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“You can’t do that!” Chloe shouted.
“Oh, I think you’ll find that we can.” Lilian wore a sinister grin and tilted her nose up at her granddaughter. “At what point did I fail you, Chloe? I did everything I could to show you how cruel this world could be, and yet you still refuse to do whatever’s necessary to get the job done.”
“No one was as cruel to me as you,” Chloe sneered.
“What about all those people who never showed up to your fundraiser?” Lilian asked innocently. “I recall those tears quite well.”
Chloe stumbled back a step, and realization crossed her features. “It was you… Nobody came to my fundraiser because you sabotaged it!”
“You needed a breaking point,” Lilian snapped. “So I gave you one.”
“You bitch!” Chloe snarled.
A high-powered battle orb, fueled by Chloe’s rage and sizzling with the intent to kill, erupted from her palm. Lilian barely flicked the Master Wand, and the battle orb fizzled into nothing.
“What kind of priestess would I be if I didn’t follow through with my word?” Lilian asked. “I promised you’d live long enough to walk out of here. I suggest you start walking.”
“All except Nadine,” Margaret added with a laugh. “I don’t believe we made any promises about her life.”
A part of me always figured I’d die at the hands of the priestesses. The power they wanted from me could only keep me alive for so long. Now that they had the Master Wand, they had all the power they desired. I was of no use to them anymore.
Lilian aimed the Master Wand straight for me. I should’ve felt terrified to die, and yet for some reason, I felt totally calm. It was as if a loved one had reached around me to offer their comforting hug, like they were whispering in my ear that everything was going to be okay. I heard nothing, but I felt everything. It was the kind of feeling where you just knew you had to trust the person you loved. It didn’t make any sense.
The following moment passed by in a mere second, but it was like it was happening in slow motion. A loud cry broke from Marcus’s lungs the same time an ethereal shape formed between us. A ghostly creature over eight feet tall appeared, with dark fur covering his human-like body, long claws dangling at the end of spry arms, and curled ram horns growing out of his head. He was facing away from me, staring down at the priestesses with pupil-less, pitch black eyes.
It was Santos in spirit form. He’d come to save us.
A deep, animalistic roar shook the courtroom. The priestesses took a frightened step back, and Mira’s high-pitched scream pierced the air. In their moment of hesitation, Professor Wykoff lunged forward and yanked Marcus straight out of Margaret’s arms. Wykoff ran to the other side of the courtroom to protect our son.
Santos swiped his claws at the priestesses. His ghostly hands became solid for a moment, slicing through the bodies of three priestesses at once. Blood splattered across the walls at his claws. They didn’t get a chance to cry out in pain before their bodies collapsed into a heap on the ground. Claudia, Mira, and Professor Hernandez were dead in the blink of an eye.
I witnessed the brief moment of utter terror enter the remaining two priestesses’ eyes. They may have the power of a demigod in that Wand, but it couldn’t rival the power of a god.
Santos lowered his horns to charge at them, but they had already made their move. Lilian flicked the Master Wand, and a portal bloomed beneath the two priestesses. They went falling through it. Santos leapt at them at the same moment, but his ghostly form landed on solid ground where the priestesses had been standing a moment ago.
The portal had disappeared, and the priestesses were gone. I didn’t know where they had gone, but I hoped it was far away from here.
I took a step back, trembling. Lucas reached out for me, and he too was shaking. Santos turned to us, but he didn’t speak. Slowly, we both got to our knees and bowed our heads before our god. Our friends followed our lead.
“Thank you,” I told Santos. “You saved our son.”
Santos bowed his head… and then he vanished. Just like that, he was gone, like he’d never appeared in the first place. The courtroom went completely silent.
Lucas sagged beside me in relief. “Our family is saved.”
We got to our feet, and Professor Wykoff approached with Marcus bundled in her arms. I reached out to take him, but I paused when Marcus’s little fingers extended out of his blanket. He touched Professor Wykoff’s cheek, and a single tear rolled down her face.
“I do not have children of my own,” Professor Wykoff said gently. “I cannot imagine what it’s like to be a parent, but I know that I’ll always be here to protect this child.”
She gently placed Marcus in my arms. “If you ever need my help for anything, you only need to ask.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I told her as I pulled Marcus close to my chest. He closed his eyes and snuggled in close. It was incredible how he seemed wholly unbothered by what just happened here, like to him it had all just been a dream.
Good. I didn’t want Marcus to know the horrors that faced him here tonight. I wanted nothing more than to keep him safe.
Lucas wrapped an arm around my waist and stroked Marcus’s cheek. He sniffled, like he couldn’t believe it. “We got him back.”
“What just happened, though?” Talia asked. “It was almost like Marcus’s cry summoned Santos.”
