Witch Fury

TWO

APPARENTLY, THINGS COULD GET WORSE. EXTREMELY worse. Had she considered yesterday to be hellish? Yesterday had been a walk down a lane filled with daisies. Today she wasn’t sure if she was even still alive.

Sarafina opened sleep-heavy eyes with colossal effort and watched two men make their way around the small room where they’d locked her up. She must still be alive since not even the drugs they’d given her could dull the sharp panic cutting up her throat or the slam of her beating heart. This was her worst nightmare. She was a ball of terror imprisoned in a body too heavy to move.

Alive in a dead body.

She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for over twenty-four hours. . she guessed. Just when the drugged lethargy began to ease from her muscles, someone came in and shot her back up again. The time had passed as if she lived in a lucid dream, her consciousness scrabbling against the padded container it was locked within.

As the men left the room and shut the door behind them, her eyelids grew heavy again. Sarafina struggled to keep them open, fought to stay conscious, but she was no match for the drugs wending their way through her veins.

When Sarafina woke next, the first thing she noticed was the absence of the heaviness in her limbs. She could move! Her fear was also gone, replaced by an all-consuming rage.

The second thing she noticed was a man sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, his face hidden by shadow. Creepy.

She bolted upright and addressed the most pressing matter at hand. “Where’s my dog? I swear to God if you did anything to Grosset, I will—” “Please, your dog is fine,” came the dulcet voice of Stefan Faucheux, his French accent still audible even though he’d spent most of his life in the United States. He stood and smiled, spreading his manicured hands. “What do you take me for, a monster?” His full lips twisted and he gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Okay, so I’m a monster, but not one that hurts children or animals.” “Where is he?”

“He’s safe, I assure you, sleeping on a doggie bed in my room. I will bring him to you after we’ve talked.” Sarafina pushed off the bed and went for the door. “Talk? No way. I’m getting my dog and leaving this place right now.” The door was locked, of course. She used both hands to twist the unyielding knob and when that didn’t work, she hit and kicked the solid oak, yelling at it until she was hoarse.

Stefan stood in the center of the room, watching her with a patient expression on his face. Like she was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum and he was waiting for her to realize the futility of her temper.

Stymied by the door, she whirled and spotted a window. Ignoring Stefan, she stalked to it, pushing aside the heavy burgundy drapes. They appeared to be in a farmhouse in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Cornfields spread out in every direction she could see. The room they’d put her in was on the second floor and there was no convenient tree or trestle beyond the pane of glass. Not that Stefan would have let her get that far, anyway. Not that she would’ve tried it without Grosset.

She picked up a tacky porcelain figurine of a milkmaid from the table near the window, turned, and threw it at Stefan. He raised his hand and it burst into a ball of white-hot fire before it reached him, falling to the carpet and smoldering there.

She stared. “What the—”

“You have questions.”

She jerked her gaze up from the melting piece of kitsch. “Questions? Yes, I have questions. What the. .” She knew her eyes were just about saucer-sized.

“I can call fire, Sarafina.” He smiled. “I play devil to your angel, yes? Although, as you will soon see, we’re not that unalike.” Her stomach clenched. Calling fire. Fire? It had to be some kind of a trick. God! She had a headache. “You’re playing some kind of sick and twisted game with me because you know about my mother. You saw the news articles or the TV show, and now you’re doing this for kicks.” Stefan shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your mother, Sarafina. Not directly, anyway. It’s not a game we’re playing here.” She swallowed hard against her dry throat and mouth, a result of the drugs, she was sure. “What’s going on? What do you want from me? What was that crap you pumped through my body?” “We want to help you realize your potential, Sarafina. Nothing dark or sinister. We simply want to tell you who you are. Like many of our kind, you’ve slipped through the cracks of your heritage.” Sarafina turned to face him. “What are you talking about? Tell me who I am? I know that already. Anyway, if you’re going to try and convert me to some cause, why not just ask me out for a nice cup of coffee? You have to resort to kidnapping?” “If we had asked you for coffee and revealed this truth, you would have caused quite a scene and probably called the police. That’s why we don’t do it that way.” He held out a hand. “We hope you’ll forgive the kidnapping, Sarafina, once all is revealed.” She shook her head. “I want to go home. I want my dog and I want—” “Data entry, Sarafina? No self-respecting fire witch would ever work in such a mundane field. What are you thinking? I can make your life so much more meaningful. I can provide a way for you to make lots of money so you can live the life you were meant to live.” The words fire and witch in the sentence made her vision dim. Her knees went weak and she caught herself on the back of a chair. “What did you say?” “Don’t pretend ignorance, Sarafina. Even if you don’t know, you know.” She studied him. “The only thing I know is that you’re crazy, as bat-shit crazy as my mother was.” Stefan smiled and took a step toward her. “Your mother was crazy, Sarafina. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry your father went AWOL, too, because he would have raised you correctly. As it happened, your mother, your only living blood relative, went insane and torched herself before she could teach you anything. That’s a pity for you.” Her mother, a highly religious woman, had raised Sarafina alone in a modest middle-class subdivision just west of Bowling Green. Every Sunday her mother had dragged her to church to cleanse the wickedness from Sarafina’s soul. Every day her mother had told her she was sinner, a tool of Satan. For a while Sarafina had even believed her.

Sarafina’s mother had said hell would be Sarafina’s punishment for being a witch, her watery light blue eyes narrowed in accusation. She’d pointed a thin index finger and declared, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!

Nearly every single day her mother berated her, up until the time she’d gone straight past crazy and over the cliff of truly insane. After that her mother’s berating days had come to a fiery end and Sarafina had collected a whole shiny new set of nightmares. . and a foster mother.

Stefan’s smile turned predatory. “As it turns out, it’s an advantage for us, though.” “What’s an advantage?” Her mind whirled. She couldn’t track what Stefan was talking about. He made absolutely no sense. It was like talking to her mother at the height of her illness. Sarafina would’ve said she was on Candid Camera or something if the whole situation hadn’t been so bizarre and threatening. Candid Camera did light and funny, not dangerous and crazy.

“That you’re a fire witch, of course. A powerful, untrained, completely oblivious, and vulnerable fire witch.” He smiled. “Ours for the taking, if we can convince you to work with us.” “W-witch?”

“I know it’s hard to believe. I can imagine what you’re thinking given your past and all the things I know you grew up with. It must be hard to comprehend that even though your mother was quite insane, she was also. . right.” Sarafina shook her head. “This is nuts. This is—” She cut off her sentence, her breath coming faster and faster in an impending panic attack. She whirled, looking again for a way out even though she knew there was none.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll prove it to you.” Stefan stalked to her, knelt, and forced open her palm.

Power — that’s the only word she could use to describe it — poured from her chest, right between her breasts. It bloomed bigger and bigger until she couldn’t hold it anymore. It was hot, stinging her to the point of pain. Her head snapped back and something within her swelled in response. It became larger and larger until it exploded from the center of her.

Stefan stepped away and fire—fire! — streamed in an arc from the center of her body to land in a pool of white-hot intensity in the middle of the floor.

The stream ended in a tingling rush that made blood roar through her head. Her eyes wide and her heart pounding, she stared at the charred carpet of the room and marveled in the euphoric sensation of the power that Stefan had forced her to wield.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped, staring. The rug crackled.

“Ah, there you are. I knew you were in there somewhere.” Stefan stared at her for a long moment, a strange smile on his mouth. Then he left the room, clicking the lock closed on the door behind him.

Sarafina stared at the singed spot on the floor until long after it had grown cold and black, until her shoulders hunched and her muscles were stony with stress. She stayed that way until the door opened again and the scrabbling of nails sounded on the floor. Doggie yelps of joy filled her ears. She broke from her imitation of a statue to scoop Grosset into her arms.

Nuzzling the Pomeranian’s soft fur she sank down onto the floor and held him close, trying to absorb the massive shift her reality had just taken.

THEO PINCHED THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE. “LET’S JUST go in.” Damn all the planning and waiting to hell and back. He wanted action.

“I agree with Theo. We don’t have time to waste,” said Jack McAllister.

Jack looked a little sick. Of course, Jack had just sent his only daughter north to protect her against the swelling magickal storm. If Theo had a two-year-old daughter who was a coveted air witch, he’d probably be feeling sick right now, too. Eva, the child, had gone to a secret location with several of the trusted Coven, including Helen, an earth witch of limited power who was the unofficial Coven nanny.

Thomas Monahan paced away from the elemental witches gathered around his desk, his face pensive.

“We don’t know yet what’s going on,” said Claire in her quiet and strong voice. “However, the Duskoff have proven time and again they aren’t to be trusted, isn’t that right? Therefore, the Coven would be well within our rights to raid them. Anyway, it’s not like they’d call the non-magickal police force in to combat us.” Thomas Monahan never did anything the rash way — well, not normally, anyway — but all the signs lately were pointing to something afoot, something dark and bloody. With the Duskoff that was usually the case. And there was ample evidence to suspect the Duskoff, a cabal of warlocks, were behind it. Warlocks were witches gone bad, who’d betrayed the Coven’s rede of harm ye none and used their supernatural abilities for their own gain — for money and power.

Lately, there had been a rash of witches outside the Coven who’d gone missing — weaker, younger ones and more powerful ones who’d been alienated from their birthright somehow and were easy pickings.

They’d managed to take an air witch, too. Emily Parker, a witch of low ability, had been snatched from her home near Boston about three months ago and hadn’t been heard from since. All Emily could do was send and receive faint messages via the air. She had no real power to call, couldn’t pick objects up or send her consciousness out to travel from her body.

Hell, she was so low level the Duskoff probably wouldn’t even want to sacrifice her in a demon circle. That’s how the warlocks brought Atrika through from Eudae. The strength of the sacrificed witches mattered, and poor Emily had only a breath of power. No one could guess why they’d snatched her.

The Duskoff didn’t only count on greed alone to fill their ranks. Kidnapping was how the Duskoff recruited some of their members; they got them young and seduced them to their side. If seduction didn’t work, they broke them, twisted them, molded them. They were like the military at times, breaking down a witch completely and stripping away all that was, building them back up in the image of a warlock.

Theo knew the process all too well.

Judging from the recent frenzy of kidnappings and inductions, it seemed as if the Duskoff were preparing for something and were becoming desperate, like they were building an army and were running out of time. These days the warlocks were taking risky chances, kidnapping witches who were older and would be hard to break and remold.

The Coven had a lead on a house about an hour’s drive from Chicago where the Duskoff were holding some of the unfortunate witches. Raiding it might yield some answers.

Theo turned and stared at Thomas’s back. The head witch stood at the end of the room, staring out the huge picture window that looked out over part of the Coven grounds. “Thomas, it’s time. Claire has taught us how to more effectively wield our magick. This will provide us with a great chance to show the dirty warlocks everything we’ve learned.” Claire was a different breed of witch. Raised on Eudae. By a trick of fate, she’d spent most of her life as handmaiden to a Ytrayi demon who’d twisted her magick little by little. She’d been born to the power of earth, but now she was the only witch anyone knew of who could draw on all four elements whenever she chose.

A year and a half ago, he, Claire, and Adam Tyrell had battled two Atrika demons — not to be confused with the other three demon breeds who were like fluffy bunnies in comparison — for her freedom. They’d won the battle and Adam had won the girl. These days Claire and Adam were deeply in love, and Claire served as the Coven’s professor of elemental magick.

Thomas said nothing for a moment, then turned toward them. “We raid the farmhouse tomorrow morning. We’ll take them by surprise and retrieve anyone they’ve got captive.” Theo’s fists curled involuntarily. Getting out anyone who’d been taken; yeah, he wanted that job.

Thomas nodded at him, as if he knew exactly what was on his mind. “Theo, you’ll be charge of taking back the kidnapped. Mira will head up a team to try and glean any additional information.” That meant securing warlocks and making them talk. Also a good job.

“What will you be doing?” Jack asked.

“Once we break the wards, Micah and I will have an errand of our own.” Thomas looked at them each in turn and it was clear he had no plans to elaborate. “That’s it. You got what you wanted. Claire, I need to talk to you. Everyone else can leave.” Dismissed. Claire had to stay after school. Adam gave her a wink and filed out of the room with the rest of them.

Theo headed to his apartment. He’d lived at the Coven since he’d been eighteen, when he’d gone to work here, and had one of the bigger quarters in the house. It was part of his compensation package. Really, he probably didn’t get paid enough, considering he’d risked his life in the line of duty on more than one occasion, but Theo couldn’t imagine living any other way.

He entered his living room, which was strewn with the detritus of bachelorhood — jeans slung over the back of his couch, shoes lying by the coffee table. Dishes stacked on the counter in the spacious kitchen, tumbled together with cooking equipment.

The kitchen was why he’d wanted this particular apartment. Earth witches had to cook up their spells and charms. They were a breed apart from the other elements that way, having no power seat in the center of them like air, fire, and water witches. Earth witches deliberately placed and stored power on their bodies. Some of them, like Theo, did it via magickally infused tattoos. He also stored it in his hair, which fell below his shoulders.

Theo inked other earth witches in the Coven, too. His equipment lay on a card table in a corner of the living room. He glanced at the clutter and rubbed his chin. Yeah, he really needed to hire someone to come in and clean.

He pulled his shirt off, let it land beside his discarded jeans, and headed to his workout room. The impending raid had his blood pressure and anticipation up. It coursed through his body, making him tingle with energy. He needed to burn some of it off.

The punching bag hung in the center of the large room, weights and workout equipment scattered around the edges. Not having much of a social life, work was Theo’s primary focus. To do what he did — hunt down warlocks and bring them into Gribben, the prison on the Coven grounds — he needed to be in excellent shape. His workout room was where Theo spent most of his time, maybe rivaled by the kitchen.

Theo was all about giving the Duskoff payback. He lived for it.

After taping up his hands, he went straight for the bag and started in, hitting it with satisfying thuds that reverberated up his arms and through his shoulders. Punch, punch, roundhouse kick. Soon his whole world became the impact of his body against the bag, drowning out the clamor in his mind and bleaching the memories that haunted him to a shadow of their former selves. Working out was his meditation, bringing him to a place outside his head, clearing his mind and giving him peace just for a little while.

When he’d been seventeen, he’d been kidnapped by the Duskoff. He was a run-of-the-mill earth witch, a dime a dozen, but he was strong — stronger than average. The Duskoff had viewed him as vulnerable because of his youth and because his family situation had been bad. His status as an at-risk earth witch had earned him a one-way ticket into the bowels of Duskoff International. When seduction hadn’t worked, they’d gone for physical torture.

Perhaps if Theo had been weaker of mind, emotion, or spirit, it might have worked. He’d been young enough to be broken down and remolded into an image of their choosing. After all, he’d been looking for a home, a family, somewhere to belong. But Theo had known he didn’t belong to the Duskoff, known it down to his very fiber.

He’d fought them every inch of the way, a thing that had only made them more intent on breaking him. Eventually, once his torturers had figured out they weren’t going to win, they’d used him as a toy. Then their treatment of him had come from pure sadistic ire — hatred of him and his resilience, his rejection of what the Duskoff stood for.

By the time the Coven had come in on a raid just like the one they were about to conduct, Theo had had broken limbs and organ damage. He’d almost died.

But he hadn’t, and when he’d recovered the Coven had garnered his undying loyalty. They’d also become the family he’d never had.

Scars marked his torso as a result of the ordeal, trailed down his arms and legs. They’d been made by a whip and a very sharp knife. Theo could still clearly remember the man who’d made the cuts, his greasy face shining in the wan light of the building’s basement. Years later Theo had looked into that face again, right before he’d dragged his ass to Gribben. Being in Gribben, a place that magickally neutered all witches, was worse than death.

Otherwise he’d have killed him.

Ink covered a lot of Theo’s body now, playing counterpoint to the scars. The tats weren’t there to cover them, but to celebrate them. The black tribal marks twisted alongside his scars, swirled around and dovetailed them. Theo wore his scars like badges of honor.

He always would.

Theo hit the bag hard enough to send it sailing into the wall behind it.

He was looking forward to tomorrow.