Chapter 35: Moving Fast

Instead, Silvana focused on the spirit, her vision foggy, and thought, “Leave my best friend alone you heinous thing!”

And just by thinking the thought, she felt her anger manifest through magic she didn’t understand, and the hands of the spirit blew off in small purple explosions, then fizzled into sparks on the floor of the foyer.

In complete astonishment, the spirit held its arms up to its face, and quivered as it realized it now only had stubs in place of its hands.

Suddenly, Silvana felt better. It was as if the powerful magic had been building up inside her, and what she needed to do was trust in it and release it. With a groan, she stood onto a single knee, and as the spirit disregarded its damaged hands and went to kick Amelia while the woman was down, Silvana held a hand outright.

She said, through gritted teeth, “Tu Fui, Ego Eris,” and a blast of magic so strong she was knocked back emitted from her hand.

The spirit with its foot over Amelia erupted into sparks of pink magic that faded as quick as the spell was cast, and Silvana, having been blown backwards, rolled onto her feet nimbly. The pain she had been feeling was completely gone. In fact, she felt good.

Incredible, even.

Except, the victory was short-lived, as Amelia was hurting horribly. Amelia rolled from her stomach and onto her back, then coughed.

“Oh Sylvie,” she muttered, accepting her friend’s hand as Silvana helped her to her feet.

“Amelia, please tell me you’re okay,” Silvana said, examining Amelia’s wounds.

“It’s going to take more than that than to keep me down,” Amelia winked, showing Silvana her injured arm. The arm glowed with bright green magic that danced upon her wounds like ripples on water. In front of Silvana’s eyes and in seconds, the wounds began to close, though not without some grunts of displeasure from Amelia.

“Ladies,” Bruce said, running inside. “We need to leave, now.”

Lightning pounded the ground outside, and Bruce’s claws retracted. His hand returned to normal.

A wave of guilt overcame Silvana, and she went to apologize for even considering that Bruce may have hurt her father. In the wake of everything happening, she considered herself lucky. The moment things got rough, her two best friends were here to help her.

The shriek of a falling tree snapped her back to focus as Bruce dashed over to her and Amelia.

“Watch it,” Bruce shouted, pushing both women out of the way. A huge tree smashed through the roof of the house, spreading debris, plaster, ash, and water from burst pipes everywhere. Silvana and Amelia both hugged Bruce and held their breaths as the dust from the destruction settled. Tree branches were mere feet away from them and in the kitchen. The heart-shaped hole in the wall that had been plastered up was completely destroyed, along with the rest of the kitchen.

Cold air and more smoke pushed its way into the openings of the house from the fallen tree.

“Something isn’t right,” Amelia said, pointing to the furious and crackling storm clouds moving over them.

“Those clouds are about to rage right on top of us!” Silvana gasped.

“That’s why we need to get the hell out of here!” Bruce exclaimed.

More trees bashed onto the roof and on top of the larger tree hanging its branches in the kitchen. A second wave of debris fell from the rooms upstairs, and Silvana’s belongings, like all her books, clothing, and childhood toys rained down on them.

Silvana touched a hand to Bruce’s chest where his heart was. She could deal with losing any material possession, but she couldn’t bear the thought of losing Bruce and his loyalty to her. Shyly, she looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry for--”

“Babe,” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “It’s okay. The three of us need to leave right now.”

The house shook, and a wall beside them crumbled.

Silvana wrapped Amelia’s uninjured arm around her shoulders, then helped Amelia to run outside.

It was pure chaos.

Crimson lighting as dark as Amelia’s fresh blood slammed into the forest floor and the driveway, leaving craters of rubble.

The three ran to Amelia’s car, but a bolt of lightning zapped the car’s hood, and the car exploded into metal shrapnel.

Everybody jumped to the ground, only narrowly avoiding the deathly sharp metal pieces.

“Let’s try my car!” Silvana shouted.

She dropped her keys in a fight of anxiousness at the car’s doors while Bruce and Amelia hastily tried to get the doors open. A line of lightning was heading directly for them, like a jackhammer of electricity.

“Sylvie,” Amelia said, her knees shaking.

“I know,” Silvana said, reaching for her keys and opening the doors. She unlocked the door, started the car, and took off the second she heard both doors behind her close.

“Fast as you can, Silvana,” Bruce said, checking behind him.

“Seatbelts!” Silvana shouted, clasping hers on with one hand as her other hand fought for control of the steering wheel.

Lightning hammered the driveway, so she sped out towards the forest, driving through the fire and flames that had claimed most of the shrubbery and brush.

Amelia and Bruce both secured their seatbelts, grateful for how the belts helped with the rocking of the car’s axle on the uneven and bumpy forest ground.

“Honey,” Amelia whispered, in awe at how the lightning had taken the form of Cecilia Duponte’s face in the storm clouds. “We need to go faster.”

Silvana glanced at the rearview and saw the cackling face of Cecilia Duponte, the woman responsible for all this destruction and pain.

And, a woman who she was related to. A woman who was her great, great, great, great grandmother. A woman who put her mother in a position to sacrifice herself.

Silvana slammed her foot to the gas, cutting the wheel left and right and narrowly dodging the remains of crumpled trees.

She was cutting it close but the lightning was still chasing them, cutting through the ground behind them inches away like a buzzsaw.

“Faster!” Bruce said, staring at the saw of lightning.

“Silvana, you’re running out of room!” Amelia shouted. “The forest ends up ahead!”

“I know,” Silvana murmured, her hands clutching the wheel. “Trust me.”

They were so close to smoldering trees that the side mirror on the driver’s side door flung off as it hit a smoking tree trunk, spreading ash on the windshield.

Silvana couldn’t see but kept going.

Then, the car was airborne, and Bruce shut his eyes, hoping that everyone would alright, and Amelia screamed her lungs off, and Silvana kept the steering wheel steady.

She squinted and landed right where she wanted; with a gut-spinning bounce the car’s wheels took to the bed of the transportation truck used for the construction equipment in the area where the Halloween festival had taken place. Silvana braked as much as she could, easing down the ramp meant for loading tractors and bulldozers, and only took off the front bumper of her car with a metal thwack as the car rushed down the ramp and into the site’s parking lot.

Bruce opened his eyes, smirked, and pressed a hand to Silvana’s shoulder. “I think you lost the storm, babe.”

Amelia happily shrieked, “That was amazing! But I want my money back from this roller coaster.”

They took a second to laugh but kept driving.

The storm was behind them, and none of them could make out Cecila’s Duponte’s face in the clouds anymore. The red in the sky faded, and the clouds became a peaceful gray.

“We’ve got to go somewhere safe,” Bruce said.

“And away from Kurt,” Amelia added. She looked at Bruce and said, with a tinge of regret, “I don’t think he’s up to any good.”

Silvana remembered her father’s journal.

“Oh my god,” she said. “We need to go back. I forgot my--”

“Looking for this?” Bruce asked. From the backseat he set the journal down in the cupholders by Silvana’s hands. “I tried to get as many of the loose pages as possible, but we were all moving pretty fast.”

“Bruce, you’re the best,” Silvana said. “How did you know?”

“When I came inside I saw you sitting in a circle of those loose pages casting magic that saved Amelia. I figured the book was something important. A spell book, or something.”

“I think it’ll have more answers for us,” Silvana said. “But first we need to get somewhere safe.”

Silvana exited the construction site and got onto the highway.

“Take this exit up ahead,” Amelia said. “I know just the place where we’ll all be safe.”