Witch Rising

by Paige McKenzie

  “The rally is a priority. Keeping everyone safe,” Dr. Jessup went on. “As soon as we’ve dealt with that, we’ll need to go to ShadowKnight’s mansion and take care of things there, including Penelope and—” She stopped abruptly and glanced at a new message on her phone. Her expression fell. “Oh, no!”

  “What is it?” Div asked, concerned.

  “I just got a text from Jared. This is bad… very bad.”

  Greta could feel a bright red wave of panic emanating from Callixta’s descendant. “What’s wrong?”

  “Jared says here that President Ingraham is in Seattle for an international trade conference. Apparently, he’s decided to make a surprise appearance at our New Order rally tomorrow. This will surely rile up the anti-magic crowd and attract even more haters to the rally.” Dr. Jessup took a deep breath. “And it looks as though the president has decided to move up the signing of 6-129A. It was supposed to take place at the end of the month, on the anniversary of Callixta’s death, so I thought we had a few more weeks to strategize and defeat the bill. However, he’s announced it will be happening in exactly twenty-four hours. In Sorrow Point. At the rally.”

  Greta and Div stared at each other in horror.

  “That means—” Greta began.

  “—that means that starting tomorrow, we will be in more danger than ever before. If the language in the new law is as severe as it’s rumored to be, we may be talking about the Great Witch Purge of the twenty-first century,” Dr. Jessup declared.

  “I’m calling this emergency meeting to order,” Div announced, lighting the last of the candles in the middle of the circle. “Thank you all for being here on such short notice.”

  Greta and the other witches—Iris, Ridley, Torrence, Binx, Mira, and Aysha—swiveled around to face Div. Greta hadn’t been to Div’s house in ages… not since eighth grade. Div’s bedroom was different—it used to be all pink, but now it was all white, including the plush rug on which they sat and the sheer, gauzy canopy that cascaded over the queen-size bed. Greta wondered if Prada was around; Div usually liked to keep her familiar close.

  “I still can’t believe Colt’s mom is the Descendant,” Mira murmured, turning a piece of smoky quartz over in her palm. “I mean, who could have guessed that?”

  Torrence nodded. “Right? I was just saying in my podcast that I thought it might be the president’s daughter, Karine.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  “Excuse me? You have a podcast?” Div demanded.

  “Isn’t that kind of, um, dangerous? Actually, a lot dangerous? I vote we kick him out of our coven immediately!” Iris said, raising her hand.

  “No, no… it’s not like that!” Torrence said hastily. “It’s a brand-new project. I’ve written and recorded the first episode, but literally the only one who’s heard it is my best friend back in Ocala Heights. His name is Mad Dog, and he’s a witch, too.” He added, “Someday when all this is over and witchcraft is legal again, I’ll launch it. But for now, absolutely not.”

  “You will need to clear it with your coven leader before you launch. Is that understood? Now let’s get back to business,” Div snapped. “As you’re all aware, there’s going to be a massive Antima–New Order rally tomorrow in our town, and it turns out that the president of the United States is making a last-minute guest appearance. We need a plan. Several plans. First, we need a plan to prevent violence. Second, we need a plan to stop the president from signing that law. Likely we’ll have to use magic to accomplish these things, which means that we also need a plan to evade the police and other authorities.” She turned to Binx. “Will ShadowKnight be attending the rally?”

  “And on a related note, why did you guys just leave him at his house last night?” Greta asked worriedly. “Won’t he try to escape again? What if he goes after other descendants, too?”

  “He claimed the only reason he used evanescetio at the beach was because he thought we were going to kill him. Which, to be fair, was pretty spot-on,” Binx replied, her eyes flashing. “He also claimed he’s been working on a synthetic form of heart-fire. If that’s true—and that’s a big if—he won’t need to target descendants anymore.”

  “About the rally… he said he needed to finish up his Libertas spell before the president signed that law,” Aysha added. “Not sure if he knew about the rally then… I mean, we didn’t even know about it until later, when you told us, Div… but I bet he knows now, and about the president, too.”

  Div considered this. “Did he describe what the Libertas spell does, will do, exactly?”

  Iris raised her hand again. “He said it’s a good spell and not one of his evil, apocalyptic spells. That it will help to quote-unquote ‘liberate our kind.’ He also said it’s a solo spell and not a group spell. Was he telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth, though? Maybe we should go back to his scary Scooby mystery mansion and ligibus him and interrogate him some more.”

  “No! We can’t! He promised us he’d bring back Penelope, and I don’t want anything to jeopardize that,” Ridley spoke up.

  “He wants us all to bring back Penelope, remember?” Aysha reminded her. “He specifically said that we should attempt a big group necromancy spell tomorrow at midnight. Because there’s gonna be a dark moon.”

  Mira frowned. “You mean a new moon, right, Aysh?”

  “Yeah, no, he specifically said ‘dark.’”

  “So, some witches believe the dark moon and the new moon to be one and the same, but others believe they’re different, and that the dark moon directly precedes the new moon,” Torrence explained. “A dark moon is completely invisible. A new moon can often show the faintest hint of a crescent. The dark moon is supposed to be a time of great power.”

  “Wow. I’d never heard that,” Greta murmured. Torrence was full of surprises. In the very short time she’d known him, he’d revealed himself to be quite smart about interesting and sometimes obscure corners of the magic world.

  It was strange, though. Over the weekend—at her father’s bookstore, specifically—she’d been fairly certain she was developing a crush on him. But today, those feelings were gone. Just… gone. Was she that fickle and mercurial with her affections? It was as though she’d had a love spell cast on her, then uncast. Which sounded crazy.

  But now was not the time to be thinking about her love life, such as it was.

  “Listen up. Here’s what we should do regarding the rally,” Div was saying to the circle. “Mira, you and I will stick with the Jessups, especially Dr. Jessup, so we can get as close to the main stage as possible. That’s where the president will be, and there’ll be a ton of security, obviously. Binx, can you get us a copy of the proposed new law? Dr. Jessup hasn’t seen it, but she’s heard it’s not good.”

  “On it.” Binx pulled out her phone and began pushing buttons. “Just a heads-up, anything president-related will have a bazillion fire walls, so it may take time.”

  “Understood. And let’s all brainstorm about ways we might keep him from signing it,” Div said. “Greta, Iris, Torrence, and Aysha—I need the four of you to work together to stop any harassment or violence against bystanders. Split up as necessary. Dr. Jessup will be working on that, too. And… Binx, can you contact ShadowKnight and ask him to meet you and Ridley at the rally? It would be good for the two of you to keep an eye on him.”

  Binx made a face. “Ugh, okay. I’m not sure if I can pull this off, though. He thinks I hate his guts.”

  “Pretend that you’ve forgiven him. Put on the charm,” Div suggested. “Moving on. I’m almost done developing a new and improved version of calumnia that will hopefully shield our magical activities from the crowd, including and especially the authorities. It should be ready to deploy by the time the rally starts. It, too, will be in beta mode. But we’ll have to roll with it because we’ll require every ounce of protection, every advantage, that we can garner for ourselves. We can’t take the enemy for granted. Dr. Jessup described this time as potentially being
the Great Witch Purge of the twenty-first century, and I believe it. We all need to believe it.”

  Greta hugged her knees to her chest and tried to deep-breathe through the sense of dread that Div’s words had inflicted on her. Inflicted on them all.

  Tonight was going to be another sleepless night.

  24

  LIFE, LIBERTAS, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

  The taking of a life is only justified if the Goddess wills it.

  (FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

  By three thirty on Wednesday, hundreds of New Order, Antima, or whatever they were calling themselves now, members had gathered at the park in downtown Sorrow Point, along with plenty of randoms. Adjusting his EarPods and nodding to the beat of a nonexistent song, ShadowKnight reached into his hoodie pocket—good, still there—and wondered if he should grab a quick slice before initiating the end of civilization. Ned’s had decent pizza, and so did D’Angelo’s around the corner.

  Although “end of civilization” wasn’t accurate. It was more like the end of uncivilization, the start of a real new order.

  Really, it was a major, major stroke of luck that President Ingraham had decided to make a surprise last-minute visit to the rally. Sure, it meant that downtown was now crawling with even more police officers and other security, and that it would be tricky getting anywhere near the main stage. It also meant that ShadowKnight would have to deploy Libertas before it was totally ready. The original plan had been to travel to Washington, DC, for the bill-signing ceremony on the 140th anniversary of Crowe’s death. That would have given him enough time to perfect his super-spell.

  It’s ready enough, though. It has to be.

  He glanced around, wondering if Binx or any of her witch friends were here yet. No sign of them. Last night, Binx had messaged him on their secure server, saying she wanted to meet up at the rally and talk. Unexpectedly, she had added an Excadrill icon. Was that a signal? Excadrill, a Gen 5 ground-and-steel-type Pokémon, had famously forgiven its former trainer after a major fallout. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part. Or maybe…

  Later. They would talk later. Right now, he needed to concentrate on his very important task at hand, and he couldn’t risk Binx and her coven-mates stopping him.

  “Excuse me.”

  A young woman was trying to maneuver around him on the narrow path that bisected the park, carrying a sign that said: HUMANS FIRST! As he stepped back to let her pass, she gave him an odd look—unfriendly, suspicious even. I need to do more to blend in. After she was gone, he slipped behind a nearby gazebo and whispered, “Persequor.” When he emerged again, he was holding the exact same sign.

  Now the New Order members and other anti-witch protesters were starting to funnel onto Main Street and march toward City Hall, where the official rally kickoff was scheduled for four o’clock. The protesters chanted and moved forward as one with their obnoxious shoulder patches and signs. Some even carried pitchforks—was that a new prop? If so, what did it symbolize? And on the subject of symbols, the birdcage over the bonfire had been subtly tweaked to incorporate the letters N and O into the flames. Yeah, we get it, people. You’re in charge of burning the witches now.

  No matter. The New Order, and the persecution of his kind, would end today.

  It was a Witchworld mod that had given him the idea for the super-spell. In the “WWW,” aka “WitchWorldWar” variation, the rebel witches from Kasorkya were engaged in an epic battle against their mortal enemies, the elf clans of Dirrogh. To defeat the elves, the leader of the rebel witches came up with something called a W-move, which involved attaining an extra-rare W-stone from the undercaves of Glinore. The W-stone was used to megacharge a spell that specifically targeted the elves through the unique coat of arms design on their clothing, first sickening and then eventually killing them.

  ShadowKnight had decided to create Libertas, his own version of a W-stone, out of hematite, angelite, and nanites. He planned to use his stone to strategically deliver a virus that he’d developed in his lab. The virus, which was highly lethal, would wipe out the worst of the witch haters within a hundred-mile radius… maybe even farther. He’d wired the W-stone with nanotechnology to seek out the image of the birdcage burning over the fire. Anyone wearing the arm patch, carrying the sign, or otherwise bearing the symbol, with or without the letters N and O, would be hit with the virus, fall sick, and die.

  Including President Ingraham, who, according to the press, had recently begun sporting a black-and-gold lapel pin with the symbol.

  That little fashion choice is going to cost you, dude.

  ShadowKnight hoisted his sign high in the air and followed the masses down Main Street, moving his lips as though chanting with them. As he marched, he kept an eye out for Binx and her friends. Among the crowd, he noticed TV cameras and microphone booms. The media presence was going to be through the roof, which was perfect.

  A scream. ShadowKnight did a 360, trying to locate the source. There. Just past the intersection on a side street—Pleasant Street—three New Order thugs were cornering an elderly man. One of them was pointing a pitchfork menacingly at his face. What the…? Meanwhile, a police officer was nearby, chatting and laughing on his phone and making zero effort to intervene. Were the authorities not even bothering to hide their anti-witch leanings?

  Someone was going to have to put a stop to this nonsense. ShadowKnight slowed his steps, closed his eyes, and murmured “prohibere” under his breath. Nothing. Perhaps he needed to be closer. He resumed walking toward the intersection—TV cameras were already gathering there, plus he spotted Greta and that witch who’d come to his house, Torrence, emerging from inside a bookstore, presumably to help the old man—and at the same time scrolled through his mental checklist for an alternative spell if necessary.

  But before he could settle on one or reattempt prohibere, he saw a woman approaching the pitchfork-wielding thugs. Middle-aged, blond ponytail. The New Order shoulder patch was on her tweed Brooks Brothers blazer. She spoke to them quietly; they backed away from their victim and turned to listen. Curious, ShadowKnight cast sentio to try to hear their conversation.

  “… on your side, however, we don’t want to give our cause negative publicity,” the woman was saying to the group.

  They nodded and dispersed. That line of argument had done the trick? Avoiding negative publicity? He sensed, though, that there were more than persuasive words at work here.

  “Revelare,” he whispered.

  Yes. That was it. That woman was a witch. And not just any witch, either, but an extremely advanced one. With revelare, he felt her power rippling from her like an energy wave. Who was she?

  She was a New Order member… and she was also a witch? Like him in his witch-hunting days? Would Libertas be able to discriminate between a real witch hater and a witch posing as one… if she was posing? What if there were others like her?

  Doubt seeped through his brain. He couldn’t back out at this point, though. Maybe there would be a few casualties from Libertas, like the blond woman, but the cause was worth it. Hundreds of witch haters were here, now. And the president was due any minute.

  No time like the present, right?

  The woman, though. On an impulse, ShadowKnight cast a second revelare spell, to glean her identity.

  Jessup. Dr. Jane Jessup.

  Why did that name sound so familiar?

  Oh, yeah. Binx and her friends were talking about the Jessups.

  Dr. Jessup was checking her phone and peering around, so ShadowKnight ducked into a bus shelter. On the glass panels, a dozen slick New Order posters partially covered homemade ads for garage sales and babysitters looking for work and Halloween pop-ups. When Dr. Jessup started in the direction of City Hall, he followed at a discreet distance. As they neared the main stage, the crowd became shoulder-to-shoulder, almost impassable.

  Dr. Jessup went up to a roped-off area, where a barricade of police officers and a dozen men and women in black
suits, likely the president’s advance team or Secret Service detail, stood guard. ShadowKnight tried to remember if there had been Secret Service in his other life. Dr. Jessup spoke to one of the officers and was let through. On the other side were about a hundred New Order members, and beyond them, a dozen people rushing around on the main stage; they were setting up chairs, microphones, and American flags against a red-and-white backdrop that said HUMANS FIRST.

  Humans first? Not for long.

  ShadowKnight approached the same police officer Dr. Jessup had spoken to. “I’m with her,” he said pleasantly, chin-nodding in her direction. “Dr. Jane Jessup. I’m her assistant.”

  The officer looked him up and down, then glanced at his sign. “Fine. Go on through.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He hurried on before the officer could change his mind and resumed trailing after the doctor.

  Where was President Ingraham, though? He was the real prey.

  ShadowKnight closed his eyes briefly and willed himself to visualize the man’s location. In his mind, he saw a line of armored black SUVs leaving the airport and heading for downtown.

  Good. The president was likely a mere ten, fifteen minutes away. All ShadowKnight had to do was blend into the crowd—the VIP, close-to-the-main-stage crowd—and wait. He imagined Ingraham arriving, emerging from a black SUV, grinning and waving at his mindless, cheering fans… then ascending to the podium and launching into his bombastic speech before signing his terrible new law…

  … or attempting to sign it, anyway. The second he lifted his pen in the air, with his Antima minions clapping and shouting and the TV cameras and cell phones rolling and recording, ShadowKnight would make his W-move and unleash Libertas. And liberate witches forever, fulfilling the prophecy.