Part 13

Five stepped forward, fitting the guitar strap across his body in one fell swoop. Lommeil shook his finger at the man.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not yet, buddy,” he said, and everyone flinched. Tristian had always called Five buddy.

“You monster,” Ammie clenched her fists. Her stone hand ricocheted tingles of sharp pain up her arm, but she hardly felt it. The mark on her wrist burned, burned, burned.

Lommeil, wearing Tristian’s handsome face, couldn’t hide the roiling black skeleton and burning eyes from flickering , like a candle’s flame, whenever he moved. 

I see you, Ammie’s mouth curled upward. I f*****g see you.

“Don’t worry, Ammie dear, Tristian isn’t the first hero that I’ve sent on. It’s just your turn. There’s no reason to get mad about it.”

Five stepped in front of Ammie. His power was coiling around him, brought to visible life with his rage. “That’s not happening.”

Sent on? He didn’t say kill, Ammie narrowed her eyes.

“Five,” she said softly. 

“You need to go,” he said, voice loud and clear.

Ammie’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“You need to find Juliette and Lis and get Sylvia to the infirmary.”

“You--you can’t fight him alone, dumbass,” Ammie sighed. 

Lommeil tilted his head. “Oh, the little girls? About that…I found them first.”

Ammie’s blood froze. “What?”

Lommeil pointed to the right. “See?”

Ammie whipped her hair so fast it crashed into her other cheek. Where the face-stealer had pointed was a huddle of villagers who lived near the gates. They’d been cornered onto a larger patch of green, about four blocks down. 

Her vision obstructed by trees, shrubs, and cottages, Ammie looked for a glimpse of her friends, but the tangle of witches and faceless was too frenzied for her to comprehend. 

One thing was becoming clear, though. The villagers weren’t…fighting. 

The scene began to materialize more clearly. 

The faceless attacking the group, which looked to be mainly the ambiguously-shaped animals, were busy fighting creatures their size. Brightly colored, red cheetahs and blue lions and black jaguars glistening from the magic that created them tore through the viscous throats of the creatures.

Ammie sighed in relief. That was Lis’s crazy magic doing something crazy again.

“I can’t believe that girl,” Five muttered, but his eyes never left the imposter standing within their midst.

“Their luck will run out as soon as the girl uses up all of her magic, it seems,” Lommeil commented, humming thoughtfully. “Those witches found their way to someone willing to fight for them; others in the village won’t be so lucky. It seems they’re used to not having to fight for themselves. It’s just,” he shook his head, glancing forlornly at the battle, “unfair.”

Ammie couldn’t believe her ears. Surely the villagers would protect themselves once Lis began to run low on magic. They wouldn’t leave her to exhaust herself alone.

Unforgivable. She hadn’t realized the people she’d known all her life were so faithless.

They wouldn’t, would they?

“I’m done with this,” Sylvia stepped forward, the palm of her hand holding what appeared to be a burning patch of white light. 

She was using her magic.

“It seems you’re the only person under the assumption that all witches must constantly fight for their survival. But in reality, that was only ever true in the Dark Ages!” She yelled, tears falling from her eyes as she launched the ball of white at the man.

Five followed, not allowing Lommeil a chance to deflect the attack, strumming a single string. 

A straight red bolt of lightning crashed into the imposter from the air above his head, just as a low note rang into the night.

Lommeil shuddered upon impact, more a slight tasing than a full-blown electric jolt. 

But it worked.

Sylvia’s white spell crashed into the man’s chest, sinking into it like it was submerging itself in water.

Forehead lined with concentration, Sylvia’s heart-shaped face turned into a vengeful warrior’s. She closed her eyes, holding her throwing hand out before her in a fist. With one deadly slice, she flung it to the side.

Lommeil screamed. 

Sylvia flattened her fist into a flat hand, a deadly scythe, that she then sliced upwards, shoving her power out with a “Yah!”

Both Lommeil and Sylvia fell to their knees. The woman’s frame was wracked with sobs as Lommeil clutched at his chest, eyes wide and reaching toward her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, reaching for her husband’s agonized face.

“No!” Ammie choked, reaching Sylvia in time for Five to send a slightly higher note, a slightly lighter red arc of lightning to force the face-stealer to stay where he was in spasmodic agony.

“Go, Sylvia,” Ammie grabbed the woman by her shoulders. Her own eyes were hazy with tears, turning Sylvia’s face into muted lines and vibrant colors. “Go to the infirmary. We’ll take care of this.”

Ammie pulled the trembling woman up, giving her a light push to send her off. Sylvia stumbled away, and Ammie worried that her vulnerability would make her an easy target for the faceless ambling around the village.

“Ammie,” Five said, eyes trained on the violent shakes forcing Lommeil’s body to stay on the ground. “Tell me this isn’t him.”

Ammie walked up to the man, resting her hand on his shoulder. Five was wound tighter than solid oak. “It’s not,” her voice trembled. “It’s not.”

Five turned his eyes to her, and her heart shattered.

Those icy flames had gone out, leaving his beautiful eyes shimmering with doubt. But then the doubt cooled, leaving only trust in its wake. Five breathed deep, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

Ammie had told him the truth but never before had she seen her words make such an impact on him. He really believed in her, somehow, despite how she’d always treated him.

Never had Ammie seen Five so vulnerable. Never had she thought he even had such vulnerabilities.

But if this night had taught her anything, it was that she had been a fool about many things. A damn fool.

Distorted chuckles resonated from the man on the ground. Ammie looked down and gasped.

Lommeil had nearly thrown away his disguise. The skeleton and eyes burned through Tristian’s body like her brother’s face was the flickering illusion and not the other way around.

“How cute,” Lommeil pushed himself to stand, limbs still skittering with electricity. One hand stayed placed on the spot Sylvia had put her healer’s touch into him, though what she’d done inside of him was something Ammie hadn’t known the woman could do.

She hadn’t realized healing magic could be used to hurt as well as to heal.

“Do you know how many moments I’ve given you to kiss each other tonight?” He grinned, the skeleton’s teeth gleaming prominently below the surface of Tristian’s skin. Against the black backdrop, his lips looked too colorful, too awkwardly placed to be anything but eerie and disturbing. “I’m trying to be nice here. I’ve given you so many chances for a last kiss. A confession, even.” 

The face-stealer sighed. “I tried helping you out. I didn’t want to be some ordinary villain that prevented a love that could have been but wasn’t given the chance, ya know? I hate those stories.”

“You’re insane,” Five looked down at the man, piercing him with a deadly stare even though he was only slightly taller than Ammie’s brother. “If you didn’t want to be an ordinary villain, then this night would never have happened.”

The icy flames were back, but they were contained, roiling within a face filled with derision. 

Contained, for now.

Lommeil sighed, pushing the skeleton back into its faint illusion with the slow exhale. Tristian’s face was whole once more.

Except for the eyes. He always botched the eyes.

“If we’re talking kindness,” Ammie started, voice dangerously low, “then I would have preferred if you hadn’t killed my mother, instead of giving me a fake romantic set-up.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t do that. If you don’t lose all of your family, then how can you get stronger than everyone around you?”

Five narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

Ammie’s rock hand sneaked into the pocket filled with all of her elemental stones. She dropped the air-stone majority inside, then mixed them all together. 

Give me something he hasn’t seen, she wished.

However, Lommeil’s next words stopped her hand, her body, cold. “You’re the Hero now, dear. And you’ve got a long way to go. I was just trying to move that along, for, as we all know, pain makes you stronger.”

A beat. 

Five whirled as Ammie grabbed as large a handful of stones as she possibly could. 

A high-pitched note careened into the sky, bringing forth three arcs of white lightning crashing into the area all around Lommeil. Simultaneously, the ground caved into three folds, enveloping the man’s feet from ever finding his footing again.

Brown stones, Ammie smiled. Earth.

Flinging her backpack off, Ammie finally unearthed her white birch wand with its crooked frame and bumps.

Able to focus her magic once more, she wondered what she could do.

How can I protect everyone? Since she couldn’t use combat magic, the destructiveness of her spells had to be charged with the purpose of protecting.

“Don’t let up!” Five flung three more white shots of lightning raining down onto the half-buried face-stealer.

Protection. Of course, Ammie realized, as long as Five was with her, she had something to protect.

“I’m going to send help to them! Don’t stop!” He flung his guitar around on his frame, digging into the holsters across the sash he wore.

Unearthing a miniature flute--was it a piccolo?--Five played a children’s song, invisible waves of magic curling through the air towards the thatched-roof cottage.

Within seconds, Five’s golem army came bounding out. 

Ammie nearly laughed. Chia pets? He grew chia pets to use as his golems? 

Five glared at her as he played, which only prompted her lips to split into an infectious grin. 

Grassy hedgehogs, stone squirrels, and--was that Happy from Fairy Tail marching along on the awkwardly bunched up feet of its squat stone frame? The ensemble marched along with the children’s tune, moving steadily toward the cluster of people and Lis’s magical cats.

Facing Lommeil once more, she sent blasts of earth magic at him. First, she used the dug-up terrain to harden into bands that kept him locked in place. Next, she sent an avalanche falling onto his head, followed by a series of spikes that cut down into the dirt pit without prejudice.

Ammie was glad his face was covered as she skewered him, but at least now this night would be over. 

“Ammie!” Juliette’s voice took Ammie’s attention. The blue-haired witch had separated from the animals facing one another. Behind her was a stream of terrified witches, all hovering within their bedclothes like they were helpless little ants.

Under her arm, a limp Lis was barely conscious. Her eyes rolled as she kept her magic strong enough to keep the big cats fighting.

Anger coursed through Ammie at her friends’ appearances. Twice that night Juliette had fallen unconscious, and now Lis was close.

Yet the villagers still looked rumpled purely from sleep and not monsters ripping them apart.

“We’ve lost seven so far,” Juliette’s face was pale and strained. Her usually calm demeanor was fighting to stay intact at the carnage spreading through her home. Ammie could practically see the same question coursing through her panicked purple eyes: what do we do what do we do what do we do what do we do?

The chia pets joined the battle, their leaves infused with Five’s fire. 

Ammie was once again glad that her friends could harness magic so quickly during their combat spells. If they had to stop and chant for every attack, their group would never survive. However, that meant the magic they used was gone faster than if they took their time and chanted a solid spell foundation.

The stone creatures raced between the feet of the clashing monsters, lighting their feet aflame. The flames, sturdier than they appeared, flew up the legs of the beasts as if they were following an oil trail. 

But no. Ammie turned to see Five, his face plastered with sweat. It was Five’s control making the flames move like that. 

Despite her anger, Ammie felt relief wash through her. Lommeil was dealt with, Five and Lis had the faceless animals occupied and run down, and it looked like the attack was finally being pushed back.

Letting out a breath, Ammie raced to her friends, helping to support Lis on her other side. 

“This way,” Ammie huffed, “we’ll get her to the infirmary.”

Juliette nodded, too exhausted for words. 

“Five, finish it up,” Ammie called, and the man nodded, fitting his piccolo back into its spot on his chest. 

Sliding his guitar back across his front, Five walked toward the beasts alone as the stream of people behind Ammie, Juliette, and Lis watched in shock. 

As the man went to confront the horde of faceless animals, Ammie hoped the whispering villagers remembered this. Remembered his bravery.

Five wasn’t some street rat, and no matter what they’d put him through, at the end of the day, he was the Hero’s Team of Legend. He would still save them all.

As they passed the dirt pit, Ammie spared it a glance.

Her heart burned. That monster had killed her mother, but it had been so simple to kill him. To lock him in place with their magic and destroy him. 

Guess the demon he sold his soul to in order to gain power only granted him the forbidden face-stealing magic and not any longer-ranged attacks. 

“Are you okay?” Ammie asked Juliette, when dirt suddenly exploded into the sky, covering everyone in a heavy coating of the stuff.

“Very nice, Ammie dear,” a voice said from underneath a curtain of earth. It slid off of him as he hiked up the hole Ammie had put him in. 

Passing charred patches of grass where Five’s lightning had hit, Lommeil stood on the lip of the hole. White teeth shone beneath the dirt before the rest of it fell away, revealing the Hero’s face.

Everyone gasped, even Juliette.

But nobody moved.

“Run!” Ammie shoved her friends away from the man. 

Already, she could see familiar green hair coming back, running full-speed.

He wouldn’t make it in time, Ammie knew. He wouldn’t make it.

“Get away! He’s not the Hero! He’s the face-stealer who sent the faceless here!”

Ammie shouted in vain, for none of the villagers cared what she said. Only relief and faith shone on their faces.

“He’s back,” one whispered, while another let out a cry, “I knew he wasn’t dead!”

“We’re all saved now,” they murmured to each other, relieved.

Ammie couldn’t believe her ears.

“Run!” She yelled.”Get out of here! Now!” 

The forgotten replacement ignored completely, the villagers fell to their knees before the face-stealer, exalting him as a king.

Madame Loucreis, her head covered in pink curlers. Vaughn Stafford, one of the gatekeepers. The entire Lovishu family, the three kids clutched beneath their mother’s bosom like she was the actual Mother Goose.

They weren’t listening. Ammie felt like she was faced with her mother once again, trying to show her the truth.

Why couldn’t anybody else see it?

Juliette yanked Madame Loucreis away, sending her flying to her feet with a stumbling crash. “Get your head on right. When has our Hero ever looked like that?”

The young witch’s eyes burned as she stared down the panicked woman.

Ammie smiled. Her friend could see it.

“What is that ugly skeleton doing with Tristian face paint?” Lis murmured sleepily, her brown ears lilted. She walked nearly like the faceless, arms swinging before her like a zombie. 

Bloodshot eyes, that bright green ring that showed Lis’s activated power had dulled to nearly the same color as the rest of her green eyes.

Both of her friends. Ammie’s smile turned teary. Both of her friends could see it.

Only ten, maybe fifteen seconds had passed, but Five was still too far away. He’d crossed all four blocks in the time it had taken the terrified villagers to walk halfway across just the one. Now he was too far away; he wouldn’t make it in time.

The mark tingled on Ammie’s wrist, and she felt the moment Lommeil cast his spell.

Instantly, the chittering of the faceless’ blackened fingers erupted through the night. 

The animals disengaged from their fight and began racing after Five, their lithe bodies moving much faster.

No, Ammie realized. They weren’t going after just Five. They were coming at Lommeil’s call.

“We’re about to be surrounded,” Ammie muttered, trying not to panic. They had dealt with a horde of faceless already that night, with just the four of them.

They could do it again.

“I guess it’s time to let this one out,” Lommeil snapped his fingers, and a seal of his power erupted. 

Ammie felt sickened at the heavy surge of power she felt from the man, free from a spell intended to hide his true abilities from the witches. 

If he hadn’t hidden it, there wouldn’t be a witch in a hundred miles that couldn’t have felt his power.

Everyone fell still at the weight of it, pressed into the ground like they were being squashed by gravity.

This is not good.

Blackness flew high into the sky, tendrils of the inky stuff hardening into sharpened tentacles that billowed out from Lommeil’s back.

The tentacle blades flew higher in the air then cut down dangerously all at once towards the meek and helpless villagers frozen before him.

“Hero?” One of the Lovishu kids asked between his clenched teeth.

The blades cut down, and Ammie’s hero mark burned a scream from her throat.

Clutching it, she yelled, “What? What do you want from me?”

Pick up your sword, it sang through her blood.

“What sword?” Ammie yelled. “What do I do?”

But the mark had grown quiet. It waited for her to make her choice, to make the first move.

So Ammie did.

Just as the inky tentacles crashed onto the horrified people, Ammie bolted in front of them, headed straight for a collision with the black blades arcing toward her.

Author's Note

I understand I can’t write romance, and this part of the story was probably off for the entire thing. If you’ve endured reading it thus far, I just want to let you know thank you! SBCD is my first finished project, so even though I’m super proud of it, I’m not blind to its errors. Two more chapters to go!