Witch Heart

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Claire came to and clutched her chest immediately, rolling over onto her side and groaning.

The elium was still there. She was still alive.

Coughing, she forced herself to sit up and look around. They'd put her in what appeared to be an old hospital room.

What had happened in the other room, a surgery room in the abandoned hospital, she'd surmised, was mostly a blur. That was a good thing judging from what she could recall.

They'd finally given up trying to untangle the elium from her seat. They'd been close to killing her and they'd probably been afraid they'd lose the weapon if she died. Eventually, the venom had worn off and with it the chemical that prevented her from becoming unconscious. She'd slipped into comforting darkness immediately, and apparently, the demons had moved her to this room.

Claire had a sneaking suspicion that the method they'd used to try and take the elium had been gentle by their standards. She was not looking forward to the next try, which was probably coming soon.

Now she lay on an old hospital bed which had been covered with new sheets. A new blanket that looked like it had been taken straight from the package was folded at the end of the bed. A plate of steaming food lay on a small plastic, paint-smattered table by the side of the bed. Other than that, the room was bare save for a small lamp on the floor in the corner, which emitted a weak glow. Rapidly fading daylight came through the uncurtained window.

She rose and went to that diminishing daylight, her muscles protesting every move she made and the center of her chest aching so much it hurt to draw a breath. On her way to the window she passed a small bathroom and wondered about running water and working plumbing. Probably too much to hope for.

They'd put her on the top floor of the hospital. A parking lot many stories down surrounded the building like a concrete moat. Beyond the lot was a stretch of woods, no other buildings or roads that she could see. In the distance she could just make out a few billboards. Maybe they were near a highway?

Judging from the current time of day, she'd been on their table for about twelve hours. No wonder she felt the way she did.

Breathing heavily from just that much exertion, she turned and stared at the food and blankets. It was chilly in the room. There was electricity in the building, it appeared, but no heat. Or perhaps it was demon magick that lit the light bulbs.

Pulsing all around her in sickening waves, the demon wards dampened her magick and made her power impossible to use. The wards wrapped her seat like a wad of wet cotton. It wrapped the elium, too, but not as securely. She didn't think she could work any of it free, it was so tight. She'd try, though.

It seemed odd that the demons would care enough about her comfort and well-being to bring her hot food and blankets, but she supposed they needed to keep her healthy. If she got sick and died, they might not be able to extract the elium.

She studied the window again, thinking. If she could breach it, she could use her magick because she'd be beyond the demon wards. Her air magick wasn't strong enough to float her to the ground. Otherwise she'd break the glass and leap… but maybe there was another way.

The door opened and Kai stepped through. "You're awake."

His powers of observation were keen. She only stared at him, bile from her hatred rising up to bite the back of her throat.

He looked from the plate to her. "You should eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Then you should drink."

She licked her lips and glanced at the glass of water beside the plate. She was thirsty, but she wasn't giving him the satisfaction of watching her consume anything they brought her. "No, and don't tell me what I should do, Kai."

"You need your strength for the next phase."

Yes, she could only imagine what that would be.

She spoke in Aemni. "What rank did you hold in the Atrika military, Kai?"

He hesitated for a moment, surprised by the question. "Captain."

"And Tevan?"

He shifted. That shift in his weight was enough to tell her that he wasn't happy with his answer. "Commander."

Of course, she'd already known that.

"So you take orders from Tevan?"

Kai lifted his chin. "This is not Eudae."

"The Atrika don't abandon their military ranking so easily, do they? Surely, a mere change of venue doesn't mean you cease obeying the orders of your superior officer."

The demon's body stiffened. "I did not come here to speak of military order."

She suppressed a smile. It hadn't been a big assumption to make — Kai did not like the fact that Tevan was above him in their pecking order. Now she would do all she could to inflame the discord between them. She had few weapons at her disposal, so she'd use all of them to her advantage.

"Of course." She glanced away and then back at him. "Did Tevan send you here to check on me?" Claire blinked at him and smiled.

"Enough questions!" he roared. "Eat, rest, and drink water. You will need to be in good condition for the next attempt." He began to close the door.

"When will the next attempt be?" She wanted to know how long she had to try and escape.

He never answered her. He only glared at her and shut the door. The lock turned on the other side.

Claire walked the perimeter of the room, examining the half-destroyed ceiling for places she could pry through.

Nothing.

When she got to the table with the food and water, she kicked it, sending the warmed up canned vegetables and pasta with red sauce over the floor to spread like a bloodstain.

She turned her attention to the window. Maybe there. Claire decided she would try the window first, and experiment with the elium second.

One way or another, she was breaking out of here before the next evil experiment commenced.

Fingertips gripping concrete Toes balanced

on a ledge. Chilly wind whipping at clothing, blowing dark hair into her face. Claire glanced down, seeing the steep drop. Her stomach lurched. The wards flickered in and out here; she'd found the boundary.

Back at the Coven, Adam saw and felt it through her.

If Claire knew he'd managed to connect with her through her air magick, she showed no sign, though she was hardly in a place to let him know. He'd hooked up with her in the middle of what appeared to be an escape attempt.

All night and into the morning, Mira had instructed him about how to reach out to Claire using his mind. It wasn't something he should've been able to do, considering he had no air magick to call. Mira had explained that it was a thing that even some non-magickals could achieve. Basic psychic ability — remote viewing. That coupled with Claire's strength in air magick and the fact that apparently he and Claire had some sort of special connection — some emotional and psychic link already — meant that maybe, just maybe, he could reach her.

By midmorning he and Mira had been falling over with exhaustion and they'd still had no luck. Mira had left and told him to get some rest. As Adam had been falling to sleep, so utterly overwhelmed with fatigue, he'd been thinking of Claire, trying to reach out to her. Then, in the murky half-awareness of that place between sleep and wakefulness, he'd begun to have flashes of another place.

He'd been so surprised he'd nearly lost his tenuous hold on the images. Adam had sat bolt upright and then laid back down immediately. He'd calmed his breath and closed his eyes, strengthening with all his might the fragile link he'd managed to achieve with Claire.

Gradually, the images had come in clearer and steadier. He'd even begun to get sound and sensation. That had happened after she'd climbed out of the broken window, perhaps because she'd been occasionally beyond the wards that girded her prison, dwelling in the border of them.

Her fingers slipped and adrenaline surged through Adam's veins as it did through Claire's. Fingertips scrabbled for purchase, found it, gripped. She inched to the left, little by little, the side of the building scraping through her clothing against her stomach and chest. Then Claire stopped, staring at the red brick in front of her. She drew a breath, steadied herself…

And leapt backward like a diver off the high board.

Falling. No, plummeting toward the ground. Wind whipped at Claire's clothes. Long, dark hair streamed around her head.

Fear rose in Adam's throat. In the bed, his fingernails gouged his palms, drawing blood. Pain surged up his arms.

"No, no, no, no."

It was all he could chant in the two seconds it took for her to fall. Seconds that seemed like forever. He braced for the impact.

Magick flared, tingling through his chest. For a moment he thought he'd called it and then realized it was only a ghost of Claire's body.

She struck. The ground gave like a mound of feather pillows, cushioning her and bringing her to an easy, careful halt.

Earth magick. Of course. She'd used magick to make the pavement of the parking lot soft and pliant, like a big mattress.

Thank the gods.

She lay for a moment, undoubtedly recovering from the hard, fast plunge. Blue sky spread overhead. Wind rustled the trees behind her and somewhere from a lofty limb a bird sang. The sun was halfway up in the sky — midmorning. Wherever Claire was, it was in the same time zone. That alone was helpful information.

She got up, the ground beneath her once again hard pavement. One long look at the building she'd jumped from yielded a little more information. It was big, red brick and, from the looks of the broken, dirty windows and its weed-choked base, was abandoned.

She turned and was off. Her boots, still the same ones she'd been wearing when she'd been taken, crunched over the parking lot and into the forest. Dried, fallen pine needles gave away to broken branches, leaves, and a tangle of undergrowth as she plunged past trees in an effort to get as far from the building as possible.

Earth magick flared as she used it to help her move foliage out of her way. In the distance, an overgrown road came into view. Farther still a gate, padlocked with heavy chains and a sign…

Something behind Claire roared. A monster in the forest, gaining on her fast. Claire's adrenaline spiked, as did Adam's.

Gods, she was so close to getting away.

Claire halted and turned, ready to fight. Tevan and Kai both ran through the forest toward her, murder on their demon faces — eyes red, teeth extended into ripping points.

Clare didn't mess around. She went straight for the elium.

Nausea exploded through Adam as she tapped it. Brutal, shattering spikes of pain blossomed through his body. Still, it was just a ghost of what Claire felt.

That was what it was like to access the elium?

The magick seemed to implode her body. It radiated out in a wave. Tevan and Kai stopped short and another force smashed into Claire, knocking her backward. Her breath woofed out of her as she made impact. Darkness flickered over her vision like a curtain coming down.

The last thing Adam saw through Claire's eyes was Tevan standing over her.

Adam rolled off the bed and hit his bedroom floor running. It appeared Claire's escape attempt hadn't been successful, but one good thing had come of it.

He'd been able to read the sign.