Page 80 of Midnight Witch

“Okay.”

Nikolai touched Sable’s chest. The harpy eagle stilled, as if she knew what they intended to do. Mae steeled herself and laid her fingers on the sorcerer’s back.

Whiteness detonated in Nikolai and Alastair’s eyes and around them, the power pulsing off them so strong it made her clothes and hair flutter. Mae’s breath froze when she felt their incandescent magic connect to the nexus. She focused and linked them to Sable’s core.

Blue fire crackled into life under Nikolai’s hand. The flames spread across the ground in jagged lines. Vlad and Cortes observed the phenomenon with cautious looks where they braced to withstand the storm roaring around the nexus.

Sweat beaded Nikolai’s forehead. His expression grew glazed as he hunted for an echo of the power he was infusing into the ley lines that spread for thousands upon thousands of miles beneath the Earth.

Mae could feel the tension tightening his body like a spring. She swallowed.

The sorcerer had grown stronger since his return from Prague. She suspected he would be able to bring down Oscar on his own if he were to face him now.

Nikolai froze. “Found it!” Relief made him sag for an instant. His gaze darted to Mae and the two men beside her. “Get ready! This one’s going to be bumpy!”

Mae ground her teeth. Fire warmed her belly as she strengthened her bond with Brimstone and Hellreaver. She felt Vlad and Cortes do the same with their familiars.

Nikolai inhaled deeply. “TRANSMIGRATE!”

A whooshing noise filled Mae’s ears as they were sucked into the nexus. Dazzling light flickered before her eyes for what felt like an infinite moment, the vortex dragging at her limbs and stealing the breath from her lungs.

Her ears popped when they emerged under an angry sky dominated by a blood moon. Mae blinked and staggered before steadying herself.

The desolate red plain she’d seen in her vision stretched out before them. Her scalp prickled when she spotted the forked tree to their right. She whirled around, her feet squelching in rust-colored mud.

The land sloped upward to form the hill she and Nikolai had last seen on Marblehead Neck. Lightning brightened the heavens. A boom of thunder accompanied the dazzling radiance.

The afterglow outlined the dark church at the top.

“We have twenty minutes left!” Vlad yelled.

They ran up the rise, Tarang and Brimstone loping ahead in a haze of demonic power.

“Enrique, you’re with me! We’re going to rescue Anya!” Mae glanced at Nikolai and Vlad, her heart racing. “You two take the main altar!”

Black magic thickened the air as they crested the hill. The front doors of the church exploded outward on a hail of spell bombs.

“Eclipse!” Mae roared.

“Moon Storm!” Nikolai barked.

The black void sucked in the Dark Council’s attacks while the white magic wave picked off the witches and sorcerers emerging from the church and sent them flying back inside the building.

Oscar climbed over the bodies of his groaning subordinates, fury darkening his face and Drabek spitting wildly at his side. He pointed his black-magic-wreathed sword at them.

“ROT!”

Brimstone’s tails whined, the demonic force that lived in his core resisting the vault of sickening pressure bearing down upon them. Hellreaver stabbed into the dirt with an angry sound. Nikolai’s legs buckled. Vlad and Cortes cursed and dropped down on one knee.

Mae clenched her teeth as her legs sank ankle-deep into the red silt. She could taste the power of the Sorcerer King in Oscar’s magic, just as Nikolai and Vlad had described. Fire bubbled through her veins. The mud around her legs started to steam.

“NEGATE!”

Oscar cursed as the spell blasted away atRot.Wind Furyswallowed his protest and lifted him and Drabek off their feet in a frenzied whirlwind that carried them all the way down the hill.

Mae scaled the steps to the porch with Nikolai and the others. Barquiel’s corruption rocked the building as they dashed inside the church. They stumbled through the quaking vestibule.

Mae’s stomach plummeted. A giant portal split the air some twenty feet above the nave to their left. The demon archduke appeared ahead of a horde of hellbeasts. His furious gaze locked on her while the monsters dropped down onto the pews, his wrath practically making the air boil.

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