Page 46 of Wicching Hour (The Sea Wicche Chronicles #3)

FORTY-SIX

Wicching Hour

F inally, the real house. It was a huge stone and plaster affair that might have been beautiful in its heyday, but now it looked as though it was in the final stages of a painful and terminal disease.

Vines crawled up the crumbling walls, like the earth itself was doing what it could to pull the house into its grave. The windows, like sunken eyes, with dark, moldy circles under them, stared sightlessly out. Just being near it sent a chill down my spine.

I paused and studied the dirty tiles beneath my shoes. “This was in my vision.”

Bracken moved up beside me. “This is where I died?”

I nodded.

He patted my shoulder. “Not to worry. I promise not to touch any doorknobs. In fact, just to be safe”—he pulled out a pair of my gloves and put them on, handing pairs to Declan and Robert as well—“I thought we could all wear gloves. A fellowship of handwear, as it were.”

I leaned in and kissed his cheek, something the real me couldn’t do without visions.

He went a bit pink around the ears and waved off my thanks while Robert and Declan did their best to fit my gloves on their hands.

“At least they’re stretchy,” Robert said.

Declan held up his hands and it was hard not to laugh. He was able to yank them down to about mid-palm.

“They look good on you,” I told him.

Grinning, he rolled his eyes at that. The humor left him, though, as he looked up at the cancer we were about to enter.

Moving slowly, I approached the front door, waiting for the tingle of a ward nearby but not feeling it. “The lack of another ward is making me very nervous,” I whispered.

“We have gone through quite a few,” Robert said. “She has to get in and out herself, doesn’t she?”

“The wards would be set to her,” I said. Sometimes I forgot that everyone else wasn’t protected by a million wards. Some, thankfully, got to just live their lives. “Cal can walk through them and turn doorknobs. She’s the key that opens and locks them.”

When I got to the doorstep, I felt a last line of defense. I turned to Bracken and held out my hand. He placed the blade in it and then pulled Robert and Declan back. I put the knife tip in the keyhole and this time, it sounded like a soap bubble popping.

Backtracking down the steps, I handed off the blade and then flicked my fingers, trying to open the door with magic. Nothing happened.

“I could kick it down,” Declan said.

I shook my head. “I’d prefer you kept both your legs.”

I suddenly realized I was getting very hot. My legs and butt felt like they were on fire. I looked at the men, who were calmly staring back at me.

“What’s the matter?” Declan asked.

“Don’t you feel it?” I turned and looked around, now in a real panic. “I’m on fire!”

I felt my real self get yanked in the water and the heat began to dissipate.

“What’s happening?” Declan tried to grab my arm, but his hand went right through me. “You’re flickering in and out. What is it?”

I held up my hands, asking for a minute while I focused on what was happening underwater.

An octopus was dragging me away from where I’d been sitting, where the ocean floor was now red and glowing, like lava was about to burst out of the ground. The octopus was joined by a buddy; they each took an arm and dragged me behind rocks covered in anemones and sea stars.

Out of the sand where I’d been sitting the head of a hellhound emerged, teeth first. He climbed out, his red glowing eyes scanning the area for me. Shitshitshit .

Before I had a chance to throw a spell, two great white sharks dove down and ripped it apart. The water was filled with the black liquid that ran in a hellhound’s veins, but then the water swirled it into a funnel and the black was gone.

Suckers covered my body as the octopuses worked together to hide me. Thank you . Deciding everything was under control for the moment, I went back to the men. When I looked around, I saw Declan running for the break in the wall.

“Wait!”

He kept going. I smacked Robert. He flinched away from me and then shouted to Declan, who was already trying to squeeze through. Thankfully, he stopped before he got burned again.

I focused on making myself heard and tried again. “Where are you going?”

He jogged back with his arms open. “What do you mean where am I going? You said you were on fire and then disappeared.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry about that. In my defense, I was. She sent one of her hellhounds after me. An octopus and his buddy dragged my body away from the Hell portal opening beneath me. They’re actually covering my body right now, no doubt making me look like coral. Anyway, a couple of sharks killed the hound and I’m back.”

Robert turned to Declan. “Is it always like this?”

Declan rubbed his hands over his face. “Far too often.”

Robert shook his head and studied me again. “We had no idea. I always thought of you as Elizabeth’s artistic niece who kept to herself.”

“Hell, that’s better than most of them think of me, so I’ll take it. Meanwhile, we need to get in, and wicche magic isn’t doing it. Move back, guys. Calliope has had too much time to prepare for us.”

Imposing my will over the natural world, I pulled on the ocean around me and flung my hands at the door. If it hadn’t worked, I would have looked damn stupid. As it was, a huge wave knocked down the doors and flooded the floors beyond.

“Well done,” Bracken said, patting my shoulder. “If I’m not mistaken, everywhere the ocean has touched is now yours.” He extended his hand, inviting me to go first.

Eyes wide, Robert looked like he was frozen in place. When I waved him forward, he blinked and swallowed.

“Okay now?” I asked.

Still mute, he nodded.

I stepped through the doorway and was hit by a horrible stench.

Following closely, Declan grimaced. “It’s mold, candle wax, blood, and shit.” His eyes lightened and his long, razor-sharp claws slid out through the too-small gloves. He surveyed the room and then pointed at a door to the right. “It’s coming from behind there.”

“I feel like we should check this floor, just to make sure nothing is sneaking behind us but?—”

Robert flew up in the air. For half a beat, we all stared up, trying to understand what had just happened, then I made out the outline of a monstrous spider clinging to the high ceiling. It appeared to have stung Robert with a paralytic because he stopped struggling. Declan leapt, claws out, as the spider began to cocoon his prey.

I lifted my hand to help, but Bracken pulled me away.

“It’s a diversion,” he said. “Declan will kill it. You and I need to find Cal.”

A spider leg hit the wet floor and sizzled in the ocean water. Bracken was right. It killed me to do it, but Cal had to be stopped and I had to trust Declan to hold his own.

Bracken reached for the doorknob and then stopped himself with a headshake. His hands moved in a spell. The doorknob turned and the door popped open. He looked down into the dark and then back at me. “Here we go.”

I took the lead again, heading down the stone steps. Declan was right: The stench was overwhelming down here. Even in this form, I felt bile rising. I heard skittering around us, but I didn’t want to know what it was.

At the base of the stairs, we saw three doors. Around the edges of one, torchlight flickered and I heard the low murmur of chanting. We didn’t have time to check and battle whatever was behind all these doors.

Closing my eyes, I drew from the ocean and asked for my phosphorescent friends to help. My head fell back as I asked the Goddess for assistance as well. As a wave crested within me, I let go and a huge wave splashed up the walls and went under the doors.

The dark door behind us now glowed phosphorescent. The flickering light and chanting had been a ploy. Bracken and I moved to the now glowing door. I flicked my fingers, but it didn’t open. Bracken tried his spell and again, nothing. He pulled the blade out of his pocket and ran it along the seam of the door where a latch would be.

The door swung in. Soft glowing light from the wet floor cast strange shadows in the dark room. Copying the queen’s move, I made a ball of light in my hand and tossed it up toward the ceiling. The ball burst, splashing light around the room. Gran was crumpled in the corner, seemingly thrown there and forgotten.

The concrete floor dipped in the middle, where I assumed there was some kind of drainage. I didn’t want to think about what needed to be hosed down in this room. Gran, at least, was on the far side, so she wasn’t lying in water.

What I could see of her arm was covered in bleeding cuts. Her clothes were dirty and rumpled. Her hair had fallen from its bun. I sensed movement, though. She was breathing. Stepping in, I braced for an attack. The room seemed empty but for Gran and a worktable with a grimoire, a ceremonial bowl filled with a foul liquid, and an athame. Calliope’s ceremonial dagger was covered in blood, no doubt Gran’s.

I only felt one person in the room, so while Bracken approached the book, I went to Gran, laying my hand on her shoulder. “Gran? Can you hear me?”

She rolled over and I was staring into Cal’s face. She lifted a hand and Bracken flew into the air, hitting the stone ceiling before dropping in a heap beside the worktable.

I wanted to run to him, but knew I couldn’t turn my back on her. “What have you done with Gran?”

She rose slowly, grinning. “You know the old bat never trusted you. Why do you care what I do to her?”

I circled to the side, trying to block Bracken, who I hoped would be okay. I let my guard down and braced for the cacophony of overlapping thoughts and emotions. My head pounded, but I sensed pain behind me. He wasn’t dead. “Maybe because, unlike you, I’m not a psychopath.”

She shrugged. “Sticks and stones. My friend says he wants to work with you.” She rolled her eyes. “I told him we didn’t need you, but he thinks with your fae magic, we’d be unstoppable.” She smiled slyly. “Wouldn’t you like to get even with all the horrible cousins who made your life miserable? Come on. You know you hate them as much as I do.”

She may have been trying to talk me into joining her on the dark side, but she was thinking about some kind of hidden chamber behind me. I also felt Robert’s fear and Declan’s rage as they battled whatever was up there.

Her right hand fisted—the motion she used for casting spells—but I was still trying to figure out what was in the hidden room. It was important to her, and she wanted whatever she’d secreted in it kept away from the rest of the world. The spell she sent at me took the wind out of me and made me stumble back a few steps, but I shook it off, much to her shock.

The spell smelled of blood and death. That asshole had just tried to kill me.

Flicking my fingers, I sent back a spell, freezing her lungs. Her eyes widened as she tried to draw in a breath.

“You don’t honestly think you’re better at this than I am, do you?” I taunted. “I was learning defensive magic when you were still whining that you couldn’t perform a simple cleansing spell.”

Both hands fisted, she sucked in air and sent another one at me. My head vaguely hurt and I thought I heard breaking glass somewhere. It was a good thing I was far away from this room. She’d learned some nasty spells.

But then again, I knew quite a few as well. Fingers moving slowly at my side, I wove a net around her heart and squeezed. She jolted, eyes wide.

Sputtering, hand to chest, she gasped, “You can’t—Corey curse…”

I shook my head. “Cal, you’re an idiot and a shitty wicche. That curse was created to punish sorcerers like you, not the good guys hunting you.”

Declan’s roar reverberated through the house before it was cut off.

Cal’s sneer was triumphant. “And there goes the boy toy.”

I’d inadvertently dropped my spell on her when I heard that roar of pain. Oh, nononono. Please. Not Declan. I turned to run upstairs but came face to snout with a hellhound.

“Kill her!” Cal shouted, dark glee in her voice.

I needed to get upstairs, but I couldn’t leave Bracken on his own with these two. And where the hell was Gran?

Drool dripped from the hound’s razor-sharp teeth. His growls shook the room. Red, glowing eyes pinned me to the spot as he tried to burn a hole through my soul.

The hound sprang and snapped, biting off part of my left arm. The shock kept me rooted to the spot and he crunched and swallowed my arm from the elbow down. I stared at the ragged edges of what was left, while Cal jumped up and down behind me.

Huh. I hadn’t considered that something could happen to this form. It stung like I’d shoved my arm in a hornet’s nest, but it wasn’t agonizing, and I wasn’t bleeding. Mostly because I wasn’t actually here. This was all so weird.

Couldn’t I just put it back on? I envisioned my arm and then there it was, back where it belonged.

“No! How did you—” she screeched

The hound was having none of it. When she started screaming, he jammed his snout in my gut and flipped me over his head.

I banged my head on the ceiling and ended up splatting on the worktable, which would have been fine if I hadn’t landed palm down on the grimoire.

A series of wicches through the ages flash through my mind, each poring over the grimoire, chanting demonic spells while the cries of their victims are ignored. The same demon stands over each. Hundreds of wicches appear and fade, while one demon oversees their studies. Finally, as the images slow, I recognize Aunt Abigail. The demon disappears behind her. A new one stands behind Cal and then he changes too. Cal looks up from the book, no demon behind her, as she blows out the candle.

I shook off the vision, afraid of what I’d find, but it had only been a moment. The hound was still turning to come after me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bracken move. Snatching up the athame, I dove off the table over the top of the hound while flinging the dagger at Calliope.

Please, Goddess…

When I hit the ground, the monster hound pounced, crushing me to the filthy floor. Damn . I knew I wasn’t really dying but this hurt like hell.

Suddenly, the weight was gone and the room was filled with horrible wailing, reverberating off the stone walls. I pushed up and rolled over to see what was happening. Dark shadows rose from the floor and swarmed Calliope. Her body crumpled to the ground, but her soul stood, eyes wide with horror as the demonic shadows dragged her away.

The hound was gone and Bracken was leaning over the worktable, blood running down the side of his face from a gash on his temple. He’d stabbed the demon blade through the heart of the grimoire and saved us all.