Star Coven

by Kristoff Chimes

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  Mage Marshal

  Tech Warlock

  Agi

  Genesis Invasion

  Valiant

  The Asteroid Thief

  A note from the author

  Star Coven

  By

  Kristoff Chimes

  Copyright © 2017 Kristoff Chimes

  All rights reserved by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER 1

  The plan was to die. A glorious, honorable, spectacular and most of all convincing death.

  But not like this.

  No one should die like this.

  He wouldn’t wish this death on his worst enemies. Spinning upside down in his tiny spaceship’s toilet like a cat in a blender. He screamed out a string of expletives as the Wyrdra’s pursuit ships bombed seven shades of shit out of him.

  “Mother—”

  Kaboom!

  “Fucking—”

  Kaboom!

  “Shit heads!”

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  A heat seeker spell punched up through the toilet bowl and ate into his body suit.

  He hastily zipped up his halo-jump suit. Railroading his balls in the rush. He frantically yanked the zipper downward, releasing his trapped tackle and back up again.

  All to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, changing the words, “Fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME!”

  Green forked lightning of a Wyrdra cluster-fuck spell-bomb tore along the bulkhead and ripped his ship in half. Instantly, he was propelled into the icy hell of space. Somersaulting toward the Wyrdra’s home world.

  Already, ice had formed where he’d pissed himself. He tried not to make any sudden moves. Just in case something important froze and snapped off.

  He had seconds before everything began swelling up. Expanding with horrific magnitude. Exploding.

  First, his lungs. His eyes would be next. Then his brain cells.

  All he needed was a simple spell. Nothing potent. Anything to power up a latent nanobot army dormant on his skin. Weave a helmet around his bulging face. Convert the ice to air. Heat to melt the ice block that was his wang.

  But his Spelltech armor was hanging off the back of the toilet door. And that was spinning away at a thousand miles an hour in the opposite direction.

  His choice of reading material for private poop time had been a spell book he’d stolen from his daughter’s mother, the last time he’d seen her. Just before he’d been called to fight in the Magic war. More than a decade ago.

  That too, was spinning off into the Nec Void to be lost forever.

  Good fucking riddance to it. He should have known not to bring it on this mission. The second its pages lit up, literally bursting into flames, he knew a dormant tracker spell, triggered by his keen eyes had slipped off its ancient pages and called home.

  Alerting the Wyrdra pursuit ships an hour before he’d planned.

  To cap off a perfect morning, the Wyrdra pursuit ships were coming around again. Blue-black arrows shimmering with impregnable Spelltech shields. Darting through the Nec Nebula and targeting his ass with their Spelltech’s Harpy harpoons.

  No doubt, planning to drag his frozen ass back to their home world for a humiliating public trial and execution.

  A statement to the universe. No one enters the Nec Void without Wyrdra consent. No exceptions. Not even a decorated war hero responsible for saving billions of lives from the chaos and misery of untamed magic.

  A chance to remind Earth’s human population that without the Wyrdra they’d be nothing, but a slave colony mining Magic Dust on some God forsaken shit hole in the galaxy.

  But look on the bright side, he considered. His public trial was also a chance for that scheming bitch Star Marshal Scar to deny he was one of her own. A Mage Marshall. Hell, a War Marshall.

  But the Magic War was over.

  We won. Apparently…

  Now all he had to occupy his time was a cold war of Magic Law infringement, accusation, denial, and stockpiling of Magic Dust. A very dirty cold war between the magic races.

  That, and an unsanctioned rescue mission. A daughter who probably didn’t remember him, held by the Wyrdra. In imminent danger of being inducted into the Star Coven.

  And that was worth dying to prevent.

  “I’m War Marshall Wolf and this is fucking bullshit!”

  As his last words fell silently flat on the vacuum of the Nec Void he realized he didn’t even have enough power left in his suit to transmit his dying testament back to Earth. His daughter would grow up thinking he was a mass murderer. A bigoted anti-magic scumbag war criminal. Or whatever variation her mother chose to brainwash her with.

  He drifted around to face a Harpy harpoon as it powered up, “You better not miss, or I’ll shove your broomstick up your familiar’s ass.”

  He felt a sudden biting sensation on his skin where there should be nothing but numbness.

  “Wait a second. I’m still breathing? I can hear my own words!”

  He felt the tiny scurrying claws of a billion nanobots weaving along his face. It occurred to him with his last few unfrozen brain cells, that his skin was deeply imbued with a basic profanity spell. So low level, it had dropped off the Wyrdra Magic Dust scale. But evidently resonated with enough magical energy to kick-start his dormant Spelltech nanobots.

  He was never a convert to the Star Wicca religion, but in that moment he wanted to praise it, “Halley-fucking-lujah— oh shit!”

  The pursuit ship unleashed a Harpy.

  CHAPTER 2

  War Marshal Wolf didn’t exactly make it difficult for the Happy Harpoon to target him. Too busy figuring his ass from his elbow while playing punch bag for an assortment of Wyrdra magic dust warhead shrapnel fragments peppering his spacesuit. He flapped about in high orbit of the witch-world, Wyrdra, like a Belluvian ostrich on stardust-crack.

  His mind, reeling with magic dust residue from the Wyrdra shells, wandered to memories of these fearsome beasts. A flock of these afflicted creatures existed back in the Magic War and an awesome sight ten thousand of them made as they surrounded the War Marshal and his comrades. Mostly, he concluded, licking his lips, they were appreciated as a victory barbecue dish.

  As far as covert evasion tactics were concerned, he might as well have been singing, “Can’t catch me for a toffee flea!”

  Somewhere over the capital of Wyrdra he felt the Harpy Harpoon insert itself up his ass. Mindful of the tight squeeze, he discovered his latent singing ability as a soprano. Fraying his vocal cords with an assortment of expletives that he was sure made no cognitive sense to any intelligent being this side of the Nec Void shimmer wall.

  The Harpy Harpoon existed as a sick psychotic bastard cousin of the nastiest side of magic, known universally as Dark Mage Shit. A Harpy could pierce any known object, embedding itself deep. Making it impossible to shake off without causing the harpoon’s spearhead to embed deeper and in Wolf’s case even more painfully.

  No matter if the Harpy’s target was the ten-feet thick hull of a starship, or a man’s flesh and bones. The principal was the same.

  Skewer th
at sucker!

  War Marshal Wolf felt well and truly skewered. But that wasn’t the nastiest surprise he had to look forward to. That delight was reserved for the exploding head of the harpoon. And the warhead’s magical components were dependent entirely upon who was the harpooner.

  As he squirmed like a beached star-whale caught on a reef of stardust coral, he calculated he had about another five seconds before his body exploded like an Independence Day sky full of fireworks. Alternatively, he’d die slowly as he watched his guts tugged simultaneously out of his ass and his nostrils.

  He allowed himself a sneak preview of the imminent terror by imagining how exactly an embedded harpoon spearhead could extricate itself through two opposite human orifices simultaneously.

  Simple.

  A Harpy Harpoon was a magical torture device. And as such could be required to tap dance and sing the Star-Spangled Banner while wearing a tutu and blowing rainbow bubbles of vomit out of its target’s eyeballs. All to be fashioned into party animals for children's’ parties.

  Hell yeah, Wolf was having a whale of a time puking up his worse paranoia. However, at this point, Wolf was aware his mind was suffering severe oxygen starvation and he excused his rambling.

  There was a third option of course. With magic, there always is. But even without knowing precisely what it might be, Wolf knew it was the least favorable of options.

  He took a deep breath and counted down the remaining seconds of his arrogant, misspent, adventure-seeking, magic-hating, overzealous life.

  Five seconds later, he realized he was still alive and gave this mixed blessing the reception it deserved. A one finger salute to the anonymous harpooner tugging at the magical cord and violently reeling in the Harpy.

  His guts began to tingle. To begin with, like a pleasant sneeze tickling his nose. Then moments later, like a gluttonous yawning python uncoiling in the pit of his stomach and slithering out of every orifice. It’s hollow, venom-dripping fangs scraping along the more sensitive parts with careless abandon.

  He was hauled onto the loading bay of a Wyrdra Pursuit ship. A Wyrdra pilot came down from her flight deck to inspect her new cargo. Beautiful, tall, slender, and possessing a human female form. Her presence coincided with the evaporation of the Harpy Harpoon. Her familiar spirit, a huge tigress, leapt at Wolf and everything turned to darkness.

  CHAPTER 3

  Night Fear felt her stomach tie itself up in a knot. In the Wyrdra’s court of the Star Coven, spying on Queen Hera was considered worthy of a punishment worse than death. And the Wyrdra witches were experts at devising spells that could achieve exactly that.

  Night Fear whispered to her familiar, the leopard, Pads, “You’re going to get me turned inside out and flailed like a toad on a Halloween barbecue. Are you sure you’re not under a warlock spell?”

  “Shh!”

  “I won’t,” she snapped. “Why risk my life like this when I could be—”

  She held her tongue. Conscious of betraying her true feelings.

  Pads turned her regal head of bristling fur and said, “I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The human slave boy you’ve been lusting after. It’s forbidden. Or do your hormones command you?”

  “Don’t patronize me. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Love between Wyrdra and human will get him killed and you banished.”

  “I know that,” she said gritting her teeth. “It’s just… oh never mind.”

  “You think being half human gives you a greater insight into mankind? They are all betrayers. Murderers. They have no honor. Love one and pollute your bloodline. Bring shame on your coven. Force me to end you.”

  “Save myself for a warlock?” she hissed. “And you claim to be bonded to my soul? You don’t understand a thing about me. And you’ll never understand love.”

  She regretted the word the instant it left her lips.

  Pads turned on her and slapped a paw of closed claws across her cheek. “Don’t ever use that word. Not even in jest. Love is a vile spell of hormonal enslavement used by the humans to imbue bitterness and sadness on others. It is their one true weapon. Their power. Their control over others.

  “Forget your human heritage and embrace your Wyrdra. It’s high time I petitioned for your acceptance into the Entity Sword ritual. Then you’ll see the humans for what they are. A virus to be eradicated. My mistake shall be rectified as soon as I’m done here.”

  She knew Pads made sense. But her feelings for the human slave Caredig were more potent than any spell she’d ever conjured. And she was sure she was immune to any love spell.

  “Caredig hasn’t a magic bone in his body,” Night Fear said. “He’s decent and pure and—”

  Pads lashed out her at once again. Harder than before. Night Fear felt the sting.

  Pads said with barely contained rage, “Am I not your mentor?”

  Night Fear sighed. “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s precisely the point. Am I not given the sole authority to train you in the magic-sciences and see you inducted into the Star Coven?”

  Night Fear shrugged.

  “I guess so.”

  “And does that authority give me the right to instruct, rebuke and punish you as I see fit?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No ‘buts’, get with the program or get yourself banished.”

  Night Fear snapped, “Maybe I want to be banished. Maybe I’ll run away with Dig and we’ll—”

  Pads leapt at Night Fear and pinned her down. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said?” Pads sneered and revealed her razor sharp fangs, scraping them against Night Fear’s cheek. “Do you know what happens to a Wyrdra when they are banished?”

  “They live free and happy for the rest of their—”

  “They are hunted by the anti-magic law enforcers. The Mage Marshals. They are arrested. Incarcerated. Tortured with ‘anti-magic education’.

  “Anti-magic’s just a point of view. It’s not harmful to—”

  “Wyrdra went to war for a hundred years to prevent the humans’ indoctrination destroying our way of life.”

  “I still think—”

  “Don’t say a word. Clearly your slave ‘friend’ brainwashed you. Can’t you see his words for what they are?”

  “Which is what?”

  “Lies to trick you to free him.”

  Night Fear had had enough. She spat back, “If falling in love with a human was good enough for my mother then it’s good enough for—”

  “She didn’t!”

  “What?”

  “Shadow Walker did not fall in love with any human.”

  “I’m half human. How else--”

  “Your mother was raped by a human marauder during the Magic War.”

  Night Fear put her hands over her ears. “No, you twist everything. I don’t want to hear it.”

  Pads slapped away her hands. “It’s time you faced the truth. A human Mage Marshal forced himself on your mother. You were consummated in hate. A powerful source of dark magic. Your death was ordered by the Star Coven. According to our laws your mother gave birth to you with the full intention of offering you to the Nec Lords for judgment.”

  “The Nec? That’s a death sentence. How did I survive?”

  “That’s between the Nec Lords and Shadow Walker.”

  “I’ve a right to know.”

  “You’ll have to read about it in the Star Coven Grimoire.”

  “That’s for Queen Hera’s eyes only.”

  “Ssh!” Pads jolted and whipped around her head. She stared far below them as two figures appeared in the mirrored Hall of Truth.

  Pads moved along the rafters for a better look. She stopped abruptly, holding a paw in the air as if frozen in her perch high up in the rafters.

  Queen Hera had summoned Night Fear’s mother. Hera wore her ceremonial battle armor, while Shadow Walker preferred the standard Wyrdra body
suit.

  Night Fear watched in awe at the Queen’s beauty. “I can’t watch, I’ll go blind,” she said. “They’ll smell my human half and feed me to the Nec.”

  In fact, both Hera and Shadow Walker were beautiful. But it was nothing to be ashamed of, as Pads reminded her. “It’s a Wyrdra genetic trait that you foolishly fret you’ve failed to inherit.”

  She ran her figures through her greasy blonde locks. Between her forefinger and thumb she squeezed a puss oozing spot. She glanced at her own reflection in the wall reminding her of her washed-out blue eyes devoid of the Magic Dust glow that the other Wyrdra flaunted.

  Her frame had lean muscle, but was considered weak, unattractive. Despite becoming officially an adult, her body lacked the lustful feminine curves and intimidating height of the others. “I’ll never be good enough. My human half has damned me to plainness.”

  Pads sighed, “Every Wyrdra knows that appearance and beauty are manipulated by the Magic Dust they consume.”

  “But I’m allergic to Magic Dust.”

  “With careful exposure, even you can overcome your intolerances.”

  She shook her head. “Magic Dust is toxic. I’ll never understand why Wyrdra go to so much trouble?”

  “Listen when I tell you, beauty is a Wyrdra’s weapon, the key to our survival,” Pads said. “No species can resist a Wyrdra in full blossom. Now shut up and pay attention to the reason I brought you here.”

  “Which is?”

  “I heard the Grimoire talking in its sleep,” Pads said. “It mentioned a stranger. A human male.”

  “So what? We have plenty of human slaves.”

  “Not like this one. This one is a free man. A man of purpose. A man who has conquered his demons. And a man like that is truly one to fear.”

  “Here in Wyrdra?”

  “Shh. Listen.”

  Down below, Hera paced up and down the hall. Her multiple reflections drifting on clouds and emitting rays of golden Wyrdra light. The spell-light, with the wings, head and talons of a golden eagle, spiraled around the hall seeking out spies. It’s occasional squawk from on high ripped at Night Fear’s ears.