Page 21 of Witch Unexpected
There were people in the mass of darkness, and it was coming for me. Rolling closer like a cloud of doom.
I was immobile. Frozen, while the thing inside me, that precious, silver, shining thing that made me who I was, strained to be free.
I knew what it was.
My essence.
My soul.
Silver ethereal mist began to rise off my skin, and my heartbeat slowed. No. Fuck no.
The black cloud pulsed, tugging on me. Hungry for me. No, this could not be happening. I would not become a face in a fucking void.
The air to my right crackled. The weight fell away from my back, and Jasper materialized in front of me. He pushed out his hands, and the black mass shot back into the hallway.
My paralysis broke, and I was free.
“Take it off!” Jasper said through gritted teeth, his hands out to ward off the thing that wanted to eat my soul. “Take it off now.”
For a moment, I thought he was talking about my clothes, cos hey, this was Jasper, but my survival brain slapped my gutter brain upside the head and took control.
I grabbed the amulet. “No.”
Jasper made a sound of exasperation. “I can’t hold it off much longer, Cora. Not without my full power. Not without full access to you.”
My survival instinct ordered me to tug off the amulet, because when it came to a choice, I’d rather be Jasper’s toy for a while than experience a soul-sucking death now. I needed my soul, and Jasper needed my body.
“Cora, now,” Jasper growled.
Oh fuck, his hands were turning translucent. He was almost out of juice. Then a thought occurred to me. What if this was a trick? His way to get me to take the amulet off. What if this was his plan?
“This isn’t me!” he cried out.
The cloud was inching back into the room as Jasper became more and more see-through.
“Do you fucking believe I’d put your life in danger just to get the amulet off?”
If Elijah hadn’t called less than an hour ago to warn me to stay indoors, if he hadn’t sounded so spooked, then I may have believed just that. But no. This wasn’t Jasper’s doing.
Still, I couldn’t take the amulet off. Not if there was a chance we could defeat this thing, whatever it was. I joined Jasper and began blasting the thing with lightning. My power slashed into the inky black over and over, but dark tendrils of mist surged up to heal any wounds I inflicted, and my blasts were getting weaker. Black hands pushed out of the mass and grabbed the doorjamb to anchor it there, and then it began to bulge back into the room.
Fuck.
Jasper bellowed and attacked with the final vestiges of his power, but the thing didn’t budge.
My eyes stung with impotent rage because there was only one thing left to do. I reached for the amulet, ready to yank it off.
A crash battered my eardrums as the lounge window imploded, and a whirlwind of purple hair and silver blades dashed past me, shot through Jasper, and dove into the dark mass.
The darkness pulsed faster, and a male voice, smooth and filled with authority, rose above the rush of blood in my ears.
I knew that voice.
The black mass shuddered then shot down the hallway. There was another crash as the sound of more windows blowing out shook the house, and then there was silence.
I stared at the spot where the mass had been, at the petite, purple-haired woman clutching twin daggers and staring at me as if she wanted nothing better than to use them on me, then over her shoulder to the dark-haired man holding a book.
Elijah Black straightened the lapels of his winter coat and fixed his blue-green eyes on me. “In hindsight, telling you to stay put may not have been the best idea.”
