Page 37
Story: The Witch’s Fate (Hidden Legends: College of Witchcraft #6)
LUCAS
B ang! Bang!
The sound of Miles’s gun rang through the cavern. We all panicked at the sight of Nicole’s corpse rising from the dead. I grabbed Nadine and yanked her to the furthest corner of the cave. Grant threw himself in front of Talia, and Chloe took a cautious step back. Verla clung to Professor Warren.
Miles pulled the trigger again and again, emptying the magazine into Nicole’s chest. Bullet wounds opened in her skin, but they didn’t bleed.
Nicole gave an evil laugh as she stepped forward. The wounds healed before our eyes. “You think your little pistol is going to stop me? Clarice didn’t know how to control her powers, so allow me to show you what witch magic is capable of.”
Nicole lifted her hands. In an instant, a portal opened beneath our feet. My heart lurched as we tumbled through it. Nadine’s shocked scream followed behind me, and our cats screeched as they too were sucked through the portal.
My feet landed on solid ground, and I stumbled forward to catch myself with my hands, still clutching the Mortana Wand. My friends landed beside me, but the screams didn’t stop. Shocked cries came from all angles. There were so many of them that I couldn’t identify who they belonged to.
I lifted my head to see where Nicole had taken us. The air was cold, and stars dotted the night sky above us. Brick buildings surrounded us on all sides, and a fountain flowed in the area between them. Nicole had portaled us to the center of Octavia Falls—straight to the town square.
Ours wasn’t the only portal she commanded. Hundreds of other portals had opened up, and coven members tumbled through them. As soon as one portal closed, two more opened to bring more members of the coven to the town square. Within moments, the square was crowded with thousands of people who looked around in confusion.
“What’s going on here!?” townspeople demanded.
I glanced around the crowd frantically, but my friends—along with Verla and her sister—had disappeared into the sea of people. I didn’t see Professor Warren anywhere. Chaos erupted around us as people screamed for their loved ones. I shoved my way through the crowd, until my eyes landed upon Nadine, who was being dragged back by a disorderly crowd.
“Lucas!” she cried.
“I’m here!” I yelled back. I desperately reached out, and Nadine’s fingers found mine. I shoved past a few more people until I curled Nadine in my arms. Her racing heartbeat pounded against my skin in sync with my own.
“I don’t see Nicole or Verla anywhere!” Nadine panicked.
“Over here!” Grant’s voice carried over the crowd. I turned to see him standing on the edge of the fountain and waving his arm above the townspeople’s heads.
Nadine and I pushed through the crowd until we reached the fountain. Talia had climbed onto the concrete ledge beside him and was searching the square for the others. She must’ve spotted them, because she whistled loudly to get their attention. Miles and Chloe saw her and shoved past people to get to us.
Only when they found us, they’d brought others I never expected to see again—a woman with black hair and porcelain skin; a goth girl with purple hair; a young woman dressed in all black who looked strikingly similar to Talia; and a girl with sleek dark hair and bracelets all over her wrists.
“Monica, Onyx, Tate, Mandy…” I said their names out loud, but it still didn’t seem real that they were here. Monica hadn’t been seen in Octavia Falls since we faked her death and sent her to Hok’evale . Tate and Mandy had moved there last year, too, and Onyx had been in Paris for weeks.
A woman’s terrified scream tore through the night. I turned to see Meredith standing a few feet away from us. Her features had gone stark white as she stared at Monica, who she believed to be dead. Meredith had been less than kind at her sister’s funeral, as she believed the lies the priestesses told claiming Monica had been behind the Hearse crash.
“You… you’re dead,” Meredith stammered. “I put you in the ground!”
Monica’s features softened when she looked at her sister. “I’m here in the flesh. There’s much to explain, but I assure you I never died. I’ve only been in hiding.”
“You caused The Hearse Tragedy!” Meredith sneered.
“I didn’t, and I can explain that,” Monica started.
She stepped toward her sister, but Meredith scurried backward, knocking into a few other people. “Stay away from me!”
Then she whirled around and shoved through the crowd. Monica’s features fell in complete disheartenment.
“A lot has happened since you left,” I told her. She hadn’t been awake to hear the awful things her sister said about her at her funeral, and I hoped she’d never know.
Onyx shot a worried glance around the crowd. “What’s happening? One second I’m sleeping in my bed, then I feel myself falling through a portal.”
“Same,” Mandy said. “Tate and I were out to dinner, and then we were suddenly here.”
Tate placed a hand on her hip. “Lani’s not going to be happy if we dine and ditch.”
“Last I heard, the Miriamic Conflict was over,” Monica added. “The priestesses were killed, and our magic faded completely. The Miriamic Coven no longer exists, so how is it possible that we’re all here?”
“Because your magic never died,” Nadine explained quickly. “It was stolen.”
“By Headmistress Verla,” Talia sneered.
“Except her sister has all the power now,” Chloe added. “She’s the one who brought you all here.”
Monica’s eyebrows pinched together. “That’s impossible. Clarice’s sister is dead.”
Grant laughed uncomfortably. “Not anymore, she’s not.”
“More like… undead,” Miles said. “She brought everyone back to show off her power, so she can destroy us all.”
Onyx turned to Nadine and me. “How do we stop her?”
I gazed down at the Mortana Wand in my hand. “I wish I knew. We have the Oaken Wands, but they’re failing to respond to us. Nicole is too powerful. She’s taking all the coven’s power before we can access it.”
“There’s got to be a way to take it back,” Monica insisted.
Cats screeched as they skittered through the chaotic crowd. Our cats found us, and Isa jumped onto the fountain’s edge to let out a loud cry of distress. We followed her gaze to see Nicole raising her arms to levitate herself above the crowd so that everyone in the square could see her. She hovered high above the townspeople’s heads.
“Welcome back to the Miriamic Coven!” Nicole boomed. She must’ve been using a spell to project her voice across the crowd. People turned to look at her, and their shouts turned to confused whispers.
“It’s Clarice Verla!” someone called. “She’ll save us!”
Nicole gave a chilling laugh and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Do I look that alive? I’m flattered. Unfortunately, my sister will not be the one to save you all, as she’s the one who damned your coven to this pitiful existence.”
The whispers grew louder.
It’s Nicole.
What’s she talking about?
I thought Clarice’s sister was dead.
“I brought you all back to witness the final downfall of this coven,” Nicole announced. “I warned you all of what would happen, but you didn’t listen. Now, you have no choice but to hear me.”
Nadine grabbed my hand, then lowered her voice to whisper to our friends. “I know the Wands aren’t responding to us, but we have to try overpowering her. It’s our only chance.”
Talia tore her frightened gaze off Nicole. “Agreed. If she can overpower us , we can claim that power back.”
“Let’s do this,” Grant said.
Chloe nodded firmly. “We’re not going down without a fight.”
The five of us joined hands, clutching the Oaken Wands between our entwined fingers. I dug deep inside myself for the magical spark I knew had to be there. It seemed impossible to find, but in our most desperate moment, we had to.
“The night I was murdered, I spoke of the witch’s fate— my fate,” Nicole spat. “The moment you killed me marked the beginning of the end for you all. I was trying to tell you the way things would go, but you didn’t listen, so now I have to make you pay.”
I found no traces of magic within myself, but I’d be damned if I didn’t keep on trying.
“Nicole!” A woman shouted her name. The crowd parted to reveal Clarice Verla staring up at her sister with tears in her eyes. “You don’t have to do this! This isn’t why I brought you back. We can be together again, but we don’t have to hurt these people to do it.”
Nicole scoffed. “My death changed you, Clarice, but it changed me, too. I’m not the same person I was before I died. Look at what the coven did to me.”
“They were wrong to kill you,” Verla agreed. “But you’re back now. Remember what you said the night you were hanged? I won’t go alone . And you won’t, Nicole. I’m right here with you. So let’s go far away from here… together.”
Nicole gave a wicked cackle. “You thought I was telling you to come after me, but I was warning the coven that one day I’d get my revenge and take this coven down with me.”
“I did this all for you !” Verla insisted. “So that we could be together again. If this is what you truly desire, then all my effort was in vain.”
“ You didn’t do this for me,” Nicole spat. “You did this because I orchestrated it. Our souls are entwined, even across realms, and it was I who placed these ideas into your mind. When I found myself in the Abyss, I devised a plan with a Scelus demon—the very one you summoned and sold your son’s soul to. I couldn’t birth a child and make a deal with a demon, but you could.”
Gasps traveled around the crowd.
“I’ve got nothing,” Chloe hissed.
“Keep going,” Nadine pressed. “It’s our only shot.”
“You won’t get away with this!” a man yelled. I tore my attention from the Oaken Wands for a brief moment to see Lincoln pushing through the crowd. He shoved his way to the front with his back to us. I noticed he held a large stone in his hand that he’d picked up from the ground. He aimed it at Nicole, and he was a pretty damn good shot, too. The stone smashed against her head, snapping her neck to the side.
Slowly, Nicole twisted her head back in his direction, her bones giving a sickly crack as they popped back into place. “You think that’s going to stop me? I have all witch magic, and all you have is little stones.”
“Stonings have stopped people before, and we can stop you now!” Lincoln seethed.
All around the crowd, people gathered stones and threw them at Nicole. They rained down from all directions. She merely lifted her arms, appearing to welcome them like raindrops. They didn’t seem to hurt her at all.
“That’s only going to piss her off!” Chloe protested, but coven members continued to throw stones in self-defense.
“You merely continue to prove my point!” Nicole sneered.
She flicked her fingers, and Lincoln’s neck snapped in an instant. My stomach lurched as I witnessed his head twist completely around, his lifeless eyes staring past us. His body slumped to the ground. People scurried away from Nicole in fear, dropping their stones at their feet.
“The coven will never change,” Nicole hissed. “You’ll always be the same hateful, fearful parasites you were when you killed me.”
“Nadine,” Chloe urged. “We need to try something else.”
“We have nothing else.” Nadine’s hand shook in mine as she kept her gaze hopelessly locked on Nicole. I could see it in her eyes that she was racking her brain for solutions, but we were all out of ideas. Nicole was too powerful.
Nicole turned to her sister, looking annoyed that she’d been interrupted. “You did well bringing me back and supplying me with all this power. Now that it’s done, I suggest you stay out of my way before I kill you.”
Verla staggered back. “How can you be so cruel after all I’ve done for you? We’re sisters ! Nothing has ever meant more to us!”
“That changed the night I died,” Nicole said. “You tried to stop me from destroying the Protection Tree.”
“You weren’t in your right mind,” Verla insisted. “I was trying to save you from the priestesses.”
“ I was trying to save you !” Nicole screamed. “But the coven proved that night that their religion is more important than their people. You all thought I was crazy, but I knew what was coming. You were so concerned about this sanctified object that you killed one of your own for defiling it. My life was worth more than your symbol! I’m going to end things, because if you didn’t listen then, you’ll listen to me now.”
Nicole curled her lip back as she stared down at Verla in disgust. “It’s your choice whether you want to stay and watch the coven burn.”
“You won’t kill all these people!” Verla demanded. “I know you, whether you’ve changed or not. You’ve never been one to hurt others.”
Nicole looked her sister up and down. “I could’ve said the same about you years ago, yet look at what you’ve done, claiming it all to be for the greater good. There’s no greater good than wiping out the Miriamic Coven once and for all.”
“You’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of eternity!” Verla shouted. “Are you sure you want to carry that weight alone?”
Nicole threw her head back and laughed. “You think I plan on doing this all alone? That Scelus demon didn’t make plans with me just to collect one measly soul. Now that I have access to all of witch magic, he and I will use it together to conquer other realms, and no one will dare to ignore my warnings again. Santos isn’t the only demon that can turn women into goddesses.”
“You’re lying,” Verla accused. “You said you needed me to make a deal with the demon, but I made no such agreement about this . If this demon really wanted to help you, then where is he now? In the Abyss, waiting for you to do all the work for him? He’s only going to break his promises and take your power for his own. That’s what demons do!”
Nicole smirked. “On the contrary, he hasn’t been to the Abyss for quite some time. He’s been in Octavia Falls all these years, keeping an eye on his investment and making sure everything went according to plan.”
Someone cleared their throat from the crowd, and the square fell silent. The sea of people parted as an old lady in a wheelchair pushed herself forward.
My heart plummeted to my toes when I saw it was Rose . She pushed herself to her feet, and a maniacal, demonic laugh erupted from her chest.
Nadine grabbed me tightly, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. It couldn’t be. Rose was a little old lady who spent all her time doing puzzles at the nursing home. She’d been a victim of the hospital bombing, and she’d stayed in a guest room at our house for months. When the priestesses arrived, we’d made sure Rose was on one of the first buses out of town, so she’d be safe. She was absolutely harmless.
Then I realized that was exactly why she was dangerous. This demon wasn’t like Professor Leto, who’d found enjoyment out of taunting us from a position of power. This demon wanted to live among us and keep an eye on what was happening without interfering. To do that, he’d chosen to blend in and take a form that no one would ever suspect… like a frail old lady living at the nursing home… someone we’d taken into our home.
Rose didn’t have any family in Octavia Falls. From what we knew, her husband had died many years ago, and her son had moved away decades ago. Something told me those people didn’t exist—they’d only been a cover story for this false character the demon had created.
I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it. I’d sensed something was off about Professor Leto the second he arrived in Octavia Falls. Verla had felt it, too, as she admitted in her vision. So why hadn’t we sensed this demon?
I realized the answer before I finished asking the question. This was the same demon Verla had obtained her powers from, which meant he had to be stronger than her. To sense him for what he was, we’d have to be more powerful than he was. We weren’t even close.
“ I’m sick of hearing these people talk ,” Rose sneered, her voice taking on a deep, otherworldly tone. “ I’ve waited a long time for this. It’s time to get what we came here for! ”
Rose lifted her hands, and before our very eyes the skin on her face melted away, leaving behind only flesh and bone. Four pointed horns grew from her forehead, and her clothes turned to ashes to reveal the bloody muscle underneath. The demon’s empty eye sockets glowed red, and he bared a row of pointed teeth.
People screamed and started shoving each other back.
The demon’s legs began to elongate, and he grew several feet taller in seconds. I thought he’d stop growing once he reached the size of the Scelus demon we saw in Verla’s vision, but he kept growing bigger and bigger, until he was at least a hundred feet tall and towered above all the buildings.
The crowd erupted into chaos. Screams echoed throughout the square as people ran into nearby buildings for cover.
“Go!” I shouted.
My friends and I took off across the town square, but there were so many people trying to escape at once that the street was completely blocked. I saw Professor Warren ushering people through the doors of a nearby restaurant.
“Through here and out the back!” he shouted.
People raced for any exit they could find—streets, alleyways, or shops—but the crowd was so large that all escape routes were congested. We were completely trapped.
I shot a glance over my shoulder to see Nicole levitating herself higher. She landed on the demon’s shoulder, smirking proudly down at the panicked crowd.
“Kill them,” she ordered the demon. “Kill them all.”
The demon swiped his hand at the nearest building, and the bricks blasted apart like a bomb had just detonated. Debris flew everywhere, and dust billowed into the air. Blood from the people who’d entered the building splatter across the street.
The demon stomped his foot against the roof of the neighboring shop, and that crumbled to pieces beneath his weight. Within seconds, multiple buildings that had stood for hundreds of years were reduced to rubble. At least a hundred people were killed inside of them.
The demon charged through the brick buildings, toppling them over like dominoes. He’d nearly reached the hardware store on the corner when a group of witches ran out of the doors with ropes in their hands.
“Now!” a man in the lead yelled.
I caught sight of his mismatched socks, and I realized it was Professor Clarke. He held one end of a long rope, while Valerie from school gripped tight to the other end. They were joined by the Wicked Warlock band members Clay and Carl, who shared a second rope. The four of them ran forward and circled the demon’s feet. The ropes wrapped tight around his ankles. Instead of stopping him like they hoped, the demon merely lifted a massive foot, and the ropes snapped.
The demon’s infernal laughter echoed across the town. The four coven members who tried to defend the square burst into flames all at once. Their screams only lasted a few seconds before their bodies slumped to the ground. Professor Clarke’s charred corpse landed beside a tree growing from a pot on the sidewalk. The flames licked so high that the tree lit aflame. From there, the fire only spread, catching a canopy over one of the shops on fire, before quickly expanding throughout the whole building.
The demon smashed his foot into the ground again, and the entire Earth quaked underneath him. The pavement snapped, and a massive crack traveled through the center of the square in moments.
“Look out!” I screamed.
My friends and I jumped out of the way a second before the crack ruptured into an enormous gorge at our feet. It split open wide, spanning twenty yards in an instant. Several townspeople couldn’t move out of the way in time, and they fell into the crevice. Their screams echoed endlessly.
I caught sight of Monica, Onyx, Tate, and Mandy running from the demon on the other side of the chasm. We’d been separated from them.
Debris rained down on us as the demon continued rampaging across the square. I shot a quick glance around to see several tables sitting on the patio of a nearby café.
“Over here!” I called to my friends.
We abandoned the frantic crowd and raced toward the café, where we ducked under the tables. Our cats scurried into a huddle beside us. Bricks and other building material landed over top of us, but we’d reached cover just in time. I crouched down low, dragging Nadine close to me so I could save her from flying debris. My arms shook against her, and her breathing turned ragged.
Nicole cackled in absolute delight. Deadly spells erupted from her palms as she aimed them at people trying to escape. A massive battle orb the size of a truck exploded near the bank, and dismembered body parts flew over us as people were killed in an instant.
She aimed her attention at the fountain. With a wave of her hand, she alchemized the water inside into bubbling lava. The lava spilled out onto the street, claiming several victims as they ran past. Their bodies sizzled as the molten lava consumed them.
Nicole spun around on the demon’s shoulder and laughed down at a group of five witches hiding in the bushes. “I saw what the future held, and I had to witness my own fate. Now, you will witness yours.”
She must’ve been using some sort of Mentalist abilities to place images into the witches’ heads, because all five of them screamed and sprinted away. They ran into lamp posts and solid brick walls, like they couldn’t see where they were going. They tried fighting off things that weren’t there. The women shrieked so loud it sounded absolutely torturous.
Any remaining exits were now completely blocked by dead bodies or debris. People tried to escape over the remains of fallen buildings, but the demon lit the rubble aflame, along with the scrambling townsfolk. In under a minute, half the town square had been completely demolished before the demon turned his sights on homes that lined the next block. Past the mounds of rubble, I saw him stomp beautiful houses to dust so quickly it was like they’d been made of sand.
My eyes landed upon a woman in the center of the square. Verla hadn’t moved to run away like the others. She’d dropped to her knees where she’d been standing, watching helplessly as her sister and the demon worked together to destroy what remained of our city.
“Why is Verla just sitting there?” Grant demanded. “She’s the only one who can talk her sister down!”
“She tried, and it didn’t work,” Nadine said sadly.
“We have to do something!” Chloe insisted.
“What can we do?” Talia asked. “We don’t have magic.”
I forced down a lump rising to my throat. “Leave Verla. She chose this. She can suffer the consequences. All we can do is focus on making it out of here alive.”
Miles frantically glanced around. “Every exit is blocked! We’re going to have to find a way over top of the buildings.”
Just then, a sound like thunder rumbled across the sky, but it was unlike any thunder I’d ever heard before. It echoed like it was contained within a chamber, the sound bouncing all around us and never stopping. It sent an eerie shiver down my spine.
I looked upward to see a streak across the sky that had completely blacked out the stars. At first I thought it was dark clouds rolling in. Then I noticed a shimmer around the edges of the black mass. I could feel it sucking my energy straight out of me, and I thought I might collapse right there. Whatever it was, it was entirely magical and wholly terrifying.
“What is that!?” Miles screamed.
Before any of us could answer, we witnessed the most horrifying sight. A man called a woman’s name, and she turned toward him. The two ran toward each other across the square, but before they could reach one another, they were sucked into the air and disappeared into the inky black streak that marred our sky. One second they were there, and the next, their screams were cut dead silent, like they never existed at all.
Another streak of blackness appeared, only this time, it wasn’t in the sky. It opened across the square, and the buildings that once stood there vanished in the blink of an eye.
Table of Contents
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- Page 37 (Reading here)
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