My Aunt rang the security guard back at the school to confirm some details. The current night watch man Jerry had a log of those who were supposed to be stopping at the school over the weekend and those who were leaving to go home. As it turned out, Francesca was supposed to be going home this weekend to her parents in Oxford but before doing that; she was going in to town to have dinner with her friends. Jerry knew this as he had just received a call from Francesca's mother saying she should have arrived by now. Her mum had tried calling her several times but Francesca never picked up, her mother said it was odd as if she was driving; she could easily answer via the Bluetooth in her car.

Jerry had confirmed that Francesca had indeed leave the school earlier on in her Tesla with a few of her friends. Jerry had spoken to them shortly after Francesca's mother had rang and confirmed what they had been up to. They left for Hitchin to do some shopping around mid afternoon, confirmed on the security cameras. Then when the shops started to close the went for dinner in a nearby Italian restaurant then Francesca's friends got a taxi back to the school whilst she popped in to Waitrose to get a drink and some sweets for the drive home.

Auntie Morrigan then led me away from the car and pulled out her phone to call Arne, telling him that we may be a little late as we were on our way to the police station. Thankfully it was only ten minutes walk from the Waitrose and instead of being on the phone to the police for an indiscriminate amount of time, it would just be easier to walk there. Plus they would have probably called us in to take statements anyway. But the Police already knew about Francesca not being at home as her mum had already reported her being missing. The police took statements from myself and my Aunt which didn't take as long as I'd expected, twenty minutes at the most.

My Aunt had told them that she was a teacher up at Saint Augustine's and Francesca was one of her students. We obviously didn't tell them that we pretty much knew she had been kidnapped by the crazy satanic, magical murderer guy because they absolutely would not buy that and how the hell would we know. But they were treating the case as if she had been snatched by whomever was doing all these gruesome murders. We told them that Francesca barely stayed at the school on weekends and that we randomly just happened to notice her car parked outside Waitrose that had been long shut. My Aunt mentioned the call she made to the school's security guard to clarify a few things and that was us, out of the police station and back in to the cold night air. The police had said they would ring Jerry just to confirm everything and get some CCTV footage or whatever they needed.

My Aunt sighed deeply as we stood outside of the police stations main doors. It was one of those moments when she needed a cigarette so she magically pulled one out of her coat pocket and lit it with no lighter or flame. She took a drag and blew out a long plume of smoke as she rubbed her face with her free hand.

'Let's just have a minute before we go back.' She breathed out heavily.

'Are you okay Auntie M?' I asked her, concerned.

'I'm fine Maddie. I just wish we'd done summat sooner about that arsehole.'

'I wish we could just track the guy down and stop him but, I know it doesn't work like that.' I said to her. She nodded.

'The spell we did with the pendulum is the best we can do in this situation. Knowing this freak is collaborating with a pretty powerful demon just makes everything difficult. We can track when he actively uses magic but that fucking demon can keep him masked and hidden for the most part.'

'I take it Baal's power gives this guy a bit more... magic then?' I asked.

'Precisely. The more this psycho gives to Baal in terms of sacrifices, the more power Baal in turn gives to him. Basically meaning he can teleport and do other more advanced stuff he normally wouldn't be able to do. We need him to cast a longer spell, that'll definitely give us more time to get to him and catch him off guard.'

Listening to my Aunt explain this, what happened tonight began to make more sense. The sickness we had felt earlier did not last long at all and I came to the conclusion that he must have teleported in those brief few seconds. That was the magic we had felt. I now understood what she meant when she said he needed to be using his magic for a lot longer. We maybe would've had a better chance if we were already at the mansion, staring at the map and pendulum when the sickness hit. But as my Aunt and my Coven handbook had stated many times, "Magic never works exactly how you would want it to." So no, we couldn't just get the sickness warning and teleport exactly to where the magic was, it didn't work like that. We couldn't just psychically tap in to this guys head and figure out where he was from that nor could we use specific scrying magic without having this guys details. While my Aunt did manage to gather some of his flaky skin, even that could only be used in very specific spells. Ugh this was so infuriating.

My Aunt then explained to me that even though taking this guy down was technically our job, because he was abusing magic and harming humans and this is what we as responsible magic users were tasked to do; the police had to be involved regardless because a teenage girl had most likely been kidnapped.

Either way, we had done what we could do and now I felt absolutely exhausted. And hungry. Auntie M grabbed hold of my hand, quickly glanced around to see if the coast was clear then teleported us back to Arne's mansion, straight to the floor where our bedrooms were. It was one of those, get home and put your pyjamas on moments. Auntie M disappeared to get changed and I wandered off in to my room to put my own comfies on. We eventually reconvened in the kitchen where Arne was already making us a pot of tea. He had even set out a few plates and some desert forks around an absolutely enormous carrot cake he had made. We walked in on him chatting away to Domino and Duke who were sat up on the kitchen windowsill and seemed to be actively listening to him. The two cats liked spending time here whenever my Aunt and I were busy with school or witch business that they didn't need to be involved in. Plus the vampires of the house enjoyed having them around.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

We walked down to the far end and pulled up a few stools at the kitchen island. Arne had pushed two mugs of tea in front of us as he set about cutting the carrot cake with a large knife, gently sliding some wedges of the cake on to plates. One for my Aunt and one for me. This cake was on another level. People raved about the huge carrot cakes you could get from Costco, or specific bakeries who made cakes " to die for." But to say Arne hadn't eaten real food in a very, very long time and was from a time when carrot cake wasn't even a thing; the carrot cake had had made was nothing short of divine. It was rich but not too rich, moist and had just the right amount of sweetness in the cake itself that didn't become too sickly with the cream cheese frosting. And it was carefully decorated with hand shaped fondant carrots on top. I took one bite of the cake and my eyes rolled in to the back of my head from sheer delight.

'Oh my Goddess Arne this cake is amazing!' I squealed after my first mouthful. I immediately dove back in for more. But for a vampire, Arne made an excellent cake.

'Well I've been on my own for most of today, I thought it may be nice for you both to have a sweet treat when you got here.' Arne said as he pulled a stool up next to my Aunt. She had nearly demolished her slice of of cake and Arne was already cutting her another slice.

'Everyone gone out then?' Auntie M asked somewhere in between almighty gobfulls of cake and sips of tea.

'Yep.' Arne replied. 'Most are still away visiting friends or family or are on their expeditions. Duncan went out earlier with Constance and Darius though they'll be back at some point later.'

I had been wondering where Duncan and the others were. It wasn't often that I came here and Arne was on his own. It did seem eerily quiet in the house which was weird. I finished off my cake then had a quick look at my watch. It had only just gone half past ten but whilst the cake had perked me up a bit and quelled my hunger, I was still quite tired. I downed my tea and laid my mug and plate on top of my Aunts now clear plate.

'Okay I'm gonna go to bed I think, I'm pretty tired.' I said trying to stave off a yawn.

'You don't wanna come watch telly with us for a bit?' Auntie M asked me. I shook my head.

'I'll pass its been... it's been a long day.' It had been a long day. I had my date with Duncan that morning, then a long dinner with my Aunt, then on our way here the sickness started from our creepy guy tracking spell that sent us hunting for him back in Hitchin to now avail, only to find out that he had most likely kidnapped one of my classmates. Yeah, I have definitely had a day.

'No worries chuck.' My Aunt said to me. 'Get some rest, we can figure out what we need to do tomorrow. We've done what we can for now, contacted the police and those who need to be involved are aware. Trust me Maddie as soon as that freak makes his move again we'll be on him like flies round shite.'

I did trust her on that. This whole situation was pissing her off but she wasn't letting it get to her too much. I didn't know what to feel. I was definitely worried though, that's for sure. This guy was getting closer and closer and we still couldn't catch him in the act and now he had gone for one of my classmates.

I needed to sleep before my brain started melting. I bid my Aunt and Arne goodnight then trudged my way up to bed; Domino charging out in front of me leading the way. He shot in to my room as soon as I opened the door and jumped up on to the massive bed, kneading the squishy duvet with his little paws. I quickly washed the make up off my face, brushed my teeth then clambered in to bed; rearranging the pillows behind me and pulling the duvet up to my chin. Domino had wandered over to me, gave me a little head bump then made himself comfortable at the bottom of the bed. I fell asleep pretty quickly.

'You won't stop me. You can't stop me. You're weak and pathetic.'

I shot bolt upright in bed, panicked, breathing heavily and sweating. I had a nightmare so awful enough to make me wake up in an absolute state. I had horrible visions of random women I had encountered on the street or in shops in Hitchin being chained up in this horrible looking makeshift dungeon. It shook me up even more as I could almost feel the cold and damp of the place on my skin and smell the disgusting scent of mould, dirty sweat drenched clothes, stagnant water and and the tangy coppery aroma of blood. The visions had played out in my head like a hazy and erratic slide show; zipping from image to image with a speed I could barely keep up with. I remembered seeing about half a dozen women chained up then the image would zip back to other parts of the room. Dead animals of all kinds littered the floor around an altar humming with a sickening energy, the animals completely drained of blood lay lifeless round it as the women, bound and gagged looked on in fear. I saw one woman who I thought I recognised, she worked in a coffee shop I liked and went in frequently. I recognised the girl who worked in her family's chip shop near the museum. I felt a hint of sickness when the blurry image of Francesca came in to focus but the thing I just knew had catapulted me out of this nightmare, was seeing my two best friends Katie and Victoria hanging by their wrists in heavy shackles and chains from the ceiling, barely conscious and bruised.

I felt horrible. That voice I heard had sent a chill up my spine. I turned on my small bedside lamp looking for Domino, he had moved from my bed over to an antique armchair at some point in the night and now he was sat up, staring at me. I could've sworn it was a look of concern but I was quite shaken up so it could just be me imagining things.

I then felt incredibly overwhelmed. My breathing became shaky and shallow and I could feel my eyes welling up with hot tears, ready to spill over. Then my door flew open. Duncan stood in the doorway in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a thin black t shirt, the light from the hall highlighting his silhouette and casting his shadow across the room. A few short strides and he was right next to me on my bed. I stared at him with my bottom lip quivering and wide eyed. As soon as I blinked I started snivelling and the tears just flowed down my cheeks. Within a second I had been tugged in to Duncan's embrace; my back pulled firmly against his chest, his arms grasping me round my waist and his chin resting gently on my shoulder.

'It's okay, I'm here.' He whispered soothingly in to my ear.

As soon as he said that, I sank even further in to Duncan and just started sobbing.