Free A Wizard for Christmas by Dorothy McFalls

darkness shivered through her.
    “Look,” it said and lifted its arms. As one, the congregation sighed and collapsed. A ghastly glow spread throughout the church. “I can’t tap into their power. It’s not mine to take. What has changed them?”
    “Do something, Hadrian! The soul eater is killing them! It’s killing all of them!” Holly shouted as she tried to help the woman who’d fallen beside her. “It’s not supposed to be able to take more than one soul a night!”
    “I-I don’t know what to do. It’s too powerful,” Hadrian said, even though he had lifted his hands had conjured an orb of light filled with crackling lightning. “Can’t you feel it? The soul eater is using their deaths to pull us into another dimension. One where it’s even stronger. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what Frank thought either of could do. I suppose I could.” He tossed the orb of light at the soul eater’s dark figure.
    But it opened its mouth and let out a horrible wail that shattered the orb.
    “No,” Hadrian cried. Holly watched in horror as Hadrian was lifted off his feet by an unseen power and tossed across the room. His head splintered against the marble altar. Her brave protector reached out for her and mouthed, “I love you, Holly,” as he sank to the floor.
    “No!” She ran to him, but she felt it even before she’d reached him. He was dead. Like all the others. Holly could feel the emptiness clawing at her. His soul had been ripped from his body.
    She wanted to shout at Hadrian, to beat her fists against his chest. He’d left her alone and defenseless. He’d promised to stay with her, to protect her. He’d promised to help her.
    She was alone.
    It was Christmas, and she was alone.
    Don’t leave me. “I love you Hadrian. I love you.”
    She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her tear-soaked cheek to his. She’d thought things would be different. She’d thought she’d finally found someone who could love her...who would share her life. And this...this...thing killed him.
    The soul eater grabbed her shoulder and dragged Holly to her feet. As it did so, its body shifted into another man’s body...into Hadrian’s body.
    “No!” He wasn’t Hadrian.
    The soul eater’s fingers tore into her cheeks as if trying to burrow itself deep inside her. “You’re different from the others. You taste almost...like the humans that used to feed me.” His spindly hands wrapped around her arms. His tongue flicked out of his mouth like a snake’s. “You will help me unlock the humans’ souls. You will give me the freedom I crave.”
    “Stop! Stop!” she shouted, twisting and turning and kicking at the soul eater. “No. You won’t win. I won’t let you win.”
    Holly remembered the wizard council member back at the café had said that her powers were different from the other wizards. He thought she had what it took to fight the soul eater. But they hadn’t taught her. Why hadn’t they taught her what she needed to do? Because they didn’t know how? Were her powers really that different from theirs? Why hadn’t Hadrian tried to teach her how to defend herself?
    “Keep away from me!” She threw her arms up and twisted out of the soul eater’s deadly embrace.
    “Don’t fight...you are alone. And powerless.”
    For most of her life, she’d felt that way. She’d thought if only she had a family, things would be different. Her life would be better. But today Hadrian had showed her that she could live and feel loved even though she didn’t have a picture-perfect family and didn’t live in a picture-perfect world.
    “I’ve gone through hell trying to get the perfect Christmas!” And blessed be she’d never come so close to actually enjoying a holiday. “I’ve pretended to have a family.” She tossed her beaded purse at the beast’s head. It bounced harmlessly off him.
    “Contemplated sleeping on a bench in the train station.” She grabbed a hymnal from the pew and threw that