The Red Witch (Amber Lee Mysteries Book 6) (31 page)

Aaron’s heart was hammering now in his throat, against his temples, and between his legs; anger, the ecstasy of pain, and the frustration of helplessness mixing together in a melting pot of bottled up emotion. But then his body seemed to let go, and he sucked in a breath of air.

The woman behind the wolf mask removed her lips from Aaron’s neck, licked them, and smiled. “Yum,” she said, “Werewolf's blood is like a fine wine; rarely experienced, always precious.”

Aaron cleared his throat with a grunt, proving to himself that—at least—some control over his body had returned. “You’re her,” he said, doing his best not to give in to her game. “You’re Line—”

“Linezka, yes, that’s the name I’ve been given much like your Red Witch. But you’d probably be interested to know that isn’t my real name.”

“What is?”

“I’m not in the habit of disclosing it, Mister Cooper, but nice try.”

“What do you want?”

“Werewolves,” she said, tutting, “So strict, so to the point. But if that’s the way you want to play it, fine.”

Aaron noticed, now, that the music stopped. His eyes darted around the wolf-woman’s face, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening—or not happening—outside of her gravitational field, but he couldn’t. It was too strong. Then the flash of her fangs from the wicked grin she threw him snapped him back into the moment.

“Lost in thought, Aaron Cooper?” she asked.

“What do you
want
!” he said, forcing the words out.

“What I want is simple. Blood. I want the blood of every single person in this room; especially that of our mutual interest Amber Lee.”

“I won’t let you take it.”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to stop me. But there
is
something you can do to help me.”

“Help you? I would never help you.”

“Oh but you will,” she said, leaning close into his ear, “Because you don’t have a choice.”

Aaron was about to speak, but his muscles had begun to stiffen. He could feel them twitching beneath his skin, could feel the bones in his shoulders and his back aching to shift, to move around, as if reacting his own primal urge to change shape. But it wasn’t him that was sending the order, it was her. She was
in
his mind, somehow, playing with his nerves. He was the puppet, and she was the master. The fiddle and the fiddler.

But he wasn’t a fiddle. She had said it herself, he was Aaron Cooper. He was the Grey Wolf to Amber’s Red Witch. Amber, the woman who was going to be his wife. His rock. His source of strength. The image of her crystalline green eyes and fiery red hair wedged itself between his mind and Linezka’s Magick, separating the two just long enough for Aaron to command his body to relax and stop the transformation. He couldn’t change here, not now, not with all these people around. That wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t what an Alpha would do.

That’s right, he was an Alpha, and he was stronger than her.

Linezka’s black eyes narrowed, and a frown materialized upon her face. The grip she had on him loosened, and her Power waned as Aaron started to regain control of his own body. She sighed and said, “Shame. I was so hoping you would do a good job, too.”

Then, in one quick movement, she slipped her hands out of Aaron’s, wrapped them around his head, and twisted it so hard his neck snapped with a loud crunch.

CHAPTER 32

The feeling came at me suddenly; like a tremor you feel at the edge of your senses the instant before an earthquake hits. My body—my aura—was fighting something back, some Magick I couldn’t see and was unable to counter. Collette fell in beside me, eyes darting around the room which seemed to be growing quieter around us, time itself seeming to crawl to a halt.

I was sick of this effect.

A drunken girl’s cup hit my shoulder, and the liquid spilled out of the plastic in slow motion, trailing out in droplets that seemed to defy all the laws of physics I knew and understood. Another girl nearby had her hand in the air, mid-swing, its destination seemingly her boyfriend’s cheek. The slap connected, the guy’s face wobbled at the point of impact causing his head to turn slowly with the blow.

Then everyone froze like statues; everyone except for Collette and I.

We looked at each other and then cast our eyes straight ahead where, in plain view, Linezka—wearing a wolf’s mask—was dancing together with Aaron. They were talking, exchanging words, and while they were probably no more than twenty feet ahead of us in a now completely silent room, their voices didn’t project. In fact, the words were hollow and echoed and… almost not
there
.

But we weren’t the only inhabitants of this strange pocket of time we had entered. There, in the corner across the room, just to the right of the stage, was the dark figure that had been with us since Berlin. Eyeless, he watched. Voiceless, he laughed.

“Do you see this?” I asked Collette.

She nodded. “Linezka. Ze demon. Aaron.”

“Has she heard us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then we have the advantage.”

“What is our plan?”

“My plan is to get these people out of here first.”

The dark figure ceased its evil cackles. Linezka couldn’t see or hear us, but
it
could. And now it was coming for us, hurtling across the room like a black fireball. Collette threw her hands up and a writhing wall of physical shadow shot out of the ground to stop the thing in its tracks. The demon hit the wall and flailed against it, but the shadows were wrapping themselves around it to now, creating a cage from which it would have a hard time escaping.

“Go!” Collette said, “Get zese people out of here!”

I nodded, turned to the front door, and there was the fire-alarm; my ticket to getting these people out of here and breaking Linezka’s spell,
two for the price of one
.

I heard the
snap
as soon as the telekinetic Magick left my fingers. The sound had come from the spot where Aaron and Linezka were standing, but when I looked around only she was there. My heart leapt into my throat, and my body went cold. The little red box smashed under the weight of my Power, and the circuit broke.

The wash of sound came back slowly, like a rising wave. When it hit, there was a loud sonic boom, a pop, and then water was falling from the sprinklers high above, a hiss to accompany the rattling bell. The partygoers came rushing at me in an instant, and I had to duck to the side to avoid them. Girls in high heels, covering their brand-new hair styles with their hands, came running out first followed by their nonchalant boyfriends. The band seemed more concerned with their equipment than the possibility of a fire, but they ran off stage and made for the nearest exit anyway. The bar-staff, who simply didn’t want to get wet, were also running for the double doors at the back of the room.

Only Linezka remained, and Collette in her shadow form, invisible from the eyes of humans… and Aaron.
Aaron!
He was a heap on the ground, and he wasn’t moving.

“Aaron!” I screamed.
“Forget him,” Linezka said, “You’re better off. Did you know he wanted to do naughty things to me?”

An angry heat was bubbling up inside me. I could feel it in my chest, my throat, and in the pulse in the balls of my hands. My Power buzzed within me almost as if to signal its readiness for the battle to come, and then my legs got moving. One in front of the other, dashing across the mess of scattered plastic cups, with a torrent of water falling on me from above, and venom in my eyes.

I was going to kill her or she was going to kill me. That’s how this was going to end. But either way, it was going to end right now.

My hands came up and bolts of telekinetic energy went flying into her. Linezka was quick to block them and send them smashing into the concrete walls of the Centenary Hall, but by the time she had finished blocking my magick bolts I was at her feet, with my telekinetically charged fist sailing into her abdomen.

The blow connected, and it was like a thunder strike.

Linezka doubled over, fell back a few steps, and then looked up at me, grinning from beneath her wolf-mask.

Her arm pistoned outward and found a firm grip around my neck, then she lifted me off the ground and threw me across the room in a single, effortless motion. For a moment I felt weightless, like a doll, and then my body hit the ground, tumbled over itself, bright spots of pain opening up on my knees, back, arms, chest, shoulders, and then my head. I finally stopped moving when my back hit the wall with a thud that sent pain screaming into my joints and bones.

Arms shaking, I struggled to hold myself up, then fell back down to the floor. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, bringing up a queasy feeling to add to my already feverish body.

The feeling that followed was like shellshock; the ringing in my ears, the booming beat of my heart, the dizziness and disorientation. I didn’t know up from down or left from right.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

I angled my head, an inch at a time, and saw Collette’s shadowy visage blotting the room. She was a silhouette of black ink, and from her back the ink was trailing off in tendrils and tresses to fill up an entire half of the hall and shroud it in darkness as her Necromantic Magick snuffed out whatever light source it came into contact with.

A dark angel,
I thought, and the thought gave me strength.

I willed my fingers to flex, slowly pulled my knee up, found purchase with it on solid ground, and hoisted myself up until I was standing again. I spat out a glob of blood. The pain screeching through me was like white noise, but seeing Collette facing off with Linezka had given me my second wind. Pain could wait until I was back at home, or dead.

Tendrils of night ripped out of Collette’s shadowy form and slashed at Linezka. Her hands came up in defense, but there were too many for her to contend with and a great many of them found their marks, biting at her skin as if they were tipped with razorblades. When Linezka had had enough, her right hand flew up and a bolt of green light came spilling out and sailed across the sky to strike Collette, but her shadows leapt up and danced around her, swallowing the light a second before impact.

“
Amber
,” Collette’s voice was a whisper in my ear. “
You’re running out of time
.”

“I’m coming,” I said, under my breath.

“
Do it, Amber. Bring ze Moonfire. It iz what you must do
.”

I nodded, closed my open palms into fists, and summoned the Goddess’ fire. It came to my hands first, enveloping them in cold, silver flames that started to crawl up my arms until it looked like I was wearing fiery gloves. But I wouldn’t be getting close to her this time. I wasn’t going to give her a chance to touch me. Instead I closed my eyes and imagined the fire leaping out of my hands and into the air, into the sprinkler system, where the Moonfire would ignite the water in the pipes and bring it raining down on the devil’s witch.

When I opened my eyes, glittering slivers of silver light were falling all around. Only this time I could control the fire. This time, the fire didn’t nip and bite at curtains and wood, it didn’t consume everything it touched. For the most part, the flecks of silver fire fell harmlessly on my skin, on Collette, on the floor, but wherever they touched Linezka her skin would blacken, sizzle, and crackle.

My heart was still working overtime, but now it wasn’t beating out of fear. It was exhilaration; a kind of elation that came only from knowing that the wicked was about to be vanquished. And when Aaron rolled to his back, the first signs of movement since I had seen him a moment ago. Linezka screamed in anger, and the sound of that two-toned, demonic voice swallowed my elation whole. The fire was on her, biting at and melting her skin off, but she had only been slowed down by it, and not killed. My smile dropped.

“You bitch,” she screamed, “Did you think you were the only witch to have ever used the Moonfire against me?” I staggered backwards, as if each of her words was a punch to the face, the gut, the neck. “Now it’s my turn to burn you.”

Linezka clapped her hands together, and the ground before her erupted in a cascading ignition of green fire. It was as if the floor had been laced with gasoline, the trail of it starting at her feet, and ending at mine. I stood frozen and unable to move, but then my muscles complied and I threw myself aside, away from the incoming explosion, which struck the wall behind the space where I had been with brutal force causing the window to burst outward and setting the curtain on fire.

The devil’s witch advanced, cackling as she did, her outstretched and open palms alive with sick, green flame I had only ever heard of before. A stride, two, three, and somehow she was there, standing over me, wreathed in a corona of flame. The pounding of my heart drowned out all ambient sounds around me until I was alone with my thoughts, locked in a never-ending moment of time where the finality of my existence loomed, waiting to take me with it but not before offering me a final chance at reflection.