Brett sat in the seat opposite Seth in the back of the SUV, tapping his watch. “Twenty minutes until daylight.”

Jessica and Vic lay on the floor between them, both pale and seemingly lifeless. The only sign that any life remained were their weak pulses that still pushed blood through their body once every six to eight seconds. Seth stood out of his seat and exited the back of the SUV. The other had been relocated to the clearing, and Adams and Bridgette sat on the far edge, facing the direction the sun would break from. Bridgette sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, touching Adams, but refusing to lean on him as he sat wordlessly beside her.

Seth looked down at his still blood-stained hands. A few wet wipes had done nothing for him, and the blood and face-paint made a sticky, greasy mixture on his face. He was certain he’d be breaking out tomorrow. He moved to the opposite side of the clearing from Bridgette and Adams, the direction he, Brett, and Jessica had approached from, and looked out through the trees over the park. He could see the road several hundred meters away in the growing twilight, and beyond it, the building where all the shamans had been slaughtered. He wondered when park rangers would show up and call in the police, and to be honest, probably the feds.

And where was Andrew? They’d gone through all that just for him not to be there? Had he escaped, or worse, was he dead?

Seth sat down at the edge of the slope and rested his elbows on his knees. The body armor felt stiff, heavy, but Brett had ordered no one to take off their gear until they left the park. Seth shook his head. “Where are you?” He whispered. “Please be okay.”

“Fifteen minutes,” called Brett. “We move in seventeen.”

“Roger,” came Adams voice.

“Got it,” Seth called over his shoulder. He turned to look back over the forest. He wished he could do something, anything to help.

Maybe he could.

Seth screwed his eyes shut, reaching down for that feeling he’d found in the bathroom of Ralph Lauren a couple days ago. This time, it wasn’t so hard, and the wasp-sting between his eyes felt lesser, more of a sharp ache.

Seth opened his eyes, and the world had changed again. Despite the cloud cover, he could see every single star in the sky, bright and shining down with cold illumination. Every tree gave off a beautiful green aura that lit the forest up even more… It seemed almost day to him now.

“God. Dammit, Seth.”

Seth jumped and looked to his right. Jessica sat next to him, with the most exasperated look he’d ever seen on her face. Vic sat next to her, her wrist tied to Jessica’s with a blue ribbon. “You almost let us die,” said Jessica.

“You didn’t say shit!” Said Seth.

“God, I would assume that someone who can open their third eye would do so occasionally!” She slapped the back of his head. “We don’t have long.”

“What are you talking about?” Shouted Brett.

“Ignore him. Grab my cross. I need a beacon, because otherwise… magical physics. She’s not here by choice, two souls weigh more than one and if I leave…” She pointed up at the sky. “They’ll get her. Just get my cross, hold it over my body and focus your will— Do you know how to, fuck. I thought I’d have longer.”

“Seth?” Called Brett.

“Not now!” Shouted Seth.

“Just concentrate on me and Vic while you hold the cross. Say the words ‘I summon’, over and over. I’d have you do the proper incantation, but that will just mess things up, it’s the will that’s important. Can you do that? Like now?”

Seth nodded and bolted back to the car.

“Whoa, what the hell is going on?” Asked Brett. He glowed with a distinctively lightning-blue aura.

“No time,” said Seth. He ripped the cross off Jessica’s neck.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up.” He growled. “I know how to save them.”

“You-” Brett snapped his own mouth shut.

Seth knelt over the two of them, cradling the pendant in his hands and forcing an image of the two of them into his mind. He let out his breath, keeping himself focused. “I summon.”

They lay still.

“I summon.”

Still nothing. Seth swallowed. What did focusing your will mean? He was concentrating. “I summon.”

Nothing. Brett and Green watched him, their faces confused.

“Goddammit,” growled Seth, anger rising within him. He couldn’t even do this. He’d been practically useless fighting the shamans, and now his friend was going to die because of his ineptitude. Seth licked his lips and reached down deep into the void, emptying his mind and letting it fill him completely with numbness. All the pain from the past few months flooded into him, an empty pain now stripped of its associations. He made that pain his sole focus, allowing the mental anguish he’d been burying to wash over him. It slowly began to translate to anger, to a dull, throbbing rage. Seth’s face contorted and he squeezed his hand so tight around the cross that it cut into his palm. “Goddammit, I said I fucking summon!”

Jessica and Vic’s eyes snapped open with a loud gasp. Vic rolled to her side, coughing and wheezing. Jessica only locked eyes with Seth. “I know where Andrew is. He’s with the coven.”

Jessica pushed herself to a seated position. In the growing twilight, Seth could see color returning to her face, but she still looked concerned. Worried. She took a few deep breaths and then opened her mouth to speak again. “When I was-”

“Vic!” Bridgette reached the edge of the car. “Holy shit, you brought her back.”

Jessica fixed Bridgette with a reserved glare. “I did. Please let me finish unless you’re going to assault me again.”

Bridgette’s dark eyes stormed at Jessica, but she backed up for a minute. Green helped Vic to a seat as Jessica continued. “The coven, they were here one, maybe two nights ago. Their lingering aura was too weak for your tech to pick up, but easy enough to see in the astral. They took Andrew with them, that much I’m certain of. Since we had time to kill-” She raised an eyebrow at Seth. “I followed their trail. They’re holding him at someone’s house on the south side of town. Past Benson. Nice and populated. Lots of rich people, so the police will respond really fast there. Anyway, they have him, and they’re planning a ceremony. They want to use him as a human sacrifice to hedge the local ley line.”

“Did they see you?” Asked Brett.

Jessica shook her head. “None of them were projecting and witches don’t typically have the second sight without casting spells on themselves.”

“So they’re going to kill Andrew?” Asked Seth.

She nodded, her face grim. “Yes. On, of course, the night of the full moon.”

“Did you see Emma?”

Jessica raised her eyebrows. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Just say it.”

She sighed. “She was the one guarding Andrew. She’s in on it as much as any of them are.”

Seth looked away for a moment. He knew she was in deep, but to kill someone they both knew, to kill Andrew? How could she be that far gone? For that matter, would the coven have recruited her if he had never left with Nicole? What would have happened if that night he fled his house, he had ignored her offer and just went back? None of this. Not a single damn bit of it would have happened. Emma would be Emma, not some dark goddess worshiping witch who was planning on killing Seth’s best friend. “There’s no way,” he said. “There’s no way she’s just going along with it.”

“I didn’t see any sign that she was anything less than supportive of the coven.”

Seth ran his hands through his hair. “I want to meet with her. Away from the coven. I know where her house is, I want to talk to her. If she’s doubting them, then maybe we gain another ally.”

“Or maybe the coven’s waiting for you and you get captured,” said Brett.

“No,” said Seth. “The coven already thinks of me as their ally. I went to them, remember? Maybe you misread the situation, Jessica. I don’t know how it works, but when I talked to them, they were talking about rescuing Andrew. Maybe they did that to secure my alliance.”

“Then why was he bound and gagged in a basement?”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe the shamans turned him like the witches turned Emma.” The thought of the shamans doing that sickened Seth.

“Only an exceptionally powerful shaman can bestow their gift when it’s not a full moon,” Jessica said. “Far more powerful than the leader of this tribe. That’s class six, at least.”

“Look,” said Seth. “I’m meeting with Emma.”

Brett shrugged. “Any intelligence will help. But you’re going in wired, and Jessica’s going with you. And first…” He looked out towards the rapidly cresting sun. “We need to exfil. Let’s get out of here.”