Chapter 6 #2
“This is an alteration branch,” Yaritza said, recalling the type with a little suggestive whisper on my end. “Like Jamius’ magic.”
“This is nothing like mine,” he added. “This is sizemorphic.”
Sizemorphic magic allowed individuals to alter their bodies into larger or smaller proportions. The question was, did this witch have access to both capabilities or merely the enlargement portion?
“These damn flames,” the witch roared.
His bellowing shout lessened as his body shrank, and much to my surprise, so did his clothing.
His outfit must’ve been enchanted, which meant he wasn’t some random criminal on a spree, but someone with funds.
Someone with enough training to quickly compose himself and dodge nearby enchanters that swooped in to attack him in his smaller stature.
It didn’t work. Soon, he stood barely taller than Enchanter Ortiz, who didn’t relent with his flames.
“Just because the target is smaller doesn’t mean I’ll be letting up.
” Ortiz waved his hands, hurling the massive array of white fire at the sizemorphic witch.
It was enough to engulf the entire block, yet Ortiz honed the flames to strike the witch alone.
“I’m about to show you why they call me Hellrazer! ”
Part of me wondered if he planned to char the witch to cinders when I remembered Enchanter Ortiz’s black and white flames had unique qualities he could manipulate. Likely, he’d use the white fire to conjure a prison that’d hold the sizemorphic witch in place, preventing his escape.
“You dare challenge the Celestial Coven.” The sizemorphic witch seethed a venomous breath.
I trembled. They were here. Why? After all these months of avoiding us, dodging my telepathy, they’d returned.
Taking rapid breaths, I tried to compose myself, to collect my thoughts, to scan the thoughts of the entire city.
If this witch had come, did that mean the rest of the Celestial Coven had arrived, too?
Did Theodore return with a legion of demons at his beck and call? Was The True Witch here?
“Witches of your caliber can never hold their own against my glory,” the sizemorphic witch said.
“I am Winston Cobalt, the alteration branch of the Celestial Coven. The true coven, the divine coven, the righteous coven. I lead the path to the glory of gods, serving as their vanguard. I come to announce your city’s demise.
To usher in a rebirth of this sad world. ”
“Oh, shut up,” Ortiz shouted. “So you can change your size. Big deal. I’ll burn you to ashes whether you’re the size of a gnat or a skyscraper.”
“I control more than my size.” Winston smirked. “I control all matter of this world.”
With a wave of telekinesis, Winston wrapped his magic around Ortiz’s white flames, and in a blink, the fire vanished.
“How?” Ortiz searched the area, finding his fire hadn’t vanished. The pulse of his flames called to him, still bent to his control, yet they were nowhere to be seen.
“Such a simple gift you were born with.” Winston snapped his fingers. “The gods have no need for fools such as you.”
The white flames exploded in front of Enchanter Ortiz, knocking him back and crashing through a wall.
Dammit. I shivered, caught in the wake of my frightened students who tried to make sense of the casting.
Other enchanters reported to the scene, each hurling their own attacks, but their magics vanished just as quickly as Ortiz’s had, only to reappear and take out the witches who’d cast the strike.
“I can alter myself and all nonorganic materials,” he explained. “You’re wasting your time attempting to strike me down.”
Even though Winston required a form of contact to alter the size of objects, it seemed he could extend his touch through the proxy of his telekinesis.
Rare and damn near impossible for most witches.
The level of concentration and channeling required to slip his branch into his root and merge them.
That was well beyond proficient. Expertise on a level I should definitely have come to expect from a Celestial Coven witch.
This would be perfect for a floral witch, using primal control over plants to take down Winston Cobalt, but the way he continued manipulating his size while tearing through the street, then shrinking in size to counter any enchanters’ attempted strike. None of them could compete with this witch.
I needed to stop him. A Celestial Coven witch dared to show their face here, and now, I’d remind them all why they spent the last several months on the run. Channeling my telepathy, I hurled the psychic energy at him, preparing to break his mind before he harmed anyone else.
Nothing.
The faintest glimmer of his surface thoughts revealed themselves, but even those were foggy, blurred, and difficult to comprehend.
It was those enchantments tattooed on his skin.
Like the other Celestial Coven witches, he had many of them, likely meant to shield him from magics like mine.
Still, I managed to override them when dealing with The True Witch and The Sisters Three.
It was the close proximity. Even with my branch expanding in such tremendous force, if I wanted to override his protections and stop him, then I needed to get closer.
I focused my thoughts on the scene and back at my body in Cerberus Guild. Without delay, I bolted from the offices and flew from the building. If I dampened my telepathy and focused on my roots, I could fly there quicker, but unfortunately, my mind synced to the fear consuming my students.
They hid from the battle, watching enchanters get slammed to the ground, beaten without mercy, and bloodied at every attempt to stop Winston Cobalt.
“We’re going to die,” Yaritza thought, her panic linking to mine, her fear growing as it fed off her depression, her anxiety, her doubt.
It was too much. I blinked away her terror, but I couldn’t see anything except shadows. The blue sky turned fuzzy, and my flight floundered. I wobbled, barely able to focus as Yaritza’s fear consumed me. I had to stop it. Stop her.
“You need to calm down.” I ground my teeth, focusing less on my own anxiousness for their survival, and more on a soothing tone that’d ease Yaritza away from her panic attack.
“Mr. Frost?” Yaritza asked.
Jamius and Melanie stared, visibly confused.
“Yes,” I thought. “I’m arriving at the scene soon. Along with other enchanters.”
“You are?” Yaritza asked, then turned to her friends. “Enchanter Frost is on the way. He’s bringing help.”
“I need you all to fall back to a more secure location.” Their current hiding spot wouldn’t last much longer. The nearby cars had already been destroyed, and soon the rocky debris they hid behind would be too.
“We can’t move.” Yaritza shook her head. “If we do, he’ll get us.”
“Not if you hide,” I thought. “All I want you to do is focus on scattered shots that’ll obscure your movements. You and Melanie have the firepower to blind Winston’s field of vision.”
“Right.” Yaritza swallowed hard, but a lump of fear remained.
“Have Jamius cast every remaining duplicate he has to act as a buffer, a diversion.”
“Right.” Yaritza nodded. “Jamius’ duplicates are organic. The size manipulation won’t work on them.”
“Then, you three get to safety.” I flew through the skies of Chicago, locking my telepathy on Yaritza and propelling myself as quickly as possible.
With so much focus fixed on my students and moving faster, the minds of damn near everyone else fell silent.
“Milo and the others are almost there. You’ll be fine.
You just need to get away and hold out for a few minutes. ”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. Milo and other enchanters were likely very close; the buzzing minds of enchanters converged from every direction onto our point.
And I was even closer. A few minutes from now, I’d arrive at the scene.
It didn’t matter if that witch had a thousand enchantments to shield himself from my telepathy.
Once I made physical contact, I’d drop him as quickly as I did The Sisters Three.
“This is all a good idea, but…” Yaritza’s mind popped with numbers and measurements at a dizzying rate. “I have a better idea.”
“You have an idea?” Jamius croaked, turning back to Yaritza, who’d finally calmed down enough to think.
“He decreased his size so he could speed up the effects of his magic on other objects,” Yaritza explained.
“So, we need to make him bigger. Based on what I’ve seen, once he exceeds ten meters in stature, his casting significantly decreases.
Probably a few seconds’ lag for every meter in size multiplied by the distance of the object he’s shrinking.
Or enlarging—but we don’t need to worry about that since he wouldn’t enlarge something targeting him. ”
“What are you talking about?” Melanie asked.
Dammit. I pushed myself faster. Yaritza wasn’t sticking with my plan. She was plotting a counterstrike.
“Jamius, you’re gonna use your copies to engage and enrage.”
“Meaning?”
“Taunt him till he grows.”
“That I can do.” Jamius nodded. “How big do you want him?”
Melanie snorted. “Oh, come on. That’s a little funny. A little dirty.”
“We could all die, and you’re making dick jokes?” Yaritza shook her head. “You’ve been hanging out with Gael too much.”
Melanie blushed, her thoughts fizzling toward the class clown she missed. Christ. She could very well die, and all her mind did was fixate on how she missed hooking up with the world’s most irritating person.
No. They wouldn’t die. None of them. I refused to let something so horrible happen. I needed to move faster.
“Melanie, I need you to take hold of Enchanter Ortiz’s stray flames,” Yaritza said. “Do you think you can make them bigger?”
She chuckled again, then finally composed herself. “If I mixed in a bit of standard fire, but it won’t hold long. His fire’s finicky.”