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Blood spurted everywhere, spraying across Mother Miriam’s painting and down Lucas’s cloak. The Executor slumped to the ground, and blood trickled onto the floor.
Lucas heaved a breath as he stared down at the man’s unmoving form. He glanced to his hands for a beat, before turning his gaze to the painting of Mother Miriam. I didn’t think he could believe what he’d done—he’d just killed a man with his bare hands.
The painting began to glow white around the edges, and I swore to the Goddess I saw the painting of Mother Miriam move. Her eyes turned down toward Lucas, and she gave the slightest of nods.
I got to my feet and reached out for Lucas, but he barely noticed my touch. “She chose me as an agent of death,” he said hollowly. “She wanted me to protect you.”
“You did the right thing,” I told him.
“You killed him!” an Executor shouted. He had to be an Alchemist, because he conjured a potion vial and threw it at our friends. I caught sight of a shimmering green liquid inside, which I’d seen before. It was a potion meant to explode when the vial was shattered, and it was headed straight toward Grant.
“Grant!” I cried.
He’d already seen it. Grant raised the Alchemy Wand, and the magic siphoned out of the potion a second before it hit the ground. The potion sizzled and smoked as the liquid seeped into the floor, but it failed to explode as intended.
I quickly assessed the other Executors and realized there was only one Seer and one Alchemist in the group. Grant and Talia siphoned their powers, but the others aimed deadly spells at us.
We ducked, then shot back spells of our own. One of my spells caught an Executor in the leg, and I heard the snap of bone. His scream echoed off the walls of the Main Foyer as he fell to the ground.
A spell hit Grant in the chest, and he was blasted off his feet. Talia and I rushed to help him stand. Before we could get anywhere, an Executor jumped in front of us, separating us from Chloe and Lucas.
“Nadine!” Lucas cried. He aimed a spell at the Executor. It hit him, and he went down, but several more had closed in.
I cast a shield around myself, Grant, and Talia. Spells slammed into my shield from all angles. Grant and Talia quickly took my hands, and we fortified the shield with our collective power. It held, but Chloe and Lucas were cornered on the other side of the foyer.
“What do you say?” one of the Executors laughed maniacally. “Shall we have a bit of fun with them before they die?”
The ghostly figure of the man Lucas had blasted through the front doors appeared in front of us. An Executor with a skull tattoo on his arm flicked his wrist, and the ghost swept forward at his command, flying straight into Lucas. The ghost disappeared, as if Lucas’s body had absorbed him.
At the same time, Chloe halted mid-step. At first, I thought it was because she was shocked by what she’d seen. Then I noticed her eyes had gone glossy. She didn’t appear as herself as she took a step toward Lucas. He turned toward her slowly with a twisted smirk on his face. It wasn’t his own; I knew that for certain.
A woman with the mark of a Mentalist on her hand laughed. “A possessed reaper versus my puppet. Which will win?”
I realized then that the woman had invaded Chloe’s mind, and she was controlling her now. In the same moment, the Mortana had ordered the ghost of the dead Executor to possess my husband’s body.
Chloe gritted her teeth, though she continued to approach Lucas. “Get out of my head, bitch.”
“Ooh,” the Executor laughed. “She’s a fighter. Let’s see how well you fight our friend.”
Chloe and Lucas lunged at each other. The Executors’ laughter filled the air as the two engaged in a fistfight created for the Executors’ sick entertainment. Purple bruises broke out across their faces, and Chloe was forced to curl her fingers around Lucas’s neck.
Rage filled my entire body, and I didn’t even have to form a spell in my hand to cast a curse. I set my gaze on the Mentalist who was controlling Chloe and aimed all my anger at her. I wanted her to stop hurting my friends. I wanted her to die.
Dark magic crept over the Mentalist’s skin, turning her features an ashen gray. The veins in her neck turned to black as my killing curse overtook her body. She let out a pained cry and stumbled back a few steps. Executors threw their hands over their ears as her piercing scream filled the air.
I felt it when my curse overtook her form entirely, because the magic reached a peak. The curse exploded and took her body with it. Her form turned to ash, and her screams died out as the curse reduced her to nothing but dust where she’d been standing.
Chloe gasped as she gained control of her body once again. She let go of Lucas’s throat, and she took several steps back.
Lucas pursued her with that twisted smirk. He still wasn’t himself. I turned to the Mortana who had cast the spell that possessed my husband. I intended to cast a curse on him as well, but I never got the chance.
“Lucas, you can fight this,” Chloe said.
The smirk wiped from Lucas’s face, and he gritted his teeth instead. A spectral form appeared around him, like he was forcing the ghost out of his body. The ghost fought against him, until Lucas let out a primal scream, and the apparition separated from him entirely.
The ghost swept across the room, aimed straight for the Mortana who cast the spell. The ghost screeched and slammed into him, knocking the Executor off his feet. He went flying into the wall and hit his head so hard he was knocked out.
“Lucas, how did you do that!?” Chloe cried.
