A Grave Mistake by Leighann Dobbs Read Free Book Online

at Jolene.
    “Jo, Lookout!” Morgan tied to jump in between the rock and Jolene. The momentum caused her to crash into black beard. They tumbled to the ground and the rock smashed into a million pieces. Each of the pieces glowed a bright white, giving the appearance of a string of Christmas lights piled on the ground. Their glow winked out and the rocks disappeared. Black beard threw Morgan off and she stumbled backward, her shoulders slumping as she fell to the ground.
    “What the heck was tha—” Fiona didn’t have time to finish her sentence. Large-beard threw a glowing, white rope toward her and she had to duck out of the way to keep from getting hit. She watched in horror as the rope hit the ground, sparks flew in the air and she hopped around to avoid them.
    Beside her, Jolene hopped around, too. Her wounded hand was cradled against her chest, her face contorted in pain. Morgan was coming awake in the corner, but still looked dazed.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Fiona saw Celeste gearing up for one of her karate moves. She shot her leg up, her heel connecting with black beard’s jaw.
    Were they winning or losing?
    Fiona had no idea. She could see that red-beard was out of commission with the black goo, black beard was busy fighting off Celeste, but Morgan was slumped in a stupor and large-beard was advancing on her and Jolene.
    Fiona’s heart pounded in her chest, since Jolene was still holding her hand in pain—it was up to her to fight off large-beard. She tightened her fist against the rocks she’d picked up earlier and focused her energy on them with all her might. She thought back to what her father had always told her when she was a little girl—if you wanted something bad enough, you could make it happen if you believed .
    But did she believe?
    As a child, it seemed so simple. But now as an adult, sometimes she felt like all that magical belief had disappeared. She didn’t have much of a choice right now, though, so she flung the rocks at large-beard and jumped back.
    Fiona felt a glimmer of triumph as an ember of red glow surrounded the rocks. They hit large-beard in the chest, bounced off and fell to the ground, leaving small burn marks in his blue nylon jacket. Too bad it wasn’t enough to stop him. He merely looked down at the rocks, then back at Fiona.
    “Is that all you got?” He laughed as he lunged toward her, the rope in his hand. She backed up until the cold bricks of the wall stopped her. He raised the rope as if to slip it around her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut.
    “Leave her alone!” Jolene yelled. Fiona opened her eyes in time to see a purple ball of energy sear large-beard's forehead. He staggered backward, bumping into black beard, who had just been kicked in the jaw by Celeste for the second time.
    Jolene didn’t wait for them to recover. She thrust her fingers out, pummeling all three men with tiny energy balls.
    “Retreat!” large-beard yelled. The other two didn’t need any encouragement. They had already turned and were running back down the alley.
    Celeste rushed to Morgan, helping her up.
    “Are you okay?” Jolene asked Fiona.
    “Yes,” Fiona answered. She was fine physically, but mentally she felt like crap. Her stupid rocks hadn’t worked and she hadn't been able to do anything to defend herself or her sisters. Instead, she’d had to depend on Jolene, who was already injured. The other sisters all had defensive skills. Fiona felt like a boat anchor.
    “Are you okay?” she asked, indicating Jolene’s hand.
    “I’m fine.” Jolene held her hand up. “It’s just a little burn from the melted licorice. You can fix that up right away with one of your carnelian healing stones.”
    That cheered Fiona up. Maybe she couldn’t help fight off bad guys, but in the past, her carnelian stones had been able to speed up healing dramatically. At least she could help out with the aftermath of a paranormal encounter.
    “You guys okay?” Jolene and Fiona walked over