Page 33 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

33

Prospero

“Can’t fight your own battles?” Prospero called out, scanning the room for exits that didn’t include going through a glass wall. This could get uglier very quickly if the crowd rushed the glass. Allan clearly didn’t care about the lives he was endangering, though.

Prospero taunted, “Hiding behind women? Why am I not surprised?”

“I am a god. That’s what you stole from all of us, you and the rest of those sanctimonious fools.” Allan straightened on his grotesque throne and glared at her. “Do you think you stand a chance against our faithful?”

With his sunglasses in place, Prospero was unable to catch his eye. The danger of witches knowing her power was that they’d apparently planned to be better able to resist her. That didn’t mean she was defenseless, and Ellie’s gift was impossible to defend against. Prospero simply hated asking her wife to stop someone’s heart or freeze their lungs.

Not the best first tactic.

“Look at them,” Ellie yelled, drawing his gaze. “They’re zombies. Drunk, drugged, poisoned. Is that what you want? Come on. I barely know you, but I have to think you know you’re better than this.”

“Better than them,” he slurred. “I am a god. ”

“You are different from them, but that doesn’t justify this madness. This is beneath you, god or witch or man.” Ellie gestured as she spoke, forcing him to notice her, making herself a target.

Prospero knew Ellie’s actions weren’t accidental, so she took the chance and tossed several stones at Allan in rapid succession. The pebbles reflected off a barrier, as if he’d found a way to create a shield they couldn’t see.

Her mind magic and her spell stones were not working. Is the barrier physical, too? Prospero watched to see the magic-drunk students and faculty ease close to him, but not touch him. Maybe it is physical, too.

He’d noticed Prospero’s failed attempts to strike him.

“You dismissed me, Lady Prospero. Drunk Allan. Farmer Allan.” He was back to staring at Prospero now, shaking his finger at her like a parent to a child. “You think you’re so superior with your house of one. All the power. All the control. No sharing your division of the money with the rest of your house.”

“That’s what this is about? Money? ” Prospero scoffed, despite trying to tell herself not to aggravate the drunk asshole. She was sick of it, sick of him, sick of all the New Economists’ arrogance. “You had hurt feelings because I have more money?”

“Do you have any idea how many people are in my house?” Allan seethed.

“You had two shares, Allan, and a cohead to manage—”

“I didn’t need a woman pretending to be my equal,” he spat. “She hates me, you know. She might not say it, but I see her. I see her dismissive looks. She refuses my attention. What’s the use of a cohead if I can’t fuck her?”

Ellie tossed a stone at him, and like Prospero’s, it bounced off the barrier. The stone and the spell in it hit a woman, who was instantly captured in a massive spiderweb. She dangled in the air and strands of magical web as thick as rope wrapped around her.

“Bitch.” Another woman reached for Ellie, and Prospero reacted without thinking. She tossed another stone, which created some sort of oil slick all around her. The woman and four or five others started sliding across the floor.

“Since you like women so much,” Allan said. “I’ll introduce you to my maenads. They act like women should.”

At some command of his, the men in the room started flowing out, so it was soon just Ellie, Prospero, Allan, and a group of increasingly angry, drunken women.

Allan smirked as the women started to resemble nothing more than a hive mind. When one turned to look, they all did. When one reached, they all did. They moved together almost as if they were one being with many bodies. So as the first hand extended toward Allan, a ripple carried over them all and soon it was as if waves of hands were reaching for Allan.

“I am here.” He pulled off his shirt and stepped into the sea of women. Their eyes were glazed, and they watched him like he was actually a god, instead of an average pasty-skinned man. Like all witches, he was attractive in a way that magic allowed, but even magic couldn’t counter daily drunken excess. Not that any of that mattered here. The afflicted women were drunk on the overflow of his uncontained magic. It had spilled across the campus, but here it was worse. He was the source of the drunken state their bodies were experiencing, and they were in his thrall.

Without magic—or in a world of magic like Crenshaw—he certainly wasn’t going to get this sort of mindless worship. And the New Economists had long argued that they ought to be treated like kings or gods. Magic, however, was just a fluke of heritage. It was no different from eye color or height. Over here, though, where witches weren’t to be, Allan had the rapt attention of a score or more of glassy-eyed women.

When one of the women started pawing at his trousers, Prospero had decided that this was more than enough. Naked man bits were not on the list of things she liked seeing, and even if they had been, she’d already seen enough of that walking across campus. It was bad enough that none of those people—men or women—had the presence of mind to consent to sexual congress. Both parties were addled, but that was little comfort. It simply meant everyone’s rights were violated.

Sexual acts without consent were simply wrong. That was why I refused Ellie. She couldn’t truly consent until she attained awareness she’d initially lacked. Information I had.

Here? Allan was clear-minded. In this moment, he knew what was happening, even though the women didn’t, but he didn’t stop it. He encouraged it. With the other situations across campus, people under magic’s influence, there was no guilty party—other than him.

With these women, it was doubly wrong, as he was using his magic and knowingly having sexual interactions these women couldn’t agree to because they were drunk on magic.

“Don’t be foul, Allan. They are out of their minds with magic,” Prospero pointed out, hoping against hope that he’d see his mistake before it was too late.

He grinned and stared at her as he unfastened his trousers. “They all want me. That’s how things should be. In this world, I get everything. Power. Money. Houses. Cars. Women. Anything I want is mine. ”

“It’s magic, you raging ass-boil. They don’t want you. Your magic is leaking. They’re unable to think.” Prospero swept her arm around the room. “People are dead from your chemically tainted wine, and these women are clueless. Come home, and stop this right now.”

He laughed, and the sound boomed around the lab like drums throbbing to life. “Fuck you, schoolmarm.

“She wants to take me from you,” Allan told the women in a thunderous voice. “These interlopers want to deny you; they want to steal my holy seed.”

Holy seed? Prospero rolled her eyes. If not for the sheer danger of the moment, she would have laughed at his absurdity. Hopefully, later she could. Right now, not being killed by a mob of mentally drugged women was a more important matter.

Allan ran his hand over his chest and down to his crotch. He opened his trousers and pulled out his member like it was something impressive. Prospero had only dealt with one of those, and this one didn’t look any more interesting than the last one. “She is trying to deny you!” Allan told them.

The women turned as one to glare at Prospero.

“Bring them to me!” Allan flashed an ominous smile at Prospero.

Ellie was practically hurtling herself through the crush of women. She shoulder-checked one woman who had the polished attire of faculty, or at least, she had started the day with polish. Currently her glasses were missing one stem and her blouse gaped open to her stomach.

For a moment, the woman’s gaze cleared. Alertness was restored. Then the glazed look returned. There was something in the pain of Ellie’s touch, or maybe there was another explanation. Either way, Prospero wished she had more time to ponder it.

“Plan?” Ellie asked.

“If he is shielded himself and now using them as a human shield, there aren’t a lot of options.” Prospero watched as the women gyrated against the debauched Allan. “They’re victims. I don’t want them to get hurt more. ”

“Mind zap? Can you make him think he’s bored by this?” Ellie suggested as they were shoved tighter together by the now-moaning crowd of women trying—and succeeding—in pushing and pulling the two of them toward the vile man beside his throne.

“Didn’t work. Sunglasses.”

There were a limited number of options before them, but as things looked increasingly dire, a hob popped into the room. And with the hob was Lord Scylla. She towered over most of the women in the room, but for some reason, Allan didn’t notice her or the hob who had deposited her and already vanished.

Prospero tried not to glance at Scylla as she slinked up behind him. Instead she increased her struggles against the enthralled hive mind of women, trying to keep Allan focused on her and not noticing the deadly woman who was creeping up behind him.

Don’t look at her! Prospero warned herself. She also shoved the thought toward Ellie, hoping it worked.

Not staring at Scylla was a challenge, though; she had a short sword unsheathed in her hand. The pommel—at the end of hilt—was an exposed metal fist, and the blade itself was a glint of metal in the air. Because all the women were focused on either trying to touch Allan or tugging Prospero and Ellie toward him, no one noticed Scylla. Their madness was an asset in this case.

When Scylla seemingly realized the crowd was all moaning and reaching for Allan, she raised her hands and did the same. In a few tense moments, she’d reached him, as had Prospero and Ellie on the other side.

“Hey P,” Scylla greeted.

In that instant, Allan’s mouth gaped open, and he swiveled his head to look back at her, just as Scylla slammed the pommel of her sword into his head and knocked him out. He slumped into her arms, unconscious.

Scylla swayed under the weight of his limp body, and Prospero glared at her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Prospero grumbled.

“I owed him a punch, and you were taking a while to get this done.” Scylla grinned widely despite the way she obviously struggled with the unconscious man in her arms. “He should’ve stayed where he was. Now…” She gave a crooked shrug. “See you at home.”

Then she and the unconscious witch were gone, and they were left with a group of confused and, in some cases, tearful women.