Chapter Eighteen #2
“In exchange, my ticket to witchydom.” Issac waved the wand, which he kept a tight grip on.
“They gave me the wand and the spell to use when I duel you. Because that’s all I have to do, right, uncle?
Duel your already deceased ass?” Issac’s eyes were wild, glaring at Devion intensely.
“Then all your power becomes mine and I’m a real witch. ”
At Dev’s chest, a ball of red-black energy appeared, swirling around like a dark, chaotic sun through which Dev whisked his fingers, streams of energy coming off as he did. “It’s this you want,” he asked, stirring the stream up. “Well… I hope you’re ready, little bitch.”
From Dev’s right hand, ribbons of black-red energy raced up his arm, and a sleek, slender black wand formed in his hand.
“Can we all just put those away for a minute and figure this out?” Schuyler begged, wanting—needing a breath to grasp the situation unfolding around him. To find a way to deescalate Issac.
“No.” Issac held his ground.
“Can’t, babe, sorry,” Dev said, blowing Schuyler another kiss.
Schuyler pleaded with Issac to reconsider. He hadn’t been taught to duel; he couldn’t trust what some random demon had implanted in his head. They could find another way, work something out. Issac declined all, determined only to defeat Dev and take what he believed was his.
Schuyler stepped back from a fuming Issac, wanting no part of it as he and Dev traded barbs.
Sky noticed the spirits in the cemetery; they were gathered around as spectators.
Ghost bookies worked the crowd, taking bets and collecting money, as vendors moved through, waving their snacks around.
Some spirits already had signs saying who they were rooting for.
Um… how long have they been watching us?
“Babe.” Dev nudged Schuyler’s attention back with his voice. “Hate to interrupt your disassociation time, but since this is a proper duel, you’ll have to oversee. Make sure your little bitch doesn’t fire off prematurely.”
“Come down here and spout that shit, Fagatha.” Issac’s hand trembled, ready to fire off a spell.
“A slur! The audacity of you. You literal demon twink.”
“Both of you, enough,” Schuyler shouted, fed up. If this was the way, then so be it. “Wands at the ready,” Sky commanded.
The cue for both parties to initiate the dueling stance: standing sideways, feet shoulder-width apart, their heads turned to face their opponent, dominant arm stretched forward, with wands extended, and the other arm held tightly behind their back.
The Overseer, Schuyler, ensured both parties were in proper form before moving forward. “Wands at the up.”
The duelers raised their forearms, holding their wands straight up, allowing for a Moment of Grace: the respected space given to allow a dueler to exit with honor. Schuyler knew neither of them would be backing down. “Wands at attack.”
The duelers brought their hands across their chest, resting on the shoulder, and waited for Sky to give the final cue.
At his word, spells would be cast. Schuyler took a breath and raised his right arm.
He saw the tension flexing in the muscles of Issac’s arm, the determination on his face, the way he bit the corner of his lip.
Could he beat Dev, who floated in cocky reassurance, his face stone-still, not a hint of emotion?
Sky dropped his arm. “Rezayat.”
A single silver spark shot from his finger, up into the sky, signaling the start. Without a moment of hesitation, Dev and Issac swung their hands, shouting their spells at the same time. Both released bolts of energy from their wands.
Devion’s, a blast of spiraling red-black energy, like lava, hot and angry, slammed into the surprisingly powerful blue spell Issac attempted, but ultimately was no match for.
His spell was obliterated.
Dev’s spell tore through it, knocking the wand from Issac’s grip and scalding him. Issac grabbed his hand and went to the ground, screaming in pain. His wand flew into Dev’s waiting palm as he swooped in closer.
“Booyah! Might be dead, but I still got it.” Dev cheered for himself and gave a little love to the spectators watching. When Issac attempted to lunge at him, he pointed both wands at the young man. “Boy, have you lost your mind? I will end you,” he warned.
“Stop!” Schuyler jumped between them. “There’s no need to hurt him.”
Dev conceded, retracting both wands, his disappearing—Issac’s he tossed to Schuyler. “You need to get him out of Bairwick, then destroy that. Somewhere, someone is missing their power, and I’m sure they’d like it back. We need to erase my loser nephew’s mind.”
“He’ll leave,” Schuyler assured him, speaking for Issac. “I’ll see to it.” Sky hated saying the words, hated condemning Issac to leave, but he had lost.
“I don’t want to leave,” Issac growled, holding his hurt hand.
“Well, then think about that before you enter a duel with stolen power, ya little bitch.”
Schuyler, fed up with their back and forth and Dev’s continued taunting, shouted at both of them. “Devion, you can stop being at dick at any time. Issac, you lost, accept it.”
“Fine,” Dev relented with a whine, “but,” he continued, raising his pointer and middle fingers on both hands, “I still don’t trust him, and we’re going to deal with that right now.
” He spun one set of fingers around the other, as if wrapping them up.
“I bind you, Issac Carrow-Kincaide. Bind you from touching magic again.”
Issac protested, hurling more expletives and slurs as he winced, an invisible vice pressing around him tightly.
“I bind you, Issac. I bind you from ever doing harm again.” Dev continued to spin his fingers around, the pressure around Issac growing.
His arms were forced together at his chest, his face red with pain, eyes nearly bulging. “I hate you, you selfish cunt.” Issac screamed through the pain, struggling against the binding, his anger boiling over.
“The language outta you, I swear. I bind you, Issac. Bind you from ever touching magic again in any form.”
“You took everything!”
“Dev, you’re hurting him, please.” Schuyler wanted to intervene further, watching Issac in so much pain brought him no pleasure, but he also felt the binding necessary. Maybe with that they wouldn’t need to erase his memory; a messy procedure even the most capable witch could fumble.
Issac yelled, nearly rabid, repeating how he didn’t care that he’d lost, how Dev ruined his life. “I’ll fuck a hundred demons if I have too.”
“I bind you, Issac.”
“I’ll find a way to undo what you’ve done to me, and I’ll come back here and dig your sorry ass up and have my revenge!”
“I bind y-” Dev instantly ceased the binding spell, throwing his hands up. “Oooh, well you done fucked up now.”
“Issac, no.” Schuyler’s stomach dropped.
It was already hard enough watching someone he cared about meltdown so violently. Sky waited for Issac to catch up to what he had said in anger, witnessing the moment the realization became evident in the young man’s face—his eyes losing the fiery anger and going blank, his mouth hanging open.
“I take it back,” he cried, fumbling over his words, trying to correct his mistake. He looked up at Schuyler, desperate. “How do I take it back?”
The spirit spectators disappeared quickly. A rumbling from deep within the ground could be felt by all. They were coming.
“No,” Schuyler sighed, defeated. “There’s no taking anything back, Issac. You said the words, and you meant them; what’s cast is cast and cannot be undone.” The disappointment Schuyler felt weighed him down. What a moment to be reminded of the immature streak which ran through Issac.
“I’d rather the Elders not see me,” Dev said to Schuyler. “It’ll be quick. Just don’t watch when it happens, babe.” He turned invisible, floating behind Schuyler, grabbing his hand, offering him comfort. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he whispered softly in Sky’s ear.
Schuyler approached Issac where he knelt on the ground. Sky looked at him, his eyes welling up.
“I’ve hated him for so long, for what he did to us. What he took. The demon promised me I’d win the duel, they promised I’d be a witch, a real one. I… lost my temper. I fucked up. Can’t you fix this? You can fix anything.”
“Yeah, you really did.” Schuyler felt his own tears starting to well up.
“I’m sorry, but this is something I can’t fix.
” There was nothing he could do. Dev squeezed his hand.
Though arrogant and unhinged toward Issac, to Schuyler, he was the sweet, gooey-centered boyfriend who always grounded the emotional rollercoaster within.
They all felt the temperature around them drop ten degrees. The rumbling in the ground grew stronger, the gravestones around them began to rock.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Issac asked, frightened.
“I really don’t know,” Schuyler answered, both exasperated and sad. “No one has ever documented the experience. All I know is they arrive, and they do what they need too.” Schuyler wished there were better words of comfort he could offer, but he needed more time to think of them.
The moon became covered by the clouds moving in over them.
Issac smiled at Sky, his face for a moment soft and sweet as the day they met.
“Well now you’ll have something to write about.” He tried to make a joke, and Schuyler thought he was going to stand up, but Issac remained on the ground, sore from the incomplete binding spell. “Maybe they’ll just kill me.”
Schuyler’s chest hurt at the idea. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t want to be erased. That’s the other option, isn’t it? You’d forget me. I don’t want that. Maybe forget this moment—not really my best one. I’d like to stay, even if it’s only in your memory.”
Issac stood up, stepped towards Schuyler and when he was about to take Sky’s hand, the ground opened around him.
Schuyler reached out with his free hand, but it was too late. Issac stood on a foot wide piece of earth separated from the rest. Three blinding streaks of purple energy rose from the openings around him.
“Don’t look,” Dev urged again.
Schuyler spun around after seeing Issac fall to his knees again, pleading to the three hooded figures who circled him now, screeching at him.
“I didn’t mean it! I promise I didn’t!” Issac screamed over the screeches, begging for mercy, for another chance.
Schuyler faced out into the cemetery, rows of headstones in front of him, trying to block the sounds out.
“I didn’t mea-”
Silence.
The temperature returned to normal, the clouds vacated and left the sky clear, and the earth gave one final murmur as it sealed closed.
Issac.
Schuyler remembered him, turning around to see only a small black burn mark where the young man had once been kneeling. Dev materialized next to Schuyler, who in turn rested his head on Dev’s shoulder. “He wasn’t the bad guy.”
“No, he wasn’t, Smudge.” Dev leaned his head on top of his love’s shoulder as Schuyler mourned, first silently, and then with some tears.
“You dodged a bullet. Life with me would have meant a lot more of that kind of shit, dealing with my family.” He mimicked a high-pitched shrill, girlie scream.
Schuyler laughed. “At least that little demon twink brought us back together, and I’m grateful I got to hold you again. ”
“Me too.” Schuyler nuzzled against Dev a little closer. “Plus, that mid-air sex was pretty hot.”
“I know, right! Good to know we still got that chemistry.” Dev squeezed him tighter, before quickly throwing his free arm behind his back.
“Damn.” Dev sighed, breaking their embrace.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” Schuyler wiped his face and prepared himself for a second goodbye, a much harder one.
Hell of a night.
“Babe, there’s no need for anymore tears.
Our evening is over, yeah, but that’s all.
I’m not confined here anymore. I can visit in your dreams—and I mean, prepare yourself for some sexy-ass night terrors, you bearded hottie.
” He got another small laugh out of Schuyler.
“This isn’t a sad goodbye. This is like those nights when we first started dating, remember?
I’d see you home, like the gentleman I am, and we’d linger on the porch and kiss.
“Then the time would come when I’d have to turn and walk away, and that walk always sucked. But I knew I was going to get to see you the next day. That’s how we have to look at tonight.”
Time paused as they kissed—kisses that stretched from those nights on the porch, to the imagined future which saw them together in old age, still kissing like teenagers.
Dev pulled away, feeling the spell ending. “I could give it to you,” he said, cupping his hand at his chest, the spiraling chaotic sun appearing again, hovering in his palm. “Imagine what you could do with it.”
Schuyler looked at the ball of energy, a violent swirl of potential. He reached out; his hand slid under Dev’s and pushed it softly back to chest. “If I ever need that much power, I know where to find it.”
“I knew you would say that. Fun fact about the potion: it’s part old mortuary magic, used to bring badly scarred bodies back to the point before, so they could be viewed during their burial ritual. Though, when it’s over, the spell moves in reverse. I don’t want you to see that.
“So tonight, Schuyler Croy, the only man I’ve ever loved, it will have to be you who walks away from our date.”
Dev summoned the journal, which had gotten tossed around in the fray, to Schuyler, who clutched it to his chest.
“I love you.” He kissed Devion once more, a final taste of his lips, to see his face and reaffirm the image which would stay in his mind. It took him a moment to find the courage to turn around, but Schuyler summoned it.
“I love you more,” Dev called out. “I love you always.”
“Always,” Schuyler whispered, trying to hold himself together, refusing to break down, refusing the urge to turn around, to take one last look at the man he loved more than anything.
With his eyes straight ahead, Schuyler carried on moving forward toward down the cemetery’s path.