My will wavered. It wasn’t enough.
“Can’t. Hold,” I groaned, and my body shook with my spent energy. I stumbled and felt strong hands around my arms as Ronin helped me up.
“Then I guess we die together,” said my vampire friend.
Behind the half-sphere, the chanting grew louder in a language I didn’t recognize.
Steam rolled up the protection shield, and my body was drenched in sweat. My vision blurred. I blinked the wetness from my eyes as the protection shield thinned, like a soap bubble ready to burst.
The dragon’s fire was everlasting. It never stopped.
I could make out voices. No shouts. Definitely shouts. Perhaps Emmet and Kaito were trying to fight off the sorceress. Either that, or she was killing them, and this was them wailing in pain.
“It was nice knowing you, Tess,” said Ronin as he gripped my arm tighter. “At least we won’t die alone.”
This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned on dying. I’d never planned on dying, not until I was like two-hundred years old.
Ronin’s fingers tightened around my arm. My shield wavered. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the fire that would kill me. I braced myself for the excruciating pain of burning alive.
The last of my magic left me in a sudden wave, like a water jug abruptly emptied. With a final tug, my half-sphere collapsed.
This is it. I’m dead.
I waited for the fire to hit.
And waited.
And… nothing happened. At least, I thought I wasn’t burning.
When cool air brushed my face, I opened one eye. Then both eyes.
The sound hit me first, deafening blasts like I was standing next to a rocket launcher. Then the light, searing, as the bridge shook beneath my feet. The bridge was illuminated with orange, blue, and purple light, the blasts echoing as though someone had set off a fireworks display. I blinked. Not fireworks. Spells.
And they were hitting the dragon and the sorceress.
“Tess. Look!” Ronin let go of me and pointed. Though he didn’t have to. I’d seen them.
My aunts.
Ruth and Beverly stood with their backs to us, Latin spilling from their mouths as they hit the sorceress and the dragon with volleys of their magic. Orange fireballs, purple bolts of lightning, and shock waves that shook the bridge like a giant stomping his foot in anger sailed through the night air.
Emmet was there standing with them in a united witch front. I recognized his cape. I couldn’t see Kaito anywhere. I didn’t especially like her, but I didn’t wish her dead.
I staggered, and though the air was hot, a cold sweat broke along my forehead. Blackness crept into the edges of my mind, but I wouldn’t let it. Not yet.
I caught a glimpse of the sorceress’s face, twisted into a truly bestial snarl as she pulled herself up on the dragon. Her red eyes were bright with anger and frustration, shocking in their depth.
Sparks of magic continued to hit her as the dragon took flight. I fell to my knees, my eyes on the dragon as it pulled higher into the night sky until it was but a speck in the sea of blackness and then was gone.
“Tessa! Oh my god! Tessa!”
I looked up to see a blurred version of Ruth, just as a version of a blurred Beverly appeared next to her.
“Dolores,” I breathed, and I fell to my knees just as the darkness took me.
23
I woke to the sound of something crashing, like a glass smashing against the floor.
I jerked up in my bed, my heart racing as I blinked the drowsiness from my lids and looked around. I was in my room, the heavy drapes drawn, but some light was coming through, which meant it was morning or afternoon.
Had my bed shaken? I thought I felt a tremor?
I didn’t even remember getting into bed. All I remembered from last night was passing out after the dragon took off. Then I got some fragments of random images: Ruth practically force-feeding me some disgusting, fertilizer-smelling tonic that tasted exactly like it sounded; Beverly shooting her mouth at something Emmet had said; and Ronin saying something in the likes of “you weigh a lot more than you look,” which is something we woman love to hear.
I let out a sigh, trying to shake the sleep from me. I didn’t feel rested. My body ached like I’d planted a hundred trees on my own with just a shovel. I was tired, and part of me wished I could lie back down and sleep for an entire month, though I knew that was impossible.
I remember waking up throughout the night. Yes, because of my aches and pains, but also because of the nightmare I kept having. I kept dreaming I was being eaten alive by tiny dragons the size of squirrels. Little bastards had sharp teeth too.
I cast my gaze around the room. I’d been certain my bed had shaken. Or was that part of the dream too?
“Maybe I’m losing my mind,” I breathed. “Maybe I’m just—”
My bed rattled, and I was lifted off the mattress in a sudden heave, suspended in the air before falling back down.
“What the hell is happening!” I wailed as I shot up again, only to land back on my bed a second time.
While I was playing rodeo with my bed, I noticed my laptop on the vanity trembling. It moved along the top with my books and pens, which moved to the edge and then crashed to the floor.
My bed jerked again, and I reached out and grabbed one of the bedposts for support. “House! What is wrong with you?”
A crack broke through the plaster in the ceiling, spreading along to the other side. Pictures frames fell off the walls only to smash on the wood floors. It wasn’t just my room. The entire house was shaking like we’d been hit by an earthquake. Either that, or Davenport House was coming down.
That’s when the smell hit. A disgusting mold-like smell mixed with rotten eggs rose and seemed to come from the walls and the ceiling.
One thing was for sure. Earthquakes didn’t smell. So, what the hell was this?
I’d had enough. I swung my legs off the bed and stood. I could still feel the tremors under my feet.
And then it stopped. Just stopped.
I straightened and walked over to the dresser. “House. What’s going on? Why are you shaking? And what’s up with the smell?”
I waited for House to show me something, but all I saw was a grimed-faced woman who looked like she’d crawled out of her grave. Me.
“Hello? House?”
Nothing. And in this house, that was not normal.
Images from last night’s demonic debacle on Hollow Cove Bridge loomed with a terrible clarity in my head. The sorceress’s creepy face flashed in my mind’s eye. Had she finished destroying the ward? Had she done something to Davenport House?
A coldness swept through me as I remembered something else.
Dolores.
My heart fluttered into a sudden, startled panic. The sorceress had done something to her.
Without another second to waste, I dashed out of my room, barefoot and wearing only my undies and a T-shirt. My feet slapped on the hardwood floors as I sprinted down the second-floor hallway, making a beeline for my aunt’s room.
The door was open, which made for an easier entrance. I don’t think I could have stopped my momentum at this pace. Voices trailed out, and I dashed in.
I skidded to a stop before slamming into Ruth. She and Beverly were both standing next to a large, four-poster bed, resting above a red and cream Persian carpet.
They turned at the sound of my animated entrance, their faces grave and hollow, and their eyes gleaming with sorrow.
I moved past them to the bed and froze. A scream died in my throat.
Dolores lay in her bed, her arms resting above a thick, white, and gray striped duvet cover. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Black swelled and bulging veins marred her face, her arms and hands, and all of her skin that I could see.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. It was stiff and cold as stone. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythmic motion. It was the only sign that she was still alive, but
barely.
“What happened to her?” I asked, finding my voice with my eyes burning.
“We think it’s a curse,” answered Ruth, her voice low and filled with sadness.
“A curse that wretched sorceress put on her,” added Beverly.
I swallowed, my throat constricting. My eyes rolled over Dolores’s face to her grayish lips and sunken cheeks. “Can’t you lift the curse?” A tear rolled down my cheek, and I wiped it away. “Isn’t that what you do? The Merlin Group? You’re supposed to be experts in lifting hexes and curses. Right?”
Ruth inched closer. “This is no ordinary curse, Tessa. It’s complex. Dark. It’s a curse we’ve never seen before.”
I let go of Dolores’s hand and turned, wiping my eyes as more big fat tears decided to make their appearance. “What are you saying?” I snapped. “Are you going to let her die? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Ruth stepped back as though I’d slapped her, making my guilt hit hard. “No. Of course not.”
Beverly stiffened, her hands on her hips, clearly pissed at me. “Family comes first. Always has. We don’t let the members of our family die.”
I let out a puff of air, feeling like a giant jackass. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just… wasn’t expecting to see her like this.” Then I took the time to look around the room. Candles rested on the floor, giving off a soft glow, their flames low, like they’d been burning for hours. Witch runes, sigils, and pentagrams were drawn in chalk over the floor and near Dolores’s bed. A large chalk-drawn circle with a tree in the middle and five stars drawn around it was marked at the foot of Dolores’s bed. The sigil to protect and dispel curses.
The scent of incense and candles was thick, and I knew my aunts had performed many counter hexes and counter curses. Now, when I truly looked at them, I could see the bags under their eyes, the tiredness in their shoulders and posture. They’d been up all night fighting this damn curse.
I felt like a bigger fool. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on my screw-up. There’d be lots of time to make up for my mistake later. Now was the time to act.
There was a sudden loud tearing sound, like the sound of metal splitting apart.
“Not again,” said Ruth, her eyes round and wide.
“Grab on to something! Quick!” cried Beverly as she and Ruth leaped forward and grabbed hold of one of the bed’s wood posters faster than I thought possible.
“What?” I asked, impressed at their agility.
The ground shook with a violent tremor.
I bit my tongue as my body was thrown to the floor. The scent of rot rose again, only thicker this time, and despite the blood in my mouth, I could taste the rot there too. Disgusting.
I screamed as the house shifted and rocked violently and then banked to the right side, sending me sliding down the hardwood in my underwear. The house rocked like we were in a boat during a storm. I was sure of three things next. One, a wall stopped me from sliding further. Two, that wall, grateful though I was, hit me hard as I crashed into it. And three, a large, heavy bed with three witches followed closely behind.
I hit the wall with my back and rolled to the left as fast as I could.
The air behind me shifted and a loud crash hit the spot where I had been a second ago.
I whirled, seeing the bed and my aunts still all in it, holding on for dear life. It was as though some giant had grabbed hold of Davenport House and was now shaking it madly to discover what secrets were hidden inside.
I barely had time to recover before there was another loud roar of metal and wood splitting, and the house rocked to the left.
Here I go again.
“Make it stop!” I howled, as I slid to the other side of the room this time. I threw out my hands to grab hold of something, anything to keep me from smashing into the wall, but my hands kept slipping on the smooth polished floor.
“We can’t!” cried Ruth as the bed came sliding toward me fast. “It’s the ley lines.”
“It’s getting worse!” shouted Beverly.
I hit the wall with a thud. “Ow.” I was going to have some nasty bruises tomorrow. The sound of something heavy scraping the floor pulled my eyes up. The large bed was coming at me again.
I pushed myself up and rolled away, waiting to hear the bed smashing against the wall. When it didn’t, I looked up.
The bed had stopped right in the middle of the room, my aunts holding to the posts with their legs wrapped around them like strippers. It made me smile.
“Oh, thank goodness, I think it’s stopped,” said Ruth as she climbed down her post.
Beverly did the same, looking a little disheveled and angry. “For now. Ohhh. I just hate this. Hate this. Hate this.”
I got to my feet, my lower back throbbing, and saw nasty scuff marks on my knees. Nice.
“Why would the ley lines do this to Davenport House?” I asked as I neared the bed, not exactly understanding what was happening.
“It’s that damn sorceress,” hissed Beverly, tugging down the front of her blouse. “She’s pulling on the ley lines, see. Davenport House is basically a conduit of magic, of those ley lines. She’s taking the magic from the lines, their power, and by doing that…”
“She’s killing House?” Damn. That was bad. I liked House.
“Among other things, yes,” answered Beverly.
If the sorceress was dabbling in the ley lines, it could only mean she’d removed all five wards.
“She destroyed all the wards. Didn’t she?” I asked my aunts.
Ruth’s face was red and blotchy. “Yes,” she answered, looking defeated.
But we weren’t defeated. Not yet.
I reached out and grabbed Dolores’s hand again, my fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Her pulse is really weak. How long does she have?” I didn’t know if they could tell me, seeing as this was a new dark curse to them, but I needed a timeframe.
Ruth and Beverly didn’t answer at first. And when they finally did, Ruth spoke. “Maybe a day, maybe less. It’s…” she took a labored breath. “It’s getting worse, Tessa. I’ve been giving her all my best healing tonics to keep the curse from spreading but…”
“But what?”
Beverly looked at me. “Whatever that sorceress is doing, it’s making it worse. It’s as though our magic diminishes while hers gains in power.”
That did not sound good. If we could figure out what kind of curse she put on Dolores, maybe there was a way to reverse it.
My gut tightened. “If you guys were at the bridge, who brought her here? Who found her like this?”
“Marcus,” said Ruth, as she dabbed a cold cloth on Dolores’s forehead. “He and some Unseen were with her when the sorceress attacked. The Unseen are dead. All three of them. Dolores did what she could to save them but…”
“And that’s why she ended up like this.” Beverly’s red lips trembled. “Always trying to save everyone.” Her shaking fingers gripped the duvet. “She put herself in the way and got hit.”
“What good did that do?” said Ruth. “They ended up dead anyway.”
“And Marcus told you all this?” I wanted to know how was he still breathing while my aunt lay cursed and possibly dying and three of the Unseen were dead?
Ruth’s blue eyes met mine. “Go ahead and ask him. He’s downstairs.”
Anger bloomed in my chest. “You mean, he’s still here?” I asked with a smile.
“Yes,” said Ruth. “But—”
I rushed out of the bedroom. Yes, I was going to face him in my undies and T-shirt and nothing else but my temper. I didn’t care.
My smile turned wicked. Marcus was going to get it.
24
I rushed down the stairs, which I really don’t recommend when you’re not wearing a bra. The girls were bouncing all over the place. I pressed my right arm over my chest to keep them from ripping to my feet and kept going.
I hit the bottom of the stairs. Following the sound of voices le
d me to the kitchen—well, what was left of it.
My breath came back in a gasp.
Cabinets lay in fragments on the kitchen floor, their contents on the floor smashed in pieces next to an assortment of cereal boxes, rice, pasta, canned goods, a couple of bananas, and a few apples. The fridge and stove sat where the kitchen island used to be and the island was tipped over to the side next to the dining room table. The kitchen was the heart of this home. It was where we’d always congregated. Now, it looked like a tornado had hit it. The kitchen was ruined. Even if we managed to kill the sorceress—because that’s exactly what I was planning on doing—it would cost a fortune to replace this large kitchen.
I felt eyes on me, and I turned slowly to the left.
Ronin sat on one of the kitchen chairs, backward, his arms folded on the backrest. A strange smile splayed across his face at the sight of me. Emmet and Kaito sat on the floor in the middle of the living room, as though they were afraid to sit on anything that might suddenly attack them. I didn’t blame them.
Marcus stood next to the fireplace mantel. I watched as he forced visible tension from his face and posture when he spotted me until he was the casual, confident chief on the surface.
Your ass is mine, I told him with my eyes.
I marched over, picking my way carefully around broken glass, lamps, and the occasional broken flowerpot.
The closer I got the wider his eyes got, as they flicked to my bare feet, moved up my thighs, very slowly, and then lingered a little too long on my breasts. No idea why. There wasn’t much to see there at all.
I wasn’t embarrassed to be half-naked, nor that I hadn’t brushed my teeth or even attempted to brush my hair. Because I only had room for one emotion right now, and that was fury.
When I deemed I was close enough (so I wouldn’t brush my breasts up against him) I planted my feet and pointed a finger in Marcus’s face. “How could you do this?”
Marcus’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Do what?”
I lowered my hand and kept it close to my body so I wouldn’t accidentally spell his ass like the last time, enjoyable though it was.
Shadow Witch (The Witches of Hollow Cove Book 1) Page 17