Page 36 of The Blood Witch
I hiss against the pain, whiplash cracking through my body as I’m yanked away into cold and bleak nothingness. My chest tightens, and my stomach drops like I’m bungee jumping into hell and the cord that’s supposed to save me just won’t catch. I can’t scream or breathe or barely even think, and then all at once I slam against the ground with a painedoomph. Magic maliciously deposits me back into the real world, only this isn’t my room in the Order, and Rogan is nowhere in sight.
I lie unmoving for a moment so I can breathe through the terror and pain radiating from every inch of me.
What the hell just happened?
I spot the owl skull still clutched in my hand, and I throw it away from me with a horrified croak that would probably be a squeal if I didn’t feel like my lungs were broken. I quickly pull my tank top on, grateful that I hadn’t lost it in whatever just happened, and wrap my arms around my torso protectively as I sit up and look around.
Pews are stacked and pushed against a stone wall on the other side of the room from where I’m huddled. The floor I’m sitting on is the same gray stone as the walls, only the floor has black symbols that look like they were first carved and then burned into the surface of the rock. The ceiling above me is vaulted with massive cobweb-streaked beams supporting it. And there’s dirty stained glass windows spread evenly on the wall behind me and across from me as well as one massive round window behind the dais at the front of this church.
There are piles of what look like ash scattered around the front of the church, as though someone let fires burn down to nothing all over the place, but there’s no black soot, so that’s clearly not what they are. Huge double doors are sealed closed on my left, and the air I’m breathing feels heavy and tastes stale. There’s an underlying scent to my surroundings, but I decide making a break for it is more important than going full bloodhound and trying to figure out what’s tainting the air.
Worry swirls around in my mind, mixing with questions about how the owl skull got in my room and why the inlet that I just unknowingly fell victim to dropped me in a church? I file all of it away as I get up and sprint for the doors. Dread nips at my heels as the stone floor digs into the soft pads of my feet. I make it less than four strides and then slam up against an invisible barrier.
I bounce off of it, testing the limits of my ass when I fall hard to the ground. I skid back, scraping up my legs as my body absorbs the force from slamming into a wall I still can’t see. I whimper feebly as I once again push to my feet and look for a way out. I inch my way toward whatever I just thwacked into, and as I close the distance inch by inch, I spot a line of engraved and blackened stones. I follow the soot-covered symbols in the stones and discover they cage me in on three sides, butting up against the wall at my back.
The stained glass window set in the wall behind me is too high for me to reach, and my search for anything nearby that I might be able to stand on produces nothing. I sit and listen for signs that anyone knows I’m here. There’s no approaching footsteps or the faint muffle of voices. In fact, I don’t hear any traffic or the typical animal sounds like an occasional dog barking or farm animals bleating that would hint at a more rural area. There’s no crickets chirping or birdsong on the wind, there’s just...nothing, like I’ve fallen into a soundless void.
I debate calling out for help but quickly shut the thought down. There’s no point bringing myself to anyone’s attention. Someone clearly set a trap, and I can put off meeting who for forever. Well, maybe not forever, starving to death sounds like a horrible way to go. Then again, even if I meet whoever forced me here, there’s no guarantee they’ll feed me.
I roll my eyes at myself and shove all thoughts of food away. I can worry about that later. I need to focus on trying to get out of here before someone comes along and makes my situation worse.
I immediately call on my magic in search of bones. It looks like I’ve been trapped in an old, long-forgotten church, which means there’s probably a graveyard, burial site, or crypt I can work with. I push magic out of me in search of salvation, but when my power comes in contact with the symbols on the ground, a searing agony slams into me.
I scream and fall to my knees, begging the punishing assault to stop. My magic retracts immediately, working to soothe my abused body, but all I can do is try to climb inside of myself while the torment slowly wanes. I pant through the pain, lying fetal on the cold stone floor long after the hurt is just a ghost of an echo. I trace the mortar in the seams between the stones and drown in the terror of knowing that I’m trapped.
Rogan’s face pops up in my mind, then Tad’s, Hillen’s, Hoot’s, and down the line it goes until I’ve thought of each and every person I’ve ever cared about and hope to see again. Thoughts of them fortify me, and I get back on my feet.
Come on, Lennox, find the way out, find the loophole.
I look around warily, my gaze skipping over the piles of dead leaves that have been blown around and have now settled in the nooks and crannies of this place. The light from the big circle of stained glass at the front of the church falls on a stone altar. There are melted candles clustered about, some of them spotted with a dark substance that makes alarm skitter up my spine. I spot other scorch-marked patterns on the ground, and I suspect they’re other magical cages, but there’s no one else here.
My heart squeezes painfully with that realization. I look up at the light streaking through the filthy windows, and it dawns on me that it should be dark. If I’m still somewhere in America—no matter where that is—it should be dark.
Unease blooms in my chest as I track the shaft of light that falls from the window behind me to kiss the stony floor in front of me. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like it’s morning wherever the hell I am. I assure myself that they can still find me even if I’m oceans away. It’s the Order we’re talking about. But then flashes of interrogations about my grandmother rise to the surfaces of my thoughts, rattling the reassurance I’m trying to cocoon myself in.
Who am I kidding, they haven’t found the others yet, and I’m assuming I’ve been taken by Nikki or whoever she’s working with. I look around me again, surveying my old and dingy surroundings. Why would someone go through the trouble of pulling me here just to leave me here to rot like the piles of leaves scattered about the floor? Unless somehow we misunderstood the end goal. The Order thought that it was to get to me, but what if that wasn’t the case at all, what if someone was simply trying to get me out of the way?
The grandmother angle never sat right with me. I’ve been thinking this has something to do with her strange dream, but what if her dream was just that? A dream. I’ve had some weird ones myself lately. I blame stress, but perhaps I’ve been giving that aspect of this case too much clout. This could easily be about Rogan and his secrets, and we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.
Worry curdles inside of me. What if Rogan isn’t okay? I mean, it’s not farfetched to think that whatever pulled me away could have also let someone into the Order too. I fight the need to tug on our tether to check the response on the other end. What if he’s fighting for his life as I sit here waiting for some big bad that might never come? No, I’ll wait. I don’t want to do anything that could distract him or fuck up whatever might be happening on his end. I cross my legs in front of me and start working on the new puzzle I’m up against. How do I escape an abandoned church when I have no tools and no access to magic?
Slowly the shaft of light that was in front of me moves further and further away. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I’m picking at my cuticles, and I’m onfifty bottles of beer on the wall—for the third time—when a booming sound resonates all around me. I duck, putting my hands over my head as dust and pebbles sprinkle down from the upper structure of the church. A crack rents the air, and my head snaps in the direction of the entryway to the church as the doors slam open. Light floods the building, and I’m temporarily blinded by the glow. I try to block the light with a hand and squint away from the luminous assault.
Three shadowed silhouettes silently step through the now open doors. Terrified, I watch as they enter. My eyes slowly adjust to the light slicing through the center of the gloomy, dirty church, and my scared stare lands on a pair of green eyes that are hauntingly familiar. It takes me a second to place him, having only seen his face in pictures, but when I do, my heart hammers even harder in my chest.
Elon.
His stare is placid and cold as he takes me in. Two other figures walk behind him, but I can’t bring myself to look away from Rogan’s brother just yet. I’m too enthralled by the witch that unknowingly has altered the trajectory of my life in unimaginable ways.
He’s here.
He’s alive.
But judging by the look of things,Imight not be able to say the same for much longer.
11
Elon is pushed from behind, and he stumbles forward. His hands stretch out to catch his fall, and I realize that a magical rope binds his wrist. My brow furrows in confusion, and my panic abates slightly. I thought for a split second that he was in on whatever is happening, but as I take in the state of him, I realize how wrong I was to jump to that conclusion.
