Anya Bast - Witch Fury

Stefan stood in the center of the room, watching her with a patient expression on his face. Like she was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum and he was waiting for her to realize the futility of her temper.

Stymied by the door, she whirled and spotted a window. Ignoring Stefan, she stalked to it, pushing aside the heavy burgundy drapes. They appeared to be in a farmhouse in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Cornfields spread out in every direction she could see. The room they’d put her in was on the second floor and there was no convenient tree or trestle beyond the pane of glass. Not that Stefan would have let her get that far, anyway. Not that she would’ve tried it without Grosset.

She picked up a tacky porcelain figurine of a milkmaid from the table near the window, turned, and threw it at Stefan. He raised his hand and it burst into a ball of white-hot fire before it reached him, falling to the carpet and smoldering there.

She stared. “What the—”

“You have questions.”

She jerked her gaze up from the melting piece of kitsch. “Questions? Yes, I have questions. What the. .” She knew her eyes were just about saucer-sized.

“I can call fire, Sarafina.” He smiled. “I play devil to your angel, yes? Although, as you will soon see, we’re not that unalike.” Her stomach clenched. Calling fire. Fire? It had to be some kind of a trick. God! She had a headache. “You’re playing some kind of sick and twisted game with me because you know about my mother. You saw the news articles or the TV show, and now you’re doing this for kicks.” Stefan shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your mother, Sarafina. Not directly, anyway. It’s not a game we’re playing here.” She swallowed hard against her dry throat and mouth, a result of the drugs, she was sure. “What’s going on? What do you want from me? What was that crap you pumped through my body? ” “We want to help you realize your potential, Sarafina. Nothing dark or sinister. We simply want to tell you who you are. Like many of our kind, you’ve slipped through the cracks of your heritage.” Sarafina turned to face him. “What are you talking about? Tell me who I am? I know that already. Anyway, if you’re going to try and convert me to some cause, why not just ask me out for a nice cup of coffee? You have to resort to kidnapping?” “If we had asked you for coffee and revealed this truth, you would have caused quite a scene and probably called the police. That’s why we don’t do it that way.” He held out a hand. “We hope you’ll forgive the kidnapping, Sarafina, once all is revealed.” She shook her head. “I want to go home. I want my dog and I want—” “Data entry, Sarafina? No self-respecting fire witch would ever work in such a mundane field. What are you thinking? I can make your life so much more meaningful. I can provide a way for you to make lots of money so you can live the life you were meant to live.” The words fire and witch in the sentence made her vision dim. Her knees went weak and she caught herself on the back of a chair. “What did you say?” “Don’t pretend ignorance, Sarafina. Even if you don’t know, you know .” She studied him. “The only thing I know is that you’re crazy, as bat-shit crazy as my mother was.” Stefan smiled and took a step toward her. “Your mother was crazy, Sarafina. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry your father went AWOL, too, because he would have raised you correctly. As it happened, your mother, your only living blood relative, went insane and torched herself before she could teach you anything. That’s a pity for you.” Her mother, a highly religious woman, had raised Sarafina alone in a modest middle-class subdivision just west of Bowling Green. Every Sunday her mother had dragged her to church to cleanse the wickedness from Sarafina’s soul. Every day her mother had told her she was sinner, a tool of Satan. For a while Sarafina had even believed her.

Sarafina’s mother had said hell would be Sarafina’s punishment for being a witch, her watery light blue eyes narrowed in accusation. She’d pointed a thin index finger and declared, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!

Nearly every single day her mother berated her, up until the time she’d gone straight past crazy and over the cliff of truly insane. After that her mother’s berating days had come to a fiery end and Sarafina had collected a whole shiny new set of nightmares. . and a foster mother.

Stefan’s smile turned predatory. “As it turns out, it’s an advantage for us, though.” “What’s an advantage?” Her mind whirled. She couldn’t track what Stefan was talking about. He made absolutely no sense. It was like talking to her mother at the height of her illness. Sarafina would’ve said she was on Candid Camera or something if the whole situation hadn’t been so bizarre and threatening. Candid Camera did light and funny, not dangerous and crazy.

“That you’re a fire witch, of course. A powerful, untrained, completely oblivious, and vulnerable fire witch.” He smiled. “Ours for the taking, if we can convince you to work with us.” “W-witch?”

“I know it’s hard to believe. I can imagine what you’re thinking given your past and all the things I know you grew up with. It must be hard to comprehend that even though your mother was quite insane, she was also. . right.” Sarafina shook her head. “This is nuts. This is—” She cut off her sentence, her breath coming faster and faster in an impending panic attack. She whirled, looking again for a way out even though she knew there was none.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll prove it to you.” Stefan stalked to her, knelt, and forced open her palm.

Power — that’s the only word she could use to describe it — poured from her chest, right between her breasts. It bloomed bigger and bigger until she couldn’t hold it anymore. It was hot, stinging her to the point of pain. Her head snapped back and something within her swelled in response. It became larger and larger until it exploded from the center of her.

Stefan stepped away and fire— fire! — streamed in an arc from the center of her body to land in a pool of white-hot intensity in the middle of the floor.

The stream ended in a tingling rush that made blood roar through her head. Her eyes wide and her heart pounding, she stared at the charred carpet of the room and marveled in the euphoric sensation of the power that Stefan had forced her to wield.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped, staring. The rug crackled.

“Ah, there you are. I knew you were in there somewhere.” Stefan stared at her for a long moment, a strange smile on his mouth. Then he left the room, clicking the lock closed on the door behind him.

Sarafina stared at the singed spot on the floor until long after it had grown cold and black, until her shoulders hunched and her muscles were stony with stress. She stayed that way until the door opened again and the scrabbling of nails sounded on the floor. Doggie yelps of joy filled her ears. She broke from her imitation of a statue to scoop Grosset into her arms.

Nuzzling the Pomeranian’s soft fur she sank down onto the floor and held him close, trying to absorb the massive shift her reality had just taken.

THEO PINCHED THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE. “LET’S JUST go in.” Damn all the planning and waiting to hell and back. He wanted action.

“I agree with Theo. We don’t have time to waste,” said Jack McAllister.

Jack looked a little sick. Of course, Jack had just sent his only daughter north to protect her against the swelling magickal storm. If Theo had a two-year-old daughter who was a coveted air witch, he’d probably be feeling sick right now, too. Eva, the child, had gone to a secret location with several of the trusted Coven, including Helen, an earth witch of limited power who was the unofficial Coven nanny.