Page 74 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

Why hadn’t any real enchanters shown up at the Spring Showcase?

I pressed my hands against my temples so hard I thought my head might crack from the pressure of my grip. There’d be a brief relief if I crushed my skull. Sure, I’d be dead, but the raging minds that stomped my telepathy into pieces wouldn’t ache anymore.

Fiends continued terrorizing the inmates who’d been dragged to the arena floor, dragged into this entire escape attempt from the MDC, dragged to their deaths for no reason other than they were foolish enough to trust Vincent. The warlock who secretly branded them with alchemic ingredients meant to provide the perfect fuel for the demons Theodore sought to unleash upon the world.

Demons.

Teeth ripped into flesh. Tongues lapped at sweaty skin. Magic leached off the inmates. Tattoos glowed to hold them in place. Blood splattered. Limbs broke. Bones crunched. Body parts flew about in the frenzy of feasting fiends that gobbled down their quarry.

The mess and mayhem continued as fiends maimed the inmates, their bodies mashed together in this perverse transformation of sticky tar, curled yellow claws slashed at weaker demonic energy, and jagged golden teeth glistened under the brewing storm clouds above. A scalding heat rose from the fiendish blobs that’d bundled together in a mess of magic and death and hunger. One by one, fiends swelled above the others, a pack leader born to destroy. They boiled and burned with hellish heat that reeked of rotten mold before transcending into truly horrid abominations.

In the center of the arena stood a gorgon with green and golden scales, nothing like the one that’d murdered Finn, but I still shivered at the sight of such a monstrosity. I didn’t havetime to hesitate, though, to freeze with fear of festering wounds from the past. No, because Theodore had brought a pack of new horrors.

Behind the gorgon, eight scaled heads slithered as faceless mouths snapped their sharp teeth. A hydra wriggled on the stone flooring, finding its footing with tiny legs that barely held its huge body and massively long necks upright.

Hovering beside the furthest hydra head was a fat, bulbous clump of clay and stone held high by the flap of six wings. A gargoyle.

More and more demons revealed themselves as the fiends that Theodore had commanded by the hundreds transcended into twelve frightening foes.

Wisps and fiends continued clawing at the edges of the auxiliary gym, trying with all their might and demonic energy to break into the building as so ordered by Theodore’s raging cackle that released his branch magic of Demonic Resonance.

It summoned every monstrous being within the city toward Gemini Academy.

How?

I stared at the bone staff he kept held low, dropping the skull head to the floor at his feet, but he wielded it much like The True Witch intended to wield it herself until her postering proved to be her undoing. Now, Theodore used the power radiating from those gems to extend his range of casting.

His twisted fantasies held orders of mayhem and carnage and the craving for blood and death. He commanded horror in hopes it’d offer him joy. His hatred slinked across the arena, fueling the demons with desire and obedience. An aura so black and foul it would be easily mistaken for the inner core of a demon, a devil, a hellish beast without an ounce of humanity. For there was no humanity in Theodore Whitlock, merely a thirst for pain and brutality.

Chaos ensued. The demons that Theodore had conjured leapt from the arena, powers at the ready, and targeted the strongest guild witches in the audience. The clash created destruction almost immediately. Bystanders and noncombatants were hurled by the few enchanters in attendance. Acolytes scrambled to offer support where they could, but so few had faced off against demons. The ones I’d known to have fought demons—like Enchanter Evergreen’s three acolytes—had been tapped to serve as reinforcements for the MDC mission.

A mission I still needed answers about… About what happened to Milo… Where’s Milo? My Milo. My…

I ground my teeth, glaring at the demons who tore through the auxiliary gym. Burying my fears, my concerns, and my desires, I prioritized the horrors ahead, knowing so many here needed my attention, not some fool lost in a daze of apprehension.

The few guild members here dove into combat, intercepting hungry demons and preventing casualties. They didn’t work independently for long. Staff didn’t wait for an organized plan, a meeting, a directive from above. No. Teachers leapt into the fray, scooping students into their arms, shielding audience members, barreling into demons head-on without hesitation, and so much more.

I wanted to help, to prove I could be useful.

There was just too much fear and destruction everywhere.

It dropped me to my knees, unable to compose myself.

Fiends plummeted from above, shattering the glass ceiling and falling into a pit of frightened students.

Chanelle unraveled a whip made from multiple magics that she wrapped together when hurling her potent arcane branch at foes. Fire slapped the biggest fiends, lapping them in flames that Chanelle fanned with the next crack of her whip that held wind. Together, the elements created this huge blaze of burningbanishment. Then, without delay, as the staggering forces of fiends continued falling into the auxiliary gym, Chanelle whipped them with ice, then floral, then electricity, steel, light, earth, water, shadows, and every fucking primal element or cosmic radiance she could muster.

It was godly. It left me awed, the way Chanelle destroyed threats from above while eyeing her students, every student, below.

The devastation didn’t faze her, didn’t stall her, didn’t slow her for a second as she banished descending fiends while she also swept away glass like a fucking industry pro.

I wanted to latch onto her mind, ask why she ever walked away from the guilds she surely must’ve been the best at, but I hesitated, continued hesitating as madness erupted all around me.

Chanelle wasn’t the only teacher to move with precision, expertise, composure.

Peterson leapt in front of his homeroom coven and worked with several staff members, shielding students with rock walls that moved and shifted and redirected incoming threats toward a witch at the ready with a banishment.

Thompson, whose voice I’d managed to avoid for almost a year now, belted across the auxiliary gym in an effort to cloak everyone the sound touched. Her homeroom coven vanished beneath the protective cosmic layers of her branch magic known as Fairy’s Jacket that hid anything her vocal vibrations struck. Anything while channeling magic, of course, since she was an insatiable gossip, and the entire world would become invisible if the casting merely required her to speak.

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