Page 74 of Bewitched By a Vampire

Lilian stared at the two witches as she moved on unsteady legs to the centre of the room, coming to stand before them with Night behind her, shielding him. She stared the guards down, her heart rushing so fast she felt dizzy and her palms damp. She could do this. It was her and Night or them. This was the only way.

She narrowed her focus down to the witches, careful to shut Night out of her mind, and growled two words.

“Drop dead.”

Both women sank to the ground, falling onto their sides, and she closed her eyes and turned her face away from what she had done. Tears stung her eyes and she fought them back. They hadn’t given her a choice. She hadn’t turned against her coven. They had turned against her. They had tried to kill her.

She grew aware of Night’s gaze on her back and slowly came to face him, opening her eyes at the same time. He looked paler than before and there were shadows around his eyes. How long did she have?

She wasn’t going to stick around to discover the answer to that question.

Lilian stooped and took hold of Night’s arm, guiding it around her shoulders. She helped him onto his feet, bearing his weight for him, and guided him out into the corridor. It was slow going as they inched past the cells, heading for the stairs.

The hour was late, so few witches would be moving around upstairs, but she went to a large black box near the bottom of the staircase anyway. The more cover they had, the better. She opened the box, keeping Night’s arm around her shoulders with her other hand, and stared at the array of switches and wires.

She wasn’t sure which switch did what, so she opted for the safer route of taking it all out. She held her hand out in front of it and summoned her magic, and hit the panel with a blast of lightning. White jagged bolts leaped between the wires and the switches, the strange plasticky scent of an electric fire filled her nostrils, and she snatched her hand back as smoke rose from several of the fuses.

“That should do it.” She tensed when all the lights went out.

Night growled and gathered her closer. Still trying to protect her? What could he sense? She imagined that any witches on the floor above them were now using spells to light their way and grimaced as a flaw in her plan hit her.

Any one of them might know where the fuse box was and could be coming down to check on it.

She didn’t want to kill any more of her friends and sisters, so she forgot about heading upstairs to escape.

“Come on.” She stroked his arm with her free hand to calm him as he continued to snarl low in his throat.

It worked. His growling subsided and he relaxed again, allowing her to turn him around. She dragged him back along the corridor in the direction they had come, each step harder than the last as he placed more and more weight on her shoulders. The poison was working too quickly. Much faster than she had expected.

Time was against her.

When she reached the end of the corridor, she backtracked and leaned Night against the left wall a short distance from the end and made sure he wasn’t going to fall in a heap on the floor. Satisfied that he would remain upright, she made her way to the end wall and pressed both hands to it. This was going to drain her, if she could manage it, but it would be worth it.

Lilian focused, building the spell in her mind. The stone beneath her palms vibrated, gently at first, but it built rapidly, becoming a violent juddering that shook her entire body too as she kept at it. Her hands numbed and she stared at the mortar, watching chunks of it fall from between the stones. Some of it turned to sand under the assault, and some of the stones even cracked. She squeaked and leaped to her left to avoid one as it fell, striking the ground where her foot had been.

She studied the wall, hoping it was weak enough now. Maybe she should hit it with a little more of the tremor spell she had been using.

Voices sounded along the corridor behind her.

Maybe not.

She grabbed Night with her right hand, twisting beneath his arm and clutching his wrist to keep it around her, and threw her left one out in front of her, aiming her palm at the wall. A violet orb shot from her hand and struck it. The ground bucked and dust exploded in a cloud to enshroud them and choke her. She pulled Night deeper into it, squinting as she tried to see where they were going, and grimaced as she stubbed her foot on one of the fallen stones. She guided Night over them, her ankles wobbling at times as she navigated the uneven terrain, and her pulse jacking up as the voices closed in on them.

She didn’t breathe a sigh of relief when they hit the cool, clear night air on the other side.

She dragged Night forwards as quickly as she could manage, heading down the sloping green that surrounded the castle, towards the lane that cut through the forest. When Night slowed further, his feet barely moving, she risked expending a little more power and cast a spell on him to make him float.

It certainly woke him up.

He growled and kicked at the air, frantically trying to touch the ground.

“Shh, you’re fine, Night. Just a little spell.” She weathered his glare, hoping he didn’t carry out the threat that shone in it. She was well aware she was a witch and that she deserved his wrath, but she was also helping him. She was saving him for a change. Surely that went some way towards making amends with him and proving not all witches were evil and deserved to die? She petted his hand and pulled him along with her. “I need to get you to an old friend. She’ll be able to help you.”

Lilian thought Night might have growled ‘witch’ at her, but she wasn’t sure.

She kept hold of him despite his struggles and attempts to touch the grass, and began running, pulling him towards the portal in the forest.

One that she would use to get him to Elissa.

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