“What, like you’re Wonder Woman or something?” he responded sarcastically.
I gave him a look that told him I was being totally serious about this and waited for him to agree. “Fine. I’ll let you be the hero today.”
I was about to respond with something equally snarky, but as we rounded the last corner, I took in the scene in front of me and nearly froze with fear.
But I couldn’t. Members of my coven were in trouble and there was no way I was ditching them now.
With a force I didn’t know I had, I propelled myself into the bedlam before I could talk myself out of it.
Chapter Fifteen
By the time I reached the center of the fight, I’d already lost track of Asher, and to be honest, I was too distracted by everything that was going on to worry about him. I had more important things to be concerned about.
Like the fact that at the moment Jasmine was being cornered by two people. The woman to her left appeared to be in her twenties, had wild red hair, and wore loose-fitting black harem pants and a dusty white V-neck tee. She squinted at Jasmine like she was concentrating, but there was a huge grin on her face.
The man creeping up on Jasmine’s other side was older—at least forty—with a salt-and-pepper mustache and hair to match. He wore a long cape-like jacket that fluttered behind him as he moved.
I was still at least twenty feet away when they attacked. Only, instead of touching her, they seemed to be hurling insults at her. No, not insults.
Magic.
Light burst through the air as spells were sent Jasmine’s way and she tried her best to avoid letting them hit her. But she couldn’t dodge it all, and I watched in horror as she was thrown backward with such force that when she hit the wall behind her, it knocked her out. She landed in a heap on the ground, not even flinching as she slammed into the hard surface.
“Jasmine!” I screamed, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. The other strangers gathered in the area heard me cry out, and began to cast in my direction as well. Magic was being sent every which way around the dead end and things were already on fire from where certain spells had landed. Although most shoppers had fled the scene once the fight had broken out, I could still see a few left in stores, checking out the action from the windows.
After a brief glance around, I could see that there were about three attackers for each one of us and we were already losing. Everyone was under fire.
Including me now. I felt an invisible force zip past me, narrowly missing my head, and without thinking about the consequences, I began to run.
I had no idea whether or not Jasmine was still alive, but I headed straight for her. The man and woman were still standing over her, casting spells while she was down. No way was I letting them continue to hurt her. My eyes darted around until they landed on a few mannequins that were on display outside a nearby store. With a flick of my hand, I pointed at the plastic bodies and then over at our enemies.
“Shifagin momentus!” I yelled with as much force as I could muster. The life-size dolls flew from their spots and crossed the space, hitting Jazzy’s assailants and knocking them back onto the ground. When they didn’t get up, I thanked the universe for helping me hit my targets and rushed over to Jasmine.
Crouching down, I touched my fingers to her neck, trying desperately to find a pulse. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I’d always seen people do it on television, so I figured there had to be something there. Finally I found the point I was looking for and let out a breath when I felt her pulse beating strongly.
“Help, Hadley!”
My head jerked in the direction of the scream and what I saw made my stomach drop. Jinx and Sascha were standing back-to-back, fighting off their own group of attackers. They’d been backed into a corner, and now it looked like their assailants were about to take them down too. The girls held their arms outstretched as if they were trying to fend off the others’ next moves. Dark, burned spots decorated their clothes where spells had hit them. I was surprised the two were still standing, although by the looks of Sascha, it was just barely.
I didn’t want to leave Jasmine on the ground by herself, but I knew that if I didn’t get over to Sascha and Jinx, they’d be in just as bad shape. Or worse.
In a split-second decision, I cast a spell that overturned a nearby bench and sent it to the spot right in front of where Jasmine lay, so it acted as a sort of barricade.
It was the best I could do with the situation at hand.
Then I headed for the others.
As sparks flew from all directions, I sprinted toward the girls, hitting several scary-looking men with stunning spells along the way. They fell around me like flies, but I didn’t have a chance to enjoy the victories. I leaped toward the guy closest to Sascha. Putting all my weight into it, I kicked my right foot up into a roundhouse kick and felt the familiar thud as it landed on the side of the guy’s face. He made a sound like “oof” and then staggered backward. Not allowing him a chance to recover, I followed it up with a stunning spell.
The guy’s body began to seize as if I’d jolted him with a Taser, and he hit the ground, rolling around in agony. I was tempted to keep the spell going, but every second I spent punishing him took me away from confronting the rest of them. So I moved on to the next guy, who’d lunged at Sascha and started to hit her. I grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt and simultaneously kicked the backs of his knees before dropping my weight to the ground and taking him down with me. Using the momentum of his fall to my advantage, I rolled onto my back and then placed my feet against his lower back. Grunting with exertion, I launched the man ten feet into the air, and he landed with a crack behind us.
Thank you, cheer muscles.
I rocked backward and then popped up onto my feet to see if Sascha was okay. She was trying desperately to fend off one last girl and was barely able to get a round of spells in before she was hit again. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of spells being cast, Sascha backed up until her feet hit a garbage can behind her. A look over at Jinx showed that she wasn’t much better off. I could see at least one person lying a few feet away, unmoving, but at least four others had replaced him. And Jinx appeared to be having trouble breathing while bruises began to form across her face.
I couldn’t help but feel guilty over the fact that I hadn’t been there to prevent all this from happening. If I had come alone, like I’d originally planned, I would’ve been the only one getting hurt.
Sure, I would’ve lost, but at least everyone else would be safe.
And I’d had no idea so many would be after us. Since there hadn’t been any reported sightings of the Parrishables in hundreds of years, we’d been clueless as to how many members they actually had. It was clear that we’d highly underestimated them in more ways than one.
One look around the courtyard made it clear that years of witch classes and a day of round-the-clock training had in no way prepared us for the battle with a centuries-old evil coven.
I started to dive back into the fray when I was hit hard from behind. Falling to my knees, I struggled to pull in air, the wind having been knocked out of me. I looked up at Sascha and Jinx, who were now being overtaken from all sides, and tried frantically to get back up onto my feet. But a swift kick to my side landed me on my back and face-to-face with my enemy.
“You must be Hadley,” the man sneered through snaggleteeth. He straddled me, placing his knees on my chest, making it even more difficult to breathe. His cartoonishly large muscles flexed under his tight T-shirt as he reached for my neck. “The reverend is really interested in you.”