Chapter Twenty-Six
"Well, Feronia," Philip sneered, "it seems you will be a part of the Day of Unity, after all." He tapped his staff to the ground and some of the monstrous arms grabbed her and forced her into the spot Willow had occupied. With every coven head back in place, the diagram flared with light and pillars of magic shone over the head witches.
"Emperor Belos," Cernunnas said with the strain of holding herself up under the monstrous arms, "release my niece!"
"No, Cernunnas, I don't think I will," Philip said with dissonant, almost grandfatherly calm. "Your niece has been consorting with wild witches and has betrayed the Titan's will. I'm afraid she will not be welcomed into the coming paradise."
"You …!" Cernunnas obviously stared in shock from behind her visor, her hanging jaw showing her shock. "You can't-!"
"Yes, I can," Philip said coldly. Then his gaze flicked to Hunter and he smiled with that same false warmth. "Ah, Hunter. Welcome back, my boy." His grandfatherly smile grew. "I hear you took on the name 'Wittebane' at your school. How fitting, hmm?"
Hunter just glared at Philip. If looks could kill, Philip would have been burned to ash. Philip seemed unperturbed and his blue eyes moved to Luz.
"And hello again, Luzura," Philip sneered. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
Luz glared at him, too, though hers wasn't nearly as strong as Hunter's.
"You know, I never got the chance to thank you or your Aunt Dirtrude," he glanced at Lilith, "for your help all those years ago. Without you, I can't imagine how many tries it would have taken to retrieve the Collector." He chuckled. "You saved me quite a lot of time and headache."
As Luz's glare crumbled into regret and self-loathing, Philip finally turned to Willow and his expression soured into naked contempt. "Hello, Ms. Park," he greeted.
"Philip Wittebane," Willow replied, her tone neutral.
"You have been a poetic thorn in my side for too long, child," Philip growled. "Plotting with wild witches against the Titan's will, luring head witches off the righteous path, even turning my own nephew against me." He closed his eyes and breathed slowly before opening them again. "You remind me of someone I knew long ago … and I don't like it." His grip on his staff tightened, his knuckles turning white. "I don't like it at all."
His glare changed into a vicious smile and he held up a hand, his fingers curled, and tightened the grip. Willow gasped and retched, her airway cut off as she clutched at her throat.
"Goodbye … Evelyn," Philip snarled. His arm deformed into sludge and bone to form a lance, headed straight for Willow heart-!
"No!" a boy's voice shouted, a blond knocking Willow out of the way, the lance piercing him through the chest … and knocking a galdorstone clean out of Jasper to fall off the dais and into the depths below.
"Jasper!" Boscha shouted.
"A pity," Philip said, reeling in his arm to try again.
And then he cried out in shock as a booted foot slammed into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. The monstrous arms remained holding down the coven heads, but the spell keeping the others aloft was cut off. Everyone fell to their knees, couching, catching their breaths, and rubbing their throats.
And standing over his uncle — his very distant uncle, so many times removed — stood Hunter Wittebane, one hand clutching Lil Rascal's staff … and the other covered by a metallic gauntlet with a red gem glowing with power set in the back.
"It can't be …" Philip breathed, eyes locked on that gauntlet. The power emanating off of it … was unmistakable artificial magic. The only thing that could fully counter Philip's power.
"Yes, it can, Uncle," Hunter snarled. He lifted his staff and prepared to strike downward, but Philip dissolved into greenish sludge and sunk into the ground, only to rise further away … right behind Luz. No one had a chance to react before he grabbed her and melted again, this time taking her with him!
"No!" Eda and King shouted.
"Luz!" Willow and Gus cried.
"Batata!" Amity wailed.
And then the moon slotted into place and the Merging Spell began.
Luz's stomach rebelled at the feeling of the sludge surrounding her, not to mention the feeling of unthinkably fast travel. She clamped her mouth closed as the sludge held her limbs to her body like an all-encompassing straitjacket, her eyes screwed shut and lungs starting to burn.
Then she was ejected from the sludge to tumble across gritty ground and roll to a halt, spitting gunk from her lips that was worse than any Abomination.
"How about a chat, Luz?" Philip asked from behind her, and she turned her head just enough to see him from the corner of her eye. "One human to another?"
"You'd have to be human first," Luz responded with a vicious smile, then held her breath and clapped a glyph to her chest to vanish into invisibility.
Philip's eyebrows rose in faint surprise and he glanced behind him — the obvious angle to attack from — in time for Luz to ignite a pair of fire glyphs and send crossed pillars of fire cascading at him with a cry of, "Spicy toss!"
Philip swung his staff, the focus crystal flaring with magic, and dispersed the attack as if swatting a fly. "Such spirit," he commented. "I never understood why so many people look down on women. A foolish bias, I must say." He waved his staff in a horizontal swipe and a wave of force sent Luz hurtling into the air. She clapped another glyph to her body and a faint blue glow surrounded her, halting her fall just above the ground before letting her drop to land on her feet and race for one of the chamber's pillars.
"Remarkable," Philip whispered, charging for another attack.
Eda watched in horror as the shadowed moon cast the Boiling Isles in a half-darkness the hue of blood, the curve of the shadow flaring with the corona of the sun and powerful magic. The rebels all looked in horror as the coven heads' sigils flared and activated to begin spreading vein-like tendrils along their flesh, triggering the other sigils, too.
"What is this?!" Mawe shrilled, his dusty voice cracking with shocked fear.
"Celly, what is happening?" Cernnunas asked, her voice trembling. Celine's eye welled with tears and she silently hugged her aunt, the large woman hugging her right back.
The other coven heads began to curl inward from obvious agony, the monstrous arms melting into putrid, dead flesh with their task completed. Ludwig screamed as he was torn to consciousness, wracked with pain. Derwin curled into Raine, both of their sigils killing them, and Eda's heart cracked twice. She moved to comfort Raine …
Then she realized that Hunter and Amity had fallen to their knees as tendrils spread up their bodies, draining the magic from them. Lilith, the BATs, Steve and Severine, the Blight parents, the apprentices … they were all branded. And their magic was flowing in pulsing veins through the air into the coven heads before rising and gathering high above in a swirling vortex of pure power.
But not the Goops- Gus, the Hexside kids … or Willow.
Boscha was curled over Jasper's body, the kid's flesh grey as his power source was torn from him. Eda bowed her head in thanks to the grimwalker for saving Willow, and then hardened her heart for the task at hand.
"Hexside kids!" Eda commanded, snatching King up under her arm and shifting back into her harpy form. "Protect the dais. Gus, Willow, you're with me and King." She bared her fangs in a terrifying snarl. "We're going to get Luz back."
"Damn right we are!" Gus shouted, summoning Shimmer as the other kids encircled the dais and looked outward for anything that might happen. Willow brushed her fingers through Feronia's hair before summoning Clover.
"Let's get 'em. The original crew."
"Eda-" Hunter hissed, trying to struggle to his feet and only getting to one knee.
"We can help," Amity groaned, clawing to her hands and knees.
"You've done enough so far, kids," Eda said with a proud smile. "Let us take it from here." The four traded a nod and flew toward the Skull, where they knew Philip would have taken Luz.
It was, after all, the place to build a portal during an eclipse. Or to reopen one. It was the only place that this building mass of magic could be headed.
Luz ducked behind another pillar as she slapped a variant ice glyph on the marble-like, bony surface. The paper covered with frost as the magic shifted, showing that it was prepped for her plan. She kept the idea of her next attack firmly in mind as she darted for cover behind the next one.
"I didn't realize you were already combining glyphs," Philip commented, and from his tone she could almost believe he was proud of her. She slapped another glyph that was covered with frost, too, and kept moving. "I must say, you do have a strong intuition with these. It took me ages to figure that out." She kept running, kept planting glyphs.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say the Titan had gifted you with such insight," Philip continued in the tone of someone thinking as they were speaking. Luz planted one more glyph and willed them to activate, spears of ice descending from the ceiling to try and impale Philip. But with a flick of his staff and a pulse of magic, the spears shattered and melted without leaving even close to a scratch.
"Though, let's be honest," he said with something like humor, "it will take a few more decades of practice before you're any sort of challenge." Philip ducked beneath a gout of fire Luz blasted at him and his arm devolved into bone and sludge to lash forward and pluck her from her place to hang before him.
"Eat dirt, Belos," she spat.
"Philip," the old man corrected dispassionately. "And as I said before, I wish to talk, human to human. The Merging Spell has begun and the Day of Unity shall be completed within the hour. I'm offering you a chance to go home before it finishes." He snapped his fingers and the portal, connected to its pipes and cords, flared to life. "I have more than enough Titan Blood to send you home to find your family before things change," he explained. "All you need to do is ask." He smiled faintly. "Politely."
"Changed?" Luz asked. "You mean two worlds being crammed together in a box that's way too small."
"I can't deny that there will be confusion in the aftermath," Philip agreed, "but everything will work out."
"For you, sure," Luz pointed out. "And that's all you ever cared about, isn't it? All the other people can die horribly as they're thrown into something they're not even close to ready to prepare for, but you get to say you were right." Her glare intensified. "Caleb would be ashamed of you."
Philip's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in outrage and Luz's feet turned to stone, the magic flowing up her body. "How dare you, you miserable heathen?" He looked her over. "No, my apologies. By the sight of you, I'd say you were Catholic." He scoffed. "Not that those saint-worshiping fools are much better."
"Wait, stop!" Luz shouted in panic. "You can't-! You-!" She thought furiously as the stone crawled further and further, a small part of her realizing that if it covered her entirely, she'd be dead-dead, the curse irreversible. "Uh, how about a deal?" she asked. The stone's slow rising didn't slow, but Philip blinked and arched an eyebrow.
"Look, you've been gone for three-hundred-plus years?" Luz guessed. "Things have changed like you wouldn't believe. I mean, Connecticut isn't even a colony anymore. Britain isn't an empire. And technology's gotten crazy advanced." She kept babbling, trusting in her ADHD to get her out of trouble just once. "How would you know where to start, what humans to trust, how everything works anymore? Heck," she dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone, "what this is?!"
Luz dropped to the ground, the stone still crawling.
"So you're offering to be a guide to this modern Earth?" Philip asked.
"Something like that," Luz groaned. "I can't beat you, obviously. And in our time back home, there's a saying: 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em'." She hissed as the stone covered her heart and rose over her shoulders. "All I want in return is for you to protect my friends and family." Her gaze hardened. "From both worlds."
Philip looked at her with calculating eyes. She was getting to him.
"What would Caleb advise you to do?" Luz asked, hoping against hope that invoking his brother — if the memories she'd witnessed were any indication, the sole moral compass he'd ever had — would soften him up instead of enraging him again. "Please … Philip," she pleaded, uncaring of the tears she shed as the spell began its last stretch.
And then it retreated in mere seconds to allow Luz to gasp for air.
"You make a persuasive case, Ms. Noceda," Philip commented. "You have yourself a deal."
"Then give me your word," Luz said, rising shakily to her feet as her gaze flicked around and landed on something. "That was a big deal back in your day, right? A man's word is his bond?"
"Such an outdated concept," Philip said. "But true to the times, yes."
"Your word," she said. "If the Day of Unity happens, you put my friends under your protection. In return, I will offer my insight into modern Earth to help you get whatever it is you need from home."
"Agreed," Philip said. "You have my word."
"Okay," Luz said. "Quick question, though." Philip tilted his head. "Does the Merging Spell actually need a portal, or does that just make it easier to make happen?"
"The magic would still tear a hole in the fabric between worlds," Philip explained, clearly happy to show off how smart he was and how much he knew. "And link them through the in-between. But the worlds would not be merged, and the strain would kill every life on the Isles until the spell was completed."
"Good to know," Luz said, and stomped her foot on a plant glyph. Vines arose and struck at the portal.
"No!" Philip shouted in terror, sending his will into his staff to blast the plants with magic that rotted away organic matter but would leave the materials of the portal undamaged. He sighed with relief … and then cried out in shock as the side of his neck burned.
"You might as well help your subjects out," Luz quipped, tossing away a branding glove she'd grabbed and struck with during that brief distraction. Philip stared at her before fumbling for the Collector's prison and using the reflection of its surface to examine his neck … and finding a Potions sigil spreading tendrils along his body, sapping the magic from him.
"You little-!" Philip snarled, the Collector's disc falling from his shaking fingers.
"I didn't give you my word," Luz interrupted.
Philip roared as his control over his shape faltered and he fell to his hands and knees, his curse welling to the surface to distend his limbs, carve eyes into his back and chest, and sprout antlers from within his long, grey hair. He whirled on Luz, just as she held up a glyph combination in her hand that blasted him with mist. He coughed and retched as drowsiness encroached upon him, distantly noting that the combination had contained fire, ice, and plant glyphs.
Sleeping nettles … Very clever.
He flared power through his body to shake off the effects and looked to find Luz gone … as was the disc.
"No!" Belos roared in denial, racing after them.
Luz, nearly across the Skull-spanning bridge, was rubbing the Collector's prison like a genie's lamp as she panted in fear and ran like her life depended on it — since it did. "C'mon, work!" she pleaded.
The crescent symbol in the disk swirled with silvery light and the disk projected an elaborate diagram on the ceiling, one with stars and the phases of the moon all surrounding a celestial face … that looked down at her as the symbols began to whirl. "Why, hello there," the Collector said in a sultry female voice, the face smiling menacingly.
Luz took in a breath to answer, but she yelped as something wrapped around her ankle with a breaking grip and dragged her to the ground. The Collector's disk flew from her hands and bounced away and out of sight. "No!" Luz shouted.
"Yes," Philip snarled, dragging Luz closer with his elongated arm. She rolled over on her back as she was dragged closer and fished out an ice glyph to fire an icicle at him, but he smacked it aside with contempt. "Fighting to the bitter end," Philip snarled. "How noble." His other hand shafted into a curved blade. "Allow me to offer you a quick death, human."
Luz tried to look him in the eye, but she couldn't stop herself from flinching as the blade came down. And then she heard the unmistakable sound of vines snapping taut and looked back up to find Phlip's arm — just as she'd hoped — restrained by thorny vines, the barbs digging into his putrid flesh and making him howl with pain.
"Surprise!" King called from harpy-Eda's shoulder.
"Just in time, too," Eda said with a grin.
"We're here to help!" Willow announced, her staff in hand and her eyes glowing with wild magic.
"We got your back, girl," Gus added.
"You guys are the best!" Luz shouted joyfully, clapping two fire glyphs together to blast her away from Philip like a jet and to her first friends. "Wait, Amity and Hunter-!"
"Being drained," Eda reported. "The Hexside kids are watching everyone." She took King by the collar and dropped him into Luz's arms. "So we need to stop this thing as fast as we can. You two stay back and wait for an opening."
"Wait, I wanna help!" Luz protested.
"Kid, you've done great so far," Eda said proudly, ruffling her hair. "Now let us take it from here." With that, she shrilled her harpy call and flew at Philip.
"There's no way I'm staying out of this fight," Luz grumbled. "King, I have a job for you."
"Hey, I know what that means!" King said, pointing accusingly at her even as he wobbled from the cavern's shaking from the battle behind them. "You just want me out of the way. You think I'm some weak kid!"
"I think you're a Titan," Luz said with a faint smile. "I dropped the Collector's disk when Belos grabbed me. I need you to get it as far away as you can, 'kay?"
"Luz?" King whimpered.
She leaned down and kissed his skull before arming herself with glyphs and racing back into the fray with a high-pitched battle cry, spells flying.
King stood frozen for a moment, conflicted. Part of him was certain this was Luz's way of keeping him out of the way like a kid underfoot, but he knew in his heart that she meant what she'd said about this being an important job. He growled to himself … and turned on his heel to run to find the Collector.
The enemy that his father had warned him about.
Hunter gritted his teeth against the invasive cold creeping up his arms. His breathing was getting heavier, and he found it difficult to move. And evidently, he wasn't even close to the worst off. He was young, fit, and magicless on his own. The tendrils were crawling through him slowly, inexorably, and very painfully … but those with magic were groaning and gnashing their teeth with suffering. The aged coven heads had it even worse.
And as he always seemed to do in a crisis, Hunter's mind was turning with theories, plans, and ideas to get out of it. As if sensing his impending probable demise and going into overdrive, he was rapidly devising schemes and plans before discarding them just as quickly.
Cut off their arms with the sigils? No one would go for that. And no one was in a position to be thinking clearly enough to give consent.
Burn them off? Same problems.
Destroy the dais? That wouldn't help.
The palismen? They could keep up the steady flow of power needed for long enough to make a difference. Not like-
Hunter blinked as one plan stuck and began to unfold. Holy Titan, that- that could work! Hunter flexed the hand covered in the gauntlet he'd made from his old mechanized staff, a product of his own ingenuity and Lilith's many suggestions. Like slipping on a glove — or a gauntlet — he willed the device to accrue magic, raw magic emanated from the Titan, from the atmosphere and shaped it with his thoughts into a kind of bubble.
He formed the bubble around his forearm surrounding the Emperor's Coven sigil and pressed a button to, in a manner of speaking, keep the program running.
The cold stopped spreading and Hunter gasped in relief. He examined his gauntlet and the line of three small yellow lights, one of which was glowing. That was an indicator for the running spell-program. He looked around at the draining and slowly dying people around him, at Celine holding her aunt, Raine and Derwin holding each other, Mattholomule clutching Steve as he held onto Katya and Severine … and made a choice.
He stood on unsteady feet and made his way to kneel next to Amity. He focused his thoughts and performed the same spell, forming a bubble of artificial magic around her sigil before pressing the button and setting the spell to keep running. The second indicator light lit up, leaving him just enough processing for combat. Amity gasped and winced. "Wha …? What-?"
"Get up, Blight," Hunter said, his voice hard with determination rather than malice, and grabbed her arm to haul her to her feet. "We're going."
"Hunter?" Viney asked in shock, eyes wide. All of the other students looked, too.
"Maintain your posts," Hunter barked, his voice ringing with authority. "I can't do any more of that spell, and only Belos can stop this. Keep protecting everyone here." He looked at Amity and summoned Lil Rascal, Amity nodding and summoning Ghost. "You'll know we won when the spell ends."
"Good luck," Amity called before they mounted and raced toward the Skull.
As they did and everyone's attention was focused on them, no one noticed as Mattholomule patted Steve's hair before he slowly approached Boscha and the fallen Jasper, gripping the pouch at his belt.
Chapter twenty-six is here, everyone! Sorry about missing last week, but writing for huntlow Week took up all of my spare time. Hope this chapter is worth the wait!
*Another shout out to EldrichRaven, who first proposed the idea of a gauntlet that uses artificial magic built from Hunter's staff. I'm so happy to finally give it some airtime!
*Despite many fans' opinions, I never got the feeling that canon-Philip/Belos was sexist or racist, at least in regards to fellow humans. I can imagine he would hold little regard for Christian denominations not his own, though. And yes, he did base his assumption of Luz being Catholic on her skin tone, so make of that what you will.
*Luz developed the smaller sleeping-smoke spell in her free time based on her adventure with Hunter.
As always, I hope this was a fun read! Leave a review if you like! And may your own works be as fun to read as to write!
