The Return (Haunted Series Book 21)

by Alexie Aaron

  “No, you can’t have him. He’s mine,” Mia said, taking a battle stance. “I’ll fight you for him.”

  The creature’s glowing eyes twinkled, and the face took on more of a jack-o-lantern look. The grin was hideous.

  Mia knew not to stare too long at the face. The face wasn’t going to grab, crush, and toss her away like a spent ghost. It was the limbs. She withdrew her wings and spun and sliced through a long tendril coming from the ground, twisting again to chop a probing finger of wood before it could connect with her ribs.

  “Ethan, my back!” she shouted.

  The youth got behind her and moved in concert with her as they sliced the advancing thorny arms coming at them from all sides. Ethan noticed something about his blade. Whatever he cut stayed cut, while Mia’s sword only stopped the advance briefly.

  “Mia, my blade is doing some damage.”

  “It clues me in to her origins. She’s a demon, Ethan. Don’t back off. She’s not going to stop because she can see reason. She’s instinctual.”

  “But she saved Rory,” Ethan argued, chopping a root that wrapped around his leg.

  “Only because she thinks somehow Rory’s hers to save. Like this forest. It’s her lair.”

  Mia lunged and parried, fending off the tendrils that had multiplied in seconds. She was barely keeping her own.

  “Yee haw,” Jason said, reappearing carrying a long metal piece. “And Jason Jones enters the ring. He gets tasked with putting together a weapon in seconds,” he announced in third person.

  “Watch out, she can suck the life out of you even with a twig,” Mia cautioned the cocky ghost.

  “Almost there. When I say down, you two hit the dirt, roll out of the kill area, and run south. The farmer is almost through the thicket.”

  There was an audible click before Jason yelled, “Down!”

  Mia and Ethan hit the ground and rolled as Jason slammed the creature with strategic shots. “Run!”

  They did as he ordered. Murphy cut through the final bramble and rushed them along into the tunnel he had cut through the thorny bushes.

  Mia pushed Ethan ahead of her as she felt a vibration beneath her feet and feared the worst. The sound of gunfire stopped. Mia knew Jason’s energy had been taken. Mia had cleared the brambles when a root tripped her. It then wrapped around both her ankles and pulled her back towards the briar tunnel. She twisted and tried to chop at the roots, but the creature anticipated this and kept Mia’s face down as she continued to drag her. Mia lost the sword, and in her confusion, she couldn’t remember how to recall it.

  “Mia!” Ethan said, running after her.

  “Stop him!” she screamed at Murphy.

  He did but not before Ethan put the demon blade in Mia’s outstretched hands. “The heart. Find the heart!” were the last words Mia heard before she reentered the tunnel in the brambles.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The brambles filled in as Mia disappeared.

  Ethan picked up the long sword and started cutting his way through.

  “No. Get to the command center and stay there. Mia can’t fight this demon if she is worried about you. I’ll go and do what I can,” Murphy said and disappeared.

  Ethan swallowed hard. Feeling utterly defeated, he started to walk away. “Come on, Ethan, think. What haven’t we tried?” He looked at the long sword and stuck it in the ground. He knelt and placed a hand on the flat of the blade. “Return this to the owner of this sword. Mia is in terrible trouble. She’s going to die.”

  The sword vibrated and disappeared.

  Mia caught the edge of a large bramble and held on long enough to swipe at the root and cut it. The wood withered, but another root burst from the ground. “How big is this thing?” she asked herself.

  Murphy arrived and swung his axe and severed another approaching root.

  Mia scrambled to her feet. She opened her wings and pulled Murphy quickly inside of her before the creature could get to him to drain his energy. In her cocoon of armored wings, she stared at her friend. “I think this is it, Murph.”

  “You’re not giving up.”

  “No, but I wanted to let you know that you’ve been the most loyal friend I’ve ever had. Had things been different…”

  “But they aren’t. And we are warriors. Let’s prune this beast and find her heart.”

  Mia pushed her wings outward fast enough for the armor to slice the wooden cage the creature tried to contain Mia in. She rose upwards, flew in the face of the beast, and stabbed it in and out of one of the green orbs.

  The monster flailed about, clutching at the injured eye. Mia flew back out of her reach, assessing the situation. The creature removed its hand, and another eye moved into place.

  “That’s not fair!” Mia shouted.

  “Life’s not fair, Mia,” Altair said as he fell through the trees. He brandished his sword and sliced one and then another of the creature’s arms off.

  “The sword only can stave off the creature for a small amount of time. It’s this blade that will hurt her,” Mia said, tossing it to the archangel.

  “Hello, old friend,” Altair said to the dagger.

  Murphy launched himself from the ground and brought his axe down through the middle of the creature, gravity momentarily letting the creature be cleaved in two.

  Inside, on the left side, was a pulsing green blob.

  “That’s her heart,” Mia said as she flew between the two halves, using her outstretched wings to keep the creature from reforming.

  Altair tossed the blade, embedding it in the heart. The heart exploded, sending Mia and Altair spinning backwards into the forest.

  Murphy watched as the two halves fell and the light in the orbs ceased. He walked over and took his axe and chopped through the head to make sure nothing lived inside the pumpkin-like shell. He saw the very forest shudder and many of the oldest trees fall to the ground, having no roots to support them.

  The brambles rotted quickly where they once thrived.

  Ethan pushed his way through the dying bushes.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “The monster is dead,” Murphy said.

  “No Mia?”

  “Somewhere over there.” Murphy pointed, still watching for any sign the creature was still alive.

  Ethan climbed the rocks calling, “Mia! Mia!”

  Altair found her first. She was struggling to move out of a large pond of quicksand.

  He hovered over her, looking her over. “You should have never cut your hair. You look like a wet boy.”

  Mia looked at her friend. “I missed you and your compliments. A little help here?”

  Altair reached down and pulled her up by the wings. “I don’t care what Victor says, these wings are too big.”

  “He meant well,” Mia said. “How’d you know?”

  “That the wings are too big? Look at you. You have to wear boots just to stand.”

  “No, that I was in trouble.”

  Altair set her down and nodded in the direction they were blown away from. Your squire sent the sword back to me with a message.”

  “I don’t have a squire. Oh, Ethan. How’d he know to do that?”

  “I play video games, a lot of them,” Ethan said, scrambling over the decaying foliage. “It’s in one of the games. I can’t remember which. Whoa, what the hell are you?” he asked Altair.

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, so let’s just keep my cameo appearance between us, shall we?”

  “Yeah sure. No one would believe me anyway. No one’s going to believe Mia’s a bird or that there is a ghost with a purple axe making chop salad out of Pumpkin Head. And to top off my fall into madness, my long dead frenemy, Jason, saved my life. What are you, an angel?”

  “He’s an archangel, one of the good ones,” Mia assured Ethan. “It was his sword you sent.”

  “I had my hands on an archangel’s sword?” Ethan asked, amazed.

  “The thing about these swords is that only
the purest of heart can wield it,” Altair lied.

  Mia looked at him and rolled her eyes.

  Ethan didn’t quite buy it. “But…”

  “What he’s trying to tell you is, deep down - I mean deep deep, Mariana-trench deep down - you’re a good guy, Ethan. It’s the way you’re formed. Don’t fight it.”

  Altair lifted an eyebrow at Mia’s lie.

  Ethan bought her lie without question.

  “Excuse me,” Murphy said, floating over, towing Jason Jones and the three French trappers as if they were circus balloons. What do I do with these?”

  “Mia, you hang out with the oddest creatures. I’m going to let you handle this. Mind if I keep this for a while?” Altair asked, raising his sword.

  “I take it you’re a bit bored being benevolent. Go ahead, it never really accepted me as its owner. Will I see you back at the library?”

  “You can count on it. In the meanwhile, I have to see an angel about procuring a better set of wings for you. Oh, when I do, I will deliver the heart feather back to Victor. It’s not that I don’t trust him with you. It’s you with him…”

  “Bastard,” Mia said, shaking off the wet sand and retracting her wings.

  Murphy didn’t hide his smile. “Bad Mia.”

  The three trappers, although depleted, nodded vigorously.

  Mia wrinkled her nose. “Changing the subject, what do I do with you guys?”

  “Jason can come home with me. Keith’s already there.”

  Mia turned her head sharply. “You invited him in?”

  “After I found him cowering in the dumbwaiter of the Summerfield mansion, I did.”

  “Having one ghost attached is difficult enough,” Mia said, not making eye contact with Murphy. “But two?”

  “I’d rather hang here. Maybe Keith wants to join me, now that the creature is gone,” Jason said. “We could play war with those Frenchies.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Look at the place. It’s not good for anything else,” Jason said.

  Ethan looked around. “Mia, he has a point.”

  “No real guns. I want all the armament you have squirrelled away, Jones,” Mia said sternly.

  “They don’t hit ghosts anyway,” Jason assured her. “I would turn everything over to you, or your man here, on the condition you don’t sic a priest on us.”

  “Non prêtre,” the purple Frenchman pleaded.

  “What about the others?” Mia asked as a few spent ghosties blew by in the spectral breeze.

  “I’d say consult them and give them a choice,” Murphy said. “We could give them a little time, and you could return with a PEEPs crew and maybe Father Santos…”

  Mia narrowed her eyes. “I take it you’ll stay at home?”

  “I have my trees to see to,” Murphy said, trying to rub the purple paint off the axe head.

  “Give that here!” Mia said, frustrated. She took the axe and dipped it in the water. All the paint washed away. “The paint comes off in water.” She looked at the purple Frenchman and pointed out, “It couldn’t hurt you to have a bath.”

  “Rub-a-dub-dub, trois hommes dans une baignoire?” he said, motioning his hands to Mia. “Oui?”

  “Non,” Mia said, moving away. “What do you think, Ethan?”

  “I think you should avoid all Frenchmen in bathtubs.”

  “I mean… You know Jason. Will he keep his word?”

  “I think he will. He’s all about the game. Now if some hikers are in these woods, he’ll fire a few paintballs at them, but other than that, he means no harm.”

  “He tried to kill me, Lazar, and Tom.”

  “Did he really?”

  “I thought so… maybe not. He did take out our communication though,” Mia said thoughtfully. “I did think he would have taken a shot if he had it.”

  “Jason, tell her.”

  “Mia, that rifle has the power to push one of those bullets through the wall. If I wanted you guys dead, you’d be dead.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I was fooled by your masquerade until you ran away. You flounce when you run. Ethan doesn’t flounce.”

  “I do not flounce.”

  Murphy coughed and nodded.

  “Damn,” Mia said. “K. Well, we’ll table this for another time. I’m going to take Ethan back to his jeep, and then get back to the command center to break it to Burt that not only don’t we have any film, but there will be no resting of souls today.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Mia stood patiently waiting at the threshold of yet another of Michael’s hidey-holes. She wasn’t sure how this was going to play out. Michael wasn’t pleased about how Altair left, and when he found out Raphael was sniffing around Mia, according to Sariel, he snapped two swords in half. Sariel, who had a soft spot for both his Misfit and Altair, encouraged both of them to come in and talk with his general together.

  Altair, ever the gentleman, went in first.

  Mia paced the floor. She heard a lot of yelling between the archangels. She may have even heard a few angelic curses filter their way through the door. Altair came storming out.

  “What a way of warming up the room, bud,” Mia said before Sariel pushed her in and shut the door.

  Michael had his back to Mia. She bit her lip and waited, even though she wanted badly to say something. The silence was punishing. Michael turned around and glared down at her. Still she didn’t speak. He waved her forward.

  Mia dropped to a knee in reverence before she rose and walked up the steps to stand on the level where Michael held court.

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  Mia kept her eyes cast down.

  He walked over and lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. “You have a minute to plead your case.”

  “I didn’t ask for Raphael’s help. He just knew I needed it. I’m supposedly balanced now. No demon, just some crone genes to bind the whole mess together.”

  “I can see that. Tell my why you risked losing me my healer by squaring off against the Sentinel Woods demon.”

  “I didn’t think I was going to lose. And besides, I couldn’t let her take an innocent.”

  “Ethan Aldridge wasn’t innocent,” Michael pointed out.

  “Not then, but he’s made his restitution. He didn’t need to die.”

  “I agree with you. How did you get Altair to come back?”

  “I didn’t. Ethan called him.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “It’s not. Evidently, it’s a level-ten video game move according to Ted.”

  Michael smiled. “Mia, did you ever wonder why the video game world has so much in common with our world? You should know; you’ve been in one yourself.”

  “I’ve never really thought about it until now. I guess it’s how you good guys used to leave all this great information in books for us readers to find.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Michael warned. “I know when you’re not sincere.”

  Mia braced herself for the lecture.

  “Altair wants your wings replaced and the heart feather returned.”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I think it would be an insult to Victor.”

  “Do you think those wings suit you?”

  “No. Don’t get me wrong, they are bad ass, and you saved my life by installing them. But I’m a little bird; these are condor wings.”

  “I know. What worries me the most, Mia, is that, yet again, you’ve been changed.”

  “It’s a little tough on this end too,” Mia reminded him.

  “And yet, when Sariel said to come, you came.”

  “My allegiance is to you.”

  “Not Raphael who saved your life?”

  “I was going to go to the medical doctor and find out what was wrong,” Mia began. “When it was discovered that it was a tumor, I would have come to you to heal me. Raphael just happened to get there before I had a
chance to follow through.”

  “Do you have any doubt that I would have healed you?”

  “I would have owed you something, but no, you could have taken out the tumor.”

  “But I wouldn’t have seen the solution,” Michael admitted. “My brother is most wise. He’s not much on the battlefront, but he is God’s healer,” Michael admitted. “My kin are curious about you. You’re this mass of chaos who can heal an angel. A glob of stubbornness who is still loyal in your own way.”

  “Gee, now I know where Altair gets his compliments from,” Mia said, her face burning.

  “For right now, make do with the wings. I don’t want to damage the fragile peace I have with Victor. But I’m going to ask you to curtail your outside adventures with the wings until you spend some time with our armorers and receive more instruction from Nicholai. If it weren’t for Stephen, you would have died. That bullet would have penetrated your brain, and no more Mia. Battling ghosts, demons, and the other players in our supernatural world is one thing. A psychopathic human is another.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Also, use that library of Altair’s and learn about Crone magic. Don’t depend on Lazar’s grandmother. She doesn’t like you. She thinks Lazar is in love with you. He isn’t, but you’ll never convince her of that. I entreat you to not tell her that you will pass down her line. She may kill you.”

  “She would rather end her line than have it passed down through my daughter?”

  “No, she’ll let you give birth, then kill you, and take your daughter. Crone magic is evil magic. Magic born in darkness. The only reason it suits you is because it is easily controlled. It’s a tool and not a ruler.”

  “I’m not keen on having more children right now.”

  “You don’t have to have any at all, except you will. It’s in the cards, but not right now.”

  “I’m starting to feel like a brood mare,” Mia said glumly.

  “Don’t. You’re a valuable healer and warrior who happens to be under my shield. Please, before you contemplate a career change, talk to me, Mia.”