Page 66 of Spring L.A.W.
And Payne stood alone in the training room, heart still hammering, finally aware of just how much he’d been afraid to lose her.
The windsof fate had changed. Or rather, the witches stopped futzing around and decided todosomething about this abomination. They painted glowing runes of protection and strength on each other, on Katie, and on Payne. There was no more room to paint on Eli, so he was safely hidden away in the mansion’s panic roomwiththe VR headset.
The night air around the L.A.W. mansion buzzed with the tight calm of a planned strike. Spells prepped, weapons drawn, wards pulsing beneath the grass like buried wires. Then it was too quiet. No bugs. No birds. Just a high, metallic hum that built.
“They say silence is golden,” Brianna murmured, eyes scanning the tree line. “This feels more silver and homicidal.”
Rayna didn’t answer. Her pulse was pounding hard enough to drown out snark. The witches stood in a wide circle around the mansion’s perimeter, candles and salt flickering in place. AJeep had been parked in the brush nearby, armed and ready to roll out enchanted iron nets and whatever else Joell had loaded into it.
Payne stood a little behind Rayna’s right shoulder, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off him. He wasn’t touching her. But he was ready.
Sahara whispered from across the circle, “It’s close.”
Victoria’s eyes flared. “No. It’shere.”
A blur of shadow erupted from the fountain like a geyser of ink, twisting midair and slamming into the salt line. It screamed, high and shrill like metal tearing itself in half, but didn’t fall back. Itlearned. Its second attempt came from underground, bursting out near the fountain in a spray of dirt and stone. A mimic in the shape ofsomething, but not quite human. Arms too long, and too many teeth.
“Hold!” Rayna shouted.
Magda flung a wall of wind at it, knocking the mimic off balance, then it disappeared, but another shadow peeled from the tree line and launched itself at Rayna.
Payne moved without hesitation, intercepting the creature mid-leap and slamming it to the ground with a grunt. Crystal followed, driving an enchanted spike through the thing’s shoulder. It didn’t bleed. It just hissed, then dissolved into smoke.
“It’s splitting,” Victoria said, hands moving in tight, complex patterns. “Maybe one body, but many projections.”
Rayna’s vision pulsed with magic. “Then we find the source.”
But before they could, the mimic twisted the air again, and this time the attack came fromabove.
The sky ripped open. Not a portal. Atear.Like someone had clawed the night itself, and something dropped through. A mimic, larger, more solid, wearing the exact face of Joell.
Katie gasped. “That’s not her. That’snot her.”
Joell placed a hand on her hip and glared at it. “No shit. I’d never wear my hair that way.”
The goldfish in Katie’s bubble burped a faint glow and mumbled, “Don’t trust the familiar faces... Oh, it wants cookies,” before forgetting itself and spinning in a circle.
Rayna stepped forward, raising both hands, glyphs swirling to life across her skin. “No mercy,” she whispered. The glyphs lit up the lawn like war paint as the witches unleashed hell.
Magda’s wind became a hurricane funnel. Sahara wove heat into raw flame. Brianna cracked open the earth beneath the mimic’s feet. Victoria moved without speaking, casting spells Rayna didn’t even recognize. Lioness drew sharp, ancient things that shimmered with buried starlight.
But the mimic didn’t go down. Itabsorbedthe spells, body twitching and reshaping with each one, like it was studying, evolving, andgrowing.
Lioness shouted, “Behind you!”
Rayna spun, but not fast enough. A shadow claw raked across her ward. The impact staggered her, and her magic flared out of sync. Suddenly, the protection glyphs on her arms began to glitch, flickering like bad Wi-Fi.
“Shit. It’s disrupting our focus. Stay focused, everyone!”
Payne was beside her in a second, gun in one hand, spell-tagged blade in the other. “You good?”
Rayna hissed as another claw tore through the air inches from her cheek. “I’mpissed.”
Another mimic projection launched itself at Katie, who had no weapon, just wide eyes and a barely contained familiar.
Victoria yelled, “Protect the girl!”
Too late. The mimic got close, only to be swallowed by a sudden shimmer of orange.
