Enraged: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Unturned Book 4) Read online

  Mom’s tired sigh pulled me from my revenge fantasy. I relaxed my hand and patted Mom’s leg. “It’s after midnight. You should get to bed.”

  She nodded absently, but didn’t move.

  “Come on.” I took her hand and stood, then gave her arm a gentle tug. For a blink I flashed back to Mom’s time in the hospital in her unresponsive fugue. I could sort of direct her, get her to sip a drink, or chew a small bite of food, but otherwise she seemed barely a living person.

  Mom finally stood. I took her by the arm and led her upstairs to her bedroom. Before she laid down, she searched my face with her gaze.

  “What?”

  “Do you really think the witches are involved?”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious, especially after my visit. Why?”

  She looked away. “Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

  Once I had her tucked in, I went back downstairs.

  Odi had his palm out with a small flame dancing at its center. A look of wonder filled his eyes as he stared at what he’d conjured.

  I cleared my throat. “If you burn down my new house, I will stake you.”

  He curled his fingers closed and the flame died. “Pretty good, huh?”

  I had to admit, ever since a few uncontrolled blasts of fire a few months ago, he had worked hard to gain control. Though I felt a little bad. He had a lot of power for a kid so young. He could have chosen any number of magical focuses. But because he only had me as a teacher, he had naturally followed my path as an elementalist with a specialty in fire. It was a raw kind of power, flame magic. Great for demon hunting, so it had served me well. Odi, being a breed of demon himself, probably wouldn’t find much joy in that career path.

  I had to do more research, get us both working on different kinds of magic, expand our horizons. Maybe Gladys, the witch next door, would let me rummage through her massive spell book collection.

  I froze.

  The witch next door.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Odi asked. “Your mouth is hanging open.”

  “Everything I know about witches I learned from books and the little experience I had with the Maidens.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need to know more. I need to see if they have some kind of weakness or blind spot. And we just so happen to have a witch for a neighbor.”

  Odi furled his brow. “You mean Gladys? She’s a white witch, I thought.”

  “She is. But she still might be able to help.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t see how, but, hey, you’re the expert here.”

  Expert? Not hardly. Truth was, I didn’t know if Gladys could help at all. Asking her about other witches was probably like asking an Australian in Sydney if they knew my friend living in Brisbane, as if all Aussies knew one another.

  At the moment, I didn’t have any other ideas, though. Angelica had said their ritual lasted a week. That could mean I had that long before losing Sly for good. More than likely, less than that, since they had already started whatever they had planned. Going to Gladys would at least make me feel like I was doing something to help Sly.

  And we were seriously running out of time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Since I wasn’t about to knock on Gladys’s door in the middle of the night, I spent the rest of the evening practicing magic in the basement with Odi. We worked a little with air, and I even let him work on his small flames. While the size of his fire did not impress him much, his control impressed me. I hadn’t been sure I could do it, but I’d finally made progress with him when it came to manipulating fire.

  Just before dawn, Odi climbed back into his coffin, and I headed upstairs to bed. I set my alarm for noon. Not a great amount of sleep, but I wanted to see Gladys as soon as possible.

  She welcomed me with a wide smile and an offer of some tea. I’d had Gladys’s tea before, and nothing could make me refuse at least one cup.

  Gladys Jackson stood just over four feet, and had skin almost as black as night, which made her wonderful smile shine all the brighter. Her braided hair hung clear down to her waist, which made her seem even shorter. She often wore tie-dyed shirts and long flowing skirts, but today she wore a dark dress printed with golden flourishes. And while she looked as beautiful as ever, she also kind of reminded me of a Jawa from Star Wars. But in a good way.

  She moved with the urgency of a dervish, whooshing back to her kitchen to fetch the tea.

  I took a seat in an overstuffed recliner that hugged my body so that I felt like I was one with the chair. I made sure to sit here whenever I visited. I had jokingly threatened to steal it a few times.

  The house had the same layout as ours, but she had made it look completely different. The drapes were made of maroon silk and hailed from India according to Gladys. Besides the most comfortable recliner known to man, the rest of the furniture had a cozy feel as well. A puffy brown couch. An oak coffee table with legs carved like elephants standing on their hind legs, holding the table up with the tops of their heads. The table’s surface wasn’t polished or lacquered, and looked like it had come straight from the tree it was carved from.

  Bookshelves covered every wall, and there wasn’t a single gap between any of the tomes on them. None of them were modern books. No self-help paperbacks or glitzy bestselling hardcovers. The youngest book was probably dated at least fifty years ago. Some, with their ragged spines and frayed edges, could have gone back a thousand years—hand printed and in ancient languages both known and long forgotten.

  The air smelled of must and leather.

  Gladys must have had the water already boiled, because she quickly returned with a chocolate colored ceramic mug in each hand, thin metal chains dangling over the edges. She used loose leaf tea, which required these wire mesh balls instead of bags. I wasn’t a big tea guy, loose leaves or otherwise, but, like I said, I could not resist Gladys’s brew.

  She handed me one of the mugs, and the steam wafted over me as I took it. The smell of honey and pine rode the steam right up into my nose as I sucked in a deep breath. Despite all the worry over Sly, my muscles instantly relaxed.

  Gladys set her mug on the coffee table and took a seat on the edge of the couch. If she scooted back, the cushy cushions would swallow her small body. Then she couldn’t reach her tea.

  The room had a cave-like feel, with the towering bookshelves and big furniture closing us in. A floor lamp with a soft yellow glow could have been our firelight. For a cold January afternoon, I couldn’t think of any better place to be.

  “So,” Gladys said, folding her hands in her lap. “You said on the phone you needed me for some research. Hit me with it. What’s the topic?”

  “Witches.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “I guess I know a thing or two about that. But can you be more specific?”

  I wanted to broach this delicately. I wasn’t sure how a white witch would react to my asking for information on black witches. As the labels implied, they didn’t exactly get along.

  “It’s a sensitive topic.”

  She smiled. “This about Casey? Cause she’s a druid, not a witch.”

  Casey was the cute, single neighbor in the house on our other side. For a while, I thought about asking her out. But I wasn’t ready to date yet. Having your girlfriend betray you to a group of vampires kinda sticks with you for a bit.

  I waved a hand. “No, no. This is nothing like that.”

  She drew her head back and gave me a flat stare. “Well, it should be. I can feel the tension in you. When’s the last time you had an orgasm?”

  I felt my face flush. “Um…” I cleared my throat. “Gladys, this is pretty serious. I’m sorry I sound so cryptic, but I’m not sure how to ask—”

  “Just ask. Or have a sip of tea to stall a bit, then ask.” She picked up her own mug, sniffed in some steam, and smiled. Her content sigh sounded almost orgasmic. I wondered if she were trying to send me a message. I could have thrown the question right back at her. She lived alone. I didn’t know h
er age. I knew she was older, but not too old for the equipment to still work.

  When I caught my thoughts running down that rabbit hole, I reigned them in and focused on my tea. I took my time with my first sip. The tea was still a little too hot to drink, but I forced myself anyway because it tasted so good. Two sips, and I couldn’t stall much longer. The look Gladys was giving me said as much.

  I set my tea down, folded my hands in my lap, and went for it.

  “What do you know about the Maidens of Shadow?”

  I didn’t expect her to smile. But smile she did. “This reminds me of a joke I hear a lot when I tell someone I’m a white witch. People say, ‘Oh, you look like a black witch to me.’ And they laugh their little laughs. And I throw a little hex their way so the next time they take a drink it ends up shooting out their nose.”

  “Doesn’t sound very white to me,” I said with a smirk.

  “We’re not talking about nice witches and mean ones. This is all about the source. I’ve never bled myself or anyone else to cast a spell. Not even the smallest of animals. That kind of magic feels like a grease stain on your soul. But you can be downright friendly and still wear that stain.”

  “You don’t seem worried about what I’m asking.”

  “No harm in the asking. But you’re still awfully general. You can’t narrow it down?”

  I looked down at the tea in my mug. Its surface reflected the light in the room, giving the liquid a silver sheen. The tea’s sweet and piney smell surrounded us now. The comfort from the drink didn’t reach the heights of whatever Elaine had mixed together when I’d gone to see her, but the magic didn’t feel too different.

  “How many of them are there really?”

  She frowned in thought, the lifted a shoulder. “Hard to say. I know of the six over by the university.”

  “Five,” I corrected.

  That won me a curious look. “I’m pretty certain it’s six.”

  “It was. But they lost one a few months back.”

  “Seems you know more about them than I do.”

  “Not nearly enough. What do you know about their mothers?”

  Gladys’s lips formed a small O. “They hail from Toledo, far as I know.”

  “When they say ‘mother,’ is that literal? The witches downtown are their kids?”

  “Yes. They’re a big, happy family, with only a small amount of inbreeding.”

  Now there was a fun fact I could have done without. While I tried to think of what else to ask, I picked up my tea and drank some more.

  Gladys, on the other hand, ignored hers. She crossed her short, pudgy arms and leveled a dark stare in my direction. As I’d suspected, she didn’t like my line of questioning. I couldn’t blame her. There was a lot not to like. But I had to know.

  I cupped my mug in my hands and rested them in my lap. “How come their moms are so far south, not even in the same state?”

  Gladys shrugged, arms still crossed. She looked like a miniature bouncer about to kick me out of the club. “Spread their influence? Let the girls mature on their own terms? Probably a bit of both.”

  “Okay, what would you think if I told you the mothers were in town?”

  She leaped to her feet, knocking the coffee table with a knee, and tipping her mug. The mesh tea ball rolled across the table while tea pooled away and dribbled onto the brown carpet. She didn’t seem to notice the mess. She gaped at me, arms lip at her sides, her chest heaving with each heavy breath. “Do you know this? Or suspect it?”

  I wobbled a hand. “Somewhere in the middle. One of the Maidens suggested the whole family was conducting some kind of ritual.”

  She clutched at her chest as if worried her heart might beat its way through her breastbone. The whites of her wide eyes shone bright in contrast to the color of her skin. “Why in the goddess’s name are you hanging with those girls?”

  “They helped me out of a…situation. They helped a lot, actually.”

  Gladys’s shook her head. “They didn’t help you. Black witches don’t help no one but themselves. What do they got?”

  If she seemed ready to explode already, telling her about the piece of Sly’s soul would pop her for sure. I couldn’t hold back, though. If I wanted her help, she needed to know it all.

  “A friend of mine,” I said, “traded a piece of his soul in exchange for—”

  “He did what?” She staggered, lost her footing, and plopped into the couch. Sure enough, she tipped back into the cushions, and her feet came off the floor. It would have looked comical, we probably would have shared a laugh at her expense, if not for the panic in her eyes.

  She struggled her way to the edge of the couch, and I waited to say more until she regained some of her composure. Once she had, she regarded me with wet, incredulous eyes. “I cannot believe you would be so stupid…” Her gaze drifted away from me to some point in space. She pressed a knuckle to her lips and hummed uh-uh. Then dropped her hand and said, “No.” Then, “No way. No, no way. This is horrible. Terrible.”

  She turned her gaze back to me.

  “Sebastian,” she said, voice full of breath. “This is how worlds end.”

  Chapter Twelve

  That sounded a wee bit melodramatic. But judging from the way Gladys trembled, and her eyes teared, and her breath wheezed, she believed it. She believed it from toes to soul.

  This is how worlds end.

  Melodramatic or not, a chill ran up my right leg and made my balls shrink. My stomach switched to spin cycle. Gladys’s fear was contagious.

  Neither of us said anything for a while. I mean, when you’re talking about the end of the world, what else could you say once the topic hit the air?

  That’s interesting. Hey, did you see that Facebook meme with that grumpy cat? No? It was hilarious. I’ll forward it to you.

  The whole concept of communication seemed preposterous. What good was talking with the world on the brink?

  I pulled those thoughts back. Gladys didn’t say the world was ending, just that whatever the fuck the Maidens were up to was one way a world could end. A pure hypothetical. Right?

  Right?

  I wanted to swallow, but I didn’t have enough spit to make it happen. A chalky bitterness coated the inside of my mouth. The spilt tea still pattered onto the carpet as it dripped off the coffee table, playing a little rhythm against the carpet’s knap. I had lost track of the tea’s comforting scent.

  “Can you be more specific, Gladys?”

  She closed her eyes a moment to gather herself. When she opened them, her panic was replaced by obvious anger. At me? At Sly? At the Maidens? All of us? Or maybe even herself?

  “Possessing a soul can be as easy as capturing one from a dying body. It’s a simple thing, really. And black witches have collected them for ages. But the modern world makes human sacrifice a little harder. Not much, but enough to keep those who wish to coexist with the natural world from trying.”

  “If it’s such an easy thing, why is this case any different?”

  She held her hand up, fingers in a V. “Two reasons. One, this is the Maidens of Shadow we’re talking about here. One of the most powerful covens in the US. The most powerful anywhere near here.”

  “You mean to tell me, with all that power, they’ve never performed a sacrifice?”

  “Not as far as I’ve heard. They stay within the laws of both the Ministry and the average man. It’s how they can have such influence without worry of any legal repercussions.”

  “They’re like tame vamps. Not exactly saints, but not outright killers either.”

  “Something like that.”

  “But this is just a piece of Sly’s soul.” It occurred to me that I had never asked Sly how he had sliced off only a part of his soul and traded it. “How much trouble could they cause?”

  She dipped her chin and looked at me from under her brow, her expression like Are you serious?

  “Fine. A lot. But doomsday? Why would they want to end the world anyway?”


  “They don’t want to,” Gladys said with a big dollop of impatience. “But things go wrong. Accidents happen.”

  “But they can’t end the world, for the gods’ sake. Seriously, you have to be overreacting. How do you even know what they’re doing with it?”

  “I don’t. Not for sure.”

  One last drop of tea splotched the carpet as the puddle had spread too thin to flow now. I wished I could smell it. I should have been able to with it spilled all over the place, and practically a full mug of it still in my hands. The only thing I did smell was the sweat that had collected under my arms, triggering my deodorant to release its cool breeze scent that reminded me of a menthol cough drop. Time to switch brands.

  The room seemed darker, too. Though the afternoon sun coming through the west-facing window should have made it brighter. Even the floor lamp’s light had a dimmer feel to it.

  I set my mug gently onto the coffee table and sat straight on the edge of the recliner. “I need to know what’s going on, Gladys. Tell me everything you’re thinking right now.”

  “Your friend,” she said so softly I almost didn’t hear her. “Is he ill?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “How did you know that?”

  “The soul of a dead man has worth,” she said. “But that of a living being? The power is nearly unlimited, so long as the soul’s host lives.”

  “Even with just a small part?”

  She laughed without a shred of humor. “If your friend knew how to draw off a fraction of his soul, he should have been smart enough to know he was giving away access to the whole thing. The Maidens know they have a precious treasure. In their minds, they would be fools not to use it.”

  I was pretty sure Sly would have never handed over that piece if he knew what could happen to him if they used it. I hoped he didn’t know, because that was pretty damn irresponsible.

  “What kind of thing would they use it for, Gladys?”

  I could tell she didn’t want to say. Maybe putting it to words would make it too real for her.