A Witch's Rite (Witch's Path Series: Book 5)

by N. E. Conneely

  There was one member of our group who was sure to alarm Patrick. “Burly, you should hang back.” I felt bad. He really was a nice guy, but he didn’t look like a nice guy. “Let us explain things to Patrick before you get too close.”

  Burly sighed and nodded. “I’ll stay out of the way. I have no desire to harm an officer.”

  I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. I finally patted him on the shoulder. It was the most comfort I could offer.

  “Come on, Michelle.” Elron motioned me forward. “We need to put our group back together.”

  I was on Elron’s heels as he found a narrow path between a big rhododendron and a holly tree. As soon as we got through, it opened up into a large clearing. Elron tensed as I came up next to him. There was a truck in the middle of the field, but its shape kept wavering. That was hard on the eyes but not threatening.

  I kept looking around, trying to figure out what had alarmed Elron. The second my eyes landed on Patrick and Wells (though I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here since Elron had been very sure of his death) laid out on the ground with a ghostly form hovering over them, I shed my backpack and ran forward. I sent a blast of power at the ghost, hoping it would knock it away from the men.

  The form flew back several feet. It bobbed around, seeming unsure of its bearings. Then it righted itself and turned so that I could see it clearly. Now, I’d come across a lot of strange creatures, but this was one of the weirdest. As she snarled at us, she flashed a mouthful of pointed teeth. Her jaw opened twice as wide as any human’s, and her fingers were adorned with long, talon-like nails. This was a ghostlike creature, an empursa, a woman who was known for killing men. They were fearsome creatures, not easily deterred from their prey. From the look of things, Patrick and Wells had that honor.

  She flung herself forward, covering ground at a surprising rate. I quickly jabbed my wand in her direction, trying to capture her in a containment shield. “Sowil!”

  A sphere sprang into existence around her. She stopped short of the wall, but that didn’t mean it would hold her. I’d seen creatures break out of these before, and I knew an empursa would be especially likely to find a way to freedom. Noncorporeal life-forms were tricky to contain.

  Elron sprinted past me, sword in hand. While I was still focused on the empursa, he was going for the officers. I really hoped they were both alive. Even a quick glance was enough for me to see that their shirts had been ripped open.

  As I neared the empursa, I had a couple of spells in reserve. I didn’t want to be caught off guard if she managed to bust out of there.

  She hissed at me.

  I glared at her.

  She hissed again.

  Tilting my head to the side, I took in her wrinkled face and nightgown. “You know, I don’t think you really mean it.”

  With that she snapped her jaw shut and blinked at me.

  Shrugging, I continued. “I know you don’t really want to hurt them. They’re good men, unlike your typical prey.” I held up a hand to forestall any protest. “I know you can attack anyone, but why would you even want to hurt these two? They’re in the business of helping people, and they really do want to help.”

  She sank down to the bottom of the shield.

  “I thought that might be the case. How is he controlling you?”

  She rose up sharply, darting looks in every direction.

  “He could be watching, but I’m not allied with Ned. I’m a victim too, and I thought that while I was helping my friends, I’d help the other people whom Ned’s hurt.”

  She still wasn’t talking, but I could tell I had her attention. That was enough for now because it would give Elron time to see to Wells and Patrick. If he could get them farther away from her, then I didn’t care if I was able to help her or had to kill her. Well, killing was never my first choice, but I wasn’t going to let Ned do any more damage to my friends.

  “I might be able to help you. I helped the minotaur. Do you know him?” I waited for an answer but didn’t get any sigh of recognition. “Well, Ned had him spelled, and he’s free now.”

  She was still watching me like she wasn’t sure what to do. I kept talking, telling her how I’d managed to free Burly, while I probed her. There were several spells on her, and I doubted they were all consensual. After all, Ned didn’t seem to be big into giving people a chance to agree. He liked to control them.

  One of the spells bound her to an object. That didn’t sound like a fun way to live, but that one could be her choice. The second and third spells had more than a passing similarity to the spells I’d found on Elron and myself. There was a fourth spell that I was having trouble getting a feel for, but I suspected it had something to do with why she was mute.

  I pulled my magic back into myself. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Elron helping Wells and Patrick. They were almost to the woods. If I could keep the empursa focused on me, they could escape. With that decided, I made her an offer. “I can free you. Would you like that?”

  There was a surge of energy. I scrambled back as her mouth opened and a truly terrifying cry filled the air. She went through the side of the shield like it was nothing.

  “Fehu!” I turned the air around her and inside her into ice. There was no guarantee it would work, but it had stopped a poltergeist before, so it was worth a try.

  The ice block containing the empursa tumbled to the ground. There was no way it would hold if it shattered.

  Jabbing my wand at the ground, I tried to soften the earth before the ice block hit. “Orzu.”

  The spell took just in time, and the ice block bounced a couple of times but didn’t crack or chip. That still didn’t mean it would keep holding her, but it was enough for now.

  A masculine scream had me whirling around to see what had happened. Elron and Wells had disappeared into the woods, but Patrick was running right at me, blood oozing down his chest, eyes wide and panicked.

  “Patrick, calm down.” Something had scared him, but until he settled down and focused on me, I couldn’t help do anything about the wound. “It’s okay. It’s me, Michelle. You’re safe.”

  He darted away.

  Swearing, I started to go after him and then thought better of it. There was still the empursa to deal with. Any further debate about what to do was eliminated when Elron charged into the clearing. He spotted Patrick and took off after him.

  Something hit me in the back. My vision faded out as I went down. As I waited for my vision to clear, I patted the ground, trying to find my wand. There were plenty of leaves, pebbles, and small twigs, but nothing wand-sized.

  By the time my eyes were working again, my head was throbbing and my shoulders weren’t in much better shape. I still couldn’t find my wand, so I tried dismissing it and summoning it. When its weight settled into my hand, I gave a sigh of relief.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I looked around. I could hear Elron and Patrick on the other side of the fire truck, but I couldn’t see them. Before I had a chance to look for the empursa, I saw her swooping out of the sky, still trapped in the block of ice. That explained why I ached all over.

  The weight of the ice should’ve made it impossible for her to fly, but she was as fast as ever. Which made it even more important for me to stop her. With that much mass, she could kill one of them by ramming her ice block into their head.

  My wand cut through the air. “Algiz obala!”

  Ropes twisted around the ice block and hauled it to the ground, holding it down where it couldn’t hurt anyone.

  With one problem taken care of, I raced around the fire truck.

  Patrick screamed, “I don’t believe you.”

  “The minotaur is on our side.” Elron kept his voice calm. “He is helping us.”

  Patrick’s eyes darted from side to side as if he was looking for the best escape. “No, it’s another trick.”

  Lowering my wand, I tried to reason with him. “Patrick, I’ve never lied to you. Trust me.”

>   He didn’t look convinced.

  I tried a different tactic. “If the minotaur was going to hurt you, wouldn’t he be here now? We’ve been through enough of the maze together that you and I both know anything that wants to hurt you won’t stop once it gets going.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Michelle?”

  “Yes?”

  Patrick closed his eyes, shook his head, then opened them and looked at me again. “You look strange, scary.”

  That was probably a side effect of having removed the magic from Elron and myself but not from him. “I can fix that. Will you trust us for a few more minutes?”

  He thought about it longer than I liked. “Yes.”

  “All right. Sit down, and I’ll get the magic off you.”

  He slowly lowered himself to the ground. Once he was settled, I sat down a few feet away. While it would’ve been nice to sit with him, it seemed better to leave some distance. I didn’t want to scare him.

  There was a crack behind me, and I twisted around to see the empursa squeezing out of the ice block. She’d gotten her head and shoulders free before Elron’s sword sliced through her neck, lopping off her head and a corner of the ice. That sword of his never ceased to amaze me.

  With a twinge of regret, I watched her head roll away. I would’ve liked to help her, but I couldn’t save everyone. Only seconds later, the two parts of her body vanished in a dazzle of little light flashes. Her remains had turned into pure energy.

  I looked up to see Elron using the ends of his shirt to dry his blade. “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “You were managing Westmoreland, so I kept an eye on her.”

  Reaching up, I took his hand in mine. “Good thing too. I think she would’ve tried to kill someone.”

  “I will always guard your back.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I shall be there to protect yours as well, my elf.”

  “Oh, cut it out.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “It’s bad enough when you two look like yourselves, but right now you look rather like rotting zombies. It’s revolting.”

  Laughing, I let go of Elron’s hand. “Let me fix that.”

  The spells on him were harder to remove. Not only were they more intact, but they seemed to have sunk deeper into him. Maybe it was because he was young, or maybe because he was human, but either way, the spells were stubborn. With more effort than I was happy to expend, I freed him.

  Opening my eyes, I focused on Patrick. He looked the same to me, but since his eyes were closed, I didn’t know if I’d helped his view of everything else. “You can look now. You should be back to your usual self.”

  He opened one eye at a time and, after a flash of surprise, grinned. “Well, the two of you look good. The hedges are gone. Trees are a nice change of scenery.”

  “Then I think you’re good.” I couldn’t help but smile. He already looked better than he had a few minutes ago. Though he was still oozing blood. “How’s your chest?”

  He looked down and touched the wounds. “They look worse than they are. I’ll be fine.”

  “We have bandages. We’ll at least get it covered up.”

  Elron cut into the conversation. “We need to get back to Burly and Wells. I am unsure how the officer is doing. I was in a hurry when I left.”

  Patrick blushed. “Sorry.”

  Elron waved off his concerns. “You are not at fault. Ned is the one who caused all these problems.”

  I stood up and brushed off my pants, more out of habit than an attempt to keep them clean. “Let’s get back so I can help Wells, and then I need to rest before I do any more magic. Those spells on Patrick fought back.”

  Elron raised an eyebrow. “They did not do that when you removed the spells from the two of us.”

  Shrugging, I followed him over to our packs. “I know, but we had the medallions. And I think we’d done some damage to our spells, or more damage than Patrick did to his.”

  Elron helped me put on my pack but had his in the air before I could offer to return the favor.

  Patrick grumbled. “Why would the spells stick to me better than they stick to you?”

  “If you can think of a good reason, I’d love to hear it.” I sighed. “All I have are bad guesses.”

  Elron took us through the rhododendron thicket and headed in the direction of a giant pine. I could see Burly’s shoulder peeking out from behind the tree. As we neared, I could hear snippets of a casual conversation on the merits of different cheeses. Wells seemed to be doing just fine.

  “Hey, Wells. I heard a rumor that you’d died.” I shrugged out of my pack and knelt down next to him. “Good to see that the report was exaggerated.”

  He smiled. “There aren’t many benefits of being a wereoctopus, but on rare occasions it does come in handy.”

  “I’ll say.” I checked the wounds on his chest, which weren’t bad, and dug around in my pack for the first aid kit. When I found it, I pulled out a couple of bandages and some ointment. I kept the conversation going as I patched him up. “So, when Patrick saw Elron and me, he said we looked like monsters. What do you see?”

  He grimaced. “Well, I can tell it’s you, but it’s not your best look.”

  I passed the ointment to Elron so he could work on Patrick. “I believe I can fix that. I’ve been able to remove the spells from the three of us. Just know that when the spells come off, things will look different.”

  Wells closed his eyes. “Go for it. I’m so damn tired of these rhododendrons.”

  “You and me both.” With that I settled down and started digging into the spells. It wasn’t as difficult as removing the ones on Patrick, but it wasn’t easy either. However, practice really did pay off, and I spent less time on his spells than on any of the others.

  “You should be good.” I grabbed one of my canteens as he opened his eyes.

  Wells looked around and smiled. “I’ve never been so happy to see trees.”

  Elron was there to ruin the moment. “There are still more than a few unusually large rhododendrons in these woods.”

  Wells gave me a look that clearly begged me to disagree with Elron.

  “Sadly, I have to admit to seeing more rhododendrons than I’m accustomed to.”

  Wells sighed. “Oh well. I can’t have everything.”

  Nodding, I pulled out a spoon and the jar of peanut butter glop Elron had insisted I pack. It was my last remaining bit of food, and I was finally hungry enough to eat it. Odds were that no matter what plan we came up with to track down Ned and stop him, Burly and I would be taking point.

  While I ate, Elron reintroduced Patrick to Burly. After that, the men took stock of the remaining food and handed out portions. Burly found some greenery he could eat. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it seemed to satisfy him.

  I let the guys talk over the different plans without adding my input, but it all boiled down to the same result. Find Ned, arrest Ned, rescue Gudger, get down the mountain. As great as that sounded, there were a few areas I was fuzzy on. Mostly exactly how we were going to find Ned and what would stop him from killing Gudger when he saw us coming.

  There was also his magic to consider. When I finished eating, I excused myself to take care of some personal needs. On the way back from using the restroom, I probed the big thicket of rhododendrons. Sure enough, there was more of the powder there. I scooped up a handful of dirt and carried it back to our impromptu camp so I could examine it more closely.

  When I returned, Elron started to ask me what I had, but I shook my head and he let it go. The other guys took note and left me alone. I set the dirt on a plastic bag from my pack and separated some of the white flecks out. With that done, I closed my eyes and fell into a light trance.

  I didn’t usually go that deep into my magic, but I needed to make sure my theories about the powder were actually true. The only way to do that was to dig down into the depths of those little flecks. First I examined the soil. As I’d suspected, everything but the flecks was run-of-the-mill dirt that coul
d be found anywhere. There was nothing unique about it.

  Focusing on the flecks, I took a very different approach than I had before, surrounding them in magic and disconnecting it from myself. That provided a cushion of energy to absorb any spells I accidentally activated and would help prevent any accidental energy drainage. Now that I wasn’t worried about them harming me, I didn’t mind getting close to them. I focused in on one fleck that was devoid of power. It certainly felt and looked like a tiny fragment of a snail shell. However, either losing the magic had changed it, or it had gone through some type of process to make the magic more accessible. I didn’t have a good way of knowing which without draining the energy from one of the other shards.

  I probed the pile of shell pieces until I found one that was full of energy. When I examined it, it was clear that both of my previous assumptions were true. Not only had it been treated with something, but when the magic was used, it did look different. Without being able to go back to my workroom and reference books, I didn’t have a good way of figuring out what the shell fragments had been treated with. To even start to guess, I would need to see the shell from a recently deceased snail. We didn’t have one of those at hand.

  Now that I had verified what the flecks were from, I tried to figure out how Ned was using the magic. There was rather a lot of energy stored in such a small package, but that wasn’t the most notable thing. The magic was unstructured. Which was a bad way of describing a rare form of magic. The power in these shells could remain there indefinitely, not doing much of anything; however, it could also be given a form.

  This was where it got interesting. It needed two things to make it work in a way most people would find desirable. The first was a connection to the caster; touching it momentarily would accomplish that. The second was some type of direction. Now, because it was unstructured, that direction could take any form with only the vaguest instructions.

  The way most humans would use this, and the way I’d seen Ned use it, would be to touch the power, direct it at the target, and then tell it what to do. The magic would understand how to behave from the words and the desires of the caster. With that type of power, most anybody could do magic, though most people shouldn’t.