River’s eyes widened. “Are you all witches?”
Jewel wanted to roll her eyes, but she forced herself to smile and nod instead.
“We are,” Anna said as she pointed to herself and Jewel. “These two goobers are just warlocks.”
“Hey,” Sly and Z said at the same time, both sounding considerably insulted.
“Just stating the facts, boys,” Anna said while smiling at River. She was attempting to put the girl at ease, Jewel realized.
“Warlocks?” River asked.
Jewel and Anna nodded at the same time. “You believe in witches?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they’re real, but so are a lot of other supernatural beings,” Anna explained.
“Can a person become a witch?” River asked. “Or are you just born with it?”
Yes, Jewel thought, a person can become a witch, or you might become worm food. Cynical? Yes, yes she was.
Anna nodded. “Not everyone can become a witch, but most any woman with an open mind will likely have the necessary innate power. We can help.”
When Jewel didn’t say anything, Anna jabbed her in the side with her elbow. Jewel coughed. “Yes, exactly, we can help.”
“How? What do I need to do?”
“There is a ritual … but it doesn’t take anything special. We can even do it right here in the store.”
“Can you take a break?” Jewel asked. The words were tight in her throat. She didn’t want to do this. Like, really, really didn’t want to do this, but there was no choice, so she was just going to have to put on her big girl witch panties and suck it up.
“Are you guys serious right now?” River asked. “Because if you all are just messing with me—”
Z stuck up his hand, interrupting the girl. “We are dead serious. We can show you what you’ve been searching for.”
“But why me? What are you guys doing here?” she pressed.
“The girls are part of a coven here in Los Angeles, small but powerful,” Sly offered. “But they need more members, a few fortunate souls who have the openness of mind to accept that they could be more than just mere humans, that they could have real power. You see, River, the garbage you’ve been reading, all that nature-is-power mumbo jumbo? None of it is real. True power comes from within.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet. The book dropped noisily from her lap. The warlock looked deep into the girls’ mismatched eyes, allowing a bit of his own innate power to slip from his fingers into hers. Her countenance became mesmerized.
“Yeah.” She nodded blankly. “Let me just flip the sign and I’ll be back.”
The group watched as Sly dropped her hand, and River walked to the front of the store, flipped the lock, and turned the sign in the window. Jewel turned to look at Anna as the girl was walking back toward them. Jewel saw the fear and hesitation in Anna’s eyes and realized her partner was just a lot better at putting up a front than she was.
“We can go to the back,” River called over her shoulder as she passed them.
Sly and Z made a motion for Jewel and Anna to go, and they followed behind the girl.
“Try not to kill her,” Z whispered as they reached the door to the rear of the shop.
“The first spell I’m going to learn is how to seal a person’s lips shut,” Anna said as she looked over her shoulder at the two warlocks. “And you two will be my guinea pigs.”
“Harsh,” Sly whispered as he pressed a hand to his chest.
Anna shrugged. “Maybe.”
They went into a small break room. Jewel looked around before her eyes found River, sitting on the edge of a table, her arms folded across her chest.
“So what exactly does this entail?” River asked. Her eyes no longer looked glassy.
Before Anna could answer, Jewel spoke. “Why are you trusting us?” This probably wasn’t the question she should ask since they did, indeed, need her to trust them. But Jewel wanted to know if the woman was only responding to Volcan’s magic, or if something deeper drove her to go willingly to a remote location with strangers.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you just met us. We just told you there are warlocks and witches are real, and now you’re in the back room of a locked building, alone with us, just because we claim to be witches and some strange guy grabbed your hand for a second. Why?” Jewel asked. She could feel the eyes of the others boring into her. She didn’t care. She really wanted to know what was driving the woman to trust four perfect strangers.
River shrunk in on herself, and she looked like a kicked puppy. “I don’t really have anyone in my life. I have no family, no boyfriend, no anything. I’ve always been interested in magic and the supernatural. I’ve read tons of books, and I’ve always been drawn to witches and the sisterhood that comes with it. I just thought how cool it would be to have a family where we all have something in common.”
In other words, Jewel thought, she was lonely. Now she really felt like a shmuck. They were totally exploiting her weakness for their own needs. She was probably even more susceptible to the influence of Volcan’s magic. The girl never had a chance. River needed to feel wanted. She desired so much to belong, and they were offering her something that might fill that void. Unfortunately, the price of admission into this family might be more than she could pay. It might cost the girl her life.
“That’s understandable,” Z offered, giving Jewel a look that said pull your crap together.
Anna nodded. “No one wants to be alone.”
Jewel walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” River asked.
“That you’ve been lonely. Hopefully that won’t be the case anymore.” Jewel motioned for Anna to stand on the other side of the girl. As before, Jewel cut their hands in order to mingle their blood and share Volcan’s magic. She and Anna each took one of River’s bleeding hands in their own, and Jewel closed her eyes. There was a part of her inside that was screaming to let the woman go and run. Maybe if she ran fast enough, she could get away from Volcan. It was a stupid wish, one that wouldn’t come true.
The words she’d spoken when she’d changed Anna, and when she’d attempted to change Amy, flowed out of her lips. She felt Volcan’s power inside of her, and it seemed as if her blood was going to start boiling at any second. The heat was intense and overwhelming. Jewel could feel that power flowing from her hands, through River and into Anna, where it rebounded, came back through River, and once again into Jewel. Again and again the power ricocheted through them, like some supernatural Newton’s cradle. She also felt the darkness inside of her own body gaining ground. She despaired because she knew, if this continued, Jewel would eventually lose herself. The more she used Volcan’s magic, the more of herself she gave up.
Although it felt like an eternity, Jewel knew the ritual had only been going on for a few minutes when she began to feel River’s spirit being sucked into her own body. Jewel wanted to let go, but her hands wouldn’t obey her. No matter how she screamed into her mind to release the hold, her hands stayed clamped onto the other girls.
And then she saw it. All of River’s memories filled her mind, memories that she shouldn’t see, deep, dark, secret memories, that shouldn’t be shared involuntarily with anyone.
Jewel couldn’t believe it was happening again, and yet, had she really expected any another outcome? No, not really. She’d simply hoped for a different one.
Jewel felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. It was like a watching an accident you couldn’t stop in slow motion. All you could do was cover your mouth as you attempted to cope with what you were seeing, what you couldn’t change. She saw a woman that was no doubt River’s mom. She looked just like the girl. The woman was lying in a casket, her eyes closed and her arms laid across her chest. She looked peaceful. Jewel saw the picture of a baby, a tiny baby, wrapped in a hospital blanket. The baby was dead. Jewel wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she could feel Ri
ver’s sorrow over the child. She’d not only lost her mother, but her own child as well.
She saw other people, some whom River obviously loved and others who caused her pain. She had not had an easy life, and this was her end.
“Jewel, let go, honey.”
She could hear Anna’s voice, but she couldn’t obey. River had been alone in life, and Jewel didn’t want her to be alone now in death. When she opened her eyes, she saw she was on the floor with River’s head in her lap. Tears dropped onto the girl’s hair as Jewel wept over the lost life of a person she didn’t know and yet, seemed as though she knew everything about. She felt sick, weeping over this woman whose life she stole.
“You have to let her go,” Anna said, her own voice thick with tears. “We have to get out of here.”
Jewel shook her head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen again,” Jewel cried. “She was supposed to be fine. She was going to have us and not be alone anymore.”
“Shh.” Sly’s deep voice was soothing. “It sucks, Jewel, it does, but we have to leave her. You have to let her go.”
Jewel leaned forward and pressed her forehead to River’s. “I’m so, so sorry. River, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for your child and your mother and now for your life. I’m so sorry.”
“What is she talking about?” Jewel heard Z ask.
“Don’t worry about it,” Anna said as she knelt beside Jewel. “Honey, I know, god, I know how it hurts, and we will mourn her. We will celebrate for her, but we cannot stay. We have got to go.”
After several deep breaths, Jewel pushed herself out from under the young woman and gently laid her head on the ground. She brushed the hair from River’s face as she stared down at her. “I won’t forget,” she whispered. “I won’t forget your memories.” Jewel stood on shaky legs and wiped the tears from her cheeks. The shuddering breaths wouldn’t stop. The young witch forced her feet to move, and she followed Z, Sly, and Anna as they headed to a back door. Jewel looked over her shoulder at the lifeless woman on the floor, though she told herself not to. She had to look. She had to make sure that River’s face was burned into her memory. The woman deserved at least that much.
The thud made by the door shutting behind them echoed a macabre finality in Jewel’s mind, as if they were sealing River into a hollow tomb. Jewel was on autopilot once again, following her friends, block after block, but not really thinking about what she was doing. Before she knew it, they’d hailed another cab and were speeding along to another occult shop some miles away.
“Here we go,” Z said, pointing upward.
Jewel looked up and saw a bright purple sign with yellow letters. She was shaking her head even as she read it: Cauldron, Boil, and Bubble Shop.
“No.”
Z looked at Sly and then back at Jewel, who was shaking her head.
“No,” she said again. “I can’t do it again. Not this soon.”
“We are running out of time,” Z argued and then snapped his mouth shut when Sly shot him a look.
Anna frowned at him. “What do you mean, running out of time?”
Dammit, he’d said too much. The fact was, he and Sly had grown to care about their two charges. Not in a romantic way. They both saw the girls as younger sisters. They wanted to look out for them, but they were under the control of Volcan, at least to an extent and the high fae had told them what would happen if the girls failed to produce his witches. Z didn’t want Jewel or Anna to go through that.
“You have to keep trying,” he argued.
“You mean keep killing,” Jewel snapped.
“If that’s what it takes,” Sly said, attempting to help out his partner. “You can’t give up.”
“We aren’t murders,” Anna told them.
“We don’t think you are, but you are survivors. If you don’t figure this out, you won’t survive long. How will your mates feel about that?”
“Don’t bring them into this.” Jewel practically growled. “How will they feel when they find out their mates are killers?”
Z laughed. “As if they aren’t killers? They’re wolves. Predators. They’ve killed their fair share, believe me. So don’t kid yourselves into thinking they’re little fuzzy puppies.” He glanced at Sly and saw the same worry in his comrade’s eyes that he knew was showing in his own.
“We need a break,” Anna said. “And a sick as this sounds”—she shot Jewel a sharp look—“but we don’t really need to have multiple bodies found in the same city.”
Z sighed. She was right about that. A third person found dead under mysterious circumstances in two days might draw some heat. The human police might start putting two and two together. Not that they would come up with four, of course. They wouldn’t figure out that two witches and two warlocks were canvassing the city looking for innocent girls to convert or kill, but any police attention, however ill-informed it might be, would be unwelcome. And for all they knew, the L.A.P.D. just might have someone on payroll that was familiar with supernatural entities. Best not to take any chances.
“I agree that there doesn’t need to be another body found in L.A. That means we need to get on a plane and fly somewhere else, tonight. You can’t take a break, no matter how much you want to.” He looked at Jewel and then Anna. “Volcan won’t tolerate failure. You have to know that. And Jewel, you also know it won’t be you he punishes. He will figure out a way to hurt those you care about until you are successful.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at the two warlocks. “What are you guys not telling us?” She watched them squirm under her scrutiny.
“We just know Volcan,” Z said. “We aware of what he’s capable of, and we know how he works.”
Anna was certain the warlocks were keeping something from them, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. It’s not like she could force them to tell her. She turned back to Jewel who was still staring at the shop across the street from them.
“What do you want to do?” she asked Jewel.
The girl took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her eyes were clearer now, and Anna could tell her friend was beginning to get her emotions under control.
“We need to do some research,” Jewel finally answered. “We can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.”
“What kind of research?” Anna asked.
Jewel began to pace, and the two warlocks stepped back, giving her room. “We need to figure out what the connection is. What does it take to make a normal female become a witch? We’ve tried it on two women who were obviously interested in the occult and the like, but that wasn’t enough.” Jewel pinched the bridge of her nose as she paused in her pacing. “There has to be something that makes a female compatible with the magic that changes them.”
“So, you’re saying it can’t just be any woman? There has to be something special about them?” Z asked.
“Exactly,” Jewel said.
“That’s not what Anna told poor River back at the store,” he countered.
“I was just trying to get her to trust us.” Anna barked. “You think I know more about this than anyone else because I ran a voodoo store?
“So where do we need to go to do this research?” Sly interrupted.
“Ideally,” Jewel said with a humorless laugh, “we would go to Volcan’s library. I bet he has some helpful information, and he doesn’t even realize it.”
Anna felt sick at the idea of being anywhere near Volcan. Feeling his magic running through her veins was bad enough. As she considered Jewel’s words and thought about the work ahead of them, she suddenly felt very tired, like a balloon whose air has been released. Her body sagged, and her limbs felt heavy. When she looked at Jewel, she noticed her friend seemed to be in the same condition. Anna pulled her phone from the pocket in her skirt and checked the time. She was surprised to see that it was nearly three in the afternoon. How long had they been with River? Did time move differently when they were connected to the women, attempting to fill them with Volcan’s m
agic? Those were questions she’d have to ask Jewel. Perhaps she knew something about that, or could figure it out, considering she was the genius of the group.
“I vote that we get some sleep before moving on. Jewel is as dead on her feet as I am,” Anna pointed out.
Sly and Z looked at both of them, and Anna knew they saw what she did.
Sly nodded. “Alright. We’ll go back to the motel, and you two can rest while Z and I make travel arrangements.”
“Where are we going to go?” Jewel asked.
“Let me and Z think about it, and we will let you know when you wake up.”
They caught another cab and rode to the motel. No one spoke. There wasn’t anything to say. Anna was heartbroken over having killed another woman, and she knew Jewel was feeling just as devastated. It was in that moment that Anna began to feel a sense of hopelessness. What if they couldn’t figure out how to use Volcan’s magic to make witches? Would he kill them? Would their lives be snuffed out at such young ages, just like those other two women? Then again, did they deserve to live after having already killed two people?
Jewel nudged her, bringing her back to the present from her thoughts. Anna blinked several times and realized the door next to her was open, and Sly and Z were waiting for her to slide out so that Jewel could exit as well.
By the time they were tucked away in their beds, bathroom routines completed and pajamas donned, Anna was running on empty. The sun hadn’t even begun to set, but her body didn’t care. All it wanted was a warm bed and blankets to wrap around herself. A small part of her wanted to get lost in those blankets and never be found, but a larger part wanted a chance at the life she’d been offered. A life with a man who would give her his full devotion, a life surrounded with friends who loved her. These were things she’d never had before, and she didn’t want Volcan to get to take those things from her. Regardless of how tired and scared she was, she refused to turn belly up and surrender.
Jewel pulled the comforter up so high that it practically covered her head. She was almost positive she was suffering from post-traumatic stress. How could she not be after having helped kill two women? Not that they’d set out to kill them, but that did not change the fact that they were dead. Anna seemed to be holding herself together pretty well, but then some people were just better at covering up their wounds.