Free Once Upon a Twist by Michelle Smart, Aimee Duffy Page B

couldn’t get past the front steps of the house. My Fairy Godmother could only break it until midnight.”
    All the undead were sprawled on the ground looking at them, stunned stupidity on their dumb faces. One, formerly a young teenage girl, got to her feet and decided to give attacking them another go. Whatever charge had careered through her on her first impact had knocked some of her strength, and it was unsteady feet that rushed at them.
    The same occurred. Approximately one foot from the bottom of the steps she hit the invisible barrier and went flying backwards, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground.
    James gave a shout of laughter. “They can’t touch us!”
    Ella tugged at his sleeve and he was able to look at her properly under the moonlight. If she’d looked disheveled the last time he’d seen her in the palace… Now, her face was ashen and flecked with blood, her dress a too-short raggedy mess, her hair resembling a damp haystack caught in the wind. She looked adorable. Even better, she looked human.
    Before he could act on his blessed relief and scoop her up into his arms, she said, “Is the enchantment trapping you?”
    He caught Jonas’s eye.
    His face expressionless, Jonas nodded then treaded cautiously to the base of the steps. There, he paused, seeming to psyche himself up before extending his left hand forwards to where the barrier should be. He met no resistance but stood back sharpish as his presence so close to the creatures’ galvanized them to try again.
    “You know what to do, men,” James said, taking his place next to Jonas.
    Who would have known Christell’s evil enchantment would turn out to be such a blessing?
    Keeping behind the invisible barrier the soldiers incited the stupid creatures, who clearly had no capacity to remember pain, to charge feebly at them. It was actually rather fun watching them fly through the air but even better to decapitate them before they could impact the invisible wall. Heads bounced around all over the place.
    Once all the creatures that surrounded them had been dispatched, he turned back to his fiancée, expecting to see gratitude and relief in her eyes.
    She had vanished.
    “Where is she?” he bellowed.
    His soldiers all turned to him, their brows furrowed in identikit fashion.
    “Ella. Where is my fiancée?”
    From behind, inside the house, came a loud smash.
    ***
    Ella stepped wordlessly into the house, sword in hand, blocking out the sounds of James and his soldiers decapitating the relentlessly stupid creatures. If James stayed within the boundaries of Christell’s enchantment, he could not be hurt.
    It was time to find Ana.
    The lantern in the reception was the only source of light. The rest of the house was in darkness. The door through to the drawing room was open. Everything appeared to be in order. Everything except the forbidding scent of iron pervading the air. And the silence. The silence was too… silent. There was not so much as a breath of noise.
    Clutching her stomach with her free hand in a futile attempt to quell the rolls of nausea in it, she moved cautiously to the open door.
    Should she proceed in the dark or go back for the light? Before she could answer that question she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the kitchen at the back of the house.
    The lantern would give her away, she reasoned.
    Attack was the best form of defense. Please let it be so, she mutely pleaded as she trod through the windowless drawing room, her eyes making frantic adjustments to counter the lack of light. She knew the house as if she’d drawn the architectural plans herself; knew where every piece of furniture and object was placed…
    Her thigh bumped into the sideboard.
    Shit.
    She reached out with her free hand to stop a rattling vase, but was too slow. Her fingers made contact just as it toppled onto its side, rolled onto the floor and smashed. Loudly.
    Shit, shit, shit.
    For a moment she stood paralyzed, her brain and body completely