The woods a few blocks from Main Street were dark and still. Moonlight came through the canopy in pale, broken pieces, catching the frost on dead leaves and the slow curl of breath in cold air. Isobel stood in a small clearing, holding the decanter at arm's length. The liquid inside was thick and dark, black in the low light, and she rocked it in a slow, steady rhythm as the words left her mouth.
"Per lunam et mare. Redi e aquae sublatus sunt."
The language of her spells was older than the Church that had tried to claim it. She kept her voice low, each word building on the last.
"Per lunam et mare. Redi e aquae sublatus sunt."
On the ground before her, three symbols glowed. Not drawn. Pressed into the dirt as though branded there by something vast and patient. She recognized one of them. The mark on Lana's back, the tattoo the girl had never fully understood. The other two were unfamiliar, but the magic recognized them, and that was enough. They pulsed once, twice, a deep amber light that threw no shadows, and then faded into the soil.
The ground where the symbols had burned smelled like a forge. Not like a fire, there'd been no flame. But the earth itself had been changed by the marking, cooked from within, and the scent that rose from it was hot iron and turned soil and something that smelled the way a root cellar smelled after a hundred years, deep and mineral and patient. Isobel breathed it in. She'd forgotten how the old magic smelled. How it changed the air around it, leaving its fingerprint on the world the way a hand left warmth with a touch.
Inside the decanter, the dark liquid glowed a vivid, incandescent pink, sending tendrils of matching steam curling upward into the cold air.
"Per lunam et mare. Redi e aquae sublatus sunt."
The glow faded. The steam thinned and vanished. The potion was ready.
Footsteps. Isobel stoppered the decanter and turned.
Kyla Willowbrook emerged from the tree line first, behind her, Chloe Sullivan picked her way over a root with considerably less grace, phone flashlight bobbing.
Isobel studied Kyla as she approached. Lana's memories painted the girl as Clark's girlfriend, a recent addition to their circle, sweet, grounded, and easy to like. But Isobel felt something else. A low vibration beneath the girl's skin, subtle as a second heartbeat. Not magic, exactly. Something that lived in the blood and the bone and had been there long before the girl was born. Kyla moved through the woods the way a wolf moved through its territory, comfortable and watchful, and Isobel filed that observation away for later.
"Okay," Kyla said, stopping at the edge of the clearing. "What are we doing out here?"
Isobel smiled. Lana's warm, conspiratorial smile. "I thought it'd be nice to get together with my girls before the party for a little happy birthday drink."
Chloe laughed. "I knew you were up to something. Nothing gets past me. Except why we're playing wood nymph out here when there's a party waiting."
"Then we'd better hurry." Isobel knelt beside the picnic basket she'd brought from the Talon and produced three goblets. Old ones, heavy. She handed one to Chloe and one to Kyla.
Kyla turned the goblet in her hands, running her thumb along the rim. "These are beautiful. Where'd you find them?"
"A toast," Isobel said, ignoring the question. She unstoppered the decanter and poured. The liquid was dark again, no trace of the pink glow, and it filled each goblet. "In honor of this special night."
Kyla raised her glass. "All right. I'm in."
"No matter how much time passes," Isobel said, "old friends are never forgotten."
Chloe touched her goblet to the others. "I'll drink to that."
"Cheers."
"Cheers."
Isobel brought her goblet to her lips and held it there. She did not drink. Over the rim, she watched.
Chloe drank first, a long pull. Kyla followed, sipping once, then deeper. The potion went down smoothly.
Three seconds of silence.
Then the sky split open. Thunder cracked overhead, and lightning strobed through the canopy, and a wind tore through the clearing, bending the trees sideways, scattering leaves and frost in a horizontal sheet. Kyla looked down at her goblet with sudden alarm. Chloe opened her mouth to speak.
Their eyes turned pink.
Both girls threw their heads back at the same instant, faces turned skyward, mouths open in silent gasps that the wind swallowed whole. Their bodies went rigid, spines arched, goblets slipping from their fingers and hitting the frozen ground. The lightning flashed once more, brilliant and close, and then stopped.
The wind died. The thunder rolled away into nothing. The woods were still again.
They lowered their heads slowly. They looked around the clearing. Chloe examined her own hands, turning them over, flexing the fingers. Kyla touched her own face, her hair, the fabric of her jacket, cataloguing each sensation with quiet intensity.
Isobel set down her untouched goblet.
"Madeline," she said, turning to Chloe. Then to Kyla. "Briana." She let the names settle in the cold air between them. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."
Chloe looked down at her hands again, then up at the canopy, then back at Isobel. A grin spread across her face, wide and delighted and nothing like the expression Chloe Sullivan had ever worn.
"How did we come to be here?" she asked. "The last I remember, the flames, the crowd..."
"The last spell I cast before Wilkins condemned me to the pyre. My blood was entwined with the symbol in the book. It called to my heir across the centuries, and when she touched it, I gained possession of her body." She gestured to herself, then to the two of them. "And brought you back."
Kyla wasn't listening. She was looking down at herself with open, unabashed wonder, hands moving across her stomach, her hips, her arms, and laughed, a low, throaty sound.
"I'm gorgeous."
"Yes," Isobel said flatly. "You're very pretty."
Chloe had closed her eyes. She breathed in deep through her nose, held it, let it out slowly. "Ah," she said, savoring it. "The woods of France. I'd know them anywhere."
"We're in Kansas, Madeline."
Kyla looked up from her self-examination. "Where?"
"The Americas." Isobel paused. A flicker of something in her face. "I am unsure as to why I was resurrected here. It was not my intention, but..."
"The book!" Chloe stepped forward, grabbing Isobel's arm. "Do you have it?"
Isobel smiled and looked toward the picnic basket on the ground. Inside, beside the wine bottle and the empty goblets, the spell book sat wrapped in cloth.
"It is ours once again. And with it, our magics." Isobel turned back to them, and the smile sharpened. "Now we may continue our quest for the Stones of—"
"Oh." Chloe held up a hand. "Is that the same quest that got us burned at the stake?"
Kyla's amusement faded. She folded her arms across her chest. "That was not pleasant."
"A small toll," Isobel said, "to travel the road of ultimate power."
Neither of them moved. Chloe glanced at Kyla. Kyla glanced back.
Isobel stepped closer. "You have your hosts' memories. Use them. Learn this world, navigate it, and help us seize the power that was stolen from us." She reached into the basket and drew out the spell book, holding it between them. "I have already acquired one of the stones."
The hesitation broke. Chloe's grin returned first, slow and knowing. Kyla followed, a smile that looked dangerous on her borrowed face.
Isobel smiled back.
The Talon theater was packed. Someone had strung a banner across the old stage that read STATE CHAMPS in red and gold, and beneath it, the football team and half of Smallville High milled between folding tables loaded with food and a sound system that was doing its best to fill the cavernous space. It was a good party, but a calm one. People talked in clusters, picked at the spread, and swayed to the music without really committing to it.
Clark stood near the concession counter with his phone pressed to his ear. It rang four times and went to voicemail. He pulled it away, checked the screen, and tried again. Same result. He hung up and scanned the room.
Tyson was leaning against the old ticket booth, a red cup in one hand, talking to a couple of guys from the team. Clark crossed to him.
"Hey, Ty. Have you heard from the girls? They were supposed to be here an hour ago."
Tyson shrugged. "Lana said she was working on some kind of surprise for Chloe's birthday. Wouldn't tell me what."
"Yeah, but I told Kyla I needed to leave by nine. The Princeton recruiter's meeting me at the house."
"So call her."
"I've been calling her. She's not picking up. Neither is Lana. Neither is Chloe."
Tyson considered this for about two seconds, then clapped Clark on the shoulder. "They're probably on their way. Relax."
Clark didn't relax. He checked his phone again.
The front doors swung open with a heavy groan, and the noise from inside spilled out into the street for a moment before everyone turned to look.
Three figures stood in the doorway, backlit by the streetlamps outside. They walked in together, perfectly in step, heels clicking on the tile floor in unison. Lana was in the center. Chloe on her left. Kyla on her right. All three wore tight black clothing, form-fitting and provocative, with black high-heeled boots that none of them had owned that morning.
"Happy birthday, Chloe!" Tyson called.
Chloe smiled. It was bright and wide and showed too many teeth.
Clark and Tyson both stared.
Lana surveyed the room with a quick, dismissive sweep. "We don't have time for this."
Chloe popped a chip into her mouth from a nearby bowl without breaking stride. "Time is the only thing we do have. Isn't that what you said right before the angry mob set us on fire?"
"You're really not going to let that go, are you?"
Chloe split off toward the guests, accepting birthday wishes with a graciousness that seemed almost performative, like she was playing a role she found amusing. Clark caught Kyla's arm as she passed.
"The guy from Princeton is going to be at the farm in less than an hour. Why are you so late?"
Kyla looked at his hand on her arm, then up at him. She didn't pull away. Instead she stepped closer, looking him over from shoes to face with open, unhurried appreciation.
"I took the scenic route." She smiled. "Love the view."
Clark let go of her arm. "Have you been drinking?"
Kyla just smiled and walked past him toward the refreshment table.
Tyson found Lana near the stage. She was watching the crowd.
"Hey." He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "So what was the big surprise? The outfits?"
Lana turned to him. Something was wrong with her face.
"So what's going on with you three?"
"You talk too much." She put her hand flat against his chest. "Just stand there and look pretty."
Then she kissed him. Not the way Lana usually kissed him, quick and sweet and slightly self-conscious. This was slow, deliberate, and thorough, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, and when she pulled back, her eyes were bright.
Tyson snorted. "Okay. What's gotten into you?"
"Nothing yet," she said, and walked away toward Chloe.
He watched her go, shaking his head with a half-grin. She was messing with him.
At the refreshment table, Chloe was working through a plate of finger food. She bit into a slider and closed her eyes.
"The food is so good in this century."
Lana picked up a napkin and handed it to her. "And the men actually bathe."
Kyla joined them, glancing back over her shoulder at a linebacker walking past. She watched him go with frank, unguarded interest. "And their bodies are so hard."
Chloe spotted Tyson across the room and lit up. She set down her plate and started toward him, but Lana caught her wrist.
"Madeline."
Chloe looked at the hand on her wrist, then at Lana. "What? He's beautiful."
"He's mine."
"He's hers. You're borrowing."
Lana's grip tightened, just slightly. Chloe didn't look away, then smiled and pulled free.
"Fine. But you can't blame a girl for looking."
Lana released her and turned back to the room. The party was still going, still calm, still polite. "We have definitely had better celebrations. This is appalling."
Chloe's smile turned sharp. "We could change that."
Lana considered. She looked at the crowd, at the banner, at the sound system playing its modest playlist. Four hundred years in the dark. Four hundred years of nothing.
"Perhaps a little fun before we continue our quest."
The three of them turned to face the room. Each raised one hand, index and little fingers extended, and above each palm a small sphere of pink energy flickered to life, rotating slowly. The lights in the Talon dimmed. Wind moved through the space, impossible and warm, rustling napkins and lifting hair.
"Liberate bestia."
The pink energy exploded outward from their hands in a single pulse that washed across the room. It passed through every person in the theater and vanished.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the sound system surged. The music doubled in volume and changed, something heavy and driving and relentless, and every person in the Talon started to move. Not swaying. Dancing. Hard, manic, uninhibited dancing, the kind that came from somewhere deeper than decision. Jackets hit the floor. Shirts came off. A girl from the cheerleading squad kicked her shoes into the crowd and kept going. Two linebackers were dancing on the old stage in nothing but their boxers, and nobody seemed to find this strange...
Tyson felt something pass through him, slide across his skin, and try to find purchase, and then it was gone. He blinked. Around him, the Talon was transforming. The music had changed to something pounding and primal, and every single person in the room was moving. A guy from the offensive line ripped his jersey over his head and threw it. Two girls were dancing on the concession counter. Someone had knocked over the punch bowl, and nobody cared.
Tyson stood in the middle of it, watching.
Lana appeared in front of him. She grabbed both his hands and pulled him into the crowd, moving her hips to the beat.
He let her pull him. Whatever had just hit this room hadn't touched him in quite the same way it had hit everyone else. He couldn't place what it was or what he was feeling… or what he was missing exactly.
So he danced. He moved with her, matched her rhythm, but he kept his eyes open.
Chloe sidled up against him, dancing close, her shoulder brushing his arm. She grinned up at him and spun away, then back, laughing. The two of them bracketed him, and under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed the attention. He did enjoy it.
Clark was on the dance floor. Shirtless. Clark Kent, who wore flannel like armor and apologized when he accidentally made eye contact with strangers, had peeled off his shirt and was dancing with Kyla pressed against him, her arms looped around his neck. Kyla was smiling, wide and hungry, and she was moving against Clark in a way that didn't match the girl who got flustered when he held her hand in public.
And she was glowing. Faintly, but there it was. A soft pink luminescence clinging to her skin like heat shimmer. Tyson looked at Chloe. Same thing. The same pink aura.
The same color as Lana's magic.
He caught Lana's waist and pulled her close, mouth near her ear so she could hear him over the music. "Did you do something? Teach Chloe and Kyla magic?"
She pulled back to look at him. "Why would you think that?"
"Party went from zero to Ibiza in about ten seconds. And Kyla and Chloe's auras match yours."
The pretense of Lana flickered, just for a moment. Isobel looked back at him with open amusement.
"Don't be a buzzkill, Tyson."
"Me?" He put his hand over his heart. "Never."
She turned in his grip, pressing her back against his chest, rolling her hips slow and deliberate against him. Her hand came up and found the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, pulling his head down until her lips brushed his jaw.
"Still talking too much," she murmured, and kissed him.
Lana took his hand and pulled him toward the stairs at the back of the Talon. The party raged behind them, music shaking the walls, and she didn't look back. Her grip was firm, purposeful, and she moved up the narrow stairwell. Tyson followed, his mind still turning over what he was seeing on the dance floor.
The apartment door closed behind them. Lana turned and kissed him. Not sweet. Not tentative. She kissed him like she was staking a claim, and then she jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist, trusting him completely to catch her. He did. His hands found her thighs and held her up without effort, and she made a small, satisfied sound against his mouth.
He carried her toward the bedroom, her weight nothing to him. He dropped her onto the bed, and she bounced once, laughing, sprawled across the comforter with her dark hair fanned out around her. She looked up at him hungrily.
The bedroom door creaked open behind him.
Tyson turned. Chloe stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other at her side. She was still wearing the black outfit from downstairs, and the pink luminescence clung to her skin. She looked at Tyson, then past him to Lana on the bed.
"Made—" Lana caught herself. "Chloe. What are you doing?"
Chloe stepped into the room. "It's been so long. I want a taste too." She looked at Tyson with an expression that was just as hungry. She paused, then corrected, "I never got to fully thank Tyson for all the times he saved my life."
Lana propped herself up on her elbows. She looked at Chloe for a long moment, something passing between them like a negotiation conducted in silence.
"Fine," Lana said.
Chloe smiled and crossed the room to Tyson. She put her hands on his chest, rose onto her toes, and kissed him. Her mouth was warm and tasted faintly of the punch from downstairs, and she kissed differently from Lana. Softer at first, then more insistent, like she was remembering how. Then she turned his head gently with one hand, angling him back toward Lana, who had risen from the bed and pressed herself against his other side.
Four hands moved across his body. Lana's tracing the lines of his shoulders, Chloe's sliding down his arms, both of them working in concert like they'd done this before.
This was like a fantasy. The kind of scenario that existed in the back of every teenage boy's mind, filed under "never going to happen." Two beautiful women, both eager, both focused entirely on him. The apartment was warm, and the music from downstairs was muffled to a low pulse through the floor, and their hands were everywhere.
But… It wasn't right.
Chloe Sullivan didn't do this. She was bold in her own way, sharp-tongued and fearless when it came to a story, but she got flustered around guys she liked. She tripped over her words. She deflected with humor. She did not walk into bedrooms uninvited and kiss people.
And Lana. Lana, who had never once looked at another girl with anything beyond friendship. She was watching Chloe's hands on him with calm approval, like a queen granting a favor to a member of her court.
Chloe kissed him again. Deeper this time, pressing close, and Tyson let his right hand drift to his chest. His fingers found the locket hanging against his sternum. He worked the clasp by touch, and the locket fell open. He cupped the small piece of green meteor rock in his palm, keeping it hidden against his body.
He kissed Chloe back. Let his left hand settle on her waist, casual, intimate. Then he began to push, just a thread of current flowing to the stone, through his hand, and into her. Gentle. Barely there. He could feel the pink aura around her, foreign and layered over Chloe's own energy, and he reached for it—
Lana's hand clamped around his wrist.
He looked at her. The pretense was gone. Isobel looked back at him through Lana's face. No warmth at all.
"You're as sharp as you are strong," she said. The American accent was gone. The French lilt underneath came out. "But not so subtle."
She twisted her free hand in a sharp gesture, and pink energy erupted from her palm. It hit Tyson in the chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him backward into the bedroom wall. The drywall cracked behind his shoulders. Picture frames crashed to the floor.
Tyson pushed back. Not with his hands. He reached for the telekinetic ability he'd absorbed from Justin Gaines and shoved it outward in a wave. The pink energy shattered. Lana stumbled back two steps.
"Interesting," she said.
Tyson straightened, pulling himself from the wall, meteor rock still clutched in his fist. He extended his other hand—
Chloe hit him from the side.
Not with her fists. With magic. A bolt of pink energy caught him across the temple and snapped his head sideways, and for a half-second his vision doubled. He tasted copper. Before he could recover, she was already casting again, both hands thrust forward, and the Latin came out of Chloe Sullivan's mouth.
"Impellere!"
The blast took him in the ribs and drove him sideways into the dresser. Wood splintered under his shoulder. He caught himself, planted his feet, and reached for Emily Dinsmore's speed.
The world slowed. Chloe's next spell was already forming between her palms, pink light coalescing into a tight sphere, but to Tyson she was moving through honey. He crossed the distance between them in a blur and caught her wrists, forcing her hands apart. The half-formed spell detonated harmlessly against the ceiling, raining plaster dust.
"Chloe. Listen to me. This isn't you."
She headbutted him.
It shouldn't have hurt. It wouldn't have, from Chloe Sullivan. But the magic reinforced the blow, and pink light flared at the point of contact, and Tyson stumbled back with his ears ringing. Chloe wrenched free and retreated toward Lana, who was already weaving something new between her fingers, threads of pink energy braiding together like rope.
"Constringere!"
The magical ropes lashed out and wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms. Tyson flexed against them. The bindings held for one second, two, then he pushed outward with everything he had, telekinesis and raw physical strength working together, and the ropes shattered into sparks.
The backlash hit Isobel. She stumbled, caught herself on the edge of the overturned bed, and for one unguarded instant, the mask slipped. The controlled, imperious face Isobel wore flickered, and underneath, just for a flash, something Tyson recognized. Lana's stubborn refusal to admit she was outmatched. The set of her jaw. Her lips pressed tight. Not anger. Just refusal to give ground.
"Tyson—" The name came out in Lana's cadence, with Lana's warmth. As if the girl underneath had surged toward the surface for one syllable.
Isobel's face hardened. The slip vanished beneath her composure, and her hands were already moving, already casting. But Tyson had heard it. One syllable in Lana's real voice, strained and frightened and reaching for him from somewhere deep inside her own body.
It made him falter.
It gave her an opportunity to begin casting again.
"Percutere!"
Pink light blazed from both her hands, a sustained beam that struck him across the ribs and sent him staggering. He could have used Walt Arnold's fire. He could feel it coiled in his chest, hot and ready, begging for release. One burst would end this. But the Talon was packed below them. A hundred students, drunk on magic and dancing, with no idea what was happening above their heads. One stray flame and the old theater would go up like kindling.
He swallowed the fire and reached for ice instead.
Sean Kelvin's cold flooded through his hands. He slammed both palms against the floor, and frost erupted outward in a wave, coating the hardwood in a sheet of ice that raced toward both witches. Chloe's boots slipped. She went down hard on one knee, her concentration breaking, and Tyson seized the opening. He hit her with a telekinetic pulse, not full force, just enough to send her sliding across the frozen floor and into the far wall. She hit with a grunt and stayed down, dazed.
One-on-one. Better odds.
Lana struck from behind. A concussive blast caught him in the back of the knee, and his leg buckled. He spun, channeling Jeremy Creek's electricity through his right hand, and lightning arced from him, scorching a black line across the ice.
Lana didn't even slow down.
"Deflectere!"
A pink shield materialized in front of her, and Tyson's lightning bolt struck it and scattered into harmless sparks. She dropped the shield and thrust both hands forward.
"Opprimere!"
The blast caught him in the chest and drove him backward. His shoulders hit the bedroom wall again, deepening the cracks from before, and he felt the studs groan behind the drywall. He pushed off with a snarl and launched himself at her using Emily's speed, closing the gap in a heartbeat. He got his hand around her wrist and pulled her off balance, spinning her, trying to get behind her where she couldn't cast.
She twisted in his grip with a dancer's flexibility and pressed her free palm flat against his sternum.
"Urere!"
Pink fire erupted point-blank into his chest. It burned, searing the skin, and Tyson roared. He shoved her away with a telekinetic burst that sent her tumbling across the bed, but the damage was done. His chest was raw and blistering, and the pain was making it hard to think.
Chloe was back on her feet. She'd recovered far faster than she should have, and she came at him from the right with both hands raised and pink fire streaming from her fingers.
They worked together. Seamlessly. When he blocked Lana, Chloe struck. When he countered Chloe, Lana was already casting. The apartment was being torn apart around them, furniture splintering, plaster raining from the ceiling, and Tyson was losing ground. He could feel it. Each blast he absorbed through the meteor rock fed him a trickle of their magic, but they were pouring it out faster than he could take it in, and the telekinesis wasn't enough to hold two witches at once.
He needed to change tactics.
He leapt straight up, fingers and feet finding purchase on the ceiling and he stuck using Greg's powers, and scuttled sideways as twin blasts of pink energy scorched the air where he'd been standing. From above, he had the angle. He ripped a ceiling beam free with telekinesis and hurled it at Lana. She blasted it to splinters with a word, but the debris cloud bought him a second. He dropped from the ceiling behind Chloe, wrapped one arm around her throat, and pulled her tight against him.
Not to hurt her. To use her as a shield.
Lana hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second, Isobel's ruthlessness warred with the reality that hitting Tyson meant hitting Madeline's host body. That fraction was all Tyson needed.
He reached for Desiree Atkins' power.
The pheromones were subtle. Not a power he wanted to use, not something he'd practiced, but desperation was a hell of a teacher. He let them seep out through his breath, colorless and odorless, to everyone except himself. Chloe was closest. Pressed against him, breathing hard from the fight, she caught the full dose.
The tension in her body changed. The rigid hostility softened. Her hands, which had been clawing at his arm, slowed and then stopped. She turned her head, just slightly, her cheek brushing against his jaw.
"What..." Madeline's voice, confused, the ancient will behind it losing focus. "What are you..."
Tyson breathed heavier. More pheromones, flooding the air now, reaching for Lana across the ruined room. If he could get both of them docile for just a few seconds, he could get the meteor rock, he could try to purge the possession, he could—
Isobel's nostrils flared. Her eyes went wide, then cold.
"Purifica!"
A wave of pink energy exploded outward from her body in every direction. It hit Chloe and burned through the pheromone haze like fire through cobwebs. Madeline snapped back into focus behind Chloe's eyes. She drove her elbow backward into Tyson's solar plexus with magically enhanced force, and he doubled over, his grip breaking.
"Clever animal," Isobel spat. "You tried to seduce us?"
Chloe spun free and retreated to Lana's side, shaking her head like she was clearing water from her ears. "That was... disgusting. What was that?"
"A trick," Isobel said. The amusement was gone. Genuine anger in its place. "He has more gifts than strength."
The bedroom door exploded inward.
Kyla stood in the doorway. The same black outfit, the same heeled boots. Her hands were already wreathed in pink light, and when she looked at Tyson, there was no recognition in her eyes at all. The third witch stepped into the room, three points of a triangle with Tyson at its center. The apartment was destroyed. The bed was overturned, the dresser was kindling, the walls were cratered and cracked, and frost still clung to the floor in patches where it hadn't been scorched away by magical fire.
Tyson straightened. Blood ran from a cut above his eye where Chloe's headbutt had split the skin. His chest was burned and raw.
Three witches.
He looked at Lana.
"Lana. I don't know what this is, but stop it. Please." His voice cracked on the last word. "I love you."
The anger didn't leave Isobel's face. But something else moved beneath it, complicated and almost tender. She pressed her hand to her own chest, over Lana's heart, and tilted her head, and for a second, Tyson thought he'd gotten through to her.
"She loves you, too," Isobel said. The French accent softened the words. "I can feel it. Every time I look at you through her eyes, her heart races. It's... quite distracting." She lowered her hand. "And I confess, I understand the appeal. You're magnificent. Strong, clever, willing to suffer rather than harm those you love." She stepped closer. "In another life, I would have kept you for myself."
"Please, let her go."
"I can't. Not yet." Isobel's face hardened again. "My name is Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux. These are my sisters in the craft, Madeline and Briana. We were burned alive four hundred years ago for practicing magic, and we failed our search for the three Stones of Power that we spent our lives seeking." She gestured to Chloe and Kyla. "We have been given a second chance, in these bodies, and we will not waste it. The Stones are here, in this time, scattered and hidden. I've acquired one, and we will find the others."
"And then what? You just give them their bodies back?"
"No. But I will continue to let you have her body. I should leave you here powerless," Isobel said, and studied him the way a jeweler studies a stone. "But you're lucky you'd make a strong mate." She touched his jaw with one finger, tilting his face up. "Once we collect the Stones of Power, I'll return for you."
They raised their hands together. The pink energy gathered, brighter than before, condensing between their palms into something dense and heavy. Tyson tried to move, tried to reach for any power that might save him, but Kyla's spell hit him first, a binding that locked his joints and froze him in place. He strained against it. His constitution fought the magic on instinct, burning through the weave as fast as they could spin it, and for a moment it almost wasn't enough. Isobel's face tightened with effort. Chloe's too. The spell built and built, the air in the room compressing until Tyson's ears popped.
"More," Isobel commanded through gritted teeth. "He's fighting it."
Kyla added her voice, Briana's Latin sharp and precise. "Adaugeo!"
The combined magic tripled in intensity. Three witches pouring everything they had into a single working, pink light turning white at its core, and Tyson could feel his resistance crumbling. Not fast. Not easy. They were earning every inch of it, sweat on all three borrowed faces, veins standing out on Lana's neck, Chloe's nose bleeding from the strain.
Isobel snarled the final word.
"Evertere!"
It hit him like a collapsing building. His vision went pink, then white, then nothing at all.
Tyson hit the floor and didn't move.
In the lobby below, Mr. Jacobson stepped through the beaded curtain at the Talon theater's entrance and immediately sidestepped as a shirtless young man and a girl in nothing but a sports bra and jeans sprinted past him, laughing. The beads clattered behind him. He clutched his briefcase tighter and stared.
Every table in the lobby had been shoved against the walls or overturned entirely. The lighting was low and pulsing, though he couldn't identify the source, and the music pouring from the sound system was so loud he could feel it in his molars. Bodies filled the floor. Dozens of teenagers, most of them in various states of undress, dancing with the kind of frenzied energy that belonged at a rave, not a school spirit celebration in a Kansas movie theater. A girl was standing on the counter spinning someone's letterman jacket over her head. Two boys in boxer shorts were doing something that might have been breakdancing on the theater's stage, or might have been a seizure. It was hard to tell.
Jacobson adjusted his tie. He picked his way into the crowd, briefcase held in front of him like a shield.
"Pardon me," he said to no one in particular. A girl dancing with her eyes closed bumped into him and kept going without acknowledgment. He sidestepped a puddle of what he hoped was punch and tapped a young man on the shoulder. The kid turned, sweating, grinning.
"Where's Clark Kent?"
The young man pointed toward the back of the room. Jacobson followed the gesture to a narrow staircase leading up to a second level, some kind of loft or balcony overlooking the main floor.
He looked up.
Clark Kent was on the balcony, standing in front of a door that had been knocked inward off its hinges. In his boxers. Nothing else. The boy who had written a deeply earnest application essay about agricultural responsibility and community stewardship was dancing with absolute abandon between two young women, one blonde and one brunette, all three of them moving to the pounding bass like they'd collectively decided that dignity was optional. Clark's arms were above his head, and he was rolling his hips in a way that would have made his mother faint.
"Clark!" Jacobson called up.
Clark glanced down. His face was flushed, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, and he was smiling wider than any person had a right to smile.
"Clark!" Jacobson tried again, louder, projecting over the music.
Clark spotted him. The smile didn't falter. If anything, it got bigger.
Jacobson straightened his posture and summoned every ounce of professional composure he had left. "Mr. Jacobson, Princeton University!"
Clark cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back down. "Hey, come on in! Join the party!" He threw his arms wide and whooped. "Whoo!"
Jacobson looked around the Talon. A shoe sailed past his head. Two kids were making out against the espresso machine. He turned and rushed back to his car.
Clark was still dancing. "Whoo!"
— Meteor Freak —
Morning light slanted through the Talon's front windows at a low angle. Dust motes drifted through it. The full scope of the devastation was impossible to miss. Streamers hung from the ceiling fans in limp tangles. Red and gold balloons, half-deflated, rolled across the floor whenever the heating kicked on. Solo cups covered every horizontal surface. A puddle of something sticky had spread beneath the counter and dried into a dark stain on the hardwood. Someone's bra was hanging from the popcorn machine.
The guests were gone. Mostly. A boy from the football team was curled up in one of the old theater seats near the stage, using a Crows banner as a blanket. A girl was asleep on the counter itself, one arm dangling off the edge, her phone still clutched in her hand. Two more bodies occupied a booth near the back, tangled together in a way that suggested they'd passed out.
A cell phone rang.
Clark jerked upright in the theater seat. His mouth tasted like something had died in it. He fumbled for the phone buzzing in his pocket, squinting at the screen.
Mom.
His stomach dropped. He jabbed the answer button.
"Hey, Mom!" Bright. Casual. The voice of a young man who had definitely not spent the previous evening dancing in his underwear in front of a Princeton admissions officer. "Yeah, I stayed over at the Talon."
He reached for his jeans, which were crumpled on the floor beside his seat. He tugged. They didn't move. He tugged harder. Still nothing. He leaned over and saw the problem. A guy from the lacrosse team and a girl he didn't recognize were both asleep on top of his pants, the denim pinned beneath their combined weight.
Clark yanked. The lacrosse player snorted awake, looked around with confusion, no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there, then saw the girl next to him and apparently decided not to question it. They both scrambled to their feet and bolted for the door without a word.
Clark stood up and stepped into his jeans, phone pinned between his ear and shoulder. "What? Oh, yeah, the guy... the guy from Princeton." He zipped up and cast around for his shirt. It was draped over a light fixture. He left it. "Yeah, I met him last night. I, um..." He swallowed. "Don't worry. I think I made an impression. I'll be home later, love you."
He hung up before she could ask follow-up questions.
The Talon was quiet. Just the soft snoring from the football player in the theater seat. Clark stood in the middle of the wreckage and rubbed his face with both hands. Fragments of the previous night came back in pieces. The music. The dancing. Lana, Chloe, and Kyla, something off about all three of them. Tyson going upstairs.
Tyson.
Clark took the stairs two at a time. The door to the apartment was off its hinges, leaning against the hallway wall at an angle. He stepped through.
The apartment looked like a bomb had gone off. The bed was overturned. The dresser was reduced to kindling, drawers scattered across the room. Cracks spiderwebbed across every wall, deep enough to show the studs behind the drywall. Patches of melted frost in places, and in others, the hardwood was scorched black. Plaster dust coated everything.
Tyson was in the middle of it. Flat on his back, arms spread. A cut above his eye had bled down the side of his face and dried there. His chest was a mess of raw, blistered skin visible through his torn shirt. He looked like he had after Eric Summers had nearly killed him.
Clark crossed the room in three steps and dropped to his knees beside him. "Tyson!" He grabbed his shoulder and shook. "Tyson!"
Tyson's eyes rolled toward him. Unfocused. One pupil was noticeably larger than the other.
"Just need one more hour," Tyson mumbled.
"Tyson, what happened?"
Tyson blinked. Slowly. The kind of slow blink that meant his brain was working through mud. He licked cracked lips and tried to focus on Clark's face.
"The girls," he said. His voice was raw. "They're witches."
Clark stared at him. "Witches."
"Witches." Tyson tried to sit up. Made it about halfway, then thought better of it and lowered himself back to the floor. The ceiling was doing something unpleasant. Spinning, mostly.
"Okay. Start from the beginning."
"Lana and I were upstairs. Making out."
"Okay…"
"It was going really well. Like, really well. She was on top of me, and then Chloe walked in."
Clark waited for the rest of that sentence. It didn't come. "And?"
"And she started making out with me, too."
Clark opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Chloe started making out with you?"
"Yeah."
"While Lana was still there?"
"Yeah. Lana was into it." Tyson paused. Something was trying to surface in his head and failing. "Their auras were pink. Both of them. I noticed because I was, you know, looking at them, and they were both glowing, and I thought... I thought..."
He trailed off. His face went through several expressions.
"I could've had a threesome, Clark."
"Tyson."
"I chose not to. I want that on the record. I made a moral decision."
"Noted. Why were their auras pink?"
"Because they were possessed by witches. French ones. They were inside the girls. Damn, I could've been inside the girls. But I could see it in their auras, and I knew something was wrong, so I stopped."
"You stopped the threesome because of auras."
"Yes."
"And then what happened?"
Tyson squinted at the ceiling. His head was foggy, making the events slippery. "Lana hit me. With magic. Pink magic. Blasted me into the wall." He gestured vaguely at the cracked drywall behind him. "So I pushed back. Telekinesis. Shattered her spell. She said 'interesting.' Which, honestly, kind of hot, but not the point."
Clark pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Then Chloe nailed me from the side. Caught me right in the temple." Tyson touched the cut above his eye and winced. "She was casting spells in Latin. Chloe was speaking Latin, Clark. That's how I knew it wasn't really her. Chloe takes Spanish."
"Focus."
"Right. So I grabbed Chloe's wrists. Pulled her hands apart so she couldn't cast. I was trying to talk her down. I said, 'Chloe, this isn't you.' And she headbutted me."
"Chloe headbutted you."
"Magic headbutt. Way worse. Then Lana tied me up."
Clark's expression went very carefully blank.
"With magic ropes. Pink magic ropes. Around my whole body, pinned my arms." Tyson flexed his hands at the memory. "I broke out of them, though. Flexed right through. And then they were both coming at me, taking turns, and I was trying not to burn the building down because there were a hundred people downstairs, so I couldn't use fire, so I used ice instead. Froze the floor. Chloe slipped and went down, and I had Lana alone for a second, but she hit me from behind and I—"
He stopped.
"Then I tried to seduce them."
"You what?"
"Pheromones. Desiree's power. I grabbed Chloe from behind and just... let it go. And it was working. She was relaxing, pressing against me, and the witch inside her was losing focus, and I thought if I could get them both calm for just a few seconds—"
"Tyson."
"—but the one inside Lana purified it. Burned right through. And Chloe elbowed me in the gut, and the French one called me a 'clever animal,' and then she asked if I'd just tried to seduce them, and honestly, yeah, I did, and it almost worked—"
"Do you hear yourself right now?"
Tyson stopped talking. He lay there on the ruined floor, staring at the cracked ceiling, and replayed the last ninety seconds of conversation in his head. Making out with two girls. Chose not to have a threesome. Got tied up. Grabbed Chloe from behind. Tried to seduce them with pheromones.
"I'm concussed," he said.
"Yeah."
"Everything I just said sounded really bad, didn't it?"
"Little bit."
Tyson closed his eyes. The ceiling had too many cracks, and all of them were moving.
"Can I just give you Cyrus's healing power for like five minutes?" He held up a hand, palm out, not quite reaching Clark. "I really don't want to have to clean the shower like I did at your house. On top of all the other cleanup."
He let his hand fall and gestured loosely at the destroyed apartment around them. The overturned bed. The splintered dresser. The frost patches and scorch marks and the door that was no longer attached to its frame. Downstairs, the Talon looked like a frat house after homecoming weekend. Up here looked like a warzone.
"Sure," Clark said. He took Tyson's hand and pulled him to a sitting position. Tyson swayed but stayed upright. "Then we're going to figure this out."
Tyson focused. It took more effort than usual. The concussion made everything feel like he was reaching through wet sand, but the transfer was simple enough. A pulse of warmth left his hand and passed into Clark's grip. He held the meteor rock as far from Clark as he could manage to keep it from affecting him. Golden light flickered across Clark's skin for a half-second, then sank in.
Clark felt it immediately. Tyson sagged back against the wall. "Heal me. Then I'm taking it back. I need it more than you do."
Clark held his hand over Tyson's chest. The golden warmth flowed out through his palm, and the cut above Tyson's eye knitted shut. The blistered skin across his chest smoothed and pinked. The uneven pupils contracted to the same size.
"Better," Tyson said. He flexed his hands. Rolled his neck. "Give it back."
Tyson palmed the meteor rock again, using a light current, it passed back through their clasped hands. Tyson absorbed it and stood up. Steady now. Clear-eyed.
They looked at the apartment. Then at each other.
His attention snagged on the bed. The comforter was bunched against the far wall where the blast had thrown it, and a pillow lay on the floor near his feet, and the fitted sheet had come loose on one side, exposing the bare mattress beneath. He picked up the pillow. It still smelled like Lana's shampoo. The fact that the smell was still in the fabric while the girl was gone felt cruel.
She was in there. Right now, wherever Isobel had taken her body, Lana was inside it, aware, watching someone else use her hands and her voice.
His anger wasn't hot. It wasn't the kind that made his hands shake or his jaw clench. It was quiet and deep and patient, the kind that would keep until he needed it.
He tossed the pillow onto the bed. Then he turned to Clark.
"Superspeed?" Clark said.
"Superspeed."
They blurred. Clark took the Talon downstairs. Cups vanished into trash bags. Streamers came down in long pulls. The sticky puddle got scrubbed, the counter wiped, the bra removed from the popcorn machine and deposited in a lost-and-found box that Clark made. Chairs righted themselves. Tables cleared. The football player woke up to find himself gently deposited on the sidewalk outside with his jacket folded under his head.
Upstairs, Tyson worked the apartment. He righted the bed. Swept the plaster dust. Gathered the splintered remains of the dresser into a pile. Mopped the scorch marks and melted frost-wateruntil they were faint shadows instead of obvious burns. He got the door back on its hinges, though it hung slightly crooked.
Then he looked up at the ceiling and winced.
The beam he'd ripped free during the fight was gone. Not broken. Gone. He'd used it as a weapon at some point, and the structural gap it left was obvious. Drywall sagged around the hole. You could see the roof joists above.
"That's going to need a contractor," he muttered.
Eight minutes. The Talon looked like a theater that had hosted a mildly rowdy open mic night instead of a hundred-person rager. The apartment looked like someone had done aggressive renovations and quit halfway through. Not great but passable.
They sat in a booth downstairs. Clark had made coffee. It was terrible, but it was hot.
"Lana has one of the Stones of Power," Tyson said. He wrapped both hands around the mug. "The witch inside her. Isobel. She said she had it last night. The Stones was supposed to be in the Kawatche caves. She got it somehow." Tyson took a drink and set the mug down. "Which means we need to find out how, and we need to find the girls. All three of them."
Clark was quiet for a moment. "Lex had the caves closed off. Sealed the entrance after the last time. If someone got in, he'd know about it." He paused. Rubbed the back of his neck. "I need to talk to him anyway. The Princeton interviewer showed up last night. At the party."
Tyson looked at him.
"I was dancing," Clark said. "I invited him upstairs."
"You invited the Princeton admissions guy upstairs at a house party."
"I was... it was..." Clark trailed off. "There was definitely something in the air last night. Magic. It's the only explanation."
"Yeah," Tyson said. "There was. Alright, let's go."
A piano played somewhere in the depths of the Luthor mansion.
"He's playing," Clark mumbled.
They found the study doors open. Clark walked in first, his mind already on the conversation he needed to have. The piano kept going. Lex was at the bench with his back to them, his head swaying slightly, and Clark didn't look at him. He was too busy trying to figure out how to frame last night's events so they didn't sound as bad as it was.
"Lex, can I talk to you for a second? I got a big problem. I was supposed to meet this alumni from Princeton last night, but then there was the football party, and Lana wanted to throw something extra for Chloe. Well, the party kind of got out of hand, and the guy from Princeton showed up, and I think I kind of blew it."
The piano kept playing.
Clark walked past the bench. He still wasn't looking. Tyson was. He'd stopped just inside the doorway, and he was watching the way Lex's head dipped forward and then jerked upright, like he was fighting to stay conscious.
"Look, um, I hate to ask you this," Clark said, "but do you have any connections at Princeton?"
Nothing. Just the piano.
"Lex?"
Clark finally turned. He looked at Lex, and the words died in his throat.
Lex's fingers were raw. The skin on his fingertips had worn through hours ago, and what was left was cracked and bleeding freely. Blood smeared across the ivory keys in long streaks, pooling in the gaps between them, dripping onto the fallboard. His hands moved mechanically, pressing the same keys in the same order, and every note left a fresh red print.
"Lex, what are you doing?"
Lex looked up. His face was gray. His eyes were wet and desperate and exhausted, like he'd been trying to stop for a very long time and couldn't. His lips moved. The piano kept playing.
Clark dropped to his knees beside the bench and grabbed Lex's arms. "Stop. Stop it!"
"I can't."
Clark's jaw set. He reached for the piano with one hand.
Tyson got there first.
He crossed the room in three strides and shoved the piano sideways. It rolled on its casters, wheels shrieking against the hardwood, and came to rest six feet away. The sudden silence was enormous. Lex's hands kept moving in the air for a few seconds, fingers pressing nothing, and then they stopped. His whole body sagged.
Clark held Lex's arms, keeping him upright on the bench. "Lex, what happened?"
Lex's head started to slump forward. "Lana," he said. The word came out on an exhale, barely voiced.
Tyson was already kneeling on Lex's other side. He put his hand on Lex's shoulder and pushed. Golden warmth spread from his palm through the fabric of Lex's shirt, sinking into skin and muscle and bone. The torn flesh on Lex's fingertips began to close. The trembling in his arms smoothed out. Color crept back into his face in slow degrees.
Lex sucked in a breath. Then another. His eyes cleared.
"What did you tell her?" Tyson said.
Lex looked down at his hands. The blood was still there, drying in the creases of his knuckles, but the wounds beneath it were gone. He flexed his fingers. Stared at them.
"The stones," he said. His voice was stronger now, rough with the rasp of someone who'd been awake far too long. "She wanted to know where the other Stones of Power were. I told her."
"Where?"
"One is with Kara. The other is with Wayne."
Tyson went still. "Wayne? Like Bruce Wayne?" He looked at Clark, then back at Lex. "They're going after Kara?"
Lex stared at Tyson's hand on his shoulder. At the fading golden light. He looked up at Tyson with the sharp, calculating focus of a man whose mind had just rebooted.
"You have powers," Lex said.
"Did you think Kara liked me because of my wit?"
Lex looked at him for a long moment. "Yeah," he said. "Actually, I did."
Tyson kept his hand on Lex's shoulder. The golden light pulsed steady, sinking deeper, and Lex straightened on the bench as the last of the exhaustion drained from his face.
"Kara will be fine," Lex said. He wiped his hands on his slacks, leaving rust-colored streaks on the charcoal fabric. "I'm more worried about Wayne Enterprises. I found out they had a Stone, similar to the one I had. The one Lana took from me." He paused. "I was trying to purchase it from them, but they were set on displaying it."
"In Gotham City?" Tyson asked.
Lex nodded.
Clark's frown deepened.
Lex looked at Tyson. Then at Clark. Then back at Tyson, and the calculation in his face was obvious. He didn't want to say too much in front of Clark. "How did you get powers?"
"Meteor rock infection," Tyson answered.
Lex was quiet for a beat. "If we could study this. Figure out how it works." He looked at his own healed hands. "Imagine the good we could do with your power."
"You're right," Tyson said. "But priorities. Kara's in danger."
"Kara will be fine," Lex repeated.
"Is she still in Metropolis?"
"Yes. I'm going to call her now." Lex pulled his phone from his pocket and started scrolling. "Did you want to talk to her?" He looked up.
The study was empty. Clark and Tyson were gone.
— Meteor Freak —
Three hundred miles east, Isobel drove. The act itself delighted her, though she'd never admit it to Madeline or Briana. The machine responded to the smallest pressure of her foot, obedient as any trained horse, and the speed was intoxicating. Lana's memories supplied the mechanics. Mirrors, signals, the painted lines that governed passage, but the thrill was Isobel's own. To cover in hours what would have taken her weeks on horseback. To sit in warmth and silence while the world blurred past the glass. The twenty-first century was barbaric in its own ways, but its conveniences were extraordinary.
Beside her, Chloe slept in the passenger seat with her head against the window. Madeline's consciousness drifted somewhere beneath the surface, content to rest while the host body recovered. In the back seat, Kyla sat with her knees drawn up, Briana watching the passing darkness with the quiet wonder of someone seeing the world for the second-first time.
The Stone of Power rested in the pocket of Lana's coat. One of three. The first had come easily. The second was in Gotham City. In the hands of a man named Wayne, about whom Lana's memories held nothing useful and Lex's coerced intelligence held little more. A collector. Private. Careful. The kind of man who kept his acquisitions close, which meant the kind of man who would not surrender them without cost. The third, if Lex's information held, would come from the girl in Metropolis, and Lana's memories suggested that Kara was formidable but not magical. Not a witch-killer. Not a real obstacle.
Isobel smiled. She'd dealt with men like Wayne before. They burned like everyone else.
But her thoughts kept returning to Smallville. To the apartment above the theater, and the boy she'd left on the floor.
He'd fought three witches. Alone. Without magic of his own. He'd shattered her binding spell through sheer physical will. He'd used tactics she hadn't anticipated; the cold, the pheromones, and each time she'd countered, he'd adapted. She'd needed all three of her coven, casting at full power to put him down, and even then it hadn't been clean.
Magnificent, she'd called him, and she hadn't been lying.
Lana stirred inside her. Not fighting; the girl had stopped fighting hours ago, exhausted and frightened, and retreated to some small, quiet corner of her own mind. But she stirred now, and Isobel felt the reason. A feeling, warm and deep, rising unbidden.
She loves him, Isobel thought. Even caged, she loves him enough that just thinking about him wakes her up.
Isobel placed her hand on her own chest. Lana's heart was beating faster. The girl couldn't speak, couldn't move a single finger, but her body still responded to the thought of him.
What a waste, Isobel thought. All that love, poured into a mortal life. Into a teenage romance in a town made of corn and dust.
She would put it to better use.
Isobel pressed the accelerator, and the road to Gotham City opened ahead of her.