Page 84 of Dead End

“Aw, don’t be embarrassed.” Norman chuckled seductively in my ear, making me feel like I just took a shot of espresso. He woke me up in more ways than one with that voice. Curse my nether region for being a hungry bitch and craving good dick.

“We’re just jealous and giving you shit. Let’s talk in the room. There are a few things we need to discuss before we deal with Ichabod.” That sobered me right up, the thought making me face the reality that I really did have to make a decision.

Dread pooled in my gut at the thought of facing the man who killed my parents, but I knew it had to be done, and in a way, that meant something. Ichabod was a powerful warlock, and he hated mortals with a passion. The guy was fucked in the head. I knew the guys might have an issue with the solution I’d come up with, but I just felt like it was the right way to handle this. It’s what my parents would want, and I wouldn’t stoop down to Ichabod’s level.

We piled onto my bed, and the guys waited and listened as I told them my grand plan. I fidgeted under all of their attention, but I reveled in the waves of overwhelming love and support I could feel emanating from each of them. Fuck, I fucking loved these sexy, scary men. They really were mine, weren’t they?

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Norman asked. His stare was serious and penetrating. I could hear a calm worry in his voice.

I nodded. “I know it sounds risky, but it’s the right thing to do.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Calvin, does it?” Jason asked, hissing Cal’s name through clenched teeth, but he continued to gently slide his fingers through my hair as he glanced out the window.

“He helped me,” I defended. “He went against his own father to save me and to stop him from desecrating my mother’s grave.”

“He kidnapped you,” Michael muttered darkly, his jaw tightening as he fisted the sheets. “Are we supposed to just let that slide?”

“Yes,” I said with finality. “We’ll let it slide. I’m not saying what he did was right, but he was put in an impossible position. In the end, he chose to do what was right. I have a feeling he’ll be punishing himself for a while.”

Probably a long time, and I was afraid any chance he once had with Maddie was long gone. But you just never knew what the future might hold.

“This is insane; you know that, right?” Maddie mumbled as we stood in front of the blank wall at the end of the upstairs hallway.

We were all here—the aunties, my guys, Jessica, Maddie, Baen, Calvin, and even that creepy little marionette dummy, Roger. We stood in a half circle by the blank wall, listening to the sporadic knocking. The aunties were holding Ichabod between them with a binding spell. His limbs were plastered to his side, and he could only move his mouth, which he used to smile smugly at me.

“What are you going to do, little necromancer?” he asked. “Send me to the hell realm?”

“Don’t tempt us,” Freddy growled.

Ichabod just laughed but then glanced at his son. “I should have seen it coming, Calvin. I should have known you’d be too weak to be useful. You’re a pathetic excuse for a warlock. I might as well have had a filthy mortal for a son.”

Cal stared back at his father with a blank face, and I noticed Maddie’s eyes flitting to him every few seconds, even though I knew she was still trying to ignore him. There was something brewing between the two of them, and Maddie was fighting it. Baen, meanwhile, was watching Maddie. He’d gone to the aunties after the others came to rescue me. When he let Fe and Pip know what was happening, they’d gone to the Wicked Quill and retrieved a very specific book Baen had in his collection and brought it back here just for this purpose. Thank the great pumpkin; he’d made it to the fight in time.

I held that book in my trembling hands now, and even just holding it, I could feel the power pulsing from its pages. It was an ancient grimoire belonging to some line of witches that didn’t exist anymore. An antique, Baen had said, and extremely valuable.

I’d spoken to my aunties when Fe took me into the kitchen for my healing tonic. I’d told them what I needed to do, and they’d agreed wholeheartedly. It was the only way. So here we were, standing together with the man responsible for it all between us, smiling like he was genuinely proud of himself. All because of some sick obsession with my mother. It was disgusting, and I could barely even look at him. He’d ruined too many lives already, and it stopped here.

“Idcirco praecipio tibi ut aperta,” Auntie Pip said in a strong voice as she spoke the revelation spell, her hand outstretched.

The wall shimmered and twisted until an arched doorway suddenly appeared out of thin air. The knocking was louder now, and the door seemed to be moving again, breathing like it was a living thing. Auntie Pip had said it was a living thing, and I believed it. The door pulsed with power, and shivers racked my body, causing my hair to stand on end.

I stepped forward, opening the door. It took a little force to do so, because as soon as it cracked open, a whirlwind flowed through. The dim hallway was bathed in light, and I stared into the writhing chasm of color, sparks, fog, and raw magic—the portal to the mortal world. The last in existence that was accessible at any time. On the other side of those lights was Sunset Hollow. My town. My history. The remnants of the life I was choosing to leave behind.

I looked at Ichabod and cracked open the grimoire. I had the page marked with a bookmark, and I took a deep breath before reciting the spell word for word, my voice strong and steady.

“Ego tibi vires Ichabod. Adque rediit mortale!”

His eyes went wide, and his mouth parted in a scream as tendrils of blackness snaked from my fingertips, stretching towards him like creeping arms. “No! You can’t do this!” He was panicking in earnest now as reality set in.

I repeated the phrase until that blackness wrapped around him, making him shake, scream, and beg. I took sick pleasure in his pain, watching in awe as his magic seeped from his very skin and into the air between us. It was a shining light, and it was so bright, I had to look away. I could feel the raw magic flowing into me, but I didn’t want it. I wasn’t a witch. I was a necromancer, and I had no need for this kind of magic.

Looking around, my eyes landed on Cal, and I smiled. Flinging my hands out, I ripped the last remnants of power from Ichabod, sending him crumbling to his knees, and flung it straight at Calvin’s chest. He staggered back, eyes wide, as Maddie ran for him, but she stopped herself at the last minute.

“What did you do to him?” she breathed, looking at me with wide eyes.

I was breathing hard as I watched the magic soak into his skin, making his eyes flare with power and then settle. He sat against the wall in a daze.

“I gave him his father’s powers.” I looked back at Ichabod with a pitying sneer. “This piece of shit is mortal now. I think it’s only fitting that he be sent to live among his own kind, don’t you?”

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