Chapter 27 #3
“We need to help her,” I insisted. A leg was jettisoned out of the pile.
Then a torso. The pieces came faster and faster, flung farther and farther, until the entire barn was littered with the dismantled bits of Ariana’s army.
Then, one by one, they simply went poof into a cloud of smoke and vanished.
Mamie emerged completely unharmed, not a hair out of place, standing right where she’d been all along.
We were all mesmerized by how Mamie had evaporated Ariana’s army, so much so that we didn’t notice when Ariana appeared right outside our circle. Tariq saw her first and let out a warning cry. It was too late.
Ariana grasped me by the hair and forcibly yanked me out of their protection. Jasper didn’t let go of me, and as I was clutching the book to my chest with my right hand, I couldn’t fight Ariana with anything more than a few blind punches with my left, which she deftly dodged.
“Let her go!” Jasper demanded.
Ariana laughed. “No.” She grabbed my neck with her free hand and started to squeeze. “Release her.”
I wanted to tell him not to, but Ariana’s hand tightened, cutting off my air. I choked and Jasper dropped his arm from around my waist.
“That’s better. I’m going to enjoy killing her and then I’ll bring little Zoe back as my minion with her grandmother watching. How delicious.”
“Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.” Mamie glowered. As if the storm outside was responding to the rager happening inside the barn, the wind picked up, the rain pelted through the cracks in the dried old boards overhead, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.
“You can’t beat me,” Ariana said. “Not anymore. And now that I have the book and your lovely granddaughter, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Isn’t there?” Mamie asked.
“No, there isn’t. I’ve waited a long time to be free,” Ariana said. Her fingers clenched tighter around my throat and I started to panic, bucking against her hold, desperate to get some oxygen.
“Stop it!”
“Let her go!”
“Darkwood!”
“Enough!”
The last voice was Olive’s and it left a chill in the air. “If you want freedom, we’ll be happy to assist you onward in your journey.”
Everything went gray, and I started to see spots when I was hit from the side by a truck—okay, it was Jasper—knocking me out of her hold and tucking me into his arms as we rolled across the barn floor, not stopping until we slammed into a half-rotten stable.
“All right, love?” he asked.
I spat a bit of moldy hay out of my mouth and sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Jasper rose to stand, pulling me up with him. I glanced up to see Ariana and Mamie squaring off. I wondered if this was going to be some magical duel where they each hit each other with spells until one of them won. It was not.
“Hold her,” Mamie ordered.
As one, Jasper, Miles, Olive, and Tariq raised their hands, and colors, like the ones I’d seen in the pool that night with Jasper, shot out of their palms—black for Jasper, blue for Olive, silver for Tariq, and white for Miles.
The streams of color twined around Ariana.
She raised her arms to ward them off, but there were too many of them.
With her arms trapped at her sides, she hissed at Mamie. “Just like last time, it took the power of the alliance to hold me.”
“Yes, but unlike last time, you’re not getting exiled, you’re being sent back beyond the veil.”
I watched as Mamie placed her hand on Ariana’s forehead and said, “Redire ad mortem.”
I didn’t need a translator to know it was a command to return to death. We collectively held our breath, waiting to see Ariana disappear beyond the veil, except she didn’t. She broke through their hold, shoved Mamie’s hand away, and said, “I told you, you can’t control me anymore.”
Ariana pulled El Corazón out of her pocket. Her smirk was pure evil when she said, “You really shouldn’t have given Eloise full access to the BODO. I wonder what else, she—oops, I mean I—swiped from your collection. And I would have taken so much more had I not had to give up my host.”
“That’s it!” Olive started to glow. A bright blue light covered her entire body and glowing blue embers shone in her eyes.
“Try me, Fae witch,” Ariana snapped.
Olive launched herself at Ariana, and there was an explosion of sparks and flames as Miles, Mamie, Jasper, and Tariq joined the fray. I didn’t have that sort of power—not yet—but I desperately wanted to help.
Heat seared my hands and I yelped. The grimoire was glowing bright red. My color! I held it on my open hands, blinked a few tears onto the lock, and said, “Show me.”
The book popped open and the pages fluttered.
It didn’t go all the way to the end but rather stopped in the first section.
I looked at the symbols and sighed. It was as incomprehensible…
I closed my eyes. I heard Mamie’s voice when I was a little girl.
Believe, mon chaton. And Jasper’s voice.
Belief is the fuel required for magic to exist.
I opened my eyes. I glanced at the ancient page in front of me. The symbols that had been impossible to decipher just hours before started to rewrite themselves on the page in words I could actually read. They were Latin-based, but that was okay. I could work with that.
A yell sounded and I glanced up to see Tariq sail across the barn and crash against a far wall while Miles went down in a poof of white smoke. It was not going well for my team.
I glanced down at the book and scanned the page.
According to the grimoire, there was only one way to rid ourselves of the revenant of a dark witch who was bound by vengeance.
Following the instructions, I placed my hand palm up on the open page and concentrated on the words I’d read. Mihi pugionem mortis trade.
When I felt the weight of cool metal, I opened my eyes to find a lethal-looking dagger resting on my hand. The Dagger of Death had been delivered per my request. I felt its weight in my soul. I scanned the page one more time, ignoring the shouts as my grandmother and friends fought for their lives.
I closed the grimoire and its lock snapped shut. “Trust me,” I said as I clutched it close. I held the dagger at my back, then rushed forward just as Ariana dropped Olive to her knees and looked to be about to finish her off with a magical strike.
“Stop!” I slid across the dirt floor to stand in front of her. “Stop! I’ll give you the book. I’ll be yours to command. Just stop!”
“Zoe, no!” Jasper yelled at the same time Mamie cried, “Mon chaton, no!”
Ariana held El Corazón in one hand and with the sweep of her other arm, blasted a shot of green fire at everyone but me, which spread to the far corners of the barn. Then she threw up a shield much like the one Miles had used at the maze.
“I’m listening.” Ariana tipped her head to the side. Her green eyes were glowing with unchecked power. I swallowed, trying to steady my nerves.
“The Donadieu grimoire. You can have it and me as your servant. Just don’t hurt them.” I didn’t have to manufacture the wobble in my voice.
“Now, why would I let them go when I can trap their powers in my book?” Ariana asked. “I can be what I was supposed to be before your grandmother ruined everything.”
I felt a trembling start in my legs. I wasn’t going to be able to outmaneuver her.
She was going to steal all of our magic.
A thrum of power rippled against my side.
I knew without looking that it was the grimoire.
A trickle of warmth, the same feeling I had when I used magic, was pouring from the book into me, giving me its strength and power.
How had I ever resisted this world, this book, and my ancestry? I would not let Ariana take it from me when I had just discovered it. And there was no way in hell I was going to let her get away with murdering Mamie and my mom.
Newly resolved, I clutched the book closer. I made my voice quake as if I were afraid. “That’s not the bargain.” I lowered my head, pretending to sob. “You have to set them free.”
“Do I?” Ariana reached out with her free hand and cupped my chin, pulling me in close as she forced me to meet her gaze. “Do I really?”
I blinked, forcing some blood tears to fall. When Ariana reached out to catch a tear on her fingertip, I thrust the Dagger of Death straight into the faintly clenching heart of the book she held.
Ariana staggered back. The shield she had placed around us vanished, and my friends raced forward just in time to see Ariana’s form turn to ash and fall to the ground. The book with the dagger in it dropped to the ground with a thud.
“You did it, Zoe!” Miles snatched up the book. “You have vanquished Ariana Darkwood once and for all.”
“Mon chaton!” Mamie stood outside the group, looking around as if she couldn’t see. “Are you all right?”
“Mamie, I’m here!” I rushed to her. When I grabbed her hand in mine, she blinked and then smiled. “There you are. You look so much like your mother, even she thinks so.”
My heart thumped against my chest and I scanned the dark barn. “Is she—?”
Mamie turned her head as if she was listening to a conversation only she could hear.
“Mamie?”
“I have to go, mon chaton.”
“But why?” I cried. “You just got here and I haven’t seen you in decades. I have so many questions.”
“I know, but you have discovered the most important part of being a witch…belief,” Mamie said, but her voice sounded more like an echo and when I looked at her, she was less substantial, as if she was fading.
“Are you leaving me?” I asked. My throat was tight and tears burned my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I had her back only to lose her in a matter of minutes. “Please don’t leave.”
“I can’t stay,” she said. “Your magic is not yet strong enough to hold me.”
“But will you come back?”
“You know how to call for me,” she said. “Practice, mon chaton. Practice very hard and we will see each other again.”
Her hand in mine faded, feeling as insubstantial as mist.
“Don’t go, Mamie.” I couldn’t keep the pleading out of my voice. I went for a plea of help, hoping that could anchor her. “We have ghost pirates circling the island waiting for us. What do we do?”
Her laugh was a soft chuckle. “Before I died, I tasked the pirates with protecting the island and you, should you ever return, from Ariana. They were quite peeved that you showed up with her in disguise, which is why they tried to overtake you but couldn’t risk harming you.
They aren’t there to hurt you but to watch over you. Have no fear.”
Well, hell, there went my last argument. “I need you, Mamie.”
“I’m always with you,” she said. She was glittery mist shimmering on the air now, barely visible. I wanted to cry and wail and demand that she stay, but I didn’t. And then she was gone.