Must the Flowers Die

Chapter 16: Slaughter

Alex was tired and sore, and he saw the exhaustion on the faces of all his family. He was worried about Grandma. She was the matriarch of the family, and she was by far the strongest of the sorceresses. Well, there was also Great Aunt Lilith, whose power vibrated through the web like lightening. She had predictably ignored the call to gather, but her magic was so strong that it was omnipresent. Alex wondered where she was. Her power rivaled Grandma's, but if she was far away from the power source, that meant that she was stronger than Grandma.

He brought Grandma's food to her meditation spot, which was at the center of the selenite that boosted their powers. Her eyes were closed, her face haggard. She finally looked her age of eighty-two.

"Grandma. Lunch."

She opened her eyes and nodded curtly, but she didn't touch her food. Alex sighed and steeled himself for the impossible task of forcing her to eat some food. She couldn't keep going like this. Right as he was opening his mouth to speak, he felt a sharp vibration in his muscles. The wards were under physical attack again. He went back to his room to focus his energy. The spells drew on their energy automatically, but to maximize results, they needed to concentrate.

He had no idea what Liam was doing, but the attacks happened at all hours. Sometimes, they were so strong that he felt like he was being punched all over his body. Everything was either in acute or dull pain, but the wards were strong and holding. It was painful and tedious, but they were doing it, at least for now. Alex wondered how long they could last. They could likely endure for weeks, but what if Olympus didn't collapse for months? Logistically, it was a nightmare.

He sat rigidly and tried to practice the Awareness. He tried to draw in both inward and outward, expanding his mind to encompass his internal mental and physical state and the external environment. If done correctly, he became aware of every detail in himself and his surroundings. His grandma could hear a pine needle drop.

His mind wouldn't let him. As he sat there with pinpricks of pain radiating through his body, he thought about Mia and whether she was OK. There was no way to contact her. He oscillated between extreme worry and a firm belief that she was fine. She was capable, and if he read it correctly, Liam seemed to genuinely care about her. Alex surprised himself when his fist met the plaster wall, causing the wall to crack and his knuckles to protest in agony.

***

Liam glanced at Demnosia beside him and their allied nymphs beside her. Demnosia looked like a barbaric angel. Her mouth grimaced, and it was both beautiful and bestial. She had a rocket launcher on her shoulder and was shooting projectiles at the ward in an endless stream, as if it was a toy. She had been doing it since noon until now. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was hopeless. They had already tried shooting, bombing, using the nymph's magic. They even flew a helicopter over the area, hoping that it was unguarded on top. The wards shuttered at each assault but did not appear to weaken.

Liam had asked Demnosia where she had obtained her seemingly limitless supply of weapons and explosives. Apparently, she worked as an arms dealer when she was bored or needed money. She told him, with perverse glee, that she did not like these new weapons though. They were too clinical to her. She liked to see her victims up close.

Albion had joined their side, and she had told them how to re-open the portal. The "key" Apollo spoke about was actually the entire sorceress clan, and there were only two ways to use the "key." The first was to convince all the sorceresses to work together and do a reversal spell, which was never going to happen. The second was to kill all the sorceresses. The spell required active upkeep and killing them would destroy the source of the power. So there they were.