Chapter 4: Truck Stop Confrontation
The van’s engine gave one final, wet gasp and died completely. The sudden silence was thicker than the humid night air. Only the erratic flicker of the old gas station’s neon sign, casting jagged blue shadows across the cracked asphalt, broke the quiet.
“Shit,” Mandy muttered, turning the key again. The starter motor whined pathetically. “Come on, Dad swore Hank fixed everything.”
In the passenger seat, Mai let out a sharp gasp. The artifact, resting in the cupholder between them, wasn’t just glowing now; it was vibrating, a frantic hum that made their teeth ache. The silver liquid churned, and the golden-veined leaf inside pulsed like a panicked heart. A searing, pulling sensation shot up Mai’s arm from the tattoo on her palm, yanking her attention toward the derelict building. “It’s coming from in there.”
Felicity, leaning forward from the back bench, peered through the grimy windshield. “The garage bay. Door’s half open.”
“Well, we’re not going anywhere,” Mandy said, pulling the keys and shoving her door open. The scent of ozone and decaying concrete washed over them. “Might as well see what’s so fucking interesting.”
They moved as a unit, Mandy grabbing the heavy flashlight from under her seat, Mai clutching the now-warm artifact, Felicity staying close, her scholar’s eyes wide and scanning. The garage door was rusted partway up, leaving a gap just large enough to slip through. Mandy ducked under first, the beam of her flashlight cutting a swath through the dust-choked air.
It illuminated empty oil drums, skeletons of ancient tools, and then, tucked behind a gutted pickup truck on blocks, a figure.
A woman. Late twenties, maybe. She was propped against the wall, her hands bound behind her back with thick, fibrous rope that looked more like twisted vine than hemp. She wore the precise, charcoal-gray suit of the Order of the Golden Wands, though it was torn and smudged with dirt. Her head lolled forward, a curtain of dark hair obscuring her face.
“Oh, god,” Felicity breathed.
The artifact in Mai’s hand flared so brightly it threw their own towering shadows against the wall. The golden leaf on her palm burned, a brand of pure sensation. “It’s reacting to her.”
As they took a cautious step closer, the woman’s head jerked up.
Her eyes were open. They were solid, featureless black from corner to corner, reflecting no light. A shiver, colder than the Chicago night, crawled down Mandy’s spine.
The woman’s mouth moved, but the voice that emerged was layered, guttural, wrong, as if spoken through a mouth full of soil. “The seed must be planted. The True Root will grow."
Mai, Mandy, and Felicity looked at each other. A silent, frantic communication passed between them. None of them had heard the term “True Root” before.
Then things got bad.
The woman’s body contorted with unnatural strength. The vine-like ropes around her wrists snapped like dry twigs. She uncoiled from the floor in one fluid, terrifying motion and lunged, not for the artifact, but for Mai.
Her black eyes were fixed on Mai’s glowing palm.
“Fuck!” Mandy yelled, instinct taking over. She swung the heavy metal flashlight in a wide arc. It connected with the woman’s shoulder with a sickening thud, but the woman—the thing inside her—barely flinched. A backhanded swipe sent Mandy stumbling into a workbench, tools clattering around her.
Felicity didn’t scream. She moved, grabbing the first substantial thing her hands found—a red fire extinguisher mounted on a peeling wall bracket. She wrenched it free, fumbling with the pin. The possessed Wand agent had Mai by the wrist, her grip iron-tight, pulling Mai’s palm toward her own chest as if to absorb the tattoo.
“Get off her!” Felicity yelled, and she pulled the lever.
A cloud of white powder exploded into the woman’s face. She recoiled, her head snapping back, a raspy, inhuman sound scraping from her throat. It was enough. Mai yanked her arm free, the burning in her palm reaching a crescendo. She didn’t think. She just pushed.
A silent pulse of golden-green light erupted from her hand. It wasn’t a beam, but a shockwave, visible as a ripple in the air. It hit the possessed woman square in the chest and flung her backward into the side of the gutted pickup truck. She slumped to the concrete, motionless, the unnatural blackness draining from her eyes to reveal the confused, terrified brown beneath before they fluttered shut.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the hiss of leftover extinguisher powder settling.
“Holy shit,” Mandy panted, clutching her ribs. “What the hell was that?”
“Possession,” Felicity said, her voice trembling with adrenaline and a scholar’s awe. “Or a psychic puppet. Something… vegetative. The ropes, the eyes… it’s not standard Golden Wand operating procedure.”
Mai stared at her own palm. The tattoo was fading to a dull, warm glow. “She wanted the seed. This.” She looked at the unconscious woman. “We can’t just leave her.”
Using the snapped vines and some actual electrical cord Mandy found, they bound the woman’s hands and feet securely. She was breathing steadily, a faint, normal color returning to her cheeks. The encounter left them shaken, hearts hammering against their ribs, but it forged a new, gritty determination. The artifact wasn’t just a curiosity. It was a target, and now they had a name for the hunters: The True Root.
They dragged the woman into a clearer space, propping her against a relatively clean wall. The rush of combat was fading, leaving a jittery, high-pitched energy in its wake. The fear was a tangible residue in the air, and the artifact in Mai’s lap began to hum again, a low, thirsty vibration.
“It’s feeding,” Mai whispered. “On our fear. Or the aftermath of it.”
Mandy ran a hand through her shaggy hair. “Yeah, well, I’ve got plenty of that to go around.” She looked at the bound woman, then at her friends. The neon-blue light from outside streaked in through dusty windows, painting their faces in eerie shades. The adrenaline was morphing, twisting into something else, a raw, buzzing need for affirmation, for life, for touch.
Felicity saw it in Mandy’s eyes, felt it coiling in her own gut. That same wildness from the van, amplified by terror. Her gaze drifted to Mai, whose knuckles were white where she gripped the artifact. “It charges on orgasms, too,” Felicity said, her voice quiet but clear in the silent garage.
A slow, understanding smirk spread across Mandy’s face. “Practical. We’re stuck here ‘til we figure out the van or she wakes up. We’re wound tighter than fucking springs.” She stood up, brushing dust from her jeans. Her eyes locked on Felicity. “We could be productive.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an offer, a release valve.
Felicity’s breath hitched. She nodded, once, sharp. The scholarly part of her mind was already cataloguing the reaction, the symbiotic relationship between intense emotion and the artifact’s power. The rest of her was just hungry.
Mai watched them, the artifact’s warmth seeping into her thighs. The burning pull was gone, replaced by a different kind of heat. “I’m not sitting this one out,” she said, her English accent cutting through the tension. “That bitch tried to take my hand. I need to feel something that’s mine.”
Mandy closed the distance to Felicity in two strides. There was no preamble, no gentle kissing. She crashed their mouths together, a messy, teeth-clacking collision of pent-up energy. Felicity moaned into it, her hands coming up to tangle in Mandy’s hair, pulling her closer. Mandy’s hands groped down, squeezing Felicity’s ass through her jeans, grinding their bodies together.
Mai watched, her own fingers slipping under the waistband of her shorts. She found herself already wet, her cunt throbbing in time with the artifact’s subtle pulse. She pushed her panties aside, circling her clit with two fingers, her head falling back against the wall with a thud.
Mandy broke the kiss, breathing hard. “Get those off,” she ordered Felicity, pulling at the button of her friend’s jeans. Felicity scrambled to help, shoving them and her panties down her thighs. Mandy dropped to her knees on the cold concrete, the discomfort irrelevant. She buried her face between Felicity’s pale thighs without ceremony.
Her tongue was flat and broad, licking a fierce, wet stripe from Felicity’s entrance to her clit. Felicity cried out, her hands slapping against the dusty side of the pickup truck for balance. “Oh, god, yes, right there!” Mandy ate her like she was starving, her nose pressed against Felicity’s blond curls, her tongue delving inside before flicking ruthlessly against the tight, swollen bud of her clit. The obscene, wet sounds echoed in the garage, mingling with Felicity’s escalating gasps.
Mai’s fingers worked faster, her hips bucking off the floor. She was close, teetering on the edge, but she wanted more. She needed connection. “Mandy,” she gasped.
Mandy pulled her mouth away, glistening wet. She looked at Mai, then at Felicity, whose legs were trembling. “Switch,” Mandy panted.
Felicity stumbled toward Mai, lowering herself to her knees. She kissed Mai hungrily, tasting the shared fear and excitement, then trailed her mouth down Mai’s neck, over her collarbone, and took one of Mai’s small, perfect breasts into her mouth. Her tongue swirled around the nipple while her hand mimicked the motions below, fingers sliding easily into Mai’s slick heat.
Mandy stood, shucking her own jeans and panties. She positioned herself over Felicity’s back, her own cunt dripping. “You’re gonna take us both, Flick,” Mandy growled, her voice ragged. She spat on her fingers, then pressed them against Felicity’s tight, untouched asshole.
Felicity jerked, moaning around Mai’s breast. “Yes… do it.”
Mandy worked the spit in, a rough, quick preparation. She lined up her cock—a sleek, purple silicone strap-on she’d carried in her purse—with Felicity’s pussy, and pressed the thick head against Mai’s entrance from behind. “Now.”
She pushed forward.
Felicity screamed, a raw, beautiful sound, as she was filled in both holes at once. Mandy’s strap-on plunged deep into her cunt, while Mai’s hot, tight channel sheathed her to the hilt. They were a connected, trembling circuit. Mandy began to fuck them with sharp, punishing strokes, her hips slapping against Felicity’s ass. Each thrust drove Felicity forward onto Mai, who cried out, her back arching.
The artifact on the floor beside them blazed like a captured star. Golden light pulsed out, washing over their sweat-sheened, straining bodies. The temperature in the garage spiked. The fear, the adrenaline, it was all being sublimated, transformed into pure, concussive pleasure.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fucking ruin me!” Felicity chanted, her voice breaking on every syllable. Mai could only gasp, “Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop,” as the dual sensations overwhelmed her.
Mandy was the anchor, the engine, her own pleasure building from the base of the strap, from the sight and feel of her two best friends coming apart on her. She reached around, her fingers finding Felicity’s clit, rubbing frantic circles as she pistoned into them.
It broke Felicity first. Her body locked, a silent scream on her lips before a torrent of sound and sensation ripped free. Her cunt clenched violently around the invading silicone, and her asshole spasmed against Mai. The wave triggered Mai, who shattered moments later, her internal muscles milking Felicity in a relentless, rhythmic grip.
The feedback loop was complete. Mandy watched them fall apart, felt it through the harness, and with a final, deep grind, she came too, a dry, whole-body convulsion of release that left her dizzy.
They collapsed into a heap of limbs on the grimy floor, breathing in ragged unison. The artifact’s light gentled to a soft, sustained glow, full and satisfied. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of their slowing hearts.
A weak, confused groan cut through the silence.
The Golden Wand agent was stirring, her bleary, normal brown eyes blinking open. She took in the scene: three nearly-naked young women tangled together on a garage floor, covered in dust and sweat and other things, a mysterious artifact pulsing beside them.
She blinked again. “What… where…” Her voice was hoarse, but human. “Who are you people? Why am I tied up?”
Mandy lifted her head, a weary, triumphant smirk on her face. She looked at the woman, then at the fully-charged artifact.
“Okay,” Mandy breathed, pulling her jeans toward her. “Now we can talk.”
They untied her, handing her back her rumpled jacket. The woman—Agent Kay—rubbed her wrists, her eyes darting between their faces and the softly glowing artifact now tucked back into Mai’s pocket. She was wary, her posture defensive, a coiled spring ready to fight or flee.
“You were possessed,” Felicity stated, her voice returning to its clinical cadence as she pulled on her shirt. “Your eyes were black. You spoke of a ‘True Root’ and planting a seed.”
Kay’s brow furrowed. She touched her temple, wincing. “I remember… a green light. A scent like rotting flowers and fresh-turned earth. Then nothing.” She studied them, the skepticism clear. “Who are you? Civilians shouldn’t be involved in Wand business, especially not with… that.”
Mandy finished zipping her jeans and leaned against the gutted pickup, arms crossed. “We’re the ones who just unstuck you. And that’s our business.” She tilted her head. “But if you need credentials, my mom’s aunt is Calista Gunderson. The Merlin.”
Kay’s guarded expression fractured into pure, undisguised shock. She looked at Mandy anew, scanning her features. “You’re Mandy Williamson.”
“See? Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Your parents are Mike and Casey,” Kay said slowly, as if reciting a dossier. “They have a documented survival strategy centered on being a persistent, ingenious nuisance to any threat they encounter. Your brother Rick is in a temporally anomalous relationship with their friend Stacy Steinberg. Your sister Beth is currently mentoring Martin O’Connor in Miami. Your other sister, Calista, is a half-elf, the biological daughter of your brother via an elf lady’s… harvest… in the past.” She blinked. “The file is… extensive. And bizarre.”
Mai, leaning against the workbench, snorted. “So what’s the epic file say about Mandy, then?”
Agent Kay frowned, her gaze turning inward, searching. She shook her head slightly. “There isn’t much. Honestly. You’re listed as a dependent, a student. No major incidents. No… legend.”
A wide, genuine smirk spread across Mandy’s face, mirroring her mother’s most self-satisfied expression. “Good. That just means I still have to plot my own.”
Felicity, ever the pivot, stepped closer to Kay. “What were you doing here? How did you get bound in this garage?”
Kay’s confidence seemed to drain again, replaced by professional frustration. “I was tracking phytomantic resonance spikes—plant magic. Signs of a resurgence we thought was impossible. I was ambushed. I don’t know by who, or how I got here.” She looked at Mai’s pocket. “That artifact… it’s the source. It’s what they want. They call themselves the True Root.”
“Who the fuck is the True Root?” Mai demanded, her palm itching.
“A schism,” Kay said, her voice low. “A heresy within the Order of the Verdant Pasture from over a century ago. They believe in forceful cultivation. Taking magic, life, whatever they want, and forcing it to grow according to their design. They were purged. Wiped out. Or so we thought.”
The blue neon light flickered, throwing the garage into temporary darkness before surging back.
Back in the Chicago suburbs, Mike and Casey walked back into their house, the front door clicking shut with a sound of finality. The living room was still a disaster zone, but the bound constructs and the lone, weeping captive were gone, presumably taken by Bethany’s people.
“Think she’ll call the HOA again?” Mike asked, toeing a piece of broken lamp.
Casey arched an eyebrow, the silver streaks in her hair catching the light. “If she does, we’ll just go visit again. I think her chihuahua peed on her rug when you started talking about municipal code violations for ‘unscheduled mystical phenomena.’”
In the kitchen, Jan, Fatima, and Bethany huddled around the table. The atmosphere was tense, a different kind of chaos brewing.
“The True Root,” Bethany said, the words crisp and alien. “It’s a phrase from our historical conflict archives. A Verdant Pasture problem.”
“I’m Verdant Pasture,” Annie said, stepping in from the hallway, her phone in her hand. The ghost of her calico cat, Sophie, wove between her ankles. “I’ve never heard of them. But Grampa Joe has. He knows everything.”
She put the phone on speaker, dialing. The ring echoed in the quiet kitchen.
Her mother, Hestia, answered. The conversation was brief, strained. Yes, Joe was visiting Tammy’s farm. No, Hestia didn’t know why Annie was asking. Annie hung up, the unspoken disapproval a familiar ache, and dialed her sister.
The phone rang four times before Tammy answered. “Annie.” The single word was cool, flat, devoid of sisterly warmth.
“I need to talk to Grampa Joe, Tammy. It’s important.”
A pause, laden with something unspoken. “He’s resting. Can it wait?”
“No. It can’t.”
Another pause, then muffled sounds as the phone was handed over. “Annie-girl!” Grampa Joe’s voice was a warm rasp, a comfort. “What’s got your feathers ruffled?”
“Grampa, I need to know about something called the True Root. Have you heard of them?”
The warmth evaporated from his voice, replaced by a gravelly seriousness. “Heard of them? I helped burn their last damn seedling to the ground eighty years ago.” He began to speak, his words painting a picture of fanatics who saw the natural world not as a partner, but as a slave. They used binding magic, root-possession, forced growth. They believed in a coming ‘Harvest’ that would elevate them as rulers of a reshaped world.
In the background on the Iowa farm, Tammy listened. Her face, already set in lines of mild resentment toward her city-sister, drained of all color. The words ‘binding magic,’ ‘root-possession’—they weren’t just history. They were whispers she’d heard from her own children, Caleb, Beau, and Sage, dismissed as quirky, dark farm-kid humor.
Panic, cold and sharp, stabbed through her. She snatched the phone from Joe’s hand.
“Annie.” Tammy’s voice trembled, all pretense of coolness gone. “The kids. My triplets. They… they’ve been talking about deep roots. About a true harvest. Oh, god, Annie. I think they’re in it.”
The line went dead, the connection severed by Tammy’s horrified shock.
In the garage hundreds of miles away, Agent Kay finished her bleak summary. “If the True Root has returned, they have a goal. A location. They don’t just want the artifact. They need a specific place to ‘plant’ it. A nexus of old, deep earth magic.”
Mai’s palm erupted in a fresh wave of heat, so intense she cried out. The artifact flew from her pocket of its own volition, hovering in the air between them. The silver liquid evaporated in a instant, leaving only the leaf. It spun, stretched, and unfolded like a cosmic map, projecting a three-dimensional, shimmering topography into the dusty air.
It showed a specific, jagged mountain range. A pulse highlighted a narrow valley.
“It’s giving us the destination,” Felicity whispered.
“It’s giving everyone the destination,” Mandy corrected, her eyes hard. She looked at Kay. “You coming? Your intel seems light, and I’m plotting a legend. Could use a Wand.”
Kay stared at the glowing map, then at the three determined young women. She gave a single, sharp nod.
The van’s engine, when Mandy turned the key, roared to life as if nothing had ever been wrong. Under the hood, a faint, golden-green glow traced the fuel line for just a second before fading.
They pulled onto the dark highway, the map seared into their minds. Behind them, the abandoned gas station was just a ruin again. Ahead, the mountains waited.
And in a farmhouse in Iowa, a mother stared at three empty beds, her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, while an old man reached for his gnarled walking staff, his face a mask of grim, coming war.