Witch Hunt

by L R Deney

  “I can certainly agree to that.”

  Chapter 8

  “So Vasiliev is definitely on board, as is Andersson,” Julia Frandsen said as she began listing off the names in favor for a declaration of war while she walked down the hall with Drake Okar. “Fromm’s starting to come around to the idea, and Lacosse announced his support.”

  “So counting you, me, and Johnathan, that’s the entire surviving Council,” Drake replied, white teeth shining through his dark lips.

  “Precisely! It means that the Council vote will be unanimous.”

  Debris was still scattered throughout the hallway. While this area had not been hit as hard as the council chamber, the signs of battle were still visible with arcane blast marks and deep scratches and dents covering the walls, floors, and ceilings. Cleanup was going as fast as it could, but the capitol was a large building and combat had spread throughout much of its interior.

  They turned the corner, their path taking them toward Johnathan Ravenford’s office. He was expecting them, waiting to hear what the other survivors were going to decide about the Kadmon situation. Just several more doors down, his was the one at the very end of the hall.

  But there was something wrong when they reached it.

  The door was ajar with the lock and handle looking as though they had been blasted off. Drake raised a finger to his lips and Julia nodded in agreement. Carefully they pushed the door further open to get a better look inside. What they saw caused Julia to shriek with horror and Drake’s stomach churn.

  Johnathan Ravenford was slumped over his desk, his back a bloody mess of knife wounds. More blood dribbled out of his mouth, pooling slightly by his face. Most shocking was the anarchy symbol on the wall adjacent to the desk, painted with Ravenford’s blood. Both councilors stood there for moments, horrified.

  “Who would do such a thing?” Drake asked, his voice filled with horror and rage.

  “Who do you think?” Julia replied, pointing toward the anarchy symbol.

  “But… is this even her style? Would she actually even do something like this?”

  “Reports stated that she melted several officers of the watch with a Hellfire whip during her escape. If she’s capable of that, she’s capable of this.”

  Drake looked around, bewildered. “How did she even get in here without the wards going off? Ravenford was never sloppy with his protections.”

  “How did a horde of demons get into the capitol? You saw the one that showed up first, he literally scratched out a rune right in front of us. They can break our wards now, which is why the city’s defense needs to research new kinds. No one is safe as long as that maniac’s on the loose.”

  “Shit.”

  Several watchmen arrived within a few minutes, having heard Julia’s scream. Immediately they began to take control of the scene, using spells to scan for any potential clues. Julia turned to face one as he approached her.

  “I’m certain it was Staci Drenvauder,” she said with fierceness in her voice. “We need to increase our patrols by triple, immediately. She just assassinated the Speaker. No stone must be left unturned until she is found and neutralized.”

  “I agree ma’am,” the watchman replied in disgust. “I’ll inform my superiors of what has occurred here. I’m sure that they’ll increase the patrols by at least quadruple.”

  “Good.”

  ◆◆◆

  What remained of the Council was gathered within the chamber, half of the seats empty as the survivors filled the remainder. For a few moments, there was a solemn, awkward silence; they were left without a Speaker, and thus the issue of who would be announcing the agendas was a bit of an informal issue. Glances were exchanged briefly, acknowledging the uncomfortable quiet that filled the room.

  Finally it was Julia Frandsen that decided to speak up on the matter. “Today has been one of great tragedy and sorrow. Six of our number have been taken from us, that is half of the Council. Our capitol was attacked for the first time in a century by none other than diabolic forces. They allowed a dangerous criminal turned traitor go free.

  “In the wake of that chaos, the villain, still likely on the run within our fine city, our perpetual refuge from the Church, murdered in cold blood the Speaker for the Council of Magic. Therefore, I put forward the motion to choose a new Speaker.”

  Her five remaining peers collectively said “Aye!”

  “Then we stand as one. Are there any nominations?”

  “I have a nomination,” Drake Okar said from a few seats down on the left wing of the Council. Everyone turned to acknowledge him. “I nominate Councilor Julia Frandsen. Just now she has demonstrated her ability and willingness to lead. She has served many years on the Council, so she has the experience as well.”

  “I’m flattered, Drake. And I accept. Anyone else?”

  “Friedrich Fromm,” Councilor Vasiliev announced from her spot at the far end of the right.

  “Very well. Councilor Fromm, do you accept?”

  All eyes fell on Fromm expectantly, and he was quiet for a few moments as if thinking it over. “I do. I know I may be relatively new compared to the rest of you, but under the guidance of Councilors Vasiliev and Andersson, I have learned much and I feel confident that I can serve this Council well as Speaker.”

  “All right. Any others?” Councilor Frandsen looked around. There were no further responses. “Then so be it. Our choices are myself and Councilor Fromm. We will now place it to a vote. I shall vote for myself.”

  “And I will vote for myself,” Councilor Fromm replied.

  “Councilor Frandsen,” said Okar.

  “Fromm.” Vasiliev.

  “Councilor Fromm.” Andersson.

  Everyone’s gaze immediately went to Councilor Lacosse, who was busily filing his nails as if waiting for this moment. Lacosse had been on the Council for a long time and his reputation as a centrist was well known and established. Depending on who he voted for at this moment, it would either be a landslide victory or a tie. Putting the file away, he scrutinized his two choices carefully.

  “Do you need extra time to consider it, Councilor Lacosse?” Julia asked. “We can take a recess if you need it.”

  “No, that’s fine, Councilor,” Lacosse answered confidently. “I’m fully capable of making this decision. Let’s see….” His eyes turned to slits as he calculated the situation before him. “Based on the current outcome, the only logical choice would be… Councilor… Fromm.”

  Julia let out an exhale of air, the new Speaker was decided. “Very well, Councilor Fromm, you are now our new Speaker. You have the floor and the power to set the next agenda.”

  Councilor Fromm smiled a bit as Frandsen immediately conceded to him. “Yes, thank you, everyone. I will try my best to serve in my new role to the Council to the best of my ability. From this day forth, there isn’t a single force, demonic or otherwise, that can stand in our way.

  “We have been attacked by a great enemy, aided and abetted by a traitor to Azramoas. While we are still learning what we can about her, Kadmon’s assault on our capitol cannot go unanswered. We have our best librarians researching this new enemy, the kingdoms and principalities of the world known as Hell are numerous. The demonic has always been a plague to our society, as a few among us in the past have collaborated willingly with such dark forces. It was because of these actions of a few that the Church justified itself in hunting our ancestors down and burning them at the stake.

  “Well, we will not be harassed any longer. Who is in favor of issuing a formal declaration of war against the demonic horde of Kadmon and all those who would aid her? Say aye or nay.”

  This second vote for the session was pretty much a done deal. Each councilor consecutively said “aye.” The vote was unanimous as predicted. The Council wanted to see justice for the attack that occurred today.

  “Then it’s decided, we are now at war with the Devil, Kadmon.”

  ◆◆◆

  “The Council seems to be out f
or your blood,” Grithnak stated nonchalantly as he handed a bowl of stew to Staci. Grithnak was an orc, green-grayish skin stretched over massive muscles, apparently fond of black leather and piercings. The person who decided to fuck with him was probably someone with a death wish. He ran a bar in the slums of Azramoas called the Rusty Hook. “Fucking patrols everywhere. You really pissed them off this time.”

  “Having demons come to your unexpected rescue tends to have that effect on people,” Staci replied with a shrug, picking up her spoon and taking a taste of the stew.

  “They say you murdered the Speaker.”

  Staci spat out the piece of beef she was chewing. “I did what now?”

  “Yeah, it seems they found the motherfucker dead with evidence implicating you.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Odd how you can apparently be in two places at once, isn’t it?” Grithnak winked.

  Staci looked down at her stew, suddenly having a loss of appetite. “Yeah… no shit.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I clearly need to get the hell out of here. After that, I don’t really fucking know.”

  There was a deep, sinking feeling at the bottom of her stomach. If the Council thought she murdered the Speaker, then they were going to hunt her down until they found her, and they were unlikely to let her live when they did. There would be no proving she was innocent, because they’ve already decided that she was guilty. She forced herself to take a few more bites of the stew before setting it to the side.

  She was sitting in the back room of Grithnak’s bar, at a table surrounded by barrels of alcoholic drinks, numerous bottles of liquor, and stacks of flour sacks. While it was safe here for the moment, it wouldn’t take long for the Azramoas City Watch to start searching this place.

  “Any idea how you’re going to get out of Azramoas? All of the passages in and out are probably watched and guarded.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware of that. What time of day is it, Grithnak?”

  “It’s pretty much evening now. Why?”

  “I have an idea on how I might be able to slip out. It’s an old technique that I haven’t used in a long time. We’ll wait a few more hours.”

  Anxiety running high, the next several hours seemed to drag on for an eternity. Any moment, the purple wizard pigs could kick down the front door and demand to search the premises. Fortunately they passed without incident.

  Grithnak returned to the back room to check up on her after spending most of the eve serving drinks. “So, how’re you doing back here?”

  “I’m going to head out now,” Staci answered, looking back toward the rear exit. “It should be dark enough now.”

  “I’m not sure how just walking around the dark is going to raise your chances. Most of the cops have spells for that.”

  “I know. I’m pretty sure they haven’t thought of what I’m going to attempt though.”

  “Well, all right then,” Grithnak said before wandering over to the back door and opening it. “Stay safe, my girl. And fuck up as many of those Watch ninnies as you can if they catch you.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  After stepping out into the pitch black alley, the door closing behind her, the overwhelming stench of garbage, rats, and who knows what else overcame her senses. Briefly holding her nose, Staci concentrated on herself, her physical form, her essence. Gradually, she began to feel a pull, and then a shift as her body phased from being fully on this plane and partially on another. If it was daylight, anyone observing her would have seen a shroud of darkness engulfing her form, but since it was night, she blended too well with the night to even be seen. It was better than being invisible, because the Watch had spells to detect that. What they wouldn’t be thinking of is someone existing between the physical realm and the realm of death. Most would have thought such a thing madness because of all the things that could go wrong with it.

  Nevertheless, she had once been well practiced in this spell and used it when she was far less… ethical? Moral? She couldn’t really think of the word, but it had been a dark time in her life nevertheless. She barely recognized herself in the memories she had of it.

  Still, despite what people would have thought of such a spell, it had perks other than being unseen in darkness. One could also see the world perfectly without the aid of light. Everything came into sharp focus for her; she could see the stacked piles of garbage and the haphazardly placed bricks in the walls. It was as though it was bright daylight out.

  Time to put it to the test. Slipping out of the alley, she stepped out onto the rough, cobbled streets of the slums. So far no one was in sight, but that wouldn’t last for too long if what Grithnak had said about the increased patrols was true. Choosing a direction at random, it didn’t matter which way she went, she hurried down along the street. If she remembered correctly, there was a passage out of Azramoas somewhere in the slums.

  It wasn’t long until she was confronted with a reminder of one of the more disturbing effects of the spell. Three of the patrolmen approached her, or rather their dark silhouettes did, and in those silhouettes she could see their beating hearts—and hear them—with the veins and arteries of their circulatory systems branching out through their darkened forms. All living beings appeared as such within this space between the worlds of the living and dead. The sight was practically nightmarish, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

  Fortunately the Watchmen didn’t notice her at all as she walked right past them. That was good, that was really good. Smiling to herself, she resumed her way down the road. On the way, she passed several more patrols, each one just as clueless as the last about her presence. If she had tried a simple invisibility spell, they would have spotted her by now, but she had done something different, something unexpected.

  Finding the district’s way out of the slums wasn’t too hard, especially the contingent of guards posted right outside of it. It was right on the side of a wall near a large watchtower. Apparently it had been positioned there a long time ago to “keep the minorities in line.” So typical.

  None of them saw her, so she just waltzed right up to the passage and past them. Only one of them seemed to stir, as she listened to the voices behind her with mild amusement. Not one suspected.

  “Did you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  “A chill? Or something?”

  “I didn’t feel anything.”

  “Nevermind, I guess.”

  The rest of the way down the passage was empty, but it felt like it took fucking forever to walk through as usual. After a while a door finally appeared in front of her and she pushed her way through it. She emerged out in the middle of a modern, rundown city district. Nearby, there was a tenement building that was partially boarded up. How interesting it was that some ways in and out of Azramoas reflected each other.

  Closing the door behind her, observing only a few dark silhouettes with circulatory systems either walking or huddling nearby, she put some distance between herself and the Azramoas anchor. In the background, she could hear a few sirens, traffic, all the typical sounds of a city on Earth.

  She wasn’t sure which city she was in, but it didn’t really matter, she knew where she wanted to go. After traversing numerous blocks, walking for about an hour past apartments, restaurants, convenience stores, and whatever else, she felt she had distanced herself enough from Azramoas’ presence and influence on this dimension. Traveling too close to the anchor would have alerted someone, but now she could.

  Her mind focused on the pristine image of the Space Needle, and she calmly stepped through the folds of the material world.

  Chapter 9

  Melanie sat on the sofa in her cramped, overpriced, downtown Seattle studio apartment that she could just barely afford. Like, the apartment was really fucking small. Her bed folded out from the sofa and the kitchen was allegedly a separate room. Allegedly. The bathroom was almost small enough to be a closet, just a shower and a toilet, nothing else.
The TV she had on as background noise didn’t even get cable—as she couldn’t afford that—just digital antenna.

  The sudden claustrophobia of the moment fell in around her. Fuuuuck, over a thousand bucks for this shit.

  She looked down at the smart phone in her lap and frowned at it. That was the source of her only Internet access. She had to wonder; in several months time would she even be able to afford this place anymore? Ever since the gentrifying of Seattle started, the poor, the minorities, they were all getting priced out of their neighborhoods. For what? To make the roads prettier?

  Ugh.

  She briefly peered at the show that was playing on the television and arched her brow at it. It was some kind of crime drama or something, but she’d be hard pressed to guess which one. Muttering to herself about white people and their stupid bullshit, she grabbed the remote that was lying within reach next to her and shut the TV off.

  And then she was subsumed with silence—and darkness, as apparently the TV was the only thing in the room that had been illuminating it. Curious as to what time it was, she grabbed her phone and turned it on to look at the time.

  12:32 am.

  Fuuuuck, it’s been days since Kimberly disappeared, she thought in frustration and ramping anxiety. God I fucking hope she’s okay.

  Unlocking her phone, she took a brief look through her text messages. Staci wasn’t one to use her cell phone much, but Melanie thought it was fair to check and see if she may have sent any messages anyway. There didn’t seem to be anything new though, so she opened the Facebook app and began scrolling through that.

  It was then she noticed some flickering lights off the edge of her vision. She turned her head and noticed that the flashing was coming from the lower area of her window—to think, she had a window in this cramped, expensive dump. Curious, she stood up and walked toward the window and looked down.