Anna's Hope Episode One (12 page)

Up until now she had. Up until
the exact moment he’d
locked her in his serious gaze she’d been
determined to prove herself.

Now his words were sinking in.

“He’s after witches, love. If he doesn’t
manage to get one, he won’t be able to call the soul catcher. Or at
least I hope not,” Scott conceded with a shrug. “But the point is,
you can leave this up to me.”

Anna
closed her mouth.

“That evil cat of yours should be able to
get you home with no trouble. I don’t imagine any punk in this town
– no matter how aspiring – would be ballsy enough to take her
on.”

She looked down at her hands.

“I’ll have this guy in prison before you
know it.” Scott stood, offering a half bow. “Now keep safe, and
I’ll see you around, Anna.” He shot her a dashing smile, then he
walked off.

She could have ignored him and continued
to stake out the bar, waiting for the wizard, but she didn’t. She
slowly rose and picked her way to the front door.

As soon as she opened it and the chill night
air hit her, it brought with it some much-needed reason.

Scott was right. She couldn’t and shouldn’t
do this. She wasn’t up to a task this difficult.

She’d been a fool for coming here.

She rubbed her eyes and walked down the
path, figuring Luminaria could get home on her own.

She made it to the gate, opened it, and
walked through.

A man – probably a dastard patron
hankering for happy hour – walked up to her. “Hold that gate,” he
asked.

She stepped out of his way.

He walked past her, and, in one smooth
move, grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward, mumbling a spell
under his breath as he did. Hot blue sparks spat out of his mouth
with every muttered word.

Anna
tried to pull back, but his fingers
were like steel soldered around her wrist. “Let me go,” she
screamed.

The man didn’t respond. He
didn’t turn to her, didn’t speak – didn’t acknowledge her in
anyway. Instead he reached his free hand out and closed the gate.
As his hand rested against the metal, it sent spikes of magic
arcing into it like
an electrical discharge.

Anna
’s whole body began to burn as her
breathing came in strangled gulps.

It was the same magic – the same new, evil
magic from last night.

A
s she looked up to see the man incline his
head towards her, she realized something even more
horrible.

It was him.

The wizard.

He was back.

He pulled his hand from the gate, then
kicked it open with his boot. Without a word, he pulled her
through.

The world around her changed. Somehow the
path leading through the sparse lawn and up to the bar
disappeared.

It was replaced with that spiraling
staircase.

He’d summoned a travelling hell portal.
And if Anna couldn’t fight him off, soon he’d cast another spell –
with her soul.

She tried to fight. She couldn’t. He pulled
her forward.

He said nothing as he pulled her down the
cold, dark staircase.

She tried to struggle, but every move was
met with a tightening of his viselike grip.

She had to get out of here.

Oh god, she had to escape.

She fumbled for the hex bracelet she wore on
her free hand. Luminaria, in her wisdom, had made her wear it.

Now it could save Anna.

She fingered it until she selected the
correct hex.

Before she could do anything,
t
he wizard
pushed into her, using his bulk to knock her against the wall. Her
bracelet fell from her grasp and into the darkness.

As his face jerked past a slice of
moonlight, she saw his wide-open, white-rimmed eyes.

She screamed, but there was no one to hear.
Her voice echoed up and down the spiral staircase.

With a fast, practiced move, the wizard
caught hold of her free wrist, and twisted it hard.

She fell to her knees. It was that or let
her arm break.

With a stuttering, caught breath, she
whimpered.

The wizard stood over her, his dark figure
cut against the shadow of the stairwell, outlined by the silvery
moonlight.

He dropped her wrists and
flicked his
hand to the side as he stood back.

Though his stone cold fingers no longer
crushed her wrist, the grip was somehow still there.

“Come with me.” He turned, secured one
hand languidly in the pocket of his jeans, and walked leisurely
down the stairs, each thump of his footfall slow and
deliberate.

That phantom grip was still around her
wrist, and it dragged her forward.

She tried to fight it, she tried to hook her
fingers around the lip of the window above her, but she was yanked
forward.

She screamed, the strangled noise echoing
sharply down the winding staircase.

She had to scuttle forward,
pushing against the wall with her free hand so she
could keep up with
the grip. Its ghostly influence relentlessly pulled her forward,
and if she didn’t keep up with it, her wrist would snap clean
off.

The wizard did not once turn to look at her.
He slowly, almost ponderously walked down the stairs, one hand
still hooked in his pocket, the thumb tucked into the denim while
his fingers tapped his leg.

As they descended, they passed the
occasional window, moonlight cascading into the shadowy stairwell
and lighting up the wizard’s side, face, and back.

“Just … let me go,” she
whimpered.

He said nothing.

“It won’t work. They’ll catch you,” she
tried to reason with him.

He said nothing.

“People know I came here tonight. They’ll
come looking for me.” She stuttered as she stumbled into the wall,
only to be dragged forward again.

The wizard didn’t even turn to her.

“It won’t work,” tears trembled down her
cheeks, each drop cutting an erratic pattern down her blotchy skin
as she was jerked down stair after stair.

“It will.” The wizard half inclined his
head over one shoulder.

All she saw was one eye and a flash of his
smooth forehead. It wasn’t enough to note his full expression, but
it was enough to sicken her.

“Oh god,” she sobbed.

Anna
was taken down into the chapel. It
was the same one from last night. Its stark, majestic stained glass
windows let in the moonlight from beyond.

The ghostly grip dragged her across the
sandstone, right up to the pulpit.

The wizard reached the lectern, turning and
standing with his hands rested on the wood as he read from his
book, his lips moving, but no words coming out. He looked like a
priest practicing for a sermon.

Anna
was brought to a stop just before the
altar. One of her hands was held in front of her, the wizard’s
phantom grip pulling back the fingers to reveal the soft underside
of her palm.

Her eyes were wide with frantic fear, her
heart no longer beating, but thundering through her chest.

She was cold all over, despite her flaming
allergic rash.

“God, please don’t do this,” she
whimpered.

The wizard kept whispering his spell.

Magic started to pull up from the book,
collecting over his hands and racing up his arms, crackling along
his leather jacket and singeing it.

She tried to cast a spell, tried to call
upon her own magic. As soon as she did, his grip became crushing.
It jerked her hand to the side, shaking her like a doll.

She began to cry.

Tears spread down her cheeks like blood cut
from the vein.

The wizard’s voice began to pick up, until
it echoed like an earthquake through the chapel.

The windows shook, chattering like teeth on
a cold night.

Anna
could feel something coming. That
strange magic he practiced suddenly surged. It rushed out of him,
bursting through the room like a grenade.

She was thrown backwards, as far as the grip
on her hand would allow.

He was calling the soul catcher. She could
feel it. Her eyes drew impossibly wide as she stared up at his
face. It was compressed with concentration, his lips pressed thin
as he brought up a hand and pointed towards her. “Here is a witch,”
he announced.

“Yes, yes, we know she’s a witch. No one
thinks you’re clever for pointing that out,” came a voice from
somewhere behind Anna.

A voice she knew. A voice every
Summersville knew and would never forget.

Luminaria von Tippit.

Anna
jerked around. Sure enough, Luminaria
was casually making her way down the main aisle.

The wizards stopped summoning his spell.
Wordlessly, he jumped down from the pulpit, his jeans creaking as
he stiffened and straightened. He walked slowly past Anna, casually
flicking his hand and sending her skidding towards the wall. The
grip pinned her against it.

She struggled, holding her pinned wrist as
she tried to tug it free. She couldn’t. Her shoes slipped and slid
against the stone, the sound of the rubber soles grating over the
rock echoing through the chamber.

“Do you speak, boy?” Luminaria asked as
she drew to a stop in the center of the chapel. “Or is this you
trying to intimidate me? Because it won’t work.”

The wizard furled one hand to the side,
stretching his fingers as magic erupted over the skin. It glowed so
violently, it looked as if he’d just summoned a super nova to his
palm.

Anna
jerked her head to the side and
covered her eyes with her free arm.

“Oh, I really wouldn’t attack me. You
won’t like me when I’m attacked,” Luminaria snarled.

The man didn’t heed her warning.

He attacked.

He launched at her with a punch, sending a
ball of sparks spewing from his fist and lancing towards her.

Luminaria didn’t move. She let the blow
land.

She wasn’t, however, flattened and cooked in
one go.

With a satisfied chuckle, she rebuffed
him.

Luminaria loved it when she was magically
attacked. It was the one time she could defend herself.

And defend herself she would.

She dug her paws into the sandstone,
stiffened her back, and whipped her tail from side to side.

Just as the wizard whirled around for
another blow, Luminaria slammed her front paws into the floor.

A magical wave launched outwards from her
move. It sparked so much, the air zinged from it.

Though the wizard tried to jump back, he
wasn’t quick enough, and it caught him along the knees, sending him
toppling back into a pew.

He snarled, punching to his feet as he
kicked the pew, obliterating it with a dash of magic as he brought
both hands up and set them alight.

“Child’s play,” Luminaria chuckled
lightly, slamming her paws into the floor just as the man
attacked.

She sent another wave of power smashing
towards him. The man dodged this time, leaping and flipping over
another pew as he punched his own blast of magic towards
Luminaria.

She didn’t dodge. She didn’t have to. She
whipped her tail forward and created a magical shield in front of
her body. The wizard’s blast fell against it with a fizzle. “Anna
was right – I am enjoying this.” Luminaria walked
forward.

The wizard, clearly realizing she was no
ordinary cat, took several steps back. He brought a hand up and
wiped it over his top lip. His eyes were fixed open, his gaze
calculating.

“You won’t win,” Luminaria informed him
with a laugh, “you’re already weakening. In fact, if that feeble
little witch behind me were more attuned, she’d realize she could
break free if she tried hard enough.”

Anna
snapped her head around to look at
her pinned wrist. She pushed her shoulder into the stone wall
behind her and tried to heave herself free.

When that didn’t work, she put a bit of
magic into it. She reinforced her arm with a blast of power, and
finally, with a great “oomph,” she snapped the grip. She fell to
her hands and knees, her hair dropping over her face as she
breathed heavily.

The wizard tried to dart around Luminaria,
but the cat cackled and sent another blast sinking into his feet
and sending him skidding back.

Though it was hell,
Anna pushed herself
to her feet. She groaned and checked her wrist. It wasn’t broken,
but it had been very close. The skin was ripped and bleeding, and
it was already swelling a treat.

Luminaria kept playing with the wizard.
Though the cat appeared to be winning for now, it might not last.
If Anna had learnt one thing, it was that she couldn’t
underestimate this guy.

She had to end this. Now.

She stumbled towards the lectern, pulling
herself up onto the pulpit and staggering towards it.

She heard the wizard push into a sprint
behind her, his boots thumping against the stone.

“Come back here,” Luminaria
snarled.

Anna
reached the lectern, and used the
base to pull herself into a standing position. With her good hand,
she grabbed the book.