Rai grabbed Zoe and ran.
Things weren't quite what he'd imagined.
He'd thought the Voodoo puppets would be easy to deal with.
Well, they were easy.
there were just way too many of them, far beyond anything he'd expected.
In his memory, there hadn't been this many Voodoo puppets.
On the way back, he yelled for Madison and Queenie; the four of them had strode out full of swagger, and now they were scrambling back in total disarray.
With a heavy boom, Rai slammed the front door shut. He looked back and saw Spalding inside, clutching a golf club he'd dug up from who-knows-where, nerves written all over him.
Nan stood nearby, phone in hand, her tone deflated. "I called Fiona and Cordelia, but neither of them picked up or called back."
Rai wasn't surprised.
Like cops who always show up at the very last minute, relying on a habitually unreliable Supreme had always been wishful thinking.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Voodoo puppet horde had caught up; they were pounding the front door and hammering at the windows.
Thankfully, they had the bull-man incident to thank for their prep. At Rai's suggestion, the ground-floor windows had been redone with tempered glass, and the front door had been upgraded to a thicker model.
The zombies wouldn't be forcing their way in just yet.
Rai was about to herd everyone upstairs and use the narrow staircase as a choke point when Zoe suddenly stepped forward. Staring at her own hands, she hesitated and said, "I think… I have a way to deal with the puppets outside."
Rai stopped, looked at Zoe, and, knowing her nature, asked nothing more. He just nodded, completely trusting. "Then let's try it."
He waved Madison over. "Be ready to cover."
"Seriously? You two just decided that fast?" Madison blurted, stunned.
That was… fast.
Rai waved her off. "Madison, be ready."
"Fine," Madison muttered, rolling her eyes. She didn't love their effortless rapport, but she'd still do her part.
At the door, Rai gripped the handle, glanced at Zoe, and she gave a firm nod, and he eased it open.
HOOOOWL!
A chorus of thrilled, feral roars hit them first.
Then a forest of jet-black arms jammed into the gap like beasts loosed from a cage, clawing frantically for the closest prey, Rai and Zoe utterly unwilling to wait another second.
Zoe didn't flinch. She raised both hands, palms toward the puppets, and a surge of power poured out of her.
"Dust to dust, ash to ash, back to the world you belong to!"
WHOOOM!
An invisible shockwave blasted from Zoe's palms, sweeping across every Voodoo puppet at the door.
A heartbeat later, Rai was standing right beside her and, feeling nothing himself heard it.
thud… thud… thud…
Outside, the raging puppets went instantly still, then, like rows of dominoes, collapsed one after another, utterly lifeless, the sight weirdly spectacular.
Meanwhile, in the voodoo queen's hidden chamber:
Marie Laveau, floating in midair, jolted. Her body smacked to the floor, back cracking hard against the cold stone.
Chantal rushed in to haul her up, alarmed and baffled. "What happened?"
Coughing hard, Marie's eyes cleared, her expression foul. "Something powerful in that house just broke my control."
"Fiona?" Chantal asked quickly.
"No. Another white witch. Younger. Endless potential."
Marie's face darkened not just at the failure of her personal strike, but at the appearance of such an outlier among the white witches. On their side, with tensions spiralling, it was a terrible sign.
She thought a moment, then snapped orders: "Tell Hank if he wants to keep breathing, he can leave Cordelia alone, but he must take out the young white witches at the school."
"And call in more of our people. Don't forget the couple Justiph and Cécile, they've been holed up on the outskirts too long. It's time they moved. Because…"
"The real war has begun."
…
At the academy.
Watching every puppet drop under her power, Zoe stared at her own hands, almost not believing it herself.
The others were even more stunned.
"Zoe, you're amazing! What spell was that?" Queenie had just circled the courtyard and came back wide-eyed.
"I… I don't know," Zoe said, uncertain. "I just felt… felt like I could handle them, so I did it."
"That's a strong gift, Zoe's, and Zoe's alone!" Nan ran up, beaming. Then she glanced at Madison and added, "No use being jealous, you can't learn that."
"Jealous? Hmph." Madison snorted, speeding up to get away from Nan. It wasn't jealousy so much as anxiety over Zoe's rapid growth. She'd always been the strongest of the young witches; that's why Rai picked her as his partner. Seeing Zoe become more and more useful made her feel her status slipping. She needed another plan.
She flicked a look at Rai.
Right then, Rai was looking at Zoe with the same surprise. He hadn't realised his sweet, quiet girlfriend had such a powerful spirit-channelling, not just sensing and communicating with spirits, but forcibly expelling them.
Voodoo puppets were exactly what she'd swept away.
Rai couldn't help thinking of the golden-arm ghost. If he took the current Zoe back to that hotel, they wouldn't have needed an exorcism; she could've sent it straight back to hell with a wave.
What a terrifyingly strong ability.
Rai felt like he'd transmigrated into the wrong arc.
Look at the lineup around him: Madison, who could spin a coach bus in midair; Queenie, who could stab herself and kill you instead; Zoe, whose communion with spirits was already stronger than Myrtle's had been when she recruited her; Fiona, the most powerful alive; and Cordelia, who would inherit it all.
If it ever came to blows, unless Rai struck first from the shadows and killed in a single hit, the only ending waiting for him was a brutal counter-kill.
People like this belonged in the late-game plot.
The proper place for someone like him was fighting Voodoo puppets and cheap ghosts that only knew how to startle you.
Who'd have thought he'd get dragged into a witch war this early.
Rai looked from the carpet of corpses in the courtyard to his own not-so-big frame and let out a quiet sigh.
No matter how much he grumbled inside, reality still had to be faced.
Rai crooked a finger at Spalding, then pointed toward the courtyard outside:
"Spalding, call Delphine down. We're going to deal with all the bodies out there."
While it was still dark, they had to clear every corpse. Otherwise, when morning came and someone saw it, they'd think a serial killer had been at work here.
Spalding nodded silently.
He hadn't done a thing during the fight; now was the time to show some value.
After that, Rai told the girls a few things and went upstairs to shower.
After grappling with Voodoo puppets, his whole body reeked.
Not just him.
Zoe couldn't stand the heavier stench on herself either, so she went up as well.
She didn't go to her own room. Naturally, she went straight to Rai's, and the two bathed together.
An hour later, the bathroom door opened to a cloud of white steam.
Wrapped only in a towel, Zoe's flushed face turned toward Rai, happiness tinged with a little regret.
Rai knew what she regretted.
He'd even privately asked Cordelia, who was well read on magical theory. She told him frankly: unless the partner is a warlock and their power isn't vastly different, he can't withstand Zoe's Black Widow price.
What Cordelia called "power," Rai thought of as Spirit.
So, for his own happiness, he had to contain more anomalous beings.
From another angle: yes, he'd fallen into a hard situation, but with the leverage it gave him, he could contain more, faster and grow stronger himself.
Rai glanced at his status
[Physique: 2.0]
[Spirit: 1.0]
[Abilities: Pyromancy; Mind Control; Health]
Compared to where he started, Physique 1.1, Spirit 0.1, no abilities—the progress was a leap.
And it had taken not even a month.
"A shame that after all that fighting tonight, there's no gain," Rai said, looking at the inert page and the unchanging Containment Points.
Grimoire hadn't been "taken" any Voodoo puppets.
Which made sense: in the end, the puppet horde was mindless fodder summoned by the Voodoo Queen Marie's own power.
If those could be contained, he'd have found a golden road. He wouldn't even need to catch the Voodoo Queen, just some of her followers to mass-produce puppets for him, and he could farm points forever.
Rai shook his head, came back to himself, and saw Zoe off.
Since they couldn't truly be together, sharing a bed was only torture.
"Rai!"
Just as he'd sent Zoe out and was about to close the door, Nan called him.
"Luke's still here. Rai, give me a hand, help me get him back."
Rai smacked his forehead. He'd nearly forgotten about Luke, still fast asleep.
He went into Nan's room, looked at Luke sleeping like a log on the bed, and teased Nan: "You sure you want him taken back? Right now's a great chance to make the rice cooked."
Nan's heart stirred a bit at that, but she shook her head in the end. "Luke and I like to let things happen naturally."
"Fair enough."
Rai had only been joking.
He didn't need Nan's help. He slung Luke over his shoulder and headed next door.
Luke's mother, the hyper-controlling fanatic, wasn't home. That's why Luke had dared to come over at night in the first place.
With Nan guiding, Rai laid Luke back down in his own room.
After that, he could finally get some proper sleep.
…
The next day.
While Rai and the witches were burning the corpses Spalding had stashed in the backyard the day before, Fiona, absent all day yesterday, finally came home.
She looked terrible; when the stench hit her in the courtyard, she covered her nose and hurried over.
Seeing the heap of bodies, she frowned hard. "God. How many graves did you dig up? Do you have to go this heavy for Halloween?"
Rai shrugged. "Ms Fiona, none of us here is are serial killer. These things walked here on their own."
Clearly, Fiona hadn't looked at any of the messages on her phone.
After she listened to Rai's rundown, her face went dark as night.
"Marie."
In New Orleans, there was only one person who could summon this many puppets. She knew exactly who.
Fiona took a deep breath, looked at last night's biggest contributor, and praised: "Well done, Zoe."
On any other day, she might have been surprised by Zoe's talent and even "marked her" for special attention.
But now…
Gaze full of murder, Fiona looked into the distance and barked a command: "The war has started. You have one day. Finish whatever's on your plate. Tonight, you're coming with me to wipe out those Voodoo-queen bitches."
"Wait, war? Voodoo Queen? What's going on?" Madison asked, bewildered.
Fiona looked at Madison, then swept her eyes over the others, equally lost and sighed.
"You childish little things, did you think that surviving last night meant you could sleep easily? If you don't want to end up like Cordelia, you have to take out the one responsible for all of this."
"Cordelia? What happened to her?" Zoe asked, shocked.
"Someone threw strong acid in her face. She's blind," Fiona said, fury simmering.
She might be a lousy mother, but she was still a mother.
Her daughter had been blinded right under her nose; how could she not rage?
And then there'd been the attack on the academy last night.
She was certain Marie, the Voodoo Queen, had done both. Knowing how strong Fiona was, Marie had used injured Cordelia to pin her down so she could strike the academy while Fiona was away, wipe out this generation of young witches, and cut off Salem's line at the root.
Such a vicious heart.
Fiona might be an unfit Supreme, but that didn't mean she didn't care about the Coven. Otherwise, she could have simply killed Zoe, Madison, Nan, and Queenie, instead of watching and narrowing the field to find the next Supreme.
Hearing this, Zoe and the others went heavy and still shocked, worried, and grieving all at once. "How is Cordelia now?"
"She's in the hospital. If you don't want to wind up like her or worse, then raise the hands you use to kill and let your fury out."
For a moment, the air itself seemed to thicken. Power surged off Fiona in waves, pressing down on everyone.
For the first time, the Supreme showed her true strength. Cold-voiced, she gave her final order:
"Tonight ends a centuries-old war between witches. Everyone goes. Either we die or they do."
"Obviously," Fiona's lip curled in a bloodthirsty smile. "They die."