He felt the dog’s understanding. In the blink of an eye, the familiar disappeared from the forest floor and reappeared at his side on the top of the cliff.
Malcolm tightened his grip on the broomstick. He hadn’t used this spell on purpose since that day in the forest with Calli, but he had learned so much since then. He summoned his power, remembering how everything in the world connected to one another, including time, and focused it into a single controlling thought.
Stop.
The gun fired, the bullet moved at almost a crawl. But Malcolm’s broom felt like it was pushing through Jell-O. The ancient magic was still trying to interfere, causing the spell to spill over onto him, slowing him down instead of allowing him to move at faster speed like he had when he’d saved that boy from the truck.
As he and Hades got closer to one another, he felt he could concentrate more, and pushed back against the time spell, beginning to move faster and faster. Now the spell was starting to break apart, and a second later, time itself jerked back into place. The second the time spell weakened and then broke apart the bullet from the hunter’s gun tore through Malcolm’s chest. But all Malcolm needed was the time to reach the hunter at the same moment his familiar could get to Calli.
Hades sank his teeth into Calli’s coat from behind, pulling her out of the hunter’s grip just as Malcolm reached out and wrapped his arm around the hunter’s waist, pulling him off the cliff as he flew past.
The pain from the gunshot finally hit him, the agony of it bludgeoning Malcolm so hard he lost control of his magic, and the broom plummeted toward the earth.
The impact was brutal, but to his surprise, he felt nothing. It was as if his soul had been knocked out of his body, and all the blood and broken bones had happened to someone else.
In this detached state, Malcolm saw a tumultuous storm brewing overhead. Wind frothed the tops of the trees and the cliffside. High above, a ring of distant light appeared, as if a hole was being torn in the universe itself. Silvery flashes, like lightning bolts, tried to escape from that rip in the cosmos.
Soft voices, both ancient and new, whispered his name.
Malcolm… Malcolm…
He failed to hear what the voices were trying to say as his thoughts drifted, and his consciousness waned. Was it October 31st? The veil between the living and the dead was so thin … so thin that…
Wait—were those fingertips he felt on his head? They were so cold, yet they felt wonderful. Was this how death welcomed everyone? He choked, coughing up blood as his head lilted to the side. The hunter lay dead next to him, his eyes wide and filled with fear.
I’m not afraid, Malcolm thought.
What was there to fear? Calli was alive. He had done what he’d set out to do. He had saved her.
Hades limped over to his side. The familiar hunched down by his elbow, licking Malcolm’s cheek, and nuzzled him.
Something scratched at Malcolm’s shoulder. His jacket bulged near his throat. Persephone crawled out from the shelter of the coat, miraculously unharmed. He’d completely forgotten he’d tucked the little kitten inside.
“At least…” Malcolm tried to speak, but his lungs simply couldn’t hold onto enough air anymore. “Not… alone…” He let out a rattling breath as Hades’s fur began to shimmer with stardust. Wherever Malcolm was going next, Hades wouldn’t let him face it alone.
“Not yet…” a deep voice said. “Not yet, son of Salem.”
The words seemed to roll across Malcolm’s body and soul as a silvery figure suddenly slipped through a glimmering crack in between the living world and the dead. It was a man Malcolm had never met and yet it was a man he knew.
Nathan Wynter.
Calli’s father had stepped through the veil separating their worlds…
Macolm could feel his soul slipping into the other world to that next place that was just beyond the fracture in the universe.
Would it be quiet and dark there?
Would the memory of Calli’s laughter and the shine of Calli’s smile illuminate him in that darkness and keep that silence at bay?
“Son of Salem…” a voice whispered, close to his ear. He could only just tilt his head back a little.
The ghost of Calli’s mother was on her knees at his side. “Tell her I was wrong to be afraid. Tell her that the only way forward is to trust her heart.” The echo of a long dead mother bent and pressed a kiss upon Malcolm’s brow. “How I wish that we could have known you, could have loved you, but she will have you and that must be enough.”
“Willow, the council coven is coming.” Nathan held out a hand to Calli’s mother who moved in flashes of moonlight until she was at Nathan’s side.
Nathan spoke to Malcolm one last time. “The only truth to fate and destiny that matters is how we choose to love. Love her and all will be as it should.”
Malcolm wanted to call out their names. He wanted to tell them a thousand things. How he wished he had never caused the accident, how he’d give anything to bring them back for Calli. But the light faded a mere instant before the last flickering spark in his chest fluttered then went dark.
