Dark Winter: Last Rites

by Hennessy, John

  She did not want to become evil, if that was the price of defeating the entity that was cowering before her.

  Toril decided it was a trick. Curie was clutching his right shoulder with his left hand. He kept his eyes locked on Toril.

  “You’re not in the right position,” she said sternly. “There’s something I have waited a long time for too. On your knees, Curie.”

  “You haven’t defeated me,” he said. “You have only given up any chance of leaving here alive.”

  A low light emanated from Toril’s wand. The energy force was strong, true, and irresistible. Curie glared at her, but her strength was too great. The Book and the Mirror were giving her a great and terrible power.

  His knees hit the sodden ground, and he hung his head forward.

  “No,” Toril commanded, her wand forcing his chin to lift. “You will look at me while you get what you deserve.”

  “The crows will pick at your maggot ridden body, Toril,” he laughed. In fact Curie laughed so hard, he began to cough heavily. “You’re going to hang over there, on the hill. It’s in your blasted Prophecy!”

  Toril whispered under her breath. At least she felt she was going to succeed this time. She dug deep, uttering the death curse one more time. The charge powered through her wand, and as it encircled Curie, he actually looked afraid.

  The energy force was draining her, exhausting her, but Toril could not stop until the demon that inhabited Curie had been obliterated.

  A wounded animal is always the most dangerous kind, and Curie returned fire this time, the energy force warping into a fireball, hitting Toril at such speed that it knocked her back several feet.

  She screamed with dismay as her wand lay in pieces.

  Her mother’s wand was the only weapon she had left. If only she could somehow channel its powers, she might just be able to defeat the demon that lay in front of her. She had to forget about her wand, it was history now.

  She had always coveted a wand like her mother’s. She never expected she would ever actually hold it, much less ever be in a position to use it. As far as she knew, when a witch died, her wand would be broken. In Wiccan circles, it is believed the breaking of a deceased Pontiff’s ring is broken because of this Wiccan tradition. But the Catholic Church would never admit that. Maybe they were right not to.

  Fighting hard to keep her emotions in check, a fleeting image of Jacinta, then her mother, passed through her thoughts. If the price of destroying Curie meant that evil was truly awakened within her, so be it.

  The wand was powerful. It threatened to rip itself from Toril’s grip.

  It only had to stay under her command for a few seconds. She could do that, couldn’t she?

  “Mum, this is for you.”

  A Fateful Blow:

  Chapter 9

  When the light had dulled, there was nothing left of Curie. Toril fell to her knees, praising the Deity, whilst at the same time begging for forgiveness. Without a body or something left behind of Curie, she could not say with absolute certainty that he had been destroyed.

  The deliverance of a Wiccan death curse was not something even the most experienced of witches would often utter. But these were extreme and deadly times. Toril would tell anyone who criticised her actions that she had just lost her mother, and that Curie had it coming anyway.

  With Curie gone, Toril knew she had to return to East Gorswood Forest, trusting in the Deity that the Mirror would still be there when she returned. There was just one problem – about seventy Zerythra had surrounded her.

  She stood slowly, completely exhausted, and wondered how she would have enough energy to return home. Thoughts raced through her head; she did not want to leave her mother’s body here. The Zeryths would take great delight in feeding on her.

  “Where is he? The one with Diabhal’s mark upon him?”

  Toril looked around at this, the most deadliest of circles. She couldn’t fight them all.

  “He’s gone,” she said simply.

  “You dealt him a fatal blow, did you?”

  “I believe so.”

  The Zeryth began to laugh. As it walked closer to her, more blood poured out of the demon’s eyes.

  “You believe so? We believe you dealt only a fateful blow.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You are the One Witch, the One the Prophecy speaks of, are you not?”

  “I am.”

  “You have only banished him from this plain. He has returned to that which he calls his home. You might have even defeated him if you had picked up the shards of your mother’s wand,” said the Zeryth solemnly. “Do you not know, the foulest creature of them all just uses his form as a vessel. We have no doubt he will return. You have a friend, a fair haired girl, do you not?”

  “Romilly. You mean Romilly,” Toril affirmed. I would have been happy to call her a friend, if only I understood her reasoning for burning Rosewinter to the ground. With me in it. Let’s just say our friendship is on hold for the moment.

  “She harbours the demon Belial. He is no more going to let her go, than the one you know as Curie will be freed by his demon. You cannot defeat his demon, witch. There are none who can.”

  “Why? I demand to know why,” said Toril, boiling over with frustration.

  “His demon is called Morning Star,” replied the Zeryth.

  Toril shook with disbelief. Under her breath, she dared to whisper the considerably more famous version of his name.

  “Lucifer.”

  ***

  The circle of Zeryths began to close in around her.

  “Are we going to fight now?” she asked. “Then bring it on. I love fighting.”

  The Zeryth who had been speaking to her raised a bony, bloodied arm. The rest of the group ceased moving towards Toril.

  “We are trying to decide if you are evil or if you are good. We are trying to decide if you would be of use to us.”

  “What do you want?” demanded Toril. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically. She just wanted to go home, and take her mother’s body with her. Maybe Lunabelle would know what to do. Each moment that passed made things all the more difficult.

  “We want you to kill the blonde haired girl. The one you know as Dana.”

  Toril thought about that for a second. Hadn’t she just bested Curie in a fight? Even if the Zeryth was right – that she had only dealt him a fateful blow, and not a deadly one, she felt she had grown in her powers.

  Despite her mother’s and Curie’s protestations, she didn’t feel like she was evil. She was only trying to do the right thing. The only feeling driving her now was a desire to do the right thing.

  “I must go back from where I came. I have to take my mother with me.”

  “Her life has expired. Leave the body with us.”

  “No way,” replied Toril. The circle had started to move towards her again.

  “If you harm me, Dana will come back. You know she will.”

  “So help us. Stop her, and we will help you.”

  Toril wondered how the disgusting wraiths could help her.

  “I have things to attend to in the Forest,” said Toril. “I don’t even know how to find Dana.”

  “You know of her legend,” said the Zeryth. “Do not try to trick us. We will return your mother’s body to the Forest. In return, you will destroy the entity known as Dana.”

  “How can I do that, when you say I didn’t deliver a fatal blow to Curie?”

  “That is not our concern,” replied the Zeryth. “Comply with our wishes. Comply.”

  “I’ll comply,” said Toril, just wanting to get back to the Forest for a showdown with Lunabelle. Wiccan solidarity? That old witch had a lot to answer for.

  “Toril.”

  The Zeryth spoke a little too familiar for her liking. The demon disgusted her, with its blue eyes encased in flames, making its sockets pour with blood.

  “I have seen him. You may have lost someone today, but you must live for him.
Do not be so consumed with vengeance that you lose sight of what is really important.”

  “You’re not like the others,” said Toril, raising her eyebrows at the rest of the group. “Your friends look at me like I’m dinner. Now what are you on about? Who have you seen?”

  “The one you know as Troy. He is alive.”

  Remembering her mother’s last few words, she refused to let the demon see her cry. She thought it was a trick. Almost two years to the day, Troy had become one of them. The mere mention of his name threatened to break her apart.

  “Well, it’s been an emotional day,” said Toril, her voice close to breaking into a gush of uncontrollable sobbing.

  “Your emotions are irrelevant,” the Zeryth stated. “You must destroy that Dana creature, otherwise they will not allow you to return here. We will not stay here to be fed on by the blonde one. We do not like that.”

  “I bet you don’t,” said Toril, who had regained a little composure. “It’s not nice to be on the other side, is it?”

  Before this particular Zeryth changed its mind, Toril launched herself into the air.

  When she arrived back at Lunabelle’s location, there were scorch marks on the ground where Toril’s circle had been. The old witch had vanished, and she had taken the Mirror as well.

  (ii)

  The Breaking of the Circle

  Resurgence:

  Chapter 10

  The doctors could not explain it, but over the next two weeks, I returned to good health. I gained weight, colour returned to my face, and I even braved something I had not done so in a long time. I could look into a mirror again.

  It looked like me, but my skin told its own story. I had been through it, and was still going through it. I began to see Toril’s actions in a whole new light. I began to think she was not all bad. I believed Nan could perceive things in a very unique way, just like her skill in reading tea leaves; or tasseography, as Toril had so precisely pointed out to me years ago.

  “I’d put Olay on your face, but you’d toss and turn soon afterwards,” Beth told me. “I’m just over the moon to see you feeling better.”

  Beth might have done her best to look after me, but I thought she looked ragged. I felt the same thing that had been eating away at me, had been slowly destroying her too.

  “I want to see one of the doctors, Beth,” I informed her. “I want to get out of here today, and I don’t want to see the inside of a hospital for a very long time.”

  “I agree with that,” she smiled. “Let’s get you discharged.”

  ***

  On the way home, we noticed how dark the sky was. Even though I feared her answer, I asked Beth what the time was, and she told me it was only two o’clock in the afternoon. It didn’t look like it was going to rain, but in Gorswood, the threat of clouds bursting was never far away.

  We didn’t say out loud what was in our thoughts, but we knew it. We both did. The colourless sky was a warning. If the Moon was there, in all its forms, we could not see it, and it troubled me greatly.

  Hell wasn’t all fire and brimstone, but it could actually look like this. The area around us looked as if the people who lived there didn’t care about it anymore. Gardens were so overgrown that it looked like part of Gorswood Forest had extended into the main town.

  I didn’t see many people going around either, and our taxi driver said only one thing once we told him the address we wanted to go to.

  “That’s the centre of Gorswood. Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere else?”

  Beth and I shook our heads in unison. We laughed girlishly. The taxi driver looked at us as if we were crazy. Maybe we were, but so long as we had our friendship, the whole of Gorswood could burn.

  Actually, that’s not entirely true. I wanted the clouds to clear so I could see the Moon when I wanted to, and for the dark night sky that now invaded our days to lift again. Beth had told me that she had rarely left the hospital, staying at my side for as long as she could. She had told me that these times were precious times, that they would not come again.

  That was a little too cryptic for Beth. I missed her sunny disposition.

  We didn’t say out loud what we saw on the taxi ride home. We did notice, however, that the driver paid little attention to the rules of the road. People who were human had been touched by the arm of the Zerytha. We could see it, that was our power. But the visions were terrifying to our eyes. We would close them, open them once more, and those figures looked to be human once more.

  Diabhal’s power was rising, and Gorswood was the centre from which he would strike out at the world.

  It was time to find out if I really had it within myself to stop him.

  With the Mirror out of my grasp for such a long time, a sense of clarity, of the actions I needed to take, slowly formed in my mind. I doubted Beth would agree with me. Back at home, she kept the teas coming relentlessly.

  “I’m not going under again, Beth,” I told her playfully. “I think that part of my life is over. But if keep drinking tea at the rate you’re bringing them, I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”

  “That was the general idea,” Beth laughed. She’d seen me in a deathly sleep for far too long. It was comforting that we could cheer each other, whilst all around us appeared to have given up.

  It was all so clear now. I had to retrieve the Mirror one last time. It no longer mattered who had it their possession. I would have to rip it from their fingers just like Toril did from mine.

  Beth looked at me from across the table. I looked back at her. She knew what I was thinking and it scared her.

  She knew I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do next. She grabbed a pen and some paper, sat down next to me and began to make some notes.

  “We’re not going to play I Never again, Milly, but maybe if we ask the right questions, we can come up with some good answers. You know?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay then,” she said brightly. “Assuming Toril still has the Mirror, where would a witch of her capabilities take it?”

  “From what you said, she seemed obsessed with going to that coven she originates from. The Circle. But I don’t know where to find it. Who would know?”

  “Her mother would know. When I lost contact with you, you know, when you were in the pit with Curie, I went to see Tori-Suzanne. But she’s not at the house now, and hasn’t been for several days. I hated it when she sent me back to Toril. I didn’t know what Toril was going to do, of course I didn’t, but Tori-Suzanne sent me away because she wanted to deal with things on her own. It’s not cool, Romilly.”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed. “If Tori-Suzanne has gone missing, and Toril is missing too, do you think they are together?”

  “No,” replied Beth. “There would have had to be some explanation for Toril’s actions, and we still don’t know.”

  I marvelled how Beth could be so forgiving. I sympathised with Toril to a degree. But part of me wanted to beat the hell out of her.

  “If you see her again, will you take the Mirror from her?”

  “I’m going to kick and punch her pretty face until I’m satisfied, Beth. Then I thought I would take the Mirror.”

  “Maybe that’s what Diabhal wants. Us all turning on each other, until there’s no-one left.” Beth looked genuinely sad as she spoke.

  “Toril has to pay for what she did to us, Bethany.”

  Beth had a look in her eyes that spoke volumes. She didn’t want any more hate between us. She wanted us to work it out. I too wanted to believe that Toril had taken the Mirror with good intentions, but I simply could not accept it.

  I thought I had gotten used to the Demon’s ways, but he had remained quiet for some weeks before I awakened in hospital. He wasn’t gone, far from it. Did Belial want me to find Toril, and if so, would he be the one to assume control of the Mirror? I could not let that happen.

  The sickening truth was that I felt rather lost without the Mirror. It completed me, in a very weird way.


  “Maybe Toril has already paid, did you ever think about that, Milly?”

  Toril certainly was more reckless than Beth and myself combined. Being a witch, albeit not the complete article, meant she could do things that we could not. Maybe reckless is the wrong word. Because of her powers, I supposed that Toril was braver than the rest of us.

  Her power, combined with that of the Mirror; would be too much for one person to own. I could not be concerned with Toril’s wellbeing at this time. If the Mirror fell into the wrong hands, and by that, I am referring to Diabhal, then the Mirror really would have to be destroyed.