Frost Bite

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty One

I rocked back and forth on my heals impatiently. Nym had told me not to move, but it was kind of hard to stay still when somebody was drawing a circle around you with a burning stick. Things like that tend to catch your attention.

West held a book in two hands and was murmuring some presumably dead language under his breath. Why was it always a cryptic dead language? What was wrong with English? Or if he was really set on speaking a different language, use German for God's sake. That was plenty terrifying sounding. Jack stood off to the side with a knife clenched in his hand next to Autumn, who was currently my favorite person in the room due to her lack of interest. She was checking down her shirt for whatever reason, but still.

"If you're planning to stick me in a Devil's Trap I'm gonna be pissed," I said, just to break the silence.

Nym, still bending over the almost completed circle, glared up at me. "I swear, human, one more Supernatural reference and I-"

"No way, you watch Supernatural, too?" I gaped. I didn't correct her on the human part; that just seemed like a lost cause, but how many dead serious leaders in the world would I get to meet who watched Supernatural?

"This discussion is officially over," she snapped. I made a face as she closed up the circle. West had a slight pause in his dead language chant to wink at me. Nym stepped back to admire her handiwork and brushed her hands off. "And no, for your information, this is not a pentagram, it's a Caelestia Circle, used to summon powers from the Heavens."

I crossed my arms over my chest and clacked my tongue. "Put anything in Latin and it sounds mystical, huh?"

Nym ignored me except for a flat look and walked over next to West, picking up a match and lighting it. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and my palms started to sweat, so I reduced back to my usual method of easing nerves: talking.

"For example, I could say concubitus and you would never know it means-"

"Shut up," Nym hissed as West started to laugh and the slow chanting that had been filling the room faltered for a few seconds. "This is the ritual that will allow you to become one of us. Once you take this match, there is no going back. If you pass, you pass, if you fail, you fail."

I frowned. "Nobody ever said anything about failing.... So, let's say, hypothetically, I do fail, then what, hypothetically, happens? Does the whole voodoo witch circle blow up?"

Nobody answered. I nervously caught Jack's eye and he nodded at me encouragingly. I knew this was going to be a bad day, I thought as Nym stretched out her hand holding the lit match.

"If you take this, you can't step out of the circle," she warned.

"Like, forever?"

If I wasn't in the Caelestia Circle she probably would've kicked my ass into next week. I bit my lip. This whole thing seemed completely surreal still, like it was a dream and it didn't matter what I did, because it was just a dream. But it wasn't, so it did matter. If I took the match, then I wouldn't be able to live with Noah again, or see Maisie, or probably get that recording deal I'd been hoping for all my life. But then I wondered, was it the recording I wanted, or a different life? A chance to change the way my future looked.

Slowly, I reached my hand up and took the match. The second I did, West's voice started chanting faster and a sickeningly hot wind blew my hair back from my face. An almost glass like wall seemed to shoot up around me and my eyes went wide. I ran up to it, reaching out a hand to touch it.

"No!" Jack shouted, and my hand froze, fingers millimeters from the wall.

My heart spluttered uncontrollably, making me step back. Jack leveled the knife in his hand and threw it through the wall. Its hilt sank into the middle of the wooden section I was trapped in.