Operation Witchcraft

Chapter 9: The Return

The moment Ella had stepped off Sanctuary premises, alarm bells had gone off. Demetri, being her "mentor," was notified to go after her. Olivia had wanted to come with, so had Wendall, but Demetri insisted on going by himself. He figured she was just going back to her apartment to grab stuff. She hadn't left Olivia's side while Olivia was in the infirmary, and though it was only a couple days, Demetri thought she just missed home.

The Sanctuary owned a couple cars for the mages to use as they needed, which came in handy at times like this. Demetri gathered up a few things, weapons and such, before heading to the parking lot to grab a car. He dilly-dallied on his way to the car. Sure, he had to go get her, but he also wanted to give her the time to grab whatever it was she needed. The plus side was since Ella had stepped back into the Sanctuary they now had an accurate fix on her signiture, and he could follow it like GPS.

About twenty minutes after the initial bells went off, Demetri was outside her apartment building.

The moment Demetri stepped outside the car, the aura of demons smacked him like getting slapped by a fish jumping out of a lake to hit you in the face. Strong, unpleasent, and entirely unexpected. Demetri checked the back first, and found a few demons lurking below the fire escape.

One, two, dead.

Low level grunts. Extremely armed, odd for their level.

That's when Demetri had swung around to the front, and found Ella making quick work of some demons. Two were on the floor, writhing in pain from a very pungent blue potion. One reached for him, whom he quickly put out of its misery. The third demon and Ella were fighting knife to knife. A scream from Ella made Demetri whip his head back toward her.

Leaning against the doorframe, Demetri watched as the demon crumpled to the floor. Ella stared the demon down as it grugled, her eyes glowing a faint blue.

"Damn Dani..." Ella visibly flinched. He hadn't meant to use that nickname, it had slipped out before he could reign it in.

Her eyes flicked up to him, and if she had been gifted with telepathic powers he would have taken psychic damage just from the look in her eyes. "Do I have to fight you now too?"

"Please don't," Demetri said, hands raised, "I'm here to take you back to the Sanctuary, although I'm sure you've guessed that."

"Yea, I know." Her voice was ice, although Demetri didn't know if that was because of him or the demons. "First, we need to figure out why they were here." She gestured to the demon who had nearly disintegrated. Before it completely disapeared, she grabbed the knife it was holding, and held both it and the one she had used in her hands. She fiddled with the both of them before slipping them into her backpack.

"They were here for you. You stick of Sanctuary magic."

"I'm sorry?"

"Why do you think young mages aren't allowed by themselves? You don't know how to concel your signiture, and the Sanctuary magic is so strong it leaves an imprint. They were here for you."

"God damn it."

"Will you please come back so I can at least teach you how to survive?"

Ella hesitated for a moment, watching him with wary eyes. The frost surrounding her irises slowly faded out. She nodded, walking out of the building before he could react.

The car ride back was quiet and awkward. Ella sat in the passanger seat, fiddling with the air conditioning and radio. She didn't say a word, and Demetri didn't dare try to start conversation. He hummed along to a song on the radio, and she switched the station. He turned the ac vents away from his face, and she turned it lower. By the time they pulled up on the Sanctuary, the car was freezing.

Wordlessly, Ella got out of the car, and walked off, leaving Demetri to report back to the Commander and park the car.

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Hey everyone!

A little filler chapter for y'all. School is starting for me so these chapters might get shorter for a while, but the plot continues!

See you next time!

Ekaterina