The Faerie Curses

Chapter Seventeen: The Witch's Potion

I was afraid to see where we had landed. Did we make it to the police station? Or had the fae tracked us down?

I lifted my head. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I felt bile rising in my throat. I pushed it down and turned to see that Diandre had made it as well. There was an ugly cut along his face, but besides that he looked fine. Glen, on the other hand, was trembling on the wood floor. His eyes flickered behind his eyelids, and his breaths were coming out fast as if he were running away from something. I could only imagine what his greatest nightmares were.

I forced myself to sit up, and studied our surroundings. We were in a dimly lit room, and all over the floor were strange pentangles and other symbols drawn in chalk. Waxy candles flickered in a circle around the three of us, and piled on dusty shelves were vials of strange and foreign liquids I had never seen before. Some were murky, others were colorful, and they illuminated a black cat that was perched on a nearby stool. It surveyed us with lamp-like eyes, and it hissed at me, revealing sharp fangs. The cat then leaped from the stool and darted away into the darkness like a shadow.

I knew for certain that this wasn't a human police station, but we weren't in the Faerie Realm, either. We were somewhere different altogether. The magic energy in the room was strong, I could feel it pulsing around me. But something about it was unnatural, not quite right.

I shared a look with Diandre. He looked just as surprised and puzzled as I was. My eyes were drawn in particular to a skull that sat on the mantle above a crackling fireplace. It's eye sockets stared down at me emptily and it's teeth looked like they were grinning. I looked back at the flames in the fireplace again. They appeared as if they had been lit more or less recently, and my heart began to speed up. Someone was here.

With a shrill crrreeeaakk, a door by the shelves slowly opened. I held my breath as a person stepped into the room along with the black cat.

"Intruders, you say?" The figure croaked to the cat.

The cat meowed in response.

My hands found my sword hilt and I waited for the person to step into view. It was an old woman, with worn, weathered skin the color of coffee. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she hadn't seen sunlight in a long time. She was wrapped in a long black shawl that draped to the floor, her knarled fingers covered in large, sparkling rings. Around her neck was a collection of odd pendants, and I noticed that one of them was even a human tooth. The woman shuffled towards us. Her gray hair was rustling past her shoulders when she moved, and my gaze traveled to an ink design around her eye. It was detailed with lots of tiny lines, and I recognized it immediately.

The old woman crossed her arms over her chest, looking irritated. Her beady eyes slowly moved across the room and rested instantly on Diandre first. She hadn't noticed Glen or I, but as she took in Diandre's wingless form, her jaw dropped in shock, showing me her yellowing teeth.

"Cursed demon!" She shrieked. "Devil fae!"

With a scream, the old woman thrusted out her bony arm and grasped a vial. Smashing it against the ground, the glass shattered into thousands of shards, spilling the liquid at her feet. Alarmed, the black cat jumped out of the way, its back arching. The liquid on the floor was a strange violet color, and it turned into a purple smoke that engulfed the old woman. I watched as the purple mist finally cleared. Instead of the old woman there was an enormous wolf, coated in jet black fur. Its eyes were bloodshot, just like the old woman's, and it let out a low growl in the back of its thoat. I stared at the wolf's sharp, pointed claws.

The wolf tilted its head back towards the ceiling and howled, the noise chilling and eerie. Goosebumps rose on my arms, making me forget about my injured leg. The throbbing was overshadowed by fear and adrenaline. In a split second, the wolf was on top of Diandre, pinning him to the ground. Saliva dripped from its teeth as the wolf snapped its jaws in Diandre's face.