Bone Witch Read online

  “Winter, let’s talk about this,” he said, as if we were friends. Like we hadn’t met each other just hours ago.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Julian, but I will.” My shield was up, but so far, he hadn’t thrown any spells at me. My beads were around his head, too, and I aimed them for his eyes. It was the only way they could do any real damage.

  “I can tell you haven’t come to your powers yet,” he said instead. I tried to hide my surprise, but I must have failed because he smiled. “I can help you, Winter. If I have enough time to work—”

  “I don’t want your help!” I cut him off, my voice rising. “I’m getting out of here, and I don’t mind if it’s over your dead body.”

  Sweat beads lined my forehead. His metallic eyes were focused on mine, and I could almost read the power coursing through his veins in them. He hid it well, the bastard.

  “Listen to me—that’s all I’m asking from you right now.” His voice was low, though his hands at his side were curled in tight fists.

  “Listen to you talk about dragon blood?” Was he that stupid, or did he just play the part? I couldn’t figure it out.

  With a sigh, he looked up at the beads around his head. They buzzed as if to ask me to unleash them on him already, but I held onto their imaginary reins.

  “There might not be dragons here, Winter, but there are plenty in the Fairy realm.” He spoke slowly, as if to a little kid.

  I was tempted to roll my eyes. Of course there were dragons in the Fairy realm. The problem was, all portals to and from said realm were closed a century ago.

  Fairies were powerful creatures. Their magic worked differently from ours, and it was much harder to control. They roamed the Earth for thousands of years before the war, doing as they pleased with no limitations, taking humans back to their homes to serve them as slaves until they got tired of them and brought them back, completely stripped of any memories.

  But a hundred years ago, they began to take Paranormals to the realm, too. All kinds, without exception, and it didn’t seem like they were going to stop until all that was left on Earth were fairies and humans they could use for whatever they damn well wanted. That’s when things got messy.

  For the first time in history, vampires, werewolves and witches fought together against one enemy. The war I’d only read about in books was terrible. No Paranormal species made it out of it undamaged. Witches were at the brink of extinction when, finally, all portals to and from the Fairy realm were shut down and destroyed. Of the remaining fairies, those that surrendered continued to live under the supervision of the ECU, outcasts of the Paranormal community. The rest were hunted and killed.

  That’s why I was sure that what Julian said was pure bullshit.

  “You can tell your stories to whoever wants to listen to them. I don’t,” I said, in case he hadn’t gotten the memo from the gun pointed at his head. “Now, move.”

  It was hard to admit, but the only reason I was still talking to the guy was because I had no idea if I’d make it out alive if I attacked. I had no idea how strong he was, but my instincts were telling me very. I couldn’t risk it just yet.

  “It can make you strong, Winter. Stronger than any other witch out there, and I know how to make it work. All I need is for you to stick by and make sure nobody gets to it,” he continued.

  Had he not heard a single word I said?

  “I thought you said you know spells that can’t be tracked.” If he’d lied about that, then the ECU were mere seconds away from coming through that door.

  “I do, but I can’t keep them up the whole time and work on the dragon blood. It’s impossible.” Fair point.

  “That’s what they make stone spells for.”

  They could be bought anywhere and used by any kind of witch, as well as werewolves. Vampires couldn’t activate them because their dead bodies were the opposite of the energy they required, but everyone else could do it.

  “They’d require my attention and energy,” Julian said, shaking his head.

  “Then, there are a lot of bodyguards you can hire—”

  “But none I can trust.”

  I laughed dryly. “I’m someone you can’t trust!”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Goddamn it. “Why?” Never in a million years did I think I’d get to a point in my life where I’d have to ask a person why they trusted me.

  Julian raised a brow. “You’ll figure it out soon enough,” was the answer he gave me. Here’s another thing I hate with a passion: vague answers.

  I didn’t want it to come to this, but I had no other choice. He wasn’t going to let me go. So I took in a deep breath.

  My arm moved down before he realized what was going on. My finger squeezed the trigger before he could throw a spell on me. The bullet went through his right thigh, and he fell to on knee, just before his spell hit me—and shattered my shield.

  “Winter!” Julian warned, not even looking at all the blood coming out of his leg. I must’ve hit an artery, but that wasn’t going to kill him. He was a Blood witch. He could fix himself up if he focused, and I was counting on that when I unleashed my beads on his face and ran for the door.

  Julian could either fight me or tend to his wound first. When I hit him on the side of his head with the handle of my gun while my beads still hit him on his already messed up face, he fell to the floor. No spells so far. Smart guy.

  I ran as fast as I could down the hallway. The elevator would waste my time so I took the stairs instead and worked on conjuring up my shield once again. I had barely any strength left, but I did have my gun, and my beads were around my fingers. If Julian decided to follow me, those were going to have to do.

  But Julian didn’t follow me, because I made it out of the building in one piece, and I felt no spell coming for me. They usually brought heat and a charge of electricity with them so you knew when you were going to get hit. The street was packed with humans, but they didn’t pay any attention to me, though I was all torn and bloodied. I made it across the street before I stopped to take a breath and look around.

  The building I’d been in was at least twenty stories high. I looked at the windows of the sixth floor, but I couldn’t see much. The entrance was clear, too. No sign of Julian.

  Which made me suspicious as hell.

  Why hadn’t he followed me? I’d shot him, hit him with my gun and my beads had made a swollen mess out of his face. He could have been throwing spells at me right now, but instead, he hadn’t even bothered to come out of his apartment.

  Something didn’t feel right. I was almost tempted to run back inside the building and check on him. Had he died? I doubted it, but it was still a possibility that he couldn’t stop his bleeding.

  Without allowing myself another thought, I turned around and walked away.

  Four

  I was always careful, even a bit paranoid. It was more than reasonable when you did what I used to do for a living. Now, I was thankful for it, too, because being paranoid meant being careful, and one could never be too careful. When I made it back to my neighborhood, the sun had already started to retreat behind the buildings of Lower Manhattan. Finn had no idea where I lived because when I worked for him, I rented an apartment in Greenwich, but it wouldn’t be hard to find me. I hadn’t been hiding from anyone, and if James the vampire saw me at Dirty Joe’s, so did everybody else.

  The freelancers who used to be my colleagues were all very good. It wouldn’t take them long to find me, just as it wouldn’t have taken me long to find them. After Finn’s phone call back in Harlem, I had no doubt that whoever was onto me was already at my apartment.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t going in, though. On the contrary. I was just going to be extra careful about it.

  Lucky for me, Dylan was nowhere in sight. He was sure going to get pissed off when I told him where to go pick up his car, but he did ask to let him try and make it up to me. My landlord, Mr. Jamison, lived on the first floor, and he was the only other person I nee
ded to avoid in order to get to my apartment without a sound.

  The main door to the building wasn’t broken. This could be a good thing, but also a very bad thing. There was nobody on the street watching me—I made sure of it before I slipped inside as silently as possible. Two steps forward, and the smell of wet wood and menthol hit my nostrils hard. I froze, becoming all ears. My apartment was broken in, all right. The question was, was the intruder still there?

  Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out. I could turn around and run away fast without looking back. Maybe even leave the country, because like I said, one could never be too careful. I’d wanted to visit London since forever, anyway, and this would be a good time. If I was smart.

  As it was, I didn’t want to leave the place where I’d been born and raised, where I had all my mother’s memories—and my mother’s bones. In order to leave Lower Manhattan, though, I needed to get to my apartment to get my bullets, the money I’d put away, my mother’s jewelry, and the few spell stones I’d saved for a special occasion. A change of clothes wouldn’t be too bad, either.

  My gun was in one hand, a knife in the other. I had no more energy left to conjure up my shield, but my beads were in front of me, vibrating lightly. I had no idea who Finn had sent after me, but take your pick and I was still screwed.

  When I made it to the second floor in one piece, I considered it a success. The smell became stronger as I got closer to the second door in the hallway—which was obviously broken. If I made it out alive, I was going to have to leave some money for Mr. Jamison, though the guy seemed to forget I was even there whenever I went to his door to pay the rent. He sure wasn’t going to miss me.

  Holding my breath, I tried to listen for any movement, but caught none. My apartment seemed to be empty. Hiding behind the wall, I pushed the door open with the barrel of my gun.

  Nobody came out to attack me, which I took as a sign that I could look inside. When I did, I wished I hadn’t. Everything in my apartment was destroyed. Whoever had been in there had taken their sweet time to cut or break every single thing I owned. The spell I smelled was probably the mute spell they’d used to make sure nobody interrupted them. My heart fell to my heels as I stepped on the feathers that had once been inside the sofa and the glass that had once been the screen of my TV. My laptop was on top of the table, two legs of which were cut off. On the broken screen there was a knife holding a piece of paper to it.

  “Fucking bitch,” I hissed as I tore the letter from the knife. I already knew who had been in my apartment.

  I have your boyfriend.

  xoxo

  So that’s why Dylan hadn’t been waiting for me in the street. There was only one person who signed her letters with x’s and o’s and told everyone about it as if it were something to be proud of: Alexandra Chase.

  She was a freelancer, too, a former colleague of mine. As tall as me, her hair was cut close to her head, and her green eyes gave her a feline look. She had a katana she always carried on her back. A Green witch, powerful enough to conjure up attacking spells during a fight.

  Alexandra didn’t leave me with an address because there was no address needed. I knew where she lived. A scream escaped my lips, not caring who’d hear. She had Dylon, and I already knew that it didn’t matter that he was a cheating asshole—I was going to have to go get him. For a second, I wished I’d just taken off. I wished I hadn’t bothered to go check that damn apartment, because now there was no going back.

  My legs gave out and I fell on the torn up sofa, feeling completely helpless. I didn’t want any part of this. I just delivered a package, for God’s sake! It was all I signed up for—not this!

  Dragging my feet, I made it to the fridge. I needed to eat something if I didn’t want to pass out, and Alexandra had made sure to even break all eight eggs I’d had in there. The milk hadn’t completely spilled from the bottle, and I gathered all the cereal on the counter that hadn’t fallen to the floor when Alexandra tore the package. Man, she had been so thorough, it was worthy of envy.

  Eight bites later, and I was terrified to even begin searching for my spell stones. I had four I’d saved: an attack stone with a spell that would cause anyone I threw it at to burst into flames, another that would freeze my opponent for half a second, a Healing spell stone for extraordinary cases, and a Finder spell for when I needed something found.

  I’d hidden them in my mattress, in the very middle of it. Alexandra had torn the thing apart, and my hands shook as I used a knife to cut through the fabric some more. When my finger touched a stone, I almost cried in joy. She hadn’t found them.

  The stones witches used to contain spells were called Pretters, but everyone just referred to them as spell stones. They were small, black with strings of grey. The stronger the spell, the more strings on the stone. A Pretter couldn’t be used more than once. Putting a spell in a stone required lots of skill and lots of training, too. I couldn’t conjure a spell for immediate use—except my weak shield—for the life of me, so I hadn’t bothered to try and put one in a stone. Most witches couldn’t, and those that could were stinking rich. Those things cost an arm and a leg, but when I worked for Finn, we got them for free.

  It wasn’t advised to keep spell stones close to one’s body. Something about flesh turned them on without the keeper’s knowledge. Nobody wanted that. That’s why witches kept them in holsters made especially for the stones.

  Me? I kept them in my braid.

  My very light hair looked grey when wet. It reached all the way down to my ass. Mother loved it, and I cut it very rarely because of her. Except when I was showering, I always tied it high behind my head, then braided the tail. My hair was very thick, too, and that’s how it held the stones in place. I hid them so that they’d never fall off on their own, but I could get them in less than a second. Much better than having an extra belt around my hips.

  My mother’s jewelry was intact, too, though all over the floor. Alexandra hadn’t come there to steal. After tucking the stones away in my braid, I gathered the pieces of jewelry in a small cotton bag that had ended up on the floor, too. The money was under the bathroom doorway’s wooden threshold. I’d removed it myself when I first moved into the apartment. I didn’t have much saved—just a couple of thousand—but it was better than nothing.

  I debated taking a shower because I was covered in blood. The wound from the vampire bite had opened again, it seemed, and now my shoulder was a mess. My hands were covered in blood, too. Some of it was mine from the cuts I’d gotten when it rained glass upon me in Julian’s car, and some of it was Julian’s from when I’d hit him on the face.

  I decided it wasn’t a good idea. Even though Alexandra was done with my place, I had no idea who the other freelancer was. Finn said he had two on me. Maybe they had yet to find my apartment.

  The decision was made for me when I looked up and saw that Alexandra had broken my shower—and my faucet. That bitch. She’d even broken the mirror above the sink and its shattered pieces reflected my face eight times. My, my, I looked terrible. The mascara under my eyes made them look even more colorless than they normally were. My lips, normally red, were now white and completely dry. I instinctively licked them, but it did nothing to repair the damage. My high cheekbones made my face look longer than it was. I looked like a freaking ghost.

  With a sigh, I collected the bullets that had been in the freezer from the floor, and I quickly changed my clothes. I didn’t care about the vampire bite—I was not wearing another turtleneck. My most comfortable long-sleeved shirt was dark red, but I wore a black one instead. The plan was to go see Finn after he got off work and ask for his help. To tell him that Alexandra had gotten Dylan—who was innocent, if only in the situation. He was going to have to help me, because if he didn’t, I had no idea who else I was going to turn to.

  With my leather pants and jacket on, I made for the door. I left two hundred dollar bills by the threshold for Mr. Jamison to find. It wasn’t much, but it was all I cou
ld give him. Shivers washed down my back as I looked at the chaos that used to be home. With a deep breath, I turned around and left.

  Five

  Alexandra had gotten to my car, too. All that was left of the old, broken thing was its skeleton. Everything else had long burned out. It could have been the other freelancer who was after me, but I was blaming Alexandra for now.

  My braid was hidden under my jacket and I put the hood on, too. To get to Greenwich and Finn’s offices, I was going to have to take the bus. A very shitty plan, but walking was even more dangerous. It wasn’t like I had any other choices left.

  For the second time in my life, I felt vulnerable. Scared. Helpless. It felt like the target on my back was alive and breathing, and the weight of it pushed my shoulders down.

  The thought of what Alexandra could be doing to Dylan made my heart sink. He was a cheating asshole, yes, but he was my cheating asshole. He’d also been my boyfriend for a long time. My friend. We’d had good times together, and I’m not talking just about the bed. That bitch was going to pay for this with her life. Anger cleared the view in front of me just as the bus pulled over, giving me a false sense of bravery. I sat in the back with my head down, teeth clenching. A deep breath later and I looked at all the people around me. Humans, all of them, and I knew that because not one set of eyes turned to me.

  I almost wished the other freelancer found me in those moments. The anger made it hard for fear to grab ahold of me, and I could have used that to my advantage. Good thing nobody looked like they were going to attack me any time soon, though. No matter the anger, I was far from prepared for a fight.

  My mother’s face came to my mind. If she’d been alive, I could have at least called her. Hearing her voice alone would have given me another boost of much needed confidence. The only other person I could call was Merry.