Page 30

Summer break had officially hit. There were no final tests, no yearbook signings, no farewells. It was just a goodbye without the closure. Even if I was stepping away from the classroom, parting ways from my homeroom coven after two life-changing years, I wasn’t abandoning my responsibilities as their teacher.

I shared with Milo how the vision reappeared to me, fully formed and revealing Theodore Whitlock as the culprit. It was one Milo had seen many times, one Milo had adverted, but now it rattled inside his inner core; the devastation held a glimmer of possibility because of Theodore’s escape. That possibility wouldn’t last. I’d snuff it out soon.

“You ready?” I asked, stepping into the living room.

“I should be asking you that,” Milo said, joining me. “You sure you wanna do this?”

We’d circled back to this conversation more than once. Milo triple checked every day about if I was sure I wanted to take a sabbatical, if I was ready for the guild industry again, if I was prepared for the stakes of a mission this big.

“I’m certain.” I nodded. “I’m the only one who can.”

Somewhere out there, Theodore Whitlock roamed the earth, his thoughts and feelings too faint for me to pinpoint with ease, but not impossible. We shared this bizarre connection. It was small and similar to the trickle that connected me to my homeroom coven, to my friend Chanelle, to Benjamin after removing the ocean from his mind. In Theodore’s case, it was disgusting. But it existed and served as something that allowed me to sense him.

It’d formed the day he poured his thoughts into my head then slit my throat. It grew when my Doppler slinked inside the MDC and observed Theodore’s mind. It was cemented when I dove into his inner core and ripped apart his gnarled tree as I choked the life out of him.

“And you’re comfortable sending a manifestation off on its own?” Milo asked.

“Yes.” I gestured for him to join me on the floor where we would channel our magics.

I wouldn’t be sending one manifestation after Theodore. I’d summon multiple manifestations at once and break off a tiny piece of magic for them to explore as far as they could. They would each be me entirely—no personas involved, especially since all but Nico continued slumbering deep in my subconscious.

Even with full access to my magic, the ability, the range, I worried it would be too much. Hence why Milo was here. We sat down facing each other. Milo extended his hands and I grabbed ahold, shuddering at the subtle embrace of our channeled magics, our frequencies melding. He anchored me through all things in life; of course, he made the perfect anchor as we channeled and I unleashed telepathy in waves.

“And you’re sure you can summon multiple manifestations at once?”

“Yes.” I kept my eyes firmly shut but could feel Milo looking at me, judgy face on full display. Okay, I heard his surface thoughts gauging my furrowed brow to determine my current level of concentration. “It’s a ten. On a scale of zero to ten, my current concentration level is a ten.”

“That’s a lie.” Milo smirked; I could feel it. “If it were a ten, you wouldn’t be eavesdropping on my thoughts.”

“You know what else isn’t a ten.”

Milo let out an exasperated gasp.

“Please take this seriously.”

“I am. And I’m seriously still a little concerned about you summoning more than one manifestation at a time.”

“Right now, my telepathy is stretched across the city.” I glowered. “I’m enduring several thousand mental ramblings at this moment. Mostly keeping them on the back burner of my attention, but that takes constant work.”

“That’s because of the full range of your telepathy?”

“Yes, so summoning more than one manifestation will be easy enough.” I shrugged. “Hell, it might even dim my branch some, which would ease the number of thoughts funneling through my head all at once.”

“Okay.” Milo squeezed my hands, fully invested in channeling with me. “Let’s do this!”

Manifestations leapt from my being, our vision, our senses, synced and then severed because I couldn’t handle such an overwhelming outpour. They left the penthouse and pursued Theodore. They’d scour every inch of the planet if necessary. There was nowhere Theodore could hide that I wouldn’t locate him. And once a manifestation found him and had a precise location of the warlock and Celestial Coven, that piece of myself would report back, and I’d share the intel with Milo. Then, the great Enchanter Evergreen would move in with the Global Guild forces and eradicate this threat once and for all.

Such an endless quest, roaming the psychic plane, veiled in the magics and bright energy of voices across the world as I searched for Theodore. Occasionally, I crossed paths with other versions of myself who also skirted along the temporal plane. This was the fastest way to move everywhere at once. It wasn’t like with Milo, where my magic sought him instinctively. No, my hunt for Theodore relied on more patience.

When the sharp, sizzling hatred snapped in the distance, I froze. If Theodore detected me, he could overpower my manifested form. Even if he did, I’d still have the intel. But I supposed the real worry came from how deranged and vile Theodore’s thoughts would get once I crept in close enough to identify his location. I didn’t want to carry his memories in my mind; I didn’t want to linger any longer than necessary.

I shook away the anxiety and dove out of the psychic plane of existence and into a dark room where the familiar twisted sadism resided. The hatred didn’t bubble over, though. More of a simmer. Here, I suspected that faint, hollow flow had to do with Theodore’s distance.

Not at all the case. He sat on the wet, gravel floor a mere few feet away. His expression was vacant, much like his surface thoughts that merely fixated on a dried stain. I quivered. It wasn’t a stain—it was dried blood caked between the crevices of the ground and beside a limp, lifeless arm.

What the fuck?

I backed away, taking in this room. A dank, dark dwelling that didn’t look much bigger than Theodore’s solitary cell at the MDC.

The arm was the least disturbing thing around Theodore. A body lay beneath a blanket. Dead, which I gauged from the lack of thoughts coming from it. Another body was propped against the wall nearest a metal door. A rotten corpse burned all over with squishy pockets of popped pus. Truly revolting—enough to make me want to hurl. It held the foulest, most disgusting smell. My senses might’ve been lacking as a manifestation of psychic energy floating about like a ghost, but I had the misfortune of syncing to the sensory details Theodore experienced.

There was an aggravation for the smell, a smell he couldn’t get out of his nose after all this time. A smell that clung to the roof of his mouth. I recoiled. How long had he sat surrounded by these bodies? Who had he killed and why?

I scoffed. It was Theodore. There was no why, merely a need for calculated chaos.

“You should leave little telepath,” Theodore whispered with a cracked voice, already aware of my presence, but remaining against his wall, staring around his tiny cell.

I wanted to ask him what happened.

His hair was unkempt, his eyes red and sunken in, his lips chapped. Dry blood clung to his hands, picked at but not washed away. Grime under his nails. The clothes he wore were filthy and seemingly the only set here. His orange jumpsuit from the MDC was balled up in the corner, soaked in blood, and beside a bucket.

I almost linked to his thoughts, almost asked him how this transpired, but I felt the memory scrape against his surface thoughts, dragged raw along his mind as it played on a continuous loop while he remained locked in here.

Purple smoke filled my vision as I entered Theodore’s exposed memory, finding him land in this tiny cell the day he’d escaped with The True Witch months ago.

Theodore’s eyes were heavy, with purple and black splotches lining his vision as he coughed, spurting the teleporting mist out of his lungs. Each wheezing exhale was a chore, a battle to stay awake, but that came from the groggy state I’d left him in when I attempted to strike him down during his assault on the academy. Correction, his second assault on the former Gemini Academy.

“You are infuriating, Theodore.” The True Witch had a scolding tone which only further exhausted the menacing warlock. “Two pillars of the Celestial Coven captured. One slain by some no nothing psychic. The mess you have brought to my doorstep. Theodore! Are you listening to me?”

He wasn’t listening, the words were barely retained, and even now they only came through so crisply because he’d replayed this memory multiple times.

Sleep clawed at Theodore, luring him with a lullaby of rest and recovery. But a piercing yellow glow cut through the smoke, carrying a high-pitched squeal and the smell of sulfur as adrenaline stabbed at Theodore’s insides. He took a deep breath and raised his head high, seeing The True Witch stand before him with a single tattoo radiating a yellow hue and releasing a rejuvenating aura meant to startle those she’d taken into a state of awareness.

“Where’ve you taken me, old crone?”

“Do not speak to me in such a way.” The True Witch clenched her jaw, the tension tempting Theodore to further antagonize. “Perhaps you will show some respect if I take away your pets.”

“I’m no one’s pet.” Vincent bared his teeth.

“Might be anyone’s pet if the mood suits me.” Darla coughed, clearing away purple smoke. “But I’d like to see you try. Teddy’s already told us everything about you.”

“And you don’t even have your staff anymore,” Ernesto added, crouched behind the others.

“You think that was my only weapon?” Amara extended her arms, revealing the light shimmer along her many tattoos.

“Your brands are artful, but they’re nothing compared to mine.” Vincent’s tattoos radiated a light glow of channeled magic, and he prepared to harness more than thirty spells simultaneously.

“Cute.” Amara kissed her hand with a heavy, wet smack. It smeared lipstick onto her palm which she blew off with a seductively puckered mouth and a touch of delicate telekinesis. “But I’ve got so much more than ancient enchantments and wards paired with my ensemble.”

The flecks of her makeup fluttered until they reached Vincent’s mouth, choking him upon contact. He gasped, clawing at his throat. His tattoos continued burning brighter and brighter, absorbing more channeled magic until they popped like broken bulbs. It was sudden and startling, and it didn’t stop until each brand etched onto Vincent had pus and blood oozing from it.

His skin reddened, and he scratched and gnawed and burrowed into the rotting flesh of his body. How quickly his body twisted in on itself, feeding and eating.

“It’s a delicious venom made especially for your little friend, Theodore.” Amara knelt in front of Vincent, watching him flail, watching him struggle, watching him crawl to the door he’d never open.

I’d seen his body when I arrived, squishy and burned and merely a rotten corpse.

“You bitch.” Darla swiped her arm quickly, three times, carrying counters in every strike meant to capture any of the buzzing magic building from The vile True Witch.

Vile. That word clung to Theodore’s throat, preventing him from shouting, from warning Darla. He wanted to tell her to flee, to escape. He wanted to move beside Vincent and hug him during this excruciatingly agonizing death. He wanted to plead with The True Witch, tell her to stop, tell her the point had been made.

Instead, he froze.

“Fool me once.” Amara flicked a finger back and forth, waving it with disapproval. “Shame. On. You!”

Her tattoos sparkled. Somehow, they diverted Darla’s hex magic. Between the spelled makeup and the tattoos, neither Theodore nor myself considered this timely preparation. She’d had these magical defenses stored and at the ready upon her arrival to the MDC. It was merely happenstance that Theodore’s crew caught The True Witch off guard earlier. An opportunity that wouldn’t present itself again.

With a twist of her hand, Amara balled a fist and dropped an ocean into Darla’s mind. The warlock who’d sliced into me a hundred times over, the one who nearly killed Tara, had now collapsed to her knees, locked inside her mind while she held her breath—truly believing she was drowning.

“Stop,” Theodore forced the word out. “You’ve made your point.”

“I do not believe I have.” Amara stood tall, her stance imposing and godlike in Theodore’s memory.

He shuffled toward Darla, crawling on all fours as he reached his friend, his lover, his perfect killer. Now, he’d lost Vincent to some sick, perverse entropy magic, but he knew The True Witch’s ocean could be pulled back.

“Awww, Theodore.” Amara channeled magic into her fist. “It pains me to see you suffer so.”

With a sudden whip of her arm, she lifted Darla’s body and hurled her headfirst into the rocky floor, bashing her skull in.

Blood splattered over Theodore’s face, his stunned, baffled, and frightened face.

“I still get my vengeance; you don’t have to watch her slow death.” Amara giggled. “We both win. It’s compromise. I do not offer compromise lightly. It is my love for you, Theodore. Remember that.”

“Your love for me?” He seethed with rage, with hate, with power. “You’ve struck what is mine. You’ve harmed two of—”

“Three,” Amara corrected, pointing a finger at Ernesto. “Because he’s not leaving here alive.”

Theodore’s eyes widened, staring at his fidgety frightened friend. His skittish ally. His gentle lover. His soft murderer.

“Run,” he mouthed.

“Four, technically.” Amara chuckled. “I forgot I killed that trollop doctor of yours. To think your father sought to keep her alive, to continue using her research for merging magics where they don’t belong. Despicable.”

“You killed Kendall?” Flashes of the doctor telepath that soothed Theodore’s destructive desires funneled through his thoughts. Her image was beautiful and dangerous and seductive and now coated in a red filter of death.

“Ages ago, darling.” Amara had this smile that faded into an expression of utter contempt. “She was meant to guide you, teach you while I was away. Instead, she exploited your youth, your ignorance. No, no, no. She had to go.”

Crystalized blue shimmered throughout the cell, and Ernesto leapt through a portal.

“Her death was truly exquisite.” Amara licked her lips, almost like she relived the torture she’d most certainly dealt Dr. Kendall. “Nothing like this fodder that you play with as if any of them were your equal.”

Ernesto screamed and shouted; his body flailed and fought to escape his own blue doorway, splashing water into the room and blood and chunks of flesh. Theodore leapt to Ernesto’s aid, gripping his hand to pull him to safety. It didn’t help. Something horrible dragged Ernesto back, and his portal door sealed, slicing off his arm that now lay in the cell, rotting.

“What’ve you done?” Theodore collapsed to his knees and dry heaved.

“I thought the hack to his destination was quite skillful.” Amara stepped over to Theodore and patted his head. “You’d think with all the time he spent at your side, he’d have done better when swimming with sharks.”

“I hate you.”

Amara mused, her vibrant green eyes softening ever so. “What child doesn’t hate their mother when being reprimanded?”

Child? What? The True Witch was Theodore’s mother? The memory swirled as I struggled to fathom this revelation. The True Witch, a pillar and leader for an ancient coven that sought to control the world was Theodore’s mother. Tara’s mother.

“Your tantrums have gotten much worse in my absence.” She shook her head. “Your father was never any good at discipline. It’s why my sweet goddess still lacks in harnessing so much of her power.”

“This was never about me, was it?” Theodore looked up at Amara, at The True Witch, at his mother. “You finally came back because it’s time for Tara to fulfill her destiny. The MDC, my release, all just a minor pitstop on your destination to supremacy.”

“It’s time for you both to fulfill your destiny, my love.” Amara brushed the back of her hand against Theodore’s cheek as if meant to wipe away tears, but he hadn’t shed any—he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “You are the vanguard of the new world order, the return of gods. You will be the commander of an army. You will be the right hand, the vigilant knight, to your sister who will reign as queen goddess over everything.”

When she said everything, it sent a shiver through my spine, through Theodore’s too, because she didn’t mean everything here. She meant everything everywhere. The True Witch sought to tear down the walls of every plane and rule over them with her children: Theodore and Tara Whitlock.

“But first, you can stay here until you learn to appreciate and respect all I have given you.” Amara slammed the door closed and left Theodore to rot in this cell with the corpses for months now.

I sprang loose from the memory as it continued playing in Theodore’s mind, resetting to the very beginning and looping through the deaths of the three most important people in his life.

“Well, well, well.” The metal door that sealed Theodore inside his cell was flung open with Amara bathed in the light outside. “If it isn’t the psychic that struck down one of my pillars. Naughty, naughty.”

She could see me, even as a ghostly manifestation.

“Know this, witch. The next time we face each other, I will have the full force of my Celestial Coven and an army.” She hurled an ocean, enough to shatter my fragmented being away from her secluded hiding spot and sent my broken being back to the whole of my body, my other half.

I gasped, taking in another manifestation. A few had returned over the summer empty-handed and mostly depleted of the magic I’d loaned their form. Nearly a month and nothing learned. But this new one carried answers. Not the location, not yet, but so much worse.

I had to find Milo, had to share this information. Most of all, I had to figure out how to protect Tara from her mother. Protect the city from Theodore. I had to protect everyone from witches who sought to unleash gods and demons onto the world.

THE END

…until the fall semester of the third and final year.