Firestorm (Smoke & Ashes Book 1) Read online

  “Time-out,” I said. “We need to find the witch, remember?”

  “I can’t feel anything,” Feather Girl said. “But I’m searching.”

  “Until then, let’s read some books.” I put one in front of her and opened my own.

  Chelsea stood up with a huff. “I’m going to take these in my room. See you later.” She grabbed her suitcases and went for the hallway. I had two spare rooms in my apartment, and she’d spent the night plenty of times before to have a favorite, one she called her own—the one farthest away from mine because she claimed I snored. She was full of shit because she was the snorer.

  “She’s really nice,” Feather Girl said when Chelsea slammed the door shut.

  I smiled. Chelsea was much more than just nice. “Find everything you can on evil spirits.” And we got to work.

  10

  Two hours later and all we had to show for it was a list of specifics about evil spirits, but at least my strength was back all the way. I could barely feel any pain from the fight anymore.

  Apparently, evil spirits started out as human souls. Really nasty, filthy human souls, who were too evil even for Hell. By the time they earned the name dybbuk, they were completely stripped of anything that had ever made them human in the first place. They were vile, even for infernals, but according to the books, they could never be destroyed entirely—only locked away in Hell for all of eternity. Another fun fact was that they couldn’t be controlled, which I guess explained why the Fallen and the Devil himself had never used them against the Good Guys.

  It beat me why a witch from Earth would want to summon one, knowing this. Darynda knew she couldn’t control that evil spirit. I had no doubt about that. So, what the hell was she doing, bringing him up here?

  Definitely not for anything good. And as far as what evil spirits could do, the list was endless. The only thing they couldn’t do, actually, was get from one dimension to the other without a specific invitation. They had enough power to burn half the world down with one strike, but to do that, they needed to accumulate it first.

  And how did they do that?

  Plenty of ways, but the easiest way to do it was through crystals, just like the ones the nocturnal witch had had in her basement. Crystals were powerful things when used properly, and she definitely seemed to know what she was doing.

  But crystals also came from somewhere, and the sooner I found out where she’d gotten all of hers, the sooner I’d find her. That was about the only good thing that came out of all that research.

  Needless to say, that woman needed to die asap.

  “Anything yet?” I asked Feather Girl. She’d been silent for the most part while we read and gathered information, but I could see her closing her eyes and holding her breath every few minutes. She was searching with her senses, however the hell that worked.

  She kept on surprising me. She seemed…genuine. I hadn’t caught a single slip, where she looked at me weird, like she was thinking about attacking me or getting away. No—she was seriously invested in finding out more about the evil spirits.

  “Nothing, but I’m searching,” she said, but I’d already seen that. “This is interesting.” She put her book in front of me and scooted closer on the couch. “You can technically bottle a dybbuk. Like, you can summon it into an object and hold it prisoner in there.”

  I read the first paragraph. “It would have to be an object from Hell. Otherwise, he could break through it.”

  “Yeah. Kind of Aladdin’s genie. You know, the blue guy?”

  “Exactly. And they grant wishes for freedom, too!” I put my finger on the paragraph that explained it. To be fair, all fairy tales had some truth to them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever told that story first had an encounter with an evil spirit. Or knew someone who did.

  “Do you think that’s what the bitch is doing? Witch.” It was actually impressive how she never failed to say witch afterward.

  “I don’t think so. There were no objects there that I could see. The spirit came right from her body, and I have a feeling this wasn’t their first rodeo together. She seemed to know exactly how he’d react, how fast he’d move, how big he’d get.” The image was right in front of my eyes as I spoke. “No, she’s not looking for wishes.”

  “Revenge,” Chelsea said from the recliner. She’d made herself a martini, which she claimed was totally fine, even though it was barely four pm, because not every day you break up with your boyfriend. She was damn right. Plus, she had two days off work, so the hangover she was going to have tomorrow would go unnoticed to the rest of the world. “That’s usually the motive in movies. She wants to get revenge on someone or something.”

  “It’s a very powerful motivator. I can tell you that from experience,” Feather Girl said.

  But she didn’t need to. Revenge for my mother’s death was still what drove me most days, and I’d been only eleven when she was murdered.

  “Revenge for what? Against whom?” I asked in wonder. “What do we know about Darynda?”

  “Not much. My friend said she came from the west somewhere, but she didn’t know where. She has no family that I know of, but I haven’t really met anyone who knows her,” said Feather Girl, just as a feather sprouted from right underneath her earlobe. She didn’t even flinch. How the hell did she not notice that?

  “You’ve got a little something on your…” I touched the side of my neck.

  “Oh! Thanks.” She grabbed the feather, tore it from her skin, and then crumbled it in her fist. When she opened her fingers again, it was gone.

  “The Witch Alliance,” Chelsea said. “You should go pay them a visit.”

  Exactly what I’d been thinking. At first, going to the Alliance seemed like a waste of time. They were the ones who’d reported this nocturnal witch to the Fallen in the first place, and if they couldn’t find her themselves, chances were they didn’t know anything that could help me, either. Also, Lexar had already spoken to them, and he hadn’t seemed impressed.

  “They reported her. I don’t think they can tell me anything valuable.”

  “They can tell you more about who she was, though. Maybe she’s trying to get back at her ex-boyfriend for being a cheating asshole?” Chelsea shrugged. “I’m in the mood for that kind of a story.”

  I bit back a smile. “You’re gonna be okay, Chelsea.”

  “I know, I know. I’m gonna get him back, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  But she waved me off. “It’s still a valid suggestion.”

  “Could be,” said Feather Girl. “If you want to know more about her, the Alliance seems like the right place.”

  I flinched. I did not like witches. Witches, most of them, didn’t like me. My mom was a fire witch, but she wasn’t part of the Alliance. I don’t think she hung out with other witches, not that I remembered. Add the fact that my dad was a Fallen, and I understood why they didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I’d only met with witches from the Alliance once before—at a party for their two-hundredth anniversary of creation. I hadn’t been invited, naturally, but they’d let me in anyway. I had been severely underdressed for that thing, with my jeans and hoodie, but I’d been curious to see how many maggots I could find in such a big gathering.

  “I’m not sure,” I said with a sigh.

  “What other choice do you have?” asked Chelsea.

  A good question. I looked at Feather Girl, but she shook her head. Still nothing on the witch. That made up my mind for me.

  I stood up. “Let’s go meet with the Alliance.”

  The Alliance was a series of buildings that looked like a college campus, with about seven different rooflines—and a tower-like building smack in the middle. This one had reflective glass all over it instead of bricks, though. It looked like a really big and really sharp obsidian crystal from afar.

  The gates surrounding the five buildings were easily twenty feet high, and even if that made it impossible to get inside without permi
ssion, the spells that would electrocute you if you reached for the bars sure would. We stood in front of the large gates, Feather Girl and I, admiring the craftsmanship of the letters W and A on each gate. They were bigger than I was, and every curve in them was exactly right. If I ever built myself a castle, I was going to get someone to put the letters S and D on my gates, just like this.

  “What now?” Feather Girl said as she inspected the first building on the other side of the gates. The driveway that led to it was empty. The whole yard was empty, and I couldn’t see a single movement anywhere in the windows of the buildings.

  “Now we wait for them to come get us,” I said, looking around. It was still daylight, and there were a lot of people going about their business across the street. The Alliance was in the west of the city, in a semi-crowded neighborhood, and it still surprised me how humans weren’t more curious about it. I watched them, and no one even looked twice at the strange buildings or the gates. Possibly a spell. It reeked of magic out here.

  We didn’t have to wait long. The first building was only one story high, the smallest of the five, with the glass tower right behind it. The door opened and a woman came out, wearing a crisp grey dress, her brown hair tied behind her head. I could barely see the line that was her lips, even when she was right in front of us on the other side of the gate.

  “How may I help you, ladies?” she said, her eyes stopping on Feather Girl, as if she already knew what she was.

  “Sapphire Donovan. I’m here to speak to the Alliance about a nocturnal witch.” Her thin lips parted instantly. “Anyone who can tell me more about her will do.” I offered her a smile for good measure, but she didn’t return it.

  Five minutes later, we walked through the gates and met Elyssa Masters, the woman who’d been assigned to the nocturnal witch before I even knew about her existence. She took us around the main building and behind it. The last time I’d been here, I’d stuck to the front for the half hour I’d hung out at the party, but now I regretted not having gone deeper.

  The four buildings were set all around the glass tower, like they were trying to shield it from the outside world. In the middle of them was what looked like a miniature town. Shops lined the backs of the building, and they were all open. Witches were everywhere—some going from one building to the other, most sitting on the grass around the two fountains to the sides of the glass tower that stood like a guardian in the middle of it all. The air crackled with magic, and it was coming from those witches, sitting on the ground, hands raised in front of them, eyes closed as they chanted. They were practicing magic right there in the open.

  “Ms. Donovan?” Elyssa Masters said, calling my eyes to her.

  Right. We were here to talk about the nocturnal witch.

  “Sassy’s fine.” I cleared my throat. “Like I said, anything you know about the witch could be useful.”

  “Of course, Sassy,” Elyssa Masters said, and she practically hissed out my name. She was about my height, except the six-inch heels she had on made her seem like she was looking down at me. Her blonde curls stuck so close to her head, I was dying to run a comb over them, just to loosen them up a bit. “The problem is, we have already spoken to the person in charge of finding and containing the nocturnal witch.”

  She was definitely talking about Nevermore. “Oh, he’s not in charge of anything—I am, so whatever you told him, you can tell us, too.” I waved between Feather Girl and myself. She was standing right beside me, in awe of all the magic going on around us. It was like we’d stepped into a different world altogether. Flowers and apples and rocks were floating in the air close to the chanting witches, and now that I looked a bit closer, the water of the fountain on the right of the glass tower was moving in strange waves, too. Probably because two women were standing on either side of it, their arms raised, their lips moving with whatever spell they were doing.

  “Is this safe?” Feather Girl suddenly said, waving her finger ahead. “Somebody from the outside could see all of this if they looked closely.”

  Elyssa only smiled. “Of course, it is safe. There are spells in place to make sure of that. We like to practice out in the open as often as we can. Magic works differently when in closer contact with nature.”

  Well, I wouldn’t know that, since the best I knew how to do were the spells that Joleen—the woman who raised me—had tried to teach me a long time ago. The Ley lines just didn’t respond to me as well as they should have, but I figured it had something to do with my other half, a.k.a. The Dark Side. That’s why I never really bothered.

  “Right. So…the nocturnal witch?” I reminded her. As fascinating as all of this was, to see the witches doing magic so simply, so effortlessly, I still needed to find that witch.

  “We weren’t notified that there would be two people handling this,” Elyssa insisted. There was uncertainty in her eyes.

  I sighed. “Look, Elyssa, you already know who I am. I don’t need to tell you how important finding that witch is—you know better than I do. So, please, just spare us both the time and tell me what I need to know.”

  She didn’t like it. Her baby blue eyes zeroed in on me like she was already preparing all the spells she was going to hit me with. I didn’t feel threatened at all, but the look in her eyes did make my phoenix curious. She raised her head to see better, and she didn’t seem to like Elyssa Masters’s attitude any more than I did.

  Pressing her lips into a tight smile, she nodded. “Let’s walk.”

  We went all around the buildings and the shops. Flowers, herbs, dishes—including some wicked-looking cauldrons just like the ones you see in the movies—clothes, a bakery…crystals.

  “Her name is Darynda Olensen. She was part of the Alliance in Texas, which is where she was born and raised. Naturally, when she moved to Philadelphia, our doors were open for her,” Elyssa said reluctantly as she walked beside us. My eyes were stuck on the crystal shop just a few feet ahead. I wanted to see what they had in there.

  “What did she do here?”

  “She studied, mostly. She used the Alliance records.” Elyssa pointed at the glass tower. So that’s what that was. “She wasn’t here often, but when she did come, she spent hours locked inside and refused help from anyone.”

  I looked at her. “And you didn’t find that strange?”

  “Nocturnal witches are strange. They always work alone.” News to me.

  “What else? Does she have a family?”

  “Two daughters. Both have families and live in Texas.” Damn it. There went my chance of getting to know the witch’s family.

  “How long was she here for?”

  “She came and went for years, but never caused any trouble. She just studied.”

  “What did she say she was studying for?” I asked, and when we reached the crystal shop, I stopped in front of it. Two witches who couldn’t be older than eighteen were inside, one with a broom in hand sweeping the floor, and the other behind a small counter, putting crystals in boxes. The shelves in there had all kinds of crystals on them—the same kinds as the nocturnal witch had in that basement.

  “Some old magics. Her focus was more dark-oriented. She was interested in evidence of nocturnal energies in cooperation with the elements, as well as some animals of the night,” Elyssa said as she stopped beside me.

  “Why? Why was she interested in those things?”

  She looked at me like I’d insulted her with a question. “Studying the past is what we do. What we’ve always done.” I heard the judgment in her voice. According to her, I should have known this because I was a witch, too. Technically.

  “So, she had access to all the good stuff you keep in there.” I nodded at the glass tower. “Tell me about the crystals. She had a lot of them with her when I met her.”

  That shocked Elyssa properly. “You…you’ve seen Darynda?” she asked in a whisper. Was she that afraid of the nocturnal witch?

  “We both have, earlier today, actually,” I said, pointing at Feather Girl.
“And she’s keeping some really bad company. Do you give away all these crystals to anyone asking?”

  “No,” Elyssa said, way too soon. “No, these crystals are for studying and practicing purposes only. They’re for students. They don’t leave the Alliance grounds.”

  “There’s no way that she could have gotten her hands on some of these?” Because I knew of no other place that had as many crystals as that witch had had with her in the basement.

  Elyssa Masters blushed. That was answer enough for me. “No, of course not. We would never allow that to happen.”

  But they had. If I were to guess, the nocturnal witch stole from them, and they could do nothing about it. It just served to show how good she was at this. A lot better than all these other witches, apparently. That was probably why the Alliance had asked for the Fallen’s assistance in the first place.

  “Okay. Anything else you want to tell me? An address or a place she liked to visit while she was here?”

  “Nothing. She gave no address, and she didn’t socialize with anyone,” Elyssa said, staring ahead at the two witches cleaning up the crystal shop. “What was it?”

  “What was what?”

  “You said you saw her. What was she doing?” she breathed, and even her whisper broke. Maybe Elyssa wasn’t afraid of the nocturnal witch, but she was definitely afraid of what she might be doing.

  “Evil spirits,” I told her.

  “Dybbuks,” said Feather Girl, when Elyssa narrowed her brows in confusion. “She summoned one. I saw it, too.”

  If I’d cut Elyssa with one of my knives right now, she wouldn’t even bleed. “I see.”

  “If that’s all you can tell me, we’ll be on our way,” I said, taking one last look around. Most of the witches rehearsing their magic were very young—possibly teenagers. And there were two guys there, too, that I could see. Wizards weren’t very common in Philadelphia—or anywhere else, really. Not that witches didn’t give birth to males. Just that they didn’t inherit the ability to do magic like females did for whatever reason.