Black Arts, White Craft by Hailey Edwards

11

“Rue.”

Zooming for all she was worth, Colby shot into my room and made wide laps around the ceiling.

Dizzy from the acrobatics, I dropped my gaze. “How much sugar have you had today, ma’am?”

For her to be this hyped, she must have stayed awake all day, probably raiding and pillaging.

Ignoring the question, which was answer enough, she asked, “I get to go with you, right?”

“Last night wasn’t exciting enough?” I made up my bed. “You need more adventure?”

“Yep.” She brandished a silver rod in one hand. “I’m ready for action.”

“What’s that in your hand?” I squinted, then wished I hadn’t noticed. “Who gave you a sword?”

“Clay and I did arts and crafts on the porch.”

“Please don’t poke an eye out, yours or anyone else’s.”

“I make no promises.”

“Scoot.” I dug through my luggage. “I need to dress.”

“Okay.” She swooped so close, she could have parted my hair with her art project. “Later.”

Alone at last, I rushed through my hygiene routine, pulled on fresh clothes, and strapped on my kit.

Pulse kicking up at the prospect of facing Asa, I joined the others in the kitchen for breakfast.

Sadly, the kind that didn’t taste much different from the box you poured it from. There had simply been no time to bake, and I hadn’t been in a mood for it with Asa recovering. Now we all had to suffer.

The remaining black witch had lost their partner, and their zombigo. They would come for us. Tonight. We needed to be ready when it happened, and that meant we had to eat and get out there.

A wig box sat next to Clay’s elbow, its lid covered in silver moth footprints and its sides full of holes.

Leaning on the counter, I studied Clay. “Who thought giving Colby a sword was a good idea?”

“You’re always telling the kid to unplug.” He twirled his spoon. “What’s the problem?”

“You weaponized her.” I leaned in close. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“The edges are dull.” Asa moved in behind me, almost touching. “There’s not much of a point either.”

As nice as it felt having his warmth at my back, I had to keep my wits about me. “You made it?”

“I whittled her sword, yes. On the drive here.” He reached around me, caging me in his arms, and poured cereal into bowls. “I also carved her a shield, and other items relevant to her interests, to occupy her if the internet went down.”

“I’ll teach her how to use her new arsenal,” Clay promised. “I haven’t used a sword in years, but it’s like riding a bike. It comes back to you.”

About to address the issue of an arsenal, and a battle-trained moth, I opened my mouth only to have a spoon shoved into it as Clay leaned across the counter.

A subtle growl rose over my shoulder, and Asa froze halfway to filling our bowls with milk.

“You taste that?” Clay’s lips pulled to one side. “It’s like fu—” He cleared his throat. “It’s like cardboard.”

Crunching the cinnamon-sugar mouthful, I shrugged. “What do you expect from a box?”

“Please bake for me.” He made his eyes big and liquid. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

“Not so long ago, I recall a cranberry-orange scone incident.”

Despite the fact I had lost sleep baking them, he had eaten every single one in the box.

Clay ate nine scones while Asa and I were packing Colby and my things into the SUV the morning we left Samford. A tenth had hung from his lip when we confronted him in the kitchen. He inhaled the eleventh, an extra fluffy one, to spare us from fighting over the last one, or so he claimed.

The twelfth never made it in the box. It was the cost of doing business. I had eaten it for dinner.

“Pump the brakes.” He held up his hands. “Colby gave those to me, as a gift.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I finished the task of making cereal for Asa and me. “You didn’t share, so why should I?”

“You love me.” He fluttered his lashes. “I’m your favorite.”

“That’s only half true.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine.” I huffed, secretly pleased. “I’ll bake.”

Turning in the circle of Asa’s arms, I pressed a bowl into his chest, which he studied warily.

“Have you never had cereal?”

“That is sugar pressed flat, cut into squares, and sprinkled with cinnamon.”

Apparently, Clay wasn’t the only breakfast snob around here.

Too bad for Asa, I knew how to push his buttons.

“Mmm.” I stole his spoon, piled it high, and stuck it in my mouth. “Sugary.”

The way he fixated on my mouth almost caused me to choke, but I managed to swallow with dignity.

A battle warred across Asa’s face as he fought his instinct to taste my food after me.

“If you’re not interested…” I took another bite, crunching noisily, “…I’ll finish this myself.”

The next time I loaded my spoon, I teased him a heartbeat too long, and he swooped in to devour it.

“That’s cheating.” I tapped the end of his nose with the spoon then shoveled in another bite. “How rude.”

“How are you feeling?” He leaned into my space, his hips pinning mine against the counter. “Hungry?”

Now that he mentioned it, I was experiencing a rumble in my tummy. “I’m always hungry.”

Behind me, Clay snorted but didn’t say a word as I attempted to work out what I had done this time.

“You spit muffined my cereal.” I stared into the bowl while Asa smiled down at me. “That’s why it tastes better.” I took another mouthful. “No. I was wrong. It doesn’t taste better. I just want it more.”

After the bedroom door incident—ahem—cereal wasn’t the only thing I wanted more.

“Can I bring my sword?” Colby buzzed me. “I’ve always wanted to know how it feels to stab an eyeball.”

Tipping my head back, I had to wonder where I went wrong. Probably the whole black witch thing, come back to haunt me in the form of a moth who was weirdly bloodthirsty for someone whose diet subsisted of pollen granules and sugar water.

Busy swashbuckling midair, Colby didn’t notice Asa’s and my close quarters, and he eased back before she got an eyeful of this thing unfurling between us. He was considerate of her, and I liked that about him. It helped that his brain worked better around me than mine did around him.

“Leave the sword at home tonight.” I ate the rest of our shared bowl of cereal. “You need to be focused when you’re in the field. You also need to think first with your magic and not with your body’s reflexes.”

As fierce as her spirit was, magic or not, she had to learn to think like a familiar in battle.

Landing on Clay’s head, she quivered her antennae. “So, tomorrow is a maybe?”

“We’ll see.” I pointed to the counter, and she flitted down to ditch her weapon. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She cast one last, longing glance at the sword. “I’m ready.”

“Asa?” I noticed he hadn’t touched the other bowl of cereal. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yes.” His gaze touched on my lips. “But I can wait.”

The excuse might have fooled Colby, who wrinkled her nose in solidarity, but I knew better. I could put a spoonful of it in my mouth, and he would devour it. And I…wouldn’t mind watching the show.

This fascination thing was downright bizarre. I had all these weird food-based impulses around Asa that would have earned a hard no if anyone else tried it with me. I did not eat after people. Or drink after people. But I—from a purely symbolic point—couldn’t put enough of him in my mouth.

The thing about black witches was they didn’t suffer romantic inclinations. They married, yeah, to form alliances. Aside from deflowering, sure, they had sex. Mostly to procreate. Or to enhance a spell. Sex magic was a thing, and it was gross. Feed me beating hearts over swapping bodily fluids with some rando guy any day of the week.

Mom and Dad had loved each other, which made them an odder couple than just their opposing magical practices. I don’t recall how my parents behaved with each other, or me. The director had cost me those comforting scraps, robbed me of those hazy childhood recollections.

Thanks to Meg, I knew Mom had been obsessed with Dad from the first moment she saw him. Mom had been a bit of a rebel in her circles, I knew that from Meg too, but no one had expected her to fall for the baddest bad boy on the market.

Certainly not the director, who had a black witch from a nice family all lined up for Dad to marry.

Niceas in evil, vile, and wicked, but you know. All the qualities the director prized above all others.

The arranged marriage angle made me wonder if Stavros had a nice daemon bride lined up for Asa.

On the heels of that unpleasant thought, I wondered if my bracelet could double as a garrot.

“They’re doing it again,” Colby murmured out of the side of her mouth.

“Can you two please stop pretending you’re alone?” Clay threw in with Colby. “We need to get to work.”

“They spend so much time staring at each other.” Colby twitched her wings. “Why is that?”

Scooping her up, he set her on his shoulder, and they started toward the door, leaving us to follow.

“You know how you go to the grocery store,” he said, “and you see cookies in the bakery?”

“Yeah.”

“They look delicious, right? You want to buy them based on looks alone.” He held up a finger. “But there is no way they taste as good as they look. They never do. Homemade is better. Always. Then you’ll know what’s in the dough.” He glanced at her. “See what I mean?”

“Rue thinks Asa looks good, but she’s not sure he tastes good?”

A laugh spluttered out of me, and Asa plucked at one golden arrow earring while mashing his lips together.

“Uh, no. That analogy got away from me.” He tried again. “How about this? Asa is like a cookie. Rue has to decide if she likes his ingredients before she…” Giving up, he slashed a hand through the air. “Scratch that. Forget cookies.”

“Let’s all forget it,” I volunteered. “Clay, where are we headed?”

“We’re going to continue to sweep the area, working clockwise. We’ll go a little farther tonight, since we have Colby with us. Whoever’s pulling the strings around here knows where to find us, I’m sure. When it comes time to play hardball, they’ll come to us if we don’t find them first. Meanwhile, our orders remain the same—hunt down the black witch responsible for the zombigo.”

“Aye, aye.” I cut him a mock salute. “Colby, stick close to Clay and keep as quiet and still as you can.”

“I’m a pro hair bow.” She climbed on top of his head and hunkered down in his hair. “I got this.”

We spent a few hours hiking through beautiful woodland without incident, which put Colby to sleep.

Asa walked beside me, but I missed the intimacy of our laced fingers. The moonlight, the scenic route, all made it easy to pretend, just for a second, we were on a midnight stroll for two. But the fact he kept our hands free meant he expected us to see action. I did too, but I dreaded it, considering Colby had a front row seat.

Flame engulfed Asa as his change overtook him with brutal quickness, and I marveled he didn’t burn me.

“Smell bad.” He crowded me then pointed through the trees. “That way.”

“Smell bad as in…?” I drew my wand from my pocket. “Black magic?”

Nostrils flaring, he nodded once. “Death.”

Clay had precious cargo to defend, so I set out with the daemon to guide me.

The thrill of the hunt sang through my blood, the daemon’s fangs gleaming in a smile next to me. I tuned in to pick up on any heartbeats in the area but found no unfamiliar cadences. The daemon proved to me his sense of smell was stronger than my hearing. No surprise there. I learned early in my career that my extra senses were precise only when stalking food in close range. It wasn’t a distance talent.

Arm out to hold me back, the daemon cocked his head and filled his lungs, his forehead wrinkling.

“The book,” a paper-thin voice rustled from the darkness. “Give me the book.”

Leaning forward, I strained to see the final black witch. “What book?”

“The book,” she, and it was female, repeated in her reedy tone. “Give me the book.”

“That can’t be…” I stepped around the daemon’s reach to gawk. “Annie Waite?”

If it was the same woman, her mantra hadn’t changed, and that meant we had a run-of-the-mill zombie.

Less exotic, but equally gross, and just as deadly if we underestimated its threat.

Not glancing back, I pitched my voice to carry to Clay. “Have you heard from the other team?”

“No.” Clay, and therefore Colby, sounded closer than I would have liked. “That’s not unusual, though.”

Any team running secondary to one with me on it tended to cut a wide berth to avoid crossing my path. But it wasn’t like them not to text a warning the body they had been dispatched to retrieve the night before was missing.

A chill swept down my arms, a premonition I wouldn’t like the answers I was about to get.

“I can’t tell if she’s armed.” I nudged the daemon back. “Stay behind me until we know for certain.”

Far from being a zombie expert, I didn’t want to find out the hard way they were handy with a gun.

“No,” the daemon growled, prowling beside me. “Rue get hurt.”

Cold-iron poisoning nearly took out Asa, and the daemon with him. I wasn’t hiding where it was safe this time.

As much as it pained me to think of her as a weapon, I had Colby. Her power would protect us. All of us.

“Book, book, book.” Garbled words poured into the air. “Book, book, book.”

“Anyone else think that makes her sound like a chicken?”

Bawk-bawk-bawk.

“Chicken?” The daemon licked his lips. “Crunchy.”

For the sake of my mental health, I chose to believe he meant fried chicken skin, not bone-in live bird.

Death wasn’t a squeamish topic for me. Neither was a raw diet or even cannibalism. Hello? Heart eater. But there were perfectly good chicken tenders in the fridge back at the cabin, just waiting to be breaded and fried.

A mop of dirty hair plastered to the side of a head that faced off center in a way that wasn’t natural rose from the shadows as the zombie lumbered into the path ahead of us. The witch’s corpse lacked the fluid motions of the zombigo, and its coordination. She had been slapped together without care on a deadline.

Her uninspired shuffling ramped up when she set rheumy eyes on us, and she wet her lips.

“Stay back,” I warned the daemon again, since I still couldn’t see her hands. “She might be armed.”

Reanimated corpses had no agency of their own, but they followed simple instruction well.

Point and shoot was easy, too easy, and I couldn’t let her get close enough to the daemon to try her aim.

“No.” He nudged me aside. “Protect Rue.”

“I’m sorry about this.” I let him get a smidge ahead of me then tapped his shoulder with my wand. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks, and his eyes promised vengeance. “It’ll wear off in five minutes.” I leapt a clumsy swipe of his arm. “Okay, so probably more like two.”

With Clay and Colby on the scene, the daemon was safe as houses, freeing me up to focus on the threat.

“You’re a bibliophile, huh?” I blocked her punch, grunting, but grateful she had no magic. “Me too.”

Any power left in her body, and she hadn’t much to start, was spent keeping her upright and in motion.

“Book,” she growled. “Give me the book.”

“What book?” I let her get close then spun out and kicked her knee. “Hit me with a blurb or something.”

Whoever was up here, sewing together zombies for funsies, I wasn’t sharing my card catalog with them.

A prickle coasted over my skin, raising gooseflesh into stinging bumps that ached with irritation.

“The ward,” I breathed in recognition. “We need to get to the cabin.”

This zombie was a limited conversationalist, a distraction, and a darn good one.

Murmuring a spell under my breath, I ramped up the power I funneled into my wand until its tip shone. I grunted when Colby joined her magic with mine, lighting me up inside, burning me like a shot of tequila.

The zombie tripped over a limb and face-planted, too dumb to do more than wiggle its arms and legs.

“Next time,” I said, easing closer to get in range, “come at me with an ISBN or something.”

Light encased her when I touched the wand to her skin, and she burned to ash in a blink.

We didn’t need the body, since we had already identified her and logged that intel with the Kellies.

Hot breath hit the back of my neck when I stood, and my short hairs stood on end.

Slowly, I turned to face this new threat, but it was too late.