My First Coven

Endless Sacrifice

'You really think someone's trying to summon a demon?' I couldn't quite believe what I was asking, it was a weird question but being a witch; it kind of went with the territory.

Auntie M had been telling us about some research she had been doing regarding the dead body that had been found outside the school. The symbols that had been carved in to her chest were in a few books that my Auntie M had owned and she even mentioned that she had come across them before.

'They're not usually used in our line of work but...' Auntie M pulled a notebook out of her handbag and set it down on the table for us to look at. 'These symbols are normally used by wannabe magic users but with no effect as they have no magic in them. But when used by someone with power and a vague idea of what they're doing, they have a little summoning spell on their hands.'

She pointed at the individual symbols she had scribbled in the notebook.

'Kids trying to be different and saying they're Satanists to scare their school mates and parents usually scrawl these on their walls and notebooks and stuff. They don't do shit without actual magic.'

'So you genuinely think somebody might be trying to summon, a demon?' I asked Auntie M.

'Yep.'

'By using sacrifices?' I continued questioning her. She nodded at me.

'Bingo.'

'But why is it all happening round the school though? That's the question.' Mr Evans stated.

'That's what I can't quite figure out.' Auntie M said. 'I'm gonna need all your help on this guys, it's something I haven't come across before.'

'Food's here.' Liam said as he saw the waitress Sandra walk over with an oversized tray that had all of our food on it, which was a good cue for us to stop talking about weird stuff. Auntie M and I had Lasagne which was one of our all time favourite pasta dishes, Liam had what looked like Spaghetti Vongole and Mr Evans had a Zita alla Genovese. Everything looked really tasty and we dived in. We stopped talking about death and sacrifices and instead spoke about normal things, well whatever normal was considering we were all magic users. It was kind of weird talking about normal things, talking about magic was so much more interesting.

'Are we having dessert?' Mr Evans asked. It was a pretty dumb question, of course we were all having desert. Mines a Tiramisu thank you very much! Or a Panna Cotta. I don't know, I'd have them all if I could. I was loosing my train of thought over deserts and I dropped my napkin on the floor. I had to scoot under the table slightly just so I could reach it. As I sunk my head under the table searching for my stray napkin, I saw in the corner of my eye; my Auntie M's leg just casually rubbing against Mr Evans' leg. I nearly banged my head on the way back up seeing that. So there was something going on between them, I had to grill my Auntie M about that at some point.

We had all agreed that we'd have to monitor what was going on at the school, anything unusual or out of the ordinary.

'So there's a possibility that it may be a lesser demon who's possessed a human to let his boss out, or it's somebody with some magical aptitude and ill intent thinking they could let the big bad out in return for something. That's usually what it is.' Auntie M stabbed the last bite of her Tiramisu with a dessert fork. 'They always want power and money and all that shit, plus they end up getting their jollies through killing.' She continued.

'You think we'll have a serial killer on our hands?' Mr Evans asked nonchalantly. He had already finished devouring a bunch of Cannoli.

'Absolutely.'

Liam and I glanced at each other. I think we were thinking the same thing. These two seemed like they were enjoying it. They both looked up at us when we thought that, of course they heard it or read it or whatever.

'Oh we're not enjoying this.' Auntie M said aloud.

'This is the stuff we deal with. You two had better get used to it, it's not all fun and games. You'll learn that horrible stuff tends to follow us around most of the time.' Mr Evans added.

Wow our conversation had taken a darker tone. I remember my Auntie M had told me that it was our "duty" to protect mortals from evil and uphold the goodness of our craft, but we also had to protect ourselves. First of all; Witches naturally had more power than Warlocks, that was just a fact. It was also a fact that some Warlocks liked stealing Witches powers for their own. Witches didn't do that to Warlocks that often though. So we had to protect ourselves and our sisters and; Warlocks we were allied with. The bad ones didn't really discriminate over who's power they stole, but they had a taste for Witches.

Secondly all the exposure that magic and demonic based murders brought unnecessary attention to us. So mortals didn't know that Witches and Warlocks were real in the first place and we wanted to keep it that way; but serial killings brought police detectives, ghost hunters, reporters and con artist magic users and supposed psychics round with questions. We stayed as far away from the public eye as possible.

'But there's only one death so far so technically it's not a serial killer yet?' I said trying to look on the bright side. Some bright side though, a young woman was still dead.

'It will be. Just you wait.' Auntie M told me. 'Demons are greedy, they want souls and blood. A huge amount. We need more info on this guy as soon as, if it is just one guy that is.'

This was not filling me with any kind of confidence at all. I had gone quiet and so had Liam. But Liam did speak up eventually.

'Can I ask, what do we um, do with these kinds of people?'

'We stop them.' Mr Evans replied simply.

'Dare I ask how?' Liam continued.

'By any means necessary.'

I looked at my Aunt and Mr Evans, they both looked really, really tired all of a sudden. Like this entire conversation was reminding them of times they wished to forget and it was draining them. I didn't want to pry further, not right now.