Chapter Fifteen
By the time I reached the center of the fight, I’d already lost track of Asher, and to be honest, I was too distracted by everything that was going on to worry about him. I had more important things to be concerned about.
Like the fact that at the moment Jasmine was being cornered by two people. The woman to her left appeared to be in her twenties, had wild red hair, and wore loose-fitting black harem pants and a dusty white V-neck tee. She squinted at Jasmine like she was concentrating, but there was a huge grin on her face.
The man creeping up on Jasmine’s other side was older—at least forty—with a salt-and-pepper mustache and hair to match. He wore a long cape-like jacket that fluttered behind him as he moved.
I was still at least twenty feet away when they attacked. Only, instead of touching her, they seemed to be hurling insults at her. No, not insults.
Magic.
Light burst through the air as spells were sent Jasmine’s way and she tried her best to avoid letting them hit her. But she couldn’t dodge it all, and I watched in horror as she was thrown backward with such force that when she hit the wall behind her, it knocked her out. She landed in a heap on the ground, not even flinching as she slammed into the hard surface.
“Jasmine!” I screamed, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. The other strangers gathered in the area heard me cry out, and began to cast in my direction as well. Magic was being sent every which way around the dead end and things were already on fire from where certain spells had landed. Although most shoppers had fled the scene once the fight had broken out, I could still see a few left in stores, checking out the action from the windows.
After a brief glance around, I could see that there were about three attackers for each one of us and we were already losing. Everyone was under fire.
Including me now. I felt an invisible force zip past me, narrowly missing my head, and without thinking about the consequences, I began to run.
I had no idea whether or not Jasmine was still alive, but I headed straight for her. The man and woman were still standing over her, casting spells while she was down. No way was I letting them continue to hurt her. My eyes darted around until they landed on a few mannequins that were on display outside a nearby store. With a flick of my hand, I pointed at the plastic bodies and then over at our enemies.
“Shifagin momentus!” I yelled with as much force as I could muster. The life-size dolls flew from their spots and crossed the space, hitting Jazzy’s assailants and knocking them back onto the ground. When they didn’t get up, I thanked the universe for helping me hit my targets and rushed over to Jasmine.
Crouching down, I touched my fingers to her neck, trying desperately to find a pulse. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I’d always seen people do it on television, so I figured there had to be something there. Finally I found the point I was looking for and let out a breath when I felt her pulse beating strongly.
“Help, Hadley!”
My head jerked in the direction of the scream and what I saw made my stomach drop. Jinx and Sascha were standing back-to-back, fighting off their own group of attackers. They’d been backed into a corner, and now it looked like their assailants were about to take them down too. The girls held their arms outstretched as if they were trying to fend off the others’ next moves. Dark, burned spots decorated their clothes where spells had hit them. I was surprised the two were still standing, although by the looks of Sascha, it was just barely.
I didn’t want to leave Jasmine on the ground by herself, but I knew that if I didn’t get over to Sascha and Jinx, they’d be in just as bad shape. Or worse.
In a split-second decision, I cast a spell that overturned a nearby bench and sent it to the spot right in front of where Jasmine lay, so it acted as a sort of barricade.
It was the best I could do with the situation at hand.
Then I headed for the others.
As sparks flew from all directions, I sprinted toward the girls, hitting several scary-looking men with stunning spells along the way. They fell around me like flies, but I didn’t have a chance to enjoy the victories. I leaped toward the guy closest to Sascha. Putting all my weight into it, I kicked my right foot up into a roundhouse kick and felt the familiar thud as it landed on the side of the guy’s face. He made a sound like “oof” and then staggered backward. Not allowing him a chance to recover, I followed it up with a stunning spell.
The guy’s body began to seize as if I’d jolted him with a Taser, and he hit the ground, rolling around in agony. I was tempted to keep the spell going, but every second I spent punishing him took me away from confronting the rest of them. So I moved on to the next guy, who’d lunged at Sascha and started to hit her. I grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt and simultaneously kicked the backs of his knees before dropping my weight to the ground and taking him down with me. Using the momentum of his fall to my advantage, I rolled onto my back and then placed my feet against his lower back. Grunting with exertion, I launched the man ten feet into the air, and he landed with a crack behind us.
Thank you, cheer muscles.
I rocked backward and then popped up onto my feet to see if Sascha was okay. She was trying desperately to fend off one last girl and was barely able to get a round of spells in before she was hit again. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of spells being cast, Sascha backed up until her feet hit a garbage can behind her. A look over at Jinx showed that she wasn’t much better off. I could see at least one person lying a few feet away, unmoving, but at least four others had replaced him. And Jinx appeared to be having trouble breathing while bruises began to form across her face.
I couldn’t help but feel guilty over the fact that I hadn’t been there to prevent all this from happening. If I had come alone, like I’d originally planned, I would’ve been the only one getting hurt.
Sure, I would’ve lost, but at least everyone else would be safe.
And I’d had no idea so many would be after us. Since there hadn’t been any reported sightings of the Parrishables in hundreds of years, we’d been clueless as to how many members they actually had. It was clear that we’d highly underestimated them in more ways than one.
One look around the courtyard made it clear that years of witch classes and a day of round-the-clock training had in no way prepared us for the battle with a centuries-old evil coven.
I started to dive back into the fray when I was hit hard from behind. Falling to my knees, I struggled to pull in air, the wind having been knocked out of me. I looked up at Sascha and Jinx, who were now being overtaken from all sides, and tried frantically to get back up onto my feet. But a swift kick to my side landed me on my back and face-to-face with my enemy.
“You must be Hadley,” the man sneered through snaggleteeth. He straddled me, placing his knees on my chest, making it even more difficult to breathe. His cartoonishly large muscles flexed under his tight T-shirt as he reached for my neck. “The reverend is really interested in you.”
A squeak escaped my throat as I attempted to cast a spell, but that was all that came out. His hands were so big that they reached completely around my neck. As a last-ditch effort, I flailed my legs, hoping I could at least distract him long enough to get away. Even with my years of combat lessons, the position I was currently in left me with few opportunities for escape.
Spots began to swim in front of my eyes and I realized I was on my way to passing out. But just as the lights were dimming, I caught a sudden flash of something as it rushed toward us.
There was a loud thud as something collided with the body above me and I gasped for air as I finally broke free. My body was exhausted and I wanted to give myself time to recover, but there was none. I had to help whoever had helped me.
That’s when I remembered that Asher had been in the area. I’d lost track of him once I’d arrived and hadn’t seen him since. I prayed that he’d honored his word and hadn’t gotten involved.
At the same time, I was happy that Asher couldn’t have been my enemy. Otherwise he would have disarmed me back in the store. He’d definitely had the opportunity.
But by the time my eyes fixed on the bodies that were now facing each other several feet away from me, I had no idea what I was going to find.
“Fallon?”
Where the hell did he come from?
“You okay?” he asked, his gaze never leaving the enormous man he’d pushed off me.
I wiped a trickle of blood from my mouth. “Yeah. I think so.”
There was another loud explosion from the direction of Sascha and Jinx. Without looking over to survey the damage, I nodded toward Fallon.
“Go help the others,” I said, narrowing my eyes menacingly at the bouncer-looking guy. “Leave him to me.”
Fallon didn’t stop to ask me if I was sure, he just took off running and joined the brawl, tossing people aside as he ran through the crowd like a battering ram. It was an amazing feat, considering how small and skinny he was; you’d never consider Fallon to be intimidating, unless maybe he was armed with a computer. He certainly wasn’t the superhero type.
Then again, none of us really were.
I took a second to watch as he landed by the girls’ side in the middle of the circle that had formed around them. Jinx was now lying unconscious behind Sascha. I wondered if that had been the loud noise that I’d heard. As I squinted, I saw blood pooling quickly around her. With Fallon now in the mix, Sascha was finally able to crouch down to try to help her fallen friend. Fallon never slowed, even though spells were flying all around him. He just planted his feet and began shouting out every spell he’d ever been taught.
Angry that I’d been incapacitated while Jinx had been hurt, I turned my full attention back to the other guy.
“Earlier you said someone was looking for me. Who is it?” I asked him as we began to circle each other like animals stalking their prey. I sent a stunning spell his way, hoping to stop him from moving long enough to get what I needed out of him. But he sidestepped it easily and then laughed.
“You mean the good reverend? Oh, yes, he’s got a special interest in you all right,” he answered and then lunged forward as he sent his own spell zipping my way. I darted to the left just in time.
He said it was a reverend who was leading their group, but it couldn’t possibly be the reverend. Not Samuel Parris. He would’ve died hundreds of years before. So there had to be a new reverend in town. One who had taken up his predecessor’s evil ways.
“Why is he interested in us? We’ve never done anything to him,” I answered, my teeth clenched angrily. “The Cleri always kept to themselves. You had no reason to hurt any of them!” I wasn’t just talking about Jasmine and Jinx. I was talking about our parents. And by the smile on his face, I could tell he knew it.
Annoyed by his smugness, I shouted another spell at him and this time he barely escaped the blast. He reached up and touched his singed hair.
“You may be right, girlie,” he said, nodding in agreement. “But they would’ve made it much more difficult for him to get what he really wanted.”
This time I was expecting the magic that came my way and danced around it gracefully.
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I asked, expecting him to refuse to tell me any more. I raised my arms in preparation to hit him with the stunning spell but paused for his answer.
He stopped walking and cocked his head to the side, looking at me curiously. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Girlie, all of this is about you!”
Then he pointed both his arms my way and said a few words that sent me flying backward and onto the concrete, hard. The shock of the pain that suddenly flew up my tailbone was nothing compared to what I was feeling about what he’d just said. Having trouble standing now, I counterattacked from where I lay on the ground.
My eyes had started to water, but I could still see him as he advanced on me. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why, though. You cast like a girl.” He said it like it was a bad word.
That’s it.
Before he had a chance to say anything else, I put everything I had behind my spell, feeling my body buzz with a power I wasn’t used to. When it left my fingertips, it crossed the space and hit him square in the chest. His body went stiff and he fell forward onto the ground.
I walked over to him, the sound of my heels drowned out by the noise around me. Standing above him, I tapped him lightly on his behind with the toe of my studded pump. “I am a girl, you idiot. Now how does it feel to have your butt kicked by one?”
Then I spun around and rushed back toward the rest of my coven members.
Fallon was still holding his own and his bravery was impressive, but I could tell from the way the others were advancing on him that it wouldn’t be enough. And I couldn’t stomach anyone else getting hurt. Even someone who was partly responsible for everything that was happening.
We had to get out of there, and quickly.
Instead of joining them, I stopped running and closed my eyes tightly. With a deep breath, I tried to focus all my energy on what I was about to do. I’d managed to do the spell only a few times, and even then it had lasted only a few seconds and had been directed at just one person. Since holding a spell required major concentration and enormous power, it would take a particularly strong witch to be able to pull off what I wanted to do. And I wasn’t sure I had what it took.
Hell, my parents might not have been able to do this spell.
But I had to at least try. We needed a distraction and the others were too busy or hurt to help out.
Recalling everything Jackson had taught us about tapping in to our powers, I visualized the energy coming up from my toes, coursing through my body, and bursting out my hands and head.
“Immobius totarium!”
I felt the force leave my body but had no idea whether it had worked. I was too afraid to open my eyes and risk seeing that I’d failed. I could still hear scuffling and shouts around me, which wasn’t a good sign, but I was almost sure something had happened.
I just didn’t know if it was going to be enough to save us from our impending doom.
Knowing that every minute I kept my eyes closed was putting me and the rest of the Cleri in danger, I finally forced myself to open them. And smiled.
Briefly.
The rest of the members of Team Bad Guys had frozen in their tracks, some midstep, others as they were casting spells. I was tempted to unfreeze one of them and force him to tell me who the traitor was, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control the spell enough to cut him loose without letting go of the others, too. And given the state of my coven, that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
I closed the distance between me and the rest of the Cleri and motioned toward the parking lot. “We’ve got to go!”
Fallon still hadn’t let his arms drop to his sides, clearly not trusting the frozen figures around him. I had to respect his skepticism, but I needed his help if we were going to get out of there in one piece. Sascha looked a little shell-shocked and hadn’t even noticed that the chaos around her had come to a stop.
“Fallon! Sascha! We have to get to the car!” I shouted, attempting to snap them out of it.
Jasmine emerged from where she’d been lying behind the bench and groaned, clutching her head. Sirens began to sound in the distance and I rushed over to where Jinx was sprawled and crouched down to pick her up.
“Sascha, go help Jasmine. Fallon, grab Jinx’s other side,” I commanded. When we lifted her limp body, I noticed with terror that she felt cold and her clothes were completely soaked in blood.
There was so much blood for such a small girl.
I started to feel sick as it dawned on me that Jinx hadn’t even cried out when she’d been wounded. The quiet girl had remained that way through the whole thing.
Shuffling as fast as we could through the parking lot and to the car, we scrambled to get inside. Fallon, Sascha, and a dazed Jasmine pulled Jinx across their laps as I climbed into the driver’s seat.
I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to hold back the attackers; for all I knew, the spell had already worn off and they were about to burst into the parking lot behind us. But I had to at least try to keep it going until we were out of town. So I attempted to split my focus between holding back the Parrishables and starting the engine and pulling out of the lot. The others were crying and shouting from the backseat, but I tuned them out as we entered the flow of traffic on the highway. Once I felt that we had enough of a head start, I finally turned around to assess the damage.
A wave of fear and nausea swept over me. Within a matter of minutes, Sascha’s bruises had grown into full-blown welts and she was looking more like she’d been hit by a truck than beaten up in a fight. Jasmine was fading in and out of consciousness and I worried she was suffering from injuries that I couldn’t see.
But it was Jinx who had me truly worried. The blood had soaked through her entire shirt and had even seeped onto Sascha’s and Fallon’s clothes. There was so much of it, though, I could hardly believe it was all hers. I grabbed my jacket from the passenger seat and passed it to Fallon in the back.
“Where is it all coming from?” I asked, watching him in the rearview mirror as he tried to find the source. Finally he pulled up Jinx’s shirt to reveal a blackened hole in her side. It looked like she’d been hit by lightning. The skin was charred as if she’d been burned, but blood was flowing out of the gash like lava out of a volcano. I was mesmerized by it for a few seconds and nearly veered into the median. Swerving back into my own lane, I placed both hands on the wheel so that I didn’t hurt anyone else before we could get Jinx to the hospital.
“Fallon, you have to stop the bleeding,” I instructed with a voice that was much calmer than I felt. “Take my jacket and press your hand firmly over the wound.”
He looked in my direction, horrified by what I was asking him to do. “I’m going to hurt her if I do that,” he stammered. It was the first time I’d seen signs of his age since he’d shown up at the fight, and for a moment I felt bad that he had to be here instead of off doing normal kid things. But life wasn’t fair.
We all knew that now.
“She’s going to die if you don’t,” I responded gently.
He looked back down at Jinx’s face and then whispered, “I’m sorry,” and did as I said. Sascha began to sob again and Jasmine’s head was lolling back and forth like her neck was made of rubber.
I knew it was risky to stop before getting to the cabin, but I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t get the others help. So I pressed my foot on the gas and crossed four lanes of traffic to follow the first sign I saw for a hospital.
I just hoped it wasn’t too late.