Chapter 30 White Out
WHITE OUT
Light exploded from my skin, surprising even me.
This wasn’t the pale glow of my wolf form under a full moon. This was something else entirely. Something ancient and vast that burned through my veins like liquid silver and poured out of me in a blinding wave.
My hair whipped around my face, every strand blazing white. My eyes felt like twin furnaces. The wolf under my skin wasn’t just surfacing. She was expanding, filling every cell and nerve ending with a power that made the ley lines beneath my feet sing in resonance as she drew upon them.
Esmeralda staggered back, her pupils round with an emotion I hadn’t seen in them before.
Fear.
“That’s not possible,” she mumbled. “No wolf has that kind of—”
I didn’t let her finish.
White wolf power fed by the convergence surged outward in a dazzling shockwave that tore across the lawn. It struck Esmeralda’s corrupt magic like a sledgehammer.
The witch’s foul energy shivered violently before recoiling from the radiance blazing off my body, her dark magic peeling away from the ground in oily tendrils that hissed and withered.
Samuel’s breath shuddered in and out of him as the forces overwhelming him began to subside. Barney shook his head dazedly, his pupils flashing scarlet once more.
On the porch, Melody jerked violently. So did the three Ashgrove witches.
I could see their subjugation bindings clearly now. The dark threads wrapped around their wrists and throats like barbed wire and fed back to the woman in front of me, the sinister lines pulsing with the same tainted energy as the rite.
I scowled and focused on the threads, my heart racing.
“Break!”
Just like that time in the Holts’ ballroom, the command came from a place deep inside me I was barely aware of most days. The authority it carried resonated through the ley lines and into the earth and the very air itself.
The bindings on Melody shattered first. The fae-witch gasped, her back arching as the dark threads disintegrated in a flare of white light. She collapsed forward onto her hands and knees, sucking in air like she’d been drowning.
The Ashgrove witches followed a heartbeat later, their bindings blowing apart in sequence, each one snapping with a sound like a breaking branch. The three women wheezed and trembled. One of them began crying, tears falling silently down her face.
Esmeralda shrieked.
It was an ugly, animal sound full of disbelief and fury. She thrust her hands into the ground and clawed at the ley lines beneath the property with savage desperation. The earth groaned. Cracks split the lawn. A foul energy erupted from the fissures.
My stomach curdled.
The dark mist stank of blood and forbidden magic.
“You think breaking a few chains changes anything?!” Esmeralda snarled, her eyes wild. “I have three ley lines feeding me! Three witches’ worth of stolen power! You’re one wolf against—”
“She’s not alone.”
Didi’s voice cut through Esmeralda’s ranting, cold and hard.
I looked around, pulse thumping.
The witch had climbed to her feet, blood trickling from a cut on her forehead. Magic blazed around her fingers, brighter and fiercer than I’d ever seen it. Mrs. Chen stood beside her, the old woman’s herbs smoldering in her hands and her eyes sharp enough to flay skin.
Melody rose unsteadily on the porch behind them.
The fae-witch’s expression had transformed. The fear was still there, but it had merged with something else. Something that looked a lot like rage.
“You used me.” Melody’s voice shook. “You put that filthy magic inside my body and made me betray the people I’d sworn to protect!”
Esmeralda’s lip curled, her face projecting wrath and defiance.
“Don’t flatter yourself, witch. You were a means to an end. Nothing more.”
Melody flinched. Her jaw set in a steely line.
Magic erupted around her in a storm of fae light and witch fire that made the air spark violently.
The three Ashgrove witches dragged themselves upright on the porch beside her. The oldest of them—a gray-haired woman with fierce eyes—raised her hands. Green magic bloomed on her fingertips. The other two followed suit.
Esmeralda looked at the six witches facing her across the ruined lawn in disbelief.
“You really think you can win against me?” she scoffed.
I ignored her and glanced at the six witches, the magic of the convergence heating up my body.
“The ley lines.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. It resonated with an echo that made it sound as if something else was speaking through me and caused Samuel’s wolf to growl across the mate bond. “They’re right beneath us. I’ll guide you to the convergence!”
Esmeralda flinched.
Didi moved. “Melody, you and the Ashgrove witches anchor the east and south lines. Mrs. Chen and I will take the north.” She cut her eyes to me as she and Mrs. Chen got into position. “You sure you can do this?”
I had absolutely no idea. Still, my wolf thought we could.
“Yes.”
Samuel’s anxiety throbbed across our bond as he rose unsteadily to his feet. Barney took hold of his arm when he made to step toward me. My alpha clenched his jaw and stayed put.
I could see the effort it was costing him not to spring to my side.
“She’s lying!” Esmeralda sneered. “A wolf can’t channel ley line magic. It would tear her apart!”
“This wolf broke your bindings like they were wet paper,” Mrs. Chen said flatly.
Esmeralda’s face darkened.
I tensed when I sensed the magic building around her.
The ground shook again, harder this time.
Whatever she’s doing, she’s pouring everything into it!
“Now would be good!” I barked.
Didi and the other witches placed their hands on grass and dirt and reached for the ley lines. The ancient currents of power trembled before slowly shifting away from the Thornwick witch’s corrupt grasp and toward the pure, clean energy wielded by the six women.
Esmeralda’s expression contorted.
“No!” She slammed both palms into the earth.
It split before her.
My breath caught when a stream of vile energy erupted upward from the crack in a column of black fire that lit the sky.
Mrs. Chen cursed.
My heart drummed painfully against my ribs as my white wolf’s vision revealed something only the witches could see.
The stolen healing magic of the Lincoln sisters blazed within the dark pillar like trapped stars.
“This power is mine!” Esmeralda screamed, spit flying from her lips. “I earned it! I bled for—!”
A fire extinguisher struck her in the side of the head and knocked her to the ground.
Gavin stood a short distance away, nostrils puffing and face pale.
Esmeralda groaned and stirred.
Movement in the sky made my mouth go dry.
The pillar of dark magic twisted and dipped toward the witches.
I heard Samuel shout my name as I stepped into its path and raised my hands. My skin, hair, and eyes flared with light.
My white wolf caught the blast squarely. The impact drove my boots six inches into the soft earth. Pain squeezed my arms. My chest. My skull. The sheer volume of corrupt power washing over me and my wolf battered our senses like a hurricane against a sea wall.
We growled and held our ground.
Behind me, I felt the witches reach the incandescent pulsing heart of the convergence and connect with my white wolf.
It was as if I’d grabbed three live wires all at once. Magic roared through me and into the six women at my back. For a terrifying instant, I couldn’t tell where I ended and the ley lines began.
To my shock, my wolf lifted her head and howled.
It wasn’t a sound of pain but rather one of exhilaration.
Raw earth magic blazed through every nerve we possessed.
The witches channeled it.
Didi and Mrs. Chen quickly shaped the northern line into a binding.
Melody and the older Ashgrove witch wove the eastern line with hybrid power, Melody’s fae light giving it a sharpness that cut through Esmeralda’s powers like a scalpel.
The younger two Ashgrove witches drove the southern line upward in a wave of green fire that slammed into the column of dark magic and began to devour it from the base.
Esmeralda screamed.
The Black Chalice Rite finally shattered under the triple attack. It imploded with a sound like a thunderclap, the inky wave collapsing in on itself. The windows in the house exploded, sending debris flying across the lawn.
The stolen healing magic of the Lincoln sisters burst free in a cascade of golden light. I followed it with my gaze as it streamed through the air and back toward the house, seeking the three women it had been taken from.
Didi and the others didn’t stop there.
The combined force of three ley lines and six furious witches crashed into Esmeralda with a violence that lifted her clean off the ground.
What happened next defied all laws of nature.
Esmeralda’s body convulsed in midair. Her scream twisted, warping from a human cry into something high and thin. Her limbs contracted. Her spine curved. Bones cracked and reformed. Dark hair rippled and shortened into sleek black fur.
I blinked as the most feared dark witch in Amberford shrank into a small, furious, hissing black cat that hit the lawn with an undignified thump.
It scrambled to its feet, golden eyes incandescent with rage, and opened its mouth to issue a protest. An indignant yowl was all that came out.
The cat froze, pupils rounding in sheer terror.
A stunned silence fell across the property.
“Er,” I managed.
The cat bolted.
Barney caught it like he was attempting a touchdown. The vampire wrinkled his face in disgust as he rose and held the cat by the scruff at arm’s length.
It screeched and windmilled its claws with homicidal intent.
“I believe this belongs to the Alliance now,” the vampire said sourly.
The cat’s yowl reached decibels that should not have been possible from an animal that size.
I swayed on my feet. The magic of the ley lines and my white wolf power were receding, leaving me bone tired and shaking.
Samuel’s arms closed around me before my legs gave out.
I leaned into his chest, grateful for his touch. His wolf pressed against mine through our bond, warm and steady.
“Are you okay?” I mumbled.
“I’m the one who should be asking you that.” Samuel’s voice shook a little. His arms tightened.
“The Lincoln sisters,” Melody said urgently. “They’re still inside!”
The fae-witch headed swiftly for the house. Didi, Mrs. Chen, and the Ashgrove witches followed in her steps.
Gavin came up to me, his expression still groggy.
“What happened?” the dragon newt asked anxiously. “I remember feeling sick and falling.”
Samuel and I exchanged a glance.
“Bad things,” I said with a grimace. “A lot of them. You did great knocking her out by the way.”
Gavin picked up his fire extinguisher. There was a dent in it.
“I said it would come in handy.”
We found the Lincoln sisters in the cellar.
The three witches were lying inside containment wards identical to the ones we’d discovered in the warehouse.
They looked gaunt and were barely conscious, the couture outfits they’d been wearing when they were kidnapped rumpled and stained.
Color began to return their faces as their stolen magic sank back inside their bodies.
Didi broke the wards.
Mrs. Chen knelt beside the eldest Lincoln sister, removed a fresh green bundle from her satchel, and started murmuring healing incantations, her herbs filling the dank space with a sharp, cleansing scent.
Melody helped ease the youngest sister into a sitting position while the Ashgrove witches tended to the middle sister.
Maude Lincoln opened her eyes. They were glassy and unfocused. She looked at Mrs. Chen, then at me, then at the ceiling.
“Did someone get the number of the broom that hit me?” she mumbled.
Didi made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. She blinked rapidly and looked away.
Viola stirred beside her sister. Petunia groaned.
“You’re safe now,” Mrs. Chen told Maude.
The eldest Lincoln sister squinted. “Wait. Is that you, Willy?”
Mrs. Chen narrowed her eyes. “My name is Wilhelmina and you damn well know it, you brat.”
We helped the Lincoln sisters out of the cellar and into the cold night air.
The Thornwick property was a mess. The porch railing was missing a section. Part of the roof had collapsed. Scorch marks and fissures crisscrossed the garden.
Barney was still standing in the middle of the lawn holding the cat.
Bo sat at the vampire’s feet.
“She seems upset,” he said, eyeing the cat warily.
Esmeralda was trying to murder Barney and failing miserably.
“You would be too if your evil schemes were hampered by the fact that you’re now a feline,” Barney said flatly.
“That wouldn’t stop Pearl,” Bo huffed with steadfast loyalty.
“He better not let Pearl hear that,” Samuel muttered.
I swallowed a sigh and addressed my dog. “Where did you come from?”
“The van.” The Husky trotted over, tail wagging. “I heard the explosions and figured it was safe to come out once things went quiet.” His tail accelerated when he spotted the Lincoln sisters. “Oh! You found the MVP.”