The Queen of Witches Read online

  She shoved in past me. “That was before he decided to get sloshed and make grabby hands at me. I’m sure my mom will notice I’m missing soon. Or not. She was pretty wasted, too. I figured Scooby and the gang needed me to help find the key anyways.”

  Wes came into the living room. “Tandi knows about us? About the key?”

  I rolled my eyes. Really? Like I would have kept anything from her. A stupid question deserved no answer. I shut the door and followed Tandi to the couch. “Oh, and get this. My brother is the Undertaker.”

  “No shit. Hmm.” She eyed him up and down. “I can see that. He’s always had that bad boy swagger going on.” Tandi narrowed her eyes at him. “You couldn’t put Jenny on your list, could you?”

  “Sorry, no.” Wes was trying hard not to smile. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  Her bottom lip stuck out in a fake pout. I laughed as I patted her on the arm. “Pity, I know. So before you came, Jamison was saying the demons might have got my scent and could show up. This might not be the safest place for you.”

  “Well, neither is the mayor’s lap. I’ll just go with you guys. Think of me as the mascot.”

  Wes sat in one of the wingback chairs. “Oh, witches will definitely show up. Not sure about demons, though. My soothsayer didn’t mention them. She also told me not to rush home until I received a phone call from Charlie.”

  Jamison narrowed his eyes. “You have a soothsayer?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. Ever since I came into my powers, she’s been there for me to assure me I wasn’t losing my mind. She’s also sending me after a key.”

  Tandi huffed. “Apparently, Jamison, having a soothsayer is all the rage nowadays. They’re like freaking iPhones. Everybody has one. Maybe that’s what I should ask for, for Christmas. My own back pocket psychic. I wonder if she’s better than Siri?”

  Jamison studied Wes. “Her name? The soothsayer, what’s her name?”

  “Why would I tell you that?”

  Jamison’s eyes started to swirl that familiar honey color. That’s all we needed.

  “Wes! Please?” I begged.

  “Fine.” Wes sighed. “Her name is Ariana.”

  No freakin’ way. I looked at Wes in confusion and asked no one in particular, “So, the Ariana who basically raised Jamison and his brother since they were little is the same Ariana who reached out to you recently? The same soothsayer who had Jamison come here to collect the key also wants you to collect a key? But not the same key?”

  “It can’t be the same key,” Jamison said.

  “According to Ariana, my key will come after I find Tamara. She gave me some cryptic message about love being the only thing more powerful than death.”

  Jamison sighed. “Yep, that’s definitely Ariana.” His eyes cut to me briefly before he ran a hand through his tousled hair. “She told me to keep my eye on the prize and I won’t lose.”

  Jamison’s body stiffened, his eyes turning to honey. Wait. I thought we had squashed the friction between the boys. He couldn’t possibly be that jealous that Wes had the same soothsayer. Wes stood, pulling a scythe out from thin air.

  “What’s going on, guys?” I asked.

  The walls started to tremble. And the china cabinet in the dining room rattled. Earthquake in Louisiana? No way.

  “Freakin’ unbelievable,” Wes shouted over the rumbling. “They have a sorcerer with them.”

  “Yep,” Jamison said.

  “A what?” I squealed.

  Jamison grabbed me by the hand, jerking my body to his. “A very powerful wizard who deals in black magic.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” Tandi said, as she came to stand next to me. “Can we beat him?”

  Both men looked at Tandi like she had just insulted them.

  “Of course, we’ll beat him,” Wes said. “The more powerful they are when they cross over, the better for me.”

  “We need to get Tandi away from here,” I said.

  Jamison gave me a concerned look. “You are just as mortal as she is. But, regardless, there is no time now.”

  The pictures on the walls were falling to the floor. Every shatter made me wince. “Does he plan on taking the whole house down?”

  Jamison yelled over the booming sound, “Not if we leave it. Everybody, out the back door.”

  We all ran out the back of the house and reached the backyard, only to find ourselves swallowed up by a surge of black smoke. Tandi fell to her knees, coughing. Jamison helped her back to her feet, then all hell broke loose. Supernaturals surrounded us.

  Wes swirled his scythe in a circle, causing the audience in front of him to show a momentary look of fear. My egotistical brother tilted his head back with laughter.

  He said over his shoulder, “Hey, wolf boy, try and keep up. If you can.” Then he started fighting the witches one by one, deflecting their blows with his scythe.

  “It’s funny how they call you the Reaper, but my count will be higher than yours by the end of the night.” Jamison looked at Tandi and me. “Ladies, prepare to be amazed.”

  Then he took off at a dead run, missing my eye roll as he jumped in the air, breaking someone’s spine as he went. With a speed that outmatched the opponents on the battlefield, Jamison took his enemies down before they knew what was happening. I called my ice to me with just a thought. It was getting easier. Call me competitive. I aimed to not only keep up with the boys but surpass them. With that thought, I went to work. Tandi my biggest fan stood beside me oohing and aahing over my victories. She started clapping as I sent icy daggers towards every witch in striking distance. I didn’t bother wasting my fire on the demons because my flames were no match for them. Instead, I used wind to keep them at bay. Then I created fog. It slowly crept up to the right of Jamison. Trapping the demon in its clutches, momentarily blinding him so that Jamison could have the element of surprise. It worked so well that I continued to do it for him and my brother. Each time, I got a bellow of thanks. I wondered if I would get credit for assisting? I sent balls of fire towards short and stout creatures I was very unfamiliar with. All of them had a greenish hue to their skin and were covered in warts. Fire seemed to hurt them.

  I was sending a blade of ice through a witch who was trying to take out Wes from behind when Tandi shouted, “Fireball! Corner pocket.”

  I shot flame at the short creature charging towards us. “I’m totally slaying this whole witch thing.”

  Tandi clapped. “Yassss girl. I am so jelly right now.”

  A huge demon threw a blade towards us. Tandi screamed as I stopped the blade in mid-air with a wall of air. It clamored to the ground. Jamison had morphed into his wolf form. Jumping over a small creature, he punched the demon through his back, coming away with the demon’s heart.

  Tandi squeezed onto my arm like I was a hickory tree to her ivy. I resumed picking between ice or fire. With every blade of ice or ball of fire I made, my confidence grew.

  Jamison threw a creature at least ten feet into the air, but before gravity kicked in, Wes flung his scythe like a boomerang, decapitating the witch before she hit the ground. Both boys argued over who got the kill. Ugh. Men.

  Tandi shook her head. “Both of them are so much alike. They’re both angels of death. Well, technically, Wes is just Death, but you get my point.”

  I did but I couldn’t reply. I was too busy keeping her alive. A witch sent a massive fireball towards us, and I redirected it, sending it right back to her.

  “Have you noticed their balls look different than yours?” She snorted. “That sounds so naughty, and I didn’t even plan that. It just came right out of my mouth.”

  Wes shouted over the commotion, “Charlie has more power in her balls.” He sighed dramatically at Tandi’s hysterical laughter. She almost couldn’t breathe at this point. “How are you doing over there, wolf boy?”

  Jamison grunted as he broke the horns off a demon. “Never better. And you?”

  “Peachy.”

 
; Ignoring them, I continued to fight right until I felt a familiar tug. The key. It was here. Why in the world would they bring it with them? Regardless it was here, and I needed to find it. I was having a hard time telling most of the demons apart. Every once in a while, one would be taller or wider, but for the most part, they looked exactly alike. But there was no doubt the demon who escaped the swamp with the key was here. I felt it calling me. There were maybe ten Degenerates left. I looked around the bloody battlefield and saw two demons making their way towards me. I let them come.

  “Wind?” Tandi suggested. “Ice? Um, you do realize they are getting closer, right?”

  “I want them to. They have something I want.”

  “Yeah, well, there isn’t anything in life I want that bad.”

  I threw a blade of ice at the one on the left. His skin was too thick for the blade to pierce his heart, but it slowed him down. I formed a barrier of wind between him and the other demon, herding him away from his friend. Jamison appeared behind the demon I had stabbed with my ice. He raised his eyebrow in question. I gave him a nod. He could take care of that demon. I had bigger fish to fry. The other demon—the one I really wanted—stalked closer. He was bare-chested, wearing nothing but loose cotton pants. In the front pocket was a bulge I hoped was the key and not his demon goodies. I slammed a blade of ice in him, but someone had been paying attention. Dodging at the last second, the blade hit him in the right shoulder.

  He was on me before I could produce another blade. I might have been a little overconfident. Grabbing me by my hair, he tossed me in the air. I landed with the wind knocked out of me, figuratively speaking. Lying on the ground, I used wind to push Tandi out of his reach. Creating a blind spot, I isolated his head with fog, throwing blade after blade of ice until he dropped to his knees. Coming up behind him, I hit him with a hard gust of air, making him topple over. When he hit the ground, the icy swords that were protruding through him went all the way through his tough skin and through his chest. Yes. I wasted no time digging through his pocket. My smile was so huge it almost hurt my face. I held the freaking key—the one that could save the earth in my itty-bitty hand. Hooyah! Clapping came from the right. I looked over my shoulder to see the battle was over, and both Jamison and Wes had been watching me take the demon down.

  “You did good, sister.”

  “Good?” Jamison scoffed. “She beat your count.”

  Wes shook his head. “No. That’s impossible and you’re biased, wolf boy, so your opinion doesn’t matter.”

  I walked towards them with my new shiny object when a blast of heat hit me so hard it sent me flying backwards. I checked to make sure nothing was broken when a shadow loomed over me. I looked up at the sky, where a man flew in small circles above us. His black hair was greasy and hung way past his jaw. His hawk-like eyes, crooked nose, and bony frame made him resemble a raven. He smiled at me like I imagined Jack the Ripper smiled at his victims right before they became his prey. This must be the sorcerer they’d mentioned.

  My gut told me this was flight time. I really should tell the boys they could take on the birdman by themselves to add another notch in their belt. I wouldn’t argue. Nope. In fact, I insisted. I’d done my part. This was where I tapped out. Besides, I was kind of parched anyways. I looked around to see where Jamison and Wes were. They were both trying to get to me, but it seemed like there was some kind of force separating us. I could see Jamison pounding on thin air while yelling my name. Wes seemed to be walking some sort of a perimeter, trying to find a way to get to me. I glanced behind me, and there stood Tandi in the doorway of our house, beating her palms on nothing. Something was containing me, as if I were in a fishbowl—or worse, a fish in a barrel. I was no lip reader, but I recognized my name and a few choice words flowing from Tandi’s mouth. I was in some kind of bubble, just me and the flying freak in the sky. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I realized I had dropped the key. It was four feet in front of me. I threw an icy blade towards the raven, but he dodged it so easily it might as well have been in slow motion. Great, I was obviously the amateur.

  The bird-like man above me made a gesture with his hand, and the ground around me started to quake. The cracks in the ground grew wider and deeper until I was running out of standing room. I tried to figure out my next move as the cracks grew into a huge crevice. Then I was falling. My hands grappled onto anything I could.

  Clunks of dirt and rocks came away between my fingers, and I had lost sight of the key. I grabbed hold of a large root in the ground, saving me from free falling into a huge pit of fire the sorcerer had created. I attempted to pull myself out of the hole using the root of the tree, but I kept slipping, and the stupid loop of my jeans was caught on something. With every pull on the root, I heard the fabric tearing on something below me.

  My wind could carry me out of the crater. But where would it carry me to? There was no safe ground inside of this bubble. Holding on for dear life, I saw Jamison at the top of the tree. Below me, there was a small cliff. It was barely above the fire, but if I could swing my body, I might be able to land on it. Then again, I might just tumble into the pit. I was running out of options.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The distance was too great for Wes to throw his Scythe. Though it didn’t stop him from trying. The raven was so invested in what Wes was doing that he didn’t notice Jamison who sprang from one of the branches, jumping over the bubble. His body collided with the raven, sending both of them spiraling to the ground on the outer edge of the bubble. The air shifted, and I knew instinctively that whatever trap I was in had vanished. Jamison jerked the sorcerer off the ground, swinging him into the pit. I watched his descent until the fire swallowed him whole, and with his death, the fire started to dissipate; the ground stopped quaking.

  Jamison dropped to his stomach along the edge of the huge crater taking up most of our backyard. “Give me your hand.”

  Using my wind to buoy me up, I took Jamison’s hand and let him pull me up beside him.

  My eyes clenched shut at what we had just lost… again. “The key. Is it gone?”

  “Don’t worry about the key. You’re safe, and that is all that matters.”

  My head dropped to his chest. “I feel like it’s my fault we keep losing the key.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He stroked my hair for a few minutes. “Ariana told me to never take my eyes off the prize and I didn’t. You are far more valuable to me than the key, but we will get it back.”

  “But how? It was swallowed up in the flames.”

  “The key is indestructible,” Wes said as he came over to stand next to us.

  Tandi ran around the edges of the hole and skidded to a stop in front of us. “I thought you were going to be roasted there for a minute.”

  “Is the sorcerer dead?” I asked.

  Jamison nodded. “Yes, and I’m assuming by the glazed look on your brother’s face, he reaped the benefits.”

  Wes held out his arms, watching something we couldn’t see. “Sure did, and that old geezer had a lot of power in him.”

  “The sorcerer must have known I had the key because he zeroed in on me like a bullet from a gun.”

  “Yeah, but did he want it for himself or for someone else? We need to leave by sunset. That’ll give us a couple of hours to pack what we need.” Wes glanced around. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

  Jamison smiled tightly and nodded his head. “I agree.”

  Wes jerked Tandi behind him, causing her to stifle a scream. Her voice was barely an audible whisper. “What? More sorcerers? I’m not gonna lie; I think I’ve had enough adventure for one day. Scratch that—a year. This girl needs some normality. I can’t wait for my pedicures on Fridays to be the big whoop-whoop.”

  “This day has really been great for me,” Wes gloated. “My body is humming with power.”

  “All right, bro,” I said, “We’re going to need you to dial that back a bit. You look like you’ve stayed up all night watching por
n. It’s just disturbing on so many levels.”

  “Children, focus!” Tandi said. “Who is here?”

  “No one,” Jamison said after a few deep breaths. “I could sense it if someone was close.”

  Tandi and I watched Jamison as he veered around the crater and headed towards the woods that backed Wes’s property. We all followed behind him. There, between the magnolia trees, a brightness appeared in the shadows. A tunnel of light shone from the leafy ground towards the sky.

  Wes laughed. “They come to us in hologram form because they’re scared of death.”

  Tandi gave Wes the side eye. “Well, they should be. I've known you my whole life, but seeing you swing that pole with a wicked blade on the end, while having a look on your face that screams, ‘I’m a maniac that totally gets off on all the blood and pain that I’m inflicting,’ is just plain creepy.”

  He looked over at me with a question in his eyes. I shrugged. Maybe it was a little weird but so was everything else that happened to this point. I currently lived in a glass house, so I wouldn’t be throwing any stones anytime soon.

  “Ladies, it’s a burden that was bestowed upon me. If I try and fight it, which I have in the past, it cripples me. When a soul has expired, it is my job to claim it. What would you have me do? Pout and throw hissy fits every time I wield my scythe? Or cry like a baby every time someone meets the end of my blade? Besides, the power rush I get is out of this world. Sue me.”

  The beam of light flickered, drawing all of our attention to the woods behind our house. In the dimensional image stood a man with slicked blacked hair and pale skin. His fist clenched beside his leather-clad hips. Here’s the thing… men wearing leather can be done. It’s like man buns. It took a special someone to pull off that look, and unfortunately he wasn’t in that category. He was too skinny, and his features were almost pretty. Epic fail for him and his fashion coordinator.

  There we stood, the four of us facing an image of a boy. A boy that looked at us with pure hatred.