Page 12 of The Fairy Hunter

"We don't have the power to free the bodies from the spirits," Brenda's husband says. He has some witch blood in him, but not enough to perform the kind of spells we do.

Brenda's gaze meets mine, and I stand, even though my body is sore from being thrown, and I can feel the effects of the poison moving through my body. "I can help, just follow me."

My husband moves away from the fairy, who doesn't move, doesn't even breathe, even though his attack isn't enough to kill one of her kind. He shifts back into the man I love, naked as the day he was born, and takes my hand. The others follow me to the wall of spirits bound by vines, vines that are rapidly dying and falling.

"Take our hands and repeat after me," I tell the men. They awkwardly take each other's hands, and we line up in front of the innocent people overtaken by spirits. "Spirits come, spirits go, it's time to return from whence you came. This is not where you belong. Free your captives. Return from where you came." It's a simple spell. With witches, there's a more elegant spell I could use, but this allows me to use their energy to channel the spell by simply focusing us all on the simple spell.

So, we all repeat the words over and over again until a storm begins to brew within the room. Wind whips all around us, swirling like we're in the center of a tornado. Suddenly, the people in front of us begin to scream, and their mouths open. Dark shapes explode out of them, hang above us for a minute before they make a terrible wailing sound, and disappear. The wailing stops. The people along the wall collapse, eyes closed, and the husbands next to me stumble and fall to their knees.

My husband is panting. "That's... weird."

"Exhausting," Olivia's husband murmurs, his voice shaking.

I shrug. "It's what the spell needed." I steady myself, even though my head feels light. "Your wives are hurt. Exhausted. They need help."

Olivia's husband turns to her. "This is the kind of stuff you did all these years? This is… a lot."

She smiles. "This is nothing."

He gives her a smile back and moves to her, then kneels down. "So you raised our kids and fought the forces of evil without complaint all this time?"

There's a light in Olivia’s eyes I haven't seen in a long time. "Raising the kids was harder."

"She's not wrong," Brenda says.

Everyone laughs.

And then, the men are scooping up their wives. Somehow, it feels even more romantic than each of their weddings. It feels like a sweet thing I never even imagined happening.

"What about the fairy?" my husband asks.

Some of the good feeling leaves the room and everyone looks at the battered figure on the ground. "I'll handle it," Brenda says, and there's a note in her voice that scares even me.

"I can help," I tell her.

She turns her big brown eyes onto me, and there's a strength to our leader I admire, even when she lies in her husband's arms. "The fact that you were willing to die to save all of us, and gave marriage counseling to those freaks at the same time… well, you've done your part."

I don’t know what to say, so I simply whisper, "Thank you, but you’d all have done the same for me.” Then I look at the others. "When we're all recovered, we need to give Tamara a proper burial."

Everyone nods.

My big husband carries me down the stairs, and I see the glowing arrows on the steps from the bottles Olivia smashed. We'd texted all the husbands for help and told them we'd end up here and leave clues where to go. I'd been worried they wouldn't get here in time.

But luckily for us, they did.

My husband slides me into the passenger side of my car, and he pulls on some sweats from the trunk, then climbs into the driver's seat. "We need to talk," he says.

I sigh. "I know. I know. I volunteered to sacrifice myself. I knew you'd be mad, but--"

"No." He turns and takes my hand. "I wanted to talk about where you wanted to travel to first. I made a list of places, in order of the ones I wanted to see most to the ones I wanted to see the least. I also created a spreadsheet of costs, distances--"

I shut him up with a kiss. Yes, I'm ready for this next adventure in our lives. But for tonight, I've had enough adventure.

Pulling away from him, I grin. "How about we get some takeout and go to bed?"

He returns my smile. "Sounds like a plan. But after tonight... adventure!"

"Adventure without fairies, spirits, or the risk of death."

We both laugh.

"And maybe we invite Olivia and Harry along for parts of it?" I ask.

His eyes widen. "I didn't make a list of places with good fishing."

I groan. Well, it seems my venture out of retirement is over. But my next venture? It might be equally exciting. Even if I have to deal with a lot of spreadsheets and lists...