“Anything to report?” the police captain asks nervously, clutching his radio with sweaty fingers.

The machine crackles as a voice replies, “Nothing in section eight sir.”

“Good, good,” the chief murmurs to himself as he crosses off another line on the spreadsheet in front of him. Then he adjusts the dial on the radio and clicks the button again. “This is the chief, anything to report in section nine? Have we located Anderson yet?”

“Not yet sir.”

“Well keep looking!” the chief yells before slamming the receiver back onto the machine and cursing. “Why,” he asks, a despairing expression crossing his face, “why? Why here? Why us?”

“Well,” Athow answers, as the rent created by his magic tears through the station, “because you have what I need, nothing more and nothing less.”

Then, with a gesture, he destroys the radio and sends the chief flying down the hall. A moment later, a wall of force erupts from the ground, severing the heart of the station from the outside world.

Disoriented from the teleportation, Eldritch’s head lolls as she falls to the ground, limp.

In a corner of the station, several rooms away from Athow, the crackling energy of the Inscrutable Bridge warps and writhes as Blind Justice begins arduously struggling to pull himself out of the vortex.

Back in the central command room, Athow steps imperiously toward the strongbox sitting next to the chief’s desk. Speaking a horrible word, he smashes the box into brittle shards. Then, he reaches inside and pulls out a book.

Turning to Eldritch and Belladonna, he crows in triumph, “Finally! The last book is mine, and the ritual can begin at last.”

Then, sparing a single glance to reassure himself both girls remain incapacitated, he begins chanting and carving runes into the concrete floor of the station.

But, dear reader, Eldritch’s incapacitation is not the product of Athow’s wizardry!

Inside her head, everything is agony and warp as her mind cries out with two voices, “What is happening to us!”

“My head… feels like it’s burning up!”

“I fled the dagger, child,” Belinda offers as an answer and apology. “My soul is now in your body.”

“What does that mean?” Hailey replies.

“It means that the burning you feel is death. Two souls cannot exist in one body. But I can stay long enough to teach you the spell,” Belinda’s voice is calm and certain, slowly rising as she adds powerfully, “and help you cast it!”

“Okay what do you mean by just long eno-,” Hailey tries asking, but before she finishes her question she loses her train of thought. A moment later, she says urgently, “Bel! The burning feeling is getting worse, and growing!”

“Then we need to hurry,” Belinda answers softly.

Lying on the ground, Eldritch begins to spasm uncontrollably.

“Auuuughhhhhhh!” Hailey’s mind screams as the pain becomes worse.

For a second, Eldritch’s eyes fly open as she continues to shake and writhe. For a few seconds it looks as if she may hurt herself, and then her eyes glaze over and she falls to the side, a line of drool coming out of her mouth as her mind leaves her body.

“Auuug-huh?” Hailey says as she looks down at herself in her school clothes.

Glancing around, she asks, “Are we back in the school library?”

“It seemed like the only way to get your mind off the pain,” the miniature version of Belinda, back in the metal form she takes when transforming the dagger into her body, replies.

“Alright,” Hailey accepts. Frowning, she asks, “Is my body going to be okay?”

“Not for long. But for now, yes.”

“Then we had better get to work.”

“Agreed,” Belinda replies curtly. “The spell is a summoning. Latin, with all that implies.”

“Wait a minute! Wasn’t the malleus, the one that summoned the demon Sonneillon, Latin?”

“Yes.”

Hailey asks, uncertainly, “So, this is like a Faustian bargain? Like, I’m selling my soul for demon powers to defeat him?”

“What?” Belinda asks, flummoxed. “No, of course not! Demon deals never work out. And do you think we have time to deal with a creature like Sonneillon? That’s possibly the only way we could make this situation worse!”

“Well, then why is it in Latin?”

“A demon is not the only thing that spells from the Christians allow contact with,” Belinda replies. “This spell is a summons, but not for a demon.”

“Then what?”

Reverently, Belinda answers. “An angel.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“So, how does that even work?”

“All summons work on the same principle, no matter if the target is an angel or demon. There is an exchange that must take place.”

“And the price is my soul?”

“No,” Belinda says, sorrowfully, “the price is your body. Angels cannot manifest themselves physically the way that demons can. They are too pure, too saintly, to exist on our plane without inviting the same taint that caused Lucifer to fall in the first place. So for an angel to come here, it must have a host.”

“Well between you and me, what’s a third roommate? My body is getting kinda crowded but I can deal,” Hailey says with gumption. “We are summoning a female angel though, right? Boys smell,” she adds, making a lighthearted joke.

Frowning at her cavaleir attitude, Belinda snaps at Hailey, “Listen child! This is not a joke! This is an angel, a being of immense power, taking over your body! Angels are beings of purification and light, avenging creatures that serve a god beyond mortal comprehension. Their very presence burns the unholy, the blighted, and the imperfect. As the angel inhabits your body, its soul erodes yours. It destroys you from the inside, eating away at your imperfect human soul until it withers and dies in the presence of a divine being.”

Belinda’s small form is trembling with fear and anger as she finishes. Softly, gently, she adds, “My ancestor, when she was lucid, said it forced her to relive every horrible moment. All her imperfections, sins, and failures thrown in her face and magnified a hundred times over. It is a sacrifice, not something done lightly.”

Hailey swallows at the sight of Belinda so shaken. Then she steels herself and says with as much conviction as she can, “But it’s what we need to do to beat him. So teach me the incantation.”

Sadness lurking in her eyes, Belinda nods. “Listen carefully then; your pronunciation must be exact…”

Outside the pair’s shared mind, Athow’s clawed hands gleam with the shine of foul sorcery. Around him, the room shines with arcane runes that drip with power. They cover the walls, the floor; the very air itself serves as canvas to Athow as he placed several glowering constructs in floating circles that spin idly around an invisible focal point. The runes glow various colors, some flush with the carmine vigor of fresh blood and others crackling with the dark energy of baleful hellfire. They twist in and out of different languages, some recognizable and others so alien they seem to warp the mind that tries to decipher them. Words and symbols interweave changing back and forth in seemingly random patterns.

The teeming mass trembles with otherworldly weight as if the confluence of this many disparate magics alone tears at the fabric of reality. Still, Athow seems unperturbed at the sight of his amalgamation. Instead, he smiles.

“The preparations are complete!” Then he lifts the dagger and strikes it down into the center of his web of runes. A moment later the floor begins to shudder as the world begins to ache and crack under the immense powers at play.

Below, Blind falls out of the Inscrutable Bridge, gasping in relief as he does. With a grim look, he turns to the ritual and smashes through the first wall separating him from Athow. Hardly pausing, he punches through the next one as well before striding across the room and kicking down the last wall. As he does, Athow recoils in surprise.

“You came with? The bridge must have interacted with my spell!” For the first time, surprise and wariness cross Athow’s face. “How did you survive the Edge?”

“I see everything,” Blind replies angrily, “and that includes the way back.”

Then he walks forward and pulls his arm back for another massive punch.

As he does, Athow quickly interjects, “I wouldn’t. The ritual has begun. Destabilize it now and it won’t just bring my Beloved back to life, it’ll open the door to far worse things.”

“How can I trust you?” Blind asks, hesitating.

“You can see everything, doesn’t that include the truth?” Athow quips.

“That depends,” Blind replies, “on whether or not you ever tell the truth.”

“I am many things,” Athow answers, “but a liar I am not. I built this ritual using the Inscrutable Bridge as the basis. Destabilize it and the only thing it will do is open a permanent portal between here and the Edge of Everything. You were there, you saw what Lurks Beyond the Threshold. Will you open this world to their presence?”

Blind Justice slowly lowers his arm and looks around the room at the runes and the vortex of growing power. “I recognize some of these,” he says slowly. “Maybe you are telling the truth.” Troubled, he looks back to Athow and begins to speak, “But either way I can’t allow this ritual to finish.”

As he pulls his arm back again, a terrible voice rings out behind him. “NEITHER CAN I. DEATH IS NOT TO BE TAMPERED WITH, SORCEROR.”

Sneering, Athow turns and replies, “An angel. How original.”

The suit that hides Hailey’s identity is gone, leaving Hailey in her ordinary clothing. But the thing that speaks is not Hailey, and none would mistake it for her. Blazing light pours out of her eyes and mouth as tiny hairline cracks begin to form in her skin, light leaking from them as well. The light is harsh and blinding as it burns from within Hailey’s mortal body.

“STEP FORWARD AND BE JUDGED.”

Athow glowers as he spits back, “No.”

At his side, Blind stares in horror at the slowly widening cracks on Hailey’s skin. Aghast, he asks, “What are you doing to her?" He pauses, mouth open in shock before shouting, "You're erasing her! Stop!”

Turning to face him, the angel responds. “YOU SEE TOO MUCH. MY TRUE FORM IS NOT FOR MORTAL EYES. BEGONE.”

With that, Blind Justice vanishes, blinking away without a trace.

Turning back toward Athow, the angel continues. “THORM ATHOW. YOUR ACTS VIOLATE LAWS DEEPER AND OLDER THAN THIS UNIVERSE.”

“Yes,” he cuts her off irascibly, “I’ve heard it before. The last time we did this, in fact.”

“THEN YOU KNOW WHAT I AM HERE TO DO. YOUR SOUL SHALL BE JUDGED.”

“My soul?” Athow asks, a hint of amusement lurking in his tone, “Well have at it then.” Critically appraising the growing cracks in Hailey’s skin he adds, “Your host doesn’t look like she’ll last much longer.”

“VERY WELL,” with that, the angel steps forward and a halo of fire erupts from Hailey’s skull. The flaming circle billows higher as a sword of pure light forms in the air above Athow. With a pronouncement that shatters the air and turns the entire area into a convocation of light so intense it blots out everything the angel shouts, “JUDGEMENT!”

Slowly the light recedes washing back into Hailey’s body. When the last few motes reenter her, she crumples to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut.

Across the room sits the shadow of the sword, the divine construct having left along with the angel leaving behind only an unnaturally blackened wall behind. At the center of the blade stands Athow.

Unhurt, he throws back his head and laughs.

“Judgement! For my soul! What a foolish creature.” Glancing down at the crumpled form of Hailey he adds, “And what a fool you are to put all your faith in this final strike.” Mockingly, he continues, “If only I had a soul! Then your ploy might have succeeded. Alas, I left mine beyond the Edge of Everything.” Throwing his head to the sky, he crows in triumph, “To think I worried it made me weak. Ha! Judge me all you wish, angelic hosts! I am soulless,” a smile graces his lips as he finishes, “but more importantly. I am victorious.”

He then turns toward his ritual circle where the swirling vortex of energy is now steadily coalescing into a concrete shape and form. Like a tornado touching the ground for the first time, the vortex converges toward a central point. When the magical forces meet, they form into a perfect point that dips to the ground. For a perfect second the entire structure rests on itself. Then the universe moves.

Everything shifts, dear reader. It moves a distance so small measures do not exist to describe it but this hardly matters because everything, from the mightiest superhero to the tiniest ant, can feel it.

In this moment, the universe changes.

Perhaps, dear reader, it corrects itself, purging this creation of Athow’s. Perhaps it is simply a wagon skipping over a stone in the road. Or, it is a piece of space dust striking a meteorite and changing its path in such a small way that human eyes and human instruments can never measure. Something, however unnoticeable and insignificant to mortal eyes, is not the same as it was before.

The vortex is gone. The runes, the magics, the ritual is gone. In their place, where the vortex touched the ground, however, is a woman.

Thorm Athow gazes tenderly at her and whispers with longing and love, “Belinda, my beloved.”

The wizard stands triumphant, dear reader! But certainly our story is not done yet as the object of Athow’s obsession takes center stage. How will she react to returning from the land of the dead? Find out next week in… “Be Loved!”