Her smile faded as David continued. “My mission benefits us all. How dare you threaten me with ultimatums!”
Adolphus cheered silently to himself. It was sounding like Marcella’s northwest pack alliance had just responded to her proposal with a “do-or-die” condition. That boded well for him and his pack. If she succeeded, he would enjoy the protection of her alliance and the comfort of knowing the exorcism was no longer a threat. If she failed, that same alliance would help him get rid of her.
Marcella took a deep breath. “All right. I accept your terms. See that you live up to them.” She hung up the phone without waiting for a response.
Turning to Adolphus, she said, “As you’ve probably surmised, the pack leaders won’t commit themselves to helping me yet. However, if I can eliminate the exorcism threat, they’ll accept that I have the necessary strength and skill to lead an alliance.”
Careful to hide his glee, Adolphus asked, “And if you fail?”
Anger flashed in Marcella’s eyes. “I’m not going to fail. And you’re going to help make sure that I don’t.” She folded her arms and spoke in a chilling tone. “It’s time the Selkirk Pack started taking a more direct role in assisting its alpha, starting tonight. Gather everyone who is staying here at the Foundation. We have no time to waste.”
Her demand should have surprised him, but all it did was confirm his feelings of foreboding. Adolphus nodded slowly. “I understand.”
It was a bad time to oppose her—she was focused and angry. He was better off cooperating for the moment even though that meant the entire Pack might share her fate. He would support her until he became certain that she would fail. At that point, his only hope would be to betray her to the Order and claim that she had used her powers to coerce them. It was a risky approach, but he might be able to salvage a truce. In the meantime, he would have to find subtle ways of maintaining contact with the Order without Marcella’s knowledge and without truly jeopardizing her plans.
Adolphus sighed to himself as Marcella and Cyrus left the room. Duplicity was always so taxing.
Chapter 19
Overwhelmed
After a long day of going over the exorcism ritual repeatedly, Amanda was tired, hungry, and a little grumpy. She sat back in her chair and laced her fingers behind her head to stretch her arms. The folding chair was putting her legs to sleep, in spite of the cushion she’d found to sit on. She stamped her feet to restore some circulation. The sky through the moon shrine’s cupola was darkening with the onset of dusk.
“Let’s call it a day,” Noreen said, rubbing her forehead. “We’re just repeating ourselves at this point anyway. If we think of anything new later on, we can add it to the work we’ve already done.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kyle said with relief, pushing his chair back and standing to stretch.
Amanda saved the document with her notes and closed her laptop. “I’m going back to my office so I can get on the network and send these notes to all of our email accounts as a backup.”
“Send a copy to the Order archive as well,” Noreen said, “and be sure to tell Blackstone before you do. We still haven’t caught whoever deleted the first set of notes, but we’re watching now. If the spy tries to delete them again, we should be able to find out who it is.”
“Maybe we should send a copy to the Rutlinger Foundation,” Kyle said jokingly. “I’ll bet that would piss them off.”
“Great idea,” Amanda said. “As if we don’t have enough trouble already.”
Noreen said nothing, but her annoyed expression said volumes.
Kyle grinned and shrugged. “Just kidding. Sheesh. You two need to lighten up. We got a lot done today.”
Noreen nodded her head grudgingly. “That’s true. Even if we are redoing work that was already done once before.”
Kyle shook his head and spoke in an exasperated tone. “Man, the glass is always half-empty with you, isn’t it?”
“Kyle …” Amanda said in a warning tone.
“I know, I know. Sorry,” Kyle apologized without much sincerity. “As my grandfather used to say, ‘Don’t tease the animals.’”
“Not helping,” Amanda chastised.
Noreen stood and swept her hands down her skirt to straighten it. “That’s all right, Amanda. It’s just a shame his grandfather’s good sense wasn’t hereditary.”
Kyle blinked at Noreen in surprise. “I think that was almost a joke. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I’m no longer surprised by what you don’t know,” Noreen retorted.
Amanda gave up on trying to be peacemaker. Kyle and Noreen were fine while they were on task, but, socially, they mixed like oil and water. The best strategy for keeping the peace was to separate them.
Amanda grabbed Kyle’s arm and pulled him toward the stairway door. “C’mon, let’s go.” Her haste wasn’t only about putting an end to the bickering—an uneasy feeling made her want to hurry to her office. Her laptop contained the only copy of all the work they’d done, and after everything they’d been through, that was unacceptable.
Ten minutes later, Amanda sat back with a satisfied smile as electronic copies of their day’s work went out to everyone she could think of who had an interest in it. It was a relief to know that it would be a lot harder for her enemies to destroy all records of the exorcism again.
Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that lunch had been hours ago. But she had one more task to complete before she could break for the day: she had to find Blackstone and warn him that she was ready to send the exorcism notes to the Order.
Kyle looked up from the book he was reading. “All done?”
“Almost,” Amanda said as she stood. “I just need to find Blackstone and—”
Amanda’s voice caught as a strong sense of danger jangled across her nerves. “Wait,” she said, closing her eyes and holding up a hand to warn Kyle to be quiet. She focused her awareness on her perimeter wards, but the bad sensation was fading quickly. The wards still seemed intact, but something was off.
“Amanda!” Noreen shouted from the bottom of the stairwell. Amanda apparently wasn’t the only one who had sensed the disturbance. When they had reinforced Amanda’s wards after the fire, the entire coven had participated, so all of the witches at the farm were sensitive to them.
Kyle dropped his book and leaped to his feet. “What’s happening?”
Amanda turned toward the door and headed out of the room. “I’m not sure,” she answered over her shoulder. “Something touched the wards, but it stopped.”
“Do you think someone came through?” Kyle asked as the two of them hurried toward the stairwell.
“No, the wards would still be alerting me.”
A boom rattled the house. At the same instant, a shock jolted through Amanda, weakening her legs. She stumbled and had to catch herself with the stairwell railing to keep from going to her knees. Kyle took her arm and helped her back to her feet.
“The wards are down!” she shouted.
Through the walls, the pop-pop of gunfire came from outside the house. She was starting down the stairs to the first floor when Noreen appeared at the bottom with Jessie right behind her. In the dining room, Jonathan was shouting into the radio, trying to get status from the tactical teams he had arranged around the house.
Noreen waved Amanda back up the stairs. “Go back up,” she said. “Jonathan wants us off the bottom floor until we know what’s going on.”
Tanya appeared at the doorway to the room she was staying in. “What’s happening?”
Noreen had reached the second floor by then and answered, “We don’t know. Everyone go to the moon shrine. If it’s the lupusdaemons, we can hold them off there.”
Kyle started down the stairs, but Amanda stopped him by grabbing his arm. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t do any good in the moon shrine,” he answered. “I’m going to help Jonathan.”
Amanda let go, nodding her understanding. She leaned forward and ga
ve him a quick kiss. “Stay safe.”
“You, too,” he said before stomping down the stairs.
By the time Amanda and the other witches reached the moon shrine, the gunfire from outside had stopped. That was either good or very bad. Noreen gathered everyone around the recently cleansed casting circle and took prime position in the center. Cara’s position was empty, but they were still plenty powerful as a coven of four.
Without preamble, Noreen started an incantation of protection against evil. It would shield them from demons and dark magic, but it wouldn’t do anything to repel physical attacks. That was what Jonathan and his team were for.
Noreen had finished the first stanza of the spell when the sound of crashing glass came from the first floor. Lucille’s scream told them the attackers had entered the house—through a window, Amanda guessed.
Shouts and sounds of conflict from below distracted Amanda as she tried to concentrate on the spell. While she chanted, Noreen gave each of the women a look that warned them to focus. Tanya shook from head to toe, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. Jessie was the most composed of them all. Her gaze held Tanya’s, and she encouraged the younger witch with a tight smile.
Noreen completed the final stanza of the incantation and clapped her hands together. Amanda’s energy joined the others’ and began to flow into a faintly glowing protective shield that formed around their group. Noreen pushed the shield out as far as she could, extending it throughout the room. The physical pressure of the spell pushed the stairwell door closed with a solid thump.
As the door swung closed, Amanda caught a whiff of smoke. If their enemies were setting the house on fire again, the attic was not a good place to be. The room had no windows except around the cupola, which was far out of reach above. Their only escape route was through the stairwell door.
Confirming her supposition, a smoke alarm sounded from below, adding to the general din.
“Jessie and Tanya, hold the protection spell,” Noreen ordered. “Amanda, you and I are going to raise a deflection shield.”
Splitting their energies was risky, as was driving two different primary spells from the same casting circle. But they had little choice. The real question was whether or not they were strong enough to fend off whatever might come their way while their energies were paired off.
Amanda carefully disengaged her energy from the protection spell, giving Jessie and Tanya time to adjust. Noreen was already starting on the second incantation when Amanda reached out with her powers and added her support.
The door suddenly opened, startling Amanda enough that she dropped her connection to Noreen. Noreen stopped her incantation and let out an exasperated noise as Blackstone slipped into the room and closed the door behind himself.
“Sorry,” he said, stepping away from the door, “but they’re right behind me. We have to make our stand here.”
The sound of claws on wood came from the stairwell and made Amanda’s chest constrict in fear. There was no mistaking that sound for human footsteps. The door crashed open again, interrupting Noreen’s attempt to start over with her incantation.
Fur filled the doorway, along with two sets of blazing eyes and bared fangs that gleamed wetly in the room’s dim illumination. A tendril of smoke slipped into the room, as if the werewolves had brought the fires of hell with them.
The larger wolf moved forward, snarling as it encountered the protection shield. Tanya gasped and whimpered, closing her eyes against the horrors slavering at the door. If the fearful witch panicked, she’d lose her concentration and Jessie would have to hold the protection spell alone.
If their attackers had made it to the moon shrine, what was going on downstairs? Was Kyle okay? Had the werewolves gone around him or … through him?
With a more pressing challenge right in front of her, Amanda suppressed her concern for Kyle and glanced at Noreen for direction. Should she help Tanya and Jessie? Or was Noreen going to try to raise a shield again?
Noreen took a deep breath and started the incantation. But she was too late.
Soft steps on the stairs presaged the appearance of a tall, dark-haired woman in a hooded cloak the color of dried blood. She stepped between the wolves, looking like some fairy queen of the forest accompanied by her familiars. Her lip curled in disgust when she spotted Blackstone.
Noreen’s incantation trailed off. From somewhere deep within Amanda came the certainty that the woman at the doorway was Marcella Pedroso, the dark witch Blackstone had been hunting. The same dark witch who had defiled Amanda’s moon shrine and tried to kill her. Dark power seemed to flow off the woman in waves.
With a bemused expression, Marcella reached a hand toward the shield. She pressed against the sparking resistance as if testing its strength.
Realizing their danger, Amanda tried to rejoin Tanya and Jessie and strengthen the protection shield. It was the only thing between them and their enemies. She assumed Noreen was doing the same thing since the coven leader had stopped chanting the second spell.
Taking a deep breath, Amanda tried to calm herself and clear her thoughts long enough to concentrate. Her power was just linking up with her coven mates’ when two things happened. The dark witch spoke a brief incantation and pushed her hand forward, disrupting and draining the shield. Then Tanya cried out in response to the shock of the attack and lost her concentration. Amanda tried to shore up the failing spell and could sense Noreen doing the same, but the shield was dissipating faster than they could strengthen it. Jessie struggled to maintain the spell as it unraveled, but she couldn’t hold it by herself. The spell collapsed under the dark witch’s assault, and with a grunt, Jessie fell to the floor unconscious.
Marcella stepped forward with a sneer of triumph, and the wolves leaped past her legs. The larger wolf ran straight for Noreen while the smaller one lunged at Amanda. The dark witch turned her attention to Blackstone. If the fury and hatred revealed in her glare had been a spell, it would have turned Blackstone to a pile of ash in that instant.
The moment Jessie collapsed, Amanda snatched her athame off the altar. The attacking wolf was so fast that she barely had time to bring up the blade before the beast slammed into her. She swiped desperately as she was thrown backward off her feet, scoring a slice along the creature’s chest that caused it to growl with pain and anger. Amanda hit the floor hard, and the breath was knocked from her lungs, the athame bouncing from her hand. Her body slid a foot or so before her head bumped hard against the wall behind her. Her vision darkened and swam with stars.
Amanda tried to catch her breath, but a heavy weight on her chest made that impossible. When her vision cleared, she was staring into the eyes of the wolf that pressed her to the floor.
From her supine position at the edge of the room, Amanda couldn’t see what was happening with the other witches. She tried to move, but the wolf’s growl warned her to stillness. The wolf glanced toward the dark witch and Amanda followed its gaze.
Blackstone had his hands folded in front of his chest as if in prayer. In fact, his eyes were closed, and he appeared to be whispering something that Amanda couldn’t hear over the dark witch’s loud incantation. Marcella was about to strike, and the best he could do was pray?
Looking up at the wolf, Amanda wondered why it was holding back. It could have torn her throat out while she was disoriented from hitting her head. She started to raise her arms to shove it away, but the beast pushed hard with one of the paws that rested on her chest and flashed its teeth within an inch of her face with a snarling bark. Amanda dropped her hands to her side and went still, trying to ignore the drop of wolf spittle that tickled the tip of her nose. Her only tiny hope was the knowledge that the wolf had chosen not to kill her so far.
Marcella finished her incantation and clapped her hands together, pointing her fingertips toward Blackstone. A twisting stream of violet lightning jumped the distance between them, and Amanda was certain that Blackstone was doomed.
Blackstone had stopped praying an
d had opened his eyes. As the dark witch clapped, he unfolded his hands like wings hinged at his pinkies. The lightning arced toward him and hit an invisible barrier that lit up in the shape of a satellite dish. It seemed to absorb the lightning and then spit it back out at the center. In the next instant, Marcella was zapped by her own construct.
Screaming with pain and fury, she hugged herself and sank to one knee as her spell fizzled. She glared at Blackstone with a mixture of hate and fear before rising unsteadily and taking a step backward toward the door.
Kyle appeared and grabbed the dark witch in a bear hug from behind. Blackstone paused in the middle of what looked like another prayer.
Marcella looked over her shoulder and sneered. “Just like old times, eh Kyle? Sorry, no time to snuggle today.” She then twisted her torso and drove her elbow into Kyle’s side, easily breaking his grip and sending him careening into the wall.
As he fell away from her, he caught sight of the wolf standing over Amanda and rebounded with impressive speed and agility. In a heartbeat, he had lifted the wolf off Amanda and flung it across the room where it crashed head first into a cabinet.
Amanda turned her attention back to the showdown between Blackstone and Marcella, but the dark witch was gone. The larger wolf that had attacked Noreen streaked past Blackstone and disappeared through the doorway. The crash of glass told her that Marcella and the wolf had chosen to exit the house by one of the second-story windows.
Kyle reached down and helped Amanda to her feet, keeping a wary eye on the still wolf form that lay in the opposite corner of the room.
Jonathan charged into the room, saw Jessie collapsed in the corner, and ran to her side. Taking her in his arms, he coaxed her to awaken. Jessie groaned and rubbed the back of her head before sitting up and accepting a hug from Jonathan.
Amanda went to Noreen, who had her back to the wall and was nursing a bleeding forearm. “Damned thing bit me,” she complained, inspecting the jagged wound.
Blackstone stood with his arms folded, considering the collapsed wolf. It opened its eyes and raised its head, looking around while its ears twitched. It slowly rolled up to a sitting position. Kyle positioned himself between the wolf and Amanda while Jonathan stood at Jessie’s side and pointed his carbine at the creature.
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