My dad groaned in my head. I felt it too. Frank sucked the magic out of me like a leech sinking teeth in my bones and sucking the marrow.
I yelled. From the pain, from trying to warn Zayvion.
One of the ghost girls screamed with shrill, childlike terror. I glanced over at the six cots. One of the ghost girls lifted away from the cot, away from the dark chain holding her there, and shot across the room toward Frank. She twisted, thinned, became a bolt of pure magic. Magic that Frank caught in his hand as easily as catching a ball. Magic that he twisted into a glyph and threw at Zayvion.
Zayvion cast Shield. Frank’s spell, the spell made of the girl, skittered off it, sparking magic in black and gold. The stink of sulfur flashed through the air. There were only three girl ghosts left. He had killed her. Used her soul and spirit like it was magic. Holy shit.
Frank pulled more magic out of my dad, out of me. I yelled along with Anthony’s moan. Since I was busy yelling, I missed seeing the spell Frank cast.
But Zayvion countered it. I turned my head in time to see the backlash from the two spells colliding. Bloodred flames flared from floor to ceiling and then fell and hissed like acid as they ate into the floor. That surge of magic made the glyphs on the walls flicker bright, too bright. Then the glyphs went dull. Dead. Nothing but pastel ash.
The Wards were broken.
Allie, now!
The glyphs on the walls dripped down, hit the floor, and then stood up-stood up-and became the Veiled.
Holy shit. Those weren’t spells on the walls. They were dead magic users, somehow bent in ways magic was never meant to be bent and forced into the lines of glyphs, the warding spells of Life and Death. Frank had used the dead like they were nothing but fodder for his spells. Used them just like he used the girl’s ghost. Used them like he planned to use me.
The room was suddenly full of the Veiled. Only they weren’t nearly as transparent as before. They were so solid, it was hard to think of them as ghosts. Well, except for their empty black eyes and slow, swaying movements.
The dead people closest to the ghost girls turned on the girls.
The three remaining ghost girls screamed as the Veiled pulled at them, ate away bits of their spirits with greedy fingers.
I was so done with this bullshit. Hells, yes, my father could use me. Because I planned to use him right back.
Yes, I said to my father. Do it. Take my magic. Stop Frank. Stop it all.
And like inviting the wind into a room, my father blew open my mind, settled into those parts of me I thought of as mine-private, safe, sacred-and pushed that aside. He pulled magic through my body, my blood, as easily as water runs through fingers.
He chanted. I chanted. His words but my voice, my body. And I understood the words though they weren’t in a language I had ever heard before. They were the words of Closing. Killing. Ending Frank. Ending his dark magic.
I could feel my feet. My legs. The Bindings still held me down, but I could sit.
I sat, twisting so I faced Frank’s back. Frank, who was busy trying to kill Zayvion.
Zayvion stood braced, both hands outward in that tai chi stance again. An amazing sort of Sheild glistened with magic that flowed and changed in breath-taking colors and shapes in front of him, taking forms I had seen only in my dreams. Beautiful. Zay’s magic was beautiful, powerful. And so was the man behind it.
Anthony was on the ground behind Zayvion and his powerful Shield. It didn’t look like he was breathing any more.
Sorry, Pike, I thought. I tried to keep him safe.
Frank extended one hand toward me, weaving a Sleep spell.
My father lifted my right hand. Now that was a weird sensation. He blocked Frank’s spell, and I felt the weight of the impact and leaned forward from my shoulder to physically hold off his spell.
And still the ghost girls screamed.
So here’s the thing. My dad was in the most private parts of my mind. And he was as open to me as I was to him. I sifted through his knowledge, found what I needed. A spell, a different sort of spell.
I drew on magic, traced a glyph with my left hand-the one my dad wasn’t using.
Allie, my dad strained to say. Do not use magic. It will damage us both. Kill us.
And I knew he was right. But I already knew what my father was going to do to me. I’d seen his plan. Once Frank was taken care of, my father would either take over my body as his own, burning away the parts of me that made me who I was, or he would-and I’m a little shaky on the details of this one-use the magic in my blood and the core of my life energy to transfer himself into another body. Frank’s body.
Both options would leave me dead.
So, fine. In the time I had left, I was sure as hell going to save those girls.
The image of the white cross on the building came to me. The image of the words “my baby.” There were families out there waiting for these girls to come home. People who loved them. Maybe I couldn’t fulfill my promise to Pike by looking after his Hounds, but I could at least make sure these girls got home.
And if by doing so I screwed up my father’s plans-then sign me up, baby. If I was going to die, I was going to take my dad down with me.
I threw every ounce of my will into that spell, threw it at the Veiled-all of them in the room, and it sounded like there were hundreds-howled.
“No,” Frank yelled. “Do not destroy them. They are magic-true magic. Do not!”
He lifted his hand from what he’d been about to throw at Zayvion and leveled both hands, both spells, at me.
The room went black at the edges. I think I saw Zayvion bend, scoop up the dagger I’d dropped, and run toward Frank. I think I saw the Veiled let go of the girls. I think I saw the Veiled crack like old plaster, that strange dark light pouring out of them as they came apart like ice hit by a hammer. And I even think I saw my father’s corpse on the table exhale, his last breath a mist that stank of licorice.
I know I smelled blood, fear, sweat, my father’s wintergreen and leather, blood magic’s sweet cherry, Frank’s burnt almond, and Zayvion’s pine.
I think I saw the ropes of magic that floated in the air, connecting the girls to my father’s corpse and to me, turn to ash and scatter as if caught by a strong wind. And I realized, with sorrow, that there were only three ghost girls because the other girls, their spirits, had already been used up by dark magic.
But even though I saw all this, I didn’t know how to get the remaining girls’ spirits back in their bodies.
I trolled my father’s memories, trying to find something I could use. My father was still busy pouring magic into the spell that was wrapping around Frank like a giant octopus and squeezing tight, tighter.
A Containment spell would work. A Containment to hold a soul. All I had to do was leave the smallest amount of magic wrapped around the girls’ souls, and it would hold them in a stasis state.
I was having a really hard time breathing. I clumsily wove the glyph of Containment left-handed, filled it with a small amount of magic, creating an orb in my hand. I had no idea how to put the girls’ souls into it… No, wait, I knew.
I cast a quick glyph for each girl, a glyph of Healing, and Death, but more healing than death.
Balls of pastel light formed in my hands. I didn’t know if the spell was right. Didn’t know if it was done.
My heart was taking too long to beat. Much too long between beats. Everything was hazy and going black.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard my father intone the last piece of the Containment spell for me. He willed the balls of light from my palm. The orbs drifted off toward the side of the room where the girls’ bodies lay. I hoped it worked. I couldn’t see them anymore.