Chapter 20
Katherine entered deeper into the Global Guild facility.
I didn’t understand why. Had she been sent here by Guild Master Campbell?
Another manifestation of myself was at the guild; I usually kept an extension of my magic there, but I could only imagine how the guild was reacting to the Celestial Coven’s arrival.
Were they even aware yet? I hated being so disconnected from myself and extensions.
I had no real clue what was happening around the city.
Name: Katherine Harris
Branch: Enchantment (Spell Craft)
“What are you doing, Katherine?” I linked my mind to hers, attempting to pry out an answer.
Sigils similar to those guarding the Celestial Coven formed around her surface thoughts, cloaking her mind.
“What the…”
“You managed to break off a piece of your psychic energy before The True Witch could detain you,” Katherine said, waving a hand in my direction. “A pity.”
The wave of magic meant to eat away my presence, shattering my manifested form, but I’d experienced this once before when Amara caught me spying. I dodged the strike, albeit barely, but decided to quietly follow Katherine for answers.
With that, she strode to the end of the room and deciphered the locking mechanism of enchantment securities within seconds. After bypassing the door protections, she was greeted by a dozen guards posted inside the facility.
“What are you doing in here?”
“No time for this,” Katherine said, humming a strange tune, which conjured weird yellow musical notes. They were foul and nauseating, creating an eerie melody.
The guards used telekinesis to wave away the notes. Wards lining the walls glowed, prepared to unleash defensive measures. Then, everything went silent, except for the thrum of the vibrating notes. They exploded and cleared the room of any threats.
While these weren’t ranked members within the Global Guild, each of the guards held high standing as guild enchanters before they were recruited by the Global Guild. To see them all collapse without putting up any resistance was baffling.
I hovered close to Katherine, attempting to gain some discreet insight into her thoughts, but they were guarded heavily by sigils similar to the ones every member of the Celestial Coven had within their minds.
Impossible.
If she’d had those sigils protecting her thoughts before, I’d have noticed them. Katherine’s mind had always been open to others.
Was this Katherine? Was this some body double?
No. It was her magical frequency, but this wasn’t the Katherine I knew.
Did she have some wicked doppler of her own making?
Could Katherine’s enchantment magic even create something such as that?
Even if she were like me, mine was a psychic projection.
This was Katherine in the flesh, full body, but her mind and personality seemed so cold from the girl I’d taught for years.
“Katherine?” Caleb’s voice pulled my focus.
He stood in the next secured chamber of the Global Guild facility with Enchanter Reed and Russo. Katherine ignored Caleb’s curious tone and confused face, walking past him and toward a locked, vault-like door.
Hayden Russo blocked her path and waved.
“Sorry,” he said with a grin. “That’s a bit above your clearance.”
“It’s a bit above our clearance,” Ellie added with an extra emphasis. “What are you doing here, hun?”
“Yeah, Katherine, is everything okay?” Caleb approached, trying to look Katherine in the eyes.
Katherine surveyed the room, tilting her head and locking her eyes on Ellie. “Why is your charge not with you?”
“My charge?”
“Your pupil.”
“My intern?” Ellie responded with a giggle. “Um, Tara’s fine, just running late. You’d think she was studying under Hayden.”
“Hey,” he protested. “I’m almost punctual half the time now.”
“Lies,” Ellie said with a raspy whisper.
Katherine sighed. Frustration bubbled from her surface thoughts, not matching the irritation I’d come to glean from the girl. Katherine’s irritation almost immediately came accompanied by a twinge of guilt because, when people made her mad, she tried her best to see things from their perspective.
But not now. Now, Katherine merely oozed annoyance for the bubbly enchanters. She quickly muttered another spell. I went to warn them until her eyes rolled back. It became clear from the flutter of her lashes and the markings lining the air around that she was casting a divination spell.
What was she looking for?
“There’s something wrong with Katherine,” I linked my thoughts to Ellie and Hayden.
“Enchanter Frost?” Ellie asked.
“Still here, huh?” Katherine tsked. “No matter.”
Ignoring my presence, she turned to the door Hayden had blocked and raised her arms. Chanting a spell, Katherine’s light brown skin glowed momentarily, her voice echoed, and her hair blew wildly, locked in the chaos of a high-tier spell.
“You need to stop her,” I insisted. “She’s summoning something.”
That was about all I could make out from her chant.
“Lock.” Ellie bound the enchantments Katherine cast.
Name: Ellie Reed
Branch: Ward (Skeleton Key)
“Silly, child.” Katherine whistled the same tune as earlier, releasing pale yellow music notes.
Hayden’s eyes drooped, but he teleported away, escaping the slumbering sounds. He even conjured a shimmering false trail for the melody to chase.
Name: Hayden Russo
Branch: Cosmic (Teleportation)
Branch: Cosmic (Glitter)
Except the notes vanished with him and reappeared at his next destination. Katherine managed to add some type of homing feature to her spell.
She was casting multiple high-tier spells in tandem without so much as breaking a sweat or even referencing her grimoire. I knew she was good, but that seemed so off. Everything about her, even her thoughts, had an altered flow to them. This wasn’t Katherine. It couldn’t be.
“Lock. Lock. Lock.” Ellie attempted to bind the melody, but it reached her all the same.
Ellie and Hayden fell unconscious at Caleb’s feet.
“Katherine, stop this.”
She ignored him, returning to her summoning.
I didn’t know what to expect, but seeing the wall in front of her shatter and two glass cells being dragged directly in front of her wasn’t what I anticipated.
Katherine snapped her fingers, and the symbols keeping those glass cells sealed crumbled away.
The glass cracked. Long weblike strands.
Inside each cell lay a pillar of the Celestial Coven. The dust of Grim’s shattered bones and the rotten corpse of Lazarus.
She proceeded to walk closer to the fallen witches, ignoring Caleb’s concern, his confusion.
“It’s time,” Katherine said. “You’re required to retrieve the goddess.”
More guards moved in, following the path of destruction Katherine’s spell created when she ripped the cells through the building, tearing apart everything between her and the Celestial Coven members.
“Sleep,” Katherine commanded, sending those damn musical notes to knock out the incoming forces.
A burst of energy struck a few notes, causing them to coil inward on themselves and implode. Caleb stared at the remaining music notes, attempting to strike with another blaze of perfected banishment.
Name: Caleb Huxley
Branch: N/A
“None of that.” Katherine hit Caleb with a wave of telekinesis, slamming the boy into a nearby wall. “I’ll deal with you in time, abomination.”
The crunch of bones sent a shiver through me.
Grim’s dust swirled round and round as bones formed, then broke, and reformed.
This process repeated itself over and over again until a skull cackled.
Arms contorted, snatching stray rib bones and attaching them to a wriggling spine.
What a bizarre sight, seeing a skeleton piece itself together one bone at a time.
When he’d assembled all the pieces, Grim held out his bony hands to Katherine.
“Make yourself and those damn enchantments useful,” he snapped. “Summon me something to wear.”
Katherine traced her finger in the air, writing out a spell, and then recited the words.
She summoned a black robe for Grim. Obviously, wardrobe casting wasn’t something innately in her repertoire.
Though I found it strange she had so many high-tier spells to begin with.
I studied her ancient grimoire, the one she’d acquired over the summer. It must’ve held these new spells.
The grimoire. Maybe there was something in it that sparked this bizarre change in Katherine. But could a spell gone awry really do all this? And why would a spellbook from her family’s collection cause this?
“What took you so long?” Lazarus asked, stripping off his filthy clothes.
Katherine conjured him a pristine suit.
“Amara had a lot of moving pieces—”
“Do not speak her name as if you are our equal,” Lazarus said with a venomous scowl, buttoning his dress shirt.
Katherine gave him an icy stare in return, but bit her tongue.
“Oh, give the girl… Eh, you’re a girl, now, right?” Grim cocked his skull head in Katherine’s direction. “Whatever, just give her a break. Look what she brought me.”
Grim broke off two of his lower ribs, immediately regrowing them, but used the broken ribs to form a large bone scythe. With his new weapon, the reaper-like witch lunged at the unconscious guards, ripping them to pieces.
I recoiled.
He plucked a blue eye from one woman and a brown eye from a man.
The bloody eyes floated in his empty sockets.
Next, he carved open bodies, cackling as he ripped out organs.
The sounds of squishy insides being rifled through made me queasy.
Some organs he tossed aside with disinterest, while others he stuffed beneath his garbs.
“Finally,” Grim said, taking a deep breath. “Feeling like myself again. I hate long naps.”
“Can we commence?” Katherine asked. “The True Witch requires you two to retrieve the goddess.”
“And what will you do?” Lazarus glared.
“I’ll be bringing this one to The True Witch.” Katherine gestured to Caleb, who lay there quietly, attempting to make sense of this terrifying situation.
“What is that boy to Amara?”
“Hmmm. Seems the oh-so-great one doesn’t know everything. Shame.” Katherine created a blue portal doorway behind Lazarus, then opened a white portal doorway underneath Caleb.
My heart jumped, flooded with Caleb’s fear as he plummeted. Gone. Where had Katherine taken him? She stepped over to her white portal and hopped in before I got any answers.
What the hell was happening? Why would Amara want Caleb? I thought she was after Tara. And what happened to Katherine? My mind raced with dreadful questions, concerns, confusion. I needed to find my core self and join this fight now.
“Let us be gone,” Lazarus said, stepping through the blue portal.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Grim waved a dismissive hand. “Just let me adjust my lungs. They’re sitting on my kidneys.”
Grim sorted his newly procured organs around, tangling them below his ribcage. When he reached the portal door, a pop of gray static disrupted the wavelengths, and tiny bubbles exploded, sealing the portal before Grim could escape.
Kenzo and Lena stood strong, angry expressions directed at Grim and magics at the ready. Behind them, Gael stood with his spikes protruding in a defensive coating. Milo must’ve left him at the Global Guild facility while he retrieved the top ten enchanters.
I only hoped he got to them soon. We’d need those enchanters now that the Celestial Coven was moving on Chicago in full force.
“You’re gonna tell me exactly what the hell just happened?” Kenzo fumed. “Why is know-it-all suddenly working with you lot, and where the hell did she take Caleb?”