One second she was right beside me; the next she was all the way on the other side of the center. Her long black hair whipped around her waist and her pale green eyes sparkled. She curled her wrists, and her entire body lit up bright white. Rainbow magic swirled around her hands and feet.
“Tegan, duck—”
A cloud of rainbow magic appeared directly over her head. Red demon blood dripped like it was sliding down a wall. Tegan flicked her wrists and sent out flashes of rainbow magic in rapid fire.
A dark shadow passed over me. I flinched—but it was just Jackson.
He landed right in front of me then spun in a tight circle, swinging his two weapons the whole time. “Cover!”
I buried my face under my arms just as scalding hot liquid splashed my bare hands.
“Tegan—”
“I got me!” she shouted.
I looked up and saw a wall of fire standing behind her.
She pointed toward me. “Guide them!”
Cooper jumped to his feet and raised his daggers. “Nothing will get to her. Now where are they?”
“B, ROLL!”
I flipped myself over and over until I was rolling several feet away from them.
“Coop, left swing!” Jackson cursed. “Right! Left! Duck!”
Something with four paws landed on my back and I screamed. I threw myself back then rolled to my feet. Its tail wrapped around my ankle, and razor-sharp claws dug into my calf. I swung my sword right in front of my leg. The hilt vibrated as I sliced through the demon, and red smoking blood splattered across my jeans. I growled and stabbed my blade into the grass in front of me. I couldn’t see it, but I assumed it was still there.
Cold air wrapped around my body, and all of my muscles tensed at once. I gasped and tried to fight it, but then I slid across the grass. I opened my mouth to scream for help when rainbow mist exploded in a burst in front of me. My eyes widened.
Tegan’s back was to me, but she threw her left hand back and curled her fingers.
I soared over to her then dropped at her feet.
“Stay down. I got you.”
My jaw dropped. “Was that you?”
She answered with an evil laugh then thrust both hands out to her sides. Water poured out of her hands like tsunamis.
I crouched by her legs. “Can you see them?”
“No, but I can feel them.”
I looked over to Jackson and Cooper with my heart lodged in my throat. They jumped, spun, and ducked like graceful ballerinas but with blood-stained weapons. Jackson shouted instructions, but I didn’t understand how Coop was keeping up. He seemed to anticipate every order. But it wasn’t ending. They didn’t stop moving. I didn’t know how long either of them could keep it up. Jackson was our eyes, our only eyes.
Tegan’s magic exploded all around me, but nothing touched me.
I kept my gaze on the guys. Sweat dripped down their faces. Their arms were already swinging slower. They weren’t going to last.
“How many more?” I shouted over to him.
Jackson grunted and did a fancy spin-kick-slice move that was too fast for me to track. “A bloody million!”
There was a pop, then red demon blood rained out of the sky in front of me.
I groaned. “Why can we see their blood?”
“Because the spell is broken when they die,” Tegan grumbled from above.
My legs itched with the need to move. To fight. To help. But I was just going to get myself or someone else hurt if I went out there blind. Cooper at least had more training than I did. He was a Card. He had more magic than I did. I was nothing. No one important. I was useless here. Sure, I had a sword and some minor magic, but I was a pawn among kings here. If only I could see where they were, then I could—
I gasped.
“Tegan, their blood!” I pointed frantically and gestured around us. “Coat the living with the dead!”
Tegan’s eyes widened. “Brilliant.”
She pulled her arms in and closed her eyes. The ground rumbled under us, and ice-cold wind slammed into my face. Dirt lifted off the ground and hovered around my knees. I felt a pulsing, thick wave of energy suck me in closer to her, and then it exploded out in a gust of air.
Red demon blood shot across all of Stonehenge, covering invisible blobs with crimson blankets. I smiled. It worked. Everywhere I looked I saw them. Demons shaped like massive dogs. They were rushing toward us, and crawling all over the stones like spiders.
Jackson and Cooper froze. Their eyes widened. The demons wiggled and thrashed around like they were trying to shake off the blood. For a moment, none of them attacked.
It was just long enough to make my veins fill with ice. There were hundreds of them. They just kept pouring in. I peeked through the stones, and it was a sea of red.
Tegan cursed.
“There’s too many,” Cooper breathed then spun in a circle. “We’re surrounded.”
“Yeah, well, we better think of something because they’re just about over their shock,” Jackson shouted.
Cooper turned toward us and yelled, “Tegan, portal us out of here!”
She shook her head. “There’s too many. We’d just take them with us. I need a clear spot.”
The ground trembled like an earthquake. I looked up, and my heart stopped. The demons were rushing toward us in one giant red stampede. We couldn’t win this. Four witches against hundreds of demons. Someone was going to get hurt or worse. We needed something else.
An idea popped into my mind, and I knew it was crazy. I knew it was reckless. But it was all we had left. I summoned all of my magic into my palms and pictured those angelic runes. I waited until my pink mist pulsed and screamed to be released. Then I dropped to one knee and slammed my hands into the ground.
Bright golden light exploded all around us…and then everything went white.
Chapter Forty-Eight
JACKSON
When my vision cleared, I jumped back to my feet and raised my sword.
But they were gone.
I spun around in circles looking for more demons, but it was just us four and Stonehenge. The red lines of the city only I could see pulsed and shimmered, except now they weren’t quite clear. There was a hint of glittery gold and soft pink lingering around the lines.
“Did I break it?” Bettina whispered between breaths.
“No.” I shook my head and looked around, but all the red lines were still there glowing strong. “No, but I think you just saved our asses.”
She blushed and looked away. Her shoulders dropped. “Good.”
Whatever those angelic runes inside of her said, they were crazy powerful. She’d just used them to wipe out a few dozen demons all at once.
Cooper sank to the grass, clutching his side and wincing. “What the hell were those things?”
I opened my mouth, but Tegan cut me off. “Let’s focus on getting out of here first. Jackson, do you recognize anything?”
“No. It’s just random buildings.”
Bettina cursed. “We can’t help you find them if we can’t see them.”
Tegan nodded. “She’s right. Use your magic to—” She gasped and gripped her chest.
“TEGAN!”
She stumbled back a few steps then ripped the front of her shirt open.
The crystal heart of her soulmate glyph was blood red.
“Tenn…” Tegan whimpered. Her green eyes filled with fear. She put her palm to the glyph, and her eyes widened. “He’s in trouble.”
A sharp, shrill ringtone ripped through the silence. Tegan dove into her pocket and pulled out her phone, and her face paled. She answered the call, “Emersy—”
“GET HERE NOW!” Emersyn screamed so loud we all heard it.
Tegan dove for Cooper. She gripped his sleeve, and then they vanished in a cloud of white smoke. I blinked and stared at the spot they’d just been in. My heart pounded in my chest, and a million questions ran through my mind. Something had happened back home. I didn’t kn
ow what the red-colored glyph meant, but the expression on Tegan’s face had turned my blood to ice. Tennessee was our best weapon; he was too important to our species. Nothing could happen to him.
And if something did…I feared what would become of our High Priestess.
Darkness already beckoned for her.
Stop that. He’s fine. They’re fine. Tegan will help. Everything will be fine. I just needed to keep telling myself that. There was nothing I could do otherwise. I had a matter of hours to do the seemingly impossible. I had to forget my home and focus on my task.
“I don’t like this,” Bettina whispered.
I nodded. For a few long moments, we both just stood there in silence staring at a patch of grass, like we were waiting for them to suddenly reappear.
Bettina sighed and scrubbed her face with her hands. “Okay…right…so…she left us here. That means we have to focus and keep working.”
I nodded.
She chewed on her bottom lip and nodded. “Right. So…I’m not sure how much help I’ll be in identifying a European city, but we might as well let me try.”
I nodded again. Panic surged inside of me, swirling and gurgling like a volcano about to erupt. There was nothing I could do to help Eden. I had no choice. They were on their own. And so were we. We had to keep moving.
“I think she was about to tell you to use your magic to draw out the lines you’re seeing.” Bettina rubbed her hands together then held her phone up. “Do that, and I’ll take pics. Then we can look at a flat visual.”
I cleared my throat then summoned my magic into my palms. This was good. Tasks were a good thing to distract the mind. Blue flames coiled around my hands. The red lines of my magical map shone brighter, like they were responding to the presence of my magic. Here goes nothing. I licked my lips then flicked my hands. My magic shot out and latched onto each of the lines. Bettina moved to stand beside me. Her shoulder brushed against my arm, and it sent a shock of electricity pulsing up my body. I shivered and turned away from her.
My pulse skipped erratically, like the traitor that it was. But I wasn’t going to let it slow me down or distract me from my mission. I took a deep breath then pushed my magic out like a tsunami. The red lines turned blue—then I heard the clicking noise from Bettina’s phone camera.
I turned to my right, and my breath caught in my throat.
“What? What’s wrong?” Bettina spun beside me. I felt the heat of her stare on my face. “Jackson? What do you see?”
My heart sank. The building standing before me was…was…famous. Iconic. A work of art that deserved to be cherished by everyone. It was completely and totally problematic.
Bettina tugged on my sleeve. “Jackson?”
“I know where we have to go next.”
She gasped. “Where?”
I pointed to the red lines, even though I knew she couldn’t see them. “Notre Dame.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
BETTINA
Four hours later, we were somewhere between London and Paris on a train.
Jackson had fallen asleep practically the second we switched trains at King’s Cross station. Or at least I thought it was King’s Cross. It looked like it. But Jackson hadn’t answered me the first few times I’d asked him, so I stopped. We had bigger fish to fry than finding platform nine and three-quarters. That would have to stay on my bucket list.
Without Tegan to portal us, we had to walk to find a train station that would bring us to London from Stonehenge. That took a little while, a long little while…and Jackson hadn’t spoken to me since we left Stonehenge. He would barely even glance at me. I didn’t know where his head was, but the heavy silence was thick enough to choke on. I wanted to cry, kick, and scream. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.
It only got worse as we got on the train. He ushered me into the window seat then filled the space next to me. And he hadn’t moved since. Or made a sound. Or so much as checked to see if I was alive. His Christmassy scent was everywhere. I couldn’t get away from it. The heat rolling off of his body made every nerve ending in my body freak out. He was too close to me. I couldn’t take it. And I didn’t have Cooper to distract myself. It was just Jackson, everywhere all at once.
I turned away from the window, since there was nothing there to occupy my mind, and looked at him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his long legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes were closed and his lips slightly parted. Every single part of me wanted to curl up next to him and use his shoulder as a pillow. But I couldn’t. Ever. I’d never have him like that, because he wasn’t mine.
I can’t take this anymore. It was too much for me now. I needed a break. I needed to get away from all of this. I just wanted to pass out and wake up after it was all done. It didn’t help that no one back in Eden was answering their phone. I kept checking for text messages and voice mails, but there was nothing. I just kept seeing Tegan’s face and the red of her glyph. Emersyn’s panicked scream for her unnerved me. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t help.
I couldn’t even help Jackson.
I was useless.
I wanted to be the one knocked out, hiding away in dream land. I wanted a break from myself, from my traitorous heart and torturous thoughts. Instead, I sat here looping. This had to be purgatory. There were too many questions, too many unknowns. Too many things trying to break me from the inside. My feelings for Jackson were at the heart of it. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself I couldn’t ever be with him. It didn’t matter how cute and funny Cooper was, or how many times I told myself I liked him. Even those few moments where Cooper actually succeeded in taking my mind off of things, it took one glance from Jackson and it all came rushing back tenfold.
Just when I thought I was finally making progress, Jackson went and brought us back to the very place we’d met outside of Dean’s house. I just kept wondering why he brought us there. What had he been thinking about in that moment? What had it meant? And what had the blush on his cheeks meant afterward? I wanted to tell myself it was a coincidence, but the fact that he hadn’t really looked at me since suggested otherwise.
To make matters worse, it was late afternoon. Almost evening. Jackson only had until sunrise, and I had no idea if we were even close. And so far, I’d been practically useless for him. We were on our way to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what could possibly be there for us. I’d asked Jackson what the relevance was, but he hadn’t answered. Because he wasn’t talking to me. So I’d just spent the last two hours researching it online, and so far, all I’d figured out was that Henry was crowned king of France inside.
But we already had his crown. And we had the missing stone.
I knew the cathedral had been built long before the Hundred Years’ War with Lilith started, but in my gut, I just knew Michael’s sword wasn’t hidden inside there. Sure, a place as beautiful and famous as that could’ve guaranteed the sword’s safety, except that too many people went there. It would’ve been too much at risk of being found by the wrong hands.
Except, if the sword wasn’t there, then I couldn’t fathom our reason for going there.
I glared at Jackson’s beautiful profile. He was the Lancaster. He was the one who knew the history. He was the one raised arcana with heaps of knowledge I didn’t have. He was the one tasked by Michael himself to find the sword. He needed to do the research.
My heart was pounding and my chest was tight. Heat pumped through my veins. I’d gotten myself all worked up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I shoved Jackson’s arm with both hands.
He gasped and sat up straight. His aquamarine eyes went wide. He gripped the hilt of his sword leaning against the seat between us then looked around. I waited for him to look at me. I waited for him to ask me what was wrong or why I’d woken him up—because that was what a reasonable person would do.
Then he finally looked over at me, but his gaze didn’t pause for even a second. I got barely a glance. H
e just arched one eyebrow.
UGH.
I groaned and shoved him again. “It’s my turn to sleep. Why don’t you do some research and planning for once so we have some kind of idea what we’re looking for when we get there? This is, after all, your quest, Lancelot.”
He frowned and his eyes burned with rage. His lips smashed into a tight, single line. But I didn’t care if I’d hurt his precious feelings. If he couldn’t be bothered to speak to me like a civilized person, then I was not required to cater to his emotions. His quest, his problem. If he failed, it wasn’t me who would lose all of my magic. I’d tried to help him, and what good did that do? What thanks did I get? The silent treatment.
I turned away from him and zipped up Cooper’s sweatshirt, then pulled the hood up over my head so he wouldn’t get any mixed signals on whether or not I wanted to speak to him. I buried my face in the soft cotton and sniffed, letting that Irish Spring scent drown out the one I couldn’t have. Everyone always said life was unfair, and I’d never believed that more than I did right then. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for sleep to come. I wanted to sleep through it all. I wanted to open my eyes and find myself in that future where my heart didn’t hurt anymore. It would probably never happen, but a girl had to dream.
Maybe I don’t have to stick around Eden after this. Maybe I should just go home. Dean is there. I can hang out with him. We were friends before. Tegan would still visit me. There’s nothing keeping me in Eden. If I leave, Jackson can be free to love his soulmate without guilt or regret. Maybe I’ll go to Manhattan and enroll at the new School for Magical Arts. Emersyn and Deacon will be there a lot. There are other arcana. I can make new friends. Ones that don’t break my heart just by existing.
As fatigue set in and my mind began to slip into sleep, I made a decision I never expected. When this quest was over…I was leaving Edenburg.
Chapter Fifty
JACKSON
The Coven - Academy Magic Complete Series Page 75