Sadie – or at least, the spirit pretending to be Sadie - laughed, giving an immodest shrug. “My name is irrelevant, really – but as I have no desire to befuddle your poor minds any further, you can call me Beth.” she mocked, clearly self-assured. That was, until she felt the ground rumble under her feet. At the movements, she raised an eyebrow – then took a step forward as if moving up on to a staircase. Her foot held, and she levitated – actually levitated – above the ground.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Rose groaned, and Lila glanced at the young witch to see that her gaze was working over their surroundings, obviously searching for an upper hand.
“You'll have to get up earlier than that to best me, my dears.” Beth smirked, the address odd coming from such a young woman. Lila couldn't help but notice that, as she had stepped into mid air, her firm grip on Liam had loosened enough that he could wriggle in her hold. Glancing at Adam, she communicated this to him, letting him know that there was strength in their number. Rose caught the glance, her face seeming to relax as they worked out a plan – all without even speaking to one another.
All at once, they split up in different directions, one goal in mind: get to Elsie and save her. Lila knew that Liam would understand – they all had the advantage of their boosted powers, while Elsie was the weak link. Compared to the rest of them, she was in the most danger, so they had to think of her needs as well as their own. Liam was also struggling; he could be a loose cannon and they couldn't afford that, so it might not be the worst thing in the world for him to be kept under control while the younger witches did most of the work.
Beth didn't know where to look, or where to attack. Her strikes were clumsy, unfocused, and just off-kilter enough that no one was injured by the lightning strikes. It seemed that the spirit was not used to witches working together in this fashion, and the fact that they had taken different paths meant she simply couldn't tell who was the biggest risk. Feinting left in an attempt to get past Beth, Lila caught sight of Adam lunging to tackle her, only just missing her as she sidestepped.
The fury on the blonde girl's face was almost enough to make Lila gloat, her heart leaping up into her throat with elation as she made it past Beth, reaching out for Elsie and -
Crash. The world around them shook, and Lila felt herself being lifted off of her feet and launched back until she hit some kind of invisible force and slumped down at the very edge of the circle. Her head spun with the force, and she remained crumpled on the floor until her vision began to clear and she could see the others, at various points around the circle in a similar state. Troy seemed worst of all, clutching his arm and obviously trying not to yell out in pain.
Elsie was still in the centre of the circle behind Beth, obviously unaffected by whatever force had hit them, and Beth was in the process of closing the circle before she headed back to Elsie and yanked back her head, placing the blade at her throat.
“Enough!” she yelled, though the group was silent minus the groans of pain and disorientation. “We're done with this.” Beth looked apoplectic, her hair askew, giving her the true appearance of madness. “You're going to finish the ritual, or I'm going to kill her right now.”
“The...” Lila began, and then a cold realisation hit her, sinking into her stomach and making her feel sick to her bones. Of course, the ritual. Her mind flitted back to the moment in the car when she'd woken up from her trip into Death – or so she'd thought. “You made it up..” Lila choked out.
Beth grinned, the act of doing so only making her seem even more disturbed. “That's right. You made it so easy, too. So trusting, so eager to impress and trust your new friends.” she scoffed. “And of course, I knew all about trips into the spirit realm. I knew you wouldn't expect to remember it.. all it took was cutting off your air supply a little so that you passed out, then I could tell you whatever I wanted to.”
Lila swallowed around a lump in her throat. She had been so stupid – she should have taken another trip in front of them all, confirmed what the 'ancestor' had told her instead of taking Beth's word for it. She'd known there was a traitor, but somehow it had still escaped her scrutiny.
“What's she talking about?” Rose asked, her voice soft. She was the only one not placed strategically around the circle, instead haphazardly cast in between Lila and Troy. Lila looked at the young witch, fighting back tears.
“She's talking about the fact that it's my fault everything has been going quite so wrong.” Lila admitted. Adam let out a loud 'ha!', staring at her in earnest.
“Don't you dare let this get you down, Lila. One way or another, she would have pulled it off. We were all blind to it. You're the only one who has done anything of consequence to help. You fetched Rose. You figured out what was happening to the spirit realm. You've done far better than I could have done in your position.” he asserted almost fiercely.
“He's right, Lila. However, It doesn't change the fact that we're here now, and we're about to give her everything she wants.” came Liam's voice. He was right. Blame could wait, they were trapped in an impossible situation right now and, while they were going to do as she asked, they were merely conceding the battle to have a chance at winning the war.
Dragging Elsie over to her spot, Beth watched as they steeled themselves before beginning the ritual, her shoulders relaxing. Clearly, the spirit thought she had won, and it appeared none of them could think of a plan to steal victory from her at this point. They each said their part, then Beth dragged Elsie back into the centre of the circle. Nothing happened.
“W-We did it right, didn't we?” Lila asked, looking around the circle at the boys in the remaining places, having pulled Rose closer to her. They each nodded in turn, then looked to Beth. “I'm sorry. I don't know what went wrong.” she stammered, noting that the athame was still poised against Elsie's throat.
“That's okay. I do.” Beth smirked, before chanting out in an odd, guttural tone, one which seemed to speak to Lila's very core, and realisation dawned on her mere seconds before the world to chaos.
“No!” she screamed, starting forward as Beth drew the blade across Elsie's throat, blood erupting as if from a volcano. It was gruesome, but she had no time at all to reflect upon it as, seconds later, the loudest ripping noise she'd ever heard in her life flooded the air, so violent that she crumpled to her knees, unable to hear as the others around her screamed in their own pain and shock. Clamping her hands over her ears, she choked on air, feeling blood trickle from her nose and ears – if she hadn't known the difference, she would have also assumed that the wetness on her cheeks was from blood too. Screwing her eyes shut, she hunched over into a ball, riding out the agony and waiting – praying – that the world would right itself again.
Gradually, everything began to settle. The first thing Lila noticed was that the sky began to brighten, the sunlight filtering through her closed eyelids despite her pointed attempts to ignore its existence. Next, her sense of smell returned, a dewy scent of morning grass mixed with the lingering stench of smoke, flooding her nostrils and overwhelming her enough that she coughed, her eyes flying open in shock. At first, the light was blinding, and she brought her hand up over her eyes, her hearing starting to come back as she did so. All she could hear were groans, and the soft sounds of a girl sobbing. Was that her? No, it was too young, who was it?
It took longer still for her memory to recover from the assault on her senses, but when it did, she was suddenly on her feet, skidding over to the centre of the circle. She barely registered that, somehow, Beth was gone, but her main focus was on Elsie, whose skin was pale, her eyes open and unseeing. Working on pure instinct, she reached for the border between the spirit realm and their own, intending to bring her back. Again and again she grasped, before it finally sunk in that there would be no bringing Elsie back – the spirit realm and real world were merged, and by the time they could right it, Elsie would have been dead for too long.
“No!” she cried out, wincing at the sound of her own voic
e as she thumped her fist down on the girl's body over and over. She became aware of arms wrapping around her, falling into them with ease, only to find out that it was Liam, and not Adam, who had pulled her away. The witch hunter's jaw was set, and a twitch worked on one side. It was obvious he was trying not to cry.
“Liam.. Liam, I'm so sorry.” she stammered. He'd joined their group to save his sister and now she was gone. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and he stiffened further but made no attempt to dislodge her.
“It doesn't matter.” his voice was a croak, like he'd swallowed dust and desperately needed a drink. Despite his words, Lila knew that it most certainly did matter. She glanced back at Elsie's body, just as Rose laid a jacket over her to hide the wound and those awful, vacant eyes from everyone. “The best thing we can do is make sure that the rest of the world doesn't follow her. It's what she would have wanted.” he continued.
“Maybe you are my brother.” the voice came from behind them, and when Lila looked up she almost screamed. Elsie stood behind them, almost as corporeal as if she were still alive. Looking between her and the now covered body, she fought to find words.
“No, I'm still dead.” she answered the question, looking oddly sympathetic, as if it were Lila and not Elsie herself who deserved the pity. “Only thing is, dead isn't exactly... dead right now.” Elsie confessed. “And we have to sort that.”
“Don't you want to stay?” Lila answered, since Liam seemed to have gone utterly rigid with shock; the first time he'd spoken to his sister, and she was dead. It had to be rattling. Elsie shrugged at her uselessly.
“Once you move on, it doesn't really matter so much.” she explained.
Lila frowned. “Wait.. why aren't you raging and evil and stuff? She killed you with the athame.”
“My body hasn't been buried or cremated yet.” she answered. “Which means it's not bound by Earth or fire, leaving it open to the Spirit realm. Or the lack thereof.” Elsie confessed. Lila nodded, still staring at Elsie and almost too afraid to say anything else. It felt like going crazy, being in the same place as Elsie's spirit and her body, and she was the one who had experience with talking to ghosts. She could only imagine how odd it felt to the others, most importantly Liam. “I can tell you're a little freaked out.” Elsie observed, and Lila spluttered out a laugh.
“Just a little.” she replied, her voice faint. She glanced back at Elsie's body, and the girl sighed.
“Okay. Let's move. This is going to be a lot easier for you guys if we're away from my body..” Elsie asserted, clapping her hands in an effort to motivate them. One by one, they began to get up, helping each other upright. Liam moved to pick up Elsie's body, and she shook her head. “Nope. Leave me.” she ordered.
Liam's eyes widened. “You can't honestly expect me to leave you lying in the dirt.” he choked out. “What if -”
“What if the car gets blown up? What if you get stopped by the cops? The whole world is made up of if's right now, Liam, and there's no time to waste on the unimportant ones. My body means nothing to me now, it's just the shell I used to have. You'll find that when it's your time, very little of your material world matters. I should be freaking out about meeting you for the first time right now, I would be if that was still me, but I'm fine and it's not me. You're a hunter, Liam, so get up off your backside and hunt some evil.” she scolded, making Lila wonder who was the elder of the two of them. Did that even count any more?
Her words seemed to stir Liam, though. He jumped up quickly with the aid of Adam's hand, then glanced at the others. “We're going to Waterloo. That's where it started, and it's the only place it can end.”
Chapter Seventeen
As it turned out, Elsie's remarks about the car blowing up hadn't exactly made things easier for Lila to get back into it. Once again in the flatbed of the truck, she didn't bother with her seatbelt, too busy kneeling in front of Troy whilst rooting through Liam's bag. It wasn't, as she'd first thought, filled with weapons – it was instead full of what she was dubbing 'battle supplies', which translated into herbs for healing, to induce sleep, jars full of medicinal salves, bandages, a Thermos full of water which Troy had heated for her, and various other items. At that precise moment, she was using a wad of wet bandages to clean Troy's arm while he chewed on some of the herbs to alleviate the pain. His injured arm had progressed into a state of being fully broken, and she had been forced to set it. Once it was clean, she scooped some of the salve on to her fingers, smearing it around the broken skin before wrapping it with the bandage. Making it as tight and as thick as possible, she prayed it would be enough to avoid permanent damage if they made it through this.
Troy looked sick to his stomach, the pain nauseatingly extreme. As guilty as she felt for temporarily worsening it, Lila knew that in the long run it would be worse for him if she ignored the problem. Of course, doing it in a moving vehicle which was driving well over the speed limit was probably not the best idea. If it hadn't been for Adam's idea to have vines sprout from the base of the trailer and surround her lower legs, she imagined she'd have been thrown from the vehicle several miles back.
Once she was done with her rough patch up job, Adam reached out to grab her around the waist before undoing his magick and releasing her legs. Initially, she jerked unsteadily, until his grip tightened around her and he hauled her back into her seat forcibly. Locking the belt into place, she let out an audible sigh of relief, looking at Adam gratefully.
Rose had chosen to sit in the front seat with Liam, having been quiet since she'd covered Elsie's body up. Lila was worried about her, and knew that Adam had to be, too. Elsie was sitting in Rose's seat in the back, though it was still completely unsettling to see her there. Though she had no visible marks resulting from her death, it was still odd to see her, like a lingering sense of déjà vu which couldn't be shaken off no matter how hard you tried.
“So..” Lila began awkwardly, drumming her hands on her lap when she realised she had nothing left to do which could save her from this conversation. Elsie, for the most part, had been patient and understanding about it all, though they all knew that time was of the essence. They'd soon be arriving at the coven site in Waterloo and they still had no plan of attack.
“So.” Elsie agreed. “From what I can gather, the entire ritual is bound together by two things – blood, and the athame.” she ticked them off on her fingers.
“We know we have to destroy the athame...” Adam began, frowning. “But short of us all killing ourselves there's not much we can do about the blood line.”
Lila frowned. They'd been talking about this for the entire trip whilst she'd seen to Troy, and none of them had figured out any kind of answer. The window was even open so that Liam could enter the conversation at any point. So far, he hadn't. In fact, he hadn't even acknowledged their presence once he'd started the truck. Having Elsie around seemed to have made him mute.
“Wait.. stop. Stop!” Lila yelled, hammering on the window until Liam did as she asked. Everyone looked round in shock at her as she yanked off her seatbelt and jumped over the side of the truck, scrambling down to the ditch by the side of the road.
“Lila!” Adam yelled, wrenching off his own belt and standing.
Lila was crouched down, rolling over a prone figure in the dirt, blonde hair dirtied by the wet grass. Holding her hand just over the girl's nose, she felt Sadie's breathing faintly. “Help me with her.” she demanded, while Adam gaped at her.
“Are you nuts?” he asked, looking around at the others for backup. “She just killed Elsie.. she's the reason we're in this mess and you want me to help you lift her back into the truck? No thank you!”
“Actually.” Elsie began, causing Adam and Troy to look over at her. “With the spirit realm and real realm being merged, there's a high likelihood that Sadie was forced back into her own body and Beth was thrown out.” she explained.
“Then how did she get all the way out here?” Adam shot back stubbornly.
“Well,
we're walking distance from Waterloo.” Elsie reasoned, glancing over at the girl. “If you think about it, we know that Sadie went into the spirit realm – it's highly possible she did that at the coven site, where our parents died. That would mean that her spirit was wandering out here. When the two worlds collided, there would have been a million paradoxes just like her, the same person in different places – coma victims, mainly.” she tried to phrase it simply. “So the universe had to figure them out. Everyone thinks it's so much easier to move a spirit to a body, but it's not. The Earth is physical.. so is the body. Spirit gets all muddled up.”
“That's why Spirits wander aimlessly?” Rose piped up from the front seat, and Elsie nodded sagely.
“So the fastest way to right it all would be to move the physical to the spiritual, and eject those who lacked their own original physical form.” Elsie finished. Adam stood, lost in thought for a moment, before jumping down and running to scoop Sadie up into his arms. Rose got out of the front seat so that he could put her into the cab where she'd be safest, then everyone climbed back up on to the trailer once more.
“How do you know all this?” Lila asked, feeling like she was being schooled on her own element all of a sudden. Elsie was a fire witch, not a spirit witch, so she needed to know.
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