Kurt descended the hill alone, crawling through the meager foliage to stay hidden. He treaded carefully, observing the ritual grounds as he did so, trying to get an angle that would show him the entire thing, unobscured by any of the cars. There were nine people there. Eight were clad in blood-red robes, with one also carrying a black staff, and they were all working around the box, setting up carved wooden poles around it and drawing a circle with black sand to surround its frame.

  The last figure was a young-looking, tanned man wearing simple jeans and a brown leather jacket. In his hand was a staff of reddish-brown wood that had symbols Kurt couldn't recognize carved all over its surface. He didn't partake in the ritual settings, remaining instead to the side, scanning the area.

  There was no trace of neither Conrad nor Trismegistus, ad Kurt found this absence more worrying than anything actually present. Should they wait until they showed up? Or bust the operation now and deny them any fightning chance? He didn't know.

  Sighing, Kurt turned back and made his way up the hill again.

  "So?" asked Mila, who was lying on her stomach like a sniper, as soon as he returned.

  "Nine people," he said. "Eight shamans and one that looks like a sorcerer. No trace of the masked guy or Conrad."

  She nodded, silent, then turned to look at him. "Should we move now?"

  Kurt considered the question for a little while, then shook his head. "We are gonna wait until they've set up their little ritual first. Then we attack, fast and intensely, then pull back and run. We just have to make sure they can't do their ritual tonight."

  "Okay then," Mila said. Then, she turned to her left, where a three-foot tall cactus was growing. "No point on doing nothing 'till theen though. Why don't we do some preparing of our own?"

  She treaded her way to the plant and, careful to avoid the spines, gripped its base with both hands. She breathed sharply and pulled, partially uprooting the thing and making it lean above her. Another breath and a push to the left after, and the cactus was now lying on the dirt, the stump at its base bleeding green.

  Mila turned to him, and pointed at his sword, which hung from his hip. "Can you hack this up, please?"

  Kurt did, slicing the cactus's body in small pieces. Mila placed her hands over the pile of chopped up and thorny pulp and, taking her third deep breath in a row, got her magic to work. The grass around them strained for the girl's hand, and motes of green light poured from it, converging in the girl's grip as a small green sun. A mass of nature spirits.

  Mila pushed the sphere into the pile, and it exploded in seven rings of emerald light. Each pulse animated a portion of the pile's pieces in its wake, and soon the whole was separating in seven smaller, still-moving masses of green.

  The pieces pulled against each other, merging and fusing, forming into a particular shape.

  Lizards. Soon enough, what stood before Kurt and Mila where seven dryads, each one as long as Kurt's shin, shaped like leaf-tailed geckos. Their heads, bodies, paws and tail were all formed of palm-shaped, needle-covered cactus matter. Each one of them was the same size Christopher Robinson had been.

  Mila looked at the small bunch and nodded in approval. "I assume you don't want me down there, since I'm no good at close quarters. These guys will be going instead. They're small, pretty fast when I control them, and make some killer sacrificial bullet's if needed."

  "That's good," Kurt said. He looked down at the ritual grounds again. The circle of black sand had been completed, and a baker's dozen of those carved poles had been set up in another circle that encompassed the sand one. A thick rope connected each pole with its neighbours. The shaman with the black staff looked at this arrangement, nodded, and then moved for the boc, careful not to step in the sand forming the circle.

  "Preparation's over," Mila observed. "Time to move."

  "Yes," Kurt said, nodding. "I'll go first. Will try to get as close as I can before being noticed. You spread your guys in a fan so that they aren't cobbled up and easy to take out in one move."

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  "Okay," Mila said. "You attack from the right, where the van is parked. I'll have the geckos on the left attack first, try and focus the attention away from you. That ought to let you make your move easier."

  "Good idea," Kurt said. Mila sent her minios forth, Three to each side and one moving straight for the bad guys. Kurt moved to follow them, buy Mila caught his wrist. He stopped, and turned to her.

  "Do enough damage, then run away. That's our plan."

  "I know," he said. "I'll be safe. I promise."

  She nodded, still looking worried. "I…want to take some hand-to-hand combat lessons when we get back home. I don't wanna have any excuses to let you brave this kind of crap alone any longer."

  Kurt smiled, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We can do that. You can join my daily training and I'll guide you." He chuckled. "Heck, it actually sounds like it'd be a lot of fun."

  "Everything we do together is a lot of fun," Mila said, chuckling too. She froze for a second. Then, grabbing Kurt's wrist, she pulled herself closer to him and planted a kiss on the very corner of Kurt's mouth. When she pulled back to look a flabbergasted Kurt in the eye, she said. "Everything in my life is better when it involves you, Kurt. You are the person I love the most and…" She stopped dithering. She had to look away to finish the sentence. "And the only one I'm in love with." She blushed furiously, her eyes nearly popping-out her skull. "So please…just come back okay."

  Kurt took the girl's words in, processing them, understanding their meaning. He expected to feel agitated, to blush and tremble and act all amotional. This was, after all, the girl he loved and was in love with confirming she felt the same; as a teenager, he was supposed to be a mess right now. Instead of that, an intense calmness washed over him, followed by a indescribable feeling of contentment.

  It was love he was feeling, completely pure and unadulterated. For a long time now, Kurt had known he was in love with Mila; subconsciously at first, almost in denial. And then, after the battle with Ruth, that willful ignorance had been broken, and Kurt had been left to grasp the full scope of what he felt for Mila for the first time.

  And it had scared him.

  The depth of the feeling hadn't changed at all. That he loved Mila more than life itself was something he had never, ever tried to shy away from. In fact, he took more pride in it than he did about his discovery of Pneuma. No, what had scared him was the selfishness that was merged with that love: he wanted to be special to Mila, for her to look at him in a way she wouldn't look at anybody else, to be the one who could kiss her and call her 'dear' or 'my love' or some glurgy stuff like that.

  He wanted for Mila to be his, and for him to be hers in turn.

  He wasn't even scared about feeling that way, per se, but rather about the fact that the love now knew he had wanted was one Mila might not wanted to give to him. If she saw him as a friend or a brother, and he saw her in a romantic way, then what could he do? Any attemp of pursuing that selfish feeling that had polluted his heart would risk everything he had with Mila.

  That possibility was what truly scared him. But now, with that one confession she had given him, that fear was no more. It had evaporated, dissapeared from his soul to never come back, leaving the zen-like calm he was feeling behind.

  Kurt put his hand below Mila's chin, and pushed her head softly so she's look at him, at the smile crossing his lips and the glow in his eyes. He leaned closer and kissed. Not in the lips, but between her eyes.

  "It seems that,once again, we feel the same," he said.

  "Wait…what?..." the girl stammered, blushing deeper and frowning in puzzlement, looking almost offended. "But then why not-?" She stammered again. This time, instead of trying to push the words, she simply pursed her lips at him, pointing at them with an angry gesture.

  Kurt laughed heartily, pushing the girl in a hug. "Because now I have twice the reason to come back."

  The girl groaned in his chest, but returned the hug, grinding her head against his chest. "Teasing me already, mister? This is gonna cost you quite a few cookies for me to forgive."

  "I'll keep it in mind," he said. They broke the hug, looking lovingly at each other. They nodded at the same time, smiles sharp, and bumped their fists.

  "Let's get these B-holes," Mila said.

  "Together," Kurt added.

  Mila returned her attention to the valley below, and Kurt began his way down. Down at the ritual stage, the shamans had opened the box, taking the lid off entirely and placing it in the ground near it. Red Aura shot from the box in a massive pyre of crimson flame that bathed the valley in its blood-light. All eight shamans positioned themselves around it, with the chief taking his spot atop the black lid, using it as a makeshift altar. The sorcerer stepped as far from the ritual as he could, leaning against one of the cars.

  As the shamans chanted and gestured, the flame seemed to take shape and weight. The base of it thinned, condensing until it looked liquid, and the top rotated slowly, taking a spherical shape, like a red sun.

  Kurt reached the base of the hill, and then Mila made her move. From the shadows at the chief shaman's back, the three gecko-dryads charged. Since the only people who didn't have the Aura between them and the lizards had their backs turned to them, none got to see them in time. One of them tackled the chief shaman's leg, burrowing its spines in the flesh and drawing a scream from the man.

  Without its main warden, the red sun grew unsteady, its surface bubbling and its volume flickering. The shamans all screamed, breaking the circle they had formed as the remaining two geckos ran between their legs, cutting and scratching as they went.

  By this time, Kurt had reached the van, using it for cover as he peeked at the scenario. The sorcerer moved to action, the top of his staff shining with verdant currents of air as he moved. He gestured at the sky with it once, and a melstron the width of a leg exploded from between two shamans, spraying green juice and needles into the night sky.

  One dryad down.

  The man moved his shaft, pointing it further away as the green glow intensified. It was then, when the man's attention was on casting his spell, that Kurt moved. He rushed away from the van and the shadow it provided, running parallel to the sorcerer. Knowing that any spell he tried to cast would be detected by the man's aetheric sense, Kurt decided to go simpler. Letting the white flames of his Od surge free, Kurt picked a rock the size of a peach from the ground and threw it at the man's staff-hand.

  As the stone flew, too fast for a normal person to see, Kurt visualized his next move: the rock would destroy the man's hand like a shotgun blast and break the staff in half. Then, when he was howling in pain, Kurt would rush him and knock him clean. With the one capable of intercepting his spells directly gone, Kurt would then go crazy with the fireballs, burning the poles and the sand circle and the cars before rushing back to Mila and running away.

  What happened instead was that a blast of wind exploded from the man's staff, exploding the stone midair. Kurt froze at this development, and the man turned to him. The top of his staff exploded with golden flames as he stuck it towards Kurt, and heat rushed from it along with searing light.