No one spoke.
Kaden looked eagerly between the three Tomlins brothers. “You know what this means, right?”
Joel opened his mouth to say something, but at that very moment, Kaden raised the dagger once again. In a split second, he had struck.
Only this time, it was Isla who met the knife’s deadly blade.
MAGGIE RACED FORWARD and threw her arms around Isla as Isla collapsed into Kaden. Vaguely, Maggie was aware of Joel pulling her back. She screamed as her grip slipped from Isla’s lifeless arm.
“He killed her!” Maggie sobbed. Her own voice sounded foreign in her ears, choked with anger and confusion.
It’s not real, she thought, tears stinging her eyes. None of this is real.
How could it be? Kaden had killed Isla, right there in front of them. And there’d been nothing any of them could have done to stop him.
Evan and Joel moved towards Kaden, but he simply raised his left hand to counter their advance. “Back,” he commanded.
Immediately, Joel and Evan stumbled backwards into the staircase.
Kaden gazed down at his hand with interest. “Whoa, man,” he said, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. “Jefferson’s powers . . .” He let out a low whistle.
“You’re sick!” Maggie screamed at him. “You’re a psychopath!”
But Kaden didn’t hear her. He was gazing down at Isla, who lay lifeless in his arms. He began murmuring into her ear, and her black hair began to flutter of its own accord.
Maggie moved towards Kaden once more, but again Joel held her back.
“Get off me!” she yelled, twisting to free herself. “We have to get Isla away from him!”
“Wait.” Joel’s voice was scratchy as he watched the scene play out before them. “He’s bringing her back.”
Maggie inhaled shakily. “What?”
“Resurrection,” she heard Evan murmur.
With that, Isla slid slowly from Kaden’s arms and he lowered her onto the floor in a patch of silver moonlight. Kaden’s chanting grew louder as he rose to his full height, his arms reaching upwards.
Then, silence.
A weighted stillness hung in the air. To Maggie it felt like the world had stopped turning, and then, inexplicably, had reset itself.
Isla’s fingers twitched, and all of a sudden she began coughing and gasping for air.
Joel’s grip on Maggie slackened, but her legs felt too numb to move.
“Isla?” she whispered.
Their eyes met. But Maggie wasn’t looking into the familiar brown eyes of her best friend; rather, she found herself staring at a pair of charcoal eyes that exactly matched Kaden’s.
Maggie shrank back.
Without a word, Isla rose to her feet. Her expression was blank as she stood motionless beside Kaden.
“What have you done?” Evan murmured to Kaden. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“He thinks she’s the one,” Ainsley answered in a thin voice. “He thinks she’s the prophesised hybrid.”
Kaden smiled.
“This is warped,” Joel muttered under his breath. “You’re warped.”
Kaden studied Isla, who was standing like a stone statue at his side. In awe, he stroked her hair. “I had to do it,” he said. “It’s meant to be.”
“It’s not meant to be!” Evan shouted. His hands were trembling now. “You killed her!”
Maggie could only stare dumbfounded at her best friend. What had this beast done to her? Isla’s eyes were empty now, and yet somehow her presence seemed to fill the whole hallway.
“He thinks she’s the one,” Ainsley mumbled again as he backed towards the stairwell.
“She is the one,” Kaden said with passion. “She’ll lead the Fallows coven into a new era. Even Jefferson saw it when we marked her for Erridox. But who needs to wait for Erridox? A hybrid’s still a hybrid, right?” He glanced down at his left hand again, as though he were seeing something that Maggie couldn’t. “I’ve got the gift of resurrection. And with me at her side, we’ll be . . .”—he broke into a euphoric smile—“. . . unbeatable.”
As Maggie and the Tomlinses stared speechlessly at Kaden and Isla, a new voice came from the direction of the staircase.
“Unbeatable,” echoed Pippin, his voice muffled through his thumb.
Maggie noticed Joel flinch at the sight of his youngest brother’s head poking up through the gap in the missing third step.
“Come with me, Joel,” Kaden said, drawing Joel’s attention back. “Think of what we can achieve between the three of us—you, me, and Isla. We can take over the Fallows coven!”
Dumbstruck, Joel shook his head, his complexion drawn.
“Come on, Joel,” Kaden implored, then gestured to Evan with a smirk. “Your brother’s got things all tied up here, don’t you, Chosen One?” He spat out the last words contemptuously and raised a hand in warning. “I’ll give you one chance to make the right decision, Joel, but that’s it.” He grinned. “After all, mother always said there are no do-overs in life.”
Before Joel could even respond, Evan stepped in front of him and raised his hands. A ripple of light emanated from his palms, driving Kaden and Isla backwards, forcing them out into the dark night.
“No!” Maggie cried. She raced forward and grabbed Isla’s arm, but the touch sent a shock over her skin.
Isla raised her left hand; a glow of heat surrounded her fingers.
“He thinks she’s the one,” Ainsley said again.
At the same time, Joel shouted, “Maggie, get back!”
But it was too late. Flames rippled from Isla’s hand, then exploded into the mansion’s hallway with a rupturing blast.
JOEL AWOKE IN a daze, his eyes stinging and his throat searing. He heaved himself upright, covering his mouth with his sleeve as he choked for air. Throughout the hallway, pockets of fire were slowly burning out and the entire corridor was black with smoke. And Kaden and Isla were gone.
Maggie, he thought at once.
He tried to force his body to move, but his limbs ached and his chest stung with every breath.
She’s okay, he told himself. His protection spell would have kept her safe.
On the floor beside Joel, Ainsley was starting to come around, coughing and spluttering.
Joel reached out to him. “Are you okay, Ainsley?” he managed to ask through his sleeve.
Ainsley’s face was dusted with soot and there was an open cut on his cheek. “Pippin,” he mumbled, gesturing toward the staircase.
With a knot of fear, Joel remembered Ruby’s dark words. Two will die tonight.
He winced as he rose to his feet, then stumbled across the hallway and up the stairs towards where Pippin’s head was just visible through the gap of the third stair. The toddler’s lower lip was wobbling.
He’s okay, thought Joel with a wave of relief. He’s alive.
“Evan!” he called, his mind immediately turning to his other brother. He whirled around, but he could barely see anything through the thick black smoke. His heart began to pound wildly. “Evan!”
“Joel . . .” Evan’s voice returned to him. It was weak, but there.
Evan was alive. They all were.
Joel’s ears were ringing and his eyes were streaming from the smoke. He could hear Ainsley calling to him again.
“I’m coming,” Joel managed.
He lifted Pippin into his arms and staggered down the staircase, then back across the hallway over the debris. Through his bleary eyes he could see Evan and Ainsley hovering together in the open doorway.
Air, Joel realised hungrily. I need to get Pippin into the fresh air.
Then Joel noticed something else. Evan and Ainsley weren’t just waiting for him in the doorway. They were standing there looking down at something on the floor. Someone on the floor, actually.
Maggie.
Holding his breath, Joel pushed past his brothers, afraid of what he would see.
There she lay, unmoving on the flo
or. Her face was cut and blackened with soot and ash. She wasn’t breathing.
Joel could no longer feel the pain searing in his throat as he called to her, yelled at her, shouted at her to get up.
But she didn’t move.
In fact, she didn’t wake up at all.
JOEL PRESSED DOWN on Maggie’s chest.
One, two, three, four, five . . .
He counted the reps, then cupped her mouth and blew into it. Nothing.
He began again.
One, two, three, four, five . . .
Evan, Ainsley, and Pippin stood over him, silent in the ashes of what had once been. Evan had called the ambulance, while Ainsley had stood there in the vestibule, immobile, watching hand-in-hand with Pippin as Joel fought to revive Maggie in the cold night.
“I don’t understand,” Joel moaned as he pumped his hands down on Maggie’s chest, willing her heart to beat. “Why didn’t my spell protect her? Why didn’t I protect her?”
He breathed steadily into her mouth.
One, two, three . . .
No one answered.
Joel squinted through the dim light, trying to glimpse the golden glow that usually surrounded Maggie. But he could see nothing.
“Why aren’t I protecting her anymore?”
Still no one responded.
“Why?” Joel shouted.
Evan gently placed his hand on Joel’s shoulder, then knelt beside him on the floor. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Maybe you were focused on Pippin. You can’t protect everyone. No one can. And this was too . . .”
“Big,” Ainsley whispered.
Joel gritted his teeth. “But I wouldn’t just abandon her. Where’s the gold light? Why isn’t it around her anymore?”
Evan’s eyelids lowered. “Because I think she’s gone, Joel.”
Joel glanced fleetingly at the heaps of rubble and ashes in the mansion’s front vestibule and his chest tightened. Why didn’t he stop her from going to Isla? Why couldn’t he revive her?
He swallowed.
“Then we have to bring her back,” he murmured.
“Joel . . .” Evan began.
Joel turned to his brothers. “Someone go get Kaden! He’s the only one who can do it. He’s the only one who can bring her back.”
Evan’s hand tightened on Joel’s shoulder. “The ambulance will be here soon—”
“The ambulance?” Joel almost laughed. “What good are they? She’s already dead.” His words echoed in the still night, bringing a sting to his eyes. “We have to get Kaden,” he rasped.
Evan nudged Joel out of the way and began pressing his own hands down on Maggie’s chest, trying to force a heartbeat.
Joel squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop, Ev.”
Evan kept going, mirroring Joel’s pattern.
One, two, three . . .
“I said stop!” Joel pushed Evan away.
Evan stared helplessly at him.
“She’s dead,” Joel repeated tightly. “You know as well as I do that there’s only one way to bring her back.”
Evan’s lips parted and he began shaking his head.
“Why not?” Joel’s hands balled into fists. “Kaden did it. Kaden brought Isla back. And Jefferson brought Mum back—”
“Jefferson’s insane!” Evan exclaimed. “So’s Kaden! And besides, he’s gone.” He flung his arm towards the desolate night beyond the mansion.
“Then we’ll have to do it ourselves,” Joel floundered. “We’ll use the Resurrection spell and combine our powers. We’ll improvise.”
“Improvise?” Evan echoed, his breath fogging the draught coming in through the open door. “Are you out of your mind?”
“We can do it,” Joel insisted. “Between us . . .”
Evan pressed his hand to his brow. “Even if we knew how, it’s not safe. It’s not fair. You saw what happened to Isla. When she came back, she came back . . . wrong.”
“But at least she’s back,” Joel said, his voice cracking. He pulled Maggie closer to him, breathing in the scent of her hair while she lay limp against his chest. “Please, Evan. You’re the Chosen One. You can do this.”
“I don’t know how . . .”
“Screw that!” Joel shouted at him. “We heard the Resurrection spell, we saw it when we went into Venatus. I’m sure we can remember it.” He began trying to piece together verses of the incantation. “From darkest night I call to thee . . . Summoned by fire, earth, sea, air . . . Return from . . . what?” He let out an angry breath. “Help me!” he begged his brothers.
“Joel,” Evan pleaded, dropping his head into his hands. “It’s not right. You know it’s not. Please don’t ask me to do it.”
Joel looked past Evan now, searching for Ainsley’s eyes in the dim hallway. “Please, Ainsley,” he implored his younger brother.
Ainsley groped for words, but no sound passed his lips.
“Ainsley,” Joel tried again, urgently. “Come on. Please!”
“She’s the one,” Ainsley whispered.
Joel looked at him distractedly. “Huh?”
“She’s the one,” Ainsley repeated.
Now even Evan took notice. “What do you mean, she’s the one?”
“Kaden thought Isla was the prophesised hybrid,” Ainsley explained. “Jefferson thought it was Kaden. But we think”—he looked down to the floor—“we think it’s Maggie.”
Evan staggered to his feet. “Wait, what? We? I’ve never said that.”
“Not you, doofus,” Ainsley said with a sigh. “I mean the aunts and me. We know things. I know things,” he corrected. “And I think the super hybrid could be . . .”
They all looked down at Maggie.
Evan swallowed. “Why? What proof do you have?”
“I hear it,” Ainsley said in a faraway voice. “I hear something, at least. Besides, how else do you think we pulled off that memory spell? Pippin wasn’t saying those words; Maggie was.”
The brothers fell silent, slipping into their own private thoughts—some scared to believe it, some scared not to.
“Please,” Joel’s voice was fragile now, lost.
Evan pressed his knuckles to his mouth. He looked at Joel, then at Ainsley and Pippin, and finally back to Joel. “If we’re going to do this,” he said, exhaling, “then we’re going to need to get it right. No improvising.”
Joel let out a tense breath. “We can get it right,” he said emphatically. “We will. Between us we can remember the spell, and together we can do this. We have to do this.”
Ainsley rubbed his hands together. “Okay. So let’s start remembering.”
“From darkest night I call to thee?” Joel began.
“Something about blood and veins and stuff?” Ainsley offered.
“Yeah,” Joel prompted him. “Go on.”
“Blood and veins and . . . stuff,” Ainsley tried again.
“Well obviously that’s not it,” Evan chided. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Bones and breath, no more death?”
“Yeah, right,” Ainsley scoffed. “Even mine sounded better than that. And you’re supposed to be the Chosen One!”
Evan folded his arms. “Yours didn’t even rhyme.”
“Uh, okay. Whatevs.” Ainsley folded his arms. “Blood and veins go down the drains.”
Joel groaned. “We have to stop making stuff up. We need the real spell.”
Suddenly Pippin let go of Ainsley’s hand and shuffled in between them, plunking himself down cross-legged on the sooty floor. He dropped his thumb from his mouth, and in a clear voice he said,
“From darkest night I call to thee,
Summoned by fire, earth, wind, and sea,
Return the lost from blackest core,
Where bones lie still, and breath no more,
Blood through veins, breath pass thine lips,
And so revive, resurrect the witch.”
The three older Tomlins boys stared at their little brother in disbelief.
Finally, Evan manag
ed to speak. “What . . . ?”
“The . . . ?” Joel seconded.
“Hell?” Ainsley finished.
EVAN CLOSED THE mansion door and placed four lit candles around Maggie, enclosing her in a flaming diamond in the entrance hall. Each of the brothers chose a candle to stand beside, and the tiny amber flames wavered in response to their presence. Then they joined hands, Evan to Pippin to Joel to Ainsley and back to Evan again.
Joel stood opposite Evan. Their eyes met and Evan gave a nod.
Together, all four Tomlins brothers began to chant as one.
“From darkest night I call to thee,
Summoned by fire, earth, wind, and sea,
Return the lost from blackest core,
Where bones lie still, and breath no more,
Blood through veins, breath pass thine lips,
And so revive, resurrect the witch.”
The floorboards beneath their feet began to quake. Joel sucked in his breath as he felt the magic charge through his veins, flowing between himself and his brothers as though they existed as one. He felt the spell tremor in his bones and course through his bloodstream. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, his head spinning.
Suddenly, the mansion door burst open and a squall of wind charged in, extinguishing the candles’ flames in one breath. The connection was instantly broken. Joel’s hands slipped from his brothers’ and he stumbled backwards as the spell left him.
“No,” he choked, staggering to regain his footing.
They hadn’t finished the spell. They hadn’t saved Maggie yet.
“What are you doing?” thundered a familiar baritone. “Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”
All four brothers looked up. There, standing in the open doorway, was a shadowed figure.
“Dad,” Evan breathed.
Maximus stood in the path of moonlight, casting a long shadow over his sons. Behind him stood a second person, small and frail in comparison.
“Mum,” Joel murmured.
Maximus and Evangeline stepped into the ruinous hallway, their expressions grim. After a moment of uncertainty, Evangeline took Pippin up in her arms, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Blackheath Resurrection (The Blackheath Witches Book 2) Page 20
