The Bound Witch by Ivy Asher

11

Isit up with a gasp, my chest and throat tight. Sweat collects on my brow, and my pajama top clings to my damp back. The air around me feels heavy and thick, and I try to figure out why I just woke up like I was under attack. The room is dark and quiet aside from Rogan’s deep, even breaths. My heart hammers in my chest, and I do my best to calm it down before the anxiety racing through my veins wakes him up.

I scan Rogan’s room slowly, looking for anything out of place or alarming. I snort quietly at myself—this is the first time I’ve ever been in his room, so how would I even know? The throw blanket on the large gray reading chair is still in the same place, I think. The large potted plant in the corner looks the same. I look back down at Rogan for a beat, letting the cadence of his smooth sleep-filled breaths ground me.

I push out of the bed slowly, pausing as his hand falls away from my hip. I watch his face, hoping my movement doesn’t wake him up. He looked wrecked when we finally climbed into bed, and I know he needs to sleep and recharge as much as I do. Too bad my brain wants to wake me up in a panic for no reason at all.

Maybe I had a nightmare, I think as I sneak into the bathroom for a quick pitstop. I don’t recall dreaming about anything though. Rubbing at the scar on my chest, I roll my neck to relieve the tension sitting in my shoulders. I stare at my reflection in the mirror while quietly drying my hands. No parts of me have zombified and started to fall off. I turn around and check my backside to be sure. Everything is accounted for, although I wouldn’t have been mad if I had died and come back with perkier boobs, just sayin’.

I tiptoe back into the room and stare at the bed, suddenly no longer tired. I know if I lie back down, I’m just going to toss and turn, and I really don’t want to fuck with Rogan’s rest. He looks so damn peaceful and serene right now. I want to touch him, see if that tranquility will transfer over, but I don’t want to risk waking him up.

I grab a hoodie that’s slung over the back of the reading chair and sneak out of Rogan’s room as quietly as I can. Pulling the sweatshirt on, I discover that I’m swimming in it, exactly like I love. It falls to mid-thigh like I’m wearing a dress, and it smells like Rogan. Yep, I’m officially confiscating this on a permanent basis.

Yummy smelling softness, welcome to my wardrobe.

I try to be quiet as I sneak into the kitchen and make a cup of tea. The kiss of night all around me is oddly comforting, and the stars are particularly breathtaking out here with less light pollution to get in the way of their shine. Crickets sing songs to me while I stare at the timer on the microwave as it counts down a warning before it will beep obnoxiously and threaten to wake up the house.

Something twines itself in my legs, and I look down to find Gibson going all catlike against my ankles. I try not to go stiff, but old habits are hard as fuck to break. I know he can’t spray me, but apparently my body doesn’t get the memo as it shoots adrenaline through my system and tries to convince my brain to make a run for it.

I look up as the timer ticks down to two and open the door to my boiling water. After pulling the massive mug out, I drop two bags of chai into the steamy bowl-sized cup. Gibson is just living his best life around my legs, and I laugh, forcing myself to bend over and show him some love.

“Hey, Pepe Le Pew,” I whisper at him in my most sophisticated French accent. I stroke the two white stripes down his back, the fur coarser than it looks. “What are you up to, little buddy?” I ask as I give him some good chin scratches.

I giggle to myself as I bond with the skunk. He and Hoot are the perfect bait and switch. People will trust the dog over the skunk, and that’s when Hoot will teach them the importance of not judging things solely on their outward appearance. They’re beautiful life lessons wrapped up in furry little packages.

Grabbing my tea, I head out to Rogan’s back porch. I curl up on a cushioned chair, pulling my legs inside the massive sweatshirt and tucking it securely just under my feet. It’s a cool night, and I wonder what winters are like here. The stars twinkle flirtingly down at me, each of them preening and sparkling a look at me. The night is so clear I can see the haze of the milky way, and I tilt my head back and feel the light of the moon on my face. I can practically feel the lunar light reinvigorating me. I thought that was a lycan trait the first time I felt it, but now I know it’s a witch thing too.

I pull in a long rejuvenating breath and then reach for my tea. I open my eyes and then promptly notice the person sitting a couple chairs away, their body draped in shadows. An alarmed squeal spills out of my lips, and fear rockets through me. I immediately tamp it down when Elon leans forward so that the moonlight can reveal his face.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you by saying hi when you first came out, and then you just looked so content.”

“Motherfuck,” I grumble as I press a hand to my chest and try to calm my breathing.

I stare back at the house, willing my reaction not to wake up Rogan, and breathe a sigh of relief when I still feel him fast asleep.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask Elon, cringing at my tone when it comes out more accusatory than I intend.

He smiles and leans back into the shadows. “Probably the same thing you are,” he declares, and I snort out a laugh and then relax back into the very comfy chair.

“Nightmares?” I question and then take a large slurp of my very hot tea.

Elon snorts. “Sometimes,” he confesses on a tired sigh. “Mostly, I just wake up feeling restless and uneasy. It’s like something’s telling me I’m not safe, but I can’t figure out from what.”

I nod my understanding, fitting his words with what just happened to me. We both go quiet in contemplation. I cradle my cup and run my gaze around Rogan’s property in thought. He has a large backyard, with an extensive garden to the right and dense trees bordering the well-kept grass. I wonder how long it takes to mow back here. Ooh, does Rogan mow shirtless, because I could get on board with Sundays spent sipping on lemonade and ogling. I shake away that thought and focus.

Why am I so scatterbrained lately? Get it together, Lennox.

I think back through what Elon and I were just talking about. We’re not safe, right, got it. I roll my eyes at myself.

“What is with me not picking up on other people’s presences these days?” I question, more to myself than to Elon. “First, I didn’t sense Order members watching me at my shop, and now you’re just chillin’ out here like some predator waiting for prey, and I didn’t even register it until it could have been too late,” I observe, slightly annoyed and a lot concerned. “Even now when we’re talking about serious shit, shit that should take top priority in my mind, I’m sitting here wondering if your brother has a riding lawn mower, and if the answer is yes, will he let me drive it,” I admit, and Elon laughs.

“Judging by the fineness in which you handle a car, I’m guessing not,” Elon jokes, and I stick my tongue out at him, thoroughly insulted.

“I am a good driver,” I defend.

“You’re something, that’s for sure,” he ribs, and I smile into my mug of tea and shake my head at him.

“This is nice,” I confess, turning my face to the stars. “I was so focused on trying to get out of that church, I never thought to picture what life could be like if we survived.”

“Technically we didn’t,” Elon jokes, and I huff out a laugh, but the truth in his words brings reality crashing back around me.

“No, we didn’t,” I agree somberly.

“The feeling off about your senses, like there’s a delay or it’s hard to focus, that comes with waking up. Rogan and I noticed it the first time, and I definitely experienced it this last time too. It lasts a couple of days,” he explains after a long moment of silence where we’re both lost in our thoughts. “Does your magic feel slow, like it takes time to tap into it?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s the opposite actually, it seems overzealous, but my instincts are definitely off. I could call on my magic before, and it would almost direct me. I could feel all the possibilities in it, and I only needed to choose which one I wanted. Now, it’s so damn strong, but the guidance isn’t there. I’m nothing but raw power, but I don’t feel powerful while trying to wield it. Does that make sense?”

“Do you think that’s because of what Jamie did to our line?” he asks speculatively.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

A light breeze dances between the leaves of the trees all around us, and I get lost to the rustling for a moment. I trace the shadowed trunks with my eyes and wonder if I could ever get tired of sitting out here on nights like this. I let loose a contented sigh, just as one of the shadowed trees in the distance moves.

I blink, not sure of what I just saw, when Elon stiffens like he can sense something too. All at once, the chirping crickets all around us stop. Dread prickles up my neck, and alarm bells start ringing in my mind. I shoot up out of my seat, my mug of tea crashing to the ground. It shatters and the noise sounds a million times louder in the menacing quiet that’s enveloping us.

“Is it the Order?” I whisper to Elon, but before he can answer, a shrill laugh wraps around me like a noose, and foreboding goose bumps crawl up my arms.

Bile collects at the back of my throat as Jamie’s cackle sounds off all around us, and I see the blood drain from Elon’s face like he too is hearing a ghost.

I shake my head, my mind trying to deny what I’m hearing, even as the sound drags me against my will back to the night this bitch murdered me.

“She’s dead,” I croak out loud, for my benefit and for Elon’s. “I watched her melt into almost nothing and then get torn apart by shadows,” I reassure the both of us, but if that’s true, then who is in the woods?

A putrid, tainted presence fills the atmosphere, one I wish I didn’t recognize, and I suddenly know exactly what’s out there.

“It’s her fucking demon,” Elon snarls, coming to the same conclusion at the exact same time.

We both take off from the porch at the same instant. Fear pumps through my veins right alongside a seething fury and a crawling need to wipe this being from the face of all realms. Elon and I charge in the direction of the moving shadow that just triggered all of this, as though we’re able to home in on the beacon of evil like it’s as easy as blinking. Psychotic giggles batter at me from everywhere, and my mind snaps involuntarily to a place of sickening fear. I try to invite my rage to shove out all of the terror that’s trying to choke me into inaction.

“I’m not there. She’s dead. I’m alive,” I shout the words, forcing them out into the starlit night, half reminder, half war cry.

Then the screaming starts. Blood-curdling cries fill the forest all around us. A cold sweat breaks out all over as horrific screams besiege me and Elon. Pain-filled shrieks bounce off the bark of the trees, followed by incoherent keening and pleas for mercy. I can hear the imminent death in all of the cries, and I want to rampage against what was done to these innocent witches at the hands of Jamie and her demon.

“Lennox!” Elon screams from just behind me. He’s telling me something, but I feel like I’m lost to the madness all around me.

I call on my magic, and suddenly I feel almost overrun with it. In a raw pulse of power, I shove it out into the trees, looking for the demon who needs to be destroyed once and for all.

“I’m not in a cage now, motherfucker, let’s play!” I shout into the trees, abandoning any fear left in me as I close the distance between the house and the forest.

My magic clings to a presence in the woods, and all I can think is, got ya, motherfucker. The demon is warded, but I feel the touch of Elon’s magic locating it at the same time. Somehow, almost instinctively, our magics work together to create a net. It’s not as strong as a grid, but as we both feed more power into it, I know this bastard isn’t going anywhere. I can’t see where the demon is exactly, but I can feel our magic encasing it as we then start to batter against the fucker’s defenses.

I dismiss the flicker of wonder that ignites inside of me when I realize that I’m lambasting this fucker with power, but I’m not tapped into any bones or blood as I do.

“Lennox, don’t go into the trees—the protections end there!” Elon yells at me, and it takes a second for his warning to register over the cacophony drubbing at my senses.

Fuck, I’m running into a trap.

I try to stop myself, but I’m sprinting full out, and I’m less than ten feet away from whatever protective barrier Rogan has on his property. Momentum doesn’t get on board with the oh shit plan, and I trip and skid toward the trees. Stopping inches away from the blood magic blockade, I let out a pained groan of relief that I didn’t cross it.

Covered in a few cuts and a whole lot of grass stains, I push back up to my feet. I focus back on the nightmare hiding in the trees and start to pace against the magical barrier separating us. The screaming all at once ceases, and the night once again goes eerily silent except for the sound of Elon’s running footfall behind me. I work to catch my breath, an ache in my side from the running and the fall. My eyes dart around frantically, waiting with frigid unease for whatever the demon is going to try next.

“What the fuck does it want?” Elon snarls loudly as he stops at my side. “Why is it just fucking around with us?” he observes, his brow furrowed in both concentration and worry.

“Kill first, ask questions later feels like a solid motto for the moment,” I lob at him, shoving aside the fetid disquiet that raps at my chest.

I focus everything I can on obliterating this thing once and for all. We can worry about the why of all of this later, once we’re safe and it’s dead. More magic slams against the presence in the woods as Elon and I renew our efforts. I clench my teeth with effort as I throw magic cinder blocks against the demon’s weakening defenses.

I taste justice on my tongue as I feel the wards start to give way. I still can’t see the battle as it takes place, but in my mind, it looks like bright sparkling light crushing a mass of inky, putrescent darkness in its mighty grasp. Elon and I both pant and strain against the slimy presence that feels like it’s taunting us.

I can hear people waking up in the house, and an urgency fills me to destroy this thing before it can get close to the people here I love and care about. I shove more power into my blitz of the demon, and my heart leaps into my throat when I sense a fissure in the demon’s wards starting to form.

“We’ve got you, you piece of shit,” Elon growls, and as the crack widens infinitesimally, I know it’s all I need. Without a second of hesitation, I brutally shove through the last of the demon’s magical shields. I search for a hold, and as soon as I can feel the skeletal structure, I shatter every bone there is. An agonized scream rents through the night, but in its cloying depths, I also hear a taunting snigger that slaps the feeling of victory from my body. The keening declaration of pain echoes all around us, fading quickly before plunging the night back into uneasy silence.

People are rushing out of the house toward us, but all I can do is focus on the man I just killed. Anger and frustration build in me until I’m left standing there seething. I call the bones to me, needing to confirm what my instincts are already screaming at me.

“Fuck!” Elon shouts into the forest, clearly just as pissed as I am.

I know he felt it too. The truth hit just as my magic ordered his death. We both felt the exact second when the demon abandoned the body he was possessing, leaving the mancer behind to inherit a death that was never meant for him.

I bellow out my frustration, tears pricking at my eyes. Once again I’ve destroyed the witch the demon was wearing, but didn’t do fuck all to destroy the demon itself. Elon was right, it was just fucking with us.

I run my fingers through my tangle of curls and try to breathe through the nauseating outrage I feel. My mind whirs and races as I feel the body moving closer to us. It’s clear this was a trap, but what was the fucking point of it? The demon brought one witch to face off against us; was it testing our strength? Our preparedness? Our defenses?

I hurry to search the surrounding woods for signs of any other attackers, suddenly worried all of this is somehow a trap within a trap, but I only feel animals.

“What the hell?” Elon asks me, clearly feeling the same level of distress and confusion as I am. I see a slight tremor in his hand as he rubs tiredly at his face, and I know the toll this trip down horror lane took on him. I feel it too.

“I don’t fucking know,” I confess quietly.

If the Order and the demon are working together, this wouldn’t have been the move they’d make, and it makes me question what I was so certain of the day before. The sound of heavy running footsteps reach us, and Rogan and Marx are suddenly there. Rogan grabs for me, his frantic worried stare looking me over and then turning to do the same to Elon.

“What the fuck just happened, are you two okay?” he demands, just as my magic drags the witch I killed into view. The bright moon highlights his face, and recognition launches through me immediately.

Alvarez.

The Order member who was watching me at my shop earlier, the one who had to have planted the owl skull in my room at Order headquarters, lies dead in front of me. Blood tracks out of his ears and nose, his eyes blank and his form disfigured from where I pulverized every bone in his body without a second thought.

“Are there more of them?” Rogan demands, and I don’t know if he’s talking about demons or Order members. I’m not even sure if it matters; they all want something from us and are intent on taking it whether we like it or not.

Elon tells him no, but I can feel Rogan searching with his magic all the same.

“What the hell?” Marx declares as he works to catch his breath from the sprint down here. “What is this shithead doing here?”

“So much for tracking him down,” I mumble, trying hard not to feel defeated and exhausted, but I’m not succeeding.

“Where’s Prek?” I ask tiredly when I see that he’s not here.

“He’s guarding Tad in the house,” Rogan reassures me, and my heart relaxes a little with his words.

“What was all that noise though? I thought for sure we were under attack,” Marx asks, stepping closer to the body to look it over.

I jut my chin at the dead Order member. “He was a Vox Witch being possessed by a demon with a taste for torture,” I explain, still trying to see how any of this makes sense.

Rogan pulls me closer to him, and I feel the worry and helpless anger rolling off him in waves. My throat tightens, and I shove away the desire to crawl into his arms and crumble. The laugh, the screaming, the defeat, it all settles into my limbs like a weight that suddenly feels too heavy to bear.

Rogan drops his mouth to my ear, as his large hands rub slowly up and down my arms. “I’m here. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

I lean into him, wanting to drop down into his warm words, but I can’t. We’re not safe. We might never be. I hear Elon start to explain what happened, but I tune him out. My eyes roam over Alvarez’s body as though somehow it holds the key to everything. The key to answers, to safety. I’m missing something here, I know I am, I just can’t figure out what.

Think, Lennox, think! What’s missing here, what was the point of all of this?

I stare at the body, willing it to tell me what the hell is going on. What was the endgame here? One Vox Witch up against a whole house of much stronger magic users. Why? Everything Tad was telling me about demons had me thinking they’re all about aligning with power and making plays for more power. That checks out so far with what I witnessed in the church, but as I look down at the corpse at my feet, I don’t see a power grab here. I see a calculated sacrifice.

What’s even more frustrating is I had these same questions about Jamie when the same demon was using her. She was covered in so many demon marks she barely looked like a person anymore. I was horrified to think about how every single demonic brand was a contract, some kind of deal between her and the demon. But it still doesn’t track that a demon would have chosen someone like Jamie to team up with in the first place. She didn’t have an ounce of magic, not a thing other than her cankered soul to trade with. I get that she had a pretty ambitious plan, but there was no guarantee she was ever going to be successful.

What was in it for the demon?

Why take all that risk for someone like Jamie and now Alvarez? Was he a Jamie in the making? Was he part of the team, like Nikki Smelser was before Jamie killed her?

I rub at my temples, a headache forming between my eyes.

Fuck, I’m tired. It’s been such a long damn day.

I rest my head against Rogan’s chest and sigh in an effort to purge myself from the failure I feel. The house is all lit up, and I can spot Tad and Prek watching us through the living room window. I wonder for a moment if I was wrong. Maybe it’s not safe here for Tad. I know he’d hate it, but it might be best for him to go back to the safe house. I could never forgive myself if anything—I pause mid thought as it hits me.

Aunt Hillen’s dream.

The message she said was for me from my Grammy Ruby. What did she say? I think back to lunch, sifting through the exhausted haze crashing over me.

Look at the marks.

Hurriedly I bend down and start taking Alvarez’s boot off. He’s still in his Order uniform, and I find myself doubting that was an accident. It would make sense if we were being set up. I’m not sure why they’d try to smear Rogan and Elon’s name; they did that already when they renounced them. I suppose I could be the target, but that feels wrong too. They’d be dumb to draw attention to any of us while they’re still trying to steal our secrets.

“Lennox, Love...what are you doing?” Marx asks, a little bewildered.

“I’m looking for his demon mark,” I grunt as the laces of Alvarez’s boot loosen and I pull it off.

His foot turns to mush in my hands, the bones in his feet destroyed, and it takes me a second to get his sock off. I scan the top of his foot and then the bottom. I know it has to be here somewhere. My eyes land on a brand right above his heel bone, and triumph flares through me. I study the demon mark to be certain, but it looks exactly like Jamie’s marks.

Elon bends down next to me and studies it as well. “Anything standing out to you?” he asks, and I shake my head no as I run my gaze over the circle.

It’s made up of black shadowy swirls that twine with lines of orange and red flames. It’s a symbol I know that will haunt my nightmares for years to come. A shiver of warning threads up my spine, but I refuse to give into the gloom it wants to invite out in me.

“I haven’t seen a ton of demon marks in my time,” I tell Elon. “But these look like Jamie’s did. No idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I mean, it looks like we’re dealing with one demon instead of more. I’ll take that as a good thing,” he states evenly, but I hear a slight shudder in the casual declaration.

“I’ll have Prek come look at everything. He was part of a team that had to hunt a demon when he first joined the Order. He knows more about this stuff than a lot of mancers do,” Marx offers, and then he starts jogging toward the house.

Surprise flutters through me at Marx’s words, and I tuck them away to talk to Prek about later. I stare at the demon mark for a moment more and then put Alvarez’s grotesque foot down. I stand up, huffing out an irritated sigh as I scan the trees surrounding us again. I have no doubt in my mind that setting up Alvarez also meant tying up loose ends. I just wish I knew if those ends belong to the High Council or a rogue demon whose motives are still a frightening mystery.

I know in my bones that we got lucky tonight. We killed a possible threat, but it’s clear we’re not ready for what could be coming our way. If the High Council had shown up in force tonight, I don’t know if any of us would be standing here right now. If the demon had wanted more than to taunt us, I worry we’d be just as fucked. Reality backhanded me brutally tonight, and it’s clear we need to step shit up and prepare. Ready or not, they’re coming, and no matter what happens...we can’t let them win.