by Leigh Kelsey
Oisìn provided the answer, or at least the suggestion of it. I’d asked him once where he’d been before Fear Doirche and his hunters came here, and he’d answered Middleham Castle. Which is why we—me, Finn, Oisìn, Allen, and Kwame—were here while the others watched the house. Rita was busy trying to convince her coven elder and the rest of her friends to help us. I’d settle for two other witches helping us—even one.
“It looks pretty intact,” Finn remarked. We were still a good five minutes away from the castle but even I could see it: straight stone walls with jagged tips and narrow windows cut out of them. It looked sturdy. A flag hung from the highest point, what may have been a tower once but now stood barely higher than the rest of the structure. It was an impressive building but foreboding the more I watched it. My legs prickled and I grit my teeth at the sudden burning in my muscles, like little knives embedded in my calves.
I wanted to turn away from it, my feet itching with the desire to run. No, I needed to run. I needed to run as far as possible from this place, my muscles screaming and the daggers in my skin driving deeper, twisting—
I stopped dead, and so did everyone but Finn. I couldn’t move but I needed to run. I needed to leave this place. My breathing came fast. Only Oisìn’s hand in mine kept me rooted to the spot. He hadn’t let go of me once since we’d left the Fair House, the shadow of my abduction covering him like a physical veil.
“That is foul,” Kwame said, scowling. “Witchcraft, I take it?”
Finn nodded. “Not the most powerful kind, luckily. Ellie, you doing okay?”
“I want to leave,” I replied, the itch spreading to my legs now.
“That’s the spell, love. Fight it—you’re strong enough to beat it without much problem.”
Strong enough. Because my gran was a Harker and a vampire hunter, because she once almost transitioned to be a vampire and was then restored to human, giving me an advantage over regular new vampires. And because my father was a vampire. I kept trying not to think about Sinclair—I didn’t know what to do about him—but it was difficult when Finn spoke to him so often. And he seemed to jump on any opportunity to come to the Fair House. To see me, I suspected.
Oisìn squeezed my hand, his body taut to hold off the trembling that wanted to wrack his body—trembling from fear for me, after everything that had happened, after us being separated for a week, so far apart, after me being hurt while he could do nothing… I returned to the present with effort, the burning in my muscles getting worse. I followed Finn’s advice and fought it, picturing it as a shroud around my lower half that I wrought away from myself. Sweat beaded on my forehead and I grit my teeth against a sudden headache, my whole body tense as a bowstring with the strain but … the urge to flee slowly left, my muscles easing and the daggers in my calves twisting once before the sensation vanished. And that felt a lot like a victory.
Oisìn’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and he tugged me close to his side. I squeezed his hand, giving him what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Good girl,” Finn said, and I glowed under the praise. I took a tiny step forward just to test my ability, and grinned. I was getting stronger. I didn’t feel quite so new and weak.
“There!” Kwame said abruptly, pointing at a spot on the castle. There was a part higher up on the wall where a window had crumbled, wider at the bottom, and I watched as a man in a dark coat jumped through it. Another followed, appearing from nowhere before crawling down the wall.
“They’re sending them through steadily,” Finn said, his expression shadowed. “Smart. Even if we block the bulk of their numbers in the portal, there’ll still be enough of them already here to make our lives difficult.”
“So…” I said, watching the two vampires make their way across the field surrounding the castle. “The plan won’t work?”
“It’ll still work,” Kwame replied. “But we need to do it sooner rather than later. Tomorrow would be good. Today would be better.” He glanced to Allen, who was staring at the castle with a guarded look. “How is your sister coming along?”
“Two of her friends will help,” he said, glancing over at us.
“Is that enough?” Finn edged closer to Allen to touch his arm.
Allen relaxed a fraction. “It’s enough.”
Finn nodded. Kwame straightened up.
“So … tomorrow?” I asked, my stomach flipping. Tomorrow we would block this portal, forcing any vampires to come through the portal in St. Mary’s Church. Where we’d be waiting for them.
Finn nodded, his back straightening. “Tomorrow. At dawn.”
FAR FROM HOME
It turned out the witches needed eighteen hours to prepare the barricade spell, so it was dusk rather than dawn when we set off across town, dressed in leather armour and draped with weapons. I had a band of stakes around my waist, but though I’d touched them all, I hadn’t felt that heat of Harker power I had when I’d touched Rosa’s stake.
The parallel to the last time we’d all set out like this wasn’t lost on me and my heart squeezed tight but this time we had a lot more back up. Kwame, Sceolan and Bran for one, and Sinclair’s entire house of vampires for another. Rita and two other witches, a willowy black woman and an elfin blonde teenager walked a little behind us, even Rita wary to be in the company of so many vampires.
With Whitby as scared as it was, seeing the hoard of us marching out of town would have raised alarms but Rita and Anouk, the elegant black witch, had cloaked us so nobody could see us. I’m sure all the supernatural species could sense us but none of those came out to investigate either.
“This is where we part,” Sinclair said dramatically. I was learning everything he did had a sense of flair. I wasn’t sure I liked to admit it, but I could see how he would work with my eccentric mother. I glanced at him as his house of twenty-seven vampires broke off from our little group, in the direction of St. Mary’s Church where they would wait to deal with any vampires that came through the portal. The idea was to block off the second portal, the one we suspected led right into the heart of the Mistress’s castle, and funnel them all through the one on the huge battlement wall.
It could work. I kept waiting for Fear Doirche to appear from the ether laughing, sneering that we were idiots to think we could trick him, beat him. Kill him. But it could work.
“Wait,” I said, surprising even myself as I took a few steps to speak to Sinclair. A fist had gripped my heart to see him walk away, and even though I knew little about him, he was still my father. My mum’s husband. And that grip on my chest tightened at the idea of this being the last time I’d ever see him. This plan could go horribly wrong. And I didn’t want to leave things the way they were.
“Why did you never tell me?” I asked, looking into his pale face, his curious grey eyes.
His mouth twitched with a smile but there was no joy in it, no amusement. It was all sadness. “To keep you safe, of course. I’m the head of a vampire house, Elara. I have enemies who would love to get their hands on you.” He came close enough to touch my cheek, a fleeting glance. “Now you’re strong enough to fight back if they even try.”
I nodded, not sure what to say. “Be safe,” I finally managed.
“And you.” He gave me a long look, a smile, and then turned to join his house. I told myself he was the head of a vampire house and old enough to have fought countless times before. I told myself he was powerful enough to survive.
Allen caught my hand as I re-joined our family, brushing his thumb over my knuckles. “Alright?”
I nodded, ignoring the ache in my chest. “Time to go?” I looked to Finn, then Kwame, the two who seemed to have everything under control. Finn’s eyes flickered with anguish, the same pain I’d seen when he’d begged me not to walk into this fight hours earlier, his protective instincts raging at him to protect me the way he failed to protect Sadhbh from Fear Doirche. I’d just kissed the furrow of his brow, held him tight, and refused to back down. This was our fight—ours—not his
burden to bear alone. I knew he’d had similar conversations with Allen and Scarlett.
“Yes,” Finn replied, his eyes faraway as he pointed us away from home. “Time to go.”
We walked uninterrupted to a field on the outskirts of Whitby where Rita drew a hunk of unpolished green onyx from her satchel. It was as wide and long as her brown arm and must have weighed a tonne but Rita held it out towards us.
“Everyone touch the stone. When you’re all touching it, I’ll activate the spell inside it.”
“I still don’t understand how this works,” Allen said, but touched the crystal. I followed suit, and so did everyone else.
“As long as you’re touching it, I can use the dormant spell on it to transport us,” Rita explained to her brother, her eyes focussed on the vivid green stone.
“Like the boot in Harry Potter?” I asked. A furrow in Oisìn’s brow told me if we made it out of this alive, I’d have to illuminate him. As if I needed an excuse to start the series again from the beginning.
“It’s exactly like that,” Pip, the third witch, replied with a huge grin. I returned it. I wish we had time to talk about books and the boy who lived, but I felt a tug on my fingers from inside the stone and all too soon I was reminded of why we were here and what was at stake.
The Mistress wanted Finn dead, and Fear Doirche would do anything to make her happy, up to and including murder. She also wanted me to use as a weapon because of my Harker power. And I went cold whenever I thought of the things she’d make me do, the people she’d make me hurt. Killing Graham Harrington had broken something inside me, a jagged edge I still didn’t dare investigate, and he’d been a sick, twisted bastard. What would killing an innocent do to me? What about someone I loved, like Finn?
No. I had to get rid of this threat to us. I had to make us safe, and blocking off this portal was the first step to doing that. I shut my eyes tight and waited for the witchcraft to relocate me.
BARRICADE
The spell to transport us to Middleham Castle knotted my stomach until I fell onto my knees on the grass and heaved. My head pounded like I had a hangover and I felt awful. It only barely subsided when Allen knelt beside me and rubbed my back. A few paces away, Sceolan was retching and moaning pitifully.
“Never again,” he rasped. “Fucking witches.”
“Hey!” Rita protested, pointing a finger at him. “These fucking witches are gonna save your ass, Fido.”
Sceolan snapped his teeth at her.
I nodded my agreement as I got to my feet, Allen steadying me.
“And all of Whitby, potentially the world,” Pip added with a quirk of a smile. She held a thin, willow wand in her hand, twirling it absently.
“Let’s get on with this,” Anouk said drearily, producing a black wand from the depths of her long midnight blue cloak. I watched the witches with apprehension. I’d never seen a spell cast before. Worn the result of one, and walked through one, but never actually witnessed it.
“How long will it take?” Finn asked.
“A few minutes,” Rita replied with a bright smile. I could tell she was just trying to seem confident so we wouldn’t get worried, though.
“If it works,” Anouk sighed, beginning the trek across the field towards the bulk of the castle.
Rita gave us a little shrug and went after her, followed by Pip. The three of them couldn’t have been more different—bright, friendly Rita in her floaty dress and jade green hijab, Pip dressed in clothes as vibrant as her personality, and Anouk marching grimly towards the castle, beautiful and tall but distant somehow.
I twisted my fingers together, watching them take up positions around the castle. There was nothing we could do, but we were still here, watching. I knew it was just in case a vampire came through and interrupted the spell but I felt useless. Allen hugged me close and comfort sifted through my dark mood like sun through clouds but it didn’t break up the storm entirely.
“Can you feel it?” Finn asked Bran and Sceolan, and then Oisìn. “Does your magic react to it?”
“No,” Oisìn replied with a shake of his head. His hair was scraped back tightly, his features set in a severe mask of fierceness and determination even though there were no enemies to fight here.
I opened my mouth to speak but the ground bucked beneath us and I stumbled into Allen with a cry.
“Shit!” Sceolan yelled. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Oisìn was beside me in a second, helping me up. I fell into him as he gave Allen a hand and the ground bucked again, like some monster long buried in the earth surged towards liberation.
“Should we intervene?” Kwame asked, bracing himself with the end of his sword driven into the grass.
“No,” Allen answered, glancing around at us. “We shouldn’t get involved. It could make the spell worse.”
“Worse than that?” I asked, lifting my hand. Rita was storming towards us, Anouk and Pip close behind her and their hair, cloaks, and dresses floating around them in a phantom wind. Something about them didn’t look … right. I was relieved when they neared and whatever fell power was around them faded, leaving me looking into the eyes of my friend.
“It’s done,” Rita said, though the furrow between her eyebrows and the flat line of her mouth said it hadn’t been easy. “There was a spell waiting for us. It fought like a bitch.”
“Understatement,” Anouk replied sourly. I watched with surprise as blood dribbled from her nose. “There were thirteen spells protecting this area. Somebody wanted that portal to stay untouched.”
Allen frowned hard at Rita, worry in his eyes. She sighed and closed the distance between them, pulling her big brother into a hug.
Finn produced a tissue from his pocket and handed it to Anouk. “Will you be alright? If there’s anything I can do—”
“There’s nothing,” she cut him off, and then sighed, the hardness about her evaporating. “But thank you for your concern. I simply need to perform a healing spell and sleep for several hours.”
She was still sort of imperious when she was being nice but I could like her a bit more like this. “So the barricade’s up?” I asked. “No one can get through?”
“They can certainly try,” Anouk replied with a wicked grin, teeth white in her stunning, dark face. “They’ll be eviscerated.”
I tried to remind myself that the vampires worked for Fear Doirche and his Mistress, that they’d hurt my Oisìn and me and all my friends, but my blood went a little cold and I felt bad for whoever tried to get through this portal.
“So what now?” Bran asked, walking closer to us from where she’d been standing sentry a bit up the road. She looked a lot like Sceolan—long dark hair, pale, and striking—but a much cleaner, restrained version. And unlike Sceolan’s obvious alarm, she appeared calm. I didn’t know her well enough to see beyond the mask to any hidden anxiety. “We wait here until someone comes through?”
All the witches tensed at once, like a common live wire had touched all of them. Pip went even paler, while Anouk laughed. “Well,” she said with a grin that was thoroughly out of sync with her droll voice. “We know it works.”
“Someone tried to get through?” Finn asked quickly.
Rita nodded. “Tried being the key word.”
“Good,” Oisìn replied, his voice rumbling through my body. “We know it works.”
I was trying very hard not to picture what had happened to the vampire on the other side of the portal.
“Will they have felt that on the other side?” Finn asked, his brow furrowed, hands within easy reach of his weapons. “Will Fear Doirche know we’ve blocked it off?”
The witches nodded. “He’ll know,” Rita replied.
“Then he’ll come. We should leave. Elara.” Slowly, I lifted my eyes to Finn’s. “Are you alright?”
I nodded numbly. It had hit me, everything that depended on us getting this right. I jumped as something brushed my leg, but it was just Sceolan in scruffy black dog form. I hadn’t even n
oticed him shift. I buried my fingers in his coarse fur and pulled myself back together. This wasn’t the time to break down. “So now we go back to Whitby?” I asked, looking between my friends and the witches.
Rita opened her mouth to speak—
The castle exploded behind us.
CONTROL
The ground split open and swallowed me, and I screamed, throwing my arms out at my sides to stop my descent into the earth. Blind panic blurred everything, the world moving around me at breakneck speed as I froze in shock.
The ground had opened into fissures when the portal had rejected the vampire on the other side, and with this new explosion, I tumbled hard into it. I hit the bottom, three meters beneath the ground, and screeched as pain rocketed through my backside. For long seconds, I laid there, paralysed by the shock of what had happened—what was happening.
I was startled back to clarity when a figure jumped into the crack in the earth with me. I fumbled for the dagger strapped to my thigh—the silver winged, marcasite incrusted blade I’d stolen from Fear Doirche—but sense caught up to me. We’d been alone in the field around Middleham Castle, so why would an enemy jump in to hurt me? Well, sense caught up to me along with a tug in my belly—the mate bond.
I accepted the hand that was offered to me and let Oisìn pull me to my feet, a feat since the ground shook again.
“What’s happening?” I asked, covering my eyes as dirt sifted from the earthen walls.
“I would guess they’re trying to get through the portal,” he replied, pulling me close so my face was buried against his leathers as a larger fall of dirt crashed onto us.
“Can they?” I asked, muffled. Fear that this was all for nothing beat at my chest. “Will the barricade hold?”
Oisìn was quiet, so I dared a glance at him. His head was turned down to me, his red hair covered in dirt and his eyes furious. “I don’t know.” His hand flexed on my spine. “I wish I did, Elara.”