Chapter 14: Chapter Ten Part 2

She traced a circle around the property, then carefully walked around it twice more, counting, measuring, drawing and redrawing the circle alone. The spellweave she could fudge, but she dreaded what could go wrong if the circle wasn’t exact. Eventually, she knew she had done all she could. She drew a second circle within the first, and connected them with a line. By that time dark had well and truly fallen. She fetched a manalight from the house and carefully jammed it in the Fabric of her hat. The glowing glass ball rested warmly atop her head as she pulled a paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and began to draw the repeating pattern of the spell, making sure each and every little line and mark was connected to the inner circle. She carefully drew around the stems of the lavender, with Edelweiss helping her move paving stones. When she encountered the gazebo, she muttered “Sorry Zinnia…” blinked, and pushed aside the Fabric of the concrete with her fingers to complete her lines. No threads were being pulled yet, just channels dug.

“So I’m guessing I don’t wanna step on those?” a voice came from overhead.

Hazel finished her current line, then looked around. It sounded like Taé, but she wasn’t sure where the lady Vampire was.

“Up here,” Taé called.

A cloud slowly moved off the moon, casting just enough light to reveal the dark shadow of Taé crouched on the roof. She balanced on the tiles while slouched over her knees, wind ruffling her hair. When Hazel finally spotted her, the vampire gave a salute-like wave.

“The outer circle is the important one,” Hazel called up to her. “The patterns all reinforce each other, so a little smudging is fine. Why?”

Taé nodded out into the street. “Being watched.”

Hazel whipped around. A young man peered at her circles over the gate. At her movement, he flinched and scurried off. Hazel blinked, and briefly saw his fabric was white before it faded away against the haze of yellow.

“Who was he?” Hazel asked, blinking her second sight away.

“No one I know,” Taé said. “Wasn’t with the Watch. So he might be one of Gene’s Boys.”

Hazel carefully walked over her lines to hastily double check the circle by the gate. But it didn’t look like the circles had been damaged at all…

“Do what you need to,” Taé said, bouncing on her heels as she scanned the night. “If they pull anything funny, I’ll protect you.”

“Are we expecting… more thralls?” Hazel asked.

“Maybe. But with me and Relly here, there are seven other thralls in the city,” Taé said, eyes roving back and forth. “One of them scares the shit outta me. The rest I could kill in a blink.” She made a quick slicing motion across her neck. “You know. Probably. But Aurelius was saying we could get a human mob coming for us, easy. Then shit will get messy fast…” She clicked her tongue and shifted on her feet. “I’d rather not let it come to that.”

Hazel nodded. She had so many questions, but she couldn’t take too long. So she turned back to the patterns in the dirt, telling Taé, “Just make sure you’re inside the circle when I cast the spell.”

Hazel did her work, carefully, precisely, as fast as she could. She could get away with drawing the pattern once, but it would have to be drawn perfectly. The more of the patterns she drew, the less exacting she had to be, and ultimately, the more stable the spellweaving would be. She drew the pattern at each orthogonal direction, then, once she was used to drawing, she put away her guide and just filled the spaces inbetween freehand, making sure each segment was connected to the outer circle with a thickly drawn line in the dirt.

Hazel had the circle about half full of the pattern. Clouds had begun to gather overhead, thunder rumbling low in the distance. Taé assured her, from the way the wind was blowing, rain was still at least an hour off. Probably. Hazel hoped that was accurate; if the lines washed away she’d have to do the whole spell freehanded… and for something this big, she knew it could go horribly wrong very quickly.

Then she heard Taé sharply swear.

“Rain?!” Hazel cried, peering up at the clouds and feeling for drops.

Taé just shouted something in her native tongue, shooting to her feet and peering over the back yard. There was only one or two rows of houses that way, before it abruptly became pitch black fields. Hazel was about to ask what was wrong, what could possibly be coming from that direction.

Then things happened too fast for her to follow.

She thought she heard a high pitched whistling sound. Then a searing hot wind suddenly whipped in Hazel’s face, and she was forced to blink away tears. There was a cacophonous crash from the front yard, and when Hazel opened her eyes, Taé was no longer on the roof.

“What the hell?!” Hazel cried.

“Lady Webb! This way!” Edelweiss called as he leapt into the air and glided to the front of the house.

Hazel ran to the front yard, the lavender still whipping and rustling in the wind. The gate was destroyed, ripped into shreds of bent scrap metal by a massive impact. Cobblestones in the street were forced aside, dirt and gravel churned up underneath. And, under the bent body of a street lamp, one massive figure stood, towering over a prone Taé, a spear rammed into the young vampire’s gut.

“Taé!” Hazel cried.

Taé was, as far as Hazel could tell, alive. Hissing in pain, she gripped the spear in her stomach, trying to pull it out. But the figure, muscular, male by the silhouette, held it firmly in one hand, bent over Taé and staring down at her.

“Ha!” he suddenly barked. “That is you, isn’t it Taé! Good show, dear sister! A lesser woman would be naught more than meat from that blow!”

The man pulled the spear up. Taé groaned as the point exited her torso with a suction-like punk sound, dripping a line of dark blood in the night.

Then she shouted as the shaft rammed down once more. Taé managed to roll away as the spear dug a foot deep into the dirt below, soil steaming and hissing like a snake.

“Ares, what the fuck?!” Taé yelled.

The man released a laugh in reply, low and tumbling like a shower of pebbles. As the figure stood to full height, Hazel finally got a decent look.

Hazel had thought Taé was decently built, but Taé was practically slender in the face of this hulk. While the man was possibly shorter than Taé, he was bulging with defined musculature. He had an strong jaw and a crooked nose from an old break, and wore a small smile with full lips. They wore no shirt, exposing countless scars across their chest and winding snake tattoos down their arms. Dozens of dreadlocks hung like ropes around their head, riddled with golden rings and held back from their face by a tight leather band. Their skin was gray flush with ruddy pink, apparently much healthier than the ashen pale Aurelius rested at.

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Then Hazel blinked, and saw an entirely different Grip around this hulking person before her.

His Fabric blazed with red Fire, overwhelming Death’s Fabric until it was almost as bright as the Fabric of Life. But where Aurelius’ curse gripped his head, and Taé’s her neck, Ares’ Grip took the form of innumerable flowing red hands. They wrapped and weaved around every limb, fingers gently embracing wrists, shoulders, and ankles. And though she couldn’t be sure if it was related to the Grip, joyous Air seemed to swirl artfully around Ares’ eyes, dancing along his hairline.

She also saw strange fabric glowing and rippling along Ares’ leather sandals. They glowed red and yellow, whipping the wind around him. Hazel could think of no more awkward flying device than just a simple pair of shoes… but did Ares come soaring in from the sky despite that? And where did the fuel come from? Were canisters hidden in his baggy trousers?

Hazel snapped out that useless line of thought when Ares lifted his spear. Hazel flinched when she saw it. The spear’s head was rippling with whipping tendrils of death, threads thick and unstable.

“I was ordered to kill everyone at this residence,” Ares said simply, turning the spear’s dripping point towards Taé. “I was not told any exclusions.”

Hazel blinked back just as Taé yelled, “That’s ridiculous! We’re uh… kin!”

“Alas, that’s the way it is,” Ares said with a shrug, gold bands flashing in the light. “If you respect our Grandfather, then you will kneel and accept his judgment.”

“Like hell I will!” Taé cried. “You don’t have to listen to him any more, Ares! You can be free of him! Like I am!”

Ares cocked his head as if confused, though the stiff smile never left his face.

“So that’s how it is?”

With another roll of his shoulders, he gripping the spear tighter in his hands, and fell into a fighting stance.

“Oh well. Orders are orders. I’m sure you understand, Taé.”

“Oh fuck off!” Taé shouted.

She was drowned out by another shout across the yard.

“Dearest Brother! By the Father, don’t you look grand!”

Ares paused as Aurelius came sauntering out of the house, his grin wide, arms flung wider, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“That you, Aurelius?” Ares said, eyes and smile never leaving Taé’s face. “Glad you’re still alive, brother!”

“As alive as one of our ilk can be. One moment, you absolute stud.”

Aurelius kissed Hazel on the cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. Hazel reached her mind out, and heard him subvocate.

‘Get that spell going,’ he insisted.

‘When I shout get back in the circle,’ Hazel hastily thought back.

Aurelius nodded and pulled away. “Now what’s this about, oh bother, killing everyone?” He clapped his hands together and leaned forward, grin tight. “Is that what Grandfather told you?”

Ares’ eyes flicked over to Aurelius before returning to Taé, still holding his stance and smile as if both were set in stone. As Aurelius walked forward, Hazel crept back into the circle, carefully correcting anywhere Aurelius tread.

Edelweiss leapt on her shoulder, and she suppressed a shout of surprise.

“I do not like the way that one smells,” Edelweiss said, wings flaring, talons instinctively flexing, digging into Hazel’s good shoulder. “They smell of a dragon slayer.”

Hazel was taken aback for a moment, before she whispered back, “I’d believe it.”

“I was simply told we lost two of our ‘kin’ in this house,” Ares said loudly. “I’ve come to subdue the dangerous killers that reside here.”

Aurelius laughed loudly. “Dangerous killers?” He thumbed behind him. “That runty little thing behind me?”

“I know better than to underestimate a witch,” Ares said. Hazel paused as Ares’ eyes flicked over to her briefly before returning to Taé.

“Oh please,” Aurelius cried. “Do you think Taé would be laid low by the likes of a silly little witch?”

Aurelius gave Ares a wide berth as he walked around him, their eyes locked as Aurelius circled. He wrapped a hand around Taé’s shoulder, giving her a good shake. She looked at Aurelius like he was crazy.

Aurelius continued. “No, no, no, we’ve just had a little…mmm… mishap, is all. Taé’s a bit confused by all of it, but we’re both still very loyal to Master Asphodel, aren’t we Taé?”

Aurelius gave Taé a toothsome grin. Taé opened and closed her mouth like a dying fish.

“Uh. Yeah! Sorry!” Taé floundered. “Was just confused a moment! All good here!”

Hazel finished her corrections and pressed the staff into the lines of the spellweaving. Unlike most Witches, she wasn’t entirely practiced at using a medium like a wand or staff to pull at the Fabric. But also, unlike most Witches, she required no paints, and could simply grab the Air itself as fuel. As she swirled the staff through the air, she could feel it tugging at the Fabric. She closed her eyes and focused on that feeling, humming softly as she willed Air to flow down and along the lines of the circle. Edelweiss’ wings flared, and he hummed along with her.

“Aurelius—” Ares said, a testy twinge entering his voice. “You know I can’t…”

“Please, Ares,” Aurelius casually drawled. He spread his free hand across his chest. “Would Asphodel wish me, his most precious treasure, dead? Would you dare to make a mistake so grave as that? Killing something so precious to the man, he kept it for a hundred years? Perhaps you should, you know, double check?”

Still humming, Hazel peeked. She saw Ares, still in stance, lift one hand from his spear and tap his forehead. Aurelius was trying to subtly pull Taé sideways, towards the destroyed gate. But Ares stopped them both, spear cutting across their path with a single thrust. Aurelius raised his free hand defensively.

“So testy!” Aurelius cried. “I just didn’t want to stare into the light is all.” He waved at the lampost, and when Ares turned to look, Aurelius hastily backed up several steps through the ruined gate.

“I have my answer—“ Ares said.

“So fast!” Aurelius said, pulling Taé back one more step.

Ares tightened his grip on the spear, smile returning, wild and full of fangs as their eyes drilled into the pair. Hazel got the strong impression of a catlike beast grinning as they pinned their prey.

“Aurelius gets to live!” Ares declared. “Everyone else dies.”

Taé gave an indignant cry. “What the fuck am I? Chucked bones?”

Aurelius gave a high tittering laugh as he pushed Taé behind him. Taé was of course taller than Aurelius, his head coming just to her chest.

“I’m not above hurting you, Aurelius!” Ares cried, grin growing wider still, nearly inhuman. “Grandfather would forgive a little wounding!”

“Oh. I know. But dearest Ares,” Aurelius said, bowing and waving his way. “Mightiest of us all. Dominator of the lesser men. Glorious. The absolute pinnacle of humanity…”

Hazel watched as he carefully backed the both of them in the circle. The lines had just barely begun glowing brighter and brighter gold. The actual air around her began to swirl and glow. The flowers rustled and shook as wind flowed through them, a humming sound growing louder and louder. The staff slowly felt less like wood, and more like pure wind in her hands.

Aurelius continued, “You can tell Asphodel—“

Taé shouted. She darted out from behind Aurelius, just in time to catch a spear in her chest.

A spear who’s point stopped inches from Hazel’s nose.

“—Tell him to go fuck himself so hard with his cane he chokes on it!” Aurelius shouted. Beyond Taé’s shoulder, Hazel could hear Ares bark a hearty, gut-wrenching laugh.

And with a flash of gold, they vanished, leaving behind a smooth circle of unbroken white stone.