Lizzie ran to the right, feeling her anxiety rise as an arrow struck the wall a little while behind her. She kept moving even though she could feel the exhaustion seeping in and encouraging her to stop.

But she couldn't.

If she did that, it was guaranteed that she would die and be brought back as a minion to the Necromancer.

And there was no way in hell that she was going to let that happen. Besides her sister was relying on her and Lizzie wasn't going to fail her, not again.

Suddenly a burst of magic slammed into her and she was thrown off her feet. Her backpack, which she had over one shoulder, landed a few feet away.

Shit

Lizzie could feel rocks digging into her back from where she laid in a dazed state.

Come on, Lizzie, get up

Lizzie groaned slightly as she pushed herself into a seating position. She immediately spotted the 7 people rushing to surround her.

One of them was holding a crossbow directly at her face.

Rude

"Lizzie Saltzman...the Necromancer is going to be pleased to see you," One of them said mockingly.

Her flight or fight instincts kicked into gear and since flight wasn't an option, fight it was. Lizzie shifted and started siphoning from the bracelet on her wrist as subtly as she could.

When she had enough magic, a smirk appeared on her face.

They were screwed.

Lizzie narrowed her eyes, focusing on the one witch of the group.

"Ignalusa," Lizzie chanted and the witch caught fire. The woman screamed as the flames surrounded her entire body but there was nothing she could do as she burned alive.

The others in the group turned horrified as they had no idea what to do.

Lizzie used that distraction to her advantage and shouted another spell.

"Phasmatos ictus," Lizzie said, causing all seven, even the still burning witch, to go flying backwards.

Lizzie got to her feet, smiling as her magic vibrated just under her skin, ready for release. She looked to the left and saw the man who had the crossbow earlier standing up.

"Phasmatos ossox," Lizzie said, with a dark look on her face.

The man cried out as both of his legs shattered, along with some of his ribs and spine. He fell to the ground in agony.

Was that too harsh?

Nah

Lizzie saw a woman stumbling to her feet out of the corner of her eye. The woman was reaching for a gun of sorts.

Lizzie flicked her wrist sending the gun out of her hands into a tree. She faced the woman and made a lifting motion with her hand.

The woman rose with her hand and threw her arm forward. The woman struck the tree behind her. A branch sliced through her stomach.

Lizzie moved away and glanced at two guys that still had yet to stand up. They must have hit their heads when she blasted them backwards.

They were on their stomachs and Lizzie cocked her head in consideration.

She made a gentle motion with her hand and they were flipped on their backs. Then, Lizzie held her hands out and telekinetically grabbed their heads, tearing them from their chests, sending them flying into her open hands.

Lizzie looked down at the hearts in her hands with a disgusted look.

Valentine Day hearts look nothing like this. These were weird as hell and definitely did not have a heart shape even though they were actual hearts.

Wait...now that made Lizzie wonder where the heart shape that was used worldwide came from… Cause whoever did it, definitely did not get inspiration from an actual heart.

Because these things are slimy and squishy.

Gross…

Lizzie let the hearts drop to the floor and wiped her palms on her jeans, trying to get the weird puss looking stuff of her hands.

Lizzie heard movement behind her and turned to see the last to people rushing her.

"Immodbilus," One of them froze, so Lizzie turned to the still moving person and held her hand out. "Phasmatos pyrox morsinus illum"

The guy went down clutching his head.

Lizzie increased the power, siphoning more magic from the bracelet to keep her magic steady. Blood dripped from the guy's nose and eyes.

She looked at him curiously as he made a choking sound and suddenly fell to the ground unmoving.

Lizzie turned to the last woman, who was still frozen in place. But her eyes stared at Lizzie with pure fear.

Lizzie smiled as if she didn't just kill six people just now.

She reached into her jacket and pulled out a knife, walking forward confidently.

"Look, If the Sauron wannabe rises you from the grave again, can you tell him that he really should have kept a better eye on his oh so precious dark artifacts," Lizzie said, charmingly.

Lizzie twirled the knife in her hand and let her face become eerily blank. Her hand shot forward and the knife slashed through her throat, causing blood to splatter on Lizzie's clothes, with a little landing on her face.

Lizzie released the restrainment spell, and the woman collapsed to the ground. Lizzie backed away, putting the knife in her jacket.

Lizzie looked down at said jacket with a frown, noticing the blood spatters on it.

Seriously?

She liked this jacket but now it was all bloody.

It would take forever to clean it.

What a waste of 70 dollars.

Lizzie sighed in annoyance and moved away. Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted the now chard witch.

Lizzie couldn't stop the giggle that escaped.

All the witch needed was a little barbeque sauce and a werewolf would go to town.

Barbecued witch…

Lizzie bit her tongue to keep herself from bursting out in laughter.

Now was not the time.

She called her backpack to her with a wave of her hand because she was way too lazy to go and grab it herself.

Lizzie started walking quickly back in the direction she had been going before.

She had to reach Josie soon.

They had to do what was necessary to bring down the Necromancer, even if it meant messing with unknow black magic.

But Lizzie was tired.

It's been months of constant fighting and she was only 17.

She was tired and sore.

Lizzie just wanted to take a break from running. From watching her friends die. From being a killer herself.

To be honest, she hated killing people not because she felt like it was wrong but because she didn't.

When she killed people...she enjoyed it. It was fun, which scared her.

She shouldn't find people suffering amusing but she did and she couldn't tell the others because they would think she was a psychopath.

Then again, maybe she was.

Lizzie shook her head and kept moving, feeling the bracelet on her wrist shift as she ran her hand through her hair.

She glanced down at it.

It was still full of magic and would probably never run out of it unless Hope died somehow, which was highly unlikely.

Lizzie felt a familiar fondness as she remembered when Hope gave her and Josie the bracelets. She made it so that they were connected to her because she was afraid that the twins would be in danger if they ever ran out of magic.

Which would be very true as the bracelet has already saved their lives many times.

Lizzie looked up as she came upon the hidden tomb-like cave that they found not that long along. It was a useful place to fall back on in case things ever got too dangerous because the Necromancer couldn't get in.

Lizzie walked up to the wall of rock. She grabbed the knife from her jacket and wiped it off on her clothes. Then she pressed it against the skin of her palm, slicing right through.

Lizzie didn't blink at the stinging pain left behind and pressed her bleeding palm against the rocks.

The wall flickered for a moment as it recognized her blood and then finally disappeared. Lizzie glanced down at her hand and muttered a quick healing spell.

It wasn't great but it stopped the bleeding by making it scab over slightly.

Lizzie walked through the archway and down the hall to the room that she could sense her sister in.

She entered the room, spotting Josie kneeling down drawing some runes on the floor in chalk. Josie looked up as she entered.

"Are you okay? Did everything go to plan? Did you get it?" Josie fired off question after question.

"Yes. No. Yes," Lizzie said easily.

Josie relaxed, looking relieved but then paused as she realized Lizzie said no to one.

"Wait, what went wrong?" Josie asked, putting the chalk down.

Lizzie sighed and sat down, relieved to be sitting after the long and nightmare-inducing day she had.

"Some of Hannibal's followers spotted me as I was leaving," Lizzie said, stretching out her legs. Josie shot her a concerned look.

"You got away though, right?" Josie said as Lizzie opened her backpack.

"Nope," Lizzie said, popping the P.

Josie gave her a startled look. "What?"

"They caught up to me," Lizzie said, as she pulled out the dark artifact that was shaped like a large gear but the energy it put out wasn't dark and evil.

Instead, it radiated comfort and a feeling of home.

It was that very fact that told the twins that it was extremely powerful black magic because when black magic felt cold and off-putting, it was weak.

But when it was the opposite, it was powerful because the feeling of it was addicting and made you want to use it.

Josie looked at the artifact for a moment, before realizing what Lizzi just said.

"What happened?" She asked, with a worried look.

"You want the short version or the long-ass version?" Lizzie asked, looking away from the artifact.

"Short?" Josie said, hesitantly.

"They're very dead," Lizzie said, blinking at her twin.

Josie's mouth dropped before she shook her head. "Of course they are," She said, not at all surprised.

Lizzie just grinned at her twin, making her laugh.

"Alright, guess it's time to figure out how powerful this magic is, hopefully, it will be enough to fuel the runes," Josie said, glancing around at the runes that surround them in a circle.

"What even are the runes supposed to do?" Lizzie wondered.

Lizzie was the twin that dealt more in creating or writing spells while Josie had always been the twin that dealt in runic and ritual magic.

So the short story was she had no clue what the hell the runes meant.

"I'm not 100 percent sure, cause some of them are ancient but from my understanding, when these are put together with very powerful magic, like the black magic in that, it will cause time to freeze for people of our choice, for example, the Necromancer and his people," Josie said, pointing at certain runes.

"Wait, we don't know what all the runes do? This feels like a stupid and reckless thing to do…" Lizzie said, narrowing her eyes at Josie.

Josie paused. "Do you not want to do it?" She asked, looking at Lizzie in surprise.

"What? No, we're doing it, I was just pointing out that this could go horribly wrong and we would have only ourselves to blame," Lizzie replied, with a shrug. "Besides, what's the point of life, if you don't take potentially life-threatening chances?"

"Wait...what do you think could happen?" Josie wondered, worry flickering in her eyes.

"Oh, nothing, just we might die, or end up mutilated, or end up killing everyone we love or end up destroying the fabric of time cause a black hole to kill the entire planet or we could end up de-aged to an infant and die of starvation," Lizzie said, listing all possible outcomes that had appeared in her head. "Also-"

"Lizzie stop," Josie exclaimed, looking like she was panicking now.

"What? You wanted me to tell you what could go wrong and now you want me to stop? Rude," Lizzie said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Josie just shook her head and closed her eyes, ignoring her twin

"Oh, would you look at that, my anxiety has reached its peak...:" Josie muttered aloud, she said it under her breath, but Lizzie still heard and burst out laughing.

"We'll be fine, Josette, you worry too much," Lizzie said, with an eye roll.

"Lizzie, I wasn't worried before but then, you literally just pointed out that this could kill us all because we don't know what we're doing, so yes, now I'm kinda freaking out," Josie said, giving her twin an exasperated look.

"It'll be fine, besides this is our best shot to kill the Necromancer. If it works, he'll be frozen and an easy target, and voila, wars over," Lizzie said, shrugging.

"You're right," Josie said with a nod.

"Am I ever not?" Lizzie said, giving a 'no duh' look.

"All the time," Josie said, raising an eyebrow.

Lizzie straightened as an offended look appeared on her face.

"That is false," Lizzie said, looking affronted at the idea that she could ever be wrong.

"Is it though?" Josie said, jokingly.

"I will disown you," Lizzie threatened, with a pout.

"Uh-huh, good luck with that Liz," Josie said, smiling in amusement.

Lizzie continued to pout silently as Josie finished setting everything up.

"Alright, let's do this," Josie declared, pausing as she finally noticed that Lizzie was still pouting. "Lizzie, are we going to do the spell?"

"I don' wanna," She said, childishly.

Josie raised her eyebrows and pushed down the laugher. "Lizzie, stop acting like a child." She said, sternly.

Lizzie glared for a moment, before sighing as moving to be right next to Josie. Both of the twins looked down at the artifact and placed their hands on it.

They exchanged a look, then started siphoning.

Lizzie gasped as raw and untamed power surged through her. Black veins made their way up her arm as she and Josie continued to siphon.

Lizzie felt powerful like she could take on an army and win.

Finally, they stopped siphoning as the last bit of black magic entered the twins.

Lizzie could feel it flowing through her, whispering promises of power as it settled. She could feel it trying to urge her thoughts in a certain direction but Lizzie fought it, knowing they had to activate the runes before the black magic finally swayed them to do what it wanted.

Lizzie nudged her twin and she could see the struggle on Josie's face as she fought back against the black magic control. She knew that her face mirrored the same struggle.

The twins turned to grab a dagger each and sliced open their palms. They exchanged one last look before slamming their palms down on the floor.

Their blood sent ripples of magic through the air as the runes lit up. They started out glowing a goldish-honey color but as the corrupted magic made itself known, the runes changed from the gold to a murky yellow color.

The wind picked up as the runes began working together.

Lizzie felt the black magic draining and fought the urge to hold onto it.

The magic of the runes seemed to rise up and the twins expected it to go outwards to freeze their enemy.

However, it didn't.

Instead, it turned to them.

"Oh shit…" Lizzie whispered.

One second later the magic rushed at them and everything went black.

Lizzie shot awake, feeling drained but also like she could run a mile. Which really didn't make sense.

Next to her was an unconscious Josie.

She looked around as the memories returned to her.

Where the hell were they?

This was most definitely not the tomb.

They were in the middle of an empty side street. House around them.

Lizzie looked at Josie and nudged her.

"Jo," Lizzie said, shaking her slightly. "Josie."

Josie's eyes shot open.

"Liz?" Josie whispered in confusion. "What happened?"

"I don't know but I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Lizzie said with an uncertain look on her face.

"What?" Josie asked, confused, not understanding why Lizzie said that.

"Look around," Was all Lizzie said.

"What the hell?" Josie exclaimed after following Lizzie's advice. "The spell...you were right, it didn't work the way it was supposed too…"

"Well...let's look on the bright side," Lizzie said, dryly.

Josie gave Lizzie a confused look.

"At least I wasn't right in my prediction that it would kill us," Lizzie said, pushing herself to her feet.

Lizzie looked at Josie and offered a hand, which Josie took, allowing Lizzie to pull her up as well.

Josie continued to look around, trying to figure out what happened.

Lizzie looked at her twin, then decided that it would be far easier to find what happened if they found out where they were.

So, Lizzie started walking down the sidewalk, sparing a glance at Josie, who was rushing to catch up with her.

"Lizzie, where are you going?" Josie asked, confused.

"To find out what the hell happened," Lizzie said, as she continued down the street.

The two walked for a few minutes when Josie froze seeing something Lizzie didn't.

"Lizzie," Josie said, voice barely above a whisper, with a shocked look on her face.

Lizzie paused and looked back at her twin, raising an eyebrow in question. "What?"

"That's the date…" Josie said, pointing at something on the window of a store.

Lizzie followed her eyes and froze as well.

October 5

That in and of itself was shocking as the month was supposed to be January but what caused the most shock was the year.

1990

That was almost forty years ago.

There was no way...

"What the fuck?" Lizzie exclaimed in disbelief.

Josie glanced at her twin, fear rising. "Maybe the store owner is going for an antique style or something?" Josie suggested, hopefully.

"Or we fucking time-traveled because we messed with black magic and time runes," Lizzie said, uncertainty rising.

She glanced around, as she realized that she had blood on her. Lizzie siphoned from the bracelet then whispered a quick illusion spell to hide it.

And Josie did the same to hide her bloody hand.

"What do we do?" Josie whispered, trying not to let her fear overwhelm her.

"I don't know...where even are we?" Lizzie wondered, looking around.

"Maybe we can ask someone," Josie suggested.

"Hell no. If we do that people will look at us like we're insane," Lizzie disagreed. Besides, she already got looked at like she was crazy without even trying.

Josie nodded with a frown as she tried to think of a different way to find out. Lizzie looked around and paused, noticing a newspaper stand. She glanced at her twin, who seemed lost in thought, then started walking over to the stand.

She grabbed one of the newspapers and looked at the title.

The newspaper was called The Oregonian.

But what caught her attention was the city name.

Portland

How the hell did they go from the east coast to the west coast?

Lizzie put the newspaper back and moved away to go talk to her sister and tell her what she learned when suddenly she ran into someone.

She stumbled and would have fallen if the person hadn't grabbed her to prevent her from embarrassing herself even further.

Lizzie straightened herself out, moving slightly away from the person

"Sorry," She said with a wince. "I should have been looking where I was going."

Lizzie looked up and barely stopped herself from gasping.

A teenage boy around her age stood in front of her but that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the fact that he looked exactly like a younger version of her uncle that she only ever saw a picture of.

He gave her a confused but also suspicious look.

Why though?

Oh, wait, she was staring.

God, she was stupid.

"Just watch it," The teen version of Kai said snappily, looking at her with an uncertain look in his eyes. Mainly because he wasn't used to dealing with people. Or with teenage girls other than his sisters.

Lizzie bit her tongue, trying to prevent herself from saying something that could be incredibly cruel.

He gave her an unreadable look as he moved to go around her but Lizzie stopped him by putting a hand up.

"Um, I have a quick question," Lizzie said.

He narrowed his eyes at her with a mistrustful look on his face and Lizzie paused, noticing that his eyes were eerily familiar.

Wait...they were the same as hers.

She had no idea that she had gotten her eyes from her homicidal uncle.

Wait, get back on track, Lizzie.

"Where in Portland are we?" Lizzie asked, uncertain.

It wasn't like she could search it up.

Oh, my god

There were no iPhones...and no speedy internet.

Was the internet even available to the public?

If she was getting her history right, it wasn't made available to everyone until 1991.

This was going to be a nightmare.

"You don't know where we are?" He asked, looking at her like she was stupid. His voice had taken an almost mocking tone. "Maybe you should get your head checkedor is it because your blonde?"

Lizzie tensed in irritation. "If you're gonna be a dick about it, forget I asked," She said, moving to go past him this time.

All while trying to fight the urge to kill him.

"Wait," He said, grabbing her arm to stop her. "I'm sorry, I'm not great with people."

Lizzie paused, then snorted. "No kidding...but honestly, same," She said, with a shrug.

He stared at her, not understanding.

"Nevermind," Lizzie muttered as she realized that people didn't talk like that in this time period. That was going to get old real fast.

He considered her before shifting on the balls of his feet, putting his hands in his pockets.

"We're in South Portland," He replied.

"Ok, thanks," Lizzie said with a nod.

She had no idea what South Portland meant but then again, that was no surprise.

Lizzie glanced towards her sister, who had finally realized she was missing. She looked over and froze, seeing who was next to Lizzie.

Lizzie walked back over to her, pretending not to notice the eyes on her back. When she made it to her sister, she stopped.

"Sooo we're in Portland," Lizzie said, looking at Josie, who was staring at her in disbelief.

"What the fuck?"