Chapter 7
The silence had weight. Not just an absence of sound, but a silent presence. A hum that wasn’t human, thick and invisible, pressing against their ears, their skin, and their bones.
Joell tried to speak, to give the command, but her mouth opened to nothing. No voice. No sound. Just the look in her eyes, wide and alarmed, as she slashed one arm in a wide “fallback” motion.
Rayna’s sparks leapt to life by instinct, dancing down her arms like eager fireflies. But instead of launching toward anything, most of them popped. One flared and sprang from her palm, then ricocheted off a crumpled street sign.
The sign exploded. So did a nearby lamppost. And a tree. A family of squirrels shot out of the wreckage, tails ablaze, screaming tiny, high-pitched squirrel obscenities that were immediately swallowed by the dampened field.
Next to Rayna, Lioness’s eyes rolled back. Her hand jerked, her fingers spasming like they were drawing in midair. She pulled her sketchpad free without thinking and scribbled in thick, jagged strokes with wild eyes.
“Oh no,” Brianna mouthed, watching the pencil fly. The paper glowed. Lines curled and bled outward. Then a thud. “Wait… Sound is back!”
Something materialized behind them, making a squeaking noise. They turned in unison.
A raccoon. But not just any raccoon. This one had battle armor. A sparkly pink hammer. And murder in its eyes.
Joell stared. “Okay. That’s new.”
“Looks like it’s ready for a little chaos,” Rayna muttered at Lioness. “You summoned a weaponized trash panda?”
The raccoon bared its teeth.
Joell grabbed Rayna’s arm and pointed toward the edge of the lot. “Send it over there!” she said, pointing at the faceless wonder.
Brianna moved first, skimming the perimeter, eyes scanning like sonar, ready to reset time, if needed. Then she stopped cold.
The faceless figure was shifting. Flickering in and out, like a film reel out of sync. It took on a woman’s shape, then a man’s, then something in between. At one point, it had Rayna’s red hair and Lioness’s face and Joell’s body. None of them aligned.
And then it smiled, and the face, hair, and female body disappeared, leaving Jeff the barista in its wake.
Rayna raised a hand to strike, but the raccoon launched itself like a fuzzy missile and tore at the thing’s face until it retreated and disappeared.
Back at the L.A.W. mansion, Victoria had been in full crisis mode. Then the faceless ‘thing’ reappeared.
She hovered over a glowing crystal console, her brows knit, her elegant topknot now a frazzled mess. A 3D projection of the lot flickered in the air before her, glitching every few seconds. Static crawled across the witches’ outlines.
“They’re inside a null field,” she said to no one. “Their magic’s degraded, sound’s gone, and Lioness summoned my raccoon familiar? Why the hell is he glowing?”
She twisted a dial. “Give me psychic channel two, bypass the main grid, and patch me straight through on the shortwave.”
The console flared, then hissed. The screen sparked, and Victoria slammed her hand down. “Come on, you magnificent weirdos. Listen to me.”
She reached for the glowing rune on the side of the console and touched a symbol. In the lot, Joell’s head jerked. A shimmer of a protection rune scrolled across her vision, then Victoria’s elegant handwriting etched the air in light.
Overload shields simultaneously. Trust me. GO.
Joell spun. Her hands moved fast, and then she yelled clearly, Chaos spell, now!”
They moved as one. Rayna flared her palms wide. Brianna focused her entire being into a single pulse. Lioness drew a giant bird for no apparent reason.
And Joell dropped their shield. The energy crashed out of them like a breaking dam.
Rayna’s flames hit a dumpster, which promptly melted and slumped into a sewer grate. A second later, the sewer exploded, flinging flaming garbage thirty feet in the air.
“Gross!” Brianna cried, covering her head with her arms.
The witches, coated in garbage, had no time to do anything about it.
Lioness’s bird became a killing machine with glowing red laser eyes. It fired blindly, carving a smoking "C" into the side of a nearby storage shed.
Brianna’s energy pulse rebounded off the silencing field and shattered every car window in a three-block radius. Car alarms shattered the air.
The faceless entity staggered. Then it flickered, like it was losing signal. Its form changed and finally collapsed in on itself, then vanished with a wet, sucking pop.
The red glow on the disc blinked out. Joell gasped and stumbled back. “Grab us, Vic!” she shouted, loud and clear.
Victoria’s relay kicked in. One by one, the witches vanished in streaks of light and wild energy, like someone had worked a teleport spell, doubling the charge.
The battle raccoon was last. It paused, looked around, and then vanished with an indignant squeak.
The L.A.W. mansion’s east wing had a teleportation landing bay that doubled as a yoga studio, because priorities.
The witches blinked in, mid-stumble, covered in soot, sweat, and garbage. A yoga mat slipped and bunched up under Rayna’s left boot.
“Someone,” Rayna wheezed, “owes me coffee. And a tetanus shot.”
Victoria stood waiting by the door, cool as ever, holding a vintage teacup and wearing noise-canceling headphones around her neck like this was a Tuesday.
“You’re welcome,” she said, removing them with a flourish and bowing.
Brianna dropped onto the floor. “What the hell was that thing?”
“No idea,” Victoria said. “But your synchronized magic spike gave me enough signal to yank you out before it decided to wear your skins like a quilt. So, go team!”
Lioness looked dazed. Her sketchpad still glowed faintly. “Did I…? Was that raccoon real?”
“Oh, you mean this guy?” Victoria tilted her head.
From behind a storage locker, the armored raccoon reappeared, tiny hammer dragging across the floor behind his smug little strut. It climbed up onto the bench beside her and began grooming its ears like it hadn’t just waged war five minutes ago.
Rayna pointed. “Wait. That’s yours?”
Victoria smirked. “His name’s Reginald. He’s been with me since the Battle of Battery Park.”
Reginald stopped grooming just long enough to glare at Rayna.
Joell rubbed her temples. “You have a familiar, and it’s a murder-happy raccoon in knock-off armor?”
Victoria raised a brow. “You try bonding with a war-spirit on a budget.”
“I thought you didn’t have a familiar,” Brianna said. “I don’t have one—even a secret one.”
“I keep him for emergencies. He mostly protects my Chateau in Montreal.”
Lioness knelt in front of Reginald, wide-eyed. “Can I draw him again?”
“He’ll expect royalties,” Victoria said, sipping her tea.
Rayna took a deep breath and regretted it immediately. “Gods, is that us? We smell like a landfill.”
Victoria winced, waved at a wall diffuser, and it spurted scent. The studio was instantly hit with a desperate puff of lavender and eucalyptus. It tried. It failed. The stench persisted.
Reginald, unbothered, continued grooming. His armor, now on the floor, was dinged up. His tiny Kevlar vest sported a line of bottle caps like campaign medals. One had a demon tooth hot-glued to it. Another was smeared in what might have been glitter. Or blood. Or both.
“I think he’s my new muse,” Lioness whispered reverently, sketchpad already open again.
“You don’t need him. Don’t you already have a bad-ass familiar?” Victoria asked.
“Yes, but it’s illegal to have lions as pets in this country.”
“Probably in most countries,” Brianna said. “Is that really your familiar? A lion?”
“Yes,” Lioness said, a sad expression on her face. “I don’t see him very often. He has only shown up when I was in mortal danger.” Then she smiled. “Whoever is threatening to harm me immediately thinks twice. So, what are those bottle caps on Reginald’s vest, Victoria?”
“I’m right here,” Reginald said, pausing his grooming.
Brianna gasped. “It talks!”
“Oh, sorry,” Lioness said. “Would you like to answer the question, Reginald?”
“These are my medals. This one is for bravery,” he said as he pointed to one of the bottle caps. “And this one is for my first kill. He pointed to the one with the tooth. And this one,” he pointed to the glittery one, “is for arts and crafts. I’m especially proud of that one.”
“Well, aren’t you something!” Lioness said, grinning.
“He’s definitely something,” Joell muttered, eyeing the raccoon.
Victoria flipped through the printed readouts. “Okay. So, your combined surge of chaotic energy created a spike so powerful it temporarily scrambled three cell towers and lit up a ley line in Connecticut.”
Rayna hid a smirk behind her hand. “I take it, it’s not supposed to do that?”
“No,” Victoria said. “At first, it looked like lightning, then a spiral, then a middle finger. Then it blinked ‘LOL’ in Celtic knots.”
“Awesome,” Joell said. “We’ve weaponized sarcasm.”
Victoria turned the readouts so they could see. “Here’s the bad news: whatever you were fighting didn’t fully die. It dissipated. And it’s probably reconstituting itself as we speak.”
“What about the government, or whatever was in the black SUV when we got there?” Joell asked. “Does your printout have any details on that?”
“Victoria scanned the papers, one by one. “Nope,” she finally said.
“Oh, but the mess,” Rayna muttered. “Should we do something about that lot? Or just send Reginald with a vacuum cleaner?”
Reginald snarled lightly, then reached into his vest and pulled out what looked suspiciously like someone’s abandoned protein bar. He ate it with a vengeance.
Victoria crossed her arms. “Also, just FYI, the Brooklyn sewer system exploded ten minutes ago. I’m guessing that’s us?”
Joell nodded. “I’ll file the paperwork.”
“I wish I could file myself into retirement,” Rayna said.
“You can’t abandon us,” Brianna cried.
“She won’t,” Joel said, smirking. “She loves us too much.”
A light flickered ominously overhead. A yoga mat rolled itself off the rack and flopped onto the floor, then inch-wormed away like it was trying to escape.
“Is the mansion sentient? Is it trying to tell us something?” Brianna asked.
Victoria looked up. “This wing’s enchantments are mildly reactive. It probably just wants you all to hit the showers.”
The yoga mat’s edge flipped up and down, as if it agreed.