Page 87 of The Rat King
If there were other men with the four that Nighval had taken out, I wouldn’t have noticed them. My only focus was on my husband and my collapsing world as his life quickly slipped away before me. “NO!” I scream-sobbed. I closed my eyes, and I begged the spirit of the earth that gave the witches their magic to intervene. To do something. Anything not to let this man be taken from me.
My breathing was coming in quick, shallow gasps now. This was the part in the story where the heroine was supposed to discover she had magic all along. I opened my eyes to stare at my powerless hands, only to come face to face with the bitch whose fault this was.
Samara squatted across from Nighval’s failing body and she had a finger pressed to his pulse. She was probably making sure he was dead. All thought escaped my mind as I launched myself across him at her. We tumbled backwards as my hand went to her throat. My fingers were around her, and I was squeezing with everything I had when a blast of energy sent me flying backwards.
I slammed into a wooden door and the cracking sound bit through the alleyway. I hung in midair where I had hit, and I could feel warm blood trickling from a gash in the back of my head.
I sucked in a deep breath to refill my lungs. “Don’t you touch him,” I sputtered.
“Easy, my daughter,” she said as she pulled a vial from her pocket. Her hands moved, and the arrows disappeared.
“I’m not your daughter,” I hissed, all the while mesmerized as I watched her roll him to his back, bite off the cap of the liquid and pour it onto his wounds. His skin sizzled as smoke rose from the wounds and the smell of burnt flesh made its way to my nostrils.
“What are you doing to him?” I demanded, still dangling from where her power held me against the door.
She ignored me, rolling him over to his stomach, pulled out a matching vial and poured it into the wounds in his back. When she was satisfied and they quit hissing, she positioned him face up once again.
Assessing his stomach, she frowned. Then her eyes drifted to me for a second before returning her gaze to her son and she placed her hands atop of each other over his chest. Darkness spread from her palms over him, cloaking him and then eventually her.
“Samara,” I cried. “What’s happening?” I shook my feet, kicking and wiggling until I finally fell to the ground with a thud. I raced forward before halting at the edge of the inky fog.
Reaching my hand out to run it through the black smoke, my fingers met a substance as solid as stone. She had encapsulated them inside, without me.
Tears streamed down my face as I ran my hands across the fog dome. Tiny vibrations resonated off the surface, and I could feel the sound of her chanting more than I could hear it. I didn’t know how long this went on or how long I circled them when the fog shifted to grey, and then white. It swirled into a vortex that lifted into the sky until it had completely dissipated, and I could see the mother and son once again.
Samara sat on her knees, still in the same position she’d been in when she blocked me off from them, but her cool blue eyes were distant.
“Samara?” I asked.
I moved forward, stepping in front of her face, but as her eyes flicked up to mine, she slumped to the side onto her hip. “Samara? What happened?” I asked a little more insistently, but she fell forward, her forehead slapping into Nighval’s bare chest. I sucked in a breath as her head rose with the expanding chest. A guttural sound burst from my lips, and I went to my knees beside them.
I ran my finger along his neck and found a steady pulse. I bit out another sob. “You’re alive.”
I bent down and kissed his forehead and every beautiful scar on his face, then I gently eased Samara off of him. She too was alive, and apparently, she exerted herself so much she passed out. My discarded rock lay near Nighval’s dagger on the stones a few feet away. My fingers itched as I crawled over to the blade and wrapped my fingers around its hilt. I was making my way over to the unconscious witch when a voice came from the end of the entrance to the alley.
“Oh, my goodness,” a gentle voice squeaked. The woman plastered her hand over her mouth. Her stare went from me to the knife in my hand, to the six bodies strewn about.
I set the knife down and raised my hands, palms outward. “It’s okay,” I said, and she nodded, taking a step back. “Please, I need your help.”
I stood and took a few steps toward her. She didn’t move, but her brow wrinkled, and I realized what she was seeing. Since I had transformed back into a human, I hadn’t had a chance to find any clothes. I was standing in an alleyway completely naked with a bunch of dead bodies, the most powerful witch, and her warlock king son unconscious at my feet.
“They’re alive,” I said. “But I need to get them to safety. Fetch a carriage. And some clothes.”
She hummed a nervous sound as she turned around and scampered away. I picked up the knife again and considered taking this opportunity. I had a feeling we would never get one again, but Samara had just saved him. Granted, it was her fault we were in this mess, but killing her like this seemed a little cold-blooded. And besides, there was a witness now.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and I hoped it wasn’t a decision I would regret later. As I sat there turning the thoughts over in my mind, and wondering when Nighval would wake up, voices and the sounds of hooves and wheels clattering across the cobblestones came into my awareness.
A single horse came into view, pulling behind it a small carriage as requested. The woman and a boy who looked about seventeen jumped down. The boy started as he realized he passed a dead and charred body. As his attention focused on his king and the witch, his eyelids peeled back.
“What the hell, Sadie?” he asked the woman.
“It’s the king,” she squeaked.
“I know it’s the king. He was in father’s stable earlier chasing a rat,” the boy said, his strides becoming more confident as he passed the two still breathing bodies and went to the other three at the end of the alley. He nudged the one whose throat was slit so he could see his face.
“Who is it?” Sadie asked.
“The Hoover brothers,” he said.
