Charmed, page 23
No. No, this can’t be happening.
A robed sorcerer lands in front of the flames.
I shrink into myself, praying he doesn’t spot us. He howls with rage and kicks a tree so hard that leaves break free and flutter to the fiery ground. He takes off again. If Aunt Penny isn’t already dead, he’s on his way right now to finish her off.
The flames spread quickly into the trees around us. The heat sears my face, and pinpricks of pain flash all over my skin. For a second I think we’re going to burn and there won’t be a thing we can do about it, but then I realize that this fire is what will free us.
The pinpricks spread along my body as my blood flow is restored. My skin drips water as the icicles melt, and color slowly returns to my blue skin. Bishop curls his outstretched hand into a fist. I try to do the same. My fingers move in slow motion, icicles popping as my joints flex, but they move. My heart rate speeds up. In a few more minutes, I’ll be able to move normally.
The Chief stands atop the stone altar as another teen is pushed toward him. I recognize her instantly. She’s the girl I saw my first day in Los Demonios—Mrs. Hornby’s daughter, Samantha. She shakes so hard I can see it from a half mile away. The Chief hoists her up over his head in offering. I desperately want to do something—anything—but my core is still too cold to summon my magic, my body too sluggish to respond to my commands.
The chanting builds to a wail. Slowly, Samantha’s body goes slack, wilts as if drained of its life force, and as it does, the ball of light glows bigger and brighter. It swirls and pulses like a living thing, giving the air a charge.
Samantha’s dead.
Something flips inside of me. Anger flashes hot in my stomach, my blood turning molten.
These people have taken so much from me. My mom, Cruz, maybe Aunt Penny—the only family I have left. They took Samantha, and they’ll take Paige too, and the rest of these teens who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I stare at the stone formation, at the sorcerers circled around, swaying and chanting in time to the drumbeat. I know in this instant that I could kill them. I could kill every single one of them and not feel a bit of regret for doing it.
The single thought in my mind is death. I can feel the dark part of myself like it’s a separate thing, but instead of feeling shame and embarrassment about it, I give in to it, letting the rage and anger consume me until I’m sure that if I could see myself, I’d look demented. Magic courses hot through my veins.
“Indie,” Bishop says, through his still-tense jaw, “are you okay?”
I clench and curl my hands at my sides, ignoring Bishop as I stare at the Chief. At my dad.
“I will kill him,” I say.
I take a step forward. My joints crack like I’m a hundred years old. But I take another step, and then another, and the more I move, the looser my limbs become. I can feel myself thawing out by the second.
Explosions sound all around me, the chanting and drumbeat rising up in a din of bone-shaking noise. Sorcerers and rebels zigzag through the air, too intent on killing the archer—and now each other—to notice our approach down below.
I give into the black part of myself, letting the darkness unfurl around me like a cloak. My heart pumps with black blood, my breath coming hard and fast as magic pulses scorching hot through my veins. The ground rumbles under my feet. I walk faster and faster.
And then I run.
I’m just twenty feet from the stone formation when the first attack comes.
Two sorcerers leap forward. I hold out my hand, and a violent blast of wind slams them back so hard they land on their backs with a resounding crack. They don’t get up. They don’t move.
Good.
“Holy shit,” Bishop mutters behind me. He’s finally thawed and caught up with me. “Indie, how did you—”
His words are cut short as two more sorcerers challenge me. Scratch that—rebels. Sporty and Zeke land in front of me. I knock them away, barely raising my hand. The power surges through me in palpable waves.
Another sorcerer leaps into my path, bent low and ready for a fight.
“Come on, little girl,” he says. “I look forward to making you scream.”
Terror rips into me at the sound of Ace’s twangy voice. For a split second my concentration is thrown and I’m no longer this powerful force, but a scared girl cornered in the dark. Ace raises his hands, those hands that touched me against my will.
I can’t move.
I don’t see Bishop until he’s already tackled Ace to the ground. They twist left and right, a tangle of grappling bodies and grunts. Bishop delivers a punch to Ace’s cheek that knocks his mask clean off his head and throws him three feet. His body skids along the ground, sending up sprays of dirt in its wake. Bishop doesn’t let him recover before he yanks him up by the front of his robe and hurls him at a nearby tree. There’s a loud crack as he smacks into the trunk, but he stumbles up again and levels a glare at Bishop.
There’s a whistling noise behind me. I spin around to find four more sorcerers advancing in the air.
A blast of fire shoots toward me. I leap to the left just in time—the fireball whizzes past me, so close it singes the hair on my arms and I taste smoke at the back of my throat. I’ve barely registered that I’m not dead before the sorcerers launch another. I duck this time and it whistles over my head, striking the earth just behind me. The ground rumbles so hard I’m knocked off-balance. I stumble backward, thudding onto my ass. The sorcerers close in above me, the vacant, dead eyes of their animal masks staring me down. Sense comes flooding back and I throw my hands up, but before I can unleash my magic, the sorcerers drop from the sky. One lands right on top of me, knocking the wind out of me. I see a dagger lodged in his back.
I shove the dead weight off me and scuttle backward. Bishop reaches down a bloody hand to help me up. Sweat glistens on his forehead, but his face is the picture of calm.
“Sorry I took so long. Dude just wouldn’t die.”
I grasp his hand and pull to my feet.
“Thanks,” I say. “I—I don’t know what happened. I just choked.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he answers. “Heads up!”
I turn just as more sorcerers flash through the sky toward me. I throw my hands up, flinging people away without discretion. But they come at us relentlessly. A long sword appears in Bishop’s hand. The blade arcs over his head, then brutally slashes at the people in front of him. Someone slams into me from the side. I’m blasted off my feet, my head smacking into the dirt so hard my ears ring. A sorcerer stands over me, grinning, but Bishop lands the sword in his gut. The color drains from the sorcerer’s face and he spits blood. Gritting my teeth, I roll out of the way before another dead body can fall on me. I detect movement from the stone formation and snap my head up.
The Chief holds up another teenager, who kicks and screams against his grip. The other teens howl and scream uncontrollably—I guess they’ve figured out from the pile of bodies on the ground that they’re not going to become sorcerers and go home.
A torrent of anger courses through me, and the ground rocks so violently under my magic that one of the massive stone pillars rattles backward with a boom. Some of the teenagers try to run out of the circle, but they’re snagged back by their shirts and easily overpowered by the sorcerers without even using their magic. The Chief’s ox mask flashes toward me.
“Stop her!” he bellows. Dozens of masked sorcerers turn to face me.
Six of them leap from the ceremony, the rest continuing the chanting.
They circle around Bishop and me, caging us in.
“Bishop, behind you!” I scream.
Bishop spins around just in time to dodge a dagger hurtling toward his head. While he ducks, I send a blast of wind over his crouched body. The sorcerer skids backward, his body digging a trench in the dirt. Bishop pops up and delivers a roundhouse kick to another sorcerer’s face while simultaneously slashing out with his sword. I blast two more sorcerers back, then another two. A sorcerer noticeably larger than the rest approaches us, shuffling side to side like a boxer getting ready to strike an opponent. Candy—Ace’s accomplice from the rebel camp. She launches a dagger at me, but Bishop reverses its direction so that it lands in her own gut.
We fight back to back, killing sorcerers in tandem as if we’d trained all our whole lives to do it. Teens break away from the stone formation and run in all different directions across the blazing mountaintop like headless chickens. But the sorcerers keep chanting, the sphere of light above them glowing brighter and brighter. I head straight for the Chief.
Sorcerer after sorcerer intercepts me, but I blow them off easily. Someone steps out from the crowd. She pulls off her wolf mask, revealing a shock of too-white hair and skin so pale she looks albino. I can tell from the confident way she carries herself that she’s the Chief’s sister, Rowan.
My aunt. The person responsible for kidnapping all these teens, for kidnapping Paige. It isn’t lost on me how ironic it is that I’ve got one aunt trying to kill off a bunch of innocent kids while another is selflessly trying to save them. To save me.
Rowan sneers at me, like the prospect of killing me is fun. Rage sinks its ugly teeth into me. I look just left of her face, at the giant stone pillar behind her. It lifts from the ground, casting a shadow over her. She glances over her shoulder just as the stone tips forward. It happens too fast for her to move. The stone smashes her into the ground, a boom echoing through the theater.
“Indie,” Bishop breathes. And I can’t tell whether it’s respect or fear I catch in his voice.
I step around the pillar.
That’s when I see her. Paige has been herded into the middle of a panicked group of humans. Tears flood down her cheeks, her bangs are plastered against her damp forehead, and her glasses are askew on her nose. She looks at me.
My heart squeezes hard.
I’ll save you, Paige.
I turn my attention back to the Chief, but he’s already watching me intently. He unceremoniously drops the teen he was holding. I can see what he’s going to do before he does it, but it happens too quickly for me to stop him. He’s behind Paige in a flash, an elbow hooked around her neck and one hand fisted in her hair. The rest of the humans shriek and run around the circle, looking for an escape. The sorcerers push and shove them brutally back inside. I hear a crack as fist meets bone.
“Any closer and I’ll snap her neck,” the Chief says. The calmness in his voice raises the hair on the back of my neck.
The chanting sputters to a halt, and the light above him shrinks.
“Keep going, you fools!” the Chief orders.
“Let her go!” I demand, with more confidence than I feel.
He tosses his head back and laughs. “And why would I do that?”
It comes out before I can think it through. “Because you broke my mom’s heart and you haven’t done a single thing for me since I was three and it’s all I’m asking of you.”
His laughter dies, and he pushes his mask up onto his head, narrowing his eyes on my face.
“I-Indigo?” he asks.
I fight the impulse to cross my arms, to make myself smaller. I ball my hands into fists at my sides.
He exhales, his face twisted in confusion. I can see him thinking it over, trying to decide whether or not it’s possible. I feel like I’m on an episode of a trashy daytime talk show that specializes in paternity reveals.
His grip around Paige’s neck relaxes, and she takes huge, gulping breaths. For a split second I think he’ll do it—he’ll let her go—but then something in him snaps and he snags her neck, his arm taut again.
Of course. Why would he care about me now? All that talk about family back in his office—it was just part of the ruse, to make the teenagers feel bad for him. He has no heart.
I feel a twinge inside my chest, but I refuse to believe it’s because I’m hurt. I don’t care about him. He isn’t family.
“Take me instead,” I say, changing tack. “Look.” I point to the dimming light of the portal overhead. “They’re not willing sacrifices anymore. They can see what you’re doing. My energy is worth more than a human’s. My blood is both sorcerer and witch.” I have no idea if any of what I’m saying is true, but I’m desperate.
“Indie, no,” Bishop says, grabbing my arm. I shake him off and lift my chin.
The Chief’s eyebrows raise, his jaw moving as he thinks. “Now, that is an offer I’m willing to consider.”
He shoves Paige back into the herd of teens.
“Come,” he says, beckoning me forward with his hand. His eyes are filled with a disgusting longing at the prospect of murdering his own daughter, using my blood for his dark magic.
“Indie, don’t do this,” Bishop pleads.
I take a step forward. The rest of the battle falls away as I lock eyes with my dad. Magic pours through me like lava, getting hotter and hotter until it’s unbearable to hold it in any longer. Still, I wait. My whole body feels like a flame, and I’m sure I’ve caught fire. Black clouds scud across the moon too fast to be natural; the air crackles with electricity. The heat flows down to my fingertips in a painful swell of magic dying to be released. I wait a moment longer.
And then I let it go.
The clouds break apart, and a bolt of lightning strikes the Chief. He’s lifted a foot off the ground, captured in a flash of white light, his back bent unnaturally, his eyes wide, and his mouth open in an O. And then he slumps to the ground. His ox mask is singed black and wisps of smoke curl into the air. He doesn’t move.
I did it. I killed my dad.
“Whoa,” Bishop breathes.
A violent gag chokes me, and I fall to my knees.
The place becomes absolute bedlam. A ragged crew of sorcerers keeps up with their chanting, while the rest come at me from all sides. Shouts and cries ring out through the night, fire and arrows flashing past too quickly to follow. I would be dead if it weren’t for Bishop, defending me as I heave vomit into the dirt.
I killed my dad.
But then the lights in the sky dim, then flicker, and the place goes silent. I haul myself up and look out over the hillside.
A hundred people stand along the brim of the Hollywood Bowl, looking down into the amphitheater with an eerie calm. It takes me a moment to figure out who they are. Not sorcerers—they’re all here for the ceremony. Not rebels—there are just too many of them. But who else would be in Los Demonios?
And then I put it together. The flickering light. The people with a secret entrance into this place—a portal used to shove inmates inside.
It’s the Family.
29
Everyone flees. Sorcerers and rebels alike fly in every direction, like they can’t get away from the Family fast enough. What’s left of the pitiful portal of light above the stone formation winks out completely. The humans huddle together in the circle as fires blaze all around. Two girls whimper loudly. Paige looks around dazedly.
All the while, the Family floats calmly down the mountainside toward us. I leap in front of Paige, shielding her body with my own. Bishop follows, his arms out at his sides to cover the humans. I don’t know what they want, how they found us here—all I know is that I’ll do anything to keep the teens safe.
The Family members range from fresh-faced teenagers to adults in their fifties, but they all share one thing in common: eyes so hard they lack even a glimmer of empathy.
“So you’re in charge, then?”
A man glides forward, landing lightly in the charred earth across from me and Bishop. He’s wearing one of those pinstriped suits that have a long, forked tail at the back. His sideburns are just a bit too long and pointed, and he wears his hair parted down the middle and slicked flat against his head. Despite the fact that he’s dressed like a circus trainer from the 1930s, he’s handsome. He clasps his hands behind his back, assessing me.
“Where is she?” he asks.
And all of a sudden I realize how they knew: they followed Aunt Penny’s tracker.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammer.
“Here!” someone shouts. A man steps over the crest of the hillside to our left, carrying Aunt Penny’s body in his arms.
“Aunt Penny!”
I stagger forward. Two warlocks move to block me, but I blast past them until I’m right in front of Penny. I desperately want to pull her into my arms, but I stop short at the sight of her. Her arms are ravaged with angry-looking pink burns, which slowly seep blood. Her face is pale, with a sheen of sweat, and a frightening amount of blood is streaked through her blond hair.
No, no, no.
“Aunt Penny!” I cry, my chin wavering uncontrollably. Her eyes flutter open at the sound of my voice.
“Not looking so good, Penny Blackwood.”
Aunt Penny shrinks into herself at the sound of the voice.
“Damien,” she croaks.
I recognize the name. Damien—the leader of the Family who sentenced her to wear the tracker.
The man in the pinstriped suit strides over slowly, a grin pulling up his lips. I step in front of her.
“Move aside,” Damien says calmly.
“No.”
“Do it,” Aunt Penny whispers.
Damien stares at me, his face a mask of calm.
“Do it,” Aunt Penny repeats.
I grunt, then reluctantly step aside.
Damien crosses over to her. For a long moment, he just looks at my aunt. And then he reaches up and tenderly brushes her matted hair away from her eyes. I bite my lip hard to keep from screaming out, but Aunt Penny remains very still.
“Penny, Penny, Penny,” he clucks. “Why couldn’t you just follow the rules? You knew we’d track you here.” He sighs. “What am I going to do with you?”
“She violated the AMO!” a witch yells out. “Burn her!”
A cheer of support goes through the witches. My stomach gives a violent heave.
“It seems your witch family doesn’t think very highly of you,” Damien says, a mock-sad look on his face. But I see something beneath his act—the way he looks at her, it’s almost like he loves her. In a flash, I remember what Aunt Penny told me before about Damien—that she was his pet, his favorite. He could have had her tossed in Los Demonios for having a relationship with their enemy, and yet he fitted her with a tracker instead.
