roof starts to rain down chunks of stone as a deep rumble echoes all around us.
There’s an explosion of red light that almost blinds me. I struggle to lift my head, but when I do, I see Ash, Ava and Clara being tossed through the air by streaks of red lightning, as well as the freaks standing around us in those dark robes.
The whole chamber shakes. The streaks shoot all over the place.
And then I realise that there’s another sound.
A scream.
A furious, raging, brutal scream.
I look.
And see Callie, covered in those red streaks and sending them out in all directions, attacking the walls. The ceiling. Ash, Ava and Clara.
Callie’s scream rebounds all around us, and with a final yell, the ropes tying her to the Bloodstone snap. She scrambles to her feet, pulls off her gag, and runs toward me.
She falls to her knees, looking at the wound around my throat in utter horror.
‘Mummy…’ she cries, turning to Gabriel. ‘Daddy. What do I do? What do I do??’
‘Take…’ I choke on the blood filling up my airway. ‘Off… my binding spell. Wrist.’
She reaches behind me and starts pulling at the binding spell at my wrist.
But she screams as she gets dragged away from me by an unseen force, clawing at the dirt as she fights against it. Clara is painfully getting back on her feet and has her hand outstretched as she summons my daughter towards her.
Ava cowers at the far side of the cave like the pathetic cretin she is. And the rest of this dark Coven are returning to their positions and sealing us inside.
The blood from the star completes and the Bloodstone starts to change colour. The once-clear pillar slowly turns dark. It moves like tar, oozing upwards and spilling out the top and dripping down the sides. When it hits the ground, it hisses and burns on contact.
I feel it. The magic inside is screaming at me like a demon. The air turns ice cold and becomes charged, like a battery on my tongue, but all over my body. It smells like death, rotten meat, and putrid blood.
My Sensativa feels its twisted nature. Its unnatural state. Its immense power.
Ash grabs Callie and closes his arms around her tiny body, lifting her up easily. He carries her, thrashing and screaming, towards the poisoned Bloodstone.
She’s not screaming because she fears him. She’s screaming for Gabriel and me, terrified that she is watching us die bloody before her very eyes.
‘Hold still, you little shit!’ Ash barks at her. ‘Or I’ll give you another slap.’
He drags her towards the stone, and again, she screws up her face and lets out a furious scream. Her body explodes in red lightning again. Ash roars in pain but refuses to let go, creating his own lightning to fend off hers. Sparks fly all over the place. The whole cavern trembles as more chunks get blown from the roof.
The star of blood starts to burn, like the tar substance still oozing from the bloodstone.
And I burn too. The blood left inside my body. The blood surrounding me.
I blink, watching as he drags my daughter closer and closer to the Bloodstone.
And when Callie’s hand touches the tar, she screams. Her hand burns. The skin on her tiny fingers blister and blacken all at the same time.
And as she looks at me, her beautiful eyes full of undiluted terror, Callie fades into smoke and gets pulled into the Bloodstone.
The cavern no longer trembles with her power.
Callie, my daughter… is gone.
