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CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The terms were to meet at Mount Hope Cemetery, a huge, sprawling oasis for the living and the dead that overlooked the Penobscot River and which wasn’t far from Paisley’s mansion.
 

It was the country’s second oldest garden cemetery and some of the graves featured birth dates that dipped as far back as the late eighteenth century.
 
Oddly, in spite of the fact that a vice president and several senators and congressmen were buried here, the cemetery was perhaps best known because it was here that Stephen King’s “Pet Sematery” was filmed.

It was beautiful and peaceful, filled with tall pine trees, two large ponds that attracted their share of ducks, rolling hills and several ornate mausoleums.
 
People walked here, they read here, they reflected here.
 
It one of the city’s most stunning showpieces.
 

After tonight?
 
Likely not so much.

We appeared on the left side of the main pond and already my amulets were hot.
 
Paisley was beside me, looking around, her body tense and in tune with her surroundings.
 
There was no moon tonight—just darkness and a wave of incoming clouds that were covering the scattering of stars.
 
I told her we weren’t alone.

“You can come out, Darien,” she said.
 
“We know you and your little witch posse are here.
 
If you want this done, there’s no reason to wait.”

But nothing happened.

“Can you see them?” she asked.

I closed my eyes and tapped into the amulets.
 
I asked to see a map of the cemetery in my mind’s eye and for their whereabouts to be highlighted in red.
 
What I saw was terrifying.
 
They literally were all around us and closing in.
 
You couldn’t hear them because they were hovering above the ground in a successful effort to make no sound.
 
I shared my vision with Paisley, who in turn shared it with her coven.
 

Above us, something soared overhead.

To the right were two pinpoints of red lights—a pair of someone’s eyes?
 
It was difficult to tell.

When the pond started to glow a vibrant blue, I knew we were in the shit even before Darien ascended from it and shot ten feet into the air above us.
 
With one violent twist of his body, he was instantly dry.
 
He looked down at us as Anna also erupted from the pond.
 
Her full head of hair was back.
 
Her once-burnt skin was smooth and youthful-looking.

“You know you’re outnumbered, Paisley.
 
Why don’t you just tell the boy to give up the amulets?”
 

Paisley rose in the air and moved in front of him.
 
She had no use for Anna and with one look at the woman, she forced her down into the pond, burying her so deep in the muck, I wasn’t sure how Anna would free herself.
 
But she would.
 
Of course, she would.
 
If I’d learned anything about that broad, it’s that she just kept coming back for more.

“I don’t have time for bitches who eat cats,” Paisley said to Darien.
 
“It’s unseemly.”

“She found it satisfying.”

“She would.
 
But she’s your witch.”

“Just give us the amulets.
 
There’s no need for violence.
 
I want you to keep what’s left of your coven.
 
I’d hate to break up what’s left of such an attractive-looking family.”

“As if you haven’t before.
 
You personally have killed off most of those who came to me.
 
But what makes you think I’ll allow that to happen now?”

“I think we both know why.
 
You can see how many we are.”
 
He looked over at me.
 
“Sharing your map was helpful, Seth.
 
Good to know you have Paisley’s back.”

I said nothing.
 
I was tapped into the map and was becoming concerned by how close his witches were.
 
This was going down in minutes.
 
I updated the map for Paisley and her coven so they were aware of the danger.

“You know, Darien,” Paisley said.
 
“You’ve killed a lot of witches in your time.
 
Not just mine, but hundreds of others.”

“So, I have.”

“I remember the last war we had and the war before that.
 
Each took place centuries ago.
 
Over the years, right here in this city, you’ve slaughtered our own kind, often for no reason.
 
It all seemed to be on a whim.
 
You gave your reasons to the High Priestess, who accepted them, but I never have.
 
And I bet the witches you killed haven’t either.”

“You’re boring me, Paisley.
 
What’s your point?”

Paisley clucked her tongue.
 
“Now, when have you known me to be boring?
 
Paisley White is anything but boring, sugar.
 
Don’t you know that most of those witches are buried right here?
 
You must know that.
 
You’re surrounded by the very people you damned to Hell.
 
Can’t you feel their anger?
 
Can’t you feel the sense of absolute unrest that you’re even here?
 
I can.
 
The air is crackling with it.
 
I can feel their hatred of you, which is deeper than mine and which is so strong, it’s running through the roots of these trees.
 
Their souls live on.”

From the pond, Anna emerged in a glop of mud, slop and weeds.
 
She went straight for Paisley, but I was faster and gave her a right hook to the face.
 
She flew across to the other side and slammed against a maple tree.
 
Before she could move, I snapped off several pointed limbs from surrounding trees and turned them into missiles that staked her to the tree.
 
I pinned her arms at her sides.
 
She looked down at her chest and gut, and bellowed into the night.

I looked at Edward and said, “Keep her there.”

He held up a hand and, like a mounted bug, Anna squirmed to free herself while the heat between Darien and Paisley grew in intensity.

“What if you had to face all of them now?” Paisley said.
 
“What would you say to them?
 
If resurrected, their powers would still be intact.
 
I don’t think they’d take too kindly to you.”

Those last words were my cue.
 
While the other witches scattered into position, I leaped beside Paisley to create a distraction while she began to utter the words that would raise Darien Cromwell’s dead.
 

He saw what she planned and immediately tried to silence her with a wave of his hand.
 
But before he could do so, I grabbed his wrist and bore down so hard into the amulets, I was able to render him powerless while Paisley drifted back toward the aged granite stones and said the one phrase that might change everything if it worked:
 
“Silenti etc mos orior oriri ortus!”

At first, nothing happened.
 
Then came a rumbling beneath the earth.
 
High above us, the pines began to shake and within them, nesting birds took flight into the night.

A sudden jolt of electricity fried my hand, causing me to release it from Darien’s wrist.
 
He looked at me dismissively, which pissed me off.
 
I grabbed his wrist again and this time snapped it back with such force that it broke.
 
His hand now hung limp.
 
He looked down at it and then at me.
 
There was no question that he was surprised I was able to break even a part of him.
 
He mended his wrist with a wave of his other hand while all around us, hands and fists started to punch through the dirt.
 

People emerged from their graves looking exactly as they had gone into them.
 
They were witches and unless their head was chopped off, apparently a witch didn’t rot.
 
Darien had killed them some other way and by the look on his face, he was determined to kill them again—along with the rest of us.

The once-dead bodies of hundreds of witches lifted themselves into the air and joined Paisley on one side of the pond.
 
Many of them were once her own.
 
She looked at them with fondness.

“Darien,” they said in unison.

Across the pond, Anna freed herself from the tree and flew beside her master.
 
Her eyes burned.
 
Her lips were twisted back.
 
More than anyone here, she was ready to get on with this.
 

From all around the cemetery, Darien’s other witches slipped through the trees and lifted off the ground to join him while I retreated and took my place beside Paisley.
 
Now, her army dwarfed his.
 
What she managed to pull off was brilliant.
 
Still, while he no longer had the upper hand, he remained a force and had to be handled with caution.

“You can leave here now,” Paisley said.
 
“If you do and if you remove the spell from Jim, this will stop.
 
There doesn’t need to be violence tonight.
 
You’re powerful enough without those amulets.
 
Just walk away, Darien, or face us all.
 
It’s your choice.”

He was absolutely calm.
 
“My decision hasn’t changed.
 
I didn’t come here not expecting a fight.
 
And I didn’t come to fuck around.
 
Let me make my intent very clear to all of you, especially to Seth.”
 

He held out his hands and in them appeared Alex and Jennifer, who started writhing beneath his touch.
 
I shot forward but Paisley held me back.
 
He was holding each of them out in front of him by their necks.
 
Jennifer was turned in such a way that she faced me.
 
She shouted my name and then started to scream for help.
 
Alex swung back and tried to punch Darien so he could get loose but it was to no avail.
 
He couldn’t reach him.

In those next few seconds, Darien Cromwell, Dark King of the Witches of the Eastern Territories, did the unthinkable and the irreversible.
 
He smashed together the heads of my two best friends with such force, it killed them instantly in a fountain of blood.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Stunned, I watched their corpses drop into the glowing pond, where they gradually sank from view in liquid red ribbons and yellow brain matter.

Sick with outrage and grief, I turned to Paisley, who looked mortified at the sight.
 
“You said they’d be safe!”

“I said I hoped they’d be safe.”

“My friends are dead!”

Her lips parted, but she said nothing.

I felt faint, sick.
 
The world started to spin.
 
My friends were dead.
 
Jennifer was dead.

“Give us the amulets, Seth.”

None of this was worth it.

“Do it and Jim lives.”

Paisley sank into my mind.
 
“He’s tricking you.
 
I promise you whoever he was holding wasn’t Jennifer or Alex.
 
They were something else.
 
The real Jennifer and Alex are at my house.
 
They’re safe.
 
I’ve checked.
 
I need you to go forward with the plan.”

I didn’t know what to do.
 
After this, I didn’t know whether I could trust her.

Sensing my weakness, Darien’s army moved closer.
 
I saw hands lift up and palms face me.
 
The group began to spread out in a semi-circle while Paisley and her clan did the same.

I remained in the open.

I tapped fleetingly into the amulets but couldn’t see Jennifer and Alex at Paisley’s home.
 
Was she tricking me?
 
Was she willing to lie to me just to be rid of Darien?
 
I drilled harder into the amulets and started to move through the layers of iron in which Jennifer and Alex were encased.

And then I saw them.
 
Safe.
 
Alive in the iron box Paisley sealed them in.
 
They were there.

I looked over at Darien and concealed my relief with fury.
 
“Why did you do it?” I asked him.

“Because you wouldn’t listen to reason.
 
Besides, you’ll make new friends.
 
People who look like you always do, regardless of how you came to look the way you do now.
 
Hand over the amulets.”

It started to rain, which would only make things more difficult for us if we went to battle.
 
I turned to Paisley.
 
“I’m not going to die over these things.
 
You
give them to him.”

“I’m giving him nothing.
 
And if you do, you’re making a mistake.
 
He’ll kill you and Jim if you give them to him.
 
I’ve told you that.
 
He’ll do it.”

Anna hissed at her.

“What are you, a fucking cat?” Paisley said.
 
“Or do you just eat them?”

“She’s lying,” Darien said to me.
 
“If you give me the amulets, I promise nothing will happen to you and Jim.
 
I’ll remove the spell.
 
You’ll never hear from us again.”

And so here we were, at the precise moment Jennifer and Alex dreaded most just hours ago at Paisley’s home.
 
I either was about to face my death or we were going to take him and his coven down.
 
I looked over my shoulder at Paisley.
 
“I’m sorry,” I said.

It started to rain harder.
 
“You’re a fool, Seth.”

“I’d rather be a fool than not give Jim a chance.”
 
I turned to Darien and pointed a finger at Anna.
 
“Get that bitch away from us.
 
I don’t want her near to me.”

He flicked his hand over his shoulder and she pinwheeled back into the trees.

“Think twice, Seth.”
 
It was Edward.
 
“Listen to Paisley.”

“Move the rest of your witches back,” I said to Darien.
 
“I don’t trust you.”

“How about if I just come to you?”

He started to float over to me, his hands outstretched, his dark hair wet and gleaming as he crossed to the center of the illumined pond.

I waited until he was in front of me and then reached behind myself to pull the amulets over my head.
 
I paused for effect and studied his face.
 
I could tell he was trying to read all of our minds, but we’d blocked him from doing so, just as they had done to us.
 

If anything went awry, his army would react swiftly.
 
And they were betting something would go wrong—I was certain of it.
 
Regardless of what he just done with his versions of Alex and Jennifer, they knew this wouldn’t go down simply.
 
What no one knew is whether Darien was strong enough to wrest the amulets from me once I started to take them off.
 
Were we of equal strength?
 

We were about to find out.

The sky opened up and it started to pour, washing the dirt from the once-dead witches, the lot of whom started to chant Darien’s name.
 

I stared into his eyes and thought back to that day in the woods, when I was walking home from school.
 
It was the day I had my confrontation with Mike Hastings.
 
I’d gone over to a clutch of flowers, said one word and watched those flowers crumple and die.
 
It’s the one word I’d trained myself never to say.
 
It’s the one word I feared most because of its power.
 

But Darien was no flower.
 
Neither were his witches.
 
How powerful was that word when used against them?
 
Would it work?
 
Would they fall victim to it?

The rain was coming down in sheets, making it difficult to see.
 
Although it looked as if I was gathering the rawhide strings in an effort to pull the amulets over my head, I actually was thinking of Jim, of this situation, of everything that had happened to me in my life, of how many years I’d been bullied and treated like a piece of shit for no reason, of this man’s audacity and of my murdered parents.
 
Especially my parents.

The infusion of rage I felt was unparalleled to anything I’d ever experienced and so I used it as Paisley intended.
 
I channeled every rotten thing I was feeling into the amulets, I felt them react with a burst of heat against my chest and then, in one sweeping, blisteringly fast move, I swung my hands out in front of me and used the one word that either would end this war or start it in earnest:
 
“Die!” I shouted.

Immediately, several of Darien’s witches dropped to the pond below and started to sink to the bottom.
 
Others collapsed to the ground and turned to ash while Paisley’s army stormed forward to attack those who had survived.

Darien swung around to look at me.
 
“What have you done?”

“Are you blind?
 
I just killed part of your coven.
 
Now, it’s your turn, motherfucker.
 
Die!”
 

But nothing happened.
 
Like some of the others who were still alive and now fighting Paisley and her coven, he either was too old or too powerful for that word to have any effect on him.

Furious, he lunged at me, but I was quick and flew high into the scalded sky.
 
He followed, I felt him grasping at my feet, but my shoes were slick with rain and they slipped through his hands.
 
He tried again.
 
And again.

I took a hard right, then a harder left.
 

An explosion erupted below me, where the witches were fighting.
 
A ball of flames shot up so high that I needed to soar through them.
 

And when I did, I found myself heading straight for Darien, who had transported himself into my path.

I was going too fast to turn away from him.
 

The flames were evaporating behind him.

And then it struck me.
 
The flames…

Before I collided with him, I warned Paisley what I was about to do and then I took my chance.

I looked up at the sky and set fire to the rain.