And I remember her from the Union. “Sally?” She doesn’t react, but it’s her, the girl who was so eager to be part of our cohort of witches. “Sally, get out of here! He has a gun!”
She doesn’t react, her face expressionless. Sally takes two more steps closer to me, and O’Connor lets her by. Her hair seems disheveled, but if she were kidnapped like me, then why isn’t she bound up?Unless…
“Ooh, doggy, the lizard freakdoestalk.” O’Connor giggles in glee, and I’m so confused that I don’t have time to pay attention to him. Sally gets closer, and the fear grows in my gut.
“Gordy, right?” she asks in a gentle voice. I’m frozen still, and the girl gets closer. She touches my bound-up wrist, and I pray she’s about to release me. “I am sorry. About all of this.”
“How much do you think we can get for him? The science world’s gotta have lots of cash for a real-life King Koopa like him!” O’Connor’s words are drowned out by my attention on Sally. She studies me with an odd mixture of sorrow and darkness.
Once she’s crowded my space, she leans into my wrist. In the next moment, she’s…sniffing me? “Okay, that’s one way to appraise the monster,” O’Connor remarks. I’m just as confusedas he is, but fear has me tongue-tied.What is going on?In an instant, the girl reveals long fangs, and then?
“AHH!” I bellow. Sally’s chomping on my wrist. The pain feels like nails driven directly into my arm.
“Hey, what the hell are you doin’?” O’Connor asks. He steps forward, but all my focus is on the woman crowding my space, literally feeding off of me. I struggle to get free, but I’m not going anywhere. Sally is going full vampire on me.
She’s the threat. The one who stole Declan’s magic. And now I’m her victim.
“Lady, what is your deal?”
Sally briefly turns to O’Connor and yells, “Get out!”
“Wh-what?” he sputters. Meanwhile, I’m getting dizzy, but I try to focus on what they’re saying.
“Leave, O’Connor! I already paid you to kidnap him!” she says in an almost feral tone. “I gave you all the magical tools to bind him up, and now our deal is complete!” She bites my wrist again, and I grunt.
“Hey, whoa, what? We were gonna sell this lizard freak to make billions!”
After pulling off me, she turns to him and says, “I said get out!”
“What? No!” He raises the pistol. “You one of them, aren’t ya? A freak of nature.”
Sally lets me go and strides right up to him. After clapping her hands, a wave of red arcana pulses out from within her. O’Connor is knocked back, dropping his pistol and knife. I watch in horror as she steps toward him. With a wave of her wrist, the gun and knife float in the air, pulled to her by strands of red energy.
“Witches. Aren’t. Freaks.” With that, her red energy turns to fire and blazes in a circle around the gun and knife. She melts themetal, and it drips to the ground. “You have one last chance to leave here and never return, O’Connor!”
He stares at her in horror, then scrambles to his feet. “Fucking bitch!” he shouts as he runs up the stairs.
With that, I’m alone with Sally again. The woman with fangs who apparently fed off me.
“You…you tried to get into Boysen House,” I say. My speech is slurring, and I feel like I’m inebriated.
She wipes her mouth of my blood using her wrist. “The Boysen House witches are weak, but together they are strong. And I didn’t dare go after the powerful Jade Lion.”
My only relief is knowing my loved ones are safe, for now. “You…did this to Declan.”
“He was nothing. Less than an appetizer,” she says with derision. “But now I have one of the Four Guardians. The Ruby Turtle. Again, I am sorry about this.”
As the room spins, I try to keep my wits. “They’ll come looking for me.”
“That’s what my spell-dampening runes are for.” She steps closer and taps her foot on the floor. Even in the dark, I notice some etchings on the ground?that would explain why my magic has gone AWOL. “All I needed was a moment when you were alone and had less magic to resist my knock-out gaseous potion. And now, you’re here.”
Shit, this is what I get for wearing a magic dampener necklace. “Then, kill me. Just do it?”
“I would never kill you!”
What? She, once again, crowds my space and bites into my wrist. “Agh!” The pain is searing, and I feel my consciousness slipping away. When she lets go, she studies me with serious intent.
Leaning forward, she looks right at me as the room goes blurry and dark. “None of this is ideal, but you have tounderstand how desperate I am. I need to feed. Until I can cure myself of this, you will satisfy my hunger.” Those are the last words I hear before blanking out.
