Page 17 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

As if on cue, our breath began fogging in the air. And I noticed the footprints appearing in the dust. They were fresh ones materializing with no one making them. "Incoming!" I shouted, just as the first cultist stepped out of literally nowhere. One moment there was empty air, the next a robed figure stood there.

More shimmering began subtly. It was like the air above the hot pavement. The mirage-walkers, as I’d dubbed them, emerged through the distortions. Their bodies cycled betweenstates of matter. One moment solid, the next translucent as mountain mist. Their robes rippled with impossible geometries, patterns that made my eyes water just looking at them. There was a familiar edge to them. It was our new wards. They were using them against us. That was how they were changing so rapidly. It was like seeing your reflection in a funhouse mirror powered by dark magic.

The fight exploded around us like a magical Mardi Gras gone wrong. I rolled under a particularly nasty curse and came up beside Lia who was back-to-back with Kota. "We need to get to higher ground!" I called out, noticing a partially collapsed staircase along one wall. "That platform up there would give us better coverage!"

"On it!" Phi shouted. She was already moving. Her hands glowed as she cast a quick levitation spell. "Dani, cover me!"

The chamber erupted in a magical crossfire. Our spells collided with their corrupted versions, creating showers of sparks that rained down like deadly fireworks. I caught a glimpse of Kota literally drop-kicking a cultist who'd gotten too close. Her combat training with the werewolves was definitely paying off.

"Watch the ceiling!" Dea warned as chunks of ancient stonework began raining down. Her shield spell expanded just in time to deflect a particularly large piece of masonry. "This whole place could come down!"

"That might be an improvement!" I shot back as I launched myself over the altar to tackle a cultist who was about to blindside Lia. We went down in a tangle of robes and curses. Both the magical and profane variety. Up close, I caught a whiff of something familiar.

"They smell like the French Market!" I called out as I rolled to my feet. "That weird spice shop by the coffee stand!"

No one responded. They were too busy fighting. These weren't amateur-hour cultists who'd learned their craft from TikTok tutorials. The mirage-walkers moved like liquid mercury. Their forms were constantly phased between dimensional planes. Each strike they landed felt like being kissed by liquid nitrogen. They left elaborate frost patterns of corrupted magic that spread across the skin like dark fractals. It also hurt like a mother trucker.

I spun away from a mirage-walker's grasp. The arctic burn where their fingers had barely brushed my forearm nearly put me on my knees. I threw a frantic spell at it and encountered a twisted mockery of the defensive magic we’d created with Adèle’s help. It wasn’t anything the world had ever seen before. We were the first to create it and the only ones who could cast it because we were special magical mutts.

“Use inverted energy,” our familiar advised us. “Don’t let them get a grip on you. Their power will kill you.”

"Move your ass!" I body-checked Kota out of the way as a dark crystal exploded against the wall. The impact spread like sacred geometry gone wrong. Each line and angle created micro-tears in reality. Through the gaps, I caught glimpses of somewhere the physics made my brain itch.

"Since when do protection spells try to tear holes in the fucking multiverse?" I called out. Channeling my magic into a counter-ward felt like pushing molasses uphill in January. Adèle had said inverted energy. I focused my intent on those instructions.

"Since these assholes decided to try and turn our wards dark!" Phi shouted back. Her hands were weaving complicated patterns of light that seemed to temporarily anchor the mirages to our dimension. "Our magic was never meant to be part of anything so malicious. It’s even causing problems for them."

The air grew thick with dimensional static. Every spell cast left traces of frost in the air. Crystalline structures that refracted light in impossible ways. Worst of all, my magic felt sluggish. I would think it was fighting against the thinning barriers between realities. The reality was it wasn’t easy to invert your magic.

"Gather the council!" I yelled, barely avoiding a crystalline spike that would have rearranged my internal organs in unpleasant ways. "All of them! We need to meet and discuss this now!"

Lia had her phone out and was managing to text using the voice controls while deflecting reality-warping shards. "No, this isn't a false alarm!" she snapped into the speaker. "They're walking between... Dani, nine o'clock!"

A mirage-walker materialized inches from my face. Their form flickered like bad reception between stations. Up close, I could see through their semi-transparent flesh to the complicated lattice of crystallized magic covering their skeleton. I immediately cast a protection spell. I wasn’t fast enough. Their touch sent cascading patterns of frost racing up my arm.

A scream left me as I slammed my free hand into their chest. I was protected from the freezing pain, which allowed me to channel the full force of my magic. The mirage-walker's form rippled like a stone thrown into a pond. Concentric circles of their being spread outward until they literally fell apart into nasty pieces. Knowing how to beat them gave us the edge we needed. I told my sisters what to do and we ended the rest of the assholes trying to take us out.

When the fight finally ended, the chamber looked like a physics textbook had a nightmare. Body parts and dark crystals jutted from every surface. Patches of wall flickered between states of matter. The air was thin like we were standing on the top of a mountain.

"Everyone alright?" I called out, gathering healing energy into my palms. Golden warmth spread through my fingers, ready to repair whatever multidimensional damage our reality-bending friends had left behind.

"Define 'alright'," Kota groaned from where she lay sprawled near a crystallized column. Frost patterns covered half her face and were spreading down her neck in elaborate fractals. "I’m pretty sure my internal organs just took a guided tour of the quantum realm."

“I’ve got you, sestra,” I promised as I healed her. I thanked the gods for giving me this ability every day. I didn't do well when my sisters were hurt, and I couldn’t do anything for them.

I moved through our group and kept my healing magic flowing like summer honey. The frost-burns from the mirage-walkers' touch melted away under my hands. The bone-deep chill of dimensional exposure faded to manageable levels. Though I could still feel echo traces of other universes clinging to everyone's aura.

Phi was sporting a nasty set of crystalline burns along her left side where a shard had caught her. My healing magic had to work overtime to convince her cells they existed in only one dimension again. Lia had somehow avoided the worst of the physical damage, but her magical core was churning with dimensional instability. I spent extra time smoothing out those metaphysical wrinkles before they could cause problems.

Even after healing everyone's immediate injuries, I sensed lingering traces of dimensional frost in their systems. It was like a spiritual freezer burn. It would take time to fully thaw. But more worrying than the physical damage were the implications. Whoever these cultists were, they were copying our protective magic and twisting it into something unnatural.

"We need to get to Sunwhisper Sanctum," I announced and then headed for the exit. "The council needs to hear about this.Plus, we're going to need help searching these tunnels properly. Whatever's going on here, it's not waiting around for us to figure it out."

An hour later, we gathered in the council chambers. I felt right at home thanks to Kota and Dani's recent redesign. Gone were the crumbling walls and cobwebs. In their place, sleek dark wood paneling complemented the preserved historical architecture. The massive conference table dominated the center of the room. Its polished surface was embedded with subtle protective sigils that glowed faintly under the modern pendant lights. Dani had somehow managed to incorporate the traditional magical elements without making it look like a movie set for "Generic Witch Council."

Viktor cleared his throat from his position at the end of the table. His expression was annoyed. "Would someone like to explain why I was pulled out of a rather delectable date with a beautiful elf? I'm hungry, and she was offering herself."

"Trust me," Phi said as she sent a collage of photos to the flat screen on the opposite wall. "This qualifies as an emergency. The Lost Legends’ power is growing. They’re a major threat to every supernatural in the city. They're able to use a person’s power against them. They just twisted our security measures and used them against us. They can even take protection spells and turn them into weapons."

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