Isaac Mercado huddled under a scratchy, green blanket in the back seat of a Greyhound bus headed for Louisiana. Everything felt scratchy against his paper-thin skin, but the thought of his torment ending soon was reason enough to endure it.

Every time the bus hit a bump in the road, jostling him in the seat, sharp pain shot through his joints, threatening to shatter his bones. He shifted to his left hip and leaned his forehead against the window. The coolness of the glass did nothing to tame the fever trying to consume his entire body, and a bruise formed within seconds of the hard surface pressing against his skin. He attempted a sigh as he leaned on the cushioned headrest, but it turned into a hacking, wet cough, his chest threatening to explode with each forced breath.

A woman in the seat across the aisle covered her nose with the neck of her shirt and turned her back to him.

He splayed his fingers against his legs and winced as the knuckles cracked into place. The blue color that previously occupied his fingertips had spread all the way to his wrists. His blood had turned against him, refusing to circulate properly through his veins.

His own magic used as a weapon to defeat him.

He rotated his wrists and wiggled his fingers, encouraging his cursed blood to flow again. A trip like this would require at least two weeks in the swamp to recover. Floating semi-submerged in the murky water eased the pain enough for him to focus his mind. The combination of mud and algae soothed his dry, cracked skin, and the remote location provided the privacy he needed to meditate for hours at a time.

The world thought him dead, and now that his true powers had been revealed, it needed to stay that way.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the prickling sensation in his legs. His feet had probably turned purple in the three hours since he’d boarded the bus in Florida. The pounding in his head was only matched by the pain of his predicament.

A witch of his magnitude reduced to meditating in a swamp, surviving on frogs and nutria for nourishment? Well, it was his own fault for tangling with a witch whose power matched—possibly exceeded—his own.

He’d be head of the council by now if his plan had worked, sitting comfortably in a mansion in the mountains. His tulpas—shadow-like entities he created with his mind—serving him, the entire witch community worshipping him.

But she had to screw it all up.

His revenge would be well worth the wait. If seven years of living alone in the swamp had taught him anything, it was patience. Two weeks of recovery would be plenty of time to get his body into shape enough to find and drain another witch. He could spend the days focusing on his tulpa, recharging the entity, increasing its power so it could walk the streets of New Orleans and execute his plan.

The witch he’d drained last week had been magnificent. Her life force had been strong like her magic, her gift of sight giving him the temporary ability to finally locate the one responsible for his demise. Too bad he’d burned through all her energy finding the bitch and sending his tulpa to New Orleans to dump the body. Hopefully, by now, his enemy was scared shitless, watching her back and jumping at every shadow. If she wasn’t yet, she would be soon.

And then he’d make her suffer.

Slipping his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a small glass jar. The witch’s eye sloshed in the liquid as he turned the container and peered at the bright-blue iris. The orb contained enough magic for him to find his target once he arrived in the city.

A small child squealed from the seat in front of him, the shrill pitch of his young voice cutting through Isaac’s ears like shards of glass. The boy reached his tiny hand around the seat, grasping the back as he squished his tear-streaked face between the seatback and the window. His eyes widened as he looked at Isaac, his mouth falling open, his body freezing in shock.

Isaac reached for the boy’s hand, gripping the soft, life-filled skin in his frigid grasp. Warm energy flowed into Isaac’s hand, restoring the tawny color to his skin as it cascaded up his arm to fill his chest. He inhaled the first deep breath he’d been able to take since he drained the witch and closed his eyes for a long blink to revel in the healing sensation.

The boy fell slack, leaning against the window before collapsing into his mother’s lap. Isaac released his hand and stretched his arms over his head. What was it about young life that felt so damn good? He attempted a smile, but the shriveled skin of his upper lip split, and the coppery taste of his traitor blood oozed into his mouth. He hadn’t drained nearly enough energy from the kid to make smiling worth it. Any more, though, and he’d have killed him. Now the boy would sleep for the rest of the trip and wake up with a vague memory of the monster in the seat behind him. He’d done the kid’s mother a favor.