Chapter 20

The special HID alarm for the First Veil Tear went off, and even though I’d known it was coming for weeks, I was still apprehensive of it.

Yeah, we’d dealt with the First Veil Tear countless times, but it opened and grew so quickly these days that it seemed like taragorians just poured out of it. By the time we got there—every single time—there were dozens of the monsters already roaming about the Great Divide and looking for people-sized food… aka, us.

No matter how many shields I put up, having that many taragorians around us meant there was a greater risk of being overrun. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone getting injured.

We put on our special gear, grabbed our extra supplies, and ran up to the roof of the building to the waiting helicopter. After we all piled in, the copter took off before we were all even buckled. The second I had my seatbelt on, I grabbed Cosmo’s hand, and he tightened his grip almost painfully as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Even after all this time, he was still afraid of riding in a helicopter. Despite myself, a wave of fondness for him ran through me, and I couldn’t help but send that fondness through our bond so he’d feel it. Maybe I could combat his fear with love.

Geez, thank the goddess no one else could hear that sappiness in my head. I’d never live it down. Blech.

Cosmo’s lips curved up when he felt my emotions, and he muttered to me, “Thanks.”

“You’ll be okay.”

“I know that logically.”

“Yeah, but fear isn’t always logical. I gotcha. But you will be alright.”

He nodded and continued speaking without opening his eyes. “What’s got you so worked up?”

I blew out a long breath. “I don’t know. I think I just have a bad feeling about this one.” Or maybe it’s my magic making me fidgety and crazy.

He opened his eyes at that, turned to me, and took me in for a long moment. “We’ll be extra cautious. Stick closer together.”

I nodded. “I think that’s a good plan.”

He nodded, then turned on his mic and addressed our team. “We’re sticking close for this one, guys. No running off. No taking chances. Stick close to your teammates and listen to Jude.”

He got a bunch of affirmations and squeezed my hand.

“We’ll be fine.”

“Yep.”

I really hoped he was right.

We were only about two minutes out when another HID alarm went off. Which was weird. We were already on a First Veil Tear call, so we shouldn’t have been in the system as on-call at all. This had never happened before, but maybe someone at HQ screwed up or the system was acting wacky. Cos would have to call them to straighten it out so they could call on another team for this new alarm.

But even though I knew it couldn’t be for us, I was curious—and bored—enough to open it up. When I did, my eyes widened. Shit.

I hit the mic for my team and said, “That wasn’t a normal alert. Open it. The First Veil Tear was opened by witches. We have a whole entire coven of witches to deal with—possibly a few covens, if the number of reported witches and the size of the tear is accurate.” Which, if they’d opened the First Veil Tear so big so quickly, it probably was a lot of them. “There’s a few pictures from satellites and a drone they finally got over there. It already looks like absolute mayhem, and they’re definitely drawing on taragorian life force to boost themselves.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking, fuck. Fuuuuuck.

There were a bunch of curses and worried gazes all around. This already hard mission just got infinitely more difficult.

When we got closer, Harriet switched on a camera feed from the front of the copter so we could see what we were walking into. We were able to pull the feed up on our individual HID screens.

My frown deepened as I inspected the scene.

The tear was absolutely humongous. Way too big for having only opened minutes ago. In fact, I didn’t think I’d seen a tear this big here in at least a decade, maybe more.

Either our First Veil Tear alarms hadn’t gone off when they were supposed to, or the witches who’d opened this one had done something to it to make it grow so quickly.

On the ground in front of the tear were seven large circles of bodies, set up in the way we’d seen many times before. The witches had dragged people out here and murdered them to perform their spells. And now, they were draining taragorians of their life force, too.

There were several shipping containers on the ground, and it made bile rise in my throat. They must’ve brought people over in the containers the same way they’d done to Haiden, Teo, Elzanna, the rest of their first pride, and so many others. How were these people so freaking wicked, vile, and hateful? How were they so villainous?

How did someone become a person who killed to obtain power?

How had the Red Cloth found so many willing… serial killers?

Each of the seven circles had at least one taragorian trapped in the center, and many of them already had a pile of dead beasts right beside the one they were currently draining.

Around the circles were lots more taragorians running free and looking for snacks.

This was going to be a shitshow.

It honestly already was.

After a few minutes, Jude said, “Cos and I are coordinating and connecting to everyone on the battlefield. We’re running this. There’s different channels between magi, shifters, team leads, etcetera, but you guys don’t need to worry about that. Mads, you’re going to be hooked into a line with all the magi so you can give them direct orders, okay?” I blinked at that but nodded, pleased they trusted me with this. “On the ground, we’re going to be taking the lead, so I want our teams heading up the center. It looks like that’s where the Supreme Rose is, and I don’t want any other team taking them on.”

I’d been so focused on the overall picture of the battlefield that I hadn’t taken stock of individuals yet. But now that Jude had pointed it out, I could see exactly who he was talking about. Toward the middle of the center circle was a person wearing a red cloak. Assuming it wasn’t an imposter or someone trying to trick us, I’d say it was definitely the Supreme Rose.

And where the Supreme Rose went, Anderson followed. Or at least it seemed that way.

I zoomed in to that circle while Jude, Cos, Harriet, and Simon started coordinating with the other teams on the other helicopters. I searched every person—every standing person—in the center circle, but I didn’t see him anywhere, so I moved on to the one on the left.

Before I could finish inspecting the witches, our copter touched down, the doors opened, and we were being ushered off while we secured our Great Divide masks onto our faces.

Jude, Ash, Logan, Wren, and I went down first, forming wall-shields around us so our shifters were covered. As soon as everyone was out of the helicopter, it took off into the air to back up and stay out of range of the witches, and we began running toward the action.

“Anyone hear from the People’s magi yet?” I asked Jude.

The People’s Liberation Union watched the First Veil Tear area just as closely as we did, and this was the one area where our governments worked together pretty seamlessly. But we usually arrived before them simply because the tear was a tiny bit closer to our side of the Great Divide than theirs.

He shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll coordinate with them when they get here. You just worry about taking those prickholes down.”

I shot him a grin and a fake salute before focusing on jogging forward with my dyad beside me. He was shirtless, making it easier—and quicker—to activate his runes.

I put up two wall-shields as we got closer because a herd of taragorians headed our way. The witches were trapping taragorians in their circles, but I could tell they were letting many more pass by them to distract us so they could continue building power with their trapped beasts. It was a good plan, but I wasn’t about to let them win that easily.

Grabbing Jude’s hand, I activated two taragorian-proof dome shields while I took in the battlefield from the ground perspective. It was always different once boots were on the ground compared to aerial views, and since my dyad was beside me, I didn’t bother looking at his chest and back for the runes I needed—I didn’t want to waste even one second if I didn’t need to and holding his hand was even faster.

I used my two newly made shields to capture two large groups of the beasts. Right now, it didn’t matter that there were seven in one shield and nine in the other. Our main focus, our main goal, was to take out the witches. Once we got rid of them, we could work on taking out the taragorians, or sending them back, and closing the veil tear.

Trying to kill the beasts right now wouldn’t really do anything for us. So after anchoring those shields, I created two more to capture more of them. And as I tried to collect as many as possible in one dome, I began using my wall-shields to sort of push through the crowd.

I angled them so they created a point at the front, then I pushed forward, forcing the crowd of taragorians to part as I sort of just bowled into them with the wall-shields. I wasn’t sure I’d ever done that before, so I was pleased with how well it was working.

I still captured many of the beasties, and Logan was covering our backs—he had wall-shields around our backs, connected to the ends of mine so we were covered all the way around. Since it was my ce’oso covering us, I didn’t even need to double check that he was doing it right. I knew he’d keep us safe, so that was a worry I was able to drop.

I pushed the group forward as quickly as I could, but it still took several minutes because it was a lot of space to cover, and as much as my pointed wall-shields were working, I couldn’t simply push them out of the way if they didn’t want to move. They were way too big for that. All I could do was apply pressure until they finally got sick of it enough to back away.

We got within about thirty feet of the center circle—it was actually made up of several circles of dead bodies set within each other—and I came up against a large shield.

A large witch shield.

I leaned back to take a look and groaned. “Shit. Are you seeing this?” I asked the other magi.

Jude nodded. “They put up their own wall-shields.”

They had. They weren’t completely straight the way our wall-shields were, having a slight curve about them, but the witches had overlapped the ends with other witches’ shields to create one huge shield all the way across the battlefield.

We were effectively cut off from the circles and the tear itself as long as these shields were up.

I had the brief thought that maybe they’d get run over by taragorians since they couldn’t let them pass this way anymore, but then I saw the witches, who were already hopped up on taragorian life force, were able to start draining new beasties as they came through the tear. And they were doing it so quickly that they didn’t need the thirty-something dead bodies lined up in circles to trap the taragorians first.

What. The. Actual. Hell.

How were they coming up with so many new spells? How were they doing this?

That was going to have to be yet another worry for later. Right now, my only goal was to take down this motherfucking shield. Or rather all of the motherfucking shields.

Jude directed us so I opened a hole in my shield for the shifters to shoot their assault rifles through. I made a bomb spell without hesitation since I didn’t need to be so careful out here in the open space, and I slung it straight ahead. I felt it hit the witch’s shield, but the shield and the witch didn’t react at all. Like, at all.

Great. Having them hopped up on taragorian blood was going to be hell for us.

Ugh.

I made another bomb spell and another and another and another, and… nothing happened. Not even a tiny crack.

“Fuck!” I screamed before glancing at Jude and activating a double set of bomb spells. At this point, I’d lost track of how many runes I’d activated, and to be honest, I didn’t actually care. I could tell that I was using a lot, but it didn’t really matter because I could also tell that I had plenty more slots left.

The witches continued to throw their own spells at us, but they weren’t dissolving my shield… yet. Maybe these witches just didn’t know that spell, or maybe they were building up to it, I didn’t know. But I was grateful even though I was sure they’d come back to hit me with it when I least expected it—maybe that was why they were waiting. Letting me get a false sense of security, then bam, hit me with a shield-melt. Fun times.

I tried to ignore the sharp pains spiking in my head with every hit as I weaved my double-bomb spell together. This would make a huge blast. Like one we should maybe be farther away from, but there was no way we could give up any more room, either, so I’d just have to deal with my own spell creating more backlash for me.

“Hold your fire!” I yelled at my shifters so I could close the hole in my wall-shield. There was no way I was risking any of them with a spell this powerful. As soon as they pulled back, I closed the gun hole and finished making the double-bomb weave.

When it was done, I threw it, not giving myself—or anyone else—a moment to rethink how wise this was.

My spell hit, and the explosion went off, wind flying past us even though my wall-shield caught most of it. I closed my eyes and tried not to scream as my own magic created a very sharp pain in my head. But I knew it would pass.

The second the pain dulled a little, I opened my eyes to see if my spell did anything.

Finally. Freaking finally there was a small crack in the witch’s shield.

That huge blast and all I got was a tiny splinter. For crap’s sake.

But it was better than nothing.

So I made another double-bomb spell and hit the same shield with it, right near the crack. The sound it made was so loud, my ears started ringing, but I also heard what sounded like glass breaking.

I blinked my eyes open and found the shield was down. Hell yeah!

“It’s down!” I yelled as I quickly made a hole along the entire wall-shield so the shifters could point their guns through it.

They didn’t hesitate when I said, “There’s a hole open. Shoot!”

My shifters and Simon’s started shooting at the witches through the hole, and they were actually able to hit a few of them. I wasn’t sure if all of them died, but they at least got taken to the ground and were out of the fight.

As I had that thought, I watched another witch put up another shield, and I cursed under my breath.

“Witch shield is up again,” I yelled, even though I was sure they could tell already since their bullets were no longer hitting the witches.

I hit the shield with another regular bomb spell and could tell immediately that the shield was just as strong as the other one. So I weaved together a double bomb, yelled at the shifters to hold fire, closed my shield, and launched the double-bomb at them.

It hit with just as much force as the others, but this time, when the dust cleared, I couldn’t see a crack. Good goddess, was this witch even stronger than the last one?

I didn’t hesitate to throw another double-bomb spell at the shield, and then another before I finally saw a dent in it. I flung a fourth one at the shield, aiming for the crack, and it blasted that bad boy to smithereens.

The second it was down, I reopened my shield for the shifters and let them hit the witches.

They took out a few more, and this seemed to finally get the Supreme Rose’s attention. They were still close to the center of the circle, behind a secondary shield, apparently, where they were sucking taragorians dry like it was their job.

Goddess, how much magic could one person carry in their bodies? Especially when it was stolen magic? Were they going to explode like a balloon? Was that possible?

I definitely wished it was. That was something I’d like to see, even though I’d probably puke from it.

Okay, I just grossed myself out. But… I didn’t have time for that nonsense.

The Supreme Rose waved an arm in the air, and another shield appeared in front of their group, and I groaned in annoyance because I had a feeling it was going to take a hell of a lot of bomb shields to get it down.

I heard Jude and Cos coordinating with the People’s magi, who’d finally arrived on scene, but I ignored that and concentrated on the problem at hand—Anderson.

To Ash and Wren, who’d been busy attacking the circle on our left, I said, “Ash, Wren, I think I need your help. We need to take this shield down and get to the Supreme Rose. That should be our priority. Cos, Jude, is it okay if I reassign them to help me?”

“Definitely,” Jude said.

Cos said, “Do what you need to, Mads.”

I nodded to myself. “Okay, you two start sending double-bomb spells at the Supreme Rose’s shield, if you can. If you can only do single ones, that’s fine, too. Just keep shooting at them. Don’t stop. If the three of us keep hitting it over and over in a row, they won’t get a breather.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Ash said, moving closer to me.

“Let’s do this,” Wren added as they came up on the other side of Ash, looking and sounding very determined.

“Shifters, hold fire!” I yelled, and as soon as their assault rifles were out of the way, I closed my shield up.

The three of us figured out a system with one of us going after the other right in a row so fast you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that we were actually going in a pattern. I was shocked at how good and quick Wren was now. They were improving every year. They were drawing up their bomb spells just as quickly as Ash and me. It was amazing.

It seemed to take an eternity, and I knew all three of us were sweating and growing tired, but finally, we saw their shield crack. Wren cheered, but we didn’t stop there. We all had to hit the shield again, and when Ash hit it once more, the whole thing shattered, making that falling glass sound.

Before I even had a chance to send another bomb or open my shield for the shifters to shoot, the Supreme Rose already had another shield up, taking the place of the first one.

“Holy shit!” Ash yelled. “How the hell are we supposed to beat these prickholes when we can’t even hit them?”

“I don’t know, but let’s keep at it,” I said, throwing another double-bomb spell.

We continued our bomb spell pattern, and just when I thought I was going to have to take a break or something, I felt my shield get hit with a shield-melting spell.

I yelled out in surprise, wincing from the pain it caused, and before I even had to tell him, Ash already had a shield up behind mine so no one would get hit through the spots the melting spell had taken out.

I let my shield drop, reformed it, and placed it in front of Ash’s so I’d be the one to get hit and hurt and not him. He huffed in annoyance but didn’t bother to argue with me because he knew I was the more stubborn one of the two of us.

Another melting spell hit me, and I grunted, released my spell, re-weaved it, and placed it back in front again. Then I turned in the direction I thought the spell was coming from and froze, my heart pounding hard in my chest.

Anderson.

He was standing in the circle to the right of us, and he was staring right at me with that ugly smirk on his face. He didn’t lose eye contact as he tossed another of those spells at my shield, and since I knew he was watching me, I didn’t let my flinch show when it hit me.

But he still laughed, like he thought it was hilarious that he was hurting me. I mean, of course he did. That was the shit he took enjoyment from.

Goddess, he was disgusting.

Without much of a thought, I hurled a double-bomb spell at Anderson even though I knew he was behind a shield.

I heard Ash yell something at me, but I couldn’t hear him over my own pounding blood.

Anderson was right there. I needed to kill him. I needed to take him out. I needed to get to him.

I stepped in that direction and launched another double-bomb spell and another and another, aiming for Anderson’s head every time. I knew it wouldn’t reach him because of the shield around him, but that didn’t stop me from picturing it taking him out and blasting him into a million tiny pieces.

“Mads!” Jude yelled at me. “The Supreme Rose!”

I couldn’t look away from my true enemy. Not even to look at my dyad.

“Madeo?”

“I have to kill him, Jude.”

He didn’t say anything to me for a minute, but I heard him talking into his HID. The whole time, I continued to aim double-bomb spell after double-bomb spell at Anderson.

Finally my dyad said, “Alright, you’re good to go after Anderson. Ash and Wren are taking over the Supreme Rose attack for now. Let’s go get that prickhole, bubba.”

I nodded, and I had enough presence of mind to figure out my wall-shields with Ash and Wren so no one got hurt. Logan anchored his wall-shield, then moved over to join us, covering my back, and my team—Jude, Cos, Logan, Dare, Zara, Kulani, Haiden, and I—moved toward our worst enemy.

And Anderson just smirked at us.

He was enjoying this game.

Way, way, way too much.

But I didn’t care because I was going to enjoy ending him and his torture once and for all.

When his shield finally broke after my double-bomb spell attack, he tried to pull up another one, but he wasn’t quite as fast as the Supreme Rose. I managed to get a bullet spell off and watched in glee as it hit him in the hip. He cried out and cast his shield up again.

But I’d hit him.

I’d made that prickhole bleed.

And I was going to do it again.

With new vigor, I lobbed double-bomb spells at him, quicker than before, and I knocked his shield down again. This time, instead of worrying about covering the whole area, and his fellow witches, he only threw a shield up over himself.

Which meant that area wasn’t covered.

Jude yelled to our shifters before I could, and I opened a hole up in my shield so they could fire. A rain of bullets engulfed the area around Anderson.

I hurled a bomb spell directly at the horrible human, and it knocked him back a few steps but didn’t break his shield. So I tossed freeze at his shield, making it instantly harden, and followed it up with another bomb spell and another one. The witches around Anderson threw their own personal shields up after one of them got taken out by my shifters, but I only had eyes for Anderson.

I stepped forward, flinging another bomb spell.

His shield fell, but he got another one thrown up before I could do anything.

But at least I was forcing him to use a lot of his magic. If I could just wear him out, I’d be able to kill him.

Another freeze spell and two more bomb spells took his shield out once again. When he was hit in the arm with a bullet, I saw a look of fear cross his face.

This was it. I was going to get him.

He pulled up another shield, but that didn’t matter. I was going to get him this time.

I doubled down, walking forward again, slinging spell after spell, and heading straight for Anderson, and that fucking prickhole knew it. I should’ve guessed he’d try to run.

The Supreme Rose yelled something to Anderson that I couldn’t hear, and a ton of witches rushed for Anderson’s area, coming from either side. Then that jerkhat smirked at me before backing away into the crowd of witches behind him as a different witch erected a large shield in front of the group, cutting off my forward progress.

I did everything in my power to reach him, to chase after him, but the witches’ strong shields held, and I couldn’t push my way through. I slammed every ounce of energy into my spells, and I saw the shield crack. So I did it again and again and again.

And when their shield finally fell, it sounded like glass falling and scattering along the ground.

But when I looked for Anderson, for his ugly, horrible face, he’d been swept away by the sea of witches before me.

He was gone. But the Supreme Rose still fought on.

I blinked at that.

Why hadn’t the Supreme Rose run with him?

They had at every other encounter we’d had. Had the Supreme Rose actually sent Anderson away to save him? What the hell was going on here?