A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (32 page)

‘If we stop now she would be too weak to survive,’ Tatiana said. ‘Her magic is all but gone, look at her.’

I looked, my eyes full of tears. Irina was grey, all her wild beauty withered, as if she’d been drained of life and love and spirit. She was still breathing – I could see the rise and fall of her thin chest – but only just.

She reminded me – suddenly it came to me with a cold horror – she reminded me of Abe, after he’d given his magic to me.

I looked at the flask, a quarter filled with yellow liquid, like thin pale honey. There was two, maybe three times as much as Abe had given me. Was this what they’d done to him? Had Maya and my grandmother had to hold him down while he screamed with pain?

My legs were suddenly unable to hold me and I groped to the wall and sank, slowly, to the ground, my back against the cold concrete, shivers running through and through me as I watched.

The flow of yellow magic had slowed to a drip and now the drip itself was slowing. Another drop fell. And another. And then a final drop hung, suspended from the top of the flask trembling in the electric light.

There was a click and a sudden silence as Tatiana turned off the engine pump.

Irina gave a last sighing breath and then her thin chest was still. Her beautiful blue eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, her fingers slowly uncurling as her muscles relaxed. There was a sudden stench of urine and her head slid to one side.

‘It is done,’ Tatiana said soberly. ‘Take the body to the room of blood. Then we gather in the Cathedral for the
pereraspredelenie
.’

There was a short struggle while the witches yanked at the tubing stuck into Irina’s chest, wrenching it free with a grotesque slurp. They undid the shackles and the flagon of magic was taken off the stand and a metal lid screwed on top. At last Irina’s body was slung on to a sheet and dragged away.

I vomited quietly on to the concrete floor, the bitter bile joining the swill of Irina’s blood and urine, draining slowly into the grate in the floor.

Tatiana did not seem to notice; she only picked up the glass flask and moved to a table, where a syringe and some other instruments were laid out. Then she said something in Russian to Marcus and he moved to her side.

I sat watching them, wiping the sick and spit from my face with my sleeve. My stomach was empty, but my body still heaved, struggling to rid itself of the poisonous memory.

I knew now what my mother had probably suffered. I knew what Abe had gone through to save me. And I knew what awaited me if I didn’t cooperate.

Tatiana was opening the jar of Irina’s magic. It was beautiful, astonishingly beautiful. Even under the glare of the electric light it glowed like a small golden sun. Her bone-white face reflected back the glow, bright with longing.

I stood completely unnoticed with my back to the wall and a thought came to me suddenly; I could make a break for it, run into the tunnels, call out for Seth while they were not expecting it. Could it work?

I took a single hesitant step sideways towards the door.

Tatiana picked up the old-fashioned metal syringe from the table beside the glass jar. She plunged it into the glowing yellow liquid and filled the syringe. Then she held out her arm, white and naked and glowing with the reflection of Irina’s essence.

I took another step.

She plunged the syringe into her arm and pressed the plunger.

Suddenly I understood. I understood the source of their immense strength and I understood, too, their unity and their madness.

I watched, frozen with horror, as Tatiana refilled the syringe and passed it to Marcus. He pulled back his sleeve, rolling it so that it constricted the blood supply to his arm, and crunched his fist a few times until the veins stood out, clear and full. Then he pushed the needle into his vein, injecting himself with a portion of Irina’s strength, absorbing her magic and her powers.

I found my breath was coming fast, in small gasps. And then suddenly, horribly, Tatiana turned, the syringe held out in her white, bony hand.

‘Ah-na,’ she said, ‘will you share Irina’s gift with us? You will be one of us; by one way or another you will be absorbed into our kin. Will you take her strength?’

‘No,’ I managed. My voice shook so much I wasn’t sure if Tatiana could understand me. I could hardly hear it myself.

‘Do not refuse this gift lightly,’ Tatiana said. Her brow was furrowed.

This time I could not speak at all; I only shook my head, desperately trying not to give way to my creeping horror of the syringe, dark with blood and bright with drops of Irina’s magic. If I did, I thought I might begin to scream and never stop.

There was a long silence.

‘Very well,’ Tatiana said at length. She called out something in Russian and a girl came into the room and took the full jar and the syringe out into the corridor. I saw its bright golden light glimmering as it headed into the darkness. I guessed she was heading out to share Irina’s magic with the witches in the caves.
Nothing is wasted
.

Tatiana turned to me and her eyes were very cold.

‘You have refused our gift, Ah-na. Am I to take it this means you do not ally your strength with ours?’

I nodded.

‘Speak,’ Tatiana said, her voice close to a snarl. ‘Will you help us?’

‘I will not,’ I said, very low. ‘I will never help you.’

She said nothing, her breath hissing long through her teeth as she looked at me, considering what to do.

‘I will give you one last chance,’ she said at last. ‘One
last
chance, do you understand? After this, no more mercy.’

She turned, so quickly I felt the breeze from her movement ruffle my hair, and then she stalked out of the room.

‘Come!’ she snapped at Marcus. He followed, with a backward glance at me. The doors slammed behind them and I was alone.

First I ran to the other doors, the ones they’d brought Irina through. They were locked, physically and magically; I could see the bar across the gap and feel the weight of the charm on the door. Then I ran to the doors Tatiana and Marcus had used. They were locked as well. I wasn’t surprised, but I still felt the sting of frustration.

I was trapped, condemned to wait for whatever last-ditch persuasion method they had in mind.

But it was with a drowning wave of dread that I realized what she’d gone to fetch.
Who
she’d gone to fetch.

Seth.

Seth would be the last method of persuading me.

I tried a spell against the door first, attempting to smash the charms on the lock, but it was useless. They were six-fold thick across the door and I was so tired my spells barely made the door rattle, let alone burst open.

So I gave up and began to scour the room, looking for a weapon – any weapon. I yanked open drawers and climbed up on to the table to look along the top of the shelves. There was nothing except empty syringes and spare glass flagons. For a minute I thought about smashing a glass jar and arming myself with a shard, but I didn’t trust myself to use it properly. More likely I’d do myself more damage than the person I attacked. And anyway Tatiana would know as soon as she came back, from the smashed glass on the floor. It would have to be a syringe.

I picked one up and looked at it. It looked pathetic – the needle just a few centimetres long. It would make a nasty prick, but it wasn’t going to slay any witches in their tracks.

Desperation rose inside me in a suffocating tide, but I fought it back down. Losing it now wouldn’t help anyone. I put my head in my hands, willing myself to think of something. There must be a way out, there
must
be. But there wasn’t. Or none that I could find.

Footsteps in the tunnel outside, coming closer, closer …

There was nothing for it but to fight. I backed up until my spine was pressed to the cold concrete wall and I screwed up every pathetic ounce of magic I had left into a ball. I only had one shot. I couldn’t screw this up.

The door began to open.

I
  raised my free arm, ready to strike. I was shaking with fear, shaking so hard that the syringe in my other fist clattered against the concrete. I remembered Abe’s lessons, remembered him forcing me to access that spring of fear and rage and love that seemed to be the key to my magic.

‘Please …’ I whispered. I don’t know who I was begging: myself, the Russians – or something beyond all of us. ‘Please …’

Then the door opened and three bodies catapulted into the room. They fell to the floor, the door crashing shut behind them with a noise that echoed along the tunnels like thunder.

For a moment I was frozen, not sure whether to waste my magic tearing them to shreds or if the real threat lay behind them, behind the door. But before I’d decided, the door lock came slapping down again – a leaden weight – and with a jolt of horror I recognized the long, black hair of the body nearest me.

‘Emmaline!’ I fell to my knees beside her and gently turned her face up. What I saw made me cry out. She was conscious, but only just. Her face was a bloodied mess, her right eye so swollen that I couldn’t see if it was open or closed. Both her lips were split and I could see that one tooth was missing, knocked out by a particularly vicious blow.

Beside her lay Abe, curled on his side. His face was more or less unharmed apart from a few bruises, but his back and shoulders had been flayed to ribbons. His shirt was scorched and black, soaked with blood and crisscrossed with charred slashes.

The third body was Seth – but he was moving already, trying to haul himself upright.

‘Seth!’ I knelt beside him to try to help him, but he pushed my hand away.

‘Don’t worry about me.’ His voice was hoarse. There was a cut across his cheekbone where it looked as if he’d been struck with something and his lip was bleeding. ‘I’m OK, see to them.’

I crawled back on my hands and knees to Emmaline, tears running down my face now. Had I got enough magic left to heal such dreadful wounds? I didn’t know. I had to try.

And then a horrible thought struck me. What if it wasn’t Em? What if this was another trick, another mind-game?

‘What are you waiting for?’ Seth said thickly, around his bloodied lip. He’d pushed himself into a sitting position and now he leaned back against the concrete wall, his breath coming fast and painfully. ‘Can’t you do something for them?’

‘Seth, I – I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s them.’ I looked from him to the bodies on the floor, fighting back the terror and the tears. Was it Em and Abe lying there, bleeding to death on the floor? Or strangers? Was it even Seth?

‘Seth, this is going to sound crazy,’ I said desperately, ‘but I need to ask you something. What …’ I stopped. What did they know? If this wasn’t Seth, then what could they have beaten out of him before coming here? Marcus wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If it
was
him, he must know I’d be suspicious. I racked my brains for the right question – something the true Seth would know, but so odd and inconsequential, no one else would ever think of it. ‘Seth, when we first met – do you remember what the lesson was?’

‘What?’ He looked at me like I was out of my mind. ‘Anna, look at them! They’re bleeding to death. I don’t care what the lesson was, it could have been snorkelling.’

‘This is important!’ I cried. ‘Please, just trust me. What was the lesson? Do you even remember?’

‘Maths. We were doing differentiation.’ His face was uncomprehending – angry. ‘I said I should have taken Applied and Statistics. Of
course
I remember. It’s burned into my goddam memory. What the hell is this about?’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. Tears began to run down my face. ‘I believe you. I’m sorry – but I had to check. Marcus – he’s really good at impersonating people. He made me believe—’ I choked. It was too hard – even to Seth I couldn’t admit what I’d thought, what I’d hoped. It sounded so stupid now; the pathetic hope that my mother might still have been alive. ‘It doesn’t matter. But listen, do you think this is definitely Em and Abe?’

‘I’m …’ He started and then stopped, his face uncertain. ‘I – I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I could hear them being beaten up in the next cave and we talked through the wall, but when they were brought in they were too … We didn’t speak.’

‘Oh God.’ I knelt beside them, not sure who was worse. On the whole I thought Abe was. Emmaline’s face was pretty grim, but the marks looked like mainly swelling and pain. Abe’s injuries looked like they might possibly be life-threatening. Should I take a chance and risk wasting my magic on healing when it might all be an illusion?

Then Emmaline stirred.

‘Anna …’ she slurred through thick, bloodied lips. Her good eye opened and she gazed at me for a long time before letting it slip closed again. I made up my mind. I’d heal Abe – just a bit – and try to get him to speak.

I put my hand over his body, feeling the emptiness inside me, the hollow feeling of magic run almost completely dry. But I forced myself and a little power trickled through my fingers into Abe’s torn back. He groaned as it entered him and my heart twisted and hurt inside me. It felt like him. I could feel the connection between us, strong as ever – at least I thought I could. I no longer trusted anything any more.

‘Abe,’ I whispered. ‘Abe, can you hear me?’

He moved his head very, very slightly, barely a nod.

‘Abe,’ I spoke very low, my lips close to his ear. ‘I’m sorry but I have to ask you something, find out if it’s you. Marcus has been impersonating people – I have to check.’ He said nothing, but his face was resigned, accepting. I didn’t know if he could speak. This would have to be a question with a very short answer.

‘What’s …’ I paused. What could I ask? What would they both know, that no one else in the world would? Then an idea came. ‘What’s Sienna carrying at the moment?’

There was a moment. A moment when his eyes opened, flickered recognition.

Then he looked at Emmaline.

Something passed between them – and I couldn’t tell what it was. There was a message there, something I didn’t understand.

And then he closed his eyes.