Page 3 of Fool Me Twice

Followed by a jolt of recognition.“Obie?”

For a split second, the demon looks over its shoulder at her, its glowing red eyes cold and ageless.

And then the neophyte lashes out with a shriek, and Obie leaps back into the fight, trying to corner the demon against the lake so it can’t barrel into town. Roma scrambles out of range, her head whipping around.

Obie? Obadiah Smith, her old landlord during her brief stint as a fake defector? What is he doing here? Is he alone? Or is he here with‍?—‍?

All at once, she spots another familiar face. She feels like she just got punched in the gut.

JJ.

Julian Jackson, the former third member of Roma and Bryant’s strike team, is racing towards the summoner with his escrima sticks held aloft. He stumbles in surprise when he catches sight of Chester homing in from the opposite direction, and the summoner takes advantage of their confusion to blast them both away, his incantation getting louder as he turns back to the rift.

To Roma’s horror, another demon appears at its center, shrieking in pain and fear as it’s dragged from Tamaros to Earth. Most summoners only pull one demon from Earth’s sister dimension to do their bidding, but apparently, this guy is trying to amass an entire army.

They don’t have the resources for this. She and Bryant haven’t even been on active duty since JJ defected, the Sanctum and the Chain will take too long to respond‍?—

“Gutierrez!”Bryant yells, and Roma wheels around, panic choking up her throat. “Get the rift!”

Right.Roma sucks in a sharp breath, clearing her mind and focusing on her mission. A powerful spellcaster summoning multiple demons isn’t ideal, but they’ll only keep materializing until he closes the rift‍?—

Or someone else does. And, luckily for Lakeside and probably Redwater as a whole right now, Roma is Strike Team Kappa’s magic expert. Gritting her teeth, she drops her ax back into its holding area and races forward, dodging around the demonic scuffle to get to the rift.

It’s noticeably larger than normal, at least ten feet high as opposed to the usual seven or eight. A more skilled summoner or a more robust spell, probably. That means it’ll be particularly difficult to close, and this isn’t exactly a spell Roma uses every day. Steeling herself, she sets her spellcasting stance‍—open hands facing forward, feet shoulder-width apart‍—and starts the incantation. “Ages upon ages, to preserve the sanctity of this realm, I defend us from the worlds beyond. Dispatching both sword and shield to protect us, I‍?—‍”

“‍—‍cut the threads that bind our realms together,” a familiar voice says nearby, and Roma nearly jumps out of her skin when she sees Esmeralda Laguerre on the opposite side of the rift, hands raised high and glowing with power. “To protect and preserve life in abundance, we close what once was opened!”

The words, structure, and cadence of the incantation are different from anything Roma knows‍—a demonic spell instead of a human one, she thinks‍—and the rift only shivers before stabilizing itself. Ez’s eyes widen in shock.“What the‍?—‍?”

Quickly, Roma finishes her own spell. “I create a barrier through which nothing can pass and command you to close!” she orders, sweeping her arms out as power pulses through her hands.

The rift barely twitches. Swearing, Roma dives out of the way as the battling demons thrash in her direction.

A dive that unfortunately brings her closer to Ez. “What was that incantation?” Ez demands, eyes narrowed.

Roma shoves herself to her feet, putting a healthy distance between them. Ez was always the most suspicious of Roma during her fake defection, and while her animosity was admittedly well-founded, it still didn’t endear her to Roma. “Rift-closing spell,” she says shortly. “The human version.”

“And the demonic version didn’t work, either,” Ez mumbles, taking a step back to analyze the rift as a whole‍—and cursing when a third demon gets dragged out of it. “We don’t have time for this. Cass and Obie can’t hold them off forever, and JJ‍?—‍”

Instinctively, Roma’s eyes snap to where Chester and JJ are fighting the summoner, apparently putting aside their differences for the good of Redwater. Bryant is supplying her ranged attacks to back up Obie and Cass, all of them united in their mission to contain the neophyte demons‍?—

Inspiration strikes. “Wait,” Roma says sharply, turning to Ez. “Yours sounded like a disconnecting spell at the Tamaros side of the rift, right? And mine was a blocking spell at the Earth side. If we hit it from both angles at the same time‍?—‍”

“‍—‍then we might be able to overcome the power threshold to close it,” Ez finishes grimly, and then, barely giving Roma time to think: “We start on three. One, two,three‍?—‍”

Hastily, Roma flies into her incantation. “Ages upon ages‍?—‍”

“In the name of Nostringvadha‍?—‍”

The two of them shout over each other, their voices nearly lost between the roaring of the demons and the crackling of therift. Roma’s magic lights up around her hands as she reaches the end of her spell, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ez’s powers blaze to life, too.

“‍—‍command you to close!”

“‍—‍close what once was opened!”

The rift shudders before finally collapsing. Roma leaps out of range as it folds in on itself and vanishes, a startled grin jumping onto her face. “It worked,” she breathes, and she turns to look at Ez‍?—

Only to find that the demon in question is already gone, apparently having shifted into her grotesque true form and bounded in to help Cass and Obie without a backwards glance.

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