The Shadow Rises

by K.S. Marsden

  *****

  The witches brought food and drink for them that evening, and although wary, they were too hungry and thirsty to care about poison.

  That night they took shifts again keeping watch. The first few hours passed by without incidence, and Hunter nudged James awake, stifling a yawn as he did so. He waited for his friend to be entirely conscious before allowing himself to drift off. Before he had a chance to sleep though, James grabbed his arm painfully tight.

  Reopening his eyes, Hunter saw across the room the light from the bulb was fading, darkness and shadow forming.

  “Sophie?” Hunter tried to call, but his voice came out a whisper.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows, tall and gracefully slender with long brown hair and a beautiful but older face than they were expecting.

  “Bev?”

  The two guys sat stunned, and more than a tad confused.

  She motioned for them to be quiet, while pulling a large bag off her back.

  “I’ve come to get you out of here.” She whispered.

  “But… how? Sophie sealed this place, only she can undo it.” Hunter whispered back.

  Bev frowned in a familiar way. “I am her mother and I know a few tricks. I’ve borrowed her powers, Sophie is drugged and none the wiser.”

  So a loving, caring mother, Hunter thought, but had the wisdom to say none of it aloud.

  “But how?” He repeated. “And why should we trust you?”

  “Why should you trust me? How many other witches are here offering to help you escape?” Bev asked hurriedly. “As for how, Sara Murray was my grandmother. I could have been the next Shadow Witch, but I didn’t want it. Yet I can siphon off a little of my daughter’s powers now. I may only be able to do this once, though.”

  Sara Murray, the previous Shadow Witch that Old George had killed in the 1940s.

  “Sara Murray didn’t have kids.” James whispered.

  “She did.” Bev replied. “But when she became the Shadow Witch she knew her daughter, my mother, wouldn’t be safe. So she bound her powers, and had her adopted, then destroyed all evidence of her existence. Please understand Sara was a good woman who didn’t deserve to be a tool of evil. Who knows what good could have come from her. But Astley killed her and planted a seed of hatred and revenge in the heart of every witch. I tried to protect Sophie from it all, but she took it to heart, carried the promise of revenge as her own burden.”

  “Why are you telling us all this now?” Hunter asked.

  Bev looked away from them and sighed. “I want you to understand why Sophie seems - she has her reasons. But we must be quick.”

  “We’re unarmed and locked up.” James hissed.

  Bev knelt down and opened the bag. She pulled out two hunting shotguns and two kitchen knives. “The best I could do, I’m sorry. Now, I think I can manage to get you into the grounds.”

  With an intense look of concentration, the thick shadow rippled along the wall to head height. Without notice, she grabbed them both by the arm and stepped into the darkness.

  Again, Hunter felt surrounded by warm nothingness. But it didn’t last long. The cold night air hit him hard, he couldn’t help but shiver. The night sky was cloudy, and it was hard to see anything. He turned round and only a couple of hundred yards behind him was the shadow of a huge house, with light pouring out of windows.

  “I have done what I can.” Bev suddenly said. “I have to go back.”

  “Wait, come with us.” Hunter argued, surprising himself with the offer. “There’s so much more you could tell us. And to be honest we could do with the help.”

  Bev didn’t reply immediately, but stared back at the house with shining eyes. “Sophie is my daughter. Whatever happens, I have to stand by her. She needs me, or at least she soon will.”

  If either of the men understood this, they didn’t say anything.

  “Well, thank you.” James finally said awkwardly. “We owe you our lives.”

  “You owe me nothing.” Bev replied. “I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Sophie.”

  Bev turned to a frowning Hunter. “If you were killed, it would destroy her. And she could never kill you herself, for two reasons. Mainly because - as much as she denies it - she loves you, irrevocably. Ah, I must go before they miss me.”

  “Wait.” Hunter said, reaching out. “You said two reasons. What’s the second?”

  Bev’s eyes met his in the dark. “She is pregnant with your child.”

  And she was gone.

  Twenty-three

  The two men ran into the night, Hunter leading with his sharper sight. They had no idea where they were or where they were heading, only running to get away from that house of witches.

  Ahead of them lay only darkness. It was eerie to see the English countryside without the punctuation of lights from roads or villages. But they just kept going, hoping to stumble on some form of civilisation.

  Eventually they hit tarmac and followed the road to a sleeping town. The houses sat in absolute shadow, and as they walked past, a couple of dogs stirred and barked, but no one came out to see two men armed with guns and knives walking down the nighttime street.

  Hunter looked at the cars parked along the roadside. “Can you get one of these running?”

  James got closer so his weaker eyes could see the shiny new BMW. “No. But… trust me on this. Come on.”

  Without explaining himself, James set off down the street, stopping to look at each car. Then, as though making his mind up, he raised his gun and used is to bash in the driver’s window. There was a loud shatter of glass.

  Hunter frowned at James’ choice. An M-reg rustbucket of a Fiesta. A worrying option, because it was essential for them to make it all the way home, however far that might be. “Do you think this one ever worked?”

  James used his sleeve to get the worst of the glass off the driver’s seat. “Look, I had a lot of time to think when they treated me as a punchbag, at least, thinking helped distract me. I have a theory about their little powercut.”

  He broke off, pulling out his knife and busying himself under the steering wheel. He suddenly swore and pulled back, sucking his freshly bleeding hand.

  “Not the best tool for the job.” He admitted. “Anyway, as I was sayin’. The lights and the phone went dead. But not all technology was knocked out - our torches worked, your mobile phone battery still worked, you just didn’t have any signal. Hey - you still got your phone?”

  Hunter frowned, but rather than try to make sense of James he reached into his pocket. Miraculously his phone was still there.

  “Cool, flick up the screen so I can get some light an’ see what I’m doing.”

  Hunter did as directed and held his glowing phone hear the dangling wires. James tinkered for a minute and was rewarded by guttural choking, followed by the small engine rumbling to life.

  “Well done, now shift over.” Hunter said, pushing James over to the passenger seat. He frowned at the wheel, never having driven such a wreck. “But James, you didn’t give your theory.”

  James clipped on his seat belt as Hunter pulled away, the old engine roaring and lights showing up an empty country road.

  “Theory? Oh yeah, well they knocked out all the big and complex stuff - even down to your watch. So anything that requires power or radio signal. But very simple technology with its own power source wasn’t affected.”

  “Which is why you wanted the old car?” Hunter said slowly, catching on.

  “Yes, less electronics that could go wrong.” James replied with a yawn.