I jog around the bed to the wardrobe and throw on a hoodie and a pair of black leggings. By the time I’ve slipped on a pair of shoes, Aggie is already sitting on her spare broomstick.
“Come on.” She waves me over.
Aggie doesn’t need to tell me twice. I sprint across the room and mount her broomstick. The journey from my cottage to Grandma’s place is about ten minutes.
Maybe between now and then, I might work out a plan to rescue the Boogie Man.
ChapterThirty-Eight
HENRY
White fills my vision, but I feel a familiar thrum of magic as the witches descend toward the grandmother’s garden. My heart beats harder, faster, and stronger in anticipation of drawing in the reserves of magic.
Every ounce of power held within the ash trees and deep within the earth is mine. Centuries of semen, just waiting to be used.
I descend, down, down, my skin thrumming with excitement. Just a few seconds of touching grass will replenish my magic. Then the witches will regret mocking Alienor.
Instead of lowering me to the ground, they float me several feet across the grandmother’s garden with the cocoon of magic wrapped around my body. I’m so far away from the plants that drawing on the magic I left there is impossible.
Damned witches have thought of everything.
“Take him straight to the ritual room,” says one of the coven witches.
I thrash within my bindings, but the strings of magic wriggle into the space beneath my wings and lace them together until their bones threaten to snap.
They’re careful not to allow any part of my cocoon to touch the door, the floor, or the walls, even though I can sense the changes in the atmosphere. The grandmother’s house smells of potions and lavender, tree sap, and sex, while the space I’m traveling through is danker, dustier, and reeks of mold.
“Release the bindings,” says a voice.
The magic encasing my body vanishes, leaving me staring into the dark.
I blink to adjust my eyes to the abrupt change. When my vision clears, I stare up into an arched ceiling that crumbles like the one in my old throne room. The walls are jagged, as though the witches carved them out with slashes of their wands, and the floor consists of dust and dirt.
I’m hovering above a stone altar large enough to sacrifice a giant. In front of it stands a crude statue of a woman holding a book. She wears the crown, wimple, and long blue robes favored by my wife.
My lip curls at the thought of these women worshiping that traitorous wench like a goddess.
“Should we put him down on the slab?” asks one of the witches.
I turn my head and glare into her sour face. She has the same dark brown hair and eyes as Alienor but none of her charm.
“Leave him in stasis until Klara arrives with the High Priestess,” says an older woman with lank, gray hair.
I grind my teeth. “You can at least allow a man to rest before you drain his blood.”
“Silence.” She flicks her wand, sending a strike of magic to my groin. “Where have you put that big red cock?”
“It shriveled under your foul countenance.”
Her features twist into a rictus of rage. “You ancient piece of shit—”
A door slams open, sending an echo through the chamber that makes the witches jump.
“Silence,” Alienor’s aunt snaps. “Ready the altar.”
With a flick of their wands, tall candles flare to life and flood the chamber with yellow light. My breath hitches, my skin tightens, and every fine hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
I am no longer the hunter.