Page 38 of Fated Midlife Christmas
Mary hated it. The old witch knew what he was doing. She fired at him relentlessly, even pulling from the cloud of magic under her to attack him.
He tucked his head and grunted as the blows came. This battle couldn’t be won with fighting.
Suddenly, the onslaught lessened. Amanda was next to him. She was fighting just as hard as he was, but not in the same way the battle had begun. She’d built a wall of energy around him, shielding him from Mary’s attacks.
The other witches had changed their plan, as well. They’d retreated to the doorway with Lucille, and they were back intheir human forms. Their teeth chattered as they repeated the spell. “Across the veil, you must go!”
Lars splayed his feet on the floor, pulling and stretching the ley power like a plasma that could be pushed and prodded. He put his trust in Amanda to protect him as he drained the energy from Mary, shoving it into the earth.
But only so much power could be shifted at a time, and he was starting to run out of space. He could ground that energy into the earth under the house, but it was going to take time to flow back out into the ley system. Mary had pulled so much of that power up above the surface, essentially flooding the air with it.
“Back to the realm your soul must flee…” The witches continued to chant, the rhythm of their voices rising and falling, always staying in harmony.
Lars used it as a beat to work to, pulling the energy from Mary, pushing it away. Slow and steady, though the urgency of the situation made him long for a quicker process.
“No! No!” Mary screamed. “You brought me here! You can’t do this to me!” The dark cloud that had been forming under the floating witch was beginning to shrink.
Lars felt hope rise within him, and he felt the reflection of it within Amanda as she held their shield strong. Her mind was a steady thrum as she moved and controlled energy in her own way, blocking the ever-weaker attacks from Mary.
“You’re killing me!” Mary cried, her voice turning from fury to sorrow.
We’re not. We’re only sending her back to where she came from, where she belongs.
Lars took comfort in that reassurance as he continued to work. The pitiful protests were just Mary trying to gain an advantage in a different manner.
We release you, so shall it be!Amanda had joined in the spell, reciting it in time with the others in her mind.Dust of bone, shard of soul…
Yet another voice joined the witches. It was Lorelei. “Across the veil, you must go.”
His confidence renewed, Lars pulled a heavy load of power from Mary. There was no more room in the earth, and he merely shoved it away. As long as Mary couldn’t get to it, that was all that mattered.
“No! Please! No!” Mary’s body twisted. Her shoulders buckled. Her legs writhed, making her feet wiggle under the hem of her tattered gown. Her gaunt face sucked in on itself, her lips disappearing into her mouth. Her nostrils stretched as the voids of her eyes expanded. All the air in the room went rushing toward her, sucked down into the black hole that her face had become.
“So shall it be!”
The cloud beneath her had completely disappeared now. The spinning vortex of her face sank lower and lower toward the floor, sucking in the rest of her spiritual body as it went. With a final rush of air, she was gone.
The room stayed silent for a long moment. The ley power lazily occupied the space in large clumps and thin strands, displaced from the lines in the earth. The physical damage that’d happened was very real, but the spirit that had caused it was no longer.
Cautiously, Lars shifted back to his human form. His skin tickled as the fur disappeared, and he felt the familiar ripple along his shoulders and ribs as his muscles and insides changed shape and orientation. He turned to Amanda, who staggered slightly as she also regained her human shape. He instinctively put his hand on her elbow. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She blinked and then widened her eyes as if she was still trying to understand everything that she’d just seen. “I think I am. I wasn’t sure for a minute if we were all going to survive that. You pulled off some pretty impressive work.”
“What was that, anyway?” Kristy asked as she approached them.
“It was the only thing I could think of,” he explained. “I was draining her energy. I couldn’t put it all back where it needs to go, exactly. I just did the best I could.”
Lucille came forward and gave him a hug. “You were the key that wasn’t in the book. None of it was going to work alone. We needed both the spell and your powers.”
Lorelei poked her head into the room. “Is…is she gone?”
“Yes,” Amanda told her with a smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about her again, unless Corinna does something she shouldn’t.”
Shyly, Lorelei stepped into the room. It was still chilly, and she rubbed her hands on her upper arms. “Um, Corinna isn’t here.”
“What do you mean?” Lucille asked.
“When things started getting really bad, she just slunk out the door,” Lorelei admitted. “I was focused on what was happening, and by the time I noticed, there wasn’t anything I could do.”
