Pure Blooded (6 page)

Marcy stifled a shriek behind me and I closed my eyes.

My back was closest to the trees. Slowly, without moving my body, I tilted my eyes upward. Right into the face of a huge python. It slithered above me, slowly descending, not making a sound. It was ten feet from my head. We wouldn’t be able to get the boat out fast enough by hand. We had to fight it.

Rourke changed his grip on the branch to hold it like a baseball bat.
Stay still. When I yell, you duck. It’s only going to take one hit
.

Hurry up. That thing looks hungry and more than a little
possessed
. There was no mistaking that the snake only had eyes for me. Its head never wavered.

As Rourke waited not so patiently for it to come, my brother crept to the side of the boat, yanking another huge branch off the nearby tree for himself and then one for Danny. “Stay calm, sis,” he murmured. “I’m pretty sure that snake is dead, but it doesn’t matter. All we need is to get it the fuck out of here, and then we haul ass out.”

The serpent was as big around as a basketball and was so long I couldn’t see where it ended. I also couldn’t rip my eyes away from the spectacle of it, almost as if it had me mesmerized. I didn’t feel any magic coming off it.
I’m throwing power at it
, I told Rourke,
but it’s rebuffing me. Can it be an illusion? Tyler’s right—it has no heartbeat or any signs it’s actually alive
.

We’re about to find out
. “Now!” Rourke yelled.

I hit the floor of the boat as Rourke swung the tree branch a foot above the thing’s head with supernatural force. The branch shattered instantly as it connected with the snake, but it was enough force to send the serpent flying. As the python went, it tore out the branch it had been coiled on, so it didn’t go nearly far enough as we all would’ve liked.

It plunked in the water a measly five feet from us.

“That thing will be back as soon as it’s able,” Danny yelled, flipping the start button on and off frantically but still not getting the desired result. “Fighting a possessed python that could swallow us whole is not how I’d like to spend the rest of my day. Getting piss drunk on moonshine is a much better option.”

“Danny’s right, fighting that thing is not on the agenda,” I said, scrambling back up. Because this thing was now supernatural and couldn’t be killed easily, it was going to keep coming until it either killed us or took what it wanted. “Let’s get out of here, and I don’t care how we do it.”

“Way ahead of you,” Tyler grunted.

I glanced over and saw both Tyler and Rourke with branches the size of small trees in the water. They shoved them against the bank, their muscles bulging with effort, but we didn’t move.

Not even an inch.

Marcy had turned white in panic, her hands fisted at her sides.

I leaned over and snapped my fingers in front of her face. “I need you to wake up, Marcy. This is exactly the kind of adventure you were looking for not twenty minutes ago. Your adrenaline should be up and running, and now that our happy fun time is beginning, I need you. You can help us get out of here, just like on the plane. Can you detect any spells? Something is holding us here and we need to break free.”

She physically shook herself. “Okay, yes. Yes, okay, I’m on it!” She brought her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes, but they snapped open after a mere second. “There’s no spell! I can’t pick up on anything. It all just feels… dead. Kind of like what happened on the airplane, but different. The plane was a void. This dead feels…
evil
.”

I turned to Rourke. “Do you think there’s any chance the Hags are using the priestess to get the job of killing me done?”

“I don’t know,” Rourke answered. “Could be. But we’re not going to wait to find out. We have two choices. We fight that thing once it makes its way back here, or we bail out of the boat and try to make it back the way we came through the cypress trees.” He motioned to the thick trees over his shoulder.

“Sorry, mate, there aren’t two choices,” Danny said, backing up until his shoulders hit the propeller screen. “The way I see it, there’s only one.”

I nodded numbly in agreement as I watched more snakes emerge out of the dense growth and slither toward us from all directions.

There was no fighting. We had no choice but to run.

Tyler jumped first because he was closest. He leapt to a clear spot on one of the bigger trees, one of only a few that wasn’t covered in a snake. “Hurry,” he urged. “From up here I can see more. There are literally hundreds. They’ve definitely been called into action, and we’re the target.”

“I’m right behind you,” Marcy called as she launched herself over the side and landed next to Tyler.

Rourke placed his hands over my hips and said, “You’re next. Once you get there, don’t wait for Danny and me, start running. We’ll keep back as many as we can, and then we’ll join you.”

“Goddamn bloody serpents,” Danny yelled as he brought his stick down on the heads of some that had started to creep over the edges of the boat. If it wasn’t so horrible, it might be comical. Attack of the Killer Swamp Snakes. “Get the holy feck out of here, you bloody bastards!”
Whap!
The blows only temporarily stunned them. Their tongues hissed as they came right back for more.

I jumped next, landing on the right side of Tyler. He grabbed my wrist and steadied me. We started to move immediately, which meant we bounded from one tree to the next, balancing on top of the roots. Marcy was right behind me, and when she started to fall behind, I tugged her along. I was directly behind Tyler, who was taking the clearest route around the snakes and doing a pretty decent job. But it wasn’t going to last. The snakes would figure out where I was soon enough and start to converge, but I’d take it for the moment.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Marcy muttered. “I don’t need any more incentive to get away from this house of horrors.”

“Keep trying to use your spells,” I said. “Maybe if we get farther away, they’ll work—”

Tyler blipped out of existence in front of us. One second he was there, the next gone.

Before I could yell for him, Marcy and I tumbled across some kind of warded boundary line. As we passed through, my body pulsed with strange magic. My wolf growled fiercely, snapping her jaws as the evil energy of the place raced along our skin. The ward tasted stale and very old.

The world in front of us slowly morphed into view.

Our environment before had been filled with healthy trees, interspersed with water. But now, like a watercolor being washed away, the space in front of us revealed another land entirely. What was left in its place was barren soil and dead trees. All the water was gone. We were standing along a ring of trees, a large circle of dead earth in the middle. The trunks were withered and gnarled, like old crones who had been forced to stand sentinel for their master. The sun had been cast into dark shadows, appearing like only a pale orange globe in the sky.

This was her land.

I could feel it as clearly as if she stood next to us. She was beckoning us, taunting us, daring us to move forward.

“Holy crap,” Marcy said as my mate burst through the ward behind us.

“Thank gods,” he roared as he made his way over. “When you disappeared, I thought it might have been through another goddamn portal.” Danny was close on his heels. Rourke stalked through the tress, taking in his surroundings like the rest of us. He stopped next to me, reaching for my hand, his eyes alert.

“Well, this is a bit strange, isn’t it?” Danny said, peering into the barren circle. “But the bloody snakes didn’t follow us in, so maybe we’ve been given a short reprieve by finding this place?”

“I don’t think a reprieve is what she has in mind,” I murmured. “I’m pretty certain her snakes can enter, but I think she used them to chase us here. She gave us the only clear path to run, so we used it. She wanted us to find her.”

“Well, she’s not getting what she wants,” Tyler said. He was twenty feet to the left of where I stood. “We’re going back to the boat. The four of us will shift, and we can fight the snakes in our true forms. Our claws and fangs should be enough to hold them back until the vamps get back. Marcy, you send up flares. We should’ve done something like that from the beginning. Once the vamps arrive, they can take two of us out at a time.”

“I can light up the sky like the Fourth of July,” Marcy agreed, turning to follow Tyler without question. “I can also kindle a fire around us. That might keep them back. I know I have to start thinking better on my feet, but honestly, anyone in their right mind would freak out in the face of one of those monsters, much less hordes of them. I’ve never seen pythons that big in my entire life. And those red eyes. So hateful.”

I didn’t have a better plan, and fighting the priestess or whoever
she was right now wouldn’t be optimal. We all turned and started back the way we’d come.

After about ten feet, Rourke said, “We should’ve hit the boundary line by now. We all came through right around here.” He turned in a circle. “But, honestly, I’m not sure if this place is an illusion or some kind of an alternate reality. If it’s an illusion, we might be screwed.”

I took in the scenery again. “The ground seems firm and real,” I said, stomping on a tree root. “But I agree. This area gives off some weird, unnatural vibes. It’s hard to know if what we’re seeing is reality or not.”

“It could be a place in between,” Marcy said. “Not reality and not illusion.”

“Like between dimensions?” Tyler asked. “I’ve heard those exist but never believed it.”

“I would think the voudoun would seek out those kinds of places.” Marcy nodded. “So I believe it. Maybe that’s why she chose this location in the first place, because it was close to the in between.”

“I visited a place kind of like this in the Underworld,” I said. “The Scholls. Ardat Lili called it exactly that—a place in between. It was a spirit world for their half-dead, the demons who came back as wyvern. It was different than this but had the same thick air and menace.” The air wasn’t wavy like it had been in the Scholls, but it was similar enough. “I don’t know anything about voudoun, but if the priestess who lives here communes with specific spirits, I think you might be right, Marcy. She could’ve come here to be closer to them.” That seemed like the most logical. If a demon in the Underworld specialized in communing with the wyvern, they’d move to the Scholls.

“Where’s the damn boundary?” Rourke growled as he continued to search in front of the group. “We should’ve hit it by now, but it’s just more of the same.”

“There’s no channel either. The water has disappeared,” Danny said. “No break in the trees like before.”

We all turned in circles, spreading out to search for an exit. “Maybe it wasn’t a boundary we crossed but a doorway we entered instead?” Tyler climbed up the roots of the nearest tree and placed his hands on the trunk. We all waited to see if he could push his way through. “If that’s the case,” he grunted, trying to force the tree open, “the priestess might be able to manipulate the door and place it wherever she wants. She directed us in here by chasing us with snakes. But in order to get out, we might have to open another doorway. Or force her to open one.” Tyler gave up on that one and jumped to another.

I nodded. It made sense. “Maybe that’s why Dad said it was so hard to communicate with her. He told me sometimes she’s there and sometimes she’s not. So she must be able to stay hidden within this boundary when she wants to.”

“I’m just glad Ray and Naomi are on the outside,” Rourke said. “Ray won’t stop searching until he figures out where we’ve gone. He’ll get your dad and they’ll bring reinforcements. We either find a way out, or they’ll find a way in.”

“I agree—Ray won’t stop. They’ll get in if they can,” I said. “But maybe we’re going about this wrong. What if it’s actually an advantage that we’re stuck in here? I know battling this priestess without backup is not ideal, and having the entire Pack in attendance would give us better odds, but we came here to eliminate the threat. If the priestess, or the bokor, is our main opposition—and not the fracture pack—we’re in the right place, right
now
.”

“Jess,” Tyler groaned. “We’re not doing this. Dad is literally a few miles away with thirty-plus wolves. It would be a bad tactical error to attack now, especially if we can bolster our chances of defeating this thing with more force. There’s no question.”

“But Dad hasn’t been able to figure out how to attack her here.” I gestured at the dead land in front of us. “This priestess can keep them out if she wants to, or they would’ve been battling her here already. They’ve been here for weeks, and we’ve been here for five minutes and we’re inside her lair. I say we use this to our advantage and end the threat ourselves, the sooner the better.”

Marcy cleared her throat. “You’re right about one thing, this priestess can keep them out whenever she wants. But I have to tell you, if my guy knew I was in here, and we had the chance to get back out to get reinforcements and didn’t, he’d be furious with me.” Then she grinned like a shrew. “But when Ray reports we’ve all disappeared, James will freak out and go all alpha on everyone to get me back. And that can only work in our favor, right? He’s going to rip these trees apart trying to find me, so I’m voting with you. Let’s push forward and assume the Pack is coming for us as soon as they can. If we get to her and start fighting, I bet we can weaken her hold on the wards.”

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. “Two seconds ago you were heading back to the boat with Tyler,” I said. “But you’re right, James would never forgive us if something happened to you. Maybe going forward is not such a great idea.”

She placed her hands on her waist, drumming her hips. “If you ruin this one chance we have to defeat the priestess because you’re worried about me not being
man
enough, I’m going to be upset. I assure you, I can handle it. I know I lost it when I saw those things coming at us, but red eyes mean possession. Their sole purpose was to intimidate and threaten. But I swear to you right now, I’m ready. I can be an asset.”

Marcy was a powerful witch, but she was extremely new to being a foot solider in this war. If she got hurt, I didn’t need James’s wrath—I’d never forgive myself anyway. But maybe there was a way around it. “Let’s split the odds,” I said. “Rourke, Tyler,
and I will continue to investigate, but not engage, while you and Danny search for a doorway. Whoever finds what we’re looking for first is the way we go.”

“Okay, I can live with that.” Then her voice fell a few octaves, to just above a whisper. “And, just so you know, if we run into serious trouble, I can make my magic dark if need be. I have ways to make it more potent, and if we’re stuck between a possessed python and a hard place, that will give us a better edge. It would just take me a little time to get it ready, but once I was done, it would pack a punch.”

“And how exactly would you make your magic dark?” I asked, my head inclined toward her. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed.

She shrugged. “I’d use blood.” She tried to make it sound blasé, like she used blood in all her spells, but it didn’t work.

I threw my arms up. “Marcy, you can’t be serious! I’m not letting you practice black magic under my watch. Not only will James rip me limb from limb, but your aunt will have my
head
if she finds out I sanctioned such a thing. No way in hell is that happening.”

“Cool your jets, Glinda the Good Witch,” Marcy countered. “I said it would take time to get it ready. I’m talking about brewing a dark spell, not sacrificing a chicken. Blood
brewed
in spells is different than ingesting it. Blood gives magic strength no matter what, but one way it’s given freely and in another it’s taken by force. If I drank your blood or ate your heart, and then gathered my magic from the blood sacrifice through my body, my magic would be jet black. But if I used a few drops of blood in a brewed spell, it gives it potency, but it doesn’t make it black.”

“But you just said your magic would be
dark
,” I said. “Dark is bad.”

“Yes, dark. But not
black
,” she huffed, her long red hair
streaming down around her shoulders in a mass of beautiful curls. It was quite a stark contrast to our current environment. “I’m not insane. Once a witch nose-dives into black magic, there’s very little that can bring her back. Blood magic is like smoking crack for witches. It makes them feel invincible—and many times they are, because their magic becomes super strong. But it also makes them crazed, which is why it’s banned in every Coven in the entire world and has been for a thousand years. If all witches were walking around hopped up on blood magic, the world would’ve come to a grinding halt eons ago.”

“So how exactly are you going to brew dark spells here?” I asked, gesturing around me. “We’re in the middle of the Everglades in an alternate reality.”

Marcy glanced around at the barren landscape. “Well, I never said it was…
ideal
. I just said I could do it if pressed. But, really, I only need a few things to make a simple protection spell. I always carry a vial of
fleur de sel
on me.” She reached into her pants pocket and withdrew a small container of salt. “I can make fire, no problem, and I can spell the area to find other raw materials I need. I’d just need a pot of some kind to cook the spells in.”

“Well,” Tyler said, coming up to us, “that sounds easy enough to procure. I bet there’s a Walmart on the other side of those dead trees.” He gestured in the distance. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with your cookware.”