Wildfire Witch (The Cursed Coven of Spells Hollow)

7. Nix

NIX

More than one person teamed up to beat down the door, which gave way into wooden splinters. “Shit. They’ve found me,” I muttered.

“ Who’s found you?” Ceridor demanded.

He held out his hand, summoning a light breeze to lift and deliver a length of wood into his hand, from where he’d had it leaning against the wall. It was a staff nearly as tall as he was, made of a lightweight white wood and carved with fae runes for durability and to whip through the air more effortlessly. Chances were it wasn’t the same weapon he’d carried as a guard, but it was similar.

“The Fire Brotherhood. Shifters.” As I spoke, the first shifter rushed in and caught his bearings. His eyes gleamed pale green, already partially giving in to his animal side, though he reached for a gun on his waistband as he snarled with a mouthful of wolf teeth. He had his fire bro tattoo of a flame held in a fist inked low on his bulging bicep, the red color fading into the tan of his skin.

Before he could fire a shot, Ceridor twirled his staff, generating the wind his magic needed to send an invisible blade toward the shifter. The wolf cursed and dropped his weapon when a bloody wound opened from wrist to forearm and gushed blood. “The bitch has help,” he called.

Three more shifters came through the ruined door, guns drawn. While Ceridor attacked, he shouted, “Get her out of here, Seth!”

Seth grabbed my arm, turning towards the balcony. “No, wait. They’ll be out there waiting,” I said quickly. I jerked him along with me as I went to the kitchen drawers, rattling around until I found one layered with wooden spatulas and spoons. Bingo.

A round of gunshots popped and we ducked. I held the handful of wooden kitchen tools and met Seth’s panicking gaze. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me. I have an idea,” I whispered.

The fire bros would shoot to kill. They wanted to kill me; I would be much easier to control as a helpless baby than as a former green witch holding the closest thing I could find to a fistful of wands.

“Get these wet,” I said, thrusting them at Seth. He did as I asked when a bullet shattered the faux granite above our heads in a shower of shards.

I had Seth hold my shoulder in one hand and all the makeshift weapons in the other, except for a spoon, which I held in a white-knuckled fist. Closing my eyes, I called upon my magic. This time, I felt the earth element in me try to answer, just to burn and manifest in my chest as heat.

“You’re burning up,” Seth whispered.

“Don’t let go,” I told him again, pulling him to stand and pointing the spoon at the nearest shifter. For the first time in many, many lives, I used the tip of it to trace shapes in the air, leaving behind a trail of flame that lingered in the air for half a second. Instead of writing the symbols of an existing spell, I drew out an alchemical formula as quickly as I could, invoking fire, water, and mercury as instructions for the elements to fuse. I hoped it would function as a direct order for what I wanted my magic to do, aided by Seth’s presence.

A super-heated jet of water shot out from the tip of the spoon, hitting the shifter’s face and exploding into steam and scalding liquid. He dropped, screaming and clawing at his face. Seth gaped in surprise.

I held in a cheer that my idea had worked. Where one shifter dropped, there were three more to take his place. Several bodies littered the front of the apartment, bleeding or dead from the sharp-edged gales Ceridor had called up. My hair tossed in it and anything light that wasn’t weighed down now flew around him to make the cyclone of his wind fae magic visible.

One shifter had changed completely, becoming a massive wolf that was trying to tug-of-war Ceridor’s staff out of his hands. Its shaggy pelt was cut in a couple places, but it persisted with a guttural growl. The wind was weakening without the staff being in motion.

I pointed my wand at the wolf and fused magic again to fire a jet of hot water. It yelped and dropped, fur leaping with spontaneous flames it rolled to extinguish. The spoon caught fire like a match in my hands and I dropped it with a similar sound of pain. My skin pinkened from the heat, sweat quickly saturating my body as my internal heat spiked.

There wasn’t any time to hesitate. I pried a damp wooden spatula from Seth’s other hand and got back to casting. He dropped the rest and gestured, his face hardening. Water exploded out of the sink’s faucet with heavy pressure and followed his will. He waved it over to the floor and coated it in a slick sheen of ice. More water rushed around him, hanging suspended in globes around us waiting to be used.

“I said , get her out of here!” Ceridor shouted without looking away from our enemies. There had to be a dozen more shifters, all fire bros, stepping over their fallen with determination and navigating the ice with careful steps. The bounty on my head had to be astronomical.

The fae swept the end of his staff low to the ground, tripping every shifter and following it up with a push of his palm outward. Most of the air in the room followed the motion, slamming the shifters into the far wall as if they weighed nothing. Seth slipped sharped shards of ice between the shifters and Ceridor’s magic. They hit the wall next, slicing through several shifters in the process.

“I’m not leaving you,” I protested breathlessly, even while my spatula turned to cinders after another blast of hot water. My arm ached from palm to chest. It was as if I’d cooked my veins in the attempt to wrangle my curse to cooperate, the pain becoming a white-hot stabbing sensation.

Seth was too distracted trying to wrap freezing water around my arm to notice the sliding glass door behind us had opened with a whoosh of outside air. I turned just in time to see the end of a handgun hit the side of his head. He dropped like a stone from the blow and the water he’d been controlling landed on the ground a moment later.

Panting and overheated, I was easy to capture from there. The metal jabbing under my chin quickly heated to match the temperature of my skin.

“Easy does it. Come quietly with me and I’ll let him live, vessel,” a deep voice rumbled behind me, belonging to the man who wrapped a partially shifted arm around my front. It was coated in crimson scales and tipped with black claws.

Vessel . The first leader of the Fire Brotherhood had taught his underlings to call me that, to dehumanize me for their experiments. To them, I was merely a container holding the real prize: Aodhnait.

“Tell me you’re still there,” I pleaded with the phoenix, who’d been silent for far too long.

“Yes. No more fire. Please,” she whispered back.

Considering the man inching us toward the balcony while his men fought Ceridor was probably a fire dragon shifter, any more magic from me would be useless anyway. Those scales were impervious to heat.

Ceridor glanced back and spotted us shortly after Seth dropped unconscious. His silvery eyes darkened with wrath and he brandished his weapon. “I wouldn’t, wind fae. She’s just as valuable alive or sort-of dead,” the dragon said. The muzzle of his gun jabbed my chin to punctuate his point.

“Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll double it,” Ceridor bit out. “All you have to do is release her.”

“Hmm. No,” the shifter answered without hesitation.

He gestured with his clawed fingers, just as Ceridor made a motion with his own. I heard the wind shriek outside, bearing down on the glass door with enough pressure to shatter it into thousands of shards.

The lackies that the dragon shifter had silently ordered to grab my fae husband’s arms dropped with dozens of those shards skewering them from the throat down. But the man holding me simply laughed as even more pieces of glass plinked off his scales. I felt them thicken from where his arm pressed me back into his chest. Skin gained contours of scale shapes through the fabric of his shirt.

Wings ripped from his back as soon as the worst of the glass assault was done. He flared them, carrying us backward several yards into the sunshine. Ceridor looked on with horror as I reached for him, screaming, “Cer!”

The dragon flew us down and around to the parking lot in a dizzying blur of colors. He’d lowered the gun from my chin to secure me against his body. “Father will reward me very well for you, vessel,” he hissed in my ear.

When he landed on solid pavement, he dropped me, and I skidded on the asphalt after a hard landing on my side. “Secure her now,” he barked. Rough hands pulled me off the ground, pain flaring over dozens of scrapes that screamed to life once they moved me.

As a needle stuck me in the neck, I realized…he’d dropped me on purpose to stun me. Clever. Otherwise I would’ve lit the truck they stuffed me into on fire. Or maybe I’d have incinerated the fleet of other unmarked vehicles they had to leave behind, considering how many people they’d lost just to pick me up.

Intentions didn’t matter when the black fog of oblivion swept in to claim me. Only the truth: I’d been so close to finally figuring out my curse, just for the fire bros to snatch it away from me…again.