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William wasn't picking up his phone. Perhaps he was busy on Earth with our Jane Doe, but the man needed to hire himself an answering service if you asked me. The future of the Other Side might be at stake. It would have been nice to have him ride along on this adventure. Instead, I was going solo. I went upstairs and got my broomstick from my ritual room. I tilted just a touch of vampire blood to my bracelet. I was down to my last vial and needed to ration it out.
"Wakey, wakey, little one," I said, whispering it out of its slumber.
My little broom gave a quick little jolt and a jerk, and then came to life.
"Ready for an adventure, Broomie?"
The broom practically leaped to its feet, you know, if it had feet. It began sweeping me toward the window as excited as a hellhound ready for a walk.
"Gentle now!" I laughed, grabbing my hat. "A girl can't go flying around for the whole world to see without giving her a chance to get gussied up."
Usually, I would wear my regular clothes and not care too much, but this time I walked over to my wardrobe and opened the door.
It had been a long time since I had donned my black cape, not since the coven abandoned me. But I would blend in with the darkness of the sky, and after all these conspiracies had been revealed, I was thinking that making myself less of an obvious target might be a good idea.
I threw it over my dress. It felt almost like a second skin. The rough wool brought back so many memories. I gazed at myself in the mirror. Rhinestone eyeglasses and swathed in black, I caught a glimpse of how much I was changing. Or perhaps the glasses were stripping away my own illusions to show me who I really was.
I pushed all the thoughts away, tied my hat in place, and grabbed the vampire vial for when I needed a recharge. I sat gently on the broom, and we headed out into the night.
We flew out over the buildings and I tried to keep my mind fixed on my goal. I spotted the first place and didn't even need to consult a map. It shone with energy. It would not have been visible to the naked eye, but with my new glasses perched on my nose, it was like an airport runway.
And as I got closer, my ankle began telling me what it thought about this place, too.
I slowly directed the broom to head in the downward direction. My feet touched the earth. Now, usually a natural witch like myself feels a little "hello" from the ground whenever her feet touches new soil.
But not here.
It was like a black vortex sucking all the happiness and joy out of the world. A spot of dark energy. And do you know where you get dark energy from?
The Dark Dimension.
I had no idea why someone would open a hole to that place, but realized I was going to have to figure it out right quick if I didn't want my hotel to get sucked into the void like a hero in the quicksand of a 1950s cowboy movie.
Speaking of, I suddenly felt my foot go cold. I looked down. The darkness was spreading. Moving. It was reaching up my leg like a hand out of the mire.
With a snap, it yanked me off my feet. The vial of vampire blood fell out of my cloak and rolled out of my reach. I could see my foot disappear as the shadow creature tried to pull me into the Dark Dimension.
I gasped, too terrified to scream as I found the strength to pull up on one knee. I clutched at the grass. It ripped in my hands. With another jerk, I was flat on the ground again, being dragged inexorably toward the hole.
I turned, trying to zap it with some power, but fear had taken over and I couldn't remember my spells.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, my trusty broom came sweeping in. It turned upside down and, handle first, began walloping my captor. I felt the grip on my ankle loosen. I desperately crawled away, knowing I needed to get out of the darkness and into the light by the road. My broom jerked as the shadow hands tried to grasp it.
With the flight and my fear, Broomie wasn't going to last much longer.
It was already slowing down.
And that's when something inside me said, Enough.
That silly, ugly, useless broom had sacrificed itself to protect me. And sure, maybe it was just an object animated through the power of my stone with no sentience, but by golly, I liked that broom. And I was tired of having things I liked ripped away from me.
If I tapped into my gem's power, I'd be stealing the power from my broom, so coven be damned, I wasn't going to do it. I picked up a small branch. I reached deep into my soul, into that walled off place that had been blocked to me, and pushed past it in a moment of survivalist desperation. I snapped my fingers and lit the end of the dry wood on fire.
A searing pain threatened to crack my skull in two, but I had no time for that nonsense. Gasping, I held the branch, swiping at the shadow creature.
"Get back!" I shouted. "That's my Broomie!"
The shadow retreated as my light struck its darkness. It had to bend around the flickering flames as they cast the monster in different directions. I caught Broomie as the shadow's grip failed. Seeing we weren't going to be an easy prey, the shadow started to retreat to the dimension where it belonged. But, being a mean and spiteful witch, I tossed my lit torch down the rift as a final parting gift. I hope it obliterated any shadows it hit.
As if exhausted, my broom shuttered and jerked toward me and then fell on the grass. I stroked its straw. "That'll do, broom. That'll do."
Its magic spent, it stilled to just another inanimate object.
Heart still pounding, I regarded the portal to the Dark Dimension. I thought of the shape on the map. With connection points all over town, it would form an opening the size of a city, fed by a web of ley lines and all the energy found on Earth and the Other Side.
And me without my magic.