“Are you a ghost?” the preacher asked.
I rested my hand on the shelf to steady myself and cradled Discord’s skull in the crook of my left arm. Blood dripped from the three-inch hellhound gash, and though the resistance to venom sigil had done its job, as the adrenaline left my system, I felt every bite the beast had made. Ouch.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, I’m a ghost. You’ll be stuck there for another five minutes or so, and then you won’t remember any of this. Have a nice night.”
I limped up the stairs, my injured leg screaming at me with each step, and made my way to the car. My left arm stung like ants were gnawing at the wound, so I set the skull on the hood of my car and grabbed my bag to find a healing salve.
My wounds weren’t terribly deep, thanks to the protection sigil, so I rinsed them with a bottle of water and smeared on the salve. The bleeding stopped instantly.
I’d gotten a little blood on Discord’s skull, so I poured water over it and was about to set it in the passenger seat next to my bag when the ant bite sensation returned to my arm at triple strength.
“Ow.” I ran my finger through the salve, spreading it around on the sting, but it didn’t help. The cut mended itself before my eyes, which was absolutely nuts. Our healer, Patrice, was good, but not that good. The type of salve she gave us to carry around wasn’t nearly as potent as something made fresh and specific to the wound.
I checked my right arm, and while the bleeding had stopped, the wounds from the hellhound’s teeth remained red and angry.
The sensation of a few hundred insects biting my left arm turned into one giant fire ant chomping all the way to my bone. I grunted and was about to smear on the rest of the salve when a series of deep red lines spiraled out from the center of my forearm. At first, it looked like my capillaries were protesting the venom, but as they began to take shape, my stomach dropped so hard, it could have taken my bladder, my intestines, and everything else beneath it right out through my hoo-ha.
I clenched my pelvic floor muscles and ground my teeth until sharp pain shot from my temple to the middle of my cranium. My eyes blinked rapidly of their own accord before I squeezed them shut and opened them one at a time.
Damnit, they didn’t deceive me.
Smack in the middle of my forearm, right where the skull had touched my wound, lay a three-inch-long sigil that my sister did not design. Ash would never even doodle a demonic mark onto a napkin, much less tattoo one onto somebody’s skin.
Yet, there it was. Discord’s sigil on my arm.
I rubbed it with my thumb, hoping to wipe it away, but it felt as much a part of my skin as the freckles the sun brought out in the summer. “What the hell?”
I grabbed another bottle of water and poured it over the symbol before using the hem of my shirt to wipe it dry. The sigil pulsed a deeper red.
Eff me. This was not good. The little binding spell I’d cast to join me to Discord wasn’t supposed to be permanent. It shouldn’t have lasted more than forty-eight hours, and my time was almost up. Of course there was a way to make it stronger, more permanent. It was dark magic, after all, but I hadn’t done that. I’d used the simple, temporary, beginner version of the spell. His sigil on my arm meant…
I whirled toward the skull sitting on my hood and froze. “Oh no.”
I ripped off what was left of my shirt, doused it with water, and rubbed it on the blood stain. “Oh, shit.”
My heart joined my stomach, dropping below my navel, and I swallowed hard as I tossed my shirt into the car and fumbled blindly through my bag for the spare I’d packed, my gaze never straying from Discord’s skull.
I pulled the garment over my head and cradled the skull in my hands, lifting it into the moonlight to see it better. On the left side, right above the temple, lay a blueish design that wasn’t there before.
A triangle situated in the center of a triquetra, a trinity knot. The symbol for an elemental fire witch.
For me.
Holy Hecate in heels. “Blood magic.”
I’d made the bind permanent. I, the acting High Priestess of the Salem coven—a coven of light witches—had pledged myself to a demon. Permanently.
Maybe.
Truthfully, I didn’t know exactly what this meant. The golem guarding the dark witch library hadn’t given me enough time to truly research the spell, but I was sure as shit certain having his mark on my body meant something bad.
I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths before opening them and staring into the empty sockets of the demon whom I’d… What exactly had I done?
Had I pledged myself to be his servant? His consort? His bride? I shuddered at the thought.
Maybe it was the opposite. He bore my mark too, so maybe he was mine to command. That sounded like something a dark witch would do. She’d bind herself to a demon so she could control him. She wouldn’t choose to be his minion, right?
Ugh! All I knew was that I had accidentally practiced blood magic. This was so not like me. With the weight of the entire coven resting on my shoulders, I couldn’t afford the luxury of making mistakes…especially ones like this. I never could.
