Witch Master

by Noah Layton

  It was a man – at least that’s what I guessed. The figure was wearing a large purple cloak that couldn’t have looked more unnatural against the green and browns swimming in the backdrop of the forest.

  ‘State your business,’ Lois shouted formally, totally out of whack with her usual vernacular. ‘This scene is under control by the Witches Order. Who are you?’

  The figure’s head was lowered, its face obscured by the hood, as well as its hands by the long sleeves of the purple cloak it donned.

  Who the hell is this guy…?

  I remembered my minimal training, ready to blast a bolt of lightning in his direction if he tried anything. All I could make out was a pointed, pale chin beneath the shadow of the hood, and the slightest hint of a pair of lips… Which slowly, steadily broke into a wide grin.

  He didn’t move – but the shrubbery behind him did.

  A hypnotic, musical whistling suddenly sounded from the grinning lips, just two notes, lower and higher, and from the bushes emerged two gigantic worgs that arched around the figure, both fearful and angry in their slobbering, wild faces. They were like gigantic mutated lions, completely hairless, with perpetually furious eyes above slobbering mouths where sharp teeth gnashed hungrily. Their bodies were hefty and mighty, not exactly built for endurance.

  ‘What’s the plan here…?’ I whispered through the edge of my mouth to Lois, looking between her and the figure flanked by his faithful worgs. ‘Do we run, or…?’

  ‘Hold on…’ Lois said just as quietly, keeping her wand raised before addressing the man.

  With a sharp flurry of movement, Lois stepped forward on one foot and brandished her wand like a fencer.

  ‘Inferni vothmarga!’

  A fireball suddenly appeared at the tip of her wand, swirling madly before flying directly at the figure. Lois was a real witch and I had already seen the extent of the powers that she and the girls possessed – creating portals, rituals that could turn someone into a warlock – so when that fireball went hurtling towards our group of assailants, I had total faith that they were well and truly screwed.

  The figure’s grin beneath the hood remained, and with a single flick of the hand beneath his sleeves the fireball veered sharply off-course, flying away from him and the worgs and slamming into a nearby tree trunk.

  I looked back at Lois, ready for our next tactical move, but her face had quickly run pale with terror. Desperately she fired more, repeating the words but with no effect – the fire continued to fly off in different directions.

  The final that she cast halted in mid-air, hovering for a moment like a tiny gas giant before quickly darting back to us. We both ducked as the fire struck the shrubbery from where we had emerged, exploding into embers and setting fire to the dry undergrowth.

  ‘Enough…’ A growling voice said from beneath the hood. The worgs looked at him expectantly, endearingly, waiting for the order that came next. ‘Kill.’

  ‘Run.’

  Lois didn’t need to tell me. We both turned on our heels and sprinted back into the forest, the worgs close on our heels as they barked out with ferocity.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ I shouted over to Lois, both of us trying to maintain proximity to each other as we cut through the trees and bushes, far away from any path that the wilderness could have afforded us.

  ‘I don’t know…’ She yelled back. ‘I don’t know how he did that…!’

  I could hear the fear in her voice – this was supposed to be an in-and-out mission. Track the worgs and clear them.

  But this wasn’t a video game.

  All that existed to me as I sprinted through the woods was the route ahead of me, the threat of our pursuers behind and the sound of crunching wood from somewhere.

  I risked a look over my shoulder and saw the worgs keeping up with us, their heavy bodies mixed with incredible speed reminding me of a bear more than a lion, the latter of which I would have preferred to be chased by at this moment.

  But the worgs weren’t what drew my attention. That honor went to the source of the terrible crunching sounds of wood being splintered in our wake as we scrambled past tree trunks and through the undergrowth, far away from any semblance of a path.

  Behind the worgs I spotted a tree trunk exploding from its stable base, slamming to the side and into the ground, not falling but crashing down as if some gigantic invisible creature was pushing it with impatience.

  Then, through the maze of trees, I saw him – the Purple Man. It was if he was floating just a foot from the ground through the forest, sweeping his hands left and right, scattering trees from his path relentlessly, refusing to change his course.

  His worgs would kill us, and he would finish the job.

  Speaking of which-

  A low, sharp branch clipped my shoulder, forcing me to look back in the direction that we were running. One hand clasped on my arm where the wood had stabbed through my jacket, the other wrapped around my staff, I looked over at Lois.

  My worg was preoccupied with getting past the trunks behind me, but Lois’s wasn’t; it was within yards of her, and she had no idea.

  I veered closer to her in panic, sprinting hard, scuffing myself against more branches and clipping my boots against protruding roots, but I didn’t care.

  I had to get to her.

  There was no way that I was going to make it on foot, but I could do something from here…

  Raising my staff and calling up the words, I aimed the tip of it and jabbed it forward, calling out the words I needed.

  The thunderous flames appeared from the wood, winding through the air in a straight line.

  I still have no idea how I managed to make the shot. There were twenty things that it could have caught on, but a life was at risk, and when it came to crunch-time my brain mustered up the supernatural aim that I needed.

  The electric flames struck the worg in the side of the head, sending it shrieking and slamming into a tree nearby before burying it’s head in the undergrowth in an effort to quell the flames.

  I caught up with Lois, grabbing her hand in mine and hurrying ahead through the woods.

  She retrieved her phone from her pocket, tapping hastily at the screen before bringing it sharply to her ear.

  ‘Now!’ She said frantically. ‘Yes, NOW!’

  Still, the remaining worg was on our tail, and still, the trees behind us fell in waves.

  The forest was flattening around us.

  I may have taken Lois’s hand but it was she who guided us to where we needed to be, back to the spot where the world-window was.

  We emerged into the clearing just as it was beginning to open. Brianna and Scarlett had worked fast, but our portal still wasn’t open, and we were stuck with the murderer and his minions right behind us.

  In the final sprint forwards, twenty yards, ten yards, Lois’s foot clipped on a root and took her down to her knees, her wand flying from her hand, and my staff slipping away too. I staggered to the ground with her, my staff slightly out of reach.

  And behind, our assailants emerged from the woods.

  I turned to face the remaining worg, the other still lost somewhere behind but likely getting closer.

  A terror that I had never experienced before struck me, and for a moment the possibility struck that this was where I would end. This is where I would just… Stop.

  And in response, a searing anger filled me.

  I felt the muscles in my back twinge as I reached the staff, pulling it closer with my fingertips and swinging it into my control before hurtling it at the worg like a javelin.

  I honestly don’t know what the fuck had possessed me to do that. A spell would have worked just fine, but anger clouded my mind. Luckily it paid off.

  I turned, grabbing Lois and pulling her up before throwing the pair of us through the world-window and back into the basement of the coven just as it opened.

  The view onto the forest remained as the worg shook off the disorientation, hurrying at us once again.
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  The last thing I saw before Scarlett hurried to the reverse side of the granite panel, striking her wand against the surface and shattering the granite and the image completely, was the Purple Man emerging into the clearing just twenty yards away, hurling a channel of purple energy through the air at us.

  The forest and the granite vanished, along with the purple stream which missed the window by fractions of a second, leaving Lois and I lying on our backs in the basement, covering in scratches and panting for breath, both shaken completely with fear.

  Chapter Six

  ‘It was blood magic, I’m telling you.’

  The sun was beginning to set when we had finally gotten ourselves patched up and were sat in the living room, wrapped up in blankets with wet hair from showers that had washed away the dirt and spatters of blood, now leaving us with hot mugs of cocoa that Scarlett had brought in from the kitchen. Rel had joined us too, snuggling up to Brianna’s side and purring as she stroked his fur.

  ‘I’ve added some ararian root to yours,’ she said to me and Lois. ‘It’s a light sedative. Help calm your nerves.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could make me one, could you?’ He asked, perfectly polite with his RP accent. ‘If I’m not allowed to root through it in the garden at least give me some now to quell this crippling existential angst.’

  Scarlett obliged, Rel sipping from a bowl of it a short time later.

  We recounted everything that had happened to the girls when Lois finally made that resolute statement about blood magic. It wasn’t like I could argue with the idea – I wasn’t exactly well-read in magical knowledge, and second to that, I had never seen so much god-damned blood in my entire life.

  ‘It sounds like it,’ Brianna surmised. ‘I just don’t understand what it could be for.’

  ‘Don’t you have any books on the topic?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve got a decently stocked library upstairs. But nothing on blood magic that I know of… Most of it is so unknown that it isn’t even written down. It’s just… Passed around from my mouth to mouth.’

  ‘What you need to understand,’ Lois said, ‘is that it’s not like other magic. Any induction into even the most basic of blood spells requires sacrifice. And once a person chooses to experiment with it, it’s like any of the drugs that destroys humans in your world. It isolates you, drives you away from others, and then consumes you entirely to the point of self-destruction.’

  ‘I mean, I’m half-succubus, and even we don’t delve into that stuff.’

  ‘I bite my tongue then,’ I laughed, ‘I would’ve thought that would be your field of expertise.’

  ‘Most things are my field of expertise. I can’t go just wandering around the streets because of-’ She ran her hands over the sides of her body and raised an eyebrow –‘exhibit A, which means that being the researcher is my thing. But succubi aren’t about that, even if I’m only half of one. We’re about freedom and temptation and pleasure. And spilling the blood of innocents by getting worgs to rip them up is pretty much the total opposite of that.’

  ‘Uh huh…’ I nodded, sipping the steaming cocoa and waiting for the effects of the ararian root to hit me. ‘I’m guessing there are plenty of instances of people having done it though. And I’m not even talking about witches – stupid college kids experimenting in the woods at night, normal humans stumbling on real spells… That’s what power does to people, though, doesn’t it? Those who don’t have it want it, and those who have it want more. I mean, I’ll bet there are plenty of warlocks who have gone down that route too, being the head of covens?... That wasn’t what happened to the one here, was it?’

  All three of the girls spun their heads in my direction, glaring at me with a mix of fear and curiosity.

  ‘What… What are you talking about?’ Scarlett asked.

  ‘What did I say?’ I said innocently, looking around at them. ‘Rel said it to me earlier. He said that he hoped I was nothing like the last warlo-’

  I set my eyes on Rel, who suddenly looked wide awake, as if he had never had the sedative at all. He stared back at me, wide-eyed, before glancing around at the girls silently.

  ‘Okay, what the hell is going on?’ I asked. ‘The warlock who was here before me, all those years ago… What did he do? Was he the king-asshole or something? The big bad guy?... Is he haunting this place?’

  ‘That’s not what we…’ Scarlett trailed off, exhaling deeply and setting down her cocoa.

  ‘Look,’ Lois said. ‘There’s something we haven’t told you… What Rel meant, was… It wasn’t the original warlock from decades ago, back when the original coven lived here. He’s talking about the warlock that lived here… Ten months ago.’

  ‘Ten months ago?’ I repeated aghast, looking between them. ‘So… So you had a warlock here with you originally? I thought you said that most covens didn’t do that anymore.’

  ‘They don’t,’ Brianna said, ‘but since we were newly trained and fresh out of college they established one here for a short while. Rorian, he was called. He was nice to begin with, kept himself to himself, but… Then he started keeping himself a little too much to himself. He would lock himself away in his quarters for weeks at a time, and at night we would hear things in the house. Moanings, creakings, screeches… Inhuman sounds. He always kept his door locked, only leaving for food in the middle of the night. We couldn’t question him, either.’

  ‘He didn’t ever… Hurt any of you, did he?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Scarlett said, shaking her head. ‘It was just the worry of what the hell he was getting up to. So, one night… We decided to go take a look, and… And…’

  Scarlett ran a hand through her hair nervously.

  ‘And he had opened up a portal to the Third Circle,’ Lois said calmly, exhaling deeply.

  ‘As in…’ I said slowly.

  ‘Hell,’ Rel said matter-of-factly. ‘Guess Dante isn’t looking so fictional now, huh?’

  ‘Hell isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. It’s mostly just a wasteland filled with lost souls, wandering aimlessly, and it’s nine circles are only reserved for the worst of the worst. It’s just one of many dimensions that a soul can become stuck in after its body dies. Either way, access to it is forbidden amongst the Witch Order. We are permitted to carry out necromancy, but only certain forms and only when they are necessary to our investigations. If caught we can face strict punishments.’

  ‘So what was he doing?’ I asked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Brianna said. ‘We were in his quarters when he came back into the room. Tried to kill all three of us. Fortunately Scarlett got a decent shot at him and kicked him straight through the portal. We smashed the granite, and that was that. A few investigators from the Order came by but we tidied his quarters to a mirror-shine and got rid of any semblance of evidence. We just said that he took off and we hadn’t seen him since. And nothing ever happened.’

  I digested everything that they had told me, running over it all in my head.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?’

  ‘Because,’ Lois said. ‘You seemed like a relatively decent guy, and we didn’t wanna scare you off with tales of terror.’

  ‘Plus it’s not exactly a good conversation starter,’ Scarlett pointed out, shrugging.

  ‘True,’ I smiled, ‘So you don’t think this Rorian guy has anything to do with what happened to us today?’

  ‘I don’t see how it can,’ Lois said, shaking her head. ‘It’s difficult enough opening up a portal to another dimension, never mind getting out of it. Every soul down there wants out. It’s another problem with opening them, after all – once the window’s open, everybody scrambles over each other to escape.’

  I shivered at the thought of it. Confining other worlds to the realm of fantasy and fiction was one thing, but admitting that they were real was a much bigger and much more terrifying prospect.

  ‘Well I’ll try not to do anything like that,’ I said resolutely, looki
ng around at the girls. ‘Being the bad guy never really appealed to me anyway.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Lois smiled from the other side of the couch, ‘but sometimes you need to be bad.’

  ‘And sometimes you need to contradict and correct everything that I say,’ I replied. ‘Oh, no, wait, that’s every single time since I met you.’

  ‘Bite me,’ she laughed. ‘I’m just looking out for you. We all are. We all remember how tough it is starting out with all of this stuff.’

  ‘It’s tough to adjust to but not tough to take on,’ I said. ‘If I’m gonna be of any use aside from throwing staffs at anything that attacks us and handing out minor electric shocks then I need to know more.’

  ‘We can work on that tomorrow,’ Scarlett said with assurance, throwing a pillow at me. ‘I say we spend the night chilling out, especially after the day you two have had.’

  ‘That sounds great to me. Just one request though.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘More of this cocoa and ararian root. I haven’t got an addictive personality but this stuff feels amazing.’

  That offer was more than obliged by the girls, and we spent the rest of the night watching trash-TV, drinking and laughing until the witching hour – no pun intended – rolled around, the clock striking 1am as the true garbage that was early morning reality-shows appeared.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Brianna announced, ‘Already feels like my brain’s rotted from the drink and the regularly scheduled programming – the conversation has been wonderful as always, though, ladies – and gentleman.’

  ‘I’m going too,’ Scarlett said, pushing to her feet and stretching. She scuttled around to the spot behind Brianna and jumped on her back, who held her up effortlessly. ‘Do me a solid and fly me up to my room.’ Scarlett’s weight did nothing to affect her perfect posture.

  ‘All right…’ Brianna moaned, ‘but just this once. I’m not a freaking donkey.’

  They disappeared out of the room, leaving Rel asleep on the couch and I and Lois looking over at each other.

  ‘Guess we should turn in to,’ she said over to me, setting her mug down on the table. ‘If you want to cram in plenty of new spells tomorrow then you’ve gotta get some sleep.’