Page 154 of The Lost Ones

“You’re not strong enough for that spell Little Queen.” He scoffs, “Tik Tok.” He laughs manically. Still rolling the head in my direction even though I’m out of the circle now and reaching the edge of the woods.

I ignore him which makes it frown and sneer at me obviously not pleased with the lack of response.

“Repeat after me!”Dash says managing to send it through the Bond link that I have with them.

Everybody nods, so it’s clear that they all received the message. Cole looks shocked as hell that he’s heard it but quickly shakes it off.

“Unde non est creatum pellere et remittemus eam in locum venit. ”Dash sends and we all start to repeat it out loud.

Our words start off unsure but the more werepeat it the stronger we believe in the conviction and I pull my magic forward adding to the chant. The wind whips through the clearing tugging at our clothes and my eyes widen at the force of it.

“No, that’s impossible!” The head exclaims, sounding panicked as our chant reaches a crescendo.

Thick, green and black smoke starts to ooze out of every orifice, the nose, eyes and even the ears as this ear piercing screech echoes through the forest, the Directors expression twists into something truly gruesome and freezes like it as the last of the thick smoke leaves her and gathers in a puddle just in front of it.

We don’t break our chant even as it lunges towards me. I raise my arms and my swords spring free. I strike out unsure what damage a sword can really do to what is effectively smoke. As the sword connects with the smoke an otherworldly scream pierces the night as unbelievably, blood coats my blade before the green and black smoke gets sucked into a void like split closing with a snap.

“Well that was tense!” Erin sighs her eyes wide and breaking the silence that descended.

“The swords have blood on them.” I say lifting up the sword that struck the creature and showing them the black blood that’s thicker than normal blood coating the blade. Even from here it smells rotten and trust me I do not have my nose pressed anywhere near it.

“That smells rancid.” Hunter says wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“You can smell it from all the way over here?” Jax asks sounding impressed.

“Us too!” The twins Kyle and Nate say together sounding more like twins than I’ve ever heard them.

We watch in fascination as the black blade of the sword seems to absorb the ichor, returning to their previous pristine state before they both get enveloped in my black, gold and purple magic, looking like smoke as they snake back up my arms and absorb into the skin of my forearms once again appearing as tattoos.

“Don’t step any closer, any of you. If there’s any remnant of what ever spell she was trying to do it could be triggered if you step foot inside the casting circle.” Rupert warns urgently seeing us all stood around the outside of it, as he emerges from the woods the Kai and Jett following behind him.

I’m definitely not going to tell him we already did that and it definitely triggered something to happen within the circle. The bastard didn’t fucking stay in there though did he!

“Good goddess.” He gasps, as he properly takes in the horrifying scene before him. “I’d like to say I’m surprised that she was involved but sadly I’m not. The whole academy could be compromised now because of her actions.” He says angrily. “Are you sure you have no idea who she was talking to?” He asks his eyes hopeful that we can give him any sort ofinformation. “Any distinguishing features that could identify him. Other than his voice which Kai and Jett told me was male.” He implores.

“No, he had his back to us the entire time with his hood up. Sorry.” Levi tells him.

“That’s a shame it would have been nice to finally put a face to the leader of the Order. No one has ever known what he truly looks like. Although we can assume the legacy has been passed down since they’re human and don’t live as long as we do.” He says, sightlessly staring at the scene in front of him.

Fortunately he seems to be just telling us and not asking us any questions this time, so we all stay silent.

“It certainly looks like she was performing a summoning spell.” He frowns, “Except it’s darker and some of the ingredients haven’t been used for centuries because of their unsavoury nature, even though they are more potent than the things we use today. She must have had to put a lot of strength behind this. The animal blood is the main thing that’s no longer used although I can’t see the carcass of the animal used anywhere and it needs to be fresh.” He says moving around the outer ring of the circle.

We look at him curiously so he clarifies.

“I was still alive when it was still done using the old ways.” He says simply and my eyes widen, that would make him centuries years old.

Holy fuck how long do we really live?

“Where is the animal?” He asks perplexed. “It will give me an idea of the strength of the spell she used.”

Of course Ghost chooses that moment to fly down, Knot quick on his heels as they both land on either one of my shoulders. I can’t quite get over how much bigger than a normal raven Ghost is. He’s big enough that he can easily rest his head on top of mine when he’s perched on my shoulder where as Knot, who is still bigger than a normal raven, can only just reach the side of my head at about eye level.

Rupert’s eye’s widen when he spots them both.

“It’s almost time.” He mutters.

“What?” I ask, that was not the response I was expecting to get from him.