Chapter 23 #2
Sahara’s shield snapped into place a heartbeat later, humming with power. “Little warning next time,” she muttered.
The sorceress smiled.
Then she came at them with a vengeance.
It wasn’t one spell. It was a storm of storms.
Fire. Ice. Shards of something that looked like broken glass and felt like knives. The air itself was twisting, bending, trying to fold them in half.
The witches moved as one.
Barrier cast. Counter-offensive. Advance.
Again and again, and again
Every time the sorceress paused, just a fraction, someone fired back. But she was slippery.
One second there—the next gone. A flicker. A ripple.
Then she’d reappear three feet to the left, smiling like she was enjoying this way too much.
The sun beat down, turning the battlefield into an oven. Sweat stung Duke’s eyes. His pulse hammered in his ears. And still the witches pushed forward.
Suddenly, “Behind us!” Joell shouted.
Too late. The dead had stirred. They rose as one. The zombies’ swords lifted, then launched forward in a screaming wave of steel—straight at the witches’ backs.
Joell spun, both hands up. Sahara added her shield to the mix. Two shields snapped into place, catching all the blades with a violent impact.
Joell gritted her teeth. “Little help would be fantastic!”
“On it! Duck!” Crystal fired a rocket launcher over their shoulders, blasting the dead bodies into pieces. Meanwhile, Duke, Brianna, Magda, and Rayna kept up the shields in front of them.
The sorceress tilted her head. Then her voice slipped into their minds. She whispered doubts. Pressed at cracks.
“Don’t listen,” Duke yelled.
Victoria’s voice cut through. “Stay locked.”
They held. Together.
The sorceress’s smile slipped. “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.
Power exploded outward.
The witches were thrown back.
Then… “Get up!” Joell barked. “Attack!”
They surged forward together. No finesse now. Just force.
Magic slammed into magic.
And this time, the sorceress fell.
Silence. The witches surrounded her. She looked to be unconscious.
“Wait a minute…” Crystal said. “Do you remember how the Sea Witch promised ‘the dead shall rise’?”
Several of the witches nodded or murmured their assent.
“It makes sense that it would happen now… right around Samhain. That’s when the veil between the worlds is thinnest.”
“Yeah, and ‘The moon is hungry.’” Lioness quoted. “What the heck did that mean?”
“I wonder if it had to do with the lunar eclipse,” Brianna said.
Lioness slapped herself upside the head. “Of course! I was probably too busy drawing it to notice the connection.”
Rayna huffed. “I wish these stupid predictions came with a time frame.”
Joell chuckled. “At least it’s better than trying to figure out what Katie’s goldfish was trying to tell us.”
They all chuckled or rolled their eyes.
“Well, it’s time to blow this popsicle stand,” Lioness said.
Sahara crossed her arms. “You make as much sense as Katie’s familiar, Bubbles. We need to come up with a simple spell to get back to present-day Long Island.”
“Take us to the place from whence we all came…” Brianna began. “Does that work?”
“You two, grab onto the sorceress.” Rayna pointed to Joell and Sahara. “We need to be sure she comes with us.”
When they had a good grip on the unconscious woman’s arms, the witches chanted the phrase Brianna had proposed three times.
The world folded, and after a moment of nausea, they were back.
Inside the cabin doorway, Victoria yelled, “Bring her in here!” As soon as Sahara and Joell had dragged the sorceress inside, Victoria unleashed the capture spell. “Voi Ci Merde.”
“If she has any power left in here, it’s not working,” Duke said.
Victoria snorted. “That’s a good thing, because we’re not done. We need Rosa.”
A few minutes later, Joell and Rayna returned with Rosa in Victoria’s body. Sahara brought the rest of the truth spell, and Magda carried the ritual mixture. She had already incorporated the corpse plant and bottled the mixture from the cauldron.
“Sit next to each other on the grass,” Duke instructed the body swappers. Victoria and Rosa sat on the scraggly lawn without complaint. He surrounded them with the ancient rock dust, then shook the rare plant ingredients all over both of them, like hot sauce.
“Gross!” Rosa said. “What kind of disgusting liquid did you just spray on us?”
“Wait there. I’ll be back in just a moment,” Duke said, ignoring Rosa’s outburst.
Then he strode inside the cabin, holding an ancient-looking scroll. “Sahara, can you perform the truth spell on the sorceress?”
“With pleasure,” she ground out through her teeth.
Duke waved a hand over the Sorceress’s face, and she came to, as if he’d waved an ammonia capsule under her nose.
“Sahara. Truth spell.”
The sorceress’s eyes widened as bright light surrounded her.
“As much as I’d like to ask you to spill all your secrets,” Duke said, “I don’t have time for that. All I want to know is if this is the spell you cast into the talisman that the dry cleaner used.” He stood over her inert body and unfurled the scroll, holding it over her face so she could read it.
The sorceress tried to mash her lips together, as if desperate not to answer.
Sahara laughed. “You can’t hold your lips together forever…”
“It’s like trying to hold in diarrhea!” Lioness added, playfully.
“All right!” she burst out. “Yes! That is the correct spell, but how did you get it? It belonged to Merlin himself!”
While Sahara and Lioness guarded the sorceress inside the cabin, outside, Duke raised his hands over the two women sitting on the lawn and chanted the incantation three times, backward. His eyes glowed, and his hands trembled with the intensity of the spell.
Joell, Crystal, Brianna, Magda, and Rayna stood by his side, ready to assist if needed.
A bright beam of light shot out from Rosa's head. Another shaft of light shot from Victoria’s. The lights crossed and sank back into their respective bodies. Both women fell back onto the grass, eyes open wide.
Duke rushed forward. He held out a hand to each of them. “Rosa?” he asked, looking at the short woman with gray hair. “Victoria?” he asked the long, leggy brunette.
“I’m here!” The tall brunette grasped his hand, jumped up, and twirled. “I’m me again!” With tears in her eyes, she threw her arms around Duke and murmured, “Thank you!”
Duke grinned.
Behind them, Rosa checked her pockets. “Crap. What did you do with my cigarettes?”
The rogue sorceress, being watched in the cabin by Lioness and Sahara, let out a blood-curdling scream. Duke, Victoria, and the remaining witches ran into the cabin.
The room shook with the force of the sorceress trying to counter the spell, causing objects that had previously been cloaked to rattle and fall to the floor. The witches who had just arrived watched in awe as their fellow witches’ spell fought the Sorceress.
“What’s happening?” Victoria yelled over the crashing jars and pottery.
The Sorceress called out, “You fools! Merlin placed a curse on that spell. Trying to undo it will result in irreparable damage!”
“How do we stop it?” Victoria asked.
“It cannot be undone.” She cackled. “One of you will pay a hefty price!”
Duke quickly taught the witches a chant meant to work as a protection spell. They all chanted together, but the sorceress just laughed. “Nothing will protect you!”
Duke paused only to address the other witches. “Victoria and I will face this together. The rest of you had little to do with it. Get out!”
The witches hesitated.
“I mean it! I need you out of here! Trust me!”
The seven backup witches trusted the librarian's wisdom and left the cabin.
Victoria and Duke held hands across the sorceress’s flat body and continued to chant, their voices growing louder and more intense with each passing moment.
The rogue woman struggled against the containment spell's hold, but it was no use.
She was no match for the combined power of two skilled and powerful witches with immense motivation.
As the spell reached its peak, the rogue sorceress let out one final scream before she was fully engulfed in smoke and flame.
Then she disappeared.
The room fell silent, the only sound being the heavy breathing of Victoria and Duke as they released their hold on the spell and each other.
With a flick of her wrist, Victoria banished the residual smoke, revealing the charred outline of the rogue sorceress on the floorboards. Duke approached Victoria cautiously, ready to take her into his arms.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I’m relieved!” He smiled. “Ding dong, the bitch is dead.” They shared a long, tight hug.