Authors: Trish Milburn
I open the paper and read my father’s familiar script.
Your defiance is finished.
Cold surges through me at those words, the same ones my father had uttered in the moment before he’d taken the last of my mother’s life force and the light in her eyes had gone dark. I’d never seen him so angry, especially when there’d been a moment where an acceptance and a sort of serenity had filled my mother to the point where she’d almost glowed.
Inside, I’ve never been more terrified, but my own anger is rising to ride shotgun with the terror. When I speak, my voice hits the air with an eerie calm. “Mrs. Dawes, I need you to call your brother. Have him come stay with you.”
Mrs. Dawes tries to stand again. “I’ve got to call the police. My daughter’s been kidnapped. My nephew.”
I press down against Mrs. Dawes’s shoulder, keeping her seated. I meet the older woman’s gaze. “The police can’t handle this. Egan and I can. We’ll get them back.”
Understanding registers in her eyes. Then she breaks down. “I should have moved away from here. I should have kept her safe.”
I don’t have time for the tears and might-have-beens. “Call Reverend Dawes. Stay here. Tell no one else.” I shove the photos and note into my back pocket and stalk toward the door, Egan right behind me.
I know where to go and what to do. I don’t have to have the elusive chink in the coven armor, whatever is on that missing page of the Beginning Book. I’m going to kick their evil asses anyway.
Egan and I ditch the Ducati
at the point just before it moves into hearing range of the coven, a couple of miles below Shiprock Curve. I absolutely hate having to go the rest of the way on foot, at normal human speed, when Keller’s and Toni’s lives are on the line. The coven will sense us soon enough, but not as easily as if we use witch speed.
When we ease around a stand of trees, Shiprock comes into view. It sticks out from the mountainside suspiciously empty of figures. I glance at Egan. His narrow-eyed expression reveals the same thought pattern. Without words, we agree to move forward with caution. If we get ourselves caught in a trap, fat lot of good that will do Keller and Toni.
Tavis Pherson, my father, steps into our path without the slightest rustle of noise.
It’s always creeped me out how he can move so stealthily, almost as if his feet don’t even touch the ground. I stare straight into his eyes, doing my best not to let him see how much he frightens me. For the first time, I’m facing him as a fellow witch, not his daughter.
I see immeasurable coldness in his gaze, like I did the day he killed my mother with a brutality even the worst of humans can’t approach. For a moment, I’m that child again, the one forced to watch in wretched silence as my mother was murdered and fearing I would be next.
I hate him for it, a hate so powerful it scares me.
I detect movement beyond him, and probably twenty other members of my coven slip out from their hiding places amidst the forest.
“Ah, look, it’s my wayward daughter come to save her precious little friends,” my father says.
Bile rises in my throat along with all the memories of what he and the rest of the coven did to my mother, the details of those final hours. I want to blast him to hell for all the horrid things he’s done. For making me live in fear, having to hide who I truly am.
“Now, such wicked thoughts,” he says, his voice taunting.
“You can’t read my mind.”
“Child, I don’t have to. You’re not very good at hiding your thoughts.”
“Then you know what I’m thinking now.” That my father or not, he’s going down.
He laughs. He actually laughs then glances to my left. “I had big plans for getting the two of you together, but I must say this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“You know, I don’t give a flying rat what you want,” Egan says.
“Oh, but you should.” Tavis lifts his hand, and in a blink he’s summoned Toni to him and gripped her around her throat, choking her.
“No!” Egan surges forward, only to be blasted backward into a tree. He falls to the ground coughing.
In the moonlight, I see Toni’s face turning red. “Let her go. It’s me you want.”
My father tosses Toni in the other direction, causing her to roll several times before stopping next to a stump. I’m glad when I see Toni move under her own power, even if it is to pull herself into a protective ball.
“How right you are.” He pauses. “You’re so like your mother.”
“Good.”
My father’s eyes narrow as he spins away, stalking toward the center of a clearing behind the protrusion of the Shiprock. “We have everything ready for you.”
My heart nearly stops when I notice the outline of the rock-ringed Siphoning Circle on the ground. It matches the one in which the coven removed my mother’s powers and then her very life. No way in hell am I stepping into that circle. If I have to fight the entire coven and die in the battle, I’ll do it before allowing them to suck me dry.
The fight is inevitable anyway. If I don’t fight them, if I don’t somehow win that fight, Toni and Keller will die. Egan dies. I die. The covens leave no witnesses.
My power stirs within me, coiling like a snake ready to strike and sending sparks sizzling at my fingertips. It feels different this time, and I wonder if it’s my full power preparing itself for battle. Does my power have a sense of its own? Does it know I will need all of it if I have even the slightest hope of coming out victorious?
“You will make this easy or he will take your place.” My father extends his arm to his right and curls his index finger. Two of my uncles come forward, dragging Keller to the edge of the circle.
Raw anger slices through me. “Stop.”
“We understand each other then?” my father asks.
“I understand you’re an evil, manipulative beast. I won’t let you hurt him. Or me. If anyone is going in that circle, it’s you.”
“I knew you were stupid. But I had not bargained for insane.” He moves closer to me, and I don’t flinch. “My powers are greater than yours, mere child. Too bad you haven’t had your happy birthday yet.”
“Let them go, or we’ll see who is stronger.”
“No, I think I shall keep the useful little, powerless ones. Your bravado will not last.” He lowers his voice, making him sound more evil than ever. “You can either go first, or you can watch as I pull the life from this boy bit by agonizing bit. I promise you, your mother’s death was easy by comparison.”
He’s enjoying this. Hatred, pure and vile, seethes inside me.
“That’s it, give in to your true nature. Quit fighting this silly little fight. Die with some dignity.”
I take a couple of steps forward just as I sense Egan moving behind me. He roars and sends a blast of power like arcing lightning toward my uncles, knocking them backward. As they fall, my Uncle Cannon loses his grip on Keller. I gasp as Keller falls into the Siphoning Circle. My father spins and extends his hands toward the circle, causing Keller to howl in pain.
“No!” I send a blast toward my father, then have to duck when power blasts come at me from what seems like every direction. I cry out when one grazes me, forcing me to dive sideways. I slam to the ground on my injured shoulder. The pain pounds a gasp from my lungs, and I fight the black spots invading my vision, pushing them away.
I don’t have time for injury.
When I hear Keller cry out in pain, I haul myself atop the Shiprock, sending blasts my father’s direction as I move.
My father changes focus and sends a huge wave of power toward me, knocking me backward so hard I completely circle, feet over head, in the air and land face first.
I lift my eyes to see the spirit coven standing in front of me at the same moment I feel a well of power below me. It takes me a moment to realize it’s embodied in the rock, that it’s there for the taking.
Time seems to slow as I consider tapping that power. It might take me too far over the edge, but I have no choice. I have to win this fight.
My senses tingle with something more, power even farther down in the earth. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. Immensely powerful, yes, but also light. Before I can think about it too much, Keller cries out in agony again. I have to save him. I have to be able to control whatever I’m about to open up inside myself.
I press my hands against the cold surface of the rock and pull the power into me. I suck in a breath as the overwhelming surge flows up through my hands, my arms, and fills my entire body. My lungs feel like they are going to explode. How can my body contain this much power without burning to ash? I’m going to die. We all are.
No, I’m not.
The words are a whisper in my brain, as if they come from the earth itself. The power inside me, my true potential roils to the surface. I feel my eyes going black as I rise to my feet, accepting the power as my due. Without realizing why, I reach out toward the three spirits and channel the energy of this place toward them. “Be gone!”
I jerk when the three evaporate in front of my eyes. Energy continues to flow into me like water filling an empty well—and it feels right. I open myself up more and accept it fully.
I turn to face my father, feel the power begin to stir the air around me, lift my hair, become my very breath.
“I know your lies,” I say and hurl a tremendous wave of energy toward him.
The night erupts into a war of witchcraft. Blasts, screams, curses and massive amounts of energy make the earth shake. I lift my arms higher and command the wind to funnel around my relatives. I note the shocked looks on their faces as they’re blindsided by mine and then Egan’s power. Bark explodes from the sides of trees. Fires light in the fallen leaves. Dirt flies through the air, stinging my eyes.
I stop when I hear Keller scream. In the confusion, my father has shifted his concentration away from me. Instead, he’s turned his incredible power back to killing Keller.
“No!” My scream echoes over the din.
“Whyever not? It’s so much fun.”
I catch Keller’s eyes, and even through his pain I see the truth shining back at me. “Because I love him.” As soon as I realize I’ve said the words aloud, I know I’ve made a deadly mistake.
“Child, you shouldn’t have told me that. It will make ending him that much sweeter.” My father’s eyes go coal black as he stabs his hands forward and Keller bows backward in pain.
The power from below surges upward like a geyser to fill me, so much so it lifts me into the air, causes my hair to lift away from me in all directions.
Come on, come on, I need more power.
It comes, and the clearing explodes in bright white light. Power shoots out from my fingertips like a shock wave, knocking my father away from Keller and the rest of the coven off their feet. My body vibrates with the intense magic pulsing inside me.
When the coven members look up from where they lay, their expressions reflect fear. Why? How?
That’s when I notice the light illuminating the clearing is coming from me.
As one, the coven members halt in their motions and stare at me. Not knowing how long this power inside me will last, I attack, blasting in all directions. The members of my family look to my father for direction. He looks like he wants to engage me further, but then he makes a motion of retreat. As the coven members start running into the surrounding forest, I force my body to lower back to the ground.
I catch the look of hatred and promised retribution on my father’s face before he whirls and follows the others. I race to the edge of the clearing but stop there, not willing to continue this battle until my friends are safe. And I don’t want to push my luck. Right now, what matters is that I live to fight another day, a day when I hopefully understand what just happened to me. I shiver as I stare into the darkness, knowing this war is far from over.
It takes a couple of minutes for the coven’s energy signatures to fade enough for me to stop staring into the night. I exhale and race toward Keller. I break the circle of stones, robbing it of any power, then drag Keller out of the circle just to be on the safe side.
“Keller, come on. Talk to me.” I hold him in my arms and cup his beautiful jaw with my hand. “Please.”
“Do you really love me?”
I suck in a breath and lift my head to look into his eyes. I know I should deny it, but I can’t. “Yes.”
“Good.” He smiles. “And remind me never to tick you off.”
An anguished cry comes from the edge of the clearing. I turn, ready to fight again. But all I see is Toni rocking back and forth, Egan in her arms. I’ve never heard such cries of sorrow.
God, no. Egan can’t be dead. He can’t.
I run to Toni’s side, gasp when I see the burn marks on Egan’s body, the rips in his T-shirt. I drop to my knees and check the pulse in his neck. He’s alive, barely.
Keller half walks, half crawls to us. I catch his gaze. “I’ve got to get him to the hospital. You and Toni need to get away from here. I think they’re gone, but I don’t want to chance it.”