Page 37 of Witch Undecided
Lauris grabbed my arm. “Slow down.” He slipped ahead of me. “Let me do my job.”
The Elites rushed up behind me and then we were hot on Lauris’s heels as he rounded the bins. I took in the scene.
The woman dead on the ground, the revenant in full skinless humanoid form, and the human male with dark cropped hair and an oval face, standing with his back pressed to the wall, wide-eyed.
“It’s okay,” Lauris said. “We won’t let it hurt you.”
The revenant turned to face us, opened its mouth, and screamed, blasting us with its fetid breath.
Gag.
“Patrick, stand down!” the human snapped.
The revenant drew back, and the human stepped forward, standing taller, broader. His eyes bled to black as he tilted his head.
Gooseflesh speckled my skin. “What the fuck are you?”
“Human,” Jessie said, hands up, palms out as if testing the air. “Human and…something and revenant. Oh fuck.”
The human thing smiled too wide. “Do you like my pretty new suit? First time taking it for a test drive.” He looked down at the dead woman. “She seemed to buy it.”
He jerked his thumb in the revenant’s direction. “Patrick needed a snack.” He smirked. “Although it’s not like we’ll have a problem staying fed now.” He frowned at Patrick. “You didn’t need to kill the human. Sips, remember; lots of sips. They’ll keep coming back and you’ll stay fed, but if you kill them…” He wagged a finger in atut-tutmotion. “Now we need to dispose of the body. Or…” He fixed his gaze on us. “We could leave the mess to the filthy witches.”
“Fuck this,” Sloane said.
The negation chant filled the air and my mind. It spilled from my lips like honey and trickled through the air. The revenant behind the human thing melted into the wall and the human thing’s eyes went wide, mouth falling open in horror.
It was working. He had a revenant inside him, no idea how or why, but the negation spell was working. Maybe we could help him.
The human thing jerked once, twice, and then sighed and stood straight, staring at us with an arched brow.
“Sorry, ladies. That shit won’t work on me.” He grinned. “But now I get to play.”
He flicked his wrist in our direction and the negation spell died on my lips.
What the fuck were we doing? Sloane should know better. She was supposed to be a leader; instead we’d wasted time arguing when we could have saved this woman.
The human thing was no longer important. Only having my say with Sloane mattered. I turned on her to find Jessie yelling at her.
“Fuck you too!” Sloane said. “You could have saved her; you were right next to her.”
“You’re blaming me?” Jessie screeched.
“You guys are both to blame!” Poppy added.
I took a step toward the trio, anger a pit of simmering lava in my belly. They had no right….no right to…to what? What was I pissed about?
The lava was still there but it was cooling.
“Cora?” Lauris touched my shoulder and I spun to face him, curses wanting to launch themselves off my tongue. “Whoa.”
I pressed my lips together. This was wrong. Where was the human thing? What were we doing?
“He did something to you,” Lauris said. “This anger isn’t normal.”
No, it wasn’t. I needed to shake it off if I was going to help the others. I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, over and over, until calm settled over me.
Sloane, Jessie, and Poppy were in a full-blown screaming match now. Jessie punched Poppy in the face and the witch went down.
