Natasha guided Wednesday and Enid to the small shop where she had hidden Luke.
They crossed the back door and entered a dark, dimly lit room. There, on an old bed covered with worn-out blankets, Luke rested.
Wednesday was the first to run to his side.
His breathing was shallow, his face pale, but he was still breathing.
Upon confirming that he was alive, her body allowed her to exhale. A deep sigh, filled with relief, escaped her lips.
Her hand trembled for a moment before resting on Luke’s chest, feeling the faint but steady rise and fall of his breathing. He was alive.
Wednesday couldn’t stop a tear from falling, sliding silently down her cheek. She didn’t allow herself to sob, didn’t let her face twist in sorrow. But the tear was there.
‘I don’t cry,’ Wednesday thought, yet she couldn’t stop a couple more tears. She had made a promise when she was six years old, when her pet scorpion died. She would never cry again.
Wednesday pressed her lips together tightly, trying to stop the tears before more could fall.
Enid, now back in her human form, watched the scene with relief and tears in her eyes. After transforming, she was left without clothes, as they were destroyed during her shift. Luckily, she found a blanket to cover herself.
Even though Enid wanted to go to Luke’s side and touch him, she held herself back and observed from a distance. As much as it pained her to admit it, she knew her place.
Now calmer, Wednesday took a closer look at Luke’s body. Relief was quickly replaced by fury and anguish.
His clothes were soaked in dried blood.
His tattered shirt revealed a large scar running from his neck down to his torso, a wound that should have been fatal.
“How?” Wednesday asked in confusion as her hand gently traced the scar, her fingers stained with Gabriel’s blood running along the rough edge of the healed skin.
“That wound…” Enid murmured, staring at the mark on Luke’s body.
“It should be fatal,” Wednesday finished her sentence and looked at Natasha for an explanation.
“Green aura,” Natasha replied, direct and to the point.
Wednesday and Enid’s eyes widened in shock. What was that supposed to mean?
“Y-you’re saying Luke healed with a green aura? His own green aura?” Enid asked, stammering.
“Yeah, what else?” Natasha replied before recounting everything, how she saw Elliot drive his sword into Luke’s neck, how he collapsed to the ground, barely clinging to life, only to revive, save her, and kill Elliot.
Wednesday listened in astonishment, glancing at Luke repeatedly to make sure he was really there.
“Four auras…? Is that even possible?” Enid asked once Natasha finished explaining Luke’s resurrection and his fight with Elliot.
Natasha shrugged, having no answer to her question.
Wednesday furrowed her brow, trying to make sense of it all.
“The norm is to inherit a single aura from your parents,” Wednesday explained, her tone returning to its usual calm. “A psychic always receives the aura of one of their parents, either the father’s or the mother’s.”
She paused briefly before continuing.
“However, there is a possibility of inheriting both auras. It’s rare, but not unheard of. In a single generation of psychics, there can be multiple cases like Veronica, Sabrina, Luke, and myself. Even more unusual and extremely rare is the case where, in addition to inheriting both parents’ auras, someone awakens the aura of an ancestor. Three auras. Every major psychic family has had individuals with three auras. They are exceptional cases, but they have existed,” Wednesday said, more to herself than to the others.
“What has never been documented is the existence of someone with four,” she added, narrowing her eyes in thought.
“But if it’s possible to inherit both parents’ auras and also that of an ancestor… then, in theory, it should also be possible to inherit the aura of a second ancestor.”
“What?” Enid asked, still struggling to understand.
“When the third aura awakens, it can come from either the paternal or maternal lineage. But if a psychic manages to awaken a third… what would stop them from awakening the aura of the other ancestral lineage as well?”
Silence fell over them. The possibility that Luke was the first in history to manifest four auras was both terrifying and fascinating.
“The Poes are known for having users of yellow and white auras. Edgar Allan Poe was a user of both. Luke inherited these two auras, along with the blue aura from his mother, from the Umbrio family,” Wednesday said, looking at Enid and Natasha.
“Veronica…” Natasha murmured, recalling the elegant dual-aura girl from the Umbrio family, Luke’s cousin.
“Exactly. She has a blue aura and… a green aura. The Umbrios, in their genealogy, have a stronger tendency toward those two types of aura,” Wednesday explained.
“That… is incredible,” Enid said, looking at Luke as if he were some kind of monstrous genetic specimen.
“Yes. In our continent, there are no records of any psychic in history with four auras, at least none that I know of, and I’ve read a lot… So, Luke will be the first to be documented,” Wednesday stated.
“But I can’t say the same for other regions. Europe and Asia have psychic bloodlines much older than ours. It wouldn’t be surprising if, in the past, a psychic had achieved the same. But the probability of it happening must be less than 1%…” she added, and silence once again filled the room as all three of them stared at Luke.
“Alright, let’s stop looking at Luke like he’s some kind of rare specimen and get back to the house in Shadyside. This place will be swarming with normies soon,” Natasha said, breaking the silence.
The massive destruction in Sunnyvale would soon draw a lot of unwanted attention, and it was best to leave as soon as possible.
Wednesday nodded and lifted Luke in her arms like a princess, enduring the pain from her injuries without making a sound.
“You’re really hurt, paler than usual. Let me carry him,” Natasha said, noticing Wednesday’s pallor and the large wound on her left side, still dripping blood.
“No. I’ll handle it,” Wednesday replied in an irrefutable tone before starting to walk toward the exit.
‘Stubborn girl,’ Natasha thought, shaking her head before following her. Enid trailed behind them silently.
Natasha went to retrieve the evidence they had fought so hard to find and protect, while Wednesday, Enid, and the others headed toward Shadyside.
Lurch and Wednesday’s cousins took care of transporting the corpses of the Spellman brothers, including Elliot’s head, of course.
Fortunately, it was nighttime, allowing them to move through the shadows undetected. Once they reached the house, they stored the bodies in the basement.
“Should we get some ice? You know… for the head, so the body doesn’t rot,” Simon asked with a strange look, dropping Gabriel’s body in a corner.
“I don’t know… The uncles will be here soon. Let’s leave them as they are for now and let them decide,” Nick said, unwilling to touch the corpses of two highly important psychics.
A few minutes later, Natasha arrived at the house after taking a detour to retrieve the evidence.
Wednesday had laid Luke down on the double bed they had been sharing since they arrived in Shadyside and started living there.
Without wasting any time, she took off her black-and-white sweater, now soaked in blood, and sat in a chair beside the bed. She pulled out a needle and black thread from a small sewing kit and began stitching the deep wound on her side with the cold precision of a surgeon.
Natasha, who had just entered the room, stared at her in slight surprise. “You can do that too?” she asked.
“Yes. I learned in case I ever needed to do it for Luke, since he’s so reckless in fights,” Wednesday replied without taking her eyes off her wound, threading the needle firmly.
“I never thought I’d end up using it on myself… And now he doesn’t even need it… because he has a green aura,” she added, glancing at Luke with a strange expression.
Enid sat down on the couch in the room, completely exhausted. She felt like she could fall asleep at any moment but forced herself to stay awake.
Luckily, thanks to her lycanthropic regeneration, as long as she remained still and avoided exertion, she would gradually heal. Of course, receiving proper treatment would speed up the process, but she had no knowledge of how to do that herself.
“Looks like Luke gave you first aid,” Wednesday remarked, examining Natasha’s condition. Her clothes were torn and stained with dried blood, but there wasn’t a single wound or bruise on her.
“Yeah… So I could attack Gabriel and have a chance to kill him,” Natasha said.
“Though you didn’t do much. Enid and I killed him,” Wednesday stated, staring at Natasha without blinking.
Natasha’s eyebrows twitched, but she said nothing. She had managed to wound Gabriel, but she hadn’t had the chance to continue attacking him, both girls had thrown themselves at him like lunatics.
A heavy silence settled between them until Wednesday spoke again in her usual dry, direct tone. “Go get my cousins.”
Natasha narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. She wasn’t their servant. But she also wanted to talk to Wednesday’s cousins, as they likely had useful information.
She didn’t reply, simply turned around, and left the room to find them.
—————————————————
You can read 15 Chapters in advance on my patreon.
Link: [email protected]/Nathe07