Authors: Susan Vaught
“My father was right all along,” she said hoarsely as she whirled on me. “You
are
evil.”
“Wait.” I held up both hands as Cain ran to me, growling.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before now.” Trina glared at me. “Darius, Addie—both gone. And now my father. Again!”
Her hands trembled, and the glass jars holding her potions rattled. I held her gaze and didn’t argue with her. I didn’t apologize, either, because it wouldn’t have been enough.
She started talking again, but this time, she spoke in Latin, then in French. Two of the three potions started to smoke. The third sparked when she muttered something in German.
“You could hurt yourself,” I warned, backing away from her until my shoulders hit cinder block. Cain came with me, hackles raised, but his fire-eyes stayed on the jars in her hands. Even the barghest knew she might as well have been holding bombs.
Trina acted as if she didn’t hear me. Her willow charm throbbed as it turned a deep, dark green. The handle of my bone blade started to glow.
Trina’s appearance shifted. She became a woman in a purple robe, her head wrapped in silks. Then her form flowed into an old woman dressed in red, her ancient face so wrinkled I could barely see her angry eyes—her dangerous eyes—lit with the same gleam the pastor had when he stabbed me to death. Faster now, she changed shape again and again, into short women, tall
women, round women, thin women, all colors, all ages. Were these her great-greats? Other witches? I had no idea.
Cain tried to lunge for her but his body seized, turning him into an angry statue, his fanged mouth open and dripping.
Trina’s eyes closed, and her voice got louder. She was all the women at once now. I couldn’t even make out her true face or voice anymore.
I stood my ground, partly from determination, and partly out of certainty that I would die if I so much as twitched.
I’m sorry, Forest.
She was counting on me to rescue her, and I was going to let her down again. I’d never see her another time in this life, and that felt worse than anything. And Imogene—she was depending on me, too, to do her work when she finally faded out of this world. What would happen to her? What would happen to Lincoln, to Never, and everywhere?
I’m sorry, Imogene.
Trina’s eyes opened, only I saw no eyes. White light poured out of the spots where they should have been, and out of her mouth. She raised her potions and her charm and my knife, and hurled them all at me.
The spelled dust and twisted willow and bone struck me full in the chest, and colored powder exploded around my shoulders and face.
There was a sound like a truckload of dynamite hitting a bridge, then nothing, then a giant sucking-rushing-pulling that whipped me backward and smashed me straight through the cinder-block wall.
Agony blasted through every inch of my being as my skin tore away, my bones broke, and my body blasted into pieces.
I screamed, but all I could hear was Trina’s laughing.
Then I was ...
Gone.
Somewhere, bells were ringing.
Heat burned against my cheeks. I tried to turn away from it, but it followed me.
Light pierced my closed lids, stabbing into my eyes until I woke up hollering, swinging my arms and bucking against the ground. Pain gripped my arms and legs, and I had to cover my face before the blazing glare set my skin on fire.
My chest crushed inward with each breath—but I
was
breathing.
That thought grabbed my attention at the same moment the light blinked off like it never existed. The bells went quiet, too. When I had the guts to pull my hands away from my face, I found myself staring at my bone knife. It was driven into the dirt beside me. I struggled to sit, then I touched my nose and eyes, my stomach, and my knees—all still there. I wasn’t in pieces.
I was whole, and I was sitting in the middle of a dirt crossroads beside a pole with a rotting head on top. The moon showed
across the rounded tops of the Kentucky hills, and as clouds drifted across its face, I knew I’d come to Harpe’s Head, right about where Forest had been pulled to the other side.
How was that possible? We hadn’t found a thin spot, and I’d hurt the pastor, and Trina—Trina had snapped. She had spelled me with all her power.
She had killed me again.
I died.
That’s how I got to the other side: I came the natural way, no thin spot required.
I didn’t remember what happened after the first time I died, the time between dying and when Imogene brought me back. Did I feel this alive then, too?
“Forest,” I yelled, looking around. “Forest!”
I yanked my knife out of the ground, wiped it on my jeans, and shoved it into my belt. Pine trees whispered in the night breeze, but I didn’t hear anything else.
Where was Big Harpe? Would I be able to sense the shade if I tried?
I reached out with my mind, but caught no hint of Forest or Darius or Addie or Big Harpe. Maybe I couldn’t sense spirits anymore, since I was dead, too.
“But Forest isn’t dead,” I told the spooky, clouded moon. “And Darius is okay, and Addie, too. Harpe’s around here somewhere, and he’s got them.”
I wanted to charge into the pine trees and start searching, but I could hunt for hours or days or weeks and not find a thing. I needed to think. I needed to—
Heat touched my back, and light spilled around me.
I froze, hand on my knife.
The light pulsed and got hotter. It seemed to be daring me to turn, to look into it. I drew my knife and eased around—and dropped to one knee, the knife falling from my limp fingers.
There in the distance I could see the bell tower of Lincoln Psychiatric Hospital. Not possible. But there it was, etched against the sky and hiding the stars. From way at the top came the light—and sure enough, the bells started to ring.
The light moved away from my face to touch a pine tree near the edge of the crossroads. Next to that tree, in the white glow, I saw a path.
Great.
Following the asylum’s directions had already gotten me killed once today, but it had also brought me where I needed to be.
The light touching the path pulsed, and I picked up my knife, jammed it into my belt, and started walking. As I headed toward wherever I was being led, Forest’s voice echoed in my memory.
So, is the old asylum on our side, or not?
Good question.
And one I was about to answer.
The light from Lincoln Psychiatric’s bell tower led me along the path, deeper into trees and grass of Kentucky’s rolling hills. I turned corners and more corners, until I finally came to the edge of a clearing that looked a lot like the one where Pastor Martinez had set my body on fire.
This one was bigger, though. And darker. The second I got to the edge of it, the bell tower’s light faded and then winked out, but that was okay. I was more at home in the darkness anyway. The only thing I could make out was a black, cabin-like shape, and next to that, a fire.
Big Harpe was standing by the flames.
As I walked toward him, I realized it wasn’t really a fire, at least not the campsite kind. Harpe had built himself an altar out of pine branches and rocks, and he’d lit the outer branches. Forest was tied up on the altar, surrounded by the fire. The golden light she always had in my dreams—dreams that came from the other side—was barely visible in the gloom and shadows.
That light meant she was alive. She wasn’t awake, but he hadn’t killed her yet.
“Thought you’d come,” Harpe said. He seemed even bigger than I remembered, and he radiated a black, awful power I’d never felt in any shade before. “Thought you’d be dead, though.”
He laughed.
I wondered what the hell he was talking about. I
was
dead, wasn’t I? I looked down at myself like an idiot. I didn’t look dead, but who knew?
“If’n I kill you here, you’ll be gone forever, and you won’t be troublin’ me when I take my kinfolk’s power and cross back to where I belong.”
Take Forest’s power. So Imogene had been right—Big Harpe thought he could somehow steal Forest’s ability to open thin spots. But how?
As I studied him, I could guess. I could see it in his insane eyes. He thought he could consume Forest somehow and absorb all that she was, all that she could do. Was there some ritual for that, something he learned in Witch Dance before he got cursed?
Or is he just going to keep it simple and cook and eat her?
I wanted to throw up.
The mountain man’s skin seemed to glow in the moonlight just before clouds rushed across the sky, and his painted face split into a grin as he raised a tomahawk and aimed it at my head.
I barely dodged in time. Before I could move, he threw another. This one hit my chest blunt side first, stealing my breath and knocking me backward.
That
hurt
! Could dead people feel pain like this?
Out of habit, I drew on my power and eased the pain enough to gasp some air, and cold energy surged through my veins. So I did still have some abilities. On instinct, I rolled left, and a tomahawk buried itself in the dirt beside my head. I rolled again, this time getting to my feet and pulling my knife.
Lincoln’s bells rang, the sound vibrating in my teeth.
Big Harpe roared. He yanked two more tomahawks from his leather belt and charged at me.
I ran at him, drawing my knife back for a plunge.
Shadows lurched around me, and I used my power to push them back. It didn’t work. I stumbled and fell sideways out of Big Harpe’s range as he charged past and kept on running. I only fell for a second, but when I got up, I realized the shadows were those weak shades, doing Harpe’s bidding. Two larger shades rushed out of the trees to jump me, and wind started to blow. Seconds later, lightning cleaved the sky and thunder rumbled.
Rain exploded over the clearing as though the two bigger shades had brought it with them as they sprinted toward me, and Big Harpe was already turning to charge at me again. Dread spread through my muscles like extra weight. Lincoln’s bells tolled above the storm, booming between peals of thunder, echoing around cracks of lightning.
Go
, I told myself, focusing on Big Harpe and ignoring the new shades. If I could take him down, Forest would be okay.
Go. Go!
I pulled my knife back and ran at him again. Shadows leaped at me, shades dressed in buckskin with painted faces and wild
eyes, biting and clawing. Big Harpe was coming. He would split my skull with a tomahawk before I even got close.
Teeth sank into my ankle, then tore away as the first of the tall shadows pounced. Not on me. On the weak shades. A dark, muscled arm slashed at the shade that had bitten me.
Lightning flashed and daggers glinted. I thought I saw a reflection off dark sunglasses.
“Darius?” I called out. “Addie?”
No one answered.
The shades fell away in the driving rain, lost in the chaos of the storm.
Big Harpe roared a blood-freezing battle cry.
Knife in ready position, I limped toward him, closing the distance faster and faster.
Forest, I’m coming.
I wished she would wake up and run. If she got herself off that burning altar, I’d throw down my knife and let Big Harpe chase me through the woods while she got away.
He let out a bull’s bellow and swung a tomahawk at my head. I pulled up short and ducked under it. His arm swung wide. He almost lost his grip on the second tomahawk.
Almost.
He got his balance and swung at me again. His arms were longer than they had been, and he was moving a lot faster. I had to leap back to avoid taking the blow in my face. As soon as my feet hit the ground, my bitten ankle gave. I rolled away as Big Harpe thumped past me.
Before he could turn around, I was up again, circling him. He stopped and glared at me. Then he shook his head like he was trying not to hear something. Uncertainty flickered across his features.
Lincoln’s bells kept ringing in the storm. Could he hear them?
A jagged fork of lightning lit the clearing, and I felt the bell tower watching. Could Big Harpe sense that, too? The old asylum wanted death. It was waiting for blood. I wasn’t even sure it cared whose.
Could I die again here? Could he?
I was going to find out.
Big Harpe took a swipe at me with his last tomahawk, and the blade opened a gash from my shoulder to my neck. I barely felt the pain, but blood poured down my chest. Drawing power instantly got harder. Sweat broke across my forehead and ran into my eyes with the rain. I kept my knife high and focused on Harpe’s midsection. He would move again, and this time, I wouldn’t be distracted.
His right hip twitched, hinting at his next move, and I lunged under his swinging tomahawk. My knife struck him below the left side of his rib cage and sank deep, drawing a roar as I leaped backward out of his reach.
“Stop talking,” he snarled as he swung at me a second time and then a third, each attack going wild.
Who was talking? I hadn’t said a word. Did he mean the bells? Or—
Harpe’s eyes flashed, full of the madness I had seen every night I walked through Lincoln looking for spirits.
“Shut your mouth!” He jumped at me, his tomahawk cutting my leg before I could react.
Whose voice was he hearing?
I tried to lead his swings, to move myself between him and Forest, but at the second I would have cut off his access, Harpe dodged around me and jumped toward the altar.
I charged after him, but he caught me with a backswing of the tomahawk’s handle. The wooden hilt drove into my gut, snapping ribs and crushing out my air. My knife went flying. I tumbled sideways, smashing into a pine tree, and my vision went dark. The world went too quiet, and I couldn’t hear the bells anymore.
For a few seconds, I could do nothing but gasp for air, but then I dug my fingers into the dirt and shoved myself to my feet. Darkness still swam across my vision, and I had to double over. Letting out a choked yell, I made myself stand, reaching for power, drawing all I could from the darkness of the other side. Cold anger filled me, my vision improved, and the agony in my ribs eased enough for me to stand straight again.