“Cover me while I get the jars out,” I said to Claudia.
I slipped off my backpack and grabbed the jars. I’d been hoping I’d be able to fight at least a little, but not so much. I needed these jars gone. Now.
Another vampire flew at us, and Dastien finally burst free—he jumped on its back, snarling.
Where in the hell were Luciana and Mr. Hoel?
A voice cried out. “Kill the wolves!” I didn’t need to turn around to know who had arrived.
La Aquelarre.
They wore all white. Luciana was wearing one of her long skirts. Really impractical.
She paused her jog to the quad. Her face turned red as she stared at me.
One down. One to go.
As helpless as I was, I needed to wait a few more seconds. As soon as I spotted Mr. Hoel, I could destroy the jars.
Luciana threw a vial in my direction, but it fell way short of me and shattered against the ground, sending off a puff of fire and smoke.
“You don’t want to do this,” I shouted. “Turn back now.”
She laughed. “You’re weak. I have your power.”
“Do you?”
She raised her arms, and the scent of sulfur filled the quad. The ground rumbled.
She was calling something from below the earth. My pulse sped. This wasn’t what I’d seen in my dream. This was way, way worse. If she managed to summon something from hell…
I’d been to enough church masses to know we were all doomed.
“If you do this, there’s no going back. You’re damning yourself and every member of la Aquelarre along with you.”
“Listen to her, Luciana,” Claudia said. “Think about what you’re doing. This is evil.”
Luciana didn’t even look at Claudia. She was too far gone. Magic flowed around her, like wind, raising her hair and making her skirts flow around her legs. But that wasn’t what had me scared. It was the look in her eyes. And the fact that they’d turned completely black. Not even a hint of white was left in them.
I had to stop her before she finished this spell.
A figure in white dashed toward us. I moved to meet him, but stopped just as he dashed between Luciana and me.
“Mother!” Daniel said as he ran in front of her. “Stop! You can’t do this. You’ll kill us all.” When she didn’t respond, he turned to us. “We have to stop her.”
When Daniel hadn’t shown up at St. Ailbe’s, I was worried I was wrong about him. It felt good to be right.
“Let’s knock her out,” I said. “If she won’t stop casting, then we just shut her up.”
Luciana’s lips moved rapidly as the wind grew around her. She raised her arms to the sky and a red light from the ground rose around her.
Daniel shook his head. “It’s too late. The spell she’s doing…it’s a chain reaction. Once it’s started…”
“So what do we do?” I shouted.
Enemy Weres streamed in from the parking lot, led by a certain wolf I remembered from my nightmares.
Now. I needed to smash the jars. They were both here, and if Luciana was using some of my power to call up whatever that was, then I needed to cut her off. Fast.