The Fall of Witchcraft

by Claudia Silva

“Ms. Palmer?” Behind her, she recognized the voice of Jacob Anders. Victoria took a deep breath and gathered all the energy she had left to look like she wasn’t falling apart. Before turning around to face the lawyer, she dried her tears with the back of her hands.

  “Yes, Mr. Anders, how can I be of service?”

  Victoria could see the shock in his expression when he saw her face. No doubt he deduced how she was feeling. No doubt he understood he was looking at a failed leader.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he continued, “but we learned new information and we need your advice.”

  She doubted she could help them. She doubted she could help anyone. “What is it, Mr. Anders?” she asked.

  “Agent Sawyers just called. It seems she found a child in Emilia Black’s home. She says Ms. Porter may not know she was there. She thinks she may not know she exists. Do you know this child, Ms. Palmer?”

  Of course, she knew. “Crystal Black.”

  “Right,” Jake Anders hesitated, not sure how to proceed.

  Victoria left her sadness when she understood what she was being asked. “She’s a telekinetic,” Victoria stood up. “She is twelve years old. Powerful, from what Emilia told me. She was hiding her from the world, you see.”

  “Why?”

  Victoria continued. For the first time, she saw hope. “Emilia’s blood is powerful. We never understood why, but… Her daughter died in a freak accident, so did her granddaughter. Crystal Black is her great-great-granddaughter, like her mother and grandmother before her, she has displayed a level of magic beyond what any other witch has been able to reach.”

  “Well,” Jake said, “it seems Emilia Black gave little Crystal Black all of her powers back. Along with much more.”

  “What do you mean?” Victoria’s eyes grew big.

  Jack shrugged. “Rebecca, er, agent Sawyer, says…”

  “What has happened to Crystal Black?” she urged him to reveal more information.

  “I’m not sure I understand how it all works, but it seems Emilia Black took all magical powers from every minor in the country, like, everyone who had displayed magical ability, and she gave them all to Crystal.”

  The power. Few witches ever held so much power. And now all this power belonged to a twelve-year-old girl.

  “We must protect Crystal,” she stated. “We mustn’t let Lily know she lives. She is in terrible danger.”

  “So, Lily doesn’t know Emilia Black had a child living with her at all? She didn’t know about her family’s potential? About her family’s history?”

  “No. I don’t think she does, and we must keep it that way,” Victoria said. “Where is the child now? We must take her far away from here. Hide her. Keep her safe. Where is she?”

  “Uhm,” Jake Anders rubbed the back of his neck, “she is eight floors below us, I think?”

  “What?” Her eyes almost popped out of her sockets. “Tell agent Sawyer to get her out of here. This building will explode in a few minutes!” She was desperate, “Please, don’t you see? She is our only hope!”

  October 20th, 2000

  1:12 P.M.

  Rebecca spent the last ten minutes talking with Lucius about the events happening at the Crimson building. She reported about the werewolf who had escaped, the witches who had died, and what Crystal told her about how she was meant to save the day - if she could figure out how to do it.

  After her monologue, all the director had stressed about was to keep Crystal safe and to bring her back to the agency after it was all over, regardless of the outcome. No mention of Dylan and the others, no mention of the bomb. Just Crystal Black. Rebecca felt betrayed, in a way. Wasn’t Lucius fond of Dylan? As she understood, Dylan was turned into a vampire by one of the few vampires Lucius himself had made. In her short time at the agency, she had perceived that Lucius saw Dylan as his grandson - like family. Then, why the disinterest in him now? Unless it was Lucius’s way to cope with the coming loss. That could be a reason.

  Dylan wasn’t dead yet, Rebecca thought. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Maybe Lucius believed if a clairvoyant as powerful as Emilia Black hadn't seen Dylan die, then he shouldn't worry.

  Back on the building's lobby, Crystal was back to her old games twirling around in the receptionist chair. Around them, the police kept trying to find the bomb. They had freaked out after they realized there was no way to access the eighth-floor offices, but they somehow looked calm about it. At least, for now.

  “The weirdest thing, agent Sawyer,” an officer in his forties had come up to say after they all realized who she was. “We get there using the emergency stairs and can see the door, but… but, I’ll be damned if we can’t reach the doorknob. I mean, we see the door, right? But there’s a… thing, like a force, stopping us from reaching it. Any idea why?”

  Rebecca shrugged while shaking her head pretending she had no idea how any of that could be possible. After coming back from confronting the werewolf, she ordered them to search for the bomb instead of trying to rescue the people on the eighth floor.

  Watching Crystal in her endless game of going around in circles, she tried to solve a problem that may not be hers to solve. The carefree Crystal played while the lives of a dozen people rested in her young hands. How could she be playing at a time like this? She's just a child, Rebecca reconsidered. She shouldn’t blame her. Perhaps because she had no one else to blame she turned to look at the young witch. They were inside a building that was scheduled to blow up in less than an hour. Soon, they would have to evacuate, too. Would she be able to leave Dylan and the others behind?

  Why couldn’t she think of a solution?

  Rebecca felt helpless. She was starting to lose hope. What if Emilia Black had seen the wrong thing? Had everything she predicted happened as she saw it? Or, had she considered the butterfly effect? Had she considered that a small change in events could dramatically alter the future? How often had she been wrong? How many mistakes had she made while she was still alive, and would she still be alive if she had been wiser in the way she used her knowledge of the future?

  She was about to ask Crystal these questions when she heard a commotion outside.

  It was a woman. She sounded agitated, and she kept repeating one name: Jacob Anders.

  Rebecca glanced to look at Crystal before heading to open the main door to the building, curious to find out who this woman was. Outside, she spotted her in a denim overall. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was covered in paint from head to toe. All of that was not as important as what she perceived coming from under her skin. This woman was a vampire.

  “Let her in,” Rebecca ordered the two police officers trying to stop the distraught woman from entering the building. “I know her.”

  The woman locked eyes with her in understanding. They each recognized one another as members of the same species although they had never met. It didn’t take Rebecca long to find out who this vampire was. She wasn’t an agent living in the compound with her, she would have remembered seeing her walking around. She was Jake Ander's wife, Maggie. Rebecca remembered him talking about her.

  “Where is he?” Maggie didn’t waste time in making her demands known. “Where’s Jake?”

  “You're Maggie, right?”

  “I’m Margaret Anders, yes.” She said it as if the name had great meaning. As Rebecca tried to explain the situation at hand, the civilian vampire kept trying to find her way to the elevators; Rebecca blocking the way. “Please, let me through,” she said, at last.

  Only Rebecca didn’t budge. “You’re Jake Anders’s wife.”

  “Yes,” Maggie replied, annoyed she wasn't let through. “I heard there was a bomb in the building and I came as fast as I could. I can help get him out. I may not be an agent, but I’m still just like you.”

  Rebecca assumed this woman didn't really know what was going on. “Maggie, listen,” she started, “we can’t get in because there’s a magical barrier on the eighth floor. That's what's keeping us out. We c
an’t get in and they can’t get out.”

  “What?”

  Rebecca didn't know how much she should reveal to a vampire who wasn’t an agency employee. Thinking about it, she had to wonder what this woman did for a living. “You paint?”

  “I’m an artist,” her reply came quickly again. Whatever it took to get back to the problem at hand. “What barrier? And how are you going to get Jake out of there?”

  To be a vampire and just be… normal, Rebecca thought.

  There was no time to dwell on that, she had a problem to solve. At least Maggie was right about something.

  “It’s a magical barrier summoned by a very powerful witch, and-”

  “The witches have always been our allies, not our enemies,” Maggie told her as if that explained why she was wrong. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t let Jake die. I need him. He’s what’s keeping me on this Earth. He can’t die.”

  Rebecca wanted to tell her he wouldn’t. She wanted to tell her the little girl in the white dress that Maggie hadn’t noticed was the key to solving the problem. She wanted to tell her they didn't know what to do yet, but that a powerful witch had known Dylan wouldn’t die, and while Crystal hadn’t said anything about Jake, she knew if Dylan survived, so would the others.

  “We’re doing everything we can, we-” Rebecca stopped mid-sentence. It was suddenly clear to her.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked in a panic. “What’s wrong?”

  Rebecca stopped paying attention to a word Maggie was saying. Instead, she turned to look at Crystal - her main power had been telekinesis. The one power she was used to, the one they had trained her for was telekinesis. Wasn’t a magical barrier a telekinetic field? Could there be a way to break a telekinetic field with another telekinetic field?

  It was a long shot. Besides, Carolina Peterson had been a telekinetic, and she'd died trapped in that building.

  Although, she’d been the first one to die. She’d been the first one Lily’d killed. Could it have been because she posed the greatest threat to her? Could she have tried to break the force field herself if given enough time? Witches rarely fought against each other. Perhaps they didn't know how to defend against their own powers.

  Like reading her thoughts, Crystal stopped spinning. Her blue eyes stopped on Rebecca’s.

  What if Caroline had tried, but she had lacked the accumulated power Lily owned? Perhaps someone like Crystal, who had absorbed the power of all the young witches after Emilia had given it to her… Was Crystal the only witch powerful enough to break through a powerful telekinetic field like the one Lily had cast?

  “Agent Sawyer.” The officer in charge, who she remembered to call Officer Harris, approached her. Rebecca turned her attention on him, ready to listen. “We’ve found the bomb.”

  Rebecca could feel Maggie and Crystal behind them listening, she could hear their hearts quickening. Hers beat faster, too. “I'm glad to hear it. Can we disarm it?”

  “Negative,” the officer said, pursing his lips. “We can’t even seem to touch it. It’s…” he tried to look for the right words. “It’s inside some sort of energy field. I don’t know if it’s magnetic or how they’re doing it, but I assume it’s similar to the one keeping the hostages trapped on the eighth floor.”

  Rebecca understood. The werewolves wouldn’t make their bomb available to a bomb squad. Why would they? She had long understood they were more organized than Dylan had originally suspected. And the mastermind behind it all, the werewolf called The One, had the most powerful witch on his side. Whatever his plans, he'd proven to be very persuasive with the other werewolves. Will said he was a United States Senator, and politicians had a way with people.

  “Good job, officer,” Rebecca said before anything else. “Where is the bomb?” she asked. “Anything else you can tell me about it?”

  The officer nodded, he was nervous and sweat ran down his neck. There was a bomb in the building he was standing on, he was right to be scared. “It’s on the second floor, which means the entire building may come down when it blows.”

  “And when is that?”

  Promptly, he looked at his watch, which Rebecca assumed was now synchronized with the bomb’s timer. “We don’t have long. Forty-one minutes. Set to go off at two o’clock. I suggest we clear the lobby and make sure everyone is a safe distance away from the building. Including you.”

  “But, Jake! I-” Maggie interrupted.

  Rebecca stopped her with a look. “Get everybody out of here, Officer Harris. Take Mrs. Anders with you.”

  “No,” she started. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m going to-”

  “Maggie?” Rebecca said to her face. “I have an idea, and if it’s going to work, I’m going to need everybody out of this building.”

  “What idea? I don’t even know who you are?”

  Rebecca tried to sound collected when she turned back to Officer Harris. “Please escort her out the building, officer. She shouldn’t be here.”

  “You can’t do that,” Maggie began, yet she let herself be walked out of the building.

  “We aren’t leaving, are we?” Rebecca heard Crystal say behind her.

  “No, because I do have an idea,” Rebecca told her. “And we don’t have a lot of time to see if it'll work at all.”

  “You know what I need to do?”

  “Yes,” she stated with confidence. “Do you know how to create a protective magical barrier around you?”

  It didn’t take Crystal long to answer. “Yes?”

  “Great,” she exclaimed. “I need to make a call and then we’ll be on our way.”

  October 20th, 2000

  1:23 P.M.

  The first thing Rebecca did was set up a timer on her watch ticking down to two o’clock. That meant she had about a half hour to get everybody out of the building and to a safe distance before the bomb exploded. By everybody, she meant the police officers and everyone else trapped on the eighth floor.

  Once she made sure the officers were following her orders and were evacuating the building, she dialed the number that gave her direct access to Dylan Torrence.

  “Becca?” It wasn’t Dylan on the other end of the line, it was Jake. For a moment, Rebecca considered telling him she had met his wife. She considered telling him she had traveled all the way there to help get him out. She wanted to tell him how he should be grateful he had someone who worried about him and who loved him; she wanted to tell him how lucky he was. If there'd been more time, she would have.

  “Is Dylan there?” she asked him.

  The lawyer wasted no time with formalities, either. Rebecca heard the phone move from one side to the other, she heard Jake calling for her partner and then heard the steps that signaled Dylan was getting closer to picking up the phone. When there was little time, everything seemed to take twice as long.

  “Yes?” Dylan answered.

  “The bomb is set to blow up at two o’clock,” she stated just as she heard him speak. “I think I can get you out of there.”

  “That doesn’t give us much time,” Dylan said. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going up there,” Rebecca sighed.

  “What? No, don’t come up here. Send someone, don’t you see that-”

  “There is no someone,” Rebecca stressed. “Look out the window. I’m evacuating everyone right now. Everyone except Crystal and I. We're going up there and I think the elevator will be faster, so wait for us.”

  “The elevator? No, Becca, wait-”

  She hung up the phone. Time was of the essence. Every word she spoke made them lose valuable time they needed.

  “Are you ready?” Rebecca turned to look at Crystal.

  “What am I going to do, exactly?” she asked after jumping out of the chair and watching as everyone else left the building except for the two of them. For a moment, Rebecca thought Crystal would lose it. She thought she would explode into tears of panic. Except Crystal didn’t do any of those things. She patie
ntly waited for instructions, trusting the outcome her great-great-grandmother predicted would come to pass.

  “You'll create a magical barrier for us,” Rebecca answered. A few minutes earlier she'd reasoned if they meant her to come up with a solution, then her solution should work.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  Rebecca offered her hand and Crystal took it. Together, they entered the elevator that waited for them. Pressing the number eight, they stood in silence until the elevator doors closed and opened again in front of the magical barrier keeping everybody trapped on the eighth floor.

  Dylan and Will were both standing in front of the elevator ready to receive them. Rebecca gave a step closer to the threshold, finding the invisible wall blocking her way. With her hands, she tried to find a way in, but couldn’t. It was amazing; she had never attempted to breach a magical barrier before and she could understand the officer’s confusion when reporting how their hands couldn’t go through what seemed like an open space.

  “Hey,” Will was the first to speak. “We meet again.”

  Rebecca offered a quick nod and a weak smile while watching Dylan lowered his head to stare at the petite girl standing next to her. “Is that her?”

  Rebecca nodded, “This is Crystal.”

  A huge smile appeared on Crystal’s face as she looked at Dylan for the first time. “I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she said.

  All Dylan did was nod his head once, acknowledging her words. Turning to face Rebecca, he wondered. “How will you get us out of here?”

  Rebecca took a deep breath before turning to kneel in front of Crystal. Taking her shoulders with both hands, she looked her in the eye and asked, “I think you can break Lily’s barrier with your own magical barrier. Can you try to do that?”

  Crystal looked like that was the last thing she expected to hear from Rebecca. For a moment, it seemed she knew it was an impossible thing she was being asked to do, and she didn’t want to let everyone down. Yet, when she gave a step back, she took a deep breath while raising her right hand to touch the barrier. To everyone’s surprise, her hand didn’t seem to have any difficulty crossing to the other side. Giving a step forward, she kept walking until she was outside of the elevator and on the eighth floor.