▬▬▬ CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR ▬▬▬

ESMERELDA AND HER FATHER HAD only been in the world of the living for about an hour and they were already being hunted down by the police.

It started the second they left the Underworld:

"Get down!" Esmerelda hissed, grabbing her father's shoulder and dragging him to hide with her behind the massive 'H' sign.

"What? What is it? Don't tell me there's more monsters after us," Regulus groaned in annoyance.

"No. It's worse: tourists," she said grimly.

He gave her a weird look. "What?"

Wordlessly, she gestured for him to peek out from the 'H' sign. Beyond the hills were a group of tourists on the road, trying to take pictures of themselves with the Hollywood sign behind them. So far, none of them noticed the two teenagers on the hills.

"What are they doing?" Regulus asked curiously.

"Taking pictures of the sign we're hiding behind," she answered.

He looked even more confused. "Why? It's just a sign, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "It's special to them, I guess. My biggest concern is getting out of these hills without getting caught on camera..."

There were a bunch of bushes around that could provide them some cover, but it really wasn't much...

Ugh, whatever. We just came back to life, it's too early to start caring about any witnesses, she decided.

The top of the hill led to a road, and it was a lot closer than the bottom of the hill, so she tugged at her father and told him to get started on hiking up. She would occasionally glance over the back of her shoulder and spy the tourists pointing excitedly at them or even snapping pictures and videos. She couldn't hear what they were talking about, but she wouldn't be surprised if they were making TikToks out of this. TikTokers would make a video out of anything at this point.

Climbing the hill... was a lot harder than she thought it would be. Usually she would've been able to do it without breaking a sweat, but now it felt like it was her first time walking up a hill. She had been dead for a month now and apparently that was all the time her body needed to forget what it was like to be alive.

She glanced back at Regulus, who was definitely struggling a lot worse than her since he had been dead for almost two decades.

"You okay?" She asked in concern. He already looked out of breath. Hecate hadn't been kidding when she said they would need some time to adjust to their living bodies.

"Just fine," he panted.

Esmerelda just nodded and continued her trek upwards.

After reaching the top of the hill, they finally came across the City of Los Angeles Central Communications Facility which was basically just a tower full of metal, wires, and antennas. According to the informative sign in front of it, the building supported all cellphone, microwave, and radio towers used by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Fire Department, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and other municipal agencies.

(It would certainly be a shame if something were to happen to it.)

Weirdly enough, some of the metal being used looked a lot Celestial bronze.

"What is this?" Regulus wondered, craning his neck up to look at the top of the tower.

Esmerelda waved a hand, "Ah, it's just some, um, communication thingy. There's too many big words."

She looked around. The next thing they needed to do was replenish their energy—or more importantly, hers. They desperately needed to get to London and the quickest way to do that was for her to Mist travel them there. Only problem was that she was out of energy to do that for herself let alone with one other person so they needed to replenish their energy in her favorite possible way: eating.

There were only a few cars parked around, along with a boom lift stationed near the tower. A uniformed man was over at the platform, working on a bunch of wires. There were a pair of other men right beside it, one was wearing a hard hat and vest just like the other worker while the other was dressed in a more formal looking suit.

Esmerelda and Regulus quickly ducked down, pressing themselves flat against the hill before they could be seen.

"—be fixed in no time sir," the guy in the vest said.

"How soon?"

"Give Oliver a couple more hours," he replied.

"That long?!" The suited man complained.

"Er, well, Oliver's really good at his job, but it takes time," the other man assured. "This isn't something we should really rush."

"Not something we should rush?" The man snapped, obviously growing impatient. "My boss needs this building up and running if we want to wake up the Automatons with a signal! Do you have any idea how important this task is?!"

The man gave him a lost look. "Uh... Automatons?"

"Gah!" He threw his arms up in exasperation. "Just tell Oliver to hurry it up! If he doesn't finish until his lunch break, then he better stay up there and finish the job up! I'm not paying you people to do nothing!"

And with that, he stomped off. Esmerelda could hear him mutter something under his breath about 'useless mortals who can't even do their jobs right'.

"Automatons?" Regulus whispered. "Aren't those creations of Hephaestus?"

"Yeah..." Esmerelda said quietly. One of the automatons, Talos, had killed Bianca all those years ago...

You need to focus! She inwardly scolded herself, trying to snap back to the situation on hand.

Obviously, whatever was going on here wasn't anything normal. The workers were probably regular mortals who had no idea what was really going on, but the other guy—the asshole in the suit—was definitely a monster of some kind. Probably working for Gaea too since everybody else seemed to be these days.

This tower... She looked back up at it. It was no longer being used to just help the city of Los Angeles, but it was now being used to activate a bunch of automatons scattered around the city—maybe even the country. From what she learned from the Hephaestus kids, some of their father's automatons could be awakened by releasing a certain frequency at over three hundred or so Hertz (not that she knew what that meant).

"Alright change of plans," she whispered.

Regulus looked at her, brow raised. "We had a plan?"

"Yes, but I forgot to tell you," she admitted sheepishly. "It was supposed to be something about stealing a car key so we can ride out of here and grab something to eat. But first we gotta find a way to disrupt their plans."

She told him about what she believed was going on, and Regulus nodded along and gave her his suggestion: "We need to destroy the tower."

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I was thinking of using bombarda on the place—"

"—What—"

"—But there's too many mortals around here that could get hurt. Plus, I haven't eaten in a month so I'd probably pass out for a couple days. So bombarda's a 'no'." She finished. "I think I could use telekinesis to destroy it, but—"

"—Oh yes, tell me more."

"AHHHH!" The two Blacks screamed, whirling around to see the suited man from before now standing before them. No wait, he wasn't standing. He was floating. There were mini cyclones wrapped around his legs, a pair of smoky wings at his back, and his eyes were literally sparking with electricity.

"Ánemoi thúellai," Esmerelda realized. At Regulus' confused look, she translated, "He's a storm spirit."

"I knew I smelled a demigod around here," he grinned wickedly. "And even better is that you're exactly the demigod my mistress is looking for!"

"Oh great," she sighed heavily.

"I heard you died and came back to life again," he continued on amicably. "So how's it been? How's the new life treating you?"

In the corner of her eyes she could see Regulus staring between them in bewilderment and bit back a snort. The Death Eaters he used to work with probably weren't very conversational people with their victims.

"It's been great up until now," she replied in equally as pleasant tone, but then her eyes darted to the funnel clouds surrounding him. He certainly seemed strong... plenty strong enough to destroy the communication tower on his own...

An idea came to her mind. Why strain herself out with her powers when she could use somebody else's instead?

"And by that, I meant the climb up here!" She quickly added, flashing him a friendly smile. "Totally not because we ran into you or anything! Say, is this tower yours?"

"Oh yes," he puffed his chest out proudly. "I built it myself—" Esmerelda highly doubted that. "—Well, not really to be honest. Some mortals built it long before me but I modified it to suit my mistress' tastes."

Esmerelda glanced back to the tower and put on a thoughtful frown. "Well, uh, it doesn't really look like her sort of thing, does it?"

His face fell, looking crestfallen at her words and making her mind more malleable to her control. "It doesn't?"

At this point, Regulus was starting to realize what her plan was.

"Your mistress is the primordial goddess of the earth, isn't she?" He said smoothly. "While it does what it's supposed to, that tower would be considered an eyesore to nature, no offense of course. I doubt your mistress would appreciate it."

"Is it even eco-friendly?" Esmerelda asked.

The man was looking more and more worried. "I-it's a communication tower, how am I supposed to make it eco-friendly?"

"You'll have to figure that out on your own, sir, but in the meanwhile, this tower needs a total reconstruction," Esmerelda said in faux disappointment.

"Reconstruction..." He murmured, his eyes growing a little more dazed as her charmspeak broke through his mental barriers.

"Deconstruction, to be honest," she corrected herself. "The whole thing needs to be taken down. You're powerful enough to destroy it, aren't you?"

"Of course I am!" He preened. "I'm one of my mistress' best storm spirits!"

She also highly doubted that too, but whatever.

"That's great!" She beamed. "So go on and destroy the tower so you can make a better one. It's what she would want!"

He nodded, his eyes gone hazy, as he rose farther up in the air. All around them, the winds grew stronger to the point that Esmerelda and Regulus had to grasp at the dirt to keep from being blown down the hillside.

"Get inside!" She could hear the mortal workers yelling. She peeked up and saw the workers sprinting to the nearby building for cover, but one of them stopped and turned his attention back to the tower.

"Oliver!" He yelled, and that was when Esmerelda remembered the mortal man working at the top of the boom lift.

"Oh no," she said, her face paling as she snapped her attention back up. Oliver was holding on to the platform's railing for dear life, but the boom lift was teetering back, it's center of gravity already thrown off.

"Shit!" She cursed herself before rising to her feet.

"What are you doing?!" Regulus shouted at her through the howling winds.

"There's still someone up there! He's gonna fall!"

"Who cares?! Just stay down!"

She stared at him in horror. "WHAT?! No!"

He gave her a look of frustration, "Esmerelda—"

—BOOM!

Everyone screamed and ducked down.

The storm spirit had raised his hand, arcs of electricity running down his arm before shooting out of his palm and blasting at the tower. Nearby objects blew back; from cars to bushes. The boom lift had completely lost it's balance and tipped over, Oliver falling down with it.

Esmerelda made her move. She sprinted towards his flailing body and stretched her arms out once she was under him. He landed right straight into her arms, still screaming bloody murder until he realized he was actually okay.

Oliver gawked at her, almost hyperventilating.

"Did you just—did you just catch me?!"

She stared at him with wide eyes. "Um... yes? N-now give me your car keys!" She said in what she hoped was a threatening manner, but the guy just continued to stare at her with wide eyes.

When he didn't do anything, she lowered him back down to his feet and grabbed the car key from one of his pockets.

"Thanks! Sorry about this though!" She exclaimed before running away.

"Wha—get back here!"

"Go take cover from the storm!" She called back before reaching the storm spirit.

The monster wasn't done ruining the tower. In fact, he seemed hellbent on making sure it was completely destroyed. A huge tornado appeared before the pile, sucking in all the rubble and wires inside it. Esmerelda managed to grab a Celestial bronze pole that had gone airborne, nodding in satisfaction at the broken, sharp point on the other end.

"That's enough! You can stop now!" She said loudly, hoping her voice could actually reach him.

Storm spirits must have had sharp ears, because the winds gradually slowed down to a stop. He looked back down at her expectantly, like he was readying himself for another order.

"Thanks for your help, I gotta kill you now!" She shouted.

His face dropped. "Excuse me—" He cut himself off, and the clarity in his eyes told her that he had finally snapped out of it.

He whipped his head back towards the tower, which was nothing more than a useless heap of metal and wires.

"NO!" He gasped. "The—the signals! They're ruined! What have you DONE?!"

He turned back to face her, his expression full of anger until it turned into dumbfounded shock once he registered the pole flying towards his direction. As it cut through his head, his smoky form finally disintegrated.

Finally, she thought in relief. The chaos had only lasted for a couple of minutes, but she was already unnaturally exhausted.

She looked around and grimaced. More than just the tower had been destroyed, but everything didn't look too bad... At least everyone was alive!

Whipping out the keys she stole, she pressed one of the buttons and heard one of the nearby cars beeped.

"Come on, dad, let's go!" She motioned for him to hurry.

He followed after her, grumbling about misbehaving daughters and unnecessary rescues of innocent people.

They climbed into the car, which was a nice looking Ram truck. Regulus had a little more difficulty settling in since he had no idea how the vehicle worked, but he managed to get it after a while. Once they were both buckled up, she jammed the key into the ignition and drove through the rubble, the truck hurtling through the wired fences that surrounded the area.

Regulus was panting against the seat, glancing over at the rear view mirror as they left the chaos behind.

"That," he breathed out. "Was a disaster. I hope that never happens again."

"Oh dad," she smiled tightly. "Please don't jinx us."

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

While they were driving down the hill, they passed by a series of police cars that were heading up to the communications facility, and Esmerelda gave themselves ten minutes before she and her father became wanted for the destruction of private property and whatever else the Mist made it look like.

But anyways, they finally reached the rest of the city and stopped by at a cheap looking Italian restaurant. Esmerelda was skeptical about it. She was pretty picky about Italian restaurants and liked to judge them on their authenticity and well, this restaurant claimed to serve 'classics' and having lived a previous life between the 1910s to 1940s, she knew all about 'classics'.

"Did you hear that?" She muttered to her father, shooting the kitchen door a narrow-eyed look.

"What?" He said.

"I think I just heard a microwave go off," her eyes grew narrower. "Oh they better not be using microwavable pasta of all the gods damn—"

"—Language—"

"—this is, like, the sixth restaurant I've been to that serves fake Italian food, I cannot believe the audacity of these people. Vuoi sapere come individuare un falso? La salsa non viene mai mescolata nella pasta. O c'e ' troppo formaggio, cazzo. E oh miei dei, hanno anche scritto tagliatelle sbagliate! Chi lo fa?! A volte la pasta viene servita anche come contorno, ci credi, papà?! (Do you want to know how to spot a fake? The sauce is never mixed into the pasta. Or there's too much fucking cheese. And oh my gods, they even spelled tagliatelle wrong! Who does that?! Sometimes the pasta is even served as a side dish, can you believe that, dad?!)"

She hadn't even realized that she had accidentally slipped into the Italian language, but many people had. Those seated nearby stared at her, a little concerned with the heavily aggressive tone in her voice. Meanwhile, Regulus merely sighed to himself and sipped his (extremely) ice cold water, letting her vent.

"Happy to get that off your chest?" He asked before taking another sip only for one of the many ice cubes to clack against his lips. He bit back his irritation, feeling like he could start an angry rant too, but this time about America's weird fascination with putting so much fucking ice in their drinks.

Spring barely just started, what is the need for all this ice?! He inwardly raged.

"This pasta is terrible," she grumbled bitterly, shoving a forkful of linguine into her mouth.

"Let's go back to more important matters now," he said, and before she could exclaim that pasta was an important matter, he continued, "We need to get to London."

"I know, that's why we're here," she wiped her mouth of sauce. "I need to get my energy back and food's one of the best ways to go. Give me a little more time to clear up, than I can Mist travel us over to Grimmauld Place and we can have a nice little family reunion. Then after that, we can retrieve your wand. I can't take us directly to the cave though, since I've never been there."

"Leave that to me," he said. "I remember the way..." He trailed off, his eyes looking faraway for a moment before he cleared his throat and schooled his expression. "Do you think you can contact Sirius?"

She winced. "I don't have his phone number memorized... and cellphones don't travel over to your ghostly body, so I don't have mine with me."

"How about Iris Messaging him?" He asked.

"I can't because I'm poor."

"What?"

"I'm poor. I gave up all my drachmas so I can't IM anyone anymore."

He stared at her with an unreadable expression.

"You did what."

She shrunk. "Okay, okay, before you get mad, I had a good reason!"

"Did you."

"So after I died, I was sent to the DOA. Charon was slacking off again—which wasn't anything new—but there were these kids who've been stuck there since the 19th century! I paid for the passage through, but it costed me all my drachmas... Though I think Charon might have scammed me, but whatever. I didn't think I would be able to resurrect myself so I thought I wouldn't need the drachmas anymore!" She explained.

He stared at her like she had grown two heads. "I can't believe you! You gave up your money for that?"

"But dad, the children—"

"—I don't care about any 19th century children," he groaned. "Merlin, you and your bleeding heart... Don't tell me you lost all your money..."

"Nope, just the drachmas. I still have my wizarding currency and US currency. And euros. And yuan. And some francs from that one dude I pickpocketed in Liechtenstein. And—"

"—Alright I get it," he stopped her, his shoulders dropping in relief. If she had lost all of her money, his hair would've gone grey from the stress. "So we can't use Iris Messaging for help. Looks like we'll be on our own for this..."

And there were still two giants after them. Well, her, actually, but he didn't like to think about two evil creatures hunting his only child down.

"It's not too bad," she perked up. "On the bright side, we're not dead anymore!"

"We might get killed again if those two giants catch up to us," he pointed out, ever the pessimist.

She deflated. "Right..."

Seeing her crestfallen expression made him feel bad. "Hey," he tried to change the subject. "I don't really know how to defeat Hera's banes, but I think I have a spell that you can use if you were to ever see Clytius again."

She tensed up at his name, but it wasn't out of fear or anxiety. Her death hadn't traumatized her in the way it usually would. It didn't leave her scared or shivering at the mention of her killers' names. Instead, it filled her with rage.

Clytius and Pasiphaë didn't just kill her, they tried to make her kill her uncle as well. They had put her friends in danger. Had she succumbed to her fatal flaw even more than she already had, they would've been killed because of her incompetence. So she hid her shame and insecurities with hate, and yearned for the day she could face either one of them again so she could give them the comeuppance they deserved.

"What is it?" She asked eagerly.

The upper corners of his lips lifted up as he whispered, "It's called fiendfyre. It's an immensely powerful fire spell that could destroy anything in it's path. An ordinary witch is capable of burning down villages with that spell alone. Imagine the destruction you could cause."

"And Clytius is weak to fire," she murmured, eyes widening in excitement. "Being around him makes my magic weaker though."

"Unless you were to keep practicing until your fiendfyre is too powerful to be stopped." Regulus smirked. "So what do you say? Once we get to London, I'll teach you how to cast it."

"Yes!" She grinned widely. "Ooohhh that spells sounds so cool! And maybe we can—oh shit," her voice died down into a whisper.

While she had been talking, the bell over the front door chimed and her eyes instinctively moved to the source of the noise only to spot the two police officers stepping into the little restaurant. They spoke to a nearby waitress before one of the cops' eyes trailed over to her table.

He stiffened.

"Uh oh," she said. "Um, dad, I think we gotta go."

He turned around just to see the two officers now heading their way.

Esmerelda rose up from her seat, her dad following suit. The officers' pace quickened and the pair bolted to the back of the restaurant and into the kitchen.

"Sorry! Excuse me! We're sorry!" Esmerelda apologized as she darted around all the chefs.

"Move it!" Regulus hissed, not as polite as his daughter. He shoved one of the chefs aside before reaching the door first, shoving it open as he and Esmerelda exited through it.

They rounded around the restaurant and back to the parking lot, only to freeze when they spotted two more cops inspecting the truck they had stolen. Unfortunately, those cops spotted them too and now they had four cops running after them.

They sprinted out of the parking lot but as Esmerelda reached the edge, she stopped, her eyes widening in horror.

"I forgot to tip the waitress!" She gasped.

"FORGET ABOUT THE WAITRESS!" Regulus cried out, yanking her forward. "Let's go!"

Unfortunately for them, the streets of LA were crowded. It wasn't anything new to Esmerelda, but Regulus was about to blow up from the frustration of it all. He had never been in such a busy street before, let alone one that smelled so foul. It reeked of smoke, and he wanted to reach up and cover his nose but right now, he was too busy running away.

"Can't you just stun them?!" He asked Esmerelda as he tried to even his breathing. It had literally been over a decade since he even used his lungs, and after all this running, he was already forgetting how to breathe.

"That's mean! They're just mortals doing they're jobs! We can lose them! This way!" She exclaimed, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into an alleyway full of cheap shops. It was a lot more packed then the street they were on, and there were so many people there that they were bound to lose the cops.

They hid inside a clothing store, the displays and mannequins obscuring them. Esmerelda peeked out the display rack of sunglasses as the four cops ran passed them before sighing out in relief.

"They're gone," she muttered to her father, who was staring at the clothes in bewilderment and disgust. "Good thing we ended up here though. You need to get new clothes."

He turned to her quickly. "Excuse me?"

"You look like you just walked out of movie set in the Victorian Era," she argued. "You gotta change so you can blend in better!"

He gaped at her. "I'm not—I'm not wearing any of these clothes!"

"Dad," she sighed.

"No."

"It's not that bad."

"More than half of the pants here have holes in them."

"That's how it's supposed to look!"

"I refuse to wear any of this."

"Oh my gods, fine!"

Thanks to Regulus being a picky little diva, Esmerelda had to take him to the more wealthier parts of Los Angeles to let him pick out something more 'appropriate'. He settled on a shirt and loose grey peacoat from Louis Vuitton, a pair of pants from Dolce and Gabanna, and kept his shoes on.

"I thought you wanted us to get to London as fast as possible," she whined as she stepped out of the store with a more modernized Regulus.

"We had time to spare," he said, pleased with his new attire.

It seemed he wasn't the only one pleased. Poor Esmerelda spotted a group of high school girls ogling at her father and giggling amongst themselves. She refrained the urge to vomit.

"Well, we should get going then," she said. "I've got more than enough energy to Mist travel us somewhere in England—that's where the cave is at, right?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Great," she was just about to reach out for him until she spotted a television on display at one of the nearby stores.

"—bombing at the Central Communications Facility right behind the famed Hollywood sign," the reporter on the screen said.

Regulus turned around to watch it, his eyes growing wide.

"Muggles respond this quickly?" He whispered, horrified and impressed at the same time.

"—I had no idea what was going on," one of the workers, Oliver, appeared on screen. "I was up on the tower working on the wires when suddenly I heard a bunch of screaming down below. I saw two people pointing guns at everyone and that was when I started to freak out, but then a second later the whole tower blew up and I thought I was a dead man! One of the gunmen caught me, but then I realized it was just a kid. A teenage girl. I don't know why she bothered to save me, but she threatened me for my car keys afterwards and she and the other one—a boy—took off with my car."

It switched back to the original news reporter who said, "LAPD tracked the vehicle down and found it parked outside a L'angolo Delle Delizie where the two teenage suspects actually stopped to eat."

The screen switched again, and it looked like they were interviewing a woman right out in the parking lot of the Italian restaurant they were just in.

"I didn't think anything was off at the time," the woman began. "I was just sitting at a table right next to theirs, but I was more focused on getting my kids to eat. I think those two were probably siblings? They caught a lot of attention from the other customers since they looked so rich and out of place. I think they were siblings too. They looked a lot alike, but the boy had a British accent while the girl sounded American. But anyways, I only started to get a little scared when the girl got mad... It was scary. She was saying something in Italian, but she sounded so angry, I thought she was threatening someone through an earpiece. I swear to god, those kids are probably part of the Mafia or something."

Esmerelda's jaws dropped. "WHAT?! I was just talking about pasta! How did she the Mafia from THAT?!"

"Everything went downhill when the cops came in," she continued. "We all got worried, but then I saw the two teens get up. I was grabbing a hold of my kids at that point, and that was when the police started chasing after them. The teens went out in the back with the cops following, and I think I might have even heard them having a shootout outside... It was terrifying. My kids were crying."

"We weren't shooting at anyone!" Esmerelda gawked at the television.

The original news reporter returned.

"Here is captured footage of the two suspects," the reporter said, before a two photos showed up. A blurry one of her and her father back at the facility, and a much clearer one of them in the restaurant...

"Identities are unknown, but suspects are described to be teenagers. The girl has black hair and green eyes, possibly 5'6" or 5'7", around fifteen to sixteen years of age. The boy has black hair and either grey or blue eyes. He appears to be around 5'11" and is somewhere in his late teens."

Regulus' eyes widened. "They've got my height down. That's... quite disturbing."

"What was once suspected of a random bombing has now become a potential attack from the Mafia," the news reporter said grimly as Esmerelda sputtered in disbelief. "Los Angeles isn't new to crimes from the Mafia. In fact, police have been receiving growing reports of Mafia-related drug crimes, money laundering, racketeering, as well as mysterious murders with connections to the Mafia. Teenage mafiosos aren't unheard of, but they not as common. The last juvenile to be arrested and suspected of Mafia ties was—"

Esmerelda couldn't bear to listen to it anymore. She couldn't believe people were now suspecting her and her father for being part of an organized crime syndicate.

Beside her, Regulus stared off in confusion. "What exactly is the Mafia?"

"A very deadly organized crime syndicate," she answered faintly. "And people now believe that we're apart of it."

Mafia crimes were no joke. This sort of thing could possibly spread throughout the whole country. Though... now that she thought about it, that actually didn't sound too bad! Maybe then her friends could find out about her being alive!

Regulus suddenly stiffened and stepped back beside her.

"I think we ought to go now," he mumbled to her. "People are pointing."

And he was right. People were glancing back and forth between them and the television screen that was still displaying their faces, quickly lining up the dots. She saw several of them already pulling out their phones to dial 911.

"Shit, shit, shit," she cursed under her breath before she quickly darted away from the scene, tugging Regulus after her. They ducked into an empty alleyway where she held onto his wrist tightly and thought of Grimmauld Place.

And then, she Mist traveled away.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

The first thing she did when they materialized was vomit all over the ground. Regulus jumped away from her in disgust, only to quickly grow worried when she collapsed to her knees (thankfully away from the vomit).

"What's wrong?" He asked hastily.

"Turns out I wasn't ready enough for Mist traveling," she coughed into her sleeve. "I don't think we made it all the way to Grimmauld Place."

"We didn't," he confirmed, looking around with a deep frown.

Once Esmerelda recovered from her dizzy spell, she looked up to observe their surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that she was kneeling on cobblestone and not the familiar floors of Grimmauld Place. The second thing she noticed was that she ended up taking them to some random village. Judging by the quaint, cottage-like houses she saw, and the fact that it was still snowing despite it being April, they were at least somewhere in Britain...

"Do you know where we are?" She asked as she got to her feet.

"Yes," he said lowly, looking almost troubled. "We're in a village in England."

She lit up. "So we're not too far from London, then!"

"We aren't," he agreed. "But... we're far more closer to the cave I died in."

She froze. "Oh."

"We should go there," he said firmly. "I would like to have my wand back, anyways."

She stared at him worriedly, before slowly nodding in acceptance. She allowed him to lead the way. Other villagers would glance at them curiously, having never seen them before, but thankfully went back to their business.

The further they walked, the more salt Esmerelda could smell in the air, and the louder she heard the sound of rushing waves. Unlike with New York, Los Angeles was eight hours behind England so it was very much dark out by the time they reached the cave.

The entrance was submerged in water, and Regulus stared at it in terror, barely even breathing.

"I'll go," she offered for his sake.

Regulus usually didn't like having his daughter do anything dangerous on her own, but for once he didn't argue. He just gave her a grateful look and stepped back.

"Alright," he said shakily. "Before you go in there, be aware that there are some enchantments in the cave."

She listened intently to his instructions and once that was done, it was time for her to go. She slipped off her loose white cardigan and handed it over to him before finally diving into the sea. She would've been shocked still at the freezing cold temperature of the water had it not been for the heating charm she wisely cast over her body right before.

When Esmerelda made it into the cave, she climbed out of the water and siphoned all the water out from her body.

"Creepy," she muttered under her breath, looking around the dark cave walls and high ceiling.

According to her dad, this was just the antechamber. There was a secret entrance that she needed to go through. She walked over to the wall and murmured the correct incantation before tapping her fingers against certain rocks and then pressing her hand flat against the wall.

When she pulled away, an arched outline appeared, blazing white as if there was a powerful light behind the cracks.

"And now," she murmured, her hand hovering over a particularly sharp jagged piece of rock. "A blood sacrifice..."

She made a decent cut on her arm before splashing her some of her blood on the rocks.

The section of the wall immediately vanished, leaving a large opening for her to walk through.

Esmerelda took a few steps forward, and then stopped. She was standing on the edge of a huge black lake that she couldn't see the end of. She was also in a cavern so high that the ceiling was out of sight. Over at the distance, she could see a misty green light in the middle of the lake.

She gulped thickly. Everything about this screamed 'survivalist horror movie'. She wouldn't be surprised if there was a colossal sized monster hiding in the water, waiting for her to get closer before it struck.

She took a few more tentative steps forward and struck an arm out.

Accio, dad's wand, she thought, hoping it would come out from the water and fly right into her hand. It didn't. Uhhh, Regulus' wand?

Nothing again.

She tried saying it aloud, but still nothing happened.

"Ohhh man, don't tell me I actually have to go in there...!" She whimpered to herself.

After a few seconds spent hyping herself up, she finally sighed in resignation. She placed the bubble-head charm over her and jumped into the lake.

The lake, thankfully, wasn't too deep. She was able to clearly see what was at the bottom of it, and it wasn't very pretty.

The bottom of the lake was piled with dead bodies. They were all reduced to skeletons now, and there were so many of them down there that she couldn't see what the bottom of the lake actually looked like.

These are the inferi, she thought. Regulus had warned her about them and said they might attack. She wasn't too concerned about the attacking part, but more disturbed at the fact that somewhere amongst the hundreds of dead bodies was her father's corpse.

Focus, Essie, she scolded herself and continued looking.

According to Regulus, he doubted anyone else would've stumbled upon the cave, meaning his dead body and the wand was probably somewhere at the top layer of inferi. That was good to hear, since she didn't exactly enjoy the idea of digging through piles of dead bodies to find one little thing.

It would've been like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Except it was more like trying to find a wand in an underwater grave...

Suddenly something caught her attention. A brief shine. She turned around and spotted it immediately: a Celestial bronze wand tucked between a couple of dead bodies. Eagerly, she swam towards it and reached out for the wand. The second she wrapped her hands around it, every single inferi in the vicinity woke up.

The one closest to her grabbed her by the wrist.

A startled yelp escaped from her lips, and she immediately whacked the thing across the head so hard that it's skull was knocked off.

"STOP THAT!" She screeched. "You can't just scare people like this, this isn't a horror movie!"

The inferi stilled.

"I know you listen to Voldemort, but forget about him! I am ordering you all stop what you're doing! You no longer work for him, got it?" She snapped, before adding: "Also, fuck you all for killing my dad!"

She would torture them in the Underworld for what they had done, but she knew it wasn't really their faults. Their souls have long since moved on, but their bodies were left behind to be controlled by Voldemort. Hopefully, with her words, they would be freed, though she had her doubts of it. She should probably have Nico or Étienne check to make sure these corpses were truly freed of Voldemort's control.

Shaking herself off and fighting back an involuntary shudder of disgust, she tightened her grip around the Celestial bronze wand before swimming back up the top. The bubble-head charm popped once she reached the surface and she hastily scrambled out of the water.

That wasn't too bad, she told herself after she siphoned the water off of her.

When she met up with her father outside of the cave, she was grinning brightly as she brandished his old wand.

"I got it!" She said breathlessly. "It was the grossest experience ever, but I got it!"

His eyes widened in disbelief, and he shakily took it from her. He stared down at it as if he was admiring it, slowly stroking his finger over the Celestial bronze surface.

"You cut yourself for the blood sacrifice, didn't you?" He asked her suddenly. "Give me your arm. I'll heal it."

She stuck her arm out, showing the cut she had made that was still freshly bleeding. She'd give it a few minutes to seal itself up, but she wanted to see how the wand would work. He gingerly took her arm and aimed his wand at the wound.

"Episkey," he murmured.

She already knew that Hecate had created the wand herself and blessed it so he could cast his magic on her or any danger from the Greek side, but she still couldn't help but express shock as she witnessed the cut on her arm actually heal. The two of them watched in equal amazement as the sides of her wound sealed up until the skin looked perfectly unblemished.

"That's so cool," she awed. "And you can kill monsters with it too, right?"

"Somewhat," he replied, still staring at the wand like it was a long lost friend of his. "It takes a couple of hits."

A smile crawled over his face. "It's been so long since I've held this," he whispered. "I thought I lost it for good or—or that I'd never be able to do magic again."

"Uncle Sirius is gonna be soooo jealous when he sees this!" Esmerelda said giddily.

His grin widened in amusement. He could already picture the look on his brother's face when he saw his near indestructible, Celestial bronze wand that had been blessed by the goddess of magic. His daughter was right. Sirius was bound to get jealous and he couldn't wait to subtly brag about it to him.

"Let's go see him right now," she said, nearly bouncing on her feet.

Ever since she had died, she had grieved the loss of her loved ones. They may not have been dead, but she knew that her death had certainly impacted them. She yearned to especially see Nico, Ethan, and Sirius again, and now that she was alive, she actually could. Unfortunately for her, Nico was back at the States, but at least she could see Ethan and her uncle soon since the both of them were somewhere here in Britain.

(Though she had no idea what Ethan was doing here in Britain of all places, she was just glad he was so near to her.)

She hoped they were in good health. She wouldn't be dumb enough to believe they wouldn't be too upset over her death, so all she could hope and pray for was that neither of them had done anything too bad.

"Let's," Regulus agreed eagerly. "Are you sure you'll be able to take us there this time?"

"I think so..." She answered with a nervous smile. "At least we're closer to it unlike before. But I think I can get it right!"

He seemed to accept that answer—albeit a little doubtfully—but took her hand anyways. Esmerelda squeezed her eyes shut and thought of the familiar interior of Grimmauld Place and—

"Aaarghh!" Regulus released her hand and dropped to his knees, groaning in pain.

Her previous joy disappeared and so did all of her concentration. "Dad?!"

She knelt next to him, trying to find any grievous wounds, but on the outside, he looked perfectly fine.

"Dad, what's wrong?!"

"Shit!" He cursed, his face pale. "The mark! It's the mark!"

He shoved his left sleeve up, revealing the inky black Dark Mark stamped onto his forearm. She couldn't see what was wrong with it, but his entire left arm was shaking in pain as if there were a bunch of invisible knives stabbing into his skin.

"Of all the fucking times!" He spat, his eyes wide with rage and pain.

"What's going on?" She asked him, alarmed.

"It's the mark! He uses it to summon select Death Eaters, but he already knows I'm dead so he must be summoning all of the ones with marks," he said through gritted teeth. "Every time he summons us, a burning sensation would appear on our arms to alert us of the summons. My arm feels like it's on fire now."

"How do we make it stop?"

He sucked in a breath, looking like he was holding himself back from screaming in agony. "No magic could fix it. It stops once we appear at his side."

Well that certainly wasn't an option.

She stared at him in disbelief, horror dawning on her. "Please tell me the pain goes away over time."

"It doesn't," he stated gravely. "In fact, the more you avoid him, the worse the pain gets. Unless I apparate to Voldemort and reveal to everyone that I'm alive and still eighteen years old, my arm is only going to continue hurt more."

Esmerelda's mind was desperately trying to think of ideas.

"Then—then we'll go to him together!" She suggested. "It should be fine, Voldy's dumb as hell anyways and we can get rid of the pain—"

"—No," he heaved, giving her a stern, almost maddening look. "We aren't going to involve ourselves over Voldemort. Plus, the rest of the wizarding world believes us to be dead and I'd like to keep it that way, it's more advantageous after all."

"But dad—"

"—I said no, Esmerelda!" His voice rose and she flinched back.

She gave him a hopeless look. "Then what are you going to do with your arm?"

"What I should've done a long time ago," he said with steely determination as he looked at her. "I want you to cut my arm off."

— author's note —

Ethan: *killing people, completely losing his mind, grieving over his dead lover* 🗡💀😭😭😭😭

Meanwhile with Essie: *ranting about inauthentic Italian pasta* 🇮🇹🍝😡🤌

From M. Nevermind:

From Stink (I fucking love the youtube shit they make 😂):

From Peaches101 (an aesthetic for Ethan!):

From LotusFruity: