Free The Dark Rising by Lacey Weatherford

his mouth.  Still he seemed unfazed.
    “ Do something, Portia!” my dad hollered.
    “Like what ?” I yelled back.
    “You’re the most powerful witch here!  Think !” he responded in frustration.
    I did the first natural thing that came to me, even though it chilled me to the bone.  I placed my hand against Vance’s back and slammed the biggest, thickest ice shard I could muster through his heart and out the front of his chest on the other side.
    He released Babs almost instantly, jerking with a gurgle and he fell to the floor, taking me with him.  The blood pooled quickly around him, but I ignored that, reaching to retrieve the two fingers on the ground.
    I moved over to where my dad was holding a sobbing Babs, his hand over the wound to try and stop the bleeding.
    “Can you fix them?” my grandma asked from over Dad’s shoulder.
    “I’ll try,” I said, really wishing all of this magic stuff could’ve come with a manual of some sort.  This trial and error was the pits.  “Give me her hand,” I added to my dad.
    I placed the amputated pieces next to the spots where they belonged, and held them there, while I let my healer’s magic flow in a white light from me into her.  The tissues around the injuries quickly began to respond, knitting her appendages back together right before our eyes.
    “Thank you,” she moaned, when I finished, sagging in relief against my dad.
    “Get them all out of here,” I said over the top of her to Grandma.  “It isn’t safe.”
    “It should be okay now,” Hal spoke up.  “He seems pretty dead to me,” he added, nodding his head toward Vance, whose entire blood volume was seeping across the floor.
    “Yeah, well looks can be deceiving,” I replied back to him.  “He won’t be dead for long, so if you value your life I suggest you leave.”
    Hal acted like he might want to argue with me for a moment.
    “He received the Awakening!” I shouted at him.  “He’s immortal!  Or did you not understand that part of everything?  You need to leave now!”
    Hal swallowed hard.  “What about you?” he asked worriedly.
    “I’m the only one here he can’t truly harm.”  I felt bad for sounding so gruff.  “Thanks for your concern, but please, all of you go now!”  I looked around at everyone.  “Leave the house and go somewhere Vance wouldn’t hunt for you.  I’ll do my best to contain him.”
    “She’s right,” my dad said.  “Everybody out!”  He turned to me.  “Be careful, Pumpkin.  None of us knows what we’re dealing with here.”
    “That’s true,” Grandma agreed.  “There’s never been a demon who has received the Awakening before.  His powers will most likely be astronomical.”
    I nodded in understanding.  “I know,” I replied, turning to glance at Vance.  “As if his powers weren’t strong enough already.”  I ran a hand through my hair before I turned back to them.  “Please go.  I have no idea how long it will be before he wakes up.”
    “Good luck, honey,” Dad said.  He put an arm around Grandma and ushered her out.
    Then I was alone.  Alone, with my demon husband that is.
    “What else can possibly go wrong?” I questioned out loud to no one, my mind unable to process everything.
    Numbly, I began picking up the scattered contents around the room, while I waited for Vance to come back to life, trying to figure out where things were going to go from here. 
    I wrapped the crystal bowl and the athames in the table cloth, carrying them over to the corner with me, where I slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
    Staring at him, I noticed his eyelids were open a little bit.  His irises still held the red filled stain.  The skin near his eyes had a reddish/black coloring which gave them a bruised appearance before it lightened as it spread out farther away. 
    His veins had turned a blackish gray, tinged with red also.  I could see them creeping up from under his collar, around his neck, and up the sides