Three's a Coven

by Samantha Silver

  “And the other guy?” I asked, looking over at The Fires of Hell, who didn’t seem to be wearing anything at all, but was in fact engulfed in flames.

  “The Fires of Hell. He’s a legend on the circuit; he’s been around for years and has won the dueling title for most wins at least eight times. He’s from the coven of Charon, which I’m sure you can guess is ruled by fire.”

  I nodded as the amplified voice came over the crowd again.

  “The competitors have entered the arena. Let the battle commence.”

  Chapter 15

  I let out a gasp as the night sky above us suddenly turned into an enormous Jumbotron. The wizards below looked tiny from where we sat, but the night sky made them look absolutely huge.

  The Fires of Hell pulled out a wand, and muttered something that I couldn’t make out. All I could see was his lips moving as I looked up to the giant display of the fight overhead. Suddenly, a large stream of fire emanated from his wand directly towards The Titan, who muttered a spell of his own and suddenly made the stream of fire turn into a tornado, a tornado which turned and began streaking back along the arena floor towards its creator.

  My mouth dropped open and I watched as The Fires of Hell cast another spell and caused the tornado to duplicate itself, then triplicate itself, and continue multiplying. Within seconds there were at least fifteen, maybe twenty tornadoes moving along the arena floor.

  The Titan moved swiftly around them, and when an errant flame caught at the base of his rope, a quick water spell extinguished the fire almost effortlessly. These guys definitely were good.

  The Fires of Hell attacked again, obviously seeing that he was in the better position given as the flames didn’t seem to be affecting him at all. He cast a spell and pointed his wand toward The Titan, but nothing happened.

  The Titan darted around a fire tornado once more, then attacked himself. He muttered a spell, and suddenly The Fires of Hell began spiraling upwards, spinning like a top as his feet left the ground and moving faster and faster. The crowd roared as The Titan used his wand to fly The Fires of Hell around the arena before finally dropping him directly into the center of a fire tornado.

  I let out a gasp of horror when suddenly, everything in the arena stopped. The fire tornados all dissipated, the projection of the show in the sky ended, and the crowd burst into cheers as the announcer’s voice boomed once more.

  “The winner of this duel: THE TITAN!” Looking down at the arena floor, The Titan raised his arms in triumph as The Fires of Hell lay on the ground, a swarm of Healers rushing towards him. A moment after they arrived he sat up; obviously whatever had happened didn’t injure him permanently.

  I joined in as the crowd celebrated the win, fans of the The Fires of Hell sitting dejectedly in their seats as everyone around them cheered.

  As I looked around, however, I suddenly recognized one of the students who had been waiting for the same exam as Amy. It was one of Professor Lei’s students. Why was she here? Was it a coincidence? Or could it have something to do with Chief Inspector King’s disappearance and Professor Lei’s murder? I decided that no matter what, I was going to find out.

  I slipped past Ellie and back into the stairway, making my way down towords where I had seen the witch. I watched as her brown-hair had passed through a tunnel and back towards the concourse, and I slipped in after her. It wasn’t too hard to follow the witch; I figured that between duels there was a little bit of a break, especially since it seemed like everybody in the stands was heading towards the concourse right now.

  When we made it into the concourse, I began to try to catch up to the witch, and I chided myself for being silly. She was probably just coming out to get more food, or drink, or something. But instead, she walked straight past all of the concession stands and made her way towards the corner kind of isolated away from everyone else.

  I half hid behind a beam, looking at the woman while pretending to be waiting for somebody. Suddenly, I realized I could definitely have her identified quickly. Pulling out my phone, I pretended to be taking a panorama photo, but instead, I took a picture of the woman’s face and immediately texted it to both Ellie and Sara, asking them who it was.

  Sara was the first to answer: That’s Kelly Treach! Where are you?

  In the concourse. I saw her, recognized her, and followed her.

  What is she doing?

  I don’t know. Standing around.

  Just as I sent that last reply, however, Kelly began to do something. A man came out, seemingly out of nowhere. He was tall, dark, handsome, and 100% vampire. Every time he smiled he showed off his fangs, and he looked at Kelly like he wanted to sink his teeth deep into her.

  The guy might have been good looking, but there was something incredibly creepy about him. I did not trust the guy at all.

  I needed to figure out a way to get closer to the two of them, but I had no idea how. Unlike Ellie, I did not know how to cast an invisibility spell, and I certainly did not know anything more complicated like a sound amplification spell or anything like that. I began to kick myself for running off so quickly without telling the others where I was going, since now I was stuck here with my very limited magical skills, and no way to listen in to their conversation.

  Kelly and the vampire were huddled close to one another, and it looked like they were having an argument. I really needed to know what was going on here.

  Eventually, I made a decision. I texted Ellie. What’s the incantation to do an invisibility spell?

  Are you going to try one? Ellie replied a minute later.

  Yeah. It’s important.

  Jupiter with your power so mythical, turn this woman in front of me invisible. Then point the wand at yourself.

  Thanks I texted really quickly before pulling my wand out of my pocket, going to a quiet corner, and trying the spell.

  I did everything Amy had been teaching me to do when casting spells. I emptied my mind, took a deep breath, and focused on the energy inside of me.

  “Jupiter with your power so mythical, turn this woman in front of me invisible,” I said, pointing at myself with the wand. When I opened my eyes, however, absolutely nothing had happened. The spell had failed.

  I sighed, but tried to look on the bright side. After all, I hadn’t accidentally turned myself into a toad or anything like that. There were worse things than a spell simply failing completely, as Sara could attest to.

  Pushing the failure into the back of my head, I took another deep breath, and tried once more. Again, nothing.

  This time, I was starting to feel a little bit more dejected. I felt like I was doing everything right, so why wasn’t it working?

  After my third failed attempt, I finally pulled out my phone and texted Ellie.

  It’s not working.

  Oh, I forgot, it won’t work while you’re in this building. It’s one of the ways they prevent cheating; there’s a powerful ward on the entire arena to prevent magic from being used.

  Well, at least the reason that spell hadn’t worked wasn’t that I was terrible at magic. But I’d wasted another thirty seconds trying to cast that spell, and I figured it was now or never. I had no other options now.

  I tried to subtly slide towards Kelly and the vampire, pretending to text away on my phone and then stopping a few feet away from them, facing the vampire. After all, there was a better chance that Kelly would recognize me as being someone from Western Woods than him. To the vampire, I would just look like one of any of the thousands of other witches watching the duels tonight.

  As I inched closer and closer, I strained my ears to listen. Luckily, years of working at a bar meant that I was able to pretty accurately drown out any ambient noise when I wanted to listen in to a conversation.

  “You’re short a thousand,” the vampire hissed at Kelly.

  “I know. Look, I know. I’ll get it to you by the end of the week, ok?”

  “That’s what you said the last time.”

  “And you know what
I did to work it off. I can’t believe I did that.”

  “Yeah, well, when you owe Aquila abras, if you can’t pay them, you have to work them off.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I can’t believe I actually did that for her. You know I threw up after?”

  “Whatever, I don’t care about your emotions. I care about your cash. If you didn’t want to work off your debt, maybe you shouldn’t have bet more than you could pay.”

  “I know. Look, I know. I’m still behind. But please. Give me another couple of days.”

  “Fine. You have forty eight hours. Or I go back to Aquila, and she’ll give you another job to do. And remember, there’s no Chief Enforcer for you to go running to. You know what we can do to people: you tell anyone about this, and you’ll disappear, too.”

  I tried not to react as I heard those words, but it was tough. It sounded like Kelly had been forced to do something she hadn’t enjoyed. Something bad. Had she been forced to kill Professor Lei? Maybe we had the right suspect, but the wrong reason. It certainly sounded like she was in deep with these debt collectors, anyway.

  And there was that name again – Aquila. It sounded like the rumors Selena had heard were real. Aquila was a real person, and he was in charge of this gambling ring that Kelly had somehow gotten herself involved in.

  “I’ll pay you,” Kelly hissed to the vampire. “I promise. I’ll pay you in just a couple of days.”

  “You had better,” the vampire replied. “Meet me here again on Saturday night, same time, and this time you had better have all of it. Plus two hundred, for my time.”

  He turned and strode off, and I dared to glance at Kelly. The expression on her face screamed glumness and depression. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her. She didn’t sound like she was the best person, but gambling addictions were an addiction, and this couldn’t have been easy for her. Especially since she was being made to do things she didn’t want to do. I wondered if that list of things included murder.

  Chapter 16

  The announcer’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker just then, inviting the audience to return to their seats ahead of the second duel. Instead of making my way back to the seat, however, I stepped towards Kelly.

  “Hey,” I said to her softly. “Are you alright?”

  She looked up at me with a look of suspicion at first, but as soon as she saw who it was, her expression softened.

  “Oh. You’re from Western Woods. You’re that new witch in town, right?”

  I nodded. “Tina.”

  “I’m Kelly. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too. Listen, are you in some sort of trouble? That vampire looked like bad news?”

  “Did you hear any of that?” she asked, fear written all over her face.

  “No,” I lied. “I was just coming out to find a restroom when I saw you talking to him, and you looked like you would have rather been anywhere else.”

  A small smile crept on Kelly’s face. “Well, you’ve got that right. No, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  “Ok,” I nodded, not wanting to push her. I didn’t want her to know that I’d overheard a ton of that conversation. “Well, if you ever need anything, I’m around.”

  “Thanks,” Kelly said, and as I made my way back to my seat, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad for Kelly. I knew the others didn’t really think much of her, but it must have been difficult for her trying to hide an addiction like gambling and still try to live a normal life.

  I really hoped the addiction hadn’t forced her into something awful, like murder.

  By the time I made my way back to my seat – I got lost once along the way, it turned out the colosseum was much larger than I had initially thought – Ellie and Sara looked over at me.

  “You missed the second fight,” Sara said. “It just ended. “Thomas the Terrible just destroyed Fighting Luna.”

  “Yeah, well, I just got some information that’s way more interesting than that,” I said, motioning for Sara and Ellie to come in closer. I didn’t want anyone overhearing what I was about to tell them.

  “Wow,” Sara said, shaking her head when I finished recounting my story. “It sounds like Kelly’s in deep, and she definitely had to do something bad to pay Aquila or whoever.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Plus, it gives credence to this Aquila actually existing. It sounds like Kelly owes him, big time.”

  “Do you think she might have been forced to kill Professor Lei, for some reason?” Ellie asked.

  “I thought about that, but what could the Professor possibly have had to do with a gambling ring. Besides, at one point, the vampire said ‘as you know, Chief Enforcer King isn’t around’ or something along those lines. What if they forced Kelly to do something to Chief Enforcer King?”

  “Would she have been able to?” Sara asked. “After all, Chief Enforcer King can handle herself pretty well.”

  “She can, but against a witch? Even one who’s not super skilled like Kelly? It’s possible. After all, shifters can’t cast spells. They have their own magic, but witches are inherently at an advantage against them.”

  “Maybe that’s what it was then,” I mused. “Maybe Kelly did something to Chief Enforcer King as payment for some of her debt.”

  “That would be truly awful,” Ellie said, shaking her head sadly. “I really hope it’s not something like that.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like it was a good thing,” Sara said.

  Before we got a chance to discuss things further, however, the third fight was about to get underway.

  “All right paranormals of the world, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Please give a warm welcome to our last two competitors of the night, Miranda Thunder and The Obelisk. The crowd roared with appreciation as the arena floor was covered in a dense fog. More magic, I supposed. A few seconds later, the fog dissipated, and we found ourselves staring at the two competitors.

  Miranda Thunder, on the far side, was small. She couldn’t have been much taller than 5 feet, and she was slender. She moved with a confidence and an agility that made me think that she might’ve had some sort of gymnastics training. I had a friend growing up who did gymnastics, and Miranda absolutely reminded me of her. Her long, brown hair reached almost down to her waist, and she had an almost ethereal quality to her. If you had told me that she was half witch, half fairy, I would have believed you.

  The Obelisk, on the other hand, fit his chosen dueling name perfectly. He had to be at least six feet tall, and well and truly powered over Miranda. His pudgy belly and small head gave him a real Obelisk-like look, like a large chunk of rounded rock.

  The two competitors stared each other down, and as the announcer declared that the fight had started, both of them immediately attacked.

  I found myself riveted as they each cast spell after spell. When one would attack, the other would cast a defensive spell, resulting in a stalemate. Both were obviously extremely talented fighters. Miranda kept calling down thunder and lightning, and the deafening sound of the thunder roared through the arena.

  The Obelisk attempted to bring down some rocks to crush Miranda, but she managed to use lightning as a defensive shield, and cracked all of the boulders until they were no more than pebbles falling at her feet. Casting a spell, all of the pebbles rose up and darted back towards The Obelisk at a lightning speed. He raised his wand to cast a defending spell, but just as he cast it the pebbles rushing towards him split into two groups, one going to the left and one going to the right, before doubling back and attacking him from the side.

  He let out a yelp as Miranda’s spell hit him right on. Throwing up his wand into the air, a fury of white sparks emanated from it, and a moment later all of the pebbles, along with all other signs of the duel, disappeared.

  “The white sparks in the air means he gave up,” Ellie explained to me. “As soon as the fight is declared over, all the spells are automatically dissolved, so as to lower the risk
of injury to the athletes.”

  I nodded my understanding as realization dawned on me. “I guess we need to go back to that bar to collect your winnings.”

  Ellie grinned at me. “I told you I knew what I was doing.”

  She certainly did.

  Chapter 17

  The three of us made our way back to The Witch’s Brew to collect on Ellie’s eleven to one win. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen. After all, this was apparently the gambling ring’s headquarters. And Ellie wasn’t exactly known for being shy.

  The three of us walked in, and Sara and I followed as Ellie immediately made her way towards the bartender.

  “Here for your winnings?” the bartender asked. “I’m not sure I should give them to you. How do I know you didn’t have some sort of inside info? After all, I’ve never seen you before, and here you come betting on some unlikely winner and you come out making ten times your money. You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”

  “Why don’t we ask Aquila what he thinks?” Ellie said, leaning across the bar towards the bartender. He immediately looked around, checking to make sure that nobody had overheard.

  “You keep your voice down,” he hissed at her. “Ain’t nobody here named Aquila.”

  “Where can I find him?” Ellie asked. “You tell me that, and you can keep the money.”

  “Wouldn’t be worth any amount of money to give you that information,” the bartender replied. “Besides, even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t. Never laid eyes on the man myself.”

  “I’ll take my money then,” Ellie said. “You can think what you want about me, but if you don’t pay me what I’m owed I’ll make sure the authorities know about this illegal gambling ring you’re running.”