Witch, Please

By Val St. Crowe

Hello, Square One. So nice to see you again.

To save Logan, Petra Brightshade had to reopen the breaches she just freaking closed. Now, she and her fellow primals are right back where they started.

And it’s worse, because the interdimensional monsters are now in attack mode. They’ve got a plan to take over our entire world, and they’re not going to stop until they succeed.

Or until Petra and the others stop them. Which they will do. Come hell or high water or the closing of their favorite bar—

Wait. What?

Barley and Bells is indefinitely closed?

It may be their darkest hour yet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: V. J. Chambers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463594865

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Logan Gray parked my car in the parking lot at Ravenridge College. The lot was behind the building adjacent to the alley where he’d trained me to conjure and kill creatures from across the breaches. It wasn’t a big parking lot, but there weren’t many students at Ravenridge, so it didn’t need to be.

Logan was driving because he’d insisted on it. He thought that I was in no shape to drive since I’d bled out earlier that day. However, I had dragon blood in my system when I did it, so I was fine. Really fine. Dragon blood helped my body to heal because I was only half human. The other half was from across the breaches as well.

I was a hybrid. A primal, as they called us at Ravenridge.

Logan got out of the car and headed over to my side of the car.

I opened my door and started to get out.

Careful, he said. Now he was blocking my path to get out of the car. Take it easy, all right?

Why? I said. I’m fine.

We need to get you to the healers.

Listen, I said, "you were captured by Malachi for days and who knows what he did to you? You probably need to go to the healers."

Logan touched his chest. Me? I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.

I got up out of the car. I’m fine too.

Now Logan and I were practically touching, because he had been standing so close to the door. He glanced into my eyes and then looked away. Then he backed up, giving me space.

Hey, I said quietly, about what you said back there—

Healers, he said. Now.

I put my hands on my hips. I’ll go if you go.

He pointed back at the passenger seat of the car. Maybe you should sit down and let me get you a wheelchair or something.

I can walk! I glared at him. Besides, I don’t think they have wheelchairs, and even if they did, they’d be worthless on the steps.

Well, I’ll get someone to float you up, then, he said. I don’t think you should be on your feet too much.

I pushed past him, muttering curse words under my breath.

"Petra, seriously, you bled out this morning."

I stalked across the parking lot, heading for Ravenridge.

Logan caught up with me. You’re going to the healers, right?

I said I would. I walked faster.

Are you angry with me or something?

Why would I be angry? I said. It’s not as if you said something really intense about us and then refused to talk about it again.

He didn’t say anything.

I walked even faster.

Now, he was lagging behind me.

I came to the back door of the college and let myself in. This door opened onto the back of the auditorium. It was the stage door. I crossed the stage, still walking as quickly as I could, with Logan hot on my heels.

That was when I noticed there was a class in there. There were watching a video of some guy droning on in Latin. It was projected onto a screen on the stage. Everyone looked up at me. There were only four of them plus the professor, but it was still embarrassing.

I gave them a half-wave. Uh, sorry. I’ll just go right, uh, through here.

They didn’t take their eyes off me.

I jumped off the stage and hurried up the aisle in the middle of the auditorium.

Logan came with me.

The auditorium opened onto a narrow hallway—all the hallways were narrow at Ravenridge—and I went down that and then turned when I found the stairwell. I started up the steps as quickly as I could, but I soon got tired and slowed down.

Still, I kept the pace quick enough that it wasn’t easy to talk and climb, so Logan and I climbed in silence.

Finally, I got to the healers. I pushed the door open. There was a small waiting area there with about four chairs, a TV, and a stack of magazines. At the front of the room, a pen was floating in the air over a clipboard. It had been enspelled to take down our names.

I gave both mine and Logan’s.

I don’t need to see anyone, said Logan.

You do, I insisted, even as the pen scribbled.

I was stone the whole time, said Logan. He couldn’t do anything to me.

Yeah, about that, I said. Did you know that when you’re stone, locater spells can’t find you?

He shoved his hands in his pockets. No.

The pen stopped scribbling.

The clipboard floated up instead. It danced in the air in front of my face. Say mitte to send, read a message scrawled on the top of it. Obediently, I repeated the short spell. It disappeared with a crack and a puff of smoke.

I turned in a circle, and then sat down in one of the chairs.

Logan sat down next to me. He rummaged through the magazines.

Logan, I said. Are we never going to talk about what you said?

I shouldn’t have said it, he said, picking up a magazine, opening it to a random page, and pretending to be absorbed by what was on the page. It was an ad for sunscreen. Obviously, gargoyles didn’t burn.

I sighed. Why shouldn’t you have said it?

He didn’t answer.

Fine, I said. I got out my phone and dialed Tatum.

It rang.

Who are you calling? said Logan.

Tatum, I said. I didn’t tell her and Reid what I was doing.

Logan shut the magazine. Why doesn’t that surprise me?

They wouldn’t have stopped me or anything, I said. I only wanted to leave them out of it. I didn’t want them to be in any danger. That’s al—

Hello? Tatum answered the phone, sounding half-asleep.

It was sort of early still. It’s me, I said.

Are you seriously calling me from your bedroom? she said. That is a new level of lazy, chica. Get your ass up and come to my door.

I’m not in my bedroom.

What? Where are you?

At the healer’s, I said.

Are you hurt?

No, but Logan thinks I am, and he made me come here.

Wait, what? Logan’s there? How’d you get Logan back?

It’s kind of a long story, I said.

Well, then you can tell me in person, she said. Let me get Reid, and we’ll be over there in five.

Okay, I said.

We hung up. I knew it wasn’t going to be five minutes. It wasn’t that easy for either of them to get going in the morning. So, I turned back to Logan.

He had rolled the magazine up into a tiny cylinder and was now tapping it absently against the arm of the chair next to him.

You said that your feelings for me weren’t fading, I said.

Petra. He tapped the magazine faster. I told you that I’d rather not talk about that.

"Well, I don’t care. I would rather talk about it."

He unrolled the magazine, which was now curling at the edges. He tried to flatten out the corners. Maybe it’s some kind of bad side effect of the spell we did, because it was really powerful, right? So, maybe we need to see if there’s some kind of spell to reverse it? To take the feelings away?

I gaped at him. Do I smell or something?

He rolled the magazine back up. Kind of like lilacs. It’s nice.

I sucked in a breath at that.

Why are you asking me that?

It’s probably my shampoo.

What is?

The lilac smell. It’s probably my shampoo.

Oh. Well, it’s nice, but why did you change the subject?

"I meant do I smell bad."

That doesn’t clear anything up.

I meant is there some reason you’re convinced that you don’t want to have genuine feelings for me?

He looked at me. Genuine? You mean like it’s not from the magic?

I nodded.

He rolled the magazine tighter. We have nothing in common.

Sure we do. We have all the same friends, and we both like fighting monsters. What else is there?

You know nothing about me.

I know all about your past and your ex-girlfriend and how you were compelled to have like a… a threesome with—

"Jesus," he said, glaring at me.

I know things about you, I said softly.

Okay, fine, well, I don’t know things about you.

What do you want to know?

He unrolled the magazine again. That’s not how it works.

Maybe it’s how it works for us, I said. I mean, I know that most people don’t get together because they’re forced to do sex magic to undo a spell trapping them or whatever, but if that’s how it happened, then why fight it?

He didn’t say anything.

I started to say something else, anything to get him to talk.

But the door to the waiting room opened, and Reid and Tatum came in.

* * *

You opened what? Reid stared at me, his lips parted. He was clearly not processing what I’d just told him.

I opened a breach, I said. From what I understand, now that it’s open, more can open up. But I made Malachi promise that he wouldn’t open any breaches at Ravenridge this time. So, people should be safe here. And I know it’s a setback and all, but we’re going to figure out how to fix it. I had to get Logan back, and this was the only way. A trade.

You opened what? Reid said again.

Tatum sat down next to me. You really could have told us you were doing this, you know?

I didn’t want to put you guys in danger, I said.

You mean, you knew that we’d never let you do something so ridiculous, said Reid. He glanced at Logan. Not that I’m not happy to see you.

Logan smirked. I thought you didn’t like me.

Well, you’ve kind of grown on me, said Reid.

Thanks, said Logan.

I just can’t believe you did this, said Reid. Man, when Norwood finds out, he’s going to flay you alive.

There won’t be breaches in the school, I said.

That doesn’t really make it better, said Tatum.

It was a deeply stupid thing to do, Petra, said Logan.

I looked back and forth between the three of them. You’re all ganging up on me? Really?

I’m grateful you rescued me, said Logan. But I wish you could have found another way.

There was no other way, I said.

I’m sure if we’d had more time— Reid stopped talking.

Because the door to the healer’s wing suddenly burst off its hinges and fell down on the floor in front of us with a thud.

I might have screamed. Just a little. It startled me.

Something came through the door. It was a strange-looking creature I’d never seen before. It resembled some kind of huge insect. It had six legs, but it stood upright and walked on the back two. The other four were complete with pinchers that it opened and closed as it walked forward. It had no face, only an oblong hole where its face should have been.

This had to be something else from the other side of the breaches. Why did everything from the world we came from have to be so damned ugly?

I wondered if this could be killed the same way the skitters were killed, so I conjured a gun, complete with special bullets made of green skitter venom. I took aim at the thing and shot.

The bullet glanced off its abdomen and ricocheted around the room.

We all hit the floor.

Guess that doesn’t work, I said.

A squirt of purple liquid poured out in a stream from the oblong hole that should have been its face.

It was heading straight for me.

I rolled out of the way.

Not far enough. It hit my shoulder. My shoulder went numb.

Son of a bitch, I muttered, conjuring a long sword. I’d try hacking the thing to pieces.

Reid had the same idea. He was running at the thing, blade over head, screaming like a kamikaze soldier.

I started to get to my feet, but the insect-man hit me again, right in my midsection. The numbness spread from my shoulder down the whole side of my body. I couldn’t move my arm or my leg on that side.

Since we’d conjured stuff, skitters were starting to show up. They were coming in through the open door, crawling over the floor and the walls, chattering in their horrible screechy way.

The insect-man squirted Reid with the purple liquid.

Reid froze and then toppled over.

I rolled over onto my stomach. The numbness spread to my other side. I couldn’t move at all.

What the fuck? said Reid.

Tatum had conjured a blade too. She was swishing it through the air at the thing. But when she made contact with its skin, there was a clanging noise, like metal striking metal.

Then the insect-man squirted her with the paralyzing juice too.

Logan had been shooting skitters, taking them down pretty well, too, and leaving the bigger thing to us. But now, he was on his own.

Logan, behind you! I yelled.

But not in time.

He got squirted right in the back. Within seconds, he was paralyzed too.

We all lay on the floor, none of us able to do anything other than blink and breathe and swear.

The insect-man stepped over our bodies and knocked down the door into the healer’s area.

Through the open door, I could see the red curtain partitions that separated each small room from each other. The partitioned rooms contained a bed for a patient and some magical supplies for the healers to use.

The insect-man began to tear down the curtains, knocking over every empty bed it encountered.

What the hell was it doing? It looked almost as if it was looking for something. Or someone. But what could it possibly—

Then it yanked down a curtain, and the bed wasn’t empty. Estelle was lying there, passed out, just like she had been ever since she crawled out of a breach in the library. Estelle was Reid’s twin sister. She’d crossed into the other world and something had been done to her there, but no one knew what.

The insect-man grabbed Estelle with its two bottom pinchers. It held her aloft and it thrust its top pinchers into her temples.

Reid let out a hoarse cry.

Estelle’s eyes flew open. Her body began to shake, as if she was having some kind of seizure.

CHAPTER TWO

It went on an on.

Estelle twitched and jerked, held aloft by the creature, for what felt like eons.

Through all of it, Reid was screaming and shouting, calling the creature names, begging for it to stop, crying Estelle’s name over and over.

I kept trying to move, but I couldn’t. I could see that Reid was trying too.

None of us were having any luck.

I didn’t know what to do. Why was that thing here and what was it doing to Estelle?

The other thing that I couldn’t figure is where the hell the healer mage was. If she was actually in the wing, she would have heard the screaming. So, I had to figure that she wasn’t there.

Or maybe she was a big coward and was hiding.

Or maybe she thought that she needed to stay safe so that she could treat the wounded. I don’t know.

But we sure as hell weren’t getting any help here.

Reid’s voice started to falter. He’d been yelling at the top of his lungs for a long time. He was hoarse. He went quiet, glaring at the ceiling, tears running down into his ears.

He shut his eyes.

We’re going to figure this out, Reid, I said. Hang in there.

Suddenly, he moved. He rolled over onto his side.

Reid? I said.

I tried to move too, but I was still paralyzed.

Reid’s eyes were squeezed shut as if he was concentrating with all his might. He managed to roll onto his stomach, and he lay there, breathing hard.