The Thirteenth Sacrifice (11 page)

And then the bellman lunged toward them. He nailed
one officer on the jaw, shoved another, and was reaching for Katie’s arm when Ed threw him to the ground and whipped out his handcuffs. The other spectators surged forward, coming right at them and standing between them and an exit.

“Divert!” one of the officers shouted, drawing his gun.

Samantha grabbed Katie’s arm and lurched sideways into an empty room set up with buffet tables, ready for serving breakfast in a few hours. A shot was fired and she winced, hoping no one had been hit. Ed was the last into the room and he slammed the door shut, propping a chair under the doorknob.

Samantha moved to help him secure the door as another officer called for backup. Fists banged on the other side of the door.

“Give us the witch!” she heard one enraged man shout.

“She has to pay,” a woman chorused.

“What the hell?” Ed marveled. “They’ve all gone mad.”

“We can’t stay here,” Samantha said.

“The room isn’t secure,” Ed agreed.

A sudden rush of wind lifted her hair and she spun around in fear. A sliding glass door onto a patio had been opened.

And Katie was gone.

“Katie!” she yelled, running forward.

“Did someone get her?” one of the other officers shouted.

“Couldn’t have,” Ed responded. “We would have heard something.”

Samantha touched the door and in her panic reached out with her thoughts… and felt the memory of Katie opening it.

“She ran,” she said quietly.

The other officers except for Ed ran out, shouting for Katie.

“Where would she have gone?” Ed asked.

“Somewhere familiar, somewhere she can hide… Her old high school,” Samantha said. “She said it was two blocks from here.”

“That would be Eastside. Let’s go.”

She grabbed his arm. “Ed, this is going to get ugly. You’re not going to want to be there.”

“Uglier than the house? Uglier than that mob trying to break down the door? Forget it. We’re partners and if you’re going, I’m going.”

She nodded. The crack of splintering wood echoed through the room and she realized that with the crowd so frenzied it wasn’t safe for him to stay. They ducked out the sliding glass door, and a moment later they were racing down the street, heading for the high school.

“How would she get in?” Samantha asked as they arrived at the fenced-in school, shut tight for the night.

“Girl like her, I’m sure she could find a way. Probably knew it back then. You and I will just have to hop the fence,” he said, giving her a boost.

When they were both inside the perimeter, they moved slowly, their eyes sweeping the grounds as they approached the building. Around back they found a door that was slightly ajar. Ed drew his gun and they went in.

Samantha looked up and down the deserted hallways but saw no signs of movement.

“Do you think she’s here?” Ed whispered, the sound magnified by the emptiness around them.

She nodded.

“Much as I don’t like it, we’ll cover more ground if we split up.”

“I’ll take this way,” she said, gesturing to the right.

He stared hard at her. “You got a feeling?”

She hunched her shoulders. “No,” she lied.

“Okay.”

He started off to the left, calling Katie’s name. She watched as he entered and then exited the first room he came across before she turned and headed to the right. Her footsteps sounded as loud as gunshots as she walked, sparing only cursory glances at the rooms she passed. She came to an intersection in the hallway and turned to the left.

Katie’s essence lingered in the air almost like perfume, guiding Samantha. She’d worked for years not to notice the impressions people left behind them when they passed through places. Now she was grateful she hadn’t lost the skill entirely. The closer she got to Katie, the more her own fear increased.

A ripple like a shock wave suddenly passed through her, forcing a gasp through her clenched teeth. Someone else had entered the building.

She began to run, praying as she did so. At the end of the corridor she took a left and then plunged into the open room on her right.

Moonlight streamed through the large windows, painting everything in a silvery sheen. Lab desks sat silent, and jars of preserved frogs and fetal pigs awaiting dissection sat on the counter that ran along the wall next to her. Katie was at the far end, on her knees, a piece of chalk clutched in her hands as she finished drawing around herself.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Samantha demanded.

“It’s a protection circle,” Katie said between sobs. “They’re coming for me and I need to be safe.”

“Idiot. You think some chalk on the ground is going to protect you from anything?” Samantha hissed.

“But—it’s a circle, and I’m going to ask the goddess to bless it.”

“Have you ever asked the goddess for anything, ever? Or any deity, for that matter?”

“Well, I have—”

And then the hair on the back of Samantha’s neck stood on end. “Ssh,” she said, holding up a hand. She turned and closed her eyes, and then she heard the merest whisper of movement.

Samantha pulled her Swiss Army knife out of her pocket and tossed it to Katie. “Form the circle using your blood,” she whispered as she took a step forward and drew her gun. She squared herself so she was facing the door but turned her head so that she could see the opening only out of the corner of her right eye. She focused on her breathing, slowing it down. She stretched her other senses, straining to see, hear, smell everything that she could.

Katie was crying quietly, but Samantha could smell the faintest hint of blood. So the girl was at least doing as she had said. Not that the circle would protect her from a human assailant, but if the thing that had gutted her ex-boyfriend was coming after her, it would slow the creature down.

A breath of wind touched her cheek.

She tensed all her muscles, preparing to move in a moment.

Samantha,
a voice seemed to whisper inside her head.

It was coming.

In the distance she heard a shot ring out, then another. Bile rose in her throat as she thought about Ed. Had the witch found him first? By sending him in the opposite direction had she sent him to his death?

Her chest felt constricted, like a giant hand was crushing her rib cage. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, and her fingers wrapped around the gun were slick with sweat.

I can’t do this,
she thought, panicking.

She shifted her gun to her left hand and raised her right, energy crackling along her fingertips as the adrenaline rushed through her body.

Samantha!
the voice repeated.

The witch knows who I am. It will kill Katie and me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Waves of despair and hopelessness rushed over her. It was no use fighting—she would lose. Even if she used magic and broke every vow she had made to herself and God, they would still die.

“Samantha!”

The voice was louder, more insistent, and suddenly she realized it was actually coming from behind her.

She twisted her head so she could see Katie, who stood swaying on her feet, her eyes frozen in terror on a cloud of green mist that was hovering just outside the window. And then it was seeping through the gaps in the window casing, sliding down the wall and billowing across the floor toward Katie, who screamed and stepped backward.

Out of her circle.

A howling filled the air and Samantha turned back to see a figure shrouded in black glide across the threshold. She began to shake uncontrollably as images of other witches stirred in her memory. The light streaming through the windows failed to touch the inky figure. In fact, it was more of a shadow than a form in the darkness, something she felt more than saw.

A fragment of a rhyme she had learned as a child ran
through her head.
When witches go to school, little boys cry. When witches go to school, bad girls die.
There was more but she couldn’t remember it, didn’t want to remember it.

The dark figure was moving, and it stretched out one hand and touched a counter as it passed by. The jars on the counter fell off, smashing on the floor. The witch swept an arm forward as if directing something.

Bad girls die.

“Get back in the circle!” Samantha shouted, not daring to look at Katie but keeping her full attention on the witch. The other moved with a slight, hypnotic swaying motion, coming ever closer.

Samantha was a bad girl. Or she had been but not now. Now she was… what was it she was?

Pull yourself together!

A cop. She was a cop.

“Stop! Police officer! Get on the ground! Now!” Samantha ordered, her years of training kicking in.

She might as well not have spoken, for all the effect it had. The witch’s arms were extended slightly and the fingertips brushed the sides of desks as she passed. As she touched the first two they erupted into columns of flame, which instantly began to spew dark smoke.

Thoughts collided in Samantha’s mind, slipping over one another and scattering. And she wasn’t a detective anymore. She was a frightened girl facing down a much stronger opponent. She heard a gasp behind her, followed by a thud. She risked a glance backward and saw Katie on the ground, the last of the green mist disappearing into her nose and mouth.

Samantha turned back and everything suddenly went black. Panic surged through her as she realized the witch had cast a spell of blindness upon her. She had no idea
how to reverse it. She froze for a moment. Behind her, Katie was making choking noises.

Sounds. Listen for the sounds.

She moved her gun back and forth, listening for something that would give away the other’s location.

Nothing.

Except—there it was—tiny scrabbling, scratching noises. She realized after a moment that the witch wasn’t making those noises. She thought of all the jars containing lab specimens that had smashed onto the floor. She had seen frogs, fetal pigs, and other creatures awaiting dissection suspended in the jars. They were dead.

Yet they were moving. She could hear the sounds of the animated corpses scuffling along the floor, animated by the witch, who must also be approaching ever closer.

Something squealed near her foot and then bit her ankle. With a shriek she kicked hard, sending whatever it was flying across the room.

More came and she kicked out again. But for each one she got rid of, two more grabbed her legs.
Stop the witch; stop the attack.

She didn’t have to see the witch to know where she was. She took a deep breath and forced herself to tune in to the swirling energy in the room. She felt the power of the fire, Katie dying behind her, tiny feet scrabbling over her shoes, and to her left…

She turned and fired the gun. And she felt,
knew
, that she’d hit her mark.

And in a moment, her vision returned, proof that the spell had been disrupted. Through the smoke she saw a figure crumpled on the ground. She walked over, her gun still aimed, and kicked at the legs.

No movement. She had shot the witch in the chest. She listened, straining, but could not detect any sound of
breathing. She kicked the hood back and saw a woman about ten years older than she was, with dark eyes fixed and staring at the ceiling. She was gone.

Samantha took a deep breath. For all their powers and abilities, witches were still human.

And she made a very human mistake. Instead of confusing my senses, blinding me, she should have cursed my gun so it would misfire,
Samantha thought.
My mother never would have been so stupid.

The dead pigs toppled onto their sides. The frogs lay silent. Samantha grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall by the teacher’s desk and snuffed out the flames. In the silence that followed she could hear only her own heartbeat and Katie’s labored breathing. She waited for a moment. Were there others? She could sense no other energy spikes in the building, so after a moment she turned to Katie.

Samantha dropped to her knees beside the fallen girl. “Katie! Don’t you die on me!”

She looked closely at the girl. Her eyes were frozen open and short, wheezing breaths came from her mouth. Samantha could hear shouts and running steps as Ed arrived with backup.

“It’s clear!” Samantha shouted. “Call an ambulance! Girl down!”

In a moment Ed was beside her. She felt a rush of relief that he seemed unharmed. “What happened?” he asked, his eyes traveling from Katie to the dead witch and the animals all over the floor.

“She inhaled poison,” Samantha said, cutting to the most important part and leaving the rest of the explanation for later.

“Then we need to make her vomit.”

Samantha shook her head. “She inhaled a lot of it and it’s spread all through her system at this point, leaching into her bloodstream.”

“So what do we do?”

“There’s nothing. The paramedics won’t be able to do anything.”

“Medicine might not help her, but
you
can,” Ed said, his voice low and fierce.

Yes, you can,
a voice whispered inside her head.

“No,” she said out loud, to both Ed and the voice. “I can’t help.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Ed accused even as Katie’s wheezing breaths stopped.

“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” she said, her voice shaking.

The house had been self-defense, reflex. This… this would be willfully crossing a line. She couldn’t let herself go there. Not even to save Katie.

You’d do it to save Ed. It’s not that you won’t help; it’s that you won’t help
her.
She’s not important enough.

“Stop it!” she screamed.

Ed grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, his eyes wide in desperation. “Do something!”

“I can’t.”

“Look at me!”

His eyes pierced her. “You can and you have to,” he insisted. “You saved us in the house and you can save her now.”

“No.”

“If you don’t save her, then it’s on your hands. The dead witch might have attacked her, but you’ll be the witch that killed her.”