My First Coven

A Kind of Magic

I actually had a great day today with my Aunt. She helped me so much when I was practising my glamour magic and I even got to the point where I didn't really need to use any words or chants to help it along. It didn't take me long to get there either, Auntie M said it was because I was quite relaxed but also had the right amount of focus too. But things got a bit more serious around lunch time, when we started going through all the bits of information we had acquired about that horrible weird man who was in our school a few nights back, chanting away, trying to sacrifice my new familiar Domino and then blighted my arms. What a dick.

'So there's been several confirmed murders now. All moderately attractive young women.' Auntie M stated as she pulled a folder out of a drawer in her desk. She sat down at one of the tall stools round the middle island and pulled out actual crime scene pictures of the deceased women, laying them out in the order they were found. The most recent two found murdered was seventeen year old Maxine Gorman who was a waitress in a local restaurant and the youngest found so far; and twenty five year old Theresa Dixon, a recently qualified history teacher who was the first confirmed black woman to be killed in this series of murders. Auntie M was convinced there were more murders according to her witchy spidey-sense, but they were probably considered unlinked or undiscovered and most likely not in the local area.

'Where did you get all these photos from?' I asked my Aunt who looked a little sheepish after I asked.

'I acquired them from a very nice police officer.' She replied curtly. Knowing her she probably wandered in to the local police station and hypnotised some poor unsuspecting police officer in to giving her copies of the forensic photos from their case. I felt a little uncomfortable looking at them, but I figured this was something I had better get used to. I stared at all the pictures Auntie M had laid out.

'Lisa Murphy, first murder. Second murder, thirty year old Amanda Christiansen who was found just outside of Hitchin, third murder found completely drained Maxine Gorman and fourth murder, Theresa Dixon also drained. Look at the markings that have been carved on them.'

I looked closer at the gruesome images, all of the markings and symbols that had been carved in to skin of all these woman were the same.

'This is not good for us.' Auntie M said to me in a serious tone. 'This is the kinda shit that draws attention to us.'

'I guess the sooner we stop this guy, the better then?' I asked. Auntie M just nodded at me. 'So what's the plan?'

'We need to track this guy down and get to him when he attacks next.'

'And how do we do that?'

Auntie M grinned at me.

'With this.'

My Aunt held up a small vial in between her fingers and shook it in front of me. It had something in it, some of it looked like hair and I couldn't quite tell what the other stuff was in it.

'Is that, hair?' I asked, squinting at the tiny bottle.

'Yep. Homeboy also had pretty bad psoriasis too he left half of himself in that stinking cloak he vanished out of. Daniel managed to collect some of the flakes.'

I really wanted to barf right now at the strange little collection of flaky skin in a bottle. But I had read in my witches guidebook that spells using "body fluids and parts" of a person could result in some serious shit. Auntie M was busying herself with rummaging through drawers and cupboards, pulling what seemed to be random stuff out and laying it out on the island top. Eventually she brought out a dark grey speckled pestle and mortar and shoved it over to me along with random bottles and jars and the gross skin bottle. She then handed me a small notebook and a pen.