Prelude to a Witch, Amanda Lee [ebook reader web txt] 📗

And that’s when the final piece slipped into place. “Paisley remembered, too.”

“Too? Who else remembers? Am I missing something?” He sounded far too intrigued for my comfort.

“That doesn’t matter. What did Paisley say to you?”

“You stripped her powers, stole what was hers. We had that in common.”

“That magic was never hers. She couldn’t wield it properly.”

“I saw that from the start. She, however, didn’t want to hear it. It was much easier to fuel her paranoid delusions and tell her what she wanted to hear than get her to see the truth.”

“You started hanging out with them from the moment you arrived.” I thought back to the night Aunt Tillie and I had glamoured ourselves to visit the party spot behind the Dragonfly and stumbled across Brian. “You were grooming them from the start.”

“An interesting choice of words – grooming.”

My stomach heaved. “You’re the person Paisley was seeing. Her friends said it was a secret, but she couldn’t stop herself from bragging. It was you.”

“And that’s why she had to go. Truly. She refused to keep her mouth shut. She prattled on and on about how she wanted to get revenge against you. I preferred when I thought I could use all four girls. In the end, only Paisley turned out to be truly helpful. Even when I snuffed out the light in her eyes and told her she would be sustaining me for weeks, she was still helpful.”

I thought I might throw up. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m a survivor.”

“Tell me about the other shades.”

“They’re not my doing. I’m here on a specific mission. I promised Brian when he surrendered his body to me. I plan to carry out that promise.” He pressed as close to the barrier as he could and leered directly at me, proving he knew where I was the entire time. “I hear witch blood is delicious.”

I debated trying to take him out now. I didn’t want to put the populace at risk if I ran away and he followed. I’d never dealt with anything like him. Rather than risk him fueling on Winchester blood, I decided to retreat and gather my witchy forces.

“I think you’ll have to go without tonight.” I stepped out into the hallway. “Your time here is done.”

“You’re not as powerful as you think.”

That made me laugh. The shade was limited. He only knew what Brian knew, and that was precious little. “You keep telling yourself that. Our next meeting will be all the sweeter because of it.” I started down the hallway. There was another door at the far end of the building and I planned to escape through it and rendezvous with Landon at the police station. After that, we would call in the reinforcements.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Brian called to my back. “We’re not done.”

“Oh, we’re done.” I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder when I reached the door. “The next time we meet, you’ll be dying. You might want to start running now.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Then you’re dumber than you look.” I pushed open the door, thinking I had a clear escape, and then my heart lodged in my throat when another face appeared directly in front of me.

“Hello, Bay.” Rosemary stepped through the opening, her eyes lit with green fire as her fingers extended. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Before I could respond, she jolted me with a burst of magic I recognized from when the shades attacked at the inn. I flew back, slamming into the wall, and then began to slip to the floor as my vision wobbled.

“We have some things to discuss,” she said brightly.

28

Twenty-Eight

The blow hurt, but not enough to incapacitate me. I scrambled so my back was against the wall so as not to worry about being attacked from behind, and murdered Rosemary with a death glare.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Rosemary’s lips curved into a smirk. “I don’t know, Bay. Why aren’t you surprised?”

“I’ve known you were evil since we were kids.”

Rosemary hunkered down on an even level with me. “Rosemary was never evil. She just wanted to be included in all your wacky Winchester games. Willa poisoned her mind. Are you really saying you didn’t know that?”

I was jittery as I regarded her. “You’re not Rosemary.” It was a statement, not a question. Now, looking into the depths of her glowing eyes, it was obvious Rosemary had fled. What had taken over her body was something else entirely.

“No, I’m not Rosemary.” She let out an evil laugh and then stood, her gaze going to the other end of the hallway, where Brian paced and cursed my existence. “I don’t suppose you can drop whatever that ... thing ... is, can you?”

“I don’t suppose so.” She had to be crazy if she thought I would put myself at that sort of disadvantage.

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” She dusted off her hands and shot me a pitying look. “I wanted to take you out anyway.”

I wasn’t afraid to die. Sure, it wasn’t on my list of things to do in the next fifty years, but I didn’t fear the other side. I wasn’t going to allow her to kill me without a fight. “Who are you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

“I’m ... more than one thing,” she replied. “I’m beyond anything you can imagine.”

I snorted. “That sounds like something Aunt Tillie would say.”

“Yes, well, she’s an impressive specimen. Always has been. But age has worn her down. The most fearsome witch in the Midwest is now a clown who spends all her time dishing out petty revenge to people beneath her.”

“I think she likes it.”

“Which speaks to her mental state.” Rosemary scuffed her shoe against the floor and then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She kept the balance of power here off center for decades. It’s her age that allowed for this.”

I was taken aback. “What does that mean?”

“I was