HE had to hide.
All eyes were on him and not, at the same time. It was one of those situations where everybody avoided someone, but they were also curious about the person.
He came out after a week. That's how long it took to for him to recover.
The doctor Blanc had called from Italy had the Ananias charism of Well-being. Named after the man who had healed Saul from his blindness.
Her name was Cassidy Klein. She was the best at her job, according to Brandon.
She had long brown hair and hazel eyes. He looked closely and noticed that she was in her late thirties or so but she looked younger.
One would expect someone with supernatural healing to fix a broken bones with a flick of a finger. But that wasn't how it went.
The bones took a whole twenty-four hours to heal and the hole in his stomach about half a day since she had to regenerate a part of his organs. All the remaining cuts and scrapes all over his body went in the blink of an eye. Then, the rest was rehabilitation. Not even charisms could tackle exhaustion.
She also took a look at Brandon.
But Isaac knew she wasn't entirely here to just heal them.
It was about the possession.
When she was healing his ribs, he saw her flinch, and then she regained her composure just as quick.
What was wrong with him?
Isaac knew Bael wasn't in his body anymore so why was he feeling uncomfortable. Was it about the consequences? So far, he was feeling normal.
Then what was it?
"Isaac?"
He was alone on the roof. Underneath him was the attic where he had almost cut Reyna's head off, so he was surprised when Ethan was the one who came looking for him. He was expecting Reyna.
"Yeah, I'm here," Isaac said and stood up from where he was sitting.
"I've been trying to call you, but it wouldn't go through," Ethan told him when he was close.
"Oh yeah, I lost my phone in the fight," he explained.
"Sorry about that, I'll get you a new one," Ethan told him.
Isaac sighed at that statement.
It was as if they were doing it on purpose. Everyone he had told that he had lost his phone ensured him that they'd get him a new one. Even Audrey had promised him one, but it was probably out of pity.
When he had asked Leo and Reyna where they would get the money from, they showed him their bank accounts and Isaac gagged. How could teenagers have that many zeroes in their accounts?
Reyna said that she was a designer in her mom's clothing company and Leo told him that he was his cousin's producer.
They were unknowingly flaunting their money in his face and he told them to get out of the clinic. Meanwhile, Brandon was cackling on his bed.
"There's no need to do that," Isaac replied.
"Don't worry, just think of it as a gift. By the way, how did you escape your stalkers?"
"Leo helped me get rid of them," Isaac explained.
After he had recovered, he had realized that the 'Cardinals' - head of the Charism factions- had ordered that he'd have some guards around him until his trial date.
They were just some fancy set of adults dressed in dresses called cassocks, which were meant to monitor his every move.
And why would they make such a fuss about a witch like him instead of kicking him out of the school?
According to Jesus-in-the-mirror, Isaac had a charism.
The very idea of it was bizarre.
A witch having a charism. That was unbelievable.
None of his parents even had one. His mother was a witch and his father was a regular human being. So where could the charism have come from?
"I have to go," Ethan said while checking the time on his phone. "Payne's class."
"Same here," Isaac said and they left the roof together.
* * * * *
"He who sits at the right hand of the Father. The Divine Charism of Purity," he said to himself.
"What did you say?" Isaac asked appearing behind him.
Leo shook his head. "Nothing."
He had been thinking about what Bob had said.
The Divine Charism.
Said to only to appear during times of great peril, the charism was the purest of all forms. Records had it that the charism enabled the owner to wield the power of God himself.
The only known person who wielded it presently was Ethan's brother, Dominic Crest.
Leo looked at Isaac.
The person in front of him didn't have an inkling of what was to come.
"What's on your mind?" Isaac asked Leo on their way to Practical Exorcism.
"What do you mean?"
"You're fiddling with the hair behind your left ear," Isaac noted. "And you only do that when something's bothering you."
Leo then noticed his hand was behind his ear and he dropped it.
"So?"
"It's nothing," he replied.
"You're giving me the same look that you have when you hear any Apollo song. Especially when Hyun's singing. Do you have a personal grudge against him."
Leo rolled his eyes and walked faster than the annoying brat behind him.
Well, he wasn't as annoying as his cousin, Hyun.
* * * * *
Isaac looked at his desk and wondered what was happening.
Their teacher, Emily Fox, had brought in wraiths to class for them to exorcise. The Bael incident was a perfect opportunity for her to gather wraiths.
If Payne was the intense one and Rochester was the kind one, then Fox was the crazy one.
There was a reason why she was called that. She was known to exorcise wraiths en masse and come back fatally wounded. She was the only teacher in the school who was stronger than Payne physically, mostly because of the Samson charism she possessed.
Her black hair was always tied in a ponytail or a bun. Her cold blue eyes always sent a shiver down everyone's spine.
God knows what she had prepared for them today.
On each of their tables was a cage with a cloth draped over them.
She stood in front of the class with a cane in her hand.
Isaac leaned towards Leo on his left.
"She's not going to flog us, is she?" Isaac whispered.
Leo slapped Isaac's head back. "Don't get me into trouble."
"No, she won't," Leo told him.
"Thanks to the wraith outbreak last week, I've gathered enough wraiths for you to exorcise till you finish the semester."
They all grumbled.
"Hold it," Fox ordered. "It's been a while since we've had any real practical session. Don't worry. You all have it easy this time around. These wraiths aren't bound to humans, so it'll be much easier for you to get rid of them."
This was a test made specially for him.
Isaac knew it.
He was being assessed. He looked at the doors and caught his guards watching him.
He was a witch, so he had a different way of exorcising wraiths. If you could call it exorcising.
Exorcist did theirs by weakening it first then reciting Hail Mary and then performing the Sign of the Cross, then the wraith would wither away.
But it was different for witches.
One would cast the 'Eicere' spell which meant 'cast out' in Latin and a magic circle in form of a pentacle under the wraith and all that was left was to be sure that your spell was stronger than the wraith.
Isaac removed the cloth on the cage and was surprised at what he saw.
There was no regular description for a wraith but they had a standard. Normally, they looked like skeletons made of smoke with no lower body if they were not bound to any host. But when they had one, they could look like anything, depending on the host.
But what Isaac was looking at didn't look like any wraith he had seen before.
He looked around to see if he was the only one who'd gotten a weird wraith.
He could see black mist from everyone's desk even Leo's wraith was lashing out at him. He was lucky that the cage was anointed.
Isaac looked at the spirit on his desk and sighed.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Fox," Isaac said and raised his hand up.
"What is it, Isaac?" she asked, and all eyes were on him.
"I think there's been some kind of mistake," he said.
"With?" she asked with her eyebrow raised.
"Um... why do I have a... what is it exactly?" Isaac said.
Right in his cage was a puppy. It looked like a regular golden retriever, but if you looked closely, it was translucent. It was sitting down staring at Isaac with its tongue out. He had to admit it looked cute.
Fox walked over to him and examined his specimen.
"Hmm," she pursed.
"What is it?" Isaac asked.
"I don't know," she said and opened the cage.
She put her hand inside, and it passed through it.
"Seems like a wraith," she said, then changed her mind. "But it can't be since it has a defined a shape and no host. We only have exorcists in this school except Payne and -"
She looked at him.
Another advantage exorcists had over witches. Charismata also served as a shield against wraith possession. Witches having none, had to be careful because exorcism for them was excruciating. Personally, he had never experienced it before.
He wasn't paying attention when the spirit puppy leapt out of the cage and ran out of the class.
"Capture that spirit," Fox ordered him. "Now!"
Why does it always have to be me? Isaac sulked, grabbed the cage and ran after the puppy.