The Price Guide to the Occult(44)

Before Nor could ask why they were there, she looked down to see blood covering her arms. She tried to wipe it away and find the source, but it was thick as paint.

“I told you you’d never find love if you’re always covered in blood,” Savvy said.

Nor screamed for help, and the other two watched indifferently as Nor’s blood continued to drip from her arms onto the floor and spread.

The dream changed.

Nor was now standing in the Witching Hour. The shop was empty and dark. The waning light of the moon spilled through a window streaked with dirt and grime and what looked like bird shit.

She swept her arm along one shelf after another and sent candles, crystals, and row after row of tiny deities — Baphomet and Hecate, the Mother Goddess and Cernunnos, the horned one — crashing to the ground. She waded through the broken glass and porcelain, grinding tiny divine arms and legs into dust with the sharp points of her stiletto heels.

There was movement from the back of the shop, and a putrid stench filled the air. Nor turned and instantly regretted it.

Once upon a time, Madge had been a truly beautiful woman. Her skin now sagged like melted candle wax. Her face resembled a jack-o’-lantern left to rot in the rain. A lattice of black scabs crisscrossed her arms and legs. Her tattoos oozed with infection.

“I told you,” the creature with Madge’s voice said. “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

“How can I be sure that you aren’t lying to me?”

“I wouldn’t!” Madge gasped. “Not to you. Not about this.” Madge glanced at Nor’s arm. Where once there had been a tattoo was only a gruesome wound in the shape of a fern.

The memory of a dried-up fern lying on Judd’s table flashed across Nor’s mind. And then something else: a convention hall in Chicago packed with thousands of people, millions more watching on a live stream. She’d plucked an eager young man from the audience. The spell he’d requested had been a simple transmutation spell: relatively easy to cast, but still impressive.

The spell hadn’t worked. The man had remained unaltered. He was quickly escorted from the stage while she stormed offstage, awash in fury and humiliation. She could hear doubt rising from the audience. She could see it in the eyes of those waiting for her backstage.

There hadn’t been any reason for the spell to fail. The power of Bliss Sweeney’s sacrifice should have still coursed through her veins, but even the wounds she’d later carved into Catriona’s arms had done nothing but bolster her anger. She couldn’t cast the Revulsion Curse, the Wish-Granting Charm, or even Void of Reason, a spell aided by opium seeds. The only way she could conjure the Mouthful of Ashes jinx was to throw the ashes into the person’s mouth herself. Most alarmingly, even the spell she’d cast over Quinn was becoming more difficult to maintain. It was all she could do to keep that spell fed.

With enough spilled blood, there shouldn’t have been any spell she couldn’t cast, no rapacious desire she couldn’t fulfill. Something had happened. Something that had started with the girl and that vanquished fern. Blood could ooze from the walls or bubble up from the floor, and she suspected there would be no effect. And it filled Nor with cold desperation.

“You’ve always been quite fond of the girl, haven’t you?” Nor asked in her mother’s voice. “And even as a little girl, she was fond of you.”

“Th-that’s true,” Madge stammered.

“And yet she hasn’t told you where she’s hiding.” Nor clucked her tongue. “Be honest with me. You don’t want me to know, do you?”

Madge blinked at her nervously. “What do you mean?”

“You were hoping that maybe I would just let her go? That I would move on. Didn’t you?”

Madge lowered her head in shame. “I will find her for you,” she promised between sobs.

“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option.” Tattoos unfurled from Nor’s skin. They attacked like cobras. Thorns, venomous and sharp as teeth, struck at Madge’s throat.

Nor left the Witching Hour alone, branding the staircase with bloody footprints.

Nor woke with a start, her pulse racing. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the bloody footprints she’d made on the stairs of the Witching Hour.

Nor swallowed hard. She reached for her phone and dialed Madge. She got her voice mail.

Daylight poured into the room through the basement windows. She could hear car doors slamming outside, the crunch of tires against gravel, and the sound of Pike and Gage arguing.

“You heard what Dauphine said, cuz,” Pike was saying.

“Dauphine’s being unreasonable,” Gage shot back.

Nor ascended the stairs. Standing with Pike and Gage were Sena Crowe and Charlie. “What’s going on?” she asked Charlie quietly.

“My brothers are going off island for a bit,” Charlie explained.

“And Gage wants to go, but they won’t let him?”

“Right. He’s taking the news well, don’t you think?” Charlie said.

“You make a good point,” Pike said to Gage. “If you and Charlie really want to come with us —”

“Really?” Charlie exclaimed.

Pike laughed. “Hell no!” He looked at Sena Crowe. “Can you imagine explaining that one to Dauphine?”