The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 Bella Forrest (best books to read now txt) 📖

life wasn’t enough of a reason to stop the spell, not when there were hundreds out there, at risk while the Great Evil continued to exist.

Maneuvering the skeletal man, Alex managed to get him to his feet, walking him slowly back toward the edge of the pit. The stench of the room had eased slightly, as Alex had become accustomed to it, but sometimes a fresh wave caught him unawares, making bile rise in his throat. This was one of those moments, though he recovered quickly. Natalie ran up with the book and the vial, and held them out, just as Alex had done before. He thanked her, before placing the Head’s palm flat on the open page. For a long time, the page remained nothing but paper. Then, just as Alex was about to give up hope, a glow surged from within, growing brighter with each second, until it shone with ferocious luminescence around Virgil’s hand, the golden words rising up into the air once more.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, though he hoped this didn’t mean they were on attempt number three. Virgil had never swallowed the blood, or even so much as lifted it to his lips, which gave Alex the tentative belief that it may have opened a loophole through which they could remain on that second try. The only problem was, he had a feeling they couldn’t simply pick up where they’d left off, with Virgil just drinking the blood. The book had dropped, the hovering words vanishing from the pit, which led Alex to believe they would have to begin again, to ensure the spell was done in its entirety. Whether his inkling was right, he guessed they’d see soon enough.

Closing his eyes, Alex followed the familiar motions of mind control, hearing Virgil’s voice reciting the words he was thinking. Each stanza danced in the air in front of them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… and, finally, twelve came and went, without a hiccup. Though Alex didn’t dare feel even a hint of confidence, there was something different about this try—it felt smoother, somehow, almost like it was going better than last time. Not that he’d say such a thing out loud.

Finishing the twelfth stanza, Alex felt excitement bubble up inside him. He lifted the vial, which Natalie had graciously un-stoppered, and forced the last words from Virgil’s mouth.

“With the blood of my enemies, I close the circle of pain.”

Making Virgil take the vial from him, Alex fed instructions into the Head’s brain, forcing him to lift the vial to his lips, pour the liquid in, and swallow the thick substance. He did so, following the puppeteer, though a scarlet smear stained the Head’s bottom lip as he removed the vial and handed it back to Natalie, as per Alex’s mental instructions.

With that, Alex released Virgil from the clutches of the mind control, lowering him carefully to the ground. He groaned, coming around much quicker than the last time.

“What have you done?” he croaked.

“What I had to,” said Alex, glancing down at the man on the floor. However, he quickly realized there was something wrong with the image before him. Everything felt as if it had gone well, but nothing seemed to have changed. No pits were caving in; no walls were crumbling. And, most notably of all, Virgil wasn’t dead. If the spell had gone as it was supposed to, the Head wouldn’t be sitting up, calling Alex all the names under the sun.

Curious, Alex stepped right up to the edge of the pit to peer down into the darkness below. Was the second attempt a dud? If they used the right blood but got everything else wrong, did that mean the mist stayed below? So far, nothing seemed to be rising from the cavernous depths. He peered closer, trying to remember whether the mist had already reared its ugly head by this point, the last time they tried it. He simply couldn’t remember.

A sudden, violent tremor shook the ground, sending Alex lurching forward. With the gaping mouth of the pit staring him full in the face, he knew he had been too close to the edge. His feet were no longer touching solid ground. In slow motion, he felt himself begin to tumble into the darkness, only to be snatched back at the very last moment, his body jolting upward, his neck snapping back. Virgil had taken hold of his t-shirt, while a gleaming rope of anti-magic twisted around Alex’s chest, rapidly conjured from the Head’s hands, allowing the skeletal man to pull Alex back over the edge of the pit, to safety. Natalie rushed to the pit’s lip to grasp at Alex’s flailing arm. Together, Virgil and Natalie managed to retrieve him from the edge of certain death, and for that he was eternally grateful.

“It went wrong again!” Virgil gasped, as another tremor tore through the earth below them.

“No—” Alex yelled, his words muffled by the roar of the earthquake below.

“As I was doing it, I knew something was wrong!” Virgil explained quickly, shouting over the din. “Something was missing—it was missing last time, and it was missing this time. What you said before, about the witness, it got me thinking…” he added, one eye constantly on the pit. “But right now, we need to get out of here!”

The noise of the quake was growing louder and louder, making Alex feel like his eardrums were about to burst. It was almost like pressure was building, deep below them, as something prepared to erupt.

Alex nodded, shoving Natalie toward the door, throwing the book and the vial to her. Given her wholly magical being, he knew the mist would go for her first, if that was what was building beneath the earth. As she reached for the handle, turning it and yanking the door open, a geyser of silver mist shot up through the crevasse, moving faster than anything Alex had seen before. This version of the