The Witches of Merribay (The Seaforth Chronicles) (23 page)

My body began to shake, and my legs moved forward on their own
. My feet dragged over the ground. I tried with all my might to stop them, or slow them; my tendons tightened, and sweat dripped down my back. I could not stop myself from walking toward Izaill.

Drumm pulled the quiver back on his bow, slamming an arrow into Izaill's right shoulder
.

“You fool.
” Izaill said a few words beneath his breath, and instantly a fierce wind blew, a wind tunnel formed of sand, and it shot up from the ground, encircling Drumm before he knew what hit him. It continued to spin at a vast speed, forcing him to stay inside.

I'd reached Izaill's side
. The arrow protruded out the front of his shoulder, but he pulled it free as though it were a toothpick. “Don't think I didn't take precaution. I drank nightshade tea, covering myself with a spell before I came. One of the very few things to ward off elven arrows. Another of Uncle's spells.”

I knew nightshade to be poisonous
, but then again, he wasn't totally human. And with his dark soul, I doubted he had much human left in him.

Izadora, gaining her composure, stood straight as
a tree, lifted her staff, and pointed it at Drumm. “Release him.” A bolt shot out, smacking the wind tunnel, stopping the wind, and scattering the sand to the ground.

Drumm gasped for air as though he'd inhaled much of the sand
. He bent over, leaning on his knees for support. Wiping his face, he said, “You will be sorry. I promise you.”

“Now that the girl is mine
, there is no stopping us.” Izaill grabbed my arm, his touch scorching hot.

“Ow
, you’re hurting my arm!” I yelped. I would be surprised if his hand didn't leave a mark on me.

“Shut that girl up and her whining
. I told you, I have a migraine coming on!” Magella screamed, her voice high pitched and scratchy.

Izadora glared down at her. “Magella, why don't you rise up for the occasion?
” She then proceeded to take a slimy piece of seaweed from her robe pocket—the piece she'd had Drumm acquire for her prior to this meeting. She stood on the planks, her back ramrod straight, and swung the seaweed over her head. She muttered a few words, and a massive wave rose up equal to the cliff, with Magella's boat at the top. The wave continually flowed up and cascaded back down to the sea.

Magella held on to the edge of the boat, swearing and cursing throughout the whole process, “Damn you, Izadora!
”

As the houseboat remained steady on the flow of water, Magella quickly tried a few reversal spells
. None of them would work. “Let me go, you old fool. He's got the girl and there isn't a thing you can do to stop him,” Magella said teasingly.

“We shall see.
” Izadora seemed confident, but it was hard to tell.

“I doubt that
. There is two of us, and one of you,” Izaill spoke up.

Magella and Izaill both cackled in harmony.

“You are both beyond deranged.” Izadora appeared weary from their company.

As they continued to argue, an engine could be heard fast approaching
the battle zone. The sound of rocks flew up from the tires. A four-wheeler. It parked somewhere, and the engine cut off.

I don't believe anyone but Drumm and I heard the vehicle, and if they did they didn't acknowledge it
. Too busy arguing, the three of them bickered simultaneously.

“You will suffer for this.
” Izadora raised her staff toward Izaill, but Magella raised her arms, yelling out a command to the sea.

Before Izadora could say another word, Magella shot a wave of water at her,
and when it hit her, soaking her to the bone, it turned to ice. A solid piece of ice. Her mouth gaped open, as she had been in the process of yelling a spell. She never got to finish.

“What have you done to her?
” Drumm pounded his fist into the dirt.

Izaill and Magella howled with laughter
. Izaill slapped his knees, and Magella stood atop the wave in her boat, clapping her hands.

“That shut her up! Good one
, sister,” Izaill belted out. “Blasted bitch.”

My mouth hung open, and not from what had just transpired
but from whom I had just seen arrive. The person from the four-wheeler approached.

“Oh God
. Oh my God.” I couldn't have been more surprised. There was no way—no way—that he should be here in his condition.

“GG Edmund!
” I called out. “Why are you here? You must go at once!”

GG Edmund continued to walk slowly toward
the battle zone, his back slightly bent.

“
Ivy…” Drumm tried to calm me.

I tried to move
, but Izaill's spell held me tight. “Let me go, I must tell him to leave! He's a fragile old man. Don't hurt him and I will do whatever it is you wish.”

“Ivy! Hush!
” Drum shushed me.

“But
…,” I started to say.

Drumm looked pleased at my GG Edmund's sudden appearance.

“I can't believe it. Do my eyes fool me?” Magella rubbed her eyes mockingly.

“Magella
.” GG Edmund acknowledged her with a nod of his head.

“What are you doing here
…Montague?” Izaill interrupted.

“Good to see you to
o,…
brother.
”
GG Edmund grunted.

“GG Edmund
, what…what did you call him? You can't be…you can't be Montague. You are my great-grandpa.”

GG Edmund looked toward me
. “Ivy, I will explain in time. Right now, I have something that needs to be taken care of.”

My skin began to tingle
, and a rush of adrenaline rushed through my body. Could this be true? My dear, sweet old great-grandfather was the brother to these freaks?

He nodded at me and did something I will never forget
. He held his elbows, and I had pity for a moment, thinking that it was the arthritis. Not so. He rubbed his elbows and said, “I haven't done this in ages.” He held his hands out to the side and shook them once, igniting a fire in his hands.

I gasped.

It looked as though someone had dumped kerosene and dropped a match in his hands. He gave me a crooked smile, turned to Izadora, and held his hands above his head. Shooting his hands forth, he shot fire up at the ice figure.

Izaill tensed up, too flabbergasted to speak in time to retaliate against GG Edmund; he just stood there.

When the fire hit the ice, the ice popped and busted into pieces, the remainder of it melting into drips of water.

Izadora breathed deeply, her chest heaving up and down
. She turned to my great-grandfather. “Monty? I knew you'd come. And just in the nick of time. Thank you, brother,” Izadora said as she pulled in air, catching her breath.

GG Edmund acknowledged her with a nod of his head.

Drumm looked just as astonished as I did. Scratching his chin, he said, “Impressive.”

Izaill began chanting something in the background
. He stomped the ground, and the earth trembled and broke apart all the way to the tree that Izadora stood in, cracking it in half.

She jumped off, swooping down, and turned into an eagle
. She flew to the next tree, and turned back to her human form.

Drumm stood steady, holding his arms out for balance as the ground shook
. GG Edmund never faltered.

“If you will, brother, hold him still for me
,” Izadora said to GG Edmund.

“Certainly.
” My great-grandfather shook his hands once and aimed for Izaill.

Izaill grabbed me and held me, using me to shield him
. His body smoldered with heat. “If you shoot fire at me, you kill the girl. That's not what you want, now is it, Montague?”

GG Edmund, alarmed, stood back.

It couldn't end this way; I knew it couldn't. Good always prevailed over evil, didn't it? As I thought that, the stone from my mother's necklace warmed my skin. My whole stomach and chest tingled. I stared into Drumm's turquoise eyes, imagining my people, the elven people, and thoughts came into my mind. I had let the spell overtake me because my will let it. But I could also reverse the spell using my will. I had power. I had an elven stone sitting on my chest. Not only that, but something else burned within my pocket. Slowly, using Drumm's eyes as a focal point, I forced my will upon my arms, telling them to move. Slowly, the tension from the spell released and I reached into my pocket, feeling the rose pin that Aggie had given me. Izaill hadn't noticed, for the fact that he couldn't stop babbling about how great he and his plans were. I clasped the pin, pointing the sharp pin between my forefinger and middle finger. I whipped it out and stabbed him in the leg.

He jolted back, screaming bloody murder as the pin stuck out from his leg
; a dark blood oozed from the wound. The pin had debilitated him. It sizzled, and smoke spiraled up as he swatted at the pin. Having no mercy, as soon as I was out of the way, GG Edmund shot forth fire, enclosing Izaill in a fireball.

I figured this was it for Izaill
; he would surely burn to death. Instead, he stood inside the fireball, trying to push out of it, to no avail. His face raged, and he yelled out but couldn't be heard.

As great-grandfather held him in the ball of fire, Izadora took care of business.

“Let's end this, here and now!” Magella shrieked at the top of her lungs. Wind swooshed by us, carrying the smell of the sea.

“Let's.
” Izadora’s eyes changed color, turning almost white. She clenched her fists and opened them. A wind circled her at such speed that we could feel it on the ground. Little bolts of energy crackled around her, and she looked as though she would explode. She seemed to pick up more and more energy to match her anger.

Holding her hands up to the sky, a bolt of lightning shot up from the ground
and passed through her and out to Magella's boat, obliterating it and sending Magella spiraling down to the ocean. “My boat!” she screamed on the way down.

The look on Magella's horror-stricken face right before the strike was priceless.

Several merpeople had appeared recently and were floating in the water, waiting patiently for this moment. When Magella splashed in the water, they went for her. I could only imagine what they'd do. Thoughts of seamen being lead to the eerie depths of the ocean came to mind.

“Find a lake
, and build yourself a crannog,” Izadora yelled out after her.

A crannog
, I was to find out later, was a Scotch-Irish house built on a lake, with pillars shoved into the lake floor for support.

“And you
.” She looked to Izaill.

Great-
Grandfather pulled back the fire, releasing him.

He held up his hands as if to retaliate
, but Izadora was too fast. She spoke some language, some strange words, freezing him in his tracks, and it cast a wind so strong that it went right through him, stealing his breath—or perhaps his very soul. The wind swooped back around and entered his body. From the inside out, he glowed.

Had she just killed him
? Expecting some sort of combustion, I closed my eyes.

Drumm nudged me
. “Check it out.”

When I didn't hear an explosion, I opened my eyes
. There, on a broken boulder, sat a rabbit. A cute little fuzzy rabbit, with tan fur.

“Catch me the rabbit, Drumm
,” Izadora commanded.

He hopped away
, trying to escape, but Drumm had him moments later. “Here you go, Izadora. What will you do with him now? Keep him in a cage?”

She had him by the scruff of the neck
. She took her finger and thumb and flicked him in the nose. “No. I haven't had rabbit stew in some time. At least a few months. Looks like I shall be having rabbit stew tonight.”

“Izadora!
” we both yelled out.

Great-
Grandfather Edmund, aka Monty, laughed. When we looked at him, he wiped the smile from his face.

“You can't eat him!
” Drumm said as the rabbit kicked and scratched. “That's disgusting.”

“I can
”—she flicked his nose again—“and I will. Be still,
rabbit,” she commanded, and the rabbit was powerless.

“Sister
, we shall find a better punishment, shall we?” GG Edmund asked.

But Izadora would hear none of it
. Changing into an eagle, she held the rabbit in her claws and flew out into the night sky.

The aftermath of their battle was horrifying
. Dust and smoke floated through the air; trees were cracked and burned. The ground had splits and crevices through it. Part of the cliff was missing.

Magella floated in the water
, encircled by the merpeople. “Izadora!”