Page 98 of Witch Untold
Sloane aimedto step in front of me just as I tried to do the same for her, resulting in us bumping together. Would have been funny if not for the shit-we’re-trapped-without-access-to-our-magic scenario.
More warlocks materialized in the room, and it hit me—they’d been here all along, cloaked somehow.
“What is this?” Jessie said. “Some weird VIP room thing?”
She was trying to hold on to our cover, bless her, but it was obvious to me from the way he was looking at us—part amusement, part derision—that he knew exactly who and what we were, which meant…
“Your little trinkets don’t work,” he confirmed. “Not in here. I can see right through your glamour. I saw it the last time you were here, but you found my little feeding room. I knew you’d be back with reinforcements, and you confirmed it when you offered to bring your friends.” He scanned the other witches. “Although I was starting to wonder if your coven had gotten cold feet. But here you are. You’re late, but there was no doubt in my mind you’d return to save the humans. Unfortunately for you, they’re no longer here. Unfortunately for you, you came back.”
They’d shut down our access to magic, but not their own. How? Oh, crap, of course, they used chaos, not miasma or cosmos. My mind whirred, making connections as I scanned the room. Seven warlocks with access to chaos plus the revenant in human skin made eight, but where was the source of the block on us? It had to be close by. Runes? No. Not that I could see. An object? Nothing out of the ordinary in here, although that meant nothing.
Something caught my eyes, a shimmer in the air by the bar. No, nothing there. Maybe a trick of the light?
The warlocks made a circle around us and an idea filled my mind.
“What are you going to do?” Sloane’s tone was calm and even, a total contradiction to her stiff stance. “You going to kill us? You think that no one knows we’re here?”
He smirked. “It doesn’t matter who knows. I have The Elites in my midst, the powerhouse of the Grimswood cell. I take you out and your coven is worthless against us.”
The circle of warlocks tightened around us like a noose, and unfamiliar power brushed against my senses.
Poppy, Jessie, Sloane, and I stood at the center.
Perfect, because I had a plan. “Get the crystal out.”
“What?” Poppy frowned. “We can’t…” She trailed off, eyes widening.
Sloane grabbed my hand and Jessie pulled the crystal from her bag. We were all on the same page.
Doubt flashed across the revenant’s face. “What is that?”
We began to chant. The negation spell leapt onto my tongue, chaos magic flowing freely. Yeah, motherfuckers. They’d blocked us off from miasma and cosmos, but they didn’t realize that our most powerful spell, the one that took out revenants, was fueled by chaos.
The revenant staggered back, clutching his chest. His eyes narrowed and he lunged at us, but the negation had him. The last time we’d tried to take him out he’d been too strong for us, but the crystal amplified our power. Reserved for taking down multiple revenants tonight, it would help us take down one uber one.
The rage painting his features told me he knew what was happening. He stretched out an arm, hand morphing to a crimson claw as it pointed at us.
A rippled of energy brushed against the shield the negation had created. We had to work fast, because we had seconds before the other warlocks realized what was happening and attacked, disrupting our focus.
The revenant hit the ground with his knees, curling in on himself. “No…”
The warlocks around us began to chant. Prickly power stabbed at the shield around us like thousands of needles desperate to burst a latex bubble.
The negation chant filled my head with colors—crimson, dark blue, and black, so much black.
There was a scream and then the revenant tore out of its human skin. It rushed toward us, its mouth open in a silent scream. Tendinous, ropey, crimson body ready for attack. It exploded into icky wet goo.
The gunk hit me in the chest and spattered my cheek.
“Oh, yuck!” Jessie hopped from foot to foot.
But my attention was drawn to the body on the floor. The suit the revenant had worn. Its skin was a pale green, and short horns protruded from its forehead, but its face was entirely human.
What the fuck.
“Cora…” Sloane nudged me.
It hit me then how deathly silent the room was.
