Greyson still hadn’t returned by the following morning.
Holly lingered by the window, half expecting a taxi to roll up outside, but the driveway remained empty.
“You didn’t really expect him to come back, did you?” Jin asked, standing beside her.
She shrugged. “Kind of.”
Patrick stuck his head into the room. “We’re ready to go if you are.”
Holly nodded. “Be out in a sec.”
“We can’t wait,” Jin murmured as Patrick disappeared. “If he changes his mind, he knows what we were doing today.”
“I guess.” She grabbed her coat and slid it on, feeling the small, polished stones rattle in the pockets—obsidian, amethyst, clear quartz, and black tourmaline. All crystals that had protective qualities against negative energies and would help reflect her Legacy when she dove into the anomaly…or so Fiona said.
They gathered outside and paused before the bridge. The bush beyond the creek appeared darker than usual, even taking the gloom of winter into account.
“Tell us if you see any sign of the shadows,” Jin said. “You’re our eyes in there, okay?”
“Oh, I think you’ll hear about it,” Fiona replied, burying her hands inside her coat pockets.
Holly took a deep breath and stepped onto the bridge. “Let’s go.”
They crossed the creek and took the centre trail, aiming for the innermost part of the diggings.
“How deep do we have to go?” Patrick asked, his voice hushed.
“As close to the centre of the anomaly as we can,” Holly replied, thankful they’d had the foresight to map the pocket of magic. “I’m not sure it matters, but theoretically, it should be denser there.”
Jin checked his phone. “The pin on the GPS is about another half a kilometre along this track.”
Their boots crunched on wet gravel as the track led them deeper into the diggings, the chilled air thickening around them.
As they walked, Holly wondered if she’d ever feel at ease here. Despite the blemishes left behind by the Gold Rush-era mining, the bush was beautiful. Tall gumtrees dotted the forest, the odd white trunk of the ghost gums shining through the greyish browns of the more common varieties. Rusted bracken coated the earth, and where the hardy ferns hadn’t reached, damp leaf litter clung around the base of clumps of thick, spiky kangaroo grass.
The lingering presence of the anomaly felt heavy, and every footstep seemed to sink into the soggy earth. It hadn’t been that long since she’d been here with Fiona to cast the barrier spell, and already the diggings were different.
“I feel sick,” Fiona whispered.
“Me, too,” Holly replied.
“There’s certainly an uneasiness that wasn’t here before,” Patrick added.
“It has to be the corruption,” she mused. “It’s rising faster the closer we get to the source.”
“That bodes well.” Jin stopped on the trail ahead of them and nodded to the left. “We’re here. Just a few metres through the bush and it should be about dead centre.”
“Can you not say the word dead?” Holly asked. “I’m creeped out enough as it is.”
“Consider it erased from my vocabulary.” He reached up and brushed his thumb across her cheek.
Picking over the dewy bracken, they found a small clearing not far within the gloomy bush.
“This ought to do it.” Holly sat on a tree stump and shivered as the damp soaked into the backside of her jeans. “In and out. Home by lunchtime.”
“If something goes wrong, then I’ll be here to pull you out,” Fiona reminded her. “I’ve got you.”
“Okay.” Holly nodded and focused on her Legacy. “I’m going in.”
Closing her eyes, she cradled the crystals in her palms and searched for the anomaly’s magical signature. Diving into a mind or accessing a bloodline was one thing, but trying to connect with a pocket of abstract magic was a whole new universe.
To comprehend what she was doing, her mind formed a world of darkness around her—a limbo state where she could perceive and understand what she was feeling.
The anomaly appeared to her as a bubble with a shimmering, translucent outer layer. As she stood before it, the structure wobbled and the ‘skin’ reached towards her, calling…so she placed her palm against it.
Holly instantly felt the magic as it rushed to meet her, the essence familiar as it gathered inside the bubble. It was the same rush that’d flowed through her the night they’d banished Hazel and the vortex. As she listened, she felt the same call, depth, and immense ocean of ancient power, though this time it writhed. It wanted to be free.
“What are you?” she called. “Are you alive? Can you hear me? What do you want?”
It didn’t answer, and she knew she had to go deeper.
Pushing against the surface, Holly’s fingers broke through the outer skin and pressed into the anomaly.
Suddenly, she was falling. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream as she plummeted through a writhing mass of pitch-black tentacles.
Just as she thought she was going to be stuck in free fall forever, the tendrils wound around her arms and legs. She jerked to a stop, her entire body copping the brunt of some epic whiplash.
A sickening chill spread through her body as she stared at the vision before her. She hung in an endless, shattered world of writhing, slimy black vines. A nightmare come to life.
Ancient magic seeped into every pore, clawing at the scars in her soul, and she knew she’d made one hell of a mistake.
“Who are you? What do you want?” she screamed as fear overcame her.
Whispers echoed, touching the edges of her Legacy. ‘Earth, water, spirit. Earth, water, spirit…’
It sounded like… The voice…
“Hazel?” Holly turned her head, trying to find the source of the whispers.
‘Earth, water, spirit…’
The spaces between the nightmarish monsters glowed a sickening green, stars pricking the surface. The creatures bore down on her, then to her horror, started to wail and scream.
Her own shrieks joined the abrasive chorus as black tendrils wrapped around her neck. The entity pressed against her mind as it tried to wrestle control from her, forcing visions onto her.
Were they trying to communicate?
“How did you come here?” she rasped. “What are you?”
As it scratched against her spirit, her eyes widened. It wasn’t many, but one.
The anomaly was fractured. Cut off. Searching for the whole. Desperate to free itself.
To complete… Complete what?
A task. A purpose.
What purpose?
Nothing. It wanted nothing.
Holly gasped for air as she felt her scarred soul crumble and reached for her Legacy. She had to get out of there.
“Let. Me. Go!”
The darkness pulsed with golden light, but the tendrils only tightened and breathing became harder and harder.
She was drowning in the anomaly’s corruption. If she couldn’t free herself, then in the real world she’d become…Hazel 2.0.
“Fiona!” Holly screeched. “Fiona!”
* * *
Fiona shivered as she studied the bush bordering the clearing.
The scent of damp earth and eucalyptus filled her nose as her Legacy softly vibrated. She perceived the anomaly as a faint hum of white noise, a whoosh of static in the back of her mind that carried a familiar signature. Having channeled it before, she had some understanding of it, but the more time had passed since they’d discovered the spreading corruption, the more she felt it change.
Whatever this thing was, it’d been woken up by Hazel, and now it was finding its freedom after a long imprisonment by the vortex.
Fiona glanced at Holly. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing calm and even. In fact, she seemed to be the calmest of them all.
Jin ran his hand over his face. “How long does she need to be in there?” It’d been barely five minutes and he was already fretting.
“As long as it takes,” she replied. “She isn’t channelling the magic, only reading it.”
Just as the words left Fiona’s mouth, Holly gasped and her head fell back.
“Holly?” Jin exclaimed, grasping her shoulders. “Holly?”
Fiona rushed across the clearing, her eyes widening as she saw red marks appear on Holly’s neck. It looked like something invisible was choking her.
“Pull her out,” Jin cried. “Now.”
Fiona slammed her hand on Holly’s shoulder, forcing a connection to her Legacy. It tried to rush away from her, sinking deeper into a mire of darkness, but she was too quick.
Her magic coiled around the flicking golden glow and she pulled, but the witch’s psyche barely moved.
“Something’s got hold of her,” she cried. “It’s fighting me.”
“The anomaly,” Jin rasped, his eyes filled with panic. “It’s aware.”
“Here.” Patrick held out his hand. “Use me.”
She grasped the vampire’s hand and channelled his strength, using everything she had to wrench Holly free from the anomaly. “It’s not enough!”
Jin grasped her wrist and her Legacy flared brighter than it ever had.
Her stomach churned as she channeled the surge of energy through her Legacy and around Holly’s. The force battling her weakened, startled by the rush of magic, and she pulled.
Holly gasped as her eyes flew open, and she grasped for Jin.
The vampire fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“It’s alive,” she whispered. “It’s alive…”
“Exactly as we thought,” Fiona whispered. Her heart hammered as the flow of magic from the vampires cut off, though Patrick edged closer.
“It tried to drown me,” the witch said, looking up at her. “The corruption… There were monsters everywhere. Black tentacles, writhing and coiling all over me.” She rubbed her arms.
“We got you out,” Fiona murmured. “You’re okay.”
“Tentacles?” Jin whispered. “What the hell?”
“Thousands of tentacles with no eyes. Blacker than anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“This was what I was afraid of,” the vampire said, smoothing his hands through Holly’s hair. “Please tell me the corruption didn’t get to you.”
“No.” Holly shook her head. “But it tried.”
Patrick’s frown deepened. “It tried?”
“It’s broken,” she replied with a nod. “If it had intelligence, it’s been fractured. If it knew what it was doing, then I reckon I would’ve been…” she trailed off.
“Tentacles with intelligence?” the vampire asked. “From where?”
“I don’t think it came from here,” she told them. “It was…it felt like another place. It was this sickly blackish-green with stars. The thing just existed.
“Forget about where it came from,” Jin said. “What does it want?”
“It wants nothing,” Holly whispered, rubbing her neck.
“Nothing?” the vampire asked, his brow creasing.
“Perhaps it’s just doing what it was programmed to do,” Patrick mused.
He glared. “Programmed by who?”
“By what it was once connected to,” Fiona replied, breaking her silence.
Holly nodded. “It makes sense. It was isolated from a larger being, I think, and lay dormant until Hazel woke it up.” Her brow creased. “She said she didn’t understand what she’d tapped into until it was too late.”
Fiona scowled. If the anomaly wanted nothing, then why was it corrupting everything it touched? The blight, the goop, the hollowed out animals…it felt a lot like systematic biological extermination.
“Nothing,” she blurted. “It wants nothing.”
The others stared at her like she was mad.
“Nothingness,” she explained. “It wants to take a big fat eraser on everything it can touch and make nothing.”
“Nothing,” Patrick whispered. “Literally nothing…”
“And we ignored all Hazel’s prattling about a new world order,” Jin said with a scowl. “It had to have been this thing talking through her.”
“Imagine if it was whole.”
“No, thanks,” Holly declared. “All this is more than enough.”
“Great,” Jin drawled. “We don’t just have a magical water alien on our hands, now we’ve also got interdimensional shadow monsters.”
Holly looked up at him. “Interdimensional?”
“A green world with stars? A pocket of magic? Where else did you go?”
Fiona looked around at the bush, the hairs on the back of her neck tingling. “Well, right now, it doesn’t matter wherever this thing lives. It knows we’re trying to fight it.” She shivered. “We should go back to the cottage.”
“Wait.” Holly stood and grasped her arm. “I heard her. Earth, water, spirit.”
“Her?” Jin asked. “You mean Hazel?”
“Earth, water, spirit,” she said again, her exhaustion from her deep dive showing.
Fiona’s expression fell as she understood. “Greyson.”
“He can interview you for his podcast later,” Jin said, scooping the witch into his arms. “Right now, we’ve got to get you warm.” He nodded at Fiona.
“The shadows haven’t made an appearance,” she told him, “but if they were going to, now would be the time.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here before they do.”