Instantly, I fell back. It felt as if someone had just slammed a searing hot iron into my head.
I screamed as I fell against the table, my body losing all control as I tumbled onto the floor.
Mary, though she rocked back as if someone had struck her, was already down on her knees. She kept pushing the sacred knife into the book with all her might.
I was way beyond asking what the hell was happening now. For the answer was clear. Mary McLane was trying to destroy the contract. That blinding pain in the center of my head grew worse and worse until I swore someone was trying to sear through my brains with a hot iron. That, however, was absolutely nothing compared to what was happening to Mary. Blood was actually dripping down from the wound in her brow. It looked as if she’d turned the knife on herself and tried to carve her brains out.
Sarah had told me destroying the contract would probably kill Max, so I hoped like hell Mary knew what she was doing.
The wind now roared so loudly, I swore it sounded like there was some creature, some awful monster trapped in it. One baying to get out.
For the first time since Mary had stabbed the contract, McCain began to move. The movements weren’t conscious, however. Hell no. Instead, in a gruesome display like a puppet being jerked around by a frantic hand, his body began to convulse. First, it was his arms, then his legs, then his torso. Soon it looked as if somebody was driving a thousand volts of electricity through his prone form.
Somehow, above the roar of the wind and the thump, thump thump of Max’s body hitting the floor, I began to hear a light whistling, hissing sound, almost as if somebody had stabbed a pipe. As the sound grew and grew, I thought my ears would burst. Just before the drums could split and my head could pop, it stopped.
Silence. A strange, floating sensation began to pick up through the center of my chest. It was one of the lightest, most memorable sensations I’d ever felt. It spread and spread until the room gave one more convulsion, almost like a hiccup. And then? Silence.
I looked down to see the book still resting before Max. Out of everything in the room, it was the only thing that hadn’t shaken.
In fact, now it was so exquisitely still it barely looked real.
That floating sensation that had drifted through me began to build until it took control of my body. My top started to flap about me, my hair becoming so light it felt like clouds drifting around my face. I looked over to see the same thing was happening to Mary. Her crinkly red hair trickled around her face in waves.
Max’s prone form gave one more almighty convulsion until he lay still.
Then?
The book disappeared. First, the writing drifted off the page, one word after another, the characters swimming through the air like motes of dust on the wind. As the words circled around the room, they were caught by the almighty wind, and with a gust, they were pushed back into McCain. With one more violent seizure, suddenly, he lay completely still. Before my confused heart could give a violent thump at the possibility he was dead, his lips parted open, and his comatose body let out a rattling gasp.
Once the words had pulled themselves off the page, the pages themselves started to pull apart from the book until it tore itself completely in two. The pages and binding didn’t drift back into McCain. They seemed to concentrate against the point of the knife until they were sucked up into it as if it were a vacuum cleaner.
There was one more rattling thump, another echoing hiss, and then everything turned back to normal.
Abruptly, the floating spell that had caught hold of my hair and the flaps of my shirt ended. I stumbled forward in time to see Mary turn to me.
The blade was still crackling in her hand, engorged on so much magic it looked as if the metal would soon melt in a sea of sparks.
I gulped. I felt as if I would swallow the lining of my throat. “What just happened?” My voice shook.
“I have pulled your Max’s soul from the contract and put it in here.” She gestured with the knife.
I shook with relief.
“Now take this. You have to hurry, child. You have to hurry.” Her voice was a stuttering mess as she handed me the knife.
Considering what I’d seen, I paused before accepting it. But finally, I pushed out a shaking hand. As Mary pressed the still crackling blade into my palm, a jolt of nerves traveled hard down my back, telling me the blade was about to fry my hand.
… It didn’t. And yet, the power sparking off it was completely undeniable. I’d never held anything with more sheer potential. I stared down at it for a lingering moment until I tugged my head back and stared at her with wide-open, shaking eyes. “What happened?” I pulled my attention off the blade and turned my face to the still comatose McCain. His limbs were a mess about him, his head lolled hard to the side from where the spell had shaken him.
I looked back to see a truly sad smile press across Mary’s lips. “I’ve managed to destroy the contract – the contract you brought from the future. The magic McCain invested in it has returned to him.”
“You called it a diary before,” I stuttered.
“Aye,” she said as she looked me directly in the eye. “It is his diary. For McCain wrapped up more than the McLane’s
