Page 49 of I Don’t Do Witches

Serenity finishes securing the civilians, and I watch her turn away from them, her shoulders caving inward as her hands ball into tight fists at her sides. She blames herself. I can see it settling over her like a shroud before she even reaches the driver's seat. She slides behind the wheel as I place Kellan in the back. Her hands shake as she starts the engine.

"Hospital?"

"No, too public." I jam my jacket against Kellan's wounds to try to stem the bleeding. "There is a safe house twenty miles north with medical supplies there."

As we speed away from the burning campsite, the pieces click together in my mind, a horrible clarity snapping them into place. The recordings they stole contain the ritual evidence from the cathedral along with Serenity's magical signature analysis. Her power frequencies and emotional responses provide everything they need to predict her behavior during the final ritual.

Hunting season is over for them. The chase and the tracking were merely reconnaissance, and now they have everything they need.

Applying a constant bind to Kellan's wounds, I see the firm, white-knuckled grip Serenity maintains on the steering wheel. A profound lethal clarity takes over me: the next encounter will be the ultimate demonstration of their resolve. They are fully prepared to claim exactly what they came for.

19

SERENITY

The safe house perches on a ridge overlooking Lake Michigan, all steel beams and reinforced glass designed to withstand both magical and physical assault. Morvane Protective Solutions's on-call doctor and healer arrives within minutes of Darius's call, her medical bag already in hand as she rushes toward the makeshift surgical suite they've set up in the main room.

"Internal bleeding, possible punctured lung," Darius reports tersely as they transfer Kellan to the steel table. "Magical energy burns across his chest."

"I've got him." Her hands radiate healing magic as she begins her assessment. "I'll start with a heavy pain-numbing hex and follow up with an accelerated cellular-regeneration spell. It's an aggressive combination, but it will mend the worst of it. This will take several hours. Keep everyone out."

I retreat to the smaller adjoining room, closing the door behind me in a soft click that somehow sounds final. Through the reinforced windows, moonlight coats the lake's surface in scattered diamonds, beautiful and cold.

The silence presses against me.

I sink into the leather chair facing the windows, my reflection staring back, its hollow eyes and blood-stained clothes looking back at me. Kellan's blood mixes with the blood of that family I hauled from the wreckage. All of this destruction happened because of me.

This occurred because I refused to stay hidden. My need to investigate pushed me to keep unspooling threads. I had to be the one witch who thinks she can fix everything.

Fighting the steady shake in my hands, I bury them into my face. The soot from magical fire coats my skin, blending into the tacky, drying residue of spilled blood. Every time I close my eyes, I see that little girl's terrified face as I remove burning debris off her legs. She had to be around eight years old.

"This is what happens," I whisper to the empty room. "Everyone around me gets hurt."

The pattern goes back years. I think back upon every case I've taken. Whenever I expose a new truth, someone else pays the price. A vampire who helped me infiltrate a blood trafficking ring disappeared three days after giving me evidence. A human medium who provided information about a haunted murder scene ended up hospitalized, sustaining mysterious injuries that left her unable to channel spirits ever again.

And now Kellan lies on that table because he stood between me and Sybil's magic.

I drag my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them like armor. My magical core pulses faintly, its residual power acting as a reminder of the bloodline that makes me a target. That same lineage puts everyone near me in danger.

The silence in the room yields to a new presence—one far sharper and colder. It arrives in the precise manner of a surgeon’s blade, and that sterile clarity clashes with the vast, encompassing depth of the entity.

The wolf bleeds beautifully for you. Sybil's voice slithers through my thoughts. How many more will you sacrifice before you accept the inevitable?

Another one of her blood-magic psychic threads latches onto me.

How many more? How many people will suffer because I'm too selfish to do what needs to be done?

The answer crystallizes with brutal clarity. I could end this by walking away from the safe house to put distance between myself and my allies. Finding Sybil on my own and surrendering would prevent her from hurting anyone else.

The entity needs a Vessel, and I'm it. Maybe if I give the coven what they’re after, they'll leave the innocents alone. The damage could be contained to only me, sparing everyone I care about.

I stand and move to the window. Outside, the lake expands toward the horizon, showing nothing but emptiness.

"One life for many." I test how the words taste. They exude a bitter truth that ends in my stomach.

My phone buzzes. The caller ID flashes Nolan Graves, the only human detective who knows about the supernatural world and lives to complain about it. I've worked with him for years, long before Darius entered the picture. I can practically see him as the line connects. His lean, sharp-featured face features dark brown skin made ashen by too many late nights. Tired hazel eyes squint through cigarette smoke at whatever disaster I've dragged him into this time. He’s calling, his usual dry timing on full display, likely sensing I’m about to make a decision that would drive his cynical heart crazy.

"Tell me you have good news, Graves."