Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,138

had returned, pummeling my pixies with a breathtaking fury. The two remaining lines linked up their power, strands of bronzed fire throbbing between them all. They chanted, building up the inferno of their attack, and launched a fireball—twice as large as the Wisp—right at it. To my horror, the uber-Wisp dodged the projectile and swung forward, easily incinerating another row of pixies. They crumbled to dust, and my knees gave way.

“Don’t kill them. Please, don’t…”

My begging fell on deaf ears. The Wisps didn’t care if it pained me; I wasn’t the one giving the orders. And yet, I couldn’t understand why they were trying to stand in our way. Surely this was what Fergus wanted, to reunite with Lorelei? Did he not understand what we were attempting to do for him? If it hadn’t been for the fact that Genie and Nathan, and so many others, were still trapped in Fergus’s realm, I’d have dumped his stupid bones right there. He’d killed my creatures. Why did he deserve to be reunited with his love?

That’s how Leviathan would think. My brain served me a swift reminder that I wasn’t spiteful or vengeful like the monster who’d given me this ability. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t hate Fergus’s guts for what his Wisps had done to my pixies. This was for Genie, not for that cruel spirit.

“I’ve had just about enough of you lot.” Charlotte clapped her palms together, unleashing a wave of Telekinesis that enveloped the uber-Wisp. It struggled to break free, but she’d pulled out the big guns. Her face scrunched under the pressure of holding the furious ball of light, a vein popping under the skin of her neck. With one guttural grunt, she hurled the uber-Wisp as far as her magical muscles allowed. It soared through the air, arcing like a true comet, and disappeared into the distance.

But the Wisps would be back. I knew that much.

Still red in the face, Charlotte ran back to me. A meager, devastating trio of pixies followed her. Two landed on her shoulders—a male and female, their pulsating spots blue with grief. And Boudicca came to rest on my shoulder, her head bowed as tiny, sparkling tears slid down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, knowing it could never be enough.

She lifted her mournful gaze and came closer to my face, resting her small forehead against mine. If this was her forgiveness, I didn’t deserve it. Too many of her kind had died for my sake, and I couldn’t take that back.

“There’s a car coming!” Charlotte hissed, dragging me behind the drystone wall that bordered the road. “Stay here, I’m going to… uh… commandeer it.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she’d already run to the road, waving her hands wildly. When I looked toward the spot where the pixies had fallen from the sky, there was nothing to see. They’d already returned to Chaos, unlike the pixies who still lay where they’d been cut down in Fergus’s sick paradise.

The car screeched to a standstill and the driver got out: a middle-aged man, with salt-and-pepper hair and a kindly appearance. My entire body clenched as I waited to see what Charlotte would do. Rambling about a breakdown further up the dirt track, she got close enough to the guy to grab his temples. He looked startled for a split second before white light filtered through his skull and into his eyes, flowing from Charlotte’s palms. I’d seen enough of my dad’s work to know what I was seeing. She’d wiped his mind, which would leave him out cold for a while. Long enough for us to “commandeer” his vehicle, at any rate.

“Get in!” Charlotte yelled, dragging the poor driver off to the side of the road. I didn’t agree with mind-wiping, as a rule, but saving the abductees had already called for gravedigging. Why not add another tally to this evening’s morally gray behavior?

I ran to the waiting car and jumped in on the passenger side, balancing the sack of bones on my lap, while Charlotte finished hauling the driver to safety. After giving him a curiously gentle pat on the head, she darted back and slipped into the driver’s seat.

“Seatbelts,” she instructed, holding the wheel gingerly, like it was her first time.

I arched an eyebrow at her. “You’ve driven a car before, right?”

“In theory, yes.” Her hand reached for the gearstick and ground it into first. “Well, that didn’t sound healthy.”

“Okay, let me rephrase. You’ve driven a stick before, right?”