“I almost wish she wouldn’t,” Chloe said. “I don’t know if these people have ever hunted witches before, but if they know how to use witch hazel and pot-ash... it may not be the only weapon they have in their arsenal.”
Piper shivered, and stared at the thin slats of light pouring in through the cellar doors.
Time. That was all they needed.
Come on, Bailey. Come and find us.
Chapter 32
“Up ahead,” Bailey said, pointing when she saw Piper’s car near the road. “That’s her car.”
Avery leaned up between the two front seats of Aiden’s car and peered at the car. “Why is her car here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bailey muttered. “Look, by the road. There’s a trail... or... is it wide enough for a car?”
“Let’s find out,” Aiden said. He waited for a car coming in the opposite direction, and then pulled across the lane and into the dirt patch in front of the trail. A No Trespassing sign suggested someone owned the road, and the property it led to. He eased the car forward, and while they didn’t have much clearance, it was there. “Do we go up, or walk?”
“We don’t know what state they’ll be in when we find them,” Bailey said quietly. “Go on up.”
“We’ll lose any hope of an ambush,” Gideon said. “And we may be walking into one. It’s possible they were taken to lure the rest of you here.”
Bailey nodded. “Maybe. But they expected a few witches. They didn’t expect three wizards and... whatever I am now.”
“It’s a little early to be over confident,” Gideon said.
Bailey flashed him an irritated look in response. “We’re going up there. Just be careful. Everyone keep your eyes open, and we’ll be alright.”
“Sit back down,” Frances grumbled at Avery.
He did as he was told, and Aiden took the car up the road carefully while all five of them kept their eyes on the road ahead and the trees. Bailey searched further out for minds, and found them just before they saw the house, and the two trailers near it.
“This has to be it,” Aiden said. “Shall we... go have a chat?”
Bailey got out of the car, and stormed up the remaining part of the drive, to the front door of the house.
“Bailey,” Aiden called behind her. “Wait, we can’t just—”
She knocked on the door, and as she did the magic inside her hammered through her knuckles and into the wood. The house itself shook, enough that shingles slipped from the roof and spun to the ground.
Aiden, Avery, Frances, and Gideon all waited, each of them holding magic that Bailey could feel like heat against her back.
The door opened.
“My, my, my,” Seamus Jackson said as he looked Bailey over. “Now that’s a magic I haven’t felt in many a long year...”
Bailey met Seamus’ eyes. There was something different about him. “You’re not Seamus.” She didn’t know precisely how she knew, other than that she was certain Seamus would never have done something like this. But there was some other quality to him, to his mind. Something familiar and chilling.
Seamus raised an eyebrow, and his eyes flickered just barely to his right.
Bailey leapt back, away from the house, and something cut the air in front of her, nicking her shoulder instead of landing somewhere far worse. Magic erupted from her, lashing out blindly toward the source of the projectile in the woods to one side of the house. A tree groaned, and then exploded, sending a hail of splinters into the air.
Seamus spat and vanished into the house. The sounds of other projectiles, maybe crossbow bolts, made the air almost vibrate, and was quickly joined by the crackling sound of ice, and the howl of wind, and then by the focused thunder of wizard spells. Bailey ignored all of it and charged into the house, wreathing herself in unseen force as she did.
“I don’t have time for this,” Bailey shouted. “Amadan Dubh, I name you and call you. Show yourself.”
There was a quiet shuffling of feet to one side, and she looked in time to see Mr. Dove lunging for her. She raised a hand, reaching out with her magic to catch him. There was a metallic, shearing sound, and the knife in Mr. Dove’s hand came down anyway, cutting through her magic. She stumbled over something behind her as she tried to get out of the way, and then he was on her.
He was physically stronger than Bailey; there was no contest on that front. But she had more than just her arms to fight with, and pressed her mind against his, driving her gift with the primal magic she’d been given.
Mr. Dove reeled, his face contorting as Bailey dug through his thoughts, looking for something familiar, some part of Seamus she could drag back out. In his distress, he went into a frenzy, clawing at her with one hand as the strange, magic cutting blade in the other scythed for her. It cut her on the upper arm twice, and the pain burned and made her left arm feel weak.
Something crashed into the house, shaking the walls. Someone blocked the light from the door, and then she heard Aiden’s voice just before Mr. Dove was hauled off of her and dragged away.
“Hold him!” Bailey shouted.
“There are others outside,” Aiden told her. “Maybe seven or eight. They’ve got bolts that ignore magic. Frances—”
“One thing at a time,” Bailey muttered. Aiden wrestled with Mr. Dove’s arms, pinning them with obvious effort as Bailey approached and put both of her hands on his head. His mind fought her, but she poured magic into her gift, and grasped everything that wasn’t Seamus Jackson in psychic hands and began to pull.
Seamus howled. Not Mr. Dove. She could tell the difference when it happened, and let go momentarily.
The wail of pain turned into a cruel laugh. “He is mine,” Mr. Dove said. “He gave himself to me.”
“Where are Chloe and Piper?” She demanded.
He only glared at her, so Bailey pressed into him, searching his mind. Songs, bits of poetry, images of glass towers, and other detritus got in the way as Mr. Dove giggled at her. But in it all, there was something else. Seamus, still there—uncertain, and lost, but not gone. She spoke to him instead of fighting Mr. Dove. “Seamus,” Bailey implored, “help me. Where are my friends? You have to fight him; you have to help me get him out of you.”
Aiden’s face went red with strain, and he fell backwards with Mr. Dove, barely holding onto him, as Mr. Dove snapped his teeth at Bailey’s hands.
His eyes, though, dropped. Not once, but several times.
Bailey opened her mind toward the outside of the house, and sent her thoughts out to everyone there. “Under the house. They’re under the house.”
She turned her attention back to poor Seamus Jackson and the monster that had taken him over. Tearing the Faerie out seemed dangerous. But she could sense Seamus inside, struggling, reaching up toward her, but not strong enough to get past Mr. Dove.
So, she gave him the power he needed.
Instead of fighting Mr. Dove, she thrust her mind down past him, into the dark, deep place from which Seamus was trying to emerge. It almost dragged her down; she felt heavy, and the weight of exhaustion was finally wearing on her—or the place that Seamus was in was heavy, perhaps. Either way, she let her magic flow down into that place like water, and urged Seamus to take it, to drink it in; to use it.
Mr. Dove sagged, just for a moment, and opened Seamus’ mouth wide. He shook his head, slowly at first and then harder, until Aiden had to tuck his head to keep from being hit by it.
Bailey gave Seamus more power, until she could feel him pressing up through the darkness. Only then did she dig mental claws into the Faerie shade inside of Seamus and begin to pull.
“You... can’t...” Mr. Dove growled. “It’s mine...”
“Nothing in this world is yours,” Bailey muttered, and gave the shade a final pull as she opened herself entirely to Seamus, the magic flowing between them casting an indigo light into the room. “You don’t belong here.”
Something snapped. Nothing physical—it was silent, but reverberated t
hrough Bailey, and even Aiden seemed to feel it as he let go of Seamus’ arms and staggered, flinching as if he expected that the house had cracked and was about to collapse.
Bailey reached for Seamus as he fell, but had to brace herself on the couch he’d knocked over when he came for her. Her stomach hurt, and her body was sore from head to toe, as if she’d done real work instead of merely directing magic. She lowered herself to her knees carefully, and put her hand on Seamus’ shoulder where he was struggling to push himself up onto all fours. “Seamus?”
Seamus only groaned, but it was enough.
Bailey clapped him once on the shoulder. “Take it slow.” Then she hauled herself up to her feet again, and turned toward the door to the house.
Aiden was on her in seconds. “Stop,” he said. “You can’t go out there like you are, Bailey; you can barely stand.”
“I have plenty of magic left,” she said. “Get out of my way, I’ll put a stop to all this.”
Instead of moving, he shifted to stand in front her, barring her way to the door. “Listen to yourself. What are you thinking right now?”
Bailey snorted, and started to push him out of the way. But the truth was... she was thinking that she’d just seek out the minds of the remaining hunters and switch them off. It was be the quickest way, wouldn’t it? And she could—or at least she was pretty sure she could. She’d never tried before.
“This isn’t you,” Aiden said.
No, she realized. It wasn’t. It was the power; it was exactly what Itaja had warned her about. The power had emboldened her, but it had also taken over her soul. She couldn't let it. She had to find a way to control it.
She let go of the magic she was still holding, and it drained from her. It took with it the righteous fury she’d been using to keep herself standing, and she began to fall, suddenly more aware of the cuts on her left shoulder and the even the scratch on her right, where the crossbow bolt had missed her by less than a hair.
Aiden caught her, and made sure that she was safely lowered to the floor before he looked out from the house, his wand out.
“Chloe, Piper,” Bailey said. “We have to get to them. Make sure they’re okay.”
“I just saw Avery and Gideon rushing to the other side of the house,” Aiden assured her. “There are a pair of cellar doors there; that must be where they are.”
“Avery and Gideon?” Bailey asked. When Aiden nodded again, she sighed, and closed her eyes. “Well... it’s not how I wanted to do it, but... at least it’ll be done.”
Chloe struggled against the ropes that bound her hands. Outside, the world sounded like it was cracking in half. Bolts thudded against the cellar doors, and magic tingled at the edge of her awareness.
Piper’s chair began to thump. Chloe looked over, and saw Piper’s face twisted with the effort of rocking back and forth to loosen bolts that were driven into the ground to keep the chair in place. She was making progress, and Chloe looked down at the bolts securing her own chair and began to do the same, gripping the side of the chair as she jerked one way and the other.
The noise outside quieted. The cellar doors creaked open, and both Chloe and Piper froze.
Someone came down the stairs, someone in wing tipped shoes and slacks instead of muddy boots and jeans, or Seamus’ tennis shoes.
“Aiden?” Chloe asked.
“Not... quite,” a familiar voice said. It was older than when she’d last heard it, but unmistakable.
Chloe’s stomach quivered, and her heart skipped several beats until she saw the flash of green eyes, that shock of well kempt red hair. “You...” she breathed.
Leander Swift flashed her a smile that was part nervous, part triumphant, and deeply apologetic. “Hello, Chloe. I’ve... come to save you?”
Chapter 33
One of the hunters was bound with rope, another was trapped up to his knees in ice. Another, who looked like he was barely twenty and still mostly smooth faced, glared up from under invisible bonds that held him to the ground. Three had apparently gotten away, fleeing into he woods. No one felt like going after them.
Frances had taken a cross bow bolt in her forearm, and Avery had done what triage he could but she looked pale. She insisted she would be alright, but the hospital would be their first stop. Avery himself had a nasty looking burn on his arm from some kind of explosive that Gideon had barely managed to contain. Aiden was more or less unscathed, though he had bruises from his struggle with Seamus.
Bailey stood before the three hunters. “Until you were told we were nearby,” she said to them calmly, “you had left us alone and we left you alone. We know that Seamus took our people, not you. What I want, is for this to end here. We go back to our place, you stay in yours. No one has to get hurt.” She sighed, and surveyed the injuries present. “No one has to get any more hurt.”
“You witches can burn for all we care,” the hunter in ice spat—literally, on the grass near Bailey’s feet.
She checked the flare of anger that stirred in her chest. “You all have no idea what’s happening in the world. We have a job to do; if we have to worry about you, and we fail—you and everyone else will suffer for it. I can’t afford to worry that you’re out here. So, again—we offer a truce. Please. Take it.”
The three hunters looked at one another, and then at Bailey. All three of them told her what they thought of making truces with witches, and none of it was polite.
Bailey considered the future. They needed to construct or collect the Throne itself, and then work the magic to re-create it. That would take time. She didn’t know how much they had before the next Faerie incursion, or until the Caves just failed. This was one more problem she didn’t need.
“What do we do with them?” She asked, and looked at Aiden, and at Gideon, and Chloe—who seemed more preoccupied with Gideon than with the hunters by now—and at Frances, and Avery and Piper. She wanted someone to tell her, but no one did right away.
“We can turn them in,” Aiden said.
“On what grounds?” Bailey asked. “We’ll be putting Seamus away to. He couldn’t help what happened to him.”
Aiden rubbed the back of his neck.
The truth was, Bailey knew what needed to be done. She just wanted to know that she wasn’t making a decision out of anger. She didn’t think she was. It was pragmatic, at this point. There was too much on the line.
“Very well,” she said, when no one seemed to have an answer. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”
“Bailey,” Aiden said.
But Bailey didn’t have to touch the hunters to do what needed doing. And Aiden wasn’t faster than her thoughts, or her magic. She also didn’t have time to be delicate. She opened her mind, found those of the hunters, and spoke with words heavy with magic. “Forget that you encountered us. Leave this place, and never come back. Never step foot in Oregon again. Go as far from here as you can. Run.”
Each of the hunters swayed, and when Bailey waved a hand to release them from their bindings, they did as she said. They ran.
All eyes remaining watched Bailey warily, and she hated it. But she was tired. And there was still so, so much work to do. “It’s done,” she said. “Let’s go home. I need to see my father while I still have a chance.”
“DO YOU WANT ME TO COME with you?” Aiden asked.
“No,” Bailey said. She saw the hurt in his eyes right away, and touched his arm. “I just need to see him alone. For just a moment. That’s all. Why don’t you come up in a little bit? Just wait for me?”
He softened, and nodded. “If you want me to.”
She leaned toward him, and kissed him. “I do.”
“Then,” he said, “I’ll wait.”
She smiled, as much as she could at the moment, which wasn’t much. Before she left him, though, she bit her lip. “Are you... do you think I did the right thing?”
“If you’re asking me,” he said softly, “then I’m not worried.”
“I’m still me,” she said.
Aiden sighed, and brushed his lips against her forehead. “I see you, Bailey. I know it’s you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed him again before she walked through the doors and took the elevator up.
Aria was there when she arrived. She’d gotten the call from Piper, so she wasn’t as surprised as Frances had been. Her eyes did widen, though, and then sank to Ryan on the hospital bed before she stood. She came to Bailey, and gave her a brief but compassionate hug. “I’m so sorry, Bailey. I did everything I could.”
“Is he...?” As if in answer, the heart monitor beeped once.
“Not long,” Aria said. Her eyes grew wet, and she touched Bailey’s cheek. “We’ll be here for you.”
She let Aria leave before she sat down in the chair beside Ryan’s bed and took his hand in hers. He was sleeping, and didn’t seem to notice that she’d come in.
“I should be able to fix you,” she said after a while. She knew the power was there, waiting for her to tap into it. But she’d blustered her way through the fight with the hunters and Seamus’ exorcism with brute force. Healing was different magic, and she didn’t know enough about it to be sure she wouldn’t do more harm. If Aria hadn’t been able to help in the week that she’d been here, Bailey wasn’t sure that having new magic would make a difference even if she did understand how to heal something as fundamental as old age.
Since she couldn’t do that, though, instead she talked to him. “It was a long trip. Really long. I met my ancestor. Two of them, actually. Oh, and I died.” She chuckled, and it almost became a sob. “It’s okay, though. I... got over it. But I... I did something, Daddy. Something that I’m worried was the wrong thing to do. I’m afraid that I crossed a line and that I might cross it again. I need you here. I need you to tell me what’s right.” Her eyes stung, and she swallowed the lump that started to form in her throat.
“Please stay,” she whispered, and kissed his hand. “I can’t... how am I supposed to know that I’m myself without you? I just need you to stay with me for a little longer, Daddy. So that I can do this. Can you please just... wake up?”
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