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“Witches be crazy,” he mumbled under his breath.
I sent a small gust of wind at him in retaliation. It lifted the hat off his head, but he hurried to catch it. I fought a smile.
We finally reached the valley. The Sun was high in the sky, among scattered clouds. The warmth, paired with a gentle wind, made me sigh contentedly. Walker brushed past me and crouched before the stream. He splashed water across his face, and I noticed how sweaty he was.
Did I set too fast of a pace? I thought. He could’ve asked me to slow down.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, “why wouldn’t I be?”
I kept my observations to myself and sat on a nearby rock. Sand and rocks shifted beneath my feet. Foliage sprouted sporadically in the poor soil, and a fish splashed in the creek.
I pulled some homemade jerky from my pocket and dug in. Walker grabbed his own jerky and sat near the creek.
“I would’ve taken you for a vegetarian,” he said.
“My coven believes in every facet of nature,” I answered. “Hunts—honest hunts with handmade weapons—are a part of that. That’s how we get our meat.”
“Geez,” he said. “You’re making me feel bad about my Slim Jim.”
We laughed, and my body felt lighter than it had in days. Walker flashed me a smile, and his face became a boy’s again—younger and full of joy. It was a nice sight.
“Don’t fret, cowboy,” I teased, “unless you’re secretly a witch—you wouldn’t be a very good one.”
“You’d certainly know what it is to be a poor excuse for a witch, Redfern.”
For Hecate’s sake. As I recognized the voice of Mara Morningstar, my skin crawled. I leaped to my feet, and Walker mirrored the movement. His hand rested on the gun strapped to his hip. Arion hissed, and his hackles raised.
“Not yet, boy,” I whispered.
“At least I’m not Lucifer’s bitch,” I called back.
The dark witches—Lucifer’s witches—hid from sight, though Mara’s voice had come from the mountain we’d just crossed. I sensed no magic, so they had to be hidden among the trees. I cursed myself for not noticing their presence sooner. The dark witches trained in all forms of trickery and sneaking, which made them excellent spies.
As I strained my eyes to catch sight of them, I summoned a shield of wind that surrounded Arion, Walker, and me.
“You’re too weak to hold his power,” Mara called back. “It’s why your coven is getting picked off like prey animals.”
Though her words made me want to scream, I refused to give her the reaction she sought.
“If you’re so powerful, show yourself!” I demanded.
A stiletto-clad foot stepped out of the shadows of the pines. Slowly, the rest of Mara’s body came into view. She wore a fitted black gown that was slit past her hip and revealed a long strip of her porcelain skin.
A ruby hung from a silver chain between her collarbones, and her lips were painted red to match the stone. Her silver, curly hair was cut just below her chin. Her eyes, like all dark witches’ eyes, were completely black. There was not a pupil or iris to be seen. Though I couldn’t see the rest of her coven, she never traveled alone.
“Like what you see?”
The sultry question was directed at Walker. Open-mouthed, he stared at her with something far from lust. He slammed his jaw shut.
“Devil-worshippers aren’t really my thing,” he snapped.
“Your devil—our angel,” she argued and walked closer. “One who believes in liberty above all else. One who bows to no one and nothing.”
“Is that what this is about?” I asked. “Power? We never asked the dark witches to bow.”
Josephine and I had discussed Mara's coven as suspects, but we never truly thought they’d take it this far. They had morals, no matter how flawed they were. Witches didn’t kill other witches. Though we had our occasional squabbles, the dark witches usually kept to their mountain, which was miles from ours.
