Beneath me, within me.
Within the patients in the hospital.
I could seeFracturahalt and tear, shredding and dissipating into the earth. Into theEarth.
The slimes that had grown over me... died. Crumbled. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
The slimes on the ground withered and died. The slimes on the witches followed, dying, feeding the earth.
The roots inside my belly twisted and went still.
I gulped in a breath. Another. Shaking. Crying.
The heart ofInfinitio/Unendlich,the infinity loop, spun out of the circle that no longer was. Like a train off the track, hard, out and away. Flung free. Where it could wreak havoc on its own. But, freed from the slimes, I was able to shift my own energies out and slip the smallest part of me through the loop. Catching it. It spun around me, uncertain. I gave it the tiniest of tugs.
“Nellllllll,”it called, the sound of its voice like bells ringing, calling, charming.
It’s alive.“Yessss,” I whispered back. Towing gently. Drawing it toward me.
It wrapped itself around me, holding on. Itknew me.It wasaware. And it burned. Every part of my magics it touchedburned. The last of the ley line energy that had been siphoned off, stored. It scorched my body and my soul, burning, burning,burning. I dragged in a breath to fight the torture. It didn’t help. It just made me more aware.
Ignoring the pain, the rapidly growing agony, I gripped theInfinitioloop where it gripped me. As if I had taken its hand in welcome.“Nelllll,”it trilled.
I slung it up out of the earth.
Into the containment vessel held by Soul.
“Betraaaayyyyeeerrrr,”it screamed, just as Soul closed the lid on the jar. Sealing it within.
The last threads of the working broke, shockingly. Magics sluiced over me, lifting my hair, burning, stinking like magical fire, chemical and astringent, like something Tesla might have imagined had he indulged in drugged dreams. I gasped, realized I was flat on my back, my hands buried, burned in the coarse soil, lumps and clumps raised up where the slime blooms had come through and then died. I pushed against the earth to sit upright, muscles pinging with pain. The dead slime molds around me crumbled. Dust on the breeze. My skin was slicked with my blood, fresh, liquid, and chilling over older blood that was cold and tacky to the touch. All the witches were covered in the gleam of power, bright in the night. All were bleeding. Some were crying. Others angry. The soil around them was disturbed. All this I took in with a sweeping glance as the world swirled around me and my gorge rose.
My head swam. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t hear.
The witches were screaming, some standing, some lying on the ground. The working had fallen, taking some of them with it, the backlash knocking them out.
Hopefully not dead.
At the south point on the twelve-place witch working, a woman stood. Rivera Cornwall. The witch from the safe house. Before I could make sense of what I was seeing, she pointed at me. Fire seemed to weave through her fingers.
When I went to the safe house, Rivera had said one word over and over, “No.” She had gone with Wendy, her twin, to the hospital, by an ambulance, for what was later revealed to be a through-and-through wound, involving only fatty tissue. Rivera had then bolted and disappeared. Had the shooter even meant to shoot Wendy at all? Or had the superficial resemblance between the twins meant that the shot had been intended for Rivera? She was crafting a working, and all the other witches were on theground, still affected by the molds and the ley line backlash, all except T. Laine, who was carrying the containment vessel back down to the cars.
I didn’t know if Rivera was guilty or not, but I couldn’t let her get away.
“Soul,” I croaked. And pointed at the witch. Just as Rivera threw her hands out, directing ashatterworking toward Lainie.
There was a blast of light. And Soul disappeared, taking with her the containment vessel. And all the power of Rivera Cornwall’s curse.
T. Laine whirled. Saw Rivera. Raced to her, tackled the witch, and took her down. Banged her head hard on the ground, so hard I felt it through the soles of my shoes. Lainie slapped a pair of witchy cuffs on her, and said,“Tu dormies.”Rivera’s eyes closed and instantly she was asleep.
“Stupid witch,” T. Laine said.
My palms on the earth told me that the earth was calming. The vibrations were stopping. The Old One shifted and stilled. Sleeping. It was over.
***
I woke in a hospital, being sewn up. The doctor leaning over me said, “You’re awake. Good. Some of us were worried.”
I focused on him, a blurry image of an overweight, balding, out-of-shape man who stank of tobacco and Mexican spices. Leaning over me, around him, were four others, all in white laboratory coats, all looking on with interest. Two were witches. I could see the magics swirling around them, one set of energies green and verdant, the other magics dimmer, slower, brown with red tints, hard as stone. Interns in the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s paranormal emergency department. I could see their magics. This was new.
