Everspell (27 page)

I leaned over toward Skylar and bellowed in his ear. “How do you feel, man?”

Skylar whipped his head in my direction and I barely needed the answer. His eyes were blazing and he seemed nearly demonic himself.

“Are you kidding? Feel like I could rip ‘ole Christophe’s head of myself! The coven sisters must be feeding us with their powers or something!” I nodded. That’s exactly what I thought they were doing.

Yes.
That is what’s happening,
Logan.
But you four must be careful.
He’s more powerful than you think.
He’s been using his time well.
Eden says
Christophe
is far stronger than when we met him last time.

You said four?
Will we really need all of us?
I
feel so strong now.

Oh, yes Logan.
You will need all of you.
There is a reason there are four of you here, Prudence says so.
Make sure you all go.
It’s why we’re fortifying all of you.
Be careful, Logan.
I love you.

Thank you,
Serena.
I love you, too.

Now go.
The transfer of power is complete.

As soon as she said those last words, a bolt of power retracted from my chest. The grasp the beam of power had me in abruptly released and I was myself again, only renewed, invigorated. I spun around and faced my father, Declan and Skylar in silent conference. Without a word to each other, we locked eyes. With a final group man-hug, we turned and exited the coven circle.

Chapter Forty-six

SERENA

The men left the circle and my heart filled with emotion; pride and worry and concern and love, and so many more I could name and not name that I feared it would burst and splatter the women I cared so much about. We still held hands and chanted Aisling and Echo’s magic-casting spell loudly. I craned my neck and swiveled around, trying to see the battle as it began, but the winds were so high now, my hair tossed around and kept whipping across my face and my visibility had been reduced to almost nothing. But I could hear everything. Eden admonished me not to break the chain of our coven sister’s hands, for to do so would break the spell. We were still feeding our warlock brothers our collective and impressive powers and they would need every ounce of it to best Christophe.

I could not leave the circle.

I commanded the winds to part so I could see the men in battle. With a howling fury, two cyclones gathered outside of our coven circle and afforded me a straight line of sight to Logan, his father, and the others. The men charged Christophe, complete with warrior-like yells and surprised him with the ambush he, with all his wicked magick, did not see coming. Failing to summon his grotesque troll army from beyond for support, he realized he alone remained to clash with our hero warlocks.

He whisked a staff from behind his long cape and, pointing it at our rushing men, shot a paralyzing ray of lightning and fire at them. I heard the roar of pain as the ragged spark of uncontrolled electricity caught Skylar in his leg and he went down, hard, on the cold ground. Logan and his dad and Declan continued the charge while Christophe fired off another hot spark from the end of his staff, this one finding a home in Declan’s left shoulder, immobilizing him. By this time Logan and Evan had reached Christophe, who had began to high-step backward, perhaps realizing he had sealed his fate with the enraged teen in front of him more than a year ago, when he had the misfortune to first try and kidnap a young girl who happened to be this man’s destiny.

From the coven circle, we witches knew the conflict had reached its peak. I called to the heavens for the help Declan and Skylar needed.

“Nature, favor your spirited daughter! Bring the relief of the bounty of your water!”

At my command, great rolling claps of thunder could be heard and sheets of rain burst forth to cascade down from the clouds, soaking us all, and most especially drenching Skylar and Declan, dousing their smoldering and smoking wounds with the fresh water. Raven and Prudence could tend to them later, but for now, the cold liquid from above would dampen the damage done by Christophe’s ignited embers. I turned my attention to the wind next.

“Spirit of the wind, aide us with your breeze! Shape into a screen, and hide from the unclean!”

As I spoke, the wind, already whipping the coven sister’s drenched hair and clothing around, seemed to
control
itself. Soon, there were several funnel clouds forming along the outside perimeter of the coven circle, whirling and rotating lazily, dipping and rocking and awaiting my instructions. I nodded and they took off, fast, in the direction of the men, shooting past where Declan and Skylar sat, heading directly for Logan and Evan.

Can you see them, Logan?

I can!
Did you send those to us?

Yes!
You can use them as
camouflage
to get closer to Christophe if you need to.

That’s great!

Are Skylar and Declan okay?
They
got injured, right?

Yes.
They’re okay.
The rain put out their wounds.
It was a great idea, Serena.

Never mind that.
Just let me know what else you need.
We’re all here for you.

Okay.

I imagined Logan and Evan using the cyclones to creep closer to Christophe. Hopefully, Christophe had found it next to impossible to shoot any more flamed
anything
out of his staff with all the rain. This time, though, I got a much improved soundtrack. Even over the howling wind and rain and coven sisters chanting, I heard them yelling to each other.

Logan: Grab his arms!

Evan: Got them! You get his legs!

Logan: Okay, Dad! Wait, he got one free!

Evan: Man, he is strong. Okay, you get his arms, I’ll get his legs!

Logan: Okay, got him!

Evan: Hold him down! I may not be warlock, but I can take a man down, son!

Logan: All right, dad! We got him!

Declan: Hey! You guys didn’t wait for me! I’ve got unfinished business with this creep!

Evan: Declan! How’d you get here?

Declan: Walked! Me and Skylar weren’t missing this one!

Skylar: No way in this world or any other!

Logan: Skylar! You’re okay?

Skylar: A-okay, man. Let’s just get rid of this toad!

Evan: Best idea I’ve heard all day! Grab hold of that rope!

Then I heard no more yelling or communication from them at all for a maddening ten minutes or more. I felt about to break every rule in the book and drop hands, but a stern look from Eden made up all the warning I needed to abandon that idea in a hurry. Just when I felt about to lose all hope, Logan mindjumped me again.

Serena!
You guys ready for us?
We’ve got Christophe and man, is he not happy!

Logan!
Is everyone okay?

Thanks to you we are.
Get ready for Demon Boy’s final bow.

I giggled, more of out of relief than anything.
You got it, Logan.
You got it.

Eden, Logan and the guys are on their way back.
Let’s make sure we are ready.

Fine, then.
Let’s commence.

The coven sisters and I finally released our hands and stepped to widen our circle. The hole that had begun to open in the center of us also began to enlarge and broaden until it doubled to nearly twice the size from when we first started. Patio furniture began to fall in the cavernous maw, chairs, tables, food from the baby shower, blow-up decorations of baby blocks and pacifiers incongruously began to disappear into the opening to the gates of hell.

The disgusting odor arising from the pit stifled me. It became clear to me where Christophe was headed. He had been there before. When the men arrived at the circle, laying him at the edge, his final destination, he knew it too. The bits of his fallen minions smearing the sides didn’t make the point any less clear to him. He knew where he was going even before the putrid stench hit his demonic nostrils. He struggled against the ropes securing him, but to no avail. The four men in my life had done a good job. He wasn’t going anywhere. Without his staff, he wasn’t that powerful after all. While Christophe watched, Declan snapped the baton in half over his knee and threw it into the pit. A hissing sound escaped the rod as the magic left it, then it clanked and banged as it descended, the sound continuing, not until it stopped, but just until it got so deep it couldn’t be heard anymore from the top.

The coven sisters and I formed a tight group behind the men and waited for them to finish their task. Without a word, all three glanced at Logan and took a step back. This would be his victory. This demon had taken his family, his love; to them he had earned the right to finish the beast before him. I watched him step forward, take a dagger from a his side, and plunge it into Christophe’s chest, where a heart might be accused of being. The moment he did that, Lily found her voice.

“Evan? Oh, my darling…..is that you?”

Before Christophe could react, Logan retracted the dagger and without a moment’s hesitation, rolled him into the gaping jaws of his death. He screamed, plummeting down, endlessly, until his screams could be heard no more. Eden and Raven stepped forward immediately. Raven carried a silver bottle and she poured the contents into the hole. Eden spoke in an authoritative and commanding voice.

“Be gone, never to return again! So commands the Head of the Council! Be gone……Forever!”

A huge rumbling sound began and the ground started to move under our feet. As though we were having an earthquake, the earth shook and the guardian dogs ran around the yard, barking madly. I reached for Logan, Skylar reached for Gypsy and we all held each other tightly. I finally realized what happened. We were not having an earthquake. In front of my eyes, the hole that we had created and that had swallowed Christophe and his goons was rapidly filling itself up, stitching itself closed. The potion Raven sprinkled into the cavity had sped up nature’s process and the orifice, which would normally take thousands of years to fill with earth or water, was using only seconds to do what the natural world would need centuries to manage.
Ah, the
ways
of a witch.
We could even speed up life.

With the hole filled, the battle over, our lives could resume again. And the best parts could begin. Just in time, I caught Lily and Evan as they reunited. Evan wove his way through a crowd of glowing and well-wishing witches to find Lily, weary and maybe experiencing a little post-trauma, but the joy on her face told it all. He swept her up in his arms and simply didn’t let go. We let them have their private moment. Until Jade nearly ripped down the patio door.

“Daddy! Daddy!” She screamed his name and charged through the slider, straight for her father, Sully in tow. The fact that she might still be in labor? Clearly not on her mind at all. When Logan sheepishly joined the family hug, there wasn’t a dry witch eye in the house.

I ran over to Elizabeth and administered my own bear-hug.

“Wow.” she said. “And all this time, I thought you were mad at me.”

“Oh, Elizabeth, I could never be mad at you for that long.”

“Thanks for rescuing me.”

“You know, the thanks belong to Logan.”

“Actually, I thought you guys made a pretty good team. And you know what else I thought? The whole time Christophe had me?”

I picked some leaves out of her hair. “What?”

“I think you guys are going to make some cute babies.”

Oh
my!
Babies!
“Shoot! In all this excitement, we forgot about Jade.”

“Jade?”

“She’s in labor!”

“Holy spells!”

I ran across the patio to find her. She sat there with her mom and dad and Sully and I could tell the labor had started to advance again.

“Hey, Jade. How’s it going?”

“Not bad. Probably be better if we could
get these babies out of me now!
”

I busted out laughing. Some things never changed.

“Hey!” I hollered. “Who wants to go have some babies now?”

Apparently, everyone wanted to.

Chapter Forty-seven

LOGAN

I walked in from work into the middle of an argument.

“It just doesn’t sound like something Logan would do, Lily.” I heard Serena’s voice and wondered what they were talking about.
Should I just stay in the hall and eavesdrop or make my presence known?

“Oh, hi Logan. Come on in. We were just talking about you.”

When
would
I remember who I was dealing with?
These were witches, after all
. I strolled into the kitchen and found my mom, Serena and Gypsy chattering and feeding the babies. My mom had one twin, feeding him a bottle and Serena had the other, walking him, bouncing him and patting him on the back. Gypsy stood at the stove, warming a bottle in a saucepan.

“Where’s Jade?” I asked, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge and sitting down next to my mom.

“Sleeping. Poor dear sat up all night with Callum. He’s just not a good sleeper yet. She and Sully look like zombies. We sent them both to bed an hour ago and took over with the babies. They almost kissed our feet.”

“Yeah.” Gypsy came over to Lily with a warmed bottle, tested it on her wrist and took Caleb. “Not like they had to twist our arms, or anything. We fight over whose turn it is to have the twins.” My mom handed Caleb to her and she fit him easily in her arms and gave him his bottle. It was marked with his name, same as the baby himself. They were so completely identical, my sister had taken to writing their names on the bottoms of their feet. We all had to check to see which ones they were. The only ones who didn’t were Serena and Skylar. They said it had something to do with being twins themselves.