Part 14

The hardened tentacles crashed into the ground all around Ammie, throwing up even more dirt than her elemental stones had first rucked up. 

Screaming filtered through the air as the witches, finally freed from Lommeil’s presence, scrambled away from the disaster before them. 

Juliette, Lis, and Five shoved through the throng, running towards the danger.

Their faces were bleak, eyes gaping wide enough to pop out completely, as they headed for the swirling dirt storm.

Juliette coughed, throwing up a hand before her nose and mouth, nearly too late to stop from inhaling the violently moving stuff still settling through the air.

“Ammie!” Five coughed, swinging his hand uselessly around him. 

The world was dirt clouds that existed somewhere none of the witches had ever been. 

Was this what human wars were like? Juliette shuddered at the horror of it all. Nobody can find their way in this mess, she scrunched her nose in frustration, tears burning from her dusty eyes.

“Ammie!” Lis choked, voice but a mere whisper. The girl was still trembling, still roving about like one of the faceless.

Soon, Juliette knew, the girl would burn out.

I can’t let that happen.

Moving toward the center where the dust was the thickest, Juliette glimpsed a strange orange light.

It glowed in a thin horizontal line, and Juliette couldn’t figure out what it could be. A smashed yard light from nearby? A witch stone that someone had elongated to provide just the slimmest of lights?

Five met the witches, nodding once, before trudging toward it. The dust swirled calmer around them, the path ahead clearing just enough to make out a figure attached to the slim light.

Ammie.

The girl knelt on one knee, her right arm straight out. In her hand was a thin, gleaming sword swathed in inky black liquid.

The tentacles had crashed all around her, aiming directly for her spot. But somehow, Ammie had summoned a sword in time to crash through the hardened material, saving her skin in the process.

Juliette and Lis came up short, amazed.

Five continued his trek toward Ammie, and she must have sensed his presence because she turned her head at his approach .

Juliette and Lis gasped. 

The glowing of the blade matched Ammie’s eyes, which shined like pure orange lights, a gentle glow that spoke of warmth and protection. 

Gone were the gray eyes like a foggy morning.

Juliette’s spine skittered as she beheld her friend.

Ammie’s sweatshirt had been damaged beyond repair, hanging off of her small frame in pocked sections that dangled on her arms like drapery. The red hero mark on her hand glowed, now edged in the bright orange of roiling lava. Little tendrils of light reached into the air from the jagged moon shape, shimmering like it was from some human game. 

“Lis,” Ammie said, her tone resonating with multiple voices. Multiple voices that weren’t hers. “Rest.”

Turning her burning gaze to Juliette, she continued in the strange, layered melody of voices, “We will be surrounded soon. Can you fight?”

Juliette swallowed. Biting down on all the things she wanted to say, she managed, “Of course. I’m on it.”

Five cracked his knuckles, then slid his guitar to the ground beside him. His fingers danced with a zipper at the hip of his weapons sash. 

“We doing this, then?” He grinned, staring through the cloudy area to the monster that lay beyond, his eyes boring holes into where Juliette assumed Lommeil still stood. 

She couldn’t tell if Five just sensed the man beyond the dust, or if he could actually see through all the muck.

Either way, Juliette’s flesh rose in goosebumps.

“Yes,” Ammie said, standing in one fluid flash. She swiped her sword through the air, dislodging much of the inky muck stuck to its gleam.

“How are you doing this?” Juliette couldn’t help but ask. She knew her friend had never held a sword before. 

Ammie turned, just for a brief moment, assessing Juliette. “The Heroes are helping me, just this once.”

Then, Five by her side, she walked into the gloom beyond. Soon, the two of them disappeared into darkened silhouettes, and Juliette knew it was time for her to get a grip on herself.

What was wrong with her? Her calm could only be steady if nothing unordinary happened? That wasn’t true calm at all. Juliette breathed deep. 

“Lis,” Juliette said firmly, making the short girl jump a bit.

“Yes?” 

“Listen to her,” she turned her eyes, which she knew were burning once more with the moon’s glow, upon her friend. “Stay put. Or go to the infirmary as fast as you can and help people there. But, under no circumstances are you allowed to use your magic again tonight.”

Lis’s triangular nose scrunched. “But what about you? You’ve used too many combat spells tonight, which drains you much faster even if you aren’t using arcane magic.”

“I know,” Juliette’s mind was whirling. What could she do with what she had at her disposal? What could she do now?

“I have an idea.”

~~~~

Ammie’s skin buzzed with a power she’d never felt, never come anywhere near feeling, before.

Was this how the Hero’s magic felt, or did all combat magic buzz through your system like you could both slow down everything around you into individual nanoseconds and speed everything up to be nothing but a sightless blur?

“You scared me back there,” Five held a wicked grin on his face, the moment of the fight thrilling through him and instinctually pumping him up. Ammie had never seen the man’s face set so viciously before.

“I’m sorry,” Ammie said in her strange, multi-toned voice. 

It was strange. The Heroes of the past spoke with her, guided her movements, but she didn’t feel as if she was being controlled. She couldn’t even feel them, their spirits, beside her. 

Simply put, all she could detect was their will to help her.

“Don’t worry about it. Can’t just let it go without making sure you understand,” Five dug into the zipper on his hip. 

What was he hiding in there? 

“Understand what?” Ammie asked, the dusty fog growing thinner around them. 

Soon, they would be in front of the monster named Lommeil.

In her closed fist, her earth stones were still clenched tight enough that she knew she would have to clean them of her blood. Later.

After this godforsaken night was over.

Five grinned at her wickedly, the flames in his eyes nearly dancing with mirth. 

How could eyes, even eyes filled with the light of their witch’s power, be so expressive, Ammie thought.

“That I care a hell of a lot about ya,” he declared and stepped out of the dust fog to the lip of the hole in the ground where Lommeil stood.

Skeleton shining beneath her brother’s skin, Tristian’s face looked horrific against the new black edges lining his cheeks and skin like random spots of armor. The broken tentacles fanned his back like a grotesque ribcage, broken pieces jagged and uneven.

“What power did you ask for of the demon you made a pact with?” Ammie started casually, ignoring the new buzzing in her chest at Five’s words.

How awful. Five’s hidden love of fighting was getting her pumped up, too. That had to be the reason for the newfound strength pumping her limbs, the warmth in her heart moving it faster, faster. 

It definitely wasn’t his confession.

Ammie forced her cheeks to return to normal. This certainly wasn’t the time to be swept under his sway again.

Lommeil grinned toothily, and since they could see the teeth below the lips, it almost looked like two sets of teeth grinning monstrously out from Tristian’s face.

“What makes you think I didn’t earn this power all on my own?” 

“Because you’re a human?” Five rolled his eyes, the “duh” implied.

Ammie snorted. “And because of all that garbage about it being unfair that you weren’t born with power.”

“Well, that’s true,” Lommeil drawled, a thoughtful tilt tipping his chin to the heavens as if he could read what was in the stars. His power-hungry eyes slowly fell to the two of them. “But it’s not entirely true.”

“How is that?” Ammie asked, uncaring.

“The humans are so much--weaker--in this world,” Lommeil shook his head, “it makes me sad. Think of all of the untapped talent sitting by, burdened by their bothersome lives, unable to change their destiny.”

“Change their destiny?” Ammie echoed as Five said, “In this world?”

“In my world,” Lommeil put a hand on his chest, “one can achieve even the most despicable of talents through pain, neglect, and sheer spite.”

His face seemed delighted at the prospect of pain, neglect, and sheer spite.

“Whatever world you came from, you lunatic, your time here is done,” Ammie pointed the slightly curved sword toward the man. 

Though it was a shorter and thinner blade than most swords she’d seen in museums and movies, the slight dip at the end was smooth and beautiful all the same.

Five zipped open the pocket on his side, unearthing a long, cream-colored drumstick. 

Oh, Ammie remembered her own wand, somehow secured in the waistband of her pants. Dancing around to get her rock-filled hand to pull it from her sweatpants, Ammie clenched the white birch stick between her knuckles.

Well, she was one-twentieth of the Wolverine now, she thought to herself, amused.

Memories of her brother and Five sticking twigs and cutlery between their hands and having a Wolverine “sword fight” swirled through her mind, hardening her resolve. Those days, she thought, I want them back.

The mark on her hand tingled warmly, and Ammie soothed it within her mind. I know, I know he’s still alive. I get it now.

Before, Ammie had proclaimed that she had never thought Tristian was dead. She’d made herself a fool, aligned against the grieving villagers, simply because she refused to believe in the possibility of his death.

She had lied to herself and to her friends. Even to Five.

Ammie had never once thought she’d find Tristian in Hamsen.

But the mark had continued to convince her, gently, sadly, consistently, the whole week they’d been together.

I’m listening, she told it, unbidden affection clogging her throat though she wasn’t speaking aloud. I understand you now.

Ammie felt the Heroes of the past call to her, their wills strong enough that she could almost see who they used to be. Almost see them through the hazy lines of their spirits. 

Are you ready, they seemed to ask.

Yes. Ammie clenched her wand in her left hand and the small sword in her right. I’m ready.

Five and Ammie ran towards the monster together. Jumping into the air while Ammie whirled low, Five brought his drumstick down onto the back of Lommeil’s neck as he dodged Ammie’s glowing sword from below. A low beat echoed around them as if Five had hit an actual drum and not a man’s body.

The skin on the back of Lommeil’s neck seared, the burn spreading from the initial contact to the outlying regions, dipping down into the shirt he wore and around to the front of his throat.

Wow, Ammie thought, as Lommeil let out a garbled scream of surprised pain. His hand came to rest over the spot, but he quickly pulled it away.

“Touching burns hurts, a*****e,” Five whirled, bringing the seemingly harmless drumstick down onto Lommeil’s right shoulder.

Lommeil dodged, straight into Ammie’s sword. Pierced from the back, the man looked at the glowing orange tip sliding through the front of his chest.

“Away,” Five said, and Ammie quickly pulled the sword out, the angle of exit matching the angle of entry exactly.

Thank the Moon Goddess the Heroes were guiding her movements. 

You’ll learn, the mark sang in her blood. Now you see what you will become.

Lommeil twisted Tristian’s face up in a rage, and shot his hands forward.

The tentacles met before his body like a protective cage meeting at one endpoint. From there, they tore off his back in a series of sickening cracks.

Swinging the severed tentacles over his head to meet the cage constructed before him, Lommeil whirled.

Black spikes shot out from what Ammie dubbed the “rib-cage cannon.” 

Ammie and Five dodged, but Ammie’s feet had slowed enough that she felt a sharp pain in both her upper shoulder and calf.

Falling to the ground, Ammie rolled, screaming as the spike in her calf met against the ground in her spin, lodging itself further into her flesh.

“Ammie!” Five yelled, racing toward her under the flurry of spikes. 

He collapsed around her, hiding her smaller body with his.

Panicking, Ammie flung up her wand hand, and a wall of earth formed between Five’s back and Lommeil. Another movement and the wall hardened as strong as she could make it with the type of soil they had in La Ville.

“We have to finish this fast,” he whispered into her neck, and Ammie nodded, her breathing too heavy to respond.

Inching herself up, Ammie let the brown stones and her wand fall to the ground. Hopefully, she would be able to find them again. 

Meeting Five’s eyes, she nodded once. “I can do one more.”

Clenching his jaw, Five could only nod. It hurt him to watch her fight injured, she knew, but he also knew that he couldn’t face the monster alone. Especially not now that they couldn’t get close to the man.

Ammie had to hold out on taking the black spikes out of her body. If she bled too much now, there was a chance she would pass out before she could finish off Lommeil.

“One, two…” Five counted, and Ammie steeled her breath. “Three!”

They jumped out, moving in opposite directions to outrun the path of the black spikes.

One more attack turned into a second, a third, a fourth, until Ammie lost count of how many times Five dodged in close, taking spikes to his body, only for Lommeil to notice Ammie coming from behind and kick her away.

Her ribs would shatter if she got hit by one more of his powerhouse kicks.

Desperation propelled her body forward, though her calf and ribs and shoulder burned. She clutched the short sword in two hands, swinging with all of her might. Her poor muscles ached horribly.

All that held the sword up was the momentum she gained while running, however unsteadily, toward the danger that awaited her.

Adrenaline pumped through her system, her senses as skittish as a rabbit’s that had never been caught by the gardener before. 

One time, she moved to dodge before she should have, sending her away from one spike and clear into the line of another.

She was as riddled in holes as her poor sweatshirt. And Five--Five was worse.

One of his eyes had closed beneath a curtain of blood, and part of his bangs had long since been cut away. His clothes were just as warped as hers were now, but somehow they both kept at it.

How long had it been? Ammie didn’t know if the fight had lasted three minutes or three hours. Nothing mattered besides dodging and flying forward, movements completely uncoordinated and ridiculous.

Whirling to face her, Lommeil’s eyes shined through Tristian’s eye holes with murderous delight. “Careful, kitty.”

Five roared from the side, tackling the man at his back, where the broken shards of the rib cage stayed stuck to his spine. 

“Quincey!” Ammie yelled as the green-haired man skewered himself on the jagged points of the broken bones. 

Teeth gritted, Five held his drumstick to the man’s throat, and soon burning flesh and angry screaming echoed in time to the echoing of a drum’s loud beat.

“Finish it!” Five coughed, scouring his clenched teeth in a spray of blood.

Diving forward, Ammie aimed her sword straight at Lommeil’s forehead. Her eyes focused one second too long on her brother’s warped features, so her aim smashed into the side of the man’s forehead and not the direct center.

“Ammie!” Tristian’s face looked up at her as the glowing eyes deadened, the grinning skeleton faded away.

The three of them sank to the ground, the black tentacles falling away like dust. 

Five still held onto the monster’s back and throat, but it was Ammie who saw the illusion of her brother die.

A smile edged up at his mouth, whole once more without that second set of ghastly teeth below his lips. “Ammie,” the man named Lommeil whispered, and Tristian’s eyes shut for good.

Flinging herself away from the corpse, Ammie heaved in as many breaths as she could. Not enough air, not enough air.

Her hero mark was trying to remind her, to remind her, but it was Five’s bloody hands clutching her face that brought her back to her senses.

“Do you still believe he’s alive out there?” He whispered harshly through his own erratic breathing.

Ammie blinked, then blinked again. Still heaving desperately for air, she nodded, tears burning through her dusty eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay, then,” Five set his forehead on hers briefly before remembering all of the blood covering his face and pulled back. “Good. We’re good.”

Ammie’s voice was tangled in exhaustion and pain as she fought through her dry throat. “Do you believe he’s out there?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Why?” A broken sound.

Five smiled. “Because I believe in you.”

Ammie never wanted to leave this moment, but as she calmed down at Five’s words, she realized that the dust was gone, giving her a view of the town around them. Ammie breathed in sharply.

The faceless continued on without their master’s soul still in the world. Whatever part of Ammie that had hoped the man’s spell would dissipate along with his life was squashed as she took in the terrified villagers cowering behind a trembling Juliette.

Lis had passed out on the grass behind the huddled mass, but Juliette stood between the villagers and the faceless, trembling hands held out.

The moon’s rays filtered from her hands in burning waves. They illuminated the faceless bodies, causing pained chittering to erupt uncontrollably around them.

Though they couldn’t scream, the moon’s rays hurt them. They dipped away from it, only to fall into another cascading stream constantly emanating from Juliette’s hands like a disco ball’s light.

The witch’s eyes were leaking moon-white liquid. Her face was deathly pale, cat ears nearly flattened in exhaustion.

Yet there they were, those faithless, cowardly villagers, hiding behind the witch that was about to come undone while protecting them.

Ammie felt the familiar rage within her, and she almost let herself get lost in it once more.

But she remembered fighting Lommeil. She remembered diving forward to protect them, putting herself in harm’s way. There had been no thoughts of their cowardice, their faithlessness. 

And, really, who was the faithless one around here?

People could change. Ammie knew that now. She was the first one that had needed to, after all. And she wasn’t done yet.

No. 

When Ammie had dove forward to protect the villagers, anger and resentment weren’t part of the equation. 

All she could think of in the brief moment before her body moved was the everlasting love she had for the people she had known her entire life. 

Ammie stood on shaking legs, Five holding her hands while still on the ground, steadying her, even when he couldn’t stand himself.

“Fight!” She yelled, but the word got lost in her throat.

The Heroes had left her voice, their wills having completed the task before them. But the hero mark still glowed against her skin, the weight of it now calming her breathing, steadying her resolve.

Ammie cleared her throat. “Fight!” 

Some of the villagers noticed her, the little boys of the Feret family. They stared at her, eyes vacant with fear.

“Fight!” More looked her way. There was Madame Loucreis, curlers in complete disarray.

“Fight!” The Lovishu family, pulled along by the two Feret boys, turned their eyes.

“Fight!” The villagers’ attention was now on Ammie and not the faceless mere feet away. Good.

Releasing her breath, Ammie let the seconds tick by. She focused her stare on them, watching them flinch from the burning orange still covering her gray irises. 

“Are you witches or are you rats, scuttling away from the light? Look at her,” Ammie pointed to Juliette. “Look at her!”

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” Ammie yelled, voice cracking with emotion. “Fight!”

“Fight for yourselves!” 

“Fight for your home!”

“Fight!” 

“But--” Madam Loucreis started, clearly about to rationalize the situation, but Ammie was having none of it.

She turned to the darkened, barricaded houses. “You too! How can you stand there and watch Juliette destroy herself while the rest of you are completely fine? Fight!”

Ammie’s knees were about to give way, but Five butted his face up to them, holding them still with his head. His forehead stuck to her sweatpants, sticky from blood.

“Get up and fight!”

Her words poured forth a command, and it finally connected. Rippling through the assembled witches, they looked to one another, spines straightened for the first time that night.

Sinking to the ground, Ammie watched Juliette fall.

The faceless stopped, stunned that they weren’t in constant pain any longer, before shooting forward on their clacking limbs.

“Fight for your homeland!” Ammie yelled one last time, finally falling to the ground.

This time, she didn’t panic. The villagers moved as if brought back to life. They remembered they had lived their whole lives training as witches capable of amazing things.

Doors opened, and feet that didn’t clatter against the ground pounded against the earth. Ammie heard it as if from very far away, a calming heartbeat through the ground.

The Hero had administered the command, and the people had responded.

Ammie lay dazed on the ground, hoping that Lis and Juliette weren’t being trampled.

“Protect Juliette!”

“Careful of Lis!”

“Let’s go! These things aren’t that strong!”

Ammie closed her eyes to the sound of her faithless villagers uniting, the smell of magic permeating the air, Five’s warm body a comforting presence beside her.

Her lips edged up into a painful smile. 

They had won.

Author's Note

Next week marks the mini epilogue! Thank you for reading!