Fiction

Raven’s Wings

I’m not sure where this is going just yet. Maybe nowhere. Or maybe this is a new series. Or a new book.

This is a continuation of “Raven’s Wrath” which I published a couple of weeks back. I liked the idea of there being more to it, so here it goes.

You couldn’t know this, but this installment connects the (possible) series to one of my unpublished novels by mentioning the concept of a ‘shadow glade,’ the guardians, and the fictional east Texas town of Parson’s Crossing. Which means if I keep writing this, you’ll get to meet some characters I know pretty well.

It could be fun …

raven’s wings

“Wait. What?” Heather was clearly confused.

Raven grunted as she continued to stuff clothes haphazardly into a bag. “You should pack,” she said. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Maggie said that?” Heather asked still holding a half-eaten burger.

“No,” Raven explained. “Maggie said we fucked up. Maggie said the coven would be pissed. Maggie said it was too much.”

Heather remained in the doorway. “Too much?”

Raven tossed her bag to the side and began to gather toiletries from the bathroom. “Jesus, Heather, yes, too much.”

“But he posted a picture of your boobs. Online. Like, anyone can see it. He got what he had coming.”

Raven turned slowly. Her hands were full, but she just dropped everything she held onto the bed and walked over to Heather. She stood before her, glowering. “Do you know what we did?” she asked. “Do you know what actually happened?”

Heather’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “It was a simple spell,” she said.

Raven nodded. “That’s what I told Maggie.”

“It was a compulsion charm. He was just supposed to go to work the next day without pants on. Eye for an eye ” Her voice trailed off.

“We compelled him, alright,” Raven confirmed. “But not to go without pants. We got something wrong. Some nuance of the chant. Instead of leaving his place without pants, he tried to leave without skin.”

“What?” Heather whispered.

“They found him collapsed in his front yard, dead from blood loss. He skinned himself from the waist down and still tried to go to work—because we compelled him to do so.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. He’s fucked. We’re fucked. Maggie’s fucking pissed. The coven will want fucking blood. We have to go. Pack a bag or I’m leaving you here.”

“But, where will we go? They can find us anywhere.”

Raven finished cramming a few things into her duffle bag. “Not anywhere. Not in a shadow glade.”

“What shadow glade?”

“Parson’s Crossing. It’s in Texas.”

Heather was finally in motion, beginning to pack as Raven finished. “But the guardians. They’ll turn us in.”

“Not if they don’t know we’re there. We go. We lay low. We hide. We wait for the heat to blow over and then we reach out to Maggie and see if she’ll help us make this right. She can at least ensure we don’t hang for this.”

Heather turned white. “They’d hang us?”

“Or worse. We’re bad witches now, Heather. We need to hide or they’ll kill us for what we did. We have to run.”

There was a knock at the front door.

“We have to run now,” Raven said. She grabbed her bag and Heather’s wrist and they slipped out the back.

Maggie probably could have stopped them, but she didn’t.