Released Souls

To my wonderful husband, amazing mom, and awesome friends

who
make life lots of fun in the off-hours.

“Wow. This is not how I expected the place to look. What happened here?” I asked, peeking through the front window at the Witch Avenue Covenstead.

We’d only been back in Seattle a couple
of weeks and had avoided most of the Coven hotspots until my mom was situated. I didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention to our already precarious situation. I had visions that the covenstead was a target, but we didn’t want to investigate until we were sure my mother was safe.

“What’s up?” Logan asked, leaning over me to peer through the glass. His body pressed up against mine as he tried to get a better look inside, and I didn’t really want him to move.
Get a grip!

“It look
s completely trashed,” he replied, his voice low. The warmth of his breath rippled across my skin, creating a trail of goose bumps, and I cursed myself for being so easily distracted.

Forcing myself
back on track, I squinted through the soot-stained windows and saw the pew benches overturned and piled on top of each other, along with a scattering of ceramic pieces where vases once stood, and papers tossed out of drawers. The carpet looked scorched, and the woodwork had evidence of burn marks. It was like someone attempted to burn the place down.

“
It looks abandoned.” I shook my head. “And here I was worried I wouldn’t be let in. I doubt anyone is even here.”

“That’s probably the least of our worries,” Logan replied.
“Looks like your visions were right.”

“Guess the fairies really did give me that power.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the sidewalk. He flashed me his beautiful grin and his blue eyes sparkled as the afternoon light hit them, but there was something heavy lurking behind them. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and the breeze insisted on ruffling it up once more. He was in a loose pair of dark jeans and a black t-shirt, with an unzipped grey sweatshirt. He caught me taking him in, and I flushed.

“Th
ink it might be Eben?” I asked, attempting to shift the focus of the conversation back to where it needed to be.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.
It looks like someone trashed the place and took off.”

“I
hope that’s the case.”

“I
guess he has to find people to do a lot of the dirty work since my father’s a bit incapacitated at the moment.”

“Let’s hope your father
stays that way.” Logan’s expression darkened even more.

I glanced over at Logan and then toward the entry.
“Ready?”

“I have a feeling he’
s got a lot of followers clamoring for a chance to show off their loyalty,” Logan replied. “We’ve gotta be careful.”

“Such weak-minded fools,” I muttered.

Logan reached for the large, wooden door leading into the covenstead, and it opened right up allowing us to see the devastation up close.

I pushed the growing fear aside as I smelled the smoke from the many fires that had be
en set inside.

“
I hope the library is intact.” I walked into the foyer, dodging the piles of broken items and flipped the light switch on… only no lights appeared.

“
Oh no,” Logan’s voice was low.

“Agreed,” I whispered, taking in his hardened stare.

“Do you think whoever did this might still be here?” I asked, scanning the entry. That wasn’t an option I wanted to dwell on.

“Possibly.”

We walked down the hall with every step quieter than the last. My heart rate was rising with every room I peeked into. The longer we were here, the more it felt like someone else was in the covenstead. I only hoped it wasn’t the person who destroyed the place because they were quite capable of destroying anything in sight. Room after room looked like a flame-thrower went through, but there was still no sign of life. Urns were tipped over and cracked. Books had been splayed out on top of each other, and vials of the coven’s tinctures were shattered, but the place was silent.

“
I hoped my visions were wrong but obviously not,” I said. “Jenna didn’t give me any idea that the covens were in this much trouble when she was back in Saranac with us.”

“You had your own things to worry about in
the Adirondacks. She knew the information would only be a distraction.” He peeked into another one of the classrooms that was in disarray.

“The priestess? Do you think she’s okay?”

“Who’s to say she’s not involved?” his voice was grim.

“True.”

We reached the end of the hallway and still found no one, but I just
knew
we weren’t alone.

“
To the library?” I asked.

“You know
, I can go in there with you now...” A smile tugged at his lips, knowing the happiness that would bring me.

“Are you serious?” I asked. “The
nectunt
does that too?”

He nodded and a rush went through me. We really were linked as one.

Before I had adequate time to let the feeling wash over me, a bang crashed through the air, freezing me in place. It came from the library. Was someone trying to destroy all of our historical documents as well? We both took off running toward the noise as I pushed my worries aside. I was ready to face whatever or whoever was attempting to destroy the place I loved.

A door on my way to the library began violently shaking
, and I called out to Logan who was way ahead of me. Was there someone in the closet? I stopped dead in my tracks as the door continued to rattle but stayed closed. I looked over at Logan, who was walking slowly back toward me wearing a grave expression.

“Don’t touch the handle,
” he cautioned.

I glanced down at the knob
that was now glowing red.

“Is someone trapped in there?”

“Or something. I don’t think we should let it out. Between this and what we heard from the library I think it’s safe to say we aren’t alone after all.”

The door stopped shaking
, and I looked over at Logan who wasn’t taking his gaze off the door. The sound of voices that began behind the door did little to alleviate the fear that I was continually trying to suppress. The unknown was always far more frightening than the known.

And t
he closet wasn’t large enough to have that many people in it or was it?

I bit down hard
on my lip and fought the urge to run, but I had nowhere to go.

The
rising and falling of chatter behind the door continued, but the words meant nothing. It was as if they were speaking in tongues.

I began smelling
fresh smoke and looked back at the door to see the edges of the door trimmed by flames from within.

I looked over at
Logan. His eyes were closed and his face was solemn as he took deep, steady breaths. His chest moved in and out with a rhythm I had seen only a couple times before. He was going to that place again, tapping into the darkness he knew would protect us. A slight movement of his lips revealed a soft murmur of a spell I wasn’t familiar with. With every second that ticked by it felt like the voices behind the door were growing stronger, but I had to trust.

Logan’s
eyes flashed open, with a trace of silver now outlining the blue. I had never seen his eyes transform like this. His movements were quite deliberate. He reached into his left pocket and slowly began to kneel. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I desperately wanted some sign from him that everything was going to be okay. But I didn’t get that from him. Warmth was radiating from the door, and I was sure I was seeing the bottom of the door edged in a lava type substance.

“Stay back,” Logan commanded.

“What is going on?” I whispered.

“
It’s the underworld,” Logan spoke softly. I could only see the side of his face, the silver in his eyes glistening with movement. I tried to wrap my head around his words…The underworld in a closet?

T
he voices fell silent, and the shaking resumed with even more urgency than before. I gasped as Logan reached up to the glowing red door handle and grabbed it, sizzling his palm.

“
Vocatus Umbra Adfecte Umbra,”
his chant became louder, clearer with every round uttered. His hand dropped from the knob, and the metal was no longer burning red, and neither was his flesh.

His
mostly silver eyes flashed to mine. I gasped as I looked into Logan’s eyes, feeling as if our souls were merging as one over a darkness that couldn’t be defined. Or could it? The
nectunt
burned my flesh as we shared his actions. A sardonic grin spread across his lips, admittedly frightening me a little, as he nodded at me and raised his arms toward the ceiling. Was this really him?

“D
estroy,” a breathy voice hissed from behind us. “Destroy. Destroy.”

The hai
r on the back of my neck raised as a chill swam its way down each vertebra. What was behind me?

“Don’t look at it,” Logan yelled
, his eyes completely silver, locking on mine. They were beautiful, but they were laced with darkness, and I immediately cast my eyes down.

“It’s a sh
adow spirit,” he continued. “I had to summon it. It was the only way…”

I stopped listening. My
heart clutched realizing it was more than that. I still had many spirits and souls to learn about and Logan probably didn’t even know I knew about this one. But I did. Shadow spirits weren’t merely summoned by the black sorcerer controlling them. The sorcerer actually inhabited the spirit. It was one of the darkest casts I knew of.

“Whatever you do, don’t look at it,”
Logan’s voice was gravelly, low.

I wasn’t often one to take commands, but I
certainly planned on doing so now. I blinked back tears as the being began shrieking hollowly around us. I wanted to look up at Logan to see how this was possible — how he could be in two places at once— or maybe that’s not how it worked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I
didn’t have to look up to feel the spirit’s presence as it whipped by me, grazing my flesh with its rough shell. The being was taunting me to connect eyes — souls — with it as I forced myself to stare at the floor. Was it the spirit toying with me or was it Logan toying with me?

The warm air turned icy cold, and I felt the spirit
come toward me. Why wasn’t it dealing with the closet? Certain the being was only feet away, I clenched my eyes shut just as it moved its contrived limbs toward me, leaving a chilled halo effect wherever it touched me. The closet activity was louder with each passing second and nothing was being done. This spirit was still interested in only me.