Magick (Book 3 in the Coven Series) (18 page)

We all grab a side of the plain stone slab. But as soon as my hands touch it, a scraping sound behind me causes me to spin toward it with magic crackling at my fingertips. A secret compartment has opened in the wall.

“This gets way more Indiana Jones every minute,” Keller says.

Egan steps away from the coffin. “I’m just glad we don’t have to see what a three-hundred-year-old dead witch looks like.”

I click on my own flashlight and approach the opening. With a shaking hand, I lift the piece of paper inside.

“Is that it?” Toni asks.

I read the first few words. “Yeah.”

“What does it say?”

I hold up a hand to halt the questions while I continue reading. But the more I read, the shakier I get. I’d give just about anything for a chair right about now. When I finish reading, I continue staring at the paper as if the words will change. But they don’t. They keep saying something so incredible it’s hard to believe.

Keller steps up next to me, his warm presence giving me strength. “Jax? You okay?”

Instead of answering, I look into the small opening again. I reach in and grasp the object I would have overlooked had the page not told me where it was. With a shaking hand, I retrieve the ring.

“What’s that?” Toni asks.

I hold up the simple pewter band that holds a large opal. “It’s the White Ring.”

“The what?” Toni says.

“What does it do?” Egan asks.

I stare at the ring for a long moment before answering. “It gives me the power to end the dark covens forever.” I hold out the book page to let them read the unbelievable words themselves.

“Damn,” Egan says when he finishes.

Yeah, that about sums it up. According to the long-lost missing page to the Beginning Book, with this ring I have the ability to drain the dark magic out of every witch I touch.

Keller meets my eyes, and I see worry in his at the same moment I feel it in him.

“I know,” I say. “It’s an awful lot of power for one person.” What would he think if I revealed the little nugget about the fissure, too?

His concern is nudged aside with determination. “It is, but you have us here. You might have to do the actual act by yourself, but you won’t be alone.” He takes my hand in his. “You’ll never be alone.”

I’m so caught up in the feel of his hand clasping mine that I almost miss the vibration at the edge of my sensory zone. I grip his hand harder and gasp.

Egan’s already halfway to the door, pulling Toni after him. “We have to go,” he says.

Keller pulls the bloodstone from his coat pocket. The stone is glowing bright red.

“Sean,” I say in answer to the question Keller hasn’t even voiced.

The stone at the front of the crypt slams closed so quickly that my eyes almost can’t track it. Toni nearly screams, but Egan manages to clap his hand over her mouth in time to stop her. Keller hurries toward the front and runs his hands over the stone as if he can find a hidden lever to release us.

I hurry to him and grip his arm. “It’s too late. Even if it opens, we can’t get away in time.”

“We’re trapped?” Toni asks when Egan removes his hand. She sounds more panicked than I’ve heard her since we sat opposite each other beside Egan’s hospital bed following the fight at Shiprock.

Egan wraps his arms around her with a gesture so protective it makes my heart swell. But when he looks at me over the top of Toni’s head, I see the worry there.

Even through the thick stone, I sense Sean enter the cemetery. “Turn off the lights and don’t speak.”

The flashlights click off one right after the other. In the pitch black, Keller pulls me close, too. Even with my phenomenal powers, I still feel safer with his steady presence next to me. An incredible rush of fear at possibly losing him steals my breath.

Egan reaches through the dark and grasps my hand. I entwine my fingers with his. If I’d grown up in a normal home with a brother, I couldn’t love him more than I do Egan. At times I feel like the love I’ve received and reciprocated is fate’s way of making up for all the years in which I experienced none at all.

We stand still for so long that my back begins to ache. Still, Keller doesn’t loosen his hold on me. Neither does Egan. With just enough of my sensory ability to make it possible, I track Sean’s movements outside. He searches the cemetery, trying to figure out the origin of the magical burst. I feel his confusion at the nature of the signature, one he’s never encountered, and thankfully, he doesn’t recognize it as mine. Does my white magic hide my signature, or has it changed altogether?

I force myself to take slow, calming breaths as Sean draws closer. Though Keller and Toni cannot feel my emotions the way I can theirs, I still hope my attempts at calm will rub off on them, especially Toni. I sense how every muscle in her body is tensed almost to the breaking point.

My muscles don’t fare any better when Sean reaches the area right outside the crypt. I know it might seem strange for a witch to pray while standing inside a crypt, but that’s exactly what I do. I pray that Sean cannot sense us in here, that the spell against dark witches is still in place, that he will leave and soon.

I hold my breath when I sense him standing right outside, no more than three feet in front of me. None of us dares to move, and I can tell the others are holding their breath, too. The silence stretches unmercifully until suddenly there is a jolt in the energy outside followed by a yelp. I jump at the sound but just manage to keep myself quiet. Toni squeaks, but Egan snatches his hand out of mine to wrap both arms around her. I don’t have to see them to picture their movements exactly.

Loud cursing makes its way through the stone, and this time I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. But my internal laughter dies when I sense Sean aiming his magic at the crypt. I have no time to warn the others, and I can’t risk speaking anyway.

When the blast of energy comes, I squeeze Keller’s hand so hard I’m afraid I might hear bones start to crack. Outside, the ricochet of energy bouncing off the spell sends Sean flying halfway across the cemetery. He slams into an old headstone and breaks it in half.

He doesn’t approach again. Instead, I sense him moving away then stopping. I strain to hear, but he’s too far away. After a few minutes in which I detect flashes of Sean’s irritation, he begins to walk away again. I have no doubt he’ll report this to my father, and that will be enough to bring the covens here in force. Even after he’s beyond where I can sense him, I don’t move or say anything for a couple of minutes.

“He’s gone,” I say, keeping my voice soft.

“One problem solved,” Egan says. “Now how do we get out of here?”

I step forward and place my hands on the stone about where I think the sun carving is on the outside. Nothing happens. Now my panic threatens. If I’m the only person who can open this thing and I’m inside, how the hell do we get out? I press my forehead against the cold stone as someone turns on a flashlight. I remember the ring I slid into my pocket when I first sensed Sean approaching the cemetery. I pull it out and rotate it between my forefinger and thumb for a moment. Then I slide it onto my right ring finger and place my hands back where I’d had them a moment ago. The stone slides aside, revealing that night has fallen while we waited.

“Quick and quiet,” I say. I urge them all out ahead of me, and I glance back over my shoulder to make sure we aren’t followed. I’m happy to see the dark shape of the Jeep when we top the hill, but I don’t truly relax until we are safely back inside the Bane’s compound.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Egan says as he leans against the wall just inside the facility’s exit. “Let’s not do that again.”

“I second that,” Toni says.

Sarah and the others appear at the opposite end of the hall.

“What took you so long?” Rule asks as he strides toward us. “We were about to head out to get you.”

“If someone can get me a Coke and something really, really chocolatey, I’ll tell you everything,” I say.

A moment of silence is followed by a snort from Toni. I think it’s the release of stress, but the four of us start to laugh until we can barely breath. Everyone else looks at us as if we’ve lost our minds. Maybe we have.

“Can this possibly work?” Hope asks as she looks around at her Bane sisters.

“If Penelope went through so much trouble to protect this secret, I have to think so,” Sarah says. “I’ll go first to make sure.”

Egan moves next to me. “No. That’s for me to do.”

Toni jumps up from where she’s sitting on the arm of one of the couches. “Egan.” Her worry that she’s come this far only to lose him hits me like a tidal wave. Egan feels it, too.

“I’ll be okay.” He looks my way. “Let’s do this.”

“Now?”

He nods. “We have to know if it works. You’ve got a room full of witches waiting their turn if it does.”

“Wait,” Keller says. “It doesn’t say anything about how this will affect Jax.”

His concern lifts my heart, but it doesn’t change what has to happen. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You do. We can try to find another way.”

Normally, Keller would be all for a way to rid the world of dark witches. That he’s not tells me just how deep his feelings have grown for me.

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “I don’t think balance is achieved if the one bringing the balance croaks.” Despite my assurances, my nerves start dancing. I’m not alone. Egan talks a good game, but he’s every bit as nervous as I am.

We turn to face each other. “Hey, try not to fry my brains, okay?”

“Well, no danger there.”

Keller snorts despite his concern.

I take Egan’s hands and notice his binding bracelet. “We need to take this off.” I’m not sure how I know that, but I hear it with absolute certainty in my mind.

“You sure?” he asks.

“I need to be able to access all of your dark magic. I don’t want any hiding behind this.” I lift his hand to indicate the bracelet.

Nobody questions me, and Caren comes forward to remove the binding. When the bracelet comes off, Egan’s dark magic surges to the surface and for a moment I see his eyes turn black. His body goes rigid. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Toni take a step toward him before Keller catches her around the waist and holds her back.

The darkness within Egan struggles against me. It knows what I’m about to do. I squeeze his hands harder and concentrate on the dark energy inside him. Slowly it starts moving toward the center of him, like water swirling toward a drain. I mentally call it to me, and I suck in a little breath when the dark magic moves down his arms, through our clasped hands and up my arms. I feel as if our arms are not separate but one conduit for the magic. Gradually, all his dark magic makes its way across that bridge into me. Nausea starts in the pit of my stomach, and for a second I fear this is too much for me to handle. Was Sarah right about me needing to pull more power from a fissure? But the moment the last of Egan’s magic enters me, the nausea and the magic simply disappear.