Tainted roots

Human realm

Sitting in the back of a dark, crowded bar at a low and small table, were Emmy and Gabsrielle. Country music blared through the speakers, making it near impossible for humans to have a conversation. A tile dance floor sat in the middle of the room, where several couples danced, not caring that the floor was sticky from spilled drinks. Smoke filled the air from where several patrons smoked at the bar, making the place smell of smoke, along with beer and greasy food. Next to the dance was a pool table, where the clacking of the pool balls could be heard over the music.

The cacophony of sounds didn’t affect the women. Not with the sound barrier blocking out the noises from the bar, and preventing everyone else from overhearing their conversation. Gabby and Emmy both wore their silver-colored rings, keeping their illusions in place. Everyone that looked at them saw one woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, and the other with auburn hair and brown eyes. No one even looked their way or noticed anything different or suspicious about them.

Gabby threw back her drink, cringing and shaking her head, trying to forget the taste. “It’s bad enough their drinks are weak. Why do they need to make them taste so bad?”

“Why do you keep trying them hoping for a different result?” Emmy laughed as she shook her head, leaning back in her chair. She bent the gold rings on her fingers to her will, making them change their shape.

“One of these days I’ll find one—” Gabby cocked her head to the side, waiting for several moments. “You’re late.”

“Am I? And here I thought I was stopping off at a random bar for a weak drink,” a woman with a smoky and sultry voice replied, having just passed through the sound barrier with ease. She pulled out the third chair, taking a seat between the other women.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Emmy demanded, turning to face her, leaning her arm on the table.

“Ugh, you don’t want to know.” She waved her hand dismissively, scrunching up her nose. Her attention tracked around the bar and back to the other women. “Where’s Missy?”

Gabby and Emmy shared a look and the woman shifted around in her seat, pressing her lips together. “The last time we saw her was right before we died,” Emmy said, sounding nonchalant about talking about her death.

Surprise and worry filled the woman’s expression. “You haven’t seen any glimpses of her?” She glanced over at Gabby, silently asking if she’d seen her in a vision, like how she’d known the woman would be coming to this bar tonight.

“Nothing, I haven’t had a single vision about her.” She bit down on her lip as looked at the dance floor, before speaking a lyrical word that essentially meant tree of life. “Most of my visions take place there.” Biting her lip again, she looked off to the side. “But lately they’ve been unclear, jumbled. Showing random image after random image, all of them fragments.”

“It has to be due to the cracks,” the woman said, rubbing her jaw.

“Two of the keys have been used,” Gabby confirmed gravely. “Mine and Bri’s.”

“And mine?”

“Emmy’s hidden it, she toyed around with a few Mythics to get it,” Gabby said, shooting her an exasperated look. To which Emmy shrugged with a mischievous smirk, regretting nothing.

"How many did you kill?” The woman rolled her eyes and chuckled softly.

“Hey! I resent that. I’ll have you know, I didn’t kill any of them, even when they attacked me.”

The woman chuckled, looking over her shoulder again for a few moments. When she turned back, her expression was serious and her full brows were pulled together. “What do we do now? We’re not at full strength. We don’t even know where Missy is, or if she’s even been reborn.”

“She’s been reborn, that much I know,” Gabby said with conviction, and neither of the women argued.

Gabby laced her fingers together, pinning the others with her sharp gaze. “I need to see the cracked doorway myself and assess the damage. A patch has been placed over it, so for now nothing else can get through. One of you needs to join me and watch my back while I do so, the traitors”—she spat the word in the same rhythmic langue as before—“have been circling around the necromancers, using them to do their bidding.” She swore under her breath in both languages.

A chuckle escaped the woman, lacking any real joy. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they’re the ones opening the doorway. They’ll do almost anything to spite us, huh?”

“Oh, it’s not just out of spite. They’re doing this out of self-preservation, to leave the realm. Them being there is what caused the cracks to begin with.” Gabby ran her hands through her thick hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. “They’ve been able to slip through the cracks for some time now, just not with their physical bodies. They need to possess someone, preferably Mythic since they’re bodies are strong enough to hold them, and hide their energy signature. It’s the perfect place to hide, in plain sight.”

She glanced between Emmy and Gabby, her teeth sinking in her full lip that had been painted black. “But their power is greater than a Mythic’s, even with all the energy they expend projecting themselves through the cracks. The overload of magic would kill the Mythics.”

“Eject their soul right out of their body,” Emmy confirmed, hiking her thumb over her shoulder.

“Even with the Mythic’s bodies, they can’t completely hide their energy signatures,” the woman continued, lacing her hands together on the table. “If they’re close enough, we should be able to tell the difference between the two.”

Gabby toyed with her necklace, moving the pendant around the chain. “The problem is their signature isn’t distinct enough for us to know who it is and whether or not they’ll recognize us.”

“Have you come across any?”

“There is one hovering around a group of Mythics,” Emmy confirmed, her eyes were narrowed as she tapped out a rhythm on her thigh

“Coincidentally, it’s the same group Emmy stole your key from.” Gabby downed a shot of tequila from the line of shots in front of her that hadn’t been there before and made a face. “Fuck that’s bad.” A shudder rolled through her shoulders. “In that group, includes two guardians holding the two keys that have been used.”

“Interesting.” The woman tapped her nails on the table.

“It is, especially since the few visions not about the doorway were about them. Again, just pieces and fragments, but about them nonetheless.” Frustration shadowed Gabby’s face as she stared off into the distance.

Cocking her head to the side, the woman asked, “Good or bad?”

Gabby rested her forearms on the table, leaning forward. “You can find out for yourself while in their realm.”

Emmy was lounged back in the chair, and to those who didn’t know her, she looked relaxed and unbothered. “With how things have been going lately, you’ll come across them while you're on the lookout for—” She said another foreign-sounding word, this one longer with more syllables, that essentially meant parasites.

“Not those fuckers,” the woman said, groaning as she dropped her head into her hands.

“A word of advice when you come across the Mythics, don’t make the same mistake Emmy did and stab a fated mate couple. Summoners no less,” Gabby said, shooting Emmy a side-eyed glance.

“Yeah, they don’t let that shit go.” She chuckled when Emmy threw her hands up in the air, smacking them on the table. “So you want me to observe them when they get involved?"

“Yes, find out why they keep being pulled into the middle of everything lately and why the traitor has taken such an interest in them.” Gabby stood up, dropping the barrier and letting in all of the raucous sounds from the bar. She and Emmy said their good byes and left the woman at the table.

The woman threw back each shot in a row, knowing they wouldn’t do much in terms of getting her drunk or even buzzed. Across the room, sitting at the bar, was the reason she even came to this shithole in the first place. She’d deal with this, and then she would go to Mythic’s realm and deal with those disgusting parasitic motherfuckers.