Bone Coven (Winter Wayne Book 2) Read online

  “Hi,” the little girl said, and I am old enough to admit that she was more scary than a hundred ECU soldiers with two guns pointed at my head each. Shivers broke down my back, and my beads moved in response.

  “Are you…are you…” real? I wanted to say, but the words were stuck in my throat.

  “A guest,” the girl said. “I’m a guest. Are you a guest, too?”

  Damn it, Winter. Stop shaking!

  Phone. I needed to get my phone out of my pocket, but it was very hard to do it when my fingers refused to cooperate. Not only that, but turning the flashlight on was harder than going to hell and coming back. When light finally fell on the little girl’s face, a sigh escaped my lips.

  She was real. She had to be, because ghosts didn’t have red cheeks and rosy lips. They didn’t have strawberry-colored hair in pigtails and a missing front tooth.

  “Can you please turn that out? It’s hurting their eyes,” the girl said, looking at the two dolls sitting on the plastic chairs.

  With a smile on my face, I put the phone down.

  “What are you doing here?” I said in a whisper and reminded myself that everything was okay. I wasn’t locked in an attic with a ghost.

  “I’m having tea with my friends,” the little girl said. “Want to join us? I promise we make the best tea.”

  It could have very well been my imagination, but the little girl’s blue eyes sparkled with hope.

  “I’m, uh…I’m in a middle of something, actually.” It wasn’t often that I had no freaking clue of what to say, but this was one of those rare moments.

  “That’s okay. You can always make time for tea.” The girl smiled brightly as if the whole world was hers. Then, she took one of the dolls on her lap and patted the now empty chair. “Come.”

  What the hell else was I supposed to do? The situation was so weird, I found myself walking over to the table and sitting down on the chair. The chair was very small. I barely managed to rest my hip against it, and I hoped to God it wouldn’t break.

  “This here is Lily,” the girl said as she put a new plastic cup in front of me, then pretended to pour tea from the plastic pot. “And this is Anna. They are my best friends.”

  “And who are you?”

  I took the tiny cup in my hand to take a sip. When the little girl saw me, her smile grew even bigger. Her eyes shone bright. No hint of judgment anywhere on her face, though she could see my eyes from so close up.

  “I’m Lily and Anna’s guest for tonight. I visit them when I can,” the girl said.

  “Why are you staying in the dark like this? Can’t you bring your friends to your room?”

  “Mommy won’t let me anymore,” the girl said with a pout. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to such a little kid—she couldn’t be older than five—and to my surprise, I found I was enjoying it. I guess weirder things had happened.

  “You never told me your name.”

  “Elisabeth,” the girl said. “Like the Queen of England, except daddy calls me Liz.”

  Elisabeth. This was Peterson’s only daughter, according to the information he left me with the flash drive. I’d had no idea she was so young! Peterson had two boys, too, and I was wondering how old they were if Elisabeth was this young. Then, fear spread like a warm blanket all over me when I remembered why I was there. Those werewolves were going to come for Peterson’s children next. They might well come after Elisabeth. Damn it, she was just a kid. Who could kidnap someone like Elisabeth?

  “What is your name?” She looked at the cup in front of me as if to tell me to drink the imaginary tea again. I did so, but I was no longer smiling. Just the thought of her in those werewolves’ hands made me mad with anger.

  “My name is Winny,” I said, because I couldn’t risk her telling her father that I’d been there. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes grew wide as she nodded way too many times.

  “Don’t tell anyone you met me here, okay? Not ever.”

  “But Lily and Anna have already seen you,” Elisabeth said. She looked very confused.

  “Well, Lily and Anna can keep the secret, too, can they?”

  The smile returned. “Yes,” she said, and it was amazing how that one word left no doubt in my mind that she’d do as she said.

  “Awesome. Now, why don’t you tell me about you?” I said, half my attention focused on our surroundings. So far, there was no noise I could hear and no smell, either.

  “I’m four and a half years old,” Elisabeth said. “And I’m a witch, but I can’t do a lot of magic. Only sometimes.” She shrugged. “I like books and princesses, and I don’t like my brother Ethan. He’s mean and pulls my hair when daddy isn’t looking.”

  “What kind of magic can you do?” It wasn’t uncommon for people to do magic before they came to their powers, but still, Elisabeth was too young.

  “I can move things around sometimes. I would show you, but my daddy made me promise to not use my magic again until it’s safe.”

  My hand froze halfway, the plastic cup between my fingers. “Safe from what?”

  The little girl looked into my eyes. “You can keep a secret, too, right?” I nodded. “Some bad people want to hurt me and my brothers. Daddy doesn’t know I know, but I heard him talk to Mommy. That’s why I can’t have Lily and Anna in my room. That’s why I sneak out to come see them for tea because I’m not allowed to even go out of the house anymore.”

  Ah, hell. It sucked to hear the words coming out of her mouth in that sad voice of hers. It broke my heart. “Do you know why people want to hurt you and your brothers?” I hated to interrogate her like that but if she could help me, I’d be able to help her in return.

  But Elisabeth shrugged. “Because bad people do bad things.”

  “Liz?”

  I jumped to my feet the second the voice reached my ears. It was William Peterson, and his voice was coming from downstairs.

  “Shoot,” Elisabeth said. “I have to go.” She stood up and sat her doll on the chair again. “You can stay a little longer if you’d like.”

  “Elisabeth? Where are you?” Peterson called again.

  My fingers were wrapped around the handle of my gun, and I kept expecting the hatch with wooden stairs attached to it to fall open.

  “Remember what I said about the secret,” I whispered to Elisabeth, and with a huge smile, she nodded.

  “Goodbye, Winny.”

  When she said it, I didn’t hate that nickname my landlady had given me. In fact, I almost liked it. With a grin, I waved at the girl and watched her carefully release the hatch and the stairs. Orange light illuminated the attic, and I barely even breathed until she disappeared from my sight.

  “There you are. What did I tell you about the attic?” Peterson said, his voice as clear as if we were standing in the same room.

  “Sorry, Daddy. Lily and Anna needed their tea,” Elisabeth said.

  Peterson laughed, and a second later, the hatch closed. Darkness enveloped me again. With a sigh, I rested against one of the wooden boxes. The little girl’s face stayed with me even when I closed my eyes. There was nothing special about her in terms of power, though her smile was as bright as the sun. But I doubted werewolves wanted to kidnap her because of her perfect, toothless smile. So what the hell were those people after?

  I didn’t have the slightest clue. Feeling like a complete failure, I turned my back to Lily and Anna and made for the broken window.

  Six

  Usually, my headaches began as a result of too many thoughts running through my mind. This time, my skull threatened to break in half because there was absolutely nothing I could think of. I felt empty. Void of ideas and this had never happened to me before. Completely distracted, I didn’t even look twice at the witches passing me by. I just kept my head down and walked as fast as I could.

  Driving from Delaware to Bloomsburg to see Aunt Amelia was going to take a while with Turtle, but going back to the office f
elt like accepting defeat. I was already disappointed and pretty convinced I couldn’t do this, that I’d completely lost my touch. I didn’t need anything else to drag me down.

  The second my foot stepped on the asphalt of the main street, the huge car seemed to appear out of nowhere. Every alarm in my head began to ring. The headlights were in my eyes. I don’t think I ever moved so fast as when I jumped back and landed with my ass on the sidewalk.

  “Goddamn it!” I hissed, my butt cheeks throbbing with pain. “Asshole.”

  By the time I made it to my feet again, the car had long disappeared. With a deep sigh, I focused on my surroundings. I really didn’t want to get run over by a car in the center of the Green coven when I shouldn’t have even been there in the first place. That’s why I saw the next huge car coming at full speed down the street right where I’d come from.

  Instinctively, I stepped back, though I was already on the sidewalk. When the car passed right by me, I realized it was one of the black SUVs of the ECU. And two more were coming just as fast as the first.

  Before I knew it, I was running right back to where I came from, hoping to find where the SUVs were headed in such a hurry. When people drove like that, it was never a good sign. Something hard fell in the pit of my stomach when I realized that the SUVs had turned the corner that led right to Peterson’s house.

  The view in front of me felt like it had come right out of a nightmare. Four black SUVs were parked in front of the gates to house I’d just been in. The doors were open, and ECU werewolves were everywhere, their guns in hand. Gunshots made my ears whistle. My heart beat in my throat at the thought of little Elisabeth. My beads buzzed around my hand when I saw who those guns were aiming at.

  Four werewolves were in front of the gates, their brown fur long, their eyes glowing from the headlights of the SUVs turned to them. One of them even had a thick chain in its hands, and it played with it like the chain was a fucking toy. Xander’s words came to mind. These were no normal werewolves. I’d seen Ralph Martinez turn right in front of my eyes and the half-man, half-beast he’d become was nothing like these four. They were all beast.

  And they didn’t seem the least bothered by the rain of bullets pouring down on them, because those bullets never reached their bodies. They couldn’t break through whatever spell was in front of those beasts.

  Holy fuck. I thought my shield was strong. But my shield was made out of toothpicks compared to this one.

  Panic wrapped its fingers around my neck as I watched Green witches throw spell stone after spell stone at the beasts. Nothing could break through their protection, not even the spells thrown at them directly by the two guard witches I’d seen at the house.

  Magic and bullets were no use against these beasts, who did nothing but stand there and watched as an army of thirty people tried to cause them even the slightest damage. Almost like they were waiting for the people to tire, so they could walk away.

  Not on my watch.

  I didn’t bother to reach for my gun. I just grabbed a knife from my hip belt and stretched my fingers to get my beads moving. The street was wide enough to fit all those SUVs, and they provided the perfect hiding spot for me. My mind quickly thought of options, of what I could use to trap those beasts right where they were, and all I could think of was the chain on one of the beasts’ hands. Finding a way to turn its own weapon against it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was a plan. God, I loved plans. Plans meant I knew exactly where I was going. The means to get there could be found along the way.

  Except, the second I took a step toward the SUVs, having already found the best hiding spot, the beasts stepped forward, too. I’d been to the fucking fairy realm and I’d never, ever seen anything like it.

  My jaw touched the ground as I watched the brown furred beasts bring their wrath down on the werewolves and witches in front of them. Two ran forward and jumped up, too high to be normal, and landed on the hoods of two of the SUV’s. The vehicles groaned as they crumbled down, as if whole fucking mountains fell upon them.

  And then, the beasts began to throw stones.

  It was beyond me where those spell stones were coming from. Watching from a distance, it seemed as if they were appearing into the beasts’ claws out of thin air. My whole body had frozen as the nightmare further unfolded in front of my eyes, and the spell stones exploded, forcing the werewolves to step back. The beast with the chain in his hands swung it around like it weighed nothing, and when it hit the ECU soldiers, it sent them flying a few feet into the air, before knocking them down to the ground.

  The other beast had no chain, but it didn’t really need one. Its claws, long and yellow, cut through the metal of the guns directed at it, and through the flesh and bones of the werewolves and witches around it.

  The wind on my face made me realize that I was running forward, just as I spotted the two other beasts running away on the other side of the street. Conjuring my shield was second nature to me now, but I feared it wasn’t going to hold against those mighty claws. It was still better than nothing.

  As I grew closer, the body of an ECU werewolf almost knocked me down to the ground. I moved to the side at the last second and ran faster to the two beasts.

  Bodies everywhere. The smell of blood hit my nostrils, together with the smell of the spells the beasts had thrown. Flames danced all over the vehicles, but they didn’t seem to mind because the fire never even grew close to their feet. I had no idea what kind of a spell stone they were using, but I sure as hell wanted to know who’d conjured or stirred those spells. They were the strongest magic I’d ever witnessed.

  With my shield in place, I ran as fast as I could, and I jumped a split second before stepping into the flames. Maybe not the best of ideas, but when my body crashed against that of one of the beasts, the damage was already done.

  Fur everywhere on my face as we both fell back and hit the ground, my arms wrapped tightly around the beasts’ arm. It was smaller than a werewolf but still much bigger than me.

  With my focus on my beads, I sent them for the face of the beast though I couldn’t see it. But before I could even make contact, I was pushed back with so much strength, my arms had no way of still holding onto the furry arm. My back hit something hard and hot. Pain shot from my neck and down the rest of my body, paralyzing me momentarily. Darkness hid the vision in front of me. Drawing in air was impossible, and I didn’t even have a second to regret my stupid move before my chest felt like it was cut wide open, all the way to my ribcage and heart.

  My senses came back to me with a rush. A deafening noise rang in my ears. The face of the green-eyed beast was right in front of me, its large yellow teeth in full view. I saw it the second its arm swung back, and he prepared to cut me open with its claws once again. I conjured my shield faster than ever before, and when the claws of the beast broke it as if it had never even been there, a new wave of energy hit me—probably fear. I jumped to the side, not wanting to even look down at my chest and see it cut wide open.

  Moving on all fours, I tried to make it behind the wrecked SUVs, but suddenly, flames were in front of me, right on my face. I would have burned if the beast hadn’t grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me back like I was made out of paper, not flesh and blood. Trying to hold onto the asphalt was useless. I only had half a second to remember that I still had my beads, and when the beast turned me over and my back hit the ground, I sent them flying right at his eyes.

  Air filled my lungs properly for the first time in minutes when the beast fell back a step, waving its arms in front of its face, knocking my beads back in a way I never even thought possible. Without hesitation, I jumped to my feet, adrenaline erasing all trace of pain from my mind. The beast growled at my beads, as they swirled around its head too fast to be seen, and with my knife in hand, I jumped forward.

  But it was too fast. The back of its arm hit me square in the face, and I fell back again. Anger washed over me, igniting every cell in my body, coursing through my veins like the fire b
urning all around us. This time, when I ran forward, I went down on my knees right in front of the beast before its arm could hit me again. Moving my arm fast back and forth, I cut through its stomach four times. Its loud growl reached my very core a second before the thick chain around his arms wrapped around my throat.

  I’d stepped on the edge of life and looked upon death many times before, but nothing beats a chain around your throat, I found. I lost control over my beads, and I let go of my knives to try and loosen the steel around me, just so I could take in a mouthful of air. The beast dragged me back. The asphalt scratched my ass. I couldn’t even blink as the flames drew closer and closer.

  Gun. I needed my gun, but reaching for it meant I had to stop trying to get that chain from around my neck. It meant going against every instinct in my body. For some reason, Elisabeth’s face came to my mind as the beast dragged me back. If I let it take me, if I let them go, there was no hope for that little girl. Nothing I’d ever seen could do what these beasts could. If I gave up and didn’t try harder to stop them now, what was going to happen to her?

  The energy of my beads around my hand tried to connect with my mind as it felt me fading. With the last bit of strength I had left, gasping for air, I sent them to the beast’s face again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited. Either death was going to have me now, or the beast was going to let go.

  The beast let go, only for a split second. My body knew exactly what to do. Drawing in a tiny bit of air, my shaking hand wrapped around the handle of the gun in the waistband of my pants. The beast pulled me back by the chain like a fucking dog again, and my finger squeezed the trigger involuntarily. The bullet hit the asphalt, but now it was only a matter of pointing the barrel in the right direction.

  Black dots filled my vision as my body struggled for oxygen. I barely managed to raise my shaking arm up and fired without aim—again—four times.

  Wonderful, precious air moved down my throat. The world regained its colors, and the bright orange flames continued to dance in front of my eyes. Giving myself a second meant giving the beast enough time to drag me by the chain again, so I didn’t. As the world around me spun, I jumped to my feet and pulled at that fucking chain until it was no longer around my neck anymore. The second I turned around, I found the beast, angry as hell, its fur matted with blood around his right shoulder, charging for me. Instinctively, I conjured my shield and set my beads for his eyes again, but neither did me any good.