Pretty Witches All in a Row (35 page)

“Nick,” she whispered, immediately rushing to his side, attempting to sit him upright.  “Nick, we have to get out of here.”  Annaliese struggled under his dead weight; he was heavier than he looked.  He murmured something unintelligible as she slipped his arm around her shoulders and tried with all her might to propel him to his feet.

“You would have made it if you’d left him behind.”  Ellie’s voice startled her from behind and Annaliese scrambled away from Nick, allowing him to tumble back to the couch where he moaned softly. 

“Ellie…” she breathed, backing away to place the furniture between them.  “You don’t have to do this… you’re a good person, I know you are.”  The words tasted like chalk in her mouth, but Anna tried to appeal to what was left of Ellie’s humanity. 

“Sweet Annaliese, always wanting to believe the best of others,” she chuckled, slowly skirting the back of the couch.  “I do indeed have to do this, I don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” 

“Yes, and I made it long before you were born,” Ellie’s eyes narrowed coldly.  “It’s either you or me now, sweetie, and I choose me.” 

“Hasn’t there been enough death?”

“Almost,” Ellie darted forward, faster than someone of her apparent age should have been able to move.  Annaliese let out a squeak, dashing for the back door.  Shoving the slider open, she ran full tilt for the safety of the trees and the officers within them, not sure if she should call out for help or if that would bring Ellie too quickly to do her any good. 

Call… Feeling like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner, Anna withdrew her phone.  Bemoaning the fact that she didn’t know Park or Brady’s cell numbers, she dialed 911. 

“What is your emergency?” 

“I’m being chased through the woods by Cooper St. and 82nd Avenue.  There are other officers in the area looking for the killer but I don’t know how to reach them,” she said as loud as she dared. 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I can barely hear you.  You’re in the woods where now?”

“Behind Cooper Street.  Please send help quickly, she took out Sergeant Gibson, you should probably send an ambulance too.”

“What do you mean by took out, Ma’am?  Is Sergeant Gibson dead?”

“No, he’s knocked out I think, but she’s already killed at least five people that we know of.”

“Who has, Ma’am?”

“Ah, ah, ah… none of that.”  Ellie stepped out from behind a copse of trees, approaching Annaliese slowly.  Lips moving in an unintelligible murmur, the phone grew unbearably warm and Anna dropped it like a hot potato, gasping as it burst into flame the moment it hit the forest floor.  By instinct Annaliese waved her fingers and the flame went out before it spread too far, causing Ellie’s brows to raise.  “Very nice, I had no idea you were so talented.  Most witches these days are wannabes; it’s rare to meet someone of power.  Then again, it does make sense.”

“What do you mean, it makes sense?”

“Considering your lineage.  You’re descended from a long line of witches.”

“How would you know something like that?” Annaliese blinked, her mother certainly hadn’t felt that way; she’d rejected her the moment she’d taken an interest in that sort of thing. 

“Because, my dear, I am your oldest living ancestor; your Great Grandmother, a few times removed of course.” 

“No, we are
not
related,” Anna maintained, backing away slowly. 

“I’m afraid we are.  I’ve kept careful tabs on my family over the years.  At first to make certain my children fared well after I had to leave them.  Then over the course of many years, I came to find that when certain conditions were met, those I shared blood with made the most powerful sacrifices.”

Annaliese tried to swallow the bile rising in her throat at being linked to such a monster.  Had Ellie really been quietly murdering her descendents over the years to maintain her life?  She turned to run again but was halted in her tracks by an immovable force.  The sound of chanting came to her ears in that same language, and Ellie circled around as she completed the spell, coming to stop directly in front of her. 

“I have picked up a few things in the past hundred and fifty years, dear.” 

Arms and legs locked by an unseen vice, Annaliese stood frozen in place; panic welling as she caught sight of the athame in Ellie’s hands.  “Please…” she whispered, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. 

Ellie reached up to undo the messy topknot of Anna’s hair, smoothing it over her shoulders.  “You were supposed to die last, but it’ll have to be enough.  I’ll finish off Rose when I get back to the house and the spell will be complete.  I’ll be fully restored and who cares if Nick wakes up then?  No one will recognize the young me as Ellie Wentworth and I can disappear.” 

“Rose is still alive?” Annaliese gasped in surprise.

“For the moment, but I’ll take care of it soon enough.  The circumstances here aren’t ideal but they’ll have to do.”  She raised the dagger. 

“Why kill anyone at all?  Is immortality really worth the price?”  Annaliese was stalling now; if she could keep her talking long enough there might be time for the police to find them.

“What if I offered you the choice right now?  I could kill you now, or you could kill me and live forever?  What would you say to that?”  Ellie’s head canted to one side as she studied her. 

“I wouldn’t kill you, it’s wrong to take someone else’s life.”

“It’s not right for a woman to die before she reaches thirty by a wasting disease.  My life was stolen from me,” her eyes blazed.  “I chose to take it back.” 

“It’s not right for a woman to steal life from other women either Ellie, you know that.  Or should I say Lilah?”

Her brows rose at the appellation.  “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time,” she smiled.  “It’s good that you know who I really am before you go, fitting somehow.  Goodbye Annaliese; I did love you, in my own way.”  There was almost a tinge of regret in her voice as she raised the dagger, the familiar words spilling from her lips.   

“Prin lumina acestei lumânări. Conjur puterile întunericului…”

The words reverberated through the woods.  The air grew oppressively hot, and her breathing came in shallow gasps as an impotent panic gripped her immobile limbs. 

“Să îmi dea puterea…”

A shot rang out, loud to her ears in the stillness of the night.  Annaliese gasped as Ellie stumbled to her knees, her eyes too riveted on the knife to look up and see who fired the shot.  A stunned look spread over Ellie’s face as she looked down to see the spreading stain on her breast.  Still, she struggled to continue the incantation.  “
Să îmi recapăt... tinereţea...”
she wheezed, unable to continue, but refusing to relinquish the knife.  She raised it again, aiming for Annaliese’s heart.
  “şi să îmi dea...” 
Another shot rang out and Ellie’s voice stilled, eyes growing sightless and dark as she pitched over to one side.

Released from the spell, Annaliese stumbled backwards, trying to catch her balance as her limbs came under her own control again.  Looking up, she spotted Nick lurching towards her on unsteady feet.  His face was the last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness. 

Chapter Nineteen

Nick shook Annaliese’s shoulder lightly as he kneeled by her side.  “Annie?”  She was still breathing, that was a good sign.  Her eyelids fluttered open and swift words of thanks left his lips. 

“What happened?” Annaliese groaned, trying to sit up.

“You passed out and scared me half to death,” he grumbled, not quite so eager to get her get up yet but she craned her neck to try and catch sight of Ellie.

“No, I mean what happened to Ellie?” 

Nick turned away and studied the pile of clothes and bits of bone that marked all that was left of the witch lying not too far away.  “After I shot her, she got all decomposey and gross, and then she mostly turned into dust,” he grimaced; it hadn’t been the most pleasant process to watch.  “I’m more interested in how you’re doing though.  How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay… a little shaky, but all things considered, not too bad,” Annaliese replied, unable to tear her eyes from the spot. 

“She didn’t hurt, you did she?  You were just standing there, I was afraid I might have been too late.”  Nick searched her carefully for any signs of injury, but apart from being a little dazed she seemed fine.

“No, she had an immobilizing spell on me that kept me from running away.  But as soon as you killed her I was released.  I think there was some backlash from all the energy in the air from the spell she was raising, it was a little overwhelming.” 

Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “I think we need to get our story straight; we don’t have much time, those shots are going to start drawing people back in our direction.  Nobody is going to believe what really happened, hell I lived through it and I’m not really sure I believe what I saw.”

“You don’t even know the half of it; wait until I tell you what you missed while you were taking a nap.” 

“Hey, I was drugged,” Nick protested indignantly. 

“So was I, you didn’t see me lying down on the job,” she teased him shakily.  “Seriously though, what
are
we going to tell people?”

“She chased you out here, came after you with the knife, you struggled and managed to wrench the weapon away from her and she ran off into the woods.  I showed up just after she was gone and brought you back to the house.”  It was short and simple, the simpler the better.

“What about that?”  Annaliese gestured to the pile of clothes and what was left of Ellie.

“They’re never going to recognize that as being Ellie, so I was thinking maybe we should hide it until later when we can come back and bury it?”

Annaliese rose to her feet, clinging to his arm for support.  “We could do that, or we could just take care of it now.”  Concentrating, she extended her hand and the remains sprang into flame. 

Nick watched with a start of surprise, the demonstration of power was much more impressive than lighting candles.  Worriedly, he darted a look around, hoping the light from the fire wouldn’t draw any of the other searchers before they could extinguish it.  “Can you really get that hot enough to take care of the bones?” he asked softly.

“Shh, this is harder than it looks,” Anna replied, deep in concentration for a few minutes before she extinguished the fire.  “Sorry, that wasn’t as simple as lighting a fire, I had to try and make it burn hotter than it normally would while also trying to keep it contained.”  Annaliese sagged against him, her energy depleted. 

Nick studied the scorched marks on the ground; there were no signs of Ellie’s remains or her clothes anymore.  “Come on; let’s get you back to the house.”  He wrapped an arm around her after stooping to pick up the dagger.  “Oh here, you’re supposed to be carrying the dagger.  Wrap your hand around that so we can at least get your prints on there.”  Nick held the hilt towards her and she grasped it obligingly.  “Oh crap, I almost forgot.  We’d better call off the bolo on Rose and get them looking for Ellie.”

“Rose… she’s back at the house; at least Ellie said she was.”  Annaliese tried walking a little faster. 

“She is?”  He hadn’t seen her in his brief but frantic search through the house when he’d first come to.  Only he’d been fairly groggy from the laudanum, she might have been easily missed if she wasn’t in plain sight.  A quick call to Brady had their trumped up story in motion.  “Brady said they’re just about done searching through the woods, but they’ll do another pass now that they know they’re looking for Ellie.”

“I feel bad for them being stuck out here in the dark, searching for someone they’ll never find,” Annaliese sighed. 

“Yeah well, better to waste a few hours of their time than to have us end up in the looney bin,” he grumbled, trying to keep up with the pace Annaliese was setting.  She was the one who was supposed to be weakened by the spell and he was the one having trouble.  Of course, Ellie had dosed him with God knew how much laudanum; he was lucky to be up and around at all. 

They made it to the house as the ambulance arrived and Nick insisted they check Annaliese out.  To his chagrin they sat him down to check his vitals as well, refusing to let them up until they were satisfied.  Brady’s appearance at the back door brought a wave of relief.  “Finally… these EMT’s are holding us hostage,” Nick complained. 

“Standard operating procedure; you two were drugged, right?”  Brady gave a half shrug and Annaliese caught his attention. 

“Rose is somewhere in the house but we’re not sure where.  Ellie knocked her out somehow, I don’t think she had time to drug her before the policeman showed up.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” Brady promised, gesturing to Park who appeared at the door as if on cue.  It was scant minutes later when Park’s voice cut through the house.

“Found her… she’s unconscious.”

“We’re up.”  One of the EMT’s grabbed his gear and headed for the bedroom.

“You two stay put, you shouldn’t even be walking around in your condition,” the other EMT advised them sternly as he went to join his partner.

“Our condition; he makes it sound like we have an unmentionable disease,” Nick muttered sourly.  Annaliese opened her mouth to reply but was distracted by the appearance of Rose being led by the EMT’s. 

“Rose, how are you feeling?” 

“They said I have a concussion, they want to take me in to the hospital to get checked out,” Rose replied, sitting down gingerly.  “I guess it could be a lot worse.  I heard about what happened, Ellie attacking you.  Are you okay, honey?”

“Me?  I’m fine, thanks to Nick.”  Annie’s smile was beatific and Rose gave him a grudging smile of her own. 

“I guess you were able to keep her safe at that.” 

Nick nodded, giving her a tight smile in return.  He didn’t trust himself to speak yet, he was less of a ‘forgive and forget’ type person than she was apparently.

“Look, I’m sorry about before, the things I said…” Rose turned back to Annaliese.