The Red Witch

  “I can’t believe your mother was alive during the World War. I mean, she wasn’t just alive, she was in it. She lived it.”

  “Oui. And when she… passed… ze passport came to me.” Her gaze fell to the table.

  The hesitation in her voice clanged hard against my ears. I couldn’t shake it. “Collette?” I asked.

  She made an “mm?” sound and looked up.

  “How did she die?”

  “I want to tell you,” Collette said.

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Suddenly the mood in our little corner of the bar took a turn for the grim without as much as a warning. The air felt heavier and my lungs responded by asking my brain to take longer, deeper breaths. “It was her, Amber,” she said, gravely.

  She didn’t have to clarify who “her” was. I knew. In my heart of hearts I knew. Now it was my hand that reached for Collette’s. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m so sorry.”

  Collette shook her head. “You don’t have to be. It was a long time ago. I told you zat zis witch spared none who crossed her, if she could help it. It happened on ze year ze war ended, in 1942. I was in London at ze time, hiding as per my mother’s orders. My mother had been left weak after a final engagement with a German werewolf, ze officer who had tormented so many of her friends and comrades. Linezka had been zere all along, watching, and controlling ze werewolf.”

  “Wait…” I said. Numbers started to fly around in my head but they were all jumbled up, as if someone had opened a box of numbers and was throwing them all over the place while I tried desperately to grab them. To make sense of them. But it didn’t work. Finally, I asked, “Collette… how old are you?”

  She too took a deep breath. “I will be one hundred and thirty nine zis year.”

  “I’m sorry, it sounded as if you just said you would be one hundred and thirty nine this year.”

  “I did.”

  Her answer sent me reeling. Without saying another word, I lit the Absinthe before me in the same way I had done before and poured the warm liquid into my throat. It tickled as it went down and I felt it all the way to my belly, the sensation somehow sobering me instead of inebriating me further.

  Collette, I saw, had done the same.

  “One hundred and thirty nine,” I said, “I’m not… I won’t even ask you how that’s possible. But I will ask how the hell you still manage to look so damn good.”

  Her face brightened, and her smile seemed thin the atmosphere some. Enough for us both to breathe a little easier, at least. “I should have told you sooner,” she said.

  “Told me what, exactly?”

  “About my age. About my history, about my mother.”

  I shook my head. “If there’s one thing I know about you is that you do things exactly when you mean to. Tonight, it was time. I know it was. Only…”

  “Oui?” Collette asked.

  “When we first met… I don’t know, maybe I was too overwhelmed to pick up on exactly everything you were saying, but you made it look like your Shadow…” that thing that snatched a part of her soul away and stole off into the Underworld “… you said it took off on the new moon, as in the new moon before we met.”

  Collette nodded.

  “I’ve just got the timelines mixed up. When did you become a Witch?”

  “Not until my eighteenth birthday,” she said, “Zat is when I fell into ze Underworld.”

  “And... I guess you stopped aging after that?”

  “No, I stopped aging when I bargained for the power of longevity.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “It isn’t. Longevity isn’t immortality, and the gift—as with all of my powers—comes at a price.”

  “A price?”

  She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “I was shown the manner of my death.”

  “I’m sorry, what? How—I mean, why?”

  “Because, ma cherie, zat is ze way of ze Underworld. And I would rather not speak of it. I would like to keep some secrets, and speaking of it would bring us both bad luck.”

  “Yeah… sure,” I said, and because I didn’t know what the heck to say next—I mean, what do you say to that?—, I said, “So you had that Shadow thing attached to you for over a hundred years; I guess what I’m not understanding is, why now? Why take off now?”

  That seemed like a better question to ask. And more to the point, too. I didn’t think I wanted to know the manner of Collette’s death. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to know mine. All the power in the world wasn’t worth having to live with that knowledge.

  Collette sighed. “Ze Shadow is greedy. Mine believed it could gather enough strength to kill Linezka on its own and steal her power.”

  “Could it?”

  “I could not say.”

  “It would have done me a favor if it could,” I said, a little absently. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

  “I know. I take no offence. In truth, ze Shadow could not have existed without me anymore zan I could exist without it—even if it thought otherwise. Zis is a cross all Necromancers must bear, and ze reason why we must be careful around our contact.”

  “He has one too? A Shadow?”

  “Oui. Ze Shadow iz a Necromancer’s conduit to their power. We begin our journey as Witches without a Shadow, zen ze Underworld calls us, and a Shadow finds us in the dark beneath.”

  “Are you going to teach me anymore of your magick?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh come on, you’ve already taught me how to manipulate light and dark and stuff. I want to know how to move like a shadow or turn into one the way you do.” My face bore a hungry grin from ear to ear, the face of a dog eager to play a new game. If I had a tail, it would have been thumping against the cushions.

  “Not yet. Sorceress you may be, but Necromancer you are not. We must have patience; zis magick is dangerous, and without a Shadow it could kill you to use it.”

  “Kill me? How?”

  “Ze Shadow has made a deal with ze dead and ze powers of ze Underworld to use zeir magick. It pays instead of me. Without a Shadow, ze dead would come seeking zeir payment from you.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “At least you didn’t have to make a deal with the beast for your power. That makes you different.”

  “Absolutely,” Collette said, almost defensively, “My power comes from a different place than Linezka’s. I did not seek power out; power found me.”

  I nodded. That I could believe. Frank had told me a long time ago that a Necromancer’s power came directly from the Underworld, from the dead, and Collette now confirmed it, but she went on to say that while a Necromancer is powerful, her power is only borrowed—it isn’t hers. It belongs to the dead. And the dead expect to be paid back with interest for their service, with the Shadow acting as a negotiator between both interested parties.

  I found myself wondering, then, what was worse; making a deal with the devil, or a deal with the dead?

  CHAPTER 10

  Aaron hadn’t been paying much attention to the TV; his mind was with her. She had left yesterday and he still hadn’t heard anything back. Was she ok? Had she landed? Had she gotten my message? Maybe she doesn’t have any coverage out there… that has to be it. Or maybe you just fucked it up, Cooper. Ten out of ten on that proposal, man, way to drive her off into the night.

  He sprang out of bed, paced around the bedroom, and considered his options.

  “I could call her,” he said to himself, “Fuck it. What time would it be over there? Two in the morning?”

  Amber had left him a handy google link for him to use to figure out the time differences, but he wasn’t in the mood to—nor did he think it would be safe for him to—handle a computer right now. His temper had reached simmering, and handling a computer required a level of patience Aaron wasn’t sure he could reach right now.

  Incidentally it was two in the morning in Berlin; Aaron’s natural instincts were sharp and spoke to him loudly, even if he didn’
t always know the difference between a thought driven by instinct and one driven by logic. Such was the life of a werewolf; an exercise in duality, a psychiatrist’s wet dream.

  He marched to the bed, grabbed his phone, and went for Amber’s number. But then the phone began to vibrate in his hand and Amber’s smiling face—her gorgeous pale skin, eyes like the green of a lake in the spring, hair like fire—appeared on the screen. He almost didn’t answer it out of sheer shock, but he regained himself after a moment, tapped the green button, and brought the phone to his face.

  “Amber,” he said, “Hey, listen—”

  But it wasn’t Amber on the other line. In fact, the sounds he heard weren’t even human. They were screeches and screams Aaron’s mind couldn’t process; a cacophony of discord and chaos not meant for the human ear. Not even meant for a werewolf’s ear. And when the call ended with an abrupt click the phone slipped out of Aaron’s hand and dropped to the floor.

  His eyes rolled into the back of his skull, his mouth worked inaudibly, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he spoke muted words in a language he wasn’t possibly capable of reproducing. Then his knees gave way, buckling under a weight they had been accustomed to ever since Aaron had been old enough to walk, and his torso followed, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next morning I struggled up from sleep—no, I escaped sleep—only to find myself staggering to the bathroom in a hurry and emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl in great big heaves. I had just about managed to pull my hair from out of my face when my mouth opened and last night came pouring out, but it was a close call. Too close. And as I knelt there, retching, I was vaguely aware that I had banged my knee on a hard surface on the way to the bathroom and it was hurting like all hell.

  “Oh Gods,” I said between heaves.

  When the last one came, or at least the one I thought was the last one, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and felt around for the button to flush the toilet down. Finally I found it, and a few rushing, gurgling motions later, the toilet was empty again and smelling vaguely of Lemon Fresh.

  Slowly, I hoisted myself back up to my feet, doing my best to ignore the sharp pain shooting out of my knee, and acquainted my face with cold German water from the faucet. When I looked up into the mirror, I didn’t like the face of the girl looking back at me. She was pale and haggard, disheveled and totally unfit to meet the day ahead.

  How much did you drink last night, for the Goddess’ sake!

  To my recollection we had only drunk those two cups of Absinthe… but that was just it; I couldn’t recall much else beyond that point. Another cold splash of water helped reel me in to the morning, but the pain in my knee hadn’t subsided and a new one was starting to form in my stomach. It came as a dull throb first, and then the throb grew a fist and drove it into me, again and again. I lowered myself to the cool, tiled floor and curled up into a ball on my side.

  “Amber?” Collette’s voice was a hoarse echo.

  “Here,” I managed.

  Moments later she joined me in the bathroom, and for an instant—in a moment that felt almost like the space between contractions—I found myself thinking ha, don’t look so perfect now. And I didn’t know why the thought had come only that it was there, like an unwelcomed guest who had just come barging in with no invitation.

  “Where iz ze pain?” she asked, kneeling by my side.

  “Everywhere,” I said, wincing, “Why aren’t you throwing up?”

  She took my hand, squeezed it, and gently blew into my ear. Her breath was as cold as a winter breeze and it soothed me enough to allow my wits to return, but the pain shooting through me in sharp waves was immense. It truly was everywhere. My head, my knee, my stomach, chest, and back. Nothing felt right about it

  But Collette helped me to my feet, and even though my whole body felt like it was made of jelly instead of actual bones, I was able to stand on my own.

  “Thank you,” I said, “That’s better.”

  “I’ll get you something to drink,” she said, and stepped lightly into the dark bedroom again.

  “Last night was rough. Do you remember much?”

  “Non,” she said from out of the gloom. “We drank enough to forget, but at least we made it to ze hotel.”

  “That’s impressive, for two drunk girls who can’t speak a lick of German.”

  “I suspect we had help.”

  “Oh? What makes you say that?”

  She returned to the bathroom with a box of aspirin and my phone in her hand. When I took it and flicked the screen on, the wallpaper I once had on it with a pentacle floating in the middle of a stormy sky had been replaced with a picture of me, Collette, and Daniel. We all looked pretty drunk, but happy, at least.

  “Oh Gods,” I said. “Well, at least he isn’t here right now… right? Tell me he isn’t here.”

  Collette shook her head and smiled.

  In the twenty minutes or so that followed while Collette took a shower and washed the night off her skin, a ritual I would be undertaking soon, I went through my phone and looked through the pictures I had taken. They told a story of a night that went, at least to the casual observer, uphill as time went on. Our serious conversation about the war and Collette’s mother had transformed into a pretty fun night with a bunch of travelers; Daniel, his Swedish friend whose name I didn’t catch, a small Finnish man with big ears whose name I thought may have been Yani, and even Cliff; although Cliff only made an appearance in two of the pictures.

  Another quick search through my phone’s most recently used apps assured me that, yes, I had taken Daniel’s number down. And, almost as if on cue, that part of the night came snapping back to me as if in a series of black and white photographs. Daniel had insisted we swap numbers just in case he ever found himself in the California region, despite clearly telling him that I had “a six foot two animal of a boyfriend”.

  Wait, I thought. No. I hadn’t said boyfriend; I had said fiancée. That particular photograph came up and slapped me in the face so hard it left a mark. I in the heady, unfiltered high of drunkenness I had called Aaron my fiancé, and what was that thing people said about being drunk? That you’re your truest self?

  I wanted to ask Collette. Of the two of us she seemed to have been less affected by the alcohol—when did I become a lightweight?—so maybe she could shed a little light on what had happened, but she was in the shower. And I wasn’t about to call Daniel and ask him what I had said to him about the guy I was with. I doubted he remembered, or even cared, much about the things I had said.

  When Collette stepped out of the shower wrapped in two towels—one for her head and one for her body—I offered her my phone and bid her have a look at the shenanigans we had gotten up to on our first night in Berlin while I went and had my own moment under the water. My hair was straw, the gross feeling of a long trip clung to my skin.

  The shower felt like diving into a pool on a warm summer afternoon when the water’s just right, and as the night fell into the drain the pain in my stomach and my sudden and involuntary need to retch I had felt immediately upon waking that morning vanished with it. For the first time since I left Raven’s Glen I felt like a whole, real person.

  Until I came upon Collette’s furrowed brow and grave expression.

  “What’s up?” I asked, running a towel through my wet copper hair.

  “Have you looked at zese pictures?”

  “Yeah, I have,” I said, sitting down knee first on my bed. “Why?”

  Collette’s eyes were serious. I left my hair alone for a moment and gave her my attention. She handed me the phone and watched me as I scrolled through them, but she hadn’t said anything and that alone made my hand tremble.

  “What am I looking for?” I asked, looking at a picture of Collette, Daniel, and me outside of the Absinthe bar with its green neon sign glowing happily behind us.

  “Look hard, Amber—with the eye that sees all.”


  I swallowed, took a deep breath, held it, concentrated; and then I saw it. There, in the background, there was a figure. A dark thing wreathed in shadow, twisting the light around it in weird ways. The breath escaped from my mouth in a quick puff of shock and surprise. I stared at the image more closely, but it was hard to look at.

  “Collette…” I said, “What am I looking at?”

  “I don’t know, but ze figure iz in every photo.”

  Unconsciously I started scrolling, and my flesh shrank against my bones and prickled all over. The figure was in each and every one of the pictures we had taken last night, always at the edge of the camera’s eye, the dark thing wreathed in shadow. Sometimes it was closer, so close you could almost start to see some kind of a distinguishing feature, but mostly it looked like a vaguely humanoid smudge on the photo. You wouldn’t have been wrong to believe it was an imperfection in the photo, if it didn’t appear in every photo we had taken after the Absinthe bar.

  Then I came upon the last photo we had taken last night and fear entered my heart, driving any remaining calmness out.

  I swallowed hard, and then swallowed again, and again. The third time, nothing happened; it was a movement of already tired muscles that yielded no saliva. The fear was in my throat now, and it tasted like bile. My hand clamped tightly around the phone and I pulled it closer to my face, in stark disbelief of what I was seeing.

  The picture I was looking at was a selfie Collette and I had taken before bed. The two of us looked tired and drunk, and the room was so dark that the image was grainy and pixelated in places. In the angle behind us was the window to the outside, where the faint glow of the street was coloring the dark curtain a kind of muted yellow. And there was the shape; the dark thing in the form of a man, standing by the window, watching us, his silhouette clearly visible against the yellow backdrop.

  How long had he followed us? How long did he stay, watching us as we slept? Was he still here now? The questions fired at me like machine-gun bullets with a speed matching that of my rapidly thumping heart.