Chapter Sixteen
I clutched the blankets of my bed, searching for Milo’s mind. A thousand nearby thoughts collided with my telepathy.
“Shut up!” I leapt off my bed, quelling the world around me.
Channeling my telepathy so distantly, so precisely, was like threading a needle from the opposite side of the room with a stack of needles surrounding it. Impossible. How’d my telepathy manage it so inherently when I didn’t want it to? Why couldn’t I control it?
How was this demon alive? Milo had killed it. I saw… I saw it. Dead. Broken. Banished. Not a fiber of its presence remained. Even the demon said… No. I struggled to breathe. Grabbing my chest, I stumbled forward. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. I wouldn’t allow it.
Milo’s thoughts pounded against my skull, rocking me to my knees.
Flashes, too chaotic to gain a grasp. I clenched my jaw.
Everything about this fight strained my vision.
The acolytes had disappeared. No—they’d been thrown back by Milo.
The gorgon continued slowing Milo’s speed, but not his magic.
Focusing everything on telekinesis and levitation, he soared and zipped around the demon, evading the gaze.
He couldn’t maintain that in the tight space of the alley.
I needed to… I had to…
My feet moved of their own accord, dragging me out of my bedroom and into the living room. I’d find him. Help him. This would never happen again.
I opened the front door and collapsed onto my front porch. No. I…wouldn’t allow…
I followed Milo’s frantic thoughts.
Enchanter Evergreen’s thoughts screamed with fury and rage and hate. Three powerful emotions Milo had almost never felt. I lingered in the doorway, wanting to help, knowing I needed to make up for my failures before.
No. No. No. Not now. Not when Milo was presently in danger.
My younger self scanned the abandoned building searching for Finn’s thoughts.
Even unconscious, there should’ve been some trace of thought.
I knew that much then but was unwilling to accept what had happened.
I deluded myself into believing it was Milo’s infuriated emotions that blocked Finn’s thoughts, that it was my fright which kept me from controlling my telepathy enough to pinpoint Finn.
It wasn’t. I knew how this story ended, and I hated every second of this nightmare memory .
I had to wake up. I had to find Milo. The Milo of now, not this hellish memory. Dammit.
My younger self took weak, shaky steps through a corridor.
A lump grew in my throat. The creek of the floorboards didn’t distract from the agonized roars of the demon.
Each step brought me closer, helping me see flashes of Milo’s fight then.
The demon lay on the ground as Milo repeatedly punched him.
His knuckles were bruised, bloody, and split with cuts.
It didn’t stop him. Didn’t slow him. He continued attacking, banishing pieces of the gorgon and unleashing all his anger.
After what felt like an eternity of standing outside the room, my younger self finally entered.
The gorgon’s limbs had been broken off, banished, leaving a few stray wisps to bounce around the bare room, their light illuminating the thick coat of dust freshly splattered with tar and blood. The demon’s blood. Milo’s blood.
“Killing me changes nothing,” the gorgon hissed.
“Changes a lot of fucking futures, you goddamn monster.” Milo squeezed his hand closed, banishing the rest of the gorgon, shattering the demon into hundreds of wisps, which Milo quickly removed.
“ I will not… I am… I… ”
And with that, the demon’s thoughts had ceased.
With the body banished, I recalled believing that it made it easier to latch onto those dying thoughts.
It didn’t matter then; it didn’t matter now.
We had scoured that building for the faintest traces of demonic energy.
The gorgon had died. And yet, he had somehow returned and was currently in the midst of ambushing Milo while I was stuck reliving the worst day of my life.
I screamed internally as my younger self fretfully took in each slash across Milo’s bloody clothes.
It was one of the few memories I had of him working in sweats.
His hair was damp and curled—no product, no time.
When Finn had vanished, he worked around the clock in pursuit of the demon that’d taken him.
No time for his image or other cases or his behavior.
It’d almost cost him his guild position.
My younger self approached, hesitant and holding onto a fiber of hope.
I reached out to console Milo, but he slapped the hand away.
He didn’t want my comfort then. He didn’t want the physical contact because he knew what it’d mean.
Even in all his fury and rage and hate for the demon, he did well to hide the horrors in his mind.
But in that brief second when his hand met mine, I’d seen the image he longed to hide.
In the next room, Finn lay lifeless. His body broken and contorted and missing parts. Blood splattered everywhere. His face anguished beyond any expression I had ever believed humanly possible. And his…
I had dropped to my knees, hyperventilating.
His eyes had been gouged out.
I sobbed on the floor. This nightmare was never-ending. That pain stirred inside me for years. I couldn’t return to guild life after finding Finn’s body. I couldn’t do anything for so long.
I snapped my eyes open, refusing to relive that horror, that failure, again. I wouldn’t let anything happen to Milo.
The dream-state memory clouded my head, and wind slapped my face. Where was I?
Outside. Even unconscious, I had felt the tug of Milo’s thoughts, and they drew closer with each propelled movement of flight.
How had I managed that? Sheer will. Force.
Protection. It didn’t matter. I’d reached the entrance of La Maison de l’Infini.
Milo should only be a few blocks away. Channeling sensory, I searched for the gorgon.
The demon wouldn’t catch me off guard. I’d stop it no matter what.
I flew fast, tracking the swelling demonic energy.
Turning down a street, I found Milo winded yet unharmed.
His outfit was shredded in a few spots but there was no visible blood aside from a few light nicks and scratches.
He’d grown so much since the last time he’d encountered the gorgon.
Descending, I spotted the gorgon, arms gone, chest impaled or banished.
I couldn’t be certain. What I knew was Enchanter Evergreen had once again stopped this demon.
“Dorian.” Milo’s calm, tired expression shifted. Stunned eyes with a half-smile, almost hiding his sadness because without asking, he knew what’d brought me here. “We agreed—”
“That was before this…this bastard.”
“Dorian.” The gorgon chuckled; black tar spurted from his lips. “Dorian. Dorian. Dorian. That’s a name I recall quite fondly. It was one of two names I remember a certain someone—can’t recall the human’s name—screaming out for.”
My blood boiled. All the telepathy in my body quelled. The world fell silent. Everything except this demon’s laughter.
“Dorian will find me. Milo will find me. They’re, they’re,” he mockingly imitated Finn’s voice, stopping only to laugh.
“You didn’t, though, did you? Shame, really.
The Ubiquitous Present and The Inevitable Future.
Terrible names for pathetic witches. That one took a few days but he shared all his secrets in the end.
Love when they do that. Time spent cracking that witch’s noggin open, though…
Guess you boys really decided to drag your feet in the whole investigation. So much for three meant to be.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” I channeled everything into my fist, stepping forward.
“Dorian, don’t.” Milo moved to stop me. “He’s goading you.”
I brushed past him and unleashed enough telekinesis to keep the gorgon pinned to the ground as banishment pulsed through my pores.
He didn’t even have a chance to break into wisps; they crumpled and faded faster than I’d ever cast banishment before.
Every piece of his essence was dead. I fucking killed him and obliterated every trace of his demonic energy.
“ Thanks, Dorian. ”
“Stay dead this time.”
“I told you to stop,” Milo snapped. “I had him. I had seen—”
“He killed Finn. Tortured him.” I shoved Milo. “I don’t care about your case. About those affected or any damn other demons involved. This one doesn’t get to come back. He doesn’t get to mock…to mock Finn.”
My eyes watered, and I could feel my rage and sorrow sweeping across the neighborhood like a tidal wave.
“He returned,” Milo said plainly. “He returned because some other demon made it happen. Some demon convincing other demons to join it. Why? I don’t know. How? I don’t know. Who? Guess I’ll have to wait for more bodies to drop and hope another lead falls in my lap.”
“I’m sorry, I just…” I bit my lip.
“You didn’t think. You reacted. The gorgon will come back, get resurrected in a way no one understands. We don’t know how. But hey, maybe we’ll get lucky. Ten more years. Twenty more. A hundred bodies. A few thousand. Maybe then someone will solve the case. But it won’t be here and now.”
I shivered. Milo’s eyes rolled up, tears brimming, but his lashes fluttered, and he delved into visions.
The countless colorful threads snapped and pivoted as he followed every direction of so many potentials endlessly.
Leaping further into his core, Milo studied the infinite screens storing his visions in his mind.
All static fuzz for me, which was an improvement since they were blank the last time I’d seen them in his inner core.
Perhaps our branches were syncing closer.
Doubtful, since he felt a million miles away, not even acknowledging me in his mind’s core as he studied visions with a dissatisfied expression.
All my unbridled rage fizzled out, the satisfaction that came from ending the gorgon was replaced by gnawing guilt. Guilt for not listening to Milo. Guilt for not thinking about other victims. Guilt for not caring.
“Go home, Dorian.” Milo closed off his thoughts. “You’ve done enough.”
We stood alone on the street.
“Milo, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t care. Yeah, you already said that.” He stormed off, searching for his acolytes and leaving me alone on the street with only the moon’s light and flickering lampposts to keep the darkness at bay.