Thinking without words was a lot harder than it should’ve been. But that’s what happened when you were raised in a society where words mattered more than actions, where what a person said or what words they chose were more important than the things they actually did.
Her magick answered back. Yes. This was within her power of doing.
But what did she need to provide? What did she need to give her magick in order to make this happen?
She needed a better understanding of how she worked.
A location. But not information. Not numbers or an address. Her magick needed to know the feel of the place. It needed to know the location based off how the earth would see it in this time.
And that was a completely different thought form. The earth spoke in life, decay, and change that didn’t make sense because, with the earth, there was this alien sense of time. Time was different for the earth than it was for smaller people like Paige, and that was something she didn’t know how to translate. Or could she?
She opened her eyes and looked at Leah. “I think I found a way, but I have no idea how to feed that to you.”
Leah beamed a grin. “I’ve figured that out. I just didn’t know how to take it to the next step.”
Ollie shrugged. “Just get it started and I can take it from there because…” He shook his head at her, his expression dry, “this isn’t my bag of Oreos.”
Nice reference.
Great. Paige wished, not for the first time, that she could telepathically connect with her daughter, but the only one capable of doing that was Kammy.
Leslie raised an eyebrow. “Are we gonna be able to do this or not?”
The reality was that they might not be able to. They needed the Blackmans. “We’ll get it done, but they might be bringing us back.”
Leslie shrugged. “It don’t have to be pretty.”
Thank goodness for small things.
Paige and Leah couldn’t connect telepathically, but maybe Leah and Paige could connect through their magick.
Paige closed her eyes and reached toward her daughter with her witch hands. That was something she’d never thought to do before. Her witch hands had always been “tainted” before, being demon magick which shouldn’t touch anything living.
But the more she learned about it, the more she realized that Alma’d had no idea how to help Paige. Not really.
Leah reached out with her physical hand, but it was bathed in her door magick, with red veins shooting through it.
When Leah touched her hand to Paige’s, she connected with a sense of where they needed to be. Paige had no idea how Leah had managed to figure that out, but she suddenly understood what “location” meant in a reference of time and space.
Other ideas hit her. If location dealt with time and if they had the ability to open portals to other locations, then was it possible to open doors to other times as well?
Could they go back in time? Could they do something different? Could they fix events?
Interesting, maybe they could—
Stop. Focus on the location, here and now.
She tucked the time travel idea away for future exploration. Like when she had time, and the world wasn’t crumbling around her
With the location from Leah, she set an anchor. This was her place.
Anchor set, Paige focused on the instructions she received from her own magick and what Eldora had taught her. She reached out with her hands, and instead of searching for a soul to rip from a body, she focused on simply tearing a hole in the air.
It wasn’t nearly as easy as a simple tear. Her hands—her magick—was able to tear a hole in space, but it was small and too high to reach. Paige was used to sending souls through, not making doors for people to walk through. There was no way a human could fit through it, even if they could get to it.
But it also wasn’t a hole to the location they needed.
No. Instead, it was a hole elsewhere. Very elsewhere.
Screams filled the large room.
Merry frowned. “What are they doing to them?”
“That’s not the right place.” Though, Paige had no idea where the door had opened. It wasn’t the location Leah had given her.
Ollie laced his magick to theirs and the door dipped down to the floor, though it was still too small to fit through.
Merry released a long sigh and uncovered a rather large mirror. An ornate gothic piece that pivoted up and down. “Try this.” She positioned it to perfectly level, making the room twice as large from a perfect position.
Paige really had no idea what she was supposed to do with that, but the three of them moved their rather small door toward the mirror.
It flashed and opened, revealing a lush yet foreign landscape. Where were the screams coming from?
A demon’s face filled the opening, his maw open, his horns curled. It wasn’t often Paige got to see them in their physical form. Most demons visited via souls. She didn’t know why or how.
His large, black eyes widened. “What are you doing here, summoner?” He spoke in the harsh demon tongue.
“I’m trying to open a portal to Portland,” she answered back in English.
His skin furrowed in a way that could have been a frown, but with the rough bark-like skin, it was hard to tell. “This isn’t Portland.”
“I see that.” Paige tried to see around him. What was going on with the agents she’d sent there? What about the elves who had inadvertently fallen through? Were they okay? “Hard at work?”
He came into full view and then pointed the door to the right. The vision blurred slightly as the view changed.
DoDO agents huddled together in the middle of a full, healthy valley of wheat or wild grass.
As she watched, an agent dropped from above and landed in a heap among the others.
“I’m dealing with the trash you left behind. They do not belong here.” The demon came back into full view, obviously not happy. “We do not want them.”
Oops. “Sorry about that. I hadn’t intended on dumping them there.” Or not following up, but she’d actually never thought about what the demons would want. She just assumed they’d want the humans there to torture or whatever.
The demon growled. “Have you come to claim them?”
Nope. “Sure? I don’t know where I’m going to put them.”
“Not here, preferably.” He let his head fall back and a mighty roar ripped through the room.
Demons moved, herding the agents toward the portal.
The demon turned to Paige. “Keep them out of my kingdom. They are a plague destroying your world. They will not destroy mine.”
Huh. “Okay. Were there any elves?”
“They are being cared for.”
Interesting. “Well, their queen might want them back.”
“And when she is ready for them and they are healed, she will have them back.”
What was going on? “Okay. Thanks.”
“Do not send more here. I will hold you personally responsible for the damage they do.”
Whatever. Her world was already imploding.
Okay. She knew she couldn’t be that flippant about it, but…seriously. She wanted to.
The line of agents was long. What the hell was she going to do with them?
Merry crooked her finger at one of her witches and told them to take the agents to “the pens.”
The upside to having the bad guys on her side was that they had plans for situations like this, she guessed.
Paige told them to tend the wounded, and they’d figure out what to do with them later.
There were a lot of wounded.
And a lot of glares.
Well, she’d just sent them all to Hell during a battle, so… yeah.
Though, Hell looked pretty damned nice. Where was all the brimstone?
After the last DoDO agent was through, the portal snapped closed.
Paige and Ollie shared a look.
Leah beamed with excitement.
No. No excitement. The door hadn’t gone where it was supposed.
Merry set a fist on her hip. “Well, that was… informative. Let’s see if we can get to Eldora this time.”
“You’re welcome to try it.” Paige smiled. Well, she showed teeth. She put Merry on ignore and tried again.
The portal reformed and opened to the inside of a fairly large warehouse. The Blackman family sat in a circle.
They weren’t surrounded by cages. They weren’t surrounded by guards, but they were strapped to chairs.
“Trap?” Not really a question but she should at least ask.
Leslie blinked, resolve making her cheekbones sharper. “Trap.”
Great.
Merry just looked over at Paige and lifted one shoulder in a condescending shrug. “Do we need them or not?”
The Blackmans? Of course they did. They were their best offense against the president and DoDO because Paige had just proven that she wasn’t really great at this. And neither was Ollie. Leah? Maybe.
Merry released a small sigh and turned toward her witches.
Leslie turned to Paige, looking unhappy. “Children with?”
Paige knew what she should say. She had no idea how bad this was going to get. She should leave all the kids there in the uncertain safety of the Eastwood home.
Safety of a murder’s home with a bunch of DoDO agents “in pens” not far away?
“If we can’t free the Blackmans, we might need Leah.” Also, she just felt safer with Leah beside her in the dragon’s den than in a house with murderers of two kinds. “You can leave Mandy here.”
The firestarter gave Paige her best determined teenager look and shook her head. “If Leah’s going, I’m definitely going. I’ll protect her.” And to emphasize her point, Mandy flared her fists with fire.
For the longest time, Paige had thought Mandy would be the strongest of Leslie’s children with her pyrotechnic abilities. However, they’d discovered Tyler had the strongest abilities as a bard. “Tyler sitting this one out?”
Leslie answered with a growl.
Merry turned her attention to Paige. “These details should have been worked out previously.”
Paige swallowed, not certain she had it in her. But she was starting to feel the strain of keeping the portal open for so long. She hadn’t made a huge tear in the fabric of space and time, but it was enough to make her realize that she couldn’t keep it open forever, even with Ollie’s help.
She turned her concentration inward again, back on her magick. She flexed her witch hands and held the door open. It wanted to rise into the air. She didn’t know why except that, for whatever reason, she got the sense that the door was lighter when it was higher. But it wasn’t as though people could just leap through. Not one of them had wings or the ability to fly.
She dragged the door back toward the ground, with Ollie grunting beside her. It was like trying to put up a tent in a hurricane.
Leah reached out with her red-veined door magick and grabbed hold of both sides of the door, pulling it down. The door locked into place on the mirror. It stopped fighting Paige, but it was still draining energy from her.
Merry looked over at Paige and then nodded to her witches. “On the other side, we are to assist Eldora’s people. If you encounter resistance, use any force necessary.”
Paige opened her mouth to negate that command.
Merry stopped her with a look. “Our magick is stronger when blood is spilled.”
Paige really hadn’t thought that one through. In a battle or a war, Merry and her coven might just be the ultimate weapon. The more blood spilled, the stronger they became.
That wasn’t entirely a comforting thought.
Merry was the first one to walk through the portal, followed by her small army.
Leslie and Mandy followed.
Then Leah looked over at Paige. “Should we go?”
“Yup.” Paige wasn’t entirely certain that was true. They were probably going to free the Blackmans and they could certainly create doors. But what happened if they were unable to free them? What if the trap was too strong? Too capable?
Her magick was calm. She had to trust in that.
Leah stepped through first and let out a startled squeak. That warned Paige that there was something she should prepare for.
When she stepped through, it was like walking through a cold shower. Not just a cold shower but a freezing one. Then, there was this sense of dizziness that slammed into her, knocking her every which way except forward. She seemed almost to get stuck.
But then, her magick came through and pushed her forward.
Her feet found ground on the other side.
Ollie followed with a grunt.
Merry and the other Eastwoods were gone. Leslie had disappeared as well. The sound of fighting was all around them.
But Mandy stayed close to Leah.
Eldora remained in her chair, but those black eyes followed Paige everywhere she went. The rest of the Blackmans remained seated as well. Why?
Paige went over to them, scanning the area with her witch vision. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you getting up?”
Eldora narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought that was obvious. We’re rescuing you.”
Eldora looked in the direction of the portal Paige had stepped through. It was now closed, even though Paige had no idea how it closed. “You opened the door.”
“Just like you taught us.” Paige had the sense that something else was being said here, but she just didn’t quite understand what it was. It was as if Eldora was trying to say something else, but she wasn’t using her words. It was as if she was…
Was using that unspoken language of the elements and the rest of the world.
So, Paige stepped out of herself a little bit. She went to the space where her magick resided and listened to Eldora without using her ears. She listened instead with her soul.
The chairs were rigged with bombs. If any of the Blackmans left their seats for any reason, the bombs would go off and take the entire area with them. Eldora could open a portal and take the bombs away, but those bombs would go with her. Paige would need to get everyone else out of there.
Paige agreed.
“Protect Phoebe like she is your own.” Eldora’s voice was old and defiant.
Like she was a Whiskey? That was a rather tall order.
But it was time for Paige to grow up. The Blackmans were family and it was time to start acting like it.
“You will need her and she you. We are as one, and we must be if we are to win.”
Eldora knew she wasn’t coming back. She had the calmness that came with certainty.
“You sure you got this?”
Eldora nodded. “It’s an old trick I used to do when younger.”
What Eldora was proposing to do could wipe her out before she even made it through the door she opened. Mad respect.
And something more. Grief. She didn’t love Eldora, but she’d started to like her, to look up to her. Paige was losing another person to look up to. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
Eldora smiled and closed her eyes.
A wind whipped through the area.
The other Blackman witches looked around. A few raised their voices in alarm.
A few DoDO agents shouted an alarm and ran their way.
Paige finally saw the Eastwoods. They fought with a fury and force she hadn’t seen from them. Leslie swooped down with eagle claws and raked one of the agents, drawing blood for the Eastwoods to pull from. Paige raised her magick to defend. That’s where her strength lay. Not in door magick. Not in spells.
In magickal fists.
But only if her magick decided to show up. Had she managed to rest up yet?
“We’re going to need doors,” Paige told Leah and Ollie. “Lots of them. When the Blackmans are free and the bindings of their magick are gone, tell them to open doors and get us all back home.”
Lea
h nodded, her blue eyes wide.
Ollie stared at Eldora in confusion.
“One last thing,” Eldora said softly, her voice somehow strong enough to be heard over the rush of her wind.
DoDO was almost on them. “Yeah?”
Eldora smiled. “Tell Merry to give them hell.”
Paige didn’t get another word of warning. Eldora’s head fell back. The ropes that held her family fell away. The chair rose into the air toward a door that ripped open with a deafening roar.
The Blackmans scrambled away. Leah shouted something to Phoebe. Phoebe shouted to her family.
Paige was all fists and flying human feet against DoDO agents who came in without bullets, and thankfully the elements did heed Paige’s call. The agents were focused on trying to recapture the Blackman witches.
A pulsing beep sounded through the chaos, sharp and distinct.
“We need to get out of here!”
Doors opened all around Paige, and her witches began disappearing.
A DoDO agent came at her, his hands filled with white lethal magick.
Paige advanced on him and caught his fist as it came down on her.
But instead of being hit with his power, it settled within her.
His eyes went wide.
She smiled fiercely and went in for the kill. Or maybe the massive wounding.
A hand grabbed her from behind and yanked her hard.
As she fell through the door, an explosion rocked her with the concussion.
The door she’d come through slammed shut.
And she landed hard on the floor.
Silence.
Cold floor.
Solid ceiling.
Paige lay there for a minute, the mage magick still flowing through her, and breathed.
Well, that could have gone worse.
23
Paige lay on the ground like a lump, willing the floor, the walls, the planet to stop moving. It wasn’t that she was dizzy. It was simply that she had lost her sense of where here was.
Cool hands reached down and touched her.
Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1) Page 21