A Witch's Feast (3 page)

As the pair lowered their pikes into a fighting stance, Tobias flicked the athame in a figure-eight pattern to charge it. His hair stood on end as the blade ignited the air with its aura.
 

The fat king swung his pike, and his companion followed suit. But before they could build momentum, a stream of orange light crackled out of Tobias’s blade, knocking the Harvesters to the floor, pikes clanging. Tobias lunged forward, just as the ragged heron leapt up with surprising speed.
 

Tobias flicked the athame, but the heron grabbed his arm, thwarting the attack, and punched him in the jaw with his other hand.

 
Dizzying pain shot through Tobias’s head. His vision blurred, and he took another blow to his temple before he could get his bearings. For one so scrawny, he fought with unexpected strength. Tobias staggered back, trying to focus.
Eden. I must do this for Eden.

His vision sharpened. The heron was reaching for his pike again, and Tobias rushed him. He knocked the Harvester to the ground, pinning him to the wooden floor with his knees. He pressed his blade to the man’s throat. “Where is Jack?” His voice was a harsh whisper. “Where is Rawhed?”

The man’s eyes widened. “I don’t know. Who are you?”

The fat one was regaining consciousness, grasping for his pike. Tobias smashed his elbow into the heron’s temple, knocking him out. Better to handle one at a time. He rolled to the side, dodging as the fat king’s pike seared the air with green light where his head had been a moment before. “Tell me where Jack is!” shouted Tobias, directing another charge at his opponent.
 

This time, the Harvester blocked it with his pike. “Why are you so eager to know? You’re a witch-boy from Maremount, aren’t you?” The fat king prowled toward Tobias’s hovering athame, lifting the pike for an overhead swing.

“
Philosopher.”
Land your blows when your opponent gets ready to strike.
Tobias shifted forward, jabbing for the man’s ribs, but only nicked the Harvester’s side. The king swung his pike in a wide arc, but Tobias dodged. Rage boiled in his chest. Jack had murdered the girl he loved, and had nearly hanged Fiona.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he growled, flicking the athame.

“I think you should know—there are more of us coming.”

That’s not good.

A bolt from the athame seared the room, singeing the Harvester’s sleeve as he tried to block it with his pike.
 

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway outside. Tobias’s mouth went dry, and his head swung to the door. Four large Harvesters crowded the entrance. To his left the scrawny heron moaned, regaining consciousness. He edged toward the bedroom, holding the athame defensively as the men poured into the room, all glaring at him.
 

Tobias leapt back, landing in Jack’s bedroom and slamming the door. He clicked the lock. That would buy him a few seconds while he rushed to the other side of the wardrobe. It took all his strength, but with a grunt, he toppled the wardrobe across the doorframe, smashing the floor where it landed.

Beads of sweat sprung up on his forehead. What exactly was his endgame here? He was no match for six Harvesters on his own. He could transform into a crow, but the window’s iron bars were too narrowly spaced. As Jack’s men hacked away at the door, Tobias retreated to the bathroom, sinking to the cold tiles. After taking a deep breath, he chanted Queen Boudicca’s Inferno
,
calling up a tiny lick of flame on the bathroom floor. The cracking sound of the splintering bedroom door echoed though the room.
 

With a trembling hand, he held the athame’s tip to the flame, and it began glow. As a spearhead pierced the bathroom door, he yanked down his shirt collar and pressed the hot blade into his skin.

She stared out the window as the van edged into the traffic in a cacophony of honking horns. Her hands gripped the seat in front of her. What was Tobias doing?
 

Alan turned to her. “Is he coming or what?” His voice was uncharacteristically sharp.
 

Mariana scowled. “He’s probably hunting for revenge. Typical man.”

Fiona scanned the rainy streets outside. “He’s hardly said a word in the past few days.”
 

Alan drummed his fingers on his thighs. “I’m about to lose my mind.”

Traffic edged forward, and the van whined as it rolled toward a traffic light. Ahead of them, cars began to turn, but a red light halted their progress.
 

Fiona unbuckled her seatbelt. “I’m going to stay.”

Munroe flashed her a glare. “What is
wrong
with you?”

A dull, thumping noise came from the van’s door, and Fiona caught a glimpse of dark hair through the smudged glass.

Alan lunged over an empty seat, yanking open the door. “Get in here!”
 

She exhaled.
Thank God.
 

Sopping with rain, Tobias climbed in next to Alan
,
an angry red mark on his jaw. “You might want to speed this up. There are Harvesters right behind me. Terrorists. Whatever.”

The driver’s cheeks paled. “Terrorists?” He stepped on the gas pedal, sending the van lurching through a red light.
 

A fireball thudded against the rear window, and screams filled the small space.

“They’re trying to kill us!” Connor yelled from the back.

“Drive faster!” Munroe shrieked.
 

Fiona’s breath caught in her throat. They’d been so close to safety, if only Tobias hadn’t held them up.
Thud.
Another fireball hit the side of the van, and she sank into her seat, clamping her eyes shut. The Harvesters would drag her into the Common and string a noose around her neck. Druloch clearly had it in for her.
What was it Jack had said?
—Everyone is afraid of death?

She forced herself to open her eyes. The van screeched into another intersection, swerving between lanes. Screams filled the air, and Munroe seemed to be hyperventilating. In a panic, the driver clipped a car on the right side as the van roared into a tunnel.
 

Only Tobias seemed calm. He stared out the back window. “We’re losing them.” He tilted back his head, closing his eyes.

 
Fiona inched up in her seat, peering out the window at the tunnel walls zooming past. They’d escaped the Harvesters.

She exhaled. They were out of danger, and Tobias was safe. But something didn’t feel right. His dark eyes held an unfamiliar glint, and the bruises blossoming on his face told her that he’d just been in a fight. Why wasn’t he saying anything about it?

*
 
*
 
*

Fiona jerked awake, relieved to find herself in the van, still cruising along the highway. She’d been dreaming of the boy she’d seen the Harvesters kill at Mather—the one with flaming arrows jutting from his chest, twitching on the ground.

If she could only stay around other people, she could keep these memories at bay. She could silence her thoughts. But as soon as she shut her eyes, and drifted into sleep’s solitude, the images took root in her mind.

She glanced at Tobias. He was chatting with Munroe, rattling off details about the blackbird he’d seen soaring past, and the texture of the clouds in the sky. He seemed awfully friendly with her, considering only a week ago she was holding a knife to his neck and screaming “Witch!” at him.
 

Fiona leaned against Mariana’s shoulder.
As she nuzzled her cheek against her friend’s well-worn hoodie, she tried to force herself to relax. If the Harvesters had never arrived, maybe she’d be at her mother’s kitchen table, eating beans on toast and listening to her mom prattle on about college entrance requirements and the French teacher with the drinking problem. The image calmed her nerves.

When they drove out of the storm, warm sunlight gleamed through the windshield. Alan chewed his fingernails down to ragged stubs.

She glanced at Mariana. After running out of room on her hand, Mariana had moved on to writing out the lyrics to “Girlfriend in a Coma”
on the inside of her arm, tracing over some letters so it looked like the handwriting of a mental patient. Her black nail polish was chipped after days of neglect.
 

Both of them wore old, ill-fitting clothes. At the shelter, volunteers had handed out donated clothes to the displaced students. By the time Fiona and Mariana had arrived at the front of the line, only children’s clothes were left. Fiona had squeezed into a tiny pink T-shirt with a cartoon princess simpering on the front, and her friend wore a small gray sweatshirt, unzipped over a superhero shirt. Their own clothes had burned in the fire, and their computers were now melted globs of plastic under the ashy remains of the school.
 

In an unusual burst of community spirit, the Mather student body had banded together, pooling their money to buy basic necessities while they stayed in the shelter—underwear, toothbrushes, caffeinated soda.
 

 
From the front seat, Munroe turned to face the others, her chalice pendant glimmering over her tight black sweater. “Can I get everyone’s attention?” She placed a delicate white hand on her chest. “Well, I think I can speak for us all when I say I’m relieved to be out of Boston. I’m just glad we were able to get away from the witches. Sorry, my dad keeps telling me to call them
terrorists.
” She used air quotes. “The members of Mather’s junior class have been granted clearances to stay in my family’s home, Winderbellow, until Boston is free from witches. Terrorists, whatever.” She waved her hand, and students behind Fiona clapped listlessly.
 

Munroe’s glossy lips curled into a beatific smile. “Anyway, all of your parents have signed permission forms for you to stay with us for as long as necessary. Maybe even for our entire senior year. And while we don’t ask for praise for saving everyone, we hope that some of you might
 
be interested in learning about the Sanguine Brotherhood.”
 

Fiona rolled her eyes at Mariana, who mouthed the words “No thanks” behind her hand. Neither of them had any interest in becoming a part of Munroe’s blood-drinking cult.

“Some of you, like me, barely made it out of the school building alive.” Munroe’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows creased together. “We had to climb down the trellises and run through the streets. We almost died. But I promise you that we’ll all be safe within the gates of Winderbellow. There are guards all over the house, and we have our own ways of dealing with witches.” She arched an eyebrow at Mariana. “There are new laws in place since the attacks, and anyone suspected of witchcraft may be interrogated by whatever means necessary.”

Fiona stiffened.
Maybe Tobias is onto something with his charm offensive.
 

The van bumped along a gravel path through imposing rows of ash trees, their leaves ablaze with sunlight. To the left, beyond the trees, lay a vast expanse of tobacco fields.

As they rolled forward, an enormous redbrick mansion came into view, and Fiona’s eyes widened at its grandeur. The main building was the width of an entire city block, and a wing extended from either side. White gabled windows crowned the structure on the third floor. Munroe’s home was at least as big as Mather Academy had once been.
 

Fiona caught a glimpse of Alan’s wide-eyed reaction as they approached. She couldn’t imagine her friends staring with awe as they pulled up the yellowed vinyl siding on her South Boston triple-decker.
 

The van stopped in front of the rows of white zinnia that blossomed in front of the house. A red family crest hung above the door.
Lux in tenebris lucet.
It was the Purgator motto: Light shines through the darkness.
 

“Whoa,” whispered Mariana, staring through the windshield.
 

Alan turned to Fiona, mouthing the words,
Holy shit.

In the passenger seat, Munroe unbuckled her belt, smiling. “We’re here, everyone! My mom will be waiting for us, and someone will take your bags. Just leave them in the van.” She opened her door, her smooth hair bouncing behind her as she stepped out.
 

Fiona’s muscles ached. She stretched her arms above her head and watched as Tobias glided out of the van, silent as a cat. Rising, she shuffled after him, crossing the lawn to the multi-paned glass doors.
 

Before she slipped through the entryway, she glanced at an aged gardener crouched over the zinnias, a wispy white beard covering his chin. A tall, red-flowered weed grew among the white flowers. He yanked it out with a grunt, crushing the buds in his fingers.
 

As they followed Munroe into the entrance hall, a high domed ceiling dwarfed the students. Portraits lined maroon walls, and a chandelier hung from a long brass chain. Dark, curved staircases swooped upward on either side of the hall to a balcony high above. Fiona pulled back her curls into a ponytail.
I feel like I should be wearing a ballgown and fanning myself.

Munroe beamed. “Welcome to Winderbellow. Someone will come for us.”