The Witch with No Name

Saying nothing more, Al strode inside as if it didn’t bother him, but I could tell it did. His grumbling grew louder as he clicked the light switch several times to no effect.

“Jenks, what about Ivy?” I whispered.

The pixy hovered before Trent and me, a worried dust slipping from him. “She’s in her room. Nina too. Wait!” he shouted when I started forward. “Slow down. You go in there stinking like fear and you’ll set Nina off. Give Ivy a chance to organize her thoughts. She knows you’re here. They’ll be afraid of Al, but you and Trent look like easy prey.”

Oh God. “It’s bad?”

Jenks nodded, making my heart sink. “You, cookie maker, need to take a backseat. We know how to bring Ivy down. You don’t.”

“I know what not to do,” Trent said, but his worry was obvious as he helped me shuffle inside. I was glad there was no light as I looked over the soggy gloom. Al was poking about my seldom-used desk, head cocked as he held up a tiny chair Jenks had left there. Jenks was darting about, lighting the candles we had scattered around for when the power went out. Slowly the space brightened as the wicks took hold and wax began to burn. It smelled—sort of a sour, bite-at-the-back-of-your-throat smell, stinking of vampire fear and heartache. Ivy . . .

I looked down the black hallway, both afraid and anxious.

“Maybe I should go get Bis,” Trent said, and Jenks made a sparkling beeline back to us.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard out of you since you, ah . . . never mind. You’re going to need a ladder,” Jenks said, but Trent was already taking the belfry stairs two at a time. Sighing, Jenks pointed at Al, then his own eyes, and then Al again before following Trent.

Al frowned, wearing that same wary, reluctant look he’d had in Trent’s office before he walked out with Newt and Dali. He made a “get on with it” gesture, and my heart thudded. Jenks was watching him, eh?

“Ivy?” I called, wanting to give her even more warning. “You here?” It was obvious she was, and I limped to the top of the hallway. There was a thin crack of light leaking from under her door, and I looked at Al. “Why are you here?”

“To catch you when you fall. And you will fall. It’s simply a matter of finding the right lever.”

Swell. “Ivy?” I called again. “Ah, you okay?”

Breathless, I waited at the sudden slide and thump of something heavy in Ivy’s room. A frantic hush of words followed. It was Ivy, and I reached out, finding myself painfully yanked back into Al. I fought to get his hand off me, stopping when Ivy shouted, “No. Nina, no!” I hesitated, Al’s grip easing as Ivy added, “It’s Rachel. Please. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t take it away. Don’t leave me. No. No!” Nina howled, a desperate pain in her voice. “Oh God. Give it to me!” she suddenly raged. “Give it to me!”

I couldn’t move as Nina’s fierce demands dissolved into heartrending sobs. Any hope I might have had that the newly undead might survive their souls died. Clearly Ivy had captured Nina’s, and Nina was out of her mind to get it back. Everything was out of balance and her second death was the only way to bring it back again.

“Whoever made this curse was a sadist,” I whispered, and Al’s grip on me fell away.

The light spilled into the cramped hallway as Ivy opened her door. The sound of Nina’s heartrending sobs pulled at me as Ivy slipped out and shut it behind her. The newly undead were often unpredictable as their mind reorganized under overwhelming shifts of hormones and instincts while the body fought with the mind, trying to convince it that it was still alive. Hunger usually kicked in when the original aura was depleted to a measurable threshold. But that wasn’t why Nina begged for Ivy to return in great gasping sobs. It wasn’t blood Nina wanted, it was her soul.

Back against the door, Ivy stared at me with black, haunted eyes, chilling me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“This shouldn’t have happened.” I hobbled forward, tears blurring my sight. “Ivy, I’m so sorry,” I gushed, my arms going around her as she began to cry.

Great gasping sobs shook her, and I held her to me, the silk feel of her hair bunched between us. My own tears flowed at the unfairness of it all, the end of her hope that she and Nina might have something normal, that they might have a life, a love, in the fleeting time they were allowed a moment of happiness before the curse came around full circle and took it all away.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, hardly breathing.

“She wanted me to kill her,” Ivy sobbed, her voice muffled. “She begged me, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even lie to her and promise I would.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and she pulled back from me, eyes glistening as Nina quietly wept behind the door Ivy guarded.

Ivy wiped her eyes, looking more beautiful than I’d ever seen her even if it was grief that brought her alive. “She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Ivy whispered. “There was no way to stop it. And I couldn’t finish it. When she begged the paramedic to, I . . . I wouldn’t let him.”