The Final Act

Magical realism; 73,000 words

Ten years in the future, witches and warlocks have revealed themselves after centuries of secrecy in order to combat increasingly severe natural disasters, but their magic comes with a cost: irreversible physical or mental disabilities that can sometimes result in death.

Cat Cruz, the world’s most famous witch and influencer, wakes up blind after battling a hurricane and must reckon with her new reality—including the abandonment of her fans. Lena Nikovich, a retired twenty-year-old witch with ALS living in assisted care, enrolls in a drug trial in hopes of reversing the sociopathy of her ex-fiancé. Arie Cohen, a doctor treating both Cat and Lena, confronts the human cost of their sacrifices and the system’s treatment of its veterans. Connor Cooper, an active-duty warlock, has to navigate both his former situationship with Cat and his growing relationship with Arie while also grappling with the progression of his interstitial lung disease.

Sirens. Shit.

Cat jerked awake in total darkness. Her fingers closed around the brass knuckles under her pillow. Who was at the hideout with her? Usually at least three others, but not all of them were good in a fight. Almost definitely not the leader of the Queens—she was probably out fucking her boyfriend as usual.

Cat tried rolling off her camping cot but instead fell several feet and smashed her face on the abrasive carpet. Her legs tangled in sheets. She shoved her long hair out of her eyes. 

Shit shit shit.

Wait—pillows? Sheets? Carpet?

She stopped struggling, groaning when she saw her new alarm clock beeping at her. A delightful present from Connor, her current situationship. The blinking red numbers mocked her from the cheap nightstand: 3:01a.m.

Cat wasn’t at the Queen’s hideout. She hadn’t been part of the gang in months. She was staying the night in some insanely lux apartment in the newly built Dominion Tower, trying to sleep before the Storm of the Century (she’d heard the phrase so many times it had magnified in her mind into a proper noun). In about an hour, she and the other witches and warlocks would be out in the hurricane, doing their best to protect Houston from the worst of the damage.

Her heart pounded in her wrists. She leaned back against the bed, trying to calm down. The brass knuckles drooped in her hands.

Somebody thumped the wall. A muffled voice shouted, “Shut that thing up!”

She grinned. Mia. At least she wasn’t the only one suffering from Connor’s goddamn gift.

Her nose still smarting, Cat yanked the cord out of the wall. She looked longingly at the silhouette of her bed, but she could already picture Connor’s face if she was late again. With a sigh, she climbed to her feet.

Her window rattled slightly as rain splattered through the whistling wind against the glass. Dark clouds blocked the moon, and she couldn’t see through the blackness without the alarm clock’s faint light. She made a face, then felt for the switch. The light was far too bright for three a.m. 

The bedroom was blurry, so she found her contacts in their case on the nightstand and popped them in, blinking the room into focus. It must’ve been rented by some smarmy college kid given the decorations. A photo collage, mostly selfies of the room’s owner with different friend groups, pasted above the wide desk. K-pop band posters plastered on the back of the door. Long stretches of gauzy white canopy draped across the wall above the bed. Pink princess throw pillows, probably bought by Trust Fund Daddy who worked for Trust Fund Granddaddy who worked for Trust Fund Great-Granddaddy.

The best part, though, was the self-help books. Last night she and Mia had been in stitches as they read highlighted passages from Finding Your Inner Child: The Benefits of Imaginative Adult Play. Only a spoiled rich kid, right?

Cat shook her head, still smirking as she hunted through her chaotic suitcase for her signature clothes: white tank, dark jeans, zip-up black hoodie. She refused to wear the uniforms foisted on the other soldiers. They didn’t understand the secret was to not give a shit. Her division mates were too worried about being dismissed if they didn’t toe the line. They didn’t understand that the Witch and Warlock Division of the U.S. Army needed their magic more than they needed the W.W.D.

She combed her fingers through her tangles of waist-length brown hair, then piled it in a messy bun on top of her head. A black glove, cutoff at the knuckles, went over the blue crown tattooed on the inside of her right wrist, inked when she’d been part of the Queens. Nobody’s business but hers. Even Mia didn’t know about it.

She checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Not her finest, especially since she wasn’t about to apply makeup this early without cameras. But at three a.m.? Not bad.

A loud knock rapped on the door. “Cat! You better be up after all that racket!”

Cat swung the door open. Mia stood there looking even worse than she did, with deep bags under her eyes and black curly hair sticking out in every direction. Mia’s red uniform with the witches and warlocks’ thousand-year-old symbol, which resembled a smoky clef minus the vertical line, clung to her wide curves. 

Cat gave a slow clap.

“Shut up,” Mia mumbled. “I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

Cat slung her arm around Mia’s shoulders. “Poor baby. Better brush up before the photo ops”—she gave her bestie a sly smile—“Number Three.”

“Oh, I’m coming for you,” Mia said. “After this battle, I’m gonna be number one.”

Cat just laughed. They clomped their way through the deserted hallways and down the stairs, their military boots echoing off the swanky tile floors. When they reached the lobby, they exchanged looks. The rest of the way to the George R. Brown Convention Center would be outside in the Storm of the Century. 

Cat pushed the metal door open. A howling wind flung it out of her grasp, and heavy rain pummeled her body. She threw a useless arm over her head and sprinted across the river that had been a street in downtown Houston just the night before.

“Holy fuck!” Cat yelled to Mia. “Couldn’t the W.W.D. made temporary housing inside the convention center?”

The streetlamps flickered and then the power went out completely. Without the moon, they couldn’t see shit. Mia fumbled with her red toolbelt and clicked on her flashlight. The beam barely cut through the darkness.

“The W.W.D.’s gotta give me one of those,” Cat shouted.

“After you burned your uniform, like, twice?” Mia yelled back. “Like hell they will.”

“Three times. But it’s a safety issue!”

Cat wrestled open the door to the convention center, and then they were both through. She held out her arms, the sleeves of her jacket clinging to her skin, water gushing onto the floor.

Maybe I should’ve taken this Storm of the Century shit more seriously, Cat thought.

Nah.

They walked up to Level 3, where the meeting room was almost full. Portable halogen lights flooded the room, a faint smell of gasoline floating in the air. Voices reverberated around the large room as the early birds chatted and night owls slumped against the elongated tables. A few of them were snoring. Cat and Mia, dripping wet, mosied over to the small buffet that had been set up in front of a whiteboard still marked with faded colored ink.

Cat groaned when she saw only pastries and lukewarm coffee. But it didn’t stop her from piling a plate high with fruit, bagels, and muffins. She balanced a bowl of cereal in her other hand as she scanned the handful of rows for Connor. When she saw him sitting in the front, she rolled her eyes, even as she smiled. He might be a goody-goody, but he was her goody-goody.

Cat slid onto the seat next to him. “Hey babe.”

“Morning,” Connor yawned. His dirty blond hair stuck up at a funny angle, likely from a half-hearted attempt at using gel. The sigil stretched in a very agreeable way across his broad chest. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good, why?”

He rested his head in the crook of her neck. “I couldn’t.”

Not this again. “You’re number two, remember? Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“But this storm—”

“Connor. You’ll be fine.”

Her stomach grumbled, and she shrugged his head off her shoulder so she could eat. He stuck his tongue out at her. 

“How did the alarm clock work out?” he asked.

Mia glared at him from Cat’s other side. “Did you really need to get such a shrill one?”

“Cat’s here on time, isn’t she?”

Mia pursed her lips. “Fair.”

He winked, and Cat melted as those deep dimples flashed in his cheeks. God, he was so hot. After the Storm, she’d decided to finally make their relationship official. She’d been reluctant when he first asked, worried that officially changing her status to “in a relationship” on aStories, the social media platform for the Witches and Warlocks Division, would damage her reputation as a sex goddess. That might hurt her trading card.

But she didn’t care anymore. He was worth everything.

“Where’s Amanda?” Cat asked, craning her head as she searched the meeting room for the last member of their A-Team. “Did her nerves short out again?”

“You didn’t hear?” Mia snorted. “She Retired. Went home to her mommy in Arkansas.”

Cat cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously? I never pegged her as a coward.”

“Hey,” Connor said sharply. “There’s nothing wrong with Retiring.”

Cat and Mia smirked at each other, then dug back into their food. Connor pushed his empty plate away as Lieutenant Raybourne stood at the head of the room. Cat took one look at Raybourne and almost dropped her spoon. How was it possible to look so put together at three a.m.? Navy blue suit, pressed and inexplicably dry. Stilettos at least two inches tall. Blonde hair slicked back into a severe bun with zero stray hairs. And—was that lip liner? Who even used lip liner anymore?

“Good morning, soldiers. Thank you all for gathering so early.” Raybourne’s golden hair, stiffened from hairspray, gleamed like strands of hay in the bright lights. “The hurricane has been confirmed to be a byproduct of the heinous Corpus Dei’s spells”—her mouth twisted, as though she had just swallowed a mouthful of tahine—“so satellite phones aren’t going to work. Cat, you’re up.”

Cat saluted Raybourne.

“Go A-Team!” someone shouted.

Raybourne’s stare was so cold, it could’ve frozen piss. The rookie hunched down in his seat as she took a few steps toward him.

“I don’t want to hear that rubbish ever again,” Raybourne said. “The W.W.D. is not a popularity contest. There is no such thing as the ‘A-Team.’ You are all soldiers, you are all equally important to this mission, and the paparazzi’s made-up rankings have no standing in this room.” She jutted her chin in his direction. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.

There was a snicker, silenced swiftly by Raybourne’s glare. She waited a few more seconds, but nobody else was dumb enough to challenge her. 

As Raybourne resumed her lecture, Cat resisted the urge to wink at the rookie. She was so not in the mood for Raybourne’s shit this early in the morning. 

“It’s not going to be much longer until the worst of this storm makes landfall,” Raybourne said. “Due to its unexpected change in trajectory, it’s now on course to hit Houston directly. We’ll do our best to protect the city from damage, but our main objective is to buy those last evacuees enough time to escape safely to the emergency shelters. Any last questions?”

Nobody raised their hands. They had gone over the plan so many times yesterday, they could probably execute it in their sleep.

“Great.” She turned to the whiteboard. “Let’s review the protocol one more time.”

A collective groan rose as she erased the faded markings. Cat reached for Connor’s hand, tuning Raybourne out. Her heart warmed as he rubbed his thumb along her knuckles. Of course he was paying attention, the goober, his delicious brown eyes serious as they followed Raybourne pacing to and fro.

They were a good match for each other, Connor and Cat. She’d dated around plenty, but she’d never felt this way about a boy before. More and more, she was realizing how fast and hard she was falling for him. It scared her, but it was also exhilarating. She could see a real future together.

“Great.” Raybourne smoothed out a wrinkle on her pencil skirt that didn’t exist. “I’ll see you all at 04:00 at the rendezvous point. Dismissed.”