Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 21 Welcome to the Jungle By Amethyst

At five minutes to midnight, we stepped through the gate that Sarah had cast from our living room and into the darkened snow-covered parking lot, each of us dressed in our Demon hunting gear with the sole exception of Talisha. Our elder Faery cousin had removed her glamour and wore some exercise gear meant to allow her the use of her wings and that Sarah had enchanted to keep her comfortable even in the cold and falling snow. Sarah, Ziralin, and Annie were the only of us with Celestial forms at the moment so they had stepped through first to cover the rest of us, just in case Khinara and her minions were already there waiting.

As soon as we were through the gate and it had dissipated behind us, I began casting my first two spells. I had already prepared by gathering and purifying as much magic energy as I could while we had been waiting for the upcoming battle. With the amount of magick that those gates give off when used, I didn’t think it would be long before Khinara showed up and I wanted to be ready. I was right, we didn’t have to wait for long.

Less than two minutes after we had arrived I could feel another gate forming, the energy dark and malevolent. Khinara was the first to step out of the gaping black tear in space-time, I could feel her familiar and disturbing presence, and I wasted no time whatsoever in unleashing my attack. At my command, a dozen balls of holy magick flew from my outstretched hand to pepper the Skarik as soon as she was out of the portal. I blame Ziralin, Jen, and Ellie and their talks about D&D, I thought a holy version of magic missiles would be pretty cool.

It was cool, up until the point that the magick projectiles hit whatever shield spell she had up and harmlessly dissipated. Then she used a concussive spell to send us all flying. Damn, she was powerful. Whatever that shield spell was it was tough, and it was going to take a lot of magick to crack it. This was not starting well at all.

To add insult to injury, or in this case lack-of-injury, Khinara laughed as we started to pick ourselves up off the ground. Let me tell you, Skariks are damn creepy at the best of times, and laughing only makes them more so. Picture, if you will, a really sexy woman’s torso and legs with dark purple skin, six arms all ending in long thin fingers with nasty-looking claws, and to top it off, a big head like the creatures in those Aliens movies. Only Skariks’ heads are more wedge-shaped, coming to a point at the back, with all these bone ridges along the top, blood-red eyes, and a mouth full of shark-like teeth. Oh, and let’s not forget the three-foot-long needle-tipped tongue for feeding on your brain juice.

So yeah, just picture that laughing and then turning to grin at me as she spoke in my mind. ~Oh, how wonderfully dishonorable, a sneak attack. You might have even succeeded if I hadn’t detected the portal you used to get here and came prepared. This is going to be so much fun! I was hoping that you got my invitation when my Brand on the girl was removed, I must know how you managed that.~

“Learn to live with disappointment,” I grumbled. My own shielding spell had taken a beating but managed to protect me from most of the concussive force of the blast and I quickly cast another more powerful one, along with two other spells. She managed to shield her eyes against the flash of light in time but I had time to throw the holy hand grenade of Cailleach dearg before she recovered. Her shield was still up but that had at least given the others time to get to their feet and for Sarah to hit her with a holy spell of her own.

I could feel her shield spell weakening slightly but while we had been trying to gain the advantage she had just let the spells hit her and kept the gate open long enough for another twenty Demons to emerge. They were all wearing some kind of black armor that covered their entire bodies and heads and it was just brimming with dark magick. Ziralin and Annie were both peppering them with holy projectiles, Ziralin from her bow and Annie from the hidden launchers in her bracers but they seemed to be just bouncing right off.

“Shit, that armor is tough,” Annie cursed. “Try to go for the eyeholes or find other gaps or weak spots.”

Ellie had barely managed to avoid one of the approaching Demons’ blows with a huge mace, they were strong and fast, even in that armor. I was about to cast a spell to give her some support when a loud ringing sound reverberated through the clearing. And there was Mason in his armored Celestial form, his massive shield in place to intercept the blow. “That’s not armor, this is armor. I had a feeling that you ladies could use our help.”

“We’re so getting grounded if our parents find out we’re out this late though,” Jennifer said as the snow and ice in the parking lot moved at her command to freeze in place an armored Demon going after Talisha.

The Faery wasted no time in nocking a silver-tipped arrow and letting it fly toward her pursuer’s eye socket. The armor clattered to the ground as the Demon inside turned to ash. The others quickly pressed the attack; Ziralin picking her shots whenever she had the opportunity to target a weak spot, Ellie drawing her silver-coated sword, and Annie getting up close and personal and resorting to the pair of foot-long silver claws that had emerged from the slots to either side of the hidden launchers in each of her bracers. That left Sarah and I relatively free to deal with Khinara.

My sister and I were pounding the Skarik with every spell we could think of and I could feel her shield weakening slightly with each attack. She was hitting us with attacks of her own though and we were spending as much time casting defensive spells as we were offensive spells. Between the wind and falling snow making visibility suck and the battle royal currently going on, I barely noticed a figure sneaking behind Khinara until I heard three gunshots over the roaring wind and Khinara stumbled forward, hissing in pain before turning toward her attacker.

“You wanted a meal, Bitch? Eat lead,” Lisa said before emptying the rest of the handgun’s clip into the Skarik.

“Wait, those bullets got through her shield! Could it be that she only shielded herself against direct magick attacks? Also, what the hell is Lisa doing?!” I thought as I ran toward my new apprentice, putting more magick into my shield as I slid past Khinara and knocked Lisa out of the way of the Skarik’s rage-fueled counter-attack. “Lisa! I specifically told you not to try to come here and get involved in this fight!” I hissed as I turned to let loose another holy missiles attack and place a shield spell on my apprentice while Sarah attacked Khinara from behind with another round of spells of her own.

“No, you specifically forbade me to use magick before I was properly trained. You didn’t say anything about offing that demonic bitch with my dad’s old gun,” Lisa clarified as she shoved the gun back in the holster belt she was wearing.

“Well, all you succeeded in doing was pissing her off,” I retorted as I stripped off my gloves, revealing my platinum hand flowers. I was just in time to grab Khinara’s needle-tipped tongue, as it darted toward Lisa and bounced off my shield spell, the platinum causing the appendage to sizzle and burn. “Nuh-uh Khinara. No tongue, she’s not that kind of girl!”

Khinara screamed as her mental voice battered my brain. ~I will kill you both for this! You will suffer untold torments until I tire of you! You’ll beg for me to kill you!~

I winced at the pain that both were causing in my head as I squeezed and yanked as hard as I could, ripping off the end of her tongue. As it turned to ash in my hand I shot back, “I suppose you’ll want to wait for that to grow back first. Your first lesson in fighting Demons, Lisa. They heal fast and you can only really hurt or kill them with holy magick or weapons made from silver or platinum, like these.”

Khinara reached for me, damn she was fast. She probably would have grabbed me if Ziralin hadn’t swooped in to grab me and Lisa and pull us to a safer distance. Then, as she reformed her bow and rained holy arrows upon the Skarik, she said pointedly, “Lesson two: Unlike your Familiars, you Witches are squishy and don’t have the physical attributes to fight most Demons up close and personal. I’ll cover you while the others finish the armor-plated goons.”

My fiancée’s message was received loud and clear and I began casting another volley of spells at Khinara to keep her too busy to get that close again. She was shaking off everything that Sarah, Ziralin, and I were throwing at her and although I could sense that her shield spell was closer to failing, she was working on a really big spell and I had a horrible feeling that I knew exactly who the targets were. There was something familiar feeling about the spell and the taste of the magick. It was similar to the spell that had brought her to… Oh shit!

I had barely made that realization when I felt the world lurch, it was like my stomach had been turned inside out for a moment before suddenly returning to its proper configuration. Gone were the snow and wind and, as I took in the jungle around us, I could hear the sound of vomiting nearby. I couldn’t really blame Lisa since I had nearly emptied the contents of my stomach as well.

I had no idea where we were but from the very strong pull of my connection to Ziralin somewhere far to the north of us I was going to guess that we were somewhere in Central or South America. It was going to take a few minutes to cast a gate back to the others or to purify enough magick energy to pound her with enough holy spells to take that shield spell down but I had a sinking suspicion that Khinara wasn’t going to allow us that time. I could feel her aura nearby, and getting closer with every second. Sometimes I hate being right.

~Two little Witchlings lost in the trees. I can’t wait to hear their pleas. I’ll hunt them slowly to stoke their fears. Until their screams are music to my ears,~ Khinara’s mental voice taunted.

If I hadn’t felt her demonic aura approaching, I never would have moved in time to avoid her as she lunged at me from the bushes. I rolled aside shouting to Lisa, “Get up and move!” I had barely gotten to my feet when I grabbed Lisa’s hand and half dragged her along with me through the trees.

This was exactly what Khinara wanted, us running through the jungle with no time to cast a spell to get us out of here. She was a predator and she probably wasn’t the only deadly creature in whatever jungle we were in. Our only real advantages were that I could cast a lot of spells on the fly and I could sense her presence so she wouldn’t be so much stalking us as trying to wear us down. All I could do was try to keep us alive until Sarah could figure out where we’d been transported to or until I could manage to kill Khinara somehow, and as we were running for our lives neither seemed very hopeful.

I needed to find something useful to fight Khinara off with and that wasn’t going to be easy while trying to keep us both at a safe distance and keeping an eye out for any other dangers as I was. I needed something to take her out before she wore us down or stopped toying with us. As we passed through a small clearing about twenty feet in diameter I found what I was looking for, a massive tree with a low hanging branch. The moment we were past the clearing and the tree I hissed quietly to Lisa, “Get on all fours… and pretend to be… out of breath.”

“I am… out of breath,” Lisa wheezed as she fell to her knees and tried to get her breathing back under control.

I quickly began weaving my spells, though pulling that large branch so far and keeping it there was taking a lot more of my focus than I would have liked. ~Get up! Run! It’s no fun if it’s over so soon!~ Khinara’s mind voice hissed in glee as she ran through the clearing and pounced at us.

“You want fun, try this,” I muttered as I let go of my hold on the massive branch. It whipped toward her, catching her in the chest and sending her flying back a good ten feet and, as she flew, I activated my other spells. Vines from the trees above reached out to entangle her as wooden spikes shot at her from the trees surrounding the clearing, bombarding her from all sides. The wounds from those spikes would likely only piss her off further, and I was under no delusions that the vines could contain a creature of her strength for long, so as soon as she was wrapped up tight and impaled with the worst wood slivers ever I let her drop to the floor of the clearing which had now become a pit of quicksand.

Lisa stared at me in shock. “Damn, that was awesome.”

“I’m a little busy here, Lisa,” I said as I gathered and purified magick energy so I could finish the Demoness off before she could break free and counter-attack. I could keep hitting her with physical spells like those all day long but, while they could get past her shield, they weren’t going to take her or that shielding spell of hers down. I was almost ready when Khinara broke free of the vines and sent me and Lisa both flying into a tree with another concussive spell.

The spell hit hard and shattered my shielding spells and Lisa and I both fell to the ground in a heap. While I didn’t think anything was broken, I was going to feel that in the morning, if I managed to live that long. I was so sore and tired that I could barely move but I fought through the pain and tried to help Lisa to her feet so we could get moving again. We were both too slow.

Khinara freed herself from the pit and leaped at us, battered and furious but already healing as she knocked us to the ground and I hit my head on the tree, making me see stars. She stood over me with that horrifying grin on what passed for her face and reached to pull down my face shield. ~I want to see your face before I kill you, Witchling. My my, aren’t you the pretty one. Haven’t I seen your face somewhere before? No matter, I’m going to kill you slowly so I can see that pretty face contorted in fear and agony. Or maybe I should kill the other one first and let you watch her die, knowing that there is nothing that you can do to prevent it.~

She turned to Lisa and raised one of her six fists to deliver a blow that would in all likelihood have caved Lisa’s head in, had a bundle of fur, teeth, and claws not suddenly pounced upon the Skarik from the branch above us. The black-furred beast raked its claws across Khinara’s eyes, causing her to scream as what appeared to be Michelle continued to rain blows upon the blinded Demon as she screamed, “Leave them the hell alone!”

I didn’t look the gift cat-girl in the mouth, instead, I took advantage of the distraction by pummeling Khinara’s weakened shield spell with another volley of holy missiles. “Yes! Her shield is down!” I thought in a mix of relief and euphoria as I formed a holy spear with the last of my purified magick energy and threw it at the Demoness.

It might have been because I was currently seeing three of her but my attack only landed a glancing blow, eviscerating her two lower right arms and turning them to dust. It wasn’t close enough to her head or body to kill her though, and I wasn’t sure that I had enough left in the tank for another attempt as she screamed again in agony.

As luck would have it, that was when I sensed a gate forming. Khinara might not have been able to see at the moment, but she could sense the magic of the forming gate as well as I could. I could feel her forming a gate of her own and even as the gate appeared and Sarah and the others stepped through, Khinara dove through her own gate. Before that gate closed I heard in my mind, ~I will recover and find you again and, when I do, there will be no more games. You and your friends will all die.~

As Sarah made sure that Lisa and I hadn’t suffered any major injures and cast healing spells to take care of the injuries we did have, Annie explained that they had finished taking down the Demons and getting rid of any evidence of the fight while Sarah had tried to locate me and Lisa. I had explained what happened since Lisa and I had been snatched away and nobody was very happy that the Demoness had gotten a look at my face. It was Elsaishe who addressed the elephant in the room, or rather the cat-girl in the black sleep shirt, once the explanations were done. “How the hell did you get here, Michelle?”

“I dunno,” Michelle replied, looking very confused about it herself. “I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep when I had this really strong pulling feeling and I knew that Lisa needed me. I was trying to figure out how to get to her when that pulling sensation sort of felt like it snapped and then I was on the branch above her and Shannon and saw that freaky Demon about to bash Lisa’s head in.”

“We can figure that out later,” Jennifer said with a frown. “Right now I think we all need to get to our homes, some of us before our parents realize we’re gone. And Shannon and Lisa should be getting some rest before school in the morning.”

Lisa and I tried to get to our feet as Sarah cast the gate back home but our Familiars weren’t having it. “You need to rest,” Ziralin told me sternly as she picked me up in her arms and Michelle did the same for Lisa. I wasn’t going to complain or resist, as tired as I was. My last conscious thoughts were of my fiancée carrying me through the gate and up to my bedroom, placing me in my bed, and kissing me goodnight.

With Sarah’s help, Mason, Jennifer, and Michelle all managed to get back home and in bed before their respective parents realized that they were missing. Annie had driven Lisa’s car home from where she had left it at the edge of the parking lot before Lisa’s mom got home from her shift at the hospital. While Annie had been doing that, Lisa had returned both her father’s gun and holster belt to the keepsake box with his military dress uniform, medals, and other paraphernalia from his time in the service before his untimely demise. She even finished cleaning the worst of the damage in her room before getting to sleep.

It was two days before power was fully restored. Between that and the heavy snow, most of the schools in the city were closed those two days, including St. Catherine’s. At least that gave me some time away from the jerks with the cameras, though that didn’t mean that we were taking it easy. Ziralin and I used those two days to train our new apprentices as hard as we could and to continue to refine our own skills. Lisa and Michelle had even joined our Tuesday martial arts lesson with Annie.

We all needed to train as hard as we could to prepare for what might lay ahead. We still had one more Sentinel to find after all, and Xuriel was expecting us to meet her in Heil to take the battle to the Demons. Most importantly though, Khinara was still out there licking her wounds. She had seen my face and next time she would strike without warning. After our recent battle with her, I wasn’t sure that we could take her when she wasn’t playing her games, not without improving our abilities, increasing our power, and working together.