Why am I so scatterbrained lately? Get it together, Lennox.
I think back through what Elon and I were just talking about.We’re not safe,right, got it.I roll my eyes at myself.
“What is with me not picking up on other people’s presences these days?” I question, more to myself than to Elon. “First, I didn’t sense Order members watching me at my shop, and now you’re just chillin’ out here like some predator waiting for prey, and I didn’t even register it until it could have been too late,” I observe, slightly annoyed and a lot concerned. “Even now when we’re talking about serious shit, shit that should take top priority in my mind, I’m sitting here wondering if your brother has a riding lawn mower, and if the answer is yes, will he let me drive it,” I admit, and Elon laughs.
“Judging by the fineness in which you handle a car, I’m guessing not,” Elon jokes, and I stick my tongue out at him, thoroughly insulted.
“I am a good driver,” I defend.
“You’re something, that’s for sure,” he ribs, and I smile into my mug of tea and shake my head at him.
“This is nice,” I confess, turning my face to the stars. “I was so focused on trying to get out of that church, I never thought to picture what life could be like if we survived.”
“Technically we didn’t,” Elon jokes, and I huff out a laugh, but the truth in his words brings reality crashing back around me.
“No, we didn’t,” I agree somberly.
“The feeling off about your senses, like there’s a delay or it’s hard to focus, that comes with waking up. Rogan and I noticed it the first time, and I definitely experienced it this last time too. It lasts a couple of days,” he explains after a long moment of silence where we’re both lost in our thoughts. “Does your magic feel slow, like it takes time to tap into it?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s the opposite actually, it seems overzealous, but my instincts are definitely off. I could call on my magic before, and it would almost direct me. I could feel all the possibilities in it, and I only needed to choose which one I wanted. Now, it’s so damn strong, but the guidance isn’t there. I’m nothing but raw power, but I don’t feel powerful while trying to wield it. Does that make sense?”
“Do you think that’s because of what Jamie did to our line?” he asks speculatively.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
A light breeze dances between the leaves of the trees all around us, and I get lost to the rustling for a moment. I trace the shadowed trunks with my eyes and wonder if I could ever get tired of sitting out here on nights like this. I let loose a contented sigh, just as one of the shadowed trees in the distance moves.
I blink, not sure of what I just saw, when Elon stiffens like he can sense something too. All at once, the chirping crickets all around us stop. Dread prickles up my neck, and alarm bells start ringing in my mind. I shoot up out of my seat, my mug of tea crashing to the ground. It shatters and the noise sounds a million times louder in the menacing quiet that’s enveloping us.
“Is it the Order?” I whisper to Elon, but before he can answer, a shrill laugh wraps around me like a noose, and foreboding goose bumps crawl up my arms.
Bile collects at the back of my throat as Jamie’s cackle sounds off all around us, and I see the blood drain from Elon’s face like he too is hearing a ghost.
I shake my head, my mind trying to deny what I’m hearing, even as the sound drags me against my will back to the night this bitch murdered me.
“She’s dead,” I croak out loud, for my benefit and for Elon’s. “I watched her melt into almost nothing and then get torn apart by shadows,” I reassure the both of us, but if that’s true, then who is in the woods?
A putrid, tainted presence fills the atmosphere, one I wish I didn’t recognize, and I suddenly know exactly what’s out there.
“It’s her fucking demon,” Elon snarls, coming to the same conclusion at the exact same time.
We both take off from the porch at the same instant. Fear pumps through my veins right alongside a seething fury and a crawling need to wipe this being from the face of all realms. Elon and I charge in the direction of the moving shadow that just triggered all of this, as though we’re able to home in on the beacon of evil like it’s as easy as blinking. Psychotic giggles batter at me from everywhere, and my mind snaps involuntarily to a place of sickening fear. I try to invite my rage to shove out all of the terror that’s trying to choke me into inaction.
“I’m not there. She’s dead. I’m alive,” I shout the words, forcing them out into the starlit night, half reminder, half war cry.
Then the screaming starts. Blood-curdling cries fill the forest all around us. A cold sweat breaks out all over as horrific screams besiege me and Elon. Pain-filled shrieks bounce off the bark of the trees, followed by incoherent keening and pleas for mercy. I can hear the imminent death in all of the cries, and I want to rampage against what was done to these innocent witches at the hands of Jamie and her demon.
“Lennox!” Elon screams from just behind me. He’s telling me something, but I feel like I’m lost to the madness all around me.
I call on my magic, and suddenly I feel almost overrun with it. In a raw pulse of power, I shove it out into the trees, looking for the demon who needs to be destroyed once and for all.
“I’m not in a cage now, motherfucker, let’s play!” I shout into the trees, abandoning any fear left in me as I close the distance between the house and the forest.
My magic clings to a presence in the woods, and all I can think is,got ya, motherfucker.The demon is warded, but I feel the touch of Elon’s magic locating it at the same time. Somehow, almost instinctively, our magics work together to create a net. It’s not as strong as a grid, but as we both feed more power into it, I know this bastard isn’t going anywhere. I can’t see where the demon is exactly, but I can feel our magic encasing it as we then start to batter against the fucker’s defenses.
I dismiss the flicker of wonder that ignites inside of me when I realize that I’m lambasting this fucker with power, but I’m not tapped into any bones or blood as I do.
“Lennox, don’t go into the trees—the protections end there!” Elon yells at me, and it takes a second for his warning to register over the cacophony drubbing at my senses.
