Authors: Nicole Bailey
Thus she move thou hand or foot against me
immobilize before thou reach,
Thus she bid me found bewilder her unto foreign land,
Thus she raise enemies against me mutiny upon her
alone shall thou stand,
Grant me courage to fear not my adversary nor weapon
she bear,
For thine is my Goddess Queen Hecate so doeth take
care.
There was a knock on the door just as I finished
I quickly blew out the candles, stashed them under the
sink and pulled the drain plug. “Just finishing up,” I said
through the door. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves
and opened the door.
Nick was waiting with a smile. “They already went out
back. Are you feeling okay?”
“Still just a little stressed out about all of this.”
“It’s almost over, Bella.” He took my hand and I hoped
he couldn’t feel me shaking next to him.
When we arrived at the altar, the parents were
surrounding it, waiting for Nick to enter the circle. Mamma
told him to stand next to the altar and she closed the circle
on the ground. I hung back as the rest of the group held
hands. I gave Nick a reassuring smile and waited for
Mamma to start. The spell they were using was slightly
different than the one I had used on Nick after we got home
from Mexico. I had no doubt it would work. Mamma’s
circle was strong with the seven of them together.
I kept backing up, slowly at first, but several lines in to
the spell, I bolted.
Nick’s eyes went wide with surprise, but he didn’t stop
me. I was pretty sure he thought he could outrun me once
they finished, so I ran as fast as I’ve ever run in my entire
life. I made sure we took the Charger because it was much
faster than my old Mustang.
I got to the car, still no Nick in sight. I floored it and hit
the highway to Pinetop. I was used to going fast with Nick
driving, but I wasn’t exactly one who sped myself. Still, I
drove close to one hundred the entire way there. It cut the
twenty minute drive in half and there was still no sign of
anyone following me. I let my phone direct me to the right
complex and parked the car as close to Ky’s apartment as
possible.
I sat in the car for a minute, breathing deeply, trying to
calm myself and get enough courage to actually do this. I
was counting on the fact that Ky was waiting for me.
Hopefully Gia wouldn’t expect an attack since she thought
I was giving up. I found the apartment and as I knocked, I
whispered,
Love, hate, light and darkness
Help me out fighting this battle,
I summon powers from the life beyond
And just as Ky opened the door, I finished with,
Stun it be!
So mote it be!
I threw Ky back with a wave of my hand. The look on
his face was utter shock. “Sofia, what are you doing?” he
asked sadly. He was lying on the ground off to my left, but
Gia walked in and I turned my attention to her.
“I told this idiota that you were full of lies, but he
would not believe me,” she laughed. “He is too blinded by
his love for you. Why he loves you, I cannot understand.
Simple, little witch. You actually think you have a chance?”
“Oh I
know
I do,” I glared at her hard. I wasn’t sure if
the binding spell was working on her yet, but didn’t want to
take my chances.
I raised my hand, but before I could say anything, Gia
cut her hand with her athame and started chanting,
With my blood, I show you my pain,
Return it back from whence it came.
Now is the darkness, I do call,
Sending shadows once and for all.
I collapsed on the ground and screamed as a searing
pain ripped through my entire body. I heard Ky yell out to
Gia to stop hurting me, but she threw him back to the
ground. She stalked toward me and I tried to get my mind
to stop focusing on the increasing pain and come up with a
spell. I was completely blank. I was in complete agony. She
stood over me, her athame raised in the air. Ky was
screaming out to her but frozen in place. He couldn’t help
me.
Gia knelt down and whispered, “He will not remember
you when I am done with him. I will bear his child and rule
the covens. No one will have power to take me down.” I
finally gained enough strength to use the same stunning
spell I had used on Ky when he opened the door. It was
weak, but Gia fell over and dropped her athame. Her spell
on me was broken and I crawled to pick it up, but she was
right there with me.
We both grabbed the athame and struggled with it. She
tried another curse, but it didn’t work. Mamma’s circle
must have completed the binding magic ritual. Gia ended
up on top of me and had the athame aimed at my chest, but
I continued to struggle against her and it ended up digging
into my arm instead. I cried out in pain and she laughed.
She tried another spell, but again it didn’t work.
“What have you done to me?” she shouted in anger. She
must have hit an artery because the blood started to pour
out of my arm way too fast. I rolled out from under her and
got to my knees, breathing heavily.
“Sofia, are you okay?” Ky said from the floor on the
other side of the room. I couldn’t figure out why he still
wasn’t moving. I gave a slight nod of my head and stood.
Gia got on her feet again and was circling me with the
athame still in her hand.
My brain finally started to work again and with my
remaining strength, I threw a spell at Gia that knocked her
to the ground. The athame went skidding across the floor. I
stood above her and closed my fist, choking her. She
gasped for air and clawed at her throat like the first time I
had done it. I continued to squeeze my fist even tighter. I
welcomed the darkness this time. I wanted to kill her. She
wouldn’t stop until she had Nick. I couldn’t let that happen.
I thought I could hear Ky trying to tell me something, but
everything was going dark around me.
“Sofia, make yourself stop,” I heard in a whisper. I
smelled Nick and felt his lips at my ear. He broke through
the darkness with that quiet whisper. I opened my hand and
released Gia. She was still conscious, but too weak to move
and I turned and collapsed in Nick’s arms. “Where is she
bleeding from?” he asked Ky frantically.
“Her arm. Gia cut her deep,” he answered from
somewhere on my other side. I was starting to lose
consciousness from the blood loss.
“Your mamma is almost here, Sof. Just hang on. She’ll
heal you. You’re going to be okay,” he said as he held me
against him. “Can’t you do anything you useless idiot?” he
yelled at Ky.
“Not on my own,” he sounded like he was crying.
“Use their power then, damn it,” Nick shouted again.
“Gia’s magic is gone and Sofia is passing out. I’ll drain
her if I try,” Ky answered helplessly.
My eyes were closed now, but from behind me I heard a
shout, “No! He will be mine!” I spun around in time to see
Gia lunging at me, ready to finish me off. Out of the corner
of my eye, I saw the athame fly from Ky’s hand and land in
Gia’s chest. She crumpled to the floor.
“No, Ky! What have you done?” I cried. Though I
hadn’t hesitated when it came down to killing Gia, I didn’t
want Ky to have to live with that. I reached out to him and
collapsed. Nick caught me before I hit the floor, but
everything went dark.
I vaguely remember hearing Mamma yelling and felt
her at my side. I blacked out for a few minutes, but came to
when my arm started to feel warm and tingly. I could feel
Mamma’s hands wrapped around my upper arm where the
knife wound was. My eyes fluttered open and I saw Nick
pacing behind her.
As soon as he saw me open my eyes he was at my side,
his hands on my face, his lips touching mine. “My Sofia.
Why? Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“You know why,” I barely got out in a whisper.
“You stubborn girl,” Mamma said. “Why didn’t you
trust us? We did the spell. She lost her magic, no?”
“Sì, but not before she cursed me.”
“What did she do? Is there any more pain? What
hurts?” Mamma asked, checking me over.
“The pain is gone. It didn’t last, but it was enough that
she caught me in the arm before I could move. Is she… ?” I
didn’t want to finish. I wanted her dead, but I didn’t want it
to be Ky’s fault.
Mamma nodded. “Are you sure you don’t have pain
anywhere else? Can you feel your arm yet?”
I sat up slowly and moved my arm around. “I’m fine.
And my arm is perfect, Mamma. Grazie.” I kissed her on
the cheek. “Is Babbo here?”
“Here, Piccola,” he said. He was just closing Gia’s eyes
and turned to face me. I reached out to him and he pulled
me into his arms and hugged me tightly. To Nick he said,
“Nico, take her home now. We will clean up and fix this.”
He released me and Nick helped me stand.
“What’s going to happen to Ky?” I asked Babbo. “It
wasn’t his fault. He was protecting me.” Ky looked over at
me from where he was sitting on the sofa. I met his gaze
and he gave me a sad half-smile. I wanted to go to him. To
hug him and thank him for saving me. To apologize for
lying, but the warmth of Nick’s hand in mine kept me from
doing it. I didn’t want to hurt Nick any more than I already
had. For once, Nick’s chest didn’t rumble and I saw him
slightly nod at Ky.
“It will be fine, Sofia. Go home and rest now,” Mamma
assured me. She kissed me on the cheek and shooed us out
the door.
Nick was quiet for most of the drive home. He drove
the speed limit, an indicator to me that he was thinking
about what he was going to say to me. Or maybe yell at me.
As we exited the highway I couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Will you just get it over with?”
“What?” he asked, coming out of his daze.
“Will you just yell at me already so we can be done and
move on?”
“I’m not going to yell at you. You know what you did
was stupid.” He pulled in to our regular parking spot and
turned the car off. I opened my door and started to get out,
but he just sat there, staring at the dashboard.
“Nick, are you coming up?” I asked. He looked up at
me and blinked. “I said, are you coming up?” He nodded
and got out of the car. I still felt a little dizzy from losing
blood and wobbled on my feet. He was at my side and
caught me by the arm. “I’ll be alright.” He picked me up
anyway and carried me up the three flights of stairs. I just
rested my head on his chest and breathed in his woodsy
scent.
He carried me straight to the bedroom and laid me
down. Without a word, he took my shoes off, then my
socks. “Are you ever going to speak to me again? Please
just yell. Anything is better than silence. I don’t even care if
you start throwing stuff at the wall again.” He was kneeling
by my feet and dropped his head in my lap and started to
cry. Like really cry. I had never seen him break down like
this and it worried me. I didn’t say anything. Just ran my
fingers through his hair until he stopped shaking.
He finally looked up at me and I pulled him up to the
bed. He sat next to me, gently took my face in his hands,
and just stared. All the emotion in his eyes overwhelmed
me and
I
started crying. Everything hit me. I really had
been an idiot. They stopped Gia’s magic, they could’ve just
banished her to Italy forever, but I was thinking with my
heart and not my brain when I made the decision to go after
her.
Nick wiped at my tears and kissed me. “Sofia, do you
know what it would’ve done to me if something had
happened to you?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” I tried.
“Shh… let me talk,” he interrupted. “I wish you could
trust me to help you. I know I’m not a witch, but—”
“No, Nick that has nothing to do with it,” I stopped
him.
“Then why can’t you ever let me help you? I know you
don’t need me,” he started.
“Nick, stop. Of course I need you. You are my rock. I
just knew you wouldn’t let me go if I told you. And even if
they kept her from doing magic tonight, she would come
back. I wanted to end her and I knew you wouldn’t let me,”
I rushed. “Non posso vivere senza di te, Nico,” I finished in
a whisper.
“My Sofia. My bella Sofia, I can’t live without you
either. That’s why you can’t ever do anything like this
again. Your babbo said if her athame had been a millimeter
to the left, you would have bled to death before we ever got
there.” I was crying again. I thought it seemed bad when it
happened, but didn’t realize it was so close.
“I’m so sorry, Nick. All I could think about was Gia
taking you from me. The crazy look in her eyes in my
vision scared the crap out of me. I thought this was the only
way.”
“The circle was planning on a banishing spell to keep
her from coming back to America. And Mamma said they
were going to do something to more permanently bind her
magic. If you had just waited…” he said.
“I know I should have. How did you find me anyway? I
never gave anyone the apartment name.”
“GPS on your phone,” he answered.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m glad you got there
to stop me,” I whispered. The more I thought about how I
almost killed Gia, the more upset I got with myself.
“Would you really have done it?”
I nodded and turned my head away from him. I didn’t
want to see the look in his eyes when I admitted it. “It was
the darkness again. And I welcomed it,” I whispered.
He cupped my face again and made me look at him.
“There’s no judgment here. I would not think any less of
you if you had done it. But I knew how much it would’ve
eaten you up inside.”
There was a loud banging on the front door and then it
opened. “Sofia Morini! I mean Bartolini! What the hell
were you thinking?” Nat yelled and stormed right in to our
bedroom. “You idiota. You could’ve been killed!” Her arms
were crossed and she was glaring at me from the doorway,
but as soon as I reached out for her, she rushed in for a hug.
“Don’t you dare ever scare me like that again. You are my
sister and I need you. We’re supposed to get old together.” I
felt a warm tear on my cheek and realized it was Nat’s.
“I know, Nat. Never again,” I whispered, squeezing her
tighter.
She pulled back, “Ok, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.
I’ll see you tomorrow.” She shut the bedroom door as she
left and I heard the front door close a second later.
“I’m gonna go lock that before we have any more
visitors,” Nick stood up and left.
I was stripping off my bloody shirt when he came back
in the room and he helped me finish. I could move my arm,
but it still ached. He followed me in to the shower and
helped me wash off. After my shower, I sat on the bed
while Nick got some clean shorts and a tank top for me to
sleep in. He sat next to me on the bed and took my bare
arm in his hands to look at my new scar.
“Your mamma said she can heal, but not make the
marks go away,” he said.
“I know, but hey, guys dig scars, right?” I laughed. The
wound already looked like an old scar, no stitches, no ugly
cut. It was nice having a mother that could heal.
After changing, we crawled into bed. Nick lay on his
back and I rested my head on his chest, listening to his
heartbeat. “I love you more than words, Sofia. Don’t ever
do anything that stupid again,” he whispered as I started to
drift off to sleep.
“I promise,” I said.
That night, for the first time in a while, I slept soundly.
No fear that Nick would walk out in the middle of the night
and go to Gia. No fear that Ky would visit me in my
dreams. Just peaceful, deep sleep.