I turned South West, toward the road, fingers stiffening from the cold. I could use the pendant to take me back to the road. The road represented civilization. Safety. Maybe even help? I couldn’t get lost on a road, couldn’t get turned around. Plus, the road was still there, but the paths through the forest weren’t.
But, then again, if the pendant was pointing me toward Aaron it meant… he was alive! He must have been alive. The pendant wouldn’t be leading me toward a corpse, would it? I had to follow. I had to go, and now. So I ran into the tunnel of trees, following the line of my stiffened pendant without faltering, without stopping. Running. Always running. Magick or not, the cold was no longer a factor I had to account for. I was doing the right thing. Magick was showing me the way to Aaron, and I was right to heed the call.
My feet were light on the snow. It wasn’t at all like wading through water, but more like gliding over ice. With my strangely heightened senses I could see branches coming long before they became an obstacle allowing me to duck under them with ease. I was like a hound following a scent, racing through the dark toward my prey when—whoosh!
It came at me from out of nowhere. Solid as a rock and yet as invisible as the air, the thing slammed into my chest and sent me my body one way and the necklace the other. I could feel the entity floating around me but I couldn’t see it. I didn’t know how it had found me or why it wasn’t with Aaron, but if it was with me then it meant Aaron hadn’t yet been possessed after all.
I had to find him, and fast.
But a hand grabbed me by the throat and lifted me from off the ground in a single movement. I struggle, grasping at the air in front of my neck for hands I couldn’t touch as the phantom fingers started to close around me. An image of a blackened mass with no eyes and a mouth full of bloodied, shark’s teeth forced its way into my mind like a shard of glass into skin.
“Hello little piggy,” it said, forcing its deep voice into my mind, and I screamed.
Almost as if by some kind of miracle, the entity let me go and I dropped to the ground clutching my throat, coughing. But each cough sent shooting pain through my throat that almost encouraged me to not breathe. Gasping, fighting through the pain, I rose to my feet and dashed deeper into the woods but I had lost my Magick compass and was flying blind. The forest wanted to confuse me, like a labyrinth eager to accept a new victim, and without a guide I would be quick to get lost.
I wondered whether I would ever find Aaron, if the demon was still following me, and why it had released me. Maybe it was responsible for turning me around and playing tricks on my mind. But how could it be in two places at once? If it was trying to possess Aaron then why—and how—was it following me, too?
That’s when I heard it.
The sound was faint, but recognizable. A struggle. Men were fighting nearby, their grunts like music to my ears. I approached, and as they started to come into view I saw the silhouettes of three people tussling on the snow through the trees. One of them was unmistakably, tall and strong and shirtless. He was holding his own against the two men trying to drop him, but they were hooded men, and I knew what they could do.
Ever one to leap without looking, I entered the fray. A telekinetic bolt flew off my fingers and went square into the back of one of the hooded men, catching him with a loud thump and sending him face first into the snow a few feet ahead. The other man turned to the dark spot in the woods where I was and yelled something in Latin before speeding in my direction, but Aaron caught him by the arm, twisted him round, and slammed a fist into his face.
The man lurched back a few steps and shook the blow off, snow falling off his hood, and put his dukes up again. How could he have taken such a hit so easily! Was he made of stone?
“Aaron!” I yelled.
Aaron turned to me and for a moment I thought I saw him smile—or grin—but the man I had felled with my telekinetic strike had gotten up, and he was already at Aaron’s back. An instant later both men were on him, tugging at his arms and legs to bring him to the snow. But he was like a bear, attacking and blocking with a kind of ferocity I had never seen in a human being. I observed the confrontation in the same way one watches a lion fight off a pack of hyenas: dumbfounded and in awe.
For a moment my body went numb and unresponsive, but not out of fear. I wasn’t seeing the Aaron that I knew out there. This man was a gladiator. He belonged in a ring; a Coliseum. Bared and scarred, bleeding yet caught up in the frenzy of bloodlust. Before now I had never seen a man engaged in a bare knuckle fight, not in real life anyway. And I had never seen Aaron fight either. Not really.
But this… this was something else.
The presence came at me fast; too fast for me to react. I spun on my heel but the same invisible force that had attacked me moments ago hit me again and sent me flying through the woods and sprawling to the ground a mere few feet away from the combatants. I struggled to sit up but my chest throbbing and hot with pain, and my throat was faring no better.
When I looked up, I saw it. The entity had taken physical form—a black mass, blacker than night—and it was approaching from within the darkness of the forest. I raised my hand and conjured an image of bright silver light flowing down from the sky and toward the entity, but the Power didn’t come. Fuck! It was just like last time. Losing my ability to call forth the Power was like trying to reach for a book on a shelf only to realize that your arm had been amputated without your knowledge.
I could do nothing but stare, doe eyed, like a deer caught in headlights, as the thing approached. This was it. Aaron was distracted and I was powerless. It would make its move now and take one of us. Whether it took me or Aaron, I didn’t think it mattered now. What mattered was that I was done.
But then another figure emerged from the woods. Damien? Frank? Did they know I was here? Had they followed me with magick? I perked up and focused on the newcomer, but he was wearing a hood… and holding a gun! He raised the weapon, cocked the gun, and aimed it at me.
“Aaron!” I screamed.
Three gunshots went off, echoing into the woods. Then silence, and then Aaron’s body fell beside me with a thump. I gaped at Aaron’s face, his brilliant blue eyes blinking wildly as the shock filled him. I tried to swallow, but nothing happened. My body went numb, my heart stopped beating. I reached for the side of his face to caress his skin and heal him, but I was yanked away by the hood of my coat before I could even register the warmth of Aaron’s skin.
“No!” I said, “Aaron, no!”
My steely resolve melted, and then the tears came. I didn’t care that I was being dragged to the foot of the shooter, only that Aaron was lying in the snow, dying.
“Take him too,” said the man with the gun, “And burn the body. We don’t want anybody finding it.”
“Murderer!” I said.
The man squatted before me. His hood shrouded most of his face in a mantle too dark to see through; all I could get from him, or any of the other men, were their white jaws and blue lips. This man had ghostly white skin and near purple lips. He reminded me of a corpse, and the lack of heat in his breath when he spoke only made him seem deader.
“Murderer, perhaps,” his voice was soft and inviting but dangerous, “But that sow is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. You, however, are our star attraction.”
Unimportant was all I heard. “What do you mean, unimportant?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Don’t you know why you’re here?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
His lips curled into a knowing grin. “I thought you said we had fucked with the wrong Witch.”
My eyes darted from side to side as I registered what he said, then it hit me. Those were the words I used on the Mesa, the words I spoke into the Sheriff’s phone after I had killed him. Was it he on the other side? Had I sent this man the threat? What a stupid idea that was, huh Amber?
The man stood upright and directed his minions to carry
Aaron’s lifeless body away. My heart shattered when I saw how he was just dragged across the snow like a sack of meat, but the worst part came when I saw the trail of blood his body was leaving on the snow. There was so much of it… I wanted to retch, but I couldn’t throw up. I just couldn’t.
Before I knew it someone yanked me to my feet and herded me in one direction while they dragged Aaron in the other. I knew he would die out here and for that I would never forgive myself.
If I survived the night.
CHAPTER 29
My fire was starting to dwindle. With each complacent step I took, I could feel the strength ebbing from my body in the same way Aaron's blood had rushed out of him not moments earlier. Concentration was impossible, resistance futile. I was being steered like cattle, and in that moment I could do nothing but concede to captivity.
What was going to happen next was no longer a certainty. Aaron was dead. Even if I made it out alive, nothing would ever be the same. Someone had died because of me. Blood in the snow. Time slowed as if to allow me a chance to grieve. But I didn't want to grieve. I wanted to go back in time and stop this from happening, to stop Aaron from dying. If I hadn't gone to see Damien I would have been able to leave with Aaron straight away and he would still be alive.
If only I hadn't put my needs in front of his, I wouldn't be here. About to die.
No.
No!
I wasn't about to die. Dying wasn’t what Aaron would want me to do. He wouldn't have wanted me to give up and let them take me. I had to think and get my head in the right place. I needed time, and luckily time itself seemed to have slowed just for me. So I closed my eyes and conjured feelings of warmth, safety and comfort within myself. I had never done this before, never allowed myself to exist inside a moment, but I knew I didn't need Magick to do it.
I only needed to meditate, and think.
"Amber," said a voice in my ear. I blinked, and in an instant I was no longer in the forest, transported instead to the interior of a familiar eatery.
Joe's.
The diner was empty save for the distinct scent of cooked tomato, cheese, and meat. Pizza. The delicious aroma floated out of the kitchen and caused my stomach to grumble hungrily. I was drawn to the smell and the warmth, so I went to it. This was it. This was my chance. I knew that this wasn't real and couldn't understand why my mind had taken me to Joe's, but I didn't question it.
I had been given a chance and a familiar space in which to think.
Possessed by the sudden urge to open the kitchen door I went for it and pushed. Much to my surprise, though, someone stepped out before I could walk in.
"Damien?" I asked. My pulse started to race as soon as my eyes fell upon him. "What are you doing here?"
"I... don't know," he said, "I was with Frank. We couldn't find you."
"You were… looking for me?"
Damien nodded.
A cursory glance of the kitchen behind Damien revealed that the inviting aroma emanating from inside had no source. I could see no pizzas, no vats of tomato and no vegetables on the counters. Only plain, empty stainless steel counters, glittering as if caught beneath rays of sunlight. Something about my surroundings felt wrong and unfinished.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"You know what this is," he said. "You're still in the woods, Amber. And you're in danger. But right now you’re here, and you can think."
"Right,” I said, “I know where I am. Only I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
“Sounds like you.”
"Enough jokes. Damien, what am I supposed to do?"
"Think," he said. "You have to figure out how to get out of this mess."
"How? I can't use my powers."
"I know, but that shouldn't stop you. You're a Witch, and a clever one." The light fixtures began to flicker. "It's coming," Damien said. "Think, Amber. You don't have much time."
"Damien, I need help! I need you to tell Frank where I am. I'm in the place—"
"I can't," he said, interrupting, "I'm not really here."
"But you told me you were with Frank. How could I have known that?"
"Because I'm always going to be there no matter what."
He was right. Damien would have helped if he knew I was in danger. Of course he would have. We had been through too much for him to not get involved. Yes, he had been a royal dick and screwed me over, but it didn’t mean he would have chosen to not come out looking for me if Frank told him I was in trouble.
"Maybe I did know that,” I said, “But how am I supposed to find answers in here?"
I thought that, upon entering my headspace, I would be sent to a place that looked like home or the bookstore, where answers would reveal themselves to me in the pages of books... or something. But Joe's? The lights stopped flickering and returned to normal.
"You have the answers inside of you," Damien said, "You just have to look deep enough."
Damien gestured at the door to the men's bathroom with a nod of his head. It was a simple door with the men's sign on it, but it didn't look like the same door I remembered from Joe’s restaurant. I had eaten at Joe's a million times and I knew something about this door didn't quite feel right. The paint job was a little off, a little too clean and shiny red, and it seemed to glow as if it had an inner light of its own.
"What's behind that door?" I asked.
"An answer,” he said, “And many more questions."
My pulse kicked into high gear and started to beat against my temples. Wh-whack - Wh-whack -Wh-whack. I didn't want to go near the door, but it seemed as if the door was starting to take on a more sinister tone as time went on. The paint had begun to crack and break, the door’s own glow had started to fade causing the seams in the paint to become harsh black lines, and the smell of backed up toilets was starting to float away from it.
"Will that knowledge help me get out of this?" I asked.
"I don't know," Damien said, "All I know is that behind that door there is a lesson you must learn."
"He's right." Aaron's voice caught me by complete surprise. I turned around and there he was, fit and healthy, with an almost angelic glow to his tanned skin.
My eyes welled with tears the instant I saw him. I went to hug him, but he stopped me. "Aaron," I said, as my fingers struggled to find his, "I'm so sorry this happened."
"Don't be," he said. "It was my own fault. I shouldn't have run off on you."
One of the lights at the far end of the room popped and sent half the diner into darkness.
"Amber, you have to hurry," Damien said, "It's coming for you. You're the one it wants, not Aaron."
Another light popped, this time in the kitchen. Now only one light was left to illuminate the room, but it was starting to buzz as the power surge crept closer and closer towards it.
I nodded and stole another glance at Aaron before turning to face the now near black door to the men's room. I approached with my hand outstretched, moving toward the door one inch at a time. Finally my fingers touched the slick, black thing and with a single push the door croaked open; and the last light at my back died.
Behind the men's room door there came the steady slap of flesh against flesh and muffled moans. The smell of sex followed; that hot, musky scent of sweat and heat. I stepped through the portal and emerged not inside a bathroom, but in a moonlit bedroom. Before me there was a large bed, flowing white curtains, and sex toys; a ridiculous amount of sex toys scattered over every possible flat surface save for the bed.
On the bed there was a woman straddling a man. Long black hair fell down her pale skin which was covered in tattoos. Where her arms met her wrist the skin began to blacken, ending in onyx fingers topped with razor sharp claws which gleaned like razorblades in the moonlight slipping in through the window. Beneath her there was a man who, though erect, couldn't have been alive. It took me a moment to recognize the withered husk, but as I circled the bed I knew.
It was Kyle, my cheating ex-boyfriend, the man who—in a mome
nt of spite and rage after learning of his infidelity—I had put a hex on.
I didn't know then that my summoning of a succubus had worked and that a disgusting creature had been called forth from whatever broken realm it lived in, but I learned after the fact that I had worked real Magick, and that I had ruined his life with my own hubris. My stomach sank into the floor with a loud clunk and I fell to my knees.
Eight words the Wiccan rede fulfil,
And you harm none, do what thou will.
"I did this..." I said. "It was me. This was all me."
The woman ceased her steady gyrations and spun her head one hundred eighty degrees, her neck giving off a series of cracks as it turned. She was a stunning beauty of a woman; a pale goddess with black hair, full red lips, and violet eyes made sinister with dark make-up. But her beauty belied the evil I saw behind those eyes. She, it, was evil and chaos incarnate—and she was here because of me.
"Yes you did," she said, but her voice wasn't female; it was male.
"W-who are you?" I asked.
"Don't you know?" it said, "I took what I needed from him, and now I'm going to give it to you." The creature stepped off the husk and glided to the foot of the bed, turning its neck around to face the right way in one fluid motion. Then she came at me; clawed hands opened and sharp fangs at the ready.
"No," I said, raising my arms and shaking my head, "No!"
I opened my eyes again to the interior of a dilapidated building lit only by candlelight and filled with hooded men. I blinked to adjust to the light and spotted the satanic iconography decorating every inch of every wall; from pentagrams inscribed with odd runes to images of horned beasts having their way with women. The hooded man who had killed Aaron was standing before me, and he had a grin on his face that made my skin crawl.