The fact that they don’t attack and are hesitant to hurt me keeps me in place. “What do you want from me?” I ask. “And what did you do with Bren?”
They jolt, surprised it seems that I can actually speak.
“The wolf you were with?” Merche asks. “He’s okay. Well, no. He’s very angry.”
When Farrah rolls her fish eyes, it darn near tops the list of disturbing things I’ve seen tonight. “Angry is an understatement. He’s pissed-off and tearing the cell you were last in apart.”
Bren’s safe. For the moment. That doesn’t lessen my fury.
My voice steals, and for once in my life, whatever these bad guys catch in my features is enough to make them back away. “What do you want from me?” I demand. They attempt to scramble away. I follow. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
“You’re cute when you’re mad.”
“Shut up, Gerald,” I snap.
I fix my steely gaze on Farrah the fish and Merche the mammal. Forgive me, it’s the only way I can remember who’s who.
Merche steps forward. “We didn’t mean for this to happen,” she says.
“You didn’t mean for what to happen?” I ask. Frustration heats my face. I lift my arms to motion around but also in preparation to strike if I must. I pity them. They’re scared and in a ton of trouble. That doesn’t mean I’m not ready to protect myself. “Tell me what’s happening and I may spare your lives.”
And…they both start crying.
I made a guinea pig and fish cry. Perhaps on my way home, I should find a puppy to kick.
No. Scratch that. I love puppies.
“Tell me,” I say, keeping my voice stern.
Merche wrings her small furry paws and exchanges several glances with Farrah. “What other choice do we have?” she asks her.
“Can we get on with this shit?” Gerald very helpfully interjects.
“It started out as a good thing,” Merche squeaks.
“A great thing,” Farrah adds, nodding in a way that makes her face flop back and forth.
Oh, goodness. I almost gag.
“I don’t give a damn how it started,” Gerald says. “We want to know what the fuck we’re doing here, and we want to know now.”
“That’s enough out of you, Gerald.” I face the witches. “If you want me to help you, you need to help us. Start from the beginning and make it fast.”
I cross my arms, hoping to appear more threatening. The walls shudder and shift, a stark reminder that our time is limited and we need to move quickly.
“I’m from New York,” Merche says. She points to Farrah. “Farrah is from Boston. We didn’t um, we didn’t graduate from school.” She glances down, her long whiskers twitching. “Like the rest of us, we were actually asked to leave.”
“There’s more of you?” I ask. I don’t want to think about what other crossbreeds are lurking around the labyrinth. But I would be a fool not to ask.
“No,” Farrah says. “Just Una.”
“Una?” I ask. “Your leader?”
Merche fiddles nervously with her whiskers. “She is now. But she wasn’t at first.” Thick tears run down her long nose. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a witch and never really become one. You embarrass your family and ultimately they shun you. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in a carnival reading cards and telling fortunes the rest of your life.”
“And if you’re not?” I ask when she grows silent.
“You end up here,” Farrah says.
She breaks down, her face inflating and deflating with each harsh sob. I can’t even watch. Neither can Gerald. His body crawls toward him and his hands lift his head to turn it away.
“Where is here, exactly?”
“It was sold to us as the Promised Land,” Merche says. She cleans off the tears from her fur that continue to fall. “We were going to have our own coven, our own place to belong where we could roam with other supernaturals. At first, it was nice to be around more of our kind. But then the other witches, still weaker, but stronger than us, realized just how many we were, and thought we could do more as one.”
Farrah begins to pace, her face inflating and deflating with each step. I cover my mouth, hoping to mask my retching.
“We started working on developing our skills,” Farrah says. “It was like witch school only slower so we could keep up and work on our strengths.”
“That sounds appropriate,” I say, carefully. “What went wrong exactly?”
“Everything,” Merche says. “It didn’t work. Our improvement was minimal at best. As a result, the higher ups started experimenting with stronger spells, just to try to give us an advantage.”
“But there was only one spell that really worked,” Farrah admits, ignoring my blatant horror.
My hands fall away from my face. “Oh, no. You cast Mirror.”
They regard me as if slapped by one of Farrah’s missing fins. “How do you know about Mirror?” Merche asks.
Farrah seems disturbed. Never mind, I think that’s just how the poor thing looks. Mirror isn’t a spell I’m supposed to be familiar with. Even Lesser witches are banned from knowing about it.
They don’t understand that there’s a great deal I’ve learned about magic and a lot more I don’t care to know. Each class of supernatural are bound by loyalty to protect their secrets. As a non-witch, and someone who doesn’t belong to a coven, I’m not bound to these rules and explain the extent of my familiarity with their spells.
“Mirror is one of the three High Tasks of Witchcraft. Casting one successfully is your final exam and what permits you to graduate.”
“That’s right,” Farrah says, her large bulgy eyes watching me closely.
“If performed correctly, the spell-wielder turns into someone or something else.”
“Who told you about Mirror?” Merche asks.
“That’s not important,” I say. I examine them closely. Their forms are only portions of what they should be. They also seem comfortable in their bodies, as if they’ve occupied them for a while now.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I say.
“We’re not lying,
