Silence fell upon them. Jenna didn’t know what to believe. Yolanda sounded convincing, but so did Luther, and she knew him for years. They weren't exactly close friends, but Jenna couldn't imagine that the fae would lie to them. 

'What were The Priest's plans with you?' asked Teodore, pulling out Jenna from her own thoughts. 'You said you "escaped" from him, so you must have had a reason.'

'I am not sure,' shook her head Yolanda. 'He was talking about vampires… But I don't know that much about them, even if we had them back in the day, I never met one. But whatever he wanted to do, he wanted to use me for that, and I didn't like that, so I left.'

'So he didn't have power over you after all?' asked Marcus.

'No, I'm sorry I lied about that,' said the girl, looking at Jenna. 'I knew he was looking for me and I knew he was a bad man. So I hoped you would take care of him instead of me. I… I don't really like to fight, you see. I guess it's kinda hypocritical to try to use you because he tried to use me, so I'm sorry.' 

'It doesn't matter now,' said Jenna. 'The Priest won't cause any more problems.'

A student appeared from the back room, carrying a tray with non-matching mugs. 

'I have to say, drinks and food are much better than they used to be…' noted Yolanda. 'No wonder so many people are fat.'

Marcus took a mug and Jenna did that too, but Teodore just shook his head. 

'Listen, Yola…' Marcus began. 'I promise they won't try to harm you, arrest you or anything, but I think you will need to come to the MAGE headquarters. It's in France, you will love it. My bosses need to see that you aren't dangerous with their own eyes. What do you think?'

Yolanda took a sip of her tea, then nodded.

'I think I can do that, yes,' she said. 'If that means I can continue teaching after that.'

Marcus looked at Jenna.

'I don't think that would be a wise idea, Yolanda,' said Jenna. 'Even if the fae really is dead, as you think they are, just look at Mario. He killed innocent people. You can never know what people will use the power you give them for.'

'If you are afraid about money, I can help,' added Marcus. 'Not an issue.'

'Yeah, but I mean, who did he kill?' asked Yolanda.

'Beg your pardon?' asked back Marcus.

'Mario,' said Yolanda. 'You said he killed people, right? But I taught him, I teach everyone not to hurt sorcerers…'

'I think they weren't sorcerers, but does it matter?' asked Marcus.

Yolanda looked at him with a surprised face. 

'Of course it matters. If he only killed some magicless nobody, well, everyone can have a bad day, right?'

'What are you talking about?' asked Jenna, confused.

'Ask her what happened to the mother,' said Teodore quietly to Jenna. She looked at Yolanda, who shrugged.

'She was a bad person, she didn't want the girl to use her magic, because she was afraid. And she was only a magicless, anyway. So we killed her. It was funny, she screamed so loudly… You should have seen it. What? What's wrong?'

Marcus moved faster than thought and the Signum in his hand almost touched Yolanda's skin when he froze. In the next second, he was in the air, flying away, with Teodore in his tail, who moved faster than a human could have been, trying to catch Marcus before he would collapse with the wall. Jenna leapt to her feet, too. 

'I don't wanna fight,' she said. 'I get it, it's a new world, you need to learn how it works, but I cannot help you if you won't cooperate. Please, stay down.'

Yolanda's first curse was so strong that even though Jenna managed to deflect it, the sheer strength of it pushed her backwards. Another spell from one of the students got her from the side and she rolled over a chair. She hit the floor and cursed in Italian. Someone stepped into her field of view, a leg swung to kick her in the face, but she was quick enough to grab and pull it. A man fell onto the floor next to her and Jenna hit him in the stomach with her elbow. 

Cries and thuds, whizzing spells flying in the air… It was total chaos. Jenna climbed onto her feet then grabbed a chair and threw it towards the man who let them in because he was about to shoot Teodore in the back. She looked around and saw Yolanda on her big chair, sitting and watching the fight.

'End this, now!' Jenna shouted. 

'You started it!' she answered loudly, leaning forward in the chair. 'I just want to be left alone! What does it matter if some magicless worm dies? They are animals, Jenna, don't you see?'

Jenna saw a conversation about human beings and rights coming up, with pros and contras, but she wasn't in the mood of giving a passionate but useless speech about how life matters, so she simply just cursed Yolanda hoping that would communicate her opinion well enough. 

She wasn't holding back: fire and light and sound and the very gravity stuck Yolanda down in a devastating attack, but it wasn't enough. The sorceress had to work for it, but she broke all of Jenna's spells then attacked back. 

The air retreated around Jenna. She had to order herself not to panic and she let the shadow-dog go to grab her opponents attention. At the same time, she used the Rune of Movement and hit the floor with it: she just wanted to get away, hoping that Yolanda's spell was put on the spot she stood and not on her directly. Jenna flew backwards a couple of metres and landed on her butt hard, but she could breathe again.

Someone grabbed her hand and pulled her onto her feet. It was Rose: looked like the reinforcement arrived. It was a good thing because they already lost Marcus: he was laying on the floor with a disturbingly bent arm, unconsciously. 

'Took you long enough, Blondie,' Jenna complained, rubbing her aching bottom. 

'Marcus never pushed the panic-button, we figured out what's going on by the noise,' Rose answered. 'Which one is her?'

'The good looking black girl in the ugly cardigan,' answered Jenna and looked around to find Yolanda. She fought with Remy and Martin. 'There. Go and put Marcus somewhere safer, I'm gonna help the boys.'

Rose nodded and ran away, dodging a spell and giving out a fairly good right hook to someone who tried to aim for Claire a few steps away. She and Benjamin battled back to back, surrounded by four students. Jenna took out one as she went, then turned her focus to Yolanda. By then the Goddess shook off her attackers and was looking at Robert's back with a sweet little smile.

'Yeah, forget it, bitch,' murmured Jenna as she put out a Mirror-based spell that directed Yolanda's curse right back at her. The woman searched around and saw Jenna. She smiled again but before their duel could have started a spell hit Yolanda from the back and she disappeared into the chaos, hunting her attacker.

'Are you okay?' asked Robert, who came from nowhere. His forehead was bleeding from a long cut and one of his eyes had a purple circle around it.

'Yeah,' she said. 'You?'

'A little disappointed,' he answered, throwing an instant spell at someone. 'This isn't exactly going by my plan.'

'Yeah, the brain-washed students are a nice surprise,' nodded Jenna, then: 'Watch out!' a huge ball of roaring fire flew towards them, but Robert just waved and it exploded into sparks. 

An angry shout: Yolanda was fighting with three smoke-like demons and Ayana at the same time. She had the cube in one hand, but she couldn't use it just yet: they had to separate the Goddess from the hosting body first. She sent something bright and hot which didn't hit Yolanda but made a huge hole in one of the walls. 

Robert disappeared from Jenna's side: he got attacked again and the fight brought them away as they were dancing around, trying to avoid spells. The students seemed like mediocre sorcerers, but they had the power of the Old Talk which made them dangerous. The once-church was wearing down around them rapidly: badly aimed spells punched holes into the walls left and right and the whole structure was unstable now. It was just a matter of time until the roof will fall on all of them, ending the fight. Jenna wasn't keen to stick around and wait for that. She started towards Yolanda to help out Ayana, but then she heard Teodore's cry. 

He was on the ground, covered by blood, and one of Yolanda's followers stood above him, ready to give him the final curse. Before Jenna could do anything, a strong jet of water hit the follower. It pushed him away, he stumbled over a laying body and collapsed into the metallic wall. There was a terrible crack that would come back and haunt Jenna's dreams in the days coming, and the student fell into the bottom of the wall. His eyes were open and his head hung down at a very unnatural angle. 

Jenna looked at Benjamin, who sent the water: he stared at the dead follower with wide eyes, in a shock. He didn't even notice the curse someone shot at him and he fell down too, next to Teodore. Jenna had her shadow-dog to take care of the attacker, and went to check on Teodore and Benjamin. She crouched beside them and made a quick shield around the corner. Benjamin wasn't injured, only confused, and he kept saying that "He can't be dead, it was just water, Jenna, he isn't dead right?". Teodore had a stabbed wound on his stomach and it looked bad. He was awake, but barely. 

'Listen to me, Benjamin,' said Jenna, grabbing the man's shoulders. 'I need you to take Teo out of here. Can you do that?'

'I need to check that guy, I need to help him…' Benjamin said with eyes full of tears. 'I didn't…' He tried to get up to go to the body, but Jenna pushed him back.

'You cannot do anything for him. I'm sorry. But I need you, okay? Teodore needs you,' she seized his shoulders a little.

'Yeah, okay… Okay,' Benjamin nodded. His face was pale but serious. 'I will take him out.'

'Go to the end of the street, away from the fight, and call an ambulance,' said Jenna. 'Marcus is out there too, somewhere, check the cars.'

He nodded again, climbed onto his feet, picked up Teodore and off they went, using a big hole on the wall. Jenna turned around just to see a spell exploding on her shield. She didn't even see where it came from, but there were not too many options left by now: most of the followers were down. As she looked, she saw Rose and Robert put one down, and a little further Claire just knocked out another. The fight was almost over. She saw Remy hurrying towards Yolanda and Ayana who were still fighting, and she went to grab him. 

'You know how to handle a stab, right?' Jenna asked him.

Remy looked tired and his glasses were missing.

'More or less, were you…?' he was looking all over her, searching for the wound.

'Not me, Teodore,' Jenna said. 'Benjamin took him out. Go and find them, okay? Keep him alive until the help gets here.'

Remy nodded, turned around and went for the door. As he exited, the walls gave a terrible shrieking noise, letting everyone know that they won't hold up the roof much longer.

'Yolanda!' Jenna shouted. 'Over here, bitch! Let's finish this, c'mon!'

The Goddess looked at her and it was a bad decision because at the very moment her attention got divided, three curses made through her defences from Ayana, Martin and Rose. She fell on the floor, and Ayana went for the kill, glowing cube at the ready.

'Noooo!' bellowed Yolanda and a huge blaze of blue fire burst out of her mouth as if she was some kind of dragon. It was so hot that Jenna had to stop and so shiny she had to cover her eyes. The fire swallowed Ayana, burnt through her shields and went out destroying half of the wall behind her. Jenna didn't need to check on Ayana: nobody could have survived that hellfire, not her, not even her demons. 

Anger exploded in Jenna's stomach, she was ready to kill but Rose was faster: she didn't bother with magic, just took out a gun and shot Yolanda in the head two times. When the thunder of the shots died, horrible silence wrapped them. Rose stood at the same spot from where she shot, arms on her side, face is unreadable. 

Then half of the ceiling fell with a terrible, terrible metallic scream. Martin and Rose were directly under the falling death. Martin had the time to jump, knock Rose down her feet so he could protect her with his own body but it was pointless. Jenna stood in a shock, confused, unable to move, her brain screamed "No!" but everything happened too fast.   

Then the roof, hundreds and hundreds kilograms of metal stopped above Martin and Rose. The surface of the material looked as if it was waving like the ocean, then the whole thing exploded into millions and millions pieces of shiny, harmless, metal-grey confetti. Martin looked up. Confetti fell like weird silver snow. Robert lowered his hand and stumbled a little as if he had trouble standing.

'Where is the cube?' he asked, looking around. 'We need the cube, now!'

That was the last thing Jenna heard, then all of a sudden she was standing in an endless, black field, so completely, perfectly silent that her heartbeat sounded like drums. In front of her stood another woman. She was tall and stringy in a way someone gets when they are doing physical work. She wore some kind of fabric wrapped around her body with a short fur cloak on her shoulders. Her skin was darker, but not quite brown, and her face was young but tired, and somewhat sad under all roughness. Jenna knew that face: she saw it in her dreams.

'You possessed my body,' said Jenna. It wasn't a question.

The Goddess nodded.

'Get out,' said Jenna.

The Goddess smiled this time.

'We could rule this weak little world together,' she said.

'I don't want to rule anything,' shook her head Jenna. 'Get the fuck out of my head!'

'You don't understand, Jenna,' the Goddess stepped closer. 'You have no choice. I am on charge now. I could purge you out of this body, I could take it entirely, but we could be much more together. I'm offering you an alliance! What do you want? Name it and it's yours. The city? Yours. You want to kill your father's enemy? Done. You want to give your man his magic back? Easy. You want your friend back? Your mother? We could do that. Together. Stop fighting, and be who you meant to be, Jenna. Be a real goddess.'

'Why?' Jenna asked. 'Why am I not dead yet?'

'Because I don't want to kill you, Jenna!' she said. 'You and I… We are the same, and you know that. Jenna, please… Let me help you.' 

Now Jenna was the one who nodded. She could save Ayana, she almost knew how, she just needed the right words and time itself would turn back on her order. She had the power to make that happen, she and nobody else. She could have her mother back, too… There was a way, there must have been. Not time, no death, nothing could stop her now. No more bad days, no more lost battles. She will never have to fear that she won't be enough, never again. 

The Goddess raised her hand, reached out for her.

'No,' Jenna said.  

'What?' the Goddess stopped, with her arm raised.

'No,' Jenna repeated. 'Get out.'

The Goddess let her arm fall and shook her head. 

'I wanted to help. I really tried, but every time I do, I get this. You don't deserve help. You don't deserve to live, none of you… First, I will kill you, then I will kill that cripple you love so much. He could have been a king on our side, but you decided to kill him instead. When you fade away forever, I want you to think about that.'

Jenna felt some kind of weakness brushing over her, and she fell on her knees. It became hard to breathe all of the sudden. The Goddess stood above her, and she looked huge now.

'I'm sorry, Jenna,' she said and she actually looked sad. 'I hoped it would end otherwise. That you can understand me. It was your choice.'

Jenna closed her eyes. She didn't see her life repeating itself in the last moments. She didn't see anything. But there was a voice, deep down and far away, a voice that called her name, that told her to fight… 

'I said no,' Jenna looked up into the Goddess' surprised face. Her voice trembled, not with weakness but with anger. How dare she steal her body? How dare she threaten her man? 'I said… Get. The. Fuck. OUT!'

And she was awake, just like that, laying on the concrete floor of the church. She was alone in her body, and Robert stood just a step away, holding up the still smouldering, closed cube with Martin on his side, grabbing his shoulder, helping him with the spells he couldn't cast anymore. They imprisoned the Goddess. It was over.

Robert dropped the cube. It burnt his hand badly but he just glanced at it, shrugged and went to hug Jenna. She buried her face into his chest. 

'Are you all right? How did you…?' he asked.

'I'm okay,’ she said. 'We… Fought for my body, I guess. I was losing but then I got angry.'

'Typical,' said Robert and Jenna could hear that he was smiling.

'But in the end, you know, it wasn't just anger,' she added, and Robert hugged her even more tightly. 

JohnHKnight

Hey everyone! What did you think about this chapter? This marks a milestone in the story, as the Goddess was the fuel that kept our heroes moving this far. Now they can lean back and rest, right? Right? Well, we will see.

If you haven't done it already, check out my other story, titled Agents of MAGE. It's about Cornelius Blake, who appeared in this book earlier. 

Also, Christmas is coming and I'd really like to surprise myself with a new laptop (I write on an old, slow, annoying tablet) so if you can, help me out please, you can find the PayPal button at any chapter. Any little help matters. 

And as always, check back on Wednesday for a new Montgomery and Carano chapter!