Chapter 17

The sun was slowly disappearing behind the ridge of mountains when I finally came out of the forest. The air was colder now and the thick hooded sweatshirt I was wearing was nowhere near enough to keep me from shivering violently. My breath came out in white puffy clouds and the sweat that had broke out on my forehead burned with cold. I unlocked the trunk of my car and tried to hurl my backpack in, but my arms were weak and I only managed to drop it inside. I pulled the trunk lid closed and had to try twice before I got the latch to catch. I was nothing but spindled nerves and trembling limbs. I had forgotten the fact that I would need to eat at some point in my haste to get out of my house and all the energy it took me to hike in and out of the forest was enough to make me hungry, but with the added cost of the magic I had summoned and worked through, I was ravenous and running on fumes.

I was almost afraid to drive myself out of the park and onto the freeway, taking a few moments to decide whether or not to call Steven and Jodi to come get me. I was holding my cell phone in my hand, turning it over and over with my fingers while I debated with myself. I finally just steeled myself, tossed the cell phone into the passenger’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition. The inside of the car was just as cold as the outside so I sat, my hands tucked under my arms and my right foot pumping the gas pedal until the engine warmed up and the first few wisps of warmer air started to come out of the vents. Just before I backed out of my parking space, I picked up my phone and sent text messages to both Steven and Jodi to meet me at the diner for dinner.

Traffic on the way back home was just as bad as it had been on the way up. I had lost track of time so much so that it was evening and people were trying to rush home, locking up the freeways to a depressing crawl. We were moving so sluggishly I was able to check the response messages Steven and Jodi sent, agreeing to meet me and was able to send back messages telling them about the traffic. What should have been a thirty-minute drive was closer to an hour, but I had so little energy left in me that I couldn’t even get annoyed about it. My upper arms tingled in a way that I had never felt before. I turned into the parking lot of the restaurant and my vision was just a little fuzzy. I needed to eat.

Steven waved to me from the far corner of the diner; he and Jodi already had drinks in front of them and weren’t bothering with the menus. I slid into the empty side of the booth, pushing the cup of coffee they had ordered for me away. I waved the waitress over and ordered a large three-egg breakfast with potatoes, bacon, and biscuits and gravy with a large glass of milk. Steven, Jodi, and the waitress stared at me wide-eyed. It was more food than I normally ordered, but I flashed my most polite smile that I could muster at the waitress and waited for Steven and Jodi to order. The waitress walked away after the other two had placed their orders and I sighed into the booth.

“Dude, what is up with you?” Steven asked, leaning over the table so he could whisper to me.

“Sorry, I’m… really… drained,” I said carefully, realizing I was losing more and more energy and was even having a hard time talking. I looked up and caught our waitress’ eye and waved her back over to me.

“Something else?” She asked.

“Yeah, can I go ahead and get that milk before the meal and an order of white toast as quickly as possible?” I had lost my breath in the long sentence, openly panting trying to catch it again.

“Um… sure. Are you ok?” the waitress asked.

“Fine, just tired.”

“Ok, anything for you two?” I tried to keep the impatience out of my face as she stalled, but I reminded myself she was only doing her job. Steven and Jodi shook their heads at her to send her off.

“Shay, what –” Jodi started to ask me what was wrong, but I held up a weak hand to stop her, not wanting to be forced to explain before I had some food in me. Although it was probably only a few minutes, it felt like hours before the waitress came back with my toast and milk. I dove on them like a starving person, devouring my toast in as few large bites as possible, only slowing to drink my milk at a normal pace so I wouldn’t throw it back up.

I sat back, letting my body have a few minutes to digest the bread and butter, feeling my stomach settle slowly and my fingers stop trembling. Carbohydrates are a wonderful thing. I opened my eyes just enough to see Jodi and Steven staring at me intensely, which surprised me; I expected them to have their heads together and be whispering about me. I cleared my throat and pushed myself up with my shoulders against the back of the booth seat. They both waited patiently, but I could feel their tension and building impatience like ragged claws tearing at the skin on my forearms. I took a deeper breath and pushed them away by reinforcing my shields. They both made faces.

“Sorry, but you guys are hurting me, I need some breathing room,” I tried to explain. “I’m going to tell you everything ok, just try to calm down.”

“So you have been doing something without us?” Jodi asked, a little more than angry. I sighed, knowing that they were going to be as stubborn as they wanted to be and weren’t going to wait to hear me out before they let their tempers run amok.

“Yes, but only because I had to, ok?” I rushed through the sentence before they could interrupt me. I explained the spell I had written, supposedly in my sleep, and explained where I had been all day and what I had been doing. Through the entire explanation both of their expressions changed to pure and simple anger. “Look, the spell called for one point of focus in order to break his hold on the sacrifice. If you two had been there casting the circle with me, then the power would have been divided and we wouldn’t be strong enough to take him.”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t find this spell in any book and it didn’t come to you while your were conscious?” Steven asked in a strangely calm voice.

“That’s right…” I said carefully.

“And it never occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, Jensen or Ian were manipulating you while you were asleep and you’ve just casted an untested spell?” Steven looked and sounded years older and wiser than he normally displayed. I was saved a little embarrassment when the waitress arrived just then with our orders. We politely waved her off saying we didn’t need anything else. “Well?” Steven asked a little more impatiently this time.

“No, I didn’t consider it,” I said in a resigned voice. “I looked at it and it looked like the kind of spell I would have written if I had known exactly what I was dealing with.” I shrugged and stabbed moodily at my biscuits and gravy, taking a larger than ladylike bite. “If I had gotten to the clearing and the trees hadn’t lined up with what I had drawn or the carvings of the runes weren’t there, I wouldn’t have proceeded, ok?” I said defensively around a large mouthful.

“You know, if either one of us,” Jodi said, motioning between her and Steven, “had done what you just did without the other two, you would have our asses in a sling.”

I took a few more bites of food to buy myself a little time. The fact was, she was right; I would never let either of them do what I had just done alone.

“You’re right,” I said finally.

“That’s it? ‘You’re right.’ That’s all you have to say?” Steven asked, his voice rising angrily.

“What do you want me to say, Steven?” I asked, my own anger rising to meet his. “I’m sorry? I’m not. Look it had to be done. If we had gone in there without any preparations and all that magic just waiting for him to empower him, we’d die right along with the sacrifice and I had a way to stop that, so I did it, ok?”

“No, it’s not ok! What if it had been a trap?” Jodi interjected. I had nothing to say to that so I just finished my eggs.

“You could have brought us with you,” Steven said, lowering his voice finally.

“I already told you, the spell wouldn’t have worked with three points of interest.” I had to use a lot of self-control not to slam my fist on the table when I spoke and hold in my anger and not let it wash all over them in a searing bath.

“But we could’ve been there, damnit!” Steven’s face was growing more and more red while Jodi’s was becoming paler. Shimmering waves of heat singed the peach fuzz on my face. “We could’ve just been there in case it was a trap or if you’d’ve gotten hurt. It was stupid and prideful for you to go out there alone, Terra!” Steven finished in an angry whisper, leaning towards me over his side of the table. The sweet smell of burning wood battled with the salty scent of bacon.

I didn’t meet his eyes. He’d used my elemental name and it had sounded like a curse when he’d said it. I stared at my fork, twirling it between my fingers. He was right. I didn’t want them to divide the power of the spell, but it was just stupid for me to have gone out on my own.

“You’re right…” I sighed and shook my head, looking up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at the two of them. There was more than anger in their faces; there was hurt and I had caused that hurt. I lowered my shields against them and took the punishment of their emotions as it rushed over me, raising the hair on my arms and scraping at my skin. I shuddered against it and felt my throat tighten and my eyes burn with unshed tears and knew that they were both on the verge of breaking down. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, almost too quietly, but I knew they heard me. Their pain eased slowly away from me and I knew they realized I was punishing myself by letting them hurt me with their emotions.

“Just promise us, the next time you decide to go into the woods and test out unfamiliar magic that you’ll not be so damn stubborn and will take us with you,” Steven said. I let out a laugh that was shaky with relief, one tear escaping and rolling down my cheek. Jodi was already crying. Of the two of them, it seemed like they had reversed roles tonight. I finished eating in a rush, still ravenous from the day’s work. I explained to them how many times I had to go over the original circle of power to erase it before I could start my own circle and that I had to actually heal the trees he had used as points of his pentagram.

“So he was poisoning the trees?” Jodi asked around a mouthful of food.

“That’s what it felt like to me,” I said, draining the last few drops of coffee I had finally ordered when my hands had stopped shaking. I caught the eye of our waitress and she came over to refill my coffee cup and I ordered a piece of apple pie to the astonishment of Jodi and Steven. “I’m really hungry. I totally forgot to eat today and I was out there a lot longer than I thought I was,” I explained with a shrug.

“Ok, so explain why only you could be a point of interest? I mean, what does the spell do?” Steven asked.

“Basically, with all the work he did there, he left behind a lot of residual energy and power. So basically he built a power base for himself, which I don’t think he realized,” I started to explain.

“Why do you think he wouldn’t realize it?” Jodi asked.

“Well, if we had spent that many nights and risked that much exposure to purposely build a power base, would we have left it there without any wards or shields out in the woods to keep people away?” I asked.

“Good point,” Jodi agreed with a nod. “Ok, go on.”

“I think the demon needs the powerbase but has kept that part a secret from the caster. Hopefully I’ve weakened its defenses that way. Then I laid a binding and protecting pentagram in the clearing and cast our own circle of protection. So what I think the spell will do is hold the demon and whoever is casting the spells like a prison in the clearing, rather than empower them.” I stopped short as the waitress came back to our table and set my piece of pie down and refills for Jodi and Steven. We all smiled politely, staying silent until she went away.

“All right, but that doesn’t explain you being a point of interest,” Steven said with a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. I put up a hand to forestall any other comments so that I could take a bite of pie before I continued.

“I know, but I wanted you guys to understand all of it.” I took a sip of coffee and made a sour face and added two more creams and sugars and took another sip, happy with its flavor now. “Like I said, he was poisoning the trees with the blood magic, so after I erased his circle I was able to heal the trees. The carvings are still in the trees unfortunately, like scars when you get cut, but that’s good because he may not notice a change if they’re still there. Because he was poisoning them, he angered them and the earth underneath. Now the trees and the clearing see me as the one that healed them.” I paused to catch my breath and take another large bite of pie. “I think, because I healed them and banished the blood magic, that the forest will lend its power to me and if you two are there I think you can work as my anchors.”

“Ok, so what are we doing tomorrow?” Jodi asked.

“Well, we don’t need to worry about casting a circle so we don’t need sage or consecrated water. I have all of our athames and I think it’s a good idea that we have them to help defend ourselves and just in case the sacrifice is tied down, then we can cut her ties.”

“Whoa, defend ourselves? You mean fight with them?” Steven asked, eyes wide with shock.

“Well yeah… I mean, you don’t think we can just go in there and not expect a fight, can you? Besides what if the demon just physically attacks us? What better way to defend ourselves than with magically charged blades?” I said, a little exasperation creeping into my voice.

“She’s right, Steven,” Jodi said and I was more than grateful to hear her coming to my aid.

“But we don’t know how to fight with knives,” Steven said.

“Speak for yourself,” Jodi and I said in unison.

“What?”

“Dude, remember when we took that self-defense class that you didn’t want to go to?” I asked and Steven nodded. “They taught us to disarm a guy if he comes at us with a knife and how to use it against him if we couldn’t just run away. I mean, we’re not experts, but we feel comfortable enough to know we can do some serious damage.”

“That’s against a person, Shay! You’re talking about a demon!” Steven’s voice had risen a little louder than I was comfortable with.

“Right,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “But we’re also talking about a demon set to possess a man, so we’d still be fighting a man. Look,” I said putting up a hand to stop him from interrupting me, “if this thing attacks us in its own form or after it possesses the guy, do you expect us to just lay there and let him kill us?”

“Well, no…”

“Then shut up,” Jodi finished for me.

“Fine, you may feel comfortable with a blade but I don’t.”

“I thought of that and actually I think maybe I’d like you to go to church tonight and get some holy water and bring it with a Bible or a rosary or whatever you’re most comfortable with,” I said and then finished off my pie.

“What?” Steven asked, clearly confused.

“You’re still a devout Catholic and I think against a demon your faith will be a really good weapon.” I smiled at him. Mixing our magic with his Catholic ideals always bothered Steven, but I believe that good versus evil transcends all religions and beliefs. Quite frankly, enough of pagan beliefs were adopted into different Christian faiths that it really wasn’t that far of a leap of faith to incorporate them when battling a demon.

Our magical powers are perfectly natural and for the last few years I’d had to council Steven many times to help him come to terms with the fact that the magic we performed wasn’t a sin. We didn’t work against the laws of nature, we worked with them, and more often than not we only used magic when trying to help someone, like what we did for Tracy. And, quite frankly, if you ignored your abilities they just began to fester inside you like a virus. If you don’t do something about it, the virus eventually infects your whole system and your abilities will manifest themselves somehow. Many people get diagnosed with schizophrenia and all kinds of other disorders just because they don’t know they have magical or psychic abilities.

“That’s brilliant!” Jodi said with a little more enthusiasm than she had shown yet. “Steven, that really would be good for you.” She was actually smiling at Steven and I saw some of the skepticism slip away from his face as he considered the idea.

“Good. I really think that’s all we’ll need. If you want to wear any amulets or something, that’s fine. Like, Steven, if you want, you can wear a cross or crucifix. Jodi, if you want to wear your star necklace, just be sure to recharge it tonight.” They both nodded in agreement with me.

“That doesn’t seem like much,” Steven said with uncertainty.

“We don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, Steven. Seriously, since the circle is already laid and I really don’t think we’re going to have a lot of time to use anything once we’re there, this is pretty much going to be an ambush,” I said as calmly as I could. I wasn’t trying to scare them, but I wanted them to know what we were getting into.

“So you still think it’ll be close to midnight when he starts summoning the demon?” Jodi asked me.

“Yeah, because then it’ll be Halloween when the thing is actually brought here.”

“Are we going to school tomorrow?” Steven asked then.

“Yeah, I think it’ll look funny if we don’t and we don’t want the school calling our parents to tell them we’re not there.” They both nodded in agreement. “Besides we’ll have plenty of time after school to center and draw up any power we may need before we get there. And we don’t want to get there too early and tip him off.”

We put money on the table and left. It was well past eight o’clock now and we didn’t want our parents to get suspicious of us so we headed home. I hugged them both tightly in the parking lot and apologized again for going off on my own today. They were both more gracious this time around. I reminded Steven to go by his church and get some water. His church had a nine o’clock mass so it wouldn’t look odd for him to be there tonight. Jodi said she’d go with him but I knew it was to make sure he didn’t have second thoughts about taking the water.

When I got home my parents weren’t happy with how late I came in, but they bought the lie that I had told them I would be at school late for a club meeting and they must have forgotten. I said a quiet prayer of thanks that it worked and trudged back to my room to fall gratefully into bed.

It was a blessedly dreamless sleep; at least I couldn’t really remember any dreams. I had flashes of forests and fire and unrecognizable faces. But I had been so bone-weary when I fell into bed last night I couldn’t even muster up the energy in my sleep to pay enough attention to keep memories of the dreams. When I woke up I was a bundle of nerves, so much anticipation and anxiety bottled up inside of me I was actually charged with it. I shocked my mom when I said good-bye to her as if there were static electricity in the air. We both laughed it off but I stared out at the sky as I stepped off our front step for a moment and knew there was no static electricity in the air; the fog was thick on the ground and the sky was gray and swollen with clouds. There was far too much water in the air for static electricity to build.

When I picked Steven and Jodi up, a wave of relief flooded through me. Jodi staggered backwards before she was able to get into the car behind Steven, who I heard fall into his seat rather than just slip in. “Whoa… what the hell was that?” Jodi asked, her eyes gone round with shock, gripping the car door for support so much that her knuckles had gone red and white against her skin.

“What was what?” I asked, looking between her and Steven in the rearview mirror. Both of them had been hit with something strong enough to take them off their feet.

“Seriously? You didn’t feel it?” Steven asked, visibly pulling himself together and shaking his head as if trying to clear his vision.

“What?” I asked a little more anxiously.

“I don’t know… it was kinda like a head rush. Umm, wow, I feel all tingly now,” Jodi said, her voice bubbled like it was hiding a giggle and Jodi would be the last person you’d ever hear giggle.

“Yeah, me too,” Steven said, staring at his hand as he flexed his fingers. I watched his face in the rearview mirror and could see inspiration dawn on him and he extended his arm to point at Jodi who was still standing outside of the car, holding onto the door and roof to steady herself. Steven tilted his head to the side, furrowed his brow in concentration, and I heard Jodi make a small sound, drawing my attention to her just as a flush of heat creeped up her face, coloring her cheeks and ears. “Niiiice,” Steven whispered with a smile. I could almost see something extending from his outstretched arm towards Jodi; the air between them shimmered like heat waves rising off the road. Something told me that is exactly what I was looking at.

“What just happened?” I asked, leaning across the seat to look at Jodi.

“I got warm….” she said in awe.

“Jodi, try to do something!” Steven said excitedly.

“Like what?”

“I dunno, something with air, c’mon!” He was practically bouncing in the back seat.

“Um ok…” Jodi’s voice was uncertain but she looked around to see if anyone was watching and then she copied Steven’s actions, pointing her hand into the car and concentrated. A moment later sparks erupted at the ends of her fingers.

“Shay? You sure you didn’t feel anything?” Steven asked.

“When I woke up I felt charged, like with electricity, I even shocked my mom with static build up…”

“And? What about right now like me and Jodi, the rush?” He was clinging to the back of my seat now, as if he was ready to crawl over it into my lap.

“No, nothing like that… I mean, I felt relief,” I shrugged at the end.

“Do you still feel all that electricity built up?”

“Um…” I stopped and thought about it, remembered feeling the almost burning tingle on my lips and fingertips and the visible spark that erupted between my mom and me when I touched her. I felt fine now, not exactly normal, but better. As if the power was better distributed throughout my body and close to the surface waiting to be called rather than overflowing to the surface, forcing itself out. “No… I feel power, like, inside,” I motioned to my stomach, the right words failing me, “but it isn’t like it was. I thought my nerves were going crazy and like I was gonna explode with it.”

“Dude, remember last night?” Steven asked and Jodi finally fell into the car, pulling the door closed behind her and effectively cutting off the cold air from outside. I could still feel the heat radiating off of her from when Steven had called it.

“What?” Jodi asked, pulling her scarf off from around her neck.

“When Shay said that we’d be there acting as her anchors? Maybe it’s already started!” Steven explained in a rush. “This is all that power she called up yesterday and the excess has come to us. I can access air now and Jodi can tap into fire.”

“Why wouldn’t that have happened last night then? When she saw us right after she did the spells?” Jodi asked Steven, but I answered.

“Because I was too tired. If the power had risen in me last night, it might’ve killed me. I couldn’t have handled it. But now, now that I’m rested and the power has settled, it rose and the excess was waiting for you. Thank God we decided to go to school, I couldn’t have carried it with me all day.”

“So you think Steven’s right?”

“What else could it be?” I asked and she shook her head. We didn’t have any other answer for it. I had called a magnitude of power, too much for me to contain, and now Jodi and Steven were feeling the effects of years of study and practice at their elements. I hoped they didn’t get used to it; something told me that once tonight was over the power wouldn’t be sticking around.