My feet touched the ground. My blurry, color-muted vision struggled to create a sharp image of Darcy standing before me. Pictures in my mind failed to make sense as blood rolled down my cheek from sustained injuries.

At least I could make out Darcy's blue robe. She was unharmed.

She wasn't angry. She didn't even look at me.

Her gaze was entirely focused on the angelic monster above us and the ghostly swarm fluttering around it. She was motionless. From what Darcy told me last time, this kind of monster deprived her mother of magic and tore her family apart.

"Why did you come?" I asked.

"I already told you-"

"I don't want to know how you knew to come! I want to know why!"

"Because something told me you wouldn't know the rule about how people should stay indoors during the Wild Hunt!"

"I tried staying indoors. Didn't quite work out. My school's anti-supernatural threshold isn't what it used to be."

I pointed at the school building, showing her the battered parking lot, the blown-out door to the basement, and the broken windows glinting in the moonlight.

Normally, one of the rules of the Veil was that monsters, even if they somehow got out of the Otherworld, couldn't enter people's homes without being explicitly invited to come in. By having set up a Domain in our school's basement, the Erlking found a way to cleverly work around that rule.

"And unless there's some kind of glamour-hidden roof here that I can't see, smell, hear, or touch, you're outside, too!" I said.

"Yes," she said. "I'd like to protect my town while you stand behind cracking jokes, is that a fair deal?"

Just what did Darcy feel when she saw those monsters that had harmed her mother? If she felt sorrow or anguish, she was pretty good at masking it.

Unfortunately, neither of us had the tools to deal with swarms of small enemies. Maybe if Darcy formed a sympathetic link to the Sylph, she could shoot it down. If the storm stopped, we could get in the basement and find the portal that pumped new Sluagh into our schoolyard. We could close it or we could storm it to start a counterattack.

But it was hard to even walk in the wind. We had to duck under the Sluagh, hold onto benches for a stronger foothold, and clutch our robes to avoid losing them.

"Why is he so powerful?" Darcy yelled.

"He killed people!" I yelled back. "Read my messages!"

The Sylph hovered between the Sluagh. Even covered by their rotten, dead bodies, its radiant light made it impossible to overlook.

When the Sylph flapped its wings, it didn't produce a gale, nor a gust of wind, it was a hurricane. There was a good reason why people were advised to search storm shelters in such situations.

A hurricane wasn't just wind. Trees were bending, branches breaking off and dust and debris hitting me like knives.

The wind blew Darcy against me.

I felt the life drain away from me as the Unseelie Repellant Potion stopped working.

Before we hit the ground, Sluagh picked us up.

I kicked and thrashed. They had spread my arms out so that I couldn't grab my pendant while Siris was getting restrained by one of these bastards.

The swarm lifted me and Darcy off the ground, flying higher into the sky. We flew over the trees and the schoolyard shrank until we saw the school's roof.

Oh, yikes. They were gonna teach us how to fly.

Darcy might save herself by flying on her staff, but I was gonna die.

"Do you want my help now?" Evil Siris asked.

I looked at the school below, closed my eyes, and felt the tremor in my heart.

The Sluagh dropped us.

Now or never.

The downwind swooshed through my hair as I took my vial, drank part of the Nuckelavee potion, and formed a sympathetic bond with the horse demon microseconds before hitting the ground.

I survived. And I felt no pain whatsoever.

Darcy, who flew on her staff, was horrified to see me lying on the ground.

The fall couldn't have bothered me less. I stood up.

My bones had changed. They felt like jelly. Power from the panicked townsfolk flooded my body and made this possible. Thousands of Watts-equivalent that I could only tap into thanks to Evil Siris.

I got up to my feet. I rocked back and forth like the Nuckelavee's rider.

My muscles felt like rubber. I stretched my arm out like the rider and punched the Sluagh with the crowbar Simon provided.

My brain changed. My old brain couldn't handle this much energy, this much information, or my arms so thin and stretchy.

I punched a ghost. My arm became denser and stronger from the absorbed ectoplasm.

My nervous system branched, adapting to the new length. When I felt people's despair, my new brain registered it. Interpreted it.

I saw the world through a Nuckelavee's eyes. When people felt fear, I felt fear, too. When people felt despair. I felt despair, too.

Was this how monsters felt? Were they tortured, pitiable creatures, and our killings of them just mercy kills?

I tore holes into the school building. Slabs of concrete blocked the school's entrance as the ghoulish monsters flew away in fear.

There was this thing called nitrogen narcosis. Divers felt a state of altered consciousness like drunkness when they dove too deep. I had no idea what that felt like, but having a monster brain and absorbing all that despair felt similar.

My body kept transforming. My feet anchored themselves to the ground like how the Nuckelavee rider anchored itself to its horse and my arms stretched out far enough to grab the Sylph like a star in the sky. I pulled it down against the school's clock. Windows fell apart, the entrance broke, and concrete slabs blocked the entry hallway.

The hurricane stopped.

The Sluagh flew away.

Victory.

It was exhausting. The potion wore off and my arms transformed back to normal, even though my sleeves were still torn apart and my arms still covered in blood.

My gaze drifted to the lawn in front of a broken window. In my blurry cat-vision, I first didn't recognize the girl in the dress. But the red hair, the bracelet around her neck, and the pentagrams in her clothes left no doubt that this was Isa kneeling in the grass.

And she had been hit by a piece of debris.

She wasn't bleeding. But, she was crying.

Once I ran closer, I could hear her whisper."Why did you do this?"

I realized a thing. My hood had fallen off.

I still had the ski mask, but the potion changing my jawline wore off. Maybe not enough for facial recognition to catch, but someone I knew? She might have noticed.

Isa had a bad bruise on her left cheek, but she was otherwise in one piece. Physically, at least.

"This is weird," she said.

"I know."

It was really weird. The first time Isa saw me in the basement, I was worried about small things. How she might judge me or expose me to the greater world. Now? Having allowed my literal inner demon to release all my anger at the world, I felt oddly calm.

My inner peace shattered once I realized Darcy wasn't behind me anymore. She fled, but from what?

Police sirens sang as the officers fought with a civilian mob militia over who could enter the school's orchard first.

I ran away. I had no idea where I ran, but I ran.

The basement wasn't a place where I could hide. Not only did the debris make it inaccessible, but it was also literally the monsters' spawning ground. So, I ran behind the school and called my familiar for help.

"Siris, Siris, Siris, where are you, fuzzball?" I asked.

"Well, I loaned you the power and then I collected the interest," Evil Siris said. "I can give him back to you. You'll just have to give me one more of your names, it can't hurt, can it?"

"Very funny. Siris, time to come out!"

"No, I'm not. I'm fueled by dark thoughts, whether they are yours or those around you. Siris and I have always been in a battle for dominance and now, I cut off his connection to you. You made finally use of my services. I am your familiar now and you cannot have more than one!"

"You're lying," I said.

"I'm not. Siris is a creature of the Otherworld. Unless he has a master or is searching for one, he cannot manifest in your mortal world and is now stuck to the universe he came from."

"You're lying."

"You broke the Oath Cornelius made you swear by allowing me to take over and Siris paid the price!"

"You're lying!" I hissed through clenched teeth. "Siris is still here!"

"Why don't you get it? I am your familiar now and I am so much more useful than he was. I am the upgrade. Ask me for guidance, and let me help you with your spells. Or give me one more name and I can bring him back, your choice."

I clutched my necklace hard enough almost to rip apart the knot tying it together. I could hardly breathe anymore, let alone in the calm, controlled way I needed to do magic, but I did my best to gather all the energy I could to get back my adorable little kitten.

"Siris," I muttered. "Come back. You can't take a nap now, come back! Siris!"

This wasn't good. He wasn't just some cute pet. It's a basic human need to have company, regardless of what form it took. I wasn't one of those animal hoarders, but I found pets easier to talk to than fellow humans.

What should I do now? The people will think I destroyed this school while the Council was gonna be after me for being caught in a Veil breach again. Dad and the police might blame me for the destroyed school.

Worse, what would other supernatural societies think? Did the Erlking plan this? Did he give me Evil Siris so that, if he ever caused anything like the Wild Hunt, he could frame me for it and the Blood Covenant would start a war against the Salem Society on his behalf?

Normally, I needed Siris' advice to know what to do in such situations. I could talk to him at any time, even when no-one else was around me.

This wasn't the case now. For the first time since I had him, I was really, truly alone. I needed to make split-seconds decisions.

The Sluagh attack had covered the streets with debris and destroyed many lanterns. With the rest of my night vision potion, I had an advantage in navigating the darkness. Most of the police would be occupied with Mrs. Crenshaw's corpse, the collateral damage, or residual Sluagh they couldn't see. I used my headstart and plunged into the darkness.

I ran,but I didn't know where. I just ran without a goal in mind.