Rogan’s face rises to the surface of my mind, as does the way I felt the first time I set eyes on him. He told me that he was pulled into my orbit, but really I think the opposite is true. I was sucked in by his gravitational pull from the get go, I just didn’t know I was a goner until that morning in the kitchen when his lips touched mine and we becamemore, whether either one of us wanted to admit it or not.
Jamie keeps talking, but I’m not hearing her anymore. I don’t need to listen to how she hunted me, how the hex that almost killed Tad was her handy work, or how close I came to being in these cells long before now. Instead, I focus on the plan. I focus on the fact that this murderous bitch is in my cell. She’s right, I do have the same fire in my eyes as my Grammy Ruby, but my body...is just fucking fine.
Inconspicuously, I reach under me and wrap a fist around the sharp piece of skull I’m lying on. Jamie’s still talking, and I can feel that she’s still close. I don’t turn my head to gauge exactly where though, I’ll have to do this blind so I don’t tip her off.
“Oh, this is going to be beautiful. First, I play with Elon, and then it’ll be you and me Queen Osseous,” she exclaims eagerly.
Yeah? Play with this, you stupid cunt.
Not wanting to waste a second more, I slam my hand back and up. I feel the shard of bone sinking into her, and I can only hope that I got her in the neck and I can end all of this quicker than it began. But when I look back, I discover that it’s not in her throat, I’ve shoved the bone into her eye. Before she can so much as scream, I slam her with a surge of power. I want to crush her bones and boil her blood until there’s nothing of her left. Magic collides with her so hard that a thundering crack explodes all around me. Jamie screams as my magic begins to eviscerate her, but the force of it throws her out of my cell and slams her into the opposing wall.
As soon as my pulse of magic hits the demon engravings, it’s torn away from Jamie and shoved back at me in a searing flash of pain. It hurts, every cell feels as though it’s on fire, but I won’t bow down to it anymore. I can force myself to endure this.
Jamie collapses on top of the stacked dirty pews, and I can’t tell if she’s out or too hurt to move. As much as I want to, I can’t let myself believe that she’s dead yet, despite everything inside of me hoping it was that easy. I try to stride over to her, but when I attempt to step past the symbols in the ground, I’m thrown back and viciously hammered with pain just like the first time I tried to cross them. I grit my teeth through it, knowing it won’t last. I taste blood from where I’ve accidentally clamped down on my tongue, and I work to unclench my jaw before I bite anything off.
The agony subsides, and I turn to see Jamie moving shakily. Her arm is definitely broken and hangs misshapen at her side. Blood spills from the bone still lodged in her eye socket, and she screams and whimpers as she tries to get to her feet.
I growl in frustration, livid with myself for not doing more damage. I hit her too hard and with too much power. Instead of the magic sinking into her like it should have, it blew her out of my cell where the fucking markings tore the magic from her. I test my theory by shoving another pulse of magic out, and sure enough, the barrier all around me stops it from going anywhere.
Fuck!
I just screwed up the best shot I’m probably going to get. She won’t come back in my cell again, she won’t risk me hitting my mark next time. What’s worse is that this damage probably won’t even last. A couple more demon marks and she’ll be right as rain. Fury builds inside of me, and I just want to scream and rage and bring the walls of this nightmare down all around me.
“You stupid whore!” Jamie bellows, enraged, her cruel teal eye filled with fire and vitriol. She spits out a demonic word I’m sure meant to bring me to heel, but instead of her borrowed magic coming for me, she starts screaming in agony and drops to the ground.
I stare at her like some wild animal, biding my time until I can get close enough again to take a swipe. She whimpers and shakily pushes up from the ground with her good hand.
“Come here, Jamie, let me fix that for you,” I taunt, my predatory gaze homed on the wrong angles of her arm. “Or are you too much of a little bitch to go head-to-head with one of us?” I goad, hoping I can piss her off enough to make another mistake. “Come here, let me show you what a Bone Witch is really capable of.”
She glares daggers at me as she finally gets to her feet.
“How many times can one useless piece of shit sell their soul, huh, Jamie?” I demand. “Aren’t they getting tired of bankrolling nothing but a cum dumpster?” I yell ruthlessly, and she grows more and more livid. “Did you tell your demon that you’d be all powerful one day? That your soul would be worth the trouble? Bet they’re rethinking that useless trade, probably laughing their asses off as they watch you fuck up over and over again and come begging for them to fix it.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” she snarls at me, but wisely she doesn’t close the distance between us. “You think you’re such hot shit, but who’s in the cage, Osteomancer? Who put you there?” she screams at me.
“Your demon did,” I scream back. “This isn’t you,” I bark at her as I gesture to the ground. “None of this is your magic. You sold yourself for it, who’s the fucking whore here? It sure as hell isn’t me, you stupid bitch. You think you can take what isn’t yours? Well, fuck you. I’d sooner die than give you what you don’t deserve.”
Jamie laughs, and it bounces around the inside of the church like out of tune bells. “Be a selfish bitch. Please take yourself out. I’d love nothing more than to hunt down the rest of your fucking family and bleed them all until I get what I’m owed.”
I growl with frustration and slam my hands against the barrier separating us. Pain refracts through my body, but I stand in place, staring at Jamie, a vow to kill her alight in my unwavering gaze.
Her smile doesn’t falter. Despite her injuries and the blood dripping steadily down her face, the insanity flowing in her veins makes her certain she’s going to win. I guess we’ll find out soon which one of us is right.
Jamie struggles to make her way to the dais. I watch her shove the gold bowl and bloody knife in the bag and then, one by one, limp to every candle to blow them out. I can tell the pain she’s in is excruciating, but it doesn’t make me any less trapped here or feel any better. She tries to use an incantation, but it only ends up in her screams of agony as the magic somehow works against her.
I watch her every move and wonder if it has something to do with her marks, like maybe they’re acting like the engravings that won’t let us tap into our magic. She tries three more times, and the last screamed word causes a blue fire to erupt all over Brianne’s lifeless body. In less than a minute, the remains of the Osteomancer and all of the blood and parts on the altar turn to ash.
The smell is nauseating, and I’m certain it will haunt my nightmares if I ever make it out of here. I bring the neck of my shirt to cover my nose and mouth to help dilute the smell, and when I look over at Elon, he’s back to leaning against the wall, with his shirt wrapped around his face too.
Jamie does nothing to fix her wounds, she doesn’t even try to pull the owl bone out of her socket. She does wrap a dirty handkerchief around it to soak up the blood, and I silently hope she’ll get an infection and die from it in the next twenty-four hours. I don’t hold my breath that Elon and I will get that lucky though. I silently observe the mad woman as she hobbles around until the altar is free of the atrocities committed on it, and Jamie’s bag is once again packed. She drags it behind her as she limps out of the church, the double doors left open as she goes. I exhale a frustrated and anxious breath. Tomorrow, it will be Elon and me on that altar, and as much as I’d like to think I can overpower this psycho, I can’t be stupid and underestimate her. I need to come up with some way to stop or stall her. It’s time to stop messing around and do what it takes to survive.
Whateverit takes to survive.
15
Imirror Elon, sitting back against the stone wall, one leg up, with an elbow resting on my knee. Neither one of us has said a word to each other. What can we say?
Sure hope we don’t die tomorrow.
