The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (book series for 10 year olds .TXT) 📕

ground-level take off, Alex could enjoy the experience a little more, though it was clear that Aamir wasn’t exactly thrilled by the prospect as the Thunderbird sped along the ground and took sudden, alarming flight.

“What the—!” Aamir yelped.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Alex shouted as Storm sped up to her full capacity, the world bending and stretching all around them.

Aamir still hadn’t recovered by the time they reached the turret of the keep, which seemed to be Storm’s preferred roosting spot. Clambering down, he swayed unsteadily for a moment, as if he had just stepped off a particularly turbulent boat. Alex struggled not to laugh.

“Don’t you dare say a word,” Aamir grumbled.

Alex lifted his hands. “Hey—flying isn’t for everyone.”

Making their way down the turret steps, into the body of the keep, Alex could tell instantly that his gut feeling had been right. Where before there had been silence and creepy eyes staring from between the bars of the central peepholes, now there was chaos. The prison was in utter disarray, with voices clamoring along the hallways, and the sound of people running amok bouncing from the rafters. At the bottom of the stairs, Alex grabbed Aamir and pressed him back against the wall, just as a group of particularly nasty-looking individuals sprinted past, whooping loudly, clutching homemade shivs in their hands.

Once the coast was clear of weapon-wielding criminals, the two young men broke into a run, weaving their respective energies as they did so, in order to knock aside the various miscreants who charged toward them, with menace on their minds. They encountered several on the route toward the courtyard, where Alex hoped the portal still stood. One woman, dressed in tattered rags, came howling toward the duo, spinning her arms wildly, like windmills. Alex dispensed with her, sending a blockade of ice and snow down the corridor, to knock out anyone who might try to run up.

As Alex turned around a corner, a pair of hands grabbed him, dragging him into one of the cells. He felt the cold bite of something sharp and metallic against his neck, and prayed it didn’t get the chance to slice his flesh open. It took everything he had to remain calm as he lifted his hands to the sides of his attacker’s head and pressed the strands of his anti-magic through, into the villain’s skull. Whoever the man was, he wasn’t expecting Alex’s sneak attack, and Alex made quick work of his assailant’s mind, sifting through a series of vile memories in search of just one he could put into the forefront of the man’s mind to ease the dark, violent thoughts that were prevalent there. Eventually, he did, and the attacker calmed instantly, dropping his hands to his sides before creeping away to the corner of the room to play with invisible toys on the dank floor.

Alex burst out of the cell to find Aamir also being dragged away. He hurried to catch up, and dispatched Aamir’s assailant easily, with a stealthy attack from behind. None of the criminals he had met so far had particularly nice memories to search through, and the horrifying thoughts kept returning to him, like flashbacks in a horror movie, as he made his way toward the courtyard.

Running down one of the hallways, not far from the corridor that connected the courtyard to the rest of the keep, Alex saw Vincent slumped in front of a cell door at the far end of the passageway. The necromancer looked to be in a bad state, though his hands were raised, and there were twisting whorls of black magic weaving between his fingers. Agatha was there too, though she was on her feet, fending off any intruders that sought to reach them. She was ferocious, her eyes wild, a banshee-like scream erupting from the back of her throat. It was a sound Alex had heard once before, and it chilled him to the bone. He approached with caution.

“Alex?” Ellabell’s voice distracted him. She was standing in the cell behind Vincent, peering out through the small, barred opening in the middle of the door.

Vincent smiled wearily. “Just protecting your dear love, Alex,” he said, firing off a bolt of jet-black energy that hit a sprinting attacker square in the chest, freezing him instantly. “Things have taken something of a turn.”

Alex jogged toward them, one eye cautiously assessing Agatha in case she decided to suddenly launch an attack at him instead. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to remember any former animosity toward Alex. “What happened here?” he asked.

In between shots that kept dropping assailing criminals to their knees, Vincent began to shed some light on what had been going on in Alex’s absence.

“Alypia, I’m sad to say, has managed to escape,” the necromancer said. “I went to attend to her one day, and before I could stop her, she had woven her mind control into my brain, and I was helpless to do anything but obey. I was already under her grasp when you were last here, but there was a little spark in these old bones. I had a second wind when she threatened Ellabell—I fought like a demon. Of course, by then, it was much too late—she was gone.”

Alex frowned, trying to let it all sink in. It had been his greatest fear, and it had come true. Alypia was free again, and there was no telling what devastation she could cause if they didn’t catch up with her soon and put her away again, for good.

“Do you know where she is?” Alex asked.

Vincent shook his head. “I’m afraid not, dear boy. She ran from me, and she has continued to evade me in my search. I have scoured high and low for a sign of her, but she has not been very forthcoming. Once she saw I had returned to my ordinary self, she took off. I didn’t see where.”

“Do you think she’s still in the keep?” Aamir chimed in, casting a sharp spear of golden light toward