Inez stepped forward. “You have no concept of love. Your wife gave hers for him, to give him life, and you resented the very thing she’d sacrificed to create. Then you raped me… and only because I refused to be with a man who would so coldly turn against his own son.” She looked over at Andre and smiled fondly. “A man who is so beautiful, so amazing inside and out, and who I loved like a son.”
Her face contorted when she returned her gaze upon the old man. “Your hatred has been your foundation. Even now, you are nothing without it.In spite of you, despite all of the ugliness you thrust upon us, we created a family in life,” she said, looking to Evan,“and in death.”
Light began to surround Evan, just as it did Andre and Inez. Evan’s eyes glazed over, and he chanted with the others, “Withour blood,” they said in unison, “…the blood of family made and created, we cleanse this place!”
The light that’d encircled them rushed forward and into the old man’s ghost. He shouted as a boom of thunder shook the ground underneath us.
The energy that kept me in place loosened, and I was able to close the circle. Then I turned and pulled Evan into my arms. Next to us, Al was beginning to wake up. “What happened?” I asked her, still holding Evan in my arms.
She sat up with Christie’s help and looked over to where the spirits of Andre and Inez were still facing us. “They used me… us,” Al said. “They tapped into our collective strength to pose as Evan. I could see it, but only in my spiritual form.”
Al wavered a bit, and Christie pulled her into her arms. “Don’t speak. Get your strength back. I’ve got you, baby,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
I pushed my face into Evan’s neck and let the tears flow.
While we held one another, I felt as much as saw Andre and Inez closing their own form of magical circle; the old man was gone. Goddess willing, he wouldn’t be a threat to Evan any longer.
Inez and Andre soon approached us. Al, still weak but slowly gathering her strength, stood to meet them. “I’m sorry we had to borrow your energy, but we saw what Leon was planning. We had to stop it. Please, forgive us.”
Al nodded. “You did the right thing and saved Evan. I-I can feel he’s gone, is that true?”
Inez nodded sadly. “We’ve pushed him across the veil, at least for now.”
“For now? Not forever?” Evan asked.
Inez shook her head. “No one can force a spirit to cross, only force them through the veil. A place that will hold him at leastuntil he is strong enough to push back through. But,” she said, looking at Evan, “I doubt that’s your destiny to deal with.”
“Will you go now too?” Evan asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said and looked at Andre. “Our punishment for forcing a fellow spirit through the veil is that it is now closed to us. We’re trapped here, at least for now.”
Evan looked a mixture of tortured and hopeful, and I could only imagine what he was feeling. “Evan, we are your family, both Andre and me,” Inez said, and Andre nodded. “I… I feel there is more to be done here, and that will happen with time, but it was because we are family that we were able to stand up to help you.”
“But…” Andre added, and looked at Al and me, “…it’s the love and family you created here that’s made us strong enough to defeat my father.He was my blood, but never my family. Inez is and has been that since the day I met her as a boy, and the bond between us as strong as mother and son.”
“Protect your found family, Evan,” Inez said, and he nodded, wiping his tears.
They slowly began to fade in front of us as they looked over at Al. “Thank you for your energy, for what we have done, what we couldn’t have done otherwise. Thank you all,” she said, looking at the coven members gathering around us.
Both spirits disappeared then, and we were alone. “What do you want us to do about him?” Bo, one of our older members, asked, pointing toward Andy sprawled on the ground.
“We’re going to take him to the department for questioning,” said Loren, a sheriff’s deputy, and who I’d forgotten had joined us tonight.
“You sure you want to open that can of worms?” I asked, and she nodded.
“He was here. The entity might’ve been controlling him, but I’m going to guess that gun belonged to him,” she said, pointing at the firearm that lay safely out of reach.
Evan looked up at me, still overcome with emotions, but I saw his resolve intensify as he looked over at Christie. “He might’ve been possessed, but, Christie, didn’t you tell me people can’t be forced to do something? They have to want to?”
She nodded and looked to Loren. “He’s guilty. Evan’s right. He had to be willing to kill Evan. Otherwise, the entity wouldn’t have been able to get him to pull the trigger.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Loren said, and with the help of Bo and a couple of other coven members, she rolled Andy’s unconscious body over, cuffed him, and loaded him into the back of her patrol vehicle.
She bagged the gun and left to put the jackass behind bars.
The rest of the coven helped Christie put the place back to rights, as we’d agreed to beforehand. Some had to leave, and everyone knew not to discuss what happened outside of those present tonight.
Lance, the mayor of Chemeketa, approached us and leant a supportive shoulder. “We’ll go down to the sheriff’s office and give our testimony,” he said. “I’m sure the word of a local mayor will go a long way in superseding anything the jackass has to say.”
