Page 72 of Spelling Disaster

“Is that all you’ve got?”

I follow up with the amethyst wand, tucked and hidden in my back pocket. Dark violet light shoots out at him and wraps around one of his wrists. The force sends him back a single step before he manages to find his balance again.

His hit slams into the side of my head hard enough to have stars dancing in front of my vision.

I lift the wand just in time to ward off his next hit heading for my other temple. The ringing in my ears has me unbalanced.

I might be able to turn metal into gold, but can I turn a man into stone?

The pieces of various spells jumble together in my head until they finally form a cohesive picture. I’d accidentally turned Gus into something else. Transformation. Transfiguration.

Latin syllables flow out of me as I work the spells together into something new, twisting the wand through the air, forming sigils between our bodies.

“Cute trick,” the Horned God replies.

He’s confident until he tries to take a step and his hoof does not rise from the ground. The vines might be his trick, but this is mine. The ground rises to engulf him, his muscles hardening and turning to stone.

His smile is gone, features shifting into a terrifying frown. I keep the pressure on him, sending the magic up to his knees and the loincloth.

“It’s a trick that’s going to land you on your ass,” I whisper.

Unfortunately for me, getting cocky is not the solution.

Summoning his strength, the Horned God lifts his leg at last and cracks the spell holding him.

His answering hit sends me on my backside and pain shoots from my tailbone up my spine. For every bit of ground I gain, he knocks me back. Again, and again.

“Enough of this,” he snaps.

I’ve got the spell to turn him to stone ready to go again, if only I can get access to the deepest parts of the well of my power. No time. Not enough time, I think in a flash, the seconds disappearing as the Horned God swivels and reaches out for a body behind him.

He’s going for Theo.

Adrenaline courses through me and without thought, without a plan, I grab my book from the bag at my feet.

“You can’t have him!” I scream.

The spell is one I’ve utilized a thousand times to send me into the story and as I toss out my favorite highlander romance novel, it sucks Theo into it through a bright portal of light. His mouth rounds in a plea before he disappears.

At least in there he’ll be safe.

“If I can’t have your boyfriend then I’ll take the others.”

The Horned God goes after Blaire, and Atlas, his fist raised to smash them with the long branch materializing in his hand.

“You’re not going to touch any of them.” I repeat the spell and suck each one of them into the novel with Theo.

Until the Horned God takes Remi by the throat.

“Poor girl. Always a step behind and not realizing when she’s been beat,” he says.

Choking, Remi reaches up to grip his wrist, to get him to let her go. Her feet kick against the open air.

He snaps the fingers of his opposite hand and releases the rest of the coven from their positions.

“Attack her.” It’s a simple command.

They launch into an attack, fueled by his magic, and I have no more time to pull tricks out of a hat. Summoning every bit of power at my disposal, I grow my own barrier around us, me and the Horned God and Remi to keep the coven out. The shield shimmers into place with the glow of a setting sun and, even more surprisingly, holds.

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