Page 110 of Wicching Hour

“You don’t honestly think you’re better at this than I am, do you?” I taunted. “I was learning defensive magic when you were still whining that you couldn’t perform a simple cleansing spell.”

Both hands fisted, she sucked in air and sent another one at me. My head vaguely hurt and I thought I heard breaking glass somewhere. It was a good thing I was far away from this room. She’d learned some nasty spells.

But then again, I knew quite a few as well. Fingers moving slowly at my side, I wove a net around her heart and squeezed. She jolted, eyes wide.

Sputtering, hand to chest, she gasped, “You can’t—Corey curse…”

I shook my head. “Cal, you’re an idiot and a shitty wicche. That curse was created to punish sorcerers like you, not the good guys hunting you.”

Declan’s roar reverberated through the house before it was cut off.

Cal’s sneer was triumphant. “And there goes the boy toy.”

I’d inadvertently dropped my spell on her when I heard that roar of pain.Oh,nononono.Please. Not Declan. I turned to run upstairs but came face to snout with a hellhound.

“Kill her!” Cal shouted, dark glee in her voice.

I needed to get upstairs, but I couldn’t leave Bracken on his own with these two. And where the hell was Gran?

Drool dripped from the hound’s razor-sharp teeth. His growls shook the room. Red, glowing eyes pinned me to the spot as he tried to burn a hole through my soul.

The hound sprang and snapped, biting off part of my left arm. The shock kept me rooted to the spot and he crunched and swallowed my arm from the elbow down. I stared at the ragged edges of what was left, while Cal jumped up and down behind me.

Huh. I hadn’t considered that something could happen to this form. It stung like I’d shoved my arm in a hornet’s nest, but it wasn’t agonizing, and I wasn’t bleeding. Mostly because I wasn’t actually here. This was all so weird.

Couldn’t I just put it back on? I envisioned my arm and then there it was, back where it belonged.

“No! How did you—” she screeched

The hound was having none of it. When she started screaming, he jammed his snout in my gut and flipped me over his head.

I banged my head on the ceiling and ended up splatting on the worktable, which would have been fine if I hadn’t landed palm down on the grimoire.

A series of wicches through the ages flash through my mind, each poring over the grimoire, chanting demonic spells while the cries of their victims are ignored. The same demon stands over each. Hundreds of wicches appear and fade, while one demon oversees their studies. Finally, as the images slow, I recognize Aunt Abigail. The demon disappears behind her. A new one stands behind Cal and then he changes too. Cal looks up from the book, no demon behind her, as she blows out the candle.

I shook off the vision, afraid of what I’d find, but it had only been a moment. The hound was still turning to come after me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bracken move. Snatching up the athame, I dove off the table over the top of the hound while flinging the dagger at Calliope.

Please, Goddess…

When I hit the ground, the monster hound pounced, crushing me to the filthy floor.Damn. I knew I wasn’t really dying but this hurt like hell.

Suddenly, the weight was gone and the room was filled with horrible wailing, reverberating off the stone walls. I pushed up and rolled over to see what was happening. Dark shadows rose from the floor and swarmed Calliope. Her body crumpled to the ground, but her soul stood, eyes wide with horror as the demonic shadows dragged her away.

The hound was gone and Bracken was leaning over the worktable, blood running down the side of his face from a gash on his temple. He’d stabbed the demon blade through the heart of the grimoire and saved us all.

FORTY-SEVEN

The Song of the Dead

Istood and rushed to him. “Are you okay?”

Bracken’s expression was grim but determined. “I will be, especially now that I know this is dead.” A black ooze radiated out from where the demon blade had been plunged in.

“Dead? Was it living?” I asked.

“I believe so,” he said. He yanked out the blade, waved a hand to clean it, and then sheathed it and put it back in his pocket. “It was filled with the twisted souls of our own who had sold themselves for more power.”

“Arwyn!” Declan roared.

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