Chronicles of Steele: Raven 2: Episode 2 (11 page)

Neither underestimate nor overestimate one's opponent or his abilities.
Do not work on assumptions. They are often wrong.

J
ACK PACED TO the bottom of the steps. The baby’s cries had grown silent almost immediately after the stairs stopped groaning under the weight of the woman. The quarter hour had passed in an eternity. He gripped the bottom railing and fought the temptation to run up the steps after her.

“What are you waiting for, Captain?” Colton stood at his shoulder, the fire light causing his blond hair to glow.

Jack furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“I believe that if you go up the stairs alone, the reaper would not feel threatened. She’d take your attempt at negotiation more seriously than asking her to come down the steps.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Jack rolled his eyes and dashed up the steps, two at a time.

At the top of the stairs he froze. Raven Steele lay on the ground, choking. Darius cowered against the back wall, tears streaming down his face. The old woman’s cottony hair glowed in the teal light that emanated both from the doors and from her hands. Without a second thought, he yelled and rushed at the old woman, tackling her to the ground.

The eerie teal glow immediately snuffed out. Raven Steele drew herself up slowly, but the dark made it difficult to see. He could only just make out her tan dress. “Raven, are you all right?”

“Get off me, you ox.” The woman beneath him struggled, but he held her down. Her arms were pinned under her body.

“Stay still, woman. The more you struggle, the more I feel it necessary to hold you down.”

Behind them, the stairwell creaked with the weight of another rushing up. Colton called out, “Captain, is everything all right?”

“All’s well, guardsmen. Hold your ground and come up no farther.” The last thing Jack needed was for Raven to fight her way through this.

The sound of a key grinding through clockwork gears filled the small hallway. A small lamp in the reaper’s hand lit the circle surrounding the four of them. Her eyes were wide and questioning. “Why? Why did you stop her?”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean? She was hurting you and scaring the young baron.”

Her head tilted as she studied Jack. “But I was incapacitated. You could have helped the woman keep me that way.”

Jack shook his head. It was strange. The thought hadn’t occurred to him. As he considered it now, it still didn’t make any sense. “I don’t know this woman. Why would I trust her?”

Raven’s violet eyes danced in the small light, and she smiled. “You trust me more?”

“I definitely don’t trust a woman using magic.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Unless you use magic to move as fast as you do?”

She laughed and shook her head. “No. No magic involved.”

Jack grinned. “I thought not.”

The woman grumbled into the floorboards. “Great. I’m glad you both get along so well. I’m not struggling down here, you know. Could you get off me now?”

“What do you think?” Jack tilted his head toward Raven and gestured toward the woman. “Should I let her go?”

Raven handed the light to Darius and drew the sword from her back. She gripped it in both hands and spread her feet apart. Her eyes narrowed and her voice turned gruff. “Woman. Make one move with your hand like that again—one flicker of that greenish light from a finger, and you’ll lose it. Am I clear?”

The woman beneath Jack grunted an affirmative. He stood slowly, keeping an eye on her. White hair shot out in all directions, and she attempted to pat it down as she stood. “You know that an old woman could break a bone in a fall like that, don’t you, young man?”

Jack felt pressed to speak, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t need Colton there to tell him to let Raven handle this woman. It seemed an obvious part of the negotiation. He leaned against the railing of the stairs and peered down. Colton stood still, halfway up the steps. The firelight danced and showed Rupert at the bottom step as well. Jack nodded to them, and held a hand out, motioning for them to stay put.

“What was the meaning of this, woman?” Raven’s voice lost its questioning tone and became commanding.

The woman hunched over and looked suddenly older than she’d been earlier. “Forgive me, Reaper, I only wanted to help.”

“Help?” Raven took a forceful step toward the woman. The point of the short sword leveled with the woman’s chin. “How do you contort your actions as help?”

The woman straightened up, indignant. She put her hands on her hips. “You made a move I took as aggressive. You attacked me. Are you not here for my help, Reaper? Did you not bring the young baron to me?”

Raven blinked hard and shook her head. “You
are
the Wood Witch.”

“As you suspected.”

“I am here because Baron Solomon asked me to bring the boy. You claim the power to cure Darius?”

“I can remove the boy’s affliction.” The woman nodded and folded her arms across her chest. She looked neither powerful nor weak. In the dim light of Raven’s lamp, it became difficult to believe the woman had debilitated the reaper. Jack began to doubt what he’d seen and heard. The woman had to have him under a spell of some sort. It made it hard to think about or remember the magic she’d used.

“You’re bewitching us, woman. I can feel it.” Raven’s eyes met Jack’s. “You feel it, too, don’t you?”

He nodded.

Raven pressed the point of the sword to the old woman’s chest. “Stop it.”

 “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, girl. You’re a bit kooky, aren’t you?” The woman laughed and straightened her shirt sleeve.

The reaper’s nostrils flared. The lamp winked as Darius fumbled it from one hand to the other and shook his head. “She’s not kooky. I feel it, too, Raven.”

The woman ignored them both with a cunning smile and turned around. She patted Jack on the chest with the back of her hand dismissively. “Let’s all go downstairs for some tea and talk this over like adults, shall we?”

Jack took a hesitant step back and let the woman by. Colton and Rupert stepped out of the woman’s way as well. Raven snapped the sword to her back and stepped up next to him. Her blue eyes challenged his. “I’m not giving you Darius until my mission is complete. If this woman cannot cure the boy, I will not hand him to you.”

Her hair smelled clean, like the snow outside. And lavender. He swallowed before he spoke. “Those are your terms?”

She nodded once and started down the stairs, holding Darius’s shoulders in front of her. The light descended the steps with her. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath before following them.

Raven stopped at the bottom step and surveyed the crowded living room. Jasper Hollow lay on his chest in front of the fireplace. His back and his wounds exposed. Three guardsmen sat on the floor around his body, their mouths agape.

The old woman’s wild hair glowed like a halo around her head in the firelight. Her body hunched forward as she strode across the room with purpose. Above Raven, Captain Jack Grant continued down the steps, each one groaning under his weight. The sound pressed on her and forced her forward. She stepped into the room, her fingers still gripping Darius’s shoulders lightly, guiding him to stay with her. She couldn’t let him get too far away. It felt as though she held a bird by the tail feathers, and if she gripped too hard, the feathers would rip out, but too lightly, and the bird would fly away.

Her breathing slowed, and she tried to regulate her heart rate. Fear closed in on her from all sides like the dancing shadows on the walls around the room. But she refused to give into the fear. Her adrenaline wanted to heighten her fight or flight instinct, but she needed to stay calm. It wasn’t time for that now.

Ignoring the eyes of the men on her, she pushed open the teal door to the kitchen. To her surprise, the red-headed woman, Griselda still sat in the chair with her hands tied behind her back. Raven remained in the doorway and could hardly form the words. “How? How did you…”

The old woman sighed and rolled her eyes. “Wood Witch, remember?”

“But you didn’t free her?” Raven asked, pointing at the red head.

The Wood Witch shrugged and started pouring water from her bucket into a kettle. “I didn’t see a point in it. Griselda is a good kid, but she’d only get in the way. I might be her mother, but even I tire of her nagging and prattling at times.”

Raven blinked. The woman motioned for them to take a seat at the kitchen table. Behind them, the door pushed against Raven’s back. She took a step forward and gestured Darius toward the chair. She remained standing. Jack Grant entered the room and leaned against the door, preventing any others from coming in. He nodded in Raven’s direction and folded his arms across his chest.

With a flick of the old woman’s finger, the flame on the top of the stove joined the light of the single gas lamp on the kitchen table. She hummed as she set the kettle over the burner. She turned to Raven, one side of her lip curled up into a smile. Her grey eyes were glazed over with cataracts, but the woman didn’t squint or struggle to meet Raven’s gaze. “So you’ve brought the boy to me to be rid of his issues.”

“On the elder baron’s order, I’ve brought him. But I don’t trust you.”

The witch gave a short huff and cackle. She stepped toward Raven and pointed. “Who would trust a witch? Only a fool.”

Raven furrowed her brows. “Are you telling me you are untrustworthy?”

The old woman shrugged. “Magic comes at a cost most are unwilling to pay.”

Raven thought of the gold left in the saddlebags on the horse that got away when the highwaymen attacked her in the woods outside of New Haven. Baron Solomon had never said how much it would cost. Darius still held the carpet bag between his knees. She could only hope that she had enough in the bag. If not, would the witch take a down-payment?

The woman cackled longer and stepped forward again. “I see you counting the cost in that young head of yours. You don’t have enough to pay what I ask, that is for certain.”

“But how do you know? What do you ask for?”

The witch reached out for the top of the boy’s head, but Raven pulled the chair back. It scraped across the hardwood floor. She stepped in front of him. Grant had uncrossed his arms and put a hand on the hilt of his pistol. The witch whipped her head in the captain’s direction and glared. “Would you shoot a defenseless old woman?”

“I don’t believe you’re without the means to defend yourself, Witch.” The captain didn’t release his pistol and stepped farther into the small kitchen.

She laughed. “You would be right, wouldn’t you? I’m not defenseless, nor am I afraid of your pea-shooting pistol.”

Jack tensed his jaw and stepped back. The woman made a shooing motion with a flick of her wrist, and Jack pulled his hand off the hilt and crossed his arms, assuming the stance he’d had before. A look of confusion covered his face. His eyebrows furrowed, and the tendons on his neck stood out as though he strained against something.

Raven pulled Darius to his feet and pushed him behind her, backing up in the kitchen so they were as far from the woman as possible. The witch stood taller, and the flames at the stove behind her flared up. Raven’s throat closed, and she swallowed against her tightened esophagus.

The woman began speaking gibberish, the same as she had upstairs. Raven’s heart raced. She froze, her muscles unable to move again. That same teal light glowed from the witch’s fingers. Raven clenched her eyes, willing herself to move, but not one of her body parts obeyed. Then, just as before, her body collapsed to the floor. And her eyes flew open, but she was unable to turn them in any direction.

Then the words became clear. The witch spoke about things she couldn’t possibly know. “How can you live after what you’ve done? You are worthless, not valuable enough for your father to have sacrificed his life for. No one could love you. You have too much blood on your hands. Nothing you do can redeem you. Even Gregory rejected you.”

Jack had fallen to the floor, as well. His boots were inches from her face in the small kitchen. Darius whimpered behind her, seemingly untouched by the witch’s spell. A tear pooled at the bottom of Raven’s eye and spilled over the side of her face. She couldn’t blink. Never in her life did she feel so out of control. And the witch put a voice to every fear she’d ever had.