School ended, and seventh period had been a blur to Mike. He’d spent his time replaying Art class over and over again in his head. Finally, he settled into the comfortable belief that Serena had conned him. She was extremely talented and had thought of a great way to freak him out. He still wasn’t quite sure how she had done it, but it was a con, no doubt about it.
Just the same, he needed a little head-clearing time, so when school let out, he went to the old gym, located in the center area of the school, across from the office. It was not as big as the new gym, and most of the time, it stood empty. Nevertheless, it contained a full basketball court, and right now, it was the perfect place for him to be alone and shoot some foul shots.
He found four basketballs over by the old coach’s office. He hauled them out to the free-throw line and began popping them up at the hoop. The first three banked their way through the hoop off the backboard. He dribbled the last ball out to the three-point line and popped one up that slid through the net. He ran in, gathered all the balls and went back to the same spot to throw some more. On his way, he noticed a figure in the doorway of the gym, a most appealing figure.
“Hey, Jake,” Serena said. “Wa’ppun?”
“Serena,” he replied, surprised. “Why do you keep calling me Jake?”
“Dat’s not your name?”
He gawked at her in disbelief.
Pointing a long manicured finger at him, she said, “Mike.”
He dropped the other balls and dribbled the last one over to the doorway. “I saw your drawing. Not bad. How did you do it? Did you have a photograph stashed someplace I couldn’t see?”
“De sketch?” she asked. “D’you like it?”
“It was of me, so, yeah, I liked it. But, how did you draw a picture of me when you hardly ever looked at me?”
She grabbed the bouncing ball from him before he could pull it away. “You play dis bahsketball?”
“Are you kidding me? I’m one of the star-players on the team.”
She threw the ball back at him. He caught it with one of his large hands. She smiled at him, impressed.
“You ever play Horse?” he asked.
“Hohs? Wat dis Hohs?”
Mike enjoyed looking at her, but that accent was melting him every time she spoke. “It works like this. You take a shot from anyplace on the floor. If you make it, then I have to shoot from that same spot and make it, too. If I don’t, then I’m the first letter of the word, horse: H. If I do make the shot, you have to make it again, and so on until one of us misses. We play until one of us has all the letters of the word horse.”
“And if I miss de shot, den I’m an H?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s play dis game a yours.” She slipped her jacket off, revealing her slender shoulders. Drawing a foot up behind her, she leaned back and released the latchets that held her sandals on and kicked each one onto the floor next to the jacket. Mike watched, trying to be subtle about his observation and loving every second he got away with it. She shook her head so her curly tresses moved out of her face. The jingling of her hoop-earrings tinkled alluringly across the room.
Mike tossed the ball to Serena. Using both hands, she awkwardly bounced the ball toward the far hoop. Mike chuckled as she struggled to keep control of it. Halting about four feet from the basket, she stared up at the backboard. She raised the ball in both hands high above her head and threw the ball. It ricocheted off the rim and flew directly back at her head. She squealed, flailing her arms, barely avoiding being smacked in the face by it.
Mike ran toward her and retrieved the ball. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, mon, yeah.” She glared at the basketball in his hands as if it had purposely attacked her.
“Okay, my turn.” He dribbled out to the foul-line, lined up a shot, bounced off his toes and launched the ball. It flew true, tapped the backboard, and dropped through the hoop.
She walked over to where he was and said, “Now I mus do de same ting?”
“Just put it through the basket. It doesn’t have to bounce off the backboard, but it must go through the hoop.”
She licked her lips and smoothed an errant lock away from her face. She cinched up her skirt and leaned forward with the ball in both hands until she was bent completely to the ground. She stood up straight, flinging the ball toward the hoop in a perfect granny shot. The ball went high and came down through the basket.
“That was fantastic!” Mike congratulated her. “Who taught you how to throw a granny?”
“Dat was a granny?” She grinned. “It jus’ come to me de trow de ball dat way. But dat was good?”
“That was bashy!” This made her smile, and for a second, Mike thought he might forget his own name.
He took her place on the court and lined up another shot. No one was ever perfect from the free-throw line, not even professional ball players. Still, he was confident he could sink another shot right now. He bounced a little on his toes and pushed the ball into the air. As soon as he released it, he knew it would swish perfectly through the net.
From his peripheral vision, he saw Serena poke at the air with a finger. He quickly forgot it when the ball hit the back of the rim next to the board and bounced high into the air.
“That’s weird,” he muttered. There were times when you released the ball and knew you had thrown it perfectly. You felt it. This had been one of those shots, yet it didn’t do as it should have. “That should have gone through,” he said, truly puzzled.
“You de letter H, no?”
“Right, I’m the letter H.”
“My tun?” Serena asked.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. Why hadn’t the ball gone through?
Serena walked over to the far right side of the hoop, about thirty feet out along the baseline. There would be no board to bounce the ball against. Mike smiled and forgot about his shot. It was much more enjoyable to watch her play anyway. She hitched up her skirt again, leaned forward a bit, and gazed up at the basket. Then she leaned all the way down with the ball and came up quickly, releasing it into the air in another granny shot. Her arms were in the air after the ball left them, and as they came down she made a hooking gesture with her right finger. The basketball sailed in a bizarre overreaching arc. But as the ball started coming down, heading far beyond the hoop, it jerked back a few feet, as if it had been attached to an invisible string and someone had tugged on it. Unexplainably the wildly thrown shot dropped through the hoop.
At first Mike didn’t know what to say. It was such an uncanny sight. He wondered if somehow she had put a strange backspin on the ball, and it had caused it to fly backward horizontally at the last second. However, he understood the physics of the situation well enough to realize that couldn’t happen, not in the air. His mind went instantly back to the basketball that rolled up the dirt slope under the school. Perhaps Sky View was some sort of Bermuda Triangle for basketballs.
The ball hit the ground, rolled toward the back wall, bounced off it, and slowly made its way toward Mike. Absentmindedly, he reached down and picked it up. “That was a great shot,” he finally managed to say. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Now you mus do da same ting?”
“Right.” He dribbled over to the side of the court where Serena had made her shot. “Maybe not the same thing, exactly, but I do have to make the shot or I’ll be a HO.” He smiled at the little joke these letters created. “So-to-speak.”
He always found these side shots difficult. He was much better underneath. Even with three guys bearing down on him, he could find a hole and sink the shot. But out here, with no one blocking him, it was tricky. He’d have to judge the exact distance, give it a perfect arc, and hope the planets aligned.
His brain sent his arms the precise coordinates and units of force necessary for the ball to fly straight and true. He’d made this shot before, but it was always unpredictable. He bounced off his toes, let instinct take over as much as possible, and pushed the ball once again into the air toward the basket.
It looked good, but as the ball peaked, he sensed he had overthrown it. It would go long, coming down just a hair beyond the basket, probably bounce off the side of the rim. He watched it drop. Just before it came even with the hoop, it spun backward and tipped an inch in his direction, dropping through the hole on its way down.
Mike’s mouth fell open, and he stared, mystified. How had that happened? He’d made the shot? No way!
He turned toward the foul line where Serena had wandered and saw her giving him a glorious smile. “You no HO, mon.”
***
A 1991 Dodge Spirit was not a car young men aspired to own so they might drive it proudly into the school parking lot, but it was a car, and it did go forward and backward. The dull red paint on the hood was peeling back, or some sort of clear-coat protecting the paint was peeling back, giving it the appearance of having had acid poured on it during a windstorm. Either way, the clunker Darren’s parents let him drive more closely resembled a heap than a registered motor vehicle.
Darren usually chatted with Mike after school, but today he hadn’t been able to find him. As it worked out, that was okay with him because he wanted to move quickly with his plan. Things had been strange the last couple days, and Samantha Spelling was the common denominator. Atavus had him convinced she was a witch and that he was part of a long line of witch killers called Pessum Ire. Atavus had been so believable in his explanation, and right now Darren needed some explanations for what was going on. First, he’d seen Samantha floating in the gymnasium in two locations. Second, there was the ball that flew out of the net during the game. Third, she’d walked through that food fight. Fourth, during that bizarre conversation in English, she’d basically used rhetoric to prove witches could exist. And fifth, there was that sudden, unexplainable stink over at Tiffany’s table.
Was there a possible sixth? Why was he so drawn to her? Could that be witchcraft? Or, was he simply attracted to her? Attracted to a witch…this at least deserved a closer examination. So, the plan today was to follow her home. The problem was that the heap he drove was hardly inconspicuous.
Darren had seen Samantha leave by way of the south exit. He hurried to his own car and was now slowly driving toward the back lot. He spotted Samantha saying goodbye to Cheryl Mignon. Samantha made her way toward the far back of the lot before she stopped. No other car but hers was around. And it was a beautiful vehicle. Darren hadn’t noticed the car before, but he would never make that mistake again.
Samantha looked around. Seeing no one nearby, she placed a hand on the open doorway and vaulted into the driver’s seat of the BMW M6 Convertible. Its ruby-black exterior finish made it appear as if it had been driven off the showroom floor. It positively sparkled in the bright, though cold, March sunlight. He could see its toffee colored leather seats. Chrome shone around the lights and the front grills. And the wheels were decked out with M-radial spoke alloy rims. The car screamed Limited Edition. Darren knew a little about cars, not a whole lot, but he was certain this one had to cost in excess of a hundred-thousand dollars.
From where he was slowly coasting, he heard the magnificent machine purr. Samantha put on sunglasses, looking like a movie star in that car, and carefully drove across the lot before entering the street.
Darren maneuvered around other cars in an attempt to catch up with her. He dodged several students walking through the lot and ended up cutting off another student as she tried to back out of her parking spot. He received a loud honk for his poor manners.
Samantha had turned west when she left the lot. He had to catch up. But by the time he finally got to an exit, he found himself stuck behind another car.
“Come on, come on!” Anxiously he beat his palm against the dashboard.
Finally, he entered the street, turning west himself. Two blocks down, he saw the intersection that entered Main Street. The beautiful black car was waiting for the light to change, its left blinker flashing.
By the time he made it to the same intersection, there were two cars between him and Samantha’s BMW. He was glad to have cars between them; he didn’t want her to notice the heap. It was impossible to keep his eyes off her hair blowing in the wind; it was an attractive sight coming from that incredible car.
They passed a shopping plaza, followed by open farmland. When they finally came to an intersection with a gas station on the left, she entered into the turn lane. Pulling up behind her, he felt exposed. He was sure she wouldn’t recognize his car, but just to be certain, he pulled a baseball cap down over his face and slipped his sunglasses over his eyes. But she wasn’t checking her rearview mirror for a tail; she was singing along to the radio, bobbing her head back and forth to the beat.
No doubt about it, she was cute.
After executing the turn, he followed her east for about five blocks, passing a school and several neighborhoods. They turned south one more time and came to the end where it teed off to the east and west. She turned east. He held back some distance, watching where she drove. When he turned the corner at the end of the street, her car was gone, and he wondered if she had somehow made it disappear. But as he drove past the corner house, he spotted her car. A flash of blonde hair disappeared through a gate of the tree-lined yard. Darren continued to drive until he reached the end of the street. He turned the corner and parked the heap in front of a house.
Sneaking down the tree-lined street back to Samantha’s yard, Darren moved from tree to tree like an idiot, pretending to be a spy. He knew he was acting stupid, but he was afraid she’d pop out of the yard and yell, “Caught you!” So, he continued in the best form of stealth he could muster.
After reaching the side yard, he peered around a large elm at the empty car sitting in front of an old broken-down garage. The yard was bordered by an old, eight-foot high wooden fence draped with thick ivy vines and overhung by branches of a Russian olive tree that shaded half the driveway. Cautiously Darren crossed the asphalt, climbed onto the bottom brace of the wooden fence, and peered into the yard.
It was surrounded by silver-leaf maples, Russian olives, and quaking aspens that formed, along with more ivy and ground cover, a tree line perimeter around the entire property. The house itself, flanked by a variety of spirea shrubs, red-twig dogwoods, and scrub oaks, was a combination of different styles. It appeared to have been built before the turn of the twentieth century and then rebuilt and added to several times during the intervening years. In the front was a long porch with white painted wooden slats that hid half of it. A yard chair sat open next to a paneled door, painted red and white. The exterior of the house was painted lavender with red trimmed window frames.
Darren dropped down from the fence and crept through the side gate Samantha had used. Scrunching down in an effort to make himself smaller, he scuttled over to the side of the house into a copse of scrub-oak and young quakies. He moved between the tangle of trunks and branches until he saw an open window. Crawling he came to a small empty bed of earth just beneath it. He hoped the cracking twigs and dried roots hadn’t been heard inside.
He lifted his head above the window ledge and peered inside. The view was ideal. He was looking directly into the kitchen where Samantha and an old woman were busy working. All of this was visible to him from the side window of what was probably a family room that opened into the kitchen. Overall, it was very homey with the exception of an area by the pantry that was an open expanse of earthen floor about four-feet by four-feet. A fire burned on the dirt floor, different from other fires as it consisted of a single log blazing away unassisted. The flames it produced were large and crackling and licked mercilessly at a large pot suspended from an iron-worked tripod. As his eyes locked on this bizarre sight, Darren couldn’t keep the word cauldron from bubbling up in his mind.
Samantha was walking down a hallway with a vial in her hand. She sat on a stool at the island and grabbed a slice of bread. As she nibbled, she fed some of it to a large black bird with milky-blue eyes that hopped about freely in front of her. The old woman said something, and Samantha rose from her seat with the small bottle, walked over to the cauldron, and carefully poured it in.
Judging by her wrinkled paper-thin skin, the old woman had to be in her nineties. Her white hair was swept up on the top of her head in a wispy bun. Her eyes, though tired, had a brightness about them that belied an energy one wouldn’t expect from her. Those same eyes, however, periodically grew confused and clouded as if seeing something no one else could see—or ever would see. Probably losing her mind in her final years, Darren concluded.
Their voices carried easily through the window wedged open ten inches above the sill. Darren got into a comfortable position and listened as the two women talked.
***
Samantha poured a sour-smelling mixture of powdered hyssop, ground mimosa tree bark, and bile from a farm animal—she wasn’t sure which—into the cauldron her aunt stood over. Despite the foul odor, she knew once this potion was brewing, she and her aunt would be much safer in this house.
“Is that the mixture I made earlier?” Clara’s low baritone voice quavered as she spoke. Her voice was husky, and it sounded as if it hurt her to speak. Yet, at the same time, it conveyed an element of warmth that immediately drew Samantha to her.
Samantha replied, “Yes, Dear One. I took it from the storage room downstairs, just as you asked me. How long has it been down there?” She wrinkled her nose, hoping the taint of this part of the potion wouldn’t stink up the whole house.
Her aunt chuckled under her breath. “You didn’t appreciate its fragrance?” Her eyes twinkled. She turned to the blind bird on the island and pushed her arm at its feet. The raven automatically climbed up and cawed at her. “She found my compound stinky, Saba.”
“I certainly did!” Samantha returned to the kitchen island, opened a schoolbook, and started leafing through its pages. “It smells like cat urine.”
“Good, good. That means I made it correctly.” Clara set her bird on a perch above the cauldron. She stirred the pot, examining its contents as she hummed a tuneless song. “What are you studying tonight, my pet?”
Samantha looked up from the text. “Calculus.”
“You should be spending more time with the Papyrus of Ani or the Words of Osiris.”
“I’m tired of spells. I’d rather read history.”
Her aunt examined her through heavily veiled lids. She made a clucking sound and turned back to her cauldron. “Spells are power, never forget that. Would you bring me up the sheep-bile concoction, my pet?”
Samantha’s face filled with concern for Clara. “Dear One, I just put it in the cauldron.”
“Oh!” Clara backed away as if the large pot had jumped at her. “Well then, we let it simmer. The blanket spell is complete. Our house is no more.” She waved her hands, indicating the house had disappeared. Stepping away from the brew, Clara joined Samantha at the island. “All right, my pet, let me help you with your history. If anyone knows history, it’s me. I’ve lived enough of it. And Saba used to regale me for hours with stories of Egyptian dynasties.”
Samantha bit her lower lip, worried about her aunt. “It’s calculus, Dear One. I’m working on calculus.”
“Oh well, I’ll find Grimalkin. She understands all the Persian mathematics.” She made as if to walk toward the window in the family room that was letting in air, then hesitated, and said to her niece, “You know you can cast safely now. As long as that cauldron boils, no witch will feel or hear an incantation. You could even conjure a demon if you were so disposed.” She paused, thinking for a second and added, “Why, you could even tehlo mi your mother, and she could never track you back to here.”
Samantha regarded Clara as if she’d suggested she stick her hand into a fire. “We’ve already discussed this. Why would I want to speak to her?” Her mother had imprisoned her in a Catadromus spell for over three thousand years, released her for thirteen years to grow up in the Appensus. But ten of those years she spent on earth during the Elizabethan period, before being cast back into that state of suspended animation for another three centuries where she’d still be if Clara hadn’t freed her four years ago. Since that time, her mother had been seeking her from this netherworld in order to destroy her.
Clara took a seat in a heavily padded rocker at the side of the island. She leaned her head back and lightly pushed off with her toes. “It might be a good idea to know what she’s up to. We think she’s in the dark, but so are we. Now we can speak to her safely; perhaps she will utter a word or two that will give something away.”
Samantha crossed from the island and gazed down on Clara. “She must be consumed by fury after the way we left, considering all the objects we took with us. Are you sure she won’t be able to reach through the web of the tehlo mi and force a spell through?”
Clara looked sagely at her niece. “The blanket spell is very powerful, my pet. Not even your mother can break through it. We, on the other hand, are only reasonably sure she cannot leave the Appensus.”
Samantha sighed. Apprehensively she faced the window over the sink. Hedges and tree limbs blocked most of her view of the cloudy sky. She pictured her mother in her mind. During her final encounters with the woman, she was enflamed in a rage. Endor’s furious nature had consumed her over the centuries, and that nature had begun to take physical form in her flesh. Her countenance resembled a distorted drama-mask. She appeared as if in pain and anguish, but in reality, it was a foul temper that had permanently disfigured her.
With this image in her mind, Samantha recited the words of the spell. “Tehlo mi-ah Endor.” As she chanted, she slowly walked in a circle in the middle of the kitchen. “Tehlo mi-ah Endor.”
A crack reverberated throughout the room and shook items on tables and shelves. Several spices fell to the ground. A glass crashed against the tile floor. Saba filled the room with squawking and flapping wings.
Samantha and Clara exchanged a look, both knowing and worried.
A disembodied voice that sounded as if the room itself were speaking shook both Samantha and Clara. It rattled the window frames.
“Sahwin!” a loud, husky woman’s voice intoned, calling Samantha by her birth name. “At last you speak.”
“Yes, Mother,” Samantha replied. She glanced at Clara, whose eyes were closed in concentration, following the thread of the spell to the other witch. “Do you remain set on my destruction?”
“Child, the mist of fate is a spell no witch can alter. Your fate is not under my control, even if I must pay homage to it by seeing to your annihilation.”
“The prophecy is clear,” Samantha boldly replied. “If I am killed by witchcraft, the destroyer will be annihilated, cease to exist,” she finished, using the quote the demon had used at the time of the prophecy, now over 3000 years old.
“Fah!” The disembodied voice roared, once again shaking the house and shattering the glass of an upstairs window. “Your interpretation of prophecies is limited, young one!” The voice grew in a crescendo throughout the house. “And you speak to me while your feeble-minded aunt plays upon the cables of your spell!” The voice fell silent.
Samantha glanced at Clara, who appeared exhausted, but who nevertheless nodded wearily. Samantha cocked an ear, wondering if the interview had concluded. She was about to say something to Clara, though she didn’t feel the thread of the spell had been severed.
Suddenly the voice boomed. “I will escape the Appensus! Be warned. I have ways and means of which you and Shalbriri know nothing!” The voice cackled, but it sounded like a soul in the gall of bitterness. “Your blanket spell is no more than withered reeds against the storm I’ve unleashed. You cannot hide from me. Consult the stone you stole from me, or call your own demon if you have doubts. Fate, my little one, no one can escape it!”
The voice ended abruptly, and the pressure, which had been weighing down on the room like the heaviness that precedes a tornado, suddenly lifted. Samantha swallowed hard, and her legs felt wobbly against the strain she’d been exerting. She leaned back against the island, and exhaled loudly. “She broke the connection.”
No one spoke for several moments. Samantha regained her strength and stood up. She turned to her aunt, but before she could ask her question, Clara spoke. “The devil is the father of lies.” Clara closed her eyes again, and rested her chin on her chest. She appeared to be upset or pondering something distasteful. Samantha refrained from speaking, choosing to patiently await her aunt instead.
Clara’s face twitched, and her eyes slowly opened. “Summon Grimalkin. We will need her wisdom and knowledge.” Samantha nodded, the task already done. “It has been years since we’ve viewed the stone. Perhaps another viewing will reveal something new. The stones are buried beneath the hearth in the basement. Please, summon them, my pet. I will need my strength to open them.”
Samantha ordered, “Conprecatis Silicis Saxum!” She cast an arm in the direction of the basement. A whirring hummed from beneath the floor boards. The droning grew louder as it buzzed up the stairway. The door flew open of its own accord and gave entrance to a blur of black stones that streaked through the air like bullets toward Samantha. The three stones immediately stopped in front of her hand, where they hovered for a moment before gently dropping into her palm.
Clara lifted herself from the rocker with some effort and grabbed her cane from the air with a spell and gesture so quickly performed Samantha missed it. She hobbled toward the kitchen island and her niece. “Set the large stone in the center of the island,” she directed.
Samantha obeyed, then backed away as her aunt raised her arms. Clara concentrated on the stone in the center of the island and incanted, “Apertus solutus vocis larua!”
A black and red light shot out of the stone and flashed around the room like high powered strobes. The humming grew in volume as the lights slashed through the room, moving quicker in response to the increasing sound. Both women squinted and covered their eyes against the glare of the reddish beam. The sound reached a peak and continued to whine as the lights blurred in their rotation, filling the room with a constant ruddy glow. Both women gazed again upon the flashing stone as the harsh glare diminished and the humming decreased until it was replaced with the sound of a closing door squeaking on its hinges.
Above the kitchen island, a scene opened before them. It hovered above the granite surface and fanned out into a three dimensional image of a large stone room. From the far side of the scene emerged a tall man in a dark cloak. He skulked menacingly toward a circle of symbols sketched in blood on a raised dais. Thirteen candles spluttered to life with the violent motion of his arm. They flickered with a somber greenish glow. In the center of the circle, hastily scratched in blood like the others, was the demonic symbol given by the dark one himself. It was an overlay of three sixes all branching out from the same circle with a cross through the center and a dark spot where the cross intersected. It was the sign of Baal, the Signum Infectus.
The warlock extracted a dove from within his cloak. The bird’s feathers were an incandescent white that fairly shone against the gloominess of the dungeon chamber. The fearsome figure stretched out his arms and hefted from his side-belt a large sharp blade resembling a machete. With his other hand, he tossed the dove high into the air. The bird fluttered to escape, but the dark man struck with the speed of death, bringing down the short sword and slicing the bird in two. The bird’s body fell in a heap at his feet. The head spun in the air, spraying a spiral of blood in an arc. A skein of blood fell across the satanic symbol in the midst of the candles.
The dark warlock’s fractured teeth formed an evil grin. The left side of his face was briefly viewed from beneath its hood, revealing a red mass of scars where his right eye had been burned out. Gracefully, he moved into the forms of demonic conjuration handed down from the first witches. The first gestures indicated plague in an ancient hand language of the antediluvian people. The next set of symbolic movements indicated death by fire. Finally, he enacted the forms and patterns that indicated death by fear, actions so vile his jaws tightened in revulsion as he recreated the movements.
Having performed these dark rites, he touched the blood within the satanic sign and backed away from the ring of candles. He gazed at the center of the circle of greenish flames, extended his blood stained hand, and loudly repeated the words of the spell. “Imperium natus sum larua auctoratus sum meum.”
Immediately the circle of candles flew across the floor as if they had been flung. None lost its flame nor toppled over, merely fanned themselves out to make room for the vile creature that was summoned. A red-stained cloud swirled up from the symbol at the center of the candles and grew until it was a ten-foot high swirling mass of smoke.
Though safe in her kitchen, this scene floating above the island caused Samantha’s heart to race. Conjuring a demon always filled her with dread and a foreboding of evil. She had seen this very scene once before shortly after she and Clara had escaped from the Appensus, and it had caused her to shiver then as it did now.
She kept her eyes glued on the billowing smoke in the scene above the kitchen island, but she still missed the actual moment when the demon appeared. She simply became aware of its movement from within the vile red cloud. It groaned and wailed loudly as if it were in pain and fury; the sound filled the house, rattling dishes and windows. The dark wizard in the scene didn’t speak, but waited for the satanic creature to utter its words.
“Why summon me?” it groaned. “Leave me to my world, and I will spare your life!”
“I am your master now!” The warlock spoke in a tone of complete authority.
“No!” screamed the demon.
“You are Mahon’s Child, Ulkobach, are you not?”
The demon howled an unearthly ululation, then nodded his head and hissed, “Yes!”
“Listen to me, and do my bidding,” the sorcerer commanded.
“Speak, my master,” Ulkobach spat. “But I will destroy you!”
“Tell me of the Magnitus Grimoire of Moloch.” Boldly, the warlock pushed his blood stained hand forward, and the demon recoiled.
“It contains the spells of Baal, the epistles of Samyaza, the journals of Grigori, and the history of the Niphilm, Cain’s birthright.” The beast glared at his master from the haze of red that swirled about him.
“Then it does exist outside of the Appensus in the world of men?”
The beast swayed and glared at him, unwilling to answer.
“Answer me!” demanded the warlock.
“Yes,” the demon spat. “Yes, Moloch’s Grimoire exists in the world of men.”
The dark wizard grinned eerily at this information. “Do you know the world of men?” he demanded of the creature.
“No,” it replied. “I will skin you with the sharpened edges of your femur. Then I will hang you in a tree and glut myself on your blood!”
“You’ll do no such thing. I am your master. Now tell me where to find the Magnitus Grimoire of Moloch.”
The creature snarled. “In the world of men!”
“Where in the world of men?” the warlock bellowed.
The demon shook its gigantic head as if seeking the answer from deep inside and not finding it. At length it growled, “Moloch hid the Grimoire in the Valley of Hidden Skins.”
At these words, Samantha nodded at Clara. They had found the right location. There was no doubt about that.
“What does that mean?” barked the warlock.
The demon, bound to answer his master, twisted in agony. He had no answer and was now tortured for his reluctance to relay the information.
“Release me!” it roared. “I have told you what I know.”
“Where is this Valley of Hidden Skins? What is the meaning of this riddle?”
“Moloch hid his book in the Valley of Hidden Skins! It lies deep in a cavern,” the demon screamed in fury and pain.
“You are not answering my questions!” The warlock approached the circle that held the demon and pushed his bloody palm at it. The demon fell to its knees, screaming and weeping.
Moments passed as the demon snuffled and wailed. It struggled back to its feet. A face of terror stared back at the scarred wizard who now controlled it.
Having accepted the demon could tell him no more about the Grimoire’s location, the dark sorcerer tried a different tack. “Tell me, Mahon’s child, what guards the Grimoire?”
“A Catadromus Chamber Lock.”
Samantha watched as the warlock considered this information. She could tell he was weighing the implications of this knowledge. No one was certain what a Catadromus Chamber Lock was, but Samantha was fairly sure it meant the book had been placed just outside the world in an inter-dimensional moment of frozen time, not too unlike the Catadromus spell her mother placed her in when she was a baby. But, to find an object enchanted with this spell would require a gholom or an Utor Uti.
The warlock asked, “Is that all? Once I find it, if I use a counter spell, can I bring it back, or is there more to it?”
The demon’s red eyes gazed at the ground to avoid the question. Then, it muttered something.
“Louder demon!” barked the cloaked man.
“Only the Key of Endor can access the book.”
The warlock seemed to understand this, but Samantha looked quizzically at Clara. The old woman shook her head. They knew it referenced her; she was the Key. But neither had the slightest clue how, or by what power, she was to open or retrieve the book.
“The Key of Endor,” muttered the cloaked man.
“The Key of Endor will come in search of the Grimoire. Her prophecy is to have her mother seek her life as she seeks to destroy the witch’s kingdom. Only one will prevail.”
The warlock turned on the demon who seemed perplexed that it had offered more information. But before the scarred wizard could follow up with another question, the demon continued. “The Northern Coven will find the valley and seek her out. Any who destroys the Key by the power of Baal shall cease to exist. Endor will seek to destroy the Key, and Ghohol will come to save the kingdom from destruction by the Warder at the window.”
“There is no Northern Coven! And who is this Warder?”
But the bloody smoke sucked in on itself, forming an internal spiraling tornado. The cyclone and the demon sank into the earth. The torn and scarred warlock stood alone in the dank dungeon.
Without warning the image above the kitchen island winked out.
In the darkened room Samantha and Clara shared a blank expression. They wondered the same thing as the warlock. Who was this Warder?
***
Darren dropped from the window onto his rear, a faint feeling of shock spreading through his body. The Warder at the window? Had he heard that right? Warder was what witches called the Pessum Ire. He was a Warder, and he was at the window! When the demon had spoken those words, he’d expected Samantha and the old woman to turn and look directly at him. Goosebumps sprang up along his arms, and he shivered.
A snapping sound to his right among the low lying branches suddenly caught his attention. A lithe black cat sprang so quickly from between the fronds of a bush that it seemed to have appeared out of thin air. It stopped and looked quizzically at Darren. He almost laughed because the cat looked as surprised to find him as he was to see the cat. They stared at each other for a moment, neither one moving. The cat’s eyes darted quickly up to the open window, no doubt how it came and went from the house. It glared at Darren and suddenly arched its back and hissed.
“Calm down, cat.” This was unreal. As Darren began to get to his feet, the cat launched itself at him, claws first. Using the momentum he’d built up to get to his feet, Darren launched himself farther away from the cat. Missing his face, the cat caught a hold of his arm, and in quick succession, clawed repeatedly at his skin. He yelped and shook the cat off. It rolled across the ground, quickly regained its feet, and hissed at him again, this time clawing at the air.
Darren jerked himself into a standing position and glared down at the foul little beast. He rubbed his arm, now covered with long bloody scratches from elbow to wrist. The scene through the window had gone from creepy to terrifying, and now this contest with the cat was bordering on ridiculous. A black cat—come on! The cat continued to glare at him, then turned and bounded into the house through the open window.