Page 27 of Midnight Witch

“I—I don’t know!”

Warmth bloomed in his gut as she augmentedSoul Shield.

“My witch,” Brimstone growled in warning.

They followed the fox’s glare.

“Oh God,” Mae croaked.

Something was happening to the church and the hill. Something impossible.

The building and the elevation it stood upon started to vibrate at an impossible speed. Both blurred and vanished before their eyes seconds later, the whoosh that accompanied their disappearance almost mocking as they faded to nothingness.

They sat in the steaming mud and stared at the empty patch of dirt and grassland where the church and the hill had once stood.

CHAPTER13

An ominous feelinggrew inside Mae as they drove away from Marblehead. She couldn’t help but feel that they’d just fallen into the Dark Council’s trap. Judging from the unease she could feel throbbing across her bond with Brimstone and Hellreaver, they shared her sentiments.

Mae only dimly recalled what had happened in those fleeting seconds when she’d lost control of her body. All she remembered was a woman’s voice inside her head whispering that she should touch the dark sphere above the obsidian block. She hadn’t been able to fight it, despite Brimstone and Nikolai’s intervention.

One thing she was certain of. Whatever spell it was she’d triggered when she’d touched that globe hadn’t been black magic.

Nikolai glanced at her as he changed gears, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Still can’t get through?”

“No.” Mae chewed her lip and stared at her cell. She couldn’t raise Bryony or Abraham. “It keeps saying their numbers are unreachable.”

Nikolai passed her his phone. “Try mine.”

He stepped on the gas, his frowning gaze focused on the rain-lashed highway.

By the time they made it back to New York, Mae still hadn’t been able to contact the New York coven. Brimstone stirred when they drove inside the underground garage beneath the headquarters on Madison Avenue. He jumped on Mae’s lap, his ears cocking to and fro.

“What is it?” she said warily.

The fox’s eyes flared crimson.Something feels…different.

Nikolai pulled up in an empty parking bay. They exited the SUV and hurried across the garage to the elevators.

“That’s weird.” The sorcerer looked around. “There sure are a lot of vehicles around for a Saturday night.”

Mae eyed the full bays with a frown. Her dread deepened when she recalled how brightly lit the building had been when they were approaching it. She castNullify. It returned nothing.

Brim, do you smell black magic in the area?

No, my witch.He brushed her leg.But there is a wrongness around us I cannot define.

They stepped out on the first floor a moment later.

Nikolai rocked to a stop. “What the—?!”

A low growl rose from the depths of Brimstone’s chest.

The interior of the headquarters looked different. And it wasn’t just the decor that had changed appearance. The vibe of the place had transformed too. The air felt thicker. More sinister.

A group of sorcerers and witches came through the revolving doors of the main entrance. Brimstone’s hackles rose.

“Fuck,” Nikolai mumbled.

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