“Gill, where are the girls?” Ugo asked as he and Zeke arrived in the mansion’s indoor thermal spa, both in their swim trunks.

Gill sat on the edge of the pool in designer shorts with his legs dipped in the steaming water. “They decided to go to the sauna,” he said.

“So, let’s go there—”

“For some privacy.”

“But—”

“From us.”

“Damn it.”

Zeke figured it was probably only Violet and Ashlin enjoying sessions of wet heat. No way Aida would accept being in the same room with Violet.

The area surrounding the giant hot bath before them was covered in brown stone tiles like a dungeon.

Zeke pulled his gaze away from Gill’s bloated body and followed the steam as it rose from the pool and touched the beautiful vaulted ceiling. He then scanned the other occupants of the area: Akachi was doing laps in the water in his speedos. Wade was idle under a waterfall; Zeke wondered if he was aware of water. Zeke forgot that Kian existed until the moment he spotted him. He was squatted in a corner, still with his mouth masking, staring at the ground.

“For crying out loud, it’s a pool full of mostly naked dudes,” Ugo said and then moped off.

Thankfully Zeke wasn’t as dejected as his brother and walked across the stone tile flooring with a spring in his step. He sat on the edge of the hot bath and slowly pushed his feet into the water.

“There ya go,” Gill cheered from the other side. “Water’s nice, isn’t it?”

‘Nice’ was an immense understatement, Zeke thought to himself. To the point of being an insult. As his short legs absorbed the mineral-rich warming water, his face eased into an expression he wasn’t used to. A calming breath flowed out of him as his shoulders dropped, eyelids fell shut, and his mouth cranked open into a smile.

The water was even more snuggly than the bed he slept in this morning, and he was only knee-deep in the water.

While he pondered the idea of diving in and taking an underwater nap, a hand landed on his shoulder, but it didn’t startle him. Zeke looked up at the olive-skinned Healer.

“Zeke, right?” Yaalon asked. His fancy pompadour was hidden under a swim cap. In addition to his swimming trunks, he had nose plugs, goggles… and a skin-tight fish scale shirt with long sleeves.

“Yeah,” Zeke answered, and then Yaalon sat next to him. “Wait, is there chlorine in the water?”

“No, it’s kept clean with magic,” Akachi said, swimming past them. “He’s just a jackass.”

Zeke closely inspected Yaalon’s fish shirt and asked, “Are you wearing a skin graft? What happened to your skin?”

Yaalon waved his hand. “It’s made from Kraken, but don’t worry about it.” He immediately shifted the conversation to small talk, asking Zeke how he liked the resort so far and about his family’s health and such.

Zeke detected a diplomatic tone in his voice, every word he spat seemed tactful. In an effort to cut through the coldly calculated sweet talk, Zeke abruptly interrupted him before he finished asking a question about his hobbies. “I was thinking about what you said earlier. Something about wanting to ‘teach what we do to normal people’?”

The question made Yaalon pause with a blank expression. As if he was restructuring his entire scheme in his head.

As he intercepted whatever information Yaalon wanted from him, Zeke figured he could get some valuable information in the meantime, remembering his primary goal of discovering who conspired with Isaac on breaking the Seal.

“Exactly that, Ezequias,” Yaalon said. “Teaching magic to those who can’t harness it as easily as we do,” he made a negotiator’s smile. “Where are you originally from, friend?”

Zeke allowed himself to answer with caution. “Barranquilla. Columbia.”

“When was the last time you were there?”

“Um, I spent the first 3 years of my life there and haven’t returned ever since. To be honest, I don’t remember all that much about it.”

“So you’re unaware of your country’s poverty firsthand, huh? Lemme tell you something, despite all of Israel’s wealthy accomplishments, there are still true horrors to be seen in the impoverished areas in which I’ve lived through. I was left at an orphanage as a baby, and my Mana Pores opened up by the time I was 9-years-old.”

Zeke pulled a face, feeling even more shitty about his late awakening that came when he was more than halfway through his high school career.

“I spent the next 8 years of my life working to become the best Healer I could be by traveling back and forth between Realms and learning everything I could about the creatures and supernatural ailments across multiple worlds.”

Zeke guessed he spent less than a little of that time to rest.

“We can change the world, Ezequias, and achieve true equity for mankind,” Yaalon said. “Those with no access to education, sanitation, or basic health services can attend my classes for free and learn how to harness Mana to improve their health and knowledge.”

“You… want to open a school and teach people how to use magic.”

“The poor, Zeke, the poor.”

“The poor are still people, though, and that’s a problem,” said Kian.

Zeke and Yaalon looked over to Kian, who was migrating to another corner of the room.

“As long as people are involved. There’s going to be a problem,” he said, then squatted to stare at the floor.

“What are you doing?” Zeke asked aloud.

“He’s talking to the microorganisms populating that corner,” Gill said.

“It’s also about these people being able to defend themselves against ethereal threats, you know, the ones that are now frolicking around because of the broken seals,” Yaalon said as he stood up and walked a few steps towards Kian. He made a fist. “Ring a bell?”

Kian excused himself from his microscopic friends and looked up at Yaalon. “Are you accusing me of something?”

No answer came from Yaalon. He probably did have an answer but refused to say it. Changing the topic to something just as heated, Yaalon pointed over at Ugo, who was lying on the stone floor, dejected with life. “Let’s play a guessing game. Who do you think the Damned is?”

Ugo raised his head. “Huh?” He took a moment to think. “Um… I think it’s Isaac.”

“I think it’s Violet,” Akachi said, inserting himself into the conversation while standing in the water. “But I want it to be Gill.”

“Oh, for the love of…!” Gill shouted.

Wade moved away from the waterfall. “What if we are allllll the Damned?” he slurred, having everybody look over at him. “Everything about the Fourteenth Tainted Generation is irregular. The Thirteenth came and gone, and we were only chosen a couple of hundred years later. Zack and Hugo only showed up about 17 years later. Maybe the guys in charge of this stuff are trying to spice things up.”

Aside from blatantly getting his and his brother’s names wrong, Zeke admitted in his head that there was truth to the swaying anesthesiologist’s words. Things were awfully different this time around.

“I guess it was too much to ask for everybody to calm down,” Gill said as he got up with a tinge of anger in his voice. “Mandatory meeting in the game room in three hours. Whoever doesn’t show up, there’ll be dire consequences. That’s all I’ll say.”

Zeke got on his feet and followed the fuming Demonologist.

The Healer walked fast for his incredible size. Zeke reached his hand out as he walked past the arched doorway. “Gill, wait, come back. We can still—”

A shriek stopped Zeke in his tracks, and he turned back to find the most tantalizing of the Tainted Generation, leaning back onto the wall on the side of the doorway.

“Ashlin?” Zeke said as he stared at the towering girl, cowering with her hands over her mouth. He looked down and spotted her black cat by her feet, cowering just like her.

She pulled her hands down and hissed, “Don’t say my name out loud like that. What if he heard you?” Then, probably picking up on its owner tone. Her cat made a hiss at Zeke.

“Zvezda, be quiet!” she snapped back at the cat, who looked up at her pathetically with its wide yellow eyes.

Zeke squinted in confusion and looked back at the hot baths past the doorway. “Were you spying on us?” he asked. He had never heard of a case of a Peeping Tina before.

Ashlin wore a long red bathrobe and was sweating, probably coming from the sauna. She grabbed her arm, looking away as she blushed intensely. “You don’t think he noticed, did you?” her confident Russian accent softened, like an exchange student ashamed of how they spoke.

Zeke looked through the doorway again and locked onto Akachi, who was doing flips in the water. He nodded to himself. It checked out.

Then, the bashful Ashin quietly asked, “Why is Gill so angry?”

“Gill? Oh, um… it’s probably especially hard for him because he is just trying to be a good host, and everybody’s at each other’s throats.”

“Poor Gill...” Ashlin pouted.

An epiphany hit Zeke, making his eyes go wide.

He turned back on his heel and spotted Gill in the distance before turning the corner, disappearing out of sight. Zeke looked back at Ashlin’s sheepish smile and realized she had been staring forward the entire time.

“Wait, were you talking about Gill?” He said in response to the question she made two questions ago.

He made her blushing worse, and she let out a small shriek. After making a Russian remark under her breath, she said, “He’s just so… so… hot.”

Zeke wondered if he accidentally stepped into an alternate universe walking through the doorway. “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?” he suggested.

“Are you crazy!” Ashlin shouted. “I can’t do that.”

A girl whom wars would be fought over for was afraid of rejection. The disbelief made Zeke chuckle.

Ashlin picked up her cat from the floor and hugged it for comfort. “Hey, it’s not funny…” she mumbled, tears welling in her eyes.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to.” Zeke studied her. Her lack of confidence in the matter and her spying on her precious without using any magic cemented the idea that love really does turn people into morons.

Then, the cat leaped onto Ashlin’s shoulder, and she caught his throat and pulled him close. The austere Ashlin he met yesterday returned to eye him with her cold stare. “If you tell him, I’ll kill you, dwarf.” She pushed him aside and stormed off.

Zeke massaged his throat and turned away from Ashlin. He started walking but only made it about three feet. There was no use trying to relax in the water again. After waiting till the coast was clear, he headed onto the exit.

Zeke remembered Gill’s mandatory request three hours into studying Black Magic-inflicted diseases. Both fear and curiosity were the motivators to get him to end his session and head down to the game room.

The subterranean wonder was vast and maintained the mansion’s eye-catching rustic theme. There were soccer jersey display cases, paintings of famous rockstars pinned to the walls, and vintage instruments.

Zeke found Gill behind the room’s mini bar counter, setting up wine glasses. The sight made Zeke panic internally. A handful of Gill’s servants were in the room as well, tidying up the area and putting fancy cocktail party appetizers on display.

Gill invited Zeke to sit on a tub chair while he and his entourage finished up. Zeke looked around the room and its activities. Multiple TVs broadcasted soccer matches as classical music played from the stereo. The games included a pool table, a chess table, a fussball table, a ping pong table, and a dart board.

Ugo showed up next, ecstatic by the environment, and sat next to Zeke. Surprisingly, the rest of the Tainted Generation made an appearance one by one. Zeke figured that curiosity got the best of all of them.

They scouted the area like a band of apprehensive explorers in an uncharted tomb.

“What the hell is this?” Akachi asked brusquely.

Gill walked away from the counter and approached the group. “I still believe having fun together during this retreat is possible. So, I organized this party for us to liven our spirits.” He waved his hand to the line of wine-filled glasses on the counter. “Let’s drink—!”

“Ohhhh, no! This ain’t no party!” Akachi argued.

Zeke found himself nodding. It felt more like a get-together for pretentious members of a gentlemen’s club than dumb fun. Not that he wanted a crazy party anyway.

“You want to see a real party? Let me handle it.” Akachi continued. “A real party is like the ones Dionysus throws on Mount Olympus.” He pointed at the spaced-out Healer. “You know what I’m talking about, Wade.”

Wade returned to reality turning in Akachi’s direction. “Huh? Yeah, yeah,” he said while nodding.

“I don’t think the others want to succumb to your debauchery,” Gill said.

“Wow, how long has it been? 10 seconds and we’re already arguing?” Violet said. “Off to a great start, Gill.”

Gill gave her a scowl.

“How about I show them how I would do it and then let them decide?” Akachi didn’t wait for a green light and got started on his campaign. He walked up to a bathroom door and took a piece of chalk from his pocket. He drew a strange symbol on the door and opened it to a vibrant Realm with blaring funky-pop music playing from it. Akachi went in and shut the door, disappearing for a while, and then returned wheeling in a wooden cart filled with partying goods. He went back in and brought another larger cart.

The group approached the carts and scanned the items. They had golden, bedazzled chalices, bags and boxes of snacks, and several large amphoras.

Akachi grabbed an amphora by both handles and dropped the heavy clay vessel onto the floor. “Inside each of these is a distinct flavor of wine prepared by Dionysus himself.” he snatched a chalice from the cart and held it up. “We’re going to drink like royalty because we are!” he said. “By the way… um… Dionysus misplaced his special chalice that grants immortality like hundreds of years ago and there’s a good chance that one of these chalices may be that one. So… congrats to whoever gets immortality, I guess.”

“Hell yeah!” Aida cheered and went to grab a chalice.

As Akachi served Aida a drink, he shouted out, “Wade! Do something about the music!”

Wade raised a thumb and moved over to the stereo. He changed the music to something more upbeat and danceable, turning up the volume all the way.

Zeke shook in distress and felt his head throb painfully to the loud music and the horror of watching Akachi serving alcohol to the others as his turn was coming up.

“We also need to get rid of all these servants, Gill,” Akachi said.

“Yeah, I agree,” said Ugo, grabbing a bag of pretzels. “It’s going to be hard to party with all these eyes on us.”

“Okay, fine,” Gill said, defeated. He snapped his fingers and said to his servants. “You can return to the underworld. Tell the others. Leave us alone.”

They exited without saying a word.

Kian walked up to Zeke, holding two chalices, and extended one to Zeke.

Zeke jumped back and shouted, “Am I the only one here aware of the health risks of underage drinking?”

“Come on, Zeke!” Akachi said. “Even Yaalon is onboard and he sucks!’

Breathlessly, Zeke started listing his concerns. “Long-term changes in brain development: affecting memory function, motor skills, learning ability and attention span and exponentially increases the chances of contracting liver disease. The toxicity of alcohol’s metabolism kills liver

cells! And commences the stages of the cluster of liver diseases going from alcohol-related hepatitis to cirrhosis to liver cancer—”

“We can probably reverse all of that,” Ashlin said.

“And it’s not like all of that’s gonna happen at once after one drink,” Akachi said.

“But that’s the thing!” Zeke shouted. “What if I get addicted? What if my genetic makeup guarantees that I’ll become an alcoholic after tasting it for the first time? I don’t need alcoholism added to the mix of chaos that is my brain!”

Violet walked over to Zeke and turned to the others. “Nobody is forcing Ezequias to drink anything.” He looked back at him. “If he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to, but it’s a shame to not taste Dionysus’ nectar. It’s divine.” She said and walked away from him.

“Well, it’s his loss then,” Akachi said. “Let’s toast!”

Kian gave Zeke a look, put the extra cup on the floor, and joined the others. They huddled up and raised their glasses, laughing and dancing. Zeke fixated on Ugo, convinced he completely forgot about his existence since he was living his lifelong dream of partying with the cool kids.

Zeke got into the ring with his old pal peer pressure in his head. He put up a good fight but eventually gave in. He joined the group.

“Hey!” Akachi cheered.

“You sure about this, Rulitos?” Violet asked him.

“Yeah… just one drink.”

It was way more than one drink.