Page 26 of Heart, Haunt, Havoc
“Oh, c’mon. You’ve never bled a chicken, brujo?” She pointed at Bishop with the rat, then jabbed the body at Colin. “Iknowyou’ve killed before, priest. It’s a prerequisite in your religion.”
“One, that’s racist,” Bishop snapped. “Two, get the hell out of my—”
“Tehlor, please,” Colin said, flashing his hand in front of Bishop. “By the looks of how comfortable your rodent friend was when you arrived, I can only assume this isn’t the first time it’s faced your boline.”
Bishop shot him a furious glance. “Herwhat?”
She heaved an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes, laying the rat’s body on the cloth. She pinched the head between her fingers. Aligned the two separate pieces and leaned over the bloody mess, sending a glob of saliva onto the red seam where spine met skull. Bishop grunted their displeasure and turned into Colin, hiding their face against his arm. He wanted to tell them to watch, wanted them to see what magic could do when it was bargained for, paid for, earned by way of brutality, but he squeezed their knuckles instead. Held his breath and waited for the rat to shudder and stir, re-entering life in a violent spasm.
“It’s her familiar,” Colin explained, speaking lowly. He nudged Bishop with his shoulder and nodded toward the gore in the foyer.
Bishop lifted their face. They’d gone a bit ashy, but they relaxed at the sight of the rat, sitting on its haunches, cleaning its face with tiny paws.
“Thank you, Gunnhild,” Tehlor said. She opened her hand, inviting the rat into her palm. Gunnhild scurried along Tehlor’s sleeve and took her place on the witch’s shoulder. Tehlor’s face was a shock against the rest of the house, smeared red and still smiling. She pushed the jars a few inches apart with her feet, arranging them to her liking behind the couch, and then flipped her hands palm-up.
The house pulled inward, as if the baseboards tried to detach from the walls, and the staircase attempted to unbuckle from the floor. Air stirred and shifted, carrying a litany of whispers and moans. The temperature plummeted. Slowly, creatures materialized, hugging the ceiling, crawling beneath the window, clutching the banister. Bishop flattened their palm on their chest and inhaled sharply. They caught themself on the doorframe, heaving through painful breaths. Their pupils slitted and a flush darkened their face, energy pulsing from them in strong waves.
“Like calls to like,” Colin said. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows, displaying the raised edges on his runic tattoos. “She’s performing an—”
“Uncloaking spell,” Tehlor said. Light gathered in her palm, as if the sun had struck a faceted mirror. Blinding shards bounced around the house. “Can’t find the dust bunnies unless we’re able to see them—ah, there you are.” She cooed at the ghoul on the ceiling. It chittered excitedly, face contorted by a bone-like beak. The inhuman horror gripped the ceiling with long, crooked hands. Two smoldering shards erupted from its back, raining soot and belching smoke.
Colin pressed his thumb against the crucifix at the end of his rosary.Lesser demon, he thought.Rejected by God and man, given safe harbor by the fallen. An apology sparked and died on his tongue.
Tehlor spun the ethereal light blooming in her palm. She hummed through confident laughter and struck her hands together. The sound cracked like thunder. Light speared the room. Bishop flinched. Colin did, too. But it was the demon who fell, shaken loose from its perch and sent crashing to the floor.
“Hello little beast,” Tehlor whispered. She crouched, staring at the bird-like creature. Her pupils had expanded into twin black suns. “Be joyful, for you will feed a great serpent, and your bones will sit beneath the thrones of the Æsir.”
The demon screeched, writhing on the floor. The light—whatever she’d conjured—had paralyzed it. She plunged her blade between the stumps on its back. The creature didn’t bleed, it simply peeled away, disintegrating into grayish ash, and was seized by the thick, cold blood crawling along the side of an overturned mason jar. The blood moved as if alive, pulling the demon’s shredded body into the jar with it, squirming and constricting, masticating and throbbing.
“Jesus…” Bishop whispered.
“We all make our deals,” Colin said, watching Tehlor screw a lid over the jar. “We all pay our prices.”
Their throat worked around a swallow. “Yeah, I know.”
The next three spirits were more difficult to wrangle. Tehlor taunted a shadow into the light concealed in her closed fist, squeezing the stolen life from it once it slinked into her space. A ghoulish beast skittered across the floor, skin charred, razor-edge bone pushing through the places elbows, knees, vertebrae should’ve been, and snapped its square teeth when she jammed her knife through the bottom of its chin. Colin recited prayers to himself. Listened to shrieks and howls. He exhaled a sigh of relief when she sealed the last jar shut.
“Well, aren’t you two cute,” Tehlor purred, swatting non-existent dust from her palms. She glanced at Bishop’s fingers linked through Colin’s knuckles.
Bishop stepped away, detaching from him, and picked their fallen McMuffin up off the floor, dropping it into the paper bag. “Are you done?”
“That didn’t sound like ‘thank you for saving my ass, Tehlor Nilsen’, but I guess I can…” Her voice faded. Jaw slackened. All at once, the house clenched, tensing like a strained ligament, and she whipped toward the hallway. A sound echoed—the basement door creaking open—and dress shoes clicked the floor. “My, my, my,” she whispered, darting her tongue across her top lip. “And who might you be?”
The hair on Colin’s neck stood. He jolted forward, but Bishop caught his arm and stepped in front of him, loping across the room. They slid to a stop, shielding Tehlor with an outstretched arm.
“Lincoln, don’t,” they warned.
Tehlor glanced at their arm, then lifted her chin, granting Lincoln a curious once over.
Lincoln stood in a crisp white shirt and tailored black pants. His charcoal jacket appeared freshly ironed, fixed with polished buttons, and his smooth black collar ringed the place where fur met flesh. Amber eyes glinted in the mid-morning sunlight pouring through the window. His wet nose twitched, and his pointed ears angled briefly toward Colin, tracking tentative movement near the couch.
“You let the exorcist bring a heretic into our home,” Lincoln said. He lifted his maw, sniffing the air in front of Tehlor. “A cowardly, weak-willed Völva.”
“Says the man half-made in the image of the true gods,” Tehlor hissed, craning toward Lincoln. “You walk in Fenrir’s shadow, demon pet. Be glad.”
Bishop shoved her backward. “Enough,” they snapped, and flashed their palm in front of Lincoln. “I brought her here—me, no one else.”
Colin wound the rosary around his knuckles, smoothing his thumb along the crucifix. This had been a risk—he’d known that, so had Bishop—but he hadn’t prepared for what might happen if Tehlor directly challenged Marchosias.Witches, he thought,always cocky.
