The Price of Power (The Price of Secrets Series Book 2) (21 page)

    “Only one way to find out.”

    Daniel took a knife out of his back pocket, sliced his palm, then handed it to me. I repeated the process, as did Jaycee. With the spell already memorized, we began.

 “We call upon the spirit of the Light,

     To combine our powers so we may fight,

     This evil, one part of three, must be banished,

     Our blood as the key,

     Send Mikah to hell,

     To burn for all eternity.

     As we will it, so shall it be.”

    We each squeezed our hands, allowing drops of blood to hit the earth.

    “Again.” I shouted as we watched Mikah fall to the ground, slithering in pain.

    The sparkles of lights had spread from his head, covering most of his body. The leachy bits of evil, not yet ready to surrender, struck out at the lights leaving a few motionless on the ground.

    After the second time repeating the spell, Mikah started crawling away trying to escape the lights and our spell.

    “We have to say it one last time. There’s power in three.” I reminded them.

    “Wait!” Mike stopped us. “I know we don’t have any powers, but we are good. Can’t you use our energy to help?”

    It was worth a shot. I reminded my own self that love, friendship and faith has it’s own special power. Everything I had told my parents just a few hours ago. “Let’s try it. Hurry!” I said as I guided Mike and Megan to link hands with Jaycee and Daniel. Enlarging our small circle. Blaze took his place at my side.

    As we started for the third and final time, Mike and Megan repeated the spell with us.

      
Chapter 20

      Dark green vines, the size of my thigh, grew out of the ground where our blood had combined in the grass. The five of us jumped back out of shock and watched the vines grow and stretch, pulling themselves quickly toward Mikah. Within seconds they had him wrapped from head to toe. By this point the leachy evil pieces barely had any fight left, but still tried to lash out at the vines. It was useless, they were no match for the thick vines or for the sparkles of light that were still on the attack.  

    Just when I thought I could say I’ve seen it all, the once quiet trees seemed to come to life as they violently blew from side to side in unison. All that was left of their dried, dead leaves fell, landing on Mikah’s unmoving body. Our circle once again burst into flames. And I know that later I will question my own eyesight, but I could swear I saw an arm rise out of the fire, igniting the pile of leaves.

    The elements were helping us and they had built a pyre for the demon’s body.

    For a moment I thought we had done it. That we had killed him. It was a brief feeling of victory until I saw, through the vines and the flames, Mikah open his eyes.

    “He’s saying something. I think he’s chanting.” Daniel barely finished his sentence before the ground beneath Mikah opened up, swallowing him.

    He was gone.

    The rain came out of no where, lasting just long enough to extinguished the fire. The massive vines retracted itself back along the same path that it grew, until it vanished into the earth. The sweet little sparkly lights hovered above us before disappearing into thin air. Everything went eerily still.

    “Did we do it? Is he dead?” Jaycee asked as Mike wrapped a protective arm around her waist.

    “I don’t think so.” I could hear the regret in Daniel’s voice.

    “Daniel’s right. I think he called on the Triune to save him.” I hated knowing what I said was true.

    “Perfect.” Jaycee threw her hands up in frustration. “Then how the hell are we ever gonna kill him if he can call for help to pop him out?”

   “We have to fight all three at once. Where there will be no escaping.” Daniel answered.

    “No escape for any of us.” I added.

    “Aren’t you just Miss glass-half-full.” Jaycee held her finger up at me before I had a chance to speak. “Wait, hear me out. I’m pissed off about it too. But let’s try to look at it a different way. Okay, yes it sucks that he got away, and it sucks that we will have to face him again. But that’s a problem for tomorrow, Han. He didn’t win this one. We are alive. What we just did was pretty damn amazing.”

    “True. We helped Megan and hurt Mikah at the same time. It will take awhile for him to recover.” I looked around at the mess we had made. “Do you want help cleaning this up?”

    “Nah, I already have a spell for that. It will give me more practice.”

    Before Jaycee could get started, Megan spoke up. “I want to thank you, all of you, for helping me. It means more to me than you could ever know. I don’t fully understand everything that went on here tonight, but you guys have my word that I won’t tell a soul.”

    “You’re welcome. I’m sorry you had to endure years of him.” I gave Megan an awkward pat on the arm. “At least you know we believe you and you can come to us if anything happens again.”

    “And I’m sorry that I’ve been so mean to you, Hannah.” Megan sounded, shockingly, sincere.

    “Go sing
Kumbaya
someplace else. Out of my circle so I can cleanse it.” Jaycee said as she shooed us away.

    “Always the sentimental one.” I gave her a smirk.

    “Kiss my sentimental ass.” Jaycee gave me the finger before digging out a bundle of sage from her bag.

    “Han,” Daniel came up behind me, “can I talk to you a sec?”

    “Sure.” I looked to Megan to see if she was okay to be left alone.

    “Go, be mushy with your boyfriend.” Megan waved me away. “Blaze will keep me company.”

    As if on cue, Blaze showed up by Megan's side.

    I bent down to face him. “You did good. You were brave and you protected Mike and Megan. Thank you.” I took a second to connect with Blaze, just to make sure tonight didn’t have a traumatic impact on him.

    He was fine. I did, however, find out something bizaar. Blaze doesn’t just feel sorry for Megan, he is fond of her. “And here I thought you were a good judge of character.” I whispered in his ear as I gave him a hug.

    “I’ll be right back.” I told both Megan and Blaze.

    I turned around and entwined my fingers with Daniel’s as he pulled me away from the group. We had walked to the front of the house before Daniel finally stopped.

    “I want to say something to you.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “It seems like from the moment I met you we have been caught up in a whirlwind of supernatural drama. We have barely had time to be Daniel and Hannah before we had to be The Warrior and The Heart. I don’t want who we have to be to define who we are.”

    Uh-oh, he looks serious. I was afraid to ask, but I had to. It’s like a band-aid, just rip it off instead of pulling at it. “Are you breaking up with me?” A knot had already formed in my throat.

    “What? No. No, of course not.” He tucked that one piece of hair behind my ear. “Hannah, you should know by now that I’m so in love with you, all the magic in the world couldn’t tear me away from you. I was just saying that with all we’ve been through, I want time for us. Just you and me. We could try this thing I’ve heard of. It’s called a date.”

    “Really? And just what do people do on this date thing?” I laughed. Just looking at those yummy dimples, that were attached to a even yummier guy, I felt the knot release. This tall, dark and hot guy, literally right out of my dreams, was mine.

    “Well, rumor has it that they go out to eat, maybe even see a movie, then they make out.”

    “They make out, huh?” I gave him my sexiest smile.

    “Oh yes, the making out part is a rule. And there has to be lots of it.”

    “I’m not one for breaking rules, so I guess I will have to go along with it. But could you give me a little preview of what that’s like?”

    “Gladly.”

    His lips stifled my surprised laugh as he put his hand at the small of my back and dipped me. His hair, that Jaycee claimed needed cutting, fell down, tickling my face as he kissed me. The touch and the kiss sent electricity straight through me. This was more than just the regular electrical surge that I have come to know as normal when we touch. This was a hot current that warmed my whole entire body. He was making it harder and harder to be good.

   I was not embarrassed of the sigh that escaped my lips when he pulled me back up. I was just proud of myself for not melting right then and there.

    “I think you’re really gonna be good at this date thing.” He said as he playfully kissed the tip of my nose.

    “You too.” I let myself enjoy being held by Daniel a few minutes before breaking the blissful silence. “We probably should get back to the group. He will come back at us harder next time. We will have to start planning soon so we will have control over the when, where and how. The attack needs to be ours to make, not theirs to surprise us with. But Jaycee was right, tonight was a win for us. You did great. We all did.”

    “We sure did. Don’t worry, we will be even better prepared next time. I still don’t understand where those lights came from. Are you sure you didn’t do it? Or maybe MacKenna?”

    “MacKenna would have told me if it was her, and it wasn’t me. But it’s weird, I know it wasn’t me but I feel like I could do it. Like I could copy it.”

    “That’s what I’m saying, it felt like it came from us.”

    If Daniel said anything after that, I didn’t hear it, because something over his shoulder had me doing a double take.

    “Oh crap!” How could I have been so blind?

    “What’s wrong?” Daniel asked.

    Without saying a word, I turned him around and pointed.

    I could only guess that the look on Daniel’s face mimicked mine.

    “Jaycee is gonna be pissed.” Daniel’s dumbfounded expression turned into a grin.

    We made it to the backyard just as Jaycee was finishing her cleansing ritual.

    “As a thank you to Earth I promised to clean.

     So the scars on the ground will be unseen,

     I offer these seeds to bloom in the spring.”

    We stood back and watched Jaycee close the circle. When she was through, everything looked the same as it did before we started. She made magic look so easy.

    Mike, who had waited patiently on the sideline admiring the view, greeted Jaycee with a huge smile. “Dang, Jay, I wish I could do that. Since you’re this big time witch, are you going to get bored with me?” He was kidding, but I felt a hint of insecurity coming from him.

    “Not as long as you keep looking hot in those basketball shorts on the court.” She raised up on her toes to give him a kiss. “You can keep me grounded. Ya know, remind me what I’m fighting for.” She was head over heels in love with him, and knew just what to say to make him feel at ease.

    “I can do that.” He lifted her back up to kiss her again.

    I was glad Jaycee was in a good mood, but afraid I was getting ready to ruin it for her. “I need to show you all something.”

    “And you say I can kill a moment. What is it?”

    “Follow me and I’ll show you.” I led them to the front yard, stopping at the porch.

    “Yeah, so?” Jaycee put her hands on her hips, then let her gaze follow mine. “Son of a bitch!”

    Yep, she saw, and knew, what Daniel and I had. Beside the front door, in bold black read
1212 Spruce Street
.

    “What is it? I don’t see anything?” Megan demanded.

    “Megan, just bear with me for a second.” I went to her and carefully placed my hands in hers. “Open your mind. This won’t hurt, but you will feel a little bit of pressure in your head. Trust me.” I added before she had a chance to argue.

    It took me awhile before I found it. It was buried deep, deep in her subconscious, but it was there. Not wanting to give Megan a headache, I slowly released hold of her mind. Once out, and after making sure Megan was okay, I turned to Jaycee and Daniel. I laid a hand on each of their shoulder and
showed
them what I had found.

    “No! No! No!” Jaycee ranted as she started to pace back and forth. “This is wrong on so many levels.”

    “Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” Megan grabbed my arm. “Is he back? Is he inside me?”

    “No, it’s nothing like that.”

    “Then what is it?”

    “Here,” Jaycee pulled her necklace out from under her shirt, “touch this.”

    Megan looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “What does that have to do…”

    “Just do it.”

   “Fine.” Megan huffed, rolled her eyes and reached for the necklace.

    As soon as Megan touched the crystal, it glowed rainbow rays of light.