AllFreeNovel
Share Us
spirits toil, spirits tithe,
Fire and ice, and spinning wheel,
let your life to this sign be sealed!
A fiery glowing sigil appeared in the air, crackling as it burned with a bright purple flame. A thousand howls of anger came rushing through the rune, and then a black, shadowy arrow broke through, aimed for the heart of the spirit. It pierced his back, driving through to the other side.
Camille made a sign with her free hand. The arrow developed barbs and as she jerked her hand backward, the barbs caught hold of the spirit’s ethereal body and dragged him away from us.
Morio, grinning fiercely, drew another rune in the air with his right hand and it circled around the little girl, severing her connection with the spirit. She went rebounding back, hiding her face.
The arrow quivered and sparkled with the violent flames. And then—as the spirit let out an angry, frightened roar—the arrow exploded, taking him with it. A shower of sparks rained over the room, and the smell of ozone hissed and popped.
Our opponent was gone.
We stood there, staring at the devastated living room. Roz fell to the floor, along with everything else that had been hovering in the air.
The little girl looked up, fear filling her face, but then she saw that the man was gone and slowly walked forward. She cocked her head, looking first at Morio and Camille, then at me. Then she turned to Roz and regarded him with a serious look.
“You’re okay now, honey.” Chase knelt and opened his arms.
A smile broke out on her face. The closet opened and out stepped the little boy. The girl ran over to him and caught him by the hand, bringing him back to stand in front of Chase.
Chase waited, his arms wide, looking so sad and weary that I wanted to take him in hand, put him in his jammies, and tuck him into bed with a cup of hot cocoa. He continued to kneel as the girl and boy slowly walked into his embrace.
Tears were falling down his face now, as he slowly closed his arms around them, murmuring something I couldn’t hear. And then, as they leaned against his shoulders, they slowly began to fade. In another moment, they had vanished in a shimmer of cleansing light, and we were alone in the house.
Camille and Morio dropped to the sofa, mute and spent. Roz was hurt. Chase looked weary beyond belief. And I…I was confused and had a horrendous headache.
After a moment, I slid to the floor. “What the fuck just happened here?”
Chase lifted his head. “Abby and Fritz—are they okay?”
“They took off for the FH-CSI in my car. They should be there by now. There were…there was a vortex on the front porch that almost caught Fritz. Arms reaching through to pull him down.” I looked around at the destruction and mayhem. “Was it all just that one spirit causing problems?”
Camille shook her head. “No. We cleared him out, but there are more things here. Evil things, lurking. I can feel them. They’re just biding their time, and we really should get the fuck out of here before they come after us. Because I don’t know how much magic I have left in me tonight. That freaking perv was hell on wheels to get rid of. Thank you, Chase—you distracted him long enough for Morio and me to build our spell.”
Chase stared at his hands. “He hurt them. When they were all alive. He hurt both of them and I think he killed them, too. He bound the girl to him and was chasing after the boy all of these years.”
“How do you know?” I cocked my head. Chase’s abilities were opening out. After he’d been injected with the Nectar of Life to save his life, abilities had been coming to the surface. We’d known Chase had psychic potential, and the nectar had thrown down the gauntlet.
He shrugged. “She told me. What can I say? I could hear her in my head—not so much in words, but I could…I know what he did to them.” It was all he said, and it was all he needed to say. The tone of his voice told us the rest.
We struggled toward the back door. I didn’t want to take another chance on meeting whatever was haunting the front porch. Somebody was tunneling up from a nasty-assed place, and right now the last thing we needed was another battle.
We came around the front and I looked back at the house. “Shit. Forgot to lock the doors.” I grimaced.
“Hell, okay, I’ll go back.” Morio started back, but I shook my head.
“You guys stay right here. I can get across the porch without putting a foot on it.” I hated levitating—I was by no means an expert, and more often than not, I ended up running into a wall. But it was better than trying to turn into a bat. My bat-girl abilities had a better chance of flubbing than Camille’s Moon magic. A lot better.
As I floated up and over the porch, I glanced down. All I could see was floorboards, but they wavered and rippled. The vortex hadn’t sealed itself. I slowly levitated through the front door and touched down, turning to slam it behind me and lock it.
The house creaked and moaned. I had the uneasy feeling the sounds weren’t just from the floorboards settling. The pseudo-blood was still streaming down the walls, and while no knives hurtled through the air at the moment, as I walked through the living room, muffled moans and cries assaulted my ears.
“I should just get Ivana Krask down here,” I mumbled to myself.
It would be a gamble—forming deals with the Elder Fae was risky business—but she did eat up ghosts. Sucked them right up in that bizarre vacuum cleaner of a staff she carried, and then took them home to plant in her spirit garden for torturing.
