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

by N. E. Conneely

  I could feel the power in Ned’s pocket, but that had already bonded to him. However, under the floor there was a huge, lightly shielded container of powder. Smiling, I did what a desperate witch could do. I broke the shield spell and pulled the magic right out of those shell bits.

  It started a tingle in my fingers and toes, then it was burning in my hands, and suddenly my body was filled with a white-hot energy that poured into every part of me. Every nerve on was fire, and red-hot electricity licked across my skin. A weaker witch would’ve screamed and released the power, but I just grinned. With this much power, I could eradicate every trace of Ned and his sickness off the face of the earth.

  Burly turned to face me with pain-filled eyes. His hands balled into fists. One big arm pulled back, smashing into the wall. “Run. Kill me. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be like this.”

  His eyes closed, and I saw one tear slide down his face. When his eyes opened, he took one shuddering step closer to me.

  I wasn’t going to let Ned destroy this good man. No, I was going to make sure that all of us were saved. Behind Burly, I could see Ned readying more powder, but I didn’t want to know what that could do to us.

  “Ingwaz.” Wind, be steady and force the air past us. The puff of air I’d summoned before was nothing compared to this never-ending gust. Papers were torn from the wall, and some odds and ends were flung to the floor where they slowly worked their way toward Ned.

  Burly’s fist swung at me, and I stopped it in midair with a disk of pure energy. I knew what I was about to do would hurt him, but I hoped he would forgive me. I changed the energy into a flame that licked over his knuckles, burning away the hair and first layer of skin. The flames were purely physical even if they had been created from magic, so none of his natural defenses would stop them.

  Bellowing in pain, he tried to pull back, but I made the flames follow him until I could force my own power into his body. There were no runes for the spell I was creating; it simply existed as a series of ideas in my mind. Ned would have no hold on Burly. He would be safe from Ned’s magic and free to make his own choices. I added a touch of healing to repair the damage I’d done. I hoped it worked. My healing spells weren’t very good.

  Burly sagged against a wall before crumpling to the ground. He shattered a tank of snails on the way down, but his pain-filled moans had nothing to do with the glass and everything to do with what I’d done to him. Between lowing, he licked his hand.

  Ned turned and started to run farther into the building.

  “Wall.” I didn’t need the words, but I wanted him to know what I was doing.

  There was a soft crack as he ran into the barrier I’d thrown up. When I reached him, I could see blood pouring out of his nose. Reaching out with a hand still white-hot with all the energy, I grabbed his arm. He screamed as my hand burned right though the clothing and into his flesh. I poured energy into him. This time I didn’t say a single world out loud. This part I wanted to keep to myself, especially with the cops in the building.

  Without any remorse for the damage my hand was doing to him, I continued feeding power into him until I had enough to accomplish my goal. I blocked his ability to use magic. Not even a charm would respond to him after this. He would live a life free of any magic as all of it would be drained into the earth the moment he attempted to interact with it. I erased every part of his memory relating to the snails and how he’d gotten magic out of them. Before I finished, I anchored him to this spot, making sure he wouldn’t move until he was in handcuffs.

  When I was finished, I leaned down and whispered, “You are nothing now.”

  I lifted my hand from his arm, leaving a black, blistered mark behind.

  Sweeping past him, I found Gudger on a cot. A single touch left no doubt he was dead and had been for some time. He had been a good man, a good cop, someone I would miss. I’d been too late to save him, a regret I would always carry with me. There was nothing I could do for Gudger, but there was one more person in danger, someone I could save. I pushed past Wells, stepped on Ned, and raced outside. My love needed me.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Elron

  I did not look back to see if Michelle followed my orders. I would know soon enough, and I had to find a way to manage the golem. While the others might not think it could follow them into the building, I knew otherwise. It had the ability to change shape and size, and that door was hardly a challenge.

  Even though I had my sword in my hand, killing the golem was not my first choice. If possible, I wanted to befriend the golem. Whilst I had never heard of such a thing being done, it was theoretically possible. The golem was a creature of the earth, and as an elf I had a connection to the earth.

  Although I could sense the golem, it was distant, as if I was seeing a shape though a heavy fog. That would not do. If I was to have any chance of altering this creature’s behavior, I needed to have a much clearer way of interacting with it.

  Even though the connection was faint, I tried to tell it that it was in no danger, that it could stand down.

  If the creature heard me, it did not listen. Instead, it attempted to follow the officers and Michelle into the building. I blocked its path. It attempted to go around me, but I kept moving, always staying in front of it.

  After the fifth try, it swung an open hand at my head. I rolled under its arm, springing to my feet behind it with my sword already in motion. Slicing through what on a humanoid would be the hamstring, I waited to see if that would cripple the creature.

  When it attempted to move forward, its leg did not want to work. The creature paused for a moment, and the damage vanished. It would take more than a sword slice to hold it, though there was a chance I could put the death symbol between its eyes. I would need to be quick, but it was possible.

  The creature must have decided that I was no longer a threat, because it continued in the direction of the door. Taking advantage of its inattention, I took up position behind it, tightened my grip on my sword, and swung at a knee. The sword went into the clay just fine but started to slow almost immediately. I did not relent, continuing the motion until the sword came out the other side.

  I darted back, and the golem wobbled, and then its body seemed to shift, centering itself over the remaining leg.

  Since the creature was still facing the building, I repeated the attack, this time aiming for an elbow. The sword went through without any trouble, and the arm joined the leg on the ground.

  I had hoped that would be enough to permanently disable it, but when parts of it began shifting around, I knew that it would take more than a couple of missing limbs to halt this creature.

  First the foot moved, and where there had been a heel there were toes. The knee swirled around, and I leapt into action. Taking a deep breath, I dragged the sword through the remaining arm, severing it from the body. While that would delay any attack the golem wished to make, it did not actually halt the creature.

  I quickly regrouped and swung at the remaining leg. As my sword cut into the clay, the leg swelled, growing larger. My sword was barely halfway through the leg when it stopped. I pulled it free. As I repositioned to swing again, I noticed the arms and leg on the ground were melting into a puddle of clay. Undeterred, I hacked at the leg. It took two more strikes before I was able to separate it from the body.

  With its final leg gone, the golem fell forward. It landed with its face pressed against the ground. Now I had a conundrum. How to etch the symbol between its eyes when I could not reach the eyes?

  Frowning, I took up a stance, and in one hard blow severed the golem’s head from its body. With a twist of my hand, I vanished my sword. Kneeling down, I rolled the head over. Mud covered my hands. There was no face.

  I quickly got to my feet and backed up. The puddle of clay that had formed from the severed arms and leg had flowed back to the main body. As I watched, the trunk of the body absorbed the clay and sprouted an arm. The head flowed back to the body and reform
ed, though there was no face.

  With another twist of my wrist, my sword returned. I took up a position between the golem and the door. As the golem returned to its previous form, I prayed Michelle would forgive me. This was not the way I would have chosen to die, and I hoped she was able to escape the golem’s wrath.

  When the golem got to its feet, I began a complicated sword pattern. By the time the creature was within arm’s reach, I was at full speed and the sword was nothing but a blur in the air.

  The golem stretched out an arm, and I cut through it, sending a hand to the ground. It pulled back the stump and reached out with the other arm. I kept the sword moving, carving small sections off any part of the body I could reach. I sliced through its remaining arm. While this rapid attack was working for the moment, I could not keep it up for long, and I did not have a plan for when my arms fell victim to fatigue.

  It pulled back what was left of its arm, and I could almost see the golem considering what to do next.

  I let the sword slow. “I have no wish to hurt you. Break off this attack and leave us be. We are correcting a wrong in the world and rescuing a friend.”

  The golem’s chest thinned, and three arms surged into being. One grabbed my sword and would have taken it from my hand, but I dismissed it before the golem could use it against me. I managed to duck way from the blow meant for my head, but there was no time for me to avoid the hit to my chest. My partly healed ribs cracked, and my vision started to black out.

  I reached for the medallion. Help me.

  Pulling the dagger out of my boot, I stabbed the golem’s foot. Even as I did it, I knew it was a foolish move. It would not hurt the golem, simply make it angry.

  The medallion warmed and took control of my hand. The golem swatted at me, and the medallion forced me to pull the dagger out of its body as I dodged the blow. Then my hand dug the death rune into the golem’s foot.

  The rune sank into its flesh, and the foot, all the way up the ankle, crumbled to dust. I might not be able to kill the golem outright, but I could dismantle it piece by piece.

  Looking up for my next target, I knew I wasn’t going to get that chance. The fist hurling itself at my face was going to make sure I never passed the knowledge along.

  Not wanting the golem’s fist to be the last thing I saw, I looked to the door. A form awash in energy was moving toward me. Blues, reds, and the white swatches of power tumbled and twirled. That was more power than any person should be able to hold. I had to be looking at a creature of myth, and if the golem did not kill me, that seething mass of magic would.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Michelle

  I planted my feet in the doorway, not daring to get any closer for fear of injuring Elron with the magic. There was simply too much of it, but I knew how to solve that problem.

  Focusing a burst of energy, I pushed the golem away from Elron. It landed twenty feet away, flattening a small holly bush. Glancing down, I assured myself that Elron was alive, but I didn’t stop to assess what damage the golem had done to him. Elron wouldn’t be safe until the golem was dead, and I was the only one who could see to that.

  Now that I had energy, I gave the golem a much more thorough examination. This wasn’t simply old magic—no, the golem itself was old. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years old. I didn’t know how it had survived this long; they were supposed to be temporary, but based on the spells, I was sure it was as much of a slave to Ned’s will as Burly had been. The only problem was that once the golem had directions, it would keep performing its duty, even after the man giving orders had died or been cut off from magic.

  I might not have been able to make the death rune stay in its skin before, but I could do it now. Forming a layer of energy around the golem, I held it to the ground and kept it in its current shape. When I reached it, I knelt down and used my wand to dig the lines into its forehead.

  It took several seconds for them to sink in, but I never doubted this would work. When the golem turned to dust, I took the energy that had been holding it in one shape and sent it into the earth. The golem-shaped pile of dirt billowed out into an amorphous mound. There was a scroll in the dust. I pocketed it, knowing I would want to research this golem’s history later.

  Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t face Elron yet. There were still a few things to be done, and I knew that when I went to him and saw how badly he was hurt, I wouldn’t be able to focus well enough to finish my job.

  Moving away from the golem’s dust, I let down all my shields, sending my power out in a wave. Some surged into Patrick, replacing what he’d lost while helping me.

  With this much energy, I could reach so much farther than I’d ever been able to before. I found the fire truck. It felt like it was only a few feet away when in fact it was much farther than that. It took hardly a second to strip the spells away, leaving what appeared to be a perfectly functional pickup truck, complete with the keys sitting on the front seat.

  With transportation off the mountain taken care of, I worked on spreading my magic out as far as it would reach. Ned had spread snail dust all over this area, and I had to find all of it. It didn’t belong here, and I needed to get rid of it before it caused trouble.

  At first I was feeling little pricks of energy everywhere. Occasionally I’d feel something larger, like the compulsion spells he’d hidden throughout the woods or the spell used to make the false path up the mountain. Eventually my power stopped finding the snail dust or any other things he’d done, and I was sure I’d gotten everything. Then I surged power through every compulsion, trap, or fleck of snail powder. Through every single one of them, burning them out and ensuring that no one else would be able to use their magic. A few resisted, having been bonded to Ned, but I simply incinerated them, leaving behind nothing but dust.

  With so much of the energy expended, I felt my power retreating, collapsing upon itself. My skin wasn’t burning anymore, but I was tired, so very tired.

  I stumbled over to Elron, pulled the healing charm out of his pocket, activated it, and placed it in his hand. “We can use the fire truck to get home. It’s actually a new pickup. There was spell on it, but I removed it. Gudger’s dead.”

  The entire time he looked at me with wide eyes. “Michelle, that was you? Where did you get all that power?”

  “Stole it,” I whispered as I lay down next to him, feeling the bone-deep emptiness that accompanied expending that much power. “May the earth, moon, and sun forgive what I’ve done.”

  There was a surge of earth from the ground beneath my cheek, almost as if I were being given a gentle kiss. A tiny bit of energy trickled into me, and my body started to shut down to preserve what little remaining energy it had. I really hoped that had been a kiss of forgiveness.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Elron

  I watched as the blisters on Michelle’s skin faded away, not leaving a mark. Reaching out, I cupped her cheek. No witch, or sorcerer, was meant to hold that much power. The marks on her skin were just one sign of the sheer amount of energy she had contained inside herself. There was a chance she had damaged other parts, ones that allowed her to move and transmute energy, but I could feel what the earth had given to her, and I had to believe that it would not heal her skin simply to leave the rest of her seriously wounded.

  Swallowing hard, I pushed back my worry. This was a time to heal so I could get her to safety and into the hands of a witch who could ensure she was still healthy. The charm she had activated was working so quickly and thoroughly that I suspected she had added to its power while handling it.

  A hint of her normal color returned to her cheeks. I knew she would be asleep, though that was a mild term for this type of rest, for some time, but seeing the color brought me great hope.

  However, I had additional problems. If the officers and Burly were still alive, I would have to do something to assure them that there was no reason to tell anyone just how much power she had used. No good could come of that infor
mation leaking out, and I very much doubted it was something she would be able to repeat.

  When we did return home, I would have to do some research. I had never heard of a single witch looking like that. There were videos of groups of witches pooling their power together to great physical manifestations of the energy, but such things were done in a highly controlled manner.

  Sighing, I realized my ribs had healed. I got to my feet and looked around. Michelle seemed to be safe enough, but she had collapsed in front of the door, effectually blocking people from exiting the building. I picked her up and set her in a shady spot.

  There was a shuffle of feet, and I spun around to see Burly coming out of the building. He was cradling his arm but otherwise seemed unharmed. Behind him, Wells came through the door, dragging a handcuffed and unconscious Ned.

  Wells nodded at me. “Good to see that you’re looking well.”

  “Likewise. I see you captured Ned.”

  Wells nodded.

  Clearing my thoughts, I phrased my question carefully. “In a purely theoretical query, do you think justice would be better served by arresting him or killing him?”

  Not one person batted an eye at my question. I presumed most of them were having similar thoughts.

  Wells gave Ned a disgusted look. “In a purely theoretical answer, I’d want him dead. However, in a practical, real-life answer, during all the excitement, something happened to his memory. It seems he has no recollection of how he arrived here, why the snails are here, or much of anything of use.”

  From past interaction with Wells, I knew he meant Michelle had done something to him, but he would not admit that to anyone, and it would never show up in an official report.