Autumn (57 page)

             
Zander suddenly grabbed Arabel’s arm. He pointed to the energy void he’d just created.

             
“Quick!” he yelled to Arabel, Eli and Francesca. “Inside!”

             
With this shout, Zander jumped into the quavering bubble and the others joined him without hesitation.

             
Within the safety of the energy void, Arabel could now truly see the room and it was altered drastically. Arabel could see the white coating of terror falling down, down, down, but she could now also see the source of the magical spell. It was a dark, grey cloud attached to Nick Chauncer and it reeked of rotten, dank, death.

             
Arabel immediately closed her eyes and began to dismantle it. Arabel felt Francesca joining minds with her and she also knew intuitively that Xavier had now physically arrived with Baltis and many other Gypsies to surround the gates of Murphy Estates.

             
Arabel floated astrally within the void. She held tightly to Francesca’s small hand as they were buffeted high into the air and the two girls did their best to ease the terror with compassion. The fear shrivelled and struck out in pain, shrieking in dismay and recoiling from the thin sheet of resolute compassion Arabel and Francesca aimed at its source of origin. The two girls beamed their concentrated forces straight through the center of the horrid smelling energy and were gratified when the terror collapsed suddenly and the white hypnotic dust ceased to fall.

             
Somewhere nearby, where they could not see, Nick Chauncer fell to his knees, and clutched his heart in excruciating agony.

             
Arabel re-opened her eyes, satisfied momentarily.

             
The room had changed again. It had mostly emptied, Arabel thankfully realized. Now, the few scattered, remaining guests appeared to be regaining their faculties and were hastily getting to their feet and making their way to the exits. The intense heat waves had also abated and Arabel wondered now what was happening outside of the mansion. She quickly called to Ira who sent her gruesome, telepathic pictures of Saul Porchetto and a host of his evil comrades as they rode fiercely en masse up the frozen and decorated lawn of the mansion toward the front doors and the waiting guards.

             
Arabel watched in fresh horror as the Dorojenja attacked the officers of Chief Constable Bartlin mercilessly with fail-proof arrows and slingshots of dark magic, both of which the normally able-bodied officers had no defence against.

             
The officers fell, in a great line, frozen with terror and slain with contempt.

             
Arabel wept; she felt the falling of the men and the destructive rage behind the killings engulf her.

             
Eli clasped Arabel’s hand tightly within his
own
and led her out of the room with Zander and Francesca.

             
The hallway was utterly chaotic with escaping guests running helter-skelter and frightened, manic shouting and screaming echoing madly throughout the space. Arabel could not see Shelaine anywhere and she sent a quick message to her friend, seeking out her whereabouts. Arabel immediately received the impression that Shelaine was ensconced in the far tower, where her bedroom lay, and Arabel hoped that the dark energy had not crept in that far within the mansion.

             
Fallen bodies, some dead, some unconscious, littered the floor and Arabel sighted many spectres as they jumped out of their newly deceased flesh, confusion and terror foremost and prevalent within their hollowed-out, gruesome eyes. It seemed that everywhere Arabel looked, ghosts, confusion and dark energy abounded.

             
The four companions raced down the hallway, safely ensconced within the energy void, and headed toward the main foyer and the outside of the mansion, where Saul and his forces awaited them.

             
Mentally, Zander plotted their course to join his brother and the other Gypsies who were arriving in great numbers up the long, tree-lined drive. Many others were assisting astrally, such as Mireille, and Arabel could feel Eli’s mother’s grace as she sent waves of healing and presence to them all, the vibration quiet, yet effective, still, yet powerful.

             
When they reached the front door, they stopped to wait for the bulk of the energy void to catch up with them. The bright ball of energy rolled along with them, attracting light as it went. Others were drawn to it and many stepped inside. Their relief upon finding and entering the bubble was palpable and immense. The bubble expanded accordingly and Zander moved it down the hall, past the front door, seeking another exit.

             
“Where is another way out?” Zander asked Arabel and she pointed immediately to an old servants exit, rarely used, which she knew about from the days of her childhood, when she and Shelaine would sneak out from under Shelaine’s governess’ watchful eyes and escape to play outside.

             
“There are steep steps, and it is badly lit, but we will exit onto the far side of the grounds; they will not be expecting us to appear from there!” Arabel decreed, leading the way.

             
The bubble lurched forward with Arabel and its other occupants, rolling toward the steep steps and dimly lit exit. Francesca hung back; something insistent was pulling her in another direction.

             
“I must – I must go this way,” Francesca spoke suddenly, pulling herself from the safety of the void and moving back toward the melee at the front door.

             
“No!” Arabel cried as the tiny medium began to disappear from their sight. “Francesca!”

             
Zander pulled at Arabel’s arm. “She will be fine, she is stronger than all of us!” he said urgently. “Come! We’ve no time to lose!”

             
There was a deep boom of laughter inside of Arabel’s head. She could hear the guttural, mocking enjoyment of her distress and she felt again Saul Porchetto’s dark determination to recapture her and his intense craving to bend both her mind and her body to his depraved will and ownership.

             
“You will not win!” Arabel vowed aloud, renewing her efforts to remain centered within the strong waves of heart energy.

             
They raced toward the door and as they reached it, all heard very clearly the commanding voice of Xavier within their minds.

             
“Three to the left and three to the right, all will stand and none will fight.”

             
“Whatever does that mean?” Arabel cried in frustration.

             
Zander’s green eyes locked onto Arabel’s flashing blues. “Stand our ground and they shall not pass!”

             
“Xavier’s group is on the right,” Eli interjected. “We must take the left!”

             
The heavy old doors groaned in dismay as Zander and Eli wrenched them open. A cold blast of autumn air struck them as they crept out silently onto the frozen grounds of Murphy Estates. The party decorations remained untouched, haunting remnants of joyous expectation. Arabel saw the lights on the frozen candle-swan flicker, and then slowly extinguish.

             
The guests who had sought shelter in the bubble of Zander’s energy void now rapidly ran free toward the path leading off of the estate. Arabel hoped they would make it safely from the grounds and not be waylaid and decimated by Saul’s blood-thirsty soldiers.

             
Xavier’s voice once again pierced the minds of Arabel, Eli and Zander.

             
“You cannot fight the darkness,” Xavier stated emphatically. “You can only create a boundary through which it cannot pass. You must be the light!”

             
Arabel imagined great shafts of light encompassing her body, her physical being, her extended energy field, and she shot the waves of light out from her the tips of her fingers, picturing the shafts coating all within the vicinity. Arabel remembered the magical healing energy of the Elemental’s realm and she brought it forward within her mind, stimulating the memory and piercing and imbuing her senses with the steadfast and peaceful energy.

             
A cold, thin, cruel, bloody, oblong shaped ribbon cut out at Arabel, snapping her concentration and piercing the safety of the energy void. Zander immediately closed the gap the bloody ribbon had created and Arabel shuddered from the chill evil of the energy tendrils. She watched in fascinated disgust as the tendrils slowly capitulated and sunk into the ground, burning with acrid smoke before dispersing finally into nothingness.

             
“We must join our minds!” Zander cried. “Let us use the Discrepancy Spell! They will be unprepared for it!”

             
“What are you intending to put forth for the discrepancy?” Eli asked urgently. “Quickly!” he cried as they spotted Saul moving toward them on his great war steed, an expression of grim darkness upon his dark, good looking face.

             
Nick Chauncer, appearing somewhat recovered, accompanied Saul with a twin expression of evil humour and obstinacy upon his countenance.

             
Zander’s mind raced in a thousand directions at once. He discarded one option after the other and then finally snapped his fingers as the proper variant revealed itself to him.

             
“Focus on Arabel! She is the witch, the magnet for the Dorojenja, the anomaly!”

             
“Not Arabel!” Eli interjected heatedly. “There must be another variant!”

             
“Not as strong as she!” Zander proclaimed.

             
“Do it!” Arabel insisted hurriedly. “Just do it! It’s alright, Eli!”

             
Arabel beseeched Eli with her troubled blue eyes. “I
am
the discrepancy, Eli! Use me! I am not afraid!”

             
Eli reluctantly assented and the three began to create the spell.

             
Arabel had never performed the Discrepancy Spell for real, only in practice, but she remembered all of the steps Zander had taught her. Ira swooped Arabel suddenly, landing upon her shoulder, and the bird joined in with the
magic, lending his corvid other
worldliness. Ira informed Arabel that the ravens, crows, magpies
, rooks, treepies, jackdaws, choughs
and blue jays were coming, and along with them, an unexpected group of allies: the eagles, the hawks and the owls were also on their way. Arabel thanked Ira for the good news and they concentrated once more upon the steps of the Discrepancy Spell.

             
As the spell began to take shape, Arabel received a sudden flash of intuition that alarmed her and redirected her attention momentarily. Shelaine was in trouble! Arabel heard Saul’s dark laughter and she could see his eyes, boring into hers with sordid promises she vowed she would not allow him to keep.

             
Arabel quickly returned her focus to the magic spell and she felt an unfamiliar buoyancy as the spell took hold. As she herself was the variant within the spell, Arabel felt a certain light-headedness growing within her mind. She felt encompassed in layers of soothing energy and she let herself fall into it.

             
The world seemed to drop away and Arabel found herself floating in a hazy white sky, reminiscent of the Elemental’s Realm of the Cloudless Dawn. There was nothing but Arabel and the sky. The sky and Arabel. She floated lazily into the hazy atmosphere,
all
troubles and darkness relinquishing their tight, insistent grip upon her. Arabel sighed in contentment as the darkness subsided. She floated.

             
And then she landed with an abrupt thud and the world came rushing back in great thrusts of power. Arabel was within the energy void with Eli, Ira, and Zander. She blinked as she spotted the soldiers rushing toward them, Saul and Nick leading the charge, athames raised and daggers at the ready to pierce innocent flesh.

             
Arabel could hear Shelaine within her mind, calling for help, screaming, as something, or someone, tortured her with blasts of anguish and physical pain.

             
“Where is Francesca?” Arabel cried, trying to locate the girl telepathically.

             
There was no response. Arabel’s heart beat furiously within her ribcage and she held her athame out in front of her body to protect herself. The energy void wavered in defensive ripples but did not fall as the Dorojenja sent emissaries of darkness forward to pierce its magical boundaries.

             
The Dorojenja’s own energy void approached stealthily, rolling along and collecting darkness where it could find it, and the Dorojenja wheel of death clattered along behind the energy void, the bitter shield hungrily seeking souls to bind to its endless, merciless, undead possession.