A squeak escaped my throat as I attempted to cast a spell, but that was all that came out. His hands were so big that they reached completely around my neck. As a last-ditch effort, I flailed my legs, hoping I could at least distract him long enough to get away. Even with my years of combat lessons, the position I was currently in left me with few opportunities for escape.
Spots began to swim in front of my eyes and I realized I was on my way to passing out. But just as the lights were dimming, I caught a sudden flash of something as it rushed toward us.
There was a loud thud as something collided with the body above me and I gasped for air as I finally broke free. My body was exhausted and I wanted to give myself time to recover, but there was none. I had to help whoever had helped me.
That’s when I remembered that Asher had been in the area. I’d lost track of him once I’d arrived and hadn’t seen him since. I prayed that he’d honored his word and hadn’t gotten involved.
At the same time, I was happy that Asher couldn’t have been my enemy. Otherwise he would have disarmed me back in the store. He’d definitely had the opportunity.
But by the time my eyes fixed on the bodies that were now facing each other several feet away from me, I had no idea what I was going to find.
“Fallon?”
Where the hell did he come from?
“You okay?” he asked, his gaze never leaving the enormous man he’d pushed off me.
I wiped a trickle of blood from my mouth. “Yeah. I think so.”
There was another loud explosion from the direction of Sascha and Jinx. Without looking over to survey the damage, I nodded toward Fallon.
“Go help the others,” I said, narrowing my eyes menacingly at the bouncer-looking guy. “Leave him to me.”
Fallon didn’t stop to ask me if I was sure, he just took off running and joined the brawl, tossing people aside as he ran through the crowd like a battering ram. It was an amazing feat, considering how small and skinny he was; you’d never consider Fallon to be intimidating, unless maybe he was armed with a computer. He certainly wasn’t the superhero type.
Then again, none of us really were.
I took a second to watch as he landed by the girls’ side in the middle of the circle that had formed around them. Jinx was now lying unconscious behind Sascha. I wondered if that had been the loud noise that I’d heard. As I squinted, I saw blood pooling quickly around her. With Fallon now in the mix, Sascha was finally able to crouch down to try to help her fallen friend. Fallon never slowed, even though spells were flying all around him. He just planted his feet and began shouting out every spell he’d ever been taught.
Angry that I’d been incapacitated while Jinx had been hurt, I turned my full attention back to the other guy.
“Earlier you said someone was looking for me. Who is it?” I asked him as we began to circle each other like animals stalking their prey. I sent a stunning spell his way, hoping to stop him from moving long enough to get what I needed out of him. But he sidestepped it easily and then laughed.
“You mean the good reverend? Oh, yes, he’s got a special interest in you all right,” he answered and then lunged forward as he sent his own spell zipping my way. I darted to the left just in time.
He said it was a reverend who was leading their group, but it couldn’t possibly be the reverend. Not Samuel Parris. He would’ve died hundreds of years before. So there had to be a new reverend in town. One who had taken up his predecessor’s evil ways.
“Why is he interested in us? We’ve never done anything to him,” I answered, my teeth clenched angrily. “The Cleri always kept to themselves. You had no reason to hurt any of them!” I wasn’t just talking about Jasmine and Jinx. I was talking about our parents. And by the smile on his face, I could tell he knew it.
Annoyed by his smugness, I shouted another spell at him and this time he barely escaped the blast. He reached up and touched his singed hair.
“You may be right, girlie,” he said, nodding in agreement. “But they would’ve made it much more difficult for him to get what he really wanted.”
This time I was expecting the magic that came my way and danced around it gracefully.
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I asked, expecting him to refuse to tell me any more. I raised my arms in preparation to hit him with the stunning spell but paused for his answer.
He stopped walking and cocked his head to the side, looking at me curiously. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Girlie, all of this is about you!”
Then he pointed both his arms my way and said a few words that sent me flying backward and onto the concrete, hard. The shock of the pain that suddenly flew up my tailbone was nothing compared to what I was feeling about what he’d just said. Having trouble standing now, I counterattacked from where I lay on the ground.
My eyes had started to water, but I could still see him as he advanced on me. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why, though. You cast like a girl.” He said it like it was a bad word.
That’s it.
Before he had a chance to say anything else, I put everything I had behind my spell, feeling my body buzz with a power I wasn’t used to. When it left my fingertips, it crossed the space and hit him square in the chest. His body went stiff and he fell forward onto the ground.
I walked over to him, the sound of my heels drowned out by the noise around me. Standing above him, I tapped him lightly on his behind with the toe of my studded pump. “I am a girl, you idiot. Now how does it feel to have your butt kicked by one?”
Then I spun around and rushed back toward the rest of my coven members.
Fallon was still holding his own and his bravery was impressive, but I could tell from the way the others were advancing on him that it wouldn’t be enough. And I couldn’t stomach anyone else getting hurt. Even someone who was partly responsible for everything that was happening.
We had to get out of there, and quickly.
Instead of joining them, I stopped running and closed my eyes tightly. With a deep breath, I tried to focus all my energy on what I was about to do. I’d managed to do the spell only a few times, and even then it had lasted only a few seconds and had been directed at just one person. Since holding a spell required major concentration and enormous power, it would take a particularly strong witch to be able to pull off what I wanted to do. And I wasn’t sure I had what it took.
Hell, my parents might not have been able to do this spell.
But I had to at least try. We needed a distraction and the others were too busy or hurt to help out.
Recalling everything Jackson had taught us about tapping in to our powers, I visualized the energy coming up from my toes, coursing through my body, and bursting out my hands and head.
“Immobius totarium!”
I felt the force leave my body but had no idea whether it had worked. I was too afraid to open my eyes and risk seeing that I’d failed. I could still hear scuffling and shouts around me, which wasn’t a good sign, but I was almost sure something had happened.
I just didn’t know if it was going to be enough to save us from our impending doom.
Knowing that every minute I kept my eyes closed was putting me and the rest of the Cleri in danger, I finally forced myself to open them. And smiled.
Briefly.
The rest of the members of Team Bad Guys had frozen in their tracks, some midstep, others as they were casting spells. I was tempted to unfreeze one of them and force him to tell me who the traitor was, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control the spell enough to cut him loose without letting go of the others, too. And given the state of my coven, that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
I closed the distance between me and the rest of the Cleri and motioned toward the parking lot. “We’ve got to go!”