by Hunter Blain
Most brown cloaks guessed the five points to represent the basic elements of all life; earth, water, air, fire, and order. Locke felt that was reaching, and suspected the points of the star had more to do with higher dimensions crisscrossing each other’s paths and structurally supporting the shape as a whole. But it was only a theory.
Locke entered the Council’s private deliberation chambers and bowed respectfully.
Each member of the Council turned and nodded their heads in a reciprocal bow; all except Elder Michael Gryff, the Red Cloak, who simply narrowed his eyes at Locke. He was in charge of the Council’s military, and had a distaste for Elder Hecate because she was once a dangerous warlock, or so the rumor mill suggested. Locke understood men like Elder Gryff who didn’t believe in second chances or the ability to switch sides without ulterior motives.
To the left of him was Elder Amy Scymanky, the Green Cloak. She was responsible for the research and development of all things magic related. Locke had always considered her a hippie in spirit, but with an extensive enough knowledge of all things arcane to have the nonsupe equivalent of a double doctorate in her field. It was as if Cheech or Chong went to Harvard or MIT, but for magic and herbalism.
Elder Scymanky gave a relaxed smile to Locke from beneath a mess of pink hair. He had deduced that the Elder had a propensity of changing it often and on a whim.
Next to her was the Blue Cloak, Elder Kelly Carlyon. She was the bureaucrat of the bunch and oversaw compliance within the laws amongst the supernatural community.
She gave Locke a tight-lipped glower from beneath her neat red hair, which was purposefully plastered against her skull with a tight bun at the back of her head.
Besides Hecate, who presided over the wardens, the last member of the High Council was Elder Bennah Tafoya, the Brown Cloak. She was charged with recruitment and training of those brought into the organization. Locke was one of the newest students under the Brown Cloak’s watch.
Elder Tafoya beamed at Locke as he approached the table.
“What is it, Nathanial?” Elder Gryff hissed out in a not too thick Southern drawl. It was as if the ex-warlock simply being in his presence made him ill. Locke took note that the Red Cloak had intentionally called him by his first name rather than the one everyone referred to him as.
Locke glanced at Elder Gryff, noting that the man had a perpetual five-o’clock shadow on his round face. It helped hide the scar that ran from his lower lip to his chin.
“Elders,” Locke greeted the table of five. “I bring news.”
“Out with it, boy,” Elder Carlyon, the Blue Cloak, demanded curtly.
“Elders,” Hecate warned with a sidelong glance at the two disrupters. Elder Carlyon narrowed her eyes at Locke as Elder Gryff simply turned his head to stare at nothing above the center of the table. “Go ahead, Locke.”
“I sent a message to the Council, but as I know that can take time to travel up the appropriate channels, I wanted to personally bring this directly to your attention,” Locke prefaced.
“The rules and procedures are in place for a reason,” Elder Carlyon stated sourly.
“What gives you the right to jump the line and decide what information is worth the High Council’s time?” Elder Gryff piggybacked.
“I’d like to hear what the young wizard has to say,” Elder Tafoya countered, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair in defiance of the military general and the lawyer.
“I, too, would like him to speak directly,” Elder Scymanky added, though with the more docile tone of someone who had learned to speak her mind despite the fact she disliked conflict.
When Elder’s Gryff and Carlyon didn’t respond, Hecate nodded at Locke to continue.
“John has reported a new threat while clearing out the last of the warlocks on Earth,” Locke announced. “He says a hybrid creature has been created which exhibits both werewolf and vampire abilities.”
“Impossible!” Elder Gryff blurted out indignantly as he shifted his gaze between the others on the High Council. “There has never been such a creature in all of existence! Your vampire leader is wrong.”
Locke instinctively noticed that the Green Cloak, Elder Scymanky, was silent and staring at her lap. Hecate followed Locke’s gaze and came to the same conclusion.
“Elder Scymanky? Do you have anything you would like to add?”
The Green Cloak took a deep breath as she raised her gaze to Locke before sliding her eyes off of him to land on Hecate.
“It is too early to offer any conjectures,” she responded, almost sighing.
“Amy, please,” Elder Tafoya, the Brown Cloak, urged encouragingly as she leaned forward in her chair. Locke got the impression the two were friends.
Hecate spoke up, “Yes, if you have anything to add, please do so.”
“That’s not all,” Locke interrupted before Elder Scymanky could speak, drawing the attention from everyone, especially Elder Gryff, who glared at the young wizard.
“It was able to teleport and manifest obsidian weapons. John thinks Lucifer got to the Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca.”
All eyes flew to Elder Scymanky for an answer.
“That...that-that-that’s not possible,” she stumbled as if out of breath.
“Why are we listening to drivel from the vampire?” Elder Gryff demanded while dropping his fist on the table hard enough to bluntly accentuate his point. “We have more important situations to worry about than the problems pertaining to the damned one.”
“He’s not damned,” Locke spoke up, making his voice heard while maintaining a respectful tone. “Not anymore.”
Elder Gryff shot to his feet in rage, sending his expensive-looking office chair rolling backward several feet.
“It doesn’t matter!” he barked between bared teeth. “The problems of the fool are of no consequence to the High Council, boy!”
“Elder Gryff,” Hecate cautioned in a commanding voice, “if you would be so kind as to take a seat so we may hear Locke out.”
Elder Gryff pressed his snarling lips into a tight line at being told what to do. Narrowing his eyes at Locke, the Red Cloak began taking a seat as his chair rolled back to him, catching the man just at the right moment in a show of control.
“This creature fought a warden of the Council, the most prolific supernatural hunter in existence, and John, who—I remind you—is gifted with celestial armor,” Locke informed the five members sitting around the table.
“Why is this of importance to us, Mr. Locke?” Elder Carlyon, the Blue Cloak, asked with her chin tilted up.
“It is not for me to say what is or is not important to the High Council, of course,” Locke said respectfully. “I simply felt it important enough to bring to the attention of the Elders that as John nears the completion of his task to rid the plane of Lucifer’s soldiers, a new, powerful foe has arisen.”
Locke looked around the table as all eyes, even the Red Cloak’s, were upon him.
“Forgive me if I am mistaken, but if John is killed, won’t the apocalypse commence?” Locke asked the table. He felt something was wrong at his core, knowing that he didn’t have to remind the Elders of the consequences of John’s death.
The Red Cloak took in a breath to speak, but Hecate beat him to the punch.
“The gates of Hell will open, Locke. There is no stopping that. What we—as members of the High Council—are doing, is preparing for the aftermath.”
A perplexed Locke stumbled on his own words. “I...I-I-I don’t...understand.”
“Of course you do not, boy,” Elder Gryff spat out. “How could you? You have spent your entire existence vying for power in its various forms. While you are playing a child’s game of checkers, the High Council is strategizing in a game of chess that spans multiple dimensions, including time itself.”
The bureaucrat, Elder Carlyon, spoke up next.
“It is inevitable that the gates will open, apprentice. It behooves us to prepare for that day which is now only three y
ears away, going by the solstice timeline, of course.”
“So...none of you are going to try and stop it?” Locke asked, confusion intermixing with disgust in his voice. Though he stared at Hecate, whom he knew personally, Locke noted that the Brown Cloak, Elder Tafoya, and the Green Cloak, Elder Scymanky, glanced at each other for only a moment.
“You would do well to watch your tone, boy,” Elder Gryff warned with a downward tilt of his head.
“That is enough,” Hecate commanded with complete control in her voice. “Thank you, Locke, for informing us. We will deliberate on this, in private. Might I suggest you practice your abilities at the range?”
Locke immediately caught his master’s meaning, and he bowed at the Elders before making his way out of the room, closing the heavy, impressive doors behind him.
An old, neglected clock tower of raging thoughts squeaked and groaned inside Locke’s head. Every cog, every shaft, every chain was a different concern that demanded his focus, creating a deafening cacophony of worry. He had to clear his mind before deciphering the ideas, one at a time.
Stepping from the main corridor into an elegant, modern hallway, Locke made his way to the last room at the end, which was the largest range the Council had created. This was where practitioners honed their more dangerous abilities, such as the fission bomb Locke had used twice now in practical applications; though he had been a warlock at the time.
Opening the rune-covered door, Locke walked through a large room and out onto a stone ledge which narrowed as it ramped upward. Beyond where it ended was a vast expanse of nothing, like a blank canvas awaiting the paintbrush.
Closing his eyes, Locke pictured a scene that the magically charged room picked up on and manifested with an audible pop of displaced air.
Opening his eyes, Locke stepped to the end of the walkway and peered down at the Houston skyline, complete with traffic and pedestrians.
Something felt off the longer he looked, and then it came to him with an audible, “Ah-ha.”
Several construction sites popped up all across Houston like acne over a teenager’s face, creating massive traffic jams.
Locke nodded as the manifested scene now felt believable.
With the practice range ready, Locke slapped his hands together and quickly rubbed his palms before issuing a mental command and beginning the simulation.
Demons of various types began pouring out of fiery holes in the ground, seeking devastation and destruction to any and all mortals.
Locke took in a deep breath, focused his will until it was sharp enough to cut metal, and then pulled his wand from beneath his brown cloak. Hayley had convinced him of the practical applications of either a messenger bag or a fanny pack; both options would surely draw relentless teasing from John if he ever discovered Locke’s secret. Then again, Indiana Jones had a satchel, and John had to respect that.
Locke’s wand began to glow with focused elemental power, enhanced with some runes specifically tailored to the wizard’s personal style of magic.
Pointing the tip which had begun to crackle with raw power, Locke sent a blast of fire-infused electricity into the first demon hole he saw.
Orange-and-blue forks smashed into the demonic soldiers, spreading the fire throughout the enemy as fast as the electricity could travel, burning the monsters on the outside and the inside. Grotesque shrieks of agony made Locke smile coldly. There had always been a part of him that relished in dominating his enemy, and it secretly worried the now wizard.
As the electric fire danced down the tunnel, Locke focused on the tendrils of lightning reaching out and slashing into the earth, causing the hole to collapse in on itself and burying any remaining demons alive.
Locke closed his eyes, and the mental clock tower remained unchanged, still an almost violent din of concern that hadn’t been satiated with the vulgar display of power.
Opening his eyes once again, Locke focused on the next hole and sent out his will to reach deep into the ground like an octopus wrapping around the shell of a crab.
With his wand still pointed at the hole, Locke shot out his free hand and grasped at the air like he was trying to crush a soda can in his grip. Veins bulged and pulsed in his lean, sinewy forearm as he tried to make a fist in midair.
The tunnel shuddered, prompting the simulated army of realistic demons inside to freeze in confusion.
Then his hand abruptly closed hard enough to make a single clapping sound right as the tunnel crushed every monster who had dared reach the mortal world through its use.
With his fist still in the air, Locke could feel the demons writhing futilely against their grave as tiny pinpricks pushed against his flesh. They might as well have been flies struggling in his grip, unaware the fight was already over.
After a few moments of the stubborn demons refusing to die, Locke poured all of his frustration into the section of ground he had within his grasp, heating the earth with a cathartic inferno. It was as if Locke were attempting to transfer the draining energy of his copious internal worry into violent heat.
The ground began to glow as liquid magma bubbled to the surface, engulfing the street above.
Locke knew the demons were dead—dissolved into nothing—but he kept fueling the fire with gritted teeth and pulsing veins at his temples.
People began screaming as a car was slowly swallowed by the hungry magma.
“There are mortals in there,” Elder Tafoya, the Brown Cloak who was responsible for recruitment and training, informed from just behind Locke.
Locke dropped his raging focus and relaxed his hand as he turned around to regard the Elder, his chest heaving from strain.
“They aren’t real.”
“Then why indulge in the anger, Apprentice Locke?”
“I just needed to let off some steam to clear my thoughts,” Locke admitted, hearing how childish the admission was to his own ears.
“If we water the seed of hate, it will grow until the roots strangle all other emotions and the leaves blot out the sun.”
Locke nodded his head in understanding, catching the meaning in an instant.
“Practice makes perfect,” Locke admitted softly.
“Precisely,” Elder Tafoya said with a proud smile as she walked to stand on the edge. She peered down on the Houston skyline and the attacking demons, her mouth quirking in a quick frown before returning to neutral.
“What?”
“What is your desire, Apprentice Locke?”
“In regard to...?”
“What path do you desire to walk while in the Council?”
“I...I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it,” Locke admitted, scrunching up his face in thought. “Why do you ask?”
“If I were to take a snapshot of this moment in your timeline, it would be clear that a red cloak lies in your future.”
There was a stirring in Locke’s stomach as he both acknowledged the statement and feared it.
Elder Gryff was a hammer, and to a hammer, everything was a nail. Locke didn’t want to be seen as that, though he felt it at his core. He was a force to be reckoned with, and secretly loved it when people feared him. And that also worried the amateur wizard.
Locke had spent most of his life as a man with no regard for others, taking what he wanted and stomping those standing in his way to power and wealth. His time in Hell and the lesson Gabriel had taught him had shown the man the error of his ways, and he never wanted to slide down the slope he had spent the last several years carefully climbing.
Closing his eyes, Locke inhaled deeply, and then forced himself to say, “I’m not entirely sure what I want...but I know I’m tired of being a red cloak.”
“Good,” Elder Tafoya beamed before turning to the battle raging below.
The Elder lifted her hand, fingers outstretched, and a cloud of sparkles flashed in front of her before being carried off by the wind, flickering like fireflies as they flew.
Locke stared in fascination as a tiny cloud of them passed
over the closest demon, and then continued onward.
The monster, who was about to chomp down on a hapless citizen, began violently sneezing, dropping the human who scuddled away.
The sneezing fit turned into gagging, and then hacking, as pieces of its insides decided to relocate to the outside.
Eager eyes pulled back to stare at the scene as a whole rather than at the individual demon, and Locke saw countless others choking. They clutched at their throats, dropped to their knees, and then expired, all without any collateral damage.
“Always another way,” Elder Tafoya mused before abruptly turning and making her way toward the exit.
Locke watched her before yanking his eyes back to the battlefield, witnessing all of the demon’s wither and die.
With a quick wave of his hand, the scene disappeared into the nothing again, and Locke hustled to catch up with his teacher.
“May I ask what that was, Elder?”
“I like to call it subtlety, and I will show you how to use it.”
As Locke and Elder Tafoya walked side by side down a corridor, Elder Gryff walked past them toward the range, intentionally not making eye contact with the pair. Locke noticed he was wearing his red cloak with the gold emblem of the Council instead of the gold cloak used when in session.
10
Magni - Faerie
“Focus,” Taylor instructed Magni, who held up his wand, brow perspiring from the repeated strain.
After a few seconds of teeth-gritting intensity, Magni dropped his wand, which had barely glowed with all his effort.
“Why is it so hard here?” Magni moaned, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of one arm.
“We’ve been over this,” Taylor spoke with the patience of an experienced teacher. “Making me repeat myself does nothing but waste both of our time.”