Chapter One: Queens & Promises
Darkness, deep and unyielding, an empty void so thick, so encompassing there is no sense of where you end and where it begins. Time stands still in a darkness like that. Sound trickles through in waves-the shuddering whoosh of your breath, the steady bump, ba-bump of your heart. Nothing exists. You don’t exist. You become a part of the void, a blank and bare slate for it to swallow. This is where I’ve always been most at home but people fear the dark. They’re afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows. Even other witches, who can sense the monsters and ghouls of this world prefer to stay as far away from it as possible, but I’m not like other witches. I’m a Merritt and that means the Shadow World doesn’t just feel like home. It’s a part of my very being. It calls to the magick inside of me, a heady and intoxicating cry, begging me to let go of the control I’ve spent my whole life grasping onto. I feel it every time I step into this world to gather power for a spell.
“Take more,” it whispers, silkily. “You can handle more. You need more, much much more.”
It would be so easy to do, to just drop my wards and let the dark consume me. My mouth waters as I think about the rush I would get from taking in that much power. What would it feel like to be full for the first time in my life, not to have that ceaseless, gnawing hunger inside? The flow of inky black magick speeds up at my thought and I’m momentarily caught off guard by the euphoric sensation as the raw energy of the Shadow World floods into me. With far more difficulty than I’m comfortable with, I close the pinprick opening in my protective shields. The abrupt obstruction seems to anger the energy. It batters frantically against my wards for a moment before settling back into its usual state of apathy. A part of me feels disappointed and that scares me more than the knowledge that the other beings who call this place home will have sensed my presence by now.
The Shadow World isn’t really a separate world. It’s more like a tethered layer of our own. It’s the place where the dead go before crossing over but it isn’t the ghosts of this world that scare me. There are other things here too. Things which should only exist in nightmares and, even though my family is more attuned to this world than other witches, we’re not stupid. We dip in long enough to gather power and that’s it. Staying any longer than that would be suicide. Other witches gather their energy from the Sun, careful not to take too much and to return the excess. We don’t have to do that. The excess magick stays with us internally. Oddly enough, that’s one of the reasons why we have to be so careful. Magick is addictive. The more power you have available to use, the more you need to feed from your energy source. All witches carry around trace amounts of the power they’re born with. That power calls to its source. If you’re a Mage, that means the Sun. If you’re a Lamia, like me, that means the Shadow World. Since Mages have the option of returning any magick they don’t use to the Earth, they’ve never had to deal with the hunger like us. It’s one of the reasons other witches hate us. Well, that and they think we’re all evil maniacal bitches who will one day be responsible for the complete and utter annihilation of the world, but that’s mostly prejudice on their part.
I let the part of myself that’s tied to the immaterial plane of the Shadow World linger a moment longer before pulling it back and focusing on the physical. My knees stick to the cool wooden floor beneath me and tension runs through my legs and up my spine. I let my body sag, my muscles crying out in relief from the taught position. It always felt like this after a trip into the Shadow World. I opened my eyes and stood, stretching and shaking out my limbs. My body may be protesting, but my belly tingled with warmth. The hunger wasn’t gone, not completely, but I no longer felt like someone was twisting a particularly gnarly blade into my gut on repeat. I let out a contented sigh and ambled over to the supply shelf at the other end of the room. My steps echoed cheerfully along the bright pine. Damn, I felt good. Too bad I was going to have to use a good portion of the magick I’d just taken in. I shrugged. It was probably for the best. I hadn’t had this much power swirling inside of me since my first little jaunt at thirteen. That feeding had felt so good I hadn’t wanted to use any of it. I’d held onto it instead, refusing to let it go until my grandmother forced my hand. I shivered, remembering the sickness that little endeavor had caused. Two months of nausea, fevers, chills, and retching all because I had gotten greedy. Yea, it was definitely a good thing I was about to expend most of the magick.
I reached for the jars of herbs that I needed for my spell and balanced them carefully before returning to the spot I had vacated earlier. The ritual room in the basement of my office building wasn’t as fancy as the one I shared with my family back home, but it was all mine. No other magick had touched this place. The walls were painted a deep amethyst, marbled with slivers of silver veins, the same color as my magickal signature. The large, black pentagram which took up most of the floor had been painstakingly carved into the wood. My Aunt Mara and cousin Morgan had spent weeks down here with me before I opened up shop, meticulously etching out the intricate runes, knotwork, and sigils which wrapped themselves around the borders of my protective circle. I was lucky to have them. Mara and Morgan are experts in protective magick. Morgan had even snuck in a few of the more obscure sigils reserved solely for use by Council Mages. It was technically illegal for me to use them, but Aunt Mara had blended them in with expertly placed knotwork. Council laws were made to be broken anyway. At least, in our family they were.
I sank to the floor and laid the various jars out in front of me. I was in the center of the pentagram now and could feel the subtle trill of anticipation. My belly warmed and my body began to shiver slightly. Magick wants to be used. The more you have, the stronger the sensation, another reason why it’s dangerous to take too much inside of you. A spell meant to light a simple candle flame could turn into the equivalent of an explosion of TNT, or worse. I smiled to myself, then pulled out my phone. Seconds later, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” blared through its speakers. Chuckling, I returned my attention to prepping the spell, adding my voice along with the amazingly talented Freddie Mercury’s. I wasn’t anywhere near the danger zone, even though I did take a bit too much power. To prove it, I eyed the five pillared candles which stood sentry at each point of my pentagram. With a dramatic flourish, I stood and twirled, flicking my wrists out in time with the beat. The candles ignited, flames dancing merrily along in perfect synchronization. I’ll admit, I was probably way more satisfied with the effect than I needed to be but, as my grandmother always said:
“Lamias are death witches, dear, we’re not supposed to be all there.”
After a few minutes, I’ve finally finished the prep work. Just because, I wait until the last beat of the song and snap my fingers at the bowl of herbs. I smirked. Smoke began to billow lazily in the air around me as I closed my eyes, the song still playing inside my head. I inhaled the scents of sandalwood, lavender, and sage as the flames from the candles ceased their rhythmic dance to flicker languidly about the room. They cast a lazy glow onto my eyelids and I let out a contented sigh at the comfort this brought me. I grabbed for the obsidian bowl directly in front of me and began spreading its ashy contents onto my forearms. It sizzled and zinged as it touched my skin, almost burning, but the warmth didn’t last long. I breathed in, allowing myself a moment to center and focus my intent. Dipping my fingers into the chilled paste again, I lifted them to mark my forehead. The goopy substance dripped sluggishly down my wrist and arm as I traced the runic formula for the spell into my skin. My shouts grew louder, echoing in the cavernous room and my body began to undulate as the energy intensifies. The magick inside of me thrummed a staccato beat against my veins, pulsating along with the incantation until it broke free, manifesting into a whirling vaporous contrail which dashed out to lap at the edges of my salt line. The air around me thickened and the power in the circle erupted into a torrent of frenzied energy. For the second time today, my body sang in ecstasy as jolts of electricity kissed my skin.
The shaking starts. It begins as a small tremor at the tip of my toes and matures into a full-on convulsion by the time it reaches the top of my head. I don’t care though. My entire being is alight with the exhilarating rush of power. As I finish my chant, I return my fingers once more to the bowl. It’s so tempting to stop here, to do nothing and leave the magick uncontrolled, unbound. I want to stay in this moment forever, free and untamed as the effervescent force cocoons me in rapture and joy. Logically, I know all of this is an illusion. If I didn’t bend it to my will, eventually my body would crumble under the weight of the power. It would take a while and, though I may not be able to feel the physical pain of the power slowly devouring me, I’d lose my grip on reality and be more deranged than an asylum escapee popping LSD like tic tacs.
“Magick is the Queen Bee of shrewd and cunning, Kali. If you don’t make her your bitch, she will make you hers.”
The sound of my grandmother’s voice rang out in my head, pushing me to re-focused my will. I centered myself again before lifting my fingers to my mouth and opening wide. Swallowing the viscid liquid in one gulp, I shuddered involuntarily. It tasted the same as it always did, bitter and cold, like death. As it traveled down my throat, it left a burning trail in its wake. When the spell finally kicks in, my heart slows and ice fills my veins. My body turns rigid and I feel the loss of the ground as the magick lifts me into the air. Every muscle and joint lock tight and I’m paralyzed for a moment before my back slams into a powerful arc. I scream, the pain too much to hold in. This was always the worst part. It felt like I was dying, but I knew I wasn’t. Agony sliced through every nerve ending, sharp stabs which grew in ferocity with every ragged breath. My blood turned hot, then cold and, just when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, it ended.
I lay there, aloft in the cool embrace of the spell. Sweat poured off of me as I tried to take in slow, deep breaths. As usual, I failed but I couldn’t worry about my breathing because the spell wasn’t finished. I only had seconds until it took over my mind and these few moments were crucial. I pictured the face of the woman I was looking for, focusing my will and directing the magick towards her. Instantly, she appeared. The temperature in the room turned glacial, breaking my skin out in goosebumps. I squeezed my eyes a bit tighter. There was no way I was opening them. I’d made that mistake once before and it wasn’t an experience I was willing to repeat. The dead never came alone and if I lost my focus now, anything could take hold of me. Not that it would be able to do much. My physical body was protected by the circle. My mind, however, was a different story. A vision of the woman I was seeking sifted through my thoughts. Sunken eyes which were once a kind-hearted amber stared back at me. My own eyes began to water in response to the anguish in her gaze. She was too young, taken long before her time. This is why I do what I do, for people like her. Flashes of her life begin to flicker through my mind. She’d been an innocent. She’d never so much as gotten a speeding ticket while she was alive, but none of that had mattered in the end.
“Hi Alice. I’m Kali. Your father hired me to find your killer.”
I felt, more than heard her response: a twinge of sorrow at the mention of her father, followed by anger, frustration, and shame. I tried to temper my tone to one of compassion. I didn’t have to try hard.
“I know what happened. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It wasn’t your fault. You need to know that. It was his. Can you show me that night so I can make sure he never does this to anyone else?”
A question glimmered in Alice’s eyes. She wanted to know if I was capable of stopping him. I grew hot with anger in response. She was still afraid of him. Whoever he was, he had no idea what was coming for him. I let my voice grow hard.
“When I’m through with him, there’ll be nothing left for him to hurt anyone with.”
She studied me, righteous anger pouring off of her. I quieted my mind and tried to project how serious I was. After another moment, Alice nodded and I loosened my shields as she reached for me.
