me in the Witchwoods.

The ghost that’s following me around is Brooks’ sister. Why she’s following me and not him, that part I don’t understand. I’m afraid I might eat her. I could eat all of these spirits if I were to black out now. I almost want to eat them anyway.

I need to get out of here, I think, turning to go. I’ll hop over the fence and take off. The only part of me I’ll leave behind are a few feathers and the rhythmic thump, thump, thump of wings.

“Last chance, Kate!” Marlowe yells, raising the blade up in his right hand. He’s dressed in one of those gorgeous jackets that he must’ve pilfered from the cottage. Harlequin padded leather and a collar of feathers. He looks amazing in leather pants and boots, his dark hair tousled by a cool sea breeze.

I want him so bad. I want to go to him. Call to him. Beg him to rescue me from the horrible fate I’ve gotten myself into. But I can’t. No matter what, I can’t give into his threats—

Marlowe slams the knife down into his leg, face scrunching with pain as he stumbles. He lets go of the blade and the handle quivers as he groans and then goes down to one knee. Red is spurting out of the wound on either side of the knife, and I’m sure he’s hit something vital.

So where’s Brooks with the salve? I look around, but there’s no one. No Tanner. No Brooks. Just me and Marlowe and the agitated spirits, pale green and purple balls of light floating in the space between the invasive Witchwoods trees and the obnoxious Witchwoods flowers.

“Fuck, Marlowe.” I leap down from the mausoleum, racing over to him and falling to my knees at his side. “Oh, Lo.” I put my hands around the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.

My eyes lift to his and he isn’t smiling.

Hands clamp down on my shoulders and I let out a scream of frustration.

“I almost killed Tanner!” I shout at, well, Tanner as he drags me back and Brooks squats beside Lo, removing the blade with a grunt. Blood spatters in tiny speckles against Brooks’ severe face as he smears that precious minty paste over Marlowe’s wound. Good to know that this shit we’ve been using to heal—including on poor scalped Talia—was made with semen. Wonderful.

“Almost being the key word, honey.” Tanner binds my hands behind my back with— Oh shit, he actually used real handcuffs. I’m blushing even as I’m struggling to get away from him. If I try hard enough, I’m sure I can snap the chain on the cuffs, too. “I ain’t dead, and you sure as fuck aren’t going anywhere.”

“Shit, that hurt. I really didn’t think you were gonna make me do it.” Marlowe’s eyes are closed, his head tilted back against the gray gravestone. His hat blooms with flytraps, and I’m not sure at all what to make of that.

“Listen up.” Brooks is there in front of me, staring with too many eyes. He grabs my jaw as I wail, not for myself but for them. I could black out at any second. I’m not in control of the things I do when I black out. I’ve killed people, I know that.

I’ve eaten them.

I know that, too.

“I won’t be conscious for long,” I warn him as Tanner squats down behind me, peering around my shoulder and into my face. He’s not smiling either. Likely he’s pissed as hell. I can understand that. I’m not running away for the fun of it. I can feel that stretching anxiety, too, that strangeness that permeates my blood when we’re separated. It’s disgusting. But guess what? When they were dead, it was worse. I can’t go through that again. Ever.

I no longer view the Hag Wytch as a villain, but as a victim. She was as helpless in the throes of this curse as I am. And who knows how she became the Hag in the first place? However it happened, it’s a fate worse than death.

“If that’s true, then do as I say—quickly.” Brooks is harsh, and I bristle, but now isn’t the time to argue. He squeezes my jaw between his fingers and leans down, looking like he’s torn between kissing me and tearing me apart verbally. “We’re going to put our cocks in your mouth—”

“I’ll bite them off for real this time.” I’m panicking now. They want to have sex again ? How did that turn out last time? I’m not doing it. “Please don’t. You might die. If you don’t, and the salve heals you, I doubt your cock will grow back.”

“My cock is useless without you around,” Brooks says, and it’s so smooth that I’m knocked senseless. Oh. Wow. Should that have sounded romantic? I might be insane. One of my lovers just stabbed himself in the leg to lure me here. The other doesn’t mind risking his penis in order to … do whatever this spell does. “So be a slutty little witch for us and swallow good.”

Brooks lifts a pair of items in his palm as Marlowe rubs at the hole in his leather pants, still frowning at me, like it’s somehow my fault that he stabbed himself. Tanner keeps his right hand curled around my shoulder, witch claws digging into my skin.

“If you can heal from anything, we can be as rough as we want, eh?” he whispers in my ear, and I shiver. Tanner leans in close and smiles against my neck, but it’s an ugly smile. It’s a threatening smile. “You’re not a good girl, at all. It’s a lie when we call you that. You’re a very, very bad girl.”

My hat slaps him with its tongue, but he doesn’t mind. Because he knows what emotions I’ll be tasting. Love and obsession, nearly indistinguishable from one another.

“And you’re all stupid, fucking pricks,” I grind out, but then Brooks pushes the rubber items into my mouth, using a finger to situate them between my back teeth. I can no longer bite down. I shift my wings, frustrated by the ropes that Tanner’s twisted around them. I’m staked to the ground like a kite.

“Yeah, yeah. Stupid fucking pricks doing their best to wake your friends up.” Marlowe points his finger across the graveyard and I turn, noticing the silk-robed lump lying in the southern point of the pentagram. Long black hair spills like ink against the wet, mossy ground. Glowing Witchwoods mushrooms surround her, bleeding glitter.

Wake my friends up? The idea excites me for all of two seconds before I remember that I could inadvertently rip their throats out. Gut them. Consume them.

“If you’re worried,” Brooks says, rising to his feet and putting his hand on the top of my head. “Suck hard.”

He opens his pants with his left hand, guiding the angry red tip of his cock to my mouth. Nudging my lips with his crown. Sliding into the back of my throat and bumping against the end of me. I gag a little, but I open wider. I’m immortal now. I can’t be hurt.

I want him to go hard. I shift a little, and Brooks offers the barest flutter of a patronizing smile.

“Yeah, this is fun, isn’t it North? So why do you keep running from me?” He draws out and traces my lips with the head of his cock, fingers tightening on my scalp. Spirits hang above his head like lanterns, and I’m so thankful that his sister’s ghost took off before we got to this point. “Next time we try to catch you, Kate, just come willingly.”

Antlers sprout from his hat like a threat.

He snatches my head with both hands, pumping his hips hard against my face. Brooks tastes like sea salt and pre-ejac, and the slurpy wet sound of him fucking my mouth echoes across the silent graveyard.

Houses surround the narrow block, colorful ones with bright siding and cheery white trim. With towers and turrets and gingerbread detail and fish scale siding. It’s a work of art punctured with sky-high trees bigger around than the houses themselves.

Our world and the Witchwoods, locked in inappropriate coitus.

We’re waking my friends up. A second full coven. More power. We can fix this. If we successfully sealed the Witch’s Tree before, we can do it again.

I do my best to pleasure Brooks with the bite guards in, flicking my tongue against his piercings and wondering what spells might be trapped inside. I bathe his shaft in saliva and let it drip from my mouth down my chin. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.

After I left the men at the Carson Mansion, after I spent hours doing the devil only knows what, I came back to my senses and went to my grandmother’s house. Climbed in the upstairs window. Ignored the abhorrent silence and the missing tick of the grandfather clock. I dressed myself in overalls, ones spattered with rainbow paint from a dozen different jobs. Ones with a torn strap.

I put those on with a pair of boots and a tie dye crop top that leaves my sides bare. Drool drips onto the bib portion of the overalls, soaking the well-worn denim. With a sliver of crescent moon in the sky behind his hat, Brooks pounds into my face and fills the silent space with messy, dirty life.

It’s embarrassing that we’re the only ones making sounds. That the sounds we’re making are moans and slaps and sucking. The eyes on his hat go wonky, rolling and then crashing shut as he jerks and pumps, bottoming-out and hitting the back of my throat.

A hot burst of liquid hits my tongue, and I swallow frantically to keep it all down. My throat works overtime, but some drips out anyway, sliding down my chin and falling between my breasts. A few drops hit the dirt in front of my knees.

My pussy hurts. I need it touched or I’ll die.

Somehow, I suspect that they’re not going to touch it.

Brooks steps back, dick sliding from my lips, and our eyes meet. You have no idea how much I want you, North, his expression says.

And then I can’t see him anymore because Tanner is looming above me looking mean and cold and angry.

“You’re not in trouble for eating me. What’d I tell ya? I said I would carve up my own body if you needed it. I promised you consensual cannibalism.” He lifts my chin with his fingers, tracing the pearly cum on my bottom lip with his thumb. Marlowe makes a needy noise from behind him, shifting around in a puddle of his own blood, still leaned back against the gravestone and watching with an arm thrown across his knee. “But you are in trouble for running—again.”

Tanner takes a handful of my hair and shoves his pants down his hips with his other hand. I’m bound and gagged and on my knees, and he looks at me like I’m the center of his universe. He curls his inked fingers around his cock, using his thumb to toy with a few choice piercings. Flicking them. Rubbing them. Tugging on a silver ring.

He plays with himself as I stare up at him, his hat tilted to one side, wolf ears half-folded. Tanner cocks a smirk, squatting down and putting his palm into the pool of blood around Marlowe.

“What the actual fuck are you—” Marlowe starts, but he stops talking when Tanner stands back up, using his Westwoods’ blood as lube. He jerks himself off, lazy and messy, head tilted back, slouched and relaxed. It’s all bullshit. His eyes are on mine, and his mouth is a wire. Sharp and thin and taut.

Tanner works himself up until his sack is tight and heavy, pushing just the tip in so that he can finish in my mouth. He punishes me by refusing us both what we want most: to touch. Tears prick my eyes as he pulls away and I swallow, fervently and aggressively.

Each time I see them, it could be the last time. I try to tell him that with my eyes, but he simply walks around me and sits behind me again. We’re leaned up against the side of another gravestone, I think, but it’s hard to tell. I don’t dare look away from Marlowe.

“Didn’t think I’d actually stab myself?” he asks, standing up and approaching me with a prism of feeling in his face. Facets of rage. Relief. Love. Tenderness. “I’ll do that and worse. I fucking warned you, Katelynn. If you do something crazy again or try to disappear on me, I’ll kill myself. You better be around to rescue me if I try.”

I make a noise at him, but he just laughs, raking trembling fingers through his hair. I catch sight of the snake tattooed on his hand, the crescent moon and bat wings on his fingers. He crosses his fingers in front of his face.

“Two birds, one stone, Kate. I want to fuck your mouth and make you eat my cum. I have to fuck your mouth and make you eat my cum for the spell. Mm. Win-win.” He makes a show of using both hands to undo his leather pants, drawing them down all the way to the knees and revealing the mess of blood on his thigh. No scar though. That’s a relief.

The flytraps on his hat die and fall off the sides of the brim, replaced by red and pink roses. They’re a strange burst of color against the muted gray fog of the cemetery, against the dead animal that Brooks is dragging into the center of the upside-down star. Tanner curls his fingers around my arms, keeping me in place as his shadow crawls over the sides of nearby tombs, 2D slithers of demon tails and a too long tongue.

Marlowe wears his shadow wings, reaching up to part his leather jacket so that I can see his abs and chest, too. Not a mistake. His coven sigil begins to glow green, and his entire body fills with light. We both broadcast beams of magic across the gravestones.

That cold, mean face of Lo’s breaks a little. He’s tough. He’s ruthless. He’ll do what needs to be done. But oh my, can that man love. He loves so hard and so fierce. Dennis and Miriam nearly destroyed him with their betrayal, and I … I might have to destroy him by one day leaving forever.

“That’s better,” Tanner whispers, nuzzling into my neck as Brooks rejoins us, bringing his shadow with him. It’s holding a small metal birdcage on the end of a chain, a silent yellow canary lying on the bottom. It’s either asleep or dead, I’m not sure. Brooks offers me a grim smile that reaches all of his many eyes, lifting up a stick of incense and blowing on the end to light it.

“Hurry and finish,” he says, gently enough.

Marlowe nods, and I sense a shift amongst the men. Something has changed between them. All of the animosity is … gone. It’s fled like the trapped spirits fled the Hag’s endless prison. That makes me so goddamn happy that I shine even brighter, and my coven sigil swirls with their mixed colors. The design throbs, an almost painful scar on a body that now heals instantly from every wound.

Lo pushes in all the way and holds me there with my lips pressed against his pelvis. My eyes tear up, but he knows just how long to keep me there before pulling out. He gives me a minute to breathe, and then he’s back in and doing it all over again. Plunging deep. Holding me with his entire cock between my lips.

I swallow around him, rock my tongue back and forth. I hum. He loves that, skin rippling with goose bumps and leather jacket rustling as he groans and rolls his head around on his neck. As I suck him, I think about how he stabbed himself to lure me out here. How easily it worked.

He would go all the way, wouldn’t he? Put himself on the brink of death to draw me out.

Damn it, these fucking Witchwood boys did me dirty. Are doing me dirty. Right now.

His orgasm is so quick, it makes the other two look lazy and slow. He spills all of that seed down my throat, leaving his shaft in place as I swallow. More of him drips out of me than either of the other two, hitting my breasts and rolling down between them in sticky stripes.

Marlowe takes a step back and Brooks frowns, moving forward and holding out the hand that isn’t clutching the incense stick.

“Spit,” he commands, and I do. I drop the bite guards into his palm and he clutches his fingers around them, burying them in the pocket of his own leather jacket. It’s different than Lo’s, less flashy with too many pockets and weird charms. I’ve never seen it before, but I like it. He looks hot as fuck in it. “Untie her.” He nods to Tanner, and the cuffs and rope are removed. I rub at my shoulders, cheeks going red. “Kate, get it all. Swallow as much as you can. The more, the better.”

Tanner stands up so that all three of them are surrounding me, watching as I swipe cum from my fingers and lick them clean. Dip those same fingers between my breasts to catch the rest. Suck them off.

“Shit,” Marlowe growls, frantically ruffling his hair. My wings are still bound and staked to the ground, but I’m able to stand. Turns out, I’m standing on the northernmost part of the inverted star, dead-center between two points. “You make it hard to focus on practical things, Kate.”

I glare at him. At all three of them, and then I pull the stakes out—easily.

“I could go fall Hag and attack you. This isn’t safe. Not for you or the girls. Let’s get this spell done as quickly as we can and then let me go again.”

They all laugh at me which drives me nuts.

“Get in position and wait for my instructions,” Brooks intones, walking over to stand beside Georgia. I look around and find Talia lying on the ground on the opposite side of a weeping angel. Tanner drags her to my feet before taking his own place in the east with Tacy. Marlowe is in the west with Fernanda.

Brooks’ antlered shadow passes the birdcage over to him. With the incense stick in one hand and the cage swinging from the other, he walks the shape of the pentagram, dressed in leather and a wilted hat and a determined frown. Our eyes snap together like metal buttons as he passes by, sealing the fabric of our intent.

Thank you, Brooks, I think, but I don’t dare say it outloud for fear of messing up the spell. He passes on the other side of me, and I give a violent shudder at his nearness. I can still taste the obscene flavor of him on my mouth, and my hat reacts by licking its lips. Tanner chuckles from his position in the east and Marlowe moves slightly, scuffing his boots on the ground and giving me the chills.

Across the circle, I spot Brooks’ sister—Sharyn—again. She’s signing at me, lifting her right hand up and poking the pointer finger of her left against her wrist as she makes a karate chop motion. Her spirit is a gossamer whisper against the gray and green backdrop, pits for eyes, and lips that mouth the words she’s trying to say with her hands.

“ Five minutes,” she tells me, and I turn to look at Brooks as he continues his ritualistic walk. He hasn’t seen her. Neither has Tanner or Marlowe. When I look back, she’s gone, but somehow I get the idea that she’s trying to warn me. Five minutes for what? Until I lose consciousness again?

Brooks is swinging the birdcage from side to side, the rhythmic creak of the metal chain echoing in the silent space. He steps over a teenager clutching a pack of cigarettes, like maybe she snuck into the cemetery to smoke. He nudges her out of the pentagram as he passes, continuing that eerie hum.

The other boys join in, so I do, too.

And oh my fucking fuck, the sound of our voices raised together is enough to make me cry again. Fat tears drip down my cheeks as we hum, the air perfumed with an earthy incense (dragon’s blood, possibly?) and that same persistent sea fog.

Our leader continues moving through the cemetery, walking the shape of the star, an element I imagine he added in honor of Georgia’s coven. The blood that was used to draw the shape begins to glow like the four of us, adding a splash of red across tombs and sunken crypt doors and headstones.

The graveyard is bathed in the color of blood, the crescent moon is a silver hook, and I’m counting the seconds in my head. Five minutes, Sharyn said. I’m going to see if she’s warning me about the black out, if that’s what she’s been trying to tell me this whole time.

Brooks pauses in the center of our group, squatting down to place the end of the incense stick into some grave dirt. He holds up the birdcage with his other hand and then lets out a whistle. The canary in the cage snaps to, bouncing up to the wooden swing in the center and letting out a series of cheerful notes that echo strangely in the empty world.

The bird cocks its head back and forth, like it’s confused by the lack of response to its song.

Our Southwoods opens the door and releases the canary before setting the cage aside and standing up. He returns to his spot in the south and then faces the wolf carcass in the center of the circle.

Fire lifts along the design, tracing the lines of blood and taking over the pentagram. Talia and I are now bracketed between two short walls of flame. I realize belatedly that while this is an inverted pentagram, it’s also a set of triangles, like the ones that represent our directional symbols.

I lift my head suddenly and find Brooks across the circle, green eyes lit with dancing orange flames. You’re so clever. A scholar and an inventor. You’re a good man, Brooks McDowell. The spirits above us are crying, talking, wailing, a sea of chatter and sound. Some of them zip off, floating down the empty streets and past Victorian homes with dark windows and heavy curtains.

Other spirits float down and disappear into the earth in front of their respective graves. Sharyn appears behind Brooks, signing to me again. Three minutes , she tells me this time. Brooks glances over his shoulder, but she’s gone before he can spot her.

He turns back and lifts his arms, so I do the same.

“This part is just for you, Kate,” he tells me, arms still lifted in the air. “There are chalices at each cardinal point filled with red wine.” His mouth twists to the side in a smirk. “Spit into all four of them. You’ll drink the one in the north and we’ll handle the rest.”

My mouth twitches in annoyance. Seriously, Brooks? I take back my happy thoughts. You’re nothing but a perv and a weirdo.

“Or we could spend six days using my mentor’s model and likely run out of time to fix the gate before everyone wakes up.”

Brooks’ dry, derisive humour is exactly what I needed to hear. I pick up my own cup and, with a tired sigh, spit into the wine and then throw it back. It makes me gag, but I manage to get it all down.

I make my way to the East first, and Tanner holds out his goblet with a sly smile. He’s wearing a jacket, too, a brown leather half-jacket with gray fur trim on the neck and sleeves. His expression is sly, arm outstretched, eyes as gray as the fur on his coat.

I spit into the liquid without taking my gaze from his. Too dangerous.

“Ain’t a chore for me, kitten.” He downs the drink in a single swallow and doesn’t flinch. His lower lip has a shiny red stain that he flicks away with his tongue. The flirtation only lasts so long, and I watch as his face falls and then reforms into something cold and detached. That’s his hunter’s face. I’m now very familiar with that expression.

I squeeze his hand as I pass, heading South. The flames don’t hurt when I pass through them, but it’s disorienting. I find myself in front of Brooks, trying not to look at his face and ending up with his fingers on my chin. He forces me to look at him, and it’s very hard to breathe.

Here we are in this strange space where all I want to do is go home, and all I can do is flee.

Being the Hag Wytch is hell. It’s why the magic worked, why I was able to get three lives in exchange for one. I haven’t just given up my life; I’ve given up my eternity. My entire soul is forfeit, and I’d do it all over again.

“I’m not sorry for what I’ve done,” I tell Brooks before he can speak, and he narrows his eyes at me.

“You will be, after I fix all of this.” His shadow uses a clawed finger, spinning the shadowed digit in a circle to indicate the existential nightmare we find ourselves in. “You best believe that when I get my hands on your ass, I’m going to wreak havoc.”

“Stop it.” I slap his hand away, but he doesn’t let go. That’s okay. I didn’t want him to let go.

He holds the goblet up to my mouth, and I dutifully spit into it for him while meeting his eyes. He drinks it while doing the same, swiping his thumb over my lower lip before finally letting go.

Marlowe is last, eyes closed, dark hair lifted in an ethereal breeze. Tanner’s doing? Or just the wind off the dunes?

He cracks his gaze at my approach, and there’s so much sorrow in his eyes that I don’t know what to do with.

“When we get home, let’s redo that turret room. Turn it into a library or whatever it is you nerd girls like.” He tries to make a joke out of it, but it doesn’t work because his voice catches and then he’s scowling at me with one of his usual persnickety expressions and snatching my wrist in two strong fingers.

Lo drags me over to him and then snags his goblet off the top of a chipped granite monument. Our Bodies Are Gone, But Our Love Remains is chiseled into the side of it. A couple is buried here. Oh, God. Marlowe shoves the cup against my mouth, leaning in toward me and staring at my lips.

“Spit in it, Kate. I love the taste of your filthy mouth.”

I’d spit on him if I hadn’t watched him plunge a blade into his chest and die. I do it in the drink instead, the taste of their mixed cum still clinging to my lips. This is the point of all that, huh? Love it, Brooks, using a literal chalice. Very clever indeed. Maybe it’s both a praise and a condemnation?

Marlowe looks around the side of the goblet at me as he drinks, a bead of wine rolling down his face and along the strong column of his neck. I lunge forward and lick the stripe of red off without fully realizing what I’m doing. He’s that hot. He makes me do things I would never otherwise do.

It’s a mistake.

Salty sweat and healthy pulse and lifeblood and endless hunger—

I need—

A bite—

I throw myself back onto my ass, blood all over the lower half of my face, draining over my breasts. My hat-tongue hurts so bad it feels like I might pass out. My hat groans, the cone part convulsing around my head like it’s a mouth.

I’ve bitten off my hat-tongue. It darted between my teeth and Lo’s neck, saving his life. It’ll grow back … I think … but it really, really, really hurts. Some temporary sense has snapped back into me. The pain has cleared my head briefly.

I stand up and start running, causing all three of the men to move toward me.

“I’ve got it, but I’m running out of time!” I yell at them, watching as the fire covering the pentagram dies down and plants take over the shape, blooming in thick tufts along those blood-drawn lines.

Sharyn’s spirit counts down from sixty. I see her lips move, and I start to count with her.

Marlowe walks the circle with sweet-scented salt, his hat brim falling dangerously low over his right eye under the weight of too many earth-colored mushrooms. The pentagram freezes like a waist-high wall of ice.

Tanner melts it with the same golden oil the men used to consecrate me with on our first official day together. “Just so you know, this has got semen in it, too,” he whispers as he walks by, but I’m not surprised. Not at all. The pentagram blurs as salted fog rushes in to take its shape.

And then all of the elements die away and my girls begin to stir, yawning and groaning as they come to with clumps of moss or bits of mud stuck to their naked cheeks.

“What in the fucking hell is going on?” Georgia demands as Brooks stalks forward and uses the machete to slice some meat from the flank of the dead wolf. It’s still got silver fur clinging to the side with the skin. He tosses it at her and then turns, all of the eyes of his hat reorienting themselves so that he can look at all seven people around him at once.

The eyes on his face, he saves both of them for me.

“Eat the raw flesh. Now. All four of you or you’ll fall back asleep.” Brooks starts toward me, and then … nothing.