Dream Walker (The Coven, Book 3)

by Erica Stevens

  “No!” Tlachtga screamed and waved her hand at him. Regan flew into the wall where he hung with his limbs outstretched like an animal ready for dissection. “Give me the skull.”

  Too astounded to move, Sandra gazed from Avery to Regan and back again. Avery waved her hand elegantly in the air, and the skull trembled in Sandra’s arms before rising out of them. It hovered over Sandra before floating toward Avery.

  “Are you scared, Regan?” Celia asked. “Do you finally know the fear we all experienced?”

  Regan squirmed against the wall while he glared at Avery. Pleasure lit her face when the skull stopped to hang over her outstretched palm.

  “All those people you’ve tortured,” Avery whispered, and Reid knew it was her by the softening of her voice and features.

  When she lifted her eyes from the skull, her features were remorseless, and she was gone again. “We will all defeat you,” a distorted mixture of voices continued.

  “It won’t be enough!” Regan hissed.

  “Yes, it will,” Galiana replied. She strode into the center of the room and placed the skull on the floor so that it faced Regan. “All of you, join with me.”

  Reid saw the dread on the faces of the coven as they remained where they stood.

  “Come on,” Landon said. “This has to be done.”

  Landon strode forward and clasped Avery’s hand. Reid walked over to join them, but he hesitated as he gazed at Avery’s free hand. She didn’t scare him; he was already facing his biggest fear of losing her, but he suspected that, like the rest of her, the hand would not be Avery’s.

  Finally, he slid his hand into hers and discovered her flesh was cold when it fastened around his. There was no love in her touch, and the power coursing from her threatened to overwhelm his mind. There was so much power in her that he didn’t understand how it hadn’t destroyed her already—how it hadn’t destroyed all of them.

  He had the sudden horrendous thought Avery was already dead, and it was her corpse standing beside him. Another hand clasped his, and he turned when the person jerked beside him. Sandra gawked at Avery before her eyes flickered to his, and he saw the sadness in her gaze.

  More power flooded him, and he realized the entire coven had come forth to form a circle around the skull. With the circle complete, the power swirled over them all until it crackled the air and created a hum of sound in the room.

  When a beam of dazzling, purple light poured from Avery and into the skull, Reid had to turn his head away to protect his eyes. Unwillingly, he found his power being drawn toward Avery as she pulled it from him and the other members of the coven before funneling it into the skull.

  “The spirits of the past and the lives of the present are joined and united as one,” Avery said in the distorted tone of all the spirits within her. “Come here.”

  Reid didn’t know who she was talking to until Regan was peeled off the wall and floated toward them. Avery lowered him until he stood in the center of the purple light. He screamed when the light touched his flesh, and his features fell away to reveal the faceless mask he’d worn before. A wave of blackness poured out of him, but Avery’s light kept it contained.

  Regan battered himself against her barrier as his faceless mask melted away to reveal blood and bone, but no skull. Reid gaped as a solid white spinal cord jutted up from Regan’s neck; the skull rose off the ground and drifted toward Regan’s neck. A loud click sounded as the skull settled and locked into place before muscle and blood weaved forth to cover the skull again.

  “Say the words with us,” Avery said.

  Reid winced at the word us instead of me. She can be saved. You will find a way to rescue her. He didn’t know how yet, but he would find a way.

  When Avery started speaking again, he tried to tell her he didn’t know the words, but they suddenly flooded his mind and poured out of his mouth at the same time they issued from the rest of the coven.

  “Flesh of flesh, blood of blood, and bone of bone, what you were is never more. Bound to bone, bound to flesh, your mortality will lay you to rest.”

  Mortality. Reid saw the truth of that statement in the terror filling Regan’s eyes. Mortal.

  The light emitting from Avery beat harder against Regan while he was lifted into the air. Reid’s heart thundered, his ears rang, and the world took on a strange hue that made it somehow sharper and cloudier while Avery funneled the power she drained from Regan into the coven.

  A blinding white light burst out the top of Regan and through the floor and roof; it tore a gaping hole in both. Shards of wood fell from the ceiling and crashed onto the floor. Regan’s agonized scream echoed throughout the room as he thrashed while floating toward the ceiling.

  “Tina!” Karen screamed and stumbled toward them before staggering away as the light grew even brighter.

  Unable to look at it anymore, Reid turned his head away and saw the rest of the coven doing the same, except for Avery. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her as she gazed unflinchingly at the light. It reflected in her eyes and bathed her face in what he would almost consider a heavenly glow, except there was nothing heavenly about this situation.

  Glass shattered inward when the remaining windows broke. Rosie and Shawn cried out as the shards blowing over them cut into their flesh. The curtains lashed their backs as their blood dripped down to blend with the rain soaking the floor.

  “Do not break the circle,” Avery said in a distorted voice, oblivious to the suffering of her friends.

  Regan’s head fell back, and his scream abruptly cut off when a wave of black erupted from his mouth. The black poured out to mix with Avery’s light and bounced around the walls.

  “You will not escape me,” Avery growled. “Flesh of flesh, blood of blood, and bone of bone, what you were is never more. Bound to bone, bound to flesh, your mortality will lay you to rest.”

  Reid hadn’t expected to repeat the words, but they emerged from his mouth as the blackness rebounded more forcefully. Regan thrashed against the light closing in on him while the white glow sucked the darkness into it and thrust it toward the basement. Something crashed below, and the floor rose and fell as if a wave were cresting beneath them.

  “No,” Karen whimpered and fell to her knees.

  He realized Tina must still be in the basement when Karen sobbed her name before reaching toward the hole. Either Avery didn’t know about her friend or the spirits didn’t care.

  A tortured, inhuman scream ripped from Regan, and the house quaked from the cacophony until Reid swore it would fall around them. The distant scent of smoke wafted through the air as rain and hail pelted the floor.

  The light filled the room until it splintered apart and burst outward in a blast of power that lifted him off his feet and flung him backward. His breath was knocked out of him when he hit the ground with a thud and skidded across the wet surface. He came to a stop near Landon, who lay on her side with her hair shielding her face. In the distance, he heard windows shattering, and he doubted any of them remained intact.

  Crawling over to his sister, he rested his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. His heart leapt into his throat when she turned lifelessly toward him. “Landon,” he breathed as he brushed the hair back from her cold, wet face. “Landon?”

  Alex collapsed on her other side and lifted her hand. “Is she okay?”

  Reid held his breath as he pressed his fingers to Landon’s neck and felt the steady beat of her pulse. “She’s okay,” he said as he sat back.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Landon’s eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked at them. “Oh, thank you,” Alex breathed as he leaned over to smooth the hair back from her face. “Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me again.” He kissed her forehead and drew her closer as Landon lifted her arms to embrace him.

  Reid glanced at where Avery remained standing near the hole; she was the only one who’d withstood the blast. The rest of the coven stirred from where they were tossed around the room. Mario kn
elt at Karen’s side and clasped her elbow as he helped her rise into a sitting position. She wrapped her arms around him, and Mario held her protectively close while he gazed at Avery’s unmoving form. She seemed not to feel the rain falling around her or see the smoke rising from the hole.

  Reid rested his hand against the wall and used it to help him rise. “Avery?”

  He edged toward her as the rest of the coven rose around him. When he got closer, Reid spotted a shriveled form at her feet. Pale and no bigger than a cat, its skin was wrinkled like a raisin. He frowned as he tried to figure out what it was, and then it hit him—Regan.

  And the only reason he recognized what it had been was because Regan’s blue, signet ring lay on the ground before the squiggly creature. Reid couldn’t quite process what he was seeing; it was as if someone had stuck Regan in a machine that shrunk him while it sucked all the fluid from his body.

  Avery knelt beside the Regan thing and rested her hand on its forehead. “What was will never be again,” she murmured, and the misshapen thing shook before disintegrating like sugar in water.

  Reid gawked at the liquid oozing through the floorboards until nothing remained of the once freakishly powerful demon of the Nightmare realm.

  “No!” Lila screamed, and Reid realized she’d woken up again. “What did you do?”

  When the last of the liquid slid away, Avery turned and stalked toward Lila. She shrank back, but there was nowhere for her to go as Avery stopped to stand over her. The fury and hurt on her face was enough for Reid to realize Avery was once again in control and staring at the best friend who had betrayed her.

  “You’ll never hurt another again,” Avery said.

  Lila tried to crawl away, but Avery captured her ankle and yanked her back. When Lila kicked at her, Avery released her to lift her palms over her. “No more!” she shouted, and Lila went as rigid as a board with her arms clamped against her sides. “What is done for harm will not be allowed to exist.”

  Avery’s palm glowed, and a strangled scream came from Lila as her body lifted a few inches off the floor. Light enveloped Lila’s body until a tiny tendril of blackness escaped from her mouth and curled up toward Avery. Closing one of her hands, Avery clasped the light around the blackness and drove it down through the floorboards.

  “Never again can you use your powers for harm,” Avery said.

  Lila curled in on herself and started to cry while Avery gazed emotionlessly at her before walking away from Lila and returning to the hole. She bent and lifted Regan’s ring off the ground and held it in her hand.

  Bringing her hand to her mouth, she blew on it before opening her hand. Ashes trickled from her fingers and scattered across the floor before a wind whipped through the house, lifted the ashes, and scattered them.

  There was a moment of silence before a thunderous crash shook the house. From above, something fell and shattered on the floor; more crashes and bangs followed it. Avery tilted her head back and closed her eyes as the rain fell over her.

  Reid cautiously approached her. “We have to get out of here, Avery.”

  She didn’t open her eyes. “This is the end for me.”

  “No. You can fight this. You can come back from this.”

  She lowered her head and opened her eyes to gaze at him. It took all he had not to flinch away from her. “Leave us be, Reid.”

  “Avery,” Karen whispered as flames burst out of the hole before her. “Tina’s still in the basement.”

  Avery stared unseeingly at her as smoke spiraled up through the boards beneath them. It was only a matter of time before the fire ate enough of the wood away to collapse the floor. She turned away from Karen and rested her hand on Reid’s cheek.

  “Leave,” she said.

  Before he could reply, she jumped into the hole. “No!” he shouted.

  He lunged for the hole, but before he could follow her into it, Shawn tackled him, and they crashed to the floor together. They tumbled over a couple of times before coming to a stop against the wall. Reid lay panting as he stared at the fire surging up from below them as the floor near Lila collapsed.

  CHAPTER 43

  “We have to go!” Shawn shouted in his ear.

  Reid pushed Shawn’s arms away from him and rose as Eric and Sandra edged away from the spreading fire to join them. Anguish twisted his chest as he tried not to give in to the panic clawing at him. She’d jumped into the hole; she’d gone into that fiery pit, but why? Was it for Tina or was it to kill herself because she believed that was the only answer?

  He spun on Karen. “How do you get into the basement?”

  “There’s a door in the hall, but we couldn’t get it open before,” she said.

  “Reid, no!” Landon shouted after him as he sprinted out of the room and down the hall.

  He flung open doors as he went until he threw open one that revealed a set of stairs with the bottom half already engulfed in flames. Before he could go any closer, a ball of fire rolled up from below and surged over him. The heat of the fire drove him back as it singed his hair and burnt his face.

  “We have to get out of here!” Eric yelled and grasped his arm.

  “There are storm doors outside!” Karen shouted as the flames spread out of the doorway and rolled over their heads.

  Reid wanted to resist Shawn and Eric when they grabbed his arms, but there was no point. He couldn’t fight his way through those flames to get to her. “Avery,” he whispered.

  “What about Lila?” Karen asked as they ran back past the room where they left her.

  Reid glanced over the spreading fire to discover Lila still huddled near the fireplace with tears streaking her face. Behind her was a broken window.

  “She can get out if she wants to,” Sandra said and turned away. “And if she does, I might kill her myself.”

  “Reid,” Landon said and reached for him. Alex stood beside her with his arm around her waist. “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t know what he was anymore, but he followed them out the door. They staggered away from the house and turned back to look at it from the safety of the front yard. The orange glow of the spreading fire danced in all the windows on the first floor. Rain soaked Reid’s hair and clothes to his skin, but the hail had stopped.

  Reid didn’t feel the chill of the storm as his heart tore in his chest. He didn’t see how anyone could survive that blaze, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

  “Where are the storm doors?” he asked Karen.

  Mario hugged Karen against him as she sobbed into the hand she had pressed against her mouth. She lowered her hand and pointed to the right of the house. “They’re on that side.”

  “Reid, you cannot go in there,” Landon said.

  “I have to try.”

  “I’m going with you,” Sandra said.

  Before he could make it more than two steps, a hulking figure emerged from the shadows next to the house. Reid wiped the rain away from his eyes as he tried to understand what the figure was. Then he realized it was Avery with Tina draped over her shoulder.

  His heart lurched in his chest, but he found his feet frozen to the ground as Avery approached them. She didn’t show any sign that Tina’s weight was an added burden to her as she stopped before them and set Tina on the ground.

  When Tina flopped to the side, he saw the smoke and soot streaking her face. Her skin was red, and blisters marred her face and hands. Her shirt, shoes, and pants all had charred spots on them, and she remained so still that he couldn’t tell if she was alive. Then she gasped in a breath and released a hacking cough.

  “Tina,” Karen breathed and ran forward to fall at her friend’s side. “Oh, Tina.” She brushed the hair back from Tina’s red face as another fit of coughing shook her.

  Something inside the house cracked, and a loud crash rocked its foundation. Unable to keep from touching her any longer, Reid grabbed Avery’s arm and drew her against him. He hugged her close while she remained stiff in his arms. Her vast power pricked his
skin, and he found himself being pushed away from her as it radiated against him.

  Lightning raced across the sky and struck a tree fifty feet away. Fire burst from the top of the tree. “Remove the girl and end this,” Avery said in the mottled voices of all the spirits as her hair danced around her face and those eyes burned brighter.

  More lightning arced across the sky and hit the top of the house. “Avery…,” Reid started as the rest of the coven edged closer.

  When Tina groaned again, Avery flicked a glance at her. “Remove the girl,” she said again.

  Karen leaned protectively over Tina as she stared at Avery with a mixture of horror and fear. Mario knelt beside her and lifted Tina to carry her away from Avery. Two more bolts of lightning hit trees behind Avery, and sparks shot into the night as thunder shook the ground. Spiraling beyond her control, Avery’s power was oozing out to mingle with the storm and turning it into something far more lethal.

  More lightning pierced the night and hit the ground, but this time it wasn’t close by. When the thunder stopped rolling, he heard the distant blare of a car alarm and the wail of sirens. Over the tops of the trees, he saw the glow of another fire.

  If Avery wasn’t stopped soon, someone innocent might die, but stopping her might kill her.

  “Avery, you have to fight this,” he said. “You have to regain control.”

  Avery’s face revealed no emotion when she gazed at him. Landon stepped beside him, and lifting her hand, she let Avery’s crystal fall to dangle in front of her. Reid saw the glow within it, and he felt the warmth and love vibrating from it; Avery’s warmth and love.

  “Avery’s in here,” Landon said. “You have to let her go.”

  “She’s going to die,” Alex said. “And we’re the ones who have to do it.”

  “Yes,” Landon confirmed.

  “No!” Sandra shouted over the rain. “I am not going to let her die for us. That’s not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair,” Celia said from Avery’s body. “But Regan is gone forever, and Avery’s life for the power to accomplish that is a fair trade.”