---

---

After a twenty minute drive through the outer ring of Seattle, King found himself in a very dingy motel room with a lighter in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The Marco Polo Motel was a 'quaint' two-star hotel tucked into the river-side lanes of Aurora Road, and while the officer seemed to be a local King wasn't quite sure if the man had understood his request for a "clean and safe" place to stay. Upon arriving the group had been greeted by lackluster smiles and tired eyes, and the key they had received was bent in more places than one and felt like pure slime between King's fingers.

The room itself wasn't bad just... Something a rich kid like Richard King wasn't used to. Two twin-sized beds were pressed up against a rather wide nightstand. Stained but otherwise clean-feeling sheets were melded onto the springy mattresses, and the single lamp plugged into the wall was their only source of light for when night threatened to fall. The bathroom was small and off-white, containing a toilet, sink, and tiny, tiny tub that harbored the weakest looking shower head money could possibly buy. King noted the lack of soap with a stiff lip. There wasn't a kitchenette and there wasn't a single TV guide or booklet in the available drawers by the beds. King only found a dusty and torn bible, which he promptly trashed as soon as he realized what it was.

As King padded against a crumbly shag carpet he began to notice the many things to hate about this room. The curled wall paper, the bars on the outside of the window, the odd blue memory of abuse that stood out on the TV screen. Everything was old and worn and treated horribly and, for some bizarre and sick reason, King felt himself relating to it. "Gross." He said suddenly, mostly to himself, and without another word he snatched a cigarette from Malcolm's back pocket and settled in front of the open window.

It was the quickest smoke of his life. As King stared out at the crowded, misty road and pressed his shoulder against the dew wet bars he found it was simply unbearable to sit in silence. The cigarette's cherry gleamed bright orange and ash crumbled as King finished off the smoke in two quick drags. He snuffed the remaining heat on the windowsill, noting the similar burn marks that had gathered over the years on that very same plane of wood with an apathetic look, and then turned to his companions. The taste of fire on his tongue had done well to quell what remaining nerves he harbored, leaving him instead curious and hopelessly mopey as always. Now wasn't a time to wallow, however.

King jutted a thumb towards the injured television and cocked his head, "We got the news and we got some locals downstairs, in case anyone is curious about these terrorist threats that are currently taking place in this very city." He wanted to ask why they weren't leaving right this very moment, because the thought of getting caught in attack shook him to his core, but instead he leaned in and whispered, "Is there anything worth staying here for? Anyone see Seattle in their stupid dreams or what?"

---

---

They found the fire escape by chance. A short venture for a window free of the grimy, wet bars led them to the fourth floor of the motel, and from there King found a human-sized pane free of shackles and locks. Just beyond the frosted glass was a red-painted gathering of railings and stairs and ladders. He hadn’t expected the motel to have safety means of any kind, infact he didn’t even realize it rose up passed two stories. His disdain for the drab establishment was lifted ever so slightly as he squeezed his way onto sturdy metal and sucked in a breath smoggy city air. The mist gathered mostly below them, though the fire escape was just as dew wet as the windows two stories down had been.

King dug his heels into the textured metal, carefully rounding towards the edge of the railing. In front of them sat a sturdy and high brick wall, and below was a messy alley. It wasn’t a long fall. King heard his mind repeat that thought, it wasn’t a long fall, and with an annoyed click of the tongue he twisted on his heels and held out an eager palm.

“This good enough? Gimme a cig already.” King said, pressing back against the creaky and soaked railing, “I’ll pay you back at the next store or something.” With his free hand, King twisted his father’s lighter out of his back pocket and gave the ZIppo a curious flick. Fire snapped to life and then simmered away.

Gravestones hung in front of his eyes. King shook them away in favor of glaring apathetically at Malcolm.

“Ask nicely,” Mal said, pursing his lips while his eyes sparkled with good humor. His gaze was focused on King, and it didn’t slip even for a second to stare at the pattern of wiggling, writhing symbols that filled the air around them. “You know – with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Maybe add on a, ‘Yes, Master,’ to the end of that.”

His fingers deftly worked through the cold to pull out two cigarettes, leaving only three more inside the carton. He stuck one of them between his lips, and moved to hold out the other one, ready to jerk back teasingly unless the magic word was said.

“Kinky.” King’s lips upturned ever so slightly, forming the shadow of his usual smirk, “I’ll give you a ‘thank you’ when I get the damn thing but until then--” He held the lighter between his fingers and rose his hands up in a fake prayer. One step forward planted him an inch closer to the smirking Malcolm, another allowed him to be close enough to hiss an emotionless, “Please give me a cigarette?” His palm upturned and fingers curled expectantly.

Malcolm passed it over, smiling fading into a serious expression for three heartbeats until he glanced away at a sprinkling of rust on the metal beneath them. The cigarette slipped from between his lips so he could say, “See? Clearly I can teach an old dog new tricks.”

His grin returned swiftly in a blinding flash of pearly white. “Here – show me how that fancy new Zippo of yours works. I even left my lighter in the room. C’mon,” Mal prompted, sticking the cancer stick back where it belonged, held in place by pursed lips. It left his belated, “Please,” to come out rather mumbled.

King shoved his own now-lit cigarette between his lips pointedly before passing on the Zippo. Acidic smoke coated his tongue as he breathed in, eyes flicking down restlessly to watch the cherry of the cigarette gleam in the misty-white light. Gray smoke mingled with water, heavy and deep in color, and King took two steps back to lean against the railing. “I’m not a dog.” He commented belatedly, one eyebrow quirked, “And don’t expect this manners bullshit to be a running gag.”

“You’d be a cute Golden Retriever. King’s totally a dog name.” And Mal had no idea where he was going with that, almost as if his concentration shut off in the middle of a sentence to save himself from future embarrassment. He busied himself by lighting up. “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” Mal quoted, reading the engraving on the side of the lighter expertly. “Well, that’s some dramatic irony.”

King had tuned out Malcolm at the first mention of golden retrievers, but in an instant his attention was singled and burning. His father’s voice echoed in his head, along with the clack of a gun and the bang of it firing against his brow. Ash crumbled as he tightened his hold on the quickly diminishing cigarette, but he tried hard to make it last, taking a small puff instead of heaving in a gust of smoke like he intended.

“Sounds like you know what it means.” King let a hand fall back onto the railing of the fire escape, squeezing until his knuckles were as white as the air. Curiosity glowed in his bright eyes. “Well then,” He urged, leaning forward, “Wanna share with the class or not?”

“Really, dude? It’s a pretty generic phrase – ‘panem et circenses’ style. I’m sure frat boys all over the country have tattoos of it.” Mal didn’t even need to think back to his rudimentary understanding of Latin (the product of two years of hideous summer school lessons and some mild interest in old Roman alchemical practices) to understand what it meant.

“Dad didn’t strike me as the frat boy type.” King muttered, and louder yet he grumbled, “I don’t know what this panam it-- whatever you said-- is, but I don’t think it matters much.” He snatched his cigarette from his lips and waggled it in the direction of the lighter, dark smoke seeping out from his parted lips. “What’s that saying mean, Mal?”

“‘If you want peace, prepare for war,’” Mal answered promptly with a hoarse laugh. While the relevance of the phrase to their current situation struck him as ominous, particularly when the memory of the Vision Cave was fresh in his mind, he was certain it meant little to him. “Literally, the most basic phrase someone could Google to put on an edgy engraving. I mean – I’m sure it meant something to him, but it’s like… It’s like ‘carpe diem’.”

“Huh.” King reached forward to tug the lighter from Mal’s grasp, inspecting the stainless steel with a steady gaze. “Dad didn’t strike me as a ‘carpe diem’ type either. Full of surprises, full of surprises…” He rolled his shoulders, feeling the sting of a long-healed bruise just to remind himself that he was present and fine. The lighter flicked to life again. Flame licked high at the white-painted sky. Mindlessly, King let the flame grow taller and taller, muttering soft incantations to himself to allowed the fire to shift from orange to blue and back again.

Parlor tricks were a Richard King speciality, though he rarely shared them with anyone besides Astrid. His eyes flicked up to give Malcolm a curiously calm stare, and then he took a long drag from his cigarette and sighed into the morning. Black smoke churned from his lungs and hung heavy and damp in the air before him. “I heard dad say that to me in my dream.” He confessed, eyes still locked on the fire, “He said that and then I died. Maybe it’s bad luck or something to keep this thing around. Maybe I should get rid of it.”

“Maybe you should. Or you could keep showing off with it,” Mal noted as he breathed out smoke in such a way that it formed a precise ring shape – no magic required. He pulled out his faint black Sharpie again from his back pocket, and started doodling on his hand in straight, precise lines. The burn from the night before was still there, scarred in a triangle formation. “I mean, it’s not like anyone’s gonna see us using magic through that mist so we’re good but – try not to give me a heart-attack next time? It’d be just our luck if a cop appeared.”

King glanced down at the alley below. A short fall stared back, and then the fire licked high and gleamed bright green. King bit on the filter of the cigarette to keep it from falling as his now-free hand rose to skim over the tip of the fire. The color shifted again, green to purple, and King watched the odd lights formed by the light streak out against the fire escape. Aurora road roared out of sight. That little fact gave King enough courage to turn the fire to quiet, crackling sparks akin to the fireworks.

“No one's gonna see us out here.” King confirmed, “Whatcha doodling?” He breathed out a smoky sigh, eyebrows quirked.

Mal hummed distractedly, eyeing up the fluidity of the squiggles on the mist for inspiration. With his free hand, he snuffed out the remains of his cigarette, then returned to drawing two solid lines up his thumb and middle finger. “Magic stuff,” he returned. “Efficiency is everything in alchemy.” And with that, he snapped his fingers with a loud crack to produce a dancing, living flame in the palm of his hand.

It didn’t burn. One of the thirteen sigils he’d drawn negated that risk entirely, and he grinned smugly at King. He snapped his fingers again, and it winked out of existence. Snap, and it was back.

“Ha,” King said, watching the fire form and vanish, “You didn't even need my lighter. Mooch.” The lighter returned from sparks to flame and then finally smoke as he snuffed out the heat and turned to stare out at the brick wall. Mist swirled through the air. Behind him, King felt images of eyes and odd runes. A stiff lip sent the strange thoughts away, thinking them to be passing memories, but all at once he was left with the residual feeling of someone else’s mind invading his own.

King leaned over the railing slightly, staring down as the world tilted and then righted itself. Idly, he glanced over his shoulder and said, “What are you thinking about?” And then, after a brief pause, he hissed, “Or, what do you see?”

Mal quirked an eyebrow before looking back, reluctantly, to the psychedelic runes hanging in the air. How could he describe it? They were the same colour as the iridescent swirls inside a soap bubble, oily and thick and wholly unnatural. “The mist’s magical in origin,” he summed up after a few moments, allowing only a curious glance at King as if he didn’t expect the question.

“Oh? Should we be standing in it?” King eyed the foggy surroundings calmly, not doing much despite realizing that magical mist wasn’t the safest thing to be inhaling. He took one last drag before flicking the dirty filter of his cigarette over the railing, and then breathed out a dark cloud. This time he watched it get eaten away by the mist and fade away into more white. “And how would you know something like that? Have you been keeping secrets?” His lips curled to form a small, cruel smirk.

“Never,” Mal said, brows furrowing into a firm, fierce line. Despite his words, he didn’t answer.

King hummed a low note, twisting back around to press his hip against the wet metal. The air around them was heavy with an emotion King liked to call irritation. For a full minute King stared ahead, eyeing Malcolm curiously as he so often did. Both hands clamped down on the railing behind him, squeezing tight as he tried and failed to force more images from Malcolm’s mind into his own.

Blank canvases came up, as well as the occasional gravestone. Worthless. Cursing his ornery new found power, King withheld a sigh and glanced at the mist instead. His gaze lingered when he finally rolled his shoulders again and said, “It’s rather hard to lie with me around, don’t you think?”

“I don’t lie,” Mal said with a chilled smile. “I resent that.”

“There's such a thing as lying by omission.” King stated, take a step forward to be level with Mal’s cold grin. He returned the expression with a dazzling smirk. Despite the growing tension, King couldn't help but let his eyes flick down to glance at Mal’s lips. “I think there's something you haven't told me yet.”

Mal let out a long breath through his nose – a dragon breathing out fire. His thumb pressed down hard into the dark lines drawn on his palm to distract him, and the feel of sparking magic at the place of contact worked just as clenching his fist would have. “And that bothers you, does it? It shouldn’t. You’re not entitled to anything from me.”

The road-trip would be a problem, if this was starting already; if dislike was flooding his system in a wave of stinging salt.

King shoved his fists deep into his jean pockets, eyes dark and filled to the brim with curiosity. “That's true.” He paused to lick his lips wet and shift from foot to foot restlessly, “But I can't help noticing things about you, or Aiden or Jess or Az.” He tilted his head down, leaning in to glare unabashedly down at Mal’s gaze.

“It's in my nature to be bothered, and it's in my nature to worry about things that could hurt me or my sister.” King made a low noise, another energetic hum, and then he growled, “So I'll ask again: have you been keeping secrets?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Mal replied with a glare of his own. Perhaps it would have been easier to just explain his newfound magical ability, but indignation pushed him on. He didn’t answer to Richard King of all people. “So you can fuck right off with your Spanish Inquisition. I don’t answer to you.”

King rolled his shoulders again, feeling the fire of irrational unfurl as Malcolm’s aura seemed to overtake his own. Phantom pains kept his face horribly twisted. A mocking smile pressed indefinitely against his lips and furrowed his brows to a dark glare. His voice was a low growl as he hissed, “I'm not asking you to answer to me, I'm just saying you should share with the class before–” King cut himself off instantly as he felt the twist in his wrist.

He wanted to throw a punch.

Such an instinctive response to being berated made King wince expressively. He took half a step back and waited, waited for a swap in emotions or a change of expression. Offhandedly, he said, “Philips is keeping a secret too.”

There wasn’t even the slightest change in Mal’s current tide of annoyance. “So this is what you do now? Spread around other people’s secrets, injecting yourself into every little thing people might be – you know – wanting to keep to themselves?” Mal shook his head, not in the least bit interested in Philips’ secret. “I don’t care. It’s none of my, and it’s none of your business.”

“That kind of thinking is going to kill all of us!” King tightened his fists, clenching down on the rage that was threatening to lash out, “We can't afford to keep out of everyone’s business; we are all we have.” He made a sweeping motion between the two, and then down towards the building. “If someone is lying or withholding information then– then we’re all fucked. This isn't a ‘you do you’ kind of trip.” King brought a hand up to bury it into his hair, tugging on the strands anxiously as he failed to meet Mal’s glare.

“We’re all in this together. Secrets aren't any use to us.” He muttered. The air simmered, red in color and taste. King hated it.

Mal stared up at him, undaunted. “Well, if you think like that, I might as well get my stuff and–” A second – if even that – was all Malcolm had as warning, and he interrupted his previous thought as quickly as it had come as the air around them thickened ominously. Energy malicious and malevolent bled through the runes and stole the breath from his lungs as he watched the jigsaw pieces of spellwork fit together expertly like a lock and a key meeting.

He could see patterns. Vengeance was one of them. Fire was another. And, despite the rumbling that started on the earth several feet below their position on the fire escape, Mal read Protection in the foreign tongue. “Hold on to something. King– hold onto something.” Mal made a grab for the window they’d came from.

An earth-shattering, ear-shattering boom rippled outwards from the park across the road.

---

---

The Shady Lady wasn’t exactly the sort of establishment Astrid might have frequented back in Verona – not that she would have gone anywhere outside of Lincoln Memorial High and home, and not that her dinky hometown had anything quite so seedy out in the open like this. A faint buzz of magic surrounded the archway of the door, runes built into the wood itself, and she glanced curiously at Mal as he jerked backwards. “Those are some nifty protection sigils they have there,” he said, and promptly walked right through them first into a tight corridor of graffitied wood panelling.

As soon as they were through the entrance, the loud beat of music could be heard beneath their feet. It was an underground club. The door was marked by a painting of a stylised female figure adorned with a witch hat; something that might have been outlawed and shunned by the good people of Seattle in recent years if it didn’t have such strong wards.

“The guy has a private room in the back, she said, didn’t she?”

“How would we even get there? We’re not exactly trusted regulars around here.” Aiden crossed his arms and frowned, pausing in front of the door. With an arm extended in front of the others, he motioned for them to stop with him with a clouded expression. “Guys wait. It’s great that we’re here and all, but what exactly are we trying to do? We can’t just bust in and demand for the spell to be reversed, can we?”

“Of course we can.” Jess answered without skipping a beat. There wasn’t the slightest hint of sarcasm in her tone or her face, as she glanced at everyone in turn before turning to the door. “I mean, unless you can think of another way to find out more about this whole mess. Those punks didn’t know what they were dealing with. Besides! We might be able to buy some cool shit from him. Two birds with one stone, right? There is no way that this could go wrong whatsoever.”

With an excited grin, Jess marched up to the door and studied it for a bit. After a small comment of “Wow, tacky,” she pushed the door open without a second thought.

“I don’t think tacky is the right word for this place.” King mused.

The venue beyond the door wide and glowing and infused with pure magic. King stared. Then he looked away. Then he stared again. Something odd happened as the group passed through the threshold, a magical phenomena that played with King’s eyes for a second longer than it should have. He saw a world within the bar, then a sky, then a forest. Magic tugged at his brain, pulling at threads And then they were inside and he was left maddened and thoughtless in the entrance of a dimly-lit and loud pub.

King wondered, briefly, if whatever protection sigils Mal mentioned had minds of their own. Instead of dwelling on that thought, though, his attention was grabbed easily by the interior of The Shady Lady.

The bar wasn’t unlike anything he had ever seen. Rather, it felt quite ordinary, but at the same time King could see the air shimmer on it’s own accord. Magic was in the air. A dance floor sat in the center of the room, lit with purples and pinks and oranges that all mixed into a blur of luminescence . Metal tables were scattered around it, and beyond all that was a short and booze-filled bar, all lit from behind. Two doors sat on either side of the bar, one marked with a restroom sign and the other blocked off with a slimy-looking red rope.

Everything seemed to be coated in a fine layer of age or grime. All the edges of King’s vision felt grayed out and fried, as if he was standing and staring out at a decrepit and shady scene despite the colors and the high-end looking bottles of booze far beyond their reach.

The music blaring from invisible speakers was electronic; filled with bass and tinny voices. It soaked King’s veins with music and shook the floor beneath his feet.

The place was unsurprisingly quiet save for a few ‘regulars’ – hardened men and women who couldn’t have been much older than them smoking and drinking at the bar; drawing sigils in salt – and the bartender. It was much too early for any real partying, and Mal did wonder if most had stayed at home tonight since sleep took over Seattle. True enough, a small TV in a quiet corner was turned on, and at least half of the patrons were paying some attention to it.

He approached the bartender with the confidence that only a consummate alcoholic might have and leaned on the counter with a blinding smile. “Three vodka and cokes, one vodka – no coke – and... “ Mal paused for just a moment, appraising Astrid’s alcohol tolerance. “A cider. Whatever you’ve got.”

“You know, I had a lot of high expectations for a secret magic bar…” Jess mused, eyeing Mal getting drinks with a slight pout in her lips. “If those drinks aren’t mindblowingly magical, I'll be more disappointed than a boy waiting for his dad to come home.” She plopped down in a nearby chair, draping herself against the back of the seat with an exaggerated sigh. “Let's just get what we came here for and leave. Do you think we need a super secret password to find this magic man in his private room? Or can we just bust our way in? Do you think we’ll get a special ‘show’ in there?”

“Let's just ask first and leave breaking in as a backup plan.” King growled glancing across the bar longingly until he settled on the bored-looking bartender again. His best smile was dragged from the depths of whatever hell he stored all of them as he approached, and the woman made no attempt to straighten up and face him as she worked at their orders. “Ma’am,” King greeted with a dazzling smirk, “Sorry to bother you, but we’re looking for a spell broker who works down here. Have any idea where he is?”

“No clue what you're talking about, kid.” The bartender responded, voice thick and gravelly with abuse. She pushed an ice-cold glass against his knuckles and returned his smile, though King noticed it was much less toothy than his. “Take your drinks and move on, then. I haven't got the time for nosy witches like you.”

“C’mon, half of Seattle’s asleep and we just wanna pick up a few things before the military comes in,” Mal pleaded, lips already on the edge of his glass and a deep gulp of the vodka gone already. Nobody ever called his drinking habits healthy, after all. [color=b3df1f][b]“We were – referred to by a group of goths.”[/color][/b]

Astrid quickly slipped her arm underneath Mal’s to receive her own glass of cider. “We’re… um, on our way out of Washington – trying to find somewhere safer. We – sort of need help for that… Spells.”

The bartender sat back an inch, her unwavering grin twitching tighter as curiosity formed between the cracks of her expression. “Oh, oh– that's why you need him.” She said, simple as that, and nodded towards the room roped off beside the bar. “He’ll be happy to take your orders, so long as you have cash.” She nodded casually to their drinks, “Finish those up; I’ll let him know he has guests.”

King took her command with a raised eyebrows and a tentative sip of his drink. Something bubbled within the sting of vodka, and he automatically assumed it to be magic. It added a strangely satisfying flavor. “Well,” He murmured, “That was easier than expected.”

“But he’ll only let in one into the shop at a time! House rules!”

---

---

King's friends vanished inside, one after another. Between each quiet moment, he would think. Think about the odd pressure he felt from the room beside them. Think about his sister's well being, the odd drink he just tasted, the millions of people sleeping outside this very moment. Boredom grew within him like a plague, and every time someone returned it churned into something more sinister; anger, confusion, annoyance. Every body that entered that damned shop came back with everything BUT what they needed! Mal's initial response planted a seed of thought within King for a moment, and the return of Jess and Aiden only strengthened the curiosity until he finally stood, grumbling softly.

“Are you guys serious? How hard is it to ask for a damn spell?” He approached the curtain with certainty, glancing back at the idiots he begrudgingly called friends with a simple, vicious smile, “Since you all are so easily conned, I guess I'll just have to get the spell. Sit tight.”

King pushed his way into the backroom with a high head and a confident smile, and almost immediately his head ached with pressure. He was trying to keep something out, something foreign and magical. He took a moment to breathe, in and out, and straighten, pushing back the suggestions that filled the air slowly and surely. Something as simple as compulsion magic wasn't going to get him again, oh no. King grinned as his mind whispered-- You are stronger than that. The man standing near the register seemed caught off guard by King's nasty expression, but he quickly saved face and approached with glittering cheeriness.

"How do ya do! You must be friends with the other three, yes?"

“Yep, that's me. You must be the con artist who sold them all junk.”

Again, the broker seemed caught off guard. His eyes widened slightly behind wire-rimmed glasses, head tilting as if he couldn't believe his ears. "Con artist? Me? Oh, sir. You couldn't be more wrong. I'm just a simple salesman-- that's all." He approached, gliding across the floor easily. The candles fluttered as he passed, glittering with their own magic. King inhaled and tasted it on his tongue; compulsions. Thoughts to buy buy buy-- he didn't need all these. As the broker laid a hand on his shoulder King grinned, head tilting back simply. Their eyes met; emotions burned. Confusion and fear and rage. A single thought that wasn't his own came in between them at this exchange of expressions:

This isn't working.

King pushed the broker back with a simple shove and held out a hand to the candles. Wind spurred, just a soft breeze, and the flames were extinguished. “You know, there are better ways to con people. You could blackmail them a bit, that always works.” He surged forward on his toes, smiling as the broker fell back to lean against the counter. “Or you could slap 'em around a bit, people that are afraid will always be ready to buy their way to freedom, hmm?” He snatched the front of the broker's robes, pulling the smaller man closer with a grunt. The broker was already quaking mentally, his thoughts a mess of jumped conclusions and spells to use.

King's smile took a dark turn. “I can hear you, idiot.” Before any verbal spell could be said, King brought his fist up and clocked the man square in the jaw. With that the broker's expression crumbled and he flinched back, hard, eyes falling to the ground in defeat as his glasses tumbled off into the distance.

"You wanted the counter-spell, huh? That's it? He growled, licking his split lip.

“That's it. Come on, fork it over--” He lifted the broker up slightly, knuckles white, “with a discount, if possible. His smirk turned simpler, more innocent, a mask of merriment in a situation of violence. The broker seemed to take this in with a small sigh, and it was only after he bowed his head in agreement that King put him down. He rounded the counter with a passive expression and pulled out a simple wooden box. The contents within were mostly paper; scrools and parchments that looked as though they could be centuries old. One in particular was glowing a light blue, as if it were ready to be set off at any moment. The broker passed him the glowing parchment with a slight shake to his fingers.

"This should undo the sleeping spell put on the city. You'll have to take it to a large field of a high point to cast it. There are instructions on the pager, however." He stared pointedly at his feet, seemingly defeated, and King snorted.

“Thanks. And hey, don't make this a fucking habit. Sleeping cities and other shit like this are just asking to be bombed.” He shoved the page into his back pocket easily, and, before leaving to rejoin his group, he rounded the store in search of something. The broker stared ahead blankly, watching as King snatched up an odd looking camera to examine it. “WHat's this do?”

The broker tilted his head, "You can take images of ghosts with that camera-" A few coins slipped forward and smacked against his chest-- quarters. King's head tilted to one side at the broker's confused expression.

“Im taking it. Hope that's enough-- See ya.” And with a single nod and devilish smirk, he exited.

---

“Hey guys, good news” King said with a smile, slipping back into the room with his bruised knuckles hidden behind his back. His free hand held out the glowing parchment and the old-timey looking camera, ”I got the spell, and! A gift for Astrid." Both items were thrust forward, and his lightheadedness slowly faded away as the overbearing magic from inside the room finally began to settle.

The spell was not difficult, on paper. Nausea flared up in the pit of Astrid’s stomach as she used her brother’s blood to saturate the cloth doll. It wasn’t quite voodoo––she didn’t have any real education on magical history, but she knew enough to know that the spell wasn’t voodoo––but it was the closest thing to it she had ever put into practice. Each movement was careful not to get any excess gore on her fingertips, but speedy enough just to ensure that Richard didn’t faint where he was standing.

Who came up with these things, anyway? How did people make spells that involved decapitating a voodoo doll to cure a city of sleepiness? With Aiden’s borrowed knife and on Mal’s tentative approval (at least that’s what she figured the terse nod was for), she gingerly sliced off the head of the doll and placed both separate parts in the center of the circle, on opposite sides of the well of blood.

The more she looked at the ‘head’, the more it looked like one rather than a bound ball of cloth and straw.

A soft blue glow diffused through the pre-drawn lines of the circle, and Mal gestured for them all to sit down––”For the drain,” he said between chewing on his lip and rereading the spell criteria––before starting the spell. His gaze slipped to King more than once. He was searching for any sign of weakness, of course, that could jeopardize the spell. He wasn’t worried about him, not at all. No siree.

“When the spell starts, after the incantation, we have to hold our form. I think it’ll be, well,” he swallowed. “A wild ride.”

“Good. Sounds like fun.” King took his seat, pressing the awkwardly wrapped wound down onto his knee for the added pressure, “Let’s just get this over with, where’s the dumb spell sheet-” He reached over carefully to pluck the paper from the ground behind them and read over the incantation once, twice, before putting it outside the circle. Cracking a bone in his neck, King leaned forward and gave each of his four companions a hard and understanding stare.

“All of you quit worrying, by the way. Your bad vibes are fucking up with my head.” He waved his wounded hand around quickly, the blood stained rag nearly slipping from his palm due to the ferocity of the gesture. “I’m fine. Now get ready. I’m going to start the chant.”

His head fell, eyes focusing on the dark red splotch on the cloth, and with a droning voice he began to recite the incantation.

At first, it seemed like nothing happened. Jessica did a small double take — was the spell a dud? Were they not powerful enough? Anxiously, she chewed on her bottom lip until she was sure that there were specks of her lipstick staining her teeth. It was after the third time that she shifted her sitting position uneasily that the spell began to truly take effect. Jessica felt the magic hum in the air — so subtly that she dismissed it as just paranoia or something at first. As the hum grew and grew until she swore she could hear it, her back began to slump as she felt her strength getting sapped away by the spell. It wasn’t a new feeling by any means, every magic-user knows the feeling of slight fatigue after casting a spell. Jessica had never felt it to this degree though — it was like a parched person desperately sucking at water through a straw; unrelenting, fast, and desperate.

Perhaps it was the fact that they were too preoccupied with this massive spell that they didn’t notice another presence until it was too late.

“Y-you…! Stop right there!” A wavering voice pierced through the thick veil of magic.

Jessica’s shoulders visibly jumped at the sudden voice, and her gaze snapped up to its source in alarm. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the guy’s face — she’s never been particularly good at remembering them but she swore that it looked familiar. “Who the hell are you?”

“It’s the cop that stopped us when we came into Seattle.” Aiden supplied through gritted teeth. “Guess he’s magical too, since he’s not asleep like the rest of them…”

Mal shuddered as the miasma of otherworldly effects was penetrated by an outsider, like a tiny pinprick in a old balloon, deflating it slowly. A light in the pattern of woven spells blinked out. He quickly muttered under his breath, “King, keep reciting,” and though he thought he could turn around and stand up to face the unwanted intrusion, magic willed it otherwise. He was pinned in his current position, able to only move in small gestures.

Plus, he was feeling a little light-headed. He hadn’t used that much energy beforehand, had he? “Keep reciting so we don’t die––or worse, end up drained, and the poor Sleeping Beauties in the city don’t get saved,” he repeated, loud enough this time for the cop to hear it.

“Stop what you’re doing,” the cop said, though only slightly more uncertain than he was before. “I’m armed and I will draw on you. Put your––” He was interrupted by the crack of ozone above their heads, but forged on. “Hands where I can see them!”

Despite stuck in one place, in one position, Mal snarled out, “Listen! We’re fixing whatever was done here. If you’re going to shoot us like you’re supposed to, do it after we wake up a few hundred thousand people!” On the third run-through of the incantation, the circle lit up fully with a bright, blinding light. In his mind’s eye, the alchemist could see each and every individual spiral of the spell’s inner workings coming to life. The magic being leached out of their reservoirs flooded into a kaleidoscope of colours, like food colouring in water. Its destination was the doll.

(King’s magic was as red as blood, ebbing out of him slowly and surely. If the mechanics of magic were not so wondrous, Mal would have cringed away from the sight of it.)

A jolt of electricity ran down his spine, and it seemed as if the others felt the same sensation of discomfort. The magic dissipated, and some of it – the excess – blessedly returned to them like an an elastic band pulled too far and snapping back.

They were not the only one to feel it. The cop’s legs almost buckled under his weight, and he was forced to keep himself upright with one hand on the grassy hill. “What was that? What did you do? Tell me,” he demanded, though it was clear he didn’t have the strength to do anything, let alone overcome five magically gifted teenagers.

Astrid wiped at her eyes in a futile attempt to stave away a headache. “We tried to wake up Seattle. It might have… I think it worked.” The eclipsing fog was clearing up, and for the first time in almost a day, it was possible to see the city’s skyline in all its beauty –– and horror. Fires brought on by the damage from the initial sleeping spell had not yet been put out. People would wake up to chaos. “Look, sir, we’re not the ones who did all this, but we’re the ones who tried to fix it.” She tried to rub some feeling back into her legs, which had gone numb with an unnatural cold during the spell, so that she could stand. “Are you going to make this difficult and arrest us, or are you going to let us get out of here before the cavalry’s called in?”

There was a pause where it seemed as if the officer was going to go for his gun, having made his decision. Instead, he straightened himself up, albeit weakly. “Yeah. Go,” he said. “Go before I change my mind.”

It didn’t leave them much time to lick their wounds and return to the van, but there was a chance.