Esmeralda took another step closer, her long, curly red hair flying around her head like some misshapen and malevolent halo. Her eyes were wide with a rage bordering on righteousness, her teeth bared in a wolfish grin of triumph.
Wolfish
. It made Alex think of a wolf he knew. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? She had told him he needed to ask for help. He had been trying to heed that lesson.
As Esmeralda took yet another step forward, Alex dedicated a part of his mind to shouting for help from the one person who might be able to save him.
“I can see you, Child,”
Batami said in his mind,
“but I am too weak to come to your aid.”
“I need your help,”
Alex pleaded in his mind as he watched Esmeralda take one more step closer to him, and the rune-seal, and his doom.
“You must force her to see your true heart-self,”
Batami said, her voice fading away.
Esmeralda was right before him now, right before the wall, and she raised the sword back for its inevitable swing toward the rune-seal. Alex saw in that briefest of moments the truth of Batami’s words — he had been shielding himself against the warped spirit energy Esmeralda flung at him, when instead he needed to open himself to her, to shine upon her the full nature and depth of his own soul-essence.
Alex reached out to Esmeralda’s soul-essence with his own, embracing it with the entirety of his being, the very core of his true-self, the quintessence of his existence — love. He focused on this incandescent blaze of love and radiated into Esmeralda’s heart-center.
Esmeralda froze, blinking as she bathed in the glorious light that had once been her own true light. She gasped, her dark spirit energy dissipating with the shock of what she was experiencing. It was an experience mirrored by Alex as he saw how Esmeralda’s once pure nature had been slowly corrupted and twisted like a strong and vibrant tree brought down gradually by a malicious blight.
Alex realized two things in that moment. In his true heart, his primal soul-essence, he loved Esmeralda and would always love her for the woman she had once been, the girl who had once held such joy within her heart. A girl on a beach, laughing as the waves broke against tiny legs. Waves and tears and sunsets and smiles and footprints in the sand.
Alex also realized he could not change, in a few moments, the nature of Esmeralda’s soul-essence. It had taken decades to become warped and distorted. Seconds would not save her. There were tears in Esmeralda’s eyes and her face looked stricken as she spoke.
“Please.”
It was only one word, but Alex knew its full import of what she was asking. If he had been in his physical body, there would have been tears in his eyes as well. In astral form, he could only feel a deep ache where his heart would be.
Something wailed dimly in his mind, something he recognized as an echo of the Shadow Wraiths’ soul-destroying voice. Esmeralda must have heard it, as well, because she blinked and straightened herself. Alex had no more time. He could not defeat Esmeralda in a battle of Spirit Magic. He had been wrong to try.
She held his gaze a moment more, tears and gratitude in her eyes, and then, as he watched, she let her fingers slip from the hilt of the sword, the long, bright blade falling back to strike her firmly in the shoulder.
Esmeralda cried out in shock and pain as the sword’s blade pierced her flesh, but her cries vanished abruptly as her body rapidly transformed to ash and disintegrated.
The ash that had been Esmeralda, only a moment before, swirled around the room as Alex magically gathered the air and used it to cradle the sword before it could fall to the floor of the cavern. Alex spoke more rune-words for gravity and motion and pulled the sheath from the back of the room, carefully sliding the sword into it. He then magically pulled Victoria’s father’s Wall Walking Belt and wrapped it around the sword. The sword shimmered as though seen though the heat rising off a blacktop road in summer.
Alex turned and used the air of the room to coax the ash that had once been Esmeralda and settle it to the floor of the chamber. He then gently used the air to gather it all into one small pile in the center of the room. It was not a proper burial, but it was the best he could do. Esmeralda had wanted to free the Shadow Wraith and now she would be interred with it forever. Had he not seen how pure her heart had once been, how pure it might one day have been again, Alex might have found it ironic. Instead, he only felt sadness.
“You have succeeded,”
Batami’s voice said in his mind.
“Are you okay?”
Alex thought in his mind to Batami’s disembodied voice, trying not to think about what he had succeeded in doing.
“Thanks to you, I will have time to recover. Come to me when you can.”
Alex felt Batami’s presence fade. He looked around the chamber one more time, staring at the pile of ash that had been Esmeralda. It was hard to feel triumphant, knowing he had succeeded only because Esmeralda had chosen to take her own life at the last moment instead of freeing the Shadow Wraith. It did not really help knowing she had made that choice because Alex had helped her see who she might have become, instead of who she was.
Turning away, Alex mentally spoke the rune words for motion and gravity once more and pulled the sword behind him as he floated though the iron door of the chamber and left it behind for what he hoped was the last time.
He did not bother following the spiral tunnel up through the mountain, instead opting to pass straight through the rock itself. It was an odd sensation to pass through something so consistently dense in astral form, but the feeling did not last long and Alex soon emerged into the sun above the grassy glade around the rubble-covered entrance of the cave.
He floated over the clearing, the passage through the air of the Sword of Silas drawing the attention of most of those present. The battle was over. The carnies who had been under the influence of Esmeralda’s Dark Spirit Magic were either unconscious or looking around in dazed confusion. Alex saw Mr. Apollo, still covered in the sticky web of Victoria’s father’s magical grenade, on his knees, sobbing.
“How could she?” Alex heard Mr. Apollo moan. It seemed Mr. Apollo had been one of those under Esmeralda’s malignant influence.
He watched as his parents used their magic staves to push the trees of their hastily constructed barricade apart and step out into the clearing, followed by Victoria’s father and Deputy Dervis. Alex let the Sword of Silas slowly drift to the ground and land in front of his parents. They both sighed in relief as they looked at the sword and then the air around them.
Alex spun away and took in the rest of the scene on the mountainside.
Leanna wept, crouching next to Nathan, who lay on his side in the high grass, his face tight with pain. Nathan had his hand on her face, stoking her hair.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Leanna repeated over and over. Drifting closer, Alex could see blistering burns covering one whole side of Nathan’s horse half. As Alex floated past, Nathan leaned in and kissed Leanna.
Alex was shocked, but not as shocked as by what he saw next. Rafael and Kendra had remained in dragon form and sat on a large rock ledge, their dragon wings touching as the leathery lips of their dragon snouts met in a kiss.
“I’ve never kissed a dragon before,” Alex heard Kendra say.
“You’ve probably never met a dragon worth kissing,” Rafael replied.
“I’ve never kissed a griffin either,” Kendra said.
“You poor thing,” Rafael said, glowing red and transforming into a creature with the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. Kendra laughed with glee as she glowed and transformed to match Rafael’s form. Surprised and amused, Alex grinned inwardly in admiration of Rafael’s romantic courage, as he continued to drift over the mountain glade.
Not too far away, Ben and Eleada helped a wobbly Oanadin to his feet. They stared at Raphel and Kendra. Ben cocked his head, looked up at Eleada and then promptly climbed up an outcropping of rock until he was eye level with her.
“You clearly have more courage than brains, Dwarf,” Eleada said, staring Ben in the eye.
“Chicken?” Ben said, staring back. “Are you saying you’re afraid, Elf?”
“You are the strangest boy, I think I’ve ever met,” Eleada said as she leaned toward Ben.
“Lucky for us, we both like strange,” Ben said as their lips met.
Alex floated along, flabbergasted beyond words or thoughts by the daring actions of his friends in facing their infatuations.
Across the clearing, Alex saw Clark and Daphne standing side-by-side in silence. Clark looked down at her. She looked up at him. They both looked at Rafael and Kendra. Then back at each other. Then at Ben and Eleada.
“Cupid’s cuspids,” Daphne said, looking back up at Clark.
“Ah...well…mmm…that’s…hmm…” Clark began to say as he gazed down at Daphne.
“If you’re thinking about kissing me, Clark, think again,” Daphne said with a frown.
“Ah…well…I was…” Clark started to say when Daphne interrupted him.
“I’m the brave one, remember,” Daphne said as she grabbed Clark’s shirt and yanked him down until he was bent nearly in half. Then she kissed him.
Alex’s mind reeled. It was like watching a line of dominoes falling in some intricate pattern. The series of amorous events he witnessed so stunned him that he nearly slipped uncontrollably from his astral form. It felt like his inner understanding of the world was shifting and tumbling around him.
Nina stood not far away, smiling at the whole scene.
“Only an absolute idiot could not figure out how to kiss a girl after all that,” Nina said, seemingly to no one but herself.
Alex looked to the trees at the edge of the clearing and saw where Victoria knelt down beside his body. He could see her gently stroking his face. Something large lay on the ground behind them.
Alex blinked open his eyes and sat up in his physical body, staring at Victoria and enjoying the feel of her hand still against his cheek.
“Oh, you’re okay,” Victoria said, her face lighting up with a dazzling smile Alex felt instinctually compelled to mimic. “I was so worried. You were gone so long. And you had tears in your eyes. And then the carnies seemed to realize you were a threat and started trying to attack you.”
The massive shape behind her momentarily drew his attention. He realized it was the unconscious form of George the Giant.
“Thanks,” Alex said, nodding toward George.
Victoria looked over her shoulder briefly. “I felt terrible about that, because he’s normally so sweet, but I thought it might be better for both of us if he was unconscious for a while.”
“You saved me again,” Alex said, looking deeply into Victoria’s ocean-blue eyes.
“You saved us all,” Victoria said. “Again.”
Alex was certain there was something romantic and witty he could say, but looking into Victoria’s eyes, he seemed to have lost all power of speech. So, instead, he did what he knew he should have done weeks and months ago, but hadn’t for reasons that now seemed impossible to comprehend. Alex leaned over and kissed Victoria. He felt his power of thought vanish as quickly as speech has evaded him moments before. A single notion remained and seemed to be all his mind could hold — kissing Victoria was the best thing in the world.
Alex wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but his powers of thought were returned to him as the sound of someone’s throat insistently clearing continuously erupted from nearby. Finally, Alex could ignore the sound no longer and broke away from Victoria, looking up to see the source of the disturbance that had drawn him back from the little world he and Victoria had silently created between themselves.
“Mom!” Alex said, his power of speech returning more quickly than his thoughts. “Dad!”
“Daddy!” Victoria echoed beside Alex.
Alex’s mother and father stood beside Victoria’s father, all three of them standing awkwardly above Alex and Victoria. His father held the Sword of Silas in one hand.
“It seems a little victory has gone to everyone’s heads,” Alex’s father said, gesturing toward the clearing where Clark was still bent over kissing Daphne, Ben still stood on a rock kissing Eleada, and Rafael and Kendra still traded kisses between transformations from one animal to the next. They glowed and turned into baby elephants as Alex looked back toward his parents.
“Or their lips, as the case may be,” Victoria’s father said, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Probably all well-deserved,” Alex’s mother said, pulling Alex up to his feet and into an embrace.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Victoria’s father said as he helped her up and into his arms. “I was ever so worried you’d do something dangerous.”
“Daddy, you’re the one who was in the middle of the fighting,” Victoria said.
“Yes, but everyone knows I’m prone to doing dangerous things,” her father said. “I rely upon you to be the level-headed one in the family.”
“Sounds like someone we know,” Alex’s father said, embracing Alex.
“An interesting match,” his mother said.
“I was talking about you,” his father said to his mother.
“So was I,” his mother said with a grin.
“How did you all get here so fast?” Alex said. “I only blew the whistle when we reached the bottom of the mountain.”
“That’s how we knew to expect company,” his father said.
“We headed here right after we checked the bank,” his mother said. “We figured this was where they would eventually come and we hoped to stop them.”
“Unfortunately, my Wall Walking Belt proved a bit too efficient,” Victoria’s father said. “I was certain it wouldn’t work for anything as thick as the boulders blocking that cave.”
“You’re too smart for your own good sometimes, Daddy,” Victoria said.
“Another comment that could be applied to someone else,” Alex’s father said.
“Not that we aren’t glad you did whatever it was you did,” Alex’s mother said, “but we’re supposed to be the ones who save you, not the other way around.”
“He’s too stupid for something that simple,” Nina said, walking up and giving her brother hug. “But not too stupid for other things,” she whispered as she nodded toward Victoria. Alex frowned.