Diary Of An Occult Resolution Assistant

by Chris Norgate

  "Is that an old grimoire or book of magical lore?" I asked looking at the eroded red leather tomb,

  "This?" he asked rotating the book as if looking at it for the first time rising from his silence. "Nah, it’s a romance between a man and woman who should never have met or been together and dragged apart by family commitments and situations caused by the jealousy of others and they face death for daring to love."

  "I would never have taken you for an old romantic." my heart felt warmed by the soft side I never knew he had. "it's an old book; do they live happily ever after?"

  "Its hundreds of years old, written before Germany was Prussia and Scotland had its own king. And in a way yes they do." he said looking wistful.

  "Where did you find it?" I asked

  "I've had a copy laying around most places for as long as I care to remember, it's by a tremendous bore of a man but he really knew how to exaggerate a story to grip his reader."

  "How do you know it's exaggerated?" I said looking at the unfamiliar lettering along the book's spine. "is it historical?"

  "Terribly over the top and in a way it is." Xanthic closed the well read book, the sun yellowed pages crisp and dry fluttered as they closed and the spine gave a tiny creak as the leather folded itself back into its acquainted shape. "it's all about me."

  17:00

  The final preparations for tonight’s foray had been completed, I had picked out sensible clothes and long socks so I can roll them over trouser legs to prevent unintentional travelling of countryside dirts moving from floor to shin and Xanthic placed as many sharp metal objects as possible into his coat without any of them clinking together when he walked. I tried to tell him it was just a bunch of teenage girls and a middle aged woman not the hordes of Darkness rising up to conquer the world but he said teenage girls were worse and much more terrifying, especially in enclosed spaces.

  Xanthic pulled me to one side, something I found out of character and strange owing to the fact we were the only two here.

  "Come with me." he said and led me to the back of the house.

  Thursday 8th May

  00:30.

  Screaming. It was the soundtrack of the world. It wasn't just the voices of the gathered people in the woods but the very air creating the volume of noise as it was ripped apart on a molecular level to allow the monstrous bodies to step into this reality. Everything seemed to be moving from bodies running in all directions but never leaving, flora twisted away as if a great pressure had be exerted on them and the air swirled violently as if even it wanted to be somewhere else extremely quickly.

  Mary was trying to rally everyone together within the circle, shouting at them if they looked capable of understanding and grabbing at their clothing or arms if they did not. Melody was sweeping her arms around calling with a voice stole from her by the roaring circulation of the smoke.

  My attention was attracted by Mary waving at me, indicating for me to quickly enter the circle but I had to stay back as the monstrous creatures now solid stalked the clearing. One of the girls, the name Hanna came to mind ran to Mary but was knocked over by a barrel sized fist. The Smoke towered over the terrified Hanna and pawed at her like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

  Melody was by my side gripping my arm with bony fingers.

  "Get out of here child. This does not concern you."

  "I concerns me greatly." I replied through clenched teeth. "What have you done?"

  "Me child? I have done nothing like as much as I should. I was only limited by how much I could."

  I was aware of a rush of wind towards us and I turned to see we had been noticed by the Smoke, one large body, now resembling a mythological beast with well formed limbs and defined muscles standing proud on its broad chest. It stormed towards us in every sense of the word with powerful fury. I ran leaving Melody to her fate and damning her for what she had done to this happy group, what she had done to the children of this village and possibly many others.

  Through a looped path I ran heading towards Mary. The Smoke did not stop me and through vision blurred by strong winds, burning smoke and tears I could see them acting like predators working together to herd its prey together the bulk of which we huddling together like mewing pups with the stragglers even more pitifully trying to re-join them. I got there with the last and Mary pulled us all together.

  "Do not be afraid my Akelarre, The Universal Goddess will save us all and deliver us from all the evils of Man and his Devils."

  The Smoke was roaring and it swirled around us as I held onto the group who in turn held onto me. As I was praying for a knight in shining armour a tree crashed down heavily alight with flames ripping through the dry branches. Other trees lit up the night sky bringing a deep orange illumination which steadily grew. Heat radiating from above forced us all to our knees with the physical reduction aggravating my chances to scan for an exit between the growing things rampaging around us and they came for us, as a pack and the fastest took the nearest girls. They poured tendrils of themselves into them through mouth and nose until they were penetrated with long thick arms which pushed through to their elbows before grotesquely over extending the soft teenage flesh of the terrified girls whose eyes were wide open with fear. The smallest of the Smoke climbed further inside, wriggling and crawling until the last of it disappeared leaving only traces of its disbanding vapours. I gazed opened mouthed as the girl I was holding was snatched from my arms and subjugated to a similar torture. Now even the largest of the first through the circle were finally inside their stolen vessels and new beasts were pushing past them to get to the remaining few left between Mary and myself and all were eager to take human form for themselves. One reached out its great paw towards me, rivers of smoke flowing around it like snakes slithering for its next meal. In my hand from its stowage in a silken strap wrapped around my midriff was the weight of the bayonet with which I swiped inexpertly through the air between me and It. Where it touched it left a great it left a deep V, cutting through the creature like a stick through a still pond. The creature healed almost instantly but I recognised the face of pain even on its alien features. I moved forward pressing my attack and scoring two more sweeping hits on the forearms of the creature until another came unexpected beside me and shoved me to the dirt. I waited with my face buried into the ground screwed up expecting imminent pain from a reprimanding strike.

  The screaming had changed, it deepened and I knew my Angel had come. It was just my luck my Angel came from the other direction playing for the other team. Like a wild cat defending its lair with claws raking, teeth exposed ready to penetrate any soft under-belly and hair bristled to sense all distortions in the air Xanthic came. His fingernails digging deep and continuing to gouge into the Smoke. The world lost its colour. Above me the destroying fire still ate the wood and air expelling clouds of waste but the orange light was as dark as onyx. Mary had frozen in space with arms raised in a pose like a mother waiting for a newborn babe to be placed in her arms but I knew she was shielding herself and us from this once beautiful night which was corrupted into a nightmare. The Smoke moved. Slowly, but moving even through the still second in time Xanthic could throw over the world.

  "Come on, can't you see the danger you're in." Xanthic was stood trying to pull off a nonchalant stance as if he were simply strolling the woods for a little night air but betrayed by the rapidness of his breath. "We need to walk that way at pace if you will be so kind."

  I was agog. I knew we had a plan but this was not it. This was a walk into the woods to a bunch of silly girls playing with things they had little understanding of with powers that would not recognise them even if they had a will to do what such lowly insects tried to bid of them. This was supposed to be ending through ridicule, proof all this was meaningless and fakery: to convince these children to look upon the world with adult eyes and turn their backs on any dreams of otherworldliness they may have. I knew witchcraft was real but the dream of it had condemned many of my aspiring sisters to the darkness a
nd by calling foul and ruining these last days of childhood for them I hoped to save them for a world where they would be mothers and bring life into the world and in a sense that is the greatest power any woman could possess and in a very real way motherhood and the nurture of a child was witchcraft. This was supposed to bring the old witch out to prove her powers and face me down only for Xanthic to quash any magics in these woods, His woods and leave her defenceless for him to collect and deliver to any of his Masters that cared what was happening to us lowly mortals. There were no 'Others' here nor were there ever was, multiple searches, scryings, delvings and good old fashioned leg work had proved this. All there should have been was a mad old woman out for her own ends and whatever she had been promised by the soulless Medway vampire. One who was as important to him as the dirt on his shoe as there were no guards or protections over this place. We were wrong. Xanthic was wrong. I hated him now for it.

  "I can't go. Can't you see what is happening here?" I spoke as I drew myself up from my humble position feeling the start of the pain growing under my bruised skin. "We need to help these people. You promised me no one would get hurt and we'll walk out of here with not a monster but nothing worse than a human preying on others for selfishness and power."

  He held his arm out, I could see it was an effort.

  "I can't hold this much longer. These things are not of this world and nor are they from mine. They are from the gaps between time and before space where nothing can be something. They should not be here, cannot be here. I don't understand why they can be. They are drawing strength out of the life here and if we do not leave then they will draw strength from our lives too. I cannot fight them and neither can you, the magics that bind my kind to this world do not stretch to contain that which is not from here or there. So please Valentine, please; come with me now so we can live to find another way to stop them."

  He looked so small, like a child separated from his parents in a strange place away from the familiarities and safeties of home. In that second, one frozen second in time he looked as human as you or I.

  "I'll go, but we save as many as we can. Can you free them?"

  "Not without the very real possibility of losing the spell in its entirety. These things are strong and are imposing their will upon my thoughts."

  "Then you will have to think harder." I grabbed the shoulders of two of the girls, who was as still as a statue; I felt their skin soften and saw the veins in their necks start to pump blood at an elevated rate through their bodies. Now I pulled with all the strength I could muster and they stood looking confused and scared. It was the work of a second to scream "Run!" at them and push them through a gap in our attackers.

  "This way if you want to live." the voice of Melody was loud even over the din of the assault. She was on the other side of the clearing to where she entered and I saw Xanthic standing there too. I led the girls physically away from the Smoke which let us go as easier prey was at their feet but I knew it would not be long before one of the things that were even now fighting their brethren for a coat of human skin to notice our retreat and chase us down for a skin of their own.

  We ran, staggered or were dragged towards Melody's residence. It was a shorter distance than I imagined but too far to make at the pace needed. We were pursued, without turning around I knew it more assuredly than I knew my own name; the only thing I did not know was what was going to give out first, my legs burning from the inside from the ever increasing lactic acid with every heavy footfall or my heart which was a solid brick pushing out within my chest.

  There was a call of either encouragement or warning off to my right but I heard not the words nor the meaning. I increased my pace none-the-less. I heard the roar, even through the bounding blood thumping in my ears. One of our party, a mousy brown haired girl, fell; tripping over something in the dirt, whether it was a tree stump, errant tap root or misplaced stone it mattered not but whatever it was caused the same misfortunate event. The girl, Madeline, rolled over and over coming to rest where the path ended and the sturdier plants grew. I stopped, kicking up gravel and dirt and almost dropping my own burden in the process.

  Xanthic called for us to continue, to leave the fallen and save ourselves. I do not recall my words but they were full of defiant passion and more expletives in thirty seconds than I had used in the last few years. Melody grabbed at the Madeline's shoulders and with a strength, possibly every last ounce she had within her, dragged the girl back onto the path. It wasn't enough and precious seconds between us and our hunters was all but spent. Xanthic had moved forward but drew back to my side and tried to rip me away. Then they were on us. A maelstrom of energies pushed and pulled at us whipping my long hair around like a mass of snakes in frenzy. I was stung on all my exposed skin by grains of dust and sand some of the other were being pelted by stones and larger particles, they shielded their faces and eyes just as I from the blasting gale. Then the claw fell. It was a hand the size of a shovel blade and as heavy as an anvil. A crater as deep as my arm is long opened up between us, I whispered a prayer that none of us were in its way when it hit. I doubt now though that destruction was its aim, it wanted us to fear and scatter causing easier prey running without thought or direction but more importantly without the aid of numbers. It did not work and we pulled together all facing the threat together. Melody raised her arms in either attack or defence calling forth a wind of her own but it did little more than reduce the speed of impact of the missiles coming from the Smoke. The girls got behind her and I looked at her stood there in frailty and strength standing before the Smoke like a shepherd guarding their flock from an errant wolf. I was wrong, was I wrong? I was so sure the old witch that sent the treasures of youth away to expire in squalor with their essence drained and bodies changed.

  My musings were interrupted as shapes emerged through the smoke which filled the forest choking the purity of the air until it fled to whatever sanctuary it could find. Human forms came at us, once so pretty things now twisted into hideous mirrors of youth and their former selves, the Akelarre or the expendable parts of it anyway.

  "Oh Hell with this." Xanthic swept in front of Melody and slashed the blade across the path. It appeared as if the smoke fell as if it were a cut lace sheet. The rest of us ran or as close as we could to it towards the bricks placed haphazardly into somewhere somebody could grudgingly call home; it looked less of a castle made of heavy stone over looking the land and more of a child's There was screaming behind us, female voices howling like wolves denied their feast.

  The door set into the side of the building was reached first by Melody and then by me. Mentally I urged her to bring forth a key with which to open it. It never came. Instead she placed her hands upon the cracked painted wood and pushed, an action which resulted in frustration on both our faces. She pushed again and again, this third time the door relented and moved but only an inch before it stuck fast on the uneven mixed tiled floor drawing to a stop on well worn arced lines.

  Swearing to raise strength and deplete the ache in her tired bones the old witch added my weight to hers by placing my hands next to hers, skin tight and supple filled with blushes of colour led next to grey withered flesh as cold as the wood. When the others saw our plight they combined with us also, it got the door ajar at best but at worse still unpassable.

  "Damn the changing seasons." was all Melody said as my heart sank to the lowest point it had been in my short eventful life.

  A thudding beat echoed through my veins and into my soul bypassing all my auditory functions it lifted me as the tempo increased and buoyed my up on the waters of despair. Back along the path came at speed Xanthic whose arms and legs pressed in motion as fluid as any swift river foaming over a rough bed of broken boulders and razored rocks. Behind him was the Smoke, large bodies forming out of the mass and back into it which carried before it the bodies of the girls. I could to see they were unhurt, I did not know if this was something to give thanks for or not.

  Xanthic did not slo
w and nor did he falter in his trajectory, the wood of the door offered little in resistance as it expanded into the simple structure and opened a chance of safety to us all. I pushed the girls through, three slender bodies who ran to the furthest side of the room and hid behind the fragile odd assortment of furniture that resided there. Melody went next and with a calmness they belied my true feelings I followed turning my back to the oncoming storm and....

  ....nothing, I was stood in the doorway but not passing through. There was no pressure nor any force keeping me out just an inability to pass. The wind was pushing me forward and I knew the horrors was behind me. I tried again and nothing. Xanthic was standing just a few feet away his eyes were looking through me to what comes behind, his jaw dropped lower as the distance closed in. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stabbed into me as if they were trying desperately to re-enter the follicle, I hesitated a look behind and wished I had not as a stampede of writhing exhaust from the foul excretions of dimensions unknown. He stepped towards me and reached through the door to take hold of my forearms and I felt his energies pull at me but forward I did not go. Melody fussed up pressing Xanthic to one side; bending at the waist with some difficulty she lifted the mat that lay across the threshold, under it lay a large pair of bright metal scissors. The act of tossing them onto the table caused an almost imperceptible suck similar to that of the last dregs of water disappearing down the bath plughole and the doorway was opened. I fell through onto the hard floor bending a finger back beyond normal motion and I heard the ill-fitting door slam into its housing. The silence was deafening as the absence of rushing wind I didn't know I could hear filled my ringing ears, this feeling soon passed when I saw my little finger on my right hand which was bent at an odd angle from the mid-joint and I valiantly attempted to keep the contents of my stomach on the inside.