Page 23 of Filthy Little Witch
“Yeah? And what did you think? That a demon clawing through the wards to slice and dice my brother meant we’d end up in fucking Eden?” It was cruel, but I had nowhere else to direct my anger, and I couldn’t contain it. “That you could wave your magic fingers, and it would all be over? Wake up in Aruba, perhaps? No, you fucked this up, witch. Now, fix it.”
She snapped her gaze to me and squared her jaw, her pouty lips pulling into a thin line.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t touched the demon in the first place,” she snarled. “The spell should have worked.”
“Well, it didn’t,” I roared, taking a step toward her.
She countered with a step toward me, staring up my body with those bright mahogany eyes, burning with indignation. “I can see that. I’m not fucking stupid.”
“You’re also not a fucking quitter.” I towered over her, heat pluming off me, mingling with the reckless inferno burning in her stare. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself and get your shit together because, if we are in a liminal, we have bigger things to worry about now than who fucked up what part of the ritual. And…”
I trailed off as I realized how close we were. Our torsos were millimeters apart, our pants combining in the electric space between. For half a heartbeat, I thought about leaning down to kiss her, to collide the decade’s worth of tension brewing between us and let out a little steam. I dropped my focus to her mouth, where her delicate pink tongue swiped against her perfect lips.
“Did you find anything?” came the pained voice from the doorway, punching me back to reality. I blinked and jumped back from Marta, turning to see Wes slumped against the door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I rushed toward him and wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him up. “I told you to wait in the truck.”
“You were taking a long time. I thought about dying but figured you’d kick my ass if I did. So I came to check on you.”
“You’re Goddamned right.” I couldn’t even think about losing him.
“To answer your question, no,” Marta said, returning to her books. “No one’s here. We’re alone.”
“Are we…” Wes winced and tried to straighten himself. “Are we in the liminal?”
“I think so.” She zipped up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and turned to face us. “Maybe the demon was too powerful for the salt circle. Maybe someone fucked it up. Either way, it doesn’t matter now. We should head back to the Harlot estate. I can pull on the strength of the magic there.”
Wes swayed in my arms, his knees almost buckling under me.
“You should go wait in the truck,” the witch said. “You’re practically a ghost.”
He snorted a soft laugh. “That sounds about right. How many times have we almost died, Atlas?”
“That’s not funny, brother,” I said, helping him out of the room and back toward the vehicle.
“I mean, at least ten,” he said. “Fate was bound to catch up to us someday.”
“I don’t want to leave my bike,” Marta said, drawing my attention. “But I also don’t think we should split up. If this is the liminal, then that demon might be around here somewhere. I don’t know if we managed to pull him in with us.”
I shuddered at the thought. Trapped all alone in a pocket reality with a witch that hated me and a lust demon certainly sounded like my own personal hell. Maybe Wes was right. Perhaps fate or the ancestors or some twisted, fucked-up karma had led us here just to punish me for all the shit I’d done. How could we possibly hope to defeat a demon in the prison we’d created for it? It wasn’t like we had the power of other witches to help us create another liminal, if that was even possible. But first things first.
“I don’t wanna leave Josephine, either,” I said, my heart yanking at the thought of my baby all alone at that repair shop, busted into pieces, no one to put her back together again. “But we don’t have another choice. Besides, we’re in the liminal. None of this is real. Your bike, my car, they’re waiting for us in the human realm, so we should spend our time figuring out how to get back.”
Marta nodded and walked toward the passenger seat. “Go get your things. Let’s head home.”
CHAPTER 9
Wesson
I didn’t remember much of the drive back to the clubhouse, only the part where Atlas and Marta carried me into the mansion-turned-hangout and through the foyer into one of the bedrooms downstairs. They laid me down on the bed, where I promptly passed out from the exhaustion and agony of what had been done to me.
Most of it was a haze, all except one recurring nightmare that plagued my sleep. I was back in the woods where we did the ritual, alone, standing in the salt circle the witches had drawn. The forest was disturbingly quiet—no birds chirping, no wind in the trees—just me and my heartbeat. I turned around, looking for someone, anyone, only to find myself completely desolate.
“Hello?” I called. “Atlas? Marta?”
No answer came. A small part of me knew I shouldn’t step outside the salt line, but I couldn’t stay here. Just as I started to cross the boundary, the clouds turned a dark, angry gray, rumbling with the threat of thunder and lightning.
“I wouldn’t do that,” whispered a soft, feminine voice.
