My First Coven

Birdhouse In Your Soul

The door leading in to that strange little building had given Duncan the blight. The same exact blight that the creep Bruce had given me that one time, all the way up my arms. It took days and a lot of potions and my Aunt's magic, to stop it from completely rotting my arms off.

'Duncan will you be okay?' I asked him as I held on to his arm. He just smiled at me.

'I'll be fine, look it's already starting to heal.'

I looked down at his hand, the blight had indeed started to shrink from his fingers. I guess that was the perk of vampiric healing.

I had contacted my Aunt through our telekinetic link and told her exactly where we were and what had happened. Within seconds, her group had made their way over to us and shortly after; so had everyone else. I was pretty close to the door of the building now and I was getting residual whiffs of that awful smell that seemed to follow Bruce around. I figured that he was using his weird magic to essentially curse the entrance, in order to deter people, or other beings from trying to get in.

'Oh geeze what is that smell?' Mai said as she held her sleeve up to her nose. I looked over to see a few of the other witches in my coven and some of the warlocks with faces of disgust. They could smell the residual bad energy of this guys magic too. My cousins Macy and Molly had full on wrapped their scarves around their faces, to keep the foul stench out of their nostrils.

'Okay I think we can safely say that this murderer has been using this place for something.' Mr Evans had stepped forward to get a closer look and a sniff. 'Ugh that's vile.' He continued as his nose twitched. 'Look round here though.' Mr Evans pointed to a faint red line that appeared to be drawn all the way round the door hole itself. 'It looks like it could be a barrier spell.'

'It does look like one.' Adrian added. 'But for all we know he has those women he's kidnapped somewhere in there, or maybe not we can't be sure. But as soon as someone crosses that barrier without him here, he'll know someone's been trespassing.'

I wanted to go charging in there right now and save my friends and everyone else that psycho Bruce had abducted. I very nearly did until my Aunt started speaking.

'We need to catch this guy in the act. He's probably gonna be at his most vulnerable when he's occupied with casting or what ever he does.'

'Why can't we go in now?' I protested. 'My friends are in there as well as the others he's kidnapped, can't we just break his stupid barrier?'

'Maddie we cannot fuck this up.' My Aunt said to me. 'We can't even be sure that there's anyone even in there. And knowing who he's trying to summon, as soon as someone does cross that barrier he'll probably disappear and he won't be brought to justice. For all we know he's maybe even booby trapped this building.'

I felt a little downtrodden. All I wanted was for this to be over and everyone be safe. My Aunt strode over to me and laid her hand on my shoulder.

'Look I know you want Katie and Victoria back safe, I do too kiddo. But knowing how these things go, he's most likely a few more women short for his mass sacrifice. Everybody's still probably alive and we want to get this guy when his keks are round his ankles. We need to prepare.'

My Aunt was right. I didn't know how these things went, this was my first sort of bad guy hunt which sounded really weird thinking about it. I guess that horrible nightmare I had a little while ago was a vision of what Bruce would be up to and everyone in it, was still alive. Everyone was playing it cool and cautious, I could understand why going in half-cocked with no more information would be detrimental.

Everyone was standing to attention now, listening to whatever my Aunt was saying. Then my cousin Macy raised her hand.

'Auntie M, wouldn't it be an idea to keep an eye on this place? Like a stakeout or something?'