All Hallows Eve

  ALL HALLOWS EVE

  Book 4

  New England Witch Chronicles Series

  By

  Chelsea Luna

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author.

  Copyright © April 2013 by Chelsea Luna (Bellingeri)

  Cover art created by Rahul Philip (http://www.rahulphilip.com)

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, please visit: http://www.chelsealunaauthor.com

  http://www.facebook.com/ChelseaLuna.Author

  Follow me on Twitter: @Chelsea_Luna_

  To my family,

  Thank you for all of your hard work.

  This one’s for you!

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep.

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  Robert Frost

  Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  I was about to be burned at the stake.

  Well, not an actual stake like they burned my witch ancestors hundreds of years ago. Let me rephrase - I was about to be burned at the old cedar tree in the Hallows.

  The wiry rope bristles dug into my skin. I pushed forward, but it was useless. I couldn’t move. The rope stretched across my body and around the tree trunk. The second rope bound my hands in front of me. I twisted my shoulders, but the ancient bark sliced against my back.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d been tied to a tree with death hanging over my head. That ridiculously irrelevant (yet true) fact didn’t help matters. The fire edged closer and spread lazily, but efficiently, like lava. Regardless of the speed, it was getting closer.

  Flames scorched the dried yellow grass. I wiggled. I shimmied. But I couldn’t loosen the rope. It was uncomfortably hot. Too hot. The fire flickered inches away, threatening to burn me to a crisp. Sweat dripped down my neck as the heat wrapped around me like a cocoon.

  There wasn’t much room to maneuver, but I flipped my palms outward. Belting out my trusty wind spell seemed like a perfect idea, but Ethan shook his head.

  The flames danced off my father’s butterscotch eyes. “You have to broaden your spells, Alexandria. You can’t always use Vieomorphis.”

  “Wind would be helpful in this situation.”

  “Please use something else and hurry. The flames are too close.”

  “Uh, I know. The soles on my sneakers are melting.”

  The suffocating heat made it hard to think. But that was the point of the exercise - pressure situations. I kicked the ground to stir up the dirt, but too many dead leaves covered the grass. The dry brittle leaves fed the fire and elevated the flames to eye-level. Dumb move.

  “You have to act or I’m putting the fire out,” Ethan said.

  “No, I can do it. Give me a second.” Thick black smoke filled my nose. The smell wouldn’t come out of my hair for days.

  “Hurry, honey.”

  Focus.

  My eyes shut and I ignored the smoke. Ignored the sharp crackling of the fire and the heat. I inhaled and imagined clean crisp air. Winter. I envisioned the snow behind my eyelids. Crisp. Cold. Snow.

  I exhaled and opened my eyes.

  The early October air plummeted. Leaves fluttered in the wind as a frigid coolness fell upon us. White puffs of breath floated from my mouth and dissipated into the flames. It was freezing, but the cold alone wouldn’t put out the fire.

  “Liam would be furious if he knew we were playing with my life like this.” I smiled at the thought of pissing Liam off.

  “Screw Liam,” Ethan said. “You’re not in any danger. It’s only practice. And you have exactly ten seconds before I put out the flames.”

  “No. I can do it.”

  The sky turned a dismal gray. Bleak giant clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. I blew into the air and thousands of snowflakes fell from the sky. It began as a beautiful cascade, but the speed increased and the snow poured to the ground. Angry wind whipped the flakes in every direction.

  Visibility was impossible. I could no longer see Ethan in the blizzard. The flames sizzled and receded. The heavy snow doused the fire at my feet until nothing remained, but steam rising from the snow.

  The storm clouds drifted away.

  “Water would’ve worked, too.” Ethan smiled.

  “I thought you wanted creativity?” I twisted at the hip and pointed my tied wrists at the rope that secured me to the old cedar tree. A tiny green fireball squirted out of my palm and disintegrated the rope to shreds. I rotated my wrists until the twine loosened and my hands were freed.

  “I’m impressed,” Ethan said.

  I rubbed my sore wrists. “I’m tired. Can we go home?”

  We’d been practicing magic - all types of magic - in various real-life scenarios throughout the hot Massachusetts’ summer and now into the early fall. Day after day. Month after month. James and Peter would join us on some days. Other days it was Ethan and me.

  Six months ago, I woke my father from a spell induced coma that was placed upon him by my Aunt Vanessa. He’d been “asleep” for seventeen years. In the short time we’d had together, I’d learned more about magic than I ever thought possible. I finally had someone in my life who knew magic and knew what it was like to live in the supernatural world. I had a mentor. An ally. I finally had help.

  And despite all of the help and magic training, it still wasn’t enough to save my life. It was October and only a tiny bit of sand remained in my hourglass. I had less than three weeks before the sacrifice.

  Twenty days to be exact.

  There was no way around it. No way to avoid it. Liam Ross, my ancient pure blooded uncle, needed to sacrifice me - the only pure blooded witch around - to extend his own immortality. The sacrifice ritual was scheduled for Halloween (a.k.a. my eighteenth birthday) when I would receive my totality of powers.

  Time was running out.

  I had one micro-mini chance of survival. But as the minutes on the clock ticked by, the chances slipped further out of my grasp. We still hadn’t found the mystery receptacle that was the only known way of defeating Liam. If I could find the object (I didn’t know what it was, only that the object was located in Salem), and if I could exorcise the spirit of Liam’s dead mother out of the receptacle and into my pure blooded body, then I might… might have enough strength to defeat Liam in a fight to the death.

  There were a lot of “ifs” and “mights” in that scenario.

  “Did I tie the rope too tight?” Ethan asked.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Ethan squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find the receptacle.”

  “I kno
w.”

  “In the meantime, there’s something I want you to do.”

  “Sure.” What did he want me to do? Ethan took my training seriously. He pushed me to the limit, time and time again. The strange request was making me nervous.

  Ethan walked to the dark green Jeep Cherokee and returned with a backpack slung over his shoulder. Okay, not so scary. However, the object tucked under his arm was scary. Terrifying, in fact. The large flat package was securely taped in an old blanket.

  A familiar blanket.

  He placed the bundle at my feet and removed items from his backpack. A bag of sea salt. An iron pipe.

  My heart sank.

  Ethan knelt down on the burnt grass littered with patches of snow from my blizzard spell. He unwound the packaging tape and unfolded the blanket. Grape vines lined each side of Grandma Claudia’s silver antique mirror with the angelic cherub faces carved into the corners.

  I hated that mirror.

  The shattered glass fit inside the frame like a jigsaw puzzle. My reflection stared at me with blood red eyes. It was the spirit - the one that killed Grandma Claudia last winter. The reflection’s face - my face - contorted into monstrous rage.

  I sucked in my breath.

  Ethan stood up. His voice was gentle. “Alexandria, I know you don’t want to do this, but I think it’s time.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. I’d been avoiding this for months. Actually, I’d been avoiding this every single day since my return from New Orleans last spring. I don’t know why exactly. It was hard to explain. It was only a spirit trapped in a mirror. I’d faced so much more over the last year. But I was terrified.

  This spirit murdered my grandmother. This spirit was pure…evil.

  “You know what to do. It’s good practice for when we find the receptacle.”

  “I know.”

  “You hate that spirit,” Ethan said. “Apparently, the spirit isn’t too happy with you, either. It’s time to get rid of it. For good.”

  “You can see it, too?”

  Ethan scratched his rough chin. “Spirits with red eyes? Yes, I can. My coma must’ve qualified as a near death experience.” He handed me the salt.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you could see them, too?”

  “They don’t matter.”

  I’d rather face another wall of flames than this spirit. But Ethan was right. It was time to get rid of it. No one else could perform the spell, except for me. If we found Liam’s receptacle, then I needed to know how to expel a spirit from an object. This was necessary, real-life practice.

  I tilted the bag and grains of pure white salt streamed to the ground. In a macabre way, it was comforting that my dad saw the red-eyed spirits, too. I didn’t feel as alone. When I’d conjured the spirit for information about my Grandma Claudia’s murder, it changed my life forever. From that point on, I was cursed with seeing red-eyed spirits. There were only two ways anyone could see a spirit - 1) if they had conjured or 2) had a near death experience. Evidently, my father and I had both routes covered.

  “I would do it for you,” Ethan said. “But my magic isn’t strong enough for this type of spell.”

  “Where will the spirit go, once I force it out?” I encircled the antique mirror in a thick layer of salt.

  “To the Other Side. The spirit can’t come back over once you’ve expelled it from the mirror. It will be banned forever.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Once I released this particular spirit, it would do anything and everything in its power to come after me. My plate was full. I had more than enough flesh and bone enemies. I didn’t need vengeful spirits after me, too.

  Ethan handed me the iron pipe. “The spirit will be stuck on the Other Side. Remember, when you recite the spell, don’t stop. Spirits are drawn to witches, even more than humans, because they want to possess the witch’s power. Pure bloods are incredibly desirable to spirits.”

  I sighed. “Lucky me.”

  “It’s okay to be afraid,” Ethan said. “As long as you keep fighting.”

  The simple phrase hit me like a ton of bricks. I placed the pipe diagonally across the fractured mirror. My reflection rammed itself against her side of the glass. Mirror shards rattled against the frame. The spirit methodically rammed its head into the glass in a psychotic rhythm. Again and again.

  I grabbed the spell that Celeste, a Voodoo priestess from southern Louisiana, had given me. The incantation would remove a spirit from people or objects. If I couldn’t drive this raving lunatic spirit from Grandma Claudia’s mirror, then we were doomed from the start. I’d need this exact spell to perform on Liam’s mystery object.

  Ethan tapped the yellowed paper. “See the last line of the incantation?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t forget, there are two variations to the spell’s ending. That line will expel the spirit to the Other Side. That’s what we want to do. The second line, see right here, that line will purge the spirit out of the mirror and into your body. That is the line we want for Liam’s receptacle. Whatever you do, don’t say that line now.”

  I blew out a mouthful of air. “No pressure.”

  The red-eyed reflection rammed the mirror. The glass rattled beneath the iron pipe. The spirit snarled at me. Savage. Raw. Primal.

  “You can do this.” Ethan stepped away from the salt circle. “I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  I lowered myself to the ground. Leaves crunched under me. The mirror clattered and the glass shook inside the frame. I smoothed the yellowed paper beside me and spread both hands over Grandma Claudia’s mirror.

  “Plinte honmaice etu lutive.”

  An unexpected jolt rocked through me. I jumped off the ground. Whoa.

  “Steady now,” Ethan whispered.

  I exhaled. Tiny sparks of energy fluttered under my skin. Every nerve in my body vibrated - this was an extremely powerful spell.

  “Chetyri ensumae jaospey exorcisum.”

  The silver gilded frame violently rumbled against the ground. A loud static buzzed through the air. A deafening white noise like someone had turned on the radio filled the space around me.

  Icy chills coursed over my skin raising every hair on my body. The static droned louder. Could Ethan hear it, too? Or was it only in my head?

  “Keep going,” Ethan said.

  “Expeltae multie sanorientum laequis.”

  A scream erupted from behind the broken glass. My red-eyed reflection faded into a vaporous black fog. The spirit reeled behind the shattered mirror. A high-pitched screech assaulted my eardrums. The static noise grew louder. Waves of energy circled the air around me. My head threatened to split in half.

  “Read the last line, Alexandria. You’re almost done.”

  The oppressive energy pushed against my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I sucked in gulps of air.

  “In victum latsos spirtae divindae sortilea.”

  The scream escalated to an ear piercing pitch and the black fog exploded out of the frame. Pieces of sharp glass cascaded to the ground. The spirit funneled like a tornado and rose higher and higher until it dissipated into the sky.

  Absolute and total silence replaced all sound. I couldn’t hear the leaves rustling or my heartbeat. I couldn’t hear anything until a blaze of blinding white light flashed in front of my eyes. My vision tilted and I fell face first into the soggy ground.

  “Alexandria? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Ethan flipped me over.

  I moaned.

  “Are you okay? What hurts?”

  “My head. It’s splitting.”

  Ethan rubbed my temples. “It’s your body’s reaction to coping with the amount of magic you exerted. You did it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the pounding in my brain. “The spirit went to the Other Side?”

  “It did.”

  I slowly sat up. My limbs were vibrating and the beginnings of a massive migraine were apparent. My mouth felt like it had swallowed a tru
ck full of cotton.

  “Do you want to see for yourself?” Ethan pushed the silver frame toward me.

  My chest tightened, but I glanced into the broken glass. My own distorted reflection stared back at me.

  I did it. I’d exorcised the spirit out of the mirror.

  “Can you stand? We should head home. You’re mother and James will be worried.”

  Ethan lifted me to my feet and led me to the Jeep. We’d been gone for most of the day and Emma and James would be worried about us. I left my cell phone in my car to avoid distractions and Ethan didn’t own one.

  My dad was slowly adjusting to modern day amenities. He didn’t care for the idea of a cell phone. He thought the idea was “preposterous,” along with most advances in electronics that the world had seen in the last seventeen years. Computers. IPods. The internet. Cell phones. He wanted nothing to do with any of it.

  Needless to say, James and Emma would be worried.

  Especially James. He still lived with us despite the fact that technically, he was no longer a minor (he turned eighteen in May). James came from the prestigious line of Van Curen hunters from the Gamma Omicron Delta witch hunting fraternity. Currently, James adorned the top of every witch hunters’ hit list because of his refusal to join Gamma and his association with me - the forbidden pure blooded witch. He was considered a traitor by hunters and there was a significant bounty on his head.

  Fortunately, I had an Il Gaurdenarium spell on my house, which was a kind of home alarm system for witches. No one with ill intentions could cross the threshold. James was safe as long as he lived with us.

  I slid into the passenger seat and fastened my seatbelt. My body felt like it had been hit by a Mack Truck. We drove through a trail in the woods that emptied into the Hallows Country Club parking lot.

  “You did a fantastic job back there. Once we find Liam’s object, you’ll be able to pull Lara’s spirit out of the receptacle without any problem.”

  I rubbed my temples. Everyone’s optimism about finding the receptacle was annoying, especially when my head was splitting in half.