Chapter 113 Maddy #2
For the next fifteen minutes, Sinthy went about whatever strange ritual she’d written.
She spent time with everyone in attendance, placing a hand on them and muttering strange words she read off the paper.
After touching each of us, she went around the entire field, stopping every few feet to either draw a weird symbol in the air or mutter some more.
The language was like nothing I’d ever heard before.
Even though it looked like she hadn’t done much, when Sinthy walked back to us, she looked utterly depleted.
Her face was pale, and sweat ran down her cheeks.
“Okay,” she said with a heavy breath. “All done.”
“Are you okay? You look like hell,” Felipe muttered to her.
She waved him off. “This was some intense stuff. Weaving a spell as complex as this takes a lot out of me. It’s hard to explain. Are you guys ready?”
The twenty or so people, including me, shrugged. We weren’t sure what was about to happen. Nico looked more impatient with each passing second.
Sinthy sat down cross-legged and said, “In a second, you guys are gonna have a battle to fight. You’ll be safe, nothing can hurt you, and the weapons you hold will feel real, but they are also totally safe. You’ll probably have about forty minutes, maybe thirty if I get really tired.”
“What weapons?” Nico asked. “You made us put the weapons away.”
Sinthy rolled her eyes. “Men. No imagination at all. You’ll see soon. I won’t be able to talk. I’ll be concentrating on keeping the mirage together. Otherwise, it’ll flutter away like dandelion seeds. Ready?”
“Uh…” Nico looked at me for some kind of help, but all I could do was shrug.
“I guess so, sure,” Nico finally said.
Sinthy closed her eyes and began muttering in her strange language again. A few seconds later, she went quiet and opened her eyes again. I gasped. Instead of the pretty blue, I was used to, her eyes were totally white. No iris, no cornea, not even any thin red blood vessels. Pure white.
A weird crackle, similar to static electricity, filled the entire field.
The feeling tickled down my arms. Some of the others cried out in surprise as they felt it.
There was a half second where I worried that Sinthy had done something wrong.
That feeling vanished when a heavy weight appeared in my hand.
Blinking in surprise, I looked down and saw my fingers curled around the butt of a pistol.
“What the hell?” Nico said. He was holding an assault rifle.
I looked behind me at the gun cases and was shocked to see that all the weapons were still safely tucked away.
Everyone had a weapon. Luis even pointed his shotgun to the sky and pulled his trigger experimentally.
The earth-shattering boom made me jump. It sounded exactly like a real gun.
When he turned the gun toward the grass and fired, the sound exploded again, but the ground and grass were untouched.
“This is insane,” Luis said, his eyes so wide they might have fallen out of his skull.
“She wasn’t lying about realism,” Nico muttered as he inspected the rifle in his hands.
From the forest at the edge of the clearing, a shout echoed across the field.
“Filthy fucking shifters.”
As one, twenty heads turned toward the sound. Fear jolted through me. Had the anti-shifters somehow gotten through the defenses? Had Sinthy used too much of her power to create the guns, and that had decreased the efficacy of the wards? Could that be it?
As if in answer, three gun-toting men stepped out of the trees and sprinted toward us.
There were some shouts of surprise and shock from the pack.
One man stopped running and raised his gun, aiming directly at us.
Without hesitation, Nico lifted his rifle and fired.
Two bullets slammed into the guy’s chest. His arms and head went flying backward as his body tumbled away.
An instant before the intruder hit the ground, he vanished in a small puff of what looked like smoke or steam.
“Holy shit,” Nico muttered, then turned and shouted. “They aren’t real. It’s part of the spell. This is what Sinthy created. Everyone defend yourselves.”
As though spurred on by his words, another ten people came running from the forest toward us.
I watched them begin to get taken down, each one getting shot and then vanishing.
Even though I understood that they weren’t real people, the effect was so uncanny that I was unable to push away my fear.
The intruders were all screaming out how much they hated us and wanted us to die.
I couldn’t tell myself I wasn’t really in danger.
Forcing myself to act, I joined the others in firing on the magical creations. The gun bucked in my hand, so real that in seconds I totally forgot it was all make-believe. When any of our people were shot, their guns vanished from their hands, effectively killing them.
Anytime all of us were killed, or all the intruders were killed, the spell reset, and we started all over. It was awe-inspiring and gave me a whole new appreciation for Sinthy’s powers. After three straight cycles of us defeating the intruders, the human forms and weapons all vanished.
It was so surprising and fast, like a light switch being flipped. I turned and saw Sinthy making her way to her feet, a tired smile on her lips.
“How was that?” she asked.
All I could do was laugh. “It was amazing.” I stepped closer so no one could hear our words. “Just how powerful are you?”
Her smile faded, and a shadow passed across her eyes. “Powerful enough for my family to be killed for it. My parents and I were probably the strongest witches on Earth. The royals coveted our power.”
It reminded me of all the young woman had lost. She had as much to gain from the fall of the royals as we did. Sinthy had spent her whole life working toward this final fight.
“Sinthy, that was outstanding,” Nico exclaimed. “It was so real. How often can you do that?”
“The first time is always the hardest. It should get easier to harness the spell each time I do it. Though, I doubt I could ever hold it for more than an hour.”
“This could be a game changer for training. I wish the other packs could experience this.”
“I can work on a spell that would work at a distance. It may not feel as real for them, but it might be better than nothing.”
“I don’t want you to drain yourself,” Nico said.
“It won’t drain me. Not as long as I get a chance to refuel and rest between trainings.”
“Amazing.” Nico took her hands in his. “Thank you. You’ve already done so much for us. You’ll have to tell me how I can repay you one day.”
Sinthy smiled sadly. “You’ve given me a family. Besides, we’re gonna take down Viola. That alone is enough for me.”
He patted her shoulder and nodded. “Thanks.” He turned and addressed everyone. “That’s enough for today. Get some rest.”
The crowd dispersed, leaving Nico and me alone. As Luis and Felipe hauled the gun cases back to the house, Nico pulled me aside.
“You did great, but next time I’d like you to stay farther from the action. I want you to learn, but if this were to happen for real, I’d prefer you have to defend yourself be a last resort.”
I’d been shot—and killed—multiple times during Sinthy’s little mirage. If that had been a real fight, I’d be dead. I nodded. “Got it.”
He then grinned and looked over his shoulder toward the woods. I could almost taste his pent-up energy. Even knowing the fantasy hadn’t been real, my adrenaline had still spiked, and I wanted to work it off. From the look he gave me, Nico felt the same.
Grinning, he nodded to the trees. “You wanna go for a run?”
As an answer, I sprinted away from him, shifting as I did.
Nico laughed behind me before he shifted and joined me.
The wind in my fur and the scents and sounds of the forest exhilarated me.
As we ran through the trees, an overwhelming sense of longing and desire hit me, along with a surge of heat across my whole body.
I ran faster, my feelings toward Nico building with each minute.
It was a strange and wonderful sensation.