“It’s too late,” Gael said with a panicky wince. He dropped to his knees, hyperventilating as the venom from a single cut coursed through his bloodstream. “He poisoned me.”
“What?” Carter dropped beside Gael, checking him over and finding the small nick on his forearm. “What kind of poison?”
“Deadly.” Gael shrugged. “Snake venom. Don’t remember the name, just that a single drop will kill me in minutes.”
“Then we better purge it in seconds.” Carter slapped a hand over Gael’s cut and another on the boy’s chest.
Carter’s mind whirled with the anatomy of the human body he’d worked on memorizing since the day he saved my life. It was a beautiful sight, watching Carter blossom and grow from an event that once paralyzed him, from a trauma that haunted him for months. Now, he’d taken the fear he had when stitching together my slashed throat and used it to save lives with medical knowledge and a unique use of his rejuvenation branch.
With a dash of telekinesis, Carter altered the ebb and flow of Gael’s blood, forcing the venom back to the open wound. Gael squirmed, uncomfortable and uncertain.
“It’s almost done,” Carter said with a soothing smile. “Just so you know, this is not the way to extract venom.”
“Then why are you doing it this way?”
“Because with my vitality coursing through your veins, I’m giving you the edge against the toxins,” Carter said, delicately adding a pulse of telekinesis to circulate the venom out of the cut. An added benefit to Carter’s vitality magic was that itcreated a subtle glow to Gael’s bloodstream, muscular system, and body in general. It wasn’t something I saw, but something Carter fixated on as he worked. The dark droplets flowing through Gael’s body represented the poison Carter still needed to extract. “And that’s the last of it. You’re welcome.”
“Dude, I could kiss you.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
“I’ll kiss her too, if you want.” Gael grinned until Carter thunked him on the head.
“Why’d I just save your life?”
“Because I’m adorable.”
“Look out,” I yelled.
“Mr. Frost?” Carter turned to find Finch lunging directly for him and Gael, claws drawn and fangs bared.
Another watery portal opened, and a blurred figure zipped through, kicking Finch off course. Before he could recover, another portal opened, and the blurred figure knocked into Finch again. This process continued until a dozen watery portals were opened and Finch had been struck a hundred different times.
“We got your back,” Vik said, stepping from one of the portals they’d created.
I smiled, in awe of how well they’d mastered Jamie Novak’s branch. They gave life to his memory every time they used his watery portals.
Name: Vik Smythe
Branch: Arcane (Copycat)
“Woohoo!” Zoya shouted, punching Finch across the face, before vanishing into a portal and reappearing with a cackle of delight as she kicked him in the back.
Name: Zoya Khan
Branch: Alteration (Speed)
Finch changed his erratic composure, stilling himself, even as Zoya continued leaping from portals faster than the eye could see, and striking him before vanishing again just as quickly.
Dammit, his senses were tracking her patterns.
“Gotcha,” Finch hissed, turning to slash a blurred figure of Zoya as she came up behind him.
She altered her stance, attempting to dodge, but she was coming in too quickly. Gladiatrix had worked with her on ways to channel her speed to turn it into a heavy-hitter attack, but the precision of altering her momentum was still something they had to train.
“I don’t think so.” Vik fell through a portal and reappeared between Zoya and Finch. They punched Finch in the face, knocking him back with a blow twice as brutal as Carter’s punch earlier.
Vik had made mastering Jamie’s branch a personal mission of theirs; however, they’d been assigned to master Gladiatrix’s branch while under her tutelage. Sure, Vik would never manage to mimic Gladiatrix’s attack power one hundred percent, but they’d come closer than any other witch with their copycat magic.
