No right-minded club would welcome six teenagers in their street clothes. We tried to dress the part; I wore a business suit and blouse combo that I used to wear to my parent’s dinner parties, back when I was invited to such things. Really, I think that Robin needs to invest in a suit like that. Slinky dresses grab people’s attention quickly, but don’t give the sense of power you need to control a room.
Vincent mentioned his last name to the doorman. That was enough to get us a table and a bottle of wine without being carded. The club itself was a touch simplistic and dull, although the view was nice. It was also missing Mr. Scott among the club’s patrons.
Huntstone says I have no taste. It’s not 1986 anymore, he says, and it’s hard to get a physical space that allows a crowd to slip into the right mindset for anything beyond the most simple magic. Psychology has always factored into magic and maybe it was easier to sell that state of mind in the past. It was definitely easier in the distant past, certainly.
In the centre of the main room was a spiral staircase that led up to the VIP lounge. Our best guess was Scott was upstairs, but... well... we had tracked a sick, powerful man to his stronghold. Vincent had explained that Scott was possessed by a wraith, a shade of a dead person who couldn’t let go of life and was connected to a physical object to maintain an existence in this world. This wraith was attached to an old book, but that's all we had to go on. We needed information on what he or the wraith was doing upstairs before we walked in.
In the middle of tossing together the barest of strategies, we noticed that Robin was no longer sitting with us. She was walking, as if in a trace, across the dining room and up the staircase.
The rest of us stormed up the stairs. There was a supernatural threshold waiting for us at the top of the stairs; it was a spell cast by the crowd of people in the lounge. Passing through it felt like my flesh was pierced by million tiny hooks that tried to rip me apart.
Huntstone says he’s impressed that I lasted as long as I did. He attributes it to the time I spent watching him manipulate humanity. I must have learned how to reverse basic manipulations and renforce myself. There’s no way I could have learned it on my own.
I staggered through the spell intact. My companions weren’t so fortunate; Israel, Caleb and Ardath succumbed to their true self. Israel and Ardath didn’t reveal anything I didn’t know (full blown angel and fae), but Caleb appeared to be a shifter. Vincent didn’t go all fire and brimstone, but looked shaken up from the spell. Robin, thankfully, seemed okay and didn’t hang around long.
Leading the cult was Mr. Scott, flagged on both sides with my parents. That explained where they had been disappearing too. The heavy magical presence hanging in the air was undeniable - the wraith was part of Malik Huntstone. The cultist that I had allied with back when I was my full self. The man who I thought I killed sixteen years ago.
Israel’s magic knocked out all the humans in the room, my parents included, leaving the wraith still up. Ardath called upon his fairy forces. Caleb suddenly turned away from the wraith and attacked Israel, causing Israel to toss him out of a nearby window. Vincent grabbed the book that served as the wraith’s object of power and ran out of the lounge.
According to Vincent’s earlier explanation, a wraith is released freely into the world if its host body and object are destroyed. With both Israel and Ardath attacking, Scott wouldn’t be long for this world. I didn't know what Vincent was going to do with that book. If I didn't do something about Huntstone, he'd be free again.
I did what I needed to do; I unmade myself, unfolding the constraints that made me human and took up the form of my other self. I wanted to remind that fragment of Huntstone about the fear and terror of his death as I drained his wraith into my existence. The transfer forcefully and painfully jolted me back into my human self again.
Huntstone is amused that I would consider this a good idea. It’s exactly what he wanted sixteen years ago - him and I existing in the same body, sharing the same power source. He might not be in control right now, but it’s only a matter of time before I fall and he’ll take over my body.
Most of the battle was over by the time I became human again. Ardath killed what was left of Scott's human body. Israel threatened to transform the rest of the cult into salt. I begged him not to. My “parents” aren’t really my parents, but I’ve lived with them for 16 year and desperately wanted to know why they drifted back to their old habits. I wouldn’t be able to learn that and do something about it if they were piles of salt.
Israel backed down. He told me that everyone in that room deserved to die for what they had gone, then he flew off into the night.
I found myself alone, standing by the body of a dead man, surrounded by a room of sleeping cultists, the sound of police sirens growing closer. The will of my former partner-turned-rival was buried in my head and none of my friends were around to help me. Well, shit.
