Midnight

Raven stood in the cemetery, Fane at his side. They’d drawn the circle, called the corners, done their spell. They had bound Ember, both from saying anything about their actions, and from leaving. It was a very powerful spell—Raven felt sure Ember would be at his house when they returned.

Raven was worried about Thorn. No word from him, and he was the lynchpin. They’d bound Thorn to them, as well.

Just to be extra safe, they’d buried their witches’ bottle in their sacred circle. They’d originally made it a year earlier, and Raven had stored it on the shelf in his closet. Full of dark essences, the special herbs—chamomile and sage, belladonna and mandrake, peppercorns and rosemary—for protection and balance; shavings of their favorite Crüxshadows CD; crushed eggshells and the discarded claw from Fane’s cat; tacks and nails, razors, the shards of a broken plate. Once the pieces were in place, they’d filled it to the brim with first-morning urine collected from both of them. Raven added in his semen, then they’d cut their arms and dribbled their blood into the bottle. Sealed tight with black wax and then electrical tape, it was an incredibly powerful deterrent of negative energy.

They’d been forced to make the bottle after one of their classmates had beaten Raven up. That threat was neutralized now, soon to be rotting in the earth, but it seemed sensible to charge the bottle and bury it, deep into the earth, far away from their daily lives, to draw any negative forces away from them.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Fane asked, “What are we going to do if it doesn’t work?”

Raven turned to her, drank in the beauty of her face, shining in a sliver of moonlight.

“That’s easy, my love. We’ll kill them.”