by Martha Carr
“Wow.” Emily gazed at the pile of their Gorafrex-hunting paraphernalia in the center of the Clubhouse. “You guys weren’t kidding about being prepared.”
“No, we leave the jokes up to you, Em.” Laura stepped toward their things and hefted the long iron lance, its full silver color flashing under the orbs of magical light on the ceiling. “Didn’t get to show you this, though.”
“Watch it.” Emily leaned back when her sister brought the tip of the lance toward her, then she grabbed the end and lowered it from her face. “Hey, nice rune. Looks like a Christmas tree floating on a whale’s back.”
“What?”
“You know, Em, I was thinking more along the lines of a pineapple sorta cut into four pieces and rearranged.” Nickie pointed at the rune etched into their big sister’s iron weapon. “But I totally see where you mean about the tree.”
Laura scoffed and lifted the sharp tip into the air again. “You guys are ridiculous.”
Laughing, Nickie bent to grab her Strat off its stand and looped the strap over her head and shoulder. Her free hand clutched the handle of the small portable amplifier she’d used the last time they went up against the Gorafrex, and she turned to face her sisters. “Ready when you are.”
Emily eyed her up and down. “If you had a giant trekking backpack on right now, you’d look more like a Ghostbuster Rockstar than a Hadstrom witch.” She and Nickie had a good laugh over that, while Laura just shook her head.
“Doesn’t even make sense.”
“Okay, okay.” Emily grabbed her single remaining iron orb and the leather half-glove and pulled it onto her hand. Then she stuck the potion vial in her back pocket and tucked the orb under her arm. “Does it feel like we’re missing something?”
“Oh.” Laura went to the bookshelf and grabbed one of the jagged iron daggers her ring had made for them with no explanation whatsoever. She handed it to Emily. “Nickie doesn’t have any free hands, but just in case we all have to pull a weapon…other than six strings and a pick.”
Rolling her eyes, Emily took the dagger and pointed it at Nickie, shaking it up and down as she spoke. “This one’s for you. But only if you need it.”
“I won’t need it.” Nickie patted the body of her navy-blue electric guitar and nodded. “We totally got this.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
The street was quiet when the sisters popped into existence beside Laura’s car. The sun was setting on their right, and most people living in the nice residential neighborhood were most likely sitting down to dinner or finishing their meals.
“Okay, let’s not get sloppy.” Laura flicked her hand toward Emily, and her silver legacy ring flashed. The same light shimmered over the iron orb tucked under Emily’s arm, the dagger in her hand, and then the lance in Laura’s. “Someone’s gonna call the police if they see us walking around with this stuff. Come on.”
The sisters headed down the sidewalk, knowing Dave and the Gorafrex were less than a mile away and straight ahead. After a few minutes, Nickie chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to carry my gear this far before. We usually just roll up to a gig and park in the back.”
Laura glanced at the houses on either side. “We can’t exactly drive right up to the thing and expect it to give us time to set up.”
“Ha, ha.”
The road curved to the left, and they found themselves at the end of a well-kept cul-de-sac that looked like a traffic circle. “Um…no Dave.” Emily frowned.
“But there are more paths farther up there.” Laura nodded at the narrow sidewalks branching off the street and disappearing through the thick trees. “We’re at the edge of a Habitat Preserve.”
“Should’ve brought the singing bowl with us.” Nickie scanned the trees for any sign of spells or Gorafrex weirdness or electric-green sparks of an energy core. “How do we even know the thing’s in there?”
A high-pitched wail rose from the trees ahead. The sisters glanced at each other.
“That’s how we know,” Laura said.
All three took off running down the closest path toward the sound of a wizard being sacrificed for an ancient machine.
Chapter Thirty
They dashed through the trees toward the screams, which were coming from off the path. Nickie tried to keep branches from snagging on her guitar, and Laura did the same with her lance. Emily pressed the button on her iron orb, grabbed the thin metal chain that dropped from the open hatch, and cast the spell to bind the thing to the metal plate in the palm of her glove.
“Somebody help!” the man shouted. “Can anyone hear me?”
The sisters burst from the tree line into a round circle of cleared earth.
“Woah.” Emily skidded to a halt and leaned backward just before her shoes tipped her forward over the edge of a massive crater. It went at least twenty feet down, and at the bottom was the witch who’d been screaming at the top of his lungs.
“What is going on?” Nickie muttered.
“That’s an energy core.” Laura nodded at the thing they instantly recognized; this one, though, lay on its side, half-buried beneath the earth, stretching across the entire diameter of the crater. The Gorafrex’s next victim knelt beside it, his wrists bound behind his back in ropes of pulsing red bubbles. He tipped his head back to shout again and saw them.
“Hey. Hey! Please help me! He’s gonna—”
A transport bubble appeared beside the terrified wizard. It popped, and Dave stepped out toward his victim. Only it wasn’t exactly Dave.
Nickie set the amp at the edge of the crater, plugged the cord into her Strat, and nodded at her sisters. “This is it.”
“Wait, how are we supposed to get down there?” Emily whispered.
“Em.” Laura raised her eyebrows. “Levitating charm. On yourself. That thing’s gonna know we’re here in about two—”
They didn’t even have two seconds. Dave’s head tipped back, and his silver-flashing Gorafrex eyes caught sight of them.
“Now!” Laura leapt from the edge of the crater, her ring flashed, and the levitating charm slowed her descent enough to not break her legs when she landed.
Nickie turned on the amp and struck a chord. The sound launched Emily into action too. She jumped, though it was a lot less prepared than her sister’s leap, and her copper ring blinked rapidly a few times without effect. She opened her mouth to scream as the ground rushed up to meet her, then her ring got a grip again and caught her just two feet from the bottom. Her feet thumped into the dirt, she stumbled forward, and then they were in front of the Gorafrex.
The thing snarled through Dave’s lips. “Even witches have grown more stupid over the centuries.”
Emily scowled. “Hey!”
The Gorafrex’s hand shot toward her, but before it could unleash its attack of dark magic, Nickie burst into a frenzied version of the lullaby their dad sung to them every night when they were kids. The sound sent the Gorafrex reeling back, its eyes flashing silver. “You still don’t have what you need,” it spat. “But I do.”
The creature’s primal drumbeat splintered the air, battling the volume of Nickie’s guitar. In two seconds, she’d matched the rhythm of the chords for the Hadstrom lullaby to the Gorafrex’s witch-snaring magic—and its only defense. When Nickie played the song her ancestors had used to lock it away thousands of years ago, the Gorafrex’s drumbeats lost their power.
The wizard kneeling beside the energy core stared at the odd display.
“This is the last time.” The Gorafrex reached out for Emily as she wound her arm back to throw her iron orb. A storm of dark bubbles swirled from the outstretched palm and darted toward the youngest witch, but Laura raised her hand in time to deflect them. Her ring flashed a violet light that burst across the ground and drove the Gorafrex’s attack away from her sister and back toward the caster.
Blood magic pelted Dave’s body like rubber bullets. He stumbled back before tripping on an upturned tree root. Dave sprawled out across the dirt, an
d Emily glanced at her sister.
“Laura, he’s gonna feel all this later.”
“Yeah, I know, Em. There’s only so much I can do to protect him.”
Under its own magical attack, the Gorafrex took a few seconds to collect itself within Dave’s body, but this weakened and the ropes of dark magic pulsing around the captured wizard’s wrists burst and disappeared, leaving behind a rancid odor like bad cheese. The wizard scrambled to his feet.
“Here.” Emily had enough time to toss the iron dagger at his feet before the Gorafrex pushed itself back up and hissed at them.
“You’ve failed every time,” it snarled. “This is no different.” At the same time the wizard grabbed the dagger, the Gorafrex rushed Laura. Emily launched her iron orb at the creature and propelled it with her legacy ring. Any other throw wouldn’t have curved the orb the way it curved around Dave, wrapping around and around, up and down and diagonally, until the orb reached the end of the chain and thumped against Dave’s pinned-down arm.
The Gorafrex stumbled sideways, and Emily tugged on the chain in her hand to tighten the slack. “We’ve been practicing.”
Those silver eyes flashed as it twisted Dave’s head over his shoulder. “For how long, witch? I have had thousands more years.”
“That doesn’t change a thing.” Laura nodded at her sister while Nickie’s fingers flew over the strings of her guitar above them, sweat dripping down the sides of her face. “Keep it up, Nickie!”
Emily tugged the potion vial out of her back pocket, popped the cork, and threw it at Dave. Sparkling orange liquid splattered all over the man’s hair and the back of his neck, dripping over his clothes and onto the dirt at his feet.
Nothing happened.
A low, menacing chuckle rose from the man’s mouth, and it didn’t sound like Dave’s laughter. It grew until the Gorafrex threw its host’s head back and cackled. “All this trouble. For a—” It choked, blinked wide eyes, and growled.
The shimmering, opalescent aura they’d seen every time the Gorafrex was about to switch bodies pulsed in a giant flash around Dave. It sucked back into the man’s skin, and a piercing shriek rose from his mouth.
The wizard had stepped up beside the creature and tried his hand at stabbing his abductor in the side. “No, no, no!” Emily shouted, but no damage struck Dave’s body. Not while the Gorafrex was inside. The dagger thumped to the dirt, bloodless and clean, and the wizard backed away.
The shimmering aura flared, and Laura made her move. She brought the tip of her lance up against Dave’s chest, pushing hard enough to feel the pressure but not break skin. Hopefully.
The creature’s drumming increased in a last attempt, but the sisters’ magic had done its part. The swarm of Gorafrex consciousness lifted from Dave’s body, wriggling and struggling, and bent toward the rune in Laura’s lance. Dave screamed.
The trees around them in the preserve groaned and shook, despite even a hint of wind. The ground trembled, and Nickie stumbled over her amp. Her boot nudged it just enough to send the thing hurtling down into the crater, and the cable yanked out of her guitar. She cursed but kept playing.
When the ground cracked at the bottom of the crater, Laura and Emily had just enough time to leap back before a huge, jagged shard of rock burst upward, separating them from the Gorafrex. Laura’s lance lost contact with Dave’s body. The chain wrapped around him jerked Emily forward.
“Bring him back!” Laura shouted and reached out toward Dave before the Gorafrex escaped. Her ring flashed. Instead of grabbing Dave with her summoning spell, she ended up pulling a huge chunk of rock out of the ground. It flew toward her, and she jumped out of the way before it crashed into the wall of the crater.
Emily’s copper ring sputtered and crackled, undoing the binding spell she’d used to seal the end of her iron chain to her glove. The chain whipped out of her hand, and Dave fell backward.
Nickie’s black legacy ring strobed a series of blinding purple lights, and two of her guitar strings snapped and almost whipped her in the face.
The trees glowed, and the sisters thought they heard all those thousands of voices rising from the very real, very living thing rooted into the ground. It sounded like rage.
Without their planned magic to keep it where they wanted it, the Gorafrex flung itself from its host, launched into the sky, and darted over the trees until it vanished from sight.
Dave groaned at the bottom of the crater, still tied up in iron chain. The front of his shirt bloomed with tiny pinpricks of blood where the Gorafrex’s dark spell had backfired. A much more alarming stain spread by a second wound on his side. The wizard had done enough damage with the dagger; it was just now showing up.
“Nickie, get down here fast,” Laura shouted.
Nickie lifted her guitar strap over her head, set down the Strat, and jumped over the edge to join them. Her ring alone didn’t do nearly enough to help slow her descent, but her sisters joined in. So did the wizard, who’d had enough presence of mind to pull out his wand and use it this time instead of an iron weapon he knew nothing about.
When she landed at the bottom, Nickie stumbled forward and kept running until she slid to her knees beside Dave. “Okay, okay. Please work this time.” With magic acting completely nuts, none of them could be sure her healing spells would work, despite how much they’d improved as she learned to use her legacy ring. Nickie took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and blew over Dave’s body.
It took a few seconds for the purple healing bubbles to burst from her mouth, but they finally did. One by one, they floated over Dave’s body and settled atop the countless wounds that had destroyed his shirt and peppered his flesh, and the bleeding ceased. The air filled with the scent of lavender.
Dave’s eyes fluttered open. When he saw all three Hadstrom sisters and a complete stranger standing over him—not to mention the fact that the entire world flashed in brilliant colors now that his tiny magical brain had been hijacked awake—all he could do was mutter, “Woah.”
Then, his head dropped back onto the dirt, and he passed out again.
The sisters stared at each other for what felt like a long time. “Okay.” Laura clicked her tongue and frowned at Dave. “Looks like we’re back at square one, huh?”
“We were so close.” Emily hung her head and closed her eyes.
“We’ll figure it out, Em. Who wants to start working on a transport bubble first?”
It took them ten minutes to finally get their magic to do what it was meant to do before their twenty-sixth attempt grew a bubble large enough for three witches, one wizard, and a newly awakened Peabrain.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Em, how can you even be sure about this?” Laura nodded at the fairy watching her and her sisters walk through the main library in downtown Austin.
Emily barely turned around to answer her. “Just a feeling, okay? Besides, it’s not like it has anything specifically to do with the Gorafrex.”
“Hey, maybe keep it down about…the thing.” Nickie glanced around and tried not to psych herself out about anyone watching them do anything.
“You guys need to trust me.” Emily turned at the nondescript wall and walked through it. The magical barrier made her skin prickle a little, but she kept moving into the high-security magical books section. Her sisters followed behind her, and now that they’d stepped beyond into this magicals-only room, Laura and Nickie relaxed a little.
“What are we looking for again?”
Emily glanced at Laura and lifted her finger. “More potions, to start. Anything that has to do with making things work again, right? ‘Cause magic isn’t working for itself right now.”
“Or us,” Nickie muttered.
“Right. We know my potion worked. So did Laura’s rune. If the world wasn’t being scrambled by two and a half activated energy cores, we would’ve had the Gorafrex locked up yesterday.”
“So what? We’re trying to find something about potions that fix magic?”
&nb
sp; “Yeah. Or that don’t need much magic to do the same things magic would do if it wasn’t already screwing up so badly.” Emily squinted at a shelf and pulled down a thick purple volume. “Because potions, as far as I know, are the only tools that don’t rely completely on magic. The rest is alchemy.”
“Actually, Em, that makes a lot of sense.”
The youngest Hadstrom sister turned toward Laura and winked. “Rutilda helped me with that one. So let’s keep—”
The library shuddered. A massive explosion rocked the center of downtown Austin. The Hadstrom sisters rushed toward the window at the far end of the magical books section and peered outside. A massive plume of purple energy billowed into the sky. Car alarms went off. People stopped to stare, ran the other way, screamed, or moved as fast as they could while glancing over their shoulders.
Emily flinched when a lamppost fell out of the sky and landed in front of the window, clattering onto the pavement of the library parking lot. She turned toward her sisters, who echoed the same expression of surprise and disappointment.
With a sigh, Emily shrugged and tried to smile. “We have a lot of reading to do.”
The End
Magic in Austin is officially on the fritz, and there’s no way to predict what a spell will actually do. Now, the Hadstrom sisters have to turn to older methods of fighting the Gorafrex, but none of them have any real experience with making potions. Can the trio of witches fulfill their family legacy and set things right? The adventures continue in Magic Trinity!
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