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I’d barely finished when her being flooded into mine, a force that was warm and familiar and yet so filled with power my being quivered in fear. My inner wild magic stirred, and a barrier rose unbidden, creating a safe zone around Belle and me. Cat had been right—she would never be able to claim my body as the White Lady had once tried to claim Belle’s. My magic hadn’t allowed it then, and it wouldn’t allow it now.
As two became three, we swung off the backpack and retrieved the holy water and my silver knife, tucking the former into my coat pocket and the latter into the back of my jeans.
Then we tore the barrier spell apart, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Unleashing a maelstrom of magic that picked us up and swept us away.
Chapter Fifteen
We tumbled through a blur of gray. There was no sound in this maelstrom other than the rapid tattoo of our own heart, and no smell beyond the stink of our own fear. We fell for what seemed forever, stretching time and patience, but just when we feared that we’d been wrong, that perhaps he’d intended nothing more than to doom us to this void forever, we were spat out onto a cold, hard surface.
We skidded for several feet on hands and knees, skinning our palms and tearing the knees out of our jeans. Pain washed through our body, but Belle caught the receptors and dialed them down.
Something we would undoubtedly need more of before this was over.
We didn’t immediately move, instead using our sensory inputs to judge what lay around us. The air was ripe with the scent of refuse, suggesting this place was near a rubbish tip of some kind, but underneath that was an odd, vaguely musky odor we couldn’t quite place. No flies buzzed, but that was unsurprising given the early hour of the morning. Water dripped in the distance despite the fact it wasn’t raining, and from somewhere closer came a soft moaning.
It took us several seconds to realize it wasn’t the wind but rather our father.
We looked up. Darkness met our gaze, and for too many seconds, there was nothing to see. Our eyes quickly adjusted, and shapes appeared.
A row of broken packing boxes and stacked wooden pallets separated us from our father. A sea of refuse lay between us, some of it in bags, but most of it lying in slowly drifting waves. It made us wonder if perhaps this place had once been a recycling plant—
A footstep, behind us.
Our gaze snapped around. There was nothing and no one to see, only more shadows and the continuing sea of rubbish.
But our other senses told a very different story.
We could smell his foulness. Hear the soft whisper of his tattered cloak scraping the concrete. Feel the caress of the magic he’d yet to unleash.
He was on our left, moving around us.
We pushed upright. Just for an instant, the darkness swam, and our heart raced so fiercely we feared it might tear out of our chest. That such a small movement caused so much distress was a warning—we had to end this quickly, before the toll of being a vessel for three separate entities became too great on our body.
We moved forward. Magic stirred, snaking toward us.
Do not react, Cat warned.
We clenched our fingers and shoved them in our pocket. Our left hand met the coolness of glass, and we gripped it tightly. We were nowhere near close enough to throw the holy water that bottle contained, but holding it nevertheless shored up our courage.
Or perhaps it was only my courage that needed shoring.
The ribbon of power drew closer, skirting around us, tempting us to react. We ignored it and walked forward. It was a test, nothing more.
The wraith made no move to reveal himself. He simply kept pace from a distance, the scrape of his rags as soft and yet as annoying as nails down a blackboard.
Our foot hit a metal can, sending it bouncing across the concrete. The sharp noise echoed, and the moaning briefly stopped.
It was then that we heard it.
The soft skittering of dozens and dozens of tiny little feet.
Horror washed through me, through us.
Rats. There were rats in this place.
And they were behind the wall of boxes and pallets with our father.
