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“I just feel helpless!” Sera shook her head, clinging to the plush bunny I’d given Esther for Easter. “Zoë would’ve done more. She would’ve used magick on them or something.”
Lucy folded baby clothes on the floor. “It doesn’t work like that. We can’t just shoot lightning bolts from our fingertips, Sera. I’m pretty sure your sister would’ve been just as shocked and overwhelmed as you were. Who thinks that their loved one is going to betray them? Not me.”
“Not me either.” Sera sighed and put the bunny on a shelf. “I’m just frustrated, and just sitting here so that Zoë can do her thing is a pain in the ass!”
A thud sounded under our feet, but neither of them seemed to notice. When Jacob and I had arrived later, we’d encountered a similar silence where there should’ve been noise. An area of effect muting spell? No, because I wouldn’t have heard it in the vision. They had to have heard it, but how strange that they thought nothing of it.
“Pause,” I said.
Sera and Lucy stopped mid-conversation, and I walked around them trying to find what I was missing.
People-specific spell? That’s some intricate spellcasting if you didn’t know who would be there. I slow blinked to turn on my other vision, half-expecting cloaked helmets or earmuffs, but there was nothing. That couldn’t be right. Maybe my other vision didn’t work in here. To see a spell, did I need to cast one?
I wonder....
I’d never cast a spell inside a vision or a memory; there had never been a reason, thumbprint home movie and all. After seeing what the nagas could do, I figured why not me? No time like the present.
Simple spells called for simple resources, so I held out my palm and imagined the white crystal quartz from my personal collection. It popped into existence, and I curled my fingers around it. The facets felt real enough. I liked white crystal quartz—the catch-all crystal. For me, it required the least amount of preparation to use—pretty much a plug and play device, Wiccan-style.
I exhaled slowly, closed my eyes, and pointed my fist forward, crystal tucked inside. “Goddess Artemis of the Hunt, I call upon thee for guidance and direction. I seek the spell that hides the enemy from my loved ones. If it is Your will, so mote it be.”
I opened my eyes and gasped. My fist was glowing, and not just a little bit, but like six-inch shafts of the softest white light emanating from between my fingers. The light illuminated the walls in an intricate warding I recognized as Lucy’s handiwork. It covered the ceiling, too, in an almost paisley display of curves and whorls. I smiled. My bestie did beautiful ward crafting.
Hmm. Still nothing on their heads, but as I walked around them again, I noticed a blue discoloration glowing on their necks. I touched the glow with my own, and promptly flew across the room and against the farthest wall.
“What the fuck?” I rubbed the back of my head. Pain in visions translated to pain in real life, and there was a good chance this encounter was going to leave me with a killer headache. Stupid blue thing.
It buzzed at me. If that wasn’t creepy enough, it lifted off the back of Lucy’s neck and flew in my direction, like a tiny blue beetle.
I raised my other hand and did my best superhero impression. The lightbulb clicked on in my head just as the tiny, flying spell exploded into white, magickal light.
That’s how they didn’t have to know who would be here. A half dozen of these little guys commanded to attach themselves to anyone who entered—it was genius. Sinister, but genius. I made a mental note to check for them on all of us when I finished. No clue how long they lingered.
I loosened my grip on the crystal and the light faded to a dull pulse inside the stone. Easy access in case I needed it again. “Play.”
Another thud rumbled under our feet, but neither Sera nor Lucy noticed. The door flew open, and in poured three burly men and... Edward. The thugs looked like clones, all broad-shouldered, shorn heads, and flat expressions. They stood in a semi-circle behind my brother in-law.
“You’re coming with us,” Edward said, pointing a finger at my sister.
“Like hell I am!” She grabbed a book off the shelf and threw it.
He batted it away.
“Where’s my daughter, you son of a bitch?” She threw another, and he moved to the side. “Where is she?”
He didn’t blink. “You’re coming with us, Sera.”
Lucy flung a picture frame at him.
It made contact, but he didn’t even look at it as he waved at two of the other thugs, who stepped toward her.
Lucy squared off, but they formed a wall, keeping her from physically helping Sera. “Get out of my way!” They moved with her, and she slapped one of them across the face.
His head turned, but his face remained as blank as his silent twin.
Edward had reached Sera, who launched herself at him in a flurry of hands and feet amid her screams of distress.
“You asshole! What have you done with our daughter?” She slammed her fists into his chest and slapped him across the face.
Edward was not a well-built man, and yet the blows didn’t faze him. Whatever power was pulling the other guys’ strings must’ve given him this newfound strength.
Is that the trade off? Mother and daughter for power? No, that just felt wrong to me.
He grabbed her by the head and slammed her into a nearby wall. Sera crumbled into a pile on the floor, and Edward lifted her and threw her over one shoulder like she was nothing.
“Put her down right now!” Lucy roared.
He plodded toward the door.
“Put her down or else!”
He paused and, with the most human look any of them had given since their arrival, asked, “What are you going to do, little witch?”
Her lips curled into an icy smile. “You should’ve listened.” She stilled, eyes focused, mouth moving without a sound. “So mote it be,” she growled, and threw her hands forward in front of her body, fingers up. White light flew from her palms and knocked Edward to his knees.
Sera’s eyes fluttered opened, and she reached for Lucy.
Lucy readied another pulse of her spell, but one of the thugs punched her square in the face, dropping her. The two of them kicked her until she fell silent, like some sick, human soccer ball between their boots.
“Don’t kill her,” Edward said. “Leave her to be found. She still has a purpose to serve.” He turned toward me. “Doesn’t she, Zoë?”
Son of a bitch! I raised the crystal.
He just smiled. “This memory is over. Come and find us.”
Magick shot from my palm, but the whole timeline fast-forwarded in a blink. Edward and the thugs were gone, Lucy was tied to the rocker, unconscious, and all I’d managed to do was rip the memory apart at the seams.
What the hell is going on?
