Spirit (30 page)

“Shall we
begin?” Sherry asked, her voice a little too sharp, startling Jodi, Steven, and
me.

“Sure,” Jodi
said, shrugging her shoulders. I had never seen her so reluctant or unsure at
the start of a casting.

Jane lit a taper
and stood to light each of the white candles that surrounded them; I counted
twelve as she went. We had never used a clock formation to create our circle of
power, so watching her say a blessing over each candle as she lit them was
interesting. She returned to the center taper, a mere couple of inches long now,
and used it to light a small white candle next to the large black candle.

Strangely, when
they began, they remained seated. Whenever we did great magics like these, we
always stood, though I’m not sure if either made much of a difference. Jane and
Sherry led the spell, starting by banishing any unhelpful entities from their
sacred space, moving into a silent meditation, intending to build up their Cone
of Power, outlined by the salt circle and candles. Jodi and Steven both cracked
an eye open to steal a glance at each other. Steven tilted his head in a silent
question, and Jodi answered with a small shake of her head. Neither of them
could feel the Wiccans’ power.

Then they called
upon each of the four earthly elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Jane
handed the small white candle to Steven to light the black candle when they
spoke that element. Watching Steven light a candle manually was odd, just as
odd as it was for Jodi to speak her element without the subsequent gentle
breeze that had always followed before.

I squirmed,
suddenly very sure that it just wasn’t going to work. Maybe I wasn’t giving
Jane and Sherry enough credit, but I could tell just by looking at Jodi and
Steven they weren’t feeling that special magical feeling they should be. I
wondered, even as handicapped as their powers were right then, if they wouldn’t
have been more successful attempting it on their own. After all, Jodi had
already started to make some progress by herself.

Before long, the
four began calling me, imploring me to answer them, come to them. I sat there,
clutching the looking glass, staring down into the black glass, and felt no
answering pull. Whatever they had done, it wasn’t a summoning or an invocation.
For a moment, I could hear my own voice echoing in my head, telling Jacob how
important belief was for magic to work. I really didn’t think Jodi and Steven
truly believed that Jane and Sherry’s spell was going to work. Maybe that affected
it, maybe not, but it certainly didn’t help.

They remained in
the circle for a long time, holding their hands over their heads. Jane and
Sherry never gave up on calling out my name, but never actually pulled me
through. Jodi was the first to drop her hands, followed almost immediately by
Steven. They stared at the two witches with their eyes closed and hands raised,
waiting for them to give up.

Sherry’s arms
began to shake first. Eventually she was forced to let her hands drop to her
lap. When she opened her eyes and saw that Jodi and Steven were just staring at
her, the look on her face was a mix of surprise and disappointment. She knew in
that moment they’d given up on her and her sister fairly quickly.

“Jane,” Sherry
said softly, interrupting her sister’s chant, “I think that’s enough.” Jane
opened her eyes, keeping her hands in the air, and glanced at the others. Her
brow furrowed as if she was confused.

“I told you this
wouldn’t be easy,” Jane said, refusing to let her hands drop. I felt a wave of
affection for her then, appreciating how hard she was trying even though my
friends and I had given up already.

“Right,” Steven
said, “but it’s not working, and your fingers are turning blue.” Jane glanced
at her hands and saw Steven was right; her fingers had lost so much color they
were starting to turn from white to blue. She finally lowered her hands,
rubbing them to get the blood moving again.

“I’m sorry, you
guys,” Sherry said, dropping her eyes.

“Don’t be,”
Steven said with a shake of his head.

“Yeah,” Jodi
said, “you tried. It was a really good effort, and we appreciate it.”

Jane and Sherry
shared a look as Jodi and Steven stood to help disassemble the circle, blowing
out the candles and making the appropriate gestures and saying the banishing
spells we all knew by heart, scuffing a gap in the salt line to break the
circle. Steven snatched up my bracelet just as Jane reached to move it. Steven
stared down at her with a strange look before slipping it into his pocket and
turning away.

Once everything
was packed away and Jodi had released the caged sparrow, watching it flutter
away, Jane cleared her throat. Jodi and Steven turned to face her and her
sister, standing side by side.

“Kids,” Jane
said. Jodi gritted her teeth hard enough to make the muscle in her jaw jump; she
hated being called that just as much as I did. “You may have to consider a hard
truth.”

“That Shayna may
have
gone on
?” Steven asked.

“Yes,” Sherry
answered. “It’s very possible, even likely.”

“Nope,” I said.

“Of course it
is,” Jodi agreed even as Steven shook his head resolutely. “But it’s doubtful.”

“Jodi,” Jane
started, but Jodi held up a hand to stop her.

“Thanks for
trying, you guys,” Steven said, effectively ending the argument. The four said
their goodbyes with hugs and words of “Merry met and merry meet again.” Jodi
and Steven stood and watched the two witches walk away, disappearing over the
crest of a hill.

“Well that was
pointless,” Jodi said with a sigh, tugging at her scarf.

“No,” Steven
said, “we had to try.”

“Yeah, I guess,”
Jodi said, turning away to gaze off into the distance.

“Do you really
think Shayna moved on?” Steven asked, not looking at Jodi.

“No,” she said
quickly, so sure of the answer. “I think when you banished her, she went
somewhere, and it’s just gonna be a little harder to get her back.”

Steven’s
shoulders inched up close to his ears, flinching at the comment, though I knew
Jodi didn’t mean anything by it. Steven shook himself visibly, forcing his
muscles to relax before he moved to stand next to her.

“Maybe it was
like that true love spell we did for Tracy,” Steven said.

“What? Like Shay
could still show up?” Jodi asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not how
invocations work. They either show or they don’t; this wasn’t a seeking spell.”

“Right.” They
stood in silence for a while. Jodi eventually slipped her arm through Steven’s
to hold on to him. “C’mon,” Steven said, “let’s head back to the car.”

Steven turned
them around to head back the way they’d come only to be stopped short, Jodi
jerking to a halt with a small gasp of surprise. Steven said something in
Spanish, his free hand coming up to protect Jodi.

Ashriel, my
guardian angel, blocked their path.

Chapter 17

I nearly dropped
the looking glass when I saw Ash. Strangely, he looked entirely human, dressed
in dark jeans, a black jacket, and boots. His soft brown hair curled around his
ears, and even though he’d hidden his impossibly large, white-blue wings, his
eyes would always betray his inhuman nature. Though it was the middle of the
night and the moonlight was weak, his blue eyes were crystal clear, glowing
with otherworldly power.

“Where the hell
did you come from?” Steven asked, recovering first. He took a half step
forward, placing his body slightly in front of Jodi.

“Definitely not
there,” Ashriel replied, attempting a small smile at his not-so-subtle joke,
but it was still lost on my friends.

“What?” Steven
asked, stopping himself from glancing back at Jodi.

“It doesn’t
matter,” Ash said, waving one hand in front of him.

“The hell it
doesn’t,” Jodi snapped, coming out from behind Steven, placing her hands on her
hips and leaning toward him. “Just what the crap do you think you’re doing
sneaking up on us like that? What the fuck do you want?”

Ashriel flinched
visibly at Jodi’s foul language, closing his eyes for a second as if she’d
slapped him. Steven seemed to catch the pained look, but if Jodi did, she
didn’t care.

“I apologize,”
Ash said in a measured tone. “I didn’t intend to startle you or sneak up on
you. I’ve come to offer you my help.”

“Your help?”
Steven asked.

“Listen,
creeper,” Jodi said, “we don’t need any help from you, so thanks, but no thanks.”
Pivoting at the hips, Jodi reached out and took Steven’s hand before she pulled
him along with her.

“Please wait,”
Ashriel said. He pitched his tone so perfectly that even I wanted to stop my
friends and ask them to listen. I shook my head, trying to clear it; it was
just an angel trick, same as a damn faerie trick.

“Jodi,” Steven
said, pulling back on her hand, his weight and strength stopping her easily.

“Are you
serious?” Jodi demanded, rounding on Steven.

“I just want to
know what he wants,” Steven said. He stepped close to her and whispered, “Look
at him, really look at him.” Jodi glared at Steven for another moment before
she flicked her blue eyes to Ashriel’s. When he caught her gaze, he held it. I
saw the flare of light in his icy blue depths. Jodi wrapped her arms around
herself against a sudden and strange chill.

“Fine,” she
sighed, “what do you want?”

“To help,”
Ashriel repeated.

“Yeah, got that
part,” Jodi said, her eyebrows arching high.

“You attempted
to bring Shayna back and you failed,” Ash said, surprising them so much they
both looked like someone had struck them with a bat on the backs of their heads.
“I want to help you try again.”

“How did you…”
Steven started to ask, but his voice failed him. His mouth opened and closed
uselessly.

“How could you
possibly know that?” Jodi asked in a strangled whisper.

“Because I am
her guardian angel.” With a clap of thunder, Ashriel’s wings burst from his
back, materializing in a shock of white light, the very tips of the feathers
just hinting at the icy blue of the North Winds. They arched high over his
head, sweeping down into pointed tips that trailed on the ground behind him. In
the pale moonlight, I could almost make out icicles in the curved recesses of
his wings.

I clenched my
jaw despite the pain in my cheek, watching the shock and awe on Jodi and
Steven’s faces. Ashriel was actually lying to them by saying he was my
“guardian angel;” yes, he’d watched over me, but only to groom me for my own
guardian duties when I died. If he’d been a true guardian angel, then he
would’ve stepped in and saved me from the fire, or at the very least helped me
so that I could save myself. Instead, the bastard had just stood by, waiting
for me to die, and then tried to collect me.

There he was
telling Jodi and Steven he wanted to help them bring me back to life. I knew
better. He wanted to help them bring me back to that reality so he could drag
me into the Light once and for all, that burning, unrelenting Light.

I had evaded him
so well, and there he was beguiling my friends. If only they had reached out to
Iris to use her powers to pull me from this forsaken place… With the first
signs of hope showing on their faces, I knew they would use the one being who could
undo all of my efforts. Ashriel would help them pull me through the Ether, and
he would be right there the exact moment I materialized. His hand would be on
me before I could blink, and it would be over. I would be pulled into the Light
and out of our earthly world, and Jodi and Steven would be lost to me. I would
be helpless, knowing they would be forced to walk a doomed path to a fate that
Ashriel knew was too horrible for me to watch.

“I have a
question,” Jodi said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Of course,”
Ashriel replied graciously.

“If you’re
Shay’s guardian angel, where the hell have you been?”

“I’m sorry?”

I grinned.
Jodi’s question so obviously threw Ashriel.

“Where were you?
How could Shay find Steven, days after she died, to try to contact him?” Jodi
crossed her arms over her chest. “How come Steven could banish her? Shouldn’t
you have been there for her?”

“That’s a very
good point,” Steven said, rounding on Ash, his arms crossed in a mirror image
of Jodi. My heart swelled and I had to hold my breath as I watched.

“Well,” Ash
said, pausing to buy time, “when someone dies, they’re given the opportunity to
decide what they want to do.”

“What do you
mean?” Steven asked.

“A person can
decide whether or not to go into the Light,” Ashriel explained. To my horror, I
watched Steven’s face change as he uncrossed his arms, believing Ashriel.

Jodi arched one
eyebrow. “Shayna wasn’t a person. She was an angel, just like you. Are you
really going to tell me angels have the same choice of whether to go into the Light
a human does?”