by Noah Layton
‘No, actually. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a fox. I have little interest in naked humans.’
‘Fair enough, but it’s weird for me, so could I just-’
At that moment the door flew open and Scarlett appeared, swinging into the room on the door handle.
‘Tom, Brianna’s asking- woah…’
How fucking embarrassing.
I scrambled to cover myself up while she diverted her eyes, my whole body feeling as if it was going as red as Scarlett’s cheeks were. Maybe I had grown bigger in both body and in the length department after the Warlock Ritual, but I still instinctively sought to cover myself, dragging my duvet from the bed and wrapping it around my waist.
‘Rel!’ Scarlett shouted, near enough diving at the fox and wrapping her arms around him in an exaggerated hug. ‘We haven’t seen you in days! Where the hell did you go?’
‘I’ve missed you too, my dear,’ he replied in a high-brow fashion. ‘To the best of my recollection I fell asleep under the sink a couple of days ago. Your houseguest awoke me.’
‘Rel is our familiar, Tom. He’s a lovely guy, really. Can quote Shakespeare in eight different languages, knows everything there is to know about Dante, too.’
‘Well, when you’re immortal you have plenty of time to study the woes of the world,’ Rel frowned… If foxes could frown. But that was what it looked like. ‘Who’s this fellow?’
‘This is Tom,’ Scarlett said, looking up at me and smiling. ‘He’s… kind of like a warlock-in-training.’
‘A warlock?’ Rel exclaimed loudly. ‘Nothing like the last one, I hope?’
‘No, no,’ Scarlett said quickly, shooting Rel a look. ‘Nothing like the last one.’ Her voice had all of a sudden take on a stern tone.
‘Oh, of course,’ Rel said hurriedly, nodding. ‘Right, well, I’ll leave you crazy witches and warlocks to your fun. I’ll be around if you need me.’
‘Don’t eat any of my plants!’ Scarlett shouted after Rel as he scampered through the door. ‘I’m still working on a new patch after the last time.’
‘I won’t…’
Scarlett turned back to me with a much more reserved smile. ‘Sorry about that. I completely forgot to mention him.’
‘It’s fine,’ I smiled back, securing the duvet around my waist. ‘Do you mind if I, uhh…’
‘Oh! Of course, I’ll just…Yeah…’
‘Thanks…’
‘In the basement when you’re ready…’
‘Got it…’
Scarlett looked away frantically before scrambling for the doorknob and pulling it closed.
A talking fox and a douchebag ex-warlock who used to live here. This building had been around for decades – who knew what the previous coven had gotten up to within these walls back then in the 70s or 80s or…
I returned to the shower, finishing up quickly and getting dressed into my jeans, boots, a white t-shirt and the coat that Scarlett had fished out from the closet yesterday.
Descending into the basement with my staff in hand, countless shadows were scattered up against the walls. I had no idea what I expected to find in the pit beneath the house, but the moment I laid eyes on it, it became by far my favourite part of the building yet.
The basement was an enormous space, covering the same square footage that the floorplan of the mansion above seemed to. The floors and walls were covered in a random scattering of rugs upon carpets upon more rugs, all sporting faded floral patterns typical of old hotel hallways. The edges of the room were almost entirely covered by armchairs, desks and bookcases, shelves filled with jars and potions with moving liquids of all different colors within that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the extent of. Heavy, dusty volumes were stacked haphazardly on desks amongst stacks of old papers and the occasional… Were those bones?
A skull I laid eyes on was definitely real.
I wonder if that’s Rel’s seeing as he knows so much about Shakespeare.
‘Took your time,’ Brianna called up to me. ‘We’re almost ready.’ She had a heavy book in her hand as opposed to the tablet I had seen her with so far, and with her other hand she moved what looked like a large, flat sheet of granite on a wheeled panel to the far side of the room.
Scarlett was kneading something with a mortar and pestle, wearing a pair of wide-framed hipster glasses as she examined them. She may have played the ditzy act so far and confessed to being wild a few years ago, but there was something way more about her than that.
Nearby, Lois was securing her wand and straightening her outfit – black boots, tight black jeans, a faded t-shirt and a black leather jacket, topped off with a beanie hat that held back her dark hair.
‘Y’know,’ I started, ‘I’ve been thinking about something. You girls don’t look like the kind of witches that people tell stories about. No pointy hats, no bulbous noses, no clawed hands…’
‘We could get dressed up in the outfits that we were wearing when we performed the Warlock Ritual,’ Brianna suggested dryly. ‘If you’re really into that sort of thing. Those are ceremonial outfits for certain rituals, but they might fit the bill. Or, like I said earlier, I could just walk around with my breasts on show like I’ve been doing for the last year.’
‘I…’ I muttered, struggling for the words. ‘No comment.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ she smiled. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I’m pretty sure… But if we’re gonna get to Westmoor then we’re gonna need to set off soon.’
‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ Scarlett said, shaking her head and adding the contents of the pestle and mortar to a large beaker, creating a grey liquid. ‘Prepare to have your mind blown.’
I stood back and watched as Scarlett stirred the mixture and Brianna moved before the granite, turning to a particular page of her book and raising her hand.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
Scarlett and Brianna nodded to each other while Lois came to stand by my side.
Turning to the granite slab, Scarlett tipped the beaker up and poured it over the surface. The off-grey tone ran a spectrum of colors as the liquid layered over it. She stepped back, and Brianna raised her wand and pointed it at the slab.
She began to utter a series of conjoined syllables that didn’t form words; instead they formed a gigantic, breathless series of sounds that made zero sense to me in the slightest. The chanting of the spell that she was casting went on for half a minute before the liquid that Scarlett had poured began to glow, turning into a sheet of glowing whiteness.
And then I was looking through a portal that gave onto a forest in the middle of the day, right there in the basement.
‘I’ll reopen the window in an hour,’ Brianna said. ‘Call me if you need it before then. We’ll be at the ready.’
Lois nodded resolutely, but all I could do was stare at the image before me with my mouth hanging open for the nth time in the last 24 hours.
The witch took my hand and led me forwards, the stillness of the basement vanishing as we stepped into the quiet midday din of the forest, passing the threshold into a wooded glen 60 miles away.
‘Remember,’ I heard from behind me, as Lois and I turned to look back through the portal to see Scarlett and Brianna staring back at us from the basement, a floating window the size of a garage-door steadily sizzling away at the edges. ‘One hour,’ Brianna reminded us, holding up her red index finger and giving a flickering wave of her hand alongside Scarlett blowing a kiss our way, before the portal quickly collapsed inwards on itself and vanished completely, taking Scarlett and Brianna with it. The only evidence that it had existed before being a few fallen leaves floating to the ground, having been pushed aside by it.
‘How…’ I muttered, looking about at the forest, ‘What the fuck just happened?’
‘World-window,’ Lois said casually, checking her wand and satchel and examining the surrounding forest. ‘There are thousands of them across the country. Each one has its own summoning co
de, which is what Brianna was doing back there. Every witch has a compendium with all of them listed.’
‘So witches from any other coven could come through this one right now?’
‘Theoretically, but they wouldn’t have any need to. Windows are supposed to be strictly for business and this is our jurisdiction… For now.’
‘But what even makes this spot a summoning point?’
‘This does,’ Lois said, kneeling down and scraping back the dried mud that we were standing upon. I could just about make out a slab of stone caked in the dirt that was layered atop it, engraved with markings. ‘They were created centuries ago by the First Mothers as an easier means of getting around. We still have no idea how they did it, but we know how to move between them. No more can be created.’
‘The First Mothers… You mean during the witch hunts?’
‘No,’ Lois said solemnly, shaking her head. ‘The witch hunts had nothing to do with our kind. Real witches have remained largely hidden since they first came into being. Some turn to more evil forces, of course, but we have largely stayed in the background in an attempt to help. But what humans did to the women they called witches centuries ago… That was motivated by nothing but fear and stupidity. Not one woman guilty of any serious crime was murdered during the trials… Only innocent mortals burnt and drowned and slaughtered by the misguided and the psychotic.’
I looked down at the engravings briefly once again. Hundreds of years ago the witches, the real witches, had set these stones down and turned them into points that would allow them to travel huge distances in seconds.
Maybe they were hidden beneath dirt and leaves now, but they were still here and being used, a legacy concealed but still ever-present.
‘Come on,’ Lois said suddenly, inhaling deeply and standing. ‘We’ve gotta get moving.’
We jogged at a steady pace through the forest, eventually finding an unused trail that led between the huge sequoia tree trunks that crowded up around us, their branches looming overhead like the claws of clasping hands swarming up from the ground. My endurance hadn’t failed me in the sparring arena, and it didn’t either now; my surroundings passed by as a blur as I kept up with Lois.
Half a mile later and the forest thinned out suddenly, the trees giving way onto a huge lake, lit and glistening by the glowing sun that sat alone in a cloudless sky.
We both ground to a halt side by side, admiring the view.
‘You ever been anywhere like this before?’ Lois asked.
‘Once, a long time ago.’
‘Me too.’
‘You ever been to Westmoor before?’
‘No. We could probably spend our entire lives exploring the world-windows in the compendium and never see all there is that they have to offer. So…’ Lois trailed off, shuffling closer to me and pointing past my chest to my left, I following her direction to see a tiny collection of houses a hundred yards off from the shores of the lake. ‘That’s Westmoor. Which means…’ She turned in the opposite direction and pointed to another house, right by the lakeside. ‘That must be East Shore House… Wait…’
I knew immediately what she was pointing out. The house in question was surrounded by flashing blue lights sitting atop two ambulances and at least four squad cars by my count.
‘Why are they still there…?’ Lois asked herself.
‘Maybe they found something strange – considering you girls are involved with checking up on this situation then I’m gonna guess that’s the case.’
‘They’ve been there for way longer than they should have, though… Let’s go check it out.’
‘You wanna go inside while the cops are still in there? Are you crazy?’
‘I have ways of getting us in undetected… Or causing a distraction, if it comes to that.’
‘Fine, I trust you… I think.’
We followed the shoreline of the lake around until we were around a hundred yards off, subsequently ducking back into the forest and remaining amongst the trees as Lois led us slowly closer and closer to the house. Ten yards before the treeline stopped we waited and listened, looking past in the little visibility we had through the shrubbery at the scene.
The lights were flashing but the sirens were off, and the sounds of our own breathing and the occasional crunch of a twig in the surrounding wood was the only noise present.
No voices. No footsteps. No car engines.
Nothing.
‘This isn’t right…’ I whispered. ‘A load of first responders wouldn’t just abandon their posts and their vehicles like this. Has this ever happened before?’
‘No… Let’s take a closer look.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘If worse comes to worse and we get caught I can delay them, trust me. Stopping humans from catching up with you is easy. It’s magical beings that are the problem. Whole other level.’
‘If you say so,’ I said, still not sure what to expect on my first journey into the field as a warlock. All I knew was a single spell and how to spar like a badass – I didn’t exactly imagine that that was enough to fend off against other magical creatures, especially the ones responsible for the trail of killings that the girls had mentioned so far.
Lois set off slowly, drawing her wand from her jacket and taking each step as it came to her. I drew my staff, readying my weapon.
Emerging into the patch of levelled dirt that acted as the house’s driveway, I could only see that the vehicles were standing with their doors wide open, until Lois whispered-
‘Oh, shit…’
And in that instant, I saw them.
A streak of blood was spread out across the hood of the cop car by the porch of the house, its spinning lights illuminating it every time they spun.
I felt my own blood run cold at the sight.
What the fuck is going on?
‘Lois… Is this a normal occurrence for you?’
‘Not exactly…’ She said, a quiver of worry in her voice. ‘Even if the creatures that did this were still around when the cops arrived they would usually take off… Large packs intimidate them. Not to mention the lights.’
‘Large packs of what?’
‘I think that worgs did this. They’re bulky, feral predators, like lions… Only hairless and much, much more energetic.’
‘But what if this isn’t worgs?’
We shared a look, examining the scene before us further and waiting for any sign of life before finding none and moving forward.
Rounding the cop car and looking onto the porch and the side door was like laying eyes upon a scene from a slasher movie. I had never seen a body before that point, and I didn’t know whether that moment constituted actually seeing a body.
Limbs, scraps of skin, bones, flesh and organs were strewn about the floor and up the walls, separated only by the scraps of clothing that had once covered all of these pieces that had made a human… Or several humans.
I raised a closed fist to my mouth, instantly feeling the need to vomit, but without any effort that urge banished itself and fell back into my gut.
The sight was one of the most terrifying that I had ever seen, but I was determined to keep myself under control.
Panicking would solve nothing.
‘Shit…’ Lois muttered slowly. ‘Tom… This isn’t right.’
‘You don’t need to freaking tell me that. I can see that just fine.’
‘No, I mean…’
‘Cruiser 311 do you copy? Repeat, Cruiser 311 do you copy? Requesting immediate response on status of back-up. Over.’
The sound of the radio chiming out on the closest squad car set us both on edge as I held my staff in a defensive position and Lois raised her wand, glaring at the car.
‘Wait…’ I said. ‘Back-up? Oh, shit… These two cars were the back-up.’
‘Which means they never got around to even starting a clean-up in there,’ Lois gulped, looking at the house.
‘Which means…’ I repeated. ‘Whoever or whatever th
e fuck did this might still be in there.’
Lois shot me another look before nodding to me to follow her. She kept her wand raised expertly the entire time as we moved up the porch steps, arching around the remains of the bodies on the drive and up the steps.
More streaks of blood leading through the front door, which was standing half open. Lois pushed it open with the tip of her wand, commanding it wide before bringing it to a halt as it began to creak. We both winced, listening for any response, before moving onwards slightly and peering into the house.
The moment the sight struck me I halted once again, almost as quickly as Lois had done.
Rivers of blood could have flown through the house and I wouldn’t have been surprised considering the state of the ground floor. The scene outside was nothing compared to the guts and intestines that were scattered about the floor, some even having stuck to the walls, amongst the blood that had been painted across every surface imaginable – walls, furniture, the staircase, every ornament spattered or splayed with more and more redness.
‘This isn’t just a worg attack,’ Lois said coldly. ‘The wildlings don’t make this kind of mess, even when they do feast. This is a blood ritual.’
‘Every part of that sounds bad.’
‘It is. Blood rituals are forbidden, not only because of their capabilities but because of how badly they can go wrong… They’re used to bring on powers that are inaccessible through normal magic.’
‘Sorry to bring down the tone, but I really think that we should get the fuck out of here. We can have this conversation back at the coven instead of in the doorway of a house where a massacre just took place.’
‘Decent point, Tom.’
We backed out slowly across the porch, avoiding making any imprints upon the state of the scene as we headed back down the steps.
Suddenly, from the forestry to the left opposite where we had emerged from, there was a rustling too loud to have stemmed from a rabbit… Followed by a growl too fierce to have emerged from the lungs of a wild dog.
Lois and I stood side by side, she readying her wand and I following suit nervously but bravely, clenching my hands tightly around my staff.
But what emerged from the forest wasn’t a worg or a creature of any kind.
