The Line (Witching Savannah, #1)(51)

At the mention of her name, she halted. “Yes,” she said, but then a howl tore from her and she began swiping at Oliver with the blade, slicing him open with indiscriminate blows, some deeper than others.

“Help, help, help,” I pleaded in my mind, not even knowing whom I was addressing. Maybe it was a prayer. Maybe my mind was just trying to muster up its own courage. I rushed forward, reaching for the blade. She swiped at me and would have cut me, but Jackson swung the tongs at her hand with such force that I heard the radius in Iris’s forearm crack. The razor skidded across the floor, and Jackson dove at her. She struck him with her good arm, and he was knocked back across the room.

Before either of us could recover, she lifted her good arm and the razor flew back into her hand. “Fine then. I’ll let you watch,” she said, poising her hand over Oliver’s throat.

“No!” I said and was surprised to hear it come out as a command. “You will not do that. You will drop the razor.” I gave my words all the authority I could muster. Grace shot me a ferocious look over her shoulder. Iris’s face was twisted beyond recognition by the force of Grace’s fury. I turned the flashlight fully on her. Her skin was nearly purple, the veins bulging behind the skin. She labored and strained, growling and spitting, every ounce of the spirit’s power focused on forcing Iris to make the final cut. But Iris’s hand remained locked a mere inch or two above her brother’s jugular.

“The young lady told you to drop the knife,” the words were followed by a shimmer in the air that resolved into the golem. I dropped the flashlight in shock. “And you will vacate Mrs. Flynn’s body immediately.” Iris instantly fell limp on top of Oliver.

I heard the squeal of brakes and a slamming door, and within moments Ellen was by my side. She stopped dead at the sight of her siblings. Her eyes fixed on me for a moment, wide with confusion, but instead of waiting for answers, she rushed over to the table. “Get Iris off him,” she commanded, and Jackson obeyed, lifting Iris’s dead weight off Oliver. The blood that had bathed Iris now coated Jackson, and he shuddered at the sensation.

“He’s dying. Call an ambulance. I don’t think I can help him. He’s almost gone,” Ellen said, the words spilling out with no inflection. “He’s lost so much blood, and I don’t have it in me to heal him.” She placed her hands on Oliver and closed her eyes. “I said call an ambulance!” This time the words were an order. I turned and ran to the old landline that Connor had insisted we keep, slipping in the blood that had formed a puddle around the table. Emmet’s hand shot out and righted me before I toppled over.

“Stay,” he said to me. “You have the power, Ellen. We just need to reconnect you to it.” Emmet let go of me and laid his hand on Ellen’s head. She bolted off the ground an inch or so, suffused with a golden light. “The blockage has been removed. Another one of Ginny’s many follies.”

Ellen’s suspicions about Ginny had been right all along. Her face grew radiant as the power surged through her. “That bitch,” was all she said before turning her attention to Oliver. Light emanated from her fingers, from her hands, and then from her whole being. The bulbs in the overhead light began to glow as if electricity had been restored to them, and the room went from gloomy to intensely bright. Within seconds Oliver’s chest began to move up and down as his breathing returned to normal. The wounds closed and scarred over, and after a moment he opened his eyes. He looked around the room and started to say something, but then his eyes caught hold of mine. A look of shame washed over him, and he held his peace. The physical healing was miraculous, but I knew that the emotional healing was going to take much longer.

Iris had begun to stir, and she came to with a horrified look on her face. “What have I done? What have I done?” she wailed, staring down at her clothes, which were covered with her brother’s blood. She collapsed sobbing against Jackson, who recoiled from her, pushing her away. His blue eyes were wide as he looked from Ellen to Emmet to Iris to me, his face gray and sickly. I couldn’t tell if it was from the blood that covered him or the magic that was crackling in the air around us. He lowered his head and pushed past me. I heard his quick and heavy footsteps echo down the hall, the front door banged open, and he was gone.

Emmet walked over to Ellen and removed her hands from Oliver’s chest. “He’ll mend nicely now. You should turn your attention to your sister.”

Ellen was still on a high from the energies that had been restored to her, and her expression resembled Saint Theresa in her ecstasy. There was such beauty in the moment that I nearly forgot about the horrors that surrounded us. Carried by a wave of healing light, Ellen glided toward Iris. She took her sister into her arms and rocked her gently. “No harm done, no harm done,” she kept repeating in a singsong voice. In seconds Iris too was bathed in Ellen’s light.

“No harm indeed,” Emmet said to me under his breath as he retrieved the straight razor, using it to cut the ropes that bound Oliver to the table. “Let’s get you into bed,” he said. One moment Oliver was there in front of me, and the next he was gone. “Don’t worry about your uncle. We’ll watch over him while he rests.”

“But how did you know?” I asked him. “How did you know to come?”

“We heard your call, and we summoned your family to return home,” Emmet replied. He sensed that I wanted more of an explanation, so he continued. “We promised we would renew and strengthen the charms Ginny was using to protect you. If ever you are in true danger, we will come to you, at least as long as this body still has form.”