Witch {Book One} [UNEDITED]

XXXIV: Fighting Day

Early in the morning someone knocked on my door. I didn't sleep, as I was too scared to. Those Hell Hounds had been circling our house for god knows how long and Glitch was only working on saving Thomason from them. There was no way I would be able to fight them off if Ada sent them after me. It was now clear why Thomason never wanted to talk about being attacked once. They were scary as hell. Scarier, even. I could eventually burn the image of the four doglike ones from my mind, but the inhuman non-dog one was a different story. It saw me. I knew it did. It looked right into my nonexistent soul and right through it. It knew I was there and it knew me. It knew that it would kill me one day. 

Without waiting for a reply, my door was open and Glitch stepped in. He had a bandage wrapped around his right hand. 

"So . . .?" I asked, rubbing my tired eyes.

"Did you even sleep?" He asked. 

"No."

He sighed. "Hell Hounds ate what I gave to them. Now we'll just hafta see if they go after Thomason now . . . Mind if I sit down?" I shook my head and patted my bed besides me. He walked over and sat down. The bed dipped when he did. 

"I saw them," I whispered. 

"The Hell Hounds?" He asked. 

"Yep."

"They scary?"

"Scary as hell. And nothing scares me." 

"Damn." 

"You have a date picked out?" 

"For what?"

"Your wedding, idiot." 

Glitch rubbed his ring and nodded. 

"The second." 

"Of next month?! Glitch, aren't people s'posed to plan these thing for months?!" 

He shrugged. "We want to do it as soon as possible. In case we get killed sometime soon. It was Thomason's idea.

There was a long silence before Glitch got up and left. 

I stared at the wall for a long time before getting up and shuffling to Jemma's room. Her door was ajar, which meant she wasn't there. I slowly pushed the door open and looked around. Her room was cleaner than mine and her pink sheets were made up on her bed. The shade was the same dusty, pale color as her hair. 

There was a shelf on the other side of the room and on top of it was the Ouija board. Exactly what I needed. I tiptoed over there, snatched the board, and scampered back to my room, locking the door behind me. 

I sat in the middle of the room with the board in front of me.  I set the pointer in the middle and took a deep breath. 

"Annie, you here?" I asked. 

The piece moved instantly; YES. 

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear before asking another question: "Can I talk to you face to face?" 

It didn't move from its position on the YES. 

"Can you come out?" 

It moved this time; D E A T H W I L L N O T A L L O W I T

"Damnit, Sammy," I murmured under my breath. "Annie, I don' care. I'll take 'er punishment. Please  come out." 

Y O U H A V E C H E A T E D D E A T H T O O M U C H

"Shit, I know, Annie. Just let me face her wrath. It ain't anythin' I can't handle." I stood up and started pacing, watching the pointer move on its own. 

Y O U L L R E G R E T I T

I brought the Ouija board back to Jemma's room. 

I got dressed in fighting clothes. I didn't add lipstick to my makeup and had a cigarette in all through breakfast. Whenever anyone asked what was wrong, I just said that today was a fighting day. Glitch didn't say anything about last night.

No one tried to stop me when I left Safe House with a knife in my pocket and Helena's old Winchester pistol at my side. Today was a fighting day and I was going to fight a lot of people. 

I went down into the heart of Eldorado and started walking in the shadows. People who liked fights hid in the shadows. Glancing around, I slunk into an alleyway. There were a few scrawny cats--all scraggly fur and awkwardly angled bones--and a couple rats. There was also two darkly clothed figured sitting across from each other, a deck of tarot cards in the middle. Perfect targets. I was needing a new deck of tarot cards, too. 

I cleared my throat to get their attention. The psychic one looked up as they set a card down. 

"C'n I help ya?" They asked. They had a feminine voice. Females typically made psychics. She stood up and the non-seer one got up as well. 

"Maybe . . ." I slowly pulled my pocket knife from my pocket and flicked it open. The glint caught both the psychic and the non-seer's eyes. I heard one of them mutter shit under their breath. A sly grin pulled my lips back. I reached up with my spare hand and pulled my shirt down to show them the Insomnia--Black Lotus--tattoo. 

"I know that symbol," the non-seer said. Masculine voice. Men always went to psychics. 

"Bandit Lee of the Black Lotus." I twirled my knife but never took my eyes off of the psychic and the non-seer. I flicked my knife shut and stuffed it back in my pocket. "I want your cards. My deck is, well, has seen better days." 

"These cards?" The psychic asked, shocked. "I killed a fucking witch for these cards! A black magic witch! I ain't giving them to you!"

"Oh, honey." I smirked and slyly walked up to her. "You must not know about my gang. Y'see, the Devil is in my gang. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are in my gang. I have a demon and an angel in my gang. Don't 'I killed a witch' me." 

I swung the first punch. It landed on the psychic's jaw. She stumbled back and glared at me from under her hood. I swung another punch but she blocked it. I really needed to learn to never pick fights with people bigger than me. The psychic shoved me against the brick wall. My skull knocked against it and my vision blurred for a minute longer than I wanted it to. I saw the blob which I named the non-seer scramble out of the alley. The psychic yanked me away from the wall and I used this as an opportunity to knee her in the stomach. She let go of me and stumbled back. I caught another glare from her. 

I tackled her down, pinning her to the filthy alley ground. I heard the hissing of a cat behind me and blindly reached for something to throw at it. 

"You know what I see in your future?" The psychic hissed. I grabbed a rock and held it above her head. "Death. I see death in your future!"

That's when I realized she was faking her voice the whole damn time. 

"Tell me what color lingerie she's wearing, will you? I'd like to match." I brought the rock down and smashed her skull with it. I then took my knife back out and stabbed her in the stomach with it. I gathered her deck of tarot cards and scrambled off. 

I was going to burn those damn cards when I got home. I was going to burn them in hopes that their previous owner would burn again. 

I was sick of Ada.