Patrick Hawkings or ‘Mr. Hawkings’ sat down in front of the ritual room located inside a bunker home. The darker skinned man ran a hand through his greying hair as his family was busy trying to pretend that everything was okay… that everything was ‘normal’ or as much as the lie could sustain the illusion.

Normal families didn’t buy old war bunkers and kit them out to live in… not ‘last resort’ type of bunkers where you stored enough food and supplies to last a few days. No this one was fully lived in and decked out.

The deck of playing cards was left on the old mogohony oak desk as the lights flickered. A part of him regretted not sending an electrician to double check the wiring, but he ran under the assumption that Agatha Willow would have died last week.

The ghost of the woman had managed to pull a fast one on them all and unlike his peers who thought they had sufficiently prepared for the worst. Mr Hawkings knew just how dangerous the witch of the hill truly was.

The phone buzzed again as he checked the text message from Nadel Kazult “Left second site and heading to site three. Mist and table evaded escape from third parties until the Outside Party interfered. Team was using vans, assault rifles, and what looked like werewolves… the real ones took offense to them.”

He sighed pulling out the cold cut sandwich his wife had made from him and the small bottle of stomach ache medicine.

Technically he was the ‘head wizard’ if such a term could be applied to the council. In most cases it meant keeping track of the records, pacts families made with supernatural entities, and having a day job meant to help clear things up… or cover things up.

Sometimes the two mixed or fought one another.

Today felt more like the second… and possibly the first if they survived tonight as he went over the damage reports.

Cybernetic undead dragonic abomination leading a growing gathering of undead and possibly unholy monsters at its side. A lot of Council (and third party) resources were being sent to keep the blasted thing from doing more damage or breaking the masquerade.

Anyone not having to deal with their own problems thought the giant fire breathing monster was the worst thing they had to deal with, but Hawkings and the rest of the council only realized too late that it was a distraction.

Every third party faction that had flooded into the city when Agatha Willow’s wards around the city fell followed the old rules so to speak. Find the Heir of the Hill. Capture the Heir of the Hill. Move onto the next step.

The council hated it, but there were unwritten ‘rules’ which were really only broken by the heirs of the hill, but that was why the Council opted more towards killing them than trying to capture one.

Not even the old guard of Europe were as bad as these… outsiders.

There was no other term as it was becoming clear that they had no knowledge about the Heir’s of the Hill which normally would have been great… if they were a normal threat as they were after the Male Heir, but they didn’t just stop at trying to chase after him.

No… perhaps it might be more correct to say that it was precisely because they were after him that they were committing these crimes which made Mr Hawkings start to reassess the seemingly low threat level of the latest heir.

While the destruction of the Death Pact was a major loss… the Heir still seemed to be quite useful if propped up like a puppet.

Low presence, limited magic, willing to avoid civilian casualties, and a lack of interest in taking over the city… If it wasn’t for the sheer magnitude of the attack tonight they would have let the unwanted heir leave to never return. Now he was pretty sure the surviving members of the Council wanted to keep the male heir within the city.

Mostly restart or if needed to replace Agatha Willow’s wards which kept all outside threats from being able to enter the city… probably update them too.

The three other burner phones buzzed with new alerts. The surviving council members were now falling under his authority in trying to find safety for themselves. These… Outsiders were not civilized magi or mages.

They snuck into the city and used guns of all things. It would have been laughable if they hadn’t been targeting Council Members with the amount of firepower you only saw in hollywood movies. If wards protected a building or stopped gunfire they simply took it as a suggestion to use bigger guns.

Maybe if Council Forces hadn’t been sent to deal with the fire breathing destruction they could have dealt with the problem, but it was a three way struggle. Those who weren’t under attack were trying to flee and send forces to deal with the enemies chasing after the male heir to ensure that he wasn’t replaced with a puppet that followed ‘enemy’ orders.

Those who were under attack were either demanding rescue or trying to find some place safe to hide when the Outsiders… just kept scaling up the level of their attacks.

Already four homes had been set on fire or blown up. The police were racing around the city as normal people were calling in reports of monsters. Not ‘funny looking terrorists or wild animals’ but full blown paranoia at realizing that supernatural monsters were killing people out in the middle of the day… err night.

Mr Hawkings felt his stomach lurch as he glanced at the other phone calls before turning on the semi-illegal surveillance video he had on the park as a group of council mages were busy trying to deal with the outsiders who had managed to catch up with them.

Mercenary thugs who lacked magic called in a van full of flesh rending monsters and unleashed them like attack dogs at the now fleeing mages. All the while one of those horrible masked monsters were moving among the wounded and the dead.

Reanimators.

That was the name the Outsiders used and these inhuman monsters were already being marked priority targets to be killed. Already one of them was somehow replacing the flesh of a man who burned to death before patching him up back to full health as the former dead mercenary was cursing up a storm before being handed new clothing, armor, and guns to hunt the mages who had killed him.

No wonder the mundane minions of this group were seemingly fearless. If they died their masters could bring them back to life far faster than any magical hospital that Hawkings knew of.

The head wizard pinched his nose as he glanced at the long extensive list of arcane lore on monsters that he held before muttering “Screw it. I don’t care what the others think. I am having Sara make digital copies of all these things and stuffing it in one of her program things.”

You’d think ‘creepy monsters who revive people’ would be an easy thing to find in a supernatural almanac, but apparently Agatha Willow had gone out of her way to find the most obscure threats to send in to try and butcher her rivals after her death.

The worst part was that they apparently had no idea that… Kravos was a Heir of the Hill.

They simply had been chasing after him before and were now trying to kill every single council member either to have them hand over Kravos to them… or until the curse that bound him to the city was broken.

The entire Council was being killed as a mere afterthought to their objective.

That was the detail that both infuriated and sickened Mr Hawkings to his core. What exactly had Kravos done to earn this level of ire from these people? Why had these people seemed set to simply kill everyone rather than try opting for diplomacy?

“Who are they and why don’t they care about being caught?” He practically snarled as he saw gang members being rounded up and being enlisted into their ranks.

The thugs who struggled against their captures before being marched single filed into those trucks… the looks of horror they held when they were marched out of the trucks and separated into groups.

How some were being shipped out… and others being given the uniform of a tower or a bandana to wrap around their arm. Were these outsiders already planning on trying to take control before Kravos stumbled into the city… or was it just a ‘happy bonus’ to them?

He sighed as he heard a knock on the door.

Mr Hawkings took a deep breath as he double checked the wards placed upon the door before switching to the video feed of what possibly lurked outside of his door. He had seen the videos on the sheer amount of resources and horrors these outsiders were willing to throw at them.

The aging wizard let out a soft sigh as he unlocked the door as his wife walked in. The irsh woman brought him a cold beer and a shotgun. On a normal day he’d be a bit worried, but she placed the shotgun in the corner and made the mistake of glancing at one of the other screens.

“Is that a werewolf?” She asked mildly horrified.

He glanced at the screen. It was large, furry, and was currently trying to tear past a steel door only to be blown apart by a terrified mundane shop keeper. The rest of the residents were shouting for him to shoot it again as the beast fell.

“No silver.” Mr Hawking muttered under his breath “Not a werewolf… and it’s going to be a pain trying to figure out what to say in the morning.”

His wife gulped as he remembered that she had married a fund manager… someone whose job was to use money to make money or something… technically he did the same thing, but less ‘stock trading’ and more ‘spell books and magical ingredients’ so to speak.

“Don’t worry. That bunker door should hold up against most things that could try to break in.” He spoke feeling a need to be honest to his wife “Not sure if it’ll hold up to dragon fire, but…”

“Dragon fire?” His wife asked with a hint of fear.

He bit his lip before nodding “I thought it was a possible terrorist attack…” A lie as he knew that once their curse failed they needed to hide from the fallout “I just didn’t expect them to be more…”

The words struggled at the tip of his tongue. What would a normal person say? Endless Night how could he even explain this all so suddenly?

“That you wish you were insane otherwise it would mean that the world has always been insane and you just realized it now?” She spoke with a small nervous smile “So I take it that the rumors about Agatha Willow weren’t actually rumors then?”

The aged wizard shrugged as he was pretty sure that the Witch of the Hill didn’t lure small children into her home to cook them in her oven… but then again until yesterday he was pretty sure that most dragons had gone into hiding or retreated to the more mystical areas of the world.

That or they had died.

To be fair that last one was probably a point against them considering that the one in the warehouse was undead after all. He was probably going to have to make a law against necromancy or bring up a few more restrictions to it after tonight.

“Patrick?” his wife spoke with a hint of fear.

He glanced at her before giving her a hug. She seemed to resist at first before gripping him tightly as the fear she had been trying to hide slowly drifted out of her. She was happy that they were safe inside the bunker even if the ‘surprise trip’ had annoyed her this morning.

Their children were as safe as possible as ironically the bunker covered the more mundane threats far better than the wards he could have conjured which was really helpful this night.

Still there was the fear of having to go outside tomorrow or worse… that these outsiders might find them tonight. For his wife it was the fear that she would have a hard time forgetting this night. For him it was the fact that Agatha Willow wasn’t here to simply wave her hand and make half the people in the town simply forget what happened tonight.

Maybe if the Council put it to a vote they might be forced to grant Kravos the one piece of the Witch’s Legacy to try and hide the events of tonight… that or try finding some halfway decent explanation to hide it all.

The only saving grace was that nobody had gotten any of it sent to the internet as Agatha Willow’s old curse essentially cut all communication with the outside world on this fateful night. Anyone trying to flee would fail or find all of their evidence magically erased.

Maybe in time they might learn to forget what happened especially if they removed all the proof and came up with an excuse for the public to cling to… or maybe they might get the public trying to recreate the Salem Witch Trials.

‘No the council is going to want a Heir to deal with the aftermath and set the old protection wards back up.’ He reminded himself ‘Normal people can forget. We can’t because we know these threats are after us.’

Once his wife had stopped crying into his shoulder she tried to clean her noses and eyes with a box of tissues he had kept close at hand… the waste basket was already half full from his own use of them.

He glanced back at the table as he felt the pull once again. He could play the cards and read the fate now… or he could wait to ensure that their fates would not be rewritten once again.

The elven king had claimed one of the heirs as his own as her fate was already being rewritten and what was worse… The Stitch Witch seemed to have planned for tonight as she was preparing her own magical contract.

He was a little bit more worried about what she was planning.

The Stitch Witch grabbed one of the reanimators as it struggled within her grasp. She felt a slight affront to its presence as she saw its shoddy workmanship. How anyone could mistake her as one of these things grated her nerves as she snapped the creature’s neck.

The outsiders pulled out their guns as they shouted “Shoot it!”

No questions were asked as automatic gun fire was leveled on her position. The bullets passed through her without even touching her as each of the outsider mercenaries fired a few more bursts of gunfire thinking she was invisible instead of invulnerable.

She watched them pulling out trinkets… not magical artifacts as they lacked the cling of proper magic… yet they were magical nonetheless. Some pulled out vials of ink making her think of the practitioners of the far east.

She pulled out her wire as she had worked hard to ensure that no practitioners from the east lingered within her city. Others pulled out scraps of metal or batons… she kept clear of those remembering that Kravos had some trick woven into his batons that had harmed her.

“What are you doing?” She asked hovering over the possible Taoist priest as he drew symbols that weren’t from any of the arts from the east that she knew of “Where did you come from?”

There was a panicked scream as she turned around seeing that one of the strangers had pulled out a strange pair of goggles… but the fact he pulled out his gun and tried unloading a clip into her head made it clear that his goggles were of arcane origin.

Something that allowed them to see her (and add to her collection) while still lacking the ability to harm her. Grabbing the wire she wrapped it around the person with the goggles. The man grasped at his neck trying to claw the wire free from his neck as his allies simply shot him trying to harm her.

These outsiders were far more casual about killing their own allies knowing that these Reanimators could somehow bring them back to life with an ease that she truly envied.

A mechanical spider forged from scraps of broken metal lunged at her face. She grabbed it in the air before it could reach her not trusting it to phase through her after being hit by a car this morning.

Her paranoia paid off as the metal golem was caught in her grasp as somehow it could interact with her… that it knew her. This made her toss the corpse aside while she devoted her new found interest into the tiny golem.

It was an easy thing to carefully pluck it apart as the magic around it was different than what The Stitch Witch had been used to dealing with. Different, but not uniquely different as she placed her own needle and thread into the machine and took control of it.

The crafter of the machine shouted “Shit! Eldritch!”

That same word Kravos had used when he ran into her. Some sort of ranking system of threat level or something else?

Once the word was spoken they tossed objects meant to hide them in smoke, blind her from flashes of lights or rob her hearing from her. On a normal foe this would have been effective, but The Stitch Witch simply frowned underneath her mask.

Getting rid of the smell of smoke was going to be a pain. Did they have any idea how hard it was for her to be able to get her clothing cleaned?

The Stitch Witch simply appeared in front of the mercenaries and held the mechanical spider in front of their faces before channeling her magic through it to speak her name.

The men and women who heard the name noticed her just long enough for her to grab them. They always struggled, but she was surprised at the sheer vicious streak they held when they realized they couldn’t break her grip.

Some tried plunging wicked looking knives into her stomach. Others pulled their guns to fire point blank into her chest. Her favorite one was the one who simply pulled a string of his own before pulling every pin off every grenade strapped to his clothing.

Oh how she wished she had been able to capture that one alive. The only one she had meant to kill on purpose was the awful woman who tried stabbing her in the exposed part of her mask.

Her blood was going to be an utter pain to try and wash out.

The family slowly crept out from behind the car they had been hiding behind reminding The Stitch Witch why she had come to help save this family in the first place.

The husband spoke with a hint of disbelief and shock as if somehow speaking would shatter the illusion of them being saved “How… why?”

The Stitch Witch leaned down to the member of the Council and his terrified family. She carefully gripped the man’s chin and pulled it up to force him to meet her exposed section of her mask.

“You called my name.” She spoke as her voice was a whisper, but it drowned out all other sounds “Your children called for my help. Your wife dumped the toxins down the drain fearing my wrath far more than the empty promises of your fellow Council members..”

She held up the reanimator mask freshly plucked from its body “Now you friends think you are lords of my city, yet mere rats tear your kingdom to pieces?”

The Stitch Witch laughed as she took her trophy before listening to the other desperate souls calling her name… the others begging for her aid when they tried to banish her once and for all.

Pulling out the contract she placed it before the latest Council member as his eyes widened in horror. They were not the only ones with skill in forging annoyingly complicated and magically spell binding contracts.

“Agatha Willow still lives.” The Stitch Witch spoke to their horror “Tonight is the night of ritual to claim the hill and her legacy. This plague of outsiders set to rip the ‘heart’ of your council is made by her hand to ensure that after tonight. There will not be enough of you to stop her from reclaiming the hill.”

Maybe the husband might have looked over the contract if the smell of gunsmoke didn’t linger in the air. Maybe the wife would have thought twice before penning her name to the contract if the corpse of the monsters sent by the outsiders wasn’t lying on top of their minivan.

The children could have spoken up if not for the eldest one trying to calm the youngest one in fear that the sound of crying might lure more monsters that seemed to be drawn to their fear.

Rolling up the contract she chuckled before pulling out a cellphone much to the shock and horror of her new clientele as The Stitch Witch checked her messages. So far Nadel was doing fine… a little bit confused and (sadly) out of her depth.

Still the annoying one had proven quite skilled at running away and keeping them both alive. He hadn’t ditched her and she was smart enough to run with the one who had ‘Run away from threats more dangerous than her’.

After looking at the handiwork of his latest presurers she wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult. What they lacked in grace these outsiders certainly made up for in brutal efficiency… another reason to be concerned about the annoying one’s lingering presence within her city.

To most people it would have been a mark of just how fast/cowardly the man was to try fleeing rather than fighting. To The Stitch Witch it was a mark of just how dangerous the man was. The annoying thing about survivors was that they learned things.

Just look at the sheer amount of stories about how the heroes found that one survivor who whispered the secrets that they needed. The hidden path to avoid an entire army. The secret of how a dark lord fought to reveal the artifact they bound their soul to… that a certain concubine had been replaced by something that was pretending to be her.

She did her best to try and repress the cold shiver that ran down her spine.

“Fear the coward for Bravery is not the lack of fear… but the ability to overcome it.” She muttered underneath her breath “Just look at the Pink Dog cartoon. Cowardly for sure… but far more dangerous than most of his villains had believed him to be.”

“Are you talking about… more forces from the old lands?” One of the council members spoke in fear. “Maybe from the ancient tales of…”

The Stitch Witch frowned “Witless fools of past follies… If you keep looking at the success of your past, then you shall fail to see how the rest of the world has advanced beyond your little world! Agatha Willow forgot this and nearly died as an old woman…”

Old, rotting, decaying as every male fled her gaze or carefully slipped out of each contract, pact, and weave she made. The old witch nearly died due to her bloodline ending.

She grabbed both the husband and the wife by the collars of their shirts “You forgot that while you were safe in your ‘cage’ thinking of the day you took control of the golden cage. That the things outside of it can now creep inside.”

She held up the mechanical construct made from scraps of metal, wire, and batteries instead of mud, cloth, or stone.

“This is a golem. Bound by scraps and magic to know all that exists around it.” She tossed it before them “No gem, no rune, but a golem forged anew… while you rested on your laurels and plans the rest of the world advanced their art and their craft.”

She focused on the souls calling out her name now in more fear of those trying to kill them than those who feared her wrath after they tried to forget her.

The Stitch Witch let her body fade from this spot and appear in another. Two men looked around trying to find where the council members had hid. The husband was shot dead, the child gagged in the back of a van, and the eldest son pinned to a wall as one of the Reanimators had finished laying out its tools.

“How do they transform?” The creature asked, pulling out the silver tipped scalpel “Where does the fur come from? How does it generate more mass in moon light? What allows the alteration of the teeth…”

The eldest son looked at her in a mixture of fear… and then desperate hope.

Gagged, bound and mouth halfway forced between man and beast he spoke her name like a prayer to the God of Hopeless Causes.

The Stitch Witch laughed as the invaders turned, staring at her in shock “I have been sent to give you a contract that needs to be signed.” She unrolled it “As many of the others have come to agree to the same agreement.”

She never bothered to mention that she was the one who wrote it and wanted it to pass… if they thought one of the other council members had sent her then it wasn’t her fault for their mistake.

Still the outsiders quickly moved to try and take her down thinking she was like one of the various Magi they had been successful in hunting. The Stitch Witch moved carefully this time trying to capture one of the Reanimators alive this time as she killed the creature’s minions.

It was only a matter of time until she found their leader or managed to capture one of these Reanimators alive to claim their craft for herself.

Nadel Kazult hid inside one of the back rooms of safe house location four… or was it five? It was getting harder to remember as the young witch felt drained from having to run so much and use so much magic… and still she focused on trying to draw upon the forgetting mist to weave new defenses for the two of them.

She should have been excited to learn a new craft or how to draw from a new source of magic, but she was just too tired.

Her body suffered from various aches and pains from their panicked attempts to flee, the heart racing madness when the outsiders spotted them and tried unleashing ever increasing amounts of ever growing madness...

Yet they survived due to the ludicrous amounts and varieties of Kravos’s exocitic powers, smokes, and madness. Her own charm needed to be recharged as the sheer amount of things and smells that seemed embedded into her own clothing messed with her own mind.

Slight breaths that caused her heart to race as one person had tried to grab her only to scream in heart wrenching terror as they fell cowering like a frightened child. The drifting lingering smoke of the forgotten mist making her forget things.

Endless Night, half the time she couldn’t remember what gender the Heir of the Hill was or what he looked like. Of course now that the night was drawing to an end she was starting to feel the effects of this… this unholy night.

Memories half formed and half remembered started to plague her mind of five… no four daughters of Agatha Willow and the… the…

‘Five Heirs. If four channel more magic into the clover charm.’ Read the note in her hand.

She channeled more magic as it tried to lift the fog of her mind allowing the half torn up fragmented memories of Kravos (last name pending).

She could feel marks of his presence slowly being placed upon the city, yet for each memory of the girls that had formed… another memory about himself seemed to be burned from her mind.

The man from the city of eyes.

The red cloaked Magician set up his fake ‘magical’ table meant to draw the eyes from the true arcane he weaved behind the scenes. He lacked the presence most Wizards and Magi used or possessed to impose his will upon reality.

Agatha Willow’s magic was made by her presence and force of personality. An actor on a stage trying to gain everyone’s attention as she made her own story a reality if even only for a moment.

Kravos was more like… more like one of those stage hands behind the scenes… or a stage magician just like how his moniker implied as most of his tricks were preventing his audiance (or enemies) from knowing how he was able to pull off his absurd feats.

Yet now the spotlight was being focused on him revealing the secrets of his past and his craft. So in response the elusive magician pulled at the curtains to hide his history and past on general principle rather than any real knowledge or understanding of what was happening.

Just a sheer… presence or… anti-presence that just tried to devour memory itself. The anti-presence that made you forget him or simply underestimate him.

Rubbing her aching head Kravos finally sat down as he checked his seemingly endless bag of tricks before grunting “Davin is being dealt with by the locals. Trica… police are after her and she hasn’t found me yet.”

"We just need to last till morning." She muttered checking her watch "Just a few more minutes and then they will all be gone."

He stared at her as if she was insane as he didn't understand the full scale of Agatha Willow's magic. It irked her a little, but if he didn't know it was possible than the people who had been chasing after him before he came to this city would be caught by suprise.

They thought they had as much time as they wanted instead of a few more minutes.

Nadel pulled out a potion and slowly dabbed some of the red liquid and rubbed it across her wounds. The mist had helped a little, but Trica’s mercenaries preferred ‘spray and pray’ tactics even when wearing full face breathing masks.

While she had been able to stop some of the bullets, she had grown a healthy fear of guns after tonight. It was going to take some time to ease that fear as right now gunfire was akin to the trumpet call of old that signaled an enemy cavalry charge.

“I have to ask…” Nadel spoke tossing the magician the cloth soaked with the healing potion “What exactly did you do to have them send a small army after you?”

The cloth practically hit him in the face as he was forced to remove his face coverings. Even now the mist that made memories fuzzy made it hard for her to focus on remembering what he looked like.

Still the fragmented memories caused by Agatha’s Willow spell started to fill in some of the details as the pale man looked at her in fear. Ever since he came back to Willow’s Hill his eyes had a _____ _____ with ____ ___-____ iris.

Yet as soon as she saw it they had vanished to be replaced by mundane bloodshot brown eyes with bags underneath his gaze. His ___ had gripped ___ ____ in fear.

She put more magic into her charm trying to clear away more of the mist as it continued trying to erase details from her mind as she focused on the memories of their history together...

Their lack of history.

She didn’t know him. She hadn’t spent time in his room as they talked about his attempts to learn magic or… how she had once…

Nadel Kazult grabbed her head as her fingers sank into her skull both infuriated at the memories of a semi-normal childhood friend and the all too real lack of friends when anyone got to know Nadel Kazult instead of Nadel Smith.

“They made something dangerous and I tried finding a volcano to chunk it in.” He half-joked trying to avoid the subject

She frowned knowing how the elusive magician loved collecting magical artifacts always claiming he could find a use for even the most cursed artifacts… Her mind struggled as the curse of the hill trying to shove memories into her mind while the mist tried its best to rip them out.

“It’s that stupid orb in your backpack isn’t it?” She asked both having never seen it and remember asking about it last week. “The thing that you Council Hawkings asked about when you came back last week…”

“Are you okay?” Kravos asked slightly worried as he saw her struggling

There was a hint of fear in his voice as he hadn’t shown her. The unease as he scanned the room trying to spot something while he lifted up his revolver. Endless Night that stupid revolver! She finally got the joke he made about it.

Caster Rounds. Some sort of weave placed upon each shell to store spells he had cast before or something to that effect. A means to utilize pre-inscribed spells without wasting his own reservoir of magic.

Something to add to her list of ‘how is this possible’ to ask after tonight.

She glanced up from her notes as she noticed that Kravos had placed the healing potion over to the side and was staring at it as if he thought the potion had been drugged or something. That he wasn’t struggling with the influx (and sudden removal) of memories only made him seem more… unnatural to her.

“We only encountered each other today.” Kravos reminded/lied to her “I stopped at the wrong house trying to get out of a storm. Lost a week to a witch and now trying to escape the very real people after my life.”

Her phone buzzed as she checked the message.

Mr Hawkings wanted to check for a reading and was checking if they should risk trying to extend the night… or let it pass. Nadel nearly laughed if not for how nervous Kravos was.

That he feared having a history in this city more than cybernetic undead dragons, and crazed undying foot soldiers unleashing neverborn monsters to tear through the streets!

She sent the message to start the draw before pulling out her own deck of cards as on nights like this one could perform a crude attempt at reading the lines of fate to get a glimpse or warning of the future.

All she needed to know was two fates instead of the tangled weave of five (or more). She just needed to know… her own fate… and his or where it stood separate from the city or together with it?

There was a rattle of fist against door above them as a gravely strained voice practically screamed at the top of its inhuman lungs “Ya’zell the Traveler! I have come to reclaim what is mine!”

“Oh come on.” Kravos muttered “Doesn’t anyone who tried to kill me stay dead anymore!”

Nadel opened up a closet big enough for her to hide in as the Magician discarded his attempts at illusion and trickery as he shoved the (fake) runic table against the table trying to brace it shut. That frightened her more than any threat or challenge.

He wasn’t using any tricks or illusions… just pure desperation as he struggled trying to find lethal rounds to kill the next attacker.

She pulled out the first two cards as she felt the curse take effect as history tried to bind the magician’s past to this city.

If you ignore the rope in the trees. You will take an eye for the eye was taken.

The front door broke as she heard people scream ‘Kill it’ making her wonder what monsters were being flung at them this time? The minutes on her watch ticked down as they just needed to hold out for just a little bit longer.

She placed the two cards aside before drawing the next two to divine their meaning.

For the silence brings inspiration at the door. The Pale-Faced innocent will drown in bile.

The sound of objects breaking as the inhuman cry tore at the door burned as if somebody had tried cutting it open with a blow torch. Smoke filled the air yet the Magician who always fled was now staying firmly entrenched in the corner of the room trying to find something in his bag.

Nadel pulled the last card.

And he will be paid his Price.

She peeked through the hole in the closet door as what looked like a demon tore into the room. She had seen supernatural creatures that touched upon myth and legend… things that were thought to be impossible by normal people, but… this?

The demon for a better lack of a word was tall like a human if you stretched out the limbs making them more jagged and predatory. Its eyes were pale white like a dead fish as each step it took burned as she could hear skin seemed to snap and pop as it cooked.

Taking up magic she didn’t have much faith towards… faith. Even less when she realized who her grandmother was. After that stories of faith just felt… less magical. That most of those ‘divine acts’ felt more like a Magi pulling the strings behind the scenes.

So it took her as a surprise when the large talon tipped monster with curved horns, sharp teeth, and devil like appearance tore into the room dressed like a lawyer in red clothing. The only thing missing were the cloven feet.

It ducked when a shot went off as Kravos shouted “Seriously why can’t they just stay dead?”

Nadel wrote the Magician’s fate unto her notepad as she could make sense of it later. For now she had to see her own fate as she pulled out her own cards.

Beyond the city walls, You will sleep among the polished bones and the forgotten shall be recalled.

She dropped the cards staring at them in disbelief. If fate was to be played out she was going to leave Willow’s Hill in the future… the second part of that fate sounded a little bit concerning, but she could feel it being tied to the Magician’s fate… if only after his hand of the cards had been dealt with.

You will test yourself against the soul of thunder, But the knife in your back is sharper.

Nadel wrote the message down even while she feared what her future entailed... there were not a lot ways to interpert 'knife in your back' as a good sign.

She glanced at the Magician who pulled out a silver orb “You want this Nicka’li?”

The creature hissed staring at the object with open lust and greed only for the magician to cock his revolver against it.

“Leave this city and these people or I will pull the trigger!” He spoke in a firm tone. “I bet my odds of surviving this are better than yours!”

The demon smiled seemingly ready to take the offer “So many names to hide behind, yet still the red shirt tries to defy his fate.”

Nadel closed her eyes as she could feel the thing pressing against the edges of the ancient spells, curses, and weaves crafted by every Witch of the Hill since the first witch claimed the hill. Something about it had a more solid tie to the magician’s fate that struggled against the weave Agatha Willow had tried to make.

The demon turned towards her as she saw it… the creature saw her from behind the closest doors as it focused on her “Ah Ya’zell… what do we have here?”

The last words were spoken with a hint of twisted interest… the type you’d hear from the Stitch Witch when she caught someone trying to break a contract with her or maybe Agatha Willow when she found a male soul who caught her interest before the luckless fool managed to escape the city limits.

The doors flew open as it spoke “Is this _ ___ ___ ____ or ___ y_u __ve _elp?”

The words weren’t taken by the mist, but torn from her mind as she felt herself trying to scream. The creature spoke yet each sound felt like a cleaver tearing through her body. The sounds, the words… the very act of its breath seemed to tear at her soul as if she was being torn apart by it’s sheer unnatural presence.

The gun clicked as the male heir fired the gun. Nadel grabbed something calling to her as she funneled her magic into it trying to make whatever it was stop!

It had to....

“Every…” The sound of the demon was suddenly choked as rain fell upon them.

Pain filled her body, but she felt whole… better to be aching in every joint as she could taste blood in her mouth than… then… whatever that was.

Nadel saw the morning sun drifting out from over the hill edge. They were standing on top of the house on the hill… Agatha Willow’s house to be precise.

The young witch rubbed her eyes as she could feel fate being rewritten and forced upon this city. She could feel some of the horrors being forgotten or gently shoved to the side as it was boxed up under less… supernatural horror.

Yet the demon swinging in the wind stayed etched upon her mind.

The same demon that had been their final challenge now had a rope tied around its neck as she could remember that it had been hanging there for years. They all thought it was a bad halloween decoration that she had never taken down.

Yet she could also remember how it spoke to Kravos knowing him… how the creature’s mere presence started to tear at her mind and possibly her soul… the one monster that forced the Magician to stand and fight rather than try to flee once more.

The cold dead eyes seemed to focus on her before the corpse drifted in the breeze revealing a sign that hung around its neck.

“The Blue Lady Stand Defiant. Soul Stealer.”

“Blue Lady?” The magician spoke in confusion “What the heck is going on here?”

Nadel’s phone buzzed for a moment before she pulled it out as a sinking feeling of dread dropped in her stomach as she saw Alexandria Willow standing in what looked like a normal city if not for… the sheer wrongness the witch felt from the spire that stood in the background.

It looked like a tower but the word Spire overrode any and all thought or word. It would be like trying to call a cup a chair or a bed an escalator... yet there was a look of utter dread when the Magician stared at his phone.

The text attached to the picture read “I think this is actually Lyonesse.”

The next picture showed one of the undead cyborg dragons standing next to a rather large building with lots of people in suits going in and out of it. It looked similar to the brief glance of the draconic horror that attacked the warehouse district.

“How did she get in Kornea?” The Heir of the Hill asked in confusion “And wasn’t Nicka’li trying to kill us just a few seconds ago?”

Nadel glanced at the hanging demon before looking at the Magician.

“You are going to want to lie down for the next part.” She muttered lying down on the grass and ignoring how uncomfortable the ground was “The next part sucks if you are caught standing.”

The sudden rush of realty pressed upon them as Nadel closed her eyes trying to focus on what to keep separate from her memories and trying to slowly let it drip feed into her mind. New thoughts, memories, feelings and history forced itself as she struggled to remember what had happened before and what was now reality.

The presence was uncomfortable, but after a few seconds had passed she had managed to slowly get up… and see that Kravos Lynch hadn’t managed to brace himself fast enough as he had fallen over… and was now rolling down the hill unconscious.

The young witch glanced at the hanging demon who had tried to kill them as it now hung on the tallest branch of the tree. Pieces of a story half spoken and forgotten whispered to her mind trying to place a name on the former human… yet it unsettled her deeply.

“Why am I affected?” She muttered feeling the slight edges of a connection with the other four heirs.

Each one fragmented, slightly frustrated… and conflicted.

Her old childhood friend… her first shy crush… the young boy born without magic who returned with the ability to suddenly be able to cast magic much to everyone’s surprise as they asked how he had obtained the ability to cast magic without being born with it?

How she competed with Alexandria in study of the art… how that damn half-elf Averia liked to toy with her. How Rebbeca had gone through a punk phase… or how Scarlet struggled trying to find where her craft would be formed.

She knew the memories were fake yet she rubbed her skin feeling new ‘old’ scars from a misadventure… or suddenly being able to remember certain spell books and texts far easier. How the house behind her seemed to rapidly shift to fit the new ‘reality’ being imposed upon it.

Yet the demon still hung.

It acted as a firm reminder of the past and the fear she had felt… it practically radiated the sort of… anti-presence Kravos had, but instead of hiding this one simply ate the edges of reality.

More to it then that… she felt a second presence down the hill as she realized why Kravos seemed to resistant to the ancient spell that had been used by each Witch of the Hill throughout the generations.

The orb that had rolled out of his backpack was left in the open. The silver orb that seemed to pulse with unnatural life as the demon in the tree seemed to turn staring at it even in death.

Fearing that it might somehow cut itself free from the hangman’s rope she raced over to the orb and prepared to pick it up… only for it to suddenly roll away from his touch.

Her hand shot back in fear “What?”

A voice dug into the back of her mind “You are not beloved by the Spire. This seed shall rest within his grasp until it is time to be planted again.”

She blinked staring at the orb dumbfounded as it rolled back into the backpack and somehow unzipped the backpack.

A nervous chuckle escaped her lip as her phone buzzed. Pulling it out she heard Mr Hawkings speak “Is he still alive and intact?”

Nadel Kazult glanced at the tree and then at the backpack “Tired and a bit worn out… just out of curiosity… do you know of any nearby volcanoes?”

There was a silent pause as she could feel the unspoken question being asked.

“Let’s just say…” She shivered trying to get out of sight of the hanging demon “Agatha Willow really went out of her way to spite this city before her death.”

"Put the heir someplace safe while I get all the suriving Council members to meet you within Agatha Willow's House." Mr Hawking spoke with a hint of unease "The Elf King will be paying us a visit and if the male heir is... compromised."

"Don't worry." Nadel spoke carefully removing the revolver from the person in question "He made a pact allowing me to kill him if he became compromised. What about the rest of the city?"

There was an awkward pause "All threats against the city had been removed. The third parties are going back home or preparing to try diplomacy... the Outsiders on the other hand are infurated as they seem to be setting up camp at the edge of the city limits."

Nadel glanced at Kravos "You are not going to let him leave the city."

"There were thirty three Council Member yesterday morning. There are only twelve now, including me." The man spoke in a bitter tone "That is for the Council to decied on what his fate shall be."

Mr Hawkings ended the phone call as Nadel sighed trying to sort out the memories and her question on what she was going to do now. She surived the night... and now things seemed even more complicated than before.