Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

26

"I've always wondered what goes on behind coven doors," Cade said to Mari when he'd returned from recon several miles ahead.

"I really can't speak for all covens, but mine is pretty worthless. Lots of soap opera and internet addiction." She was supposed to lead them to greatness, but then, Mari liked her soaps, too. "Have you pictured a slew of hoary old women cackling over a cauldron?"

He raised his brows. "Yes."

"If someone busted out a cauldron, we'd chortle with laughter and make fun of them for being 'old skool' for months. And you rarely see hoary old women because most witches use glamours of some sort."

She noticed MacRieve seemed to be listening intently. Even Rydstrom and the archers appeared interested in this topic.

"Do you really chant spells and make blood sacrifices?" Cade asked.

"We chant spells when they're new, but they quickly become second nature. It's like you wouldn't say to yourself, 'I am walking to the kitchen, and there I will boil water for tea.' You would just do it. But if it was the first time you'd ever walked to a kitchen or had tea, you might talk yourself through it."

"And the blood sacrifices?" MacRieve prompted.

Mari gazed around at everyone. "Do you guys really want me to talk about witchery?"

Cade hastily said, "Yes," just as MacRieve grated, "Aye." MacRieve in particular seemed absorbed in everything she was explaining. Could he really feign interest like this?

"Well, some witches still do the blood thing. But in our coven, we look at it like this—giving up whatever is prized and personal is a sacrifice. In the old days that was a lamb or a chicken because giving up food would be a great sacrifice. But now... if I wanted to call upon Hekate's altar, I could give up my iPod and feel the sting."

"What were you awaited to do?" Tera asked.

"I have no idea," she replied. "No one does—there's nothing but speculation."

Cade said, "Maybe you were supposed to destroy that tomb."

MacRieve gave a humorless laugh. "Do you think that's all the witch has in her? You've no' been on the receiving end of her powers as I have."

Mari was startled—she'd been thinking the same thing. She hadn't wanted to hit the high point of her life at only twenty-three.

"What enemies do the witches have that you could vanquish?" Tierney asked, plucking at the meat of a cracked-open coconut. Exactly how far had he run toward the coast to reach a palm tree?

She answered, "There are some wizards who went rogue, a sorcerer who likes to murder pregnant witches—"

"If you're to be the greatest witch," MacRieve interrupted, "then you've been put here to fight the greatest evil. Fate does no' blow her bullets for nothing."

"That's not possible," she said. "No mortal or even immortal can defeat our greatest enemy."

"Why no'?"

"Because she's a goddess." Mari drank heartily of the processed water, then wiped her mouth on her shoulder. "Or she was. Her name is Häxa, the Queen of False Faces."

"What's her damage?" Tera asked.

"Again, do you really want to hear this?"

MacRieve's "Aye" just beat out Cade's "Yes."

"Okay, then," she said slowly. "In the beginning of the Wiccae, there were three goddess witches, sisters. Hela was all good, Häxa was all bad, and Hekate was both."

"But you said you worship Hekate, right?" Tierney said, between chews. "That means you worship a goddess who was part evil."

"She was a balance of good and evil. We believe it's all about balance. All good is bad. The universe can't handle all creation without destruction."

"All sunshine makes a desert," Cade offered, and when she smiled and said, "Exactly," MacRieve shot him a killing look.

"When Häxa kept growing stronger, Hekate and Hela bound her powers—made her an immortal instead of a goddess."

"Why didn't they just kill her?" MacRieve asked. Naturally, that would be his first instinct.

"They can't. All three are witches at heart, and it's impossible for one of our kind to kill a member of her own family. And others have failed to take her out because Häxa is still extremely powerful—she feeds on misery, seeding it in others, then harvesting it." It was even rumored that she kept living beings in her lair, frozen in eternal agony, feeding off their misery forever.

"What does she look like?" MacRieve quickly asked.

"She can assume the form of anything, or anyone, living or dead. No one knows her true face. She could be any one of us... "—Mari made her voice theatrically ominous—"and we'd never know it."

"How does she choose her victims?" MacRieve asked impatiently.

"There's no discernible pattern. She'll strike out against a despot as easily as an innocent farm girl."

MacRieve seemed to mull this answer for long moments, then he said, "Is it true you witches will no' heal others without payment?"

She should have known MacRieve would cut straight to the heart of why witches could never gain the respect of other Lorekind. She swallowed, then admitted, "Mostly, it's... true." As expected, everyone grew quiet. "But you have to understand why." MacRieve raised his brows as if he couldn't wait to hear this. "A thousand years ago, witches gave freely, over and over, but we were always ultimately persecuted for it. My ancestors concluded that our kind needed the protection and clout that money could buy. The bottom line is that witches who live in mansions and have the ear of kings don't get burned to death as often as those who live in toadstool hovels at the edge of the forest."

MacRieve's expression was inscrutable, and she couldn't get a sense of what the others were thinking either. Should she try to convince them of the witches' plight? To point out that no other faction in the Lore was as persecuted as they'd been?

The opportunity was lost when the brush grew thick again. Conversation became difficult, which left her free to experiment more with the mirror.

She opened the compact in her roomy pants pocket. Merely touching the glass seemed to give her focus. Mari had long learned all the spells expected of her but had never been able to utilize them. Could she now, with the help of a focusing tool?

As she slowly rubbed her thumb in circles on the glass, magick rose up in her hand, but now it felt centered, concentrated. The mirror did in fact conduct her powers, steering them, almost like a ground wire for electricity.

While she was enjoying this heady control, she decided to test a few minor spells on the werewolf—because it would be good practice, and by good practice she meant amusing for her.

She caused a root to hike up directly in front of his feet. When he tripped, she folded her lips in, biting back a laugh.

Magick... good.

For the next hour, whenever his boots came untied just in time for the laces to collect bullet ants, or limbs whacked him across the face, or he scarcely dodged bird and monkey droppings, he always regarded her with narrow-eyed suspicion. She would casually glance over at him with a "Whaa... ?" expression.

But he hadn't said anything, and as for her, well, she could do this all day—

Out of the corner of her eye she spied movement. What looked like a vine suddenly uncoiled from the ground and came flying toward her. With a shriek, she attempted a pulse of energy to ward it off. But MacRieve had already snatched the snake; her magick caught him and sent him flying, his body crashing through the brush, felling the trees in his way.

After landing one hundred feet away and angrily tossing the snake, he shot to his feet, charging back to her, eyes ice blue with fury. "Goddamn it, witch, no' again!"