Page 65 of Luna: Posy 2

I tried to link Jay, but he was either blocking it to concentrate or the witches had locked down communications.

Garnet? Can you tell how Q is doing?

He's fine. My wolf rolled his eyes at my worrying.You know combat of any kind doesn't bother that bastard.

I grunted in acknowledgement.

As the witches chanted, the air around Halder began to shimmer. His body jerked a few times, then went dead still. The witches seemed unaffected, but Jay dropped to his knees. He managed to keep holding the girls' hands, but his eyes rolled back in his head, and I barely restrained myself from barging over there and yanking him away from them.

Wyatt's impulse control wasn't so good.

"Jay!" he shouted and lunged forward.

"Don't!" Angelo caught him by his shoulders. "If you interrupt the circle, there'll be a backlash! Now behave or leave! I can't babysit you and be ready to kill this thing!"

I went over to Wyatt and stood next to him, giving Angelo a sharp look for putting his hands on my baby brother. Cole and Ash joined us, and we waited with clenched fists and impatient scowls.

After a few minutes, a dark and vile substance began to ooze from Halder as if his very pores were ejecting the creature. It stank of evil and something else I'd never come across before.

"Is that what the infernal smells like?" Cole asked Angelo before I could.

"I guess. I don't smell as keenly as you do. Julian, is this what your wolf noticed in the kitchen?"

"Yes." The king nodded, but never took his eyes off Halder.

The ooze began to solidify into a misshapen ball that grew four bumps, each of which slowly formed into limbs.

"Time for me to go to work." Angelo dropped to one knee and lifted the rifle butt to his shoulder. "Don't break their circle or bump into me."

Agonized screeching hurt our ears and we covered them with our hands. A gray skull rose from the center of two limbs and dull red eyes glowed deep inside the sockets above the hollow nose.

"Now, Angelo!" Ariel shouted.

The witches dropped each other's hands, the smell of magic faded, and a single shot rang out right as the ooze creature stood on its stumps of legs. The bullet flew straight through its heart and exploded out its back. The goo splattered everywhere on the grass, burning it black, but the scorching sun quickly began to evaporate it.

"Clear!" Angelo called, and my brothers and I ran to Jay.

Wyatt reached him first and checked him over, fussing until Jay waved him off. He helped him stand, and Jay turned his head to crack his neck on one side, then did the same on the other.

"That was intense," he said when we gave him curious looks.

"Are you in pain? Anything hurt?" King Julian asked.

"Nope. Just feel a little disoriented, like I rode a roller coaster upside and backward," he grinned.

"That's about right." Angelo smirked as he looked at Jay. "You did good, wolf. I puked my guts out the first time that they used me in a circle."

"He's still alive," Maria's voice broke the silence, and we all turned to see her and the other witches crouched next to Halder's motionless body. "He's not going to be in any condition to talk for a long time, but he's alive."

"Where do you want me to put him?" Angelo asked, nudging one of Halder's boots with his own.

"I'm not comfortable with him anywhere but in a cell." King Julian scratched his beard and looked unconcerned.

"He may look fine physically, but he's a bloody mess inside." Sara stood and brushed her pants off. "He has a long road to recovery and will need lots of rest and nourishing food. An overheated jail cell with only a thin mattress on the floor and no fresh water isn't good enough."

The other three witches agreed with her, and I could see we were going to have a fight on our hands if we threw him back in his cell. They had a lot more compassion than we did.

"He's staying locked up until I can talk with him and get to the bottom of this," King Julian said with Onyx lighting his eyes.

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