Sweat broke at my hairline.
The second line of glyphs wavered. My hands shook from the pressure. I leaned forward, channeling more power into the sword.
The second circle broke and I nearly fell.
The crone surged to her feet. Her hands clawed the air. Chalk blew at my feet. Three more rings. Shit.
I could use a power word to release myself, but that would mean announcing to Ghastek that I had one. The circle didn’t dull his hearing, only his magic senses.
I drew the sword back, blocking the vampire’s view of me with my back, and pricked my index finger. A tiny drop of red swelled. I crouched and drew a line right through the four rings. The ward cracked open like a shattered glass.
The crone drew back.
I stepped out and bowed and stayed that way. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the crone raise her hand, after a momentary hesitation. I read reluctance in her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could hold me.
She had locked me three times, and three times I had broken out. Three was a number sacred to witches. I didn’t want to show Ghastek more power.
The crone’s fingers curled.
“Maria, please…” The maiden-witch had spoken. Her voice was weak and wilting, yet it echoed through the dome.
The crone lowered her hand with a sneer. “I spare you because she asks. For now.”
I straightened and sheathed Slayer.
“I know you.” The mother looked at me, her hands continuing to draw yarn with faint clicking. “Voron’s child.
I shifted into Russian. “Yes, I speak Russian.”
The witch clicked her tongue. “Accent you have. Don’t speak Russian every day, no?”
“Don’t have anybody to practice with.”
“And whose failing is that?”
There was no good answer to that one so I backpedaled into English. “I’ve come for information.”
“Ask,” the maiden said.
I’d only get one shot at this. “Two days ago an amateur coven called the Sisters of the Crow disappeared. One of the witches, Jessica Olsen, has a daughter, Julie. Julie is only thirteen. She has no other family. Her mother means the world to her.”
They said nothing. I plowed on.
“I know Morrigan is involved. I know there is a bottomless pit at the Sisters’ gathering place and a smaller one in their head witch Esmeralda’s trailer. I know Esmeralda was power hungry and was performing old druidic rites, but I don’t know why. Now the Fomorians are running around the city, led by Bolgor the Shepherd. They want Julie. She’s just a child, and although her mother was in an amateur coven, she was still a witch, just like you. Please help me understand what’s going on. Help me fit it all together.”
My breath caught in my throat. Either they would deal with me or send me packing. Once the covens said no, they meant it.
The mother-witch pursed her lips. “Morrigan,” she said with slight distaste, as if discussing a neighbor who failed to wash her windows. “She always has a hound with her.”
I frowned. “A dog?”
“No. A man. A scoundrel. A thief and a brigand.”
I almost snapped my fingers. “Tall, dark, carries a bow, disappears into mist, can’t keep his hands to himself?”
The mother nodded to me with a smile. “Yes.”
“I’ve seen him.”
She smiled wider. “I gathered.”
When you want to impress the other party with your intellect, state the obvious. Brilliant. I was simply brilliant.
The maiden’s voice whispered, intimate, almost as if she were breathing in my ear instead of reclining on the couch sixteen feet away. “For the knowledge you want, we would ask a boon of you…”
The crone leaned back. Her hands rose, spread wide. Magic flared about her like dark wings.
The floor quaked. A long gash split the tiles between me and Derek, and a wave of musky scent wafted forth. A sleek pink liquid spilled from the floor and streamed away from me to Derek and the vampire.
Derek ripped off his clothes. His back arched and the skin along his chest split. For the briefest of moments I saw bare bones shifting and flowing like molten wax, and then muscle slivered over it, fur burst, flaring into lupine hackles, and a werewolf stood within the circle. Six and a half feet tall, with clawed hands large enough to enclose my head and jaws that could crack my skull like an egg. Half-man, half-beast, all nightmare. The shapeshifter warrior form.
I didn’t recall drawing Slayer but it was in my hand.
“No harm will come to them,” the maiden’s wilting voice assured me.
The red wave washed against Derek’s ward. Derek raised his deformed jaws. His fangs bit the air. A long eerie howl broke from his lips, a forlorn lament, a song of hunt, and chase, and hot blood on the tongue. It sent my heart fluttering. I gripped my saber.
“You injure him, you die.” That fucking crone wouldn’t stop me.
“No harm,” the maiden promised.
The red fluid circled the ward and surged up to the ceiling, enclosing the ward and Derek within it in a column of streaming fluid. Holy crap.
In a moment the second column encased the vampire.
“They can neither hear us, nor see us,” the maiden said.
“What is the boon?”
“The hound…” The maiden shifted a little within her folds of fabric.
“Bring us his blood,” the crone said.
“…and all your questions…” the mother added.
“…will be answered.” The maiden nodded.
A witch chorus. Lovely.
“Why do you need the blood?”
The crone sneered. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Then you get nothing!”
Crap. I bowed. “Thank you for seeing me. Release my associates and I’ll go.”
“Why care?” the mother asked.
“Because I won’t fetch the blood of someone with that much magic unless I know how it will be used.” For all I knew, they could use it to hex him or brew a city-wide plague. I knew they wouldn’t lie to me. In the modern world of magic and tech, your rep meant everything.
“Is that your final word?” the mother asked.
It was wrong. Not even for Julie and her mother’s sake. Some things should not be done no matter how much you want the goal. “Yes.”
“Then leave!” the crone barked.
I turned.
“Wait.” The maiden’s voice tugged on me with its magic. I faced her.
The hag glared at her. “No!”
“Yes,” the maiden whispered. “There is no other way.”
She pushed off her couch and pulled off her hair. Her head was bald. The folds of fabric slipped from her body. She stood nude, save for the panties.
The effort rocked her and for a second I thought she would fall.
You could play the xylophone on her ribs. She had no breasts. Her knees protruded, disproportional, too large compared to her matchstick-thin legs. A conglomeration of misshapen ugly bumps thrust over her left hip, creating
