Maywitch
Chapter 36: Hunter and Prey
Kay and Wyvern stared at each other, trying to guess the other’s next move – or, at least, that’s what she told herself they were doing. In reality, the adrenaline that had propelled her through the battle up until now had begun to waver, and she was too terrified to move.
The plan that she had told Nadia about hinged on being able to buy time. Kay knew that if she could lower her shield and dodge Wyvern long enough to cast a fire spell, she could have the upper hand. She knew she possessed the brute force necessary, but the speed was another issue entirely.
Plus, if he kept up the fight for too long, the spell ingredients she carried would run dry, their power emptied by the continuous use of fire and shield spells. Her options could diminish in a matter of minutes.
Smoke was filling the air, and the trees several feet behind Wyvern had begun to be consumed by flames, changing the usable landscape entirely. Kay could hear yelling far to the east and assumed that Kyle, Nina or another demon had targeted the main Maywitch forces.
Just as she thought she should run and dive for cover and drop her shield long enough to cast a fire spell, Wyvern pivoted and shot a flurry of barbs the size of her forearm into the bushes twenty feet to his left. There was a blood-curdling scream, and a figure fell forward, its body mangled and spotted with blood as it protruded halfway from the bushes. The shock of salt-and-pepper hair falling across its face was all Kay needed to see to know that it was Wojtec.
He must’ve been trying to back Kay up with an ambush, she thought as she skittered to the right and began to run through the woods. She had to use the opportunity to buy some time, or else she would be next. She willed herself to keep moving, despite the guilt that urged her to go check on him and try to keep him alive. Words to a fire spell fell through her lips between her gasps for breath, but she wasn’t sure if it would be enough.
The heavy snapping of twigs in her wake that Wyvern was hot on her tail. She uttered the last few words to the spell just as she heard a raspy snarl somewhere close behind her.
She turned halfway before realizing that he had launched himself into the air and was lunging straight at her. He was barely three feet away now and would be on her in less than a second. His orange eyes narrowed as he bared his fangs and swung a clawed hand at her.
A breeze whipped her hair into her face, and she panicked as she realized she couldn’t even see her opponent, let alone aim her flames at him. Before she could even lash out and attempt to defend herself, a massive gust of wind came from the same direction as the initial breeze. She was knocked sideways and slammed hard against the ground just as Wyvern let out a howl of rage far to her left.
Confused, she whipped her hair out of her face just in time to see Wyvern hit a tree root twenty feet away, sending leaves and dirt airborne. She looked around for the source of the attack, worried that it might have been Nina or Kyle taking advantage of Wyvern’s distraction to take him out before turning on Kay.
To her right, barely visible through the shadows and shrubs, stood a petite woman covered in sweat and grime. Her tattered tank top had dirt – or maybe burn marks – all over the front and sides. Her long hair clung to her back and shoulders in messy chunks, but it was unmistakably the same auburn as Kay’s.
The emerald green of her shield was the same, too.
“I haven’t slept in two days and now I have to deal with your shit?” the woman yelled. “If you’re one of Nina’s, lemme know where she is so I can kick her ass!”
Wyvern roared and fired a volley of barbs at the woman, who braced her shaking legs as they hit her shield. “Kay, get up! We have to finish this!” she yelled.
“Mom? Where did you come from?” Kay said, her voice shaking.
Bailey crouched as Wyvern spread his wings a few feet, hinting that he was about to move again. “Worry about him first!”
Though the arm she had fallen on throbbed angrily, Kay lurched to her feet and cast her fire spell toward Wyvern. He darted out of the way, but wasn’t quite fast enough to get his massive left wing clear of the river of fire. He hissed and ran through the shrubbery to another clearing fifty feet away.
Bailey backed away from the charred remains of the foliage Kay had burned. “You alright?” she asked as she took several shaky steps toward Kay.
Kay held up a hand. “How do I know it’s really you and that you’re not possessed?”
There was an echoing silence before Bailey raised her hands. “You’ve gotten good, Kay. Remember that time you were six and we were locked out of the house for over an hour? When you thought I wasn’t looking, you went to the neighbor’s garden and pulled your shorts down and—”
“Okay, okay!” Kay hissed. “Fine! It’s you!”
“There we go, then.” Bailey turned halfway, keeping an eye on the clearing Wyvern had run toward while she walked toward Kay. “Seriously, are you okay?”
“Mostly.” Kay could feel cuts and bruises from her ankles to her shoulders, and something had even managed to scratch her face. Sweat stung every scrape and scratch. Her left shoulder felt as if it had collided with a brick wall. She even suspected she had gotten dirt down the back of her tank top during her latest tumble.
Somehow, though, none of that mattered as much as the fact that her mother was standing in front of her. It certainly wasn’t much of a reunion, but after two years, it was far better than nothing.
“We don’t have much time until he finishes licking his wounds and circles back,” Bailey said softly. “I busted free of Nina’s posse and managed to get a message to Maywitch, but they’re being useless right now. I barely have any ingredients on me, so I’m running on fumes. Next round, my shield will probably fail. What are his powers?”
Kay bit her lip as she ran a hand over the vial of wormwood in her pocket. She wanted to ask why Maywitch was being ‘useless,’ but knew that if she didn’t focus on the task at hand, the consequences could make the answer moot. “Those barbs, I guess, and his wings stretch really far, so be careful—”
“Elemental, Kay. What’s his element?”
“Wind, maybe?” Kay said, crossing her arms. “They still haven’t trained me worth shit – oops, sorry for swearing.”
Bailey laughed, but it quickly turned into a cough in the harsh smoke blowing through the woods. “Did he use wind at some point?”
“Earlier, yeah, but only briefly.”
“Ah. Is this the one they call Wyvern?”
Kay frowned. “How did you know that?”
“I did research for Maywitch. The stuff I know would make your head spin,” Bailey said, her last sentence laced with a smile. “How often has he used wind or those barbs?”
“The barbs fly out often – once every thirty seconds or so, maybe? He hardly uses the gusts of wind, though.”
Bailey met her eyes for a long moment before staring toward the clearing again. “Shield me while I work on a trap spell. It’s short-range, and I’ve never used it before, but I have the ingredients since there’s plenty of hydrangea in these woods.”
Kay shook her head. Trying to use a short-range spell on Wyvern could end badly – and her mother knew that. “But—”
“Don’t argue! Start running toward that clearing—”
“Holly!”
It was Nadia’s voice, distant and strained. Kay had no idea what that desperate cry meant, but she had to assume the worst. Nadia needed help. If the demons Nadia summoned were being defeated, then there was no way she could stand long against Nina.
“We better hurry up,” Bailey said, pulling a vial of something from her pocket. “Ready?”
“So I start running, and then when you’re ready, will you need me to lower the shield—”
“No, just hold stop and still. Get moving!”
Kay sucked in a breath before rattling off the words to her shield spell and darting into the woods, taking care to avoid the bits of smoldering debris among the foliage.
The shouting and the roar of heli
copters to the east had died down; only the sound of their footsteps and Bailey’s muttered Latin phrases punctuated the sound of footsteps through the brush. Ahead of her, Kay saw a shadow flit across the clearing, and wondered if they were too late to catch Wyvern.
She slowed, and Bailey did as well, interrupting her Latin to say: “Don’t enter the clearing unless you have a visual on him.”
“Got it,” Kay said. She didn’t need an explanation. If he was already airborne, entering the clearing would give him an easy shot at them.
Something snapped several feet ahead, and she saw Wyvern rise from the brush, but he made no attempt to charge at them. Kay slowed, unsure of whether her mother needed more time to complete the spell. She felt a hand on her back, pushing her forward, and she gritted her teeth and obeyed.
Wyvern’s pale gray face contorted as he launched himself in the air, gaining considerable height despite his damaged wing. Kay’s heart leapt into her throat, and she stopped and angled her shield upward slightly, bracing her legs as well as she could.
After floating in the air for a second, though, Wyvern seemed to change his mind. He dropped back down to the ground and rushed at Kay, sending sharp pain surging through her arms as he collided with her shield. She could feel the intensity of the magic in her hands fading like waves at low tide. She was running out of power and time, and he knew it.
There was an intense surge of something – magic, she thought – behind her, making her hairs stand on end. She heard the soft crunch of leaves and twigs, and the power she felt began to move to her right. She knew it had to be her mother.
After hearing a few more rapid, crunching footsteps, Kay spotted her mother out of the corner of her right eye. There was an eerie yellow glow between Bailey’s fingers. As a few more words of Latin poured out of her lips, the glow intensified sharply, forcing Kay to squint.
Wyvern pivoted a few degrees to his right, but Kay didn’t react to his subtle motion before it was too late. His left wing shot out past the edge of her shield and hit Bailey with the force of a missile, sending her flying backward with a shriek and a spray of blood.