Fiona hit the brakes, her Jeep sliding in the loose gravel of the cottage’s driveway. The engine was barely off before she flung herself out of the driver’s seat.
“Holly!” she shouted, running to the front door. She pushed inside. “Holly!”
Patrick followed her into the cottage, listening for movement. “Fiona, wait.”
The witch looked into the lounge room, the bedrooms, and rushed to the kitchen, where she jerked to a stop. “Jin!”
Patrick was beside her in an instant. Jin lay on the floor, his neck at an odd angle.
“Is he dead?” the witch asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “He’s still alive. If he were dead, he’d be desiccated by now.” She didn’t kill him outright, which meant there’s still hope that part of Holly was fighting back.
“Bloody hell, we were right, weren’t we?” Her gaze met his. “Greyson.”
She pushed out the back door and into the garden, leaving him no choice but to follow.
A bucket lay on its side in the middle of the lawn—he recognised it as the one Greyson had been using to practice his elemental magic—but the garden was otherwise empty.
“Greyson?” Fiona called. “Holly?”
“They’re not here.” Patrick breathed deeply, catching a faint tangy metallic trace on the air. “But…”
“What is it?”
“Blood.”
He walked across the lawn, past the bucket, and stopped by the vegetable patch. Looking down at the tomatoes, he saw the disturbed earth, and knelt. A loose garden stake lay on the lawn, so he picked it up and turned it over in his hands. Sniffing the length of it, he grimaced. It carried the faint scent of tomatoes and blood.
“He tried to fight back,” he murmured.
Fiona snorted. “With an old bit of treated pine?”
Patrick narrowed his eyes and looked down the path towards the bridge spanning Moonlight Creek. If Holly or Greyson were still bleeding, he was confident he’d be able to track them, but there were no prizes for guessing where they were going.
“It’s going to use them to free itself today, isn’t it?” Fiona murmured.
“Yes.” He stood, letting the stake drop to the ground.
“Then we have to go after them.” She took a step towards the diggings, but Patrick flew to her side.
“Wait.”
“Patrick, if we don’t—”
“I know,” he interrupted, “but rushing won’t help either of them. The anomaly has Holly under its control, so it’s safe to assume she’s channelling it. The last time we went up against this thing, it was with three witches and the spirits of two others. Hazel was corrupted, but she was still a spirit. Holly is alive—flesh and blood will always be more powerful.”
“I know I’m on my own,” she hissed. “But I can free her, Patrick. I can do it.”
“I’m not doubting your ability, but we have to be smart about this. One shot is all we have.” A loud gasp echoed from inside, and Patrick turned. “Jin’s awake.”
Fiona shoved past him, her annoyance fuelled by her fear, and went back into the kitchen.
Jin sat on the tiled floor, rubbing his neck. “I can’t believe she… The bloody anomaly…”
“It finally tipped her over the edge,” Fiona said.
“How long was I out?” He checked his watch. “An hour!” He tried to get up, but Patrick pushed him down. “Let me go!”
“Do I always have to be the voice of reason around here?” Patrick asked. “Settle down and tell us what happened.”
“I brought her the autopsy results,” Jin said, pointing to the counter. “We were discussing them, and she just snapped.”
“Your neck,” Fiona stated, picking up the report.
“Greyson sent me a text message,” Patrick said. “He thought she was acting strange.”
“Let me guess,” Jin drawled. “The water alien is gone.”
“Whatever he is, he must be the key,” he said. “And why Hazel never got this far.”
“So we do a snatch and grab,” Jin said. “Grab Greyson and subdue Holly until we can free her from the corruption.”
“She’s likely channelling the anomaly by now.” Patrick felt an uneasiness creep into his heart. “We might need to…bind her Legacy.”
“She wouldn’t want that,” Fiona murmured.
“Holly would want to save as many lives as she could,” Jin snapped.
“Binding a witch’s Legacy is the worst thing anyone can do,” Fiona argued. “It’s unforgivable!”
“Don’t you think I know that?” the vampire raged. “She would still want you to do it, if that’s what it came down to.”
“More than just our lives are at stake here,” Patrick said. “If we do nothing, all of Dunloe is dead…today. That’s almost four thousand people.”
They fell silent, the gravity of the precipice they found themselves upon hitting home.
“It’ll know we’re coming,” Jin said. “The shadows were brought here to protect it, and we can’t do anything against an invisible enemy.”
Fiona clicked her fingers. “Holly brought back a few tubs of crystals and artefacts from Samantha’s, didn’t she?”
Jin nodded. “Yeah, they’re stacked in the bedroom.”
“There might be something in there that’ll help me give you both temporary sight.” She hurried down the hall and was soon followed by the clattering of plastic tubs and crystals.
“While she figures that out,” Patrick said as he gathered up the report, “tell me about this autopsy. We’re going to need all the ammunition we can find.”
* * *
Greyson jerked upright, gasping for air. He lay in a wheelbarrow, his arms and legs hanging over the sides.
A purple haze covered the bush and he rubbed his eyes, but it did nothing to alter his vision. Above, the great arm of the Milky Way glittered through the gumtrees, reminding him of a photograph taken by one of those huge space telescopes in orbit around the planet, like one of those colourful pictures that looked Photoshopped.
As he stared at the sky, two bright stars shone brighter than the others. They grew larger and larger until they buzzed past his head. What the hell?
“What are you doing there?”
Greyson let out a yelp, the voice startling him so much, he fell as he tried to scramble out of the wheelbarrow. Landing in a heap, he looked up, expecting to see a shadow figure looming…but all he saw was a smiling Indigenous man.
One of the First Nations people of Australia, his skin was dark and rich, his features broad, his eyes full of warmth, and his black hair fell in chaotic waves around his face.
Despite his confusion, Greyson knew he wasn’t in any danger. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Ah, you’ve only just figured it out,” the man said. “And you made it here so soon!” He chuckled. “So speedy. Magnet for trouble, are you?”
He was about to ask what he meant, but he remembered Holly strangling him with her magic…and then he was here.
“Am I dead?” he wondered.
The man laughed, then his laugh turned into a cackle.
Greyson scowled. “What’s so funny?”
“This place is a spirit place,” the man replied. “You can go up, or you can go down…but you are far from going up. Too soon.”
“Going up, where?”
The man nodded at the wheelbarrow. “Why you in that?”
Greyson’s glare intensified. If this wasn’t the afterlife, then he must be in some sort of fever dream. “I was knocked out by a witch.”
“A witch?”
“Yes. It sounds absurd, but I’m in some sort of purple limbo talking to an Indigenous man. Which one of those things is weirder?”
“None are weird.”
“Then why am I here?”
“You come here because your path,” the man told him. “You awake.”
“Because I’m one of these elemental things?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
Greyson’s expression faded as he found some clarity. He had to wake up and free Holly from the anomaly before she could use him to set it free. That was the only direction he was going.
“I need to go back, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he said to the stranger. “Something evil has control of my friend.”
“I see.” The man nodded gravely. “Stay on the path. Then you know what to do.”
“What path?”
He grinned, showing his white teeth. “A great man once told me that people make paths by walking. You must walk.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“The elemental must walk the path of understanding.” He touched his head, then his heart. “That is how you grow.”
Greyson’s scowl fell away as things clicked. His abilities grew with understanding himself. It was like Holly had said; his powers were a part of him, but it was his acceptance of their existence that’d led him to his first taste of control…but it wasn’t enough.
“You see?” the man asked.
“I think so.”
“Think or know?”
He frowned and looked up at the starry sky. “Know.”
“Your little cart is on the edge of a cliff,” the stranger said. “But not all paths are made in the earth.” He swept his hand through the air and the sky responded, the stars glittering brightly through the purple haze. “Fly…”
Greyson stood, his vision blurring as he tried to focus on the Milky Way. “Fly? I don’t…” He turned back to the stranger, but his heart skipped a beat as he realised he was gone. “Hello?”
Silence replied.
Greyson turned, searching for the man, but saw Holly standing over the wheelbarrow.
“Holly?” He rushed up to her and grasped her shoulders. “Holly?”
His touch startled her awake. “Greyson?” She looked around, her eyes wide. “W-where are we?”
“The hell if I know, but it’s got to do with my elemental abilities.” He shrugged. “It’s some kind of limbo, I think. A spiritual way station. There was a guy here…”
“A guy?”
He nodded. “He said we can go up or down. Does that mean anything?”
“Ah…” She closed her eyes. “Evolution.”
“Evolution?” Yet another thing he didn’t understand. “Then how are we here?”
“I think the anomaly put me here to stop me from fighting back,” Holly whispered. “The last thing I remember was opening the fridge…” She looked at the wheelbarrow, then at Greyson. “I think a part of Hazel was trapped here, too…but she’s gone.”
“Then we have to get you back to your body.”
“Wait.”
He blinked.
“Greyson, listen to me.” She grabbed his shoulders. “If you can access this place, then you can access the anomaly in a way I can’t. To beat this thing, you have to believe.”
“Look around, Holly. I think I’m well and truly a believer.”
“No, not in the supernatural,” she said. “In yourself. In who you are.”
His eyes widened. The fate of Dunloe rested on his shoulders? A fortnight ago, he was just looking for a story for his podcast, and today…
“Greyson. We’ll only get one shot at this. Once you bring me back, the anomaly will throw everything it has at us.”
“The shadow figures.”
Holly nodded.
“But I don’t…” His expression fell as the stranger’s words echoed in his mind. Make paths by walking… Fly… Looking up at the Milky Way, he took a deep breath. “You remember what you told me about the moment things click?” His gaze met hers. “I think they just clicked.”
“Then it’s time.” She smiled. “I believe in you.”
And for the first time, so did he. “Let’s do it.”
Greyson wrapped his arm around her waist and turned. They stood side by side as he swept his arm through the air, and just like it had for the stranger, the space before them began to blur. The bush shimmered as stars fell from the sky, then a precipice opened before them.
“What’s happening?” Holly asked, looking over the cliff’s edge.
Below them was darkness, but Greyson knew that the fall would bring them back down.
“We’re going to fly,” he told her. “Ready?”
She looked up at him and nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
“You’ve got balls of steel. Anyone ever told you that?” Greyson asked with a smirk.
“I hear they’re big shiny ones.”
They laughed as he tightened his grip on her waist…
Then they jumped.