EMIL
In every great time-travel story, the person returning to the past brings spoilers with them.
Even though I know Luna is ultimately the one who kills Bautista, I’m still not sure how this battle is going to play out between the original Spell Walker and this basilisk Blood Caster. I so badly wish I could take over so Bautista can catch up with Sera and Maribelle and say his goodbyes, but I’m powerless in this space.
Green acid flies toward Bautista and he shoulder rolls into a room with shelves of colorful gem-grenades. He’s calculating something as he ducks behind one of the dozen barrels in here. I almost hide with him, but the Blood Caster can’t see me when he comes in.
“Who was that precious baby?” he asks.
Back at Gleam Care, when Stanton attacked, he was able to track us quickly. I don’t know if this Blood Caster has the same abilities, but he’s moving fast in the direction of Bautista. I can sense that Bautista is nervous. I don’t know if it’s because he’s in a room of explosives or because an adversary might figure out that Maribelle is his daughter.
The Blood Caster stops in his tracks, sniffing the air, and Bautista hops from behind the barrel and jumps into this unbelievable swing kick that connects with his jaw; it’s hard to picture myself doing that, and I can actually fly, unlike Bautista. They trade blows, missing each other every time until the Blood Caster is building acid in his mouth and Bautista chops him in the throat and takes him down with an ankle sweep.
Bautista runs to the doorway. “I’m not going down alone,” he says as he throws a golden fire-orb into the wall of gem-grenades. He charges down the same hall where Sera and Maribelle ran off, so focused that he doesn’t see the index card with the potion ingredients on the floor. In moments, the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard echoes through my ears as fire and electricity blow apart the room. An alarm rings through the halls. Bautista continues running away like he’s a track star escaping an apocalypse, never once looking back at the electrifying, fiery chaos raging behind him.
Once he’s in the clear, he stops to catch his breath. He doesn’t feel any remorse for killing the Blood Caster, or destroying the property. I could’ve never protected my life as quickly as he protected his. But if I had to take care of Brighton? Maybe. I hope I never have to find out. I repeat the ingredients over and over to make sure I no longer have to be a soldier.
The former Blood Caster, Price, comes running down the hall. “What’s happening? Are we under attack?”
“No, I thought blowing up the place could be festive,” Bautista says.
“You enjoy being a dick; I’m going to get out of here—” Price stops talking as a spear with green flames pierces him from behind and he drops dead as quick as a blink.
We turn to find a crew of reinforcements—two Blood Casters and a group of acolytes, guessing from the look of them. The man who threw the spear with phoenix fire has a black ponytail and huge muscles. He might not have his spear anymore, but he could probably crush someone with his burnt hands. There’s a woman with three eyes, one of them shut, and four arms with fingers that won’t stop twitching; hydra-blooded for sure. These must be some of the earliest Blood Casters, if not the first. The acolytes are dressed in gray turtlenecks and black pants, much different from the jumpsuits they wear today.
Bautista holds up two fiery fists and tries to assert as much confidence as possible; they don’t know yet that they’ll be successful in killing him.
“I killed your pet snake,” he says. “Who’s next?”
“Perhaps me,” a woman’s voice calls, and the acolytes part so Luna can make her way to the front. She must be in her late forties, early fifties here, with her dark hair beginning to gray. She moves and breathes easily. If Luna is as dangerous as she is in my time, I can only imagine what action she saw in her full health. She smiles at Price on the floor. “The traitor is dead. Marvelous.”
“All he wanted was a better life,” Bautista says.
“Don’t we all?” Luna muses. “Where’s Sera?”
“Long gone,” Bautista lies.
“She won’t get very far.”
“Neither will you,” Bautista says.
He thrusts his fists forward repeatedly like he’s in front of a punching bag; it’s a technique I’d be smart to try out as long as I have these powers. Seven fire-orbs fly toward Luna and the phoenix Caster defends Luna with a shield of green fire. The hydra Caster runs along the wall, and as Bautista focuses on trying to burn her, he leaves himself vulnerable to fire-darts to the chest and is blasted backward.
I scream as the fire burns me too. I don’t go flying like Bautista, but I still clutch my chest wishing I could do something more than stand here and take it. I didn’t know I would experience Bautista’s pain like this. . . .
The Blood Casters pin him down.
Luna unsheathes the infinity-ender dagger from her belt. “Shame that Sera isn’t around to see this. Though perhaps she already has. . . .” She hovers over him and presses her hand against her heart. “I promise you, my dear Bautista, that if you dare appear in another life to oppose me, I will kill you over and over until you learn your lesson. Be forewarned that I plan on being around for a very long time.”
I try to break my hold on my past life so I don’t have to feel this pain, but Luna is swift and stabs him in the stomach. Bautista and I scream, echoing over each other. His blood rises around the dagger and flows down his sides. His healing power tries to activate, but the same pain from when Ness and Luna stabbed me ignites, over and over, and it’s unbearable. Bautista fights for air, and I feel dizzy, struggling to breathe myself. He knows he’s going to die, but I’m freaking out that maybe I might die too. We have no clue if the phoenixes who’ve retrocycled were impacted by the deaths in their bloodlines, and I wish I’d learned more about how many of those hibernating phoenixes actually woke up, and if any of them fell over dead because they didn’t return to their own life in time.
“BAUTISTA!”
Sera runs over with present-day Maribelle at her side. She slides to her knees, so bold that she doesn’t pay any mind to the Blood Casters crowding Bautista. She shoves away Luna, who laughs. Maribelle suddenly starts holding her stomach and screams; can she feel his pain too, even if she transported to Sera? I can’t focus as Sera slowly pulls out the infinity-ender from Bautista’s stomach. Everything is too agonizing to notice a difference. It’s so odd to feel all his pain and not see my own blood running down me.
“We won,” Sera says with tears flooding down her flushed cheeks. “We won. Not them! I will see you in the beyond, my sunray.”
His body is shutting down, but when Sera kisses him, there’s so much love that blasts through me. Love that I’ve never known because I’ve never taken this leap. Bautista wants to stay here, he wants to keep living, and I do too, but darkness conceals everyone, and it’s just us, dying together.
Then, right on the edge of death, gold and gray flames drop around me and I’m screaming in my own body.
I’m alive, I’m back.
I’m drenched in sweat and I haven’t felt this dizzy since when I used my powers for the first time. Brighton, Prudencia, and Wyatt are all at my side, and they want to know if I’m okay, if I saw Bautista or became him, if I discovered the ingredients. But it’s too much too soon.
My body is still aching, and I lift my shirt—not giving a single damn who sees—to make sure that there isn’t a hole in my stomach from where Bautista was stabbed. The only scars are my own. How Luna killed Bautista is what she intended to do to me the last night of the Crowned Dreamer.
I rock back and forth, haunted by how I felt Bautista’s death. I watch Maribelle in her dark yellow flames, hoping she can return to her own body before she has to feel every ounce of pain as her biological mother is killed too.