Later that evening, I portalled back to Arne’s mansion with my Aunt. She led me in to her lab where she switched a few lights on, then proceeded to make us both a mug of tea. I had a tonne of questions for her.

‘I bet you have a tonne of questions for me Maddie.’ Auntie M said as she messed about with the mugs of tea. She didn’t need to listen to my thoughts to know that. At least I now had a big mug in front of me, containing strong tea with milk and two sugars.

‘I do have a tonne of questions, but I don’t really know where to start.’ I said as I sipped my hot tea. ‘I mean, what is it all about?’

‘Well first of all, get your handbook out.’ Auntie M instructed me. I did as she said and flicked it open to a random page, landing exactly on what I needed. “Guardians.” Damn magic book.

‘This will give you the basics and a general idea, but nothing beats being told for real.’ Auntie M gestured for me to take a seat on one of the counter stools. ‘And I did say I would explain everything properly if it came up.’

She did say that to me. And she has kept true to her promise that she would explain whatever came up or happened. Except the vampire bonding thing, but she flat out told me that it was something that nobody would explain to me; no matter how much I asked or wanted to know. Even the book wouldn’t give up any secrets about it either.

‘Anyway. “Traditional” witches like us,’ Auntie M twitched her fingers in air quotes. ‘have our own sort of, bouncers if you could call us that. The long and short of it is, while we have any amount of demons or whatever that we chase about to protect humans… there’s a few of us that are chosen to deal with the few supernatural beings that come after us, especially those who aren’t able to protect themselves properly. But we also deal with humans who come after us too and they’re… a bit different.’

‘You mean Hunters?’ I asked.

‘Mainly Hunters.’ Said Auntie M. ‘But there are a few other human groups like religious sects and stuff that like hunting us down. But, yeah it’s predominantly Hunters.’

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I flicked through the pages of my My First Coven handbook and it magically landed on the “Hunters” section. I gave it a quick skim through, remembering what my Aunt had already told me about their use of Rowan to incapacitate us, what they actually do to you when they finally capture you. Yeah, none of it was nice. The book went over some of it but there were a few additions that I could now read.

Hunters groups can be found all over the world; where ever magic users are found, so can Hunters. Not all belong to a specific religious sect or ideal of any kind, but most Hunter groups tend to hunt female magic users. Some groups whilst mainly hunting female magic users, also hunt various demons, ghosts and spectres and several other supernatural entities such as but not limited to; vampires, weres and/or shapeshifters, ghouls, fairies and many more. They tend not to pursue male magic users, as they are male; they would much prefer having them as allies.’

There was an interesting little paragraph about how during the famous witch trials many, many years ago; there were only a few thousand women in England actually tried and the supposed millions that were slaughtered across the world were in actuality, only in the tens of thousands. Plus, it was all just an elaborate excuse to go after women that the men didn’t like for whatever reason. A pretty stupid reason if you ask me. All those poor women executed because some man maybe thought her natural beauty was her tempting him with witchcraft, or because a man thought she was ugly enough to sour milk. So dumb. I carried on reading about how the Guardians actually “dealt” with these kinds of people. Depending on what was happening, determined whether or not these hunters walked off with an erased memory… or with their lives ended. The latter however the book thankfully informed me, was a worse case scenario deal. I let a little sigh of relief out at that.

‘Oh, hey honey.’

I looked up from the book to see my Aunts face light up, as Arne gracefully strode in to the lab and kissed her on the forehead before he took a sat beside her. He said something to her as he took her hand in his. It sounded like “elskede” or something. I dunno, my Norwegian wasn’t that great.

‘Good evening Madelyn. Are you well?’ I vampire asked me. I nodded.’

‘I am Arne, how are you?’

‘I am well. Thank you for asking. I hear your Aunt has been telling you about the Guardians?’

‘She has.’

‘So that means you’ve been called up?’ Arne’s brow furrowed slightly when he asked my Aunt. She nodded at him.

‘Two women have been taken back up North.’ My Aunts deep accented voice sounded.

‘Oh that’s not good. Do you know the group who took them?’ Arne asked sounding concerned.

‘Not yet.’

Arne wrapped his arm around my Aunt. She snuggled in to him. Watching these two made me miss my own vampire right now. But seeing as he was away on his “sleeping in dirt trip, I had my cat Domino to cuddle instead. When he stayed still long enough to be cuddled that it. Domino was now quite a bit bigger, maybe around eight or nine ish months old or so and had grown in to this odd gangly, leggy creature that zoomed about Arne’s mansion like a Formula one car; crumpling all the rugs up on the floors and misjudging door frames and furniture, charging in to them head first. At least Duncan didn’t stand on my head when he wanted to wake me up.