I woke up the next morning not feeling as rough as I thought I would from all my crying the night before. A quick glance at my watch told me it had just gone half past seven. Domino was still curled up on the armchair and to the side of me, Duncan was clinging on to me like a teddy bear. I tried moving but he wasn't having any of it and just squeezed me even tighter. It must have only been minutes but I fell straight back to sleep.

I woke up again, this time without Duncan next to me and Domino wasn't in my room either, however my door was slightly ajar. Glancing at my watch, I had gone back to sleep for a while longer, now waking up at ten to ten with a dry mouth and a rumble in my belly. I scooted out of bed, threw on my big fluffy bathrobe and slippers then made my way downstairs to the kitchen. Duncan was in there sat at the kitchen island, already dressed and reading the news paper with some music on in the background, Radio Two from the sound of it. Domino had made himself comfortable on the windowsill over the sink and was busy watching the birds outside.

'Good Morning Maddie. Do you feel any better?' Duncan asked me as I walked in.

'Morning and yeah, much better thank you.' I wandered over to where the toaster was as my Aunt had left out some bread, so I threw two slices in to the toaster and waited. Duncan had snuck up beside me and flipped the kettle on, getting a tea pot from the cupboard and what had now become my mug; a white ceramic affair with random different coloured, hand painted stars on it. He threw two teabags in to the pot and two sugars in to my mug before retrieving a small carton of milk from the fridge along with the butter which I could slather on my toast. He also brought over a random jar and slid it over to me on the counter.

'Do you like marmalade?' Duncan asked as he nodded down to the jar. I picked it up and oggled the label.

'I do actually. Is this home made?'

'Arne made it.'

I smirked. Of course Arne made it.

My toast popped up and I began buttering it instantly then smearing some of the thick marmalade on it before it went cold. The first bite surprised me. The marmalade was so flavourful and quite tarty with just a hint of sweetness.

'Y'know, if there's one thing I would never have guessed was a thing like ever, then it would be a vampire that cooks and makes preserves.'

'It's one of Arne's hobbies. He's always done it well... he's probably done it since long before I joined the clan. It's cooking for him and Boggle for some reason.' Duncan shrugged his shoulders.

'Boggle?' I quizzed.

'Boggle. He's played it religiously since it came out in the seventies.'

Arne. The big scary, serious, True Blood knock-off Scandinavian Viking vampire that my Aunt was nearly constantly glued to liked baking cakes and Boggle

'What about you though Duncan? What do you enjoy doing?' I asked Duncan, he had finished with the teapot now and was pouring me a fresh brew in to my mug, adding just a splash of milk.

'Believe it or not, I actually quite enjoy gardening. I do like cooking and baking too but I'm not as good as Arne.'

'Oh that's pretty cool.'

I didn't really know what to say. I had thoughts and images in my head of vampires in films and TV shows from throughout the years; always portrayed as savage, violent, cruel and bloodthirsty. I had been told a bit about vampires by my Aunt and had read a little about them in the My First Coven handbook. Granted it said bugger all about the witch and vampire bonding thing but it did give a little information about vampires themselves. I tried remembering what the book said; not all vampires are crazy, evil murdering psychos. Not all vampires are out of control, nor are they all crazed sex maniacs and not all vampires want to take over the human race and have them as cattle. I was quite glad of all of that and the fact that the vampires we spent a lot of time with, were actually really nice. The true things about vampires were super speed and strength, flight in some cases depending on the individual, they could use a weird kind of hypnosis but it didn't work on witches. The no reflection in mirrors thing was totally false, garlic didn't bother them, they were somewhat nocturnal with their abilities being stronger at night, but they didn't burst in to flames in the sun, they didn't sleep in coffins and much preferred a warm and comfy bed and a stake to the heart or beheading them would turn them to dust, permanently killing them. Though in saying that, a stake to the heart or having your head lopped off would kill a lot of things.

I did think about Duncan and Arne and the rest of their clan. I wondered how they all got to this point. I wasn't feeling that comfortable in asking Duncan about it, but maybe I would ask my Aunt later when I saw her.

'Oh, my Aunt isn't around is she?' I asked Duncan as I finished off my toast.

'No she's out with Arne, they'll be back soon though.'

'Right, well I might do some research in a bit. You wanna join me?' I asked Duncan. I had planned on spending some time in my Aunt's lab today reading through her notes, doing research and maybe doing some spell practice.

'Sure why not.' Duncan smiled. 'I'll do another pot of tea for you.'

'Cheers. I'll see you in the lab in ten.'

I slid off my stool and quickly deposited my now empty plate in the dish washer before I tried something. Today I was going to practice some spells and the first one I could manageably do, was teleport from the kitchen to my room. Duncan watched me as I concentrated on teleporting. I could feel myself sort of, disassemble and fade then the next thing that happened was a weird popping sound before I found myself in the hallway just outside my room upstairs. I was getting better at teleporting shorter distances that's for sure, at least I wasn't ended up sat arse first in sinks or upside down in bushes; which had happened once or twice before now meaning someone had to come rescue me, usually my Aunt. I could totally get ready in ten minutes now because I had been practising my glamouring spells. Getting dressed was a breeze now, I could literally just think of what I wanted to wear and I could magic the clothes on to my body which did feel weird as the fabric contoured round your limbs and such. But my favourite glamour spells were for make up, which was even more awesome due to the fact that whenever I used magic to put on eyeliner... it was always perfect and never squint or uneven like when I tried to do it with my own hands. I could think of any make up style and within seconds it was on my face, perfectly colour matched and shaded.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I magicked myself in to some cosy black leggings, some black Addidas trainers and a long pink and black striped jumper and did my make up in pink and black to match. Thankfully, glamour spells and teleporting short distances didn't use up too much energy, but then again I still wasn't the best at teleporting as made apparent by my teleporting from my room to the laboratory, but ending up outside just around the corner of the conservatory attached to the laboratory. At least the door was open, it was getting bloody cold outside now.

I walked in and put some music on, getting Spotify up on the PC in the lab and filling it with the sounds of some eighties playlist I found. I then retrieved a folder we now kept that contained papers, notes, photos and anything else we thought might pertain to the predicament we were in with this serial killer we were dealing with. My Aunt had acquired a large cork board at some point and had it mounted up on a bare wall above a console table near the door. I gently slid

the contents of the folder out on to the counter top and went through everything we had collected so far. I got a small box of thumb tacks and carefully began arranging everything on the cork board; but just as I was finishing up pinning pictures of each victim we knew of so far, Duncan walked in with a tray with a fresh pot of tea on it, my favourite mug and some biscuits arranged all nicely on a small plate.

'Doing some detective work?' Duncan said as he placed the tray down and poured me a mug of tea which I took thankfully.

'Trying to, I mean we know this guy is trying to manifest the demon Baal for real. But we don't know if there's any correlation between the people he's kidnapping and murdering. Besides them being all women and somewhat local, we don't really have much to go on. Aunte M did manage to get some info from the police but she hasn't been able to go back for a while.'

'I might be able to help you there. I could go and get you the info you need.' Duncan said to me.

'You would? How?' I asked, genuinely curious.

'Same way as Morrigan, I can just go down to the station and hypnotise one of the officers in to giving me the info.' Duncan said matter-of-factly. ' I could have what you need in about...' Duncan tapped his fingers on the counter. '... well, as long as it takes them to make copies of what they have.'

'You would do that for us?' I asked him, a smile creeping on my face. 'It would help us so much Duncan, I mean I'm not good enough yet to go hypnotising people myself and my Aunt hasn't been abl...' Duncan placed his finger on my lips.

'Of course I would. If it helps you out and stops people getting killed to summon some awful demon then, yeah.'

Without warning, I shuffled over to him and gave him a hug.

'Thank you Duncan.' I beamed up at him. Duncan just bashfully ran his hand through his hair and smiled. I swear if vampires could blush, then he totally looked he'd be beetroot right about now.

'Don't mention it. Seriously though I could go now and be back by the time you've pinned everything up and finished your tea.'

'Oh! I mean you don't have to do it now!' I squeaked.

'Hey if it means figuring everything out asap, I'll do it now.'

I barely had another moment to protest. I literally blinked and he was gone.

'Better off striking while the iron's hot I guess.' I mumbled to myself.

Domino had sauntered in at some point along with Duke, who both leapt up to the main island and positioned themselves in such a way so they could see what I was doing. I drank my tea, had a few biscuits, spoke to the cats about random stuff and had a sing along to some tunes by Prince and George Michael. But I got halfway through my terrible rendition of True by Spandau Ballet when Duncan appeared out of nowhere and nearly scared me shitless.

'Geeze Duncan you nearly gave me a heart attack!' I heaved out, clutching my chest as I tried to control my breathing.

'Oh God I'm sorry Maddie.' Duncan laid his hand on my shoulder as he stifled a chuckle. 'Sometimes I forget not everyone is used to the speed thing.

'You're telling me.' I managed to give him a smile. He however raised his eyebrows as he held up a brown manilla folder and pulled a flash drive out of his pocket.

'I got one of the detectives working on the case to get me copies of everything relevant and a bunch of CCTV footage on this drive.' Said Duncan as he placed the folder and flash drive on the counter. He emptied out the folder and spread all of the papers out, the drive could wait for a bit. We sifted through everything, arranging it all in to some order before we started going through it all with a fine tooth comb. There were detailed dossiers on each of the victims; full names, dates and places of birth, previous addresses, family members, places of work, school attended etc. Nothing was left out. There were photos, statements taken from family members and people who had seen the victims last. Then after reading through most of the information, I had found another dossier; another woman who had been reported missing.

'When did this happen?' I held up the pages to show Duncan.

'She was reported missing early this morning.'

I studied the photo, this was a young woman with auburn hair. Last seen on CCTV footage captured on Bedford Road. The dossier read. I continued to read on. The woman's name was Lena Dabrowski, she was originally from Poland and had been living and working in the UK for the past seven years and was made a UK citizen just under two years ago. It was her fiance who had reported her missing as she was due to come home that morning after her night shift at a nearby care home.

I scowled at the dossier then continued scowling at the other ones.

'Last known whereabouts, Bedford Road. Last known whereabouts, Crabbes Close. Last known whereabouts, Bedford Road...' I listed off as I read through the pages. Now, I knew Hitchin well. I had lived at Saint Augustine's long enough to become quite acquainted with the closest town to my school. And with my own knowledge of knowing where Francesca was abducted from...

'Duncan, can you tell me if the police have figured out a common link between all these women yet?' I asked him.

'Well I did ask the detective I hypnotised a few questions. He told me they're having difficulty on their team piecing everything together.'

I wanted to laugh. I seriously wanted to laugh because little old me; Madelyn Taylor, aged seventeen, five foot two, massive virgin and fledgling witch had just figured out the common denominator between all of the women who had been murdered and kidnapped recently from Hitchin and the surrounding area.

'It's fucking Waitrose.' I blurted out. I had to cover my mouth to keep my laugh in.