“I…” Romeo startled and couldn’t come up with the witty response he wanted. “Okay, that’s a good point. Hey, did you know all this when we were kids?”
“Of course.”
“So you watched all those movies with me and didn’t even think to tell me that parts of them were real?”
She snorted. “My mom told me not to.”
“What? You and Greta conspired to keep me in the dark about all the magical things you already knew.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “Now I know that half my childhood was a lie.” He turned to raise his eyebrows at her and tried to look completely shocked.
“That’s not tr—Romeo!” Lily pointed out the windshield, and with a hiss of surprise, He jerked the Winnie’s steering wheel in time to avoid hitting the half-dozen magicals who’d materialized in thin air directly in front of them. The tires squealed across the highway, and he corrected the swerve, his hands moving deftly over each other as he attempted to regain control of the wheel.
One of the magicals lunged toward them anyway, thumped against the hood, and rolled up onto the windshield with a flash of green light before tumbling back onto the highway. “What the hell?” He glanced in the side mirror.
“Was he trying to get hit?” Lily shouted. “Do you see—”
They lurched forward when a quick succession of magical blasts struck the rear of the RV and bright-red streaks of energy crackled along the vehicle’s exterior. Lily jerked away from the passenger-side window when they streaked across the glass. “Ow!” He lifted both hands from the steering wheel when the red sparks sent an electric jolt through his fingers. “I am really tired of being attacked in this thing.” His hands clamped on the steering wheel one more and he accelerated in an effort to gain distance between themselves and the ambushers.
“I can’t believe I forgot.” She clutched the silver-framed mirror charm clasped around her neck—her mom’s first clue and the one thing they knew would turn the Black Heron’s tracker on her off after she’d used the coin. They’d already tested it once. Unravel the most powerful setback. She closed her eyes and focused on the mirror’s single purpose. It gave off a little hum beneath her fingers, and she shook her head. “That should’ve made us dark again.”
“Yeah, but these guys already know they found us. We’re heading for the city, Lil.”
“Don’t go there. Take this exit instead.” She pointed at the next sign a little ahead.
“Good call.” Romeo glanced at the on-ramp on their right, where three beat-up sedans raced way faster than normal people trying to get onto any highway. “What are these lunatics doing?” He pressed on the gas pedal before he recalled that his boot was already holding it against the floor. “Woah. Woah.”
The cars rocketed onto the highway in front of them and turned. Tires squealed over the asphalt and they drifted ahead of the Winnie. When they stopped, two balls of green fire hurtled through one of the open windows toward the young couple.
With a roar of frustration, he jerked on the wheel and swung them into the other lane of traffic, which was mostly clear except for a large van barreling toward them out of the city. The van’s driver didn’t so much as blare on the horn or even apply the brakes.
“Watch out—watch out!” Lily braced herself on the armrests and couldn’t help but push both feet down against the floor in front of her.
“I’m trying.” The Winnie rocked on its left side when Romeo jerked the wheel even harder to the left again to avoid the van. The right tires bounced back onto the highway with a jolt and a short squeal, and in the next moment, they hurtled in the opposite direction.
“The van is right behind us.” She stared at the side mirror. “It’s coming up fast.”
“Yeah, and there’s a group of crazy idiots standing in the middle of the highway up here.” He jerked a hand toward the windshield. “The other guys came in cars. So Sirte’s full of Black Heron members, or what?”
“Hey, focus on getting us out of this first, okay? We can speculate later.”
“I can make it past ʼem.” Romeo nodded and hoped the Winnie could at least get up past eighty before he tried to bulldoze through the line of magicals on the road.
“Not through that, you can’t.” She stared with wide eyes at the warded wall being cast across the highway.
Five of the society members had joined their magic together to erect it. A sludgy black film rose from their outstretched hands and glistened like wet tar as it rose higher and higher in front of them. The sixth member in the line flung a salvo of silver streaking lights toward them that pelted the hood and the bottom of the windshield. One of the projectiles stuck in the glass and Lily stared at the dangerously sharp tip of what looked like a tiny dagger poking through the spiderwebbed crack. A thin, purple line of smoke trailed from the tip.
“What’s that?” Romeo shouted.
She clenched her fist and flicked a hand at the tiny magical dagger. A burst of compulsion energy flung it out of the windshield and left a fist-sized hole in the glass. “It’s gone.” She coughed when the stench of steamed broccoli left out for a week stung her nose. “Man, that’s nasty.”
“Lily, I can’t keep making hairpin turns on the highway.”
“So let’s do some off-roading.” She jabbed her thumb toward her window where the blazing yellow beam attached to her streamed across the brown, open land.
“Yep.” He swung the wheel to the right and the Winnie bumped off the shoulder and into the fine sand and dirt. Something else pelted the back of the RV behind them, but there weren’t any more sparks.
Lily clenched her teeth once again so she wouldn’t bite her tongue off as they trundled over the open ground and kicked up a spray of dust and pebbles behind them. Romeo’s growl shook in his throat over the uneven terrain and his hold tightened on the steering wheel. “They’re seriously desperate.” She leaned forward to get a better view in the side mirror. “The cars and the van are following us. I have no idea about the other guys.”
“Do you think they have less gas in their tanks than we do?”
She looked at him and caught his worried frown. “Probably not.”
“Great.”
Her hand thumped the automatic window button and she rolled her window all the way down. “Keep driving as straight as you can and try not to go over any really large rocks. Or bushes.” She unbuckled her seatbelt.
“What are you doing?”
“Fighting back. Just keep going as long as you can.”
He growled again and shook his head but didn’t say anything else.
Twenty-Seven
Lily shoved her feet between the side of the Winnie and the passenger seat and hooked them in the tightest position she could find. She sat on the window frame, steadied herself, and leaned back a little through the window.
A blaze of purple light erupted toward her from the open passenger-side window of the van that raced across the sands in pursuit. She ducked and had enough time to throw up a warded shield that deflected the second attack. The van swerved out to the right, presumably so the driver and the passenger could both acquire a better target on the witch who leaned halfway out of the RV. She tried to focus on her black cloud spell, but the society members threw one attack after the other. Instead, she raised another warded shield and fired two columns of blue flames at the van’s passenger. One of them caught on the man’s sleeve and immediately erupted on his shirt. His screams echoed over the crunch of tires on gravel and the roar of the Winnebago’s rumbling engine. The van’s driver paid his cohort no attention but increased speed to try to flank the RV.
Lily slid off the window frame and crawled into the passenger seat, her feet under her as she sat on her heels and prepared herself to try again. “I can’t get enough of a window. They won’t—”
Green light blazed beside them before a massive ball of energy, air, and wind pounded into the left side of the Winnie. Romeo shouted and wr
enched the steering wheel. The RV rocked on its wheels again, and she was amazed by how slowly she seemed to fly through the open window. She put both her hands out —not to catch herself but to cast the same physical compulsion spell she’d tried the first time Watcher had launched them from the sea and up onto the cliffs. The force of that spell blasting from both her palms slowed her descent enough that she no longer hurtled forward but floated rather gently. Her feet touched the dry earth, and her shoes skidded a little before she really found her footing and righted herself.
At that moment, the instinct she didn’t know she had took over.
The van raced toward her across the desert, and she pelted its front left tire with a massive stream of her crackling red sparks from both hands. Metal screeched, and she caught a glimpse of the van’s passenger still batting at the blue flames that consumed his shirt before the van lifted onto its back wheels, rolled away from her, and rolled end over end in almost slow motion.
The car that had come alongside the RV on the left clipped the front of the Winnebago as its driver tried to drive in front of Romeo and turn to reach her. The Winnie rocked toward her, and she cast another compulsion spell along its entire length to right it again. The vehicle lurched to a stop with a spray of pebbles, and she turned to face the other two cars who’d come to their own scrambled stop in the sand beside Romeo. Two of them were between her and the RV, and the one that had clipped the Winnebago could be seen peering out from behind her front bumper.
Shards of something that whistled alarmingly in flight burst from the passenger window of the closest car, and she deflected it quickly with another warded shield. Doors opened, magicals exited, and Lily Antony clapped sharply.
It took her no time at all to bring up the roiling mass of her black cloud spell between her palms. She pulled her arms apart, farther and farther, and the closest magical—a witch with wildly spikey, green-dyed hair and a thick tan vest—raised both hands and snarled. Purple, snaking vines launched from his palms and whipped and writhed through the air toward her.
A tendril of her own black cloud darted out from the source between her hands and severed the lashing vines in one snap. The witch who’d cast them screamed and clutched his bleeding hand to his chest. Lily pulled her arms farther apart and allowed the black cloud to build. Lights flashed at her from the other side as the Black Heron members pelted her with one attack after the other. She couldn’t see what her own spell did to theirs anymore, but she could feel it.
A snarl rose from the Winnie, and a massive form of shaggy black fur darted through the open window. Romeo launched himself at the closest society member—a warlock, she thought vaguely—before the air in front of her erupted with snarls and screams of agony and shouts of rage.
When her arms reached their full extension, the black cloud loomed like a dark curtain in front of her. Her chest felt like it was about to explode until she simply let it all go and another shadow-bird hurtled from her chest with a resounding boom, whipped up the dust and dirt around her, and took the roiling, flashing mass of her spell with it.
The huge raven totem she’d released spanned as wide as the RV was long. Its wings of smoke and ash and Optatus power cut a path toward the magicals who had divided their attention between Romeo and Lily. It plowed through all five of them and cut them down where they stood without a sound rising from any of their throats. Finally, the huge black raven screeched and rocketed skyward at tremendous speed.
Romeo crouched on all fours and snarled at the bodies scattered over the desert. None of them moved.
“Woah.” Lily gasped for breath, her head pounding again with another rush of dizziness. “I think…is that it?”
He licked what looked like blood off his muzzle and fixed her with his silver eyes. A low whine escaped him. When she staggered in the dirt, he trotted toward her but cast a few glances back toward the society members she’d annihilated with a single spell.
“That was a lot.” She put a hand to her throbbing forehead and blinked. “Are you okay?”
The werewolf approached her again and she held out her hand, anticipating the feel of his thick, shaggy black fur beneath her fingertips. Seconds before he reached her, a shimmering wall of electric blue flared up between them. The tip of his black nose struck the wall and the barrier snapped with angry energy. He leapt back and snarled again.
“What a show!” The witch behind them clapped her red-gloved hands and laughed. Lily whirled and scowled at the six society members who’d teleported in front of them on the highway. The woman with the gloves smoothed a hand over her blonde hair, which was already tied back into a severely neat bun with not a single strand out of place. Her sunglasses flashed in the light as she stepped toward them.
The Optatus witch summoned a handful of red sparks and held them out beside her, ready to attack when needed. “So which kind are you, then, huh?”
Romeo prowled along the shimmering blue wall between them, testing its limits and getting shocked again every few feet.
The woman turned slowly to eye the other magicals who walked up behind her. The huge, hulking man on the far left glowed with intermittent flashes of green and purple, and he limped from throwing himself at the RV and being tossed onto the road again. “That’s a very strange question to ask.” The woman stopped, tilted her head, and smiled. “Were you hoping for someone else?”
“I have no idea who you are.” Lily raised her other hand, where more sparks flared to life, and the magicals behind the woman with red gloves all readied some form of their own spells in raised hands. “But I can’t tell if you’re one of the idiots who want me for experiments or if you’re gonna take me exactly where I want to be.”
“Aw.” The woman pursed her lips in mock dejection and shrugged. “We’re a mixed bag.” She moved slowly and almost insolently to remove her sunglasses and reveal two glowing eyes—one the bright, flashing silver of a werewolf before a shift, the other the deep, crimson-red of a warlock who’d given up a part of herself to work exclusively with blood magic. “I will say, though, that I’m very interested in what you just did.” The woman nodded toward the bodies sprawled behind Romeo, whose hackles stood stiffly as he bared his fangs and paced on the other side of the blue wall.
“You won’t get anything from me,” Lily said. The red sparks on her fingertips grew larger and hissed and crackled in both hands.
The hybrid Black Heron member laughed, and a few chuckles rose from those who followed her. The woman standing to the leader’s right tossed her hair out of her face, and what looked like an actual third eye stared from the middle of her forehead. “I don’t have to take anything from you now, little witch.” The woman with the red gloves grinned and spread her arms. “I only have to take you with me.”
“That is not gonna happen.” Lily tossed her red sparks at the woman, but a second wall of shimmering blue magic flared to life a few feet in front of her. Her attack spell snapped against the ward or shield or whatever it was and spilled red streaks to either side before they fizzled out completely. The young witch scowled and stared at the laughing society members. “Let me out and fight me.”
“Not yet.” The woman snapped her fingers, and the blue walls both in front of and behind Lily flashed.
She frowned darkly when she realized she was enclosed in an actual box of warded magic, all the sides of which now closed in around her. “A box.” Lily looked at the witch-werewolf-warlock’s mismatched eyes and wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
The woman merely shrugged. “It seems to be working so far.” She snapped her gloved fingers, and the magicals behind her spread out around the enclosure. The beefy guy with a limp leaned toward the shrinking blue box and leered at her. Romeo launched himself at the green-and-purple-flashing magical and flung him to the ground. The man howled and released a spray of blue sparks as he tried to fight the werewolf off.
“And get that thing under control, huh?” The leader nodded at the woman with the third eye, who chuckled a
nd pushed her sleeves up her arms.
Lily clapped briskly and summoned her Optatus spell again. She rushed it a little because the third eye on the witch who stepped toward Romeo now pulsed with a sickly yellow-green glow.
“You can’t do anything from in there,” the hybrid taunted. “I’ve seen many people try.”
The young witch’s arms shook as she pulled them apart, which became increasingly more difficult as the sides of the magical blue box closed in even more. Her elbow bumped against one wall and a jolt of electricity seared through her arm, but she kept her focus on the spell and the feeling of sending her raven totem out. She glared at the hybrid leader. “But you didn’t get all of me.”
A momentary flicker of fear and realization creased the woman’s brow. A screech sounded from directly above them, and she looked up.
Lily’s raven totem swooped down from the sky, its wingtips streaming black smoke behind it as the rest of her Optatus magic grew within its churning, flashing black body. The massive bird dove and impacted with the society members to scatter them in all directions. A blaze of fierce, heightened energy coursed through her. She threw her hands out to her sides and screamed at the endless jolts of pain that streaked up her arms and into her chest when her hands broke through the warded blue box. The spells folded in on themselves, the box dissipated to nothing, and everything around her became a vortex of howling black smoke and screaming society members and the telltale snarl of Romeo leaping from one of them to the next.
The power of it tossed Lily’s hair around her face and whipped up funnels of dirt and a few dried plants from the ground. A red glove stretched toward her through the blackness, but the black cloud yanked the hand away before it could release the flames that flickered at the hybrid’s fingertips.
In only a few seconds, everything fell still. The black cloud slowly faded to a few stray wisps of smoke that curled lazily upward. She stood in silence and stared at the bodies strewn across the baked earth. The young witch swayed a little and the corners of her vision darkened. Warm hands caught her shoulders from behind, and she leaned back against Romeo’s bare skin.
Return Of The Witch (The Witch Next Door Book 6) Page 17
