1. It Made Sense at the Time
Cody
Okay, I’m a big enough person that I can admit I did something pretty stupid. But in my defense, I was trying to save my big sister and her entire coven.
And maybe also prove that I can be useful.
But I was being 97% selfless and that has to count for something, because the situation I’m in now is total shit and hugely unfair.
I have been on the run for the past three days and the wraith that’s been following me has been gaining. I’ve maybe gotten a handful of hours to rest since I left town. Any more than that and the body snatcher would have killed me twice by now.
So, I’ll blame the sleep deprivation for this one. No, not for the first stupid thing I did three days ago.
This one is new.
And so, so much worse.
I’m standing in the motel room, all the furniture shoved off to the side to make room for the lopsided salt circle on the stale carpet (sleep-deprived, remember?) and the kindergarten quality pentagram I’d drawn in the center with red lipstick. In the dim light of the candles I got from Dollar General, I read the instructions on my phone twice, squinting at the poor quality of the pictures I took of my grandmother’s grimoire pages.
“Okay,” I murmur to myself, kneeling on the floor in front of the circle. I set the phone down next to me. “Okay, okay, okay.”
I should not be doing this. A few days ago, summoning a demon would have sounded thigh-slappingly absurd. Any witch would have been an idiot to attempt it, let alone a stunted one like me.
My eyes flit to the small cupboard by the dresser. The feeble lockbox inside wouldn’t be enough to keep the artifact inside safe, but I don’t like having it just loose in my bag or under my pillow.
Sometimes, I swear it whispers.
I’d only seen it up close once before all hell broke loose at our home. From the top of the stairs, I watched my sister Abigail speak to a tall woman in a black suit, her hair shaved close to the sides of her head while the rest was slicked back in a hairstyle so edgy and cool I wanted her Instagram handle immediately.
Unexpected visitors in the middle of the night is kind of standard for our house. Abi’s a big deal in the magical community, being the Keeper of her coven and a very successful bounty-hunter-turned-marshal charged with upholding ethical practices of witchcraft and sorcery. This visit felt different, though.
They spoke in hushed tones. Abigail looked somber and displeased. Our new guest appeared like she couldn’t give a fuck. The woman handed Abi a black box, the size of a coffee mug. Before she walked out, she flicked her eyes up at me and I gasped, the blood in my veins growing cold, knowing it was in danger of being stolen.
Vampire.
My sister followed the woman’s gaze and scowled at me in that way a mom would when she sees her child out of bed. The vampire swept out, not bothering with goodbyes.
“Cordelia, what are you doing?” Abi scolded when the front door closed.
“Eavesdropping, obviously.”
She sighed. Then she looked at the wooden box in her hands. “Wanna see what’s inside?”
“Hell yes I do.” And I hurried down the stairs and followed her into the kitchen. “Who’s the Tilda Swinton lady?”
Abigail snorted. “Tilda Swinton is blond.”
“Yeah, but she was a vampire in that one movie. And Tom Hiddleston was in it, too, as a brunette. So, related.”
“Never seen it.” She set the box on the kitchen island. “That was Theodora, the Grand Mistress of this territory’s Vampire Council.”
“Whoa. What did she want?” There was a heavy feeling in my chest as we stared at the box. A warning? “I mean, I know she wanted to give you whatever this is, but what are you supposed to do with it?
She lifted the latch and started to pull back the lid. “She wants the coven to keep it safe. It’s some kind of artifact, given to our realm for safekeeping.”
I frowned. “From what?”
She let the lid go and it fell back. We stared down at the thing inside, nondescript and radiating something secret and hidden into the air. Unbidden, my hand reached for Abigail’s.
“I don’t know,” she replied in a whisper.
Three days later, something big and mean came for it, ready to cut through my sister and the women I had come to know as my family. It took all of ten minutes for me to see there was no way they were going to win against this thing.
So I took it and I ran and I don’t care how many times Abigail calls me an idiot for the rest of my possibly very-soon-to-end life, my plan worked. It followed me and left them alone.
I just didn’t have much of a plan for afterward. So, this would have to do because against a wraith who can occupy any body it touches and with my unreliable magic, I don’t stand a chance.
I chant the words from the grimoire, sneaking a few peeks at my phone until I have it memorized. I hold my left hand out over the circle and, with a stumble in my voice, I use the knife in the other to draw a long, thin cut.
The blood wells, runs down my palm and then drips. The moment it hits the carpet, the flames in all my cheap, vanilla-scented candles contract. The small banked embers in my blood, the ones I’ve never been able to coax into something larger, spark painfully.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears and in the stinging gash I’ve made. I keep chanting, the blood beginning to slow to small drops. Something outside rumbles—a truck? thunder? the wraith?—and then quiets.
Minutes go by. The candlelight settles. My palm stops bleeding. I trail off. I sit in the motel room in the stink of too much vanilla and curl my back under the weight of my failure.
