Chapter 12 Declan #3
Veronica rushed over to the side of the bed, falling to her knees, staring at the stuffed animal in wonder.
“Wendy? How are you doing this?”
“I have to hurry,” she said, and the animal actually twisted its head around as if it was looking behind itself. “It took me hours to work out this enchantment, and I’m barely holding it together.”
“Where are you?” Veronica asked, her fingers digging into the blankets. “Tell us where and we’ll come for you.”
“I don’t know,” Wendy said. “The room doesn’t have any windows, and I was blindfolded when they brought me here.”
As I stared at the animated toy, an unexpected excitement settled over me.
Wendy was alive. Deep down, I’d worried that I’d be too late to help, that once more something terrible would happen because I’d been too slow, started too late.
Swallowing hard, I curled my free hand into a fist. Again, I watched the horrors of my past flip through my mind’s eye.
The worst day of my life. I would do whatever was necessary to bring this child home alive and safe.
This was proof of life, and it gave me hope. A chance.
“I’m okay right now,” Wendy said, “but you’ve got to be careful, Veronica. I think they’re trying to make it seem like you took me.”
Veronica hung her head. “Wendy… do… do you know about Balthazar?”
“Is he okay?” Wendy said, a tight worry in her voice that tore at my heart.
Veronica looked up at me, despondency written all over her face. I did not envy her at all for what she needed to say.
“Wendy,” Veronica said slowly. “I need to tell you—”
“What the hell are you doing?” a distorted voice called out from the unicorn, sounding like it was coming from far away.
Veronica and I tensed, the new voice sounded like it was being altered by either magic or some kind of microphone.
The unicorn turned around again. “You’re an asshole,” she cried, then there were the scuffling sounds of a fight or struggle. “Freaking douchebag,” Wendy grunted. “I’m gonna kick you in the fa—”
The unicorn slumped over, the glasses falling from its face, lifeless once more.
“No!” Veronica reached out, grabbing and cradling the unicorn. “Wendy? Wendy?”
“We gotta go,” I said, gently tugging the stuffed animal from her. Scooping up the glasses, I placed them into her palm and closed her fingers over them. “We’re out of time.”
Veronica nodded sadly, looking to be on the verge of tears, but she stood and slipped the glasses into her pocket before pulling the rook back out.
“The teleportation spell will revert once that’s smashed,” I said. “Nyxia used that to anchor the spell.”
“I know how it works,” she huffed, raising her hand high over her head.
Grunting, she swung her arm down and released the rook. The tiny game piece shot down toward the ground. I flinched, preparing myself for the discomfort of teleportation, but froze when the rook stopped dead, an inch above the ground, hovering there and rotating slightly.
I locked eyes with Veronica, who looked equally confused. Then a voice spoke from the door.
“Seems it’s true what they say. The guilty do sometimes return to the scene of the crime.”
I turned so fast, my neck actually popped. A tall man with a white beard and hair glared at us, his hand held out before him. The rook shot away, slapping quietly into his outstretched hand. He sniffed and shoved the chess piece into the pocket of his robes.
“Pro…Professor Karmody?” Veronica muttered.
His face twisted into a sneer, and three more witches stepped through the door.
“You have such gall to come here. After what you’ve done? You disgust me.” Karmody glared at Veronica as though she was some revolting offensive thing, subhuman.
“Come with us, Veronica,” one of the other witches said, a woman of about forty with dark hair and skin. “You’ll be safe. We’ll bind you and your powers. We’ll get to the bottom of this.
Veronica shook her head, her curls bouncing. “Professor Burgess, I swear to the gods I didn’t—”
“Liar,” the woman said, her kind tone shifting in an instant. “If it’s lying you want to do, then things won’t go easy for you.”
Veronica trembled—literally shook with fear—as I looked toward her. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides.
“Veronica,” I whispered. “We need to—”
Crying out, she thrust her hands forward. A gust of gale-force wind shot from her hands, washing across the four witches before us, sending them crashing back into a heap atop one another. I blinked, honestly surprised that the middling witch had been able to conjure such a spell.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Veronica’s arm and bolting for the door.
We leapt over the pile of bodies as they tried to uncoil from each other. The white-haired man reached out, trying to grasp my ankle, but his fingertips only brushed the cuff of my pants.
“Stop!” one of the witches cried, their magically amplified voice making my ears ring.
Down the hallway, doors opened, and the heads of students peered out in confusion.
“Get in your rooms,” Burgess cried from behind us, and an instant later, I sensed the static crackle of energy blasting past my ear, missing me by inches.
The lightning bolt slammed into the wall beside a student’s door.
The kid, maybe twenty years old, yelped and jerked his head back inside, slamming the door closed.
Veronica gripped my shirt and dragged me around a corner right as a miniature tornado of fire swept past, flames trying to embrace us in an inferno.
With the pursuing professors hot on our heels, I had no time to ask where she was taking us. I didn’t know this building the way she did, and I didn’t like it. It felt like we were running blind.
Turning at another junction, Veronica threw up her hands, and a half-formed shield appeared behind us. Even I could see it was only about seventy percent complete, the shimmering forcefield looking like it had been half devoured by some kind of magical termites.
Another professor, this one a man with long black hair twisted into a single braid, threw his hands up. A gust of fog burst from his hands, rushing toward us. As it moved, it coalesced into shards of razor-sharp ice daggers.
Fuck me.
The spell hit the barrier Veronica had created, but several of the ice shards shot through the holes in her shield.
One sliced a shallow groove in her pants and cut her as it passed, and another tore a hole through the fluttering hem of my jacket.
Veronica hissed in pain, and the barrier fully dropped.
“Come on,” she cried, once again grabbing me and running.
We bobbed and weaved, dodging the spells as the professors chased us down. When we reached a door, it turned into a wet, slathering mouth, complete with a black tongue that shot out and tried to lick us. Screaming in revulsion and surprise, Veronica led me to a set of stairs.
She managed to cast a successful spell that threw up a wall at the top of the steps, but as we descended, I heard our pursuers blasting away at it with magic. It would only buy us a couple extra seconds.
“I hope you have a plan,” I panted as we came to the bottom of the stairs.
We were in the basement, and from what I could see, there were no windows or areas to escape.
“I do,” she said, pulling me along.
“A portal?” I suggested.
“I don’t know if I can do that again. If it goes wrong, it might close too fast and cut one of us in half by accident.”
“Then what the hell are we doing?” I said, glancing back as an explosion rattled down the stairs. The magical barrier had been destroyed.
“A place Wendy showed me once,” Veronica said, leading me into what looked like a boiler room.
“This place didn’t always belong to Balthazar.
He bought it and remodeled it into the academy.
Before that it had several owners.” She went to her knees before what looked like a manhole cover built into the concrete floor.
She shoved her fingers into two small holes and pulled. Veins and tendons stood out on her neck as she tried to lift the rusty cover.
“Help me,” she said.
If shifter strength couldn’t break that damn thing free, I had no clue what I could do, but I tried, digging my fingers into the edge, and tugging while the sounds of running footsteps grew louder outside.
“Magic,” I grunted, my forearms screaming in pain as I pulled with all my might.
“Veronica!” one of the professors shouted. “Turn yourself in. Now!”
The splintering sound of a door being blown apart by magic told me they were only a few feet down the hall, checking each room and closet as they went.
Veronica let go of the manhole cover and tried a few spells, but she wasn’t concentrating. Every sound from the corridor outside drew her eyes and attention away. The magic sputtered, flickered, and arced half formed and useless against the manhole cover.
“Maybe try to—fuck!” I cried as she shoved me aside, sending me tumbling across the floor.
Before I could ask what she was doing, she shifted into her wolf form.
Sitting up, I spotted the professors, all trying to wedge themselves through the door to attack her.
I winced as magic burst across the room, spell after spell shooting toward her, but her wolf form was so graceful and fast, Veronica managed to dodge and roll aside as each blast came toward her.
Even more impressive was the fact that she fought them without killing any of them.
Instead of using her teeth and claws to shred them, she batted them away with her paws, tackled them with her shoulders, or knocked them down with her hind legs.
I understood her reasoning. These people weren’t evil.
They truly believed Veronica had murdered Balthazar and kidnapped Wendy.
In their minds, they were trying to subdue a killer and child thief.
They didn’t know any better, and Veronica didn’t want to kill any of these people.
It was also why I hadn’t used my gun yet.