Waking the Witch (Otherworld 11)

"What do you want?" I rasped, throat raw from retching.

"I've already told you. Call Mommy Dearest."

"My cell doesn't work in here."

"Still haven't lost your bite, huh? You're right. It doesn't. Handy thing, a cell phone blocker. But this call will get right past it."

"If you think I have a spell to contact my mother--"

"Then draining your spell power would have been really dumb, wouldn't it? Just concentrate really, really hard and call Mommy."

"You're nuts."

"Mmm, possibly. But I'm pretty sure it will work. Eve is out there right now, looking for me, and she's always looking out for you. That made things tough, I'll tell you--getting close to you while she's hunting me. Luckily, I have two addresses these days. Jesse Aanes and a gal in Connecticut. I let Eve find hideout number two, and she's been chasing that body ... while I keep popping back here. Now it's time to give her the forwarding address. You call, she comes, we negotiate."

"What if she doesn't hear me?"

"Then you'd better try harder."

When I said nothing, she yanked my hair again. "Don't even think about getting noble on me, Savannah. I've got Adam, remember?"

I squeezed my eyes shut as I doubled over, concentrating with everything I had.

She relaxed her grip on my hair a little. "That's better. Now just let out a big old mental distress call and Mommy will come--"

The chattering of metal cut her short. I didn't open my eyes to see what was happening, just kept focusing, drawing on my power the way I had only once before, when Leah had told me my father had had Paige killed. I pretend that I don't remember that day, but I do. All of it, as much as I try to forget.

Now I needed to draw on that power again.

More clattering and chattering. Then a squeal as some piece of machinery moved. A crash as something fell over.

"Damn, girl," Leah said. "Even doped up, you can set a room shaking. You just have to put your mind to it."

I kept focusing, feeling the energy fill me. Around us, everything rattled and shook. A wind whipped up. Then came an awful, spine-twanging wail. Something whipped past me. Leah sucked in her breath.

"I do believe that's Mommy," she said with a chuckle.

The wailing grew louder, coming from every side now. Ghosts? Demons? Earth spirits? I didn't know. Didn't care. They were just a byproduct of what I was trying to do. I kept my eyes shut as my power rose.

"Savannah?" Leah's voice quavered just a little. "Um, you might want to take it down a notch, kiddo. You're calling up every--"

I leaped up and hit her with a knockback spell. She flew into a metal rack. As she tried to recover, I hit her again and she went down. Around us, spirits whistled and moaned. The very building seemed to shake.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted over the din.

"Sending you back where you belong."

"Then you'd better pack your own bags, kiddo, because if I go, you do, too. There's no way you'll make it to a hospital in time. Even if you did, by the time they figure out which poison it is, you'll be dead."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take."

My voice was eerily calm. I was eerily calm. I could hear my mother's voice, telling me not to be stupid. Save myself. But the voice was faint, overruled by my own.

If Leah was given a free pass, she'd use it. She'd kill anyone who got in her way, and when the day came that she got in trouble again, she'd know how to get help. Come after me. Threaten my friends and my family.

I knew what I had to do.

Leah leaped at me. I hit her with another knockback. I could feel my energy ebbing, the fever burning so hot I could barely see. Around me, the spirits started to fade, my power fading with them.