Read Online Phantom Quartz: A Stacy Justice Witch Mystery Book 6 (Stacy Justice Magical Mysteries) by Barbra Annino - Free Book Online Page B

churned as a team of butterflies moved in and camped there.
    Birdie passed a doubtful look to my mother, clearly torn. Lolly’s lips drooped, and Fiona just clucked her tongue.
    My mother said, “I really think it’s for her own good. We can’t be sending her out there on these dangerous missions with only a blade and her wits. Who knows who she’ll come up against?”
    “Sloane, I don’t—” Birdie said.
    “I just can’t bear it, Mother. Not after what happened in Ireland.” Her voice cracked and she buried her head in her hands for a moment. 
    Lolly and Fiona rushed to comfort her and I tipped backwards, inching towards the door, vying for an escape. “What are you guys talking about? What plan?” There was no telling what they were up to, but history has proven that it would end with a shit storm dumped on my head and me without an umbrella.
    A decay invaded my gut as the butterflies died. I was about to be betrayed by my own blood. I just knew it.
    The door slammed, locked and bolted behind me. I spun around, ran to it, scrambling to twist the deadbolt open. It wouldn’t budge, as if it were welded shut. I pounded on the thick wood, shouting. For whom, I didn’t know, because no one could hear my cries on the other side of these thick walls.
    And even if someone could, who would answer? Most everyone I loved was in this room.
    Behind me, my grandmother, my mother, and my two great aunts began to chant.
    My legs carried me backwards and I spun again to face their circle.
    “What are you doing? Mom? Birdie?”
    They didn’t answer, already absorbed in their spellcasting.
    Power slipped from me, bit by bit, like petals ripped from a flower. “Stop it! Please!”
    They kept chanting in a language I didn’t recognize—eyes closed, hands bound together as if by an unseen force. Wind ripped around the room. An icy chill surged in my veins. My heartbeat slowed, my lungs labored. I reached for the cocktail glass on the round table and hurled it at the mirror behind them, hoping to startle at least one of the Geraghtys back to her senses.
    The tumbler bounced off the frame. Amber liquid slid down the looking glass and hung there in broken threads.
    My legs weakened into jelly. My knees buckled, and I fell forward over the table, clinging to it—and consciousness.
    “Don’t do this, please,” I whispered, my strength fading further away until a gaping wound settled into my soul.
    They only chanted louder. Then I recognized the words they were saying. It was a Druid phrase that meant, “Collect and secure.”
    My eyes made a desperate attempt to focus on at least one face. Finally, I reached my mother’s. Eyes green as glass. Same as mine.
    “Stop! Mom, stop! You can’t do this. You’re draining me.”
    She didn’t wince.
    There was only one thing I could do. One way out of this if I was going to keep my power and in turn, my strength.
    It was a Hail Mary pass, but it’s the only one I had.
    I reached for the Seeker’s locket that lay beneath my sweater and climbed up the backside of a chair. I fumbled with the catch. Opened it.
    The words didn’t come. My mind was a fog, I couldn’t recall the spell I was searching for.
    Then I remembered what the former Seeker had said when she gifted the locket to me.
    It does whatever you need it to do. It’s only a tool. The power is in you.
    I dug deep within the recesses of my soul, gathered all the magic I possessed, and held the open locket in the air. I shouted a reversal enchantment, aiming the face of the amulet at their circle, repeating my mantra over and over until the wave of magic streaming towards them shifted, retreated, then settled in the center of the room, swarming the table like a sea of fireflies.
    Sparks sizzled as the energy danced across the space, bouncing off of any reflective surface it could find. Fireworks ricocheted off the chandelier, the mirror, the moonbeam shining through the window, and eventually, the Seeker’s amulet.
    I