Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

off the house, searing it to instant ash. Cinders wafted down as the walls groaned and collapsed.
    Mariketa shakily set the mirror away. He saw her drop her head as if she were staring at her stomach.
    “Oh.” She grasped something in her front, then yanked. Her fingers went limp and a spike of wood, dripping with blood, rolled from her grasp. Holding her side, she tried to stand, but fell back on her hip. Another unsteady attempt, and she finally made it to her feet.
    When she faced Bowe, he winced at her bloodied face, the bruises already emerging. Her hair was coated with soot. As she limped to him, her eyes began returning to normal.
    “Mari,” he grated, “you’ve got to heal yourself.”
    “Bowen, your legs... your chest.”
    “I’ll be fine—”
    Another sudden wind rushed over them, scattering debris. Mariketa cried out as an invisible force assailed her, seeming to strangle her from inside.
    “What’s happenin’ tae you?” he yelled. “What is this?”
    Grueling moments passed. When the wind eased, and she was released from whatever had gripped her, she appeared confused. “I think... I think that was Häxa’s power... ”
    If what Mari had said earlier about destroying a sorceress was true, then she’d just had an infusion of a near godlike power.
    As she started for Bowe once more, the whites of her eyes and her irises seemed to become flooded with black, as though ink had spilled inside them—like Häxa’s had been. As if possessed, Mariketa swung her gaze from him until her uncanny eyes locked onto the glass on the floor.
    Her expression was as if she were starving, even lustful, and she hurried to it, stepping directly atop it. The ground seemed to fall out from under her, and she dropped down, disappearing.
    Bellowing with fear for her, Bowe dragged himself to the mirror to reach her. But she was gone.
    He raked his claws down the glass, desperate to follow.

53

    S omehow Mari had managed to enthrall... herself .
    For days, she’d remained in her dimension, standing motionless in front of her antique full-length mirror. Though she was conscious and rapidly healing, she was unable to move, to look away. She couldn’t even part her lips. If anything was placed between her gaze and the mirror, her eyes—fully black from Häxa’s power—burned it away.
    Mari had already been walking a razor’s edge with her new captromancer abilities before she’d been saddled with Häxa’s power. Though not inherently evil, the power was greedy, ravening for the knowledge the mirror helplessly ceded. Mari couldn’t free herself...
    Once her parents had awakened and made their way back home from Häxa’s plane, Mari couldn’t even hug them back, couldn’t even cry with her frustration, though her dimension had become drenched in rain. They’d looked so worried for her, yet so proud of what she’d accomplished.
    With the help of the coven, the two planned to bind Häxa’s power within her, letting Mari get accustomed to it gradually over decades. But they couldn’t bind the power when it was in active use—like when it was freezing unwitting witches in front of a mirror. And Mari’s eyes constantly glowed like two LED lights.
    At least her coven was stepping up to the plate, witches motivating like crazy. Apparently, the wake-up call had been when Häxa, one of the world’s most ancient and evil powers, had risen, only to show up—directly in the parish next to their Andoain Animal House. No longer did they feel insulated and protected by the law of laissez les bons temps rouler .
    The world wouldn’t know what hit it when that crew got it together.
    As her parents did every day, Carrow and Elianna visited with her at the “Cottanorouse.” Knowing Mari could hear them, they chatted, and brought her tea as if she would drink it. They also urged her to unenthrall herself, as if Mari might not be totally convinced that she wished to do so. She wanted to point at the new power and say, “Take it up with stupid.”
    Because Mari was on a plane of the Wiccae, and she couldn’t speak to invite Bowen, he couldn’t come to her. Her friends and family had deduced that it snowed whenever she missed him; the plane had become a constant whiteout.
    Today at Mari’s place, Carrow played solitaire, bundled in blankets. Elianna looked to be sorting dried frogs’ legs by size, and then by toe webbing. Mari’s parents were out consulting seers for the answer of how to rescue Mari. Today they