Witchlock (43 page)

Evalle broke away from the cloaking, shoved warlock Don aside, and lunged between Veronika and Quinn, which put her in the line of whatever hold Veronika had over Quinn. In that moment, as Evalle flew sideways, Veronika’s majik stabbed through her.
 

The force of power held Evalle in mid-air for a second. She saw Kizira staring back and calling, “Quinn, stay with me.”
 

Evalle blinked and Storm stood there, bleeding all over his body. He held out his hand. “I will always love you.”
 

Everything vanished except the two of them.
 

Storm’s eyes rolled back in his head.
 

No! She couldn’t lose him. Evalle leaned forward, reaching for Storm, but the Medb warlock she’d shoved aside rammed her with his body, knocking her down and breaking the hold on her mind.
 

The chaos going on around her came flooding back into focus. Crud, no wonder this bitch could control people. She rolled away and jumped up, stomping her boots hard.
 

Blades flipped out around the edges of her soles.
 

The warlock came at her.
 

She stepped into a scissor kick that missed him by a hair when he flipped away. He called out words that were guttural and vicious sounding, then wound up his arm and threw a glowing red curve ball at her, which she dodged. She couldn’t use her kinetics yet, because she still had her gloves on, but she had Belador speed. She somersaulted away, twisting to land on her feet.
 

A shadow moved over the grass from the eclipse.
 

Warlock Don came at her with an unholy look in his eyes and fire blazing from both hands.
 

What had Veronika done to him to rev him up this way?
 

All that fighting had taken Evalle away from Quinn, who was back under Veronika’s control, following her as if a tether ran between Veronika’s free hand and his neck.
 

Adrianna pushed against the power from Veronika’s sphere, but it held her thirty feet back.
 

The crowd cleared a path for Veronika and no one interfered.
 

Correction.
 

Rowan struggled to her feet, singed from head to toe, but still alive. She
started toward Veronika, saying in a raw voice, “You can’t fight us all.”
 

Evalle was starting to question her own statement to that effect.
 

She ran straight at Don, zigzagging at blinding speed to avoid his fireballs, and slid under the next one, slamming into his legs. He went down on his face. She came to her feet as he pushed up again. Evalle stepped forward and booted him in the head as hard as she could.
 

His head snapped back and he went flying ten feet, then stayed down with his head at an unnatural angle.
 

Veronika laughed at Rowan and whipped her sphere hand away from Adrianna for a second, to toss Rowan up and over Veronika’s head and so far away that Rowan had to have landed outside the spelled enclosure.
 

That interruption gained Adrianna only ten feet.
 

But she had her hands up, yelling in what sounded like Russian to Evalle. Two dark bodies with solid white eyes, open jaws and red, glowing teeth shot up from the ground next to Adrianna, towering over her and turning their pointy claws toward Veronika.
 

Veronika split the power from the sphere she held to blow up those creatures.
 

Shock filled Adrianna’s face.
 

Storm and Trey ran up to Rowan outside the invisible field. Where had they come from? Could they get inside? Storm turned and ran at the invisible field. He slapped his hands on it and was yelling something so loud, the veins in his neck stuck out. His hand glowed and his eyes turned red.
 

No, not the demon
. Evalle would not be the reason Storm’s demon blood rose to the surface again.
 

She needed her kinetics to break Veronika’s hold on Quinn.
 

The sun was almost completely covered.
 

Any second now Evalle could peel off her gloves and ...
 

Veronika called to Adrianna, “Your power will join your sister’s and we three will become one.”
 

Power racing from the sphere in Veronika’s hand shifted from pushing Adrianna back to flooding over her.
 

Evalle couldn’t save Quinn and Adrianna too. In that moment, Adrianna looked at Evalle and mouthed, S
ave Quinn
.
 

Then Adrianna’s body shot up in the air, jerked left and right like a rag doll in strong wind. The arc of power spewing from the sphere to Adrianna brightened, but this one did not toss her the way it had Rowan.
 

The power engulfed Adrianna. She screamed in agony and arched backwards.
 

Chapter 42
 

Adrianna fought the pain that spiked through every inch of her body. She would not give that witch her power.
 

The moon sealed off the sun overhead.
 

No. Veronika can’t win.
 

Ragan’s voice spoke in Adrianna’s head.
Now is the moment, sister. Veronika is greedy and wants to bind our powers before Witchlock takes over. Kill her now.
 

Adrianna cried out,
I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to save you.
Her body spun two rotations, then she still floated above the ground, flailing her arms and feeling her body being sucked dry.
 

When she could focus again, Adrianna saw the fight below. Evalle snatched off her gloves and took off running straight for Quinn and Veronika. She tossed a hand at Quinn, hitting him with kinetics that sent him flying twenty feet, then Evalle stepped into a kick, booting Veronika’s hand hard and knocking the sphere flying.
 

Adrianna watched in shock as the sphere flew up in the air, straight for her. Ragan’s panicked face came into focus, white eyes glowing. Adrianna reached out and grabbed the sphere as it passed her, laughing and crying at catching it until she realized her horizontal body still hung suspended in the air.  
 

Ragan’s voice shouted, “Stop her, Adrianna. Stop her now! I’ll give you my power.”
 

“No. I’m getting you out of there.”
 

“You
can
stop Veronika.
Take my power!”
 

Adrianna shook her head. “You’ll die!”
 

“I’m already dead, sister. She fed my power into this sphere. The sphere and I are one. I will never have a life or a death as long as she controls Witchlock.”
 

Evalle was pushing a kinetic wall at Veronika, whose hood had fallen away to show the vicious gaze that would kill a thousand as easily as it would step on an ant. But she wasn’t looking at Evalle. She stared up, speechless at sight of the sphere in Adrianna’s hands.
 

Then Veronika screeched in a blood curdling cry, “
Mine!”
 

A black tornado of smoke spiraled down from the eclipse, spinning faster the closer it came to the ground.
 

Ragan begged, “Open our bond, Adrianna, and I will send you my power. Take it and kill her. Free me, please. Don’t leave me to suffer any more. Open the bond on your side.”
 

Adrianna’s eyes flooded and the tears poured. She stared at Ragan and tried to breathe. After all this time she’d thought she could do the right thing to free Ragan, but she didn’t have it in her to kill the one person she loved in this world.
 

Ragan looked up. “Veronika rushed the process bringing me from the realm. She made a mistake and opened herself up. I’ve gained Veronika’s innermost thoughts. The second that tornado touches down, someone has to take control of Witchlock or it will kill everyone here.”
 

Storm still hadn’t broken through Hermia and Veronika’s spelled wall.
 

Rowan wasn’t moving.
 

Evalle continued to shove her kinetics at Veronika, but Evalle slid another foot backwards. She was losing ground and the sun would come out any second and burn her to a crisp.
 

Ragan sobbed and begged, “Please. You can do this.”
 

Adrianna had no choices left. She looked at her sister and said, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
 

“I love you and I know you love me. Stop Veronika. Do it for me.”
 

Squeezing her eyes shut, Adrianna opened the bond they’d had from birth and Ragan’s power flooded her. The burst of power washed across her skin and soaked into her body.
 

She opened her eyes and the sphere expanded until it engulfed both Adrianna and her sister. She reached for Ragan, whose fingers extended to hers.
 

The second they touched, Ragan gasped and began shrinking.
 

“
Ragaaan!”
 

Ragan turned into a tiny spark that blinked out.
 

Adrianna’s heart tried to climb out of her chest and grab her sister.
 

The sphere had vanished but Adrianna’s prone body was still suspended thirty feet above the ground.
 

The tornado tip spun tighter into a narrow, twisting funnel, heading for Veronika.
 

Adrianna stared in horror. Veronika would gain both her and her sister’s power.
What do I do?
 

Storm crashed through the invisible wall, leaving it smoking. His eyes glowed demon red.
 

Ragan’s voice whispered in Adrianna’s mind.
Call Witchlock to you. That’s all you have to do. Now!
 

As if on autopilot, Adrianna’s mouth opened and her voice called out, “
I command Witchlock to obey me!”
 

Veronika’s eyes rounded. She shook her head, reached toward the
tornado and screamed,
“Noooo!”
 

The tornado tip hovered ten feet above the ground, just out of Veronika’s reach.
 

Chapter 43
 

Evalle’s body shook. She wouldn’t be able to hold this kinetic field against Veronika’s power much longer.
 

A freakin’ tornado had spun down from the eclipsed sun.
 

And headed straight for Veronika.
 

No, no,
no
.
 

As Evalle watched, the tornado paused, then curled away from Veronika, leaving the dark-haired witch slack-jawed as the spinning tip turned up at an angle ... toward Adrianna, who was glowing bright gold.
 

A blur flew by Evalle, and Storm hit Veronika so hard, he knocked her fifty feet, where she landed and slid across the ground in a pile of billowing red.
 

The pressure from Veronika’s majik evaporated and Evalle fell forward on her face. Grace be to Macha, her arms were shot from muscle fatigue.
 

Someone rolled her over, and she tensed, ready to slam a power shot into whoever was touching her, but then she heard Storm’s voice. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
 

She looked up smiling even though he couldn’t see her face beneath the ninja head covering.
 

Then she saw the full eclipse. “
Sun! Gloves!”
 

He grabbed her hands and shoved them inside his coat as the first rays of sunshine struck the ground around them. He had her hands against his chest and she could feel his heart slamming like an engine in overdrive.
 

Hers was no calmer.  
 

All of a sudden the air cooled around them. Adrianna dropped to her knees next to Evalle, with the gloves in her hands. She told Storm, “I’ve got you both shielded from the sun right now. It’s safe to let her move her hands.”
 

That would explain the temperature drop, even with the late-day sun coming back to full force.
 

Storm said to Evalle, “You haven’t answered my question.”
 

“I’m good. Help me sit up.”  Once she was upright, she carefully pulled her hands out and, when they didn’t fry, she lifted her ninja headgear.
 

Storm kissed her.
 

She was alive. The people she cared about were alive and well. She was kissing the man she loved. Living arrangements were small bubbles.
 

“You two are nauseating,” Adrianna chided, trying to sound light, but her voice held so much pain it hurt Evalle’s heart, hearing her try to be chipper.
 

People were in chaos, running all around them.
 

Wannabe witches had changed their minds—imagine that–and ran for the exit path. Rowan looked like she’d been fighting a wildfire, covered in black soot from head to toe, but she had Hermia off to one side, unloading on her. Hermia had crossed the wrong witch, because after today there was no question that there would be a council of five or that Rowan would lead it.
 

Storm sat down with his arm around Evalle’s shoulders. His eyes were their normal brown again.
 

Adrianna stared off into the distance.  
 

Evalle said, “We didn’t save Ragan, did we?”
 

“No.”
 

“I’m sorry, Adrianna.”
 

Adrianna swallowed and took a moment, clearly gathering herself back to the contained woman she always presented to the world. “It’s okay. She’s free. She asked to be ... released.”
 

Evalle had to take some deep breaths to keep tears back. Adrianna had lost everything. “What happened with the sphere and ... Witchlock?”