Chapter Twenty-Five

Doppler

Gael’s immediate terror engulfed everything around us, swallowing my telepathy and the chimera’s into a memory so strong it wiped away the current layout, propelling us into a fiery building where rubble and blood and destruction reigned.

Rarely did fear strike the young witch, but when it did, it carried a torrent of power more threatening than the currents of Tara’s somber ocean, which had nearly drowned me once upon a time. Every fiber of my being burned and stung from the stabbing sensation of colliding with this terror, like being impaled by the spikes lining Gael’s body.

“ What is this? ” The chimera’s psychic image in the memory hovered in a translucent state—attempting and failing to concentrate on the world outside where his body thrashed about, running loose in an effort to slaughter everyone in the backyard. “ I’ll need to kill this boy quickly. His fear is running amuck. ”

Why not quell his telepathy entirely? If he severed the connection, he’d have no trouble escaping. Did he require it to keep track of me? Did he believe it’d help control his rebellious host body? Whatever the reasoning, I needed to pull at the threads of his focus, leave him vulnerable… But first, I had to contain Gael’s nightmare memory manifesting before my eyes.

His parents were covered in blood, there was debris everywhere, and the mall was in utter chaos. What should’ve been a sweet family outing was ruined by Peter Graham, who sought vengeance after the enchanters at Basilisk Guild arrested his crew, shut down his business, and forced him on the run. But Peter Graham didn’t run from fights. His branch made him a god, and it was time to show the guild witches just how invulnerable his cellular regeneration made him.

The young and frightened Gael didn’t know any of these details—this was information I’d gleaned after studying every facet of Milo—all Gael knew in this moment was his family was in danger. He was in danger.

Every bruise. Every broken bone. Every blood mark smeared upon the ground. All of it flashed before Gael’s eyes, consuming him so loudly that it outweighed the bloodshed happening at the party. I couldn’t discern if the screams I heard came from Gael’s memories then or the students now.

Kenzo’s infuriated roar of agony bellowed, shattering pieces of the memory. It held intact, the edges fractured, but soon Kenzo’s voice entwined with the same screams Gael’s mother released as Peter Graham stomped on her chest. The shouting and crying and screaming carried terror in every direction here in the memory, merging with the reality out there, creating such a disharmonious melody it nearly choked me.

I couldn’t breathe, the same as Gael’s mother, who struggled to control the water that sprayed from overhead sprinklers despite her powerful primal branch. Her casting remained nullified and drained by Peter’s ominous presence.

Gael’s father gritted his teeth as he forced himself to his feet through sheer force and his collection of five spiked tails. Five. Gael wondered where the others had gone and cried when he saw his dad’s bloody, broken arms dangling useless to him, but he couldn’t simply surrender. Not when his family’s lives were at stake.

With Gael barely hitting four years old, it already made much of this unformed memory spotty despite the stranglehold effect it had, but he sobbed so hard the entire time that everything had a splotchy filter. If he couldn’t contain his fear, I wouldn’t be able to reach out to Dorian. I wouldn’t be able to stop this from happening. I wouldn’t be able to save him like he’d been saved…

I shook my head. “That’s it.”

I rushed through the chaos of people screaming and pushed past the crowd that swarmed around Gael, abandoning him with his injured parents alone with only a warlock that’d kill him. He knew he would die. He didn’t know what death was yet, but in that moment, he understood the word so crisply as it spilled from Peter’s lips.

“I’m gonna kill every single witch in your guild, your family, your city.” Peter’s muscles swelled, growing bigger with every breath Gael took.

He cried. His spikes had never hurt before, bothersome sure, but now they shrank and ached and ate away at the skin they sprouted from. He didn’t understand. His body burned, and he wanted it to stop.

Peter’s branch fed on all the channeled casting around him; Gael’s constant flux of casting offered a buffet of sorts, helping enhance Peter’s physical form as he ate away at Gael’s branch along with every other ounce of magic in the air.

“Snap out of it.” I grabbed Gael’s tiny shoulders, almost feeling the prick of his spiked nubs against my palms. This was nothing but a haunting nightmare, but it carried true weight. So much so that it’d devour my telepathy if I didn’t stop him. “Think past this, Gael.”

Lost in the memory of the four-year-old boy who cried so hard, Gael barely registered what I said.

“Think about what came next. Don’t hang onto these awful memories.” I locked eyes with the small boy, hoping to see past the child in this memory and find the young man who was shrouded in fear. “What happened next? What is the shining beacon that you hold onto?”

Gael sobbed as more horrors unfolded. The memory didn’t continue; it rewound to the second Peter arrived and assaulted his parents, destroying everything in sight, attacking anyone and everyone nearby. Again and again, the memory looped only on the nightmare because, outside his mind, Gael relived that nightmare as the last person he ever expected to cross paths with again came back to finish him off.

That was what Gael believed with all-consuming conviction; it locked him in this Hell.

“I can see that torch you carry, Gael.” I shook him. “I can see it trying to shine this very moment.”

“I-I-I…don’t know.”

“Show me!” I shouted, sending all my telepathy deeper into his mind, tearing the hope he had and dragging it to the surface.

Dorian never liked forcing others to face their emotions for good or bad or anywhere in between, but I didn’t have time to let him sort it out independently. He didn’t have time. No one did.

A blur of a man soared through the mall, slamming a fist into Peter Graham’s face so hard, it created a crack of thunder. That was what Gael believed, unfamiliar with the sound of breaking bones. All he saw was a young enchanter whip in from out of nowhere to save everyone. Gael studied his hero, taking in the spikey blond hair, the stylish suit, and the unyielding smile when in the face of danger. But I saw bruised knuckles, strained muscles, and the fire in Milo’s passionate blue eyes that refused to relent. I tore away the floorboards of his inner core and pushed the memory forward, past the outstanding battle that left Gael mesmerized and toward the happy conclusion that filled Gael with hope and positivity for every single day that came after.

The blurred memory swirled round and round until we’d abandoned the debris of the mall and stood in a parking lot surrounded by first responders of every kind.

Gael smiled, watching a young unknown enchanter with spiky blond hair talk to reporters. Milo hadn’t saved the city at this point, hadn’t become the hero of the events from the Night of the Fiend Massacre that led to swarms of citizens idolizing him. But on this day, Milo had inadvertently found his number one fan: Gael Martinez. At four years old, Gael knew The Inevitable Future was someone truly special, even before stardom had found Milo.

“I’d like to sit here with you, relive every wonderful second of Enchanter Evergreen kicking some much-deserved ass,” I said. “But right now, I need you to relax and snap out of this nightmare.”

Gael took a deep breath, the kind of breath that should’ve calmed him, yet he gasped. The soothing memory fell to pieces, and I returned to the backyard, where I found Gael half-conscious as his branch became further and further depleted.

A filthy yellow smog clouded the backyard, swirling in the atmosphere and eating away at all the magical energy from nearby witches, sending that energy snapping through the trail of smoke back to Peter Graham’s body where he absorbed the power.

Gael choked, eyes watering. Each of his nerve endings fired off tingling surges, the muscles in his body went numb, and Gael struggled to take a deep enough inhale for his body’s diminishing circulation. “ No quiero morir. ”

“No!” I reeled back my fear, my anger, because I had to act now.

“ Thanks for calming him, puppet. ” The chimera stood behind me in his inner core while Peter’s body thrashed about chaotically. “ Thought I’d have to snap that witch’s neck to get my telepathy to settle. An increasingly difficult task with the other one putting up such resistance. ”

He didn’t mean Peter, his erratic host body, but Kenzo, who wheezed, covered in blood and gray static.

Chains rattled and clinked, quickly coiling around me from head to toe. They tightened, dragging me waist-deep into tar as I watched the events unfold, incapable of helping in any way.

“ Can’t have you doing something we’ll both regret. ” The chimera surfaced from the pits of his inner core, holding the fragmented memories of Peter Graham in a bunched ball of lightning. “ Imperfect bodies can be so temperamental. ”

I needed to think. To act. Find a way out of these psychic chains holding me.

“ We both know you don’t really want to reach out to Dorian. You want to hope. Hope you’ll find a way to save yourself, save Finn, save Milo. ” The chimera waltzed past me, patting my head. “ These children’s lives are inconsequential. Behave yourself, and I will reward your obedience, puppet. ”

I struggled against the tightening shackles, channeling the rage in the atmosphere. Kenzo’s rage, a constant flux of fury that refused to yield no matter the odds, and I wouldn’t yield either.

Even though Kenzo was seconds away from buckling over from the pain of such fierce blows, he continued casting his disruption. It wouldn’t stop Peter’s entropy branch from feeding on the magic in the air, but Kenzo knew that. He continued casting in hopes it’d steer Peter’s siphoning away from Gael and the others lying injured or rendered unconscious in the backyard.

Over a dozen students lay strewn across the yard, bloody and wounded, much like the scene of Gael’s worst fears. Amidst the carnage stood Kenzo, on the verge of collapsing but standing strong as a buffer between Gael and Peter Graham.

It didn’t matter though. Kenzo knew that. The subtle smog in the air was unlike anything Kenzo had experienced before. He still couldn’t place the branch, but he understood the range stole away casting no matter the distance. The limitations seemed endless. Everything he cast only added to the warlock’s strength, to the devil’s strength—but the young witch couldn’t see the true threat veiled behind the fa?ade of a vengeful warlock.

“ There’s gotta be a way to stop him. There’s always a way. ” Kenzo didn’t care if he lost, if this was his ultimate failure—even though every cell of his body vibrated with fright, a feeling he couldn’t quite place since he hadn’t felt it, truly felt it since the day he awaited news on his parents after the attack on Phoenix Guild. A day where so much fear and hope mixed together. Suddenly, he understood why his parents gave up their lives against odds they could never fathom. All in desperation to buy a few more seconds of salvation.

“ I don’t want to die… ” Kenzo swallowed the trepidation and ground his chattering teeth. “ But I won’t surrender. ”

Kenzo wanted to buy those ticking seconds now. He wanted those struggling to their feet to stand and run from the danger. He wanted to redirect enough siphoning magic toward his disruption hex so Gael could breathe. He wouldn’t fail, falter, or fall until the boy he loved took a breath, a free breath, and escaped.

Icicles sprang from every direction, propelling from thin air toward the chimera’s body and doing nothing but further enhancing Peter Graham’s muscles, which fed upon the primal magic at play.

Not that it mattered. They were a decoy, a distraction, a perfectly timed act of heroism.

Tara phased through the grass, hovering in front of Kenzo. The shock in his eyes, the relief in his exhale—both tore at him as shadows manifested across the backyard. Springing from every direction, they latched onto person after person, hurling them against the house, where they immediately phased through the solid matter before the panels of the home became imbued with a golden hue meant to ward from entry.

I sighed, mesmerized by how much Tara Whitlock had grown into her branches since the last time I’d seen her. Sure, I kept tabs, the same as I did with all of Dorian’s students, but peering at the edges of her ocean, it seemed so tame compared to the last time it engulfed my being. She’d tempered her emotions, prioritized her hope for others and goals for herself, and focused on how to cast her four branches in sync.

“About time you showed,” Kenzo snapped, incapable of showing the gratitude dancing on his surface thoughts, the wave of relief that hit, but he was ready to divulge a plan he’d formulated since her arrival. “We need to—”

“Like you, Kenzo”—Tara waved a hand, summoning a single shadow—“I work best alone.”

It snatched Kenzo and Gael up, throwing them at the house with the others.

Before they crossed the threshold where Tara’s warding magic blocked all thought, I glimpsed Kenzo’s swift mental reactions.

He had enough time to cast, to disrupt Tara’s shadow, the intangibility she shrouded him in, the ward put in place to activate the moment he went through the wall. With the right push of levitation and telekinesis, he believed he could pivot, counter, and strike Peter. He could help in this fight.

Every second that ticked by, his mind processed all the possible maneuvers he could perform, ways to continue fighting, but he hesitated. For just a second, a second too long, he froze, and for the first time in his life, he let the fear of failing, of dying, outweigh his need, his desire, to prove he was the best.

Kenzo’s regret boomed before crumbling to silence as all that remained in the backyard was Tara. The chilling breeze made Tara’s teeth chatter until she clenched her jaw and glared at us, at Peter Graham’s calmed body, at the chimera possessing him, at me. Wind whirled around us almost as chaotically as the brewing storm in Tara’s mind.

Her telekinesis was fast acting and compensating for her dimming branches in the presence of Peter’s magic that fed upon her casting.

“I don’t know who you are, why you’re here, or what you want.” Tara moved her arms in a fluid motion, weaving her branches together into a powerful sphere meant to contain her foe. “You won’t hurt anyone I care about.”

With Gael gone, Peter’s fractured mind ceased its untamed stirring, offering full control to the methodic chimera. He studied the three branches circling him, encasing us in shadows, the subtle hue of gold shimmering to lock the sphere, and the tiny pocket of intangibility that whirled waves of telekinesis inside to knock back any attempt at escape.

“ Oh, I like her. ” The chimera ran his rough hands against the sheen shadows, absorbing the magic.

Peter’s entropy branch held one limitation—one that Enchanter Evergreen had exploited long ago. When Peter absorbed magic faster than he could expel it, it made his body swell with more muscular growth than his skeletal system could bear. A burden that not only slowed the warlock down but broke him internally as his body compensated by stitching together fractures caused by the continuous inflation of mass.

The devil didn’t suffer the same limitations. His demonic energy feasted on the insides of Peter’s body faster than the magic could repair the liquified organs, thus making Tara’s continuous casting a perfect ebb and flow.

“ I shouldn’t carry the consciousness of a student in my mind; it’ll be so much more haunting for Dorian to be alone with no hope of companionship or salvation when I hurl him into a pit of despair, yet this one has so much power. ” The chimera shattered the golden shadows, feeding on the broken pieces scattered at his feet like glass. “ The branches inside her seem infinite and untapped. I could restore so much of my lost collection simply by snapping up her soul, her threads of magics. ”

He rushed Tara, slamming her into the house and cracking the ward she’d put in place. Instead of resisting his grip, attempting to flee, Tara reinstilled the barrier. She poured what seemed an endless amount of branch magic until the house itself became a shimmering golden shadow of translucent energy, completely warped from reality along with all those inside. Shielded. Shrouded. Protected.

“Then again, my new friend Theodore would be dismayed if I slaughtered his sister.” The chimera grinned. “Hmm. Decisions, decisions.”

“You know my brother?” Tara gasped. “ Is that why he’s here? Have I brought this down on everyone? Again? ”

“Truthfully, I don’t care a fig for the future that reckless warlock envisions, but slaughtering you would put a major thorn in his plots.”

Tara trembled when the chimera wrapped his hands around her throat. His grip tightened, and all the control she held over her branches faltered. The words he’d spoken echoed in her thoughts as the ocean raged and her branches thrashed about chaotically, ineffectively against Peter’s branch.

She was going to die. Tara Whitlock was about to die, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do to stop this.

“ Reach out to Dorian, ” Finn whispered so softly, so gently, it brought comfort while I lay bound by chains and tar. “ You can still cast. This illusion is one conjured by the mind. Telepaths don’t fall for tricks of the mind; they make them. ”

The chimera cocked his head, Peter’s head, almost as if he’d heard Finn’s suggestion, but I knew that Finn practiced great care in tiptoeing around the devil who’d held him captive for far too long.

If I contacted Dorian, Tara would live. But Finn would die. I would die.

Tara’s face reddened, her eyes glossed over, and her breathing became wispy and haggard. I trembled as she futilely clawed and slapped Peter’s arms. “ I don’t want… I don’t want to die. ”

Her grip weakened.

Her eyes turned vacant.

Her magic simmered.

“Get the fuck off of her.” A tidal wave of water exploded between Tara and the chimera, throwing the devil back as water whirled around.

Jamie stood in front of Tara, rubbing her back as she choked on air, gasping and retching from the sudden shock of release.

“He’s draining magic.” Tara coughed. “Not sure how…”

“I see.” Jamie studied the chimera, who he didn’t recognize, guised in Peter’s mortal coil. The chimera resisted the teleportation effect of Jamie’s branch, slowly feeding off the molecules of water that Jamie continuously summoned in hopes of hurling the threat far away. “Maybe he just needs a little push.”

Jamie cast a telekinetic punch, which proved even less effective than the arcane magic at play. In fact, the chimera lapped at the telekinesis, relishing how he possessed a branch that could finally feed upon root magic—the one weakness demonic energy held.

“Guess we gotta do this the hard way.” Jamie smirked, the kind of expression that washed away the hollowness in his haunted mind and reminded him that he liked to hit hard and dirty. “Try not to judge me too much for enjoying this, Whitlock.”

“Huh?”

“The guy’s got a very punchable face, and I’ve got a lot of pent-up frustration.”

Jamie flew toward us, shoving the chimera deeper into the whirlpool, hitting him with a powerful tackle meant to knock us all the way through.

“Wait, J—” Tara shouted, then snapped into complete silence as the waves of water carried the chimera through a cosmic plane, hushed like the vacuum of outer space, through instant teleportation of Jamie’s branch.

We reemerged, surrounded by water, currents splashing against us and making it difficult to find solid footing. Not simply for the chimera but for Jamie himself, who’d been dragged through the portal.

He backed away, summoning the water of the beach to obey his command, which swirled into a whirlpool ready to transport Jamie far away until yellow smog burrowed between the synchronized droplets and ate away the part of the whirlpool that created the teleportation effect. The chimera fed on every ounce of magic he could, preventing an escape.

“Jamie Novak,” he said through gritted teeth. “Ever the thorn in my side.”

“I wanted to drop you in and leave you for the pros.” Jamie sloshed through the water, backstepping from the overgrown warlock plodding through the current. “Guess you’re not gonna go quietly, are ya?”

Jamie continued summoning his magic, whirling it round and round until the waves of water consumed us entirely. Every molecule vibrated with the intent to teleport us elsewhere, but Peter’s branch drained it before Jamie could throw us through a portal.

“You’ve got a stall on your branch. It’s fuzzy, but I read it. The lull is delayed against the duality of my arcane branch.” Jamie had a cocky grin, confidently controlling the whirlpool which engulfed us. “ It’s haunting, the way this branch works like a demon, but it’s not. ” Jamie settled the quake in his muscles, shaking off horrors of things that couldn’t be true, but they were true. “ It’s not demonic. I knew that the moment my telekinesis ended up nullified. Demons can’t suppress root magic. This guy’s just got an OP branch. But so do I. I’m a goddamn Novak, and it’s time to remind people what that means. ”

The chimera gurgled, flailing about and kicking against the water which contained us. His smog circulated the water, lapping up the magic but not quick enough to drain Jamie’s control over the flow of movement.

“You might think you’re unstoppable, you might be able to drain my teleportation factors, but I’ve got enough energy to channel this surplus of water to keep on trying,” Jamie boasted, spinning more currents of water, unleashing his wrath into chaotically precise waves. “So, you don’t want me flying you off to the front steps of a guild, that’s fine. I’ll just keep you locked in this water until you pass out. After all, everyone’s gotta breathe.”

“ That so, Jamie? ” the chimera thought, tired of the frustration an arcane branch caused. If Peter Graham’s entropy magic wouldn’t remove the problem, the chimera intended on using one of his other magics.

Jamie trembled; his eyes widened with terror.

“ Mortals breathe. ” The chimera linked his mind to Jamie, not a gentle click of a connection either, but more like he dropped an anvil dead center in Jamie’s mind. “ Demons require nothing from this world but a host to house our glory as we ascend to true devils. You remember that, don’t you, Jamie? ”

He grabbed his ears, filled with confusion; broken memories of months in bondage surfaced, stitching together in ways so much of his past remained incapable of since the chimera shattered his mind.

“ Do you remember how long I held your breath? ” The chimera floated in the torrents of water, relishing the steadying ebb and flow as Jamie’s focus floundered. “ Six days. Not a record, but fun. It would’ve killed you. Remember how you begged me to kill you? ”

“This isn’t real. You’re not real.” Jamie sloshed through the water currents, attempting to reach the nearby shore.

“ So many fun times we had, so many techniques of torment and torture I revealed. We could’ve had a lifetime of lessons and lectures, but you failed me, Jamie. You fumbled and crumbled when I needed your help to secure my perfect host, a host I would’ve carried you into, a host who would’ve wanted you to have a peaceful ever after. Being the gracious god that I am, I would’ve obliged. Then you failed me so horribly. ”

Jamie cried, scrambling to fly out of the water, but his levitation failed, feasted upon by the chimera’s newest branch magic.

“ Why’d you fail me, Jamie? ”

“This isn’t real. You’re dead. You’re gone. This is…this is…”

The chimera snatched Jamie by the throat and shoved him under the water. “This is your end, Jamie Novak.”

No!

I had to stop this, had to do something.

The shackles shattered as Jamie choked on water, fighting and resisting the pull of the abyss. That which surrounded him and that which loomed in his thoughts every single day.

“Dorian!” I screamed, pulling the tether that entwined us and sending every ounce of psychic energy I could muster, hoping it’d be enough. “You can stop this, Dorian! You can save him! You have to!”