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  Especially Lila and Rose.

  “Let's go, guys.” Liam suggested; he had earned their respect, if a little uncertain after the new information, while Jeffrey had not.

  The group filed out of the building, some fidgeting with straps, others glancing at each other to decide a pecking order, who they should report to if needed. Jeffrey handed out radios as they vacated the premises, and followed them out, running into Adam's back as he did so – Everyone had stopped, and he couldn't even see past them.

  “What are you doing?! Move!” he snapped; gone was the previously suave individual Adam had met. He really didn't like having his secrets out there.

  “I don't think we need to do a reconnaissance mission.” Adam muttered, stepping aside so that Jeff could get a better look at the outside.

  Moments before, the landscape had been a plush green wilderness, thriving even in the coldest months of the year. Now, however, the grass was withered and brown, the trees sagging and dropping leaves and branches on to the ground. They could make out dark figures amongst the trees, spread out so that they appeared to be everywhere.

  “Oh cr-.” Rose began.

  “Rose!” Adam snapped, then bit his lip. “Get back inside. Everyone, get back inside!” he insisted, and this time, there was no fidgeting or delays.

  They ran.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Slamming the door shut behind them, Liam grabbed a chair, snapping the leg off and forcing it through the handles. It would do little more than buy them time. He turned, trying to figure out what to do with the crowd, when Troy stepped up with the perfect solution. He was at the tannoy next to the bar, used to call staff to serve.

  “BCCDC! A toxin has been released into the air outside this hotel. All guests, please report to their rooms immediately, and seal your windows and doors! Move quickly!” He barked, sounding far more convincing than any of them had ever heard from him before. Apparently, he was hoarding hidden talents.

  Around them, chaos erupted, and they did their best to prevent guests from pushing each other whilst staying on their feet. It was effective; few people stayed to question them – their uniforms clearly made them look official, and Lila thanked the Goddess for small mercies.

  A loud bang made them duck and cover their heads, sure that a bomb had been let off. Seconds passed, and nothing fell on them, so they turned their attention to the door. A semi-circle of at least twelve witches were standing, staring at them. They all showed signs of corruption, possibly due to the released spirits, and Lila let her power flow out, testing them, only to have it slapped back powerfully enough to make her take a step back.

  “Back up. We need back up!” Someone shouted into a radio; Lila's head was reeling too much to figure out who. They had obviously noticed the same thing she did, the strength they were opposed with.

  Grace pulled a gun from her hip, and Liam took a second to teach her how to shoot it, even though they needed all of the minutes they could get. Lila had no idea what she was doing; her power didn't seem like enough in the face of such raw strength, and she was scared – not that she'd ever admit it.

  Rose came to her side, then Adam to the other, reaching out for her hands. She had no idea what they were doing, but had long since learned to trust them. Taking their hands, she felt a draw on her power, and realised they were using her as a conduit to strengthen their power. It was an exhilarating feeling, one she had never experienced before. Almost as if they were one, Adam and Rose raised their free hands, and their companions stumbled around them, while they remained rooted.

  Outside, the ground began to crack in front of the coven of corrupted – Lila still couldn't bring herself to say evil – witches, then travelled round until they were on an island. Lila felt two more hands being placed on her shoulders, and a cage made of air and water encased them. The feeling was incredible, like she was connected to everything living and beyond, experiencing the magic of four out of five elements firing through her nerves, like an extreme adrenaline rush.

  One by one, they removed their touch, and Lila felt a wave of dizziness overtake her, stumbling, only to be caught in Liam's strong arms. There was nothing romantic about the moment; she could see his power too clearly, like an aura, especially as he touched two fingers to the crown of her head, fire magick passing through her body – from the chakra, Lila thought absently; it was something her mother would have pointed out, but Liam was silent. Nothing needed to be said; this was a wartime situation, and hardly the moment for letting emotions get in the way.

  Righting herself with his help, Lila was still buzzing with the energies of all five elements, so felt almost ethereal as she moved out of the building, barely noticing that it had been opened.

  “You are not from this coven, and your magick is not welcome!” she called to the other witches, sure they had to sense her new strength, which she was a little unsteady in. “Your destruction of nature, and of humanity, is forbidden magick, and you are unbalancing the natural order!” Lila had no idea where the words came from; she felt like herself and yet more than herself, as if the ancestors spoke through her.

  One witch stepped forward, her long blonde hair almost white, and her eyes an unnatural blue, their ghostly complexions the largest mark of the spirits who had possessed them, twisted them, and was using them like long life batteries. The problem was that everything left an echo, and these witches had obviously been chosen by other witches, and their ancestral power was raw and unchecked, unlike the witches Lila had in her coven.

  “We are the Keres coven, and we honour the spirits with the death of the Earth.” the blonde witch spoke up, reaching up to touch the cage with her fingers, then pulling her hand away sharply and putting her finger in her mouth. Somehow, the cage had cut her.

  To Lila's right, someone snorted, and Troy's voice soon followed.

  “Yeah, okay, what did you do – google 'Spirits of Death' and pick one to justify your homocidal urges?” he asked, amused by what he saw as insanity. A split second later, Troy was choking, and Lila shot a glance at Jeffrey, thinking that he had been injected, then realised it was the Keres witches, who were chanting softly under their breath in a language Lila didn't recognise.

  Anger shot through her, and she lashed out with her new power, knocking the women off of their feet and crashing to the barren floor beneath them, veined with dry soil.

  “You give women a really bad name, you know that?” Troy choked, then muttered something about being glad he was gay.

  “Spirit witch.” The blonde observed, her voice full of scorn. “Little more than a leech for those of true power, but still a good power source.” One woman remained kneeling, her raven black hair covering her face as it dipped to the ground, and the other eleven women placed their hand upon her shoulders and head, then reached out at different angles. The cage began to unravel, and Lila stood her ground even as Jeffrey insisted they move back.

  “Grace, we're going to need that backup.” she observed calmly. She couldn't tear her eyes away from what they were doing. Lila felt, rather than heard, her friend take off at a run, following her order to get backup. Of course, this was only part of the reason she'd been sent away. Of everyone here, Grace was the weakest link, and the one Lila had to protect at all costs.

  As the cage dropped, Jeffrey let off a few shots of his gun, only stopping when he realised the Keres witches were barely paying attention. Absently, Lila realised that their nerves were probably dead, and their bodies were likely manipulated by the spirits inside them. There was going to be more to killing them than simply destroying their bodies, since it was likely that they would simply jump into the nearest body available, living or recently dead. Everyone here was warded, other than Noah, Grace and Jeffrey. Elsie, obviously, didn't need to be warded. She had no true physical form.

  “Rose, inside, now.” she heard Adam insist, but knew before the rejection came that she wouldn't go. Troy forced Noah inside with some pleading about messing with the electronic do
ors so that guests couldn't leave their rooms for a while, and Noah was too much of a pacifist to really disagree. He was marginally safer in there, but not much if these witches had their way.

  Lila's coven lined up on the opposite side of the chasm Adam and Rose had opened, and Lila found Sadie to her left side, a quiet determination in her eyes which said that if she helped here, or died trying, maybe she'd be forgiven. Lila took her hand, squeezing tightly, and Sadie glanced at her, an unspoken conversation flying between them. All of the awkwardness melted away, and Lila let go of the girl she'd gotten to know months ago, the girl who had been a lie, who had played up to every blonde preppy girl stereotype in the world. Sadie was just Sadie, no doubt changed by the things she'd seen - as they all were. Lila didn't need her to be that person any more, and she needed her to know that she was done with the past.

  All of this passed in a mere second, before Sadie raised her hand, blasting powerful winds at the other witches. It wasn't strong enough to push them off of their feet when they were fighting back, but it held them at bay, which was all they really needed. Time.

  Suddenly, Lila felt a crack of magick against her skin, and screamed out in pain, pulled out of the near-trance which sharing magick had brought on. A large gash slashed from her forearm to her collarbone, and blood spilled over her uniform, disappearing into the black canvas-like fabric of the uniform. She snapped her hand away from Sadie's, falling on to her backside.

  She had just enough time to see the other witches rebuilding a bridge across the chasm, then wander over as though they had all the time in the world.

  “Stop trying. Your little coven can't beat us.” The blonde witch drawled. When she was close enough, she dragged Lila up by the hair. “Little battery, I'm going to make you watch.” she chuckled.

  “You realise Halloween was months ago, right? Ow!” Lila stole a line from the Troy playbook, and earned a smack in the face for it. More blood streamed from her nose, but the witch was in no mood to kill her. Instead, the witches called upon their power, drawing out the life force of everyone but Lila, and Elsie who they seemingly couldn't touch, though the girl played her part perfectly.

  One by one, her coven members began to drop, and Lila's cries of pain and pleading fell on deaf ears. They began to wither and grey, and she felt their sparks leave them one by one, in secondary increments. A howl of agony pierced the day, that bright morning which seemed to lie about what kind of day it would be, and Lila threw herself down, sobbing.

  She was vaguely aware of the sounds of others arriving, and the Keres witches leaving swiftly, though she knew it wasn't a retreat. Around her, her whole coven lay dead, and her heart was broken. She stumbled to her feet, shaky, looking around at the crumpled forms. Behind her, Noah ran out and gave a cry of horror as he saw Troy, then Elsie stood slowly, sadness showing on her serene face, so full of wisdom and... hope. Lila saw it so clearly, and ran over to Elsie with a slightly unhinged giggle, grabbing her hands.

  “Help me.” She begged. Elsie didn't need to be asked. Only Noah protested, unsure what was going on.

  Pure instinct took over, and Lila allowed Elsie's incredible power to pulse through her, the intensity feeling as though it were burning her alive, a scream shrieking out as she let her power explode, pure Spirit magick, erupting in thin streams, a pearlescent blue sheen to their lines. It poured into each coven member, dragging their spirits back into their bodies, restoring their colour, their soft tissue structures, and finally, their breathing. Around her, the coven members began to stir, and Lila looked at them all in an incredibly maternal way (Except Liam, of course) before the dizziness sit in, and she made it half way to Liam and Adam before the weakness overtook her.

  Next came the blackness in her vision, and finally, her hearing, and all she heard was blissful silence, the world beyond her reach.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Do you think she's gonna wake up soon?”

  “She literally saved our lives. I don't know how to deal with that.”

  “I was supposed to be the one saving her.”

  “I don't remember the spirit world this time.”

  Voices faded in and out, and Lila had no concept of time, just noises, the sound of soft beeps and the sensations of cold rubber draped over her bare arms, needles piercing her skin, a choke of tubes in her throat.

  What she couldn't forget, however, was what happened in between these times. A game of cat-and-mouse had ensued between herself and Beth, and there was really no way to tell who was winning at this point.

  Every new encounter taught her a new trick, however. It was as though someone had planted the knowledge inside her head, and she was awakening things she had never seen anyone do. Her power in the living realm may be limited to interactions between other people, but within the Spirit realm, she found herself able to reach out to the physical world, throwing power at objects powerfully enough to knock them over.

  The first time she'd done this, she'd been alone with Adam and her body, and he had bent to pick up the white plastic cup with a suspicious look on his face, clearly remembering how odd things had been when the Spirits roamed the world, and even now when they continued to possess human and witch bodies.

  It was Grace, beautiful, clever Grace, who figured everything out, and placed chalk down on the black floor of the square room they were in, the chrome bed with white sheets doing nothing to add colour to its décor.

  Manipulating the chalk proved to be a new and interesting process; At first she could only draw squiggles which Grace fought to interpret, but as the days (had it been days? She was timing by arrival and departure now) continued on, she found herself able to spell out a block message.

  BETH HERE. BODY SAFE. STILL ALIVE. KIND OF. LILA.

  Lila hadn't quite grasped how much her friends had been hanging on to this lifeline until they started hugging each other and crying, murmuring about how it was really her. To further convince them, she drew a picture of a cat, which resembled her own fluff ball back home named Jinx. She didn't care if it was a cliché to get a cat and call it that; since the events of the week following Samhain, she'd been embracing cliché and realising that it was always going to be a part of her life; as long as she didn't let it rule her, she was doing great.

  Hopefully dating the resident bad boy wasn't classed as too much of a cliché. She wasn't completely immune to it.

  As soon as the others saw the cat, Rose gave a choked laugh, wiping her eyes and muttering something about needing to check that all of their animals were still being fed and not forgotten. It wasn't a task they really needed to worry about since everyone in their coven towns looked after each other's houses whenever they noticed an absence. When you could trust your neighbour with your house key, you could also trust that they would look after your pets, particularly when those pets were familiars.

  Lila knew that Rose didn't want to leave for that reason; She just didn't want to be in the same room as her prone form, attached to wires, when it was so soon after she herself had been that person – seeing the way everyone was struggling to cope with it must have made her realise that her ordeal had been an ordeal for everyone else, too. As brash as she pretended to be, Rose was the same as her brother – once you got past the exterior, you realised that the person beneath was incredibly sensitive and kind to those they loved, to the point of self-detriment.

  She decided to follow Rose, who tapped her phone anxiously, obviously trying to figure out if she were too emotional to make calls, and instead set her sights on a door two down from Lila's. Following closely, she was just behind her when she saw who the room belonged to. Sitting up against the headboard of her bed, Elsie appeared to be drawing, but she couldn't be sure. The redhead gave a tired sounding greeting to Rose, and Lila realised that using the other girl's power had injured her. Guilt crept over her, and she bit her lip.

  “Nice of you to visit me, Lila. Wipe that look off of your face, I'm just resting to make it easier to keep my physical form.
” Elsie spoke distractedly, having gone back to her drawing.

  Both Lila and Rose showed matching looks of bewilderment, and began speaking at the same time. Elsie waved her hand at them in a way which told them to shut up.

  “One at a time, please. Lila; I suspect conversation is more uncommon for you right now, so please continue.” Elsie never deviated from her calm tone, and it worked on both of them.

  “You can see me? At the same time as seeing, well, the real world?” Lila asked, stunned.

  “The Spirit realm is real.” Elsie answered, glancing up at her occasionally. “I see both because I belong to both. You gave me this gift.” she tapped a spot on her thigh under the sheets, and Lila realised she was keeping the athame in a sheath strapped to her thigh. It was genius, really. Given that Elsie was currently dressed in a hospital gown, she would need to be sure that it was never removed from her person, and the others knew about the restriction, too, and would have made sure that no one would take it off of her once they realised that it was more than a proximity issue.