Anya Bast - Witch Heart

The magick smoothing over her skin intensified and little by little she grew relaxed. Her arm slipped off the side of the recliner and she barely noticed it. Her head lolled to one side. She found herself in the place between sleep and wakefulness, aware but not aware enough to pull herself from the restful stupor her mind was in. Nor did she want to. Again she was under anesthesia of a magickal sort.

Slowly, all her awareness faded. Blackness enveloped her.

When Claire's other arm slipped off the edge of the recliner, Adam took a step forward. Micah had stopped chanting and he understood that Claire was unconscious.

"When will you start?" he asked, his voice rough with emotion.

Micah glanced at the clock on the table. "In a few minutes. We're right on schedule." He paused and then turned to him. "If this works, if we're able to extract the elium and her magick along with it, you're going to have to help her recover. It will be rough for her both physically and psychologically. Kind of like losing a limb."

"I get that."

Micah glanced at Claire, his voice low. "I don't think she does, not really."

"She's working in survival mode right now. You'd give up your magick to live, right?"

"Yeah, sure. It's just… this has never happened to a witch. In all the reading of our history that I've done, I've never heard of anyone losing their power so completely."

Adam looked at Claire, studied the graceful lines of her face. "It's a real pity, too, someone as powerful as she is."

"Yeah, it's sick and ironic as hell. Out of all of us, it has to be her." He glanced at the clock again. "It's time."

"Great." The word, spoken in a flat voice, fell like a stone into the room.

Micah hesitated a moment longer, then turned back to Claire. Adam took a step away, knowing from experience that earth magick was best worked with a little room. Micah closed his eyes and seemed to gather his power for a moment. He'd be drawing a charm he'd already brewed up and magickally ingested beforehand. All he had to do now was utter his invocation.

Power eased through the room like a snake. The heady, turned-earth scent of Micah's magick filled Adam's nostrils and gathered behind his teeth. It wasn't unpleasant, not really. It was like he was out in a garden, planting green things… not that Adam was often out in a garden planting green things.

On the recliner, Claire stirred, rolling her head and whimpering. Was she already in pain? Adam's stomach clenched and he forced himself not to take a step near her.

Micah muttered under his breath, a series of words that were incomprehensible to Adam's ears. Earth witches all had something close to their own spell language, special words they used as objects of power for their charms. Magick flared over Adam's skin, stronger now and growing more so.

Even he could feel the subtle pull on the seat of his own magick. It freaked him out, but he didn't back away. He trusted Micah not to draw everyone's power in the room.

On the recliner, Claire tossed her head, writhed and called for Adam, making him go tense with a sense of helplessness. Undoubtedly, she felt the pull on the seat of her power, too. Even unconsciously, it had to bother her.

Suddenly Claire's body bowed, her spine arching, and she cried out in agony. This time he couldn't help taking two steps toward her. Micah shot him a chilling look, one that clearly said, Back off. Adam halted near her, hands clenching at his sides and his body taut.

"It's starting to happen," said Micah. "Little by little, the spell is beginning to draw the magick from her body."

"It's just starting ?"

Micah nodded. "I created a powerful magnet for her power. It can't resist being dragged toward it. Theoretically, her magick will be yanked out of her seat to the magnet and the elium will have no choice but to come along with it."

"Theoretically?"

"It's not like this has ever been done before, Adam. I can't find a record of any witch who ever wanted to remove their magick."

Claire screamed.

Adam took another step toward her, stopped, whirled, and paced in the opposite direction. He fisted his hands in his hair, feeling it pull out at the roots. "I can feel the magnet, too, yanking on my seat—"

"It won't get ours, Adam. It's tooled especially to Claire."

"I get that!" Adam rounded on Micah and yelled it. "I'm saying that she's feeling what I'm feeling but a million times worse. This spell is just… grabbing her power out of her seat by the roots."

"More or less."

"Fuck, Micah. That's not surgery, that's mutilation!"

Claire cried out again and Micah turned to her, muttering under his breath again.

Adam walked to the wall, leaned against it, and crossed his arms over his chest. He had to do something or he'd go back on his word and interrupt this torment masquerading as a solution.

Micah's mutterings grew louder and more frenzied. Claire thrashed on the recliner and cried out. Over and over she called for Adam until he could take it no longer. Flames born of his high emotion and frustration tickled his palm and jumped from finger to finger, ran up his arms, and over his chest. He raced across the room to Micah, but Micah held up a hand to stay him.

"Stop. I'm done. It's finished," Micah said, his face ashen.

Claire moaned and rocked back and forth on the recliner. Adam pushed past Micah and scooped her up into his arms. She nestled against him as if made specifically to fit against his body and laid her head on his shoulder. Her face was deathly pale and her eyelids purple. Her breathing became shallow and she was cold. It was much the same result as the last spell-casting on her.

"It didn't work," said Micah, his face grim. "The attraction between her power and the magnet wasn't great enough."

"The elium is still in her?"

"As is all her magick."

Adam looked down at the woman on his arms that he'd grown to love so much. Why did that sound like a death sentence?

That meant they were nowhere closer to solving this problem than they'd been this morning.

That meant the demons were coming.

That meant they'd kill her for certain this time.

THE ELIUM STILL PULSED DULLY WITHIN HER.

Houses, she was almost growing used to the sensation of it there in the middle of her chest.

Claire turned toward the window in Adam's bedroom and pulled the throw blanket more securely around her. It had taken her most of the day to recover from the spell. Still, the seat of her magick ached from the ordeal. She'd been unconscious, but nightmares of the incident had flooded her brain all the same, ones she could still recall. That awful pull on her power, yanking it through flesh, blood, and bone. It had been as if a pair of huge tongs had grabbed hold of her heart and then tried to pull it through living tissue and into the open air.

Of course, it hadn't worked. There was a part of her that had been relieved when she'd awoken to the sensation of her magick still pulsing inside her. She'd been dreading the frigid emptiness that undoubtedly would have met her had the spell worked. Dry and flavorless as melba toast. Once she'd heard Thomas refer to non-magickicals that way.

The other part of her had been utterly and completely crushed. It had been their last and best hope and it had failed.

Now she was doomed for certain. There were no last-ditch efforts, nothing else to try. Her fate was sealed.

Adam sat in the chair behind her. She heard him rise and approach her. His hand fell on her shoulder, warm, steady and strong… just like him. She closed her eyes.

She'd finally found someone to love her. Someone she could love in return. Someone to invest in, someone to trust. But fate wasn't going to let her keep him. Maybe it would be easier on them both if they just ended things right here and now. The Atrika were coming for her. There was no escape.