by T. S. Bishop
He went and joined Noah and Adrian, who looked a lot less like punks with weaponry and much more like soldiers. Like my Bloodsworn.
I was concentrating on making sure they didn’t run out of magic, but I was also in each one of them simultaneously, which was…weird.
I could feel Noah’s quick heartbeat as he aimed a bolt of power that sent the demon scurrying back, and Adrian’s triumph as he scorched the demon’s skin with a neatly aimed fireball. And Dominic was electric as he teased her with a spray of ice and then a thin rope of fire, frustrating her into breaking through the cage.
Which she finally did, with an angry roar that sent my hair flying back.
“We just need to wear her down!” Noah yelled, taking out the little metal tin that we were going to use to trap her. I looked at the tin doubtfully. It was a tiny thing, barely the size of my palm. How the heck was it supposed to hold this big, angry demon?
“Shit!” Noah said, as the demon lunged towards him, mouth open and extending a tongue that was four feet long and made of fire.
He darted to the left but lost the tin, sending it skidding to the side.
“Guys,” I said urgently, “The catcher!”
“I’ll get it. Adrian, watch my back,” Dominic called, running to where he thought it had fallen.
I made my hand into a fist and sent a pulse of energy at it. It cringed away, screaming.
“Do that again!” Adrian said.
“I don’t know what I’m doing though!” I said, “Don’t get in between us,” I told Noah sharply when he tried to attack it from a different angle.
Under the combined attacks from the three of us, the demon retreated, but something was wrong. It wasn’t cowering from fear or giving up. Instead, its skin started to bubble and boil. It became frothy, and its skin warped and mutated.
“Guys, something’s happening,” I warned.
“Oh no,” Noah said fearfully, “This isn’t good. It’s evolving!”
“We weren’t fast enough,” Adrian said grimly, “All right, let’s—“
But he was cut off. The demon had grown another, grotesque arm with claws instead of fingers. The arm was the size and length of a car. It shot forward, faster than the eye could see, and grabbed the person nearest to it—which was Adrian.
“Adrian!” I screamed, as he was tossed onto a car like a ragdoll. “Get out of the way, Noah,” I added, seeing a second arm growing on its other side.
“Are you okay?” I called to Adrian, who was feebly stirring.
“We have to hold her off!” Noah yelled, narrowly avoiding its searching hand and sending a searing line of electricity into its body. But it barely reacted, and since Noah had stopped moving to cast the attack, it was able to get ahold of him.
“Watch out!” I said, a split second too late, as she grabbed him roughly and slapped him into the wall.
I heard the crack of bone.
I heard Noah scream.
And I saw red.
I was angry. So, so angry. The magic began to rise from my skin, enveloping me in a thick glow. I heard Dominic shout something, but I ignored him. I knew that this wouldn’t last long, and I needed to focus all this power on my target.
“Get away from them,” I said, in a voice I didn’t recognize.
The demon finally took notice of me. She cocked her head to the side and bounded toward me on all fours.
“What are you doing here, cousin?” she asked, unfazed by my power and my evident anger, “You seek to capture me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snarled, “But you hurt my friends, so I’m going to take you down.”
“They attacked me first!” the demon said, drawing herself up and looking offended, “They trapped me in that nasty cell!”
“Because you eat people!” I returned angrily. I stretched my arm out, gathering all my power in the palm of my hand.
“Dominic, do you have it?” I called.
“It’s here,” Dominic said, and I saw a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.
“No, don’t—“ the demon began, and I aimed all my power at her.
‘Contain her’, I thought forcefully.
There was a blast of bright light. It blinded me, and I heard Dominic yell in pain. I didn’t close my eyes, even though the light seared them. It enveloped the demon in a bright sphere. I could see her struggling to get out, but she couldn’t. The sphere stretched and grew with her struggle but didn’t break.
Keeping an eye on the trapped demon, I picked up the open tin and threw it at the sphere.
They rotated in the air for a mesmerizing moment, floating peacefully, and then with a bang like a gun going off, the sphere disappeared and the tin fell to the ground, innocent and unmoving.
“Did it work?”
I carefully crept to the tin and reached out an arm to pick it up. It was heavy in my hand, far heavier than it had been before. Something rattled inside it angrily.
“I think so,” I said, tucking the tin into the pocket of my jacket.
I looked at Dominic, whose face was pale under the streetlights. We both started laughing at the same time, quiet chuckles that turned into full-blown guffaws. In a moment, I was bent down, clutching my stomach and trying not to fall over.
“Guys?” came Adrian’s voice, sounding confused.
We turned at once. Adrian seemed to have recovered from being thrown onto a car, and he was limping towards us, clutching his ribs but otherwise fine. Then I remembered.
“Oh god, Noah!”
I rushed over to Noah, who hadn’t moved from where he had fallen after being slammed against the wall. He stirred slightly when I called his name, and cracked his eyes open, to my relief.
Dominic came up next to me. “How d’you feel, buddy?” he asked Noah gently.
“Hurts,” Noah said, blinking confusedly up at us, “Are you an angel?” he asked me blurrily.
“Must be concussed,” Adrian said.
“Very funny,” I said, “We need to get him to medical. Can you stand, Noah?”
“Uh, can a witch breathe underwater?” he asked sarcastically.
“Um…no?” I guessed.
“That was rhetorical,” Dominic muttered, ‘Witches actually can breathe underwater, for future reference.”
“Ooh, handy,” I said. “So, if he’s able to spout random facts and stuff does that mean he’s going to be okay?”
“Noah’s tough,” Adrian said, as we walked—and in Adrian’s case limped, in Noah’s case was basically carried by Dominic—to the car, “And we have Adele on the case.”
“She’s scary,” I heard Noah said.
“She scares us all, buddy,” Dominic said reassuringly, “And she’s not going to be mad at you. We’re the ones who’ll be yelled at for letting you get hurt.”
“’M a big boy,” Noah slurred, closing his eyes.
I poked him sharply in the shoulder. His eyes snapped open and he sent me a betrayed look.
“Sorry,” I said, without remorse, “If you have a concussion we can’t let you fall asleep.”
We all fell into the car in various states of exhaustion.
I must have been the only one feeling anywhere close to all right. Dominic was limping again, I could feel the flare of continuous pain nudging at me through the bond, and Noah definitely had a cracked rib at the least, Adrian was looking a bit bruised and battered as well.
But at least we were alive, and we had completed the mission without incident.
I was noticing that it was getting hard for me to keep my eyes open. My head fell back against the headrest. It was really comfortable. And my head felt like it was made of lead. I couldn’t move it, even when Dominic called my name.
And then Adrian called my name, sounding worried.
I closed my eyes and let the blackness take me.
Chapter 19
I woke up and immediately winced. I had the mother of all headaches.
“Look, she’s awake
!”
“We gotta stop meeting like this,” I said fuzzily, blinking my eyes open to see Dominic and Adrian sprawled on the uncomfortable medical wing chairs.
“Hey, neighbor.”
I turned to the right and Noah was on the next bed over, grinning at me.
“You’re okay then?”
“Totally fine,” he said, shifting a little. He immediately winced and clutched at his ribs.
“He’s a bad liar,” Adrian said, rolling his eyes. “He’s not fine yet, but he will be.”
“Did you get the catcher to the Council?”
“Yep,” Dominic said, “They’ve put it in storage, along with all the other demons the Sanctum’s trapped over the years.”
“I’m glad that worked out, at least,” I said. “What happened to me, anyway?
“Magic overload, Adele says,” Dominic said, rubbing his temple. I noticed that he did that whenever he was stressed out or worried.
“Does it happen to witches a lot?”
“That’s the thing,” Noah said, his forehead wrinkling, “There haven’t been too many recorded cases of it happening.”
“But there are some?”
“Adelina Temple from Exeter is the most famous known example,” he said. “She was adopted by a family of strict Catholics back in 1897. They still burnt witches back then. Not that they caught many genuine ones. But little Addie started talking about seeing ghosts and talking to fairies and they gave her up to the village Council as a witch.”
“Her own family?” I said, horrified.
“Oh yeah,” Noah nodded, “Loads of families gave up their daughters and wives and mothers back then out of fear. But anyway, she was thirteen when she was tried in the village square and sentenced to burning. And then before she was set on fire, something odd happened—everyone in the square started screaming. They were all enveloped in a bright blue light, and they couldn’t be seen.”
“Then what happened?” Adrian asked, fascinated.
“No one knows,” Noah said simply, “The girl who saw it was six years old, spying from a rooftop. She was too traumatized to say anymore. And they never found the bodies of any of the villagers—only ash.”
“And Adelina?”
“She escaped, and turns up later on. She started conducting raids on villages that were keeping witches imprisoned, and kidnapping village heads for ransom. They started calling her the Renegade Witch.”
“That’s awesome,” I said, hugging my knees. “So you think what happened to me was the same as what happened to Adelina?”
“And a handful of other witches. And yes, I do. There are some striking similarities—the fact that you were both untrained, young, under immense stress and your lives were in danger. It does seem like an atypical reaction, but we got extremely lucky I guess.”
“Adelina…” Dominic said reflectively, “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“She changed her name,” Noah said, looking mischievous suddenly, “She started calling herself Vindicta the Wrathful.”
“Awesome name,” Adrian commented.
“Wait a second—“ I said, bolting upright, “Didn’t she—wasn’t she the one who founded the Chicago Sanctum?”
“You stole my thunder,” said Noah, disappointed, “But yes, as a matter of fact. She happened to be the founder of the very first Sanctum in the USA.”
“Whoa!”
“You can see her portrait in the ballroom,” Noah said, “And she likes to keep it quiet, but you know that her great-great-great-great granddaughter works in the Sanctum right now, don’t you?”
“Oh my god,” the three of us said, looking at each other, “It can’t be--?”
“Enough with the chatter!” Adele said, poking her head through the door and giving Dominic and Adrian stern looks, “Vising hours are over in five minutes. I better not catch you lurking around here after,” she said threateningly, and left.
“Not Adele!” Adrian said in disbelief.
“Why not?” I said, raising my eyebrow, “Just because she scares you—“
“—does not!”
“Oh, real mature.”
“Get a room, you two.”
I huffed exasperated and looked away.
“Have a cookie,” Noah said hastily, tossing me a bag to break the awkward silence.
I looked down the bag. It had a note stuck to the top, and said ‘Get well soon, Nosey! Xoxo The Fischer clan’.
“This is so cute,” I said, tracing the edge of the childish teddy bear drawing that someone had drawn under the note, “Did your sister do this?”
“Yes,” Noah said, blushing a little, “One of them, anyway.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Don’t be, there’s just so many of us. It’s exhausting. Also, if my mom ever met you, she’d adopt you immediately so you should probably try to stay out of her way.”
“His mom is great,” Dominic told me in confidential tones, “They invite me over every Thanksgiving.”
“She makes the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted in my life. And Noah’s sisters are amazing—and scary,” Adrian added.
“How come I don’t know any of this?” I demanded, fascinated. “I feel like I know nothing about you!”
“They can be a lot,” Noah said, fiddling with his sheets, “I didn’t them to—sometimes they bring my baby pictures when they meet my friends,” he confessed.
“Aww!” I said, as Dominic and Adrian burst into laughter.
“My sister’s a high level witch at the Sanctum though,” he added, ignoring Adrian and Dominic, “You’ll probably meet her at some point. She’s at San Francisco helping out their witches with a haunting, but she’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“I’m looking forward to it. Hey!” I added, as something else occurred to me, “Does this mean I get a promotion?”
“Adele said she’d tell you in person,” Noah began, but Dominic interrupted him.
“You’re definitely getting an enforcer badge,” he said. Adrian high-fived me.
I felt a glow of happiness. I so rarely did anything right, that this was an amazing feeling of accomplishment and pride.
“How many more level ups do I need?”
“This isn’t like a video game,” Noah said earnestly, “It takes years to get to higher levels, and most Enchantress class witches are over a hundred years old!”
“I have so many questions about what you just said. First: witches live that long?”
“The ones who don’t get killed by demons do live really long. Being a conduit for magic does that to you. How old do you think Adele is, for instance?”
“I don’t know, late twenties?”
“She’s in her sixties,” Noah said triumphantly, “Her birth certificate is stored in the Archives, I saw it myself.”
“That’s crazy,” I said, reeling, “So does that apply to you guys too?”
“No,” Adrian said, shaking his head, “For all intents and purposes, we’re human. We have regular human lifespans.”
“That’s actually the reason people voted for Nathan Ingram to lead the Sanctum four years ago,” Dominic added, “There were some…incidents that made witches at the lower levels think that Enchantress Pathfinders were growing out of touch, that their near immortality made them numb to the problems of regular people.”
“And what happened to Nathan’s witch?”
“Nobody knows,” Noah said, glancing at Dominic, “It’s a mystery. No one will say who she was, and I can’t find any records of her. I don’t know why.”
“Well that’s weird,” I said, frowning, “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you should be able to keep secret.”
“It’s perfectly legal to keep the name of your witch a secret, actually,” Noah said, “In case you’re captured, they can’t ransom you for your witch. Think about it, if Adrian was captured by someone, what would you do if they asked to exchange you for him?”
“I’d do it,” I said immediately. I di
dn’t even have to think about it. I looked at Adrian, who looked stricken.
“Exactly,” Dominic said softly, “Nobody wants their witch to make that choice.”
“I get it now,” I said, looking away. My heart sank. It was only just becoming clear what kind of dangerous world the boys and I were in.
“Speaking of danger,” Adrian said abruptly, “We’ll be sent on more missions, now that you’ll be getting your Enforcer badge.”
“I’m okay with more missions,” I said, cracking my knuckles.
“Easy there, tough guy,” Dominic said, amused.
“Don’t tell me there’s going to be a ceremony where they give me the badge though,” I said nervously, “One of those was enough.”
“There’s isn’t, although I’m sorry I didn’t get to attend the last one,” Dominic said, looking at me with lurking appreciation.
“You didn’t miss much,” I said.
“I beg to disagree,” Adrian said. “Sophie wore a very flattering dress. It was green.”
“You look very nice in green,” Noah said shyly.
“I look like a Christmas tree,” I said, grinning at him, “And you only thought it looked good because it was two sizes too small on me. My chest was almost falling out of that dress.”
“Like I said, it was very flattering,” Adrian said, pretending to leer.
Noah laughed and clutched his stomach. “I shouldn’t laugh,” he said weakly, “Hurts still. Adrian, help me up, I need to use the bathroom.”
Noah and Adrian hobbled out, leaving me and Dominic alone together.
“I need to talk to you,” Dominic said, as soon as the other two were out of earshot.
“Sure, what is it?” I asked, concerned by the seriousness of his tone.
“Do you remember, when you were fighting the demon one-on-one and it started…communicating with you?”
“Yeah,” I said, tilting my head to the side, “It was talking to me. Telling me that we didn’t need to be enemies, and all that kind of stuff. What’s wrong?”
“Sophie, that’s not possible,” Dominic said, spreading his hands helplessly. “No one can talk to demons. It’s just not been done. Ever.”
“That can’t be true. I mean, I’ve done it so other people must be able to…right?”