Page 115 of Amethyst Flame
Dane ran over—and holy fuck, I thought he actually might—but he just took me by the arm to turn me and looked at my ouchy shoulders and back. “Are you all right?”
The lash hurt like a bitch, and every one of my nerves felt like sparking wicks leading to the bomb of dragons in my belly, but I nodded anyway. I was alive, Dane was alive, the people all around were alive, and that was what mattered.
“I can do magic,” I said, dazed.
I had spoken an incantation…and it had worked. In real life. Magic. A spell worked. There was real magic in the real fucking world, andIhad worked it. The possibilities… My head spun. I was anEldWitch. The world’s first. And only. Because it wasme.
Dane smiled. “But we already knew that.” Then looked over toward the water. “Let’s go see. Be ready in case he’s playing dead.”
St. Croix’s fireflies swarmed over our heads to the water where Hive Will had gone down.
The crowd parted to let us through.
As we approached the decorative concrete railing, I thought I might have just…saved the day?
And then Hive Will shot up into the air, both sopping wet and blazing with snapping blue light.
His chest was a pit of glistening blackened goo. His pallor had gone zombie white. His eyes weren’t just bloodshot; they were bloody. But his fingertips crackled with cerulean menace.
A lightning lash whipped out, circling Dane around his bare torso and lifting him off the ground. Another lash zap-slapped toward me—and missed, though my hair lifted with the static electricity in the air.
Somehow, even with his upper arms pinned, Dane was firing his gun into Hive Will. But the burned and drowned monster registered no damage points.
“Run!” Dane yelled at me.
As if I’d leave him.
If a spell worked, then maybe a curse would too. I made the L with my thumb and pointer finger, muttered the words to the Death Grip, then thrust my hand in Hive Will’s direction.
A ghostly purple spirit-hand emerged from mine, though its fingers were longer and knobbier, its nails sharp and acid green. The crowd went “aaaahhhhh” as it smoked across the concrete barrier and across the water to where Hive Will levitated. The hand closed around Hive Will’s throat.
In Legendelirium, the curse would kill anyone it touched but could only be used once.
Hive Will thrashed in my witchy clutch. His lightning whips disappeared, and Dane collapsed on the pavement.
Was he okay? Attention shifted, my grip faltered, and my ghost hand smoked away.
The world was tipping a little sideways for me. Were Dane’s friends almost here?
But no. Stay focused. What would finally stop this monster? I mentally rifled through my spells for something, anything, that I could use.
Summoning? Maybe…? No. Bad idea. We already had one monster to contend with.
Sinister Swap? Yeah, I didn’t want to switch places with him either. I’d fall into the water and drown. Not to self: learn how to levitate.
Sleeping Beauty? Yes! Put the fucker to sleep, which was kind of like stasis. Do hives dream?
My left hand shaped the L, though using the last dregs of my power made stars swim into my vision—
Something zipped by me and exploded on impact with Hive Will.
I whipped my attention behind me to find Jacob kneeling beside the Kidnapper, the rocket launcher on his shoulder.
Had he—?
Jacob looked as surprised at himself as I was, but he smiled through his terror at me.
I whipped back to the water. Dane too had come to his knees, gaze cast out on the water. Had Jacob done it? Was Hive Will finally dead?
