Dilemma
They got back to the motel and Faith slipped into the bathroom to splash her face with water and try to peer at the lump growing behind her right ear. It was getting to be egg-like, and when she brushed her fingers against it pain exploded behind her eyes. She didn't feel sleepy or nauseas, and the room wasn't spinning, so she was fairly certain she'd escaped a concussion.
Stepping back into the room, she found Toby sat at the tiny table, his hoard of old lore books spread around him like an altar. Without a word he lifted an arm, holding out a bottle of Tylenol. She took it – also without a word – fishing out two tablets and washing them down with water from the tap.
"I've realised we have another problem," he said only once she'd taken a seat and rested her chin in her hand with a sigh.
"Oh, you mean to add to our already ridiculous list of growing problems?" she asked flatly. "Great. Go ahead."
"Artie – the bloke from the diner – he suggested we go to Izzy's house. And he did it in public, where plenty of townsfolk overheard."
Dread settled like sediment in the bottom of Faith's gut. "And now Izzy's dead and once they find her body, we're going to be persons of interest," she finished knowingly, dropping her whole face into her hands and groaning. "This is turning out to be more complicated than I expected."
Toby's voice was flat, "Welcome to hunting."
"You think we should just get the hell out of dodge?"
Toby shook his head. "There's still a hunt here. We can't stop until we know these people are safe."
Faith lifted her head, incredulous. "Even if it means we wind up in federal prison?!"
"That won't happen."
She scowled. "I don't want empty promises, Toby. Be straight with me."
He looked up from his book, finger holding his place in a sentence. "If we start coming under heat, we'll leave," he said simply. "Send another hunter in to finish the job. But until then, we do what we can."
Faith was wary – fears of jail and handcuffs (not of the sexy kind) swimming in her head – and Toby leant towards her, his eyes seeming to glow.
"This is the job, Faith. Half the time you're pretending to be the police, the other half you're running away from them. The risk is high, the reward is low, but that's just how it is. Think of it this way; if we don't stop whatever's happening in this town, people – innocent people – will get hurt. We're their only hope."
She'd known this job was high risk – but she hadn't really stopped to consider that the risk might be of the legal kind. She'd thought all she was betting was her life – not her freedom. Still, she couldn't let it stop her. She was committed, and if she gave up now, then these last few months would have been for nothing. Besides, if she did walk away and somebody got hurt because she hadn't been woman enough to get the job done, she'd carry that guilt around with her forever. Toby was, as usual, right. It was worth the risk.
Besides, what was her other option? Go sit in a bunker somewhere and hope the Hades' Cult didn't find her? At least this way, she stood a chance at fighting back. If she was going down, she was taking those sons of bitches down with her. One dark, potential ally at a time.
"What are you looking for?" she asked, decision made, looking back up at Toby with a renewed determination.
Toby assessed her a long second, then nodded at some unheard thought and returned his attention to the old tome before him. "I'm trying to find anything about Wiccan rituals involving black cats and cattle mutilations."
"Nothing so far?"
He scowled. "Well, cattle mutilations – there's hundreds of rituals for that. But something that specifically needs black cats, plural? It's not such a common element to these sorts of things."
"Okay," she said, "so we keep looking. You got another one of these old things for me to flick through?"
The look he sent her was unimpressed, but he pointed to a small stack of nearby books all the same. Faith went to make them both a cup of tea, sniffing the inside of the shitty motel kettle suspiciously.
"We should get our stories straight, if the police do show up," she called back to Toby as their tea steeped.
He didn't look up from his book as he said, "It's almost like you've done this before."
"Well, I've never been accused of murder. But, well, I guess I have had my fair share of dealings in the … other side of the law."
As they flipped through Toby's old books and drank their tea, they got their story straight. When they'd left Izzy's house, she was alive and well. They'd parted on good terms after talking about the history of the witches in town, and each went on with their day. They didn't know who – or what – had hurt her and would have had no idea anything had happened until the police arrived to tell them.
It wasn't exactly a foolproof plan, or even a solid alibi, but there was only so much they could twist the truth while still sticking to the facts. At some point, while Faith had still been in shock over her first kill, Toby had grabbed her knife from Izzy's body. It was cleaned and hidden, buried under some mulch in the garden outside the door; just in case the police wanted to search their room.
It took some hours – five, to be exact – but eventually, just as the sun was drooping down below the horizon, there came a knock at the door. Faith looked up from the book she'd been blindly scanning, the letters all long since turned to nonsense in her head.
Toby was already on his feet. He made a motion with his hand, telling her without words to keep calm. Faith leaned back on the bed, relaxing her tense muscles, and pretended to go back to reading.
"Officers," said Toby in a voice layered thick with surprise as he answered the door. "Can we help you with something?"
"Mr Newton?" asked one of the cops in the doorway, a man, by the sound of his voice. For a moment the fake name gave her pause but she remembered their current aliases with a blink. Faith and Toby Newton, brother and sister on their way to visit family over in Sioux Falls. She repeated it over in her head like a record stuck on a loop.
"Yes," said Toby mildly. "What's this about?"
"Do you mind if we come in, ask you a few questions?"
Toby made a show of hesitating out of anxiety, but then he relented and stepped aside to let the sheriff and his deputy through the door. The sheriff was tall, with a tuft of red hair poking out from beneath the brim of his hat. His deputy was shorter, with a sour look and a truly offensive but well-groomed goatee.
"I'm Sheriff Welch, this is Deputy Lee," said the sheriff, a tight but polite smile on his lips. "We'd just like to ask you a few routine questions about Isabel Hopkins? It shouldn't take more than a few minutes."
Faith gently shut her book and sat slowly upright, pasting a look of confusion across her face. "Izzy?" she asked. "We just met her this morning. Is everything all right?"
The two officers exchanged a grim look before Welch looked at Faith solemnly. "I'm afraid I have to inform you that Izzy Hopkins died this afternoon."
Faith glanced to Toby, who looked similarly horrified. "What?" he asked, taking a seat on the bed like his legs couldn't hold up his weight. "What happened?"
"That's what we'd like to ask you," said Lee. "According to several eye-witnesses, you were the last people to see her alive."
"Oh God," whispered Faith, pressing a hand to her throat.
"We heard you went to see her in her home around ten this morning?" pressed Welch.
"I-Im a history professor at the University of South Dakota," Toby told them quietly. "When we heard about the grim history of witches in the town – well, I was curious. Artie – the man at the diner just around the corner – he said Izzy was a local historian, and that she wouldn't mind if we dropped in to ask some questions about the local history."
By this point, Lee had pulled out a small notepad and was jotting down notes with a ballpoint pen. Welch was nodding along attentively.
"So, we did – we stopped by, she made us some tea, we chatted for a while, and then we left," finished Toby.
"Uh-huh, and what time would you say you left?" Welch asked keenly, the fingers of one hand pinching his chin.
Toby looked to Faith, who made a face like she was remembering and said, "Oh, we were definitely gone by twelve. Izzy – she said something about having plans after lunch."
Welch narrowed his eyes at Faith, and she got the feeling the sheriff was trying to read the truth in her expression, so she kept it carefully arranged in a look of dismay. "And you didn't notice anything…unusual…during your time at her house?" he asked Faith keenly.
She exchanged another well-timed look with Toby. "Not that I can think of," said Toby with a helpless little shrug.
"No," said Faith, sounding just as bemused. She wrung her hands together in her lap. "I – can I ask – how did she die?"
The police officers exchanged another look. "Stab wound to the chest," said Welch bluntly.
"Oh God," said Faith again, and this time it took no effort to keep her expression distressed. "That's so awful," she said, shutting her eyes as if horrified by the act and not the fact she'd been the one to do it.
She didn't regret it – Toby was right. Bad was bad, and some things just couldn't be left alive. Izzy was a few fries short of a happy meal to begin with; give someone like that the power of the occult, and who knew what kind of messed up shit could go down? Or who might get caught in the process?
Faith was expecting the police to have more questions about alibis and motives and the like, but instead, the sheriff came out with something entirely unexpected.
"Oh, no," he said, waving off her remark with an easy chuckle, "I'm sure it could happen to anyone."
That pulled both her and Toby up short. "I beg your pardon?" Toby asked, so terribly English that a hysterical laugh bubbled up Faith's throat. She swallowed it down before it could escape and stared hard at the police officers, who were smiling now like they were all old friends.
"You wouldn't believe the amount of emergency calls the continental US gets every year just for people walking into knives," laughed Lee.
Faith and Toby couldn't help but stare in disbelief. "You think this was a suicide?" Toby asked, sounding just as incredulous as Faith felt.
"Perhaps not an intentional suicide," the sheriff said with a shrug. "But people fall onto their own knives all the time. An accident is all this was. We just had to come down here and grab your statements anyway. You know how it is – gotta cross those t's and dot those i's."
Faith had never felt more like she wandered into the Twilight Zone. Toby, however, had moved past shock and into suspicion. "Well, this must be a tragic loss for the town," he said carefully.
The cops exchanged yet another look layered thick with meaning. "Women like Izzy Hopkins…" began the sheriff, now seeming to choose his words with more care. "Well, let's just say, she won't be dearly missed."
Before Faith could even begin to dissect that particular comment, the sheriff tipped the end of his wide-brimmed hat towards them.
"You two have a nice night, now," he said, bewilderingly cheerful, and turned to leave, Lee close on his tail.
Just like that, they were gone, the motel room door swinging shut behind them with a click, then a ringing silence. Faith opened her mouth to speak but Toby threw up a hand to stop her, standing to his feet and walking slowly towards the curtains, which he peeled back just enough to peer out of without being seen. Faith listened to the police duo's laughter, then the banging of car doors and a rumbling engine as they drove away.
Only once the sound of their cruiser had disappeared into the distance did Toby leave his watch at the window. "This goes deep," was the first thing he said, a grave look to him, even more so than usual.
"What in the hell was that about?" she demanded as though he had any answers. Toby dragged a hand through his hair, looking unsettled. "I mean, not that I wanted us to go to prison – but really, she walked into her own knife? Anyone with half a brain would think we're suspects, but they hand us our freedom on a platter? In what world does any of this make sense?"
Toby tapped a finger against his lips. "It would if they wanted Izzy dead."
That gave her pause. "Wanted her dead?"
He turned away, reaching into his duffel bag to produce his laptop, which had gone unused so far in their research. He was a book guy.
"You see it all the time; granted, it's far more common in big cities than out here in little tight-knit towns like this one," he muttered, fumbling his way across the keyboard.
"Toby, what are you talking about?"
He managed to pull up what he was looking for, turning the laptop towards her so she could see the screen. It was a series of articles lined up along the screen, some from years before and some from only months. They all had one thing in common.
"You're saying this was police brutality?" she asked dryly. "Toby, I literally killed the woman."
He huffed. "If you'd care to do more than just skim the titles, you'd see that what I'm saying is that in some areas, police won't arrest someone for killing a minority they take issue with."
"So, now you're comparing it to a hate crime?"
"Bloody hell, Faith, what I'm saying is: what if, to those coppers, and to everyone else in the town, Izzy was nothing more than the people in these articles? And before you say anything, I know that practising witchcraft does not make you a discriminated-against minority. At least, not in the eyes of the rest of the world. But what if the rules here are different?"
It was an interesting idea, to be sure. "So, basically, what you're saying is you think the witch trials never actually ended." The look to Toby's eyes was a little bit manic, and she wondered if this was what he was always like when he was on the cusp of solving a mystery. "It's a good theory, but I've gotta be honest, you don't have a whole lot of evidence backing you up."
"Then we'll just need to get some," he shrugged.
"Okay, and how do you suppose we go about doing that?"
Toby opened his mouth but didn't say anything more. In an instant he seemed to remember that she was meant to be taking point on this one – in an attempt to show her the ropes. "Well, what do you think we should do?"
She nearly smiled. "Well, my first thought was to go straight back to Artie's diner, but thinking on it more, he seemed pretty quick to send us to Izzy's place. Almost like he knew…something. I don't know what yet, but he put her in our path, and I don't think it was coincidence."
"Good. That's smart," Toby said. "So? What next?"
"I think I should speak to Colette again," she decided with a nod. "I got more out of her than anyone else in town, and she doesn't seem to have any ulterior motives. Besides, now we have a rapport."
"Good," Toby said again. "Think she'll still be working this late?"
"You want me to go now?"
"With every minute we waste, these witches could be-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, already walking back into the bathroom. "I get it. The job's time sensitive."
"What are you doing?"
She pulled her stick of eyeliner from her little toiletries bag and quickly ran the stick of kohl over her lids, then splashed her face with water before rubbing angrily at her eyes. By the time she joined Toby back in the main room, her eyes were red and raw, just as if she'd been crying.
"How do I look?" she asked, gesturing to her face.
He squinted. "Distraught."
"Perfect," she smiled, shoving her feet back into her battered old sneakers.
"It's almost scary how you do this," said Toby. "Have you ever considered acting as a career path?"
Faith snorted. "Sure, I'll pencil in audition times in between monster hunts."
He rolled his eyes. "Don't give too much away. Mirror her movements, but subtly. It'll help her to trust you-"
"Toby," she interjected, "I can do this. Just let me work, okay?"
He held up his hands as if in surrender, and Faith tossed him a grateful smile before shutting her eyes a moment, cracking the lid of that box of pain in her chest just enough to bring tears to the surface. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the side table, then left the room with her face in them, sniffling pathetically.
Colette was indeed working – it looked like she was just about to finish her shift. She was pulling on an ugly beaded jacket and pulling her hair back off her face. When the little bell above the door jingled as Faith stepped through, Colette looked up from the desk to find her stood there, all red and teary, and gasped in shock.
"Faith, dear, are you all right?" she asked, dropping the handbag she'd been rifling through.
"I'm so s-sorry to bother you," Faith whimpered. "Just – my brother – he isn't very good with crying women, and, and after the day I've had…" she let her lower lip tremble, a new wave of tears pricking her eyes.
"Oh, darling," tutted sweet old Colette, pushing through the barricade to reach her, wrapping a motherly arm around Faith's shoulders and guiding her back behind the counter. She plopped Faith into her vacated chair and grabbed a new box of tissues, offering them out kindly. "What's the matter? Is everything okay? Your brother…"
"Oh, it's nothing to do with him," Faith waved off the question before it could be asked. "He just gets so awkward when I cry. You know men, never great with emotion," she gave a wet laugh.
"Then what's wrong?"
"I – I don't know if you've heard," Faith whispered. "I'm sorry if you haven't – but that woman from the other end of town… Izzy Hopkins? My brother and I went to see her, to ask about the town, then after…she, um, she died." It wasn't entirely acting that made her voice crack on the last word.
Colette's expression twisted into something that was hard to pinpoint, but then she tutted and wiped her face clear of emotion. "Yes, I heard it was suicide, the poor thing," she sighed, walking into the next room.
Faith continued to sniffle as she listened to Colette fill a glass with water then reappear, handing it to Faith with a gentle smile.
"You mustn't worry yourself with such things, dear," Colette continued gently. "Izzy…she was dealing with her own troubles. I'm sure your visit had nothing to do with the state she was in. Honestly, I've been worried something like this might happen. It's nothing to do with you."
"Then what?" Faith asked wetly, wiping at her eyes with the tissues. "I can't wrap my head around it, Colette. One moment she's fine, telling us about the history of the town, then the next…" she dissolved back into messy tears.
Colette cooed and tutted, smoothing Faith's hair back in a maternal way that made Faith's heart clench and ache. She still didn't offer anything to the table, so Faith tried again.
"I just can't understand what would make a woman do something like that," she cried. "I know my visit itself couldn't have triggered anything, but maybe something I said…? I just feel so guilty."
Colette sighed, and Faith watched as she made the decision to speak. It was like a switch flicked in her eyes, and Faith had to try very hard not to feel guilty about manipulating this woman so thoroughly, and then also not to feel proud for the very same reason.
"Well, I'll tell you this, dear," Colette began quietly, offering the box of tissues again. Faith took a few with a teary grimace. "It's not my business to say, but you should know… Well, Izzy's granddaughter died, only just last month."
Faith lowered the tissues to stare at Colette in surprise that wasn't faked. "What?" she whispered, and it took no effort to sound shocked. "What – what happened? How did-?"
"Juniper was only in her late teens," said Colette with a sad little tut. "She killed herself too, the poor dear. Threw herself off the bridge on the far west end of town. Fell over a hundred feet into the ravine. They say she died on impact."
Faith sniffled again and asked, "They both committed suicide?"
Something flickered in Colette's eyes, and she turned away with an uncomfortable frown. "Well, these are dark times we live in-"
Faith immediately saw an opening that hadn't been there before. It was risky beyond measure, and Toby would probably skin her live for even just considering it, but her gut told her it was the right move, and Faith had always been the type of woman to follow her gut – hell, it was even the reason she was sitting there now, in that exact situation. If she hadn't trusted her gut with Sam and Dean that night, who knew where she'd be now?
Dead, probably.
Faith's hand darted out, catching Colette's before she had a chance to pull away. "There's something going on here, Colette," she whispered, holding firm, her teary eyes meeting Colette's wary ones. "If you tell me the truth, I can help. That's all I want to do. And I promise you I can."
Colette frowned. "Help how?"
"Depends on what help you need," Faith said gently. Her eyes were still lined with tears, but they'd stopped falling. She probably still looked like a total mess, but that was good; she didn't want Colette to know she was faking the entire thing. "We didn't come here on purpose," she added when she caught a glint of suspicion in her eyes. "We really did just stumble in by coincidence. But now that we're here – Toby and I – we want to help."
Colette still wavered, but Faith could see there was a part of her that wanted to spill the truth. Faith had a feeling she didn't like how things were in town. Colette wasn't a part of the problem; she was just stuck in a place, surrounded by the wrong sort of people.
"All I'm asking for is the truth, Colette," she told her urgently. "Tell me what's going on here, and that's as far as your involvement needs to go."
Colette's eyes narrowed. "You're not really history professors, are you?"
Faith's smile was small but genuine. "We just help people. We don't want or need anything in return. All we want is to do the right thing. Preferably before anyone else dies."
And at that, the last of the indecision vanished from Colette's eyes. She sighed, nodding her head once.
"Should we talk here, or would you feel better in our room?" Faith asked in a whisper, noting the way Colette shot paranoid eyes at the glass windows of the motel's front office.
Colette took a moment to consider, then announced, as if to an audience, "If you're having trouble with your TV, I'd be happy to come fix the issue before I leave for the night."
Faith doubted there were actually any bugs or listening devices hidden in the room – the town didn't look like it had the budget for such tactics – but if playing pretend helped Colette to feel more comfortable, then Faith would play along, too.
"That would be amazing, thank you," she said graciously.
Colette shouldered her handbag and held open the swinging barrier for Faith to walk through. Still dabbing at her eyes, just on the off chance they were being watched, Faith led the way back to their room. She rapped on the door five times, to the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff – their secret knock, only because Toby was a giant nerd.
The door opened and Toby was surprised to find Colette stood there with Faith, the older woman glancing nervously over her shoulder into the shadows of the night. "Colette was kind enough to offer to fix our TV," Faith announced, a tad louder than necessary, but it seemed to ease some of Colette's tension.
Toby – bless him – took it in stride. "Great, thank you," he smiled, waving them inside. Once the door was shut and locked behind them, Toby took a quick glance through the gap in the curtains, scanning the parking lot for movement. "I see the plan's changed, then," he finally said, satisfied the two of them hadn't been followed on the short walk from the front office to their room.
Colette's eyes turned accusing as she frowned at Faith. "You weren't upset at all, were you?" she demanded, sounding hurt.
Faith's smile was brittle but apologetic as she dropped the bunch of used tissues into the trash can by the front door. "I'm always upset, Colette," she promised, "just…not about this."
Before any of them could unpack that statement, Toby spoke, for which Faith was grateful. "You told her the truth?" he asked, sounding distinctly unimpressed.
"I told her we're here to help," she replied evenly. "Which we are."
"This wasn't the plan."
"I improvised."
Colette spoke up, voice trembling with nerves. "Um, maybe I should just go-"
"No," said Faith, spinning away from Toby with apologies in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Colette, my brother and I can get carried away. Please, stay. Would you like a cup of tea?"
The older woman visibly hesitated before finally shaking her head. "I just want to say what I need to say, then leave," she decided, still trembling something fierce.
Toby relaxed, clearly deciding to leave Faith's scolding for a later date. He crossed his arms and leant against the corner of their small kitchen table. His body language was unthreatening, even if his towering height and scraggly beard kind of undid all of that. Colette looked intimidated by the sight of him, so Faith put on her most comforting smile and guided her into a chair angled away from her giant, temporary hunting partner.
"What is it you wanted to tell us?" she asked, taking a seat in the other chair, her body angled towards Colette, who nervously wrung her badly-manicured hands in her lap. "No one's listening," Faith assured her, sensing the reason for her hesitation. "None of what you say will ever leave this room. All we want to do is help and make sure nobody else gets hurt."
Colette took a deep breath, the air in her lungs seeming to steady her nerves. "Okay," she breathed. "Um, you know about the town's history, then," she began slowly, tentatively.
"We have the general idea," said Faith. "Centuries ago, there were witches. There was a witch hunt, not unlike Salem, and they disappeared for a while. But now, the witches have come back. And people in town are getting scared again."
Colette anxiously tugged at an errant lock of hair. "There have been whisperings all over town, the last few years – about the witches coming back. Mostly everyone ignored it…at first. Then things started happening – cattle mutilations, missing pets, mysterious illnesses and dead crops. The town started getting so much bad luck that the people started to think, maybe it was true. Maybe the witches had returned… Or maybe they'd never left."
Toby walked quietly into the kitchenette, filling a glass with water and bringing it to her, much like Colette had done for a crying Faith only minutes before. She took it with a shaky smile and took a delicate sip.
"I didn't want to believe it at first," she continued softly. "Or even for a long time. I think I was the only person left thinking it was all just superstitious mumbo-jumbo. But then…"
"Then?" Faith pressed when Colette trailed off into silence, her eyes full of ghosts.
"Then Juniper died," she whispered.
Faith turned to look at Toby. "Izzy's granddaughter," she explained in an undertone. "She died a month ago, fell from a bridge into a ravine. Cops ruled it as suicide."
Colette made a scoffing noise that was filled with disgust. "Suicide," she muttered, the hand gripping her water beginning to tremble again, sending droplets down the sides of her glass. "Juniper had just gotten a full ride to her dream college. She was a happy, loving girl, full to the brim with life. If she committed suicide, then I'm a monkey's uncle."
Faith glanced at Toby, who frowned. "Other people's suffering isn't always visible from the outside," he began gently. "It's easy to think she had a good life, but below the surface…"
"You think I don't know that?" snapped Colette, the first show of fire Faith had seen from the demure woman. "I know suffering, Mr. Newton. And I would have been content to accept that explanation, had I not been there for…for what happened that night."
Faith blinked. "You were there?"
Colette was getting paler and paler as her story went on. "I live only about a minute away from the bridge where she died. I'd fallen asleep by the fire, but I woke up to the sound of screaming."
"Juniper?" pressed Toby.
Colette's eyes didn't so much as flicker, as if she hadn't heard him at all, lost in her own memories. "A young girl was screaming, and over it there was shouting – adults, mostly men. They were throwing names at her no young girl should ever be called. Then one voice rose out of the crowd – a man – and he was giving some sort of a speech while the girl cried in the background."
"Did you go out to see what was going on?" Toby demanded.
Colette's eyes flashed – finally, a reaction. "I've just celebrated by sixty-sixth birthday, young man," she said, voice hard as concrete. "What do you suppose I would have done, had I gone out there to try to stop whatever was happening? There were dozens of them and only one of me. So no, I didn't go to see what was going on. I rang the police, just like any sane woman my age would do."
Toby looked vaguely like a scolded child, blinking at Colette in surprise. Faith leaned forwards to move things along before he could ruin the flow of the story. "And what did the police say?"
Her eyes left Toby, flickering back to Faith. "That they'd send someone right out."
"And did they?"
"Within fifteen minutes, Sheriff Welch was knocking at my front door. By then the screaming had stopped, and so had the shouts. The woods around my house were silent. I told the sheriff what I'd heard, and he assured me it was just kids from the local high school fooling around out by the bridge. I told him… I said that it didn't sound like no kids. That I thought something was seriously wrong. He assured me I was mistaken, made a rude insinuation about the medication I take every night, and went on his way. It wasn't until the next morning that I'd heard Juniper had died – that she'd supposedly jumped from that bridge of her own accord."
Colette swallowed loudly.
"I felt horrible about keeping it to myself but…but I was scared," she whispered. "It isn't an excuse, I know. I should have done the right thing. But some of the people in this town…they're good at making you feel like you're only a few inches tall. Welch…is most definitely one of those people."
It filled in a few gaps, but not all of them. "Why would these people – whoever they may be – go after Juniper?" Faith asked, all the while sure she already knew the answer.
"Well – it's been long rumoured that she was one of the … the witches. That her lineage dated back to the few who escaped the Trials. When she got that full ride to college…it was a surprise to everyone." At Faith's confusion, she added, "There aren't many secrets in a town this small. I could tell you all of the graduating class's GPA's."
"So, Juniper wasn't doing well in school?" Toby pressed.
"She wasn't failing, by any means, but a full ride? It came out of nowhere. Then people – the same people who would talk about the witches and the curse they brought upon the town – they started talking about how it was awfully convenient of her. Then, two weeks later, she was at the bottom of that ravine and some of the folks in town looked awfully pleased with themselves."
Neither Faith nor Toby spoke, the silence stretching as Colette took a shaky sip of water. Faith's head was a wind-tunnel full of thoughts. Were the witches the evil ones here, or the people killing them? Who was the villain? Or was that a trick question, and the answer was that they both were – each only as evil as the other?
Glancing up at Toby, she found him looking similarly disturbed.
Faith leaned forwards, taking Colette's trembling hand in her own. "Colette, can you tell me – in your own words – what you think is happening in this town? And what needs to happen to make it stop?"
Colette didn't seem to know what to say.
"I'm not saying we'll do anything bad," Faith told her gently, "but what do you think about all of this? We need to know the truth, spoken plainly."
The woman before her took a deep, steadying breath in. Faith got the impression that she wished the water in her glass had been whiskey as she shut her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, like she didn't want to look at them when she did.
"I think there are witches in this town," she blurted, eyes scrunched tight. "But I think they're peaceful people, driven to extremes by the people who would see them dead."
Faith bit her lip. "And how can we stop it, do you think?"
Colette opened her eyes. "I don't think you can," she whispered. "I think this war will be fought until only one side remains. And I think a lot more people are going to die before it's finally over."
With that grim statement, Colette set down her glass of water and stood to her feet with surprising grace.
"That's everything I know," she announced, soft and subdued. She suddenly looked older than she was, like the conversation had aged her. "I think I need to go home, now."
Neither of them stopped her as she made her way to the door. With her hand on the handle, she paused and looked back at them over her shoulder.
"I think you should keep in mind that everyone can do terrible things when they're frightened," she said quietly. "It doesn't make them inherently good or bad. It just makes them human."
Then, without another word, she slipped out into the heat of the July night and the door clicked shut after her. Faith and Toby sat in the silence only for a moment, the quiet broken by Toby, who pushed off the table he was leant against and made his way to his duffel bag, from which he pulled out a bottle of whiskey that had been wrapped in a mound of socks.
"Drink?" he offered, already grabbing the two plastic cups from their place above the microwave and filling them with liquor.
Faith took hers gratefully, sipping at it slowly while Toby threw his back like a pro.
"I'd hoped your first job would be simpler than this," he confessed with a sigh, already refilling his glass. "Just a death echo, or maybe a salt-and-burn; no questions to ask, no complicated moral dilemmas to consider. Was that too much to ask for?"
She clicked her tongue. "We can't all have what we want."
Toby smiled and ruefully shook his head.
"So, who's the bad guy?" she wondered, leaning back in her chair and sipping some more at her whiskey, its warmth in her belly a comforting sensation. "The witches? The townsfolk? Both? Neither?"
Toby groaned and rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. "I honestly don't know."
"I think our first move should be to call Bobby," she told him, and Toby looked at her through the gaps between his fingers. "All of this information, and we still don't have an answer to the very first question: what's the deal with all these missing cats?"
"You think Bobby will know?"
"I think it's faster than sitting here thumbing through old books. Bobby's a walking supernatural encyclopaedia, and if, somehow, he doesn't immediately know the answer, at least he'll be able to work the problem while we spend our time here more wisely."
For a beat, Toby said nothing. He just stared at her over the cloudy rim of his plastic glass, a contemplative look to him.
"What?" she demanded. She'd never liked being stared at. She didn't like to be observed, not for long stretches. She wasn't much one for attention.
"You're just…a natural at this," he finally said. She raised her eyebrows in question, and he gestured to the room around them like it was an answer. "Hunting, I mean. Your instincts are…" he shook his head as if in disbelief. "So far, you've done everything I would do, and a few things I wouldn't – which ended up working out for the better anyway."
The praise warmed her more than the whiskey, but she'd die before admitting it. Instead, she smiled at Toby impishly, nodding to his glass. "You're such a lightweight."
"Faith, I'm serious," he said, catching her stare and forcing her to hold it. "You've done well so far – better than I expected. Like I said, your instincts are good. Trust them."
She slumped down in her chair, eager to get the focus off herself. "Well, right now, my instincts are telling me squat about who the bad guys are in this scenario."
"It would help if we could speak to a witch who wasn't absolutely bonkers," said Toby with a sigh.
The idea came to her suddenly. "What about Juniper's mom?"
He considered it carefully, sipping his liquor slower than before. "You know who she is? Where she lives?"
"I'm sure this place has a phonebook," she said. "Look it up."
"We don't even know her name," he pointed out even as he stood to fetch the room's required phonebook.
"It'll be under Hopkins."
He fished the phonebook out from where it was tucked in the cabinet beneath the TV. "Izzy's name? But what if her daughter married?"
Faith shook her head. "No, trust me," she said. "It'll be Hopkins."
While Toby set out on his task, Faith dialled Bobby and waited while it rang. He picked it up at the last moment, sounding a little out of breath as he did. "Yeah?" he answered the phone in his usual, grouchy way.
"Did Rumsfeld piss on one of your rare occult books again?"
"Faith," said Bobby, sounding relieved to hear from her. "How'd things go in Riverton? I was gonna call in the morning, if I hadn't heard from you by tonight."
"Things went well," Faith told him. "Or, well as can be expected, anyway. It wasn't exactly a sightseeing trip."
"You get the answers you were looking for?"
"A few, along with a shitload more questions."
"Yeah," said Bobby with a sigh. "That's usually how these things go. Where're you now?"
"Toby and I stopped for the night in this town called Blackhawk. We were here barely a full five minutes before Toby caught scent of a case."
A beat. "You're on a hunt?!"
"Witches," she told him simply.
"Damn," he muttered, sounding torn between concerned and impressed. "You two sure do move fast."
"Neither of us likes to be idle," she said, nothing he didn't already know. "I'm actually ringing for some info, if you've got time."
"Sure," he said, and even through the phone she could hear the familiar creak of springs as he sat down in his favourite chair. "What're you looking to know?"
She gave him a quick rundown of the situation before them – all of the facts with none of the moral dilemma. Maybe she was just being proud, but she didn't want to ask Bobby his opinion on the issue before her. This was her first proper hunt, and she wanted to prove to everyone – and to herself – that she could handle it on her own. Which meant no running to Bobby and asking for ethics advice, no matter how much she might want to.
She told him about the missing black cats and all the cattle mutilations, then gave him a rundown on the kind of magic Izzy had displayed before she'd died. Bobby was quiet a moment and she listened to the rustle of the papers and books atop his desk as he sorted through them distractedly.
"Well, I can't say for certain, but it sounds to me like your coven's gearing up to work a curse," Bobby finally said.
"Right, and what kind of curse are we talking? Kill-your-crops or boils-for-miles? Or is it something even worse?" Bobby huffed a soft, barely-there laugh, and suddenly Faith felt self-conscious. "What?"
"Nothing, you just – nothing," Bobby chuckled again, then moved on before she could press him on it. "Anyway, black cat bones are most commonly used for summoning and banishing spells."
She took a moment to run over her memory, searching through the piles upon piles of information she'd shoved into her head over the last few months at Bobby's, reading book after endless book. It was impossible to retain it all, but she'd done her best to try.
"Right, they use black cat bones in things like demon summonings and crossroad deals," she said, then frowned. "But that doesn't help us now."
"No," Bobby agreed. "Given what you've told me, a banishing's more likely than a summoning. On account of the cattle mutilations."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's more than one way to create unholy ground, and that's one of 'em. Doing the math: unholy ground and black cat bones, I'd say we're looking at a banishing."
Faith frowned down at the ugly carpet beneath her feet. "What on earth could they be banishing? And to where?"
"I'm not gonna do your job for you," Bobby drawled predictably. In spite of the day she'd had, it was enough to make Faith smile. "But listen, tomorrow's a moonless night."
"So, what?"
"So," said Bobby, annoyed by her ignorance, "there's as much power in a moonless night as there is in a night when it's full. Why do you think werewolves turn on a full moon? It's a night for summoning."
It began to click into place. "And if full moons are for summoning, then a moonless night would be the cosmic opposite, just like a banishing…" she trailed off, realised like static crackling down her spine. "Whatever's going down, it's going down tomorrow."
"You're getting the hang of things," said Bobby, the closest to praise as he was likely to come. "Oh, and listen, once you're done with this hunt, I was thinking you should head south-east to Nebraska – stop in at the Roadhouse on your way back home."
Hearing Bobby call his place her home did strange things to her insides. She couldn't decide if any of them were good. She settled for asking, "What's the Roadhouse?"
Toby looked up from the gun he was cleaning, having already long since found Juniper's mother in the directory. He raised his brows and Faith made a vague motion with her hand that had him returning his attention to the gun.
"Ask Tobias," said Bobby. "He'll know what I mean."
Faith frowned. "You should know that I don't like surprises."
"No surprises here," he replied innocently. "Just some old friends of mine that I think you'd hit it off with."
She narrowed her eyes even though he wasn't there to see. "Are you playing matchmaker now, Bobby?"
"Shut up, ya idjit," he snarked back. "That's the last time you'll catch me trying to find you some friends. Call me when you finish the hunt, let me know you're okay."
"Worrywart."
"Try not to die," Bobby retorted. Without another word he hung up, and Faith looked down at the phone, unable to help the affection blooming in her chest. It wasn't just underneath the surliness of the hunter that she liked; it was the surliness itself. Faith cared about so few people in this world. Bobby had quickly made the shortlist.
Tossing her cell onto the unmade bed, Faith grabbed her own gun and took a seat beside Toby. He tended to make passive-aggressive comments when she left it too long between cleans, so she thought best to clean it now, while they had time.
"So?" Toby asked, scrubbing at the inside of the barrel without looking at what he was doing. Faith thought sometimes that, for Toby, weapons were like an extension of his self. He could have disassembled and reassembled a rifle while drunk, stoned, and blindfolded. She supposed that was what happened when you grew up with handguns for toys, rather than baseballs and wind-up cars like all the other kids.
Faith told him everything Bobby had said, and Toby listened without speaking, methodically cleaning his weapon and nodding every now and again. When she was done, he snapped the clip back into place and put the gun down on the table, attention wholly on her.
"So, the witches are gearing up to banish something."
"Or someone," she added. "And it's more than likely happening tomorrow night."
He calmly cocked his head, though the look in his eyes was troubled. "Theories?"
She opened her mouth, then shut it again and exhaled through her nose. "None," she said, grumpy about it. "Zilch. Nada."
Toby only nodded like he'd been expecting that answer. "Well then, what's our next step?"
Faith knew what the next step would be, but she glanced uncertainly at the time. It was too late to do anything now; by now everyone would be asleep – or well on their way to it – and in her experience, people were less suspicious of visitors when the sun was still shining.
"For now, we sleep," she decided. "First thing tomorrow morning, we go find Juniper's mother. What did you find on her?"
"That's the good thing about small towns," said Toby, leaning back in his chair and running his hands through his hair. "There are only two Hopkins' listed in the phonebook. One was Isabel, and the other? A Ms. Carla Hopkins. If your theory's correct, it'll be her."
"Where does she live?"
"I checked the map – it's barely five minutes from here."
She nodded once. "Let's get some rest. I'll set an alarm for bright and early."
Once her gun was cleaned to Toby's impossibly high standards, she disappeared into the bathroom and took her time under the spray of the shower. The water was wonderfully hot, and the complimentary shampoo didn't even smell that bad. But even as she enjoyed the water, her mind ran over and over the dilemma set before her.
By the end of the shower, she was plenty cleaner but no less confused, and she dressed in leggings and a shirt before letting Toby use the bathroom and collapsing on the bed. Even after Toby was showered and in bed, all the lights off and the world utterly quiet, Faith found sleep still didn't come easy.
Her head was a hurricane of questions. It continued well into the night: the indecision, the weight of the choice set before her. She tossed and turned in bed while Toby snored quietly on the other side of the room. Finally, only an hour or so before sunrise, Faith finally managed to go to sleep.
It felt like she was under for mere seconds before Toby was shaking her awake. But she didn't tell him she'd barely slept. She wasn't going to complain or ask for a break – she couldn't even if she wanted to. There were lives on the line, and right now, she and Toby were the only things standing between both the witches and whatever they were planning – and the townsfolk and their inevitable destruction of the coven in town.
Faith splashed her face with icy cold water to help her wake up, then brewed coffee so strong it made her nose burn. "You all right, Faith?" Toby asked her as he tied the laces of his boots, concerned.
"I'm fine," she assured him, and it was true. But only because it had to be.
Carla Hopkins' house wasn't anything like the hovel that her mother had lived in. It wasn't grand by any definition of the word, but the gardens outside were well tended to, and the paint was in perfect condition rather than peeling from the sides of the house.
Toby pulled up outside and killed the engine. The silence it left them in rang with foreboding. Chills broke out across Faith's skin.
"Seems innocuous enough," said Toby, but it wasn't particularly convincing.
Faith glanced out the window, noting distantly that the street was rather crowded. More than just cars in driveways, cars of all sorts lined the street. "You don't suppose there's a party happening somewhere close by?" Faith asked, not feeling particularly hopeful.
Toby's only answer was a glance at the time – eight in the morning – and a frown. He climbed from the car, and after taking a deep breath, so did Faith.
A pebble path led through the garden to Carla's front door. Faith couldn't see any security cameras or eyes peeking through windows, but somehow, she still felt like they were being watched. Toby knocked on the front door, keeping one hand in easy reach of his gun.
A minute passed and nobody answered. "Maybe she's at work?" Faith suggested, but it was weak at best – a car was parked in the driveway and the lights were on inside. Toby knocked again.
Finally, just as they were considering picking the lock to snoop around themselves, the door pulled open to reveal a woman in her mid-forties, with dark hair and the purple smudges beneath her eyes that only came from too many nights without sleep. She stared at them hard, nothing about her welcoming.
"Can I help you?" she demanded, giving Faith the distinct impression that it would work out better for everyone if they didn't need anything. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards.
"My name's Faith, this is Toby," Faith began cautiously. "We were hoping we could come in for a minute and talk?"
The woman – Carla – shifted her weight slightly, blocking entrance into the house. "What's this about? Are you police?"
"No ma'am," said Toby. "But we were with your mother yesterday, before she died? We just wanted a chance to speak to you about what happened."
Carla's eyes narrowed with disdain. "If you don't have a badge, then get the hell off my property," she snapped, moving to slam the door shut in their faces.
Faith was working on auto-pilot as she caught the door with her foot. If their planned approach wasn't going to work, then Faith would just have to improvise. "We know about the banishing curse," she blurted on a whim.
Toby went rigid at her side. Yup, he was definitely going to kill her. They didn't know for certain that Carla was one of the witches, but it didn't take a genius to make the leap, and Faith had always been a risk-taker.
Carla froze, her eyes – the same shade of blue as the clear sky above them – narrowing dangerously. "Excuse me?" she asked, the words sharp as the edge of Faith's dagger.
"We know about the banishing curse you're planning to use tonight," Faith repeated, her own pulse thunderous in her ears. Toby's hand drifted closer to the grip of his pistol. "We're not here to hurt you – not if we can help it – we really just want to talk."
"Like you talked to my mother?" Carla asked scathingly. It took effort for Faith not to wince with guilt.
"That was an accident," interjected Toby before Faith could dig their hole any deeper. "We only went to ask some questions – she's the one who got violent. We didn't want to hurt her, just like we don't want to hurt you."
"Please," said Faith, pressing her hands together as if in prayer. "Just help us understand what's happening. Talk to us, and maybe we can find a peaceful solution."
Carla's eyes flashed. "I think we're well beyond peace."
"Please," Faith begged her again. "Just talk to us. Neither of us wants to be pushed to do something we might regret."
At the gentle warning, realisation lit Carla's eyes. She shifted her weight, cocking her head to the side as she assessed the two of them like a buyer at a racetrack. "You're hunters, aren't you?"
Faith wasn't sure how to respond, but luckily Toby wasn't so stunned. "We are," he said, voice somehow both hard and gentle at the same time. "And we're not here to hurt you, so long as you're not planning to hurt us. We know what happened to Juniper, and we really do just want to talk. May we please come inside?"
Carla stared some more, then glanced over her shoulder at something inside the house that Faith couldn't see. Finally, she sighed and looked back at the two of them with those dark shadows beneath her pretty eyes even darker than before. "You leave your weapons at the door, and you can come in."
The thought of leaving her pistol and knives behind was about as appealing as doing her own dentistry, but Faith could see no way through this other than compromise. She glanced at Toby, whose jaw was clicking with tension, but he took out his guns and knives all the same, holding them out for Carla to see.
"May!" she called to someone they couldn't see, and an older lady with frizzed hair and tree-bark skin appeared, taking their weapons with knives of her own gleaming in her eyes. Faith reluctantly handed over her pistol and visible knives. She conveniently forgot about the one strapped to her calf, but Carla was smart, accounting for that. "Pat them down," she ordered someone else, this time a younger woman with blonde hair and kind eyes.
The girl – younger than Faith, probably just barely out of her teens – shook as she stepped out onto the porch and began to run her hands clumsily up and down their bodies, searching for hidden weapons. When she felt the iron dagger strapped beneath Faith's jeans, she audibly gasped.
"Oops," Faith said, attempting to sound apologetic. Toby shot her a look of frustration, but said nothing as Carla took that dagger, too. Faith's insides itched and roiled at seeing someone take the knife Bobby had given her – the one specifically designed to give any demon attackers one hell of a headache – but there was nothing she could do, watching as the other woman – May – took their weapons and put them inside a cabinet just off the entryway.
"I think that's everything," said the nervous girl, peeking out from behind them.
"All right," Carla said gravely. "You may come inside."
Led into a spacious lounge room, Faith was unsurprised to find six more women sat around the space. It looked like any old women's tea party, or maybe a book club – except for the blanket spread out in the centre of the room, spread across it a menagerie of frightful objects.
Several completed cat skeletons, the bones scrubbed a glistening white, lay upon the blanket. Around them were what looked like shrunken cow organs, as if they'd been dry-preserved. But Faith doubted they'd called in a professional for the task.
"Seems we interrupted quite the party," she said, because sometimes she was just physically incapable of keeping her mouth shut. And right now, weaponless and surrounded by witches? She was just a little bit on edge.
"Are Faith and Toby your real names?" Carla demanded, and behind them Faith heard the front door creak shut, followed by the unmistakable click of a lock.
"Yes ma'am," said Toby. Carla didn't seem impressed by his politeness.
"They're hunters?" demanded one of the women in the circle around the room. "They shouldn't be here, Carla," she hissed, brown eyes narrowed with hate. "How do you know they aren't working for the mayor?"
"The mayor's the one moving things against you?" Faith blurted before she could stop herself.
Carla sent her a long, assessing stare. "The whole town's against us," she finally said, each word deliberate. "And every mob needs a leader."
"They say they want to help," snarled another of the gathered witches, "but their kind is responsible for just as much bloodshed as the rest of them. They look at us and all they see is a threat. That won't ever change."
There was a general murmur of assent throughout the room. Faith shifted her weight, fingers twitching to reach for a knife that wasn't there.
"How many more of us have to die?" demanded another witch. "First Juniper, now Izzy? How many more will it take?"
"They were my blood," Carla snarled, and the room fell still. "I feel their loss. Juniper – that was…" she trailed off, the words catching in her throat. She continued without finishing the thought. "But you heard how Mama was talking. She didn't want to go through with the banishment. She thought it too kind. She just wanted to kill them all and be done with it."
"So that was reason to see her dead?!" shouted yet another witch. "Don't you even mourn?"
"I mourn her!" Carla shouted back heatedly. "I will always mourn her. But we have to remember what we're fighting for. We have to do this in her name. In Juniper's name. In all the names who came before us!"
There was another general murmur of assent. Faith curled her hands into fists and tried to stay calm – not such an easy thing for a mouse in a serpent's lair.
"We know the truth of what happened to your daughter," Toby said to Carla, whose eyes snapped to him in shock. "We won't let it go unpunished."
"You're hunters," spat a nameless witch. "You would never punish one of your precious humans just for killing one of us."
"We wouldn't kill one, no," Faith agreed. "But we have other ways to make them pay. We can get the proof we need to send them away. They'll rot in a cell for their crimes."
"It's not enough," snarled a wild-haired witch. "An eye for an eye! A life for a life!"
A cry of agreement rose throughout the nine gathered witches. Faith felt what little control they had left slipping from their fingers. "So, what's your plan?" she asked Carla directly. "How does the banishment curse play into things?"
A few of the witches laughed. "What do you think, little girl?" sneered the wild-haired one. "Can't be no killings if there's no one left to do the deed."
It took a few moments to settle into Faith's head. "You're going to banish the town? Like, the whole town?"
"Not the whole town. Just all the people in it," smirked a red-lipped witch with cold eyes and a scar cutting through her eyebrow.
"Banish them to where?" Faith pressed.
The witches exchanged glances. "Somewhere far away," said Carla proudly.
"But they'll tell people, no matter where you send them. Somehow, they'll find a way back. These days it's not even so hard."
A few of the witches laughed. "Girl, we're not stupid. We're not sending them somewhere on Earth."
Horror sliced through Faith, and Toby looked much the same. "You're sending them to Hell?" he asked, pale as a ghost.
"Of course not," sneered another witch, this one tall and striking. "Our dead don't go to Hell when they die, so why should their killers?"
Faith didn't understand, but Toby was able to slot the pieces together. "Are you…are you talking about Purgatory?" he asked, sounding rather like he were speaking in a language he didn't fluently know. Some of the witches smirked. "It's a myth," he said, but the words rang with doubt.
The witch with frizzy hair grinned, a twisted, wicked thing. "Only as much as you or I," she purred. Toby grimaced and leant away, and Faith again found herself reaching for a weapon that wasn't there.
"We don't disagree that the people of this town deserve to pay," Faith said, because without her knives or a gun to protect her, her words were her only weapon. "But banishing them to…to Purgatory?"
"Let the punishment fit the crime," jeered the tall witch, her long fingers curled in like talons. The coven called out their approval and Faith scrambled for some way to cool the situation, to deescalate things before they turned violent.
"Can't you just leave?" she suggested, and the room fell so silent, you could have heard a pin drop. Feeling like little more than a bug under a microscope with all their beady eyes fixed upon her, Faith cleared her throat and pressed ahead. "I mean, the rest of the world has moved past the witch trials. Most people don't even believe witches exist. There's only nine of you; wouldn't it be easier to just pack up and move across the country? Or up to Canada? I hear it's nice up that way this time of year."
Now the witches looked angry, and that anger was directed at her. She honestly hadn't expected the suggestion to be an offensive one and quickly held up her hands in surrender.
"Would you be so weak as to be cowed off your own land?" asked the witch Carla had called May. "To be threatened out of your own home?"
"Home is where you make it, isn't it?" Faith asked. She was pretty sure she'd read that on a bumper sticker, once. "Why not just start fresh some place safe?"
"Our sisters and mothers and daughters are buried here," said Carla, arms crossed over her chest, fury sparking like fire in her eyes. "This land is the source of our power. This land is our home. This land is our birthright."
"Yes," said Toby gently, "but sometimes the best way to win a war is sacrifice."
The flicker of fire in Carla's eyes turned very quickly into an inferno. "You know nothing of sacrifice, boy."
Faith was expecting Toby to step back, maybe hand the reins back over to her before he put his foot any further down his own throat. But instead, he seemed to puff up with…something. Indignation? Offence? Something made him grow double his own size, a look that transcended words appearing like lightning in his eyes.
"I know plenty about sacrifice," he growled, looking so full of that powerful something that even Carla took half a step backwards. "I lost the person I cared about most in this world. But now they're gone, and so I sold the home we owned together and left. Because the memories and the power they hold aren't in any one place, they're in you."
Nobody seemed to know what to say, staring at him in silence.
"Your sisters and mothers and daughters wouldn't want you to stay here; not if your only options are to die or become killers yourselves. Don't do them the dishonour of killing in their name. Leave before this gets bloody. Leave while you still can."
Whatever had cowed Carla before seemed to disappear. She took a step towards him again, gaining back the ground she'd lost. "Was that a threat?"
"It was a warning," said Toby. Carla's features twisted into something truly dangerous, but before she could hiss the spell or curse that was no doubt ready on her tongue, the young witch who'd patted them down spoke up.
"Our fight isn't with them," she said, her voice soft and airy, like her body was with them but the rest of her was floating up in the clouds. "They're hunters; they're only doing their job – what they think they have to do. Just as we are."
"Stay out of this, Steph," snapped Carla.
"If you stop this right now, we can all walk away, Carla," Faith said, and she didn't even mind that it sounded like she was begging. "Please, just think about this."
"It's not the whole world, little girl," Carla hissed, eyes sparking again, the promise of violence soon to come. "It's not even a whole country. It's only one town. One town who has ostracised and beaten us till we were bloody. One town who killed our foremothers for the simple crime of breaking a child's fever. Forgive me if I don't trust you'll make sure they're rightfully punished. I'd rather do it myself."
"Maybe we can talk to the mayor," Faith blurted, a last-ditch effort to fix things before they went entirely off the rails. "Maybe some sort of peace treaty can be-"
"You have until sundown to get out of the town limits," snapped Carla, the words thrown like knives. "After that, you won't be exempt from the curse."
"And if we try to stop you?" Toby asked.
The air in the room cooled by several degrees and shadows seemed to gather around Carla like a shawl. "I wouldn't recommend being so stupid."
The woman called May stepped up beside Carla, looking nervous. "Steph's right. Our fight isn't with you. Leave town while you still can. You can rest assured that the only thing taking place here tonight is justice."
Faith opened her mouth to tell them that there was no way in hell she was going to let them banish an entire town full of people – but Toby's hand gripped her arm, stopping her before she could speak.
"You're right," he said, and Faith turned to stare at him in confusion. "This isn't our fight; it's yours. We'll be gone by nightfall."
Carla's lip curled. "Wise decision."
Faith's jaw worked, staring up at Toby incredulously. "But-"
Toby's fingers encircled her arm, and he led her forcefully from the room. "We're going, Faith," he said, voice rough as gravel.
"And don't come back," Carla called back to them. "We won't be so generous a second time."
"May we have our weapons back?" Toby added, ignoring Faith's glare.
"No, I think we'll hang onto them," said Carla, and Faith might have called her voice sweet, had she not known the truth.
To Faith's disbelief, Toby inclined his head respectfully and just tugged her out into the sunshine without so much as another word.
Once the door had slammed closed behind them, Faith ripped her arm from Toby's grip. "What in the hell was that?" she hissed. Toby said nothing, walking immediately to his car while Faith stalked after him. "We're just leaving? I don't want to waste these witches any more than you do, Toby, but we can't just let them send a whole town of people to Purgatory!"
Toby yanked open the passenger side door. "Would you just get in the car?"
With a frustrated glower, Faith did as she was told, because as much as she'd liked to have marched back inside that house to solve this situation herself, she hadn't the first clue where to begin. And even if she had known how to fix it, she couldn't do it on her own. Like it or not – at least for the moment – she and Toby were a team.
Toby got behind the wheel and started the engine, which spluttered and coughed its way to life. He said nothing until they'd pulled back out onto the main road, but once they were far enough away from the house, he turned to look at her. "We're not going anywhere."
Faith blinked. "What?"
"If we'd refused to go quietly, they'd have just killed us on sight. I had to make it seem like we were going to leave so we could get out of there and re-group."
Oh. That made more sense. She probably should have had more faith in him to begin with.
"Toby, they have our weapons," she pointed out, thinking longingly of Bobby's – now her – iron dagger.
"We have more," he said with a jerk of his chin towards the trunk at the back of the car. At her frown, he added, "We'll go back to get them once we're done."
Faith hesitated. "Done doing what?"
Toby's grip tightened on the wheel as he said, "Hunting whatever it is that needs hunting."
"But we don't know who the guilty party is," said Faith over the rumble of the car's engine. "Are the witches the monsters for sending the townsfolk into Purgatory? Or is it townsfolk, for killing innocent girls like Juniper and covering it up as suicide?"
Toby scowled. "Obviously the witches can't be allowed to go through with their plan. But neither are the townspeople innocent."
"Toby," she sighed, shifting in her seat and staring at him hard. "What are we going to do?"
His knuckles turned white. "I guess we'll find out tonight."
A/N: Hey guys; I know these last two chapters have been super OC heavy – but I promise, this original arc wraps up in the next chapter and we finally get to meet up with some more familiar faces as the story really kicks into gear! Thanks for bearing with me! 3
Sorry for being MIA, too, life's crazy at the moment with the engagement and all. Thank you all so much for your kind words, I appreciate it. I've been posting on here since I was only a kid, so to share this change in my life here feels special. FF has been a second home to me in a lot of ways. I don't know if that makes sense, or if maybe some of you might feel the same.
But to grow up on a site like this, and go from posting THE cringiest stuff you could ever imagine – and STILL having fellow fans support your work – to growing up, actually getting good, and eventually getting so old you wind up getting engaged… It's crazy. And special. And I love you guys. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
See you in the next one, soon! xx