Southern Charms

Betrayed

As soon as the words passed Harmony's lips, she dropped faster than a buck shot in the boiler room. Which means, she would've hit the ground hard, but Ash's spell was faster than our feet. Purple shimmered around her as she floated a foot above the sodden earth.

"What is she doing here?" Willow demanded. Her eyes were on Harmony's motionless form, but I knew she was asking about Flannery.

"Let's just get inside," I said, "It'll be safer to talk in there."

Flannery marched behind us without speaking, but her eyes glittered in the darkness as she took in her surroundings. Beads of sweat prickled on the nape of my neck, panic surging in my system as I realized how much trouble we were in with the Council. The number one law in Black Brier was to keep the impotens from discovering the truth about magic.

Ash settled Harmony on the couch. Her long, mossy green gown draped over the edge and pooled on the floor in a damp heap of satin. Despite the rain, her makeup hadn't smudged, no doubt bespelled to stay put in the Mississippi humidity. She looked like she was sleeping, but I knew better. There was a wrongness that hummed about her.

"Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

Outwardly, Flannery hadn't shown and shock or fear, but her voice wobbled in a very un-Flannery-like way. It was actually a little comforting to know she was frightened. I grew up with this mess, and current events left me ready to find a hole to hide in.

Willow answered Flannery before I did. "Why the hell do you think we owe you an explanation? You just came in uninvited!"

"Willow," Ash said, his tone cautionary as he continued to examine Harmony. "Be nice."

"Be nice," Willow shouted. Somewhere in the house a light bulb shattered. "I'm betting neither one of you have considered the fact that Flannery here might be responsible for the wards falling?"

I opened my mouth. Shut it. Then opened it again. Still nothing. I looked at Ash for help, but he gave me a lopsided shoulder shrug as if he couldn't quite admit that his cousin was wrong.

"Have you considered the fact that maybe she only got in because the wards failed?" I

demanded.

"Oh, sure. Because that would be one hell of a coincidence."

"We don't even know which wards Harmony was referring to!"

"Come off it, Rosey," Willow sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. She rubbed her eyes and then the back of her neck. "I know she's your friend, but don't be dumb."

Ash glared at Willow. "Why are we fighting?"

"Y'all are a bunch of crazies." Flannery broke her silence and stepped in between Willow and me. Her hands were on her slender hips, and she tapped her toe on the rug like a woodpecker with a purpose. "Maybe if someone would speak to me rather than about me, I could answer some of your questions."

"I'm sorry, Flannery. It's been a long night," I said. A dull ache formed behind my eye, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep until this was all over.

"Yeah, well that ain't a lie. Imagine how I feel. Showing up to my friend's house only to witness folks popping out of nowhere and floating. But all that doesn't matter nearly as much as finding Charlie."

My spine went straight and stiff. Ash and Willow's bodies mirrored mine, and we turned to her with dread flooding our faces.

"What do you mean find Charlie? Isn't he at school?"

All her composure dissolved, and she fell back into the oversized armchair behind her with a sob. "We got a call from the police this afternoon. Said they found his car on the side of the road, but he wasn't in it. No signs of a struggle or anything, but he was southbound,which makes us think he was headed home."

I turned away from my friends and put my hand on the wall while I tried to push away the wave of images from a few nights before. Silver swirls. Horns. My ears rang with the emphatic snapping of bones and the smooth, sinister resonance of Malphas' voice. Just allowing his name to form in my thoughts caused me to straighten and peer around the room in fear. I knew he was coming.

And the wards around our town were down.

"Why did you come here?" Ash asked, his tone much kinder than his cousin's.

I removed my hand from the wall and stilled my breathing as I waited for Flannery to answer. What had sent her to Black Brier?

"They found your address on a piece of paper in his front seat." Flannery walked to my side. I couldn't look at her face, terrified to see condemnation there. "He wrote it over and over. Funny thing is, the police said it wasn't a real address. They put it in their database, and it kept saying it didn't exist. I think I'm starting to understand why now."

"Flan--"

A booming crash of thunder shook the house, and the lights went out, plunging us into darkness. Willow and Ash both clapped, magic sparking around their fingers, but besides a brief flicker, we remained swallowed by the night. Ash tugged me roughly behind him as another peal of thunder grumbled across the sky, nearly concealing the sound of footsteps on the porch.

"What the actual hell?" Flannery asked. She ducked behind me. I didn't have the heart to tell her she'd picked the wrong dog for this fight.

Willow felt the air behind her until she found my hand. Squeezing it tight, she asked, "Is it Malphas?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, but we need to run. Whoever it is that's out there isn't here to visit over a glass of sweet tea."

A flash of lightning illuminated a figure standing in front of the window, and we all screamed. All sound faded, making me feel as if I were plunged beneath water. Willow's nails cut into my skin, and when the world came rushing back, it was with a roar of shattering glass. The curtains caught the worst of it, flapping high as autumn air rushed in, but stings burned across my cheeks and arms as bits of debris struck.

"We need to go," Ash shouted, pushing us to the back of the house. "They've done something so we can't teleport so we have to run for it!"

"What about Harmony?" I demanded, twisting away from him and reaching for my sister. We didn't get along, but I couldn't abandon her.

"I see you children," the demon called out in a strange mix of hell and girlish giggle. Polly. "Why don't you stay? My prince is on his way."

"Rose, we can't," Ash said, tugging on me, sorrow mingling with the terror on his face. "We can't cast a spell to lift her, and if we carry her, we won't make it."

"Then go," I said, pushing him away.

"No," he said, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me, "I won't leave you."

"Ash! Rose!" In the dim light provided by the storm, I could see Willow and Flannery waiting in the hallway. "Come on."

"I'm okay." The hairs on my arm rose in the air as Polly stalked towards us. She was like a cat toying with its prey, not concerned in the least that we might escape. I tapped the bracelet on my wrist. "I've got this, and I'm no one to them. Bring help."

"Absolutely not," he growled, but I shoved him so hard he felt into an end table and hit the floor with a jarring thud. Then I stepped toward Polly. "Rose, please."

Willow helped him to his feet, a determined angle to her chin as she pulled him to the back of the house. Ash didn't fight her when she pushed him into the hallway, but he looked over his shoulder just before disappearing from my sight.

Polly clapped. "How sweet of you to sacrifice yourself, but it's you I wanted anyway."

"Wh-what?" I stammered. "Why?"

She tilted her head in an echo of Malphas' movements. There was almost nothing left of the human she'd been. "You can wake up now, Harmony."

A creak alerted me to movement behind me, and I turned to see Harmony rising from the couch. Her eyes were downcast as she went to Polly's side, but she didn't flinch when the demon ran her finger along her face.

"How could you?"

Polly cackled. "Come see. Come see. We will show you why."