The End of Worlds

Chapter Two

This is book 5 of THE BOX series. If you have not read 1-4 and don't want spoilers, please stop reading now!

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The alley might have been a good place to teleport to because of its openness, but it isn't safe for what I need to do now. I need some shelter and a place where I can start a fire without drawing attention to myself.

A tilted sign for a pizza place catches my eye on the crumbling remains of the street. It's not a chain I recognize which is good. With any luck, they'll have a proper wood burning oven instead of the usual electric ones.

I press my back against the wall of the alley and look in every direction, including up, to make sure there's nothing around waiting to pounce the moment I step out of the shadows.

The vibration of my necklace grows more pronounced as though it's annoyed at being kept waiting. I grip it in my hand and press my lips tightly together.

Something has gone wrong.

It's the only reason why my sister Sin, my sort of boyfriend Al, or his sister and fellow sorceress Loraine would try to contact me before our scheduled call tonight. Something's wrong and I have no way of helping them. Not without driving across an entire continent. Even without the stops I made on the way here, it will still take me at least three days to get to them. Who knows what will happen in that amount of time?

I race across the street, hoping I didn't miss anything threatening that might be hidden in the shadows of broken windows and crumbled walls.

The door swings open causing the cardboard open sign to flutter in the breeze. Beads of sweat trickle down the back of my neck. I really am at my limit with my magic and the fear isn't helping with my control. I hope I have enough to initiate the spell and make contact.

Inside, I'm instantly struck with the stench of moldy food and nearly walk right back out before the buzz of my necklace reminds me why I must press on. From the look of the pile of sludge and fruit flies on the middle of the counter, someone had been making a pizza when the cataclysm hit.

I try to give the pile a wide berth, only to step on something that might have once been a tomato, though it's so black and oozing, it's impossible to be sure.

Doing my best to ignore everything else, I focus on the stone pizza oven. At least that much of this place is untouched by disgusting, rotting food.

There is even half-burned wood still in the oven. Normally bringing back a flame to something already burned is a simple task. It wants to be on fire. The elements are waiting for me to spark it back to life with the tiniest bit of magic. It's a sign of how tired I am it takes me a full minute of scattered thought and poor concentration to finally get a puff of smoke to rise.

I yank the necklace over my head and hold the charms attached in my hand while I wait for a proper flame to build. Sin developed the communication spell so she and Al could call just as easily as Loraine or me, though our sorceress magic makes it strong enough to work all of the way across the continent.

Like all spells created by witches, it uses the four elements. My thumb skims over each texture in turn. A cut of fabric from Loraine's dress represents earth due to its natural materials, a feather from Sin's phoenix represents air, the fire is of course fire and I provide the water, my spit, to activate the spell. The only item not representing an element, and my favorite charm is the top of a lipstick container. It was difficult to infuse the spell into the manmade material of the plastic cover, but there's nothing else I'm willing to use in its place. Nothing connects me to Al as strongly as the tiny container I carried him around in after he first tumbled onto my lap. He was the size of a spider at the time. The magic of the box shrunk him when it pulled him from his world into mine. Only when I released the first bag of my magic was I able to make him normal size again.