Page 19

LUCAS

Nadine took off on her broom to speed over the treetops. The rest of us followed closely behind, leaving our cats back home. The bitter chill of the wind whipped by my face as I ordered my broom to fly faster. We had to stop the priestesses before they made it into the city, or the casualties would be catastrophic.

Below us on the streets, civilians panicked as they turned their gazes toward the oncoming storm. We’d evacuated thousands of people last night, but there were so many more still in the middle of leaving. From this vantage point, I could see far across town to the roads leading out of Octavia Falls. So many citizens were trying to vacate the city at once that traffic was backed up for blocks. These people were stuck here, and if the priestesses made it town, they’d make sure there was no one left to save.

The inky black clouds reached the edge of town. At the same time, the wind picked up and vehicles began to shake. Heavy raindrops splattered the street, covering every surface in seconds. People screamed as they abandoned their vehicles and ran into the nearest buildings for cover.

The priestesses’ army was closing in fast, and they’d almost made it to the base of the mountain. There were so many golems, far more than we could’ve anticipated. The lines of soldiers spanned acres upon acres, moving as a singular unit through the forest. We were severely outnumbered, and even with the Oaken Wands, I feared we were in over our heads. We’d seen what golems made by the Master Wand could do the day of the hospital bombing. These weren’t any old mud puppets that would turn to mush at the touch of a finger. They had the power to fight back, and we were going to have to take out hundreds in each blow if we hoped to stand a chance.

I caught sight of the priestesses far in the distance, leading their army. Their black cloaks billowed behind them, as if mimicking the ominous swirling of the dark clouds above. Three men marched beside them, closer than the others. They had a swagger about them that wasn’t quite as ordered as the swarm of golems. Those three must be what was left of the Executors who’d escaped town after the priestesses fled. I couldn’t see faces from here, but I’d bet anything it was James, Leroy, and Cody. The shorter of the priestesses—Margaret—lifted a wand into the air, and lightning cracked through the sky.

The peaks of Miriam Mansion towered over the trees ahead of us. A large crowd gathered in the parking lot below, since we’d designated the college as a meeting point to bus people out of town. Citizens shoved each other as they ran into the school. Professor Warren and Headmistress Verla were there, shouting orders to usher people safely inside.

In the middle of the parking lot, I spotted Miles. He noticed us flying overhead and waved his arms in a wide arc to get our attention.

“Keep going and make sure the priestesses don’t make it to town!” I told the others. “I’m right behind you!”

I swooped downward to land beside Miles. I couldn’t see the priestesses’ army from here because the school blocked out most of the mountain, and the rest was obstructed by trees.

Miles hadn’t slept all night, and it showed. His black hair was in complete disarray, and he had bags under his eyes. Didn’t seem to faze him, though, because he was just as panicked as the others.

“What’s happening ?” he demanded. “We heard some sort of siren, and now this freak storm is rolling in.”

“It’s the priestesses,” I quickly explained. “They’ve come with a golem army thousands strong.”

Warren and Verla weren’t that far away, and they rushed over when they heard me.

“Where’s Nadine?” Verla worried.

“She’s on her way to face the priestesses. They’re coming from that way.” I pointed. “We’ll hold them off the best we can, but you have to get these people out of here. If this army makes it to town, the school will be their first stop.”

Miles raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s it. We’re done for!”

“Not yet,” I promised. “We found the Curse Breaker Wand, and Nadine broke the spell on the other Oaken Wands. That was the siren you heard. We have the power of the Oaken Wands now, so we stand a chance, despite the Waning. The priestesses sensed us break their curse, and they stepped up their plans. We’ve got to move fast.”

Verla’s eyes widened in panic at the news that the priestesses were back. “What’s your plan?”

“Only the Oaken Wands stand a chance against the priestesses, so we’re going after them,” I said. “The rest of you need to stay here to get these people somewhere safe. Miles, inform your officers so they can get civilians out of here.”

“We’re out of time to evacuate all these people,” Miles insisted. “Anyone left is going to have to face this army and defend our town. Waning or not, we’re going to have to find a way to fight.”

“We have a few stores of potions left in the school,” Verla informed me. “Jonathan and I can set up a trap to hold off any golems that make it this far.”

“We’ll handle the golem army. The rest of you do what you have to in order to protect these people.” I mounted my broom, facing toward the cemetery.

Professor Warren stopped me. “Wait, Lucas. The golem army is that way.”

“I have a job to do first, Professor,” I told him. “As it stands, we don’t have the manpower to fight the priestesses’ army—not without putting our people in severe danger. So I’m going to make one of our own.”

I kicked off the ground and flew high above the town. Then I sped toward the cemetery and flew past the gates.

The ends of my reaper robe billowed around my ankles as I landed on solid ground. Determination surged through my chest as I aimed the Mortana Wand to the dirt. A pulse of magic hit the earth, causing dust to rise into the air. An eerie sensation settled over the cemetery as Mortana magic sank into the graves.

Moments later, the earth began to shift. Thousands of soiled hands shot out of the dirt in a singular, collective motion. Some were merely made of bone, while others still had the flesh of old cadavers clinging to their gaunt frames. Zombies and skeletons climbed out of their burial plots under the command of the Wand’s necromancy magic.

“A threat looms on the edge of Octavia Falls!” I shouted. “A golem army marches toward our home, led by priestesses who have hung and burned members of the coven. They have already razed whole neighborhoods to the ground, and if they reach town, they will destroy the homes of your children and grandchildren and force them to comply with their will. We’re outnumbered, and I’m calling upon you to help. If you don’t wish to participate, you may return to your graves and rest in peace. But if you’re willing to help protect this home that was once yours, I ask you to join me!”

The zombies were nothing more than shells of their former selves—their spirits had long since moved on. But defiling their resting place was not a decision I took lightly, so I used my magic to give them a choice. From beyond the grave, their souls could make the decision for them, and if they so desired to fight with us, they could.

Several skeletons rolled back into their graves, but hundreds of others stepped forward. At the front of the group, an old woman limped toward me. Her skin sagged on her form, but her body had hardly decayed. She couldn’t have been dead for very long—a year at most. Her eyes appeared glossy, but she stared straight at me.

It took me a few moments, but recognition set in. Though her features weren’t quite the same as I remembered, the silver bun tied neatly at the base of her neck was a dead giveaway. It was Professor Willa Poppy, who’d taught Crystal Studies and Astral Travel back at Miriam College. I recalled that she’d died of a respiratory infection during the time we’d been away from Octavia Falls. The priestesses had sucked the coven dry of so many resources that she hadn’t been able to get the care she needed.

Beside her, another man stepped forward. He was old and wore all kinds of rings on his fingers. I’d only met him once, very briefly. It was Theodore Knox, the man who’d owned a jewelry store downtown. I’d run into him before we fled town. He’d been one of the few business owners to welcome all Casts into his store, and because of that, coven members had robbed him. I’d found him in his shop crouched behind one of the counters after the robbery. He said he believed in us, and he’d gifted me a ring to remind me of it. That was the same ring I’d used to propose to Nadine.

It seemed Theodore’s support for us had never wavered, because there was a dark line around his neck—the unmistakable mark of the priestesses’ noose. They’d executed so many people, but I’d never known he’d been one of them. They tried to silence our supporters then, but now he’d come back to stand beside us one final time.

In unison, Professor Poppy and Theodore placed a hand over their hearts, then bowed their heads at me. Behind them, the others mimicked their gesture. Their message was clear as day: We’re with you, Lucas .

“Thank you for your support.” I bowed my head back at them, then mounted my broom and kicked off the ground. “Follow me!”

Zombies weren’t particularly fast , but they moved quicker than I anticipated, their motions amplified by the power of the Mortana Wand. I flew above the trees, low enough so my army of reanimants could still see and follow me, but high enough to gain a vantage point.

From here, I could see that the priestesses and their army had stopped their advance. Through the trees, bursts of light in all colors flashed as spells whizzed through the forest. I witnessed dozens of golems levitate into the air at once, appearing to be attached to the sky by strings. It was powerful telekinetic magic, no doubt—Chloe was already putting the Mentalist Wand to work. Green battle magic blasted upward, slamming into the golems all at once. Their bodies exploded into muddy messes that splattered across the treetops.

“Behind you!” I heard Talia’s distant scream, followed by the collective battle cry from the golems. The sound of their attack was quickly silenced by an explosion so strong it seemed to rock the skies. My friends had wasted no time slaughtering the priestesses’ army.

The cemetery wasn’t far from the edge of town, but the storm hadn’t quite reached the graveyard yet. As I flew closer to the priestesses, the wind picked up, and rain began to pelt me so hard I nearly fell off my broom. I clutched the handle tighter, flying faster to reach my friends. The zombies I’d raised followed righteously on foot, though I was much faster than they were.

As I flew over the forest, I caught glimpses of the army below. My friends worked in a unit casting spells, but the golem army quickly advanced between them, forcing my friends apart. The golems blasted battle spells that exploded at my friends’ feet. Alone, the spells weren’t particularly impressive against the Oaken Wands, but with hundreds of spells coming from all angles, it was enough to kill any one of us if we let our guard down.

Chloe levitated into the air to dodge an attack, while Grant used battle magic to topple trees to create a barricade against the invaders. He retreated until he and Talia stood back-to-back, casting spell after spell to slow the army down. Golems surrounded them from all angles, but they didn’t move in for the attack right away.

“Tal, what are they doing?” Grant shouted.

“They're mindless!” she screamed back. “I can’t read their thoughts.”

In unison, the battalion targeting Grant and Talia lifted their hands to the sky. I threw a shield around my friends a split second before the golems’ spell came slamming down on them. With all the golems working together, their spell was strong; its energy reverberating up through my Wand.

The spell dissipated, and Grant and Talia were already on the move again. I circled around to get a better view. Up the slope on an outcropping of rock, Lilian and Margaret were mere silhouettes through the storm as they looked down upon their army. They stood with their shoulders back, looking proud of the battalion they’d brought upon us.

With my eyes on them, I could finish this once and for all, but a strong wind caught the end of my broom, knocking me sideways. I flipped through the air, but never let go of my broom. I quickly righted myself and looked around, but I didn’t see the outcropping. I’d been completely disoriented. I shook my head, then did a one-eighty to find that outcropping was behind me now. Only the priestesses weren’t there anymore.

Below me, the sound of Nadine’s war cry caught my attention. I gazed through an opening in the trees to see her running head-first into a group of approaching golems. She lifted her Wand, but instead of blasting a battle spell outward, tendrils of magic flowed from the golems into her Wand. As the magic left their bodies, they melted into piles of mud.

As soon as that group was gone, another came flooding in from the other direction. Nadine whirled on them, blasting the magic she’d just siphoned from the other golems toward the newcomers. The spell slashed through them like a sword, slicing twenty golems in half all at once. Nadine was using her Curse Breaker powers to turn their own magic against them. The golems turned to piles of dirt that quickly washed away in the rain.

She tossed her wet hair out of her face and gasped to catch her breath, but she didn’t have the time. Behind her, a lone golem sprinted in her direction.

“Nadine!” I screamed. A crack of thunder rang out at the same time, and she didn’t hear me. Swooping downward, I reached the top of the treetops and subconjured my broom. I fell through the air several feet before landing on the golem and pulling him to the ground. I half expected him to turn to mud underneath me, but he remained as solid as I was.

Nadine whirled toward me. “Good work!”

“Look out!” I shouted as another dozen golems charged her. She spun around to take them out.

Meanwhile, the Mortana Wand had fallen from my hand and lay several yards away from me. The golem I’d tackled shoved an elbow into my face, and blood spurted out of my nose. I grabbed him by the shirt and slammed my fist into his face three times. I’d hoped to fuck him up the way I had with the golem the day of the hospital bombing, but the priestesses had clearly improved their golem-making skills since then, because his nose remained completely intact. His features appeared human, but they were very plain, like a guy I wouldn’t notice if I passed him on the street. The last time we encountered the priestesses’ golems, they’d made duplicates of our enemies to fool us, but the rest of their army were mere pawns, their features unfamiliar to me. I guessed it was easier magic, and that’s how they’d managed to create so many so fast.

The golem spotted my Wand and scrambled to his feet. I raced after him, but he reached the Wand before I did. He bent to grab it, but he couldn’t get his fingers around it, like the thing weighed a thousand pounds.

I laughed as I raised my hand. The Mortana Wand flew into my outstretched palm. “Sorry to let you down, but this Wand belongs to me .”

That was one of the greatest perks of being a reaper. No one could take the Mortana Wand from me, because it was bound to my soul.

Unlike me, the golem had no soul, and he wasn’t exactly living , so my Death power had no influence over him. I figured the priestesses had considered that when building their army, along with Talia’s inability to read their minds, and Chloe’s inability to control them mentally. That’s why the priestesses had gravitated toward golems, on the off chance that we had magic when they faced us.

But my battle magic still worked just fine, and I summoned a powerful spell that slammed into the golem’s chest and blasted him to bits.

Golems continued to race out of the trees, casting battle spells from all directions. I scurried backward until Nadine and I stood back-to-back. I threw up a shield, but the second their spells hit, my shield shattered. I did this over and over again, working in a pattern where my shield deflected their spells for a moment before shattering, I took the opening to cast powerful killing spells, and then immediately conjured a shield again.

A spell whizzed by my shield and slammed into my shoulder. I was blasted off my feet and landed flat on my back twenty yards from where I’d been standing. I gasped for breath, but I didn’t have a second to catch it. I leapt to my feet again, pushing through the pain of what I was certain was a dislocated shoulder.

I’d been lucky. Had the spell hit me in the head, or I’d landed against a tree, I could’ve easily been knocked out, and it wouldn’t take much for another one of these spells to kill me. I shot streams of magic back at the golems, slashed them in half with all my power, and blasted shields at them so strong trees cracked in half. It seemed that for every golem we killed, ten more were there to take its place. If they couldn’t defeat us by sheer power, then they were going to wear us down until we couldn’t fight back any longer. It was the priestesses’ plan, I was sure—get their army to tire us out until they could come in with the Master Wand and kill us once and for all.

There were so many golems that they started climbing on top of one another. They seemed to move as a singular unit, climbing higher and higher until they were layers deep in bodies. The motion mimicked that of a tidal wave, until the wave crested and collapsed over top of us. I grabbed Nadine, and we crouched down. Our magic surged together into a singular spell, and we conjured a shield at the last second. Our shield bowed and bent under the weight of hundreds of bodies, but it thankfully kept us from being completely crushed.

The golems rolled to the side, and together, we thrust our shield outward to shove them back.

“Lucas, there’s too many of them!” Nadine shouted. “We can’t keep up!”

“We’ve got to get to the others!” I yelled back over the roaring wind. I blasted a bunch of golems back again, but others were already approaching from the opposite side. “Then we can go after the Master Wand together. We still stand a chance if we combine our powers! The golems are a distraction, but if we get the Master Wand, we can take them all out in one go.”

“All right, let’s move!” Nadine continued casting powerful spells that turned the golems to mud. She blazed a trail through the woods, while I aimed magic behind us to take out the army gaining on us.

I shot a glance ahead to see that Grant, Talia, and Chloe were surrounded. Talia held a shield to protect them, while Grant alchemized puddles of rainwater into vats of acid. The second a golem stepped in one, the creature sizzled and liquified into a pile of sludge. Meanwhile, Chloe used her powerful telekinesis to topple over trees, squashing dozens of golems all at once.

Nadine cast a spell that blasted into the dirt and sent a bunch of golems flying. Her spell created a clear path between us and our friends. Chloe had toppled so many trees that they stood in the center of a clearing, surrounded on all sides by massive logs and tons of wood splinters. Nadine and I leapt over a huge fallen tree to reach the others.

“We’ve got to get moving!” Nadine shouted. “We can end this if we get the Master Wand.”

Chloe ducked an attack, then shot another spell outward. She lifted her hands to command wood splinters into the air, then sent them spiraling in all directions to pierce through the golems’ chests. “I can levitate us all out of here, but what do we do about the golems? They’ll go into town, putting our people at risk. We have to hold them off!”