A charred chunk of flesh stood before us, baring its teeth—or rather, they bared themselves, the lips had fallen away. Its eyes were burned out as well, though that didn’t stop it from looking.

  "Simon," I spat.

  "What?" the baronet answered.

  Feron turned his head to glance at his namesake. To avoid further confusion, I said,

  "You’ll be Kettle. He’s Simon."

  "Gregor," the baronet corrected me. "His name was Gregor."

  "The body’s name was Gregor. How’s the suit, Simon? Not too tight? Too crispy maybe?"

  "Not as roomy and fresh as yours, but it will do for the job," the spirit replied—or rather, the possessed corpse did. "Who’s the idiot?" he added, pointing a clawed finger at Kettle. The fact that the finger moved suggested the body was in better shape than I’d thought. "And what’s going on here? Why are you naked? You two are… Who’s doing who?"

  Kettle’s eyes bulged as he processed the words, though the meaning hit him quickly.

  "What the fuck are you bubbling, crispy?" he barked. Then, both Simons raised their hands at the same time.

  Kettle immediately dropped to his knees with a pained groan, but the lightning bolts that shot from his fingers tore into the curled claws of the possessed Simon, reviving the stench of burnt flesh and violently jolting Feron-Chapman. Staying out of this fight seemed pointless, but charging at a possessed man with bare hands wasn’t exactly a winning strategy either. Besides, the Simons were handling things quite well without me. There was definitely some spark between them. Hell, a full-on lightning strike—repeatedly! Though, to be fair, Kettle was doing most of the work. Feron was flailing uselessly—or rather, wildly missing with his punches.

  The spirit hadn’t had much time to adapt, but the body he’d taken was strong—far stronger than the one he’d had before. He jerked and stumbled like a puppet on the strings of an amateur puppeteer. Meanwhile, the blackened, coal-like scabs began cracking at the joints, revealing fresh pink flesh beneath. Chapman’s body had terrifying regenerative abilities, and I couldn’t allow Simon to keep it for good.

  At last, Feron got the hang of things. He unclenched his fist, flexing claws from his mangled palm, and slashed Kettle across the chest. The baronet howled, staggering back, narrowly dodging the next swipe aimed at his temple.

  "Care to help?" the baronet shouted at me, sending a thick bolt of lightning into Feron’s leg. The possessed man pressed forward with surprising confidence, swinging his arms like the blades of a windmill.

  "Aim for the head," I suggested, frantically rifling through the reservoirs. Not a drop of ether. Damn it! They’d been full!

  Kettle took my advice, unleashing the next burst of lightning directly at Feron’s face. The possessed man’s neck jerked violently, twisting his head to the side, causing his next swing to go wide. The baronet seized the moment, darting beneath the arm and slipping out of the trap.

  "Kick his knee!" I barked.

  Kettle struck hard, showing no mercy to his polished shoe. He caught Feron mid-turn, hitting the leg he was putting all his weight on. The unpleasant, loud crunch of a dislocating joint made me wince. The possessed man, of course, felt nothing, but his leg twisted at a right angle, causing him to collapse. A blind swing of his arm struck Kettle square in the chest again.

  "Oh, bollocks!” Kettle cursed. “That bloody hurts!"

  My hand landed on a half-empty air amethyst. Better than nothing, as they say...

  "Grab the poker," I said, nodding at the iron rod that had already been lodged in the Archmaker’s back earlier.

  "I'm a sorcerer!" Kettle snapped.

  "And metal conducts," I retorted, picking up a rod designed for stonework.

  The baronet reluctantly reached for the poker, while Feron pushed himself up on his hands, dragged his good leg beneath him, and, using its considerable strength, launched himself at Kettle. He nearly succeeded—his head slammed into the baronet’s chest, knocking him flat onto the floor. The aforementioned poker flipped through the air and nearly found its final destination in my skull. I barely managed to duck in time.

  The possessed man clung to the baronet, raking his back with sharp claws. He would’ve sunk his teeth in too, but the head of this body had burned so badly that its jaw muscles were useless. Kettle screamed in pain, shoved his thumbs into the empty sockets of Feron’s eyes, and unleashed, perhaps, the finest lightning bolt he’d ever conjured. The accompanying thunderclap was so loud, I swear I went deaf for a moment. Feron-Chapman was thrown like a ragdoll into the wall.

  Kettle scrambled to his feet, staring at his hands in disbelief, muttering something I couldn’t hear. I vigorously rubbed my earlobes until my hearing returned. Kettle mimicked my actions and repeated his question.

  "How did I even do that?"

  "How should I know? Here." I tossed him the poker. "Try breaking his other joints."

  Simon Feron, the spirit in a monster’s body, was already pulling himself upright, his broken leg completely forgotten.

  "Maybe help me out?"

  "Busy," I replied, using the rod to scratch an uneven circle onto the floor. I added a similarly lopsided triangle inside it. Harry’s formula only required a few runes, but the one he’d passed down to the apprentice was more cumbersome. Considering I’d be working with air, the second one was better. What was it again?

  After carving out the core runes, I hesitated, then spat and added another circle for good measure. After all, the boundaries would break during the ritual’s activation. I needed more power. What else did I have among reservoirs?

  Kettle, as it turned out, wasn’t a bad duelist. I’d seen plenty of blades in his collection, but I’d assumed they were purely decorative. Yet here he was, twirling the poker with surprising skill, deflecting every attack from the possessed man. Even Feron’s superior speed couldn’t give him the edge, though that was partly because he had to kneel to keep his balance.

  "Stop! Enough!" the possessed man declared, his mouth still unmoving.

  Kettle froze mid-swing, poker poised to strike. I glanced up but continued rummaging through my new collection of stones embedded in the arch: death, water, death again, fire, sand, swamp... Lightning? That might work.

  "I don’t need you," Feron said to the baronet. "Just leave."

  "You need Duncan?" the baronet asked.

  "Yes. What use is that coward? All he does is hide behind you."

  Kettle turned slightly to keep the possessed man in view without exposing his back. I smirked and pried a stone out of the floor, imbuing it with a lightning reservoir while scrawling a quick containment spell. Something simple—like the one on the jar with Cap’s firefly, only more basic.

  "He saved my life," the baronet countered.

  "When I kill him, I’ll ascend. Then I can repay you."

  "If you had the strength left to do that, you wouldn’t be talking," Kettle said.

  "Yes," the spirit agreed, "I don’t have much strength left right now. But if it doesn’t work here, I’ll leave this body and come back later." The head, with its empty sockets flickering with ethereal flames, turned toward me. "One way or another, Kinkaid. One way or another..."

  "What’s your move?" I asked Kettle.

  "I’ll pay you," Feron repeated.

  "You’re both absolute bastards," the baronet said. "But you, Duncan, are far worse!"

  With that, he brought the poker crashing down on Feron-Chapman’s head. The possessed man raised a hand, and the sharp metal tooth of the poker punched through his palm. The discharge made the scorched muscles of his body seize; he jerked and ripped the poker from the baronet’s grasp.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Out of the way!" I barked.

  Kettle scrambled aside as I activated the spell etched into the stone and hurled it at Feron. The rock struck him square in the chest, shattering into stone shrapnel amid violet sparks and crackling bolts of energy.

  "Duncan, you arse!" Kettle yelled, clutching his backside. "May you spend your whole life getting ‘help’ like that!"

  "Don’t stop now!" I shouted, lunging at the body and grabbing its limp arm. "Do what I do!"

  Flipping the possessed man face-down on the floor, I planted a foot on his back and wrenched his arm at the shoulder until it popped. Then I twisted his wrist and pressed my knee into his elbow, snapping that joint for good measure. Kettle, wincing, pulled his bloodied hands from his backside—clearly, the shrapnel had caught him—and clumsily mirrored my actions on the other arm.

  I pointed to the figure I’d carved earlier. "Drag him!"

  "He won’t fit," the baronet hesitated.

  "We only need the head."

  "Scum!" Feron suddenly bellowed, regaining consciousness. "I’ll flay you both alive!"

  For a moment, Feron-Chapman flailed wildly, not yet realizing his arms were useless. One leg still obeyed him, though, and he kicked hard enough to give us trouble. We shoved his face into the seal. Kettle planted his foot on the possessed man’s back, growled, and promptly grabbed his injured backside again. I swiftly activated the circles, linking them to the reservoirs I’d scattered nearby. The outer circle drew on death, the inner on air, but with the body sticking out of the figure, the magic flowed freely through him, rapidly draining the reservoirs.

  The possessed man, limited as he was, still tried to claw his way out of the trap. I lifted my foot and slammed my heel into the base of his skull, snapping his neck. The body stilled, but the magic continued to leak. There was only one way to fix it.

  Grabbing a knife, I hacked at the body, severing the head in three blows. Fortunately, Chapman’s blood flow was more vampiric than human—there wasn’t much of a mess.

  "Drag it," I ordered Kettle, and he quickly yanked the body by the legs.

  Feron-Chapman’s head let out a guttural laugh.

  "We’ve been through this before, Duncan. Do you think you can succeed where a real wizard failed? I’ll be back! I’ll come back and wind your guts around my fist, and then I’ll deal with that idiot Logan, his mother, and his father. I’ll wipe out your entire family and save Bryce’s bastards for dessert!"

  "Quite the plan," I said with a smirk before turning to Kettle. "Find me a hammer and some nails."

  "This isn’t a forge," he retorted.

  "It’s a torture chamber. They’d fit right in," I replied, crouching over the head and starting to scrape away the charred remains of the scalp with my knife. I broke the circle’s boundaries, which caused the reservoirs to drain even faster, but the additional runes held the ritual together. Still, I worked quickly. The knife easily stripped away the charred flesh, exposing the white bone beneath. Here, the skin had burned away entirely, leaving nothing to regenerate.

  Kettle found a hammer, but there weren’t any nails in the torture chamber. Improvising, I used one of the restraints Chapman had tied me up with. It had a ring at the end, which conveniently fit the magical sand reservoir I’d salvaged. To keep it secure, I softened some granite with my wand and sealed it in.

  Sand wasn’t ideal for containing spirits, but it shared an affinity with air—it was like a distant cousin in the elemental family tree. If it worked, it’d consume a ridiculous amount of energy, but since Feron had chosen this body himself, there was hope.

  I tried carving a few symbols into the cursed skull with my rod, but the bone resisted, as if Chapman’s head was more wooden than stony. However, the spirit’s claws, still infused with death, worked perfectly. I snapped one off and used it as a pen, instructing Kettle to cut off the rest for safekeeping. They’d make fine trophies for later use.

  The seal I etched on the skull resembled the one Harry had used on Cap’s firefly jar. Just as the air reservoir was about to run dry and the ritual was on the verge of collapsing, I drove the restraint spike into the center of the seal. Simon Feron surged out of the skull, only to slam into an unyielding barrier.

  "Yes!" I shouted, elated. I’d had serious doubts, but so far, everything was working. "Take off your jacket and shirt!" I barked at Kettle.

  "Why?"

  I turned to him and made a gesture that vaguely encompassed everything dangling below my waist.

  "We’re off to save some kids."

  As Kettle stripped down, grumbling, and Feron unleashed a torrent of curses and threats from his new prison, I encased a dozen reservoirs in stone shells, carving containment spells into each. That last improvised grenade had worked surprisingly well.

  I tied the shirt sleeves around my waist and the jacket sleeves behind my back, crafting a crude approximation of a kilt. Then I loaded the grenades and the skull into the Archmaker’s bag, pulled out a knife, and grinned ominously at the baronet.

  "Now, show me your arse."

  "No!" Kettle exclaimed, appalled.

  "Don’t be ridiculous. We have no blood but I’ve got a reservoir with water. I know a simple spell that’ll work with it. I’ll get the piece out."

  "No!"

  "There’s a horde of vampires out there, and you’re clutching your arse! We don’t have time for this!"

  The baronet gave in and lay on the table, backside up. Feron offered a couple of snide remarks about homosexual relationships as I leaned over Kettle and widened the wound. His scream and furious complaints grew louder, especially when I carved three healing runes into his rear with my knife. Still, the procedure went smoothly: the sharp shard was removed, the wound was sealed, and, well, Simon being pissed was nothing new—they’re all like that.

  I grabbed a stone grenade in each hand while Kettle armed himself with the poker and a knife. We’d freed him from his shackles and carefully peeked into the corridor. Nina had plenty of time to prepare, but we saw no signs of any traps, so we began opening doors. From the very first one, a young shifter girl lunged at Simon, nearly slashing his face with her claws.

  "We’re on your side!" I shouted. "We’re prisoners too. Look at us!"

  "They’re lying!" Feron bellowed from the satchel. "Hit them!"

  "We’re not lying!"

  The girl whipped her head around, searching for the source of the voice.

  "Relax, it’s just a ghost," I said, setting the stone grenades on the floor and pulling out the head of the bag. She recoiled in shock.

  "They’ll do the same to you!" Feron shrieked.

  "Look at the fangs!" I insisted, pointing to the long vampiric tooth that hadn’t retracted after the body’s death. "We don’t have those. We’re not vampires."

  "What do vampires have to do with anything?" the girl asked, confused.

  "We’re in the Gratchs’ basement."

  "He’s lying!" Feron declared.

  "Will you shut that thing up?" Kettle snapped.

  "I can’t."

  "Then why are we lugging it around?"

  "Because this ghost keeps showing up at the worst possible moment and trying to kill me. No, I’m taking this skull to Harry, and we’ll turn it into ectoplasm!"

  Convincing the girl wasn’t easy, and the same went for the two twin boys who turned out to be sand sorcerers, no older than twelve. Calling them sorcerers was a stretch—the entirety of their arsenal was limited to throwing handfuls of dust in people’s eyes. We left further door-opening to Olivia—the shifter girl’s name—and our group quickly grew, gaining another dozen children ranging from toddlers to teenagers. Half of them were crying, though Olivia managed to calm them down swiftly. The oldest among the children, to my surprise, turned out to be about my age—a fellow shifter with strikingly familiar features.

  "Vixley," I realized.

  "Yes, sir," he replied cautiously.

  "Duncan," I introduced myself before asking about the spirit. "Another hunting dog?"

  "Terrier."

  "Quick, then. Could be useful."

  Most of the kids weren’t capable of much—some had just opened their Third Eye, while others had barely accessed their Elemental Source or Spiritual Heart. With great generosity, you could consider Olivia a fighter, but Terence Vixley was a pleasant surprise. He was roughly on Ailie’s level.

  The entire floor was lined with prison cells, varying wildly in comfort, though their purpose remained the same. None of them contained anything useful—except the torture chamber. We didn’t let the younger ones in, sparing them the sight of the charred corpse, but we did arm the shifters. Olivia found another poker, and Terence took a hammer.

  "Upstairs?" Kettle asked.

  "There are a ton of vampires up there," Feron warned from the satchel. "They’ll drink your blood. No need to go anywhere—your parents will come for you soon enough."

  "Say," the baronet muttered, "should we just smack him with the hammer once?"

  "And then have to catch him all over again? Let him ramble."

  "He’s scaring the kids."

  "He scares me too. That’s normal."

  "Duncan’s always been a coward," Feron added helpfully.

  "Didn’t stop me from finishing you off. Now shut up."

  "Oh, I can go all day!"

  "Because that’s all you can do!" I snapped. "Vixley, take the bag. Stay right behind me. Kettle, you follow him. Kids, you’re next. Olivia, you’re the rear guard."

  "But—" Olivia began.

  "You can argue all you want once we’re out of here," I said firmly. If any of her relatives were police officers, she’d understand the meaning of a direct order. "For now, keep an eye on the kids."

  "He doesn’t believe you’re worth anything!" Feron’s head declared from the bag.

  Olivia’s reaction was hard to read. She was clearly furious but took her assigned position at the back of the group.

  "Stay two steps behind me," I told Vixley. Then, to Kettle: "Don’t rush ahead unless it’s absolutely necessary. Kids, keep a couple of steps behind the baronet," I said, pointing at him. "Let’s move."

  I led the way to the stairwell, leaned over the railing, and checked both up and down using my Third Eye. The stairs above us glowed with the shimmer of magma, while below they radiated steel and earth.

  "Could be a trap," I said. "Hold on. Vixley, we’re going down."

  Harry’s traps typically used solid elements, but those were more for reinforcement than offense. I took the risk—and was right. The floor below was a training hall.

  A large, magically reinforced space held a treasure trove of practice weapons, including enchanted ones. There were rods, staffs, and, most importantly, a full cabinet of reservoirs.

  "Oh, Nina," I said with a grin, "I’m going to tear your little nest apart stone by stone."