Christof

43. All Wrong

Winnie’s first thought was that she’d somehow been transported underground. She could hear voices, but they were muffled, as though something were covering her ears. Worse, something was covering her entire body—dirt, or some kind of pebbly rubble. Perhaps the ceiling had collapsed; there was something heavy resting on her back.

She could move, kind of, but it felt wrong. Her limbs felt swollen and stiff. They must be numb since she couldn’t feel her hands, fingers, or feet. Had they been crushed?

Panicked, she tried to remain motionless. Moving her crushed limbs would make them worse. Why didn’t she feel any pain? Was she in shock? Maybe. She felt cold, yet her surroundings felt warm. Was this blood loss? Was her body shutting down?

Winnie tried to scream—in distress, in pain, in fear. All that came from her mouth was a pitiful wail that sounded wrong. She couldn’t make words; her tongue felt swollen. And her teeth… were missing? Everything about her mouth was wrong. Everything about her body was wrong.

She screamed again. Again, the same raspy wail. This time, she didn’t stop.

Her inertia shifted; she was moving. Then something indistinct was before her, hardly visible in the dark. She screamed again. It came closer. It wasn’t human. Was it a ship? Someone in an armored suit? No. It was… a hand? A giant hand?

It flicked her on the face.

“Shut up, you. We’re talking.”

The hand floated away. Winnie followed it with her eyes. It was attached to a giant human, one that was holding her.

And then she understood.

She wasn’t buried underground.

She was being held by a human.

…a human that looked identical to her.

Winnie closed her eyes. Concentrating on her power, she visualized herself.

She was a tortoise.

She screamed all over again. In her mind, she saw her tortoise-self make the same little yelping gasps Marzipan had been making. It was pitiful. No one would ever know what she was trying to convey. This was a terrible dream, or a bad trip. Even her mind felt broken and sluggish.

A part of her was aware of her bladder releasing.

“Oh, hell,” her human body said. It shuffled her from hand to hand as it shook off urine. It looked her in the eye again. It’s expression was alien to Winnie, as though she’d seen the face a million times, and now it didn’t look like a face anymore. It took her time to realize it was sneering.

“Tell me we don’t have to take these shits with us.” Winnie’s tortoise ears could hardly make sense of his words. It was only through her power that she could understand him.

“No,” said Helena, or whoever was occupying her body, “We can leave them. This one though.” The Helena impostor stepped over the enclosure and picked up Marzipan, or rather the real Helena. Everything was starting to make terrible sense. “This is Victoria’s daughter. We will take her with us.”

Winnie’s body put Winnie on the ground. Winnie tried to stand, but failed.

“Hold it.” This was the caretaker. “That one has a power.”

“This one?” A foot rested on Winnie, keeping her pinned.

“Yes. It has awareness of all that it chooses to notice, at least that’s my best guess.”

“Anything?”

“In the present physical world, yes.”

“Then Victoria will no doubt consider her valuable.” Helena’s imposter faced Winnie’s imposter. “Alex, hold on to her. Christof, are there any other powers here?”

“Three that I see,” the caretaker replied. “Sibyl is over there. And there and there are two others.”

“Point them out. We’re taking them with us.”

“Why?” replied Winnie’s impostor, apparently Alex. “If we walk out of here with an armload of tortoises, we might draw some attention.”

“Victoria locked them in here just like she did us. They could be allies. And we need to know their powers. Anything they can do, she can do. Come.”

Alex picked Winnie up. They walked to the other enclosures. The one called Christof stopped before one. “Here is Sibyl.”

“Damnit,” the Helena impostor muttered.

Alex burst out laughing.

Winnie saw in her mind what was wrong. The tortoise was humongous. So much so that any one of them could climb on its shell. It’s plaque said it was a Galapagos tortoise.

“Oh my God,” Alex said. “She’s still a fat-ass.” He stooped to look the tortoise in the eye. It gazed back. “Oh. Oh my. They had to put her on a diet… because she was gaining weight.”

“Take this seriously,” impostor Helena said.

“Should we swap her with one of the other tortoises?” Christof asked.

“We’ll have to.”

“Or,” Alex regained his composure, “we leave her, because she’s deadweight. Heavy deadweight.”

“We are not leaving her behind,” impostor Helena said. “Or any of the powers.”

“We can’t have much time. Any minute she could figure out we’ve escaped. We can’t go saving everyone.”

“Would you rather I have left you?”

“I am useful. Sibyl is not.”

“We are not leaving anyone behind. You might not realize this, but Victoria is the queen of the world now.”

“What?” Christof said.

“Of course I know that,” Alex replied.

“Then you will realize that escaping is just the beginning of our problems. She will hound us to the ends of the earth. We need allies. We need to work together.”

“Hold on,” Christof said. “She’s the queen? Of the world?”

The Helena impostor hushed him. A white flashlight beam danced from behind the trees and shrubs. Winnie could see who it was long before they could. Two guards were approaching. She recognized one from the night before.

“How many?” Helena impostor peered toward the light? “Is it two?”

“Yes. Two,” answered Christof. “Do we hide?”

“No. They must know we’re here. But this is good. Alex, you can read tortoise minds, right?”

“Did you miss just now when I read Sibyl’s?”

“Go with Christof. Figure out which of the other two will most likely help us and bring them. Go. Be quick!”

Christof hid the tortoise in his hands behind the enclosure. Alex did the same with Winnie. They hurried off toward the other enclosures. As the guards approached, the Helena impostor likewise put Helena out of view with the others. Winnie knew what was about to happen, the impostor would need her hands free, because she was about to steal those guard’s bodies.

This was a nightmare. No, it was worse, because no matter how foggy or slow Winnie’s mind was working, she couldn’t wake up from this. It was reality, and it was all because of her. She had cracked Marzipan’s cage. She had invited that impostor to come down here, where all these other prisoners were. And now these guards would suffer too.

But right now, she couldn’t think about that. Her captors had put her down, and they were preoccupied with the coming guards. If there was ever a chance to escape, it was now. It wasn’t just a matter of saving herself and Helena, is was about not letting herself become a pawn.

These people had been the queen’s prisoners once. They clearly still feared her. She would have all of their powers on that necklace of hers. That meant she could swap bodies. Why had she never told anyone about that? …well, there were probably a thousand reasons why not, but Winnie didn’t ponder them right now. What was important was that Victoria had the power fix all of this.

If Winnie could get away, then she couldn’t be used against Victoria. It was all she could do, but it would help.

It was time to figure out how to be tortoise.

Winnie concentrated on her new body. Her limbs felt like stumped clubs. She tried setting them on the ground and lifting. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get her legs beneath her. It had to be possible though.

She looked at herself with her mind and saw a tortoise trying to do ballet with its legs bunched up beneath it. Of course that was wrong. Tortoises walked with their legs out to the side. She tried it. The stumps of her new limbs pressed flat against the ground. She felt like a bow-legged cowboy, but it worked. Concentrating, she put on foot in front of the other. It was progress. Up ahead, she could see the shrubs along the side of the walkway. If she disappeared into that, then maybe she could hide from her captors.

Then a tortoise cried from behind her. Glancing with her mind, she saw Helena struggling to catch up. She was doing the same ballet leg bunching Winnie was doing. Close behind her was the caretaker. He’d figured out how to stand and was looking from Winnie to Helena. He couldn’t possibly know what was going on, but he seemed more in control that Helena.

It was excruciating waiting for Helena to catch up, but Winnie did so. She kept her mental eye on the humans.

The guards came close. The one with a flashlight was potbellied. He aimed the light at the impostor.

She shielded her eyes. “Hello?”

“Your Highness? Are we going to go through this again?”

The potbellied guard heard Alex and Christof mucking about at the other enclosures. He shined his light. “Who’s over there?”

The others approached. Alex carried a tortoise.

“You’re taking them out for a stroll this time, I see.” The guard focused on Christof, who was in the caretaker’s body. “Did you let them in here?”

“I did,” Christof replied.

“This couldn’t wait until morning? This place is supposed to be off limits at this hour.”

“Nevermind that,” Alex said. “Look at this little guy. Here.” He held the tortoise out toward the guard with the flashlight.

“I don’t want to—”

Helena grabbed his hand and slapped it onto the tortoise’s back.

A shiver passed through all of them. The guard collapsed. “Wooaah,” he yelled. “Woah woah woah. What? What the fuck?”

The other guard reached for his sidearm, but Alex, Christof, and the Helena impostor swarmed him. Each grabbed an arm and wrestled him into the pen with the galapagos tortoise.

“What. Hey?” The struggling guard fought against the others, but his legs caught on the low enclosure wall and he tumbled backward next to the giant animal. The Helena impostor placed a hand on both. Another shiver.

The giant tortoise wailed and thrashed. The Helena impostor and the others quickly got out of the enclosure.

Compared to the flashlight guard. Whoever took this person’s body was much more calm. They looked about wildly, then settled their gaze on the Helena impostor. “Sakhr?”

“Yes, it’s me,” the Helena impostor said.

She looked about at the other two. “Alexander? Christof?”

“That’s right,” Christof said.

Winnie’s mind caught on that. Alex was short for Alexander? There was a man in her body? That was such a worse violation than before. What would that man do with it? If Winnie got her body back, would it ever feel clean again? She tried not to dwell on it. Helena had finally figured out how to walk like a tortoise. She caught up with Winnie, and together with the caretaker, they hiked into the shrubs. Winnie led the way.

“How did you escape,” the guard asked. They’d called him Sibyl, right? That was a woman’s name.

“It’s a long story,” Sakhr said.

“Yes,” Alex said. “And quick question. Am I drunk?”

“Yes. We both are.”

“Ah. I see.” Alexander took the sidearm from the one called Sibyl. She didn’t seem to notice. He pondered for a moment how to holster it on the dress Winnie had been wearing, then made do with tucking it down down Winnie’s cleavage. It hung out of the dress awkwardly, but stayed put.

“Excuse me!” This yell came from behind them. The guard who’d held the flashlight was still sitting on the ground. Beside him lay the tortoise Alexander had carried. In the struggle, it had dropped onto the walkway. Its shell cracked open. Red flesh glistened within. Blood seeped. The wails it made were pitiful. Winnie had only been a tortoise for minutes, but she already understood its pain—like having her nails crack and fall off, exposing the nail bed, only for her entire back. Whoever was inside that tortoise was going to die, slowly and miserably.

She could only plod onward.

The impostors turned their attention to the guard sitting down.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “I’m free?”

“In a matter of speaking,” replied Sakhr.

“You freed me?”

“I got you out of the tortoise, yes.”

“Is Victoria dead? Are you the queen now?”

“No. This is a jailbreak. I have released you because we believe you might be of help to us in getting free.”

“Free?” said the man. “What are you escaping from?”

Alex chimed in. “He thinks you’re the queen’s daughter.”

“I am not,” Sakhr corrected. “I took this body for myself, just as I gave you that body.”

The man blinked, then glanced down at himself. “What the hell? Who the hell am I? Who’s body is this?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s fat. I wasn’t fat. Where’s my body?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We don’t have time to get you another body right now. We are currently inside—”

“Will we get my body back?”

“Listen. The only reason we got you out is because my friend here thinks you can help us escape,” Sakhr gestured to Alex, “but if you’re going complain, we can put you back in the tortoise and leave you. Understand?”

The man looked at the broken tortoise beside him. It didn’t move much anymore.

“Yeah. Okay. I get it,” the man said, “but we will deal with this later, right? This isn’t my body forever now. Maybe we’ll find mine?”

Sibyl spoke. “And do you think maybe I could get a woman’s body? I don’t want to be a man.”

Sakhr held his palms up. “Later, everyone. Right now, I want to know who you are.” He looked at the other man.

“I’m Quentin Avery.”

“Do you have a power?”

“A what?”

“Yes, he does,” answered Christof. “Some kind of understanding of the world around him.”

“He has an extra sense?”

Christof shook his head. “No. It’s… understanding, not knowledge or awareness. He intuits the natural world.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Quentin asked.

Sakhr studied him. “Your power. Your… flair, I suppose. You do know about it, don’t you?”

“Flairs? You mean those magic things? No. I don’t have a flair.”

“Katherine never told him,” Alex said, “but he’s an inventor. This is the guy who developed repulser technology. He didn’t have to work very hard at it either. Hey,” he snapped his finger at Quentin. “Look at me.”

Quentin gave him a scrunched look. Alex gazed back as though reading small font.

He was reading Quentin’s mind, without a glyph. That made him the original mind reader, not Bishop as Victoria had let Winnie believe. All of these people were the original flairs, and they hadn’t been Victoria’s loyal exemplars, but her captives. That meant Winnie and Sara the shield girl were the only two flairs who weren’t prisoners. Winnie didn’t have time to dwell on the implications of that either. Right now, she needed to escape.

She, Helena, and the caretaker were well off the path, but they weren’t hidden yet. She’d already found a spot beneath a hedge where they could hide. Its underneath was a pocket that a human would have a hard time reaching into. If nothing else, it would stall these impostors and buy Victoria more time to find out about this. If Victoria set all this right, Winnie would never, ever, ever do anything disobedient again.

Alex was still scrutinizing Quentin’s eyes. “Yeah. Science. That’s his power, and he definitely didn’t get it from studying. Katherine kept him in the dark on purpose.”

“What the hell are you all talking about?” said Quentin. “Who’s Katherine.”

“You know her as Victoria,” Sakhr said. “You have a supernatural power. She knew about it, but she never told you.”

“What? How the hell could you know?”

“Because we too have powers. I can swap bodies with others. Alexander here can read minds. Christof can see your power directly. Sibyl is an empath. You, it seems, have a supernatural understanding of the sciences.”

“Uh, or I’m… you know, intelligent.”

“Perhaps. We’ll discuss it later. Only one question matters now. Victoria locked us into these animals and kept us like pets. I don’t know how long I’ve been her captive, but now that I’m out, I will make her pay for what she did to me, and ensure she can never threaten me again.” He stared fixedly at Quentin. “I don’t know you. I don’t know what your relationship with her was or why she locked you away like us. All I care about is this: Will you help me destroy her?”

A smile spread over Quentin’s face. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll help you. Let’s kill the bitch.”

“Excellent.” Sakhr turned to Christof. “The other tortoise. Does he have useful powers?”

“Very useful,” Christof replied.

“Unfortunately,” Alex said, “he won’t help us.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll be a liability. Trust me.”

“Hmm. Get him anyway.” He scanned the ground. Winnie could tell he was looking for her and the others. Fortunately, they were just now entering the hidden pocket beneath the shrub.

“Sibyl?” Sakhr said. “There are three people hiding from us. Where are they?”

Sibyl didn’t even have to to think. She pointed, through the leaves and bushes, directly at Winnie. “Are you talking about them over there?” she asked. “They crawled away when they thought no one was looking.”

Winnie’s heart sank. Of course the empath would see her. Winnie’s great escape amounted to nothing. The imposters reached the bush before Winnie could even consider running farther.

She wasn’t going to go peacefully though. She oriented herself toward them and prepared.

Christof and Sibyl knelt and reached for them. Winnie snapped her jaw. Christof whipped his hand away.

“Damn,” he said. “They’re fighting.”

Winnie tasted blood. It was the caretaker’s body. Hopefully he’d be okay with that once he got his body back.

Sibyl reached from the other side and snatched Helena. Helena thrashed and snapped, but it didn’t help. The caretaker had his jaw ready, but Christof caught him from behind too, giving him no chance to fight back. Only Winnie was left, but they wouldn’t sneak up on her. Her power let her see their approach. Christof got down on his belly and reached in from two sides. Winnie whipped her head back and forth to face both hands, her jaw ready to clamp.

He reached with his left, she snapped, then he latched his right onto her shell. With leverage, he kept her from turning as he got a steady hold of her and pulled her out. He peered at her at eye level. “That wasn’t nice,” he said.

Back with the others, Sakhr took Helena from Sibyl.

“What about these two?” asked Christof.

“Leave them.”

“But this one has powers.”

“Oh, right.” He considered. “Then yes. Bring it.”

“What’s the plan?” asked Alex.

“Simple,” said Sakhr. “No one knows that we’re out yet, but we’re still not free. As far as anyone else can tell, I’m the queen’s daughter and you’re all with me. We walk out the front door.”

41. Time to be Kings

2038, June 8th
Collapse – 11 years

“Time to be kings,” Alexander said.

Time indeed, Sakhr thought. Having a tower halt everything to greet him was not a pleasure he had ever had before. Money had never been a problem, but this was a life money couldn’t buy. This required fame, something Sakhr had arduously avoided until now.

A small woman approached. She was olive-skinned—a common color here.

“Greetings. My name is Madeline. I’m Victoria’s assistant coordinator. Are you Sakhr?” Her aura was nervous, self-conscious. It put Sakhr at ease.

“I am.”

“And you must be…”

“Alexander.” He bowed.

She greeted Sibyl and Christof, then turned back to Sakhr. “If you will please follow me. I will take you to Victoria.”

She led them to a conference room on the fifty-fifth floor. It had an office feel, complete with a conference phone and a projector at one end with a cable for a computer to connect to. It wasn’t quite what Sakhr was expecting. After preparing them drinks, Madeline assured them Victoria would be right with them, and she left.

They took seats and waited. After Madeline’s aura disappeared off the edge of Sakhr’s Empathy, he realized that no one else was around. No one at all. He knew the building was still under construction, but certainly there would be someone nearby. Or was this building mostly abandoned? Why meet here then?

He sensed her approach long before she entered the room. Four auras came up the elevator. One he recognized as Madeline. She split off once they were on the same floor. The other three approached. Hers was easy to identify. It bled arrogance.

He figured it would, but sensing it didn’t ease him. She would be difficult to work with. There would be many disagreements between her and Sakhr. It wouldn’t take long before one of those disagreements became an irreconcilable problem.

Two auras waited outside.

Victoria entered. She was every bit as beautiful as the news made her out to be. Sakhr didn’t know why, but that put him more ill at ease.

“I’m glad to finally meet you in person,” he said.

She settled into a chair at the head of the table. “Likewise.”

“Are those your guards outside the door?”

“They are.”

“One might think you don’t trust us,” Alex said.

Sakhr cast him a glare.

Victoria replied calmly. “If I felt threatened by you, they would be waiting inside the room with us. They’re for everyone else. In the past decade, I’ve made quite an impact on the local region through LakiraLabs. I’ve brought a lot of jobs and aid to the community. The place has been thriving like it never has before. I’m sure you’ve heard the news refer to me as the baroness of South America. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Unfortunately, not everyone sees my impact as a positive thing. Many see me as a unwelcome capitalistic influence.”

“I can imagine,” Sakhr said. “We passed through Brazil once decades ago, during the first Cold War. It was not a time to be making ripples. I can’t imagine it’s much different now.”

“South America is not as involved as it was before, but it still faces political troubles.”

“It leaves the question,” Sakhr asked. “Why relocate your company’s headquarters here? Why leave the US at all?”

“It’s certainly brought its hassles, but it’s was worth it. The burden of the United States’ latest laws and regulations had been hindering our progress. LakiraLabs already outsourced labor to Brazil and Venezuela. Moving here put us closer to our operations. And I’ve had an easier time shaping the law to my needs. The South American governments are more amenable to my money.”

“When they’re not threatening your life,” Sakhr added.

“Most of that threat actually comes from outside parties. My influence over labor laws here has negatively impacted the bottom line of many American corporations that outsource here. They pressure the US government, who in turn pressure the South American governments to put a stop to my growth. My most dangerous detractor, if you’ll believe it, has been a banana company that exports from here. I’ve caught them working with drug cartels to raise hell on my territory. So far, no government is willing to acknowledge this. Then there are the Russians denouncing me as a capitalistic exploiter. They fund rebel groups in the region. Frankly, if it weren’t for my edge, I would have failed a while ago.”

“Your edge being the powers you’ve stolen from us, right?” Alex said.

“I merely copied, but yes, with yours and others’ powers.”

“And when exactly did you copy our powers?” Alex said. “I’m sure Sakhr merely forgot to tell me.”

“Several months ago.”

“Funny. You only been in contact with us for three weeks.”

“Alexander…” Sakhr warned.

“It’s quite all right. I’m a careful woman. I observed your group as a matter of my own safety. I’ve had bad experiences when reaching out to other such flairs.”

“Others?” Christof perked up. “What other powers have you discovered?”

“A few. Years back, I found a man named Quentin Avery. He has a power which gives him a fundamental understanding of our world’s physical properties. He works with a team of my scientists out of a think tank in Virginia.”

“I see,” Sakhr said. “Hence your repulser field.”

“Hence all of our technologies which have put LakiraLabs decades ahead of its time. Not only do I have Quentin, but with my ability to write glyphs, I’ve hidden glyphs inside the ID badges of all of LakiraLabs scientists, allowing them to be better at their jobs.”

“Very clever,” Sakhr replied, “but why are you hiding the glyphs from your own people? When you first contacted me, you expressed the desire for us to come out of the shadows.”

“Which,” Alex interjected, “not all of us are on board with.”

Both Victoria and Sakhr ignored him.

“I do intend for that, but not on a wholesale level. Flairs are my edge. If I were to reveal that edge, others would try to gain it. I plan to keep both flairs and my technological advantage until I’m done expanding my domain. Only then will I reveal the powers, and only in a manner I can control.”

This constant use of the singular I bothered Sakhr, as was the way she wouldn’t look any of them in the eye. “How much do you intend expand your domain?” he asked.

“As much as possible.”

“So…” Alex said. “You want to conquer the world?”

“Yes.”

Alex laughed. “Wow. You’re for real. You actually think that, don’t you?”

“With the tactical use of your flairs, I can.”

“Of course you can. We could have done that any time we wanted. Maybe you don’t know about Sakhr’s power, but he could be president of the United States by tomorrow. Each one of us could be a world leader.”

“It’s not the same. You would be the world’s figureheads, but you wouldn’t rule it. You’d have to hide behind the bodies you puppeteer.”

“So it’s about arrogance then?”

“No. What I mean is you could not change things the way they are. You’d have the power of the presidents, but that’s it. That power if far from absolute. They have congress’s to appease and elections to run. They cannot change the world with their will, but must compromise with everything they do. Even if you surpassed that obstacle, you could only change the world so much. Your coven does not have real power, not yet.”

“We could stop the cold war resurgence tomorrow if we wanted,” Alex said.

“You could,” she agreed. “Why haven’t you?”

“Because it’s not our concern. I don’t care about saving the world. I care about living in it the way I choose.”

“Does he speak for all of you?” Victoria glanced around. “You don’t care about the world?”

“Of course we care,” Sakhr said. “We live in it, but by taking over important people, we would risk exposing ourselves.”

“And so you choose to stand by and hope that the world fixes itself? Even when you could correct it?”

“We could alleviate the situation between the world’s superpowers for a time,” Sakhr said, “but as you point out, our power would be limited. The amount of effort it would take to wrest the countries out of their own madness would be monumental.”

“Of course it would,” Victoria said, “but I haven’t failed yet, not significantly so.”

“So what then?” Alex said. “You’re going to fix the world? Listen. You’ve only been on this planet a few decades. We’ve been here for centuries. We’ve—”

“And yet you are all exactly where you have always been,” Victoria said. “A group of nomadic travelers who steal what they want and run at the first sign of trouble.”

“Do not accuse us of cowardice, Victoria,” Sakhr said.

“I’m not. I’m accusing you of wasting your potential. I, on the other hand, have worked for fifteen years toward this goal. I own countless tracts of land across South and Central America as well as other parts of the world. My control over the regional politics is near absolute. I’ve made a small business into a dominant international empire using technologies I’ve developed and brought to market—technologies that have shaped every corner of this planet.”

Sakhr was silent. This conversation was going in a direction he hadn’t predicted. She was acting different then the few other times he’d spoken to her. He wondered if Alex had been right. Answering her call may have been a mistake, regardless of any risk from ignoring her.

Alex argued on. “That’s fantastic for you. We don’t want to run businesses and governments. We’re content as we are.”

“No. You’re complacent. You’ve wasted these powerful gifts on worthless indulgence.”

“Oh right,” Alex gestured to the room. “None of this is indulgent. Your own personal tower. Making yourself baroness of the region. Perfectly frugal.”

“Unlike you, I am accomplishing something. I am using my gift to its fullest potential, as well as all other powers I encounter. I explore them, figure out out how they work, what I can make them do. And then I use those powers to accomplish great things. You are content to accept your station in life. I have never stopped asking questions.”

With that remark, Sakhr knew.

An echo of a memory flew into his mind like a key and unlocked the full picture. In one singular moment, every gap filled in. Every question was answered. He understood what she was doing, why he was here, and why none of this felt right. It all made hideous sense.

The other’s kept arguing, yet their voices came to him from miles away. Sakhr reflected on the fatal mistake he’d made. Though his features hid his revelation, he knew Victoria could see his aura. Her own swelled exultantly, even while answering another inane remark of Alex’s. She knew he knew.

What could he do? What could he possibly do that she hadn’t already considered? The trap was sprung hours ago, and the cat was playing with it’s food. If he ran, the guards were beyond the door—guards who’s bodies he knew he wouldn’t be able to steal; he was certain she’d thought of that. Could he leap to his death? He was over fifty floors up. As long as he could shatter the window, he might save himself from whatever fate she had for him, but he couldn’t. After centuries of wandering, never had he realized more than right now how much he wanted to live.

“I’m sure,” Alex said, completely oblivious, “You’re amazingly proud of yourself. I never doubted that for a minute. But you still don’t get it. We don’t care. Why bother ruling the world at all? Apart from the appeal to megalomaniacs such as yourself, that kind of power doesn’t give us anything we don’t already have.”

“It’s about making a difference.”

More auras were coming up the elevator. These ones were tense, ready for combat. The ruse would be up soon.

“Oh, so you’re a humanitarian then,” Alex replied. “You’re pretty damn naive if you think you’ll amount to any positive change in the world. I’ve been around a lot longer than you, woman. I’ve seen a dozen dictators spout words just like yours. You’re just—”

“Alex,” snapped Sakhr.

Alex looked at him, already sneering for what he thought was Sakhr coming down on her side. But then he saw into Sakhr’s eyes, and it came together. He startled to his feet, his chair clattering over, as though he’d finally seen the gun pointed at his head this whole time.

“What?” Christof said. “What’s going on?”

Sibyl was frozen like a mouse.

“No, Alexander,” Victoria said. “You do not know patience. In your centuries of life, you have never spent more than a year working toward any endeavor. I, however, have been working towards a goal ever since a very singular event happened to me. You might recall when. It was around same time that all of you found a particular girl in an airport. You took her in. You told her she was special. You treated her like a friend, and when you found out that she could pose a threat to you, you broke into her home and murdered her and her father.”

“…Katherine?” The word came from Christof.

Alexander looked around wildly, frantic for a course of action. It didn’t matter. That girl wouldn’t reveal herself unless there was nothing he could do. Sakhr wanted to try, maybe get to the door, or attack the woman, but his logic told him it would only amount to an undignified struggle—a wild animal fighting against its net.

Victoria kept talking. “You might remember that girl had the ability to copy other powers once she understood them well enough. The first power she took was yours, Alex. It made discovering the secrets to the others easier for her.” She looked at Sakhr. “Do you remember what you thought before giving her to Alex to murder? What a shame. You looked her in the eye when you thought that.”

Alex charged Victoria. Something stopped him. Sakhr felt a burst of air against his face. An unseen wall divided the room—a repulse field. It was probably on even before she entered. Not a single chance taken.

Alex tried to push through it. As though pressing repulsing magnets together, his hands kept veering off to either side. Wind burst each time.

Victoria sat peacefully on her side. “That girl’s story ended that night. But there was a fly that landed on her body before she died, no doubt attracted to the blood. The story of that fly is dull. It flew about aimlessly for hours afterward, until sheer chance would have it land on the arm of a boy who watched as police carried bodies from his neighbor’s house. His story is more interesting. Days later, he ran away from home, only to turn up in a week, behaving just like a dog. Tragic.”

Everyone but Victoria and Sakhr was out of their chairs. Christof and Sibyl both wasted time testing the repulse field. Alex was trying to force open the door to the hall. There was no point. If Sakhr was going to escape, it would not come from scratching the cage’s walls. Victoria would need someone to grab him for whatever she had planned. That would be those auras coming toward the door. That might be a chance. If he could manage to swap bodies, he’d have a chance. To hell with the others.

Or perhaps he could bargain. He could capitulate to her, help her take the others while he served. God, how he would detest serving this little girl, but he could do it, for centuries if he needed. Alex might not know patience, but he did. So long as he didn’t die here.

“There are other stories like that boy’s,” Victoria said, “stories of more important people: business men and politicians. They might encounter a friendly cat or a bird, and their behavior changes wildly. They’d make make drastic changes to their finances, only to break down one day and believe themselves to be animals.” She held out her hands to present herself. “I am the victim of this pattern as well. Me, Victoria Palladino. As an adolescent. I was a bubbly, over-privileged child drifting through her education like a unmanned vessel. I was to inherit my father’s tech company, but I didn’t have shred of ambition. That all changed one day when a bird collided with my pet dog while I was walking on the Princeton campus. My dog acted most peculiarly the rest of the day. Especially that night, when it attacked me as though I were an impostor. The poor thing had to be put down, and I’ve never been the same since.”

No one was listening to her. Christof had joined Alex in breaking down the door. It might as well have been made from brick. Sibyl was weeping in the corner. Her comfort threshold had been crossed. She would be useless now.

“That was the summer I found my drive. I became a woman who deserved the company she would inherit. The only person to ever question this change was my father. He sensed I wasn’t quite the little girl he’d raised. It unfortunately caused a rift in our relationship. Not that it matters now. He had a mental break himself. He lives in Silverside Sanitorium now, though I’m sure he’d be proud of my success. You see, Sakhr, when one is as gifted as we are, it’s amazing how much we can accomplish if only we have the proper drive.”

“Will you shut up, you little bitch,” Alexander said.

The doors burst open. Men poured in, all in hazmat suits and wielding stun batons. One shocked Alex before he could react. Christof rushed them, only to drop when one buried their baton in his chest. Sibyl cowered at their approach. They stunned her anyway.

Then they turned to Sakhr, and his dignity was gone. He was poised like a feral cat. Pouncing, he pulled at masks and tore at fabric, trying desperately to expose any skin.

The batons reached him first. His body failed. On the ground now, he kicked and screamed as they piled onto him, but it was too little, and much too late. With his face pressed against the carpet, he could see the feet of the others as they dragged Alexander, Christof, and Sibyl from the room. It was just him and the people holding him down… and her.

“Put him on the table,” Victoria said. The men dragged Sakhr up where he could see her. She was still reclined in her chair, making a phone call.

Someone answered immediately.

“I’m ready for Mr. Bishop now.” She hung up without waiting for a reply.

Sakhr tried to remember anything about the name Bishop, but he’d never heard of it. “Wait,” he stammered. “Just wait. Don’t kill me. We can talk about this.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. You’re much too valuable to waste.”

“What?” Sakhr struggled helplessly. “What are you talking about? What are you going to do?”

She got up and came around too look at him as though he were a specimen. “Where’s Josephine?”

“…What?”

“Josephine. I had expected her to be with you, but apparently not. You must have some idea where she is.”

Sakhr’s mind raced. This non-sequitur had no meaning to him. He’d never heard that name before. Was she someone close to Victoria? Did she think Sakhr had done something to someone named Josephine? Something she blamed him for?

Victoria frowned. “You really don’t know that name at all, do you? I’ll find her eventually. I have patience, and you’ll be waiting right along with me.”

The door opened again, and a woman dressed as an orderly entered, pushing along a geriatric old man in a wheelchair. He looked as frail as old parchment and had not a single hair on his gaunt body. Oxygen tubes snaked around his ears and wrapped under his nose, yet his breaths still took heaving effort. An antiseptic hospital smell wafted in with him.

This must be Mr. Bishop, and Mr. Bishop looked at Sakhr with lively, hopeful eyes unbefitting of his dying body.

“No,” Sakhr yelled. He struggled anew. “Don’t put me in that body. Please, Victoria. Katherine. I’ll do what you want. I’ll serve you if that’s what you wish. For however long. I’m sorry. I was wrong. Just please! Don’t put me in that body.”

“I won’t.” Victoria smiled at him. “I have promised Mr. Bishop your body, but I wouldn’t dare leave you in a body on death’s door.”

Sakhr looked at her with wild, confused eyes as Victoria took a box from the orderly.

From inside, she took out a tortoise and set it on Sakhr’s chest. “Meet Marzipan.”

This marks the end of Part 1. Thank you all who’ve been reading so far.

I’d love to hear from you, whatever your thoughts or critiques may be.

34. Time for a Change

2038, June 8th
Collapse – 11 years

Alexander pressed a button on his armrest. His seat moved forward. Another button, and it reversed direction. Like all seats on the airplane, it had a staggering number of buttons available. Sakhr had also enjoyed experimenting. One set of buttons had puzzled him, until he figured out it moved a lump in the lower back of his seat. Lumbar support, he supposed. How amusing. But unlike Alex, Sakhr and the others eventually settled down and behaved like adults. Alexander was still goofing around four hours into the flight.

Alexander pressed another button and watched as his chair stretched into a fully-reclined bed. “It’s the sedan of private airplanes,” he said.

No one answered.

A flight attendant entered from behind a small curtain separating the cabin from the cockpit. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes. If everyone would please fasten their seat belts.” She stepped through the cabin, checking on Sibyl, Christof, Sakhr, and finally Alexander. “Sir, You need to return your seat to its upright position.”

He looked into her eyes and grinned. “Can we can make an exception? I think I prefer the bed to the chair.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s for safety.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s regulation.”

“Very well. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” He corrected his chair. The attendant smiled and moved on.

Alexander eyed her backside as she retreated to the curtain. His aura was saturated with a disgusting shade of lust. No, thought Sakhr. It was different than that. Lust was desire. This aura was of someone who couldn’t wait to claim a prize they’d already won. It was revolting.

Sakhr was beginning to understand how Sibyl always felt. He’d only had the power of Empathy for a week, and it had given him more insight into Alexander’s psyche than he ever wanted to know. At least he could turn the power off by removing a small card from his wallet and setting it aside. It had the look and feel of a credit card, except with no numbers or microchips, just designs on it’s surface. It reminded Sakhr of a celtic knot or a middle eastern tapestry, a meaningless cluster of lines and curves that represented nothing.

“You don’t suppose she’s included in the accommodations, do you?” Alexander said. His aura stood poised, waiting for any of them to react. “I might need her on my other flights to make sure I’m in an upright position when I need to be.”

“Will you settle down?” Sakhr said.

Alexander’s aura swelled with satisfaction. “What? She wants me.”

Sakhr ignored him, until Alex reclined his seat back into a bed. “Put your seat back and behave yourself.”

“She just said those things because its her job. This is a private flight. If we want to have a dance while the plane lands, there’s nothing she can do about it.”

“Put it back up.”

“What? For safety? What are the odds this plane is going to crash?”

Sakhr didn’t answer.

Alex leaned and peered at him. “No, honestly. What are the odds?”

The question brought numbers to Sakhr’s mind. 0.06 accidents per 100,000 traveler hours. Casualty rate was about a tenth that. With full engine failure, this jet could still coast to a rough but safe landing. Once they were over Brazil, the LakiraLabs repulse grid would pick up the plane. Apart from a few unfortunate incidences in its cutting edge days, the grid had a phenomenal safety record.

Alexander’s grin widened, and Sakhr realized he’d mistakenly made eye contact. Alexander had his answer, but thanks to the second symbol on the reverse side of that little card, Sakhr glimpsed inside Alexander’s mind too—his own power used against him.

Alex glanced away, still grinning, but his aura betrayed his annoyance. Finally, the immature mood faded.

“You’re having fun now,” he said. “but you realize this whole thing is a mistake, right?”

“It’s not a mistake. You’ll understand that soon enough.”

Alex nearly laughed. “Why can’t you, of all people, see this? You’ve spent millennia playing it safe, and now you’re throwing in with this woman? She found us before we knew about her. She’s been watching us. She copied our powers. She copied yours. You know she must have. Now you want to dine with her? She’s a threat, Sakhr.”

“Of course she’s a threat. You think I’m an imbecile?”

“Then why are we entertaining her invitation.”

“Do you think we should ignore her instead? This woman could be a dangerous enemy. And who knows, Alex, maybe she is our answer.”

“Right,” Alex said. “Our answer. To all of our nonexistent problems.”

“Are you so foolish that you can’t see the world changing around you, Alex? Our ways aren’t going to work much longer. We need to change.”

“But we don’t need some fat-assed, white woman to do that.”

“No. We don’t, but we will hear her out. It is not wise to ignore her.”

Sibyl chimed in. “I, for one, think this is a grand idea.”

“Of course you would,” Alex said. “It would mean spending the rest of our time sitting on our asses, eating, and riding horses, and all those other rich people things.”

“It’s not about that,” she replied. “It’s about how I’m sick and tired of constantly moving around. I think this woman is right. We should embrace who we are, not run and hide. The world is ready for us.”

“To be clear,” Christof said. “Victoria never said we would reveal ourselves.”

“No,” agreed Sakhr. “We’ll still be hidden… for a while. This is just about pooling our resources, building a foundation.”

“Of course she would say that,” Alex said. “She’s the one who gains the most from this. She’s the one who’ll get all our powers.”

“She already has our powers,” Christof answered.

“Oh, so then no one else wonders why she wants us then?”

“Not everyone is as selfish as you,” Sibyl said. “Maybe she wants all us witches together because she agrees that we should be in charge, not running around like rabbits.”

“She’s bringing us together,” Sakhr said, “because we can no longer afford to live the way we have, as nomads. And I agree with her. You will all stop bickering about this. We’ve already agreed we’re going to hear her out.”

The group quieted down. The plane jolted as the repulse grid picked it up. Alexander slid and bumped his head against his bed frame. Sakhr savored the comeuppance.

The rest of the flight was eerily silent with the plane’s engines off. They landed at a private pad at Boa Vista International. A swarm of security and airport staff were waiting. A red carpet led from the plane to a shuttle.

“Are you sure we’re not already famous?” Alex asked.

“Our flairs are unknown as of yet,” Sakhr clarified.

“That’s another thing,” Alex said. “Why flairs? A flair is something a child has if they’re talented at the cello. What we have are goddamn powers.”

“I agree with Victoria on this,” said Christof. “Magic powers. Super powers. If we describe ourselves in those terms, it’ll draw unflattering comparisons.”

“But flairs?”

“It’s a matter of appearances,” Sakhr replied, “something she knows about.”

” You’re going to agree with her on everything, aren’t you?”

“On many things.” When Victoria had contacted Sakhr, she had shared with him many concerns that he’d been mulling over for decades. She was suggesting changes he knew would not come easy, but were no less necessary. The others would go along with it, even if they weren’t thrilled. The woman certainly was a change of pace from how they had been living. They were nomads, living from place to place, and body to body, while this woman was on the cover of Time magazine. She was the heiress to her father’s company, and with the world-changing invention of the repulse node, she’d changed it into a multinational corporation with tendrils in governments around the world. Victoria had hinted that flairs were the cause of her success. Sakhr was curious to find out how.

Like Sakhr, she had the marvelous power of foresight. The world was changing. Countries were more connected than ever, and people kept records like never before. The coven could not run away from their problems like they used to. They couldn’t wait for time to erase their past. Mankind had grown more efficient at killing one another, meaning Sakhr could no longer trust in his power to keep him alive. Guns, bombs, even those wretched automobiles—any could kill him before he’d have a chance to swap bodies. And then he watched as the world threatened to destroy itself over utter political nonsense. He and the coven had spent the nineteen sixties sequestered in obscure corners of the world. And now, nearly a century later, the world was threatening to do it again. Watching from the sidelines was not an option anymore. Victoria understood that, and she already had a start in building a solution.

Sakhr didn’t trust this woman. She was a threat he knew too little about, but whether Sakhr liked it or not, she may be the future.

After customs and immigration, their shuttle floated them to the LakiraLabs headquarters. It stood isolated from all the other skyscrapers, half finished but glimmering proudly. This was to be their new home, from where “flairs” would rule.

It might not be that bad.

They landed inside a shuttle bay. Sakhr stepped out to a full staff of security and assistants awaiting him. Auras bubbled with curiosity. They all knew Sakhr was important, even if they didn’t know why. For the first time in his long life, Sakhr was about to live as himself, not masqueraded as a person who’s life he’d stolen.

Alexander stepped up beside him and gave a mighty sigh.

“Time to be kings,” Alexander said.

Time indeed.

26. Huddle

2022, March 23th
Collapse – 27 years

Josephine’s mind wondered as she drove back to the hotel. Katherine was having second thoughts. Up until tonight, she thought she’d be running away from a life of bullying. Now Alex had shown her that bullying might follow. And there was her father. No goodbyes. No contact. As far as he’ll know, Katherine will head for school tomorrow and never arrive—a parent’s worst nightmare. If there was ever a night for that to sink in for Katherine, it would be tonight.

Even if she did go, how long until she realized what a sorry lot the coven was? Katherine was smart, gifted, and inquisitive. The coven was nothing compared to her. Even Josephine loathed the person she herself had become. They were vampires who leeched lives and bodies. Despite their talents, the world would be better off without them.

Josephine’s mind drifted to more pleasant topics, particularly what Katherine had said about replacing Alex. Now there was a good idea. The coven might be half decent without that cancer.

Sakhr would never allow it, but this would give him leverage to keep Alexander in check. And Anton too.

Josephine returned to the hotel. When she reached the presidential suite, everyone was gathered in the main room, including Alexander. It seemed she’d stepped into the middle of a serious conversation. She expected that, but she’d also expected Alexander to be in a yelling match with Sakhr. He looked more concerned than angry.

And everyone quieted when she entered, as though this were her intervention.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Did you drop the girl off at her home?” Sakhr replied.

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“We’re having a discussion about what to do.”

“Do about what?”

“About Katherine. We need to discuss her power and what that means for us.”

“What’s there to discuss? She figured out how to read Alex’s mind. You’re not honestly telling me you think she’s a threat, do you?”

“That’s what we’re discussing. Christof, tell Josephine what you told us.”

Christof was off to the side of the huddle, as though he’d mostly been listening. He unfolded his arms and spoke. “When Alexander was saying those personal things to her, her power stirred. It’s like tumors are growing beneath the surface. I didn’t know what these tumors were, but when Alex talked down to her, one of the growths took the form of his power. It came to life.”

“Yes? So? It makes sense.”

“She has five other growths forming. I didn’t make the connection then, but she’s developing each of our powers. The better she understands them, the closer she gets to bridging the connection. Soon she’ll have all of our powers.”

“Yes. She and I already figured that out.”

Sakhr looked squarely at her. “Did she try to learn your power?”

“No.”

Sakhr nodded. He seemed relieved.

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked. “She’s just a girl. She wants to come with us.”

“She poses a threat, whether she means to or not.”

“You talk as though she’ll discard us the moment she learns our powers. She’s a little girl with no friends except for us.”

“I understand that, but people change,” Sakhr said. “You haven’t been around as long as I have. Even saints can turn vicious once they have power.”

“Oh, I see what this is about. This is about your control over us. If she learns how to swap bodies, then we might not need you anymore.”

“I told you she’d be like this,” Alexander said.

“Shut up,” Josephine snapped.

“On your ride home with her,” Sakhr said, “did she read your mind?”

“What?”

“Did you let her read your mind?”

Before Josephine could answer, Alex spoke, “No, she didn’t. Don’t worry.”

“What the hell is this about?” asked Josephine. “We’re not going to abandon her.”

“If that’d even be enough,” Alex said. “She figured out my power without reading my mind. Maybe all she needs are her notes. Isn’t that when you saw her power stir the most, Christof?”

Christof replied hesitantly. “Yes.”

“And you think she can put the pieces together later? On her own?” asked Sakhr.

“Think about how much she knows,” Alex said. “Those little notebooks of hers are filled with information about us. She may already have enough. She just has to put them together, and we’ve all seen how she is. If she can, she will.”

“Why are you listening to this?” Josephine demanded of Sakhr. “Alex is just saying these things because of his own vendetta against her. She’s just a child. If you’re worried about her, then take her in. Make sure she’s on our side. Don’t condemn her over crimes she hasn’t even thought of. She’s never done anything remotely threatening.”

“Except for today at dinner,” Sakhr said.

“You mean what she did to Alex? He deserved every thing he got after the stunt he pulled. Are you holding that against her?”

“Follow this to its logical conclusion,” Sakhr said. “She lives with us for decades, centuries even. In this time she masters our powers. Then something happens. It doesn’t matter what, but tension forms between her and us. Suppose she decides she doesn’t need us anymore.”

“She leaves, like any normal person would.”

“And what if she decides she’s safer if we’re dead?”

“She wouldn’t. She’s not a sociopath like you.”

Sakhr’s nostrils flared. “Watch what you say, Josephine.”

“Or what? I’m sorry. I’m not going to stand by while you force the rest of us to turn against a little girl just because she might possibly pose a threat to the precious leverage you hold over us.”

“She is a threat!”

“She’s a girl.”

Alex chimed in. “I’ve seen her thoughts. She’s more ambitious than she looks. She dreams of power.”

“Fuck off, Alex.”

“Look at it this way,” said Anton. “What we have now works. We all look after each other, even if we don’t always get along, because we need one another. Sakhr is in charge, but he needs us just as we need him.”

That surprised Josephine. Not the argument—that was just as vacuous as Sakhr’s reasoning—but that Anton agreed with with Sakhr at all. He was a pig, but he was a rational pig.

“I can’t believe this,” she said. “Are all of you agreeing with him?”

She looked around. Anton and Alex both met her gaze as though they were only trying to make her see reason. Sibyl looked as though she’d rather be anywhere but here. Christof was the same, but at least he met Josephine’s eyes.

He saw her pleading and reluctantly spoke up. “I think we should be careful not to overreact.”

It wasn’t much, but Josephine gestured as though that argument should have ended this nonsense. He was her only ally in this fight.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Alex. “If she comes with us tomorrow, she’s going to see this conversation in our heads sooner or later. We don’t trust her, and she won’t trust us when she sees that. We can’t take her with us.” He looked at her gravely again, as if only poor Josephine could see reason.

“You don’t trust her. Maybe we should put it to a vote.”

“This isn’t a democracy, Josephine,” Sakhr said. “We’re leaving tomorrow. We’re not taking her with us.”

“Fine. She stays. I’ll stay with her.”

“No,” Sakhr said, suddenly fierce. “Do not play games with me. I will not tolerate disobedience. You will do as I say or you will never get another body.” His settled down. “Do you see? Do you see what that girl is doing to us already? Go. Go back to your room. We leave tomorrow. You are forbidden from seeing that girl again.”

He pointed toward her bedroom.

Josephine nodded curtly and left. There was no point in arguing further. Rational discussion was gone. Sakhr was afraid of that girl because she might upset his power.

And he was right. It had. Josephine just decided she was staying. Five people would get on that plane tomorrow. The only question now was whether they would remember there was a sixth.

She always figured it would come to this, she just thought it would be Sibyl she’d escape with, but she’d had enough of that spineless woman. If it had come to a vote, Sibyl would have sided with Sakhr out of shear timidness.

Katherine might be disappointed tomorrow, but she was a smart girl. She’d see in Josephine’s head that she was better off without Sakhr and the others.

Josephine smiled as she lay on her bed.

Who’s to say Katherine wouldn’t get their powers anyway? Once Katherine learned Josephine’s power, they could come and go from the coven as they pleased. Every time they’d meet Sakhr, it would be “for the first time”. Once Katherine learned what she needed, they could fade away.

They’d be a friendly little coven of two.

Somewhere in the hotel suite, a door slammed. Footsteps passed by in the hall. Some just left. Who? And where?

Only one place came to mind.

Josephine ran out the door. In the hall, the elevator dinged. Sprinting, Josephine reached it just as the door closed. Sakhr, Anton, and Alexander had been inside. Alex had seen her. He’d flashed that smile of his just as the door sealed.

They were going to kill Katherine.

She could already follow Sakhr’s demented logic. The longer the waited, the more powerful Katherine might get. Kill her now, while she’s still weak and innocent.

“Go back to your room. Josephine,” Sakhr barked through the door. “Do not interfere.”

The elevator descended.

Josephine jammed the call button. Waited. Jammed it again. Waited more. The other elevators took their time. She considered the stairs, but that would take longer. They were on the top floor.

The next elevator finally dinged. The door opened. She stabbed the lobby button. It closed leisurely and descended. At the third floor, it stopped for a large woman to get in. Growling in frustration, Josephine bolted for the stairs.

Two flights. The lobby. The parking lot.

One of their rented sedans was gone.

A knife was jammed into the tire of the other. The rest of the tires were already flat. This would be Alexander’s doing. She could imagine him whistling as he did it.

She scanned the parking lot. A nearby Prius beeped. A woman in a business skirt was walking away from it. Without pause, Josephine knocked her over. The woman screamed. Her car keys scattered from her hand. Josephine snatched them and got in the Prius.

As Josephine drove off, the woman got up, dusted herself off, and continued to the hotel.

23. Insecurities

2022, March 23th
Collapse – 27 years

“What if you’re focusing past them, but your eyes just happen to line up with theirs?” Katherine asked.

“I don’t know,” said Alexander. “Whenever I’m reading minds, I’m focused on my target. I wouldn’t look past them.”

“Can we try it?”

“Sure. Why not?” Alex smiled broadly. It was a good smile.

For Katherine’s final night, Sakhr had taken everyone to the highest class restaurant this small town had to offer—a repurposed townhouse with tables set up throughout small rooms. Sakhr had reserved a room for the coven. It had mild art along the walls and plastic logs in a fireplace which flickered with orange electric light. Whenever the waiter left, they had the room to themselves.

Katherine tried staring through Alex, her eyes wide.

“Can you read my mind?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“And you’re sure your eyes are lined up with mine?”

“Yep.” Alexander made of show of covering one eye as he checked.

“What if you focus on my eyes and I look past you.”

“Okay.”

“Are you getting anything?”

“Nope.”

“Really? How about now?”

“Nothing.”

“Hmm.” Katherine took notes of the results. Alexander’s smile switched off while she wasn’t looking.

Apart from a few side conversations, Katherine’s questions were the center of attention. She had a prominent seat between Josephine and Sakhr, giving her a line of sight to every other witch.

“So I guess it probably doesn’t work if they’re unconscious then,” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Alexander said. His smile was back at full force “We could always knock out one of the busboys if you’d like to try it.”

“That’s okay.” Kat missed the sarcasm as she took notes. Alexander’s eyes met Sakhr’s. Tension passed between them.

Josephine stepped in. “Maybe you’d like to ask me more questions instead?”

“Oh, well. I guess so. I mostly asked you everything I could think of on Saturday, but now that I know powers can improve, there was something I was wondering.”

“Yes?”

“How come when we both talked to people on Saturday, you could make people forget the entire conversation, but you can’t make them forget if only I did any talking?”

“Because then I wasn’t involved in the conversation. I can only block memories I’m a part of.”

“But you were. You were standing right there, even if you didn’t say anything.”

“I guess it just wasn’t enough.”

“So you can make people forget things I say, but only if you’ve said something during the conversation. Does that make sense to you? I feel like it shouldn’t matter. You were there. You were part of it.”

“I just can’t. The switches in my head don’t do that.”

“But you should be able to. I think you should be able extend your power out to anything you’re even slightly associated with, any shared memory. I think you could make people forget about the entire coven as long as you’re a part of it.”

“My power works for me, not others.”

“That’s only because you believe that. Think about this, you can make people forget about you when they see you drive down the road, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’s not like they just forget about you and only remember the car. You can make them forget the car was there, right?”

“Okay?”

“What if Sakhr was in the car too. Would that mean they’d forget about you and the car, but they’d somehow remember seeing Sakhr? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s a good point,” said Sakhr. “And you have done this before. Remember Berlin?”

“I don’t know…” said Josephine.

“It makes perfect sense psychologically,” continued Katherine. “If a person gets into a car accident, they say, ‘someone hit me,’ not, ‘someone’s car hit my car.’ That’s because when people drive, their cars become an extension of them. You do the same. When you drive, you see the car as part of yourself. That’s why you can drive a car into somebody’s house and leave them wondering where the hole came from. When we were in the park, you could use a stick to knock over somebody’s drink and they’ll forget both you and the stick, because you see the stick as part of yourself. It’s you knocking over their drink, but if you throw a ball, they remember the ball because you stop seeing the ball as part of yourself. The ball knocked over their drink, not you. But if you could trick yourself into expanding what you consider part of you, then I think you could expand your power too. So if you imagined the entire coven as an extension of you, then you could blank us all from people’s memory.”

“Very clever,” Sakhr nodded. “That would be useful.”

“Hold up,” Josephine said. “I’ve thought about this before. I’ve been trying for decades to grow my power like that. I never got anywhere.”

“Maybe you just need a coach. I think you just have to visualize it properly. Next time we go to the park, we’ll try it. Alexander, could you come too? I might need help making sure she’s visualizing correctly.”

“Sure.” Alexander’s smile snapped back on, “that is, if Josephine is okay with letting me read her mind.”

“Would you be okay with that?” Katherine asked. “I wish I could read your mind instead. That would help me more, but I think even a third party could work.”

“Certainly,” Josephine said. “I’m looking forward to it.” She could always make Alex forget what he read.

“Okay, great. And you’re sure you’re okay with this, Alex? It might take a long time.”

“Anything I can do to help,” he said.

“Thanks! And by the way, thank you for answering all my questions. I was worried I was boring you the other day.”

“Of course not.”

“Cool. Because actually I have a few more questions if that’s okay.”

“Absolutely.”

Katherine missed the irritation behind his grin. “Thanks. I’d like to know more about how you visualize your mind reading. Do you have a mental exercise you do? Like, do you imagine looking through a window into their minds?”

“No. It just happens.”

“Did you ever confuse their thoughts for yours?”

“Nope.”

“Never? Sakhr said you used to do that.”

“Oh right. Then I guess I did.

“How do you tell them apart? Are their thoughts in a different part of your head?”

“Sure.”

Her brow furrowed at the ambivalent answer. “Well, what was it like the first time you read a mind? How could you tell it wasn’t just in your head?”

“Because their thoughts weren’t mine. They didn’t have the same voice. So for instance, when I look in your eyes, A voice in my head is excited about what to ask next, so I know it can’t be coming from me.”

“You never mix them up?”

“Nope.”

“How often do you catch people’s private thoughts?”

“All the time.”

“Do you ever feel bad about it?”

“What does that have to do with my power?”

“I was just wondering.”

“No. I don’t have a moral problem with seeing people’s private thoughts. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly the most moral bunch. Your private thoughts are tame compared to most. Take your desire to steal Britney’s body and taunt her while she’s stuck in your old one. I know you weren’t planning on telling us about that because you didn’t want us to think you were ‘psycho’. Except that we steal people’s bodies all the time, and then we kill them. Then we take all of their money and cut ties with their families. That’s much worse than your daydreams. Besides, I know that your desire isn’t wrath. It’s envy. You want to have her body, because your own body disgusts you so much that you don’t even include yourself in your own sexual fantasies.”

Katherine’s face went white.

“Alexander.” Sakhr’s voice cut through the dining room like a slammed fist.

“I’m sorry. Were we not telling her about the body stealing yet? I figured she’d already put that together given how many questions she’s asked about it.”

“Alexander, you will cease this immediately.”

“Shouldn’t she know what kind of people we are before signing on with us? Wasn’t that the point of waiting around? It’s not like it matters. She’ll still come with us. Everyone in this town sees her as an undesirable little runt. Even our waiters are wondering what we’re doing with her. By the way, is our check coming? We’ve been sitting here a long time.”

Katherine had slowly withdrawn into herself. She clutched her notebook to her chest as though it were a source of warmth. This was the same timid child Josephine had seen sitting on the school steps where the girls had tormented her.

Josephine wrapped her arms about Katherine and pulled her close. “Shut up, Alex. What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m sorry. Was I rude?”

Sakhr rose. “Alexander, leave this restaurant now. I will speak with you back at the hotel.”

“Sure, fine.” Alex tossed his napkin on the table and rose.

“Wait.” It was Christof. Everyone looked at him, and then to whom he was staring: Katherine.

Still wrapped in Josephine’s arms, she looked up and met Alex’s gaze head on.

The silence hung in the air.

“What?” Alex uttered, his expression perplexed.

Katherine spoke. “You want a pretty girl’s body too.”

For the first time that Josephine had ever seen, Alex broke eye contact first.

Katherine continued. “You’ve always thought about asking Sakhr to give you a woman’s body instead of another man’s, but you’re worried everyone would think you’re gay. You’re not. You know you’re not. You just think to yourself sometimes that if you’d had a choice at birth, you would have picked female. Then you tell yourself you’re okay with being a man, but sometimes at when you’re laying in bed, you rub your hands across your legs and pretend—”

“Shut the fuck up you little bitch!”

He hurled his beer glass at her. She squeaked and recoiled. Josephine deflected the glass, but beer splattered both of them. Alex’s eyes were wild, but his gaze did not look near Katherine. After several seething breaths, he stormed from room.

Everyone was quiet at first, until Sibyl quietly asked, “Did you just read his mind?”

“Yeah.” Katherine paused, then, “Yeah! I don’t know how. It’s like I just figured out how he did it, and then I did it, like I finished a puzzle.” She looked at Sibyl. Her eyes lit. “I can still do it!”

“Christof?” Sakhr said. “What are you seeing?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“Is she a mimic?”

Bewildered, he shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

“I see it!” Katherine was looking into Christof’s eyes. “I see what you see in me.”

Startled, Christof averted his gaze.

Katherine hardly noticed. “Oh my God. This is so awesome. I just get how it’s done now. I always felt like if I could just figure it out enough, I’d know how to do it myself.” She spun to Josephine. “I can read minds now! I can probably help you so much faster now too.”

Sakhr stood. “Yes. Indeed. However, we’re making a scene. Perhaps it’s best if we call it a night.”

Katherine spun to him. “Right now?”

“Yes. Between Alexander and the time, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day.” He pulled out a wallet and left several large bills on the table. While everyone else stood, Katherine remained seated.

“But I just found out what my power is. Why do I have to go home now?”

Sakhr smiled warmly… at the table. “Tonight is the last night you’ll ever have to go home. Make sure you’re packed and ready. We have a long trip tomorrow. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to explore your power.”

“Okay…”

“Josephine. If you’ll take her back.”

Sibyl moved to.

Sakhr stopped her. “No. Just Josephine. Sibyl, I might need your help with Alex.”

The order struck Josephine as strange. Sibyl wouldn’t be any help with Alex. If anything, it was usually her that needed help from Sakhr when Alex was hard on her.

Outside, Sakhr addressed everyone. “All right. Let’s find wherever Alex sulked off to. Once we’re back, he and I are going to have a long, long talk.” He looked in Katherine’s general direction. “I must apologize for Alexander. He forgets his place.”

“It’s okay,” she said.

“Go home. Sleep well. Remember. You mustn’t tell your father anything, even to say goodbye.”

“I know.”

Sakhr handed car keys to Josephine. “Take her. We’ll meet you at the hotel.”

The ride to Katherine’s house was muted—not what Josephine would have expected from an inquisitive girl who’d just discovered her secret ability. Josephine tried to break the silence.

“I’m glad somebody finally threw mind reading in Alex’s face.”

“Yeah.” Katherine was gazing out the window.

“For years he’s been using everyone’s personal lives against them. But you taught him a lesson. I don’t know if he’ll forgive you, but I don’t think he’ll ever bully you again.”

“I guess,” Katherine wasn’t convinced. Alexander’s behavior had tainted Katherine’s opinion of the coven. Josephine’s optimism couldn’t change that.

She kept trying anyway. “Who knows? Maybe Alex’s power was just the first. Maybe you can learn all our powers.”

“Maybe.” Katherine hesitated. “Why does Sakhr keep him around?”

Josephine knew who she was referring to. “He’s a jerk, but he’s one of us. We’re a family. Sometimes you don’t like your siblings, but you put up with them anyway.”

“Sakhr doesn’t see him as family. He hates Alex. Everybody does except for Anton. Sakhr only keeps him around because he’s useful, and Alex knows that. He just doesn’t care.”

“You saw a lot in his mind, didn’t you?”

Katherine shrugged halfheartedly.

“Maybe now that you can read minds too,” Josephine said. “Alexander will have to behave himself.”

“Maybe…”

“Is something wrong, kiddo?”

Katherine turned to look at Josephine. Josephine had her eyes on the road. She pulled onto Katherine’s street and parked before her house.

“No. Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re morose for somebody who just learned how to read minds.”

“I guess.” A pause. “Do you think you could stay for a while?”

“I have to get back.”

“Please? Now that I can read minds, I can help you improve your power too. I was serious before. I really do think you’re not using it to its full potential. You could be erasing so much more than just yourself from people’s minds.”

“And we’ll have plenty of time to work on it tomorrow on the plane. I promise.”

“Please?”

Josephine shook her head. “Sakhr wants me back. Besides, this is your last night. You should spend it with your father. We’ll have lifetimes to spend together.”

Katherine was silent a while. When she spoke, the words came out flat. “Okay.” She opened the car door. “Tomorrow then.”

“Flight’s at ten!” Josephine called after her. “I’ll pick you up here at seven fifty.”

“Yeah, sure.” Katherine smiled. It seemed forced.

Josephine watched as Katherine walked up to her house. She thought of getting out and joining Katherine, just for a while. After the way Alexander had treated her, she could probably use some assurance. She’d just spend a few minutes with her, that’s all.

She didn’t though.

19. Testing

2022, March 22th
Collapse – 27 years

“How about now?” asked Katherine.

“Yes,” said Sibyl.

Katherine was hiding behind a wall from Sibyl, Josephine, and Alexander. Only her gloved hand stuck out from around the corner, and she slid it out of view until only her four fingers were visible.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Her fingers shrunk away until they disappeared. “Now,” said Sibyl.

“You can’t see my aura now?”

“Right.”

The tips of her gloved fingers reappeared.

“And now?”

“I can see it again.”

Katherine groaned. She emerged and sat at the table. “It doesn’t make any sense.” She tugged off her glove. “You can see my aura if I’m completely covered in clothes, but for some reason, a wall stops you. I’d think it was a thickness thing, but you can’t see through my hoodie when I drape it in front of me.” She tossed her glove aside. “It’s like your power just decides to ignore a barrier so long as I’m wearing it. That’s so stupid.”

Sibyl shrugged. She’d already returned to reading her magazine. Six days had passed since the coven had introduced themselves to Katherine. Each day, she’d come straight to the hotel from school, once even skipping classes. She’d inundate whoever was free with waves of fresh questions and tests. It didn’t matter who; she had fresh questions for everyone scrawled in that notebook of hers.

This weekend was particularly heavy. She’d convinced her father that she was going to a sleep over. From what Josephine understood, he had been too glad to hear she had friends at all to hamper her with parental restrictions. Josephine had indulged Katherine on Saturday. They’d wandered the mall performing every conceivable permutation of talking with people and making them forget specifics of the encounter. Today, Sunday, she hassled other coven members, those who were around anyway.

Alexander and Anton’s amusement had waned last week. They’d escaped to go do whatever they do together: probably alcohol, women, and a few drugs. Christof was here, though he was managing coven finances. That left Katherine alone with Josephine, Sibyl, and Sakhr for these marathon testing session.

“Okay,” She scribbled a note. “Sakhr, can I ask you more questions?”

“Sure.”

“You said you need physical contact to switch bodies.”

“Yes.”

“Could you do it with gloves on?”

“No.”

“So, not through their clothes either?”

“No. Skin to skin contact.”

“What about skin to hair? Or skin to nail? Or enamel?”

Sakhr chuckled. “You come up with the strangest ideas.”

“I’m not saying you should. I’m just wondering if you can.”

“Hair is no good. I’d assume the same for teeth and nail, but in all of my centuries, I’ve never tried.”

“Do you want to?” Katherine bared her teeth and leaned forward.

After a pause, Sakhr relented and lightly touched her front tooth. “No. See. I need to touch them, living flesh to flesh.”

She made notes. “Next question. Animals. Can you swap bodies with animals?”

He made a face. “Once. Never again.”

“Was it unpleasant?”

“Thoroughly. And no, we will not be conducting any tests with them. To that, I draw a line.”

“Okay.” She shifted targets. “Sibyl, what about you? Can you sense animals?”

Sibyl gave an exaggerated sigh and lowered her magazine.

“No, never mind,” Katherine said. “I’ve been bugging you all day. I’ll leave you alone.” She turned to Josephine. “What about you?”

“Oh, Honey. Can’t we take a break? We’ve been doing this all weekend. Aren’t you getting tired?”

Katherine set down her notebook. “Okay. I guess we can stop. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“But how does it not bother you?” she said. “Your powers don’t make any sense.”

“Whose?”

“All of yours. Josephine, you can drive a car into somebody’s living room and make them forget everything, but if you knock over somebody’s drink with a tennis ball, they’ll remember the ball. You can make somebody forget about a car, but not a ball? And Anton. He can order someone to do something over a telephone, but not if he leaves a message. Why? A telephone already converts his voice into electrical signals. Why should it matter if it’s put on disk first? And Alexander can’t read minds unless you make eye contact, sure. And he can do it through a fish tank, but he can’t through a mirror for some reason.”

“That makes sense,” said Sibyl. “A mirror isn’t eye contact.”

“But what does that mean? A fish tank refracts light a lot. Let’s say he makes eye contact with you through one, and then someone lifts it out of the way. He’d suddenly be looking past you. That means it’s okay for light to bend a little, so then why should a mirror stop it? Every time a photon hits a particle, it gets absorbed and reemitted. The only difference between reflection and refraction is the direction of reemission after an electron absorbs a photon. On an atomic level, they’re basically the same thing, so why does it make a difference!”

Everyone responded with blank stares. Josephine brushed up on science every decade or so, so what Katherine said wasn’t completely lost on her. Even so, Katherine clearly had a passion for physics. She cited many atomic laws during her questions, so why were her science grades only B’s?

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out in time,” Sakhr said. “You have all the time in the world.”

“Okay,” She took some notes. “Can I ask you something? I promise it’s not about powers.”

Sakhr smiled. “Of course.”

“Back in ancient Egypt, did you ever switch places with a pharaoh?”

“No. I switched places with rulers before, but never someone as grandiose as a king or a pharaoh.”

“Why not the pharaoh? It would have worked, wouldn’t it?”

“Certainly it would, but why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you? You could have ruled Egypt.”

Sakhr smiled knowingly. “Why bother? Beyond a point, more power does not improve luxury. Well… not in any way that’s worth the trouble. I’d be burdening myself with the affairs of politics, and unless I revealed myself for who I am, any legacy I built would die with body I was in. I’d rather live as I am: with a close pack of compatriots, free to go wherever I want. Besides,” He leaned in conspiratorially, “I know I can take the place of any ruler. In that way, I already am the most powerful person alive.”

“I suppose so,” said Katherine. For a while, she remained silent. “Can I ask another question?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever met any other witches? One’s that didn’t join the coven?”

“A few, centuries ago.”

“What could they do?”

“Back when the coven was only Christof and myself, we met Celine de Launois. Her power was desire. Every man wanted her, without question. When we met her, she was married to a Belgium viscount. It was a bad relationship; abusive, both ways. She cheated on him constantly, and he hated her, but he’d always come back to her bed.

“I knew the risk of getting involved with her, even if she was one of us, but of course, her powers already played their magic. Christof and I both became smitten with her and told her everything of her powers and ours. We were obsessed.” Sakhr shook his head, “and she was the most manipulative bitch I have ever met. It was her little game to turn us against each other.”

“What happened?”

“Like with Anton’s Authority, we grew resistant. We saw what she was doing and left her behind.”

“You didn’t have any leftover feelings for her?”

“No. Once we got away, the effect popped like a bubble.”

“Oh,” Katherine turned to an early page in her notebook and added “Desire (proximity?)” under a list of powers.

Sakhr had told the same story to Josephine when she joined, just as he’d told Sibyl, except Sibyl sensed a lie. She and Josephine had learned the truth years later from a drunk Alexander.

“You know that moment right after a guy shoots his wad?” he’d said. “There’s a moment of clarity there. Guys think straightest then, because there’s no lust. That’s when Sakhr slit her throat.”

Sakhr must have known Alexander would find out. Maybe Sakhr told him the truth up front. Which would mean Anton would know too, since those two share everything. That left only the coven women in the dark. It’s not like Josephine and Sibyl would be horrified that Sakhr had killed someone. They all killed each time they stole a body. So why lie? It always bugged her.

Katherine finished her notes. “Were there any others?”

“No,” Sakhr said. “Every other witch I’ve met is in this coven.”

“That’s it? Wow. Eight witches in all the world. Why are we so rare?”

“I don’t know. There may have been more, but until I met Christof, I wouldn’t even have known another when I saw them. Christof was the one who recognized me. Even now, this coven can only be in one place at one time. Many may be passing us by.”

“But there are all those stories about witches and wizards…”

“They’re always charlatans. Those with real powers keep it to themselves. As late as fifty years ago, people like us would be killed for witchcraft. Most, I suspect, never find out they have powers at all. No one in this group knew until Christof and I showed them.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t Alexander have figured out on his own that he could read minds? How did you figure out you could switch bodies?”

“My first switch was entirely by accident. As for Alexander, from how he describes it, he didn’t realize the thoughts in his head were not his own. We had to point it out to him.”

“Oh, I see.” Katherine pondered a while, then turned to Sibyl. “Can we do just one more test? Please. Just one?”

Sibyl sighed and set down her magazine. “Fine.”

Katherine scampered into the other room. After much banging around, she returned wearing her black hoodie, unzipped and with the hood up.

“Just to make sure,” she said, “you can still see my aura when I do this.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves, turned around, and held her arms out like wings. None skin was visible.

“I can.”

“And it’s centered on me, right?”

“That’s right.”

Katherine disappeared around the door. Everyone could hear her moving. Then her hooded head popped into view. Beneath it, she stuck out her arm with the sleeve still tucked over her hand, giving the impression she was handless.

“Before we start…” She popped her head out of view, “you can still see my aura when I hold my arm out like this.” Her arm waved.

Sibyl sighed with exasperation. “Yes, I can still see your aura.”

A long pause. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?” She waved her handless sleeve about.

“Yes. Get on with it.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure…”

Slowly, the sleeve of the hoodie pulled back. Instead of her arm, what appeared was the end of a wooden coat hanger.

“…Because I’m not actually in view at all.”

Sibyl stiffened. Her breath caught. Christof snapped his head up from his work to look at her. She turned to look around. Her petrified gaze skated up and down, as though the walls and ceiling were covered in bugs.

Katherine, unaware of Sibyl’s reaction, continued. “You’re still able to see my aura, right?”

With no response, her head popped back into view. Her huge smile faded when she saw Sibyl.

“Sibyl?” asked Christof. “Your power… what are you experiencing?”

“Everybody.”

“What?”

She stood and backed against the wall. “I can see everybody in the hotel.”

Katherine’s smile returned. “You did it. You can see through walls. You just had to know you could. All I did was—”

“Shut up!” snapped Sibyl. “Make it go away. There are too many of them.”‘

Katherine’s face blanched. “I thought… I didn’t…”

Sakhr spoke. “Christof, what are you seeing?”

“It’s like her power just sprouted. It looks different now. Bigger. And Katherine’s power… it’s like it’s simmering. I think their powers interacted somehow.”

“Change it back,” Sibyl snapped. “I don’t want this.”

Sakhr turned to her. “Calm down, Sibyl.”

“No. I won’t. Her silly questions caused this. How am I supposed to sleep? How am I supposed to block them out?”

“Relax. You’re just startled.”

“No. Stop talking. I…” Lost for words, Sibyl raced from the room. The slam of an adjoining door marked her exit.

Katherine was on the verge of tears.

Josephine rushed to hug her. “It’s okay,”

“I’m sorry. I thought she would be happy.”

“She will be, honey. She will be. Sibyl has a tiny comfort zone. It’s very small, and very comfortable. She just needs time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. The tears began to flow.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Sakhr said. “That was amazing. I think we’re a step closer to figuring out what you can do.”

16. Scribbling

2022, March 16th
Collapse – 27 years

“And how far away can you sense them?” Katherine asked.

Sibyl shrugged. “A hundred meters, maybe more. They don’t disappear. I just don’t notice them anymore, if that makes sense.”

“I think so.” Katherine scribbled in her notebook. “What about if they’re mad or something? Can you sense stronger emotions from farther away?”

“Now that you mention it.” Sibyl leaned back. “Once, we were at a local harvest festival in France. This was just before we met Josephine. I sensed fear far away in an alley. When we passed by, a few brutes were robbing someone, but I’d only sensed the fear at first. It wasn’t until we were closer that I sensed the others. So I guess I can. I never put much thought into it.”

“Really?” asked Katherine. “You’ve never tested that? You never tested the range limit of your own power?”

Sibyl shrugged. “My power has always been good enough for me.”

Katherine’s face lit. “Would you let me test it for you?”

“I… suppose so.”

Josephine smiled at this exchange. Ever since they’d picked Katherine up from near the school, her reclusive attitude had turned inside out. During the car ride, she barraged Alexander and Josephine with questions. What’s it like to take memories? Can you make people forget anything? Can you make them remember? What’s it like to read minds? Why do you need eye contact? Can you read minds through glasses? Foggy glasses? Stained glasses? Mirrors? One way mirrors?

She and Alexander answered as best they could, but many answers ended up being, “I don’t know.”

The coven had rented a row of connected suites at a nearby Hilton. Sibyl was waiting in the presidential suite when they arrived. Katherine bombarded her with a fresh round of questions, only this time she had her notebook. She was like a pressure cooker of excitement; Josephine wondered if she might explode.

“What about walls?” she asked Sibyl. “Can you see through walls?”

Sibyl found the idea amusing. “No. No, I can’t see through walls.”

Katherine furrowed her brow. “Why not? Didn’t you tell me earlier that you once sensed someone sneaking up on you when they thought you were asleep?”

“Yes?”

“Weren’t your eyes closed? Didn’t you see their aura through your eyelids? And wait! You said you could see auras from behind.”

“Well…” Sibyl’s fumbled for words. “I don’t really see them. I sense them.”

“Then how come you can’t sense through walls?”

“I’m… I just can’t”

“Can you see my aura right now?”

“Yes.”

“My whole aura?”

“Yes.”

“But you can only see my top half. The rest of me is under the table. What if I lowered? When would you stop sensing my aura?”

“When you’re out of view.”

“But what’s that mean? When I’m completely out of view? So if you could see a few hairs on my head, you could see my aura?”

Sibyl didn’t have an answer.

Alexander laughed. “She’s got you there, Sibyl.” He helped himself to a tiny bottle from the suite’s mini fridge. “I think I might have an idea what her witch power is.”

“What?” asked Katherine.

“A never-ending well of questions.”

He said it with a smile, but Katherine’s energy receded. “I’m not annoying any of you, am I?”

“No.” Alexander sat on the bed next to Josephine. “On the contrary. I find this endlessly amusing.”

“Oh, okay.” Her smile bounced back. She resumed scribbling notes.

Josephine marveled at how different this girl was. When they’d first seen her at the airport, she was pitiful—a frumpy child no one would look twice at. Now with her face alight, she was actually kind of cute, if only she took care of herself more, and wore something other than that hoody. Now that she’d taken it off, her figure wasn’t too bad. Sure, she had a bit of weight in her thighs, but with only a few pounds less, she might be curvaceous, maybe even attractive.

That school was poisonous for her. The bullying and the poor home life had been slowly transforming her into something ugly and forgotten. It warmed Josephine’s heart knowing that they were going to be her heroes. Now Katherine would become the person she deserved to be.

Katherine looked up from her notes. “What about clothes? Clothes don’t stop you from seeing auras, right?”

“Right.”

“But what if I put my hoodie on and turned away from you? You wouldn’t see any of my skin, but you’d still be able to see my aura, right?”

“I…”

“Can we try it? Then can we try the table thing?”

“I suppose—”

A knock interrupted them.

“I guess it will have to wait.” Sibyl stood quickly. She couldn’t reach the door soon enough.

Sakhr, Anton, and Christof entered. Each carried supplies and groceries.

“Ah,” said Sakhr. “I see our guest has already arrived.”

Katherine gave a tiny wave and tried to smile. She was back in her shell. Josephine couldn’t blame her. Sakhr had a severe, paternal aura about him. It had accumulated over centuries of living among mortals. It gave others the impression of being near royalty.

After dropping his bags, he bowed majestically. “It is my pleasure to meet you. Katherine; yes?”

Katherine nodded.

“My name is Sakhr, and I am the father of this coven. I am pleased to welcome you to our group.” He held out his hand.

Eyes wide and body tense, Katherine took his hand. “Hello,” she said, then nearly yelped when he planted a kiss on her knuckle.

Once he let it go, she cradled her hand as though it had become foreign to her. Sakhr continued. “Allow me to introduce you to Christof Schuster. He is the man who spotted you.”

Christof greeted her with a casual smile. Katherine responded with less reserve. Unlike Sakhr, he kept a younger and more approachable body. It made him less intimidating.

“And here is Anton Formenko,” Sakhr continued.

Anton nodded.

“Hey,” said Katherine. “You’re that guy from the airport. The guard without a uniform.”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was finding out where you and your father lived.”

“You were using powers on him, weren’t you?”

Anton nodded.

“What’s your power?”

“It is Authority. When I give orders, others feel they must obey.”

Katherine stared at him in awe. Josephine could sense questions forming inside her head.

“Wow,” she said. “Is there any limit to it?”

“Limit?”

“Could you, and I’m not saying you should, but could you order someone to shoot themselves?”

Anton chuckled. “No. It is not absolute. They have their will. They only see me as someone they should obey. Not even a peasant would listen to a king if he tells him to kill himself.”

“Could you order someone to count all the blades of grass in a field?”

“They might start. I don’t think they’d finish. Reason would find them. Think of it this way. A law officer can order you to do a lot, because you fear them. You respect them. You act without thinking, but still within reason. That is my power, only stronger. It works better if they see me as an authority. That is why I told your father I worked for the airport.”

Katherine scribbled furiously in her notebook. She looked up when she finished. “May I see it?”

Anton looked around, like a magician looking for a suitable volunteer. He settled on Katherine. “Stand on your chair.” Beneath his words was a tone Josephine had heard many times. Even after more than a century, the small fight-or-flight part of her brain hiccuped. Something automatic tried to kick in.

Katherine, however, didn’t hesitate. She was on her chair instantly.

“Did you try to disobey?” asked Anton.

“I… wow. No. I didn’t. I feel like I could have. Just…” She laughed. “Try it again.”

“Try to resist this.” Once again, in that strange voice, Anton said, “Take off your clothes.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. Her body went rigid. Her hand drifted to the sleeve of her T-shirt and hesitated.

“Do it,” Anton said.

Trembling, she pulled the sleeve over her arm.

Josephine looked around. Everyone watched. Alexander was smirking.

“Stop it,” Josephine said.

Anton did nothing.

“Anton. I said stop it.”

Sakhr spoke. “Anton, enough.”

Anton relented. “Stop undressing and sit.”

Relieved, Katherine dropped into her seat.

“I hope I did not scare you. You see though that you would have done so. Not easy to resist.”

Katherine nodded. Her body still quaked a little. “I see. Couldn’t you… I don’t know… have shown me on one of them?” She looked at the coven.

Anton shook his head. “I wish I could. If my power still worked on them, I’d be running this coven.”

Sakhr gave a dry laugh at that.

“No. People hear my power… they build tolerance. Their minds learn it’s a trick.”

Katherine nodded in understanding. “So you won’t be able to do that again?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. Just for demonstration.”

Katherine nodded. Her eyes drifted to Sakhr. “May I know what your power is?”

“You may. Although my power is better demonstrated than explained. Shall I?” He sat and extended his hands across the table toward her.

She took them.

Josephine circled and got ready to grab Sakhr if necessary.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes?”

Then it did happen. Sakhr jolted upright. He would have fallen out of his chair if Josephine hadn’t caught him. Alarmed, he looked about. His frantic gaze fell on Katherine, who observed him calmly. He stared in disbelief, then slapped his hands to his chest and felt himself over. It’s when his hands fell to his crotch that his panic took over. A wordless noise escaped his lips. It turned to a yell, and then a scream.

Alexander burst out laughing. The others chuckled. Josephine rested a calming hand on Sakhr’s shoulder. To an outside observer, one might suspect that something terrible happened that Sakhr hadn’t expected. To Josephine and the others, they’d seen this panic many times over.

Sakhr and Katherine had switched bodies, and now Katherine was discovering what it felt like to have male genitalia.

From within Katherine’s body, Sakhr held out a hand. “Here,” he said in a calm female voice.

Katherine was too busy panicking, so Sakhr reached and touched her arm. Instantly, the switch was undone.

Sakhr, back in his own body, calmly retook his seat. He stated the obvious. “I can switch bodies with others.”

Katherine was still recovering from her hyperventilation. Involuntarily, her hand strayed between her legs, just to make sure. Even Josephine grinned at that.

“Is it permanent?” Katherine asked.

“It is.”

“What happens if your body dies while you’re in somebody else?”

“Then it dies, and the other person dies with it.”

Katherine pondered this. All panic was gone. Curiosity was back.

Finally, “How old are you? Chronologically?”

Josephine was impressed. Katherine had skipped past the question of whether he was in his original body, and jumped straight to the logical conclusion: immortality.

Sakhr grinned like a smug cat. “For my first switch, I left my slaver to build the pyramids in my stead.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but Sakhr told it that way for effect. He was born as a slave in Egypt. However, he later admitted that he’d actually been a servant to an overweight politician, and that he was born about five centuries after the pyramids were constructed, but everyone agreed that Sakhr’s pyramid version was punchier.

“Wow,” said Katherine. “What if… How do you…” She giggled. “I have so many questions I don’t know what to ask first.”

“You have all the time in the world to ask them.”

Katherine chewed her lip a moment. “When do I get to know what my power is?”

The others didn’t respond.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Sakhr. “We’re just not sure yet.”

“How did the rest of you learn your powers? Is it through experimentation?”

“Normally I tell them,” Christof said. “When I look at people, I see these things in my head, like living blocks of clay, or physical metaphors. Somehow, I always know what they mean, like how you know things in a dream.”

“But not with me?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can tell you are a witch, I’m just not sure what your power does.”

“Can you tell anything?”

“I think… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it can do anything.”

Katherine’s smile faded. “You mean I can’t do anything special?”

“Maybe not now, but it’s not nothing. I can see it… wriggling. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Was it doing that at the airport?” Sakhr asked.

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

“But it’s going to change?” Katherine asked.

“Don’t worry, Katherine,” said Sakhr. “We will figure out what you can do. If it can be unlocked, we will.”

“And if it can’t?” Katherine’s expression was pleading, like a child asking if their parents were going to be okay. Josephine wanted to hug her.

“It will,” Sakhr said. “Whether it takes days or centuries, we won’t give up.”

“Centuries? How could we take centuries to…” Her eyes widened. Her apprehension was forgotten. “I get it. Body switching. Right? You’ve been keeping the others alive. You switch with one of them, then you switch to a stranger’s body, and then back to your own. That puts you back in your own body, and leaves one of you switched with the stranger. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Very good, Katherine,” Sakhr said.

“Are you all really old?”

“Some of us are older than others, but yes, everyone here is at least a century old.”

“Are you going to do that for me one day?”

“If you choose to join our coven, yes.”

“I’ll join!”

“Just like that?”

Katherine nodded violently.

“We travel, Katherine. To avoid detection. You would be leaving your old life behind. Your education. Your father…”

Katherine paused. This might be the first time since Josephine had introduced herself that Katherine had thought of home. For Josephine, joining had been a simple choice. Her family had been dead. The Russians had executed them when they invaded in 1870. They had let her live, as though they’d forgotten she was there. She only understood why years later after Christof explained her power.

Katherine nodded slowly. “I still want to do it. I hate my life here. I want to leave. I can finish learning on my own. I just… I should call my dad. He’s probably worried about me right now. Can I see him one last time?”

Sakhr almost laughed. “We just arrived yesterday. I don’t plan on leaving for at least a week. Take time, Katherine. Make sure this is what you want to do.”

The, “take your time” speech was comforting. He had told it to Josephine too. She always had appreciated it, even if she’d already made up her mind in the first minute.

Though sometimes she wondered what he’d do if a new witch said no. She knew Sakhr too well now. He wasn’t someone who would take no for an answer. Perhaps this choice—this time—was just a gentle illusion. It never came up for Josephine. And it clearly won’t come up here either.

Katherine would become the seventh witch in the coven.

12. The Girl

2022, March 14th
Collapse – 27 years

“How about them?” asked Alexander.

Anton craned to look down the airport terminal in the direction Alexander indicated. Two women were seated together, chatting and giggling as they simultaneously listened to a song by sharing a pair of earbuds.

Anton’s face scrunched. “Why you always point out child women.”

“You’d rather have someone your own age?”

Anton shrugged. “I’d rather have real woman, older is wiser. She’s a woman who knows her way around the bed.”

“A prostitute knows her way around the bed. If you want, I know just the girl for you in California. Real old. Plenty of experience.” He grinned at Anton, which didn’t stop until Anton finally acknowledged him with a grunt.

Josephine overheard their conversation. She’d grown adept at tuning them out over the past hundred years, but never quite adept enough that her skin didn’t crawl. Wherever they all went, whether to seedy back alley bars, or a consulate dinner at parliament, those two would sit together and play “Who’d you rather” while leering down woman, and they frequently took their game too far.

The coven had passed through Saudi Arabia about seventy years ago. At the time. Anton had a body nearly identical to the one he had now, a Ukrainian man to match his Ukrainian accent, with a body straight out of an action movie. Alexander had been middle eastern to fit their surroundings.

The coven were guests in the house of Raheem Al-Nader, an oil baron. Josephine and Sibyl were kept separate from the men most of the trip, but afterward, Sibyl discovered something Alex and Anton had done. They’d gotten close with some burka-covered servants who were distant nieces of the host, and had slept with them later that night. Anton had to use his Authority to break through the usual barrier of Middle eastern modesty.

“It was a like a bet,” Sibyl had heard them boast. “What would you see once you lifted the veil?”

“Not really a gamble for you,” Anton had said. “You see their minds.”

“There is a world of difference between what a woman thinks they look like, and what they actually do.”

The coven moved on days later. Josephine checked back to see what became of those women. They were publicly flogged. Alexander must have known. He showed no reaction when Josephine accused him later.

“Now there are women you should be looking for.” Anton pointed Alexander toward a group of four thirty-somethings gathered at a restaurant table inside the airport.

“Cougars. I can see their wrinkled asses from here.”

Anton sighed. “So? Who cares? The fruit has spoiled a little. It is when the sugar is sweetest. And they work harder for you. They know they must earn your attention.”

Josephine had heard enough of their drivel. She collected her suitcase and headed off in search of Sibyl.

“Are we offending your sensibilities?” asked Alexander.

“Oh by all means,” she muttered. “don’t let me intrude.” She didn’t look at Alex when she spoke. Even accidental eye contact was enough for him.

“I would welcome the intrusion,” he said. “In fact, why don’t you share your thoughts on the matter.” His gaze was steady, daring her to look.

Responding further would just be rising to his goading. “Ignore them,” Sibyl would say, “He wants you to react. I see it in his glow.”

Anton ignored them both as his gaze prowled the terminal. Unlike Alexander, he at least had the decency not to include fellow witches in their juvenile games. Josephine glanced toward Sakhr and Christof. As the two oldest witches of the coven, and the ones who’d brought them all together, they sometimes acted as parents, but both were absorbed in books without a thought to spare for squabbling children.

Josephine strolled away without another word. Alexander chuckled in her wake.

Sibyl was in line at a magazine shop. She had an armload of gossip magazines and a horseshoe-shaped pillow to help her get through the coming flight. Hidden between the magazines and her bosom were several boxes of chocolate and candy she’d pilfered from the stand beside the cash register. She’d long ago internalized that the bodies she occupied were disposable. Every ten years or so, she’d take the body of a thin, attractive woman, and she’d indulge. Thighs would thicken. Breasts would grow. She’d turn a sculpted work of art into cellulite and loose jowls. Then Sakhr would get her a new body. Of all the members in the coven, her bodies had the quickest turnover rate. Josephine kept her opinions about that to herself. Sibyl was the closest thing she had to a friend in the coven.

As Josephine approached, Sibyl glanced at her and smiled sympathetically. Josephine’s aura would be spelling out her argument with Alexander.

“Tell me we have separate seats on the plane,” Josephine said. She meant separate from Alex and Anton.

“I think so.” Sibyl juggled all her items to one arm and fetched the plane tickets from her purse. “We’re in the other aisle, by the windows.”

Josephine’s mood did not lift. The entire coven was in first class. They never flew anything else, but that would put Josephine close enough to hear the idiots harassing the flight attendants. It was a five hour flight across the country. Neither Alexander nor Anton could behave themselves that long. Would they actually convince a stewardess into a Bathroom Trip using their wit and guile? Or would they cheat? Alex might read minds for hints on how to seduce the women. Anton might convince them to stay and talk, or even tell the girls that they found Anton attractive. The flight attendants weren’t witches. That made them fair game.

It was how most of the coven saw other people. Even Josephine was guilty of that. When you’re immortal, it’s hard to see others as equals. Their transient lives are only there to supplement your own.

Sibyl might actually be the best of them, probably because of her empathy. Even though she wrecked other people’s carefully toned bodies, she always targeted selfish sorority types. It least it was some kind of morality.

“You know what would be crazy, Sib? What if we changed our flight?”

“What do you mean?” Sibyl asked. “You want to stay in Boston?”

“No no, I mean go somewhere else. Look.” She pointed to a nearby gate. “Detroit. …okay, that’s a bad example, but there. Look. Dallas. What if we went to Dallas? It’s warmer there.”

“But Sakhr doesn’t want to go to Dallas.”

“I know.”

“So why would he go there?”

Josephine waited for Sibyl to figure it out.

And she did. “No, Jose. Please, don’t.” Sibyl looked at her with dismay. “We can’t leave them. Don’t talk about that. Alex will find out.”

“Alex already knows. I think he’d prefer we left.”

“But we can’t. You know we can’t.”

“But let’s do it anyway. You know how long it would take them to find us? When he does, you know he’d let us right back in.”

“He doesn’t want us to leave.”

“We don’t need his permission.”

“Please stop, Jose. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to go…”

This caused Sibyl to nearly drop her items as she grabbed Josephine’s arm. “You promised me you wouldn’t leave me with them.”

“I’m only joking.”

“You’re half joking. I can see it. If Sakhr finds out you’ve been talking about this…”

“Why would he?”

“Alex might tell him.”

“Alex thinks about leaving all the time himself.”

“But he doesn’t tell Sakhr that, but he would tell him if you were.”

“Honestly, what’s Sakhr going to do about it? Hold us at gunpoint?”

“You know what he’d do.”

“It’s an empty threat. We’re too important to him.”

Sibyl started to respond, then caught herself. “Stop talking,” she said.

Josephine glanced over Sibyl’s shoulder.

Alex was approaching. “Ladies.”

“What do you want?” Josephine kept her eyes down.

Alexander grinned. “Relax. Sakhr wants us.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

“He wants us now.”

“Then he can—”

“Christof found one.”

Her brain stumbled. Even Sibyl dropped her guard and turned.

“What? Who?”

“Come and find out.”

When they got back, Sakhr and Christof were standing together by an airport pillar. Their reading books were away, and they stared across the terminal at a pair sitting by a full length window wall—a small man and a girl. The man looked worn and tired. Beneath a denim jacket, his potbelly pushed his undershirt over his belt, but the rest of him was scrawny, as though his fat had drained from his limbs and pooled in his abdomen. He was talking with Anton.

The girl was slouched in a chair beside the man. Probably his daughter. She paid no attention, just listened to whatever noise her massive headphones were pumping into her ears. They must close out the world for her

“Which one is it?” Josephine asked.

Sakhr nodded toward them. “The girl.”

“She walked right past me,” Christof added. “I almost missed her.”

Alexander grunted in disinterest. It annoyed Josephine, but she understood why he had. The girl was plain. She had thick plastic lenses and black hair pulled back in an unkempt pony tail. She wore a hoodie that hid her body well, but she’d obviously inherited her father’s dumpiness.

Josephine didn’t care. Looks lasted only as long as your current body, and the idea of having another girl in the coven was too enticing.

“Not much to look at,” said Alexander. “What’s her power?”

“I’m not sure,” said Christof.

Startled, everyone turned to him.

He sensed it. “I can read her just fine. I just don’t know what I’m seeing. She’s…” He winced as though staring into a sunset. “…Nothing? No. That’s not right. There’s something there, it just doesn’t look like it does anything.” He shook his head.

“Maybe she’s a dud,” Alex said. “A useless power. You two have seen them before, right?”

“Not for a long time,” said Sakhr.

“She’s got something,” Christof added. “If she’s got a dud, it’s a strange dud.”

Sibyl turned to the others. “What is Anton saying to them?”

Sakhr answered. “I told him to find out where they live.”

“He’s making them nervous.”

“He’s pretending to be security,” Alex replied. “Security makes everyone nervous.”

Anton finished and returned to the others. The girl glanced at him as he left.

“They’re from a town near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” He handed over a sheet of paper with an address written on it. “Father had dental conference in Florida.”

Alex grinned. “He took his kid to a dentistry conference?”

“Orthodontics, yes. No mother. He couldn’t leave daughter home alone. Man is Allen Faulk. Daughter is Katherine Faulk. I know nothing else on her. She did not want to talk. I did not push.”

“Wise.” Sakhr nodded. “Anton. Alex. Get our flights changed.” He faced everyone else. “It looks like we’re not done with cold weather yet.”