by Anna Abner
He was tempted to say, I will. But he refrained because it would only set her off.
Besides, she was right. If the entire coven imploded, he’d be at a terrible disadvantage and the dark cabal would be flush with confidence.
“Derek, they’re going to die!”
“Okay,” he snapped. He was not in the habit of saving people. And it felt sort of itchy. “I have to get Jessa up.”
Jolie was there one moment, then gone, then there again. “Leave her.”
“She can’t be out of my sight until the spell is complete,” he explained.
“Until you break the spell,” Jolie corrected testily.
“Either way,” he said, gathering Jessa’s scattered clothing, “she’s coming with us.” He knelt upon the bed and swept her silken blonde hair from her cheek. “Jessa,” he whispered, tucking a strand behind her ear. “Wake up. We have to go be heroes.”
She opened her eyes. “Really?”
Derek sent Jolie one last searching look. “Yes. Get up, and get dressed.”
“I don’t feel good.” She pulled on a pair of jeans and dragged herself into the bathroom, but she didn’t shut the door, and he was rewarded with the sight of her brushing her long, blonde hair in front of the mirror. “I feel like I’m getting the flu.” She shook out white pills from a bottle in the medicine cabinet and downed them with sink water.
“It’s the spell,” he said, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. “It’s almost finished.”
She turned to him with a tiny smile that threatened to break his heart. “Ready to be a hero.”
Chapter Eleven
As Derek followed Jolie’s directions, when she would actually make an appearance in the car, he became increasingly convinced the Raleigh coven was walking into a very big, very deadly trap.
“What’s going on?” Jessa asked. They’d dressed in such a hurry she was hunched over still tying her shoelaces.
Derek steered the BMW onto Richlands Highway and activated the wipers, slinging raindrops to the left and right. “The Raleigh coven. They’re outnumbered.”
He sensed Jessa’s stare, but didn’t turn from the road. Finally, she asked, “Can you help?”
“I’m good at shields,” he told her. “I’ll cast a shield spell, and everyone will run away.”
“You and my sister will make magic together?”
“I’ll channel her spirit power.” He gave Jessa an amused smirk. “There will be no ‘making magic’ between her and I. Trust me.”
Jolie blinked in and out, traveling from the cabal’s location and back again with frantic updates. She soon forgot to give directions at all as she shouted things like, “They have hostages. Human hostages!” and, “Holden’s going to show up first.”
It was fine. Derek knew where they were going. The dark cabal, his old pals, had taken over his house.
“Holden’s all alone!” Jolie shouted.
Jessa recognized his property too. “Unbelievable.”
As he turned onto the long dirt road leading to his former home, another spirit appeared beside his vehicle.
“Help him! He’s dying!” It was Holden’s little ghost girl. And then she was gone.
“There! There.” Jolie pointed.
As if Derek could miss where to park. The entire clearing around his home was a battlefield.
“Stay right beside me.” He gripped Jessa’s hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Derek had a very specific, very simple plan. Get to an existing spell circle, cast his favorite shield spell, and then get the hell out of there before he, or more importantly, Jessa got hurt.
Voices faded, and it got quiet. As if they’d been waiting for him.
Bad, bad sign.
He led Jessa across the yard, searching for glyphs. He spotted Daniela kneeling beside her boyfriend. David lay senseless. Derek instinctively tightened his hold on Jessa’s hand.
“Derek,” Daniela screamed as she caught sight of him. “He’s dying! Please, help us get out of here.”
Derek ran past her, ignoring her ever more frantic cries for assistance.
Willow and her witches were nearer the house, standing like stone statues. Frozen in place.
Derek ran past them, hardly sparing a glance at their frost-covered clothes.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Jessa asked.
“Not yet.”
The furthest caster was Holden, and he didn’t look so good. He was on his hands and knees vomiting blood. A lot of blood.
But he was not currently using a spell circle drawn in the grass, and Derek dragged Jessa to the spot. Sensing Jolie in his periphery, he cast.
“Tego,” he said with authority. He felt Jolie’s power, wild and uncontrolled, pass through him.
And then disappear like smoke in the wind.
“Tego,” he said again.
A translucent wall appeared between him and the cabal, but it lasted no more than a couple seconds before it dissolved.
“They’re stealing my magic,” Jolie cried. Her image faded until she was barely visible. “Derek, get out. They’re going to kill you all!” She vanished.
Derek pulled Jessa behind him, scanning for anyone who could still cast.
“I’m so glad you brought her with you,” came a voice from across the yard.
“If you hadn’t brought her,” Beatrice said with a cruel smile, “I couldn’t do this. Devoco.”
Time slowed to a crawl, and Derek observed every moment as it stretched and pulled, seeming to last forever. And yet, he still couldn’t stop any of it from happening.
Beatrice’s magic, the final puzzle piece to the summoning spell, struck Jessa like a punch. Her head snapped back, and she crumpled.
Derek caught her before she hit the ground, but she was limp and lifeless in his arms. Worse, the shadowy demon that had clung to her for so long was gone. So were the summoning glyphs around her head.
“No,” he shouted helplessly at no one and at everyone.
He’d brought her here. He’d let them finish their evil spell. He’d failed.
He’d flown all the way from Alaska to save her. And he’d failed.
“No,” he said again, softer this time.
The symptoms of the spell seeped under his skin, making him slightly dizzy.
“Oh, God,” someone behind him groaned. “Do you feel that? It’s over, isn’t it? Oh, no.”
But with the completion of their spell, the dark cabal must have been distracted with success.
Jolie reappeared. “Derek—now,” she shouted. Spirit power swamped him.
“Tego,” he said.
A giant, impenetrable wall appeared made of smoke and spirit power, but strong enough—temporarily—to keep the cabal’s spells from breaching it.
“Run,” Daniela screamed. “Just go!” Snow flurries flew through the air, hitting Willow and her friend. They came back to themselves.
“Why, Beatrice?” Willow screamed. “This isn’t you!” But her friend Sasha grabbed her hand and forced her away from the house.
Derek wasn’t worried about anyone else. The Raleigh witches were escaping. Daniela had David on his feet and moving. He only cared about Jessa.
But as he turned, he caught sight of Holden curled in the blood-soaked grass. He’d stopped spewing plasma, but it continued bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
Derek ran past him, and then halted. The witches had forgotten him. Coven members slammed closed car doors and peeled away.
Derek shifted Jessa’s weight and glanced overhead at his hazy shield. The cabal was focusing their magic upon it. It wouldn’t hold for much longer. And he knew from working with the cabal how much they valued hostages like Holden.
“Son of a bitch,” Derek cursed loudly.
He swung Jessa over his shoulder and grabbed Holden by the scruff of the neck. “Get up,” he snapped. “On your feet or I’m leaving you behind.”
Holden stumbled clumsily through mud and slick gr
ass, and they ran, Holden falling every other step. At their backs, chanting grew louder until it sounded as if the cabal were on top of them. Derek didn’t waste any time at the car. He opened the back door and tossed Holden in before settling Jessa carefully in the passenger seat.
The shield crumbled, but he didn’t wait around to see what curses poured through it. He gassed the car and raced away.
* * *
Jolie stared at her sister’s face, twenty years of memories washing over her in a rush. Birthdays. Holding hands on the way to school. Pretending their bunk bed was a fort. She savored each one because this new memory of a lifeless and possessed Jessa was too painful to accept.
It was almost as awful as the memory of Jessa’s reaction to Jolie confessing she was a witch. For her entire life, her big sister had been her cheerleader in everything. So, when Jolie discovered she could control magic she’d gone to Jessa never doubting her sister would embrace her new gifts.
But Jessa had shut her down, hard and fast. Absurd was one of the adjectives she’d used. Insane was another.
They hadn’t been given enough time to reconcile after their big blowout before Jolie was dead.
And now they’d run out of time again.
Derek hadn’t prevented the possession.
Holden hadn’t found the caster responsible.
Jolie hadn’t fueled a spell to stop the cabal.
And Jessa had paid for their lack of haste.
Jolie knew she should be fired up, frantic to find a cure or a counter spell or something to fix this catastrophe. But all she could manage was to cling to the vehicle racing across Auburn and stare silently at her sister’s face.
This must be the end. Soon, Jessa would die, and they would be sisters again in the afterlife.
Because, the truth was, Jolie was tired. Tired of giving all her power to Derek and arrogant necromancers like him. Tired of watching other people’s lives unfold. Tired of being alone, unheard, and unseen.
* * *
Derek’s cellphone blew up with texts. The bells chimed over and over and over as if they’d never stop.
But he ignored it. All his mind could conjure was the admonition: You screwed up. You ruined Jessa. You ruin everything.
Jessa was possessed by a demon. The Chaos Gate was one pillar away from opening.
He abandoned his buzzing cell phone, unanswered, in his pocket, and turned onto Jessa’s street. A cat darted across his path, but he didn’t slow down. It wouldn’t be long until the demon inside Jessa woke up.
He threw the car into park and got out, seeing the unapologetic feline scurry up a tree, and then reached into the backseat where Holden slumped against the door. Derek smacked him on the side of the head.
“I can’t carry you both,” he said harshly, hoping to scare him into full consciousness. “Get inside. You hear me?” Derek hit him again.
Holden groaned, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. “Stop hitting me,” he slurred.
“Then get moving. Her apartment’s on the second floor.”
Jessa’s arm spasmed, and her head rolled. There wasn’t time to mess around.
Derek circled to the passenger side and opened the door. Jessa made an unintelligible noise as he lifted her into his arms. Holden, smeared from head to toe in sticky blood, stood up from the car with the help of the doorframe. He looked two seconds from keeling over.
“Get up the stairs,” he told Holden, “and you’ll be inside my protection spells.” He jostled Jessa against his chest, her dead weight difficult to balance, but tried to shield her face from the rain. “I’ll come back for you.”
He hustled Jessa into the stairwell, her long blonde hair swinging loosely over his arm.
“You’re going to be fine,” he assured. Behind him the heavy exit door slammed closed. Holden had made it inside the building, at the very least.
Jessa lifted her head and made a mewling noise.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, imagining it’s what she would have said to him. The idea of her conscious and as optimistic as ever choked him up.
He unlocked her apartment door and the movement caused Jessa’s head to thump against his shoulder. With an oof, she woke up.
“Finally,” she cheered, struggling out of his arms.
“Hang on.” He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t trust her.
Because she wasn’t Jessa anymore.
She whirled and bit his throat as if she were a vampire—or a rabid dog—teeth pinching and grinding against the tender skin.
“Jessa,” he snarled. He shifted so she fell out of reach of his carotid.
“No Jessa here.” She raked her sharp little nails down the side of his throat. His flesh burned as warm fluid tickled near his collar.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, blinking away tears that had nothing to do with the pain she was inflicting. “Jessa, I’m so sorry.” He entered the spell circle he’d created and said, “Sleep.” She wilted as if too exhausted to keep her eyes open.
He laid her upon her bed and sniffed hard as he removed her shoes and tucked her under the comforter.
But the demon fought his sleep spell. She stirred, her eyelids fluttering, her limbs jerking.
With no other option, he found pantyhose dangling out of a jewelry box and tied her, hand and foot, to her bed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again, dropping a kiss upon her overheated forehead. “I’m going to fix this. I swear to you. I’ll fix it.”
Though her eyes remained closed, she writhed on the bed. He sat beside her and brushed the hair from her face. He didn’t know what to do. Despite all his big talk, he still didn’t know how to break a demon possession. The only person he knew who’d ever pulled it off was currently choking on his own blood somewhere on the stairwell.
If Holden couldn’t break a full-blown possession, maybe Daniela could. Or Willow. Or with a little help, Derek could do it.
With a last look, he left Jessa to check on Holden. Derek found him slumped at the top of the stairs.
“Let’s go,” he snapped, yanking Holden to his feet. He was bigger than Derek, though. There was no way he could carry him, let alone support the majority of his weight. “Get in there, big boy.” Pushing and pulling, Derek got him inside the living room where Holden promptly sank to his knees and spit more blood.
“What spell did they cast on you?” Derek asked, but Holden was incapable of answering.
His phone buzzed, and he scrolled through dozens of new messages from Rebecca, Talia, and Willow. He scanned a lot of capital letters and exclamation points. The screen flashed with another text.
Where is Holden???
Rebecca was losing it a little bit.
Derek texted back, With me.
The moment he hit send, Holden’s problems flitted right out his mind. He had much more serious issues.
“Jolie?” he called. “Are they coming after us?”
Twenty seconds passed before Jolie’s anxious face appeared in the window. “No.” Her image flickered. “Is she going to die?”
“No,” he swore. “I won’t let her.”
Because Jessa had become insanely important to him. She’d become his whole world, and he would not watch her suffer. He would break the summoning spell. He would save her.
“It may seem illogical,” he explained, “but it will be easier to pull the demon out of her than it was tracking down the caster responsible.”
Jolie didn’t reply, and Derek would have said she was in shock if she weren’t already dead.
Someone pounded on the outer door. He went to peer through the peephole, but the pounding grew louder and harsher until it burst open and Rebecca flung herself into the room.
Derek stood back, surprised the willowy woman had the strength to break down a door.
She veered around Derek and grabbed Holden into a fierce hug. “What happened?” she demanded.
“They walked into a trap,” Derek tried to explain.
“I got there late,” Derek added. “This is how I found him.”
She looked up and caught his expression. “Good God, what happened to you?”
He started to say, Jessa is possessed, but the words lodged in his throat.
“Well, what can we do to fix him?” she asked.
Derek surveyed Holden’s condition, not overly worried about the bastard who’d kept Derek’s memories locked up and hidden away like stolen DVD players.
“He needs a doctor or a witch,” Derek said.
“Could he die from this?” she asked, horrified.
“Yes.” The cabal didn’t play nice.
She pulled her phone and, hyperventilating softly, dialed a number.
“Dani,” she exclaimed. “Holden’s under some kind of blood spell. Can you get over here right now? It’s bad.” A pause. “Okay. We’re at Jessa’s apartment.” She gave her the address and hung up. Then she pulled Holden’s head onto her lap, ruining her tailored slacks, to gently stroke his dark hair.
She adored him, it was obvious.
Derek felt exactly the same way about Jessa.
The rage and helplessness brewing within Derek must be what Holden had felt seeing Rebecca attacked. He didn’t want to have sympathy for Holden, but if Derek were facing the caster who’d hurt Jessa, he may not stop at a memory spell.
“Derek!” It was Jessa, but it wasn’t. This voice was cruel and sarcastic. “Oh, lover boy? Come service me.”
Squeezing his eyes closed momentarily, he nonetheless strode into the bedroom, but only after he’d wet two washcloths. One for himself and one for Rebecca.
He paused in the doorway, taking it all in.
Jessa struggled hard enough to draw blood on both wrists. Her clothes were askew, revealing more bare skin than she would have liked if she’d been in her right mind. But worst of all her eyes were completely crazed. Lunatic, locked-in-an-asylum-for-a-lifetime crazy.
“I want you inside me.” She eyed him up and down in a way that made him self-conscious in his slacks and white button-down as if she saw him for the fraud he was.
Before he could think how to respond, she cackled a maniacal laugh, and then vomited all over herself.
