The evening air was cool as Cailyn chronoshifted to her next location. Traveling through time and space was certainly a taxing venture, but she’d actually grown used to it after all these errands for her Master. She could understand why Ashe liked using them so much for her deliveries, but that limited thinking barely touched their true potential.

Master Boucher’s spell was pulling on her consciousness, indicating the presence of one of the last two seals. Finding them had been almost laughably easy as her blessing from the Master had grown stronger.

Her footsteps crunched in the semi-frozen grass of the graveyard. The next target was close, so very close.

There.

An old headstone with weatherworn engravings. She could make out the pentacle on the stone, and beneath it: Eliza Owens, 1822-1854

‘I wonder if she’s related to Nate. Probably his great-great-great-something grandma.’ She chuckled at the idea of shattering this seal - knowing that she was destroying a piece of Nathaniel’s family history.

She certainly hadn’t started out this maliciously, but something in her had hardened. Part of her knew it was her prolonged exposure to the Ripper’s Knife. It detached her from her emotions and morals, leaving only the drive to satisfy the need for violence. If it weren’t for her mission from Master Boucher, she’d have loved to just take the knife and go on a bit of a bloody vacation, carving her way across the globe.

“Cailyn?”

She turned, surprised by the sudden appearance of another. She hadn’t even sensed him there. “Oh, hey bro,” she smiled at Aiden.

“I came to take you home, Cay. Time to stop this… we can get you help!” Aiden pleaded.

“Help?” she scoffed, “I don’t need help. I’m serving my Master’s will, and that’s all I need.”

“Cailyn, listen to yourself. This isn’t you. Please… come back home, don’t do this.”

“Don’t do this,” she mimicked insultingly. “Since when have you cared about what I’m doing, Aiden? You’ve been so busy with your new little girlfriend that you barely noticed all the shit that was going on with me. Long disappearance. Lost time. The bloody clothes I left in the hamper in my room after my trip to Paris. Neither of you could give a single shit about little old Cay.”

Aiden felt the bitter sting of the accusations - he knew they weren’t wrong… he had focused so much on Ashe that he’d all but ignored his sister. “Cailyn, I’m sorry–” he began.

“Don’t you dare apologize, Aiden!” Cailyn snapped. “Because of you and Ashe, I had plenty of time to focus on my Master’s desires. I could go about breaking seals while Nate was powerless to stop me. You should have heard his messages, pleading with me just like you are. It’s so funny how you can think someone is so strong and powerful until you threaten what’s important to them, and they start begging you to stop.”

Aiden clenched his fists. Her words were like knives. “Cailyn… I know it’s not you talking right now. This is your last chance. Come back to the Underground with me, and let us help you get your mind back in order… or else.”

Cailyn grinned wickedly at him. “Or else what? You think you can stop me, Aiden?” She slid the knife from its sheath.

“Yes,” Aiden replied firmly. “I promised Ashe I’d come back to her, no matter what.”

“Awww, how sweet,” Cailyn cooed. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you fulfill that promise… you’ll come back to her in a body bag.”

Aiden shuddered. The smile she capped off that statement with sent a chill down his spine. It wasn’t the face of his sister he was looking into anymore, but a monster in her guise. 

“If that’s how it has to be… then I guess I’ll just take you back by force, Cay.” Aiden shifted to a martial arts back stance, drawing on the well of magic within himself. 

Cailyn moved first, summoning a crackling sphere of lightning in her palm, then hurling it at Aiden.

He raised a barrier just in time, the peal of thunder and the smell of ozone assaulting his senses. He wove a binding spell, heavy chains of arcane energy bursting from the palm of his hand towards Cailyn. He couldn’t kill her - he had to capture her, even if she was trying to kill him.

Cailyn was there one minute, and gone the next. The chains struck nothing, and dissipated into the ether.

He felt a sharp pain in his side. 

“Surprise, Aiden,” Cailyn hissed over his shoulder, twisting the knife between his ribs.

Aiden cried out in pain as the blade was twisted, then yanked out. He swung an arm around to try and catch her off guard, an arc of purple energy trailing off the blow - meant to stun anyone it hit with concussive force.

Cailyn staggered backwards from the force of the impact, tightening the grip on her knife. She thrust her free hand towards the ground, fingers curled like a claw, then twisted her wrist and yanked that hand back up, channeling magic through the earth. Thick vines burst from the soil and began to loop around Aiden’s legs, thorns digging into flesh.

Again he screamed, trying in vain to escape the thorny vines. He had no idea where Cailyn had learned spells like this, but he was certainly unhappy to be coming up against them. 

He realized then that he had no choice but to go on the offensive; she would relentlessly play with him until he died. He enkindled his hands, building up a sphere of fire which he hurled at Cailyn like a fastball pitch. 

Cailyn vanished again, and once more Aiden felt a sharp stab of pain, this time from his other side. Rapid-fire chronoshifting after a long distance shift was draining her reserves quickly, but she couldn’t afford to play around with her brother all night. She had another seal to break, after all.

Aiden knew he was losing a lot of blood. He cursed himself for never learning any healing spells, complicated as they were.

“All done, brother?” Cailyn taunted as she watched him slump against the binding vines. 

“Cailyn… come on… you… you gotta stop this,” he groaned, holding a hand over one of his stab wounds. The blood was already staining his clothing deep crimson, and coating his fingers as he tried to staunch the bleeding. 

“Oh, I could stop it, but watching you suffer is so much more fun~” she taunted. “Besides, now I get to see the look of despair on your face when you see the seal break!”

Aiden grit his teeth, trying to endure the pain. He knew he had to stop the bleeding somehow. He gathered flames in his palms again, and slapped them over the injuries, cauterizing them. The pain was so intense he nearly blacked out. When he regained his senses, he heard Cailyn giggling.

“My my, I just don’t give you enough credit, Aiden. You’re so determined! Do you really care about making it back to your precious little girlfriend that much?”

He grit his teeth. “I do… and I care about getting my sister back, too. I won’t stop until I do both.” He knew this was bravado. He was fading fast. 

“Your concern is noted and thoroughly unwanted,” Cailyn grinned as she turned back to the headstone. “Now, let’s see about cracking a seal, shall we?” 

“Cailyn, stop!” Aiden pleaded uselessly as he watched her approach the headstone.

She raised her hands and channeled the power from Boucher within her. Pale green light surrounded her, and then burst through the stone. It shattered, and a pulse of magical energy rippled through the area. “Another one bites the dust,” she giggled.

Aiden kept weaving his spell. She was distracted, it was now or never. Just as he heard the crack of the stone, he unleashed it: a powerful spell meant to incapacitate by forcing the brain into a hard-crash coma-like sleep. 

Cailyn’s giggle had just left her lips when the spell hit, cutting it short as she slumped over like a scarecrow freed from its post. 

Aiden felt the last dregs of consciousness leaving him, over-exerted from blood loss and the effort of casting the spell itself. He slumped against the embrace of the vines, cutting a dozen more small holes into himself.

Nathaniel wrung his hands nervously. Another seal had broken… which meant that Aiden or Ashe had failed to stop Cailyn. He scryed for Aiden, and quickly realized what had happened.

Summoning him and Cailyn back to the Underground would be taxing, especially with the seals broken… but they wouldn’t survive if he didn’t. Normally one needed to consent to a summoning - thus being unable to just force Cailyn back… but magic tended to have a lot of very wide gray areas, and summoning an unconscious person was far easier to do without consent.

He pulled on the power of the leyline that he had built the Underground upon, and began the spell.