Page 9 of Witch

The circle he had erected to protect the entire room suddenly rang, like someone had hit a mallet to the side of a bell. The vibrations ran through him, shaking his concentration enough Lyra’s next hit fractured the first circle around her. Kana fed more magic into that circle, shoring it up so Lyra wouldn’t break free, which didn’t leave any concentration for whatever was going on with the room’s circle.

Kana, we’re coming in! Sora’s voice called down their link.

This time Kana sensed the pressure building against his outer circle; however, when it went off, the bell was more of a gentle knock. The first tolling had been to force him to pay attention. The knock was to remind him they were still waiting. Kana dropped that circle with a gasp of relief, glad he didn’t have to split his magic in half anymore.

The office door flew open and Ary strode inside. He looked around, assessing Kana and Lyra quickly, before stepping back outside.

“We’ve got an imp!” Ary yelled. “Someone get me a gallon of holy water, now!”

Ember and Diana walked into the room while Ary continued to yell orders outside. Diana’s gaze was more calculating than Ary’s, and she was studying Kana’s circle rather than the situation as a whole.

“Another well-built compound circle,” she murmured. She walked behind Kana and around to the part of the circle Lyra was still pounding at. The crack wasn’t growing, but it was still an obvious weak point. “You are currently using your magic to sustain the spell,” she said, this time to Kana. “Continue doing that, but at the same time I want you to think of the circle as newly drawn. Send your power through it as if kindling it for the first time.”

Kana could see where she was going with her instructions. He split his magic so the majority was still powering the spell, but let just enough go to the base circles. He couldn’t drop the three separate parts together again, but he could flash the circle with magic as he would to activate a single-circle spell. Kana did it and watched as the crack vanished as if it had never been there. Lyra let out another shriek.

“Good.” Diana harrumphed once the shriek stopped, but she looked pleased. “You may not be the Horned Lord, but you have some promise.”

Ary hurried back into the room, a gallon-sized milk jug in each hand. The tops were off and they were both filled with what looked like water. Ary calmly walked to Kana’s circle. He set one jug on the ground and gripped the other in both hands, before flinging the contents at Lyra.

The water went straight through Kana’s circle, splashing all over Lyra’s body and the miasma surrounding her on the floor. This time her shriek was so piercing Kana had to clap his hands over his ears. Ary splashed water at her again and again, until the first jug was empty.

Lyra’s screaming continued, and her body began to smoke slightly as if the water were lighting her on fire. The smoke stopped at the boundaries of Kana’s circle, filling the space and concealing Lyra completely from view.

Ary grimly held the second jug, still glaring at the smoky circle while he waited. The screeching had stopped, as had the pounding on Kana’s circle, but Kana kept the magic flowing just in case.

Slowly, ever so slowly as Kana began to pant for breath as his already strained magical reserves began to tap out, the smoke began to clear. Lyra was gone, as was the miasma, but a strange, glowing slash had appeared on the floor where she had been standing.

Ary grinned. “Kana, drop the circle. We know how to handle this.” He lifted his jug in preparation as another two hunters, each armed with their own jug, rushed into the room. They took up positions around the circle, and Kana gratefully dropped the spell.

Thankfully, Kana was already sitting, because as he cut off the magic it was as if he also cut a string holding him up. Kana collapsed into the padded seat, his arms hanging uselessly off the armrests like weights were attached to his wrists, and the room did a one eighty around his head. Utter exhaustion made it impossible to keep his eyes open. The last thing Kana saw was Ary and the two hunters pouring their jugs directly into the slash, more smoke billowing before sleep took him away.

Chapter Five

KANA’S HEAD ROSE and fell slowly and rhythmically. The feeling was soothing, although it was weird too, and he enjoyed the sensation for a few long moments as his body and brain took their time waking up. His head was resting on someone’s chest, he realized as neurons started firing again. He opened his eyes to see the familiar ceiling of the bedroom he shared with Ember, darkened, as the lights were off and it was apparently nighttime. He was probably lying on Ember, as Mika and Sora—who also shared the bed with them—still liked their space.

How long was I asleep? he asked, and then winced when the magic channels between himself and Mika and Sora proved to be raw and aching.

Two days, Sora replied, and Kana winced again. Even receiving their mental communication hurt. He was completely tapped out magically, and he would not be able to draw out more magic from his familiars until those channels healed.

There was a soft thump as either Mika or Sora jumped on the bed. A second later, Mika sauntered by Kana’s head in his small cat form. Kana carefully turned to look, and winced when Mika stopped by Ember’s face, lifted one paw, and bopped Ember right on the nose.

Ember’s eyes flew open, and he gasped, which made Kana’s head slide off his chest and onto the mattress below.

“What—” Ember quickly choked off, his voice loud in the quiet room. He glared at Mika before turning his head to check on Kana.

“Hi,” Kana croaked out, his voice rusty from disuse, when Ember looked at him.

“Kana!” Ember said as he sat up. He gently reached out to brush his fingers along Kana’s cheek. “You’re awake.”

Kana nodded, the movement awkward from a prone position. “Sora said I was asleep for two days. What did I miss?”

Kana’s neck started to ache from looking up at Ember, so he gingerly shifted around. When moving his head didn’t make anything hurt—apparently only his magic channels were injured—Kana sat up so he could face Ember.

Ember was frowning at Kana, but when Kana didn’t yelp in pain, the frown faded. “According to the hunters, you caught an imp, which they say means we have a warlock floating around somewhere.”

An imp was a creature summoned from the demon plane, Kana knew. Technically it was a type of demon, but it was so low on the power scale many magic users classified it as a separate species, as a sort of lesser creature. Certainly, the creature Kana had fought hadn’t seemed particularly demonic. That said, summoning creatures from the other plane to use as servants or power sources was the purview of a warlock; that was the only way they obtained power to cast spells. The stronger the warlock, the stronger creatures they could summon, and the stronger the creatures they could summon made the warlock stronger in turn, in an endlessly escalating scale. Allegedly there was an upper limit, but Kana hadn’t researched enough about them to know more than that. Summoning an imp could mean a couple of things: one, that the warlock was weak and an imp was the current limit to their power, or two, that the warlock hadn’t seen a need to send a more powerful creature for whatever task Lyra had been set. Unfortunately, the only way to know was to find the warlock, which meant preparing for both possibilities.

“The hunters told me they were going to focus all their local resources on finding the warlock, and, surprisingly, the witches agreed to help too.”

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