Page 42 of The Blood Witch
“I discovered that Nikki lied to me about everything and that I’m a fucking idiot. That’s what went wrong.”
His words sink in, dragging his despair along with them. I study the Bone Witch across from me, who’s been through entirely too much in his short life. He’s wearing the same army green cargos and long-sleeve black T-shirt that was in my vision of him leaving his house that day. They’re dirty and wrinkled beyond hope now, the sad state of them almost as pitiful as the broken state Elon is in. He seems to be teetering back and forth between hopeless and determined, and I’m worried one wrong word from me will send him careening into the darkness, and then we’ll really be screwed, because I’m going to need his help to try and get us the hell out of here.
“Well, I’ll beat Nikki’s ass for you when we get out,” I reassure him.
His brow furrows with confusion, and he sighs, looking at me like I’ve clearly missed something. I’m ready to lecture him about how he can’t still want to save her after everything she’s done, but he cuts me off.
“Didn’t you hear Jamie? Nikki’s dead. She’s outside with all the others.”
Understanding comes at me like Evander Holyfield. It decks me so hard I see stars like some cartoon character version of myself. I look up at the grimy windows all around us, and all I can picture is bodies littering the ground of this church. My head spins, and I work to make sense of what he’s saying.
“But why?” I ask, not able to piece it all together. If Nikki was lying, and she and Jamie were working together—which is what I’m assuming happened—why kill her?
“Because the cunt tried to betray me,” an unhinged voice declares from the entryway of the church, and in walks Tall, Lean and Loony.
Well, shit, she’s back.
Jamie strolls into the church, a bag hitched over one shoulder and the distinct smell of fresh blood trailing in her wake. Chills climb up my legs, skitter across my torso, and dance down my arms. I rub my hands over my extremities in an effort to banish the feeling, but try as I might, a sense of foreboding wraps itself around me like a shawl made of ice.
You think you’re saving her, Leni? Well, newsflash: you don’t decide who lives and dies here, I do, and your kindness just killed her.
Am I about to find out if this is true?
I try not to look too hard at Jamie as she passes me. I know it’s stupid, but I’m terrified that if she looks too hard at me, she’ll see the truth of what I am as clearly as I’m seeing it now. If she knows I’m the source line, then what does that mean for Elon?
I don’t want to find out.
Jamie scoffs as she strides by. “Nikki was supposed to be there for me. She knew what my side went through when the High Whore in charge stripped my line of our magic. She knew how it destroyed us. But some silver spoon, pretty boy bats his lashes at her, and all that loyalty went right out the window,” she snaps frustratedly, setting the bag on the altar at the front of the church.
Dusky light falls on her through the filthy stained glass window like some sickly spotlight. It highlights her pallor and the raw wounds on her face that look worse than when I saw them before. I wonder what she’s been doing while she was gone. It’s clear whatever it was, it’s taken a toll. She starts to unpack things from the bag, but I can’t make out exactly what without being able to get closer, and everything inside of me is screamingdo not get closer.
“She tried to ruin it for me. Years of planning and putting things together for the benefit of our magic, and she decided none of it was worth it because she wanted to savehim,” she sneers, her deranged stare settling dangerously on Elon. “Him!” she shouts, as though she just can’t fathom it. “She chose a cold-blooded murderer over her own blood! So I took her rotten blood and made it useful. And may the rest of her rot in hell with the others.”
Jamie spits on the ground as though she’s spitting on Nikki’s grave, and although Elon says nothing, I can see pent up, barely contained rage brewing inside of him.
First, Nikki betrayed him, and then she tried to save him.
My heart grows even heavier for Elon. I can tell, despite his efforts not to, he cared for the Soul Witch.
“Why’d they strip your magic?” I ask accusatorily.
I thought that was almost impossible and wasn’t something witches even tried to do anymore. Then again, I also thought death was unbeatable, so what the hell do I know about anything anymore?
“Stoleour magic is the truth of it. Stole it because they don’t want strong Bone Witches to contest their rule,” she exclaims fervently.
“More like your ancestors were a bunch of con artists, growing rich off the misfortunes of others, just to find out that your coven was the reason for their misfortunes in the first place. You deserved to lose your gift!” Elon snarls at Jamie, obviously hitting his limit with all the bullshit.
“Our magic was ours to do what we wanted with. The High Council had no right to take what wasn’t theirs!” Jamie screams back, all sense gone from her gaze.
“If that was so wrong, then what the hell areyoudoing?” Elon counters, but before he can say another word, he’s slammed against the ground and writhing in pain. He bites down on a scream, and I squeeze my fists and clench my jaw to keep from screaming myself. I didn’t hear Jamie utter an incantation, but it’s clear she’s doing something to him.
All her demon marks suddenly make sense as they start to glow like they’re lit from inside. She’s borrowing demon powers. Her line’s magic is no longer viable, so she’s bargained heavily with a demon for the ability to do what once would have come natural to her. That isifshe were the chosen witch of her line. There’s always the possibility it wouldn’t have been her, and I wonder if this would have been her response to that possible outcome too.
I picture my own aunt and cousin and the lengths they were willing to go for power that didn’t belong to them. A sick feeling settles in my stomach. Are they future Jamies lying in wait?
I shove that thought aside and get my scattered head in the game. I need to figure out exactly how the hell Jamie’s robbing Osteomancers of their power, and then I need to do everything I can to keep that from happening to me.
“So how does it work?” I ask in a desperate attempt to figure all of this out without someone having to die for it.
