UnFamiliar

Chapter 18

Val stares at me. "Why would I know what happens to a witch when they lose their magic?"

I gulped. "You know what? It doesn't matter. I think they're on the roof. Let's go."

Jackson looked panicked. "Lose...magic?"

I squatted down next him and Val. "Don't worry. We're going to stop this 'cleansing,' okay?"

Jackson didn't look convinced, but he nodded slowly.

Val and I wound around other people in similar states to Jackson as we made our way to the other end of the room than we came in on. On that side was a ladder to the roof.

"What exactly happens when witches lose their magic?" Val whispered in my ear.

In response, I gestured around the room. "Magic is connected to our souls, so what is actually happening is our souls are being ripped into pieces. Bodies don't work so well with only partial souls. I just didn't realize the magic part of the soul, the amount taken away in the process of losing magic, would be proportionate to the amount of magic you have."

"I don't get it," Val whispered back.

"Basically, I'm unaffected because the piece of my soul with magic is very small, and I can live without it. At least, that's what I think is happening. Now, climb the ladder won't you?" What I didn't want to get into at that moment was that this might be our way out of the bond. If the bond of the familiar relied on the witch's magic, then wouldn't if break if the magic no longer existed? I'd dismissed the idea after learning about how non-functional it could make a witch, but if this was it? I could live, easily. I wouldn't be a witch anymore though and that terrified me.

"You're making me climb onto the roof first?" Val asked, bringing me back to our current crises. There was a trap door at the top of the ladder.

"I thought it's better you than me," I said.

Val huffed, and climbed up the ladder. As soon as he was far enough up, I followed him. He opened the trap door carefully, then stuck his head through before climbing the rest of the way out. He turned and offered me a hand. I took it and he helped me pull myself out.

We happened to be between some kind of wall and the edge of the roof. No one was in sight, but there was some sort of chanting going on on the other side of the wall.

Val held a finger to his lips before making his way to the edge of the wall. The scene was about what I had expected. A circle of people standing around what had to be a magical artifact chanting. The circle was about ten people all wearing the stupid witch hunter shirt. The artifact looked like an empty bottle, slowly filling itself.

I hissed. Artifacts were made specifically so those without magic could wield magic. The irony of using magic to "cleanse" magic wasn't lost on me. The only way to stop a spell that was already in motion like this was to either destroy the circle of people or the artifact.

I moved to go around Val, intending to simply lunge for the artifact. Once the artifact was destroyed theoretically Val's power would be back and he could protect us. I just needed to get to the bottle.

Val grabbed my wrist, holding me behind the wall. My wrist was tingling where his hand touched me. I tried to push it to the back of my mind. Now wasn't the time to think about my attraction to Val. It wasn't the time to think about Val giving me the cold shoulder. It was the time to—

Val gasped.

I looked up at him.

"Can you feel that Ambrose?" He whispered.

"I...What?" I asked dumbly.

"Your magic. It's like—Well I can sense it. Try using it." I stared at Val. He looked like he was in awe, but I couldn't figure out why.

I shrugged and turned to the circle of witch hunters. I stared at the bottle. The lightning spell would probably break the bottle, even at my low power. I held my free hand out—Val hadn't let go of my other one—and said the incantation. My rune for the spell glowed.

The spell was supposed to create a bolt of lightning from the castor's hand to their chosen target, typically clocking in at about half the volts of a normal lightning bolt. Mine tended to be so weak you couldn't see them traveling, but my targets still received about 100 volts. That was probably enough to crack the bottle.

Neither of those things happened. The second the last word in my incantation fell from my lips, a pillar of light flashed with a boom accompanying it. I blinked the after image from my eyes to find the circle of witch hunters scattering. One was screaming about God's wrath. The bottle was shattered, its contents gone.

"Wh-What?" I gasped out.

Val had grabbed me. My back was to his chest and his hands were around my waist and we were mostly still behind the wall. He let go. I told myself I wasn't disappointed. "I think your spell worked."

I turned to face him. "It-That wasn't what the spell is supposed to do."

"What's it supposed to do? Actually, wait. Can I tie up the witch hunters first?" Val asked.

I didn't see any rope on him and I didn't really want to go chasing after a bunch of witch hunters, but I supposed he had a point. We needed to get these guys somewhere they couldn't hurt anyone else. "I guess."

Val nodded. He gave me a smirk and grabbed my hand. I felt the tingles again. Val snapped his fingers and the witch hunters on the roof with us disappeared.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Just tied them up and sent them to football field. I figured we should gather them somewhere your principal would be okay with cops seeing."

I narrowed my eyes. "Why didn't you do that before? You should've tried to do it when Nina told us we were under attack."

Val stared at me. "Can't you feel it?"

"What? Your lack of regard for the lives of my peers?"

"I mean, they weren't very nice to you, so your right. I don't particularly care about the horrors they had to go through. But no. Ambrose. Tell me what you feel." He released my hand. Then took it again.

The tingling stopped and then restarted. I felt myself blush. I was glad it was dark. "I, um...you aren't talking about the uh tingling I feel whenever you touch me, right?"

Val squinted at me. "What do you think—"

"Yoo hoo," someone called from the trap door that was still open behind us. I turned to find Jackson waving at us. "Sorry to interrupt whatever that is, but Principal Morley wants to speak to you. I was also told to help you with the witch hunters."

Val laughed. "The witch hunters are in the football field. We'll come down and explain." He let go of my hand and went over to Jackson.

Iturned and stared at the absolutely tiny pieces of bottle littering the roof. I'ddone that. I'd conjured a legitimate bolt of lightning. That shouldn't havebeen possible. I grabbed a piece of the bottle to show the principal beforefollowing Jackson and Val down the ladder.