by Lily Velez
As the other souls had done, Maurice’s soul paused before entering the cauldron, and Seamus approached it with his scythe.
I bolted to my feet. “Stop it now!”
The demons around me stirred, as if woken from a dream. I wasn’t approaching the ward, so though they drew closer, they didn’t move to restrain me, wrongly assuming I was no threat. I kept my arms pressed to my sides, hiding the glowing runes as I cut a venomous look to Seamus.
Seamus had the audacity to offer a tender smile. “What I’ve told you about yourself has bolstered your confidence, I see. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough.”
“Won’t it?” I twisted my arms so that the runes faced him.
He furrowed his brow, perhaps confused over what he was seeing. But a second later, his face paled. More so when he saw the Hallowstone in my hand. “Where did you get that? You haven’t even fully come into your powers. Something as powerful as that would’ve never given itself over to an ordinary girl.”
“But I’m not an ordinary girl, remember?” My smile was ice. “I’m a Daughter of Brigid.” I thrust the Hallowstone into the air, high above my head, and it burst with brightness like the beacon atop a lighthouse.
Seamus’s eyes went wide. “Stop her!” he roared at his underlings.
The demons hesitated for a moment, but then they came rushing for me. A blur of claws and wings and fangs was the last thing I saw before a terrible, blinding brightness exploded from my hands and cancelled out everything.
47
Just as the demons pounced upon me, the blast of white light shot out from the Hallowstone in every direction, catapulting the creatures yards away. I stood at the center of a crater, the earth charred at my feet in a perfect ring. Brigid’s power was a wildfire in my veins, the runes down my arms glowing brighter than ever. I felt charged, like a walking explosive ready to detonate upon my enemies.
A new wave of demons surrounded me, studying me warily for any chinks in my newfound powers. They snarled and snapped their jaws and flapped their wings in agitation. I smiled at them, sickly sweet, my gesture dripping with venom.
“Don’t just stand there, you imbeciles!” Seamus bellowed at the demons. “Take her down!”
They stormed for me in a stampede. When one demon sprang from its haunches and lunged for my face, I threw up a hand to shield myself. A force fired out from my palms, easily blasting the creature into smoke and cinders. I glanced down at my hands, which crackled with energy, strings of blue currents snapping along my skin. If banishing demons was indeed my Mastery, then Brigid’s power only enhanced it.
The demons rushed me again and again and again, and each time, I flung out my hand, sending a tidal wave of magic at them that incinerated them on the spot and sent them back to where they came from. Jack and the others had recovered their weapons and were fighting against the demons to hold back as many as possible. Someone had undone Lucas’s bindings, and he fought too—on our side this time. But the demons doubled their efforts, tripled them, and finally they broke through the line of defense until a chaotic horde of them barreled straight for me.
I went down, a dog pile of the Otherworld’s most gruesome creatures piling on top of me. I struggled under their mass, gritting my teeth at the burning scratches against my face and arms. The weight of them pressed the air out of my lungs, driving my body further into the earth. I clutched the Hallowstone in my hand in a death grip. I focused on it, concentrating on our synchronized heartbeats, and I called forth its energy. I let the magic fill my body until I couldn’t contain it anymore, and then I screamed, light emanating from my entire body as a burst of power exploded from me. It blasted the demons high into the sky, as if they’d been shot from a canon.
Seamus stared at me in shock. I came for him next. I held out my hands and sent one shock wave of magic after another against his ward. It crackled under my attacks, a spider web of red lights flickering across its domed shape, momentarily making the ward visible. But the force field quickly reinforced itself and remained in place. I sent another blast against it. And another, and another. The same thing happened.
I gnashed my teeth and fired a volley of blasts in rapid-fire succession. This time, the ward popped and snapped louder than before, its structure trembling as it sputtered like a bad signal. But as before, it steeled itself, refusing to budge. I stormed to the ward and slapped my hands against the force field, the Hallowstone trapped between one palm and the wall of energy. I sent all the magic I could harvest from the Hallowstone into the structure. The ward glowed white hot and started to tremble, but Seamus released his own dark magic, and the clouds of black rushed across the inside walls of the dome, fortifying them. The ward held its ground.
Seamus moved quickly, grabbing his scythe and using it to cut a design in the earth right beside the Cat Stone. A demon’s mark. But not just any mark—the very one Jack bore on his wrist. With a flick of his hand, he set the mark ablaze. My chest bellowed with the thunder of my pounding heart as I realized with dread what he was doing.
“You can try to stop the Reaping,” Seamus said, “or you can try to save Jack. You won’t have time for both.”
The marked ground rumbled and stirred as something beneath it came to life. Between one breath and the next, countless ebony claws pushed through the earth, rising skyward. No, not claws. Branches. More branches than I could count. The crown of the tree was massive, and I took several steps back, craning my neck as it reached higher and higher, piercing the dome of the force field. The tree was dead, a gruesome thing with twisted limbs and bark as black as night. Rivulets of dark, thick liquid trailed down its surface, reminding me of Kai’s blood.
“You would do this to your own nephew?”
“You’ve left me no other choice. I won’t be stopped, not even by a Daughter of Brigid. Jack has chosen his path. There’s nothing any of us can do for him. Perhaps when the Soul-Eater grows in power, I may be able to arrange for Jack’s release, but as for now, he must satisfy his debt. That’s unfortunately the way of bargains with demons.”
At the sight of the tree, the demons around me screamed and fled, like roaches at the break of light. Some vanished into puffs of smoke. Others shot away into the night on their wings. Others drove themselves into the ground, burrowing deep out of reach. Their fear made my heart stutter.
When the tree had stopped rising, it towered over me, the stars seeming to sit on its crown. The veins on its bark glowed red. There was a symbol carved onto the trunk’s center, the twin to Jack’s mark. The symbol smoldered, and as it did, a doorway in the tree formed, opening inward.
That’s when the voices came. They started off as whispers on the whistling wind, a hundred haunting intonations speaking at once. But then there were cries, screams, shouts. They all came from the tree’s doorway. The voices of the dead, of the damned. They were here to welcome Jack into their fold, to welcome him into the forsaken lands of the Otherworld.
I spun to Jack to warn him. He stood at a distance from me, struggling against a pack of demons that hadn’t yet fled. Before I could open my mouth and call out his name, an invisible force knocked him off his feet, flipped him onto his stomach, and began to drag him toward the tree’s doorway. More and more demons became aware of the unsightly thing, and just as the others had done, they bolted, wishing nothing to do with whatever darkness lurked on the other side of the tree’s portal.
“Connor!” I screamed.
Connor had been chasing after a fleeing demon but came to a halt at my voice. When he saw what was happening to Jack, he sped for his brother, but before he could come within a few yards of Jack, something blew him back in a blast of air. Zoe made an attempt next. Then Rory and Lucas and Connor again. None of them could get anywhere near Jack. When I tried, the invisible force shielding Jack from us struck a blow against my stomach, and I flew into the air, landing hard on the dirt, winded.
Meanwhile, Seamus had resumed the Reaping, absorbing two more Masteries. I noticed he’d s
ent Maurice’s soul back into a menhir, though. Perhaps the old man’s Mastery had put up too much of a fight, leaving Seamus no choice but to save it for last when he’d be far stronger. My eyes switched back and forth between Seamus and Jack, who clawed at the earth in an attempt to slow his capture. It wouldn’t be long before he reached the ward, at which point Seamus’s dark magic would no doubt permit Jack to slip through, and once Jack was sealed inside the dome, there’d be nothing we could do to save him.
Which is why we had to bring down the ward at all costs. It was the only way to both help Jack and stop the ritual. “The force field has to have some kind of weakness,” I told Connor as he helped me to my feet, the others gathering around me.
Connor drew his gun and discharged an unending round of bullets at the ward, but they were like mere pebbles against a barricade of steel. Once we were close enough, we tried slamming weapons against its walls, and I once again delivered powerful blasts of magic into the dome. Nothing! The ward was bullet-proof in every possible way. Seamus had sealed himself in like a prisoner inside an impenetrable fortress.
Wait.
My mind snagged on that thought.
A prisoner…
My eyes shot to the nearest menhir still caging a soul. They had emerged from deep within the earth, which meant their bases were still embedded in the earth. We couldn’t attack Seamus from the outside, but what if we could attack from underneath?
My pulse kicking at my throat, I instantly dropped to my knees and pressed my hands against the cool ground, keeping two fingers on the Hallowstone. Brigid’s power purred at the center of my chest, amplifying my magic, the runes down my arms still glowing. I focused on that power, felt it expand until it’d gone from a steady candle flame to a burning pyre, the flames raging. Channeling the Hallowstone, channeling Brigid’s strength, I pushed threads of magic past my body into the earth.
My mind became radio silent as I focused, imagining myself dissolving into the dirt beneath me, picturing the essence of my magic intertwining with the magic of the earth just as Jack had taught me at Iveagh Gardens. How many times had I combed my fingers through earth just like this when gardening back home? I had always felt a connection to nature, had always felt most at peace when working with it, even when there seemed to be no purpose to my pursuits.
Now I knew what that purpose was.
I released all of who I was into the ground until I couldn’t feel my body anymore. Instead, I joined with the earth in holy communion, becoming one with it, our magic coming together. I felt the coldness of its soil, the age of its bones, the quiet hum of its existence. Its secrets danced along the edges of my soul, and I opened myself up to it, inviting it to tell me more. I pushed past its roots, its insects, its burrowing animals, going deeper still, into a profounder darkness no light had ever permeated.
I pushed further. Thank you, I told the earth, remembering this was a partnership, that there was a sacred balance to maintain. The earth welcomed me, guiding me to what I sought, like an elder taking the hand of a child and showing them the way.
And then at last I felt the icy base of the first menhir. I caressed it, and a pang of sadness struck me. The soul within was pleading for release. With my magic, I touched the next menhir and the next and the one after that, until I had grasped onto each one that was still occupied.
The power in my chest intensified. My arms were tingling as currents of magic coursed through them in an ecstatic surge. I kept my mind focused on the menhirs. Seamus couldn’t have these souls. I wouldn’t allow it. Tonight, they would know freedom and rest, and they would know it at my hands.
The power built and built until it reached a rapturous crescendo that would not be contained. Overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the magic, I yelled and let it rush out of me all at once. Instantly, the first menhir exploded in a powerful, deafening burst, as if by dynamite. The blast threw chunks of stone flying into the air like shrapnel on a battlefield. But it sent something else flying too—a translucent, glowing entity shot from the debris and sped into the sky like a shooting star. The soul that had been trapped within!
One after another, the menhirs exploded from the power I sent charging into the earth, releasing beautiful, radiant souls that fled into the night to seek their eternal rest, to seek whatever paradise awaited them. One of them, I prayed, would make its way to my dad’s body in the hospital.
“No!” Seamus fumed over his ritual going to tatters. His lips moved quickly, magic fizzling out along the walls of the domed ward. A double ward, I realized. He must’ve locked himself in so that no one could forcefully remove him from the ritual area. With the force field now down, he charged for me, red-faced and wild-eyed. Before I could stand to defend myself, he tackled me down. My head smacked the ground hard, the back of my skull bursting with pain. He closed one hand around my throat, squeezing so hard I was sure he’d crush my neck.
He unsheathed a knife with his other hand, raised it over me, and brought it down in a quick, violent strike. I crossed my arms over my face to shield myself, and when I did, the knife struck an invisible barrier emanating from me. Seamus tried to bring the blade down upon me again and again, but he only kept meeting the wall of magic protecting me.
Connor ripped Seamus off me, flinging him across the summit with a blast of air. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Coughing, I scrambled back to my hands and knees and focused on the last of the occupied menhirs. Reigniting my magic, I dispatched a massive pulse of energy toward the stone giants through the earth. Not a second later, they all exploded at once in a dazzling display of brightness, the sound overpowering the very thunder in the skies. I focused on the cauldron next, remembering the souls lying in wait there. It trembled at the feel of my power, and then it too exploded, water gushing up as if from a geyser, the souls trapped within reforming and zipping away into the night. Though I couldn’t return their Masteries to them, I said a blessing for them in my mind so that they could find their peace in the afterlife.
Finally, I turned toward that nightmarish tree and aimed my palms in its direction. The wind howled all around me, clawing at my hair, and lightning stabbed the fragmented ground of the summit in spears of stunning white. Jack was nearly at the tree’s doorway, still struggling against the force reeling him in.
I reached down into the deepest parts of me, where my magic was an infinite well, where Brigid’s power pulsated so that I felt its steady beat in every iota of my being. I threw all of it—everything I was—into the force rushing out of my palms and barreling across the distance to the tree. The magic was luminous and powerful as it left my hands. My entire body was shaking from head to toe, and blood slowly trickled from my nose. I was overexerting myself. The power was too much for my body. But I couldn’t stop. Not now.
I stood my ground. I released every last bit of magic, every remaining fraction of power I could find within my bones, within my heart, within my soul. The Hallowstone was on the ground beneath my foot, and I channeled its power as well, receiving everything it could give me. Its life force intermingled with my own, becoming a hurricane inside me that only grew fiercer when combined with Brigid’s strength.
I kept my eyes pinned on the tree, on the way it shuddered and began to crack under the weight of my assault. Still, the darkness on the other end resisted, fighting back. I clenched my teeth and delivered a storm of magic upon it, beating the tree with wave after wave of immeasurable energy. I don’t know who you are, I told the darkness, but you’re not getting Jack Connelly’s soul tonight. Not on my watch. Not ever.
The tree whined and groaned and shuddered. The darkness attempted one final defense, rising up like a ferocious tsunami. I wasn’t afraid. I lashed out like a dragoness with the blinding hot fire at my fingertips. I raged against it, meeting it measure for measure with the might of a goddess radiating from my core, cowing it into submission, forcing it back, until suddenly, the darkness cracked under my unrelenting charge and the tree exploded in
a sound louder than the earth ripping in two, bursting open in a surge of power so great it threw me onto my back.
I shielded my eyes against the sting of brightness. There was a rush of air, as if the tree were exhaling a breath it’d been holding for a thousand years, and riding on that gust of wind were dozens upon dozens of grayish blurs, racing out of the flaming cavity in the tree where I’d sent all my power in an endless stream.
“You fool!” Seamus cried out from a distance. “You broke open the portal! The damned are escaping!”
But my mind was elsewhere. Pocketing the Hallowstone, I raced with the others to Jack, who laid motionless two or three yards away from the smoldering carcass of the tree. Connor flipped him over. There was blood coming out of his ears, his nose, his mouth. He was paler than I’d ever seen him, those shadows under his eyes at their darkest.
“Oh gods,” Zoe said, slapping a hand over her lips.
“Jack?” I felt for a pulse at his neck. There was none. I checked his wrist. Also nothing. Pushing my panic aside, I pressed my ear against his chest, but I couldn’t detect even the faintest thump of a heartbeat, nor was his chest rising and falling the way that it should. He was so still. So devastatingly still. Like the way he’d been when the hunters had thrown him into our cell. Rory knelt on the other side of him, perhaps trying to find something in Jack to bind to, but the lines of concentration on his face told me he was coming up empty-handed.
“No,” I said, my voice breaking on the word. “No, no, no. Jack, please.” I pressed my palms to his chest, but they were no longer hot the way they’d been only seconds ago. They didn’t crackle with magic, and the runes on my arms were already dimming. I didn’t want to think of what it meant, that I’d used up all my magic to free the souls and destroy the portal to the Otherworld.