Chapter Twenty- Two
"Very good, Mrs. Blight," the scout captain said as he signed some requisition forms and then handed her the clipboard back. "Your contribution is appreciated, as always. We'll be back for the final shipment this evening."
"Very good, captain," Odalia said with a smile, backing away so that the airship could depart. She offered a wave of her fingers until it was a dot in the sky … and then her brittle smile crumbled into a tired frown. She sighed with exhaustion and brushed her free hand over her face.
"Odalia," Alador said as he approached from the main factory.
"Alador," Odalia replied, her voice … small. "Hello, dear." She bit her lip. "I mean, Alador." She cleared her throat with an embarrassed blush. "Is something wrong?"
"Don't you think it's odd that they need this much security for the Day of Unity?' he asked. "Perhaps we should … reexamine this deal."
Odalia's stomach turned. That thought had indeed crossed her mind. Then the other side of it rose up and she took a deep breath to steady her nerves. "We only have one shipment left, Alador. A trifle at this point," she said with a shadow of her usual prim aloofness. "It's a little late to get cold feet now."
"Odalia-"
"And what message would that send to the Emperor?" Odalia asked quickly. "That we would turn against him on the very eve of his vaunted day." She grimaced. "We would be betraying a witch who cares nothing for us and who despises disloyalty. He'd send his scouts to capture and petify us — all of us — without a second thought."
She descended the steps of the airship ramp and stood next to her husband. Her hand twitched to take his, but she forced it down. "It's a difficult situation," she admitted, "but it's what's best for the family." 'Barely,' she couldn't help but think. "And besides, we made a deal with him, Alador Blight."
"And a Blight always upholds their deals," Alador said miserably.
"Indeed, we do," she said. With a hiss of frustration, then reached up and removed the band and pins from her hair, sending the mint-green locks falling in ragged waves. "Why don't we find your intern to help us prepare the last shipment? Then maybe …" She blinked. "Maybe we can find the kids and have some, erm, family time before the scouts arrive?"
"I doubt they'll want to," Alador said, summoning his scroll. "But I suppose we can offer."
Behind them, an Abomi-ton's eyes were glowing brighter than the norm. Its remote security feed had been tapped and was relaying to another of its kind standing in the backyard of Blight Manor, Amity manipulating the construct while Emira and Edric used Illusion magic to project the feed into a 3-D image with sound.
"They're not going for it," Emira said.
"At least they're not blind, though," Edric said, trying to look at the bright side.
"That's not enough," Amity said, eyes narrowed with disappointment. She knew on some level that she shouldn't be surprised by their parents' continued support of Belos's plans, but it still stung.
In all honesty, everyone in the manor had noticed the change in Odalia in recent days. Where before she had been domineering and strict, now she was withdrawn and quiet. She left the room when her children entered with hardly a glance at them, and avoided eye contact when forced by circumstance to stay. It was like a fire had gone out inside her, and while the freedom from her crushing expectations and verbal abuse was welcome … it was also unsettling to experience.
They had no idea how to handle their mother anymore, and that was a sad thought.
"I just got a message from Dad inviting us to family time," Edric announced, his scroll in-hand.
"Me too," said Emira with hers.
"Yeah," Amity sighed. Then she blinked at another message and checked it. "But we can't go." She showed them her scroll. "Darius just summoned me and he asked me to bring you guys, too."
"You want us to what?" Amity asked after they had arrived with the Hexside students in tow to join up with the CATs.
"I'm afraid your little group will be splitting up," Darius said. "Ms. Blight and Ms. Park, you will be joining the coven heads and other apprentices at the Skull to avoid suspicion. I've messaged Lady Feronia and will be escorting Ms. Park as a show of good faith."
"But she knows about your rebellion," Willow pointed out.
"And she has also decided to keep it quiet on the condition that I ensure you are there for the ceremony," Darius said, his voice firm and unyielding. "At the moment, this is your most crucial role to help the Boiling Isles."
"So it's just the four of us?" Gus asked, gesturing at himself, Hunter, Luz, and King.
"Not quite," Darius said. "For this mission, we're adding a fifth member to the group. Someone with a particular leaning toward the end goal."
"Who?" Hunter asked suspiciously.
"Hey, everyone," Edric and Emira said, leaning out from behind the group.
"Ed and Em?" Amity asked.
"Actually, just me," Edric said sheepishly.
"If you'll recall, I need to be at the Skull, too," Emira said, crossing her arms with teasing haughtiness.
"So, what exactly are we supposed to be doing that Blight Brother's a big part of it?" King asked, hopping from Luz's shoulder to Edric's to illustrate.
"You'll be trying to convince Alador Blight to remotely disengage his Abomi-tons," Darius said, his mouth twisting with revulsion at the word. "All of them."
"What?!" everyone shouted at once. Everyone except Hunter, who quickly grasped the tactical significance of the mission.
"Belos ordered hundreds of those things as security for the Day of Unity," he explained. "I would know. I was the one to deliver the message that Belos would be purchasing and funding them."
"Needless to say, having them deactivated will make our jobs infinitely easier," Darius finished. "And while Alador may not have a kill switch, I would hardly put it past Odalia not to have planned something like that in case anyone turned the Abomi-tons against her or the family."
"And Edric knows Blight Industries better than any of us," Gus said, nodding along.
"What if we can't convince them to shut the Abomi-tons down?" Luz asked.
"You have to," Darius said, his tone leaving no room for misunderstanding. "There is no room for failure in this. It will quite literally mean the difference between victory or defeat."
By which he meant life and death for the Boiling Isles and an unknown portion of the human realm.
Raine took that moment to approach, flanked by Katya and Steve. "Okay, we're setting up the airships to head for the Skull," they reported and looked at the kids. "Luz and company, when you finish your, uh, mission, you'll need to fly fast to catch up to us."
"Can do," Luz smiled, saluting and forcing determination into her voice.
"Amity, that's our cue to get the Abomination Coven airship underway," Darius said, gesturing for her to follow. "Good luck to you all." With that, he turned and walked away.
Luz yelped as Amity dragged her into a short, searing kiss. "Promise you'll be careful," she whispered against Luz's lips.
"I promise I'll be alright," Luz said with a smile, cupping Amity's cheek in her hand. Amity sighed with fond exasperation before parting and jogging to catch up with Darius.
"You be safe, too, Hunter," Willow said, placing an equally passionate kiss on his cheek. "You come back to me safe and sound."
"I'll always come back to you," Hunter said … and felt a bit of deja vu. Like he'd said this before …?
Willow smiled wanly and left to follow after Darius and Amity. Raine, Katya, and Steve wished them luck and left too, but Luz grabbed Raine's sleeve to stop them. "Promise you'll protect Eda," she said, eyes shining.
"I promise," Raine said with a smile and a wink, and everyone who heard them knew they meant it with every fiber of their being. Then they left the ramshackle quintet to their assignment.
"Well, no use just standing around," Edric said, summoning Copper, his pig palisman with spider legs and a coin in his mouth. "Let's go intimidate my dad."
By the time the group arrived and had hidden themselves in a factory-side bush, as directed by Edric, an airship with a trio of coven scouts was already arriving. Odalia came out to meet them with her business smile on, but Edric could see how brittle it was. She was exhausted and ready for this all to be over.
"Gus," he whispered, and the boy nodded. Edric and Gus formed a shared spell circle that poofed illusions of coven scout uniforms over all of them, then split into a wrist-mounted circle for each of them. This would serve both to reduce the strain of the glamour and act as a two-point anchor should one of them be compromised. With a flick of their wrists, the spell circles faded into near-invisibility and they all followed the real scouts with Hunter In the lead as the only one of them who actually knew how to talk like a scout.
"You should stay here, King," Luz said, crouching down to his level. "It's safer."
"Luz, there's no way I'm not helping here," King argued. "I may be little, but I can do my share. They sent me on this mission, too, you know!"
"King-" Luz tried to stand firm.
"We don't have time for this," King said, rushing past her. "Don't break our cover!"
"Ay, Dios mio," Luz grumbled and ran to catch up.
As the scouts were examining the last of the Abomi-tons, Edric pointed them to Alador's workshop. They managed to get to the door, but found it seemingly empty.
"Ahem." Everyone stiffened at a familiar, snooty voice and turned to find an unamused Odalia glaring at them. "This area is off limits," she said coldly.
"Apologies, Mrs. Blight," Hunter said, again taking-point for their cover. "We've heard tell of your company's remarkable products and were wondering what other assets you might have for the Emperor's forces."
"Yep, cause we are all about assets," Luz said, barely keeping a straight face under her mask.
"Can't get enough of 'em," Gus added.
Edric remained silent, beyond afraid of his voice tipping off his mother.
"We apologize for the trouble. We'll return to our duties."
"See that you do," Odalia said, somewhat mollified as she walked with them. No one noticed King peek out from behind a pipe and squeeze into the workshop to poke around for something that looked like a kill switch. He scurried around, climbing on work tables and rifling through any drawers he could find.
"Hey! What are you doing here?"
King looked up with a trademark "Weh" grunt to find a dark-skinned kid with purple eyes looking down at him. A kid that looked … kind of familiar.
"Uh … looking for cool stuff to pay for?" King replied, more of a question than a statement.
"Gavin? What's going on in there?" In came Alador Blight just as he'd looked at the Bonesborough Brawl, wiping his hands with a shop towel and lifting his goggles. "Ah, a scout. May I help you?"
"Actually, it's more like you can help the entire Boiling Isles," King said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice as he wondered about his friends.
"Okay, that's a pretty good coven pitch," the boy, Gavin, admitted. "But you're not allowed back here."
"What? No!" King shouted, only barely keeping from destructive levels. "It's me!" he shouted, removing his illusory mask that disappeared in a puff of smoke. "King Clawthorne! We met at the Bonesborough Brawl!"
"Ah, Eda's other kid," Alador recalled. "The one who bonded with Edric. So again I ask, may I help you?"
King groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Look, Mr. Blight, you gotta listen carefully," King began. "Your family and the Isles depend on it!"
Alador blinked and glanced at Gavin before sitting at a bench. "Go on," he said.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Edric whispered as he and Hunter levered the crates loaded with Abomi-tons onto the Emperor's coven airship.
"As sure as we can be," Hunter replied just as quietly. As they blended in with the Luz real scouts who were too tired to wonder why there were four more than had arrived in the first place, Luz had snuck below the deck to draw out a large sketch of one of her fire glyph variants.
An explosive glyph, each the diameter of the ship itself.
When the ship was ready for takeoff, Hunter would use Lil Rascal to trigger the glyphs and utterly decimate the Abomi-tons and the airship, leaving the last shipment undelivered. Hopefully, they could work past that to negotiate the kill switch from Alador or Odalia.
"That's the last one, ma'am," the squad captain reported, and Luz emerged with a thumbs up for all of them to shuffle off the airship to take cover behind a pile of crates.
"Very good, captain," Odalia said with a shadow of her usual charming, oily smile. "I'll leave you to the rest of your duties."
The captain nodded and gave a sharp whistle. "Let's move out!" he shouted and the legitimate scouts moved to board for takeoff. Needless to say, none of them expected the fireball that shredded the airship to charred splinters and turned the Abomi-tons to scraps of metal and heaps of cooked sludge, the displaced air knocking the scouts and Odalia off their feet and onto their backs.
Odalia groaned as her ears were filled with a high-pitched whine that was slowly fading, her other sensations fuzzy. Her sight was blurry as she blinked her eyes open, everything realigning to find … Edric?
Her son was apparently trying to say something, but the words were muffled and the movements of his lips blurred. She distantly felt someone take hold of her arms and haul her to her feet, but she couldn't remain upright on her own. She shook her head, and it felt slow and disorienting, as if she were underwater.
"Mom!"
Odalia gasped as everything came into sudden, sharp focus. She was on the verge of hyperventilating when she realized that she was surrounded not just by her son, but by other teens, too. Including that human girl and Augustus boy that Amity had gotten so close to of late.
"What … just happened?" she slurred.
"Malfunction on the airship," a blond witchling said, and Odalia thought she recognized his voice. But she could see tells in the subtle twitches of his lips and eyelids, and she smelled a half-truth. Literally smelled it, a piece of Oracle magic she'd mastered over the years that brought a sour smell to her nose rather than the pungent odor of an outright lie. It was a wonder when dealing with investors and crooked employees.
"What did you do?" Odalia asked coldly, focusing on the human. "What have you done?"
"We kept those things out of Belos's hands before he tries to destroy the Boiling Isles and the human realm!" the human snarled fiercely.
"You marked this family for death, you foolish girl!" Odalia spat, even though the sweet, magical smell of truth invaded her nose and made her hesitate.
"Hey!" Augustus shouted. "Don't talk to your future daughter-in-law like that!" More truth! What …?!
"Edric, you can't be serious," Odalia drolled, her muddled mind jumping to the nearest possible conclusion.
"Not me, Mom," Edric said with a wry grin so much like his father's back in their Hexside days. "Amity." Truth, once more.
Odalia blinked … and anger flared in her belly. "Oh, that is not happening," she growled, and turned her gaze back on the human with a leveled pointer finger. "You will stay away from my daughter, you little-!"
And suddenly, she wasn't at her and her husband's factory. She was in her childhood house — house, not home — and Morgana Fayless was screeching at a teenage Alador, who was barely holding up as tears beaded in his eyes. You will stay away from my daughter, you little bastard! Trust me. She's not worth your time and you're better off looking anywhere else!
You're worse than your mother, a voice much like Morgana's sneered in her mind. Odalia clutched the front of her shirt, suddenly on the edge of a panic attack as that memory welled up.
"Care to finish that sentence?" the blond asked with steely determination, seemingly uncaring of her sudden rapid breathing. And with that sprinkling of calculated disinterest, Odlaia suddenly realized where she'd heard his voice before.
"Golden Guard," she whispered.
"A long time ago," the boy said. "And now we need the kill switch for your Abomi-tons." He armed his staff, the palisman capping it flaring with gold lightning.
Odalia stepped back from her son and leveled her worst glare at the Golden Guard, focusing on a sudden wave of spite to help ease her fraying self control. "I have no kill switch," she said icily.
"So Dad has it," Edric said.
"You're grounded, Edric," Odalia said harshly, reflexively. A lashing reaction to pain.
"Yeah, in the face of an apocalypse, I really don't care, Mom," Edric snapped back.
"Odalia!" Alador called, emerging from the factory with his intern and … was that the Clawthorne demon? "Oh, good. You're safe," he said, and the relief in his voice soothed her nerves a little. "We've been deceived. Belos is trying to merge the demon and human realms, which will kill countless witches and demons. And our Abomi-tons are helping him do it."
Odalia stared unblinking at her husband, the gears in her mind sluggishly turning.
"You … already knew?" Alador asked in disappointed shock.
"What?" Odalia asked in similar surprise. "No, Alador, I-! I mean, rumors have been around for weeks, but I-! Alador, you can't honestly believe this?! Why would the Emperor merge realms?"
"The reason doesn't matter if he decimates our home to make it happen," Alador said, revealing a remote device and pressing the button to deactivate several Abomi-tons that were scattered throughout the factory. Then their cores started flashing before surging with energy and ripping the constructs apart from the inside.
"Darius was right," Augustus noted.
"Alador, wait-!" Odalia said desperately, all of these factors closing in and threatening her with another panic attack. She'd sworn to herself that she'd left those behind when she'd moved out of her mother's home!
"Odalia, these scouts," he gestured at the trio of scouts tied up as they groggily came to from the explosion, "will report this incident to their superiors," Alador pointed out. "As you said to Luz, we're all but marked for death anyway." He drew closer, into her personal space. "The best way to protect us all is to bring Belos down." He took her hand in his, and Odalia blushed at the surety in his gaze that was so often absent.
"It's what's best for the family, Dear."
Odalia forced her mind into motion to consider everything she could, in the face of the damned ringing still at the edge of her hearing and her slowly-clearing thoughts. She couldn't be sure if it was the probable concussion, the sudden reminder of her mother, or some sense of self- and familial-preservation … perhaps some mix of all three … but she found herself sighing and nodded.
"Let's go before I change my mind," she grumbled, leading the way to Blight Industries' corporate airship.
"Gavin," she heard Alador say, "you're free to go home if you-"
"Sorry, sir," Gavin said, and Odalia glanced back to find him slipping his goggles from around his neck to his forehead. "You're stuck with me."
Alador nodded and started to follow her, but paused and looked at the children. "Edric, I'm proud of you, son," he said, then looked at Luz. "And no matter what Odalia may say, Luz, you are always welcome in our home."
"I'm sorry," Odalia called primly, finding reluctant comfort in a shred of her usual attitude, "I thought we were on some kind of timetable."
"Way to ruin the moment, Odalia!" the human … Luz, shouted. But everyone jogged toward the airship so that Alador and the Golden Guard could prepare it for flight.
"This is not going to end well," Odalia groused, sitting against the rail near the front with her arms firmly crossed, though deliberately out of the way of the preparations.
"Probably not," human-Luz said seriously as she approached with her demon friend on her shoulder, "but if all goes right, it will be the least 'not well' possible."
"We're ready for takeoff," the Golden Guard shouted, and fired up the engines to have them float up. "We'll meet up with the rest of the CATs at the Skull."
"Cats?" Alador asked.
"Covens Against the Throne," Augustus said proudly.
"No doubt Raine Whispers came up with that name," Odalia muttered, though she couldn't help the faint smile at the thought of the kind bard. Raine had always been difficult to dislike, even for her.
"Well, then let's get moving," the demon, King, said from Luz's shoulder.
"Indeed," Alador said, taking the controls. "Get comfortable, everyone. This will be a long flight."
Bria shifted under her cloak as she followed her mother through the crowd approaching the Skull for the Day of Unity. "Did we really have to take this trip on foot all the way from Latissa?" she asked with teen angst. "We could have taken the besoms and flown here!"
"Your father insisted we show our devotion to the Titan," her mother replied, holding her candle with an air of grace. "And given his rank in the Glandus branch of the Construction Coven, I would hope you can imagine why."
Bria sighed through her nose, but nodded. Her father was respected in the coven, and she didn't want to embarrass him. She thought about Gavin and Angmar and wondered briefly how they were doing on this, the day before the Day of Unity.
Angmar grinned maliciously at the pair of scrying potions he'd whipped up that showed images of the eerily similar coven traitors Kikimora had tasked him with capturing. He'd found them each days ago — one at an old couples' house who turned out to be the parents of Lilith and Eda Clawthorne, and the other hiding at Van Aken Manor.
Rather than move in on them immediately, he'd tagged them with burrs from a Creeping Tepes vine, the spiny hooked seeds that attached to a victim like ticks and dug in for their first few drops of blood before dropping back to the soil and growing into proper vines to seek out more blood. Angmar had used his Emperor's Coven-issued direwolf to bump into his targets and plant the burrs on their clothes, then traced the seeds using the mother plant to keep track of them. That link had acted as the perfect focus for the potions to find them.
"I can't believe I found out about an entire rebellion from these two!" Angmar squealed, dancing in place with glee. "Kikimora will be so impressed!" He removed a device resembling a compact mirror on bird legs and flipped it open to contact the Emperor's assistant.
"And then I can move in on my targets," he grinned viciously.
Chapter twenty-two is here, and the conclusion of my take on "Clouds on the Horizon."
*As I've said before, my greatest complaint about Odalia is her lack of depth as a character. Whether it spells redemption or not, I want her deeper. The plot has dictated to me that she'll soften some, so we'll see if it sticks.
*Edric's experience in tactics used in this chapter comes from planning pranks for so long. Turns out, he's got a head for strategy from it all.
*Who else finds it hard to believe that Luz wouldn't figure out an explosive fire glyph combo given her experience with fireworks?
*Odalia's maiden name, Fayless, comes from the root of the term fairy, or fae. The term "fair" was used as a way to placate fairie folk, and Morgana was anything but "fair." Plus, it's a reference to her namesake, Morgana le Fay.
*Besom is a term for old-style brooms made from twigs tied around a stick. The episode "Covention" shows some witches flying on broomsticks, so I thought I'd spruce up the name a bit. I also offer that they are a recent development made because of the palisman shortage.
*Creeping tropes vines have become Angmar's penchant plant, one that he favors to use. Willow's are her thorny vines and Feronia's are the ironmaiden trees, though she also like the Ishtaran witch-traps. Recall from "Masks" that Angmar used the Creeping Tepes to bind Willow when trying to force her to go out with him.
As always, I hope you've enjoyed this update! Leave a review if you like; I always enjoy them! And may your own works be fun to read and to write!