“Papa,” she pleaded. “Please! I have to go. I would be letting them down if I didn’t go. They need my help, just as I would need theirs.”
Mrs. Vadiknov frowned a scowl worse than an angry Stygian witch at her husband and firmly shook her head, but Mr. Vadiknov spoke calmly and slowly.
“Marya,” he began, braving the scolding hot look in her eyes. “Marya, our daughter is growing up. She’s doing the world a great good. Why should we stop her?”
“She is only a child. She shouldn’t be sent out to do what older, more experienced persons can do.”
“But our Lisa is gifted. This is the lot she’s been given. Let her make the most of it.”
Mrs. Vadiknov turned to her daughter and pointed a white knuckled but straight finger.
“Go to your room.”
Lisa huffed and stormed out. She passed through the Vadiknov household library and couldn’t help but glance tearfully at the door painted all white opposite the black door of her own bedroom.
Though their voices were quiet and calm enough, Lisa could hear the tension in their low voices. She wiped her eyes and grasped her door handle. She made sure to slam the door, too, since she could not give her verbal opinion anymore.
Lisa curled up in her pitch black room and prayed for a miracle.
Chapter 2: Arrival in the Old Country
The Sagemistress rolled up her charts of the moon, placing them in the hollowed shelves of the carved-bone table.
“From Drakauragh we will spread out, take this island back. You’ve let the humans live here far too freely. It must be ready for when the Ancients rise.”
“It wasn’t as simple as that,” hissed Carman, a few witches around her nodding in agreement. “After the Dark Prince so easily took you and half of our coven under his power, the Hunters of this island went on a crusade against monsters. That we have survived as well as—”
The Sagemistress rose to her full height, letting a glamour of terror permeate the room. “Is this how you led while I was away, Carman? With excuses and whining like a girl? It is no wonder the coven was nearly wiped out.”
Carman sneered. “We did better for ourselves than you give us credit for. Between the Hunters and the spreading of human civilization, and the truth that Hecate’s worshipers still take from our powers here…we had just begun to thrive again when you showed up.”
“Do not mention the goddess’ name in my presence,” the Sagemistress said with a wave of her hand.
A scratching at the door of their crooked house brought the coven to pause. The Sagemistress made a gesture with her hand and the door flew open.
A scouting wolf entered the room, its head bowed regretfully.
“What do your pets want?” asked Carman.
“Silence,” the Sagemistress warned, impatient with the witch she had once considered her apprentice. Laying a hand upon the wolf’s head, the Sagemistress understood.
“The messenger escaped. The Hunters will arrive soon.”
At the middle school, the final bell was ringing through the halls to a chorus of whoops and hurrahs from boys and girls who had just survived another school day.
Among the sea of faces, three in particular seemed to be magnetically linked as they drew closer into a group and exited the school together. Charlie, Nash, and Darcy all skipped down the steps towards Darcy’s new car—a present from her father for rescuing half the town from that vampiric prince and madman—and subsequently were on their way to the Key. Normally, Lisa was with them too, and the four teens would go to train or hang out at the Key, although no one had seen her that day.
They practically lived at Hunter’s Key these days. More than just a lair or secret hideout, it had become a part of them just as much as being Hunters had. Plus, it was probably the coolest place to hang out since the town’s single video game arcade had been shut down.
Usually, when the team got to the Key, Dräng would meet them each day in the giant foyer at the front of the mansion, but on this day Dräng was nowhere in sight. Loch was looking out at them from the third floor balcony. With his hands in his pockets, his voice echoed as he called out to them.
“Ahoy there. What did you all do, spend detention together at school? We’re all waiting on you. Get your derrières up to the study, if you please.”
Loch disappeared past the railway of the balcony, leaving them no choice but to go to the study like he had asked. Instead of taking the route through the balcony, they simply went through the long hallway into the Head Wing to their left and entered the coliseum-shaped Library. Climbing stairs up to the top floor, Charlie took the liberty of finding and pulling on the little black statue of the sphinx—placed inconspicuously on a bookshelf—revealing the hidden passage way beyond said shelf.
When they finally entered the large, circular room, they were somewhat surprised to see Loch, Dräng, Priest, Chen, and Derrick all there, sitting at a conveniently long table. Derrick, who looked much better after a bath and a good night of sleep, was eyeing Dräng with suspicion and noticeable fear.
“So glad you could make it,” said Loch in his usual gruffness. “If you’d care to take a seat, we should get on to business.”
“What’s the matter?” Charlie asked sitting down.
“Well… Wait, where’s Lisa?”
“We don’t know,” said Darcy. She looked slightly worried. “She wasn’t at school today, and I couldn’t reach her cell.”
“Of all the times to disappear, now is not—”
He was cut off by the sound of metal and stone grating on one another. It was the sound of the secret passage from the Library being opened again. Everyone stopped to see who the newcomer was. Lisa appeared around the corner tentatively.
“Hey guys. Couldn’t find where everyone was,” she said.
“Sit down, Lisa,” Loch said shortly but gently.
“Where were you today?” Darcy half-whispered as Lisa sat down.
“My parents and I got into an argument last night. They don’t want me to go to Ireland.”
Everyone drew a breath…
“But, they decided that I should go anyways.”
…and everyone let out a breath.
“That’s really good to hear,” said Charlie.
“Indeed,” agreed Loch. He knew they all would need each other to get through this trial. Which reminded him…
“That’s a good thing you’re going. Has anyone else talked to their guardians about this excursion?”
The heads of Charlie, Nash, and Darcy all nodded.
“My mom talked to my dad,” Darcy said first. “He’s not happy about it, but I have permission to go.”
“My parents think it’s cool,” said Nash, leaning his chair back and kicking his feet up. A withering look from Loch seemed to magically remove his feet from the table.
Charlie nodded slowly. “Same here.”
“Good. You all are the nucleus of a team. Independently, you are extremely gifted, but you won’t overcome much more than an angry Chihuahua. Together you can accomplish anything. And…I’ll come right out and say it: I’m not going with you to Ireland.”
There was a collection of whats and whys and arguments and debating from the four younger Hunters until Loch raised his hands.
“I need to stay here. Elizabeth and I are still cleaning up from your last adventure. With the Otherworld an empty, but open portal, I feel that, if I were to leave Hunter’s Grove with you, the town would be open season. It’s just too early. So I’m sending Priest and Chen with you.”
Immediately, four pairs of young eyes turned to the two mysterious hunters.
“Priest comes from Ireland. Where you’re heading, you could use his leadership and his expertise, especially in navigating the off-roads of the Old Country. Chen isn’t from Ireland, as it were, but his experience in battles on
foreign soils will be greatly needed. No matter how confident you feel now, you need to realize everything changes when you are in someone else’s house, as they say. Priest, Chen, do you have anything you want to add?”
“Aye,” said Priest, standing. “Under Loch, you all have learned to respect your teacher, and I can see from the rest of the kids around town that you four have a good deal of discipline. But where I come from, and where you’re going to, you’ll need even more discipline. I need you to pay attention to me and follow orders when I give them.”
Charlie stood up, the head of his team. “We can do it, if you can help us learn.”
Priest smiled. The boy had said, if you can help us learn. Charlie was acknowledging he and his friends didn’t know everything yet, and showing that they were willing to learn what Priest could teach them.
“Good lad.”
“Right,” said Loch, “you’ll also have Dräng with you. He’s going later tonight, traveling by ley line, to get a head start on you.”
Dräng nodded his head enthusiastically, ears whipping back and forth. “I will make sure path is clear for you. Maybe other Lessers using the ley lines in the area? Maybe even Greaters.”
Lisa sat forward with concern. “Will he be safe, alone?”
Loch nodded. “You forget, Dräng was Chief of Assistants to the varcolac. He’s been in worse situations before.
“Go ahead and pick out some weapons to take with you, and then we can get on to our last lesson. You have less than a week before the next full moon, and it’ll take you some time to get to Drakauragh after you get into the country, so you’ll leave in the morn.”
Since the Dark Prince’s defeat, Loch had built and ordered a host of new weapons and, instead of keeping them in a small room, they were now set up along the circular walls of the study. There were crossbows, swords, daggers, staffs of metal and staffs of wood, bullwhips tipped with silver and iron, homemade grenades, throwing stars, whip bows, bolas, and all sorts of other exotic weapons.
Lisa grabbed a crossbow and two quivers of arrows—one set tipped with iron, painful to witches and other monsters, and the other tipped with explosive heads. She also grabbed twin daggers that she had grown fond of during her training, and which Loch had taught her at great length how to use. Long and short range weapons taken care of, she also grabbed a rapier, a blade which she and Darcy had both gotten good at in their sparring duels. It was, like everything else, modified in the Monster Hunter way to deal with creatures in combat.
Darcy herself grabbed a rapier and a crossbow, but she skipped the daggers for a vest full of assorted explosives—grenades, pipe bombs, smoke bombs, flares, old-fashioned handheld bombshells, etc. The team had figured out that, since Darcy had the gift of walking through walls or becoming impervious to stresses against her body like long falls or hard blows, she was a good candidate for dealing with explosives. And, indeed, the mayor’s daughter had found a mischievous relish in working with such dangerous materials.
Feeling crossbows were limited in their scope of capabilities, Nash had tried making some longbows. Unfortunately, they all either snapped after a few shots or were off their aim, and so Nash’s bows hung on the wall, unused, until he could perfect the art of bow making.
For now he stuck with what he had grown comfortable with. Nash was the biggest and strongest of the group and, as such, he usually went for the heavier weaponry. While fighting in the Otherworld before, he had lugged around the Salt Machine Ultrageous Grapeshot Gun—or S.M.U.G.G. But for this journey he’d have to go with something a little lighter, as his strength wouldn’t be as enhanced on this side of the portals—away from the Otherworld’s magic. He and Loch had been working with just the thing—the R.I.G.G., or Radular Impetuous Grapeshot Gun—of which there were two. They were like small shotgun versions of S.M.U.G.G. He snatched a dagger and a long handled ax, as well as a new addition to their armory, a hunting rifle with special monster-killer ammunition, courtesy of their good friends, Fish and Dink.
Charlie kept it simple. He grabbed a set of 30 knives that could be used for throwing or as small daggers, along with anklets, bracelets, and other sheaths that could be hidden along the body. Last but not least, he had Loch’s old spear, which had become his since the varcolac’s defeat. He had something else up his sleeve that he could use in combat as well—although he and Loch had not made it wholly smooth yet.
Now that the four were outfitted with weapons, Nash noticed that Priest and Chen hadn’t moved from the table.
“What about you guys?” he asked.
“We have our weapons already,” Priest said.
Chen cocked his head in thought. “Ones so young, are you skilled enough to use all of these weapons?”
Loch answered for them. “They are learning still, but I’ve taught them as much as I can each day.”
“Children should be prepared for fighting when they have no weapon, or when their weapon is taken from them. I shall teach them this along the way.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Loch said with some relief. Then turning to the Hunters, “Alright you four, you’ve had your fun, now come on over and let’s go over what we know about Drakauragh. Derrick, if we could see that map you were showing us, please.”
The messenger brought out a rolled up piece of parchment and spread it out in the middle of the table. Four small knives flew from Loch’s hand to the four corners of the map, pinning it to the table. Derrick flinched but went on to explain the country they would travel through.
“This is where we’ll arrive, in that aeroplane thing,” he said, tapping a circled area on the very bottom corner of the map, then traced his finger along a crooked red line all the way to the opposite corner, where another circle was. “We’ll have to take this route—it’s the safest one to Drakauragh.”
“And that’s Drakauragh all the way up there?” Lisa asked.
“Aye.”
Charlie frowned at the crooked route, which seemed quite random to him. There were lakes and marshes that he could see would be obstacles, but in other places it seemed like the route took long circles around flat lands or valleys.
“What are we avoiding in these areas,” he said, pointing to two places where the route took sharp turns to the left and right around what looked like nothing but fields.
“Monsters,” Derrick said simply. “Not the friendly types,” he added, glancing nervously at Dräng.
Loch patted Derrick on the shoulder. “Thankee kindly, m’boy. Drakauragh, as we all know, is a dangerous place to be. It’s a portal between the worlds, just like the portal here at the Key. But, from what Derrick and Priest have helped me understand, it’s a portal that opens or closes with the lunar cycles.”
“That’s why we need to get there before the next full moon,” observed Charlie.
“Right. The portal opens completely during the full moon. Drakauragh itself merges with the Otherworld. You’ll need to find out what the witch is up to and stop her quickly, or you’ll be trapped in the Otherworld until sunrise. You’d be trapped when and where the Sagemistress and her coven are at their strongest.”
“What about the Sagemistress herself? How do we get to her, and how do we take her down?”
“It’ll be difficult, like nothing you’ve ever known. You’ll have to find your own way past the coven. Avoid them, if you can, but be ready for a fight. My guess is you’ll have to cross into the Otherworld after the moon rises at night. Don’t wait long when you get into Drakauragh to cross over; the sooner you can get in and out of that place, the better. Remember, the Sagemistress is your main focus.”
Lisa shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
The Library passageway opened once again. Two familiar figures entered with fishing poles and hunting rifles in hand. Fish and Dink stopped just short of the table and looked over the grave-faced group.
“Got a lot of weapons t
here,” Dink said with his usual dopey grin. “There a zombie revolution we don’t know about or somethin’?”
“Something like that,” said Nash. “We’ll probably be gone for the next few weeks.”
“Y’all think you’re going somewhere without invitin’ us along?”
“Are you coming with us?” Nash asked hopefully. The four teens loved Fish and Dink, and it would be good to have their familiar company on this trip, which was becoming more harrowing by the minute.
“We’d love to.” said Fish. “I’ve always wanted to go back and see Ireland. But we’re staying here this time. In case Loch needs some help with any stragglers.” He threw his rifle over his shoulder for emphasis. Nobody asked how Fish knew they were going to Ireland; it was known well to them that Fish and Dink knew more than most people would ever guess.
Dink nodded, his smile goofy as ever, but his eyes very serious. “You just make sure you all come back in one piece.”
“We’ll be working on that,” said Charlie.
The meeting wrapped up not long after that. Without a lot of information on the town—even from Derrick, who was but a young messenger, after all—Loch had Darcy and Nash duel with practice weapons while Lisa and Charlie were drilled on tactical situations. After ten minutes, they rotated so that Charlie and Nash were dueling and Darcy and Lisa were working on conceptualized battles. This happened twice more, so that everybody had their turn. Then he sent them home for last dinners with their families, and then to rest up.
At Hunter’s Key, dinner was a small occasion and only Derrick and Chen had the appetite for food. Priest was fasting in preparation for dealing with evil, and Loch was, under his gruff exterior, worried about the four teenagers he was sending to kill a witch that had been around almost as long as…those other beings that older Monster Hunters refused to speak of. Dräng ate well enough, but only just so much as he could eat and still travel the ley lines that were positioned under the Key. When they finished their meal, they all ventured to the dungeons, where Dräng wished them all a “well-faring”, gulped down his last draw of hot cocoa, and jumped into a hole positioned over a ley line and seemed to disappear from the human concept of space-time.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon Page 3
