AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stood and took his hand in mine. The tears dried quickly as stone-cold resolve came over me. “I’m right there alongside you.”
Autumn stepped forward. “As am I.”
The others chimed in with agreement.
“Then let’s get moving.” Lucas lifted his hands, and a massive portal bloomed in front of us, big enough to fit all ten of us. The cats stayed behind to guard the house. Our sanctuary had been compromised, and we needed them to hold the wards so we had a safe house to come back to.
Lucas didn’t bother with secrecy or the element of surprise. He portaled us straight onto Main Street and out in the open. He was so furious he wanted the priestesses to know we were coming for them.
The dark streets of Octavia Falls loomed in front of us, and Octavia Hall rose above the trees. Hundreds of Executors in dark uniforms stood in front of the doors to the council’s headquarter building. Every soldier the priestesses had at their disposal must’ve been standing in the street waiting for us. They wore cocky grins, as if they thought they were strong enough to stop us. They’d been planning this.
Heat flared in my bones as pure rage overcame me. These bitches thought they could take my son? They had no idea what my friends and I were capable of.
“They’re here!” an Executor shouted. “Kill them all, except the Curse Breaker! She’s the only one they need!”
Lucas immediately threw up a shield. Magic slammed into it from all angles, and I could feel the edges of it cracking.
“Together!” I shouted.
The others let their magic pour into me, and I combined it with Lucas’s. The shield grew stronger, until the hundreds of spells raining down on us simply bounced off. We marched down the street until we were face-to-face with over a hundred Executors.
Sheriff Baker stood at the front of the group, smirking like he’d find joy in watching us die. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. He’d been the one to arrest Professor Daniels over a year and a half ago, and she’d later been hanged. He’d dragged Professor Wykoff out of school after she wrote a letter to the editor at the Miriamic Messenger. He’d been vicious to the students whenever he was at the college, and he forced searches of our stashes. He’d arrested Lucas before our trial, and cruelly followed any orders the priestesses gave him. He’d been nothing but horrible to my friends and me since I became a priestess. He’d wanted to get rid of me then, and it was clear by the glimmer in his eye that he hoped to see my demise tonight.
Wasn’t going to happen.
Lucas’s reaper robes billowed in the wind. “I’ll give you one chance to step aside. If you don’t, you will die.”
The Executors didn’t even blink. For a brief moment, I felt my feet leave the ground, as if a Mentalist was trying to lift me with their telekinesis.
Beside me, Chloe’s Wand glowed brighter as she siphoned their magic for her own. Talia and Grant stepped up beside her, and Lucas withdrew his Wand. Tendrils of magic swirled through the Oaken Wands, rendering the Executors powerless. Executors began looking around at one another in confusion when they realized their magic was no longer working. Whispers accusing the Waning spread through the crowd.
“What are you going to do?” Sheriff Baker mocked. “You’re just a bunch of stupid kids with big guns. And ours are bigger.”
Dozens of Executors withdrew pistols. I recognized them for what they were and knew they weren’t typical guns. They were filled with noxite tranquilizer darts. Those darts were laced with the same type of metal the town’s jail cells were made of. Lucas and I had been locked behind noxite bars before our trial, and our powers had been rendered useless. If one of those darts hit one of my friends, their magic would be drained by the noxite’s power. They’d lose access to the Oaken Wands’ magic.
“You don’t have the guts to kill us,” Sheriff Baker sneered. “We’re going to break down your weak-ass shield, and then you and your little friends can enjoy a one-way ticket to the Abyss.”
Baker lifted his hands, and with a quick flick of his wrist, the Executors raced forward, surrounding us at all angles. They dragged a heavy metal chain with them, and I could feel it draining our powers as it surrounded us at all angles. It was a noxite chain, and they were trying to box us in. It wasn’t something that could keep us contained, but all it had to do was drain our powers for a moment to drop our shields. The Executors aimed to fire the darts.
But they never had the chance. Before the chain circle closed around us, Lucas blasted our shield outward. Executors went flying, and the chain dropped to the ground.
Lucas chuckled darkly. He lifted his hands, and small portals began opening up beneath the Executors’ feet. One after another, Executors fell through the portals. I caught sight of gothic peaks surrounded by maple trees. He only portaled them to the other side of town, but their screams cut off completely when the portals closed behind them.
It was a warning—and it was clear by the way Lucas’s lips curled back that it was the last warning they were going to get.
Rage marred Sheriff Baker’s features. “Go to hell!”
Lucas smirked. “Been there. Survived that. Now give me back my son!”
I felt the moment Lucas snapped, because magic surged through him so strongly that it changed the air around us. Wind began swirling in the opposite direction, and dark clouds rushed in to drown out the stars. Lightning cracked overhead. Witches couldn’t control the weather, but the power surging through the air was enough to shift its course.
Lucas lifted the Mortana Wand, and I was shocked to see bony fingers appear beneath the sleeve of his robe. The hood of the robes fell back, and I saw that the skin had disappeared from his face, leaving behind only a skull with dark, empty eye sockets.
He was summoning all his power and had become a living reaper.
Sheriff Baker’s eyes widened in horror. He whirled around and disappeared into the crowd before Lucas could attack him.
Several Executors scurried backward, but Lucas aimed his magic at them. A dark fog whipped through the crowd. I witnessed the moment Lucas yanked the Executors’ souls from their bodies, because their spirit left a brief ethereal imprint in the air, before fading away completely. Dozens of bodies slumped to the ground all at once, then crumbled to dust under the power of the Mortana Wand.
