A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(51)
The top of the bottle began to unscrew itself as if some invisible hand were twisting it.
Charleston said, “Lila, disable it.”
Lila stepped forward and the rest of us moved back so she had a clear field of “fire.” Her hands were loose at her sides, but her stance was solid, stacked, and ready for action. She could do her psychic ability so quietly that the bad guys never saw it coming, but when she didn’t have to hide, she looked like she was getting ready for a physical fight instead of a psychic one.
I never felt anything happen when she used her power; it was more like the world got quieter, like floating in silence as if standing in the middle of Lila’s power would be the most relaxing thing in the world, but then her power didn’t work on Celestial energies, and that was mainly what I did. She just cleared the psychic debris for me.
The stopper on the bottle stopped moving just like it was supposed to, and then it was as if the air in the room took a breath and the stopper began to unscrew itself again.
Lila’s voice was controlled as she said, “It’s not stopping.”
“Ravensong, can you throw up a circle of protection while I get a containment box?” Charleston asked.
“If Havoc plays battery for me, yes,” she said.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Lila said, still standing in front of the bottle, hands in fists now, physical strain showing in her arms and shoulders, feet digging into the floor as if she was standing against some invisible force that she was keeping away from the rest of us.
Charleston yelled, “MacGregor, Thornton, with me.” They were running before the door closed behind them. Running not away, but for one of the magical containment boxes that we had in storage on this floor for the rare objects that we couldn’t handle any other way.
I went to stand behind Ravensong, who was facing the table behind Lila like a second line of defense. Most witches need words to call the quarters and put up a magical circle; some of them even needed bits of the elements water, rocks, chimes, smoke, a candle. Ravensong spread her arms to the sky, legs wide and firm so she stood like a tree, roots in the earth and hands reaching for the sky. I stood behind her, my legs fixed wide and steadying, and if I’d been a Wiccan priest to her priestess, I would have either mimicked her stance except with my arms pointed in the opposite direction or crossed my arms over my chest; instead I put my left hand on her shoulder and told the angels to help me to help her work this spell. That was enough to drop my psychic shielding and let Ravensong tap into my energy. I was literally acting as a battery to amplify her magic.
“Narrow your field, Bridges,” Ravensong said.
The three of us had done this before in the field, never here inside the unit itself, but location didn’t matter; magic is everywhere.
“How small?” Lila asked.
“Small as you can make it.”
“Got it,” Lila said.
I felt the familiar warmth of Ravensong’s magic and gave my own power to hers. My Guardian Angel merged with the glow at her back, and then I felt the four quarters spring to life: North like a huge towering oak tree standing phantomlike but so real that I swear I could feel its roots reaching down into the center of the Earth and hear its leaves rustling as it grew skyward; East was wind and birds on the wing and then a towering cyclone whirling and waiting to sweep away all danger if you had the power and nerve to control it; South was fire towering upward as if God’s voice should come out of it; West was ocean and rain along the shore gentle and cleansing. It took seconds for it all to happen, but we were already in that time between, so that seconds of real time felt like so much longer for us. Ravensong called Goddess and God, and their power filled the space between with that soft, skin-ruffling power that felt both gentle and powerful. Ravensong’s God was not the one I prayed to, and her Goddess was not the mother of my God, but they all blessed this circle because I gave my power to the witch to strengthen her circle and keep us all safe.
Ravensong’s voice rang out: “The circle is closed! So mote it be!”
I echoed her: “So mote it be!”
The circle closed with an almost audible pop as if the pressure inside it was denser than the outside world.
“Can’t . . . hold,” Lila said through gritted teeth.
“Shut down, we’ve got it,” Ravensong said.
Lila didn’t argue, just stepped away from the table and let us have a clear view of the enchanted bottle, because that was what it had to be. You didn’t find many enchanted items in modern times, things where the magic had been forged into each piece of its making. Most of them were old, the art of their making lost centuries ago, and they were all powerful.
The stopper unscrewed itself, tittering at the mouth of the bottle, balanced to fall. Something dark moved up the side of the crystal bottle. There wasn’t time to cross the distance, but we stood within sacred space and there were other ways to move. Ravensong reached toward the bottle with her hand, but it was her totem, a phantom raccoon, that raced across the floor to climb the table and try to grab the stopper. It should have worked, but as the totem reached for the bottle, reality flickered in a way that I’d never seen happen inside a circle before, and when the raccoon reached the bottle, it had moved just out of reach. The stopper fell and the bottle was open. Ravensong yelled, “Bridges, get down!”
Lila dropped to the floor, covering her head as if she was tucking for an explosion. It might help protect her, or it might not. I stayed at Ravensong’s back, feeding her energy as she raised her hands and did a spell without a word or a rune, or anything but her faith and the pentagram she always wore, but she had the Goddess and the God like weight and presence inside the circle. Her raccoon had run back to her side, and I saw her other mystical companions begin to manifest around her, and my Guardian Angel began to grow at my back, and then something exploded. Ravensong and I were thrown backward into the wall. I had a choice to save myself or cushion her when we hit; I chose her, she was my priestess in that moment, and as her acting priest one of my jobs was to protect her. My head hit the wall and all the light, all the magic went away, swallowed by the darkness as I lost consciousness. My last thought was God, please keep them safe.