Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (17 page)

Quietly, Laura and I made quick steps past Nathan’s car to peer into one of the front windows. Inside, a fire crackled away in a massive brick fireplace, and large wooden beams held up a lofted ceiling overhead. Thick rugs carpeted the floor, and cheery photos donned the walls. It didn’t look like the dark and dangerous horror cabin I’d expected. It looked homey and cozy and nice.

Something shifted on the couch, and I squinted my eyes. Two heads bobbed with their backs turned toward us, and as one of their faces turned, I gasped. It was Nathan, smiling his lazy smile at…George. She reached out and laced her arms around his neck and pulled him close. My heart dropped out of my chest, mind screaming in a high-pitched tone. I couldn’t see or hear anything other than the way George cradled my boyfriend and brought his head to her chest.

A sob choked my throat as Laura began to drag me away from the window, back out onto the gravel lot, and into a small cluster of trees at the edge of the property.

“Calm down,” she whispered, rubbing her hands up and down my arms. “At least we know Nathan is okay.”

Tears streamed out of my eyes as I stared at the cabin. “Is this why he’s been avoiding me? This?”

“I find it hard to believe.” Laura frowned. “I really thought George…”

I looked up, desperate to hear Laura say that my mind played tricks on me, that we didn’t just see what I thought we saw, that Nathan wasn’t seconds away from kissing another girl. “You thought George what?”

“Nothing. I must have been wrong.” She sighed and wrapped her arms tight around me, as if she were trying to keep the pieces of my heart from breaking off and falling onto the cold, hard ground. “It might not be what it looks like.”

An idea poked out of the darkest corners of my mind, stirring up a kind of anger I’d never felt before. “She’s a witch. She’s put some sort of spell on him.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Laura looked uncertain, but she didn’t argue. “I know you’re not going to like this, but we should sneak in for the tarot cards while she’s distracted.”

“What about Nathan?” I fisted my hands by my sides. “We need to save him from her.”

“We will.” Laura squeezed my shoulders. “But once we make a move against her, she’ll know we’ve figured her out. We need to get those cards first and get more information about her plan.”

My heart throttled against my ribcage, and I jerked my hands away from Laura. I couldn’t erase the image of Nathan smiling at George, of George reaching her arms around Nathan’s neck, of how close their lips had been until I turned away. How could Nathan do this to me?

He wouldn’t. I was certain of it.

“Come on,” Laura whispered. “Let’s go now while we can.”

I knew Laura was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Steeling myself against what we might see when we went back to that porch, I turned toward the house. The front door swung open. Even though we were invisible, Laura and I ducked to hide behind a prickly bush. George exited the house, alone. She looked one way and then the other before hiking around to the back of the house.

When she disappeared, I popped up. This was the perfect opportunity to get Nathan out of there.

“Wait,” Laura said, grabbing my arm. “Did you not see what she had in her hand?”

“No, and it doesn’t matter.” I yanked free of Laura’s grasp and started toward the front door, but she jogged in front of me to block my way.

“She had the tarot cards, Holly,” she said. “We need to follow her.”

CHAPTER 15

L
aura took the lead around the back of the house. My entire body ached to rush inside and release Nathan from whatever spell he was under. I wondered if he was scared, hurt, paralyzed. I wondered if he thought I’d come busting in to save the day when I found out he was missing.

I hated leaving him in there even a second longer, but I had to admit Laura was right. The moment we went barrelling in to save him was the moment we tipped our hand. I just didn’t know how long I’d be able to wait before my heart won the war with my mind.

“Look.” Laura pointed at a dirt trail that led into the heart of the woods behind George’s property. It disappeared deep into the darkness, shadows pressing in around the tiny twisting path. Rotting limbs hung low, the moon casting silvery shadows on the ground.

I glanced over my shoulder at the house one last time. It’d be so easy to go in there right now while George was off in the woods doing who knows what. My heart throbbed. Nathan’s display at the convention was tomorrow. He was going to miss it, all because of this. Spirit stuff, which he’d made clear he hated. Would he ever forgive me for getting him involved in my crazy life?

“I know.” Laura snaked her arm through mine. “But we have to find out what she’s up to before more people die.”

Her words snapped me out of my stupor. George was releasing shaman-immune spirits onto the people of our town, and we were the only ones who could stop her.

“Let’s go,” I said, almost in a growl. Squaring my shoulders, I ducked under the low-hanging branches and into the dark woods. Trees pressed in close on every side, and even though most plants had lost their leaves to the wintry cold, the forest felt as densely packed as the high school hallways between bells.

I pressed a branch aside, holding the pointy thorns out of the way so Laura could pass through behind me. We clung onto one another, our breaths heavy in the stillness. In the distance, I heard the crackle of limbs, followed the the scent of smokey fire.

“Shh,” Laura said, slowing. She placed a finger over her chapped lips and gripped my arm tighter. “She’s just up ahead.”

Together, we crept further down the tiny dirt path. The acrid scent of smoke blew our way on a soft wintry breeze, brushing my hair off my knotted shoulders. Shivering, I took another step toward the smoke. I hoped Laura had been wrong when she said George, The Witch could have witchy vision and see right through our cloaking spell.

The brush finally parted to reveal George, her blunt cropped hair covered by a beanie. She stood before a blazing fire that rose almost to her chest. The clearing spread out in a wide circle, a dirt section where the trees, grass, and bushes stopped suddenly. George had a large stick in one hand and was drawing a rune I didn’t recognize into the dirt near the fire, forming a circle around it as she mumbled a chant under her breath.

I craned my ears to listen, but I couldn’t make out the words. Laura pointed to the fire, and then at our feet. She wanted to move closer. Swallowing hard, I gave a nod, and the two of us made slow steps closer to the clearing.

George stopped suddenly, back going straight. Laura and I froze. The strange witch girl turned and scanned her surroundings, peering deep into the woods. She frowned and dropped the stick onto the ground, her eyes alert and focused on the trees.

My heart leapt into my throat. If she found us here, it could ruin any chance we had of getting Nathan out of that house.

George circled the dirt clearing, giving each section of the forest a long hard gaze before moving onward. When she came to the path where we stood, George frowned, staring right at us. Laura and I held hands tight, fingernails digging into each other’s skin. But I barely felt the pain over the frantic beating of my heart.

Finally, George returned to the fire. She snatched the stick from the ground and tossed it into the flames. Soon, the fire had consumed the bark, along with five more sticks she added as she weaved around the fire, mumbling under her breath and making quick glances at the forest.

George slid something from her back pocket. The tarot card deck. Laura sucked in a sharp breath, but the noise was consumed by the roar of the growing fire. George tapped two fingers on the top of the deck, swept her hands into the air, and tossed the cards into the blaze to join the burning logs. A brilliant blue flame shot up from the fire, rising high in the air to meet the moon. A rumbling sound began to grow, louder and louder until it felt as if the noise was inside of my skull. George fell to her knees, covering her ears to protect herself from the magical onslaught overhead.

I pressed my own hands against my ears as I watched George dig into the dirt underneath the rune. Moments later, a small, furry rat appeared, dead in her hands. Shaking, George stood, caked in dirt and blood and gore. She shouted something into the fire before tossing the rat into the flickering flames. A massive cloud of acrid smoke rose up before us, blocking out the moon’s waning light.

Laura yanked on my arm and dragged me away from the scene. My mind spun as I stumbled after her. My breath felt ragged in my chest. We weren’t getting those cards back, and while we’d finally seen George in action, it hadn’t provided us with any answers other than one. George was a witch. I had no idea what the hell had just happened, but I couldn’t imagine it was anything good.

As soon as we were out of the woods, Laura dropped her voice to a hiss. “Okay, forget what I said. Let’s get Nathan out of here. Now.”

“So much for all her talk about life and balance and not killing things,” I said, my feet tripping on the uneven ground.

“Seriously.” Laura twirled her nose ring as she glanced at the path behind us, frown pulling down the corners of her lips. I knew she’d wanted to believe George was better than this, that she was someone who could be trusted. Unfortunately, when it came to magic, I was quickly learning that ninety percent of the population would use it in a way that only meant trouble.

Laura and I spun around the side of the house and bounded up the wooden steps, the boards creaking under our weight. I peered through the sheer curtains covering the boxy window, but Nathan was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t waiting on the couch for George to get back from casting whatever spell she’d been conjuring. My heart thrummed against my skin. George needed to be stopped, but not before I got my boyfriend out of this. He wasn’t safe here, that much was very clear.

Laura glanced at me, her eyes softening at the pain she must have read on my face. She gestured at the doorknob with black-and-red striped fingernails. “I’ll let you do the honors of this one, my friend.”

With a nod, I reached for the door, but my hand slammed into something as hard as bricks before my fingers even touched the knob. Wincing, I shook my hand at my side and frowned at the door. There was nothing there, but something had stopped me from grasping the knob.

“What just happened?” Laura asked.

“I’m not sure.” Slowly, I eased my hand closer to the knob again, and just as before, it was met with resistance. “There’s something here. It’s invisible.”

Laura mimicked my movements, but her hand couldn’t get any closer to the doorknob than mine. It was as if there was an invisible wall separating us from the house. Tears pricked my eyes, and I fought the urge to pound against the barrier that was keeping me from getting my boyfriend out of this place alive.

“It’s some kind of spell.” Laura placed her palm on the barrier and slammed her hand against it. The air rippled from the spot where she’d punched the wall, and a high keening sound began to echo around us.

I threw my hands to my ears to block out the high-pitched wail. It dug deep into my eardrums and carved knives into my skull. Tears leaked out of my eyes, more now from the painful noise than a broken heart.

“Come on!” Laura shouted as she grabbed my arm, dragging me down the stairs to get away from this place. “We’ve set off some kind of alarm. George will be back any second now.”

A sob choked my breath away, and I wrenched my arm from Laura’s to stare at the house for one more instant. I couldn’t just leave Nathan inside to fend for himself. And now that George knew someone had been here, what would she do to him next?

“We can’t save him right now,” Laura said, grabbing my chin between her sharp fingernails and forcing me to meet her eyes. “We need a plan and reinforcements. I promise you we’ll come back for him.”

It took everything inside of me to take the first three steps away from that house, away from Nathan, away from the other half of my heart. And once my feet finally leapt into a run, there was only one thought that churned through my mind.

George would pay for this.

***

When we got back to my house, I tried Constantine’s cell. After eight thousand rings, it went to voicemail. I hung up, tried again. A part of me didn’t want to admit to him that we needed his help, but Nathan’s life was way more important to me than my pride. So, I didn’t give up. It took seven calls for Constantine to finally answer his phone.

“Holly. Is there some kind of emergency?” His voice was dark, dry, and full of the same stone it’d held the moment he’d decided to leave us to fend for ourselves.

“Yes, there is.” My own voice came out hard and sharp. It was the only way I could really deal with this guy. “My boyfriend, Nathan, has been kidnapped by the new girl we told you about. George Proctor. She’s definitely a witch, and she killed a rat for a sacrifice of some kind, and she’s put up an invisible brick wall around her house, so we can’t rescue him.”

A few beats passed before he spoke. “How do you know she kidnapped him?”