Authors: Camilla Chafer
“I don’t know. I’ve only been here a minute or two longer than you. You were unconscious. I think you got knocked out.”
“What was that anyway?” I asked. I’d cooled rapidly but I could still feel the heat against my skin. In those seconds it had been intense and relentless. I snuck a glance at Evan; he didn’t seem even remotely affected by it.
“I caught you at the moment you shimmered,” Evan confirmed what I already knew, “but I had to move you through a different plane so that Dina couldn’t attack you. But I thought you knew that?”
“I knew you’d be able to get me, but I didn’t think it would be like that.” What Evan had done was amazing and terrifying, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to experience it again.
He added, “It’s different for you.”
I dipped my head, nodding briefly, even though I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.
Étoile stepped over to us, navigating her way around the circles, her heels clicking on the floor. “That went well, don’t you think?” she asked brightly, stooping to kneel on one knee so she was level with me. She inclined her head towards Evan. Almost reverently.
“Is Chyler all right?” I asked.
“I think so.” Étoile held out her hands to me and when I took them she tugged me up, Evan’s arms slipping from where they had circled me. She pointed to the twin circle that was now occupied. “We’ve contained that thing.”
“So all we have to do is get rid of it... her?” Evan asked, stepping forward so he was abreast with me, so close that if I moved a muscle I’d brush against him.
“Hmm, well there is one small problem.”
“What’s that?” I asked, wondering what else could possibly go wrong now.
Étoile looked embarrassed. “Apparently we’ve drawn some attention to ourselves. We can feel other witches arriving. Your wards are strong so they can’t enter the house and Seren will strengthen them in a moment but they’re outside. Waiting.”
“So, basically everything is fine, we just can’t go outdoors because of the witches? And we don’t know whose side they are on?”
Étoile nodded. “That seems to sum up it up.”
“Oh, crap,” I muttered.
“We want to take Chyler and go,” said Hayley, her voice forceful as she interrupted us. “Whatever is going on out there is nothing to do with us.”
“Whatever is going on out there is everything to do with Chyler,” hissed Seren.
“I agree. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go, not when we’re surrounded and not while Chyler is unconscious,” Étoile added.
“But Chyler isn’t a threat to anyone, not anymore,” protested Victoria.
“We don’t know that. More importantly, they don’t know that and we don’t know what they want.” Étoile jabbed a finger to the door.
I used the distraction caused by their bickering to move away from Étoile and Evan and edged around the periphery of the room to the big window that looked over the front of my house. I could already feel the vibrations that I got when another witch was present; this was stronger and more forceful. Several small groups of people were dotted around, no more than three or four to a group, and they all took care to keep a good distance between themselves. I could see a small line of cars on the street so it was obvious that some had come the regular way. They were all facing the house, waiting.
I stepped back. “If we tell them Chyler’s fine, will they go?” I mused to no one in particular.
“They might be here for that.” Seren nodded at the buzzing inside the circle. It was getting slower and more solid and seemed to be taking shape; legs, a body, arms, a head, all translucent but nevertheless, there. I could make out a face of a woman. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly strong. “We had a deal.” Dina was apparently back in the building.
I grinned at her. “There’s no honour among thieves.”
“I want out. Now.” Semi-visible hands felt their way around the circle, testing its strength, until she came to a stop and looked at Chyler slumped on the floor. Dina gave a wisp of a sigh and folded her semi-corporeal arms.
“What would they want with her,” I said, nodding at Dina. She turned to me, flicking her ghostly hair, and narrowed her eyes.
“Who wants me?” she asked. Dina had taken a couple of minutes longer than me coming around to make herself almost completely visible, so she was behind the rest of us in noticing the supernatural cannonball race pitching up on my lawn.
“Witches,” I replied.
Dina seemed to shrivel for a moment then her form came back slightly stronger. I could still see through her. “I don’t want to go to them. Help me, Stella. They’ll imprison me for years and years. I’ll never move on.”
“Is that why you came to me? So I could help you?” I frowned at her suddenly wheedling tone.
“You dumb bitch! Chyler came looking for you. But when I realised who you were, it suited me to stay. I needed you because you killed Eleanor Bartholomew. Because you’re a murderer. A witch killer,” Dina spat.
I shuddered and it was all I could do not to take a step back. I said, “I didn’t murder her, it was self defence.” It didn’t matter how I said it though, the end result was still the same. I was responsible for another being’s death.
“You ripped her heart out.” Dina smiled at me. Actually smiled.
“Not because I wanted to,” I protested. “I was just trying to stop her.”
“Like I care. You killed her and you can kill them, you can kill them all. Do it or...”
“Or what?” I hissed. “You’re nothing. You barely even exist.”
“I’ll kill Chyler,” she said smugly. “She’s given me the strength to get me this far. All I need is to suck a bit more of her life-force. I probably don’t even need a body now. I can become me again and you can help me do that.”
I mulled the idea over in my mind. She’d been co-habiting with Chyler long enough to become incredibly connected to her and Chyler had tried desperately to warn me about the malevolent spirit inside her. It may have been Chyler who had come to me for help, but it was Dina who had tried to manipulate me into doing what she wanted. There was no way I could let Dina go; I couldn’t be sure what she would be capable of. If she was strong enough to linger here where she didn’t belong and still tried to leach life from another, who knew what she would do when she got what she wanted: her life.
“I can’t do that,” I said finally, with a guilty glance at Chyler.
Dina pulsed a little more strongly, became a little more solid. She smiled when Chyler whimpered on the floor, her face contorted in pain, hands balled into fists as she drew her knees to her chest, curling up like a baby. Despite everything we had done to separate them, to force Dina from Chyler’s body, somehow there was still a connection and Dina was drawing on it.
“It’s the circle,” gasped David. “The circles are connected and that’s keeping them connected. We have to break it.” He rushed out of the room and a moment later reappeared with a wet cloth. He wrung it as he jogged back, leave a trail of drops on the floor behind him. “If I break Chyler’s circle, only Dina’s will stand. Chyler will be safe.”
“It’s that simple?” I asked.
David nodded. “I should have realised earlier.” He knelt on the floor next to the junction of the circles. Hayley and Victoria sat back to let him wipe out the chalk lines that kept Chyler captive. Dina vibrated around her prison like a tornado, shrieking and hurling abuse at David until the last trace of the circle was gone. The room was eerily quiet while we all waited for Chyler’s face to relax. She drew in a sharp intake of breath, gasping and coughing like she had never tasted oxygen before. Next to her, Dina screamed.
“Keep an eye on her,” David said to Chyler’s aunts but I saw his eye flicker to Evan, and his head dip in a brief nod at the two women cradling Chyler. His message was clear. They were to be watched too. For whatever reasons David had, he didn’t trust them. Chyler hadn’t either.
“We need to find out what’s going on out there,” I said, turning away from the scene so I could check outside again. More people had turned up in the minutes we had been occupied in breaking Dina’s connection to Chyler and I could feel the faint trace of power bouncing off the edges of my wards.
“Can you feel that?” I asked Étoile.
“Yes, they want to know who is in here and what we’re doing.” She motioned to Seren who came by her side and they linked hands. “We’ll send out our own mental feelers and find out what they want.”
“Okay.” I watched them stand there, blank expressions across their faces for a short while until Seren said, “They want to punish Chyler for dabbling where she shouldn’t and some think she should be held accountable for her mother’s death.”
“I did that!” piped up Dina. We ignored her.
“Some of them know Dina is here. That group,” Étoile pointed to a cluster of five on the driveway, “want Dina to be punished. And that group over there want to take Dina with them.”
Seren added, “There’s another group thinking about Hayley and Victoria a lot. They want Chyler and I think they are fairly safe given that everyone else is thinking quite malicious thoughts.”
I clarified, “So, they’re all different groups and they all want different things? That’s good, right? Better than having a whole bunch of them against us.”
“Oh, most of them are against us.” Étoile seemed strangely cheerful about it. “But they’re not exactly ready to help any other group out either. Seren, do you feel that?”
Seren cocked her head and was quiet for a moment. “That blank spot?” she asked.
Étoile nodded. “Someone is blocking their thoughts.”
“Someone is prepared for us,” said Seren thoughtfully.
Some of that, I decided, could count as good news to me. There were just seven of us inside the house – me, Evan, Étoile, Seren and David, Victoria and Hayley. Chyler too, though she was unconscious. Plus there was Dina who was not quite visible at this moment as she flitted around. Not that it mattered, she was the reason my house was surrounded by witches. And not just one band; there were several who wanted Chyler tonight, or at least Dina’s spirit. I was adamant that we were not going to hand over Chyler. As far as I was concerned she was an innocent in all this. She may have been mean, but she hadn’t asked to be possessed and she had tried to get help. I couldn’t guarantee any of the witches out there wouldn’t just kill her and be done with it. After all, what was Chyler to them? Just another teen witch who had stupidly dabbled in something she didn’t understand and paid the price. She was the perfect scapegoat.
Of course there was the small matter that maybe one of these groups were rather hopeful of keeping Dina, and not thinking about banishing her at all. That would mean death in all but body, seeing as she didn’t have one. Dina was a powerful witch; just moving into someone else’s body was proof of that. There would be others who would want her skills especially now that the witches’ council had fractured so severely. Perhaps they wanted to give Dina the very thing that she’d been drawn back to this world for. I didn’t have to take a moment to think how bad it would be if Dina was brought back to the world. Speaking of which...
“How come some of them are thinking about Dina?” I asked. That puzzled me. How could any of them know Dina was here?
“That’s a very good question.” Evan had drifted closer to me but if he was worried he didn’t show it. “Did you get anything from any of the witches? Any thoughts about how they knew about Dina?”
Both sisters shook their heads and Seren said, “They weren’t thinking about that when we listened in.”
David had bent down to Chyler, two fingers pressed against the pulse point on her neck. Her breath was shallow and every so often she gasped a long breath before falling still again. “If we’re going to get a plan together, we need to do it now,” he said urgently. “Now we’re not protecting her, I can’t guarantee her safety.”
“Shh!” Étoile flapped a hand at him from where she had positioned herself by the window. I was the other side from her, trying to see if there was any sign of movement from my neighbours’ house. For the first time I cursed the house being built at a right angle to the road. I still hoped Gage and Annalise were out and wouldn’t be back any time soon. It wouldn’t be fair for them to get caught up in this. Our small crowd would easily draw them out if they were at home and who knew what would happen then. “I think I see something,” Étoile continued. “Way back, at the edges of the woods.”
I peered through the dusk to see. There were more than forty people on my lawn now and they kept carefully to their groups. My enemy’s enemy was supposed to be my friend, but I didn’t think I could count on that saying any time soon seeing as my enemy and my enemy’s enemy were both apparently very keen to get what they wanted. I followed Étoile’s gaze and sure enough I could see the scrub rustling. A cold chill passed down my spine.
“What the hell is that?” Evan asked from behind me. “More witches? Did they program their WitchNavs wrong?”
I stifled a giggle.
Étoile shook her head as the scrub parted and something stepped out. “Something much better. Wolves.”
I felt my heart thump. When I’d hoped Gage and Annalise would be out for the night, I hadn’t meant quite like this. A drink in one of the nearby towns, maybe, or the movies, or over at a friend’s house... anywhere but here.
“Damn wolves,” said Evan, his voice cold.
“Depends whose side they are on. We’re already outnumbered. If they’re here to help, we need them,” Seren pointed out. She looked at me, asking, “Are they here to help?”
“I don’t know.” I was puzzled. What were they doing here anyway? My brain searched for a plausible response to this implausible situation. Maybe they had just been out running and had stumbled across the gathering, maybe they had just felt the magic in the air. Even from this far away I could hear the low rumble of the wolves growling. It was an ominous sound, the kind a dog makes when it hears a prowler and it’s giving a warning. Several more wolves were stepping out of the scrub and the witches were turning to see what was going on. I saw the big frame of Gage at the head of the middle group. Several witches shrieked and stumbled backwards at the sight of the wolf pack. I just caught sight of one witch step forward from his group and raise his hand. He was pounced on and tackled to the ground before he could do any damage. I was riveted to the scene as two large wolves stood over him, their teeth bared as the male witch lay still, not daring to move. Clearly no one else was foolish enough to approach the pack, but chaos was beginning to disrupt the groups, distracting them from us.