I walked a few feet away and was met by Ida, whom I crushed to my chest in a hug. She made a surprised noise which turned into a happy murmur as her arms wrapped around me. A sudden wave of discordant emotions rolled through me, along with a slight loss of balance that I hid by using Ida to help me stand so I didn’t ruin my bad-ass image with Albright. After a moment the dizziness passed and all that I had were the emotions that had yet to leave. I pressed my lips to the top of her head before leaning back to look at her.

“There was a minute there where I couldn’t find you,” I whispered. “I—“

I cupped her cheek in my palm and shuddered with suppressed fear. “I—“

She took my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “I know,” she said softly. “Let’s check on the others.”

I nodded shakily and put my arm around her shoulders, mostly because I wanted to reassure myself of her presence and only a little because I was afraid I’d fall over otherwise. We walked over to where Alice was still lying on the ground. A woman from Albright’s squad was leaning over her, hand held out in a pose I’ve seen elves use in anime when doing healing magic.

“She’s fine,” the woman said as we approached, preempting my question. “She’s using Scheerhed’s Return to undo the damage.”

“What?” I asked. If she had another healing spell, why did we have to call in a favor from Doctor who is also a Witch? A glance at Ida revealed her equally confused expression.

“It’s a healing spell that is easy to learn but can only target yourself, or someone you trust to the extreme,” she explained, lowering her hand and reaching into a messenger bag at her side and pulled out a fist-sized device. She frowned thoughtfully before grabbing a piece that stuck out and pulled, unfolding the small parcel over and over until she had a stretcher. “Help me move her?” She asked.

I slowly removed my arm from Ida’s shoulders, unsure if I’d be able to help without losing my balance. Ida read my hesitation in my movements and placed a reassuring hand on my arm. She made sure I was able to stand without falling over before stepping over to help the nice special forces lady.

“Why does it only target someone you trust?” I asked as they gingerly began to transfer Alice to the stretcher, a part of me was amazed that both Ida and I weren’t reacting more to the magical stretcher.

“I misspoke,” she said as she adjusted Alice into a better position. “The spell isn’t technically a healing spell, but that’s what it is mainly used for. You take a snapshot of your body when it’s healthy, and the spell ‘Returns’ the body to that state. You can probably guess how that can be abused if used on other people.”

Holy shit, yeah. It’d be easy to make simple adjustments to the “snapshot” and have a subtle health problem take out your patient when you weren’t around, to shift the blame.

A flash of irritation went through me when I remembered where I had heard the name of the spell before. Alice had been bugging me to learn it before I had latched onto Circe’s method. Whoops. Sure would come in handy right now.

“Why isn’t she conscious?” I asked as they heaved her onto the stretcher.

Ida grunted upon lifting our unresponsive friend. The new lady, I noted, did not. She continued talking as if she were carrying a lunch box and not a much-heavier-than-she-looks lady. “She is—kind of. The spell requires a ton of focus. One of the reasons it’s easier to learn and cast is because its method relies mostly on the efforts of the caster and not the spell itself. It does some heavy lifting, but you have to direct it. Judging from the shrapnel in her side, she probably thought she was close to death.”

“What?!” I said, lurching forward to look at my friend.

What I hadn’t seen before was a piece of metal about the size of a card sticking out of Alice’s side under her left arm, close to her heart. Jesus Christ. She had been on her back right after the explosion. I—I hadn’t seen that. I clasped my hands over and over in a futile desire to help.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“As I said; she’s fine,” The lady said, her voice punching its way into my brain. “In a couple of minutes, she’ll be stable enough to yank that metal out and an hour or two after that she’ll be right as rain.”

She began to walk to where the rest of the group had loosely gathered around Tony, Ida following. I followed after a few moments of hesitation, my gait slow and steady to avoid face-planting.

After a few steps, I slowed to a stop and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and focused on my body. There’s a… a thing. That I’ve been avoiding. Or suppressing. I’ve been keeping it under a lid for an entire year, only slipping up a couple of times. The most recent was when I got super pissed seeing my dad again, and some of that… stuff/thing, slipped out in my voice.

Part of the reason I threw my entire being into learning Circe’s Method was that, shortly after the whole magical pirate debacle, I did some experiments... With my weird not-eyes and tentacles. Those two things are only the tip of the knowledge I had been granted for trading away pieces of the Doorman, which I only realized after using the transformation for an extended period of time.

It was like… It was like—without knowing what one was—being given the Green Lantern ring and making a truck with it. Okay. The ring makes green trucks. It was only after using it for a while that you realized that, hey, maybe whatever made this ring had designed it with more purpose than just making green fucking trucks?

The knowledge that I had been given to perform a banishment of the Doorman, as well as the tools to draw it in the necessary time (the tentacles) might not be two separate gifts, as I’ve long believed. My memories of that night are—not exactly precise. I was terrified, grief-stricken, and desperate. While also being distracted by a thing that was also terrifying me.

What I discovered was that the more I used those abilities, the more the passenger in my head… influence is the wrong word. It couldn’t influence me more. But—but it felt like it could reach more of me. Which feels just as bad, if not worse. Thus, I sought to dive into magic to shore up the hole in my abilities. I didn't want to have to keep falling back on this, this eldritch, otherworldly knowledge of which I have no idea of its origin (though I have suspicions).

The knowledge, and what it might do to me, frankly terrifies me.

Almost as much as the thought of losing my little brother.

I glanced at the others, who were talking amongst themselves and making Tony and Alice comfortable. They had gathered Tony and Alice some distance from the overturned Prius, away from the highway but closer to the fence than I’d like. I sighed with a discordant mixture of resignation and determination as I put my metaphorical hands on the lock to my otherworldly abilities. Abilities that are pretty fucking sketchy. But they were abilities that if I did not receive and use, I would have died. Twice.

I turned the key in the lock and let them out.

If you were watching me, you might not have noticed the difference. I didn’t sprout tentacles and my eyes didn’t become swirling windows to the void. I had learned enough to keep those hidden unless needed. What you would see is a subtle shift in my posture. My shoulders relaxed, I stood straighter, my eyes focused. Knowledge I wasn’t allowing myself to know was suddenly available, and I made subtle changes to my body to hurry its recuperation.

The most telling change was my face. My expression, which had been haggard and tired, turned into an angry frown.

Because now I could see the vile shroud that hung over the warehouse. It looked like the psychic equivalent of rotting lungs. Like if the sound of nails on chalkboard made you sick instead of irritated. Like if you went to stand up from a chair and your legs suddenly shattered under your own weight. It was the suffering of failure, of things falling away, of the heartbreak of a loved one disappearing without a trace. Whatever was going on in that warehouse was creating a psychic scar in the area similar to a nuclear meltdown. Just looking at it made my stomach turn, which made me glad I had nothing left to throw up except a small bit of water.

I walked over to Albright, glancing at Tony to make sure he was fine. He gave me a small, blood-covered thumbs up. I gave him a reassuring nod before turning my gaze on the psychic.

“You see it, too,” Albright said, for once sounding like he wasn’t celebrating his birthday.

I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Mhm.”

“What changed?” He asked.

I almost lied out of habit. But, this man was about to dive into that vileness in an attempt to save the world and my brother. A large part of me still wanted to lie, but the part that made me want to like myself tomorrow won out.

“Decided to stop holding back,” I said. “Despite what it might mean for my sanity.”

Doesn’t mean I have to tell him everything.

Albright raised an eyebrow. “Cryptic.”

I shrugged. “You can interrogate me once my brother is safe.”

Albright stared at me for a long minute. All other conversation stopped once the others noticed our little stare-down. We stared at each other in silence, the only noise being the slight breeze and the sound of traffic from the highway.

Finally, Albright shrugged.

“Fair enough. Let’s go save your brother.”