by Silver Nord
Then… she was gone.
“What the heck?” I heard one of the watching witches say.
I did some rapid blinking of my own… before I looked up at the monster which had just swooped down and devoured the crazed witch in a single bite. It was a snake-like creature with a multitude of black shiny eyes that watched my every move. Somewhere on its back, spines rattled angrily. I had the horrible sensation of being prey… and I hadn’t even seen it coming.
“A tear in the sky,” I muttered, wondering why I hadn’t considered it before. Of course dimensional tears wouldn’t be limited to ground level! They weren’t restricted by rules like up and down. Who knew what I might have been missing all this time I’d been going round trying to sew up the tears? I’d been a fool living in a dream land.
The snake-monster hissed and dove down again, this time with me in its sights. I did the only thing I could do in this do or die situation.
I dropped the tennis racket and ran for the trees.
“Curse it!” I shouted to the gawping witches, before I felt the ping of the tennis racket disappearing and was able to reach into the in-between again. This time, I pulled out a familiar weapon - the scythe that had broken on the mayor was whole once more.
“It’s not working!” Rebecca shouted as the spells hit in a rainbow coloured onslaught and the snake-thing merely shook them away, before more of it slithered through the hole in the sky and came down to the earth. I watched as the grass shrivelled beneath its body and a layer of toxic ooze began to leak from the pores on its skin.
“We’re all going to die,” Aurelia muttered, before taking several steps backwards… and then fleeing through the trees. She wasn’t alone, almost half the coven followed her. The other half stayed and looked desperately at me, hoping that I could somehow save them.
I looked at the towering snake and knew that I couldn’t disappoint them. Or rather - I could, but then I’d die. I shook myself and stepped back out into the clearing, feeling like an ill-fated knight gone to fight a dragon much too big for him to handle.
Even as the snake-thing struck and I rolled and slashed, trying to score some points off the deadly monster from the other dimension, thoughts of Kimberly rushed around my head.
She’d survived in the dark dimension long enough to come back, so why had a monster killed her now?
Had she just been unlucky?
Or had something happened that meant she’d become a target for them?
I found I was no closer to an answer when I dodged a burning acid blast from the snake-thing. I slashed with the scythe, parting the beast’s skin, but all that happened was toxic ooze dripped out and the wound seemed to heal itself again.
“Oh, come on!” I muttered, knowing I was tiring. It wouldn’t be long until I made a mistake and became snake-chow.
The snake screamed in rage and I blasted gold magic into its mouth, hoping it was a weak point. Instead, it seemed to lick its lips and grinned, showing row upon row of fangs.
“It eats magic!” one of the witches called from the trees, stating something I’d just concluded for myself. All of my efforts were in vain because the darn thing was a big fan of magic. It was just like the time when January had tried to blast the flying monster that had attempted to come through the very first time I’d opened up a tear between dimensions. Her magic hadn’t been effective, and now I thought I knew why. Much like hellhounds, these monsters were impervious to magic. I couldn’t beat them using my normal abilities.
“Looks like I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way,” I muttered, withdrawing the extra power from the weapons I held and instead using them as forged steel. Now I really was playing the part of dragon slayer.
The snake struck and I retaliated, feeling the power of the thing as it struck my shield. It was enough for me to realise I couldn’t match it for strength now that the magic was gone. The impact threw me halfway across the clearing. I landed in a crumpled heap, several feet from the triumphant snake.
“Go back where you came from,” I muttered, trying to claw myself back upright. I was doomed. I’d known it ever since Kimberly had been devoured and the spells had failed. Heck, I’d probably known it deep down when I’d first opened that tear in reality and had seen what lay on the other side. nothing good could ever have come of that, beyond the knowledge of my own end. Now I thought it was probably knocking on my door.
The snake-monster reared its hideous head and struck, sending venom flying down and following it up with its gaping maw. If the acid didn’t get me, the teeth would. I tried to jump, but my feet were rooted to the spot. In a blind panic, I reached for my magic, even though I knew the venom would cut straight through it. But I couldn’t just stand here… I couldn’t just wait to die…
Those were my final thoughts before I saw a bright blue light.
My first thought was that Kimberly wasn’t dead after all and that - to add insult to dying horribly - she was going to finish me off with her magic. But this light was different. It was bright, blinding, and pure. I heard the solid clang of something bouncing off a barrier. The next second there was a shrivelled sound of rage, and then the sensation of something large leaping off the ground.
I opened my eyes and blinked, trying to see what had happened after the light had blinded me.
I knew I wasn’t dead, which was a good start. As my vision cleared, I realised that the snake had gone and the sky above the forest looked whole again. What’s more, it felt whole again. The tear had vanished.
“I guess I got here at exactly the right moment,” Jesse said, dusting his hands off as he walked into the clearing.
“Wait… you mean you? You did…” I gestured towards the sky inarticulately.
He shrugged. “It was nothing. I showed you that defence spell I was working on before. It really came through this time.”
I shook my head. “It’s not possible. That thing just absorbed our magic. I think our attacks might even have made it stronger.” It was the only way I could describe the snake healing itself so easily.
“Normal magic, yes, but… I’m a devil at heart,” Jesse said, tilting his head. “Not to mention a god.”
“My magic isn’t supposed to be normal either,” I protested.
“Are you sure? All of those golden flashy things looked like normal raw power to me. Nothing devilish about it - aside from the colour bearing a striking resemblance to our stunning eyes.” He blinked his amber pair at me. “Hang on, how much of your magic do you believe is devil-given?” He looked genuinely curious.
“I… I don’t know,” I confessed, knowing inside that I’d assumed it was probably all of it. “In the end, I stopped using magic,” I protested, raising my scythe and shield. “See? Pure, devil-summoned steel.”
Jesse looked unimpressed. “And look where it got you. Almost eaten alive. You’re welcome, by the way.” He examined his fingernails.
I considered for a moment, before grudgingly realising I did owe him for this one time. “Thanks. I’ll take it into consideration against all of the times when you put my life in danger deliberately.”
“I’ll take that,” Jesse said, looking as smug as ever. “Now, by my estimation, when this festival rolls around you’re going to be about as much use as a lottery ticket bought today with yesterday’s winning numbers.”
I frowned. Technically, the odds didn’t alter on something like that… which just went to show how nutty the odds were in the first place.
“You need one of those training montages they show in the films where you go from a complete loser to someone who’s in with a chance in about twenty minutes,” he continued.
“I’ll be your sensei,” Hemlock said, trotting back into the clearing without his sheet. “Why does it smell of toxic snake in here? Did I miss something? Hmmm…”
I looked over to see him considering a pile of ooze, like a human might peruse a new perfume. I hoped he didn’t decide to roll in it.
“You saved us!” the rema
ining witches said, emerging from their hiding places along the edge of the trees.
“Thank you, Mr Heathen,” Heather said, looking gratefully at Jesse.
“Oh, it was nothing. I was just passing. It was the least I could do,” he said, pretending to be humble.
“We’re so sorry we questioned you, Hazel. I think we all got a cold dose of reality today,” the eldest witch continued. “From now on, things will be different. We will focus on the issues that really matter. We’ll work together to stop the mayor and the gate from opening.”
All around her there were cheers.
I tried to smile, but it failed. The witches were too late. I knew in my heart that the gate was going to open, and there wasn’t a thing I could think of to stop it. At the moment, the only hope I was clinging on to was some kind of miracle… or a better understanding of the prophecy Jesse had once recited.
“How did you get rid of the ghost hunters?” I asked Hemlock, scooping him up before he threw himself in the foul smelling gunk.
“Gerroff!” he protested until I handed him his games console. It really was like having an unruly teenager. “Oh, I led them on a wild cat chase. Then I hexed them and ran back here when I got bored. Yes! Die you monster-bot!”
“You hexed them?!” I reached to take the console back and got scratched for my trouble.
Jesse laughed at me. I kicked him in the shins. We were all suffering today.
Hemlock puffed his chest out as he shot laser beams at the robot monster. “Of course I did. I’m a very accomplished magical cat.”
I glared at Jesse to stop him grinning.
“What did you do to them? They are just normal people, Hemlock! You could get in a lot of trouble with the Witch Council if they hear about it.”
“They’ll only hear about it if someone tells tales. And what kind of loser would do that?” he said, doing everything he could to make me think it was not cool to tell on him. Unfortunately for Hemlock, I’d left peer pressure back at school.
“What hex did you use?” I repeated, starting to feel like no one ever gave me a straight answer to anything anymore.
“Fine. I got it from another session of dropping the big spell book on the floor. I lucked out with the opposable thumbs spell, and then I went flicking through.” He sighed happily. “I did consider the sabre claws, but I’ve moved onto bigger and better things.”
“Tell me what you did, or I will permanently confiscate your game and throw it in the bin!” I warned. Actually, I’d probably keep it and play it myself. I hated to admit it, but it did look like fun.
“Fiiiine,” he repeated sulkily. “It was supposed to be one I used on you. I hexed them with an itch-in-an-uncomfortable-place spell.”
Jesse let out a low whistle. “That’s evil! You’ve grown so dark, Huginn,” he said, using Hemlock’s real name from a time when he hadn’t been a cat.
“Thank you! I only work on that side of myself part-time, due to my other commitments. But I’m really coming on, aren’t I?” my pest of a familiar replied.
I grunted my annoyance, but it could have been worse. At least suddenly itching in awkward areas whilst wandering in the forest could be explained away as something non-magical - like exposure to a particular plant. And at least the ghost hunters hadn’t been here… or they would have seen something that even a non-magical mind would struggle to come up with a logical explanation for.
“Hazel, I think we’re all tired after everything that’s happened tonight. We’re going to start back for the town and get some rest before rallying anyone we can rally. There’s a war coming to Wormwood, and it’s only tonight that we realised we’re already on the brink of losing,” Heather announced.
I watched as they filtered away between the trees, going to share their stories of what they’d seen tonight with any and all who would listen. In my heart, I still held onto the hope that somehow, as one, Wormwood would be able to rise up and overthrow the mayor before it was too late - but even together, against something like the monster that had broken through and eaten Kimberly, I knew we were mere blots on the landscape.
“It killed Kimberly. How?” I asked Jesse now that we were alone, if you didn’t include Hemlock. He was back to making video game sounds as he fired his guns at imaginary monsters, so I chose not to count his presence.
“If I were to guess based on what I saw tonight, it’s because she used too much of her own magic. You know she made a deal for a power boost, and it looks like she got infected with something else, something that happened in the dark dimension. But tonight she made it personal and used the magic at the centre of her being - her own magic. That’s why the monster went for her. They seek out magic. Or maybe white’s not a good colour to wear if you don’t want a monster to see you first. I don’t know. I’m guessing.” Jesse shrugged his shoulders. “We are but trees in a wood, unable to see the entire forest around us… or something like that.”
“How long were you watching before you decided to intervene?” I asked, but when I heard it back I sounded like a broken record. We’d been through all of this before. “Never mind. Please tell me you’ve got something useful to share? Something that might help?”
Jesse scratched his head. “Beyond don’t try to use normal magic? Hmmm… I’ve been drawing a blank. By my calculations, the gate is going to open and the stronger-than-ever barrier around town will make it so that Wormwood is sucked into the dark dimension. It’s that or the dark dimension moves here, but the end result is the same. No one outside the town’s boundary will ever know. It’s pretty neat and tidy.” He nodded, but it soon turned to a frown. “That is… until the mayor leaves and takes over the world, using his convenient battery of monster power provided by the dark dimension he’ll leave behind in Wormwood. Man, I should have seen that one coming when I made that deal.”
“I can still stop it, right?” I said, thinking about the prophecy again. “It just said I need to die, or something like that.”
Jesse looked sideways at me. I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Spit it out!” I said. “The least you can do is tell me the truth after the mess you got our whole town into by playing god with people’s futures.”
“It’s just that prophecies don’t always work out, for better or even for worse. You might not be able to stop anything from happening at all. It might not even refer to you. I think the first part is coming true, just as my brother wanted. Now we’ll have to see if the other part is correct, but it’s definitely not a given thing.”
“Wait… I might not be able to stop anything from happening? Everything might be in vain?”
“Possibly, yes… but don’t be so negative. It may never happen!”
“What may never happen?” I queried, crossing my arms and glaring.
“Oh, you know… the end of the world. Or worse still… my brother being right.” Jesse looked genuinely upset for a moment, before he re-fixed his smile in place. “Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else. I’d say don’t worry about it too much, it’s not the end of the world, but it just might be.” He waved cheerfully and wandered off through the forest, following a path to somewhere or nowhere.
I stood in the nasty-smelling clearing cradling a cat who was obsessed with video games.
“Great. Just great,” I muttered, reflecting on how powerless I appeared to be. “What was it all for? What was any of it for?” I mused.
“Pew, pew, pew!” said Hemlock in return.
10
Monsters, Mayors, And Maniacal Murder
“Sean!” I called to the man standing outside of the bakery. It was the morning after I’d been attacked by a monstrous snake, and so far, there had been no sign of anything else out of the ordinary. It was way too spooky.
“Hi, I was going to come by the shop later,” he said, avoiding my gaze.
My forehead creased, but I decided to pretend I hadn’t noticed the way he was acti
ng so shadily. “Is everything okay? Are you stuck in town?” I added in an undertone.
“Oh… I mean, uh… technically, yes. It’s fine though. It’s just for a few days until I can wrap up this murder investigation. Anyway, I’ve found that the internet still works at the moment. Emails are getting through. The rest of the team are keeping me up to date. They even sent me the post-mortem results yesterday evening,” he said, before looking like he regretted saying so much. “But the investigation is ongoing and I’m not at liberty to…”
“What are you trying to avoid telling me?” I asked him, unwilling to play this game of cat and mouse.
Sean looked nervously left and right before finally meeting my gaze. “He did die of the stab wounds to his back… but there was a fatal dose of aconite in his digestive tract. Even if he hadn’t have been stabbed, he’d have died pretty fast.” He cleared his throat. “The pathologist said something else, too. Whomever stabbed him, they enjoyed doing it.”
“It was probably personal - someone he really rubbed the wrong way…” I noted.
Sean nodded. “I was thinking along the same lines. Someone like…”
I said ‘His wife’ at the exact same moment that Sean said ‘Minerva’.
We stared at each other.
“You can’t seriously still think it’s my aunt? It’s so obvious that she was framed. Plus, his wife is probably the leader of the notorious criminal gang causing so much trouble in town! Have you seen the graffiti?”
I’d woken up this morning to see ‘Witchwood Scorpions’ scrawled across many different buildings in town. Mercifully, my shop had been spared this treatment - most likely because the vandals feared another attack from a hellhound.
“They’re basically admitting they’re responsible for everything. You know who they are, don’t you? They’ve been hanging around here all week, like they own the place. Whenever someone confronts them about their actions in balaclavas, they say they don’t know what they’re talking about and then laugh about it a second later. I’m warning you, Sean… some people are very close to taking justice into their own hands. Even though we should all be focusing on the bigger picture,” I couldn’t help adding.
