Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(6)

The pouch was made of soft fabric and had been tied at the top with a leather throng. I pulled it, and the top opened up, releasing a stench so powerful it made my eyes sting and fill with tears. I pulled my head away so as not to breathe the aroma in directly. “What the hell is that?” I asked.

“A poultice,” he said, “For your hand. It stinks to high heaven, but it’ll heal most wounds and fix that scar on your hand. It’s yours.”

“Thanks. God, that’s an awful smell.” I tied the throng back into place, but the lingering stench stung my eyes, forcing me to blink away unwanted tears. When I regained my vision, I found myself looking at the door directly behind Remy’s desk. I had explored the entire mansion in the time we had been using it to host our lessons, and had never come across a door with a padlock on it.

This was the only such door in the entire house. The fact Remy had placed his desk directly in front of it was no coincidence, either. I had wondered what was behind it ever since I first laid eyes on it, but hadn’t ever asked.

“Are you alright?” he asked. The smile on his face suggested he enjoyed my discomfort.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Anyway, I should probably get out of here.”

He nodded. “I should as well. I’ve done as much as I can in the ballroom for the day.”

I headed for the door with the bag of poultice in my hand. It was squishy, and oddly warm, despite being encased in a leather pouch. But I stopped at the door and looked over my shoulder at him. “What we just did,” I said.

He turned his eyes up at me but didn’t say anything.

“Can we do it to a human?”

Remy shook his head. “Never,” he said. “You should never try and bring a human soul back from the dead. Things don’t quite work that way.”

I nodded and made my way out of the room, and then out of the mansion. I caught a glimpse of the cat strolling along the halls as I went, likely trying to get acquainted with his new home. Why couldn’t this kind of magick be used on a human? The cat seemed happy as ever, and according to Remy had probably been healed of whatever illness took its life. It didn’t seem fair that this magick couldn’t be applied to humans.

Maybe it was simply that no one had figured out how to do it yet.





CHAPTER THREE


The specter of what I had done followed me on the drive home that night, making the journey itself seem longer and lonelier than usual. Night had gathered long ago, and now a light rain had started to fall also, bringing with it a mantle of mist. I had watched the tendrils creep across the road in front of me; now it was just a mantle of gray.

The windshield wipers whirred back and forth, keeping the droplets of rain out of my field of view of Magazine Street. I had flicked the radio on for some company, but after getting nothing but static for a while, I decided to turn it off. I wanted the comfort of my own thoughts, wanted to mull over what had happened back at the house, what I had seen, what I had done.

I almost couldn’t believe it. My hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly as I blinked away the mist that seemed to have invaded my own thoughts, as well as the world beyond the extremities of my car. I’ve just brought a cat back from the dead, I thought, I did that. Was it shock preventing me from fully processing what had happened, or the unnaturalness of it all?

Maybe all I wanted to do was forget what I had done. I wasn’t sure I would be doing it again; not that I thought I would ever have to. I didn’t have any pets that might one day need resurrection. The magick was useless to me. So, why had Remy taught it to me? Why had he encouraged me to use it? Maybe this was a stepping stone to some other secret, powerful magick.

That had to be it.

This was a precursor. A prelude. There existed, out there, a kind of magick that required the user know how to bring an animal back from the dead. I thought this spell would, perhaps, be the ability to bring humans back from the dead. Remy hadn’t said it was impossible; he had said it should never be done.

That made sense. Animals are simple creatures, driven by their instincts and instincts alone. Some, the more intelligent ones, had cognitive capabilities others didn’t—like an ape’s ability to learn sign language, or a dog’s capacity to feel for and recognize its owner. But none of them had the ability to process the complex emotions of having just come back from the dead.

They were alive and able to act according to their instincts, or they were dead and it didn’t matter.

I noticed a spot of fog pulsing orange up ahead and slowed. As I got closer, I saw the orange light was coming from a diversion signal on the road. A man wearing a luminous jacket stood next to the sign and his vehicle, with his hands in his pockets and his hood pulled all the way up. I looked around for a sign to tell me which way to go as I passed him, but saw none. The car ahead of me sped up until his two red taillights disappeared into the mist like phantoms.

Then I was alone, and remained alone for some time. Five minutes? Ten? Half an hour? I wasn’t sure, but the drive from the Garden District should not have taken me that long.

My eyes narrowed, and I inched my head closer to the windshield, as if that would somehow help me see more clearly through the mist. Realizing that it wouldn’t, I did the only thing any sane witch would do in this situation; I decided to use magick.

Checking the rearview, I noticed the road was clear of other cars. I opened my right hand, stretching my fingers but keeping the ball of my hand pressed against the steering wheel so my control of the car wouldn’t be compromised. I imagined my car as a giant fan, pushing a continuous gush of air in front of me to clear the mist and let me see where I was going. The inside of the car suddenly became very cold, and as I watched with my third eye, I saw magick sigils glow into existence on the back of my right hand.