Page 53 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
A breathless keen like a whistle with a hand cupped over the end issues from Christopher’s mouth before he says, “Linnéawas bound to me. She wanted me to break the contract so she could run.”
Another shudder choked with loathing ripples through Mateo as he tries to focus on the words while transfixed by the thin skin of Christopher’s throat.It’d be so easy to find the jugular, wrench it out, stop hearing his wretched voice, and watch all that blood—the rest of the thought terminates like vertigo mixed with a sledgehammer to the skull. The beads of blood on Christopher’s neck and cheeks are streaming, the tips of Mateo’s claws buried in flesh.
Christopher’s a caught rabbit, eyes wide, unwilling to move even to breathe.
Mateo casts wild eyes to Ophelia. Her larimar gaze holds his for a moment, but they can’t both have a psychotic break right now, so she continues in an even tone. “Did you break her contract?”
Words can’t happen while Mateo’s squeezing. Mateo knows this, but it takes real effort to force his horrible hand to release Christopher’s jaw. To take a step back. To let the reality of what he’d been doing—what he still hopes to do—register.
An explosive breath escapes Christopher now that he’s free, fretfully touching the dozen dribbling punctures on his neck. “I had to. She said she’d ruin me. Kill off my clients, my business partners—everyone I’d ever met—if I didn’t release her. Then she was gone.”
“Not a very good contract,” Ophelia says like she’s chastising him.
Christopher looks chagrined as he wipes the blood from his cheek and it comes back black with the stuff Mateo dripped onto him. He frowns and uses his pants to clean his fingers. “Itserved me fine for twenty-three years. She was happy enough with her son. Whatever mess she’s gotten herself into did this. That’s on her, not me.”
It’s difficult not to react to this shitty framing of events, the callous reference making it sound as though Topher’s not his own too.They need this information, Mateo’s repeats silently to himself, folding his arms tightly across his chest like it’ll stop them from doing anything else.
The moment of not being actively threatened makes Christopher revert back to thinking anyone needs to deal with him on an even level and he asks, “What is he?” Meaning Mateo, who he’s brazenly peering at now—though still can’t keep his eyes focused on him.
“You first,” Ophelia says, reclining, as if she discusses owning people all the time.
“The old name for her kind is Hamingja,” Christopher says, and Mateo’s positive he’s said it wrong, but hell if he knows the right way. “Luck spirit.”
Like walking through one of those automatic doors that blast air to keep bugs out, clarity buffets Mateo. Linnéa’s not a rogue blood witch gone bad. She’s some sort of supernatural entity. Something that looks human but isn’t.
“What about Topher?” Mateo asks, startling Christopher, who seemingly forgot he can talk and had been talking a lot of scary words just a moment ago.
“What?”
“Your son, you stupid donkey’scock,” Mateo says almost normally, but by the time he gets tocockhis voice is grainy and soft and utterly not his own.“He has beseeched you for aid, has pled with you for support. You have dismissed and gaslit, you piece of shit.”
Worst dad of the century has the dignity to look uncomfortable, which feels extra bad because it implies an awareness of how not-an-asshole might act. “What am I supposed to do about it? I told her if she left, something might happen with him. That boy’s always been off, but he’s never had her powers before. I can’t stop it. And it’s not going to hurt him anyway. Or me. I did ask about it.” In the deep well of that shitty soul, Christopher dredges up a bucket of defensiveness. Like, bare minimum he asked a single question about his son that was mostly about his own safety, so someone give him an award.
“Don’t you have anything useful to tell me?” Ophelia asks, sounding bored to tears, and it draws Christopher’s attention back. Man reacts well to negging, which is the worst.
“Whoever’s after Linnéa is powerful. She’s ancient. I’ve never seen anything threaten her before,” Christopher says, sounding both simpering and put out. “And they have connections. We’re still married. I haven’t been called in to identify the body or anything. Whoever’s doing this is trying to flush her out with Christopher Jr.” A pause, sensing the rapidly turning mood—not that the mood had ever been anything but turned. “Heissafer in jail. If she’s actually dead, there’s nothing to be done about his powers. Better a bunch of criminals in his blast radius than innocent people on the street.”
It’s okay if people in jail dieis certainly a take, but Mateo can’t be surprised by anything this guy says anymore. More importantly, so much makes sense now.
Linnéa was under threat and wanted to leave, to protect herself, maybe even to protect Topher. She’d ghosted, tried to hide, or something got to her. Meanwhile, and poorly timed—or because of her departure—Topher’s powers start popping off. And Christopher doesn’t tell his son anything. He’d left Topherout in the informational cold, so Topher ran to Mateo. And maybe somewhere in their searching, they’d drawn the attention of who was after her—the Evil Wizard.
This clarity is the moldering cherry on top of the trash sundae that is Christopher Nystrom. He could have helped his son in a dozen different ways but chose not to.
It’s so easy to stalk forward and catch one of Christopher’s hands. To force it into his mouth. To use the incomprehensible dexterity of teeth to shear meat and bone and remove the middle digit. One sweet morsal drops onto his tongue—tongues?The chew is perfect, delicate bones shattering and then down his throat smoothly with a wash of blood turned honeyed syrup to his pallet. Mateo burns to take more, but this meat sack has a task to do first.
He releases Christopher and the man thrashes on the floor, screaming about the missing finger.
Ophelia presses to Mateo’s side, and he puts an arm around her waist and his face into her mass of hair.She’d like him to do more—he can feel the hate of her blood—but she holds her savagery inside better than he ever has, and they wait together for the screaming to turn into desperate whimpers.A throw pillow stuffed against the missing meat slows the flow, and eventually Christopher looks up at them, wet-eyed and trembling.
Appropriately terrified at last.
“The safest place for Topher is in this house,”Mateo says calmly, the whispering tone overlaying the words.“Bail your son out of jail, or I’ll come back for more than just a taste.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They’re all the way to the marbled foyer when the vertigo makes him stagger. Ophelia, still tucked against him, tightens her grip, gets him to the front door, his back leaned against it.
“Did I just …?” Mateo tries to ask in whispered panic, reaching a hand to his mouth, but recoils at the sharp coldness his horrible hand encountered there.
