"And you need a psychiatric ward, but you don't see talking about it." Dominic fired back, and almost everyone took a step away from the man who seed a bit too keen on going down the path of death. A path neither of them was willing to take.
Tracy shifted on her feet and glanced at the man and his audacity. For a split second, she wanted to turn him into a toad or sothing even worse, but she knew that this was not the ti. Curling her lips into a smile that didn't reach her eyes, she said to him, "I swear to the goddess of magic, if I didn't have sothing more important to do other than straightening up that sorry ass of yours, I swear I would have sent you flying to the moon."
"What do you an by more important?" Finn asked slowly. Every single instinct of his was telling him that this place was layered with more than just rot and dust, and he had no idea what to make of it.
Tracy glanced at him and then very calmly. In fact, a bit too calmly, she said to him, "This hotel is warded."
Everyone stopped moving then and there. The stairs started to groan under their weight as they stood on the spot and stared at the witch in shock. The sound echoed far louder than it should have as they stared at her in sheer disbelief.
Tao blinked his eyes as if trying to understand what she was even telling them. He did a slow blink and then asked, "I am sorry, what did you say just now? Warded what? What do you an by warded? What is – what are you trying to say?"
Tracy didn't respond; instead, she crouched down and brushed her fingers against the faded carpet. Her expression sharpened from annoyance to focus. The careless air that she usually wore slowly slipped away and was replaced by sothing old and alert. "Of course, these are not protection wards," she added in a worried voice. "Oh no, these are containnt wards. Very crudely made and not to ntion the desperation in these wards—I can almost taste them."
Finn had no idea what the witch was even saying at this point. He turned to look at Laxus and Ajax, who were just as confused, but compared to Finn and Ajax, Laxus seed like he had a much better understanding of the current situation. He pursed his lips and then asked in a low voice, "You an to say that the witch we are hunting is hiding here? Are we close to her?"
"No, she is not here," Tracy replied as she slowly got to her feet. "These are just …residual. Sothing she left behind, and in a hurry, too. She must have tried to hold sothing here. Sothing that couldn't be contained…sothing that didn't want to be contained."
A chill slipped down the spines of the n who stood there.
"Amorphous." Tao spat out. There was no doubt in his voice. "Or I should say an incomplete one. The one that cannot hold onto one form for a long ti."
"There is nothing to be surprised about that anyway," said Tracy. "That thing isn't supposed to even exist. The fact that the witches used shifters as anchors by tearing them into pieces of their beast form and then stitching them together with magic that shouldn't even exist —these anomalies are now basically trying to force themselves into staying alive because death is not an option for them. Until they et their match."
Ajax swore under his breath. He had never faced an anomaly, but the things he saw in the warehouse were. "They are not anomalies…they are simply nightmares."
On the other hand, Dominic's jaw clenched. He thought of the cheetah shifter who lost his cub and was killed by dark magic used by the witches. And those cheetah and lion shifters were just the start. He had seen the aftermath of other shifters as well. Shifters that were found half shifted. Bones misaligned, instincts scrambled as they were on their last breath. As for those who sohow managed to run away, they ended up losing their minds. They couldn't even tell them the start or the end, much less the hiding spot of those witches who did such a vicious thing to them.
"And what about this place?" He asked, was this the hideout of the witch or sothing even more sinister?
Tracy rolled her shoulders, feeling slight stiffness in them. She brushed her hands on the fabric of her jeans. "This is the resting point, or maybe I should say it was the resting point. Sowhere, the witches could crash and keep working on their anomaly. Unfortunately, they underestimated the spell that they were using; now the amorphous is out of control, and they are off the radar."
"As in—" Laxus started.
"As in," Tracy cut in. "The amorphous grew way stronger than the dark witches anticipated it to be; dark magic is not a legalised field of magic. It's dangerous and has its own risks. If soone doesn't use it carefully, there is a very good chance that they might lose control of their own magic. Similarly, sothing like that happened to these witches. The amorphous has learned how to wear forms even if it cannot hold them for long …and it does not recognise any owner."
Silence thickened on the stairs.
The flickering lights buzzed over their heads, and sowhere down the hall, they could hear the sound of water dripping steadily, like a countdown, making the situation even more terrifying than it already was.
"And you brought us here because you want to use us as bait," Ajax muttered. "And here I thought that you were, for once, trying to do sothing nice for us. My nana was right; never trust a witch. Today it's you; the next day it might be your underwear."
"Which witch stole your underpants?"
"Not mine, but my uncle's. A witch once used his underpants to take a rabbit out of it—not a pleasant experience at all. That too in front of his date."
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