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Lucas pulled his hands together, and a darkness swelled upward. He took control of the Death energy that came from the corpses, transforming it to his will. Executors began to flee, but Lucas twisted his hands, aiming the dark cloud at the scattering men. The magic pierced straight through their chests all at once, and dozens more Executors fell. Their bodies withered away to nothing, until they were mere piles of dust on the pavement.
Lucas had spared those Executors’ souls, and they would be escorted to the afterlife by other reapers, but there was no reprieve for them here on Earth. Death swept through them all until over a hundred Executors’ bodies were reduced to nothing but powder. It all happened so fast that none of us even had a chance to cast a spell of our own.
I expected Lucas to slow down. There was so much death, so much carnage. He must’ve been hearing their thoughts all at once, overlapping one another. But Lucas stepped forward confidently, as if the voices were nothing more than whispers in the background.
Several men lunged for him to stop him, but he merely conjured his scythe and swung it at them. He sliced six men in half in a matter of moments. Blood pooled across the pavement and began trickling down the street. Screams of terror echoed throughout the town.
I should have felt something sickly when I witnessed all those people die, but all I felt was the satisfaction of revenge. I felt no mercy for these people who had stolen our son and were terrorizing an infant. They deserved death.
Lucas released his scythe, and it began flying down the street as if it had a mind of its own. It chased down the few surviving Executors who were fleeing, then swung at them. They were dead in moments.
Sheriff Baker was the last man standing. He sprinted away from the approaching scythe, shooting terrified glances over his shoulder. He tried to shoot magic behind himself, but nothing worked. Sheriff Baker tripped, landing flat on his face. He quickly rolled over and held his hands up in front of himself, like he was trying to conjure a shield.
“Please, no!” he screamed. “It’s the priestesses you want?—”
His words halted on his tongue as the scythe sliced through the air, lopping his head off in a single swing. His bloody body slumped to the ground, and his head rolled several feet away.
Eerie silence filled the air. Lucas had single-handedly killed them all—hundreds of them. Dust scattered the street, along with the remains of broken noxite pistols. Only ten bloody bodies killed by the scythe remained.
Lucas’s scythe flew back into his hand, and he subconjured it. He bent over, bracing his hands against his knees. I could hear his labored breathing from several paces away.
Slowly, I approached him and placed my hand on his back. “Lucas…?”
He stood upright and turned to me. The skeleton-like reaper I’d seen only moments ago was gone. He looked like himself again, though his features were ashen.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
He let out a heavy breath. “I’m a bit worn, but I’ll make it. Let’s keep moving.”
We stepped over unmoving bodies as we raced up the stairs to the entrance of Octavia Hall. I threw open the doors—and stopped dead in my tracks.
Ghostly moans filled the foyer, and dozens of ethereal forms floated inches off the ground, staring back at us. At first, I thought they were the spirits of the Executors Lucas had just killed, but they wore all different types of clothing. There wasn’t an Executor uniform in sight.
Before any of us could react, the ghosts surrounded us, flying at us from all angles. Hands materialized into solid form and began attacking us. An icy cold finger curled around my ankle and yanked my feet out from under me. I fell to the floor with a heavy crash.
Blood pulsed in my ears. I quickly went to kick the ghost off of me, only I hesitated when my gaze met a familiar face.
It was Scott, Meredith’s husband. We’d seen him at the Festival of Chosen when we’d snuck into town. The priestesses had forced him to stand on stage and disavow his marriage. It struck me that he’d done as the priestesses had asked, and he had still died for it.
“How are they doing this!?” Chloe screamed. “We shouldn’t be able to see them, let alone feel them.”
“I don’t know!” Miles kicked one of the ghosts off of him. “Something about their magic doesn’t feel right. They don’t feel like ordinary ghosts!”
Another hand came down on me, but I grabbed it before it could reach my face. I felt into its magic and was surprised to feel a high frequency buzz. The taste of citrus filled my mouth. It was all too familiar.
Then I caught sight of Scott’s brother, Simon, who the priestesses had poisoned on stage in front of us. It made perfect sense.
“It’s Alchemy magic!” I told them. “These are the victims of the priestesses’ poison. They were manufacturing it with the Alchemy Wand before Hector died. He told us it was designed to control their victims, even in death!”
Professor Warren rolled across the ground as he dodged a ghostly attack. “So they don’t have a choice but to attack us? They’re just following orders.”
“Grant!” Lucas cried. “Use the Alchemy Wand to free them! We’ll do it together.”
Lucas ducked a fist as a ghost tried to attack him. He quickly made his way over to Grant, who was trying to fight off three ghosts, but his hands just kept going through them. They could touch us, but we couldn’t touch them. The ghosts tried to pull the Alchemy Wand from Grant’s grasp, but he struggled against them, refusing to let go.
The end of the Wand began to glow as it siphoned the Alchemy magic from them. A loud snap reverberated through the foyer when he broke the spell. The ghosts backed off.
Lucas whirled around, as if he could see something the rest of us couldn’t. “Go!” he shouted to the ghosts. “Quickly!”
