Page 102 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

Despite the layers upon layers of iron walls, the fact they observed this corpse through a camera in the neighboring room, the enchanter with supreme senses still caught a whiff of the terrible odor.

“Why are you keeping this one?”

“I killed Lazarus twice in combat when he tried to escape the MDC,” Wadsworth said, mind flashing back to the difficult battle he faced while pitted against two pillars of the Celestial Coven. “Little bastard got back up almost instantaneously like death hadn’t gripped him.”

“Maybe it hadn’t.” Diaz shrugged.

“Trust me,” Wadsworth said with flashes of his battle surfacing. Images of Lazarus’ snapped neck, of his bloody heart in Wadsworth’s grasp, of a thousand other injuries inflicted that brought each witch to the precipice of death. “I know how to kill someone.”

“I figured it out.” Diaz slammed a fist into his palm. “He’s got cat magic, and it gives him nine lives, but now he’s run outta lives. Game over. No save file.”

Milo shook his head. “That’s not a magic.”

“He’s playing dead.” Wadsworth glared at the corpse his team had taken every precaution to trap, but not one to preserve the corpse.

There was a spike of hate from Wadsworth, a whisper of hope that the witch felt some pain, some disgust in the rotting shambles of his being.

I doubted Lazarus felt anything in his current state. His magic and mind had stilled. I didn’t understand the full extent of his resurrection branch, but as I glossed through the memories I’d acquired from The Sisters Three, I found glimpses of Lazarus in similar conditions awakening and healing without a trace of death lingering in his body.

It was a bizarre sensation, rifling through memories that weren’t my own. Sorting through thousands of years of knowledge seemed impossible, yet when I searched for some in specific, the memories appeared without question. It was sickening, like having a search engine at my fingertips from the minds of three witches I’d slaughtered. Ultimately, I felt worse for their victims, the tens of thousands, and the millions more they intended on killing.

“So, what’s the next step?” Milo asked.

“We wait for these two pillars to recover, then you do your psychic mumbo jumbo, we get a lead on where The True Witch fled, hopefully more intel on the identities of the other coven members, and then we fuck ‘em all up.”

That was right. Despite the four most powerful core members of the Celestial Coven attacking the city, they had many others over the centuries. From the flashes of memories I’d searched from The Sisters Three, they seemed to keep twelve witches at all times, one for every branch. When a witch died, their essence was transferred into the bone staff that I’d destroyed.

There was so much more that The Sisters Three had answers to, yet I needed to find it buried in the memories I’d taken. They’d walked the world for thousands of years, one of the pillars beside The True Witch, and yet she still kept so much of the workings a secret. I wasn’t sure if The Sisters Three didn’t have the identities of current members in the Celestial Coven or perhaps they’d destroyed that memory before I took it. Seemed like something spiteful thosegoddesseswould’ve done.

I reeled my telepathy away from Milo and his Global Guild comrades, delving deeper into my own mind so I could hopefully unravel some of the mysteries behind the Celestial Coven.

In the corner of my eye, at the edge of my inner core, sat the visions I’d absorbed from Milo’s mind more than a year ago. The visions I couldn’t make any sense of for the longest time. And now, I’d warped them into small marble-shaped lights so they’d be easier to store.

One in particular shined a bit brighter, the crimson sparkle carrying an allure.

I’d mostly ignored Milo’s visions after I’d finally learned how to keep them under control. But this one called to me, similarly to a strong mind that reached out. I’d say my connection to Milo provoked this spark. Although, every vision stored in my head came from my connection with Milo. Surely, there was something special about this one. Something that urged my magic to reveal it above the others. Something to indicate why it held so much pain in a tiny glimmer of light that radiated through my body as I attempted to work.

Pulling the vision from the pile, I held the tiny light between my hands until the images of an unknown possibility revealed itself in the form of a fast-moving scene throughout the city.

Not an unknown possibility. I’d seen this vision before, this terrible and horrifying vision of death. Death everywhere in Chicago. Death that took everyone. This vision had awoken meweeks ago in the middle of the night, haunting and horrible, yet Milo promised it was impossible to achieve. A future that required his death first. A future he’d done everything to divert. This awful night would never happen.

I shivered, taking in the reality of Milo’s near fatality, the reality of this vision.

Fire burned. Buildings crumbled. The earth had split open and swallowed thousands. Debris and death hit with every single breath as I whirled faster throughout the city, looping to the end of this vision.

Visions weren’t always literal, not an actual depiction of how the events would play out. That much I’d learned from Milo’s experiences. But my chest still tightened when I reached the mountain of corpses, finding my homeroom coven sprawled across the sea of bodies. Former homeroom coven. It was almost summer. They were done with their classes, and they’d be third-year students focused on internships and reporting to the newly appointed Dean of Admissions, whereas I’d find myself working with a new batch of first-year witches again.

I panicked, averting my eyes as I hovered over the bodies of my dead students and reached the peak of this disgusting mountain.

The perpetrator of this destruction and devastation stood proudly with a smile painted in blood on his face. Theodore Whitlock.

His shadow conjured monstrous silhouettes of demons, demonic energy he controlled, and hellish beasts he sought to unleash upon the world.

I leapt forward, startling poor Charlie as I returned to the living room of my house, blinking away the splotchy remnants of the worst possible future in existence.

And it was possible, too. Despite everything Milo had done to prevent this potential outcome, to change fate, TheodoreWhitlock had escaped with The True Witch. He roamed the world, conjuring new and awful ways to hurt, to maim, to torture, and slaughter everyone.

But I could stop him. I’d come close during the attack on the academy. I’d come close to finishing him and Amara.

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