Witches of the Deep (The Memento Mori Series #3)
C.N. Crawford
1
Fiona
Fiona leaned into Tobias, too tired to care about the whole “demon” thing. So he was some kind of hell creature who could light people on fire with his mind. Right now, she just needed someone to help her walk, and Tobias was willing.
Clouds hid the moon. Only Tobias’s foxfire orbs lit their way. But even through the dim light, she could see what a sorry sight they made, stumbling through the thick undergrowth, dressed in scraps of silk and velvet.
Fiona’s burnt-amber ball gown was torn at the bodice, the hem soaked through with mud. Alan trudged listlessly in a bramble-torn suit—another ragged refugee of the Purgators’ attempted human sacrifice.
At least Alan was wearing clothes. Fiona exhaled slowly, trying not to stare at Tobias’s exposed skin. Munroe’s cult had left him wearing nothing but a pair of black underwear, his demon scar exposed on his bare chest.
But what freaked her out even more was her mom’s silence. Fiona had been calling her all night, with no answer. What the hell had happened?
She hit redial on the cell phone for what must have been the four-hundredth time.
“You’ve reached the voicemail of Josephine Forzese. Please leave a message.”
“Mom? It’s me again. Everything is okay. I mean, we’re all alive. Except Connor died, but... I just want to know where you are. I thought you were going to show up in Virginia. Just call me.”
She hung up, cramming the phone into her bodice and looking around at her companions. Tobias’s friend Oswald walked at the front of the group in silence. His imprisonment in Maremount had rendered him naked apart from a bloodstained bathrobe, which hung open to the waist. It exposed the words his torturer had burned into his chest:
RAGMAN.
Of all of them, he looked the most terrifying, and his cold, gray gaze didn’t help matters.
Thomas didn’t look much better. His dirt-encrusted pearls and tattered tunic made him look like a lunatic court jester. In his arms, Mariana lay barely conscious in a filthy T-shirt. It must’ve been weeks since either of them had had a change of clothes. Even if they found Dogtown, there was no way the residents would want to let them in.
In her simple gown, Celia was the only one who didn’t look like something dredged from a nightmare.
If Fiona had seen this group trudging through the forest, she’d have run far, far away. “Shouldn’t we have stopped to buy new clothes and some sandwiches?” she asked. “I mean, I’m glad we bought that dude’s phone, but some shoes would’ve been nice. We have five pounds of gold, for crying out loud.”
Thomas halted his march. “So as the Purgators were plastering your faces all over the media, hoping they might get to burn you at the stake, you wanted us to discreetly pop by a shopping center, dressed like madmen, and offer to exchange gold nuggets for new jeans?”
Fiona scowled, deciding against a response. As always, the scholar had a point.
Thomas pressed on. “I’m sure they’ll take the gold in Dogtown in return for some new clothes. They’ve been isolated since the 17th century, just like in Maremount. I doubt they have credit cards. But don’t mention the philosopher’s stone to anyone. People will kill for that sort of thing.”
“Don’t mention the teleportation spell, either,” said Tobias. Both spells lay tucked in a backpack slung over his shoulder. “We might need that again, and I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”
“I’ll need it, for one,” said Oswald. “Erelong, I plan to rebound home.”
Fiona blinked. Was it her imagination, or was the sky brightening in the east? They must have walked all night. The woods here couldn’t be more than six square miles. But of course, they had no idea how to find a hidden wolf town. They were basically just wandering aimlessly through the forest. “What else do you know about this place, Thomas? Besides the fact that it’s inhabited by wolf people?”
Thomas rubbed his stubble. More of a beard now, really. “They were left out of the creation of Maremount. They were too odd, perhaps slightly criminal. The Dogtowners made their own safe haven to escape the Salem witch craze, and sometimes they give philosophers sanctuary—as long as they’re willing to pay.”
“Odd and slightly criminal,” repeated Alan. “Sounds promising.”
Celia frowned. “Are you even sure this place is real? I think I’m about to die from exhaustion.”
“If that’ll stop you from clavering on, I won’t complain,” said Oswald.
Fiona looked up through the gnarled tree branches. The sky was lightening. Pale periwinkle shone through the maples.
A heavy fog rolled in between the trunks. Thick and briny, the mist must have drifted inland from the nearby Atlantic. Ahead, Oswald disappeared into the fog.