‘A walk in the mist.’

April 9th, 2000

“That’s all I gotta do? I’ll have it done lickity split, my good man.”

“I’ll be counting on you,” a boy’s voice says through the flip phone.

Edmond Swift takes in a lungful of cool ocean air, looks away from the ATM, hangs up, and smiles. It was a busy Sunday evening in humble Sapphire Isle — a tourist getaway supported on the far eastern end of the Bible Belt — and he just made the easiest thousand dollars of his life. And he is about to make a lot more.

The kid on the other end of the life is one of those jittery types, the kind of person who falls for conspiracy theories and late night infomercials. Out of Edmond’s three kinds of preferred cliente, he was the kind that always made him the most money. The other two, the overly occult and the hyper paranoid, are way too much effort in comparison.

Edmond is on vacation, but that didn’t mean he can’t make a quick lick of cash on the side. He put up a poster for his business and, lo and behold, somebody bit two days later.

Prior to his little detour to Sapphire Isle, he was in Jacksonville. Before that, Orlando. And before that, Tampa and Miami. Really, he’d been all over the east coast doing business. There was always business for a person with Edmond’s talents.

He was a realist paranormal investigator by trade. An un-occultist, if you would. He is somebody who went around helping people with their supposed supernatural problems and showing them there wasn’t anything supernatural at all. Nobody licensed a job like his, but at the same time, nobody told him that he couldn’t do this job. So he took it as a sign to keep on truckin’.

His trusty old blue Hyundai hatchback is waiting for him in the parking lot of the burger joint he treated himself at. They had a long history together — if Edmond was born two hundred years prior, he’d be rockin’ a white horse named Old Besse. This mechanical gal is New Besse. He liked New Besse a lot.

Edmond has a certain methodology when it comes to solving cases. Most cases he signed up for weren’t supernatural at all. All he had to do was use his head, come up with an explanation that would satisfy the customer, and he’d be out of their hair in a jiffy. But there were a few cases — they came far, far inbetween the normal ones — that ended up having a smidge of supernatural to them. Those were a bit harder to solve.

For the longest time, Edmond knew he was special. He could always see things the others couldn’t. There were always things lurking in the shadows, behind corners, in the next alley over — they were things sane people didn’t dare imagine. A long running theory of his was that people throughout history blinded themselves to the unknown. They came up with sensibile explanations, happy to curl up on their scientific island of ignorance in the big black sea. But not Edmond. He knew.

He knew that there were things creeping around in the dark, and he knew those things could be dealt with. A certain mentor of his from ages past taught him one easy trick.

Edmond leans over from the wrinkled black driver’s seat and checks his glove box, where he keeps New Reliable. And she was a beaut as well, not as much as New Besse. He keeps that to himself. Can’t have your girls getting jealous of each other.

Her make is an Enfield Mk II — Edmond found the English-made revolvers a lot more reliable than the old west guns — tuned up for the modern age. She is an original, which apparently made its exorcising power stronger, but he never really noticed the difference. The real magic is in the bullets.

Historically, there’s been a lot of debate on what kinds of bullets can deal with the supernatural. Silver was a classic, but there was also plenty of use of magic whatnots used by the church. Something about shrouds and body parts of old saints. Edmond, despite being well off, ain’t exactly the sort that can afford a genuine crusade era relic to shoot. He had the budget option.

All he needed to do to make a supernatural killing bullet was etching some runes into the casing. Five would do. Combined with a bit of meditation, and they’d be enough to blast a big hole in anything lurking in the shadows.

Tonight’s job probably didn’t need New Reliable, but he could never be sure. He slides her into his holster, stuffs several speedloaders of engraved bullets into his jacket and vest, and holds up his cellphone to the darkening sky beyond the windshield.

The weird kid sent him a picture of a dirty blonde girl with green eyes. Edmond’s job was to find out if she was a witch or not. There were a few addresses attached; he would have to go on a night crawl and monitor the girl for a bit. He knew the weird kid would be satisfied with a few photos, so he didn’t intend on doing anymore.

It wasn’t stalking, it was investigating. And at a rate of one hundred bucks an hour, he really couldn’t refuse. Follow around a girl, take some photos, get his pay, and enjoy the rest of his vacation. Satisfied, he jams the key into New Besse’s ignition and listens to her purr.

Easy enough, he thinks.

I remember the night I died. It was a night much like this one — the black clouds came in late in the evening and hung in the sky like an umbrella.

I can’t really remember what I thought back then, but I do remember bits and pieces. After the incident with my parents, my grandmother moved me to a second floor room. I remember the light blue wallpaper that peeled back to cold brick. The toys. An actual bed. Real food. My grandma — who I had barely interacted with until then — treated me like a person.

I spent most of my days staring out the window. Something had happened to me the night my parents died. From that day onwards, I felt empty. It was a cold emptiness so profound that I spent most of my days unable to think of anything else. There was nothing inside of me; a broken vase waiting to be filled. The fragments of my mind stared outside the window, searching aimlessly for the part of me that had disappeared.

One day, as I stared up into the clouded night sky, my mind felt a sense of dread and panic so profound that I blacked out. There were memories of running. Crying. Screaming. Smashing my head into the wall until my skin burst like an overripe tomato. Clawing.

I found my grandmother again, still tinkering away in her workshop far away from the house. My skirt was muddy from falling over so many times in the rain — and, once more, I begged for help.

“Oh dear,” she said, petting my head with an unexpected warmth. “It looks like you’re finally ready.”

I didn’t have the energy to ask what I was ready for.

She stripped me, put me in a ceremonial black dress, and laid me out on an altar. There were injections, pricks of ice that numbed my body and left me drifting through my own consciousness. I couldn’t tell if I was awake or not — the candles had gone out, leaving behind the smell of lavender and bloodied smoke. There was nothing but darkness all around me. My body was paralyzed and numb — I couldn’t feel a thing except for that horrible all-consuming dread. My vision grew fuzzy and started perceiving things that weren’t there. After a while, it looked as if a singular shadow had settled into the stone room.

And eventually, the shadow smiled at me.

I didn’t have time to scream.

I don’t remember what happened. All I could remember was my grandma tucking me into a warm bed with a soft and fuzzy blanket. But the dread was still there.

“Magic won’t make miracles,” she said, “Never look down — for death’s shadow will come from above when you meet others of your kind.”

Those words rattled inside my young mind until I fell asleep. In my black dreams, I felt a shadow hanging over me. Somebody was watching from above. Far, far away, they stared.

No matter where I went from then on, it was always there. I flew overseas, but it only crept closer as each day passed. Day by day, year by year, it came closer until it felt like the moon itself was boring down on me.

Nevertheless, it was just a feeling. I looked down many times out of spite and nothing came.

But one thing was certain. I didn’t feel much other than blind panic when my parents killed themselves.

What I had felt that night was a child’s first brush with death.

Many years have passed since then, but those words and that feeling of dread have never gone away. Even now, as the winds howl in my ear, as Erika whistles a somber tune, I can still hear those words.

I can still feel the entire sky looking down on me.

“Everything should be ready,” Erika says, smiling a sidelong grin.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot, testing the seaworn limestone, then opened my eyes. The clouds had shifted subtly, but the seafront vista is still nearly pitch black.

Tonight, The Point is abandoned. It was abandoned on most nights, but it felt extra isolated today. I know the reason why — all of Erika’s wards, charms, and fields are activated. Not a single normal person would see us tonight.

No matter how hard the winds tear at the clouds, it remains a singular mass of storms to come. The nearby signs, illuminated by my electronic torch, scream a variety of warnings. No construction. No trespassing. No parking. No fire. They stand in the wasteland of a limestone bluff dotted with piles of sand, standing vanguard against any ne'er-do-wells.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the slightest intention of following any of the signs.

The storm’s winds are strongest out here. Every gust feels like it could tear my flesh apart. It carried the last vestige of winter’s wrath, chilling me through my jacket. The cold stabs through my fingers, runs up my arms, and clenches around my heart. If I let my guard down, I would be frozen from the inside out. It is not an ordinary cold that could be defeated with conventional means.

So I lit a fire. I pressed my hands together and rubbed, throwing all the fuel I could into the friction. My emotions, my thoughts. My feelings. If they would keep me warm for just a moment longer, then I didn’t need them. I don’t need any of it.

“I’ll hand over control to you soon, dear.” Erika walked closer to me with her eyes closed, but I know she’s still staring at me. “You have it easier than most. Internalize the feelings. Let these things become a part of you.”

The target tonight is a worn L-shaped boulder. If I can conquer this, then the rest would come easy. The first step is always the hardest.

“Yeah.” My voice came out uncharacteristically meek. My teeth are chattering, my legs are shaking, and I can feel a cold sweat soaking my back. I can’t tell if it’s fear, dread, or anticipation, but something is throwing me off.

“The first will be mental. Concentrate on what’s in front of you. You should know what to do after — I believe in you.”

The sheer sincerity in those words banishes the hesitation away. I won’t disappoint her. I can’t.

Erika begins to whistle once more, the chorus to the noise of the night.

“This is Sapphire Isle’s local late night radio news — we’re coming in with reports of an unexpected storm. It should be over by morning, but expect wind speeds of anywhere between 39–73 mph and potential heavy rain. Tourists are recommended to stay in doors. More coming soon… after a short commercial break—”

New Besse’s radio gives Edmond news he would rather have heard several hours ago. He glances out the windshield at the end of the boardwalk — at the wall of darkness beyond the city's light. Dark clouds swirl, the winds hurl flecks of moist sand at the car’s windshield.

“Yeesh,” he says, lighting a slightly crumpled Marlboro, “Weather gets feisty around here, doesn't it?”

He double checks his maps through cigarette smoke — he’d gone through almost all of the places the weird kid gave to him. All that’s left is an abandoned old house by Archer’s Note, and the old boulders by The Point. The old house is well over an hour’s drive away — he could go without checking it over. One last place, then he could go back to his hotel and party the night away.

Edmond took photos of all the places he went — the job turned out to be a rather nice sight-seeing adventure. He took a stroll down the inlet fishing pier, took a soothing walk on the early evening beach with a Pina Colada el grande, and visited a few of the outlet malls the weird kid directed him to. But the girl wasn’t at any of them.

He never asked why the weird kid was interested in the girl. Edmond assumed “finding out if she was a witch” was roundabout speak for “find out if she’s single,” or in his experience, “get me some photos of this girl I can hang up in my bedroom shrine dedicated to her.” The last one happens way too often for his liking.

But that wasn’t his problem. He’s just the guy who does the job.

Edmond watches the town roll away through New Besse’s windows, crumbling into black-windowed manors and narrow residential roads. He avoids a no trespassing sign into a private community, nestles his car into an empty public beach parking lot, and jots down a mental map of the surrounding area.

To the south and east, pitch black windy beach. To the west, big houses of rich bastard millionaires. To the north, past a three story teal summer home and its accompanying shrubbage, the criss-cross electrified fence of a Coast Guard station. He can make out the grey-tiled roofs, a stark grey radio tower, and a flagpole shivering in the winds — the star-spangled banner atop the pole looks like it’s about to be torn off.

He steps out of his car, camera in hand.

“Goddamn,” he says, shielding his face. Buttoning up his black coat and covering up his mouth and nose with a bandana only helps a little. Any more of this than necessary and he’d dry out like a sponge on a sizzling Louisiana day. “Hell of a place to hang your weather outside.”

The blackened beach looms ahead. All he needs to do is survey the site, snap a few photos, send them off to the kid, and he’s out of here. And just in case, he keeps New Besse running.

A dark and stormy night.

The light cannot reach me, no matter how bright.

And somewhere, a creature howls and invites.

The sensation of control invades my body. A chill colder than ice runs through my extended arms — goosebumps rise. The chill stabs in the bottom of the brain. Something important to me bleeds out of the wound — I have to ignore it.

An invisible boundary set across the land. A mesh of intricate threads woven together, melding into eternity.

I become one with them. The only sound remaining is the howl.

Ahead, I sense a pattern on the ground. A three layer circle of glyphs and patterns passed down for untold generations. The chill traces up my arms like a frozen knife.

It is already inscribed. All I would have to do is take it into myself. I focus and reach out.

“Veil. Shatter. Boundaries. Shatter. Restraint. Shatter.”

A greasy sensation ebbs at the edge of my consciousness. A familiar needle invades my back — kind pain and cruel aid. My mind, struggling to comprehend, attempts to form the sensation into words that I can understand.

“Mirrored image and cowardly reflections. Fall. Fall. Reveal all.”

Bathing in ice. Sentient tar fills my lungs — I dare not breath in another breath.

She is closer than ever. Intimacy beyond carnal acts. Erika gives me a glimpse of her inner world — a realm of endless mirrors.

“Bear witness. Real becomes shadow, shadow becomes real—”

I construct it in my mind’s eye. The boulder targeted by the spell is turning inside out — it will reveal its shadow. All I need is the final spark. The trigger and the catalyst. The fuel.

My focus turns inwards. The flow of blood and electrochemistry fades. My body ignites, pulsating with a different energy.

It fills me. My heart disappears — a core of endlessly spinning nebulas replaces it. It connects to each part of my body’s network. Circuits, channels, rivets. Transistor. Floodgate. The final grate remains closed.

The sensations can not be measured with human means. Nor can it be understood. One must forfeit blissful ignorance to reach it — to cower in the world beyond humanity. The answer to life and a return to something else.

This energy has many different names. Mana. Energy. Qi. Ether. More throughout history. The same applies to practitioners of the art. Wizards, sages, sorcerers, magi. Witches. It is miracles, legends, and the monsters in the night.

I fall. This is my way of opening my gate — others see different things. I fall, faster and faster and faster and plummet towards death. The ether swells as I race towards my fate.

All I need is the trigger. The spell’s name. Erika never told me the name — I have to discover it myself. I reach into the darkness, chasing after the faintest hint of light—

“Evoke: Refl—”

Crush. A sensation like painless stabbing invades my shoulder blades — my concentration is interrupted. But I can feel them. An intruder.

There is something happening on the beach. Edmond is sure of it. Through his camera’s telescopic lens, he can see the girl and another woman in a black dress standing and doing weird hand signs in front of a boulder. He’s been recording everything so far, but this recent turn of events has piqued his interest. There’s something in the distance — something he can only sense.

It was a feeling between excitement and fear, the same kind of raw adrenaline gained from doing something incredibly taboo. His heart hasn’t beaten like this since he went a hundred on a highway speed limit.

The air itself is shifting and breaking around their target boulder. It’s a miniature light show — he’s surprised others haven’t seen this already. And, instinctively, he already knows what he’s seeing.

This is magic. Not the street tricks or the scams or the conveniently crafted half-truths; whatever those girls are doing is real. And he’s getting it all on film.

He can see everything from his alcove behind several gnarled trees, but they can’t see him. Nobody can see that far in the dark. They’re too busy with their ritual, anyways, their mouths moving in an unheard chant.

The possibilities blossom in Edmond’s mind. He could become filthy rich from this. He’s been hiding his smidge of magic — the runes in the bullets — but if he revealed this to the world, there would be no end to his fame. Radio shows, talk shows, magazines. Maybe even an honorary degree somewhere. This is the big break he’s been waiting for.

“Edmond, you sunnvabitch, you’re a genius.”

He pads in his flip phone’s password, steadies the camera, then takes extra pictures of the clean images through his telescopic camera. No harm in it.

The weird kid who requested this could be an afterthought. A few easy photos, and Edmond can run off with the rest of the footage. The international news would go up in money-making flames. He could run off right now, but he feels like he should stick around just this once for integrity’s sake. Better yet, he could follow these teenages witches home and shake them down for all they’re worth. If they require this much set up for magic, then they can’t really say no to a gun barrel pointing at their face, can they?

He’s giddy with all the things he could do. The last time he was this excited, he was going down on three babes from Mia—

Edmond steps to the side. He isn’t quite entirely sure why he steps, but for the first time, the world seemed to slow down for him. A sixth sense told him to move, and he listened. And exactly one second later, a figure barrels past him and knocks over the camera.

Metallic cling sound. He watches his camera spark as the figure runs their hands through it — knife-like fingers cut his beautiful Canon Digital XLR-500 into three pieces. On the other hand, if he stood there, that would’ve been his neck.

The figure looks like a cross between a clothing shop mannequin and a nightmare. Black smoke funnels out a hole where the upper half of its face should be. It turns to him, slowly, glowering with marble white lips.

There’s another one forty paces behind him, approaching through the darkness.

Edmond feels calm. He’s got New Reliable on his hip, after all.

“Ugly sons of bitches,” he growls.

The nightmares charge at him at the same time.

Erika stops whistling and turns towards me.

It comes from above. A figure. Claw tipped black fingers reach for my eyes like a bullet. Erika’s eyes widen.

My instinct takes over. I dive forwards without knowing exactly what I’m doing — its claws whistle above my head. My elbows hit stone with my elbows and I push through the pain — twist around and raise my palm towards the figure. I’m not experienced enough to activate spells with a mere thought. I have to do the first thing I can think of.

“—Burst.”

The raw magical energy in my raised palm erupts in an unrefined blast. The heat and force shakes the air — sends the figure one step back.

Not enough. My fingers curl preemptively.

“Prime — Gale!”

A nearly invisible arrow, tempered and accelerated through my arm, flies forth. It nails the figure in the abdomen and pierces a goreless hole, then keeps traveling into the distance. I get a good look at the figure as it stares in disbelief — it’s a humanoid draped in grey and white cloth, but its head disappears above opened alabaster lips. The only thing that remains is a gaping hole trailing black smog. Then it falls.

“Marie!” Erika is on top of me immediately, propping me up with her arms. Her usual smugness is nowhere to be seen, replaced with a genuine worry. Her green eyes blaze with a barely restrained anger. “Marie… I’ll...”

“I’m alright,” I groan. My elbows are slick; I must’ve tore the skin when I hit the ground. But at least my face is fine.

“Give me the field.” The light seems to fade around Erika, leaving a terrifying hollow-eyed scowl. “I’ll trace that breach and kill them. I promise.”

The sensation of ice leaves my sore limbs, leaving me with my pitiful amounts of ether. Erika helps me up to my feet. “Keep an eye out on the nearby area,” she says, closing her eyes and clasping her hands in front of her chest. “I can’t see anybody right now, but that might not mean anything. I’m counting on you.”

“Yes, Erika.” I say, alarmingly obedient. My chest almost cringes at the sound of my own voice — it was the sound of a lost puppy, not an adult. I shouldn’t sound like that.

I wince and shake away the thought. The corpse is still nearby, anyhow. It certainly wasn’t human — hence, no hesitation. And by time I reach the alabaster figure, it’s already disintegrating into fine white ash and being blown away by the winds. Whatever it was, it was probably a summoned creature of some sort. But whatever this creature was completely escaped my knowledge. I’ve gone through plenty of tomes on mystic creatures, and — oh dear — I have not seen anything like it before.

Chances are, the creature was only the weakest grunt. Erika would have sensed anything stronger coming, and I’ve never actually been able to see her deal with intruders before. I only heard the sounds.

“Tough times ahead, huh?” I muse to myself, prodding the ashes with my finger.

Suddenly, I hear something shattering the calming winds. Chemical thunder. I’ve grown to know that sound well. I could never forget it.

Gunshots.

And in the distance, I see the silhouette of a person. My stomach drops through my feet.

We were seen.

Three shots. It only took three shots to make the plaster and robe figures dead.

“Gonna to take more than that, buckos,” Edmond says, lowering his revolver. He entertains himself with the sight of the creatures disappointing into ash, then moves over to the ruins of his camera.

The thing’s totaled. Ain’t no repairman in the world that can patch up three pieces of camera back into one — but the SD card is still intact. He grabs the little blue memory chip from the remains and hustles out of there. If the SD card is still intact, then the recording would be salvageable. He grins.

He glances over his shoulder once — the girl is shouting at him, but the winds are drowning her out. But there’s no way they can catch up. He breaks into a sprint, grinning. All he would need to do now is make a clean getaway, and in a town like this, there’s no shortage of hiding spots.

Good thing he left New Besse running.

“Stop!” I aim at the fleeing figure, but their shadow melts into the darkness of the residential manors. They take a shortcut through vaulting over a fence. “Damn you!”

I glance over at Erika — she concentrates on the imperceptible. Her eyes are closed and her hands are raised in front of her. She didn’t even notice the sound of gunfire. “Something’s happening with the leylines — I won’t let them take control. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t—”

The public cannot know people like us exist. More than mere jealousy and hoarding power, being seen is death. It is one of the first lessons any mage learns. I force myself to shake off the haze in my mind and chase after them.

As I reach the main street, A blue sedan tears eastbound through the night street — tires squealing — it slips into a drift. It’s going back towards the city.

Time slows down as I focus — my ether circuits burn faster than the speed of thought. The sedan’s tires smoke at a worm’s pace. Houses. Storm. Target. I raise my arm and aim.

It’s impossible to miss at this range. The ametuer spells I know are crude, but effective. While other mages have fine-tuned reality warping sequences, I’ve taken inspiration from mundane techniques.

Magic, known to some as magecraft, still follows some of the same physical mechanics as the rest of the world. One application burns through my mind: the equation of continuity. The volume flow rate for an incompressible fluid at any point along a pipe is the same as the volume flow rate at any other point along a pipe.

My body is a closed system of flowing ether. Therefore, if I construct the smallest of tubes, then I can release a miniscule amount of ether at incredibly high speeds.

A controlled breach. I break to destroy others.

This is all the magic I know. Besides controlling the flow of ether in my body to small extents, I can only do this with some proficiency. I know I’m an inferior witch with little hope of ever becoming a real mage. But at this moment, that’s enough. All I need is to funnel a gob of ether into my arm and fire.

I don’t have a clean shot, though. The houses behind the sedan are all lined up — if I were to fire my Gale at this range, I’d burn or blow away a good portion of the structure. I would catch bystanders in the crossfire.

That shouldn’t matter to me. Mages need to do what needs to be done — no matter the cost. I try to ignore the screaming guilt and agony in my chest. All I need to do is fire and forget. This is my future, after all.

“Tch—” I snap out of my focus mode and relent. Not yet. If there’s a chance I can only get away with just killing this one stranger, then I’ll find it.

The sedan takes a hard right onto second street, well out of view. I force the circuits in my legs to burn — the muscles strain underneath the force of the ether cords pulling them forward. I can’t let up the chase now.

This entire town is Erika’s domain. As long as the sedan remains in the general region, I should have a vague sense of where it is.

I’m not sure how Erika’s barrier didn’t detect him. It should detect any traces of ether — that includes any living or magical creatures. But there’s no use in thinking about things like that right now.

The streets in this residential district are long and winding — I have a chance to catch up. I focus on the ether in my legs and ascend a story in a single leap. Then another. Another. I don’t stop until I’m leaping from rooftop to rooftop in bound and stripes, pursing with all my might.

The girl is a bright blue spark in his rear view mirror. Edmond can tell she’s desperate — the gal ain’t even subtle about using her witchcraft anymore. And from how she’s almost keeping pace with him, what she intends on doing to him ain’t a huge mystery.

With one hand on the wheel, he fumbles the SD card into the flip phone, then tosses it into the passenger seat. Another curve comes up — the nearly U-shaped turn he passed by when entering the residential district. He grins.

This is why he drives manual.

He flicks the front of the car towards the curb — then jerks the car to the right. He stomps on the gas and grits his teeth, feeling the liquid in his ears and the contents of his stomach churning like a dryer. New Besse whines — she wasn’t meant for this kind of handling, but his like him, she’s got enough spirit to pull on through. The turn straightens out into First Street.

Edmond made it. To the side, the contents of the SD card have been uploaded to his phone. He reaches over and grabs it. Good news all around.

With a howl of victory, he holds down the gas and leaves the girl behind.

Victory is his.

Helplessly, I watch the sedan jettison down the main road. They’ve completely outmaneuvered me.

“You’re not getting away!” The winds drown out my howl, but I know it isn’t going to stop me.

If I can’t catch up, then I’ll have to outsmart the driver. I can sense the faintest flicker of active ether from the sedan — they were a mage of some sort, or maybe somebody born with a Sigil. Either way, I’ve locked onto them. There are only two ways out of this city, the south-west and north-east bridges. Erika claimed this entire region as her domain — no matter where he goes, I’ll be able to find him.

The taillights of the sedan paint a red path down the First Street. He completely went past the south-west bridge, so I can cut him off by the north-east.

I have to push the boundaries of my magic. Erika gave me the first step — I have to reach the next on my own. I focus on the intricate web covering the town and reach out to its threads.

Choking cords.

They know not when to stop.

Right now, I’m standing on one of the last houses in The Point’s residential district. Through the southern forest, Reyes Cooper academy. The jumbled architecture of The Ridge lays out ahead; the storm has emptied the streets and forced everybody to cower in their homes. I can’t just fire at will — I can’t risk anybody else seeing me.

I can sense Erika toying with the threads — she is a spider battling another spider that has invaded her nest. I can see the general shapes of their battle; Erika is a shambling ball of terror plowing through miniature spiders appearing from thin air. I don’t know who’s going to win, which makes my battle more important. I can’t let her worry.

I have to use this miniscule amount of tactile control to kill this person before they tell anybody. I can’t hesitate.

This is for the sake of our future.

The drive down main is a palm-tree and dazzling glass pleasure cruise — but Edmond can’t let down his guard yet. Even if the streets are empty, he still needs a place to recuperate and process what he just saw.

He drives a few minutes more, then pulls into the alley between a car rental place and a log-style inn. His heart won’t stop pounding, not can he wipe the smirk off his face.

He stumbled onto the steps of a secret world. People go their whole lives wishing for an encounter like that, praying for freedom from the shackles of the mundane. This could be his in towards that exciting and unknown world.

Edmond thought magic was lost in this day and age — an art people only possessed shards of. But what those young girls commanded was something so much more. If he can’t take them on alone, then the entire world could certainly make an effort. They could try to hoard their secret world all to themselves, but lots of people want in. He could even contact somebody like the CIA or FBI and get some national aid — if he told the government, he could land a cushy job overseeing the revival of magic. The mere idea makes his heart swim.

Lofty goals come one step at a time, he reminds himself. First he needs to get out of this jam.

Edmond dials the weird kid’s number. Somebody picks up on the third ring.

“Hello?” The voice of an airy young girl responds. “Who is this?”

Maybe the kid’s girlfriend? “‘Ello there. Is there a boy around you? Brown hair, grey eyes?”

The girl pauses. “Oh, you mean Felix? Let me get him for you.”

“Appreciate it.”

Ruffling noises come from the other end of the line — sounds like the girl is walking in a place with hard tiles.

“Felix?” she says, flicking a switch, “You have somebody calling you.”

The kid, now named Felix, grumbles. “Sister Jules? What are you doing here…?”

“I told you, just Jules is fine. Somebody is calling you — you left your phone in the cathedral. Again.”

Felix is dating a nun. Damn. That’s a move a thousand times ballsier than he expected. Edmond would pay a shit ton of money to go on a first name basis with a young nun.

“Ah, sorry Jules. I must have passed out — haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Save your excuses for later, young man. I won’t let you sleep on my shoulder the next time you faint.”

Edmond really wishes that were him.

“Hello? Is this Edmond?” Felix says.

“You bet it is.” He stares into the darkness of the alleyway, loading in a few fresh bullets into New Reliable. “Listen, that girl? She’s up to some nasty witchcraft. Got it all on film.”

“Oh my god.” On the other end, the kid audibly wakes up. “Can you send the physical evidence?”

“No can do.” Edmond suppresses the smile in his voice. “I’m going to be gone by tomorrow morning — gotten myself into a bit of trouble. I can send you snippets and photos, but I don’t think I can drop by with the entire video.”

A brief moment of silence. “I can still pay, even for a few photos. I don’t mind.”

That was surprisingly easy. Edmond expected to haggle — this kid is just willing to settle for some blurry photos.

“Well, alrighty. I’ll send ‘em over now — and since you did pay upfront, I can send a few snippets now. The whole shebang should come sometime later by email.”

“I’ll be waiting. Thank you.” One click of the tongue later and the kid hangs up.

Everything’s going Edmond’s way. This is beautiful — he can hardly contain himself. He’d try to haggle for a few more dollars, but he’s in a good mood right now. Might as well not give the kid a hard time — little Felix has been his best customer yet. He scrapes up some of the photos via dialpad, types in the kid’s number, and thinks of a message to send along with the SMS.

ALL YOURS? OVER AND OUT? BANG BANG BANG? No, too corny. After a bit of deliberation, he settles on GOOD LUCK. Twenty assorted photos of real witchcraft, packed into a single message.

Right as his thumb hovers over the SEND button, an invisible string jerks his attention away — he senses something ahead.

Seeping fog. Grey mist oozes from the cracks in the walls. In the tunnel formed by the alley, the mist alone refuses to obey the raging winds.

A staircase lies beyond the mist — the sithoulute of shifting spirals steps swirl. Slowly, the warped figure of a humanoid approaches. Twisted and gangly, its claws drag along the ground.

At the same time, the shadows stir. Tendrils snake up the walls and alley floor, a black beyond black reaching towards both him and the mist. It begins to form into self-luminous strands of tar.

Edmond can tell when he is unwanted.

Stick in reverse — New Besse rattles as she runs over a bump in the pavement. He sees a splatter that’s trying to pull itself together as he keeps the car straight, and promptly decides to ignore the implications. He needs to put as much distance between himself and this city as quickly as possible.

A hard twist as he’s leaving the alley power steers New Besse back into driving orientation — almost. Edmond snaps his gaze back.

Two long tendrils of wriggling tar latched onto his fender. New Besse’s wheel’s screech as they spin in place. The nightmares given form are trying to drag him back into the alleyway to some low budget offscreen movie death — and it’s working. New Besse’s grip slips one inch at a time.

“Oh hell no, you don’t!” With one foot on the gas and one hand on the gas, he releases the latch on the driver’s side door. He reaches into his coat and levels New Reliable at the suckers keeping him down. It’s not an easy shot; the things ain’t exactly stationary slow moving targets. He closes his right eye and focuses.

One shot, one mark. The mystics will be understood.

—Bang. Bang, bang. And bang. Four more shots — takes more than a .38 S&W to shatter Edmon’s wrist — black ooze splatters against the pavement and writhes. With a self-satisfied smirk, he slides back into the driver’s seat, dumps New Reliable into the drink holder, and drives off.

Edmond doesn’t need a map to direct him; he’s got it all in his head. He memories the fastest routes out of every town he ends up in, and this tourist trap is no exception. If the girl is still chasing him from the roofs, then the south bridge is out of question — she could intercept him. He’s only got one choice: full speed ahead.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Adrenaline keeps all of the bad thoughts out of his head. He’s living the dream; on the cusp of making a shit ton of money, and breaking the speed limit by a good eighty miles. Even if there’s some batshit crazy witches chasing him, they can’t do anything to him. If witches were as scary as the stories say they are, then why aren’t they ruling the world?

He grabs the flip phone again, dials the password, and hits send. It’ll take a while to send the messages, but he’s finished his obligations here. No point sticking around when he’s staring down a brand new future. If this shitty little town had cops, they wouldn’t be able to catch him — he’s on the fastest track out of this god forsaken place.

The last stretch is an industrial district filled with nothing but closed shopping arcade and boat rental places and last-stop gas stations. Edmond races past all of it and steers onto the 38 — this section is a four lane highway overlooking the inlet’s waters. At this time of night, the only thing here is the empty road and the occasional street light with an american flag flying this way and that. The storm has unleashed its pathetic fury — it’s whipping driblets of water at his windshield out of spite. He flicks on the windshield wiper and lets out a guttural roar of victory.

“Yeah! That’s the way we do it, goddamnit!” Edmond bangs his palms against his steering wheel. He’s home free.

New Besse slows down to a law-abiding speed. Edmond will have to give her a proper tune up with all the money he’s going to make. He could even give her a proper eight cylinder engine, maybe pay for a new chassis too. If he strikes it real big, then he could retire New Besse in favor of a real cougar of a car.

Say hello to New New Besse; a Lamborghini. She’s got curves better than any woman — and neither of those are going to be in short supply where he’s going. And to celebrate early, he turns on the radio.

“At the tone, zero hours, fourteen minutes, coordinated universal time.”

But there’s nothing on besides garbled radio transmissions. An annoying beep plays through the stereo. It goes on for long for Edmond to question his sanity.

“Let’s not listen to that,” he says, reaching into the glovebox. He has an emergency solution to the long stretches of road isolated from the music of civilization: Queen’s Greatest Hits. The cassette fits snug into the car’s player, and Edmond hits the play switch.

“At the tone, zero hours, fourteen minutes, coordinated universal time.”

That’s not right. He presses it again, then jiggers the FM/AM knob. He even tries tuning around the frequency left and right.

“At the tone, zero hours, fourteen minutes, coordinated universal time.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He’s going to be musicless for a while. A shame, really. If the machines don’t want to make music, then he’ll have to do it himself. He whistles the intro to Don’t Stop Me Now, allowing the methodical tap of the rain and wind to serve as percussion. His performance is so good that he can hear the song in his head.

“At the tone, zero hours, fourteen minutes, coordinated universal time.”

He blinks and cuts himself off. Something stands in the middle of the bridge, staring him down. Edmond’s mind, riddled with fading highs and warm tingling satisfaction, can barely parse the figure.

Armor stained violet. Elk’s antlers. It faces New Besse with a gleaming sword — as if it were expecting Edmond.

A demonic sword. Bathed in purple flames the shade of the night, it can’t be anything else.

He can’t avoid them.

“At the tone, zero hours, fourteen minutes, coordinated universal time.”

Edmond steers to the left and hugs the lane divider; if he drives like this, he could make it past the thing. Some primal instinct flares in his brain — he knows if he can’t make it past this thing, then he will die. And he won’t die, not after being teased with the promise of a life he never dared imagine.

He screams his battle cry and accelerates. Cylinders kick into overdrive and a gasoline immolates, propelling him forward and forward and forward—

For a moment, a fractured photo of time, Edmond locks gazes with the living armor’s single glowing white eye. The sword disappears.

New Besse screeches — sparks fly and cascade down on the windshield. Edmond is jolted to the right; the entire car is tilted at an angle a car should never be at. He screams as he fights with the now useless wheel. He can see the skidding pavement through the passenger side floor.

“At — zero — fourteen — universal ti—.”

The thing cut through his car as though it were made out of tissue, charring edges of the gash. He struggles against the wheel, but the ruined chassis tilts to the right. At this rate, he’s going to crash into the side of the bridge. He stomps on the brake, desperately trying to control the last of the steer, watching himself careen towards the wall, and—

I ran by the portside’s boardwalks and arrived at the townside end of the north-east bridge. My muscles feel like they’re being forced through a cheese grater, which might not be too far from the truth. I’m forcing my body to perform beyond its limits. Any more of this and I might lose control of my ether control.

My hood barely protects me from the rain. It already soaked my face and made my windbreaker stick to me — definitely not the best condition to run in. But I really don’t have a choice at the moment. I keep sprinting along the shoulder of highway 38 and pray that I can still catch up.

About a quarter a way across, a blue sedan rests half-crumpled against the lane divider. Even from far away, I can see a clean chunk taken out of the passenger side — something must’ve happened to him. But I’m not going to question this turn of events.

I swallow my heart, raise my arm, and approach.

Edmond crawls out of the wreckage with New Reliable and the flip phone in hand — the only things he could salvage. New Besse’s airbag saved him from instant death — the poor gal’s last hurrah. He coughs and touches his forehead.

Red slick.

The bridge is unstable, like it could tip over into the water black. His concussed mind scrambles to make sense of what just happened.

A thing with a demonic blade appeared and cleaved into his getaway. It clearly intended on stopping his escape from this acusred town.

But now he’s free. He looks behind the wreckage, at the spot in the distance where the thing was standing. Just as he suspected, it’s not there anymore. He escaped the creature’s maximum range — it must have been an apparition bound to the town. A remnant of whatever mildew past haunts this revitalized swamp.

The nearest town is only a few miles away. Edmond could hunker down in a roadside pit-stop to weather the storm, and keep going in the morning. Nearby friends could lend a couch for a night or two — he could figure it out from there. If he made it big, he could stop wandering town to town and finally think about settling down. His appetite for adventure has been thoroughly shot.

Yeah, he decides. He’s going to clean up his act. Starting tomorrow, there’s going to be a new Edmond that follows the law and contributes to society and pays taxes. He can leave all this magical biz behind — he’s already milked it for all of its worth. With this tape and knowledge, he can expose what’s really going on around towns like this.

He could finally tell the truth.

All he needs to do is get off this bridge and flee into the night.

He struggles forward against the guard rail, trying to keep weight off his right leg. It’s a miracle it wasn’t thoroughly mangled; there’s only a little pain when he puts pressure on it. A sprain, maybe.

The storm fights against him every step of the way — it runs down his face in beads of watery blood and chills him in twiney nets of sub-hurricane winds. Huffing. Puffing. Coming for him. Worms through the shadows between streetlights.

Footsteps behind. He forces himself to look over his shoulder.

The girl. She basks underneath flickering rays of street light, panting, arm raised. Witchcraft allowed her to catch up to Edmond. Patterns of blue shine from underneath her sleeves.

“Stop right there!” she shouts, visibly exerting herself. Well over three dozen paces away, there’s still plenty of space between them. But he’s seen how fast she can run. Edmond takes a step back. She takes a step forward.

This girl is the last obstacle in Edmond’s way — a last ditch attempt to slam the door on his face. It’s just a girl, but the forces she commands have already exceeded anything Edmond’s seen in a single person. Her presence bears down on him like a titan’s shadow. His jaw clenches hard enough to ache.

“I know you were watching — if you forget everything, I can let you go.”

Likely story. Edmond can see the girl’s intent; she isn’t letting him go that easily. But he might as well play along and see how far he can get.

“It was just a job,” he calls out, half-heartedly raising his revolver and phone. “A client paid me to monitor you. I’ll forget about this for the rest of my life if you let me walk.”

She’s getting closer — two dozen paces away. Her arm is still raised at him. “I saw the camera ruins. I want whatever you recorded. Now.”

He complies. Slowly, he lowers the phone, swipes it by his jacket pocket, puts it on the pavement, then kicks it towards her. It skids to halfway between then.

The girl grimaces — as she walks closer, her eyes don’t leave Edmond for a second.

He could end this in an instant. Edmond has no qualms against shooting anybody that intends on forcing him into a big sleep — women, minorities, and teenagers included. But he can sense some teeming energy within her arms; an invisible gun. Neither of them can miss at this range.

She picks up the flip phone and flicks it open. Then she scowls. “What’s the password?”

“3712. That thing’s got everything I’ve recorded tonight.” Like any good paranoid, he has multiple profiles on his phone that are tied to specific pass codes. The girl would only be able to see a mostly blank profile with all the cached media — she’d see the pictures, but not the texts.

The girl nods, closes the phone, then clenches it in her palm. “You took the memory card. Hand it over.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

She got him. Either she got suspicious, the phone’s profile didn’t format correctly, or maybe she’s just bluffing — he has no way of knowing right now. The SD card with the recording is at the bottom of his jacket’s pocket; he performed a bit of sleight of hand before handing it over.

This SD card is his future. If he handed it over now, he’d have to hustle himself to a husk to find another opportunity. But if he doesn’t satisfy this girl, she’ll use witchcraft to kill him on the spot.

There’s no way he can run in his current state. Jumping into the waters in the middle of a storm would be a terrible idea — his coat would weigh him down and he’d drown. Edmond could settle and hand over the chip, but there’s no telling if this girl will actually let him walk. She hasn’t killed him yet; that has to count for something. Reluctancy or unwillingness to pull the trigger, he counts his blessings and steadies his mind.

New Reliable is in his hand. Ol’ trusty. No matter what, his aim is faster than anything this bitch can do.

“You got me,” he says. He digs into his pocket and tosses the chip in a low arc. He plays up the ham — cranks up the reluctance and facial expressions. “That’s everything. Promise.”

The girl stares hard through the rain. The drizzle intensifies to a storm — pouring water in gnawing cold winds. Aftertaste of ozone and wet pavement. She lowers her arm, staring at the waterlogged chip. “Just go. Never come back.”

Edmond obliges. Turning around, revolver still in hand, he limps away northbound. The chip could easily be saved; drying it out leaves the data intact. All he has to do now is wait for the right moment to turn.

Fourteen paces. That would be the limit of his deadeye firing range — he’s been practicing at the range for a decade to land shots like these. Pistols at midnight, he muses, counting down the steps. Two shots would be more than enough. In his mind’s eye, he practices the motion a dozen times. Turn, aim, fire. Turn, aim, fire.

This is for the sake of his future.

He turns. Aims. Behind him, a cerulean flame engulfs the night air. Fire.

The girl never turned away from him.

An old tale surges in his mind. His mother and father used to tell him about what the witches would do to him if he didn’t eat his greens and do his homework.

The witches did unspeakable things, up there in the mountain’s shadow. They ate bad children and cursed those who crossed them.

His last thought is of a boy who was turned into wood, mistaken for kindling, then burned alongside a witch.

The man falls. It reminds me of a balloon, the way he pops. Red, coloured rusty grey, splatters like a spilt glass of strawberry milk. There was no sound.

He hits the ground as a corpse missing everything above his torso.

Burnt meat and blood scent mixes with salt and stale rain.

He is dead. I killed him. I killed him.

I was prepared to fire if they tried anything, but performing the act is different from preparing. With my two hands, I crushed somebody’s life into dust.

It doesn’t feel real. My heart won’t stop surging in my chest.

I should break down in tears. I should scream and drop to my knees and justify the act of cold-blooded murder, digging myself a hole of guilt and denial. Apologize, lament, seek forgiveness. This was a cardinal sin — to break something irreplaceable out of one’s free will.

But I don’t.

I don’t feel a thing. The rain falls on my skin, rapping against my already soaked windbreaker — the most natural thing in the world. A tranquil calm surrounds me.

Something is wrong with me. Something irredeemable, inconceivable, unforgivable. And, if I were to make a random guess, the fact that I don’t feel that something is wrong is the worst thing imaginable. A pang of something rises in my chest and fades away as my heart calms. Then it’s gone. Lost. All that remains is a faint warmth.

I deflate with a sigh and stare at the dead man’s flip phone. The only thing that gave him away was a text message he recieved as I was looking through:

FROM: (912) 391-2817 [The Boy]

FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, PLEASE DON’T RELEASE THE CONTENTS OF THE MEMORY CARD

I DON’T WANT ANYBODY ELSE TO GET INVOLVED IN THIS; THESE PHOTOS OF MARIE ARE ENOUGH

PLEASE

A number. They knew my name; a clue. I need to hurry up and clean up whoever this is before any information can spread. I know what has to be done — there are only so many people who know my name. The number was designated as “The Boy,” meaning our shadow couldn’t be considered an adult.

There are only so many kids in town. Most of them go to Reyes Cooper.

An enemy had infiltrated our sanctuary without us noticing. Tonight was a declaration of war; an official gathering of witches, monsters, and other creatures that go bump in the night. Foreboding dread comes from the moonless sky above.

Whatever peace this town knew, that I knew, is going to be mercilessly shattered. It could be a matter of days, weeks, or perhaps months, but the end is certain.

My grandmother’s words echo in my mind: there isn’t going to be a happy ending.

Erika approaches me eventually, slinking up out of seemingly nowhere. She places a hand on my shoulder and stares at the scene. “I’m proud of you,” Erika mutters into my ear. Her sing-song voice soothes my nerves. “You’ve proven yourself well. I knew I was right to stick by you.”

Her words are only so comforting. I glance back at the wrecked car — at the gash torn in its side. “Did you do that?”

Erika looks back, then shakes her head. For once, her green eyes betray a hint of confusion. “No…?”

“What a bother.” I close my eyes and stare through the darkness.

I want to feel like there’s something wrong. I want to scream. I want to cry and rage and shake Erika for praising me and making me feel good about being terrible.

Staring at the stars behind my eyes, I already know why I can’t. That part of me must have died a long time ago.