Spellbound: The Awakening of Aislin Collins (38 page)

His eyes narrowed in anger, “You were more
like us than you ever wanted to admit. You were addicted to the
power of the dark arts.”

“You lie!” I shrieked, as the trees behind
him started to sway with my anger.

“No Ashling…you are the one who is the
Warlock. You are the one who is a vial traitor!” His voice was
filled with rage, as he swept his hand and a swift gust of his
power forced me into seeing my past.

Images flooded my mind. I saw spells and
caldrons, secret meeting places in underground caves—I saw the day
I met Greer and I saw the necklace that he gave me on my wedding
night.”

“The necklace,” I gasped, as I reached up and
threw it from my neck.

“Like a beacon,” he laughed wickedly.
“Granted his love for you countered the charm greatly, but yet the
curse was still enough to draw me to your bedchamber on your
wedding night two hundred years ago and it conveniently found you
again just when I arrived in the New World.”

I looked at the gem as it laid against the
snow covered earth. It looked like a single drop of blood against
the ground.

“It was not difficult to disguise myself into
a peddler and convince Greer that this was the perfect wedding
present for you. All I had to say was that it was like nothing else
in the world. Completely unique and meant for a princess,” his tone
was mocking and cruel, “The cocky boy always had to have the very
best. Always had to flaunt his wealth around and always had to show
off his athleticism on his damn horse,” he snorted, “What you saw
in that boy I will never know. He was cocky and arrogant and
contained no magical gifts . . . ” Bitterness seeped through
Lamont's words as he spoke, “Telling him that he could give you
something that no one else would ever hope to touch appeased his
ego. I just forgot to tell him that the worthless rocks only unique
quality was the summoning charm I placed upon it.”

I turned my focus to move the trees, to end
this once and for all, but he just laughed.

“Don't bother. There is nothing you can use
against me. In that sense, the others were right. You were never
strong enough to use your Craft to kill.” I saw him shift in the
saddle, “Now let me demonstrate the proper way to use the Craft,”
his eyes flashed as he lifted his hands, speaking loudly in ancient
words.

A swift wind began to blow and I watched as
the protective circle I had drawn around me in the snow started to
fade away. As the line lightened, the pain started coming back
again.

I saw the necklace blow passed me, and my
dress whipped around me, as I struggled to breathe against the
oncoming rush of air.

“Shall we relive some more memories together?
I would like to see the expression on your face as you experience
my handy work before I take your life,” he said over the howling
wind.

Instantly, my mind was bombarded with images
he placed there. Becky's leg being slashed in the forest, Martha
being tortured, Rebecca lying over Mercy and Sarah to protect them
as her back was slashed by hideous claws, little Ginny slumped on
the ground of their bed chamber where she fell and the Lenape girl
being mauled by him and left to die by the riverside. Lamont was
not done. The images kept going. I saw Sneachta being attacked and
Greer, screaming in anguish as he watched me die in his arms.

“Stop!” I wailed in agony.

“As you wish,” his voice pounded in my
head.

He muttered more incoherent words and a new
kind of pain overtook me. Blood was seeping from my skin, turning
the snow red beneath me. It felt like a thousand knives were
cutting through me, although there was not a single laceration on
my exposed flesh. Then I felt a rope, burning as hot as the sun,
begin to bind around me, tightening on my broken ribs and around my
neck. He was killing me with some wicked spell.

I clutched at the ground as I tried to force
him from my mind.

“You see Ashling, we can go round and round.
I can chase you through the centuries, but as I told you before,
you can never escape me,”
he stretched in his saddle and his
hands moved in a quick and deliberate motion. His body started to
flicker as he began to shape shift, “Before I kill you, I just
wanted you to know. You have not saved anyone tonight. I will wait
for them to discover your few remains, and I will let them all be
filled with the sorrow of your death . . . and then I will slowly
hunt them down. But I'll leave the little boy and Greer for
last.”

His words struck me hard and in the place
where terror and grief had been, rage and hatred quickly took its
place.

I struggled to my feet. My desire to protect
my loved ones was giving me the strength to overcome his spell. I
muttered another protection charm as I rose to my full height. My
body ached and threatened to give in, but my mind forced my legs to
hold me up.

He started morphing into the Puca. I saw his
form begin to flicker and shift, the stench of the wicked spell was
filling the air.

“Be brave child,” I heard Martha's voice say
in my head.

All of the magic I once knew flooded back
into me. In the background, I could hear Mrs. Leeds screaming
loudly from the house as she neared the end of her delivery. Her
high-pitched shrieks filled the night as though she was the Banshee
herself.

Lamont was still on his horse, but his figure
was starting to disappear. I glared at him, and remembering the
many spells that I had spent hours memorizing, I raised my voice
and started my incantations.

With one flick of my hand, I ignited an
enormous ring of fire around him. Wind rushed around me as my magic
worked. I could feel the heat of the fire against my face as the
flames shot up high into the air. The horse bucked and panicked. It
tried to jump through the fire with Lamont on its back and receded
into the ring when it could not get through.

“No!” Lamont screamed, as his image faded in
and out.

I was not done yet. I cast another spell,
this time to bind his powers. Five lines of fire spread from the
center of the circle that encompassed Lamont, creating the
pentacle. As I did so, the horse bucked hard to throw Lamont from
its back. Lamont’s own spell was trapped and forced back upon him
and the horse.

The power of his spell, encapsulated within
the flames and having nowhere to dissipate, hit Lamont with full
force. His steed tried to jump through the fire with Lamont on its
back, but receded into the ring when it could not get through.

Lamont cried out in an inhuman voice. Through
the flames, I could see the struggle as his magic failed him. He
was stuck between forms. My circle had contained his spell and
brought it collapsing back upon him.

I thought once more of Rebecca and I
remembered my vow to avenge her. I could hear Lamont's wails of
torment and I now searched for ways of prolonging his suffering.
Showing him the same merciless treatment he had dealt to countless
others.

I looked at the trees that swayed behind the
glowing earth where he remained ensnared and caught sight of large
icicles that clung to the branches. I used my mind to snap them off
the limbs of the trees and hurl them at Lamont. He writhed and
yowled as the spikes slammed into his body.

“You will never touch my family again!” I
screamed at him, as I caused the flames to grow even higher around
him. Inhuman noises were echoing in the night air as he kept trying
to lunge through the fire line, each time burning himself more
severely and grunting in response.

I looked for more ways to torture him as the
images he had placed in my mind earlier kept haunting me. These
events would forever trouble me and Lamont was the cause of them
all. I let out a scream of rage as I used my magic to uproot a
giant evergreen that was behind Lamont.

“Aislin! No!” A familiar voice yelled.

The owner of this voice shook me hard,
distracting me and breaking my spell. “Do not become like him . . .
you are using dark magic,” Becky's horrified voice told me.

I felt her take my hand in hers as she threw
a handful of herbs and salt at the ring where Lamont was still
captive, “We will finish this in a way that honors our path,” she
said solemnly.

“I want him dead,” I said through gritted
teeth, but Becky would not hear it.

“We will leave him in a far worse state than
death,” she said quietly.

Lamont screeched and writhed on the horse as
the skin on his face began to bubble and melt, the smell of burning
flesh was pungent. He was caught in the midst of his
transformation.

Wings sprouted from his back, enormous claws
sprung from his nail beds and his body began to fuse with his
horse. His horrific image glowed in the fire and his high-pitched
cries drowned out Mrs. Leeds. Finally, the horse disappeared all
together and the beast that was once Lamont took to the air with
bat like wings.

Becky grabbed me and pulled me to the ground
as it swooped over our heads and landed on the Leeds' rooftop. We
could hear its hooves clanking on the wooden boards as is climbed
the side of the Leeds' front wall.

I took the pistol that Lamont had dropped
earlier and raised it with one hand, firing at the deformed
creature that clung to the side of the house. My hands were shaking
so badly that I missed my target, but the sound alone made the
beast fly off into the forest.

“Where is Isaac?” I asked in panic.

“He is with your mother. She had followed us
out here . . . she brought us the salts and herbs and took Isaac to
safety,” Becky said as she held me, “You are covered in blood!”

“We do not have time” I said, as I scurried
around, “Help me find the necklace.”

“Necklace?” she asked in confusion.

“Aye, the one that Greer gave to me,” I was
on my hands and knees sifting through the snow. “We need to hide it
and bury it somewhere in these woods. Lamont is bound to it by his
own hex. I believe that if we bury it here, then Lamont will never
be able to stray far from it . . . I only fear that he will still
be able to regain his original shape.”

“No, he won't be able to do that,” Becky said
with confidence, “I stripped his powers from him . . . he is stuck
in that form for the rest of his life . . . however long that may
be.”

“Then we must be certain that he cannot leave
this area. We must find that necklace,” I insisted.

Becky joined me and we scurried around on the
frozen earth until she finally held it up for me to see. Looking at
it reminded me that Greer had not rejoined us.

“Have you seen Greer?” I asked hastily.

Becky's eyes glowed in the remaining embers
of the fire, “No. I have not seen him at all.” She looked back at
the woods where Greer had been battling with the soldiers.

I now noticed that there was stillness about
us.

“I will bury it,” she said as she placed it
in her pocket, “You go find Greer.”

********************

I bolted towards the woods leaving Becky
behind me. Mrs. Leeds had finally stopped screaming, and I wondered
if the Leeds family had noticed us. They must have seen the
enormous ring of fire or heard Lamont, but I did not have time to
concern myself with that right now.

The forest was still—too still. The only
thing I could hear was my own feet as they stomped through the
snow. I struggled to breathe as my tattered ribs shortened each
inhalation.

I reached the clearing where I had last seen
Greer as the final shrouds of light sifted through the surrounding
forest. There were bodies everywhere. The ground was dark red,
almost black, beneath the soldiers' remains.

“Greer!” I yelled into the night.

Over and over, I cried out for him, as I
tripped over lifeless bodies and broken limbs. I heard no
reply.

I watched as the soldiers horses clustered
together on the far side of the clearing. They were frightened,
their eyes wild. I ran passed them and into the woods behind
them.

Greer!” I shrieked.

I looked up into the trees with the hope that
he had climbed into one for refuge. I crawled through the brush
without finding him. Finally, in outright panic I ran back to the
fallen soldiers and turned their bodies over one by one. Sobs were
escaping me as I now searched in the darkness.

“Aislin,” Becky's voice beckoned from behind
me, “More soldiers will be here soon. We cannot stay any
longer.”

“I cannot go,” I wept, as I moved from man to
man turning each ones face to the moonlight.

“Greer would not want you to stay here. He
would not want you to be caught.” She reached for my hand and
pulled me away from the corpses. “I will take care of your tracks
in the snow,” she said.

Within moments of her words, a strong breeze
blew passed us, and more snow began to fall.

“Is Isaac all right?” I asked.

“Yes. I got to him in time. He was
frightened, but unharmed.”

We walked on through the night and reached my
home an hour later, the snow covered our tracks efficiently, but it
also slowed down our journey.

We were so exhausted by the time we reached
my house that Becky stayed the night with Isaac in the guest
chamber. My mother tended to all our wounds and fed those of us who
would eat.

I was not among that group. I had no
appetite. The only thing I desired was to know that Greer was
safe.

CHAPTER THRITY-SEVEN

I remembered hearing a tale as a child of a
young woman who was in love with a sailor. Before he left for his
duty at sea, he kissed his beloved and vowed that he would return
and marry her. She waited. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into
months, and months into years. Each night she would walk down to
the shore and stare out into the darkness, hoping that she would
see some sign of him. He never came back. Until the day she died,
she stood down at the water, waiting for her lover to return.
Finally, after she accepted the fact that he was not coming back,
she ran into the sea to her death.