Bewitched

by Mark Jay Harris

  “I see by your expression this is all new to you as well. You’re not alone; we just discovered this yesterday. You see, Sahwin, the girl you call Samantha, was stolen away by her aunt after discovering a way to counteract the Catadromus spell without killing her sister. This was four years ago. Like I said, we just put this together yesterday. So, instead of the Key being an old woman, we realized we were looking for a seventeen-year-old girl.

  “Now.” He stalked back to the stone table where Darren lay, rapt with the story despite himself. “What are the chances she should arrive and take up with a Warder? Not to be destroyed by him, but to befriend him. And this poor Warder was about to be instructed by his grandfather. But, his grandfather was taken ill and rushed to the hospital whereupon he suddenly died, before he had a chance to tell the Warder what he could do.”

  Darren squeezed his eyes shut at this news, and a moan escaped him. “Oh, you didn’t know he died? He should have by now; nothing humans have contrived could save him from what I did to him.”

  Darren’s eyes flashed back open and hate spilled out of them.

  “I don’t trust Warders. Even if you don’t know what you’re capable of, you’re dangerous. So, let me give you a hint about what that power might require. See if this gives you an idea.” The warlock raised the stone high above his head and brought it down with all his force on top of Darren’s right hand. The cracking, breaking noise of bones and tendons echoed in the small chamber. The sound of Darren’s scream reverberated outside the confines of his cell and far into the cavern beyond.

  ***

  The hallway continued, snaking back and forth for hundreds of feet. Doors were spaced out along the way, opening onto empty chambers. Each door had an inset window near the top, grated by metal bars. Mike and Serena checked each one as they passed, hoping to see Darren or something strange that might indicate the presence of the Grimoire. Mike couldn’t stand it any longer and didn’t wait for Serena to give him permission. He simply reached out and opened a door. Serena glanced back, about to scold him, but instead followed him inside.

  Ever-burning torches like those in the corridor provided dim lighting to the room and displayed the contents hanging on the walls. Ancient weapons of all sorts glittered before them. They were made of bronze and, though old, were beautifully maintained. Mike’s mouth hung open as he moved from weapon to weapon, touching them as he went. At the back wall, one weapon stood out from all the other relics—a sword, with an intricately detailed hilt and blade made of a bright metal.

  “That’s steel,” he informed Serena.

  “Yeah?”

  “Steel is a relatively new invention, historically speaking. How did a steel sword get inside a cavern no one has been in for more than three thousand years?”

  “Someone of the Northern Coven might have hung it there.” Serena took his hand and tugged him toward the door.

  “Wait!” Mike reached up and pulled down the sword. The balance of the weapon was perfect, as if it had been made specifically for him. “I can use this.”

  She quickly led him out, and they continued their silent march down the torch-lit corridor. Mike swung the sword, taking stances and doing forms he’d learned in fencing class.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?” Serena asked.

  “Sort of, or perhaps I should say, ‘sword of.’”

  “That’s a horrible joke, even for you.”

  “I wouldn’t be trashing my jokes; I’m holding a very sharp sword.”

  “You won’t be holding anything if I turn you into a toad.”

  “Can you do that?”

  She gave him a look that left him unsure.

  “Oh, I see. Then you kiss me, and I become your prince.”

  “Quiet, you. We’ve got to move on.” She hid the smile that played on her lips.

  They made their way toward the end of the hall where it turned sharply and disappeared to the right. Creeping up to it, they skirted their way along the inside of the wall as they got closer to the bend. Serena looked carefully around the corner with Mike behind her, waiting for her report. “There’s a staircase that leads up into the dark,” she whispered. “It’s the same staircase I came down earlier as Grimalkin.”

  “Is anybody there now?”

  “Not that I can see. But, they could be using a blind-man.” She suddenly started and drew her head back around the corner. “Did you hear that?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Serena poked her head around the corner again. “They’re talking to each other. There’s three, no four of them. They’re waiting for us to come down. They’re using a blind-man all right, but not a deaf-man spell. Oh, no! Tell me I did not just see that!”

  “What?”

  “Dawsin-gypes.” She withdrew her head from around the corner. Her eyes were large, and she looked ashen. “There must be hundreds of them. And Dawsin-gypes can see through the blind-man.”

  “And a Dawsin-gype is a what?”

  Serena pushed Mike back down the hall about twenty feet before he stopped her. Swallowing she said, “They’re imps. They have sharp teeth and claws, and they literally come from hell. They eat everything and destroy everything. They’re what made the skittering sound I heard following me up the stairs.”

  “Imps? Like little demons?” He held his hand about three feet from the ground.

  “That’s about right, but don’t underestimate them. They can kill you. They’re wickedly quick and lethal. They can shred flesh off a bone quicker than a school of hungry piranhas.”

  “Okay,” Mike said. “What do we do?”

  Serena looked back down toward where the hall turned to the right and heard a voice getting louder. “Julander will kill him before she gets here. I better go down there and keep an eye on him.” The footsteps rounded the corner as the voice said, “Abrogare.”

  To Mike’s surprise, Coach Hawthorne appeared at the end of the hall. On top of his head were a pair of dark goggles, which he yanked off and let dangle from his hand. Mike’s mind tried to grapple with what this meant: his coach was one of them. Coach Hawthorne was a warlock! No way! But his mind didn’t have much time to react to this news, as he suddenly realized that alongside his coach, a sleek, dangerous looking cheetah appeared. It loped along with its master as he ambled in their direction. Mike cast a shocked look at Serena.

  “Remember he can’t see or hear us, and neither can his familiar.” She returned his look with curiosity. “What are those things in his hand?”

  “I was wondering the same thing.” Mike backed up against the wall and watched as his coach and his dangerous pet drew nearer.

  “Oh... I know what they are!”

  “What?” Serena demanded.

  “I bet they’re thermal imaging goggles. That’s how they spotted you, Serena. Those goggles allow them to see heat. So, even with the blind-man spell, they can see us because invisible or not we’re still hot! Especially you and me.” He winked at her.

  She leaned against the opposite wall as Coach Hawthorne and his familiar marched between them. “So, humans have started to make their own magic. This is a very strange time. We’re lucky he decided to take those things off when he did.”

  Mike followed behind Coach Hawthorne, swinging the sword menacingly. “That freakin’ imposter. I can’t believe he’s one of them. He’s been coaching us for two years now, and the whole time he’s been a...” he held back the adjective he wanted to use, “warlock!”

  They watched as he disappeared far down the crooked corridor. Turning back to where the corridor turned right, Mike thought he saw something flash by. The thing returned and gawked back at them. It was short, about two and half feet tall, skin the color of old mold, and red luminous eyes. The feet looked large and gangly, tipped with dagger-like claws, as were the hands, its long strong fingers opening and closing. But the most dangerous part of the ghoulish looking creature was the teeth. It grinned down the hall, and Mike’s blood flash froze in his veins.<
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  “Run!” Serena shouted. He was ahead of her in two strides. Scores of the devilish looking imps poured around the corner and rushed toward them with demonic speed, scaling the walls and running along the ceiling.

  Mike could hear the skittering, clacking of claws against stone rushing up from behind him. A sudden inhuman grunt was followed by something heavy landing on his back. Instinctively, he grabbed the beast, rolled to his knees, ducked his head, and flung it into the hall ahead of him. By the time he was on his feet, dozens were almost within reach.

  Merely reacting, he swung the sword and chopped two in half. Not only did they neatly slide into two separate halves, the halves popped with little explosions that splattered the floor and walls with a mustard-colored goo.

  Serena turned and fired a spell at the imps, sending a crowd of them flying backward. She looked at the mess Mike had made. “Enchanted sword. Go after them!”

  The fiendish-looking imps held back, waiting for Mike’s next move. He shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the ground. He lifted the sword and demonstrated threatening forms he had learned in his fencing class.

  The imps were unimpressed.

  Waving the sword in front of him, he jumped forward a step. The Dawson-gypes backed up, not scared, but wary. While Mike rattled the sword, more and more of the mold colored creatures poured round the corner, filling up the hallway.

  Heedlessly, Mike dashed into the center of them, slashing at anything that moved. He was quick, quicker than he’d expected. The things fell by the dozens. Before one could jump on him, he spun with superhuman reflexes and cleaved the beast in two while it was still in the air. They came on him in groups of five, ten, and more. He parried so fast the sword was a blur of silver motion, humming with the sound of a propeller as he cut them down.

  At one point, he jumped from the center of the creatures and spun in the air, landing to one side where he cut down half a dozen in a single stroke. Those killed splattered out in all directions, their gooey innards hanging grotesquely from the ceiling and walls. He swiftly killed them but only to have them be replaced by more and more imps. He cut, he jumped, he spun, and he countered every move made against him. For a moment, he felt invulnerable as the pounding of blood rushed through his ears. He grinned like a fool, slashing at wave after wave of them, bringing them down like clusters of ripe grapes from a vine. Their corpses and insides began to fill the hallway with disgusting ooze and a dreadful smell.

  Vaguely he became aware of a burning on his thigh, then another on his back. Despite his incredible speed, two had gotten onto him and were tearing at him with claws and teeth. He screamed in pain but continued to keep the others at bay. With a graceful follow-through, he sliced the one off his calf, covering himself with the yellow ooze. Unable to reach the one on his back, it continued to gnaw at his shoulder blade.

  Serena muttered something, and the imp on Mike’s back exploded. With instant relief, he took a quick glance in her direction and saw her casting spells as quickly as he was wielding the sword; imps were plowed down in front of her.

  The splatter of dead Dawson-gypes covered the hallway from floor to ceiling. Still an ocean of imps came crashing down on them, pushing them farther and farther back down the corridor.

  A loud voice boomed from the far end of the hall, which was now more than two hundred feet away. “Vestis aerisimo!” The spell caught Mike squarely in the chest, and he flew backward ten feet before hitting the ground with his arms pinned at his sides by invisible bands. It was useless, but he struggled as successfully as a trussed up calf in a rodeo.

  From his view on the stone floor, he watched the mold-colored imps halt their attack, though unwillingly. They trudged through the remains of their own brethren, backing away, glaring angrily at Mike as they lined up against the walls of the cavern. With his head turned up the hall, and being unable to move, he couldn’t see her. From among the chittering noises of the clawed imps, Mike heard the sound of approaching footsteps squishing through viscous goo and popping as each foot pulled free from the sludge.

  The sound stopped in front of his face. An imprint inches away formed in the mustard colored muck. Though invisible, he knew some warlock wearing heat goggles was looking down on him.

  “Huh!” a disgusted voice spat.

  It walked beyond him and stopped after a few feet. Another unimpressed sound escaped the invisible being. Mike figured it was looking down on Serena summing up its feelings in the same manner.

  ***

  Samantha and Andrea had crept down the long winding stone corridor in much the same way as Serena and Mike. They looked in through the iron barred windows of each heavy-wooded door they came across. Many were empty, although some held interesting things from collections of ancient weapons to shelves filled with powders and herbs. Others housed torture equipment with the larger bones of long-gone skeletal remains scattered about; still others contained machinery of curious workmanship that continued to hum and purr under some mysterious power.

  Samantha signaled Andrea to follow her into a room covered from floor to ceiling with shelves crammed with old texts, books, scrolls, and a variety of other strange looking documents. They headed down different aisles, studiously examining the titles of the books, pulling some out to gaze at the drawings and curious writing, attempting to decipher what the foreign script might mean.

  “Do you think one of these might be the Grimoire?” Andrea asked.

  “Doubtful. I suspect the Grimoire will be in its own special place. But then again, a library like this would be a good place to hide it.”

  “Can you read any of this?”

  “No,” Samantha admitted. “I think some of these languages are pre-Egyptian. I am horribly curious what they’re about. If I were to guess, I’d say these are histories and biographies, probably some medical texts and superstitious myths preserved from civilizations you and I have never even heard of.”

  “How could anything this old not be dust by now?”

  “Remember the basketball rolling up hill? There are undercurrents of spells flowing through this whole cavern. I suspect they’re being maintained by some sort of Catadromus I don’t understand.”

  A terrifying, piercing scream of someone in agony reverberated through the doorway and chilled the blood of both girls.

  “Darren!” they said in unison. Rushing toward the door, Samantha stopped Andrea before she could bolt out of the room.

  “He sounded close by,” Samantha whispered. “Whoever harmed him isn’t far. We could run out of here and be caught before we can help Darren.”

  Andrea nodded.

  “It probably came from that door over there.” Samantha pointed through the barred window to a door kitty-corner from the library.

  The door burst open and out stepped vice-principal, Julander. He was wearing dark coveralls with goggles on top of his head, and a mangy looking mutt followed at his heels. As he entered the hallway, he snapped the goggles down over his eyes. Both girls retreated to the back of the room as the warlock made himself and his dog invisible.

  “Those goggles,” Andrea started.

  “Yes, they allow him to see through the spell somehow,” Samantha finished.

  They couldn’t see him, but they heard him as he huffed himself down the hall.

  After the grunting gate faded into the distance, Andrea said, “Let’s get Darren.”

  Samantha nodded and opened the door. They ran across the hall to the room where the scream had originated. Through the barred window, they saw Darren at the far end of a dungeon, chained to a stone table. His right hand, the one they could see, was a mash of blood and misshapen flesh. Darren writhed in agony within the confines of the chain, oblivious to all else but pain and shock.

  “Door’s locked,” Samantha said.

  “Unlock it; we’ve got to help him!”

  Samantha tried her spell, but it did nothing to the lock. A shock followed the spell back, giving her a jolt.

  �
��Darren!” Andrea tried to get his attention, but it was worthless. He was in a private world, swirling in eddies of pain.

  “There’s a spell. I think it’s a magnetic spell that holds the bolts in place. I don’t know the counter-spell.” Samantha pulled on the door in frustration.

  “Darren!” Andrea called out to him. “We’re here!”

  A low chuckle startled both girls, who whirled around to see nothing but the wall across the hall. Instantly, Julander and Coach Hawthorne appeared in front of them, both wearing dark goggles over their eyes.

  “There you are!” Julander’s horrible grin made them both feel sick. “I was worried you might not make it.” He fixed them with stunning spells, and they dropped to the floor in frightened, unconscious heaps.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Grimoire of Moloch

  When Samantha regained her senses, she was sitting, leaning against a wall next to Andrea. All she could move was her neck, but it allowed her to turn and see to her right where she found Serena and Mike. The latter looked awful. His back was drenched in blood, and his chin rested against his chest, unconscious; thank heavens he was breathing.

  Andrea stirred, beginning to wake up, and Serena groaned a little.

  Samantha looked about the room and saw four Warlocks and a witch, each one wearing goggles. Julander, Coach Hawthorne, the guidance counselor, Ms. Vanderhoff, Mr. Whitmore, her English teacher, and another man she had never seen before. Unlike the others who were wearing coveralls, this unknown man wore an expensive suit, and his hair was combed back with close attention to detail. Together they resembled human-bug hybrids with the goggles covering their eyes.

  Other than the five followers of Baal, a hawk stood proudly on a perch rammed into the stone wall; it looked with piercing eyes down on the well-dressed man. Next to Mr. Whitmore, a weasel stood on its hind legs, twitching but obviously paying attention to the proceedings. At Julander’s feet was the mangy-looking dog from earlier, its fur gray and mottled as if it had come from a fight it had lost. A cheetah paced back and forth around Coach Hawthorne. A lizard crawled from shoulder to shoulder on Ms. Vanderhoff.