MAGE ; benny weir [1]

thirty-eight

Finding a way to catch Ethan alone at his house, Benny and Ellie had to create an entire diversion to keep the council vampires off their tail.
Approaching Ethan's front yard, Benny and Ellie stopped their bikes and parked them on the sidewalk.

"Ethan!" the two loudly yelled. "Ethan!"

"Guess he's not home, B," Ellie stated.

"Well, where could he be?" Benny slightly yelled, making sure the spying vampires could hear their conversation.

"Oh, Benny!" Ellie shouted once more. "Remember when he told us to meet him at the library?!"

"Oh, jeez, Ellie! We must have forgotten! Silly us!"

Hearing the vampires rush away from them on the street, the mages quickly ran into Ethan's house. 

"Alright guys," Ellie said, walking into Ethan's room with Benny. "We're in the clear."

"We went into Grandma's room and found every spell that involves evil smoke, sulfur, and violence," Benny informed.

"That's a lot of smokey violence," Rory commented.

"Yeah, hence the name 'black magic' and not 'nice-sunny-smiley-face magic'," Benny huffed satirically.

Ethan sat silently as he gazed at all the missing people articles on his computer. In almost all of the posts, there were no photos available of the victims.

"So, the mist attacks people who don't own a camera!" Rory suggested.

"Or people who don't show up on camera," Ellie sighed.

"Right, shy people!" Rory smiled.

"Hey, this must be it," Benny began, showing their spellbook to Ethan.
"The Breath of Death: whoever uses this can transform their anger or dark energies into a physical vapour that seeks out and destroys its intended target."

"That's why it totally ignored me," Ethan realized. "It's only going after vampires?"

"But, who would be controlling it?" Ellie asked.

"I don't know, but we need to call Sarah."
Ethan pulled out his phone and tried to call Sarah, but ended up being dialed straight to voicemail.

------------

Ellie sat up on Ethan's bed, smiling at the spellbook she had in her hands.
"Guys, I think I just found a way to fight the Breath of Death," she smiled.

"You hold your nose!" Rory suggested with a cheesy grin. "...No? Okay!"

"Ancient tribes used these witch bottles to lure evil spirits away from people to trap them," Ellie explained. "Last time I checked, we're fresh out of witch bottles."

"Isn't any jug you hold a witch bottle?" Rory asked Ellie, completely serious. 

"Actually, Rory... you're right," Benny pointed out.

He grabbed Ethan's pencil holder, dumped out its contents all over his desk, and held it in front of their faces.

"I bet if we put the right symbols on this, it could work as an actual witch bottle!" Benny assumed. "But, we do need bait."

"...Bait?" Ethan asked, questioning Benny's language.
"Yeah, items from the spirit's target. That means we need something from a vampire," he explained. "Rory, would you have anything that you could lend us for this bottle thingy?"

"Not my internal organs, I need those," Rory answered.

Taking the future witch bottle from Benny, Ellie sat a hand on Rory's shoulder and asked him a personal question. "...Have you gone number one today?"