If the Broom Fits (14 page)

He stood up and gave me a long-suffering look as he went past to the front door. “Want to close this behind me?” he said.

I didn't move. Why couldn't he close it himself? But as soon as he opened the door, he turned into a raven with a puff and flew through the wind and the snow with his big black wings like it was nothing.

“You get used to it,” said the other guy. He reached around me and pushed the door shut. “Dom is a show off.”

I looked at him. “Which one are you?”

He flashed me a crooked smile. “Terrick,” he gave a half bow, “at your service.”

“What spell are you guys casting on the entry?”

His smiled morphed into a shark-like grin. “One of my more creative spells. It may work, it may singe off our eyebrows. Only one way to find out.”

I shook my head. “If anyone is looking for me, I've stepped outside.”

“Sure, sure. Going for an evening stroll…in a blizzard. That's normal. No reason for us to be concerned.”

I closed the door behind me. Too many people.

“
W
ell
, go get them,” Katrina said as soon as I finished explaining what Leslie told me over the phone.

“Give her a moment to speak with Frost,” Sy said. “The fact that she went home is a big deal. This isn't an emergency at this moment.”

“Why
did
Frost go home?” Katrina asked, flopping down on the couch. “I thought she wanted nothing to do with her mom.”

“She's looking for a way to heal herself,” Selene said. “Her mother's letter said that if she resurrected her, she could heal her curse. Frost has no intention of bringing her back—or so she says—but she thinks her mother left the answer somewhere, so she's looking for it—or that's my best guess, anyway.”

I nodded. Selene's suggestion made sense and I had sympathy for our conflicted friend. Sure, Frost was standoffish and sometimes mean, but she had also lived a life none of us could fathom—and I often got the feeling she hadn't even told us a quarter of it. But at the same time, she was the only one I felt comfortable with talking about the people I killed. She never gave me any sympathy. She never looked at me like I was a victim or a monster. She just listened or, when pressed, told me the truth. Like when I asked her if it would get better with time, she said no. While that may not have been what I wanted to hear, I appreciated that she didn't try to give me false hope. I could learn to live with what I did. I was already making strides, but if I deluded myself I would stall.

Katrina interrupted my thoughts. “What do you think about this other coven? Weird, right? Frost's home for one day and they pop up, ‘Hey lady we never met. Come join us and be our sacrifice.'”

I laughed. “Leslie must have left off the sacrifice part. She thinks they take care of the house.”

“You can mark me down as suspicious,” Katrina said.

My phone rang again. “Hello?” I answered without looking.

“Hey, it's me,” Leslie said. “And here's the deal. This thing that's killing people is a fallen angel named Ornias and Frost is pretty sure it's looking for her. All the murders occurred in places she lived over the course of her life and around the times she lived there. It apparently killed her father too.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Is she for real?”

“Yeah, so change of plans. You guys come here.”

“Okay. We'll get there as soon as we can.” I caught the rest of them up as soon as I hung up the phone. No one smiled or cracked any more jokes. We had work to do.

“What do we know about Ornias? Sy?” Selene asked, smoothing her light gold colored sweater.

He shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“Me either and that's a problem. We can't fight someone we know nothing about,” she said. “He has lived and stayed hidden this long so obviously he is smart enough to stay off the radar. We need to know exactly what we're getting ourselves into. I will go back to the castle and research. You guys should see what you can find out here. We need to arrive armed with as much information as we can dig up. I'll meet you there.” She vanished.

“Why does it stop looking for her?” I said, thinking out loud. “I mean it only comes out at this time of year, so what happens the rest of the year? Does it go somewhere else?” I flipped through the Book of Shadows looking for fallen angels but there was nothing. Probably because the only witches who ever went against them died. Sy had said that if we got into Olivia and Holden's realm, we should bow out, but here we were about to dive in head first. “Should we pass this to Olivia and Holden?” I asked.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, cheek twitching. “Probably, but it isn't up to you. This will be personal to Frost and she has to make that decision. Selene is right. The best thing you can do is arm yourself with information and present it to her.”

“But like on a scale from one to ten, how likely is it that we can take on an angel? One being instant death and ten being our crushing victory.”

He shook his head. “I don't know. Maybe a two or three. It might not kill you instantly, but winning isn't going to come without a price.” Sy legitimately looked worried for us, which made me more worried. “But Frost is a good bounty hunter and she will have weighed her options. She will come up with a plan or call for the help she needs. She knows she has friends. You can trust that. I would let her control how this goes down. It's important for her.” He stood up. “Look, there are a few people I can talk to unofficially, but the two of you can't come with me. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

I looked at Katrina and she shrugged. “Yeah, we'll be fine, but what are we supposed to do? We can't just sit here. What sort of research can we do?” I asked, needing a way to be useful.

“I don't know.” He vanished just like Selene.

“Damn elves,” I said. “Our Book of Shadows has nothing about fallen angels. How do we deal with something like that?”

“We don't,” Katrina said. “Selene and Sy are looking into it. It would be a waste of our time to do it too.”

I couldn't believe what she was suggesting. “Doing nothing isn't an option, Kat.”

She smiled. “I never said nothing was an option. We're about to head into another fight. It's great that you were able to unlock a door and all, but it's not enough. You need your magic back.”

“I can't have it back,” I blurted out. “The book you gave me this morning, that's what it says. It says I can never have the same abilities again. The best I can hope for is learning new abilities. So no matter what you do, it isn't going to work. I have to start over.” Tears prickled in the corners of my eyes.

Katrina didn't look surprised. “I know. I read that too, but I don't think it's true.”

“We have no evidence to suggest otherwise. As you said, opening a lock is great, but it's hardly reading someone's lies or guilt or defeating any sort of monster.”

She took a deep breath and leaned forward. “You've been doing it so long, you don't even recognize it. You can still do the truth detection thing. Sure, it isn't as strong as it used to be, but you are still getting feelings about people and things. You're still trusting those feelings and acting on them. It's part of who you are. We couldn't strip it away from you because it is so engrained in you. It isn't just a magical ability that you learned and gained. That's why I'm convinced, yeah, I said it, I'm
convinced
you will get it back. The biggest problem right now is that you have no faith in yourself. You won't even try and that scares me. I don't want you to get yourself killed in a fight because you're too scared to try.”

I focused on my hands. I didn't feel anything in them. I couldn't feel the magic like I used to be able to. I shook my head.

“Why are you so afraid? Magic has never been about knowing the outcome. It's about trusting in yourself, in the universe.”

“Maybe what you're saying is right. Maybe the magic is still here and I just can't see it or feel it or use it. But you're forgetting one thing. Magic is also about the rule of three. It's about karma,” I said. “Whatever we send out comes back times three. Or have you forgotten that? I killed people. There's a debt on my spirit and somehow I have to find a way to pay it. Maybe I'll never get the magic back. Maybe that is the karmic debt I have to pay. I'm okay with that. The real question is, are you? I may never be as strong as the rest of the coven again. I understand if you don't want me in it.”

She threw her arms around me. “That's crazy talk. We don't care if you have any power at all. We just want you to be happy and safe. If you're okay with losing your power, I'll let it go. I won't keep pushing. I thought you wanted it back. And you did not kill those people. The dark witch possessing you did. I have to believe the law of three knows the difference. The debt isn't yours to pay.”

I had tried telling myself that same story about a hundred times, maybe a thousand, but it always sounded hollow to my ears. I didn't believe it. The debt
was
mine. It would always be mine until I could make amends. I'd taken from the world and the loss was heavy upon my shoulders. I had created an imbalance and somehow I had to make it right. Maybe Ornias would help with that. Certainly working with Femi to defeat the mara did. With each new monster or threat I helped defeat I felt closer to healing. But my road was going to be a long one. “I don't think the universe cares for excuses,” I said.

Katrina shook her head. “You don't have to come unless you want to. It will be dangerous.”

I looked up at her. “If the coven is in a fight, I don't care if I have to crawl through broken glass that has been set on fire and covered in acid, I'll be there. Magic or no.”

She hugged me again. “I love you, Jess. And I will never give up on you.”

I smiled and hugged her back just as tightly because I knew it was true. Had I ever had a doubt, which I didn't, knowing what they went through to get me back from the dark witch said it all. These girls were my family. We may not have been related by blood, but we were bonded by something far stronger than that. We were bonded by years of laughter and tears and happiness and heart break. We were strung together by the highs and lows of our lives, tied off with the one certainty that would never change: we loved each other unconditionally. We would forever fight for each other, even when we were afraid to fight for ourselves. They were the best friends I ever had.

“Okay, but seriously, we have a fallen angel to think about. What are we going to do?” I said.

Katrina sat back and curled her lip. “Hope it's fallen in love with a jinni?”

I rolled my eyes. “What if we're looking at this wrong? If Ornias has been after Frost this whole time, maybe that's what we need to consider. Also why hasn't he been able to find her and why does he stop each year after a small amount of time? Maybe what he needs is a necromancer.”

“Surely there are other necromancers. Why is he so stuck on Frost?”

That was true. There had to be others. “Maybe that's why he hasn't found her. He found others instead and tried to use them for his own purposes.” I tapped the books. “Fallen angels might not be in here, but necromancers are.”

“I'll make coffee,” she said, hopping up as I cracked open the top book.

Necromancers seemed to be a popular topic in all of the books, but no one could agree on much about them. There were a few things that were always the same. They couldn't be touched and their mothers were always dark witches. That was where the similarities ended. One book said that necromancer couldn't hold back the darkness; it would always consume them. Another said necromancers couldn't live past twenty and were prone to fits of insanity. It continued on like that. Paragraph upon paragraph of propaganda written by frightened people about something they couldn't understand.

I took the coffee from Katrina. “How does any necromancer figure out their life? All of this is complete bullshit.”

“I don't think many people know any necromancers. Had you ever met one before Frost? They don't seem to roam the world in droves or anything.”

I closed the book on my lap. “The books aren't going to help. We know more about necromancers from knowing Frost than they do. We have to think through this. What would a fallen angel want with Frost?”

“Well, what can she do?”

“She can control and/or raise the dead, she can kill with her touch, she can pull someone into or out of the underworld…that's it. That's all I can think of that is unique to her.”

Katrina nodded. “He's fallen. I don't know how or why he is here, but he will eventually have to go to the underworld and when he does, there's only one way to come back. We learned that the hard way with Selene.”

It was brilliant. The angel wanted to be freed permanently. “He wants Frost to free him from the underworld.” But it wasn't as easy as that of course. Selene had to travel purgatory. It wasn't just reaching in and grabbing her. And it still didn't explain why the angel stopped his quest each year around the same time. Something had to happen around that same time each year that interrupted the search, which meant the angel was on a deadline and the time limit was quickly approaching.

I dug out my notes. The latest a person was ever killed was January seventh and none of them were killed before December 1
^st
. So the angel only had a one month-ish period every year to do whatever it was he was trying to do. But he was moving faster this year than in the past. He had already killed two people and still had four days left. A pissed off angel could do a lot of damage in four days.

Sy came back, looking grim. “Ornias isn't on anyone's radar. I don't know how the hell you stumbled across him.”

“We have a theory,” Katrina said and explained our thoughts on the subject.

Sy ran his hand through his hair. “Let's go see what Frost and Leslie have come up with.”