Page 48 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
“Absolutely no way,” Ophelia says at the same time Quincy says, “None at all.”
“Okay. Good.” Mateo absently tongues one of the sharp teeth in his mouth, focusing on the constant thrum of his mother’s spell book. The pool of endless weariness he’s been floating on since breaking his neck dries up as he decides. “I’ve got a really bad idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Things go awesomely for exactly twenty-two minutes.
It’s like the spell book wants him to use it, his shit Spanish inexplicably more than enough to flip through well-used pages, dismiss spells that have nothing to do with the situation, and land on the perfect one.
The same summoning spell he’d opened the book to when he’d lost time in the hotel.
But he knows why, now.
The little woman statue he’s been carrying around in his pocket goes onto the hotel coffee table as does a careful arrangement of witchcraft goods a dead-eyed delivery person dropped off ten minutes ago. White chime candles, incense, water, a few oils, a bowl, and a mix of herbs. He only runs down to the hotel lobby twice, for a marker and for a knife, but then he’s scribbling his intentions onto the candle, carefully forcing blood into wax, onto herb, and between points on the table.
The instructions are easy to follow, his fingers working like a musician’s over piano keys, perfectly in time with a song that’s been playing in the back of his mind forever. Working with thespell book feels right. Feels natural. Like drawing in a full breath for the first time in his life. None of his previous spell work felt wrong, exactly, but none of it felt this right.
“I’m ready,” he says, sitting down cross-legged on the floor in front of the spell book he’s carefully placed in the center of the table.
Ophelia’s been helping, knows what he’s proposing, and has yet to voice the displeasure evident in her every motion, because she knows the simple truth to their lives that he spends a lot of time denying. No one else is going to save them. They have to save themselves. Andthemselvesincludes Topher right now. Which is why there’s no argument or admonishment in her voice, just very reasonable concern. “She hid it for a reason.”
“Fuck her reasons,” Mateo says softly. “She did this to me and she’s not here.” He looks at Ophelia.
It’s not worry creasing her brow, but the same shifting rage boiling in his blood. She’s not mad at him, though. It’s their situation. Their lives. How useless and powerless they always are. Which is why she gets to her feet, moves to him, and squats before wrapping her arms around him. “Don’t die,” she says.
Then she’s out the door, down the elevator to the lobby, giving him space enough to not feel like she’ll be caught up in whatever happens.
Alone, Mateo turns back to his mother’s evil-ass spell book to triple-check his work. It’s correct, but the assuredness flutters like the candle he’s just lit as he considers the words he has to speak. If he messes this up, he doesn’t know what will happen. If he lands it, he’s also not sure what will happen. The little lady statue he found beneath Topher’s bed is an obvious source of information that they don’t have the luxury of ignoringanymore. Whatever this entity is, it has something to do with everything, and Ophelia doesn’t think it’s bad. If he can do this correctly, he can summon it. Communicate with it.
Unless he’s wrong. Unless he’s not reading the book correctly. Unless he’s amped up on nearly dying and overreacting to Topher maybe being in jail forever, and he’s staring at a book he can barely read and making things up.
It’s going to cost him. There’s no way using a big bad spell from his mom’s scary book isn’t thee mostusing magicthing he can do. There’s been a distance in his head since the fire. A growing haze over himself he’s been trying not to think about. There’s no way this is going to help that.
Except Topher is in jail. It’s a stress fracture in his critical thinking skills, tripping him up. No matter the cost, he has to use magic because it’s all he can do to help Topher. This is fact, like that the Earth spins and the sun rises.
Just do it. Now.
Using the knife, he slices into his palm and dribbles more of his black blood onto two of the open flames and the smoldering pile of herbs, reciting the spell in his bad accent.
A blink and the room, the world, around him is gone. Blacked out. Replaced by nothing and the sensation of plummeting. Part of him—a him he suddenly doesn’t understand at all—is terrified of this velocity, this lack of substance.A larger part of him thrills at the familiarity and strains against shackles that feel so close to breaking.
Something is shining in the dark, warm and radiant andtrying to hide from him.He focuses on this dim speck, the faintest glow within an endless night, and calls to it.
The answer is immediate, the faint glow intensifying, the dark replaced by light that’s just as blinding in its completeness.She’s answered the summons. A piece of her is here with him and it burns. She’s angry, fury overwhelming the connection, nearly forcing him out of this liminal space. The immense pressure of outrage almost hides the flicker of fear beneath the surface, an anxiety this call has caused her.
It’s this fear that undoes him. Reminds him that a part of him is terrified, doesn’t know what he’s doing, is playing with a dangerous book that isn’t his, and now this thing has seen him, and might be able to find him.
In the hotel room, his skin is a poorly sewn together sack, his edges coming unthreaded, unable to hold him in. His eyes are closed, head tipped back, and black ichor forces its way out of every orifice. It dribbles most profusely out of his eyes but even sweats out of his pores.
It all goes wrong like a shot in the heart—a full-body jolt of searing pain at his core.
Except he doesn’t die.
The all-encompassing white is replaced by the soft yellow light of the hotel room. The pain quickly fades, but its intensity steals the breath from him, leaves a ghost of heat in his chest. He pitches forward, gasping, still dripping profusely.
Which is how he realizes his mother’s spell book that probably held the secrets to everything he needs, is missing.
Gone.
