“Springato erupticus.”
A yellowish liquid poured from the fangs and collected in the bowl. It was amazing how much venom could come out of a single pair of fangs.
Once the bowl was fairly full, I pointed my wand at the fangs and muttered the reverse spell to stop the flow of venom.
I stepped back against the far wall, set the bowl down and prepared myself.
Two spells back-to-back.
MBS, MBS. Focus, Vega, focus.
I whipped my wand down the length of the serpent and said, “Unparalycto.”
The jabbit immediately came back to life. It fixed its gazes on me. I could see exactly what it was planning to do.
“Incarcerata.”
The jabbit struck at that instant. And slammed right into the white light bars that had reemerged around it. They held fast and the creature retreated into vast, windy coils, its fury evident in its hideous eyes and the angry twitches of its tree-trunk body.
I smiled. And then turned to pick up the bowl. I never got there.
The jabbit struck with the bloodcurdling shriek that I had always been told was the last thing you would ever hear.
“Pass-pusay,” I screamed, slapping my wand against my leg.
I was instantly on the other side of the room and the jabbit had slammed into the wall with its two hundred and fifty heads. The roof of the cottage shook with the impact, and a long crack appeared along the wall.
How the Hel had it escaped my cage of lights?
It turned and with a massive whip of its tail, it was charging straight at me. My thoughts turned back for an instant to Stacks, where a pair of jabbits had been hunting me down. I had escaped behind a little wooden door with a screaming Wug for a knob. There was no such escape now. No door, no screaming Wug.
The jabbit struck again.
“Embattlemento.”
The serpent hit the conjured wall with such force that the entire room shook. I fell back, but I quickly regrouped as the jabbit rebounded off my spell and was flung backward against the far wall of the room.
It was slow to shake off the impact.
I could hardly believe my eyes. I had hurt a jabbit.
Before it could attack once more, I shouted, “Incarcerata.”
The white bands shot from my wand and encircled the creature.
I prayed that it would hold this time. I stepped carefully around the jabbit as its five hundred eyes followed my every move. I slowly bent down, keeping my gaze on the thing, and picked up the bowl of venom.
Then I was out the door in a flash and closed and secured it behind me with a locking spell. Breathless, I hurried down the hall, where I nearly collided with Delph coming the other way. He was carrying an old journal.
“Found it,” he said. “The instructions for the elixir.”
“Brilliant!” I held up the bowl. “And I got the venom.”
“Bloody Hel,” he gushed, taking the bowl gingerly.
“And now for the garm.” I rushed down the hall to the other door that had told me, “GO AWAY!”
I cried out, “Crystilado magnifica.”
I blinked. “Crystilado magnifica,” I said again.
The room was empty. There was no garm in a white-light cage.
I heard the growl behind me. I didn’t even have time to turn.
I screamed. The garm roared.
I saw a flash of something and I was knocked heels over arse.
As I slid along the floor, I looked behind me.
The garm was on its hind legs, just about to expel a chest of flames that would burn me to cinder.
And there was Harry Two. He must have knocked me down.
He leapt directly at the beast and then the impossible happened. My canine clamped his strong jaws around the garm’s snout, forcing it shut. The garm screamed in fury, though the sound came out muffled because it could not open its mouth.
It flung itself around, slamming Harry Two into the wall. But still Harry Two hung on, even with his legs dangling uselessly and blood pouring from the side of his head. The garm reached up with its forelegs to rip Harry Two to pieces.
I had another vision. Of my first canine, Harry. He had also saved me from a garm and sacrificed his life in doing so. I had no intention of letting that happen again.
There was a powerful feeling surging through every bit of me. It wasn’t hatred. Or loathing. It was far more than that. I don’t believe there is even a word to adequately encompass it. I said it before I even realized saying it. It came out of my mouth with such force that it seemed the words alone could do what I wanted done.
I pointed my wand directly at the garm’s chest.
“Rigamorte!”
The black light hit the garm with such power that the many-tonned beast was lifted right off its clawed feet. Harry Two let go in midair and fell away from the hideous thing as the garm was flung along the hall, hit the wall and slumped down with an enormous, cottage-rattling thud. It was quite dead as it rolled over, its tongue hanging out, its bloody chest still. I sprinted down the hall and knelt next to Harry Two, who lay sprawled on the floor, his damaged legs useless, his head bleeding badly.
I pulled the Adder Stone from my pocket and waved it over my precious canine. A second later he was licking my face, healed and his legs functioning. I hugged him so tightly I could feel his heart pounding against mine.
“I love you, Harry Two. I love you so much. Thank you for saving me.”
I looked over at the garm. Its blood, which perpetually ran down its chest, would make my task easy. I plucked the glass bottle from my pocket and froze.
Archie stood there, his wand pointed at my chest.
Now I knew what had happened with the jabbit and the garm, though I could barely believe it.
His eyes turned to slits. He started to say, “Riga—”
But a huge fist came down on the top of his head and Archie fell to the floor, unconscious, his wand falling from his hand.
Behind him stood Delph.
He looked at me and flexed his muscle. “Sometimes you don’t need magic, Vega Jane. Har!”
Viginti novem: Adieu
“Delph!” I gasped.
He bent down and pocketed Archie’s wand, which had rolled across the floor.
“Bloke can’t do much without that,” he said.
“He was going to kill me,” I said.
“I reckon he was.” He looked at the dead garm. “Your doing, I ’spect.”
“I used the Rigamorte curse, the same one Archie was going to use on me.”
I stared down at the unconscious Archie and shook my head in disbelief.
As he started to stir, I pulled my wand, aimed it at him and said, “Ensnario.”
Thick ropes appeared out of the air and wrapped themselves around Archie.
When he came fully around and realized what had happened, he looked up at me and unleashed a torrent of foul language.
“Mutado,” I snapped, and my spell hit him full in the mouth, silencing him. Then I picked up my flask, while Delph easily lifted Archie off the floor and slung him over his shoulder. “We best get on with the potion making,” he said. “But we need something called Breath of a Dominici.”
“Breath of a Dominici? What’s a Dominici and how do we get its breath?”
“Haven’t the foggiest,” said Delph as we walked down the hall together with Harry Two at our heels. Archie had struggled at first but now just lay slumped over Delph’s massive shoulder.
When we reached the kitchen, Delph set Archie on the floor. Harry Two sat next to him, guarding the bloke.
Delph took me over to a table where he had lined up a row of bottles and other objects. There was a piece of parchment tacked to the wall. I set the flask of garm blood down next to the bowl of jabbit venom.