by Ross Turner
But then, all of a sudden, as Marcii scooped another pile of rubble from the floor to clear the doorway, her head spun unexpectedly and her vision went blurred and hazy.
She knew at once what was happening and she cried out to try to warn Reaper as she fell forward.
It mattered not though, for it was already too late.
Marcii’s body fell from her grasp as her mind was whisked off elsewhere.
Rubble scattered all over the floor as she fell, but Marcii did not see it.
At first, just as before, the world went black.
Then, when her head finally stopped spinning, she felt herself lying flat on the ground.
Once again Marcii could not see or hear a thing. Eventually the oppressive haze in her mind cleared and the young Dougherty found herself staring up at the bright, sunny blue sky, with the sound of chatter and footsteps all around her.
The ground was hard but oddly warm in the heat of the afternoon sun. Marcii’s head rested on rough cobblestones and throbbed heavily from where she’d fallen.
Just inches from her head, every few seconds, heavy footsteps barely missed her face.
It was only a matter of time before a weighty boot came down directly upon her.
Marcii was still too dizzy to move out of the way, even instinctively. She flinched the first time, but when the person’s shoe and foot passed straight through her again, she relaxed slightly, knowing nobody knew she was there.
Nonetheless, as she sat slowly up, nerves flooded through the young Dougherty’s veins, afraid of what she might find.
The streets teemed with bustling life as people hurried to and fro merrily, laughing and joking and smiling as they went. Marcii frowned for a moment, wondering what was going on.
Had something changed?
She saw no enforcers.
There were no market stalls.
No hint of tyranny.
But then, as she glanced up towards the blinding blue ocean of sky above, she realised all of a sudden why.
This was not Newmarket.
This was Ravenhead.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Wandering through the streets, passing perfectly through strangers as she went, Marcii marvelled at the busy sights all around her.
Though it was exactly the same town, for the buildings and streets were all unchanged and identical, save being in better condition, Marcii barely recognised the place. She had only ever known it to be abandoned and to see it now teeming with life was most bizarre.
There were not the shouts of commerce echoing about that she had grown up with though. All the stores here seemed to be inside buildings with doors and windows, filled with glass that had black, perfectly spaced writing printed across them.
Marcii sensed an air of sophistication that she also wasn’t accustomed to, though not to the point of being pompous. People passed by in every direction talking in deep conversation about all manner of things, but were not rude to their fellow townsfolk and often smiled or waved at each other.
One name seemed to crop up more than most, Marcii noticed, as she passed through the streets and people like a ghost, and that name was Raven.
Almost instinctively, stopping and turning quite purposefully, Marcii looked up to Raven’s Keep. She caught her breath as her eyes fell upwards, for the tower too was filled with life.
Sweeping through the hectic streets with new purpose Marcii strode straight through solid stone and wood, heading directly for the vast column that jutted up into the warm skies.
She caught glimpses every now and then of a figure passing by the windows in the tower, and though they were mere glances, Marcii knew exactly who it was.
It was the same woman she had seen in the tower, only a few days previous, before Kaylm had left.
Raven.
For some reason Kaylm had not been able to see her, but Marcii had.
She’d vanished before Marcii had been given chance to get any answers. But here she was again in her vision and the young Dougherty was determined to find her.
Marcii raced up the twisting spiral staircase, not the first time, charging straight through all who stood in her path.
She felt her heart racing, beating faster and faster by the second. For some reason she was afraid and excited all at once.
She knew who she would find when she reached the top, so close now.
But for some reason, though she couldn’t quite understand why, Marcii felt as if there was much more to come.
After barely a few more seconds she burst into the perfectly circular room atop the tower.
Sure as the day is long, there she was.
The mysterious woman Raven paced the huge room back and forth, her hands clasped gently behind her back as she strode, slowly and wistfully.
Raven was indeed, just as the folktales had always ensured Marcii, and just as she had seen a few days before, stunning.
She was aged, clearly, for her face was deeply lined.
It was much easier for Marcii to see now that she wasn’t merely a ghost.
The woman’s bright, violet eyes were youthful, though her years showed heavily upon the rest of her. Her straight, jet black hair was streaked even still with varying shades of grey, though not so greatly as Marcii remembered from the other day.
Suddenly, as Raven turned and the light streaming in from the windows caught her aged face in a particular way, Marcii’s breath caught in her chest.
She was the spitting image of Malorie.
Her eyes. Her hair. Her face. Even the way she moved.
It was too similar for Marcii to ignore. A lump lodged in her throat as she tried to speak.
But then, as if to answer her very question, the next person to appear behind her, having ascended the spiral stairs all but silently, was Malorie herself.
The strange, beautiful woman whom Marcii had known almost her entire life, though in reality now dead, looked youthful and free from the heavy weight of burden. Her eyes were an identical, luminous violet to Raven’s, though her own jet black hair showed no streaks of any other colour.
Neither of them spoke and they didn’t look at Marcii, for of course they had no idea she was there.
Well, as far as Marcii knew at least, she wasn’t there.
But she couldn’t really have said that for sure.
She still didn’t know exactly what was happening, or what her strange visions meant.
Nonetheless, they were growing clearer, firmer, if those were the best words to use.
She couldn’t think of any other way to describe them.
They just felt more real.
All of a sudden, realising she’d been lost in thought, Marcii snapped back to reality, or not, as the case might have been, and set her eyes upon Raven again.
But now the sound of joy and laughter was gone. As Marcii peered out curiously upon the streets below, frowning, she saw they were desolate once again.
Glancing around, confused, Malorie was gone.
She was alone with Raven.
Or perhaps with the memory of Raven.
The young Dougherty couldn’t fathom it.
It all seemed so real that surely it had to be the truth.
But it didn’t make any sense.
Raven turned again, pacing now even more slowly than she had been before. Though of course Marcii didn’t catch her eye, she could see that the beautiful, aged woman’s face was stricken beyond belief.
Endless sorrow poured down her heavily lined cheeks and filled the deep creases in her face with laden sadness.
Marcii took a breath to speak, hoping desperately to somehow rouse Raven’s attention, but she was too late.
Suddenly her vision was interrupted by another scene altogether. It was something infinitely more overwhelming, though equally as powerful, just in a different way.
In the space of a fleeting heartbeat Marcii was no longer in the tower, silent and undisturbed and surrounded by emptiness.
Instead she found hers
elf amidst a roaring, surging, screaming crowd. The sound shocked and deafened her and barraged her thoughts uncaringly.
She recognised the sound and indeed too the place.
She was back in Newmarket.
But that wasn’t what drew the young Dougherty’s attention, for there was something else that struck at her heart more than all else.
Not just something else, but indeed someone else.
Someone too that she recognised.
Someone that she loved, and he was in grave danger.
Kaylm.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Marcii could only stand by a watch helplessly. To see Kaylm suffer left a pit of emptiness in her stomach that the young Dougherty simply could not fill.
Abandoned and apprehended all at once, Kaylm was down on his knees in the centre of the square.
Tyran presided over the dreadful sight, but it was Kaylm’s own family who stood watchfully over him, ensuring he could not escape.
His parents, Victoria and Stephen Evans, wore expressions of disappointment and grave regret. Not only had their son betrayed them, and indeed the rest of Newmarket too, but he had likely been helping the witches all along. He might not even have realised it at the time, but Kaylm had been at least partly responsible for the deaths of all those murdered by the demon Reaper.
They were so ashamed.
Malcolm stood off a way, Marcii saw, and the look upon his face was different to that of his parents’.
Whilst he looked disappointed, just as they did, Malcolm’s expression was tinged also with something else: something that resembled a very sombre picture of pride and duty.
It looked much less like pride to Marcii though, and a lot more like betrayal, as is sadly all too common amongst families.
In an instant, before anything else even need happen, Marcii knew without a shadow of a doubt that Malcolm was the one responsible for this.
She screamed and bellowed and roared in anger, charging forwards, filled to bursting with endless, love driven fury. But it didn’t matter how loudly Marcii shrieked, nor how far her wild cries carried, Malcolm didn’t hear her.
Neither did Kaylm.
His head drooped further and further as his energy and his will and even his very life drained slowly away, melting down through the cold stone below him.
His face was black and blue once again. Blood trickled from his chin and stained his clothes and the ground beneath him.
Finally quieting her shrieks, for they were futile, Marcii gathered both her breath and her wits and paced over to Kaylm.
She knelt down to look him in the eye with her brimming gaze.
He couldn’t see her of course, but Marcii could see him.
The sight tore at the strings of her heart.
Kaylm murmured and tried to look up.
Marcii’s heart leapt for a moment, but it was soon knocked back down. As Kaylm looked up, his gaze blurred and dizzied, Malcolm swept in like a vulture. He was bigger and broader and stronger than Kaylm, as he always had been.
He lifted his hand almost casually to strike his younger brother back down.
Blood sprayed in every direction, spattering the cobblestones and the front rows of the crowd.
Marcii screamed again. Again though, her cries went all but unheard throughout Newmarket, as the crowds roared and cheered with excitement.
Back in Ravenhead however, where her body still resided, there was one who heard Marcii’s cries. Her writhing body was strewn across the rubble lined floor and she was bleeding from a cut across her forehead.
Reaper sensed Marcii’s distress, seeing quite clearly that something was wrong.
Clouds swarmed above the abandoned town and swirled in unnatural patterns, centring directly above where Marcii lay. The winds picked up harshly and cut through Reaper’s enormous body most unusually like a knife.
He didn’t feel the shrill cold, not even a little bit. But he knew that regardless of whatever might be happening to Marcii, whether she was conscious or not, it would strike ice into her very veins.
The elements stirred furiously, but then so did Marcii, and Mother Nature responded in kind.
Flashes of lighting tore through the swarming black sea above and a symphony of thunder rang across the skies for miles in every direction.
Just as the weather in Ravenhead turned and writhed, the skies above Newmarket charred angrily above Kaylm’s head, mirroring the image cast so many miles away. The young Evans glanced upwards briefly, seeing the clouds thrash and churn, not knowing that Marcii was by his side even still.
Malcolm struck his younger brother across the face once more and the crowds cheered again, even more fiercely than before. Kaylm’s head dropped back down and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the pain, though he made not a peep of a sound.
Lightning cracked furiously and lighted the anger flashing in Marcii’s eyes.
She didn’t even notice the weather flickering and teetering on her every whim, changing in lieu with her rushing emotions. By that point she’d become so used to it that she barely noticed the black, swelling ocean above her rise and screech and roar so dreadfully.
Hail suddenly ripped from the thick clouds and cascaded down like enormous lumps of alien rock, pelting the ground and everybody mortal residing upon it.
Newmarket squirmed beneath the barrage and everyone scurried off in all directions to find shelter from the onslaught.
All but Kaylm rushed to find protection, for he was still bound down upon his knees. There was nothing he could do as the hail bombarded him relentlessly, striking his already battered body.
Only Marcii stayed with him, though of course the hailstones passed straight through her and shattered against the cobblestoned ground directly beneath her.
Tears coursed helplessly down her face.
She could only look on at her Kaylm as the stones struck him relentlessly. Ironically, and indeed rather tragically, it was by her own hand that now he suffered from the harsh elements, whether she realised it or not.
Regardless, what he was now enduring undoubtedly had saved him from a much worse fortune.
That strange twist of fate had perhaps even saved his life.
For a few more moments Marcii looked on, quivering terribly.
But then another emotion struck her, quite literally, as searing pain coursed through her face.
A hailstone hit Marcii’s forehead, right above her eye.
She was instantly blinded and she recoiled back from it, crying out with pain.
The young Dougherty didn’t even have chance to consider how that was possible, as more hailstones crashed into her, striking her fragile body all over.
All of a sudden she felt the cold, hard ground beneath her as she lay on her back. She could only presume that she’d fallen beneath the heavy barrage raining down upon her.
Then a huge, impending silhouette loomed over her, blocking out the light, but at the same time shielding her from the vicious onslaught of hard ice.
Raising her weary hands to protect her face Marcii cracked her eyes open cautiously, fearful of what she might find. The enormous black shadow was blurred at first and she could only make out its outline, standing over her, shielding her from her own creation.
Her entire body pounded with searing pain.
Eventually her eyes began to focus and the details of the demon’s immense body came to sight.
“Reaper…?” The young Dougherty breathed, barely able to talk. Her voice croaked and groaned as the sound left her, as if it would never come back.
As if something was lost forever.
The enormous demon’s hands flickered above Marcii’s face, dancing at a rate that seemed impossible to follow, let alone understand.
But, naturally, even in her dazed state, only just coming around from whatever it was that had once again engulfed her, Marcii fully understood Reaper’s words.
Of course, as he always would, he asked her if she was okay.
Eventually she nodded, frantically and erratically, though she wasn’t even really sure herself.
Reaper helped her slowly to her feet, sheltering her all the while as hailstones smashed into the ground all around them and shattered into millions of pieces.
The heavy shards of ice hammered into Reaper’s vast shoulders and back, glancing off in every direction as they did so.
But they did not harm him.
He quickly half led and half carried Marcii into the tunnels for shelter.
The sound of the storm followed them inescapably inside. It reverberated all around as if the hailstones were yet even still falling about them.
Marcii’s face was red and it took her a minute or two to come to her wits. But when she finally did, breathing deeply, she looked at Reaper with deep, pooling eyes that swam in unimaginable worry.
“Reaper…” She eventually breathed, though this time her voice did not shake and quiver quite so badly.
The enormous demon’s hands spun into motion, asking her what she’d seen. Asking her what had happened. Asking her if she was okay.
Just by the look in Marcii’s eyes however, for they were beyond haunted, Reaper had no real need for his questions.
Though her quivering voice might have recovered, that troubled gaze of hers was filled with all sorts of rushing emotions.
“Kaylm…” She breathed. “They’ve got Kaylm…I have to go back to Newmarket…” Her whispered words were thick with emotion. “They’re going to kill him…”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Reaper saw much more than Marcii did.
But only for now, he thought sombrely.
It wasn’t a matter of whether or not Marcii’s power would grow now, it was simply a matter of time.
She was already doing more than she could possibly even imagine.
The enormous demon could see all of this quite clearly by now: much more than the young Dougherty could. He knew there was little he could do other than wait. He still knew that he wouldn’t be the one to reveal such things to her, for it was not his place.