CHAPTER 29
SHEILA POSES THE QUESTION THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKED FROM THE START
According to Methods of the Occult, along with anecdotal tidbits and mainstream horror films, drawing a ley circle was standard when attempting to summon something. Whatever was summoned mostly tended to fall along the lines of demons, but that was a minor detail that Sheila was willing to overlook. In fact, one could feasibly argue that the concept of demons stemmed from the manifestation of Shades—which made this procedure seem all the more legitimate.
That didn’t make Mindie feel the least bit better about doing this. She grumbled to herself as she finished chalking her parts of the ley circle. “Luminescence is supposed to destroy chaos, not conjure it…”
“That’s what we’re going to do, kiddo.” Sheila stood up, stretching her back. Crawling along the floor with chalk in her hand was child’s play for a reason. “Once we bring Soren back, he will almost certainly be overflowing with chaos that needs to be purged.”
And then they’d be right back at square one, having disposed of yet another Shade. Mindie decided not to say that out loud.
Pike stood back and examined the elaborate circle they drew together. He had some reservations about its… authenticity. Disregarding the fact they used simple sidewalk chalk, the circle looked a bit wobbly around the edges, and the intricacies within its border had lines whose straightness left something to be desired. Mindie and his aunt weren’t exactly adept when it came to art, but even his own traces made him cringe a bit. Graffiti artists really had a talent.
“According to Methods, the ritual requires a vessel for the chaotic energy to possess, right?” Pike said. “What are we going to do for that?”
Sheila was suddenly by her nephew’s side, slinking an arm around his shoulders with a smirk. “My favorite nephew, thank you so much for volunteering.”
A look of shock washed over Pike’s face, and all color drained from it. Sensing danger to her partner, Mindie’s eyes flared yellow as she went luminescent—
But Sheila merely moved away from him and threw her head back in a loud, unrestrained cackle. She guffawed so hard that she staggered about, holding her stomach and unable to contain herself. The two butts of her joke froze, trying to decide if she was serious or not. When they decided, no, she wasn’t being serious, each breathed out a small sigh.
Mindie clutched onto Pike’s elbow protectively and tugged him towards her, glowering at her professor. “Professor! That’s not funny!”
It took a full minute for Sheila to compose herself again. Even after her laughing fit subsided, she still had a broad, satisfied grin on her face. “Ahhh, I haven’t laughed like that in ages. I suggest you two go luminescent for this so you can see what I’m doing. Make sure not to expend too much energy though.”
Pike felt a bit of offense at being the direct victim, here. His aunt’s jokes could be kind of cruel. However, he did as she instructed, and Mindie followed suit. With normal sight, it would have been harder to see beyond their brightness. But while in their respective states, they could see each other in clearer detail. The color of the world washed away save for the yellow glow both in their eyes and tinged along their auras. They turned their attention to Sheila.
The luminescence professor closed her eyes and brought a fist to her mouth as she cleared her throat. “In any case, lest you two forget…”
When her eyes opened again, they flashed the briefest purple glow before her entire being was engulfed in a bright, purple aura. A luminescent effigy in her likeness immediately split away and drifted into the center of the lopsided ley circle.
“…making other bodies is my specialty.”
Once her copy was in place, Sheila sat herself at the edge of the circle and kept her attention on it. “Pike, I’ll need you to recite the ritual’s incantation. I need to focus on keeping my clone active. I’m going to prove Chiaki wrong…”
Pike went over to retrieve Methods from his aunt’s desk. The more progress they made, the heavier the pit in his stomach grew. His hands shook slightly as he picked up the book. This method of attempting to retrieve the Superstar seemed wrong. He knew that, but he couldn’t get himself to speak up. Part of him wanted it to be a success. Actually, all of him wanted it to be a success. Because if anything went terribly wrong, how would he be able to justify these hopes he had?
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He returned to stand by Mindie’s side, exchanging glances with her. His eyes were hesitant; his partner’s seemed as composed as always, if not a little annoyed.
“Go ahead,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll stand watch in case anything happens while you two are occupied.”
Pike nodded slowly and opened the book. As he flipped through the pages, zeroing in on the section that had the rite his aunt required, his mind fought harder to think of a better way. Surely there was a means to return Soren Park to the real world that wasn’t quite so… shady.
He reached the page he was looking for. The incantation printed in the book itself was in a language he didn’t understand. Fortunately (if it could be considered fortunate in the first place), Sheila had penned the translation in between the lines of text—along with other margin notes that instructed the speaker to recite with gusto! and other tidbits. He would be able to read it easily. And so, he did.
He read through the first few lines of the incantation, which introduced the summoner’s intent… Nothing happened.
He continued through the next several lines—an elaborate passage employing an archaic style of speech to describe questionable beings that the summoner wished to bring into the world… Nothing happened.
Finally, Pike reached the last section of the incantation. Balancing the old tome in one hand, he threw his other hand into the air (Sheila had written in a note to do this sort of gesture) and proclaimed the end of the rite.
…Still, nothing happened.
Pike looked around, seeing the null results of his performance. His aunt continued to focus on keeping her copy active, and the copy itself displayed no visible changes in its being. Even in his luminescent state, he could see no new masses of chaotic energy forming into a Shade. He felt a little foolish with his free hand raised up into the air, so he slowly, self-consciously retracted it back to his side. He had left his eighth-grader syndrome back in his early days of high school; doing something like this just brought back embarrassing memories.
“Uh… I-I’ll try one more time,” he said quietly, turning to Mindie.
That’s when he noticed her fondling her earring—something she typically did when thinking something through. “Minz? What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking about something your aunt said.”
She recalled something Tita Sheila said? Did that mean she actually paid attention in Lumi 101 at some point? Pike had a passing thought that the ritual yielded a different result all together. He kept quiet as she continued her conjecture.
“Shades spawn when you have too much chaotic energy. And when you’re left alone with all your negative thoughts, wouldn’t that be a recipe for just that kind of thing?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Well recently, your Tita’s been locked away here in High Tower. She hasn’t even been showing up for her lectures. And if seeing my mom after all these years brought back some complicated memories…”
As her words trailed off, Mindie’s gaze drifted towards Sheila in a growing bout of suspicion. The professor had been quiet all this time, keeping her eyes on the clone she had created and placed in the middle of the ley circle.
Except that the clone had vanished. She was actually staring at nothing.
“Tita She?” Pike tossed the book aside and quickly paced over, crouching beside her. “Are you okay?”
Head hung slightly, Sheila rose to her feet, bracing herself on her nephew’s shoulder as she trudged into the center of the ley circle. Her expression was unreadable. She looked unsteady, and her arms hung limp as if she were carrying all of High Tower on her shoulders.
Pike glanced at Mindie, who had come to stand beside him and observed the professor warily. Even with their luminescent vision, neither could see the telltale aura of chaotic energy surrounding her. Still, there was something strange. They could feel it.
They could hear it.
“I see… So, this is how you felt.” Sheila’s back remained turned to her students as she mused over the thoughts that drifted about her mind.
The whispers became louder. The air became heavier.
“This man is a Shade… Destroy him. That woman was once a Star, but she was consumed by chaos… Destroy her. Your mother is luminescent, but she gave into chaos and threatens others who mock her grief… Destroy her too.”
Sheila’s fists clenched tightly at her side. “Destroy… Destroy… That’s all they wanted. That’s all they ever asked you to do. Until finally, you asked yourself what you should have asked from the start…”
Then it appeared. The energy came spilling out of her like a swarm of wasps from a hive. It whirled about like a tornado. It engulfed her. It enshrouded her. The shadowy aura grew larger, fueled by a decade of emotion that had now boiled into a dense cloud of hatred.
The dark effigy turned her head around, eyes glowing with the most intense hue of purple. “…Why don’t I destroy you instead?”
Pike gaped in horror as this newly minted creature of chaos glowered down at them. Sheila DeSanto, formerly one of the best Superstars in the world, had become a Shade.