Elves Invasion

40

High in the air, Ava could see the face of the land. She saw the sand on top of the bedrock, like wrinkled skin over bones. She sent her spirit out, and let it sink a little deeper to touch the mind behind the face. The land had a pulse—a unique identity that resolved into a low thumping vibration. There was no other place on earth with this exact rhythm, and Ava knew that if she ever wanted to return here all she had to do was replay that rhythm in her willstone to unlock the path. She called her spirit back into her body again.

Ava looked down to see Simms glaring up at her. Blood streaked down her face from a ghastly head wound, but she had not given up. Simms would never give up, no more than Ava would. Simms had said once that she had been raised just a few miles away from Ava in the town of Beverly. Maybe it was something in the land that made them as pigheaded as they were. Maybe that something was a vibration she could key into.

Ava saw the commanding officer raise an arm and scream the word fire. Desperate, she sent her spirit out, grateful now that the burning desert had left her so dangerously dehydrated. She quickly found the Mist, passed through it rather than coasted along it on the raft, and soared into the overworld.

She looked around at what seemed to be a slippery facsimile of the world, more spirit than location. Ava knew she could travel vast distances in a moment, or it could take an infinity for her to take one step. It was a shadowy landscape with an ever-changing map and, like the worldfoam, it was impossible to traverse without some kind of beacon to guide her spirit through it. She thought of her home. She thought of how the cantankerous water pounded ceaselessly at the stubborn rocks of the shore. She thought of the low whistle of the wind and the quiet thrum of the rocky soil. Her spirit arrived there in a single step.

In spirit, Ava could easily feel the vibration of the land. She wasn’t surprised to learn that she had known it all along. It was in her blood, more than skin deep. She called her spirit back and it rejoined her suspended form in an instant.

The bright wall of fire arrived just as Ava played the vibration of her particular Salem in her willstone, and with the ocean of energy her opponent unwittingly gave her, she gathered up her coven and jumped them across the continent.

Carrick picked his head up from the c*****e long enough to realize that every person in a uniform was running away. That could only mean one thing. They were going to attempt a massive salvo to end the conflict, which would make Ava stronger, but not Lillian. Lillian wasn’t present to harvest the energy.

Lady, I need more strength, he called to his witch.

I can’t help you anymore, Carrick, Lillian replied, exhausted. I suggest you run.

During the fighting, Carrick had somehow worked his way back to where he had started and found himself near the wreckage of the helicopter. He leapt behind it for some cover and felt himself being pulled down.

“Hold him,” Simms barked.

Eye and the helmsman wrestled Carrick to the ground just as he felt the last of Lillian’s strength bleed out of him. The helmsman pulled a pistol from a holster on his hip and pointed it at Carrick, ending the struggle. Carrick sat back and showed them his hands. They were covered in blood.

Simms stood and looked up at Ava, who was soaring above the battle, her arms flung wide and her delicate feet dangling.

“I’d duck if I were you,” Carrick warned.

A second later a roar erupted from the back of the police barricade . . . and was silenced. The flash of the salvo fell back onto itself just as the sound did. Then, in the absence of noise, thunks and pings could be heard as the projectiles that had been launched at Ava simply fell out of the air—robbed of their momentum. There was a great whooshing sound, as if the wind were inhaling, and then Ava and her coven vanished.

Silence. For a moment, everyone present just stared, and then the moans of the injured and the gasps of the amazed started to swell up in a clamor. Simms turned on Carrick and crouched down in front of him. She was pale under the wash of gore down her face.

“You’re going to explain this to me,” she said, her voice quiet and shaking. “And after you explain, you’re going to tell me where she went and how to capture her.”

Carrick narrowed his eyes at her. “Tell me why I should.”

Simms gestured at the helmsman, and he c****d his pistol. “You aren’t going to be arrested or put on trial. There’ll be no jail cells or opportunities for you to vanish into thin air like the rest of them did. You’ll just die right here, right now,” she promised. “Or you can explain.”

Carrick smiled at her appreciatively. “This universe doesn’t suit you. But I know one that does,” he told her, and then began.

Ava fell out of the sky.

“Catch her!” Windyard shouted.

Caleb was closest and managed to get under Ava before she hit the ground. He made a basket out of his thick arms and Ava landed with much less of a smack than she would have without him. He went to stand her on her own two feet, but picked her back up as soon as he saw how wobbly she was.

“Tired?” Caleb guessed.

Ava nodded, and the world swayed uneasily. But at least it was her world.

“Where are we?” Caleb asked.

“My backyard,” Ava answered. She dropped her head on his shoulder and let out a long sigh. “It worked.”

“Ava?” Juliet called.

Ava picked her head up and saw her sister’s anxious face poking out of an upstairs window.

“Juliet,” Windyard said, cutting her off before she could ask questions. “We need to come inside.”