Chapter Thirty

Doppler

Glitter whirled everywhere like an inferno of bright lights, carrying Hayden in between the specks as he teleported again and again. Each tick of his rapidly beating heart carried him round and round, delivering countless blows to immobilize the chimera.

Hayden struck faster, harder, appearing everywhere at once. He punched the chimera in the face to knock him off balance, hit him with a flurry of strikes across his ribcage from either side, then kicked his calf to drop him. This continued in an almost methodical pattern of chaos. It was difficult to glean what Hayden’s strategy was, if he had one at all. Hayden’s mind lay fully displayed, revealing the surface of a serene lake that embodied his inner core, but with his cosmic branches at work, light reflected on the gentle ripples and obscured his thoughts.

With the chimera engaged in combat, his alertness dulled, I reached out with my telepathy to create a link to Hayden. His thoughts came in waves, but piecing together the intel he held proved challenging. Nothing from Milo appeared, and perhaps I overreached, assuming Enchanter Evergreen’s involvement. Still, Hayden needed to know he faced a devil, needed to know how to end this here and now, once and for all.

Creating a connection to Hayden put a strain on my magic, nearly severing the thin thread I’d tossed into the ether. Hayden’s cosmic branches caused interference with the psychic plane of existence where magic like telepathy reigned. He was truly something spectacular.

The chimera fumed, taking forced breaths to hasten the effects of feeding upon the glitter in the air, but he should’ve prioritized his demonic energy to continue gnawing away Acolyte Reed’s intricate locks within Peter’s body. “The warding is crumbling. Now, you’re dead.”

Hayden didn’t acknowledge the comment; he merely flickered in close to the chimera’s face, vanished, and sucker-punched him before kicking him from behind and dropping the devil to his knees once again.

The chimera swung his fists, flailing and missing his target by a fraction of a second each time as he scrambled to regain his senses, searching for the specific frequency of Hayden’s casting so he could use demonic energy to nullify the effects the shimmering lights had on his vision.

Hayden’s blows weren’t only lethal. They provoked the chimera, mocking the devil, and pissed him off in a way I never could.

“I know how your entropy branch works.” Hayden clocked the chimera across the face, unfazed by the crackle in his bones completely reformed as mist seeped out of Peter’s pores, stealing the magic in the air and healing him at a cellular level. “I get how it strengthens and heals you, but it also slows you down. We both know you can’t keep absorbing magic without immobilizing yourself.”

That was true of Peter, yes, but the demonic energy continuously ate away the casting before those side effects sank in. Still, the harder the chimera pushed himself while in this host body, the more it broke apart under the weight of possession.

“I don’t need to keep casting. Just gotta drain your magic, then I’ll eviscerate you and those little witches over there.”

“I don’t run out of magic.” Hayden whirled by, swinging his arm across the chimera’s throat and slamming him with a clothesline strike before shifting behind him and knocking him forward, then finally appeared low to the ground and kicked the chimera’s right knee out of its socket.

I ground my teeth, synced to the brutal pain shooting through this body, and covered my ears from the piercing screech the chimera let out.

“Tell me again how you’re gonna eviscerate me.” Hayden scowled. “I wanna see that arrogance at its peak before I break every goddamn bone in your body.”

Flashes of Lena’s tears, Ellie’s frown, and Jamie’s body all flickered between the lights of Hayden’s mind. Each somber moment made the calm of his lake fade, and soon, his anger hit like a tidal wave—intense and tremendous but vanishing quickly once it laid waste to the shore. Then his emotions settled, and the bright sunshine of his aura returned. I winced, covering my face to block the light I’d connected to. I didn’t know if it was really that painfully cheerful or if the darkness of the chimera’s inner core had dulled my vision, making it difficult to adjust.

Hayden bolted ahead, his heart surging almost as quickly as his body flickered. The chimera braced for the next assault, knowing he couldn’t do anything until the warding faded. He needed a few more minutes. Hayden dragged this out, believing he had all the time in the world, and I had to tell him the importance of shifting tactics.

“He’s not who you think!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, cutting through the light, unconcerned if the chimera heard. If Hayden accessed his banishment, it wouldn’t matter.

My telepathy rippled along the surface of Hayden’s serene lake, and the acolyte paused. Finally!

“I need you to listen,” I said, looping my magic around his mind. “It’s not his branches you need to—”

Every muscle in my body strained. The darkness around me exploded, sloshing everywhere and knocking me from one end of the inner core to the next.

Fuck. I gasped, fighting against the tar. It was so chaotic.

The chimera roared. His body buckled, and the ground beneath him cracked apart.

I struggled to see, to see past the shadows, but this wasn’t the chimera’s doing. This wasn’t him stomping out my protest. Standing before us was Milo with telekinesis circulating throughout his entire body and funneled into a fist that he’d used to knock Peter Graham headfirst into the ground.

“It’s time for you to get Acolyte Novak out of here.” Milo cut his gaze toward the confused Hayden before locking his eyes back onto his target: the warlock.

“I can help,” Hayden said.

“You will help by getting Acolyte Novak out of here.”

“Ellie’s got it under control,” Hayden said, ready to protest with a thousand reasons he needed to help.

“Acolyte Reed’s patch job can only do so much.” Milo had a sternness in his voice. “Don’t risk Lena’s life so you can show off, Acolyte Russo!”

That struck a chord in Hayden’s mind, and his magic settled. He gritted his teeth, heart pinching once he’d stopped casting, and suddenly I realized the erratic method behind his teleportation. It was linked to his heartbeat.

Hayden nodded apologetically. “On it.”

As the three acolytes took flight, Milo’s expression softened, almost to his default smile. The pride and hope he held for them radiated around him, and the beautiful familiarity of his mind helped empower me to rip loose from the tar mess and reach out to warn him of the true threat he faced.

Milo had defeated both Peter Graham and the chimera, but now he’d face them as one truly wrathful devil.

I reached out, shoving aside every ounce of demonic energy from the inner core, and sent my telepathy toward him, conjuring a link I’d avoided since attempting this foolish endeavor of creating a happily ever after that him, Finn, and I could share. This entire time, I’d skirted around Milo’s mind, dodging his visions, and now I’d have to reveal everything I could to save his life.

“It’s a real shame, taking this win from Mercury Rising, Finesse, and The Infinite Light. They would’ve solidified their position as elite enchanters if I’d let them banish a devil.”

What? He knows.

Milo rolled up his sleeves, channeling magic to read potential futures. “But the fact is, you and I have unfinished business, and selfishly, I wanna be the one to end you. Correctly, this time.”

Milo smirked. He knew it all. Well, not all. Not even close, but he’d pieced enough together and did what he always did: ensured the best possible future prevailed.

“You gotta tell me how you survived. That’s been gnawing at me.”

He played coy, but he was recalibrating outcomes based on sending his acolytes away. This had nothing to do with wanting to end the devil himself. Milo was right about Lena’s injuries, but they were far from fatal. He’d merely painted that possibility for Hayden’s imagination. Sure, the acolyte possessed a rare trait, infinite draw, but nothing was truly infinite. The boy’s body would tire first, and Hayden’s heart would never handle the levels of banishment necessary to eradicate a devil. Milo’s body had barely endured it when channeling a hundred witches to kill the devil.

The chimera searched the streets, unraveling telepathy to pinpoint all the nearby minds in the neighborhood. They were plentiful and unaware of the danger outside; none were affiliated with guilds, meaning Milo didn’t have a band of enchanters lurking around the corners of the city like the last time he’d faced off against the devil.

“Come to face me alone. The folly of mortals.” The chimera shook his head and tsked. “Do you not recall what it took the last time you struck me down?”

“The hubris of devils.” Milo hovered above the street, gravel crackling underfoot from the intense pressure of telekinesis. “The last time we encountered each other, you had thousands of branches at your disposal. Not that you could harness them all. My guess is you still can’t. Not in an imperfect host.”

And Milo didn’t plan on allowing the chimera the opportunity again. He’d do everything he could to end what he believed he’d failed to do before, but he hadn’t. It was my interference.

“ And you’ll never know what a perfect host feels like! ” The thought soared above his surface, above his visions, above his plans, and reached out to rattle the chimera. Milo spent so much time with Dorian, he knew the second a telepath’s magic touched his mind; thus, he felt the chimera and me rummaging around.

The threat provoked fear. It festered in the darkness, tense and recoiling, so much so that I tore away from the bits of muck that held me. Nothing I did truly disconnected me from the chimera’s mind, from the darkness that’d attached itself to my being to the phantom sensations of Peter’s body casting magic as his organs liquefied.

Smog filled the air, polluting the neighborhood with entropy casting meant to feed on the nearby magic. Not only Milo’s but all the casual casting in the area. Soon, the chimera would be at full strength, in the body of a warlock that proved one of the most formidable opponents for Enchanter Evergreen.

“He can win this. He wouldn’t be here if he couldn’t,” Finn said. He didn’t whisper. He made his voice loud, evoking a shiver from the devil who’d died at the hands of Enchanter Evergreen once before.

Milo bolted ahead, taking that fraction of a second where the chimera turned inward, offended and distracted. The pulse of telekinesis hit so hard it caved in my chest.

I dropped to my knees, gasping and taking wispy breaths as the breaks along my hollow body cracked, simulating the harrowing destruction. The chimera’s pain became mine as our essence entwined.

But the chimera healed, absorbing the last bits of Hayden’s shimmering glitter through the entropy smog and repairing his broken bones.

“We have to help.” Finn’s voice pulled me away from the battle outside, where Milo clashed with the devil all on his own.

“I could reach out to Dorian while the chimera’s distracted, have him send for guild members.” I panicked, wincing from every blow that struck the chimera. This horrid sensation of being linked to the devil was awful. “If I warn Dorian now, I can ensure Milo doesn’t face these odds alone.”

“But he’s not alone.” Finn’s cheeks twitched, quickly revealing then hiding the same pain he endured.

Being bound to the chimera meant sharing in his successes and failures. If he died, so would we.

“And if we die, we can take him with us.” Finn channeled magic, drawing the tar toward him. Slimy, clawed hands reached from the shadows, ready to pluck out Finn’s glowing eyes as he studied the histories of this body, of this entire neighborhood.

Casting without permission made him a beacon in the darkness, but it also escalated the rot in the host body. Outside, the battle raged, but the chimera’s roar echoed, and his gaze turned inward to stop Finn’s disruption. Only that led to a sluggish reaction of his body, offering Milo an opportunity, which he took by slamming the chimera onto the pavement.

I gasped, nearly buckling over, and left astonished by how Finn handled the brutal pain dealt onto the chimera that ricocheted through this broken host body and shattered our forms.

Once I gathered my bearings, I grabbed Finn by his collar, ready to drag him from the grasp of the clawed hands that had come to silence his branch casting, but he shoved me back and then hit every approaching piece of tar with banishment.

I stared, awestruck by the cleansed part of Peter’s empty mind. “How’d you…”

“My casting’s never been revoked, merely my will.” Finn sent another wave of banishment to the encroaching tar come to reclaim the darkness. “That’s the chimera’s greatest strength, convincing the army of witch souls he held captive that nothing they did mattered. Nothing we did. If I’d believed in myself then, if I had the willpower I do now, I could’ve gathered every lost soul dwelling inside the chimera and destroyed him from within.”

Searing tar lunged toward Finn like a net, ready to splatter and devour his futile resistance.

“No!” I banished the demonic energy until only wisps fluttered around Finn.

They were quickly banished by Milo’s furious casting outside, tearing the chimera’s insides apart every second.

As Milo struck outside and we cast from within, the rot set in and further decayed the chimera’s host, leaving him more and more vulnerable with each passing second. His blood flow clotted, his organs boiled, and his casting receptors shriveled. Soon, the chimera would die.

“He could do this on his own,” Finn said. “Milo’s never walked into a mission without a plan for victory.”

“But we should help him.” I took the words right out of Finn’s mouth, knowing he’d sooner embrace death than gamble on Milo’s safety.

“We always were an awesome trio.” Finn smiled, the kind that lit up his entire face in the darkness as he banished away creeping shadows. “The three meant to be, right?”

I choked on my response. Those were beautiful words, yet they belonged to Dorian, not me. Never me.

“Let’s end this fucking devil once and for all.” I grabbed Finn’s hand, synchronizing our casting to strengthen the waves of banishment we cast.

Each time we struck, the sludge inside Peter Graham’s body crumbled. Each time we struck, the harrowing darkness quaked. Each time we struck, our casting timed closer to Milo’s outside this possessed body.

Shadows swept across the room, tightening to one small area and draping over the silhouette of a man crawling away from the banishment lingering all around this mind’s inner core.

“You don’t do this to me.” His voice echoed, conjuring a storm of magic to stir as all but one branch faded. Peter’s branch remained intact, draining the banishment outside where he resisted Milo’s telekinesis and attempted to force himself off the ground much like he did inside the core of Peter’s mind.

Finn squared my shoulders and locked his eyes onto me, his retrocognition in play and reading my entire history like I had a life worth living.

“What’re you doing?”

“Sorry. It’s a habit.” Finn then pressed his hands to his heart. “Every soul tied to the devil will shatter before he crumbles. I need you to banish me.”

“W-what?” I quivered, though I wanted to believe that terrified sensation came from syncing to the chimera’s shaky body. “I can’t do that.”

“You knew this was the end result.” Finn smiled.

“There’s always a way,” I said in unison with the scratchy voice of the chimera as he crawled toward us.

I turned away from Finn, ashamed that my thoughts, my desires, were as foul as the monster that held him captive for too long.

“It’s okay to falter, to struggle, to make the wrong choices,” Finn said. “But I’m asking for your help. I’m begging you not to make Milo cast the final surge of banishment. Don’t let him feel my death. I wouldn’t want him to live with that.”

There were a thousand things I wanted to say, so much to apologize for, to beg, to plead, to offer the best farewell a better man could give. But instead, I brushed away tears that’d somehow begun to stream down my face, and I placed a hand on Finn’s chest where the steady beat of his heart and the soft skin of his hands led my casting.

Without hesitation, I banished Finn. He shattered to nothingness almost instantaneously and fell away from the world, finally released from the devil, and given the peace I should’ve granted him months ago.

I trembled, hunching inward to console myself because I only had me. I was alone, forever alone.

“Guess it’s just you and me now.” I cast my gaze down at the chimera.

Not entirely alone. Not yet.

“If you banish me…if I die…you’ll—”

“Die too?” I shrugged. “Sort of figured.”

“You’ll cease to be. There’s nothing waiting for you, for me…but—”

“There’s nothing waiting for me here either.” I knelt next to the chimera.

“I can bring Finn back.” The chimera panted, desperation in his eyes, which likely matched the hesitation and hope in mine.

In all the months of torment, torture, interrogation, and investigation, I had never seen the chimera appear so frightened.

“I just need the right branches, and I can give him to you again. The right way, the way you wanted to spend your life with him. Can give you Evergreen, too. I know some charming demons that’d love to sway his opinion for his—”

“Puppet?” I chuckled because he still believed he could pull my strings. “You wanna make the men I love into puppets for this puppet?”

“A term of endearment.” The chimera smiled, feigning friendship he never comprehended.

“Your terrible nickname makes me realize I never learned your actual name.” I scoffed. “Never learned a damn thing about you that you didn’t want me to know, taunt me, goad me, manipulate me.”

“My name is L—”

I cast banishment, shattering the entire lower half of his jaw. Droplets of tar scrambled from the vacant pits of Peter’s mind, attempting to heal the broken consciousness of the chimera as he flailed and choked from his gaping wound. I banished the stray demonic energy moving toward us, cleansing this body of every piece of the chimera.

“I’d rather never learn your name. All I know will soon be carried back to Dorian, and it’s best he’s not burdened with any more knowledge of your existence than what there already is.”

I dug my hand deep into the chimera’s chest, watching the human form he favored shift and transform into his true demon self. Not that it held up with the waves of banishment I cast from within, accompanied by Milo’s casting against an immobilized host body.

“Let the world forget you, devil.”

Every part of the chimera had fallen away except for the tiniest of pieces attached to the fibers of my magic. It wasn’t enough to do harm. Truthfully, I could continue, contain it, keep it a wisp of energy incapable of forming true sentience again.

That was my mistake before, my belief I could outwit a demon and gain insight on how to free Finn.

No. My true mistake was simply believing my own ego, feeding it, fueling it.

I let out an exhausting exhale and found my hollow insides syncing to Peter’s body. The dead body releasing its final breath. But it wasn’t entirely gone. I drifted forward to glimpse through the eyes of the fallen warlock.

Milo stood, tired but nowhere near the level of fatigue like the last time he’d banished the devil.

“Sorry it took me so long to figure out the right thing to do,” I said through this body’s voice.

Milo stared down at me, perplexed and already trying to glean potential futures. “Peter?”

Leave it to him to believe there might be potential in this riddled bag of meat.

“No, I’m not Peter. I’m…” I was unable to answer because I couldn’t tell him who I was. I didn’t rightfully know the answer myself. Suppose I never would now. “Just know it should make sense soon enough.”

I smiled at him, knowing all I’d hidden from Dorian would be unveiled once I took my leave. How I wished I could’ve seen Milo smile one more time. Not the one he wore to battle, not the one he displayed for the public, interviews, and case meetings, but his true smile. The expression he reserved purely for Finn and Dorian. How I would’ve loved to see him smile at me that same way.

My vision of the outside world faltered as I sank back into the depths of Peter’s corpse. This body would crumble soon. I pressed my hands to my chest, imitating the illusion of a heartbeat I so longed for in this world. Channeling what remained of my magic, I banished myself and the speck of the chimera that’d clung to my being in a futile and desperate plea for life.

“May we rot together in nothingness till the end of time.”

The chimera and I deserved no less than to be lost to the universe and forgotten.