Once I got them loose enough, I managed to force them off, pushing out more of my magic to help my fumbling hands and kicking feet. The instant I got free for real, I used the fireplace to struggle to my feet. I kicked the snakes away when they writhed towards me again, and looked around frantically for the black, wraith-like cloud.
The mirror. I had to get to the damned mirror.
Now.
I fought not to think about Archie, about the fact he might be dead already, or I might be abandoning him here to a fate worse than death. Logically, my mind told me I wouldn’t do him any good if I was dead, too. I had to get out, bring help back as fast as I possibly could.
Forsooth. I had to get to Forsooth.
I had to convince him to come back here with me.
Or at least convince him to send someone.
The chance felt beyond remote. It also felt like the only one I had.
I saw a ripple in the air from the shadow and darted to one side, avoiding something like black smoke that crashed into the mantle clock behind me, splintering it to pieces. I tried to use the glowing white-gold sun to push the apparition back, but my primal swirled and sparked wildly, still affected by the drug, and I could feel the dark presence closing.
I ducked and barely missed being hit by it a second time, and the black cloud slammed into a painting on the wall.
Ankha was still chanting, and the cloud-like form was solidifying into more of a human shape. I could see a face there now, in the black clouds.
Red, glowing eyes stared at me greedily.
Black hair waved around her head like she was underwater.
A dress, similar to the Victorian one I remembered from the older painting of her I’d seen in that library book, grew faintly visible around her wispy form.
The magic coming off the red-eyed shadow-witch grew more charged. It made my skin buzz with teeth-vibrating pain. I could feel the power there. I could feel it all over my body like a high electric current. I could feel how badly it wanted to swallow me.
Let me in, granddaughter,a sickly voice coaxed.You want this. You want this power. I feel it. Half breed or no, you’re one of mine, even more than those few others who survived. More than her. Let me in, and I’ll share it with you?
I darted sideways, dodging her next leap.
That time, I didn’t stop. I ran, all-out, jumping over the hearth for the gold-framed mirror. The mirror was my only chance. Either I made it there, and somehow got through, or my deranged great-great-grandmother and aunt were going to murder me, or erase me, or imprison my soul, or all three of those things.
I shoved off the stone mantle, barely sliding past the smoky silhouette of Morticia La Fey.
Ankha’s hands rose, somewhere in my periphery.
As I approached the mirror, she chanted out another set of magic-infused words. I realized I knew them, that I’d heard them before.
Ankha was trying to get inside my mind.
Worse, as the older witch’s magic slammed into me, halting my limbs, stopping my breath, jerking my heart sideways in my chest, I realized she was going to succeed.
35
Goes Both Ways
Everything went dark.
Strangely, there was no pain.
There was loss, a feeling of losing, of being defeated.
I tumbled through what felt like a hole in the floor that had no bottom. My mind twisted. I felt Ankha there, all around me, and panicked, trying to escape, but the magical fire my aunt sent wrapped into every part of me. I felt the connection sink all the way in, felt my aunt’s triumph as her magic locked into place.
A sick satisfaction washed over her, the surety that it was all over.
