Gretta and Hattie were grunting and crying out with each strike. Hattie was holding her own, but I knew I could help. I moved in the direction of my sword, where it lay near a barrel, when a sudden movement behind Gretta’s back caught my attention.
She reached behind her, pulling out some sort of contraption. No, not any contraption. A pistol.
“Hattie!” I cried and moved quickly in an attempt to stop Gretta.
A shot blasted as smoke clouded my vision, and Hattie crumpled to the deck.
“Ahhhhh. No!” I screamed, and the barrier of control I had somehow possessed, snapped inside of me.
The magic I had felt during Jackson’s mistaken attack licked at my veins, inside my head. Rain pelted the ship in a renewed sense of vigor, and the thunder was so loud that it rocked the entire vessel. I marched forward, my entire body crackling with magic.
I. Was. Magic.
Gretta threw her head back and laughed as Hattie groaned in agony on the deck at her side.
“That close, and you still botched it, eh, Gretta?” Hattie said through a fit of coughing.
Gretta gave me a sidelong glance, as though I were merely a source of entertainment before twirling her blade once and lifting it above Hattie’s body.
My palms shot forward and every thought, every molecule of magic I had, was focused on Gretta as her arms raised above her head.
My lightning struck her, spinning her a few times, before she crashed into the edge of the ship.
“You will not take another parent from me,” I vowed. My voice was eerily hollow, as though it were not my own.
Gretta cackled, but even I could see she was struggling to rise to her feet, as her mechanical parts sparked and sputtered.
I shot another bolt her way, this one not quite as powerful, yet still enough to bring her from her knees back down to the deck. She rolled onto her back, one eye staring at the now-darkened sky, her mechanical eye homed in on me.
“Ainsley!” Hattie called my name and I turned, noticing her toss my cutlass across the deck. It slid toward me, and I picked it up, keeping my movements steady. The blade was ringing in my hand, and I took a few running steps.
Gretta’s psychotic smile was still planted on her face as I plunged the blade hard into her gut. I followed it up with even more magic. Thunder crashed overhead, and the ship trembled beneath my feet. Lightning sailed from the sky, hitting my blade and infusing it with added electricity.
Yet, the woman continued to laugh. “It will take more than that to kill me, little Ainsley.” She held my blade, gripping it with her palm, and I saw blood soaking her fingers. “I’ll never stop. My face will haunt you forever, Ainsley Lilstrum. I will always be there. You will never defeat me.”
My body shook with rage, with power, with everything I had. “Watch me, you bitch.”
I ripped the blade from Gretta’s body, and I called upon my magic one final time. I had just enough for this. Just enough to protect Hattie, Silverthorne, Gwendolyn. She would never harm them again. Or me.
I swung with all of my remaining strength, bringing my cutlass down upon Gretta’s gullet. The satisfaction of her terror being the last thing she felt was nearly enough to quell the rising vomit in my stomach as my blade cut clean through her neck—severing her head from her shoulders.
My cutlass fell from my hand, and I stared as the violet color from her mechanical eye dimmed and then, died.
She was gone.
This time, forever.