Chapter 13
“We’re going to have to be careful,” Lorelei warned.
They stood on the sidewalk in front of The Crimson Veil’s covenstead.
Though the evening was cold and blustery, far fiercer winds were streaking from the broken windows of the house, sending the tattered ends of the curtains flailing into the night.
They settled against the outer sills for only a moment before a new air current lifted them again.
Lights flashed, shutters banged, and the sound of crashing furniture filtered out onto the street.
It was what every haunted house strove for.
“No kidding,” Amanda remarked. “Where in the house is Mary?”
“Corinna’s alter room,” Lorelei explained. “When we go in the front door, it’s off to the left. That’s where Corinna was working on everything.”
“And just what has Corinna done about any of this so far?” Lucille asked. She held two books, their leather cracked and worn, against her chest.
“Mostly begged and pleaded,” Lorelei admitted, hanging her head. “Most of the other witches ran away, maybe all of them. I came straight to you.”
Erin puffed out a sharp breath, making a cloud of vapor roll through the air in front of her face. “Let’s get in there and see what we’re dealing with.”
Lorelei, as scared as she was, led the way.
She brought them up the walkway and into the living room.
Even though the spirit wasn’t in there at the moment, the damage was.
Papers and books were strewn everywhere.
The furniture was dislodged and shoved toward the fireplace, as though someone had picked up one end of the room and tilted it for a moment before putting it back down again.
A framed print had been knocked off the wall.
The shattered glass littered the floor, and the image slumped against the broken frame as though it’d given up the fight.
What was most noticeable, though, were the shrieking screams that ripped through the air, along with the howling wind that swirled through every part of the house. It brought an Arctic-level chill that sent icy fingers inside the collar and sleeves of Amanda’s coat.
“In there,” Lorelei said, pointing a shaking finger through a set of pocket doors.
They didn’t need her direction, though. Amanda moved slightly forward so she could see the chaos that Corinna had summoned to the mortal realm.
At one point, the altar room might’ve been a peaceful space, with blue walls, hardwood floors, and wide windows.
Now those windows were smashed. The plaster walls were dented and dinged, and splinters of wood that had at one point been furniture were scattered like the debris from a hurricane.
There wasn’t much of the original room left, as far as Amanda could tell, but two massive stone geodes stood on the wall opposite the door.
They were the biggest geodes Amanda had ever seen, reaching above her head.
The deep purple amethyst crystals inside them were so full of energy that they pulsed and thrummed with brilliant light.
Two more, these with clear quartz inside, sat in the corners on the same wall.
The energy in the room was so intense that it made Amanda nauseous.
Most terrifying of all was Mary Riddle herself. Her spirit floated in the middle of the room, her hair and the tattered strands of her dark gown flying out in all directions. The papery skin of her sunken cheeks was peeling off in places, and she hunted the room with dark eyes.
“How dare you?” she cried, in a voice that sounded like thousands of tortured souls all rising up together. “How dare you do this to me?”
A hunched woman gibbered in the corner. It took Amanda a moment to realize that it was Corinna, taken down a few notches from the pompous Priestess who’d been so dismissive of their concerns earlier.
“I’m sorry!” Corinna put her palms out in supplication to the specter. “I didn’t realize what I was doing!”
“Those who don’t know the consequences should never perform magic!” Mary screamed. Her hands moved in front of her, creating a dark, swirling cloud. With a flick of her bony fingers, she sent it flying straight at Corinna.
With a scream, Corinna dove behind one of the massive clear quartz geodes. The smoky magic slammed into it, shattering it into a million shards. The sparkling dust hung in the air for a moment before the wind blew it away.
“Corinna!” Lorelei shouted, keeping a bit of distance from the doorway. “I brought Artemis Eclipse!”
The High Priestess shrieked as Mary sent another attack toward her. “Why do I fucking care? You were always so useless, Lorelei! Do something!”
“Oh, boy,” Lucille muttered.
Amanda turned to Lorelei, knowing that she wasn’t useless at all. “The geodes. That’s how you were harnessing the ley energy, right?”
The blonde girl bobbed her head.
“Okay, so we just need to destroy them,” Amanda reasoned, her teeth beginning to chatter from the cold.
“I tried,” Lorelei said. “I’m not strong enough, and I’m not sure it would help.”
“Maybe not, especially since Mary already destroyed one herself,” Amanda admitted, “but it’s a start.”
“Let me try something first,” Lucille said, putting her hand on Amanda’s arm and boldly stepping into the room.
Amanda’s heart shot into her throat. She’d already seen what Mary was capable of, even without a physical form.
But Lucille held her chin high. “Mary Riddle!”
The spirit jerked her head around, her lip curling in a snarl as her dark eyes fastened on Lucille. It was then that Amanda realized they weren’t really eyes at all, just voids of nothingness.
“We’re here to help.” Lucille spoke quickly, trying to get her message across before Mary made any decisions. “We know you don’t want to be here, and we want to help you get back.”
Under her dark dress, Mary’s chest expanded as she hissed and seethed, full of anger and torment.
“You are a powerful and knowledgeable Priestess,” Lucille went on. “If you can tell us how, we’ll do everything we can to help you.”
Slowly, Mary lifted a gnarled finger. “You pulled me across the veil! You dragged me from my peace! The pain! You don’t know the pain!”
“We’ll help you get back,” Lucille pleaded.
“The pain!” Mary screamed, her voice rising to an ear-splitting pitch as she sent a blast of dark magic at Lucille.
There wasn’t enough time to get out of the way, and there was nothing to hide behind. Lucille went flying backward through the pocket doors, tumbling out into the living room and coming to a stop against the back of the couch.
“Mom!” Amanda and Jamie both cried.
Her hair was tousled, and she had a scrape on her forehead, but otherwise, she seemed uninjured. “Never mind,” Lucille said. “It was worth a shot!”
Amanda grabbed her sister’s hand. “Come on.”
She and Jamie ran into the room, blasting their magic straight at the geodes. The brilliant flashes of red light exploded like bombs on the hard crystals, but they had almost no effect.
“Stop!” Mary cried. “You did this!” The disoriented spirit turned on them.
Kristy and Tina rushed in, already in their animal forms, and intercepted the blasts of violent magic that were meant for Amanda and Jamie.
Kristy, in her pantheress form, leaped toward Mary, sailing through the air just past the figure and to the other side of the room, trying to get her attention away from the others so that they might destroy the geodes.
But it wasn’t working. “This is useless,” Amanda said once she and Jamie had tried to attack one geode at the same time. Her whole body was shaking from the cold, and it was weakening her magic.
“Let’s go,” Jamie suggested. “We’re going to have to take turns if we’re going to stand the temperature in here.”
“You fools!” Mary cried. With a sharp gesture, she sent the heavy altar flying across the room. Kristy dodged out of the way just in time before the heavy wooden chest smashed into the wall, sending a shudder through the whole house.
Now Erin rushed in, fluffy in her bobcat form. She sent blasts of her green magic firing straight at Mary, all the while dodging and leaping around the room to keep herself as difficult to target as possible.
Mary was rotating now, swirling in the air as she sent one dark streak of magic after another in Erin’s direction.
The distraction was a good one, and Amanda wanted to take advantage of it. She shrugged into her bear form, immediately warmer as thick fur extended from her skin. Her feet felt solid on the ground once again, and her claws scratched into the wood floor as she charged back into the room.
I’m heading for the geodes, she told Erin through their coven’s telepathic link.
She couldn’t think of any other way to start taking Mary down, but it was clear that the situation was only going to get worse if they didn’t do anything.
What if Mary managed to leave the house?
She’d wreak havoc all over Salem, and the witchy reputation that most ‘normal’ people thought of as a tourist trap would become all too real.
The remaining amethyst geode was the easiest one to get to, since it wasn’t in a corner.
Amanda barreled toward it, tucking her head and slamming into it with her shoulder.
It leaned back, moving so slowly at first that it felt as though time had frozen.
It picked up speed and smashed into the floor, cracking in half and sending a blast of the released ley energy out into the air.
It hit Amanda square in the face and sent her reeling backward, overwhelmed with dizziness and nausea.
Meanwhile, it only seemed to piss Mary off. She grabbed the altar chest once more, and this time she slid it across the floor and into Amanda.
The world tumbled as it knocked her to the ground. All the air left her chest when she slid into the wall. She gasped and reeled as dark sparks formed on the edges of her vision.
Amanda! Kristy cried out.