"Get out of my way," I growled, prepared to knock her down if she thought she could keep me from helping Adrian.
She grabbed my arm and tried to drag me backward, away from where Sebastian and Adrian were fighting near a bay of lockers, Sebastian lunging with his knife,
Adrian using his body as a weapon. "You must not fall under his thrall—"
I drew a binding ward on Melissande to stop her, spinning away to help Adrian. Before I could take three steps, I was jerked backward.
"You will stay here, Charmer," the dark-haired vamp hissed, his fingers hard on my neck.
I spent a moment being astonished that he could have worked his way out of my ward so quickly, then began to struggle in earnest.
"Watch her left hand, Christian!" the crazy lady called as she limped toward us. "She's trying to draw another ward."
Christian? The dark-haired vamp was Melissande's cousin Christian? The man with the delicious library?
Good academic taste or not, he was a threat to Adrian, and that meant he was going down. Rather than struggle to get away from him, I threw myself forward, slamming my fist into his face at the same time as I kneed him. I didn't hit ground zero, but came close enough that he doubled over, one hand still clutching my coat.
"Nell," Melissande said, grabbing my arm as I tried desperately to unbutton my coat. Adrian and Sebastian had knocked down the row of lockers and moved their battle into a nearby office. Five policemen poured into the hall through the far door, yelling, blowing whistles, and shoving aside the people clustered around the office.
"Stop!" Melissande pleaded with me. "I beg of you, stop. You do not know what you are doing."
"I know what I'm doing. It's you people who have it all wrong!"
She wouldn't listen to me. None of them would. Melissande and the crazy woman both held my arms as I fought to escape Christian's clutch, but it was no good. I sobbed with frustration, worried sick about what that blond devil was doing to Adrian. The policemen who had finally forced their way through the crowd had been thrown one by one out of the small room behind the lockers. Crashes, the sound of breaking glass, and the shouts and yells of the onlookers as they followed Adrian and Sebastian told me they were still at it, but I was helpless to do anything, helpless to give Adrian the assistance I knew he needed.
Unless I tried to tap into that power that I'd done so much to forget.
I closed my mind against the shriek of agony that thought had spawned, ignoring Melissande before me as she pleaded with me to listen to reason, ignoring the crazy woman as she simultaneously helped Christian to his feet, and threatened to bean me with one of her snow globes, ignoring the distant sounds of madness as Adrian fought for his life.
"Come on brain," I whispered as I looked deep within myself to the black spot on my soul. "I'm not asking for much, just a little something, just enough to give Adrian the escape he needs."
Melissande's beautiful face faded as my sight turned inward. Christian had a hard grip on both my wrists—in order to keep me from drawing a ward, I presumed. His mouth moved as he spoke, but his words never reached my ears. I closed my eyes, concentrating, focusing on remembering something I hadn't known I had learned.
"Air, I invoke: sky and wind, storm and mist."
A breeze brushed past my face as I spoke the words that Beth's aunt had chanted so long ago.
"Water, I invoke: stream and cloud, ocean and pool."
The words came from me slowly, sounding distant, as if coming from someone a long way away. I opened my eyes, aware of but not paying attention to the shocked look on Melissande's face.
"Fire, I invoke: flame and spark, blaze and flicker."
Christian leaped back from me, looking at his hands in surprise. Within me, power grew hot as I spoke the words of an ancient ward. A white flame ignited in my head, but I ignored the panicked part of my brain that was shrieking at me to stop before I went too far.
"Earth, I invoke: stone and mountain, rock and sand."
Beneath my feet, the ground rumbled.
"By the air, I hold your spirit."
The white flame grew until it filled my mind. I struggled to keep it controlled, to not let it overwhelm me as it had done ten years before.
"By the water, I hold your life."
Melissande began backing away from me, her look of surprise changing to horror. She said something, but I couldn't hear her over the roar of the light filling me.
"By the fire, I hold your strength," I yelled, needle-pointed bits of the light starting to pierce my brain, the pain building until it held me so tight I couldn't draw a breath.
"By the earth, I hold your courage!"
The light filled me, shards of it digging deep into my body as it ate through my brain. I fought the light, fought the need to let it go in order to save myself, fought the knowledge that I was just a hairbreadth away from another stroke. Above the screaming in my head, Adrian's voice protested, but I couldn't release my concentration to listen to him. I had to speak the last words.
I spread my arms wide, fighting the light within me with every last ounce of strength I had. "By these powers, I banish thee!"
The light exploded within me, pain so sharp it tasted of the blood that sang in my veins as I slipped away, my heart and soul and mind consumed by the light until there was nothing left of me but ash.
Chapter Nine
It was a woman's voice that spoke first. "I say we dump her in the river."
"We cannot do that, Beloved," a man's voice answered, humor lacing his voice.
"No? Then we'll find a lake and dump her. A deep lake." The woman's voice was American and vaguely familiar. That thought startled me, not because I found her voice familiar, but because I found anything familiar. It meant I wasn't dead, or a mental vegetable.
"Allie, you're not being very charitable. It's not Nell's fault she did what she did, although I truly did not know she had that much power. She swore to me that she was not a Charmer, and yet she managed a banishing ward by merely speaking words. I was not aware that was possible."
I cracked an eye open at the words. Melissande was speaking, shaking her head sadly as stood looking out a window.
"Oh, she knew what she was doing! Did you see what she did to Christian's hands? It took him an hour to heal those burns! A whole hour!"
I rolled my opened eye to the side and watched the crazy woman—evidently named Allie—who sat on Christian's lap. A faint smile touched my lips. Although I've always prided myself on being a fairly peaceful, nonaggressive person, I was not averse to causing a little grief to a vampire who was trying to harm the man of my dreams.
Adrian! Oh, my God, how could I have forgotten him! What happened after I cast the banish charm? Had he escaped? Where was he? Immediately I tried to stretch out with my mind to reach him, but a sudden blinding pain pierced my brain, causing me to waver on the edge of unconsciousness.
"Christian, have you ever heard of a Charmer who could speak a ward?" Melissande turned to address the dark-haired vamp.
The pain ebbed slowly, enough so I could catch my breath. With tentative, careful movements I tried moving my left arm and leg a tiny fraction, praying with a wordless prayer that they'd respond to my commands. I couldn't stand finding myself a prisoner of my body again. Not now, not when my life had taken on new meaning.
Christian looked thoughtful. "Two or three centuries ago I met a Charmer who could verbalize a ward. But she was a very powerful Charmer, and I do not get the same sense of power from this one." A languid hand waved my way, stopping in midair as he noticed the movement of my left foot. "Ah. I believe she has returned to us."
I clenched the fingers of my left hand into a fist, relieved almost to the point of tears that my body did what I asked of it. I had stopped in time. I hadn't been consumed by the white light of my mind failing me—I had charmed and still lived whole and complete. Or as whole and complete as I was when I started this little adventure.