Witch Untold by Debbie Cassidy

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lauris parked the van at the end of the alley behind The Order club. It was close enough to get the humans to safety quickly, but not close enough to be spotted by the warlocks, or so we hoped.

Sloane, Poppy, and Jessie sat on the floor in the back of the van, which was cleared out to make room for the humans we hoped to rescue. The rest of the witches pulled up in another vehicle behind us.

We got out and convened on the empty street. To the passersby we’d look like a group of women ready for a night out in our clubbing clothes and heels. The truth couldn’t be further from it.

“Everybody have their glamour bracelets on?” Sloane asked.

Murmurs of assent greeted her question.

“Good. The plan is simple. You guys play decoy while we Elites get the humans out. I’ll signal you when we’re done and then we move to the vomit stage.”

She pointed at a brunette with wide gray eyes. “Have you got the vial?”

“Yes.” She patted her jeans pocket.

The vial was filled with a concoction that would make her sick. Yeah, really gut-wrenching sick. They’d drawn lots as to who’d be the one to take it.

She was the unlucky one.

“You get sick, cause a fuss, and then leave.”

The witches nodded, all on board with the plan.

They had the easy part.

All they needed to do was fake having fun for maybe thirty minutes or so while we infiltrated the back of the club and liberated the humans.

“What if the revenants attack before you’ve finished?” one of the witches asked.

“They won’t.” I gave the witch a reassuring smile. “They’ll want to make sure you’re inebriated and relaxed first. They won’t attack straight off. But if we’re wrong, if they do, then you deploy operation vomit and get out. Don’t worry about us.”

“We’re not just up against regular warlocks,” Sloane said. “But people who are somehow possessed by revenants—what’s left of the older warlocks—and their power will be stronger, their abilities more potent.”

War, hunger, disease, and death. Yeah. I remembered. Every warlock in the Order had one of these skills.

“Be wary, be cautious, and be aware,” Sloane finished.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Jessie said.

Poppy led the way down the street. We’d have to approach the club via the front like everyone else, which meant following the street round and cutting across the parking lot that made up part of The Order’s outdoor dance floor.

It was late, almost midnight, the perfect time to enter because it would be busy. Perfect cover for us when we broke from the main group and headed for the hidden door.

The parking lot was filled with humans dancing, drinking, chatting. I took the lead as we reached the main doors and held out my VIP tickets to the bouncer with a smile.

“Hi, I was given these the last time I was here.” I looked over my shoulder at Sloane and the other witches. “The guy said I could bring some friends?”

The bouncer studied the tickets, then muttered something into his walkie before handing them back to me.

“One moment,” he said gruffly. “Please step to the side.” He ushered us to a spot beside him, away from the main queue of patrons desperate to get in.

Shit. What was this? Had we done something wrong. No. Stay calm. Wait.

An agonizingly long minute passed as the bouncer let humans through. I caught Sloane’s eye and she returned my gaze with a flat look.

She’d been flat ever since we’d met up earlier. She’d barely looked at me, spoken to me. Yeah, it hurt. A lot.

I missed her.

I missed our camaraderie and banter, but right now I needed to focus on the guy who was coming toward us. The same guy who’d given us the tickets, the one possessed by a revenant who’d infected us with his ability to incite conflict and turned us against each other.

“Hi!” I simpered. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t make it last week.”

“Oh, that’s no problem.” He gave me a twinkling smile. “The VIP room is available.”

“Oh, great.” Sloane slipped her arm around my waist, pulling me against her side.

It was the first contact we’d had in ages, and my pulse sped up.

“Follow me,” the revenant in human skin said.

We followed him past the bouncer and into the club. Bodies bounced and gyrated to the same old popular tracks, and it took a moment for my senses to adjust. Everything seemed too loud, too brash, setting my teeth on edge.

Sloane dropped her arm from my waist but took my hand as we wove through the crowd using the human revenant as a guide. My mind went back to the last time we’d been here. We’d been undercover, up close and personal, acting the couple, and despite the danger there’d also been a thrill. But not this time. This time an icky feeling swirled in the pit of my belly.

We stepped through an arch, past a set of double doors, and into a room with cushy booths, its own bar, and a dance floor.

My skin prickled, and the unease in my stomach intensified. Only when the buzz under my skin died did it hit me that it had ever been there.

My magic.

My connection to my powers.

It was gone.

Something was wrong.

I turned to Sloane and caught movement behind her—men closing the doors.

Warlocks?

“What the heck?” Poppy moved closer to us. “I can’t feel it…”

She couldn’t feel her magic either.

Confusion rippled over the gathered witches as they probably realized the same thing. Alarms went off in my head, and as the revenant in human skin turned to face us with a smug smile, realization dawned.

This was a trap.

* * *

Sloane aimedto step in front of me just as I tried to do the same for her, resulting in us bumping together. Would have been funny if not for the shit-we’re-trapped-without-access-to-our-magic scenario.

More warlocks materialized in the room, and it hit me—they’d been here all along, cloaked somehow.

“What is this?” Jessie said. “Some weird VIP room thing?”

She was trying to hold on to our cover, bless her, but it was obvious to me from the way he was looking at us—part amusement, part derision—that he knew exactly who and what we were, which meant…

“Your little trinkets don’t work,” he confirmed. “Not in here. I can see right through your glamour. I saw it the last time you were here, but you found my little feeding room. I knew you’d be back with reinforcements, and you confirmed it when you offered to bring your friends.” He scanned the other witches. “Although I was starting to wonder if your coven had gotten cold feet. But here you are. You’re late, but there was no doubt in my mind you’d return to save the humans. Unfortunately for you, they’re no longer here. Unfortunately for you, you came back.”

They’d shut down our access to magic, but not their own. How? Oh, crap, of course, they used chaos, not miasma or cosmos. My mind whirred, making connections as I scanned the room. Seven warlocks with access to chaos plus the revenant in human skin made eight, but where was the source of the block on us? It had to be close by. Runes? No. Not that I could see. An object? Nothing out of the ordinary in here, although that meant nothing.

Something caught my eyes, a shimmer in the air by the bar. No, nothing there. Maybe a trick of the light?

The warlocks made a circle around us and an idea filled my mind.

“What are you going to do?” Sloane’s tone was calm and even, a total contradiction to her stiff stance. “You going to kill us? You think that no one knows we’re here?”

He smirked. “It doesn’t matter who knows. I have The Elites in my midst, the powerhouse of the Grimswood cell. I take you out and your coven is worthless against us.”

The circle of warlocks tightened around us like a noose, and unfamiliar power brushed against my senses.

Poppy, Jessie, Sloane, and I stood at the center.

Perfect, because I had a plan. “Get the crystal out.”

“What?” Poppy frowned. “We can’t…” She trailed off, eyes widening.

Sloane grabbed my hand and Jessie pulled the crystal from her bag. We were all on the same page.

Doubt flashed across the revenant’s face. “What is that?”

We began to chant. The negation spell leapt onto my tongue, chaos magic flowing freely. Yeah, motherfuckers. They’d blocked us off from miasma and cosmos, but they didn’t realize that our most powerful spell, the one that took out revenants, was fueled by chaos.

The revenant staggered back, clutching his chest. His eyes narrowed and he lunged at us, but the negation had him. The last time we’d tried to take him out he’d been too strong for us, but the crystal amplified our power. Reserved for taking down multiple revenants tonight, it would help us take down one uber one.

The rage painting his features told me he knew what was happening. He stretched out an arm, hand morphing to a crimson claw as it pointed at us.

A rippled of energy brushed against the shield the negation had created. We had to work fast, because we had seconds before the other warlocks realized what was happening and attacked, disrupting our focus.

The revenant hit the ground with his knees, curling in on himself. “No…”

The warlocks around us began to chant. Prickly power stabbed at the shield around us like thousands of needles desperate to burst a latex bubble.

The negation chant filled my head with colors—crimson, dark blue, and black, so much black.

There was a scream and then the revenant tore out of its human skin. It rushed toward us, its mouth open in a silent scream. Tendinous, ropey, crimson body ready for attack. It exploded into icky wet goo.

The gunk hit me in the chest and spattered my cheek.

“Oh, yuck!” Jessie hopped from foot to foot.

But my attention was drawn to the body on the floor. The suit the revenant had worn. Its skin was a pale green, and short horns protruded from its forehead, but its face was entirely human.

What the fuck.

“Cora…” Sloane nudged me.

It hit me then how deathly silent the room was.

The warlocks looked stunned, staring at the mess that painted the floor and us. Movement to my right. The shimmer. A dark shadow?

The warlocks attacked.

Power hit me in the chest, knocking me off my feet. My head hit the ground and the world dimmed.

“Cora, up.” Sloane hauled me to my feet and yanked me to the side.

Power grazed my arm, ice-cold and deadly.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Jessie cried. “Get the doors open.”

It was witches with no magic against warlocks with power. We might as well be fighting jaguars with dead fish!

A lance of darkness shot toward us. I slammed into Sloane, taking her down as the jet of deadly power shot over us. I landed on top of her and our gazes tangled for a moment, hearts beating as one. Her hard gaze softened for a fraction of a second and then her mouth twisted and she rolled, taking me with her.

Something crashed into the ground in the exact spot we’d been a moment ago.

We scrambled to our feet.

Around us the witches ran to and fro to avoid the warlock attack while Poppy and Jessie worked on getting the door open.

“It’s not gonna work.” I grabbed Sloane’s arm. “We need to find whatever’s blocking us and deactivate it.”

“It might not even be in this room,” Sloane pointed out.

Once again there was movement at the periphery of my vision. The pale smudge of a face set with dark eyes.

Shit. Someone was there. A hidden someone.

The shimmer happened again, closer to us this time. I let go of Sloane and ran at it.

Sparks stung my skin, blinding me. Then a hand was around my throat and angry dark eyes bore into me.

A warlock!

A chanting warlock.

The source of the spell fucking with our connection.

Shit, I couldn’t breathe.

The warlock’s eyes went wide, his grip loosened, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground to reveal Sloane standing behind him holding a broken bottle of wine.

The world let out a sigh and a buzz lit up my skin.

Sloane grinned at me, electric blues bright in her gorgeous face.

We were back online.

* * *

Magic clashed,lighting up the room in a myriad of colors and charging the air molecules with a strange hum that vibrated in my teeth.

Jessie worked to disable the warding on the door while Poppy continued to watch her back. A warlock rushed her and bounced off the dome of protection she’d erected around them.

If anyone could get the ward down it was Jessie; all we could do was focus on keeping the warlocks at bay. With our magic back online, the odds had evened out.

Lightning shot out of my fingertips, easy and effortless, knocking warlocks back and throwing them off their feet.

The fuckers didn’t stay down, though. Like resilient cockroaches, they popped back up to attack, again and again, but all we needed to do was keep them occupied until—

Someone screamed and my head whipped round to find Poppy grappling with a warlock. A lance of green power hit him in the back, and he convulsed and staggered away from her.

Sloane.

Jessie stepped away from the doors, shoulders slumped, shaking her head. “I can’t break it.”

Fuck.

“There’s no escape,” one of the warlocks said. “Resistance is futile.”

“Someone’s been watching too much Star Trek Voyager.” I blasted him in the face with lightning, but he deflected with his dark power. “Why don’t you just die already.”

“I will if you do,” he sneered.

“We need to find another way out,” Poppy cried.

“There is no way out,” the warlock said.

The air rippled and more warlocks appeared.

“Shit.” Sloane appeared at my side. “This is not good.”

Behind us our witches continued to fight as the fresh wave of warlocks rushed into the fray.

They moved fast, slicing across the room with lethal intent. To my left, one grabbed a witch by the neck. She convulsed and crumbled into ash.

What the fuck?

“Move!” Sloane ordered. “These fuckers have the old skills.”

One of the four skills? Which meant the first wave hadn’t had these abilities because they’d have used them otherwise.

Someone screamed and my gaze flew toward the sound to see a witch on top of another. Fuck, was she biting her?

They had us turning on each other now?

We were overwhelmed.

There was nothing but the clash of power, bellows and yells, as we desperately tried to gain a foothold, but we were outnumbered, outmatched, and these warlocks had abilities beyond our scope.

There was no way we could keep this up.

A wave of power hit me in the shoulder, propelling me across the room and into Poppy. She grabbed hold of me to steady me, and I saw our salvation hidden in the shadows on the wall by the bar—a glass box with a “break in case of emergency” sign.

A fire alarm.

A fucking fire alarm.

So simple, yet perfect.

All I needed to do was jump to it and smash the glass.

Crimson light blooming in the periphery of my vision accompanied the crack of a whip. I turned my head to see a thong lashing toward me.

I made to jump out of the way.

Nothing happened.

“Cora!” Jessie barreled into me, knocking me off my feet.

The air fizzed. Her scream ripped the air, and the scent of charred flesh stung my nostrils.

I scrambled to grab her as she fell. Blood and gore coated her shoulder. She looked up at me blearily, then her eyes fluttered closed.

The whip cracked again, aimed for us once more.

“No!” I raised my hand to deflect it with my power, but nothing happened.

Ice gripped my throat as the thong arched toward us, but a jet of green power deflected the lash.

“Move!” Sloane planted herself between the warlock and us.

Poppy hurried over. “Oh, fuck. Oh, shit.”

We dragged Jessie to the wall. “Stay with her. I need to get to the fire alarm.” There was no time to explain.

I broke into a sprint, dodging warlocks, ducking to avoid the jets of power lancing across the room. Almost there.

Almost…

Something grabbed hold of my ankle and yanked me off balance. I hit the ground, bracing with my hands as a weight fell on my back. Teeth gnashed in my ear.

Shit. Shit. A witch was trying to eat me.

I bucked, trying to get her off me, twisting to avoid her blunt teeth. Fuck, was that drool? I reached for the alarm. Dammit, so close. So bloody close. Power jettisoned out of my hand and connected with the glass.

A shrill scream saturated the air, high-pitched and persistent.

The alarm.

I’d done it. I rolled, taking the witch with me, squishing her beneath my back and then elbowing my way free.

She grabbed my leg, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

“I’m so sorry.” I kicked her in the head, knocking her unconscious.

Around us the warlocks had stalled in their attack, exchanging panicked glances. Yeah, fuckers, in a few minutes this building would be crawling with firefighters doing an obligatory sweep of the place.

“Fall back!” Whip Guy called out.

The bastards winked out one by one.

They were gone. I sagged in relief, turning to face Sloane.

Her eyes widened a moment before I was jerked backward by the hair. A hand squeezed mine, setting my skin on fire with pain. Hot breath kissed my ear. “See you soon, little anchor.”

I fell forward, suddenly free, and whirled to find my attacker gone.

Sloane pulled me to her. “You okay?” She cupped my face, studying me intently.

“I’m fine.” Except my hand was on fire. I lifted it to find neat finger marks burned into my flesh. “Bastard.” The burn melted away as my skin healed and knitted.

I looked up to see Sloane’s shocked expression. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doors are open,” Jessie said.

But Sloane was still staring at my healed hand.

“We’ll figure it out later.” Although I was pretty sure this had something to do with my “changes.”

Sloane nodded curtly.

Together we rounded up our witches. The ones affected by hunger groaned and rubbed their heads, surfacing from the warlocks’ mojo. I guess the fuckers had to be in the vicinity for the effects of their power to last.

“We need to get out of here before the firefighters do their sweep,” Sloane said. “Everyone, out. Now. Cora, do you think you can jump Jessie to the van?”

She’d noticed my power glitch, then. “Yeah.” I flexed my hands, reveling in the crackle of power between my fingertips. “I’m good.”

“We’ll see you there.”

I gathered an unconscious Jessie into my arms, mindful of the wound on her shoulder, and made the jump.

We materialized in the cool interior of the van. Thank goodness.

“Cora? What the fuck?” Lauris clambered into the back of the van. “Shit. Oh, that looks bad.”

Yeah, the wound was deep, exposing flesh and muscle.

“What happened?”

“Bad shit.”

“But it’s over?”

My heart sank. “No. I think it’s only just beginning.”