Witches of the Deep (The Memento Mori Witch Trilogy Book 3) (4 page)

S
he gritted her teeth
, refusing to let herself cry, and picked her way over fallen branches and scrub. She had no idea where she was going, but she wasn’t going to run off crying.

At least, she didn’t want people to
see
her running off crying.

She’d never wanted to know exactly what it was her father had done before his arrest, never wanted her worst fears confirmed. How much of Danny’s personality ran through her veins? Her grandma called him moody, and said Fiona was the same. “You two are cut from the same cloth,” she used to say.

But even when she was young, Fiona knew Danny’s rages were more than just moodiness. There was something very wrong with him. Something about the way his face would suddenly shift from a grin to a glare, something about the dead look in his eyes.

She wasn’t like him. She could never torture anyone. She couldn’t watch someone writhe in agony and smile over it all.

But maybe she wasn’t quite normal, either. Why had she been so angry at Tobias for lying? She lied to her mother all the time. She lashed out at people for no reason, just because she knew how. Lack of empathy, emotionally manipulative. She was no psychologist, but she was pretty sure these were characteristics of a psychopath.

She rubbed her arms, trudging deeper into the woods. Her heart thrumming, she ran through what she could remember of psychopathy symptoms from her psychology class. Impulsivity—check. A need for excitement—check. She had that all in spades.

Maybe Tobias wasn’t the real demon here. A little voice in the sludgy depths of her mind chanted the word
monster
, and she tried to tune it out.

She was nothing like Mom, the chatterbox who made small talk with bank tellers and waiters. Mom seemed to genuinely care how they were doing, while Fiona was just anxious to get on to something more interesting.

But if her personality didn’t come from her mother—that left only Danny. His blood ran through her, a venom that would pollute everything she touched.

A flicker of movement above caught her attention, and she spotted a black pair of wings fluttering closer.
Byron
. She paused, relief washing over her.

He circled her head, and his voice rose in her mind like a thought. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Her nose had begun to run, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. “Nothing. I’m just not sure what happened to my mom. She never made it to Virginia, and it seems like the police might be questioning her.” She’d ask Byron to pass on a message, but Mom wouldn’t be able to hear him, and if she suspected a bat was trying to talk to her, she would assume she’d lost her mind. “And Estelle says you can’t stay here. She has some kind of irrational problem with bats.”

“Do you need me to leave?”
She could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Just for now. Please check on my mom. I’ll find you again when I get out of this place.”

Byron flew one final loop around her head before lifting off into the sky. Poor guy didn’t even get a chance to rest.

Please let him bring back good news soon.
How long had the witch hunters been holding her mother for? They must have nabbed her before she’d got to Virginia.

Fiona started at the sound of footsteps behind her. The hair raised on her arms as she scanned the landscape, trying to figure out if she needed to shift course. Through the ferns, someone bumbled, muttering to herself. Not very stealthy for a night patrol.

A woman whispered, “Hubbard—someone’s here. The bat girl.”

Ah. The weird lady of the woods.
“Cadonia?”

She stepped into the moonlight, pulling off a red hood. She was pretty—about thirty, with a wild head of sun-bleached hair. She gripped something that looked like a ceramic vase. Steam rose from the top, and Fiona inhaled the rich scent of coffee. A tiny brown rodent—a chipmunk—scuttled from her hood onto Cadonia’s shoulder.

Cadonia tilted her head, whispering, “What’s that, Hubbard?” She smiled, exposing long incisors. “Ah. The devil’s daughter.”

“Awesome. Is that my new nickname?” Fiona really needed to get the hell out of Dogtown before one of these wolves ripped her throat out. “Do you think I could be alone now?”

“You’re doing patrols with me,” Cadonia snarled. “Estelle said so.”

“But that was before. Like you said, I’m the devil’s daughter. I don’t think I’m welcome in Dogtown anymore. My patrol gig is over.”

Cadonia stumbled forward as Hubbard stood upright on her shoulder, tail flicking. “Estelle don’t like your bat form. She don’t trust anyone with links to the shadow gods. But your father’s sins ain’t your fault. My dad murdered four people. Not my fault. I didn’t murder no one. I don’t even eat meat.” She took a long sip of coffee, surveying Fiona with piercing blue eyes.

Fiona’s brow crinkled. “You’re a werewolf who doesn’t eat meat.”

The she-wolf licked her lips. “Except when the woodwose comes. Then the demon in me comes out, and I wake up with feathers in my teeth, and fistfuls of dead birds.” She shoved the coffee into Fiona’s hands. “Drink this and follow me. You need energy. I brew it myself.” She took off over the rocky terrain, snapping through twigs, and Fiona hurried after.

Estelle wasn’t kidding when she called Cadonia weird
. “I’m sorry—the woodwose?”

“Forest demons. They muddle your thoughts, turn you into beasts. Sometimes it’s hard out here. Sometimes the forest is alive with noises, and I have to ask the oaks to let me sleep.”

Fiona shuddered. What would happen if she came across a woodwose? She’d murder everyone within three miles. “What if we run into one?”

Cadonia scratched her head. “Then things might get wild.”

“But—what if I start killing people?”

The she-wolf whirled, nearly knocking the coffee from Fiona’s hands. “I told you. Murder don’t run in the blood. Don’t you listen, girl?” Hubbard scuttled into her shirt.

“Right.” Fiona took a sip of the strong coffee. By her jittery movements, Cadonia seemed like she lived on nothing but the bitter brew. Or maybe she’d had one too many encounters with the woodwose.

Cadonia thumped through the grass, rustling the ferns and lady slippers as they plunged deeper into the forest.

And yet this crazy lady was oddly comforting. It was easier to keep it together when everything seemed dire, but as soon as someone was a little nice, it was impossible to hold back tears. Fiona wiped a hand across her cheek, sniffling quietly.

Cadonia pulled the chipmunk from her cleavage, dropping him on her shoulder. “Handsome men you brung with you. Does the fire demon have a wife?”

“Tobias?” Fiona felt a twinge of jealousy. “He’s not even eighteen. Thomas is more your age.”

“The dark one? I like the look of him, too. He has kind eyes. Strong arms.”

“Right.” Wild Forest Woman might not be Thomas’s type, though she was pretty enough. Anyway, it didn’t seem like the time for matchmaking. There could be sea demons behind any of these trees, and Estelle wanted to kill her. “Cadonia… how many Picaroons are there?”

“Not as many as there used to be. Sometimes Estelle spies on them in her cauldron. Their numbers are getting low. They want people to join their crew, but Dagon gets hungry.”

A mosquito buzzed around Fiona’s head, and she swatted it away. “How can they get through the veil?”

“They’ve got Dagon’s power. He lets them through the fog. Long time ago, we got along. We traded medicines for rum. But then things changed. They started taking our men.”

“What happens to the men they take?”

The chipmunk crawled back into her hood. “Most die,” the she-wolf said matter-of-factly. They have to submit themselves to Dagon, and he eats them. Or the Picaroons kill them for sport. Only one or two have made it.”

“Why can’t the werewolves fight them? There are hundreds of you.”

“We ain’t like they are. They’ve got a god’s powers.” She thumped her fist into her hand as she spoke. “No one knows how. They don’t carve themselves like your pretty friend did, but they’ve got power all the same. It’d just take one of them to call up a storm that’d destroy all of Dogtown.”

They crunched through the forest, and Fiona rubbed her arms, trying to sort through the disaster of her life. Mom was being interrogated by witch hunters, she was homeless, and Mariana was barely conscious. There was the torched school, the dead classmates, and the witch hysteria gripping the country. She wanted to go home, back to her mom, but there was no going back anymore.

She gazed at the night sky. “I can take it from here, Cadonia.”

A shadow danced over Cadonia’s face. “What are you saying?”

“There’s no reason for us both to be out here. I can patrol the entire perimeter as a bat. I’ll ring the bell as soon as any pirate ships come anywhere near Cape Ann.”

With that, she whispered the transformation spell and took flight.

E
stelle bent over a cauldron
, stirring a pungent, medicinal brew. Long, copper earrings dangled by her cheeks. The sun was setting outside, and golden light streamed through the warped windowpanes, sparking off metal instruments on a medical table.

Tobias glanced at a book in his lap, but his attention lay elsewhere. He had a bad feeling that Estelle wanted to kick Fiona out of Dogtown, and then she’d be left to the mercy of the witch-hunting Purgators. He’d go with her, but she obviously didn’t trust him anymore.

He wasn’t sure why Fiona so thoroughly undid him. He couldn’t stop thinking about her: the little quirk of her mouth when she said something clever, the delicate curve of her waist, the way she stared at the ceiling when she was lost in thought, how she blushed whenever he caught her eyes lingering on him too long.

But apparently, he horrified her.

For one so scared of monsters, she seemed to have a lot of them in her life. Jack, her father, and now him. She’d never accept him the way he was.

He couldn’t see how he could have handled anything differently. After all, he’d been trapped in Rawhed’s bathroom by Harvesters hellbent on killing him. Was he supposed to just let himself die?

He snapped the book shut, a little too loudly. Estelle’s eyes darted to his, irritated at the disturbance.

“Sorry.”

“Brooding about something?”

He took in a breath, steeling his nerves. “What will happen with Fiona?”

Estelle crossed her arms. “She shouldn’t be here. She doesn’t belong. Even you must be able to see that.”

“She’s not responsible for what her father did.”

“She’s his
daughter
. I could sense the evil in her as soon as I met her. I know you’re fooled by her pretty eyes. I know she seems sweet and innocent. But she’s capable of horrific violence. It’s quite obvious.”

“What exactly did Danny Shea do?”

Estelle wiped her hands on a blue cloth and glanced out the window. “Some of our young men want out of here. They go off looking for adventure in your realm. It’s always been that way. Nine times out of ten they end up in jail. This was a little worse than that. One of our men fell in with the Connolly gang. He tried to impress them, bragging about pirate gold in Dogtown. It was all lies. But the lies got away from him, and he led them right here.”

“He brought them through the veil?” A shudder crawled over his skin.

She nodded. “The gang set bear traps in the woods. Three men were caught.” Her eyes were on Tobias, flashing gray. “And my mother. She used to be the Queen. Fiona’s dear dad did the torturing, carving them up for information. He didn’t get any gold out of it, since we had none. He went off looking for the Picaroons himself. And he left four corpses behind.”

Tobias’s heart ached. Fiona’s father was practically as bad as Rawhed himself. It wasn’t the kind of tragedy people got over. It would be a miracle if they let Fiona stay.

Before he could ask another question, someone knocked on Estelle’s door. Tobias rose, crossing the warped floorboards.

As he pulled open the door, sunlight streamed in. He stared at Thomas, Alan, and Oswald. Celia stood behind them, chewing her lip.

Oswald sniffed the air. “Is someone making venison stew?”

The whole crew was here—or nearly the whole crew. “What’s going on? Where’s Fiona?”

Celia’s cheeks were pale. “She’s fine. Catching up on sleep. But we have some serious work to do.”

Tobias shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not just the witch hunters who are after us,” said Thomas. “Some of the werewolves went to town to sell medicines. As soon as they left the veil, they saw men hunting around the woods. The men wore the Throcknell lions.”

“Spies from the King,” said Oswald, as if Tobias were too stupid to work it out for himself.

Tobias cursed.

Clutching a small leather bag, Celia’s knuckles had gone white. “If they know we’re here, they might be coming back with reinforcements.”

“I told you they were coming,” Estelle called out from her medical table. “Before long, the whole Maremount army will surround us. Giving sanctuary to the King’s daughter was either the best idea I ever had, or the worst. I haven’t decided yet.”

Celia’s eyes widened. “Oh. You know who I am. Then you know my father wants to kill us. And he’s not going to stop until we’re dead in the town square.”

A spark of fear lit the back of Tobias’s mind. “Isn’t Dogtown protected?”

“Not from the Picaroons,” said Oswald. “They can lower the veil.”

Alan’s wolverine sat by his feet, dark eyes glistening, as Alan squinted in the sunlight. “Shocking as it may be, I don’t think we can count on magical fog to protect us.”

With a growing sense of dread, Tobias shot a glance to Estelle. “How safe
is
this place?”

She crossed to the door. “The Picaroons have Dagon’s power. They can lower the veil. When they do, others can get in. Our magic is powerful, but imperfect. It’s a scary world out there: Purgators, Throcknells, a forest full of ogres and a woodwose or two. We’ll protect you as best we can, but can guarantee nothing.” Her eyes roamed over his chest. “And if you want to stay here, you’d best keep me happy.”

Oswald’s eyes bored into Tobias. “Don’t fret, Queen. Tobias is always there when a lady needs a hand stirring her stew.”

Celia grimaced. “I don’t even know what that means, but I’m guessing it’s disgusting.”

Tobias scowled as he left the she-wolf’s side and stepped into the sunlight, shutting the door behind him. He left Estelle on the other side.
Apparently, Oswald is still angry about the swan ladies.
“Where else can we run at this point?” he asked. “The Purgators rule the country, and we have no idea how to enter other magical lands. We’re trapped here.”

Celia twisted her necklace around her finger. “If the King’s army is sniffing around when the Picaroons come, they’ll slaughter us. My father won’t stop at anything until my head is on a pike, like my mom’s.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Thomas placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Tobias and Oswald will teach us how to fight with magic; everything they learned from the Ragmen. If the Throcknells or the Purgators come for us, we’ll flee, but we’ll fight if we have to. And we’ve got a fire demon on our side.” His gaze fell on Tobias. “You’re practically a demigod, right?”

Oswald narrowed his eyes. “He’s got fire in his blood, but I’ll teach you the spells. Beforetime, Tobias was too busy sating his appetite to learn much.” He pivoted, striding off along the dirt path.

Definitely still angry, then.
Tobias bit back a retort.

They followed Oswald between densely packed wooden houses to the village’s edge. The path led into the forest, lined by wild blueberry bushes and beach roses the color of harlots’ lips. A wren trilled sharply in the sweet birches, and Tobias glanced at the verdant branches. There was something oddly primal and inviting about these woods. He could lose himself here.

“Too bad we don’t have a new spell book,” said Alan. “We’ll be fighting an army with an entire library at their fingertips.”

Oswald cut a glance at Tobias. “Tobias doesn’t need spells nowadays, do he? He’s truly made of embers.”

Alan nearly tripped over his wolverine as the enormous creature tried to weave between his legs. “Why don’t we all carve ourselves and gain the same powers? We’d be like demigods.”

“I’m not sticking a knife in my chest,” said Celia.

“Those powers come with a price,” added Oswald. “Only a fat-headed lubberwort would pay it.”

“What
is
the price?” asked Thomas.

Good question.

Oswald stopped walking, causing the others to stop too, and his icy gaze fell on Tobias. “My old friend has forfeited his soul.”

A shiver worked its way up Tobias’s spine. He had no idea what a soul was for, but it seemed a bad thing to lose. “And what exactly does that mean?”

Oswald turned, walking on, and they followed. “It means that when you die, your mind will endure. Until the end of time, you will still see, still hear, still feel. Ever onward, you will atone for Emerazel’s great sin, languishing in her inferno. Until the god of night snuffs out the sun’s flames, until the earth withers and dies, you will live in everlasting pain. That’s what it means.”

Tobias felt the blood drain from his head.
Eternity in the inferno.
What in the seven hells have I done?

Alan cursed softly.

“Hang on,” said Thomas. “How do we reverse that? There must be some way. What if you—I don’t know—cut off the mark?”

Oswald scoffed. “You pennyworts think everything has a simple fix. Everyone gets a happy ending, right? It’s not going to happen. Tobias has given his soul to the inferno.”

“I think you might need to work on your delivery of bad news,” muttered Alan.

Tobias’s temples throbbed.
I need a way out of this.

“Well, there’s got to be
something
,” said Celia. “He’s not going to the inferno. It’s out of the question.”

Oswald cocked his head. “That’s sorted, then. We’ll just send the princess to tell an ancient goddess of destruction that it’s ‘out of the question.’ ”

Celia shot him a dirty look.

Tobias’s stomach clenched. All of his thoughts and memories would be burned from him, and there would be nothing left but pain. He wouldn’t remember the stories his mother used to tell. He wouldn’t remember Eden’s loud laugh, or the mischievous glint in Fiona’s eyes. Grief whispered through him. “Estelle knows something. But she won’t tell me what it is. She wants something in return.”

“What does she want?” asked Celia.

“I’ve got a guess,” muttered Oswald.

“What if we strike a deal with her? What if she’s willing to fight with us?” said Thomas. “We can’t stay here, but neither can the werewolves. They’re vulnerable to attacks by the Picaroons. The sea demons are slowly picking them off. What if Estelle wants a new home for her pack? ”

“What do you mean?” asked Celia. “What new home?”

“We still have the spell,” said Alan. “We can get back into Maremount when we need to.”

Oswald grinned for the first time in a long time. “We fight the Throcknells here, in Dogtown. The King won’t have an army left to thwart us when we rebound home. I do relish the idea of loosing a pack of wild wolves through the fortress.”

“Estelle can’t be Queen of Maremount, if that’s what you’re thinking,” snapped Celia.

They walked deeper into the woods, shaded by oak leaves. Moss and lichens grew over flat boulders. It should have been beautiful, but Tobias felt numb. He really was a fat-headed lubberwort. Better to have let himself die than submit himself to the flames.

Oswald paused as they approached a clearing. “This will do us. We start by initiating Thomas.”

Just as Celia began unpacking the candles and incense from her bag, something rustled in a shrub. She jumped, and Tobias felt Emerazel’s power surge in his veins, ready for battle. Flames sparked from his fingertips.

Twigs snapped, and a blue-eyed woman in a red cloak pushed her way out of a mulberry bush.

“Who are you?” Tobias demanded, eyeing her warily. His body hummed with nervous energy, burning from the inside out. At around five foot two, she didn’t look like much of a threat, but she could be a woodwose for all he knew. It wasn’t like he’d ever seen one, and strange monsters lurked in the woods.

A chipmunk crept over her shoulders. “I’m Cadonia. I patrol the woods. I make sure none of those bad men get through.” Her eyes trailed over his body. “Estelle tells me you’re a fire demon. All the women are talking about you. I like fiery men.”

His chest tightened. He wasn’t so into the fire demon concept now.

“You’re a werewolf?” asked Oswald.

She grinned. “Yes. Be careful of the woodwose. If you run into one, there’s no telling what you might do to a fragile young lady such as myself.”

Tobias cringed, wishing she hadn’t said that in front of Oswald. But as quickly as she’d arrived, she disappeared into the foliage again.

“That was… weird,” said Alan.

Tobias forced the image out of his mind and drew a deep breath. “Let’s just focus on the initiation.”

Silently, the others sat cross-legged in a circle while Oswald set up the candles and incense, lighting them with a match.

Tobias’s mind raced. He needed Estelle to tell him whatever she knew.
Everlasting pain. Gods’ blood.

Oswald sat with the others, but his eyes were on Tobias. “Won’t you guide us?” He was trying to pull his friend out of the hellfire of his own mind.

Tobias tried to force the terror below his mind’s surface. Raw fear would help nothing. “Right. The initiation.”

“Thomas,” said Oswald. “Try not to get lost in the beast, or your mind will sicken.”

“Might be too late for that,” Thomas muttered.

“You’ll be fine.” Tobias sat on a rock beside Thomas. The musky smell of incense filled the air.

“We can’t straggle,” added Oswald. “Someways we must cobble together a magical army out of a princess, a demon, a scholar, the kennel girl, and…” He eyed Alan. “…and Alan.”

“All right, Thomas,” said Tobias. “Repeat after me.”

He chanted the initiation prayer, and Thomas imitated the sounds.

Tobias watched as the scholar’s eyelids fluttered and shoulders slumped. Chanting the Angelic words, Thomas’s eyes glazed over. His back went rigid, and his irises glistened like dark pools. Tobias knelt down, peering into his pupils. A flash of antlers.
A stag
.

Thomas’s eyelids fluttered again, and his head began to loll. He was getting lost in a mind without language, without a history. Just as Tobias would in the flames.

“Thomas!” he shouted.

The scholar hunched over, his muscles slackening.

“
Thomas!
” Tobias gripped his shoulder, and Thomas’s eyes slowly unclouded as he blinked. “We told you not to get lost.”

“Shit.” Thomas straightened. “We’re all lost.” Turning the other way, he heaved golden dire drink onto a rock.