Page 38 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

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A few hours earlier…

Fog swirls around our ankles as we walk, leaving Kate behind in the Witchwoods. Done this shit several times now and it never gets any easier. I’m angry, jaw tensed, blood running hot with poison and anger. It’s both a byproduct of the coven thing and an acute knowledge of my own shortcomings as a man.

“Every time we leave her in there, it feels like we’re abandoning her,” I admit, knowing that Brooks and Marlowe feel the same. Our leader is stoic, but the eyes on his hat have swiveled to the back of his cone to stare after Kate. Marlowe isn’t kicking up a fit, which is unusual. He had some epic fucking tantrums that first week that Kate spent in the woods by herself.

Tonight is different. He’s dark-eyed and angry, iron mask on his face for no other reason than he’s trying to hide his own cold rage.

We walk from the park to our big purple house with the turret and the rooftop deck, the wooded yard and the rhododendrons with the still-living flowers. Kate keeps all the garden shit looking pretty. She’s getting the hang of being a North. Might be December here in Humboldt, but our property is a bright blight of spring.

“We aren’t abandoning her,” Brooks says finally, the three of us making the wooden steps of the front porch creak under our combined weight. Flick whines pitifully near the front door, looking past us like he expects Kate to come around the corner at any moment. The dog likes me, loves me even. But he loves his mama, too. “We’re making the best decisions possible with the options we have.”

“Sugarcoat it however you want,” Marlowe growls out after tearing his mask down. He stabs his finger into the buttons of the keypad before throwing a dark look over his shoulder. His eyes are as black as the new moon sky above. “But this isn’t right. Kate belongs here with us, not eating kid-diddler intestines in a hostile world all by herself.”

He kicks the door open and snags the cat as he strides past, hefting her into his arms for a cuddle. Catnip blooms all over his hat, and the pussy goes nuts. I grin, but it doesn’t last, because Lo’s right. He’s fucking right.

“Tea first,” Brooks says with a tired sigh, taking his hat off to ruffle up his hair. He winks at the teapot, and the water begins to boil, whistling merrily in the quiet space. “Or coffee, your choice. We’ll work on the spell for a bit, and then we’ll hunt pedophiles or pimps or johns or whatever useless scum we can scrape off the pavement and feed into the tree.”

“Mint tea would be nice,” Marlowe grumbles, kicking his chair out as Stix goes nuts trying to claw her way onto his hat. He takes it off and tosses it onto the floor, letting her go at it like she’s in the middle of a drug binge. I slide into my own chair with a sigh, dragging my hand down my face.

Scooping up scumbags and offering them up for ritual sacrifice is fine. It’d be fun if Kate were here with us. Besides, I enjoy helping my community, doing a good deed here and there. I feel less and less like my father’s son everyday, and that’s a wonderful thing. But damn if I’m not worried. Brooks doesn’t know much about curses, but I was there when his mentor’s ghost came to warn us.

The only way to break the curse is to satisfy the conditions.

I gave Kate a challenge to race us to the finish line, and I’m starting to think that she’s way ahead in this game. If she wins, we lose. Because I know that woman, and I know that she’d rather sacrifice herself than see us hurt.

“Mint tea,” Brooks intones, preparing three mugs the old-fashioned way. Our shadows are toast, and magic is substantially more difficult without them. Doesn’t matter. We’ll find a way to get ‘em back eventually. “Honey?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice, thanks.” Marlowe is slumped and frowning, expression far away. I whistle for Ebon, and she flies in through an open window, settling on my shoulder and offering me a pecking kiss to the corner of my mouth. I stroke her absently, watching our Westwoods with fresh eyes. Now that he isn’t mouthing off to me on the regular, I like him. I like him a lot. He’s the brother I never had, and the best friend I always wanted.

He looks up and meets my eyes. I try to lighten the mood by raising both brows and grinning at him. We could be here all week by ourselves, sleeping very little and writing notes. Testing spells. Trying new ingredients. Every second spent in pursuit of breaking the curse.

“Admit it: I’m better than Dennis,” I tease and Marlowe laughs. It’s not the brightest laugh, but how could it be? Little bit bitter. Little bit sad. But a laugh is a laugh.

“You’re kidding me, right? He’s a bitter, rude asshole and a backstabber. Of course you’re better than him.” Lo crosses his arms, staring at me. West and East, opposite each other in the circle. Might be something to that, eh? Like Brooks and Kate challenge one another. Me and Marlowe do that, too. “But don’t distract me from this spell. We’re too close to get distracted.”

“This is a part of the spell,” Brooks says, making me a cup of the same mint honey tea when I don’t specify exactly what it is that I want. “Me, taking care of you both because I am the leader and this is all my fault.” He takes his seat, gently holding a cup of his own between his hands. He speaks calmly, slowly, matter-of-factly, leather-bound legs crossed. Bone collar. Hat covered in eyes.

Brooks insists on wearing these outfits on a night like tonight when anything could happen.

We need to be prepared. Even now, we’re sitting on the tip of a needle. But if we get nothing accomplished while Kate is away, we’ll never finish this spell. Sitting here and drinking tea together is charging our bodies, our hats, our spirits. Our morale is never low because Brooks knows what he’s doing.

I got real lucky. Maybe the only guy I would ever defer to in a tough situation. Marlowe and Kate, they could never be the leader. I almost smile into my tea, but I can’t ignore Brooks’ words.

“Now that we’ve all had a choice to go back and choose this fate for ourselves, we’re past the blame game. Isn’t that what you told Marlowe? Take your own advice.” I sip my drink and Brooks sighs, closing all eight of his eyes.

“You’re not wrong. Tonight is just… rougher than usual. I can’t figure out why Kate shifted on us like that. And our shadows? Fuck, that’s a rough break. I have to rethink everything in terms of the spell we had going.”

He’s not wrong. This is a setback, but we’ll figure it out. I drink my tea, and my body glows with magic. Marlowe, too. Brooks. We can glow together without Kate, but it hurts. It feels like blasphemy, like a curse in and of itself.

“Let’s feed her twice as many men as we usually do,” Brooks says after a few sips of his own tea. He’s staring at the table now in thought. There’s a loaf of sourdough bread there that we baked with Kate. Somehow, there’s cum in there, too, but you can’t taste it. The bread will last a long time, something we can keep in a pack in case we need a glamour while we’re out.

Treating the human world like it’s the Witchwoods is going to get us far. There’s nothing we can’t do as a coven. Nowhere we can’t go. Nothing we can’t avoid. Nothing we can’t have. The world is open to us. More than one world, maybe.

But none of that matters if we don’t get Kate back.

“You think she’ll be extra hungry tonight?” I ask, my wolf ears honed in on the Witch’s Tree. Even from this distance, I can hear the rustle of the breeze, the scamper of animals. The absence of Kate. I’m always waiting and listening to see when she’ll emerge from those woods.

I’m not the only one. I see a few of Brooks’ hat eyes locked in that direction as well.

Marlowe picks up his hat and narrows his eyes on it, spotting a snake on the brim. The reptile tries to bite him in the face, striking out and ending up in his fist. He breaks its neck and then tosses its body onto the table, spattering a bit of blood and venom from the creature’s hooked fangs.

“This is a good sacrifice. Preserve it,” Brooks instructs and Lo responds without hesitation, tearing an empty bottle from his hat and catching the snake’s blood as it drips off the edges of our kitchen table.

I continue to sip my mint tea, satisfied that Lo’s hat is pulling its weight. We don’t have to go out and hunt certain sacrifices; he can just make them on his hat. By will, if he focuses. And then, a few seconds later, the snake’s body turns into dirt and blows out the window on a supernatural breeze.

Marlowe caps the lid of the jar and sets it down, saving us the trouble of finding a serpent to kill. We needed a specific species for the curse spell, and it’s not something that lives around here. Nah, that was a Witchwoods snake.

“Excellent.” Brooks drains his cup and sets it aside, picking up the vial of blood and venom. He shakes it and the contents begin to glow. “Keep practicing, Lo. I want a kirin next.”

“You want me to grow a whole-ass unicorn-deer out of my hat? Are you nuts?” Marlowe scowls like Brooks is insane, but then his lips turn into a frown and he considers it. “That’d be a useful trick though, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s a game changer, Lo,” Brooks says calmly, but with a bit of fervor in his words. “Imagine how many sacrifices we could run through without having to go anywhere at all? If it takes mass slaughter to save Kate, then I have no problem painting the woods in blood.” He pockets the vial and stands up. “Stay here and practice. We’ll get the inhuman meat we need for Kate.”

“I hate being separated,” Marlowe complains, curling in on himself. He looks strange without his shadow wings, like half of a person or an inverted reflection. “But fine. I’ll see what I can do.” He sits back in his chair, staring at his hat. He makes poppies grow. Redwood seedlings. Trades those out for marigolds. A banana slug is curled around the cone this time. He plucks it off by the tail, and it tries to bite him. He flicks it onto the table and picks up the salt.

There’s no pleasure in killing things (except for the humans we give to Kate, they’re rotten), but we do what we have to do. Lo scoops the ooze that used to be the slug into another jar, capping it with a cork. He gets up to wash his hands with nice, steamy water.

“Alright,” Brooks begins, turning to me. Whatever he’s about to say is interrupted by a sharp, cutting feeling, like a knife being jammed beneath my ribs. Lo drops the soap into the sink and groans, hunching over it and clutching the edge with both hands hard enough to crack the counter.

Brooks is up on his feet already, wide-eyed and disturbed.

“She’s calling our magic,” he says quickly, and then he turns and starts running.

Marlowe and I are right behind him, sprinting through the front door without bothering to close it. The dog chases along beside us as we book it back in the direction of the Witch’s Tree. I’m taking Brooks seriously and doing what he wants, but goddamn if it isn’t hard to run.

Whatever Kate is doing—calling our magic the way we called to hers—it fucking hurts. I’m gasping and Marlowe is stumbling, and Brooks is way fucking ahead of us. I force myself to speed up, passing him and bursting beneath the trees at the McKay Community Forest.

I run through puddles and splash mud, break fern fronds to pieces under my boots. I’m heedless of the world, darting through the shadows and realizing as I go that the air is shifting from cool and wet to hot and steamy.

The forest fog turns into a sauna as I dart through it and skid to a stop in the clearing of the Witch’s Tree.

It’s on fire.

The Witch’s Tree—the one we couldn’t light up before—is blazing.

Brooks is right there, attempting to use his magic to get control of the flames.

“Oh my God.” Marlowe chokes the words out on my right, just before a massive waterfall of rain comes down from the sky, stifling the steam and smoke but doing absolutely nothing to the fire. I throw some wind in there, forcing the raindrops sideways as a violent gust billows through the woods.

The flames dance, but they don’t go out. If anything, they surge higher, destroying the tree and our only known entrance into the Witchwoods. We struggled to close that door with a full coven. If it shuts permanently, how are we supposed to open a new one when there’s only three of us?

Kate’s friends. We have Kate’s friends, I tell myself, but in truth, I’m terrified.

The exact same feeling I had when Kate died. When she left to follow the Hag’s lullaby.

I shove my arm into the hole on the tree, but nothing happens. The flames don’t even burn me. They don’t burn fucking anything in this forest except the only thing that matters.

“Focus!” Brooks calls out, like a general in the midst of war. He’s already in the south and on his knees, drawing sigils in the dirt. Improvising a spell on the fly. It’s incredible, the way he puts it together without slowing a beat.

She succeeded in calling on our magic. We did this, our coven. We set the Witch’s Tree on fire.

Embers and ashes float in the air above us as smoke blooms in the dark sky, funneling through the canopy and taking advantage of the clearing to seek the starry night above.

Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. North. South. East. West.

We’re rolling back the power that’s flowing from us and through the tree, into Kate. She’s the one that’s casting this spell, but she’s casting as if she’s got a full coven. We call her magic back through the tree, trying to stifle her spell.

Doesn’t work.

“This is a curse,” Brooks chokes out, pausing with his finger pressed to the tip of a triangle in the dirt. He stills. Considers. Looks up at the pile of ashes in front of us. There’s not much of the tree left. Brooks lunges forward, digging his hands into the ashes. Doesn’t burn him, but nothing happens either.

He’s panting hard as he sits there on all-fours, staring down at the cooling gray dirt as the heat fades from the air and the woods go quiet. Limbs creak. A stray forest spirit starts to scream, like a rabbit with its throat slit.

“ My home is gone!” it wails, and my blood turns to ice.

“No,” Marlowe whispers, eyes wide and veined with red. He’s about to lose it. He stands up and storms over to Brooks, hyperventilating as he stares at what’s left of the gate. As the gray dust spirals away in a wind I can’t control, it leaves behind a pile of bones.

Brooks sits back on his calves, holding one of the bones in his hand. He stares at it, green eyes calculating. He’s already trying to find a way out of this. But his hat? It speaks the truth of his emotions.

All six of those red eyes are wide and rolling, like a silent, violent, desperate scream.

I stay very still as a crack snaps straight through my psyche.

“Brooks.” I put my hands on my thighs, curling them into fists. Marlowe falls to the ground beside me, and even though he’s making no sound at all, he looks like he’s screaming, too. I think of his face after Kate died in the cottage. The absolute despair. He looks the same now. “What the fuck is this?”

“That bitch ,” he breathes, and then he lets out a roar of frustration that I haven’t seen from him before. Brooks stands and throws the bone across the clearing, letting it smash into the tree on the other side and turn to dust. I want to strangle him because for all we know, that bone could be our ticket out of this.

But in my heart, I know why he did that.

Because he could feel it, too, the spell that Kate was casting.

She was breaking the curse of the Hag Wytch by destroying the Witch’s Tree.

Well-played, kitten, I think, and then I turn and throw up nearly black blood. Brooks turns toward me as Marlowe does the same, and then all three of us are on our knees, coughing up blood and… Brooks spits and Kate’s wedding ring lands on the ground between the three of us.

We all go still and stare at each other.

“Did Kate just block us from entering the Witchwoods?” Marlowe asks, like his brain is starting to splinter. He loses it in the most spectacular fucking way, standing up and grabbing onto either side of his hat brim as he screams. Rain comes down in an icy deluge on all three of us. Lightning and thunder crack in the sky, and all the hair on the back of my neck stands up. “What the actual fucking fuck?! ”

“North,” Brooks breathes, picking up the ring and staring at it in horror. How it got from Kate’s finger into these ashes is a mystery. Our coven connection is entirely severed, and I feel it all over again: the realization that she’s dead.

What if those were her bones?

I look at Brooks, and I want to panic. I want to fucking freak out the way Marlowe is, like his skeleton is being pulled apart piece by piece. Tendons and ligaments snapping. Blood spraying. I can hear all of that in Lo’s cries. He was always too nice for the Witchwoods. We’ve broken him so many times that I never know if this is the fit that he doesn’t recover from.

If he becomes the irredeemable monster that he’s so afraid of.

I crawl over to Brooks and take Kate’s ring from his finger, slipping it on mine. I grab him by the face and we look at each other, panting and covered in blood.

“We’ll get out of this, yeah?” I ask him, because this is his job. I need him to instruct me, like a general in a combat zone. Marlowe, too. We need guidance here. Even with all the studying we’ve been doing, I don’t understand magic the way he does, and we need to find a way back to Kate as soon as possible.

If she’s still alive.

We have no coven connection to her anymore. I can’t sense our North. Our North is gone. It feels like I’m sitting at her gravesite and then, as if in response to my thoughts, a headstone pops crooked through the ground. It marks the space where the Witch’s Tree used to stand.

There’s no epitaph on it, but the sight is terrifying enough that Marlowe loses it all over again. He falls to the ground in a puddle and lets the rain come down on him. The forest spirit is still screaming, and the world feels like it’s tilted at the wrong angle.

Grief. This is what grief looks like, like we’ve just poked the thing in the tree and felt the universe go topsy-turvy on us.

“We have… the other coven,” Brooks says, but his voice is far away and all of the eyes on his hat are squeezed shut. “We… we’ll open a new gate. Someone must’ve put that one in the tree at some point, right? I’m sure… yeah, we’ll find another way. We’ll find it. We have to find it.”

Marlowe appears suicidal and Brooks notices, getting his shit together, and reaching up to grab my wrist.

“I said everything would be fine in the end, didn’t I? It doesn’t matter where Kate is. It doesn’t even matter if she’s dead. We’ll find her.” Brooks pushes me away and turns to crawl over to Marlowe on his knees. Both of them are on their knees. “Look at me. Trust me. That’s all you have to do Lo, is trust me.”

“I’m trying,” Marlowe breathes, swaying a little. He reaches out and grabs onto Brooks’ wrist, squeezing so hard that his witch claws cause our Southwoods to bleed. The hot crimson mixes with the rain as Lo tries to get himself together, water running from the brim of his hat in a cold waterfall. “But you make it so goddamn hard. I hate you right now.”

“I know,” Brooks murmurs, gently removing his coven mate’s hand. I make myself stand because it feels disrespectful to kneel when Kate is… Kate… Oh my fucking God. Marlowe stands up, too, but when he picks up a log and throws it, neither Brooks nor I stop him.

We let him rage while Brooks calculates and I struggle to breathe.

It feels like Kate is dead.

Brooks starts a fire in front of the gravestone, staring down at it. He throws no shadow. I throw no shadow. Marlowe looks alone in his grief without a demon-winged companion.

I walk over to him and grab onto his arms, stopping him from punching the redwood tree. Unlike Kate, he can’t break my hand. I catch his fist, arm muscles bunching as I keep back the force of that self-destructive rage.

He looks at me, and I look back at him.

Black eyes on gray ones.

We both turn to Brooks, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, a bubble of rain-free space around him. The rest of the clearing continues to be flooded, raindrops spattering in puddles and catching the light from the flames.

“Oh, baby,” Brooks murmurs, almost to himself. “Wait until you fucking see what I’m going to do to that ass when I find you.”

And then he puts his face in his hands and just sits there. He’ll rally himself. He always does. But just for a minute, he feels it. We all feel it.

A broken coven of widowers.

“Kate.” Marlowe sits down hard on the ground, but I stay standing, leaning back against the tree with a howl stuck in the back of my throat.

Don’t let it out, Tanner. Even if it’s a lie, tell yourself that everything will work out just fine. Because if you don’t, you’ll fall apart and then what? Then what?

“Now what?” I ask, and Brooks drops his hands to his lap. “Brooks, tell me what to do, or I swear to God.”

“Catch your tears,” he says, his voice encased in ice. His expression is distant, strange. “The first tears of grief are a powerful thing.”

Shamelessly, all alone in the woods, we allow ourselves to gather all the very worst feelings and thoughts, and we channel them into magic we can use.

Eventually.

That’s the beginning of hell.

I thought I’d seen it all before, but I haven’t seen shit just yet.