Exhaling slowly, Leila flexed her fingers. "Let's go kick some Atticus a--"
"Do you really think you're ready?" George interrupted, looking worried.
She turned to him, her eyes blazing with a new fierceness. "Yeah. At least, I think so." She stared down at her clenched fist. "It's weird." Her hand began to glow with a bright green light. "I feel...energized, like I could do anything." With a grim look of determination, she said, "Let's go. I have a feeling we don't have much time left."
As they got into Paul's car, George said with a smile, "You're taking this all rather well."
Leila buckled her seat belt and took the Order of Light's journal out of her back pack and skimmed the pages for anything that might be of help. "Inside," she confessed, "I'm screaming."
Atticus listened. His gnarly, long fingers tapped the table impatiently as he waited.
For screams? Ghosts begging for mercy? Sobbing?
He didn't know exactly, but whatever it was, he wasn't hearing it. "Those bumbling fools," the warlock muttered. "Never trust a ghost to do a wizard's job." He picked up Madame Leota. "You're coming with me."
The medium glared, focusing as much energy as she could and--
Thorn screamed in shock and dropped the psychic. Green fire encased her spherical prison and she floated up to be eye level with him. "I will not tolerate your harassment any longer, Atticus!" A green beam of energy soared from the crystal ball and smacked him square in the chest, sending him flying out of the room. She sailed after him, following him into the ballroom.
A simultaneous gasp echoed through the chamber. Everything, the dancing, playing, and the music, ceased. The ghosts stared at the wicked man, who was lying on his back. The hovering head was right above his face. "Have you forgotten that it was I who sent you down to Hell, you pathetic excuse of a man?" He tried to get up, but she psychically smacked him. "I may have been weak before, I admit, but this ends NOW!"
A whirlwind, a fiece gale that made even the coats of the ghosts flap on the breeze, blew. Ezra and Phineas held down their hats. Paul held Gus's metal ball tightly as the little spirit floated. "It's just like flying a kite," the pseudo master joked, making the half-brothers groan.
In the very center of the room, a tiny bright point of light began to grow. After a few seconds, it expanded into a swirling red vortex. Silver eyes wide with terror, Atticus screamed, "I'm not going back!" Clawing at the flat floor was pointless as he was dragged towards the portal. Right before he would have been sucked in, he reached out and grabbed the first thing he could get his bony claws on.
Little Leota.
"MOM!" she screamed, barely heard over her mother's own cries.
"I won't go back alone," Thorn snarled.
"Put her down!" screamed Paul, dropping Gus. After a running start, he jumped up and grabbed the little girl, but couldn't free her from Atticus's grasp.
"Finally grown a spine, George?" cackled Atticus.
"Oh, and you consider snatching a kid to be brave?" Paul shot back. The vortex was getting closer. Like a whirlpool, it began to pull them in. Leota began mouthing a chant, but it seemed as if she had truly outdone herself this time. She couldn't so easily undo this magic.
Little Leota did the only thing she could think of: She kicked Atticus in the shin. With a yelp, he let her go right as he was pulled into the Hellish entrance. Paul grabbed her and tried to float away, but at the last seond, Thorn grabbed his ankle. Madame Leota shot a stream of magic at him, but it missed and the three were whisked away to the Underworld.
With a crackle, the entryway was sealed and the wind stopped.
"NO!" Madame Leota screamed. Sinking down to the floor, she sobbed. The others stared at her with looks of pity and fear. She wanted to demand why they didn't help, why they just stood there. But she didn't. It wouldn't have done any good. Another portal couldn't be opened, not so soon. She felt too tired and weak. She would just have to wait for the girl to get there. And Paul...The poor boy had no idea what he was getting himself into. He was a brave soul, she'd give him that.
It was cold. It was colder than his science class, colder than a December morning. Paul shivered. And gray. Everything was gray and lifeless. The closest thing he could compare the Underworld to was a big cave, filled with dampness and shadows. It wasn't a blazing inferno like he thought it would be. That might have been pleasant. He wrapped his ghostly arms around himself, his teeth chattering. He couldn't remember feeling anything before, like the chills in the mansion, but now he was freezing.
A little hand touched his shoulder. He looked up. "Are you okay?" asked Little Leota. A howling wind whipped her hair over her pale face.
She nodded. "S-so c-cold!"
"Ha!" Atticus barked. "Get used to it! I've been here for nearly a century. If those Order of Light freaks think I'm going back to my cell, they've got another thing coming." Two figures suddenly stepped up behind him: a thin, blonde woman, and a brown haired man about her own age. They were in their early thirties. For some reason, something about them seemed oddly familiar to Paul.
"Welcome back Atticus," the woman smirked. "Did you enjoy your little vacation?"
"Mrs. Toombs," he snarled, "are you going to try to put me back in my little pen?"
"Toombs?" Paul whispered. That's why she seemed so familiar! She must be some ancestor of Leila's.
The woman turned her pale, heart-shaped face towards him, as if she had not realized he was there. Her sharp glare turned to a look of pity. "George, I'm so sorry for what happened. We had never meant for things to turn out the way they did." Looking into his eyes, her expression changed to one of brief confusion, and then to mild amusement. The man studied him with a cynical arch of an eyebrow.
They know! Paul thought. They know I'm not George!
"Auntie Alea!" Little Leota cried happily. She ran to the woman and hugged her tightly. "I missed you!"
"I missed you, too," murmured Alea, hugging her back.
The man watched the girl with indifference laced with contempt. "I take it he brought you two here?" he asked.
Little Leota nodded. "Can't get anything past you, Uriah."
"This is all very touching," snapped Atticus, "but I have a world to conquer. So, if you'll excuse me--" Magic burned in his fist, but before her could do anything, Alea and Uriah raised their hands, palms out, and streams of magic, burning as brightly as the sun, coiled around him and lifted him into the air.
"Ready, dear?" asked Uriah. Alea grinned back at him and nodded. As one they pushed him into a little cave. He slammed against a rock wall. Beams of crackling energy formed parallel, prison-like bars across the mouth of the cavern a split second before he would have run out.
Looking a little peaked, Alea turned to Paul. "Now, who are you? I take it this was my sister's doings."
Paul shot a glance at the furious Atticus and then began to regale his tale to Alea and Uriah. "My name's Paul. Paul Yale. Apparently your sister needed my best friend to go to the mansion and save it or something. So, she sent George to possess me so he could tell my friend Leila, and I got swapped with him."
"Well," said Uriah, "this is the first time I've ever heard of a human possessing a ghost." There was a hint of a smile on his lips.
From his cell, Atticus screamed in frustration. "She was stalling! That witch was just buying time!" He punched a wall and bits of gravel rained down. "I should have known!" To his captors he turned a pleading stare. "Tell me," he beseeched, "where is the sword hidden?"
"Somewhere where you'll never find it, you fiend!" Uriah cried. Turning back to Alea, he asked in a hushed tone, "where is it hidden?"
Alea shrugged. "It was originally in the attic, with the rest of the objects George's father had collected. But Leota was supposed to move it somewhere else. But, I don't know if she got the chance to before--" Tears filled her eyes. "Who knows? During the battle, it could have accidently been sent anywhere, be it a new geographic location or a different time period."
"What does it do, anyway?" asked Paul. "I mean, I know a sword's a weapon, but other than that..." he trailed off.
"It can be used by only a chosen few," explained Uriah in a mystical voice. "Those that could destroy the evil, and the evil itself. The power of whomever wields it will increase a hundred fold."
"So, it's only for wizards and the like?"
Alea shook her head. "It's a rarity, but a few... normal mortals, I suppose you could say, have been chosen as the keeper of the blade. Master Gracey's father was one. He was murdered by his wife before it could be of any use to him. And the next--"
"Would be George," Paul finished. "So, why would Leila be brought into the picture?" Hastily, he added, "She's a descendant of yours, by the way. Leila Toombs."
"It needs a magic jumpstart," Alea explained simply. "So it can vanquish the evil and open a portal to send it back."
Paul chuckled nervously. "I don't think Leila is magical. I mean, she can't even do that trick where it looks like your thumb comes apart."
Little Leota tuned out the rest of the conversation and cautiously approached Atticus. He almost didn't seem so frightening as he glowered behind those bars. She silently studied him. The intent stare causing him the feel unnerved, Thorn snapped, "What?"
"Why?" she asked quietly.
"Why what?"
"Why do you hate me so much?"
It was asked so matter-of-factly, so simply. There were no traces of tears, and it was not a choked whisper drowned out by sobs. Not a hint of pain or anger was in that little voice. Of course, she had given up the happy thought that maybe they could be a family. There was no love in that cold, shallow creature, she knew. But she just wanted to know what it was she had done wrong exactly.
"If it hadn't been for you, your mother never would have joined the Order of Light. She never would have left me. Because of you, you wretched child, Leota decided I wasn't good enough for her, decided that you shouldn't be brought up in the darkness that we shared!" He was so angry that he spit. Leota jumped out of the way. For a moment, he just stood there, the memories rushing through his mind like a stampeding herd of wildbeests.
Fearfully, she watched him. She was afraid of him again, even though she was dead and he was safely behind the powerful sorcery her aunt and uncle had conjured up. Green eyes glued to his hand, she waited for him to raise a fist, to hit her as he had done so many times before. She took another step back, but he did not move or flinch.
Suddenly, she saw a tiny flash of light, as if off glass. Looking up at the ceiling of the cave, she saw it again. It was a brief gleam.
"What?" demanded Atticus.
"Nothing," Little Leota quickly fibbed.
"You're a terrible liar, girl." Inspecting the rock above him, he noticed that there was a shape definitely not found naturally in a rock formation. Something long and pointed, with a "T" shaped handle, had been embedded into the ceiling. A tiny bit of the silver body shined. He grinned wickedly. How could he not have noticed it before? The tip of his pointer finger began to glow red, as if it were a hot poker. He traced the outline of the shape with his finger, melting the rock.
A sword clattered to the ground. Its handle was silver and decorated with thin gold woven into intricate Celtic knots. In the center of the largest knot, in the center of the handle, was a diamond. It had been created nearly one thousand years ago, by the first two members of the Order of Light. It was made using the five elements. Forged in fire, the sword was then cooled in a stream, and then dried in the crisp, winter air. The metal it was made with, along with the gold and silver, constituted as the fourth component. The sparkling diamond was the fifth, representing earth.
Picking it up, Atticus felt a tremor run through him, a surge of power like he had never experienced before. A shriek escaped Little Leota's lips as he sliced through the bars. The others turned. A coldness swept through Paul as the warlock laughed triumphantly. Alea and Uriah shot fearful glances at each other, but strode forward to confront Thorn. It was no use, Paul knew. They were doomed.