NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 106

"Let's create a holy place," she began, "snatch humans away from earth and test them for twenty-seven mirrored years."

"A sifting ground?" said the red witch.

"Yes," Kat replied. "Very much like their world but with new rules and races."

"New races too?" said Xaxu. "Isn't that a bit much?"

"She wants us to die with the humans I tell you."

"I want no such thing. Let's just make sure we don't harvest the good with the bad, that's all."

Xaxu steered the conversation back on track. "What's this holy place?"

"I call it the Karmic Islands."

"Interesting name," Xaxu said. "Hinduism?"

"Not in the way you're thinking."

"What's the significance?"

"The test. We'll be testing someone – a girl – thirty-three times."

"Reincarnation," the red witch burst into glee. "I like it."

"If she's so smart, how's she going to snatch them without anyone knowing?"

"We're witches," Kat responded flippantly. "We'll cast a spell. Put them in a deep coma."

"What's the dangerous part?" the red witch said.

"I must slip into a trance to suspend their clock. I must die, so to speak, for them to live."

"Die!" the eight witches echoed.

"Yes," Kat said simply. "I must freeze their clock and shape shift through time."

"I'm all for you playing the martyr to save dead souls," Fantum said, "but you forgot one thing."

"What's that?"

"You're the ninth witch, the black wand. If you die, we all do."

"Not if I give you a loophole."

"What's that, I hear?" said Xaxu.

"I'll give up my powers to Fantum."

"What?" they all said in unison.