Episode 12 of The Witch’s Key: “The Final Piece”
Episode 12 wraps up another week of The Witch’s Key, an original story I’m reading live on YouTube each day at 4PM Eastern!
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Episode 12: The Final Piece
I had never gotten dressed so quickly in my life. I was dying to find out what Uncle Martin knew about this demon.
I winced as I pulled my loose sweatpants off and tried to wriggle into a pair of tight jeans. It just wasn’t going to happen. Martin had done a great job healing what he could, but the rest was going to take some time.
Instead, I threw on a pair of stretchy black leggings and a black tank top with my black and white converse high-tops.
Perfect demon investigating clothes, but more importantly, not too painful against my fresh burns.
Nothing I couldn’t handle, though, and nothing compared to what Peyton and the others were facing.
I practically ran all the way to the kitchen to find Martin casually discussing the qualities of his new french press. How Kai could be this patient, I had no idea. There wasn’t a calm bone in my body.
“Pour me a cup and let’s do this,” I said. “I can’t believe you’ve been looking for this demon so long. You have to tell us everything you know as quickly as possible.”
Martin smiled and slowly poured a cup of coffee, fixing it up exactly the way I liked it.
I fidgeted in my seat as I waited.
“Thank you,” I said when he finally sat down and pushed the steaming mug toward me. “Now, spill it. What have you been keeping from us?”
“Patience is a virtue, dear girl.”
“No, right now, it’s a luxury we don’t have,” I said. “We’re running out of time.”
“Yes, yes,” Martin said. “So we are.”
He sighed and shook his head.
“I’m not certain where to begin, so I’ll just go back to the first time I met this particular demon,” he said. “His name, by the way, is Algrath. That might come in handy next time you encounter him.”
I nodded and quickly repeated the name in my head several times. Speaking a demon’s name could give you some level of power over it under the right circumstances.
“About fifty years ago, I was working with a Slayer named Renee,” he said. There was a hint of sadness as he said her name that tugged at something deep inside me. “She was very talented. Together, we hunted down a particularly nasty demon named Regmothean. He was ancient and had grown greedy over the years, taking more and more until it was impossible for the Council to ignore his actions. It took several years, but Renee and I managed to capture Regmothean and imprison him in a series of mirrors.”
I shook my head. A series of mirrors? I’d never heard of something like that before.
“Why not just a single mirror? I don’t understand how you would imprison a single demon in multiple mirrors,” I said.
“It’s true that it isn’t done very often. The process is complicated and time consuming, but in this case, quite necessary,” Martin said. “We essentially fragmented the demon’s soul into five different pieces and imprisoned them in five separate mirrors. The Council then hid those mirrors in five different secret locations.”
“Okay, so what does this demon, Algrath, have to do with that other demon? I don’t understand.”
Kai made a strange sound and ran a hand through his hair. “I think I do,” he said. “But I don’t want to believe it.”
“I’m afraid you’re probably right,” Martin said. “But I’ll explain it as concisely as I can. Algrath is Regmothean’s brother. I met him shortly after I helped to imprison Regmothean, and let’s just say he was quite angry. He killed Renee and very nearly took my life, as well.”
Martin was quiet for a long moment before he was able to continue.
“He vowed that he would someday locate his brother’s five prisons and set him free.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said, rubbing my forehead with my hand. “That’s what these rituals are all about, then? Setting Regmothean free?”
Martin nodded.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “And what’s worse, the mirror here in Newcastle is the final piece of Regmothean’s prison. If Algrath successfully completes his ritual tomorrow night, one of the most sadistic demons to walk the earth will go free once again.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t want to believe it could be true.
“Why hasn’t the Council stepped in before now?” I asked, outraged. “This is the reason the Council exists in the first place. To keep the balance and exact justice. How can they just turn a blind eye to what’s happening? They can’t seriously want this demon to go free.”
Martin touched my hand, instantly bringing a sense of calm to my heart.
“I wish I could give you an acceptable answer, but I don’t have one,” he said. “Making sure Regmothean was taken care of was a high priority of the Council back when I was still in service. Back then, several Slayers had also been tasked with the job of banishing or imprisoning Algrath, as well, but no one was successful.”
“So what’s changed?” Kai asked. “Why aren’t they trying to stop this?”
I glanced over and saw there were tears in Kai’s eyes, and it sent a strange feeling of protection over me. I wanted to put an end to whatever was hurting him, even if I didn’t understand what it was. Was this somehow tied to his father?
“I no longer have the same privileges I once had when it comes to the Council of Witches,” Martin said. “When I’ve inquired about the brothers, I have been shut out completely over the past several years. In fact, the Council tried to hide the recent rituals from my attention, so that I wouldn’t know the first four pieces of Regmothean’s mirrors had been released. This is definitely a deviation from the Council’s normal behavior. As to what their motives are, however, I can only speculate.”
“Do you think Blythe Greer is involved?” I swallowed back fear and anger. “Do you think this has anything to do with what happened to my parents?”
“Or my father?” Kai asked.
I looked over at him. Had his father died?
He’d never told me the full story about why he’d come here looking for his dad or what he’d discovered once he got here.
Maybe we’d both lost the most important people in our lives.
“Ms. Greer is most certainly up to something,” Martin said. “I haven’t quite discovered which side she’s on yet, however. Time will reveal all, I have a feeling.”
“So, for now, we have to assume we can’t trust her,” I said. “Or the Council.”
“Sadly, I have to agree with you,” Martin said with a sigh. “A lifetime of service has bought me nothing with the current Council, it seems. I must admit, I had hoped to let others handle this, so I failed to act as quickly as I should have. I felt I had done my part all those years ago and that it was time for someone else to step in. If Algrath is to be stopped, I realize now that we are those girls’ only hope. And the hope of the world, it seems, as well.”
Wow.
I leaned back against the chair and let Martin’s words sink in.
I’d been afraid I was in over my head, but I never in a million years realized it was this serious. We were on our own, and we were running out of time.
“Okay, so how do we do this?” I asked. “How do we find Algrath and stop this ritual?”
Martin smiled, and I realized he had more secrets to tell.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
He led us back to his study. It was a large, yet cozy, two-story office with floor to ceiling bookshelves framed in dark wood. His desk was an ornate antique loaded with stacks of papers and books.
The only window in the room was covered with heavy, dark blue curtains, so the brass lamp on Martin’s desk was the only light as we walked in. It was the kind of room where all I wanted to do was curl up with a cozy blanket in the big, comfy leather chair in the corner and read all day.
Truth be told, that’s what I’d actually done many summer days since I’d moved in.
“Have a seat,” Martin said, sitting down behind his desk and putting on a pair of reading glasses with thick black rims. He motioned to the two high-backed leather chairs across from his desk.
Kai and I took our seats, both of us anxious to find out what Martin would tell us next. It was obvious he had some kind of plan.
“As unfortunate as your encounter with Algrath was last night, it was actually the closest I’ve gotten to him in a very long time,” Martin said. “I have tried in the past to locate him using spells, potions, and even tracking devices I placed on him at various times. None of these methods have worked effectively.”
He rifled through some papers on his desk and finally pulled out a page that had a drawing of a dagger in its center.
“Ah, here we are,” he said. “Over the past few years, I have been working on a new sort of tracking spell in my spare time. One that wouldn’t be so easily reversed or avoided. I’ve used it a few times in practice with great success, but this is the first time I’ve used it on a powerful demon like Algrath. Time will tell if it is effective in helping us locate him.”
I sat on the edge of my chair, taking the paper from him and studying it.
“This is brilliant,” I said, passing the paper to Kai. “How long will it take to find him if it does work?”
Kai shook his head. “This makes absolutely no sense to me,” he said. “Can you translate?”
I leaned toward him. “So, traditional tracking spells using someone’s DNA can be avoided with simple cloaking spells. That’s probably what this demon has used on the girls. There are also tracking spells where you can place something onto a person or creature and track that item. These are also relatively simple to avoid, if you know you’re being tracked,” I said. “What Martin’s done, if I’m reading this correctly, is he’s created a special tracking potion using a drop of his own blood.”
“Very good, Lenora,” Martin said. “I laced the dagger I used against Algrath last night with a few drops of this potion. The way it works is the potion slowly travels through the demon’s bloodstream, essentially coating him with it from the inside. It shows no sign of its existence, because there is so little of it and it has no side effects at all until it has been dispersed to ever part of his body. In theory, the demon will have no idea he’s been infected with it until it’s too late. Cloaking himself will no longer work, because it won’t be his energy I’m tracking.”
Kai’s mouth fell open as he finally understood the spell.
“So once your blood is dispersed throughout the demon’s body, you simply track yourself. Your own energy,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Martin smiled and nodded. “It has taken a bit of out-of-the-box thinking to come up with this method,” he said. “But I’m honored you approve. The biggest downside is that it takes nearly two days for it to work.”
“Two days?” I asked, slamming the paper down on the desk. He’d just gotten my hopes up, and now it felt like we were back to square one. “That’s too late. We have less than two days until the full moon.”
“By my calculations, we should receive the demon’s accurate location just before the ritual begins,” Martin said. “I’m afraid this was my best option, and we are lucky we got the chance to use it at all. The spell must travel slowly through the demon’s body, or else it would be too easy for him to sense it and nullify it.”
I leaned back in the chair, feeling defeated. The odds were definitely stacked against us here, and even though this might help, it also might come through too late to save the missing girls.
“What else can we do in the meantime, then?” I asked.
“For one, we can get both of you ready to face Algrath if and when it comes to that,” Martin said. “There’s another detail you need to understand about this demon before we face him again.”
“What’s that?” Kai asked.
Martin looked through his stack of books, thumbed through a few pages, and finally handed a worn book across the desk to Kai.
“Algrath and his brother are both ethologus demons,” Martin said.
It was my turn to look confused. Kai seemed to recognize the word right away, because he groaned and ran a hand across his forehead.
“No wonder I haven’t been able to find him by tracking the people who just came to town,” he said. “This is making so much more sense right now.”
“What?” I asked. “What’s ethologus?”
“It means they’re copycats,” Kai said. “Instead of taking on their own unique human form like most demons, an ethologus demon can take on the form of any other human it chooses.”
My eyes widened and my stomach knotted.
“Wait. You’re saying this demon could look like anyone? Even me? Or you?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Martin said. “In order to take someone’s form, the ethologus demon must consistently feed on that human’s energy. Typically, the demon will have the real human locked away somewhere in its home or den.”
I closed my eyes, thinking about how horrifying that would be.
“So, in all likelihood, the first kidnapping that took place here in Newcastle wasn’t a teenage girl after all. It was likely someone else in the community that no one even realizes is missing,” Kai said. “This makes finding them all the more difficult. It could be anyone in town.”
“Furthermore, when in its copycat form, the demon is very hard to sense or detect,” Martin said. “It will have the memories, mannerisms, and even the energy of the human it is pretending to be. On the outside, everything will appear normal, even to close family members.”
At the mention of the word family, I suddenly got a sick feeling in my stomach.
“What about Julie Peterson?” I asked. “Is it possible Olive’s mom is really this demon? What if Olive doesn’t even know her mother’s been kidnapped?”
Martin slowly nodded.
“Yes, Kai filled me in on your suspicions about this woman,” he said. “I have to say her potential involvement with Bates is somewhat of a concern. It could be innocent, of course. The cupcake you brought home to me the other day was delicious, but if it had any Moondust inside, it was nothing more than a trace amount to amplify the flavor or make them slightly more addictive. That’s hardly more dangerous than sugar, if you ask me.”
“What if some of her other cupcakes have had more Moondust, though?” I asked. “The other day at Sir Bean, Peyton had a maple bacon cupcake. The next day, she told me she’d had incredibly realistic dreams. Dreams that made her muscles ache. I experienced something similar when I had Moondust candy years ago. Also, Ms. Julie dropped off a special cupcake for Peyton to try the day she disappeared. She specifically told her not to eat it until after we’d all left. It’s suspicious, if you ask me.”
Martin seemed to think this over.
“There could be a connection, there,” he said.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with bundles of lavender and poison ivy under her pillow, though,” I said, frowning. Why drug Peyton and then also leave those bundles? “I don’t know how it all comes together, but there’s something there. We just don’t have all the pieces to fit it together yet.”
“We need to figure out our next moves,” Kai said. “So far, all we have is speculation. We need proof.”
Martin stood. “Let’s start by going out to the scene of last night’s attack,” he said. “My only concern last night was getting Lenny to safety. I didn’t have a chance to look around for clues. Let’s head out in the light of day and see what we can find, shall we?”
We followed him to the garage, where he kept two different cars. One was a sleek new Mercedes AMG GT 4-Door he’d bought this summer. The other was a Classic 1937 Cadillac.
Neither car was exactly the kind that would blend in, but it was one of these or the VW bug Kai had been driving. I sighed. I really needed to get a car of my own. Something less conspicuous.
We all climbed into the Mercedes and headed toward the edge of town where Bates had set up shop.
Martin parked near where Kai had parked, but it was obvious right from the start that we weren’t going to find any clues here today.
We got out of the car, all shaking our heads at what used to be a stretch of wooded area just a few hours earlier. Now, the entire area had been completely leveled. No trees. No pine needles.
It was unrecognizable.
And it wasn’t just the woods that were gone, either.
The building Bates had been hiding out in was gone, too, without a trace.
Was this something a single demon could do alone? And why? What else was he hiding?
As we walked across the freshly-tilled earth, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Whatever it was we were fighting against here, it was much bigger than I’d ever dreamed. And we had less than two days to figure it out.
Thank you for reading!!
I hope you are enjoying the story. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.