Chapter 24 — The Second Summit of the End of the World

Rachel cleared her throat. "There are two reasons I've called this summit. We need to decide what we're going to do about Omega, and what we're going to do about the world."

"Isn't one of them more urgent? I'd think the world can wait," Julian asked.

Rachel shook her head. "The riot last night was caught on video, with our town's name right in the title. It didn't have many viewers, but I'd guess we only have a few days at most before someone comes to investigate. Not to mention that we still haven't reported the murders yet. Jackie can't stall forever, not with two out-of-town kids in the morgue."

"I didn't even know we had a morgue," Josh muttered.

"Just enough for two bodies," Jackie replied grimly. "One of them's in an icebox now."

"Ugh. Stop, please."

"Why isn't the mayor here?" Neffie put in. "Wouldn't this be his specialty if we're going to be dealing with higher ups in the government?"

"Rowan is going around with Preston trying to calm people down after last night," Rachel answered. "I spoke to him this morning. He won't be here."

Gordon snorted. "Good riddance."

"Hey—" Mason started, but Gordon ignored him.

"Better you than that snake, Rachel."

"Rowan Rhistler is the elected official for the township," Kendra pointed out. "Any official response will be looking to him first."

"Like anyone comin' into this shitshow is gonna look for someone official," Jackie muttered. "They'll look for who's in charge, and that ain't Rowan."

Gordon nodded emphatically. "Everyone in town knows what you've been doing by now. You stopped a riot just by showing up. Rowan wasn't even there. Half the town hates him anyway. There wouldn't be a single voice of dissent if you represented us."

"Is this a coup?" Mason asked angrily.

"It's not," Rachel said sharply. "I have no intention of replacing your uncle. Working with him, yes, but I'm still only the elected leader of the awakened. Nothing more."

"If you're even that," Julian said. "Plenty ain't happy with you."

"I'm guessing you sit near the top of that list, so why did you come today?" Rachel asked.

Julian scratched his head abashedly. "You saved my bacon last night. Well, you and Hector. I owe you this much. Besides, it's kinda my fault you had to go through with the town hall anyway." He threw a crooked smile.

"The rest of the Council?"

"Oh, everyone's split for the hills. They're hunkered down in their homes since anyone tryin' to run winds up monster meat," Julian replied. "After you sold them out to save your friend and declared yourself in charge, no one really wants to stick their neck out for you. Jus' sayin'."

"What about Mabel?" Rachel asked, turning to Josh.

He shrugged. "I called her, but she didn't answer. Neither did her grandson. Could be anywhere."

Rachel sighed. "It was never an agreement to fight, I guess. I can't blame them." She looked around at the room. "Thank you all, again, for being here today."

"We all know what happens if we try to run for it," Ryan put in. "We get fucking snapped in half. Might as well try to fight our way out."

"Do we have to?" came a timid voice from the corner. Heads turned to Hector, who shrank back against the wall.

"Hector? What do you mean?" Rachel asked.

"What if we try to talk to him? Promise to never awaken anyone again, stop using magic. Couldn't we all live?"

"Why should we?" Mason asked roughly. "We have every right to it, same as he does. Why should he be the one to decide?"

"What if he's right? What if all this makes the world come to an end?" Hector shivered. "It's too powerful. We were doing just fine without magic. Why do we have to have it? We could just go back."

"Not all of us," said Hailey.

"Look, I'm sure flying is amazing and all, but is it worth people dying over it?"

"I'm not talking about flying!"

"Please!" Rachel cut in. "Hector, I appreciate what you're saying, but this isn't something we can just undo."

"Just stop, right? Don't do any more magic. Give him all the Scraps and the copies. It's easy."

"He's been killing people, man," Josh said weakly. "He's not gonna stop just cause we give our papers over."

"Not just that. The world needs magic." Rachel brushed her hair away from her face. "Things are getting worse every year. Wars and disease and hunger and climate change. We can solve so many problems with this. We can't do anything if we're all dead."

"You make it sound so easy," Julian said skeptically.

"Okay, example. A village without clean drinking water. Eighty nine percent of Ethiopia doesn't have access to clean water. We give them a bucket, a funnel, whatever, and enchant it with something that can filter the water as it gets poured through. It gets powered off the energy of the person holding it, just like our bags. Anyone could use that. That would be massive, and it doesn't have the drawbacks of wearing out like regular filters."

"Rachel—" Josh tried to interject, but she kept talking without taking a single pause to breathe.

"Or how about hunger? Seven hundred ninety-five million people are going hungry worldwide. Cinza's people figured out how to grow food rapidly and in places where it should be impossible. Think about what that could do for people. Or what it could do for a colony in space. We can help them. Should we give up on all of that because of one idiot who's decided we're not responsible enough to handle it?"

"Rachel!" Cinza practically shouted. Rachel stopped talking. Her face was red and she was breathless. Cinza cleared her throat pointedly, holding Ruby's hand tight as she spoke. "We have more pressing business. Saving the world has to wait until tomorrow."

Rachel nodded. She took a deep breath. "I'm not giving up. I'm going to fight. If you're not on board, you should leave."

No one moved. Julian's wingmen exchanged looks, and Hector glanced around the room nervously, but everyone remained seated.

"Great, we're all one big fucked-up team," Ryan said sardonically. "Can we get back to figuring out how to stop the maniac serial killer who can take us all without breaking a sweat?"

"He can't," Rachel replied. "We have five people who are just as powerful."

"Five?" Hailey asked, glancing around.

"Of course it's fuckin' five. Five plus the three Gods is eight. It's all part of the secret plan," Ryan deadpanned.

"Congratulations, you graduated to kindergarten math," snapped Mason.

Rachel continued in a grave tone as if they hadn't spoken. "I know some of you would prefer to keep this private, but given the circumstances and our low turnout, we need to put all our cards on the table if we're going to figure out how to kill him."

"...Kill him?" Hector asked meekly.

"It's that or he kills us. He set the rules of engagement," Cinza replied.

"Anything goes at this point. It's all self-defense," Josh added.

Jackie frowned. "That ain't gonna hold up in a court. This is premeditated."

Ryan barked a short laugh. "What the hell kind of court could take a case like this? Everything here is unprecedented, and we don't have any peers to be our jury."

"Murder's still murder, doesn't matter what the weapon is."

He rolled his eyes. "I'll worry about that if I survive long enough to face a judge."

Gordon spoke up, looking up from his phone. "Rachel, wouldn't it be better to capture him? If you kill him, you're setting a precedent for how justice works in your world. Besides, you said he has an accomplice, right?" He flicked back through his notes. "We don't know if there might be more. We might need to question him."

"No," Rachel said firmly. "No half-measures. We can't take the risk."

"Are you sure about this?" Jackie asked.

"He dies." Rachel spoke so coldly that no one dared argue the point again. Even Hector looked subdued into silence.

"...So who are the five people, anyway?" Ryan finally spoke up. "Hailey, obviously, 'cause she fuckin' flew in here. I'm guessing her cute friend with the nice hair is one too." He shot a smile at Jessica, but she wasn't paying any attention to him. Her eyes were flicking around the room, taking in every detail.

"Them, Hector, Kendra and her sister."

"Her what?" Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow. "Miss Laushire's got a sister?"

"It's four people, not five," Lily interrupted. "I don't have the strength or talent she does."

Rachel's face fell slightly. "You don't?"

"I don't. I can keep her spells going when she's absolutely knackered, but I'm straight ordinary otherwise." Lily sighed. "Could've bothered to ask before you went and outed me, dear."

"It's life-or-death here, professor," Josh said.

"So you say."

"I say," Rachel snapped. "I'm going to need all of you on board for this to work."

"What makes you four so special anyway?" asked Jackie.

"We don't know," Hector answered simply.

"Haven't the slightest," Lily agreed.

"Peachy," muttered Jackie.

"It doesn't matter so long as they can beat him, right?" Gordon asked. "Four against one, aren't those good odds for us?"

"Not when you look at the four we got dealt," said Ryan. "A scaredy-cat who wants to negotiate with a genocidal serial killer, an uptight bitch who can only do neat tricks with bags and doors, a flying emotional wreck, and—who is that girl again?" he finished, pointing at Jessica.

"She can't talk or understand any of us," Rachel replied.

"...So yeah—we're boned."

"It's not like they can't learn other magic."

"In the amount of time we have? And who's gonna volunteer it?"

"There may be another way," Cinza added quietly. Her voice echoed through the room. "They don't need to learn the spell if they can join with me."

"Do what now?" Hailey asked abruptly.

"My people have been practicing a method of lending each other energy. We can combine our strength into a single spell beyond our normal abilities." Cinza glanced at Ruby—who was much more lucid than she'd been when they first walked in, but still showed the backlash of channeling such power through herself—before she went on. "The effects are potent."

"Is that what you did to Paul?" asked Jackie.

"...If I answer, does that constitute an admission of guilt?"

She sighed. "I'm willin' to call it self-defense. Witness accounts said he was about to shoot one of you."

"Then yes. Ruby and I combined our efforts into a single burst of magic."

"Can you do it again?" Rachel asked.

Cinza looked at Ruby again, who still struggled to keep herself totally upright, and wrapped an arm around the girl. Cinza's eyes were sparkling with barely restrained tears as she turned back. "I know the spell. I don't have Ruby's power, but I could direct it."

"Which leaves us to supply you with the energy you need." Rachel looked at each of the four in turn. "If Cinza can cast it and I can give her a target, will you four be willing to support it?"

"I'm in," Hailey said immediately. "Jess is too, once I figure out how to explain this to her."

"Kenni will be on board," Lily added. "I don't know how much we'll be able to contribute, but we'll do what we can."

Jackie chimed in, looking uneasy. "Now hang on, we're still talking about murdering a man in cold blood."

"You said it yourself," Rachel replied. "He's about to kill everyone in the town. It's self-defense."

"I was hired to uphold the law. We have a way of dealing with even the worst mass-murderers."

"And those have shit-all to do with this situation," Ryan snapped.

"He's still human—"

"No, he's not," Hailey interrupted.

"What, you people aren't people anymore?"

Rachel shook her head. "We still are. But the law doesn't account for someone like him. Our laws and our punishments are built on the idea that everyone is more or less equal. No matter what, a single person can be taken down and incarcerated, their weapons and tools taken away, and we can be reasonably certain a jail will hold them. That doesn't apply anymore. We can't take magic away from Omega. Even if you locked him in solitary and stuffed him in a straitjacket, I'm pretty sure he could break out without lifting a finger and kill every single person in the building on the way out. History's never had to deal with something of that caliber."

Her voice shook a little as she continued. "I'd love to spend weeks debating a new system of law and order, but we don't have time. People are dying. We have to stop this now."

The room was silent. Rachel looked at each of them in turn, her eyes fierce. Slowly, Jackie gave an assenting nod.

"I'm gonna feel like I'm betrayin' everything I stand for, but I'm in."

"Thank you," said Rachel. She turned to Hector, the lone remaining holdout. He seemed to shrink into the corner under her glare.

"I just don't want to kill anyone," he whispered. In the utter silence of the Marketplace, his whisper was clearly audible to everyone in the room.

"I'd be the one actually casting and directing the spell," Cinza said. "You would only be supplying me with energy. I don't even need to tell you what sort of spell it is."

"I'd still know what I'd done."

"Speaking for the non-magical half of the room," Gordon put in. "You'd be saving all our lives. Not just the awakened."

"You're going to force Hector to do this?" Neffie shot back. She glared at Gordon. "I thought we were staying out of it."

"I'm not staying out of anything. Just because I didn't luck out and get magic doesn't mean I don't have a say. I don't want to die either."

"It's their world, Gordon. We don't know anything about it."

"It still affects us!"

"It's their business. Let them deal with it."

"Nice to hear you care," Ryan mocked.

"Do we even need him?" Julian asked. "Grey girl said she did it with her girlfriend, right? So it can be done with two, and we already got three."

Rachel frowned. "We may only have one shot at this. I want every option on the table. Hector's the only one to come up against him in a fight before."

"Wait, you already fought him once?" Jackie cut in.

Hector shook his head. "That was a year ago. I'm sure he's way stronger now. I don't really do magic. I don't like it."

"Waste of fucking talent," muttered Ryan.

"Ryan, shut the fuck up," Josh snapped.

"You know what? No," Ryan shot back. "It's true. He's a waste of talent. He's got ridiculous abilities that could save all our fucking lives, and he's not going to do anything because he's afraid to get his hands a little dirty? Fuck that."

Josh got to his feet. His fist bulged out. He looked like he might leap over the table and rush down his former best friend. Ryan was still seated, but from the way he tensed in his chair, he was ready for a fight.

A gust of wind whirled through the room. Since the air had been almost totally still, it was a sudden shock to them all. The gale was tightly focused, only brushing past most of them until it reached its target. Josh was slowly forced back down into his chair. He struggled for a few moments, but finally relented. His fist returned to normal size.

"And stay down," Hailey grumbled.

"Can't believe you're all gonna gang up on him," said Josh.

"We don't have any other choice," said Rachel.

A low voice spoke up from the doorway, which had opened silently in the commotion. It rumbled through the room like the beginning of an earthquake about to tear down a city.

"That's exactly the sort of thinking that got you all here."