I

Braran was angry when he shimmered back into the theater, he ran his fingers through his hair as he paced across the dusty floor, “We're running out of time here”, but when he looked around Glen was nowhere to be seen, “Necromancer?!”

Glen roused from within the covers of a makeshift bed he’d built on top of a bunch of crates from around the theater, he stared at Braran sleepily.

Braran’s face contorted in anger as he stormed to his bedside, “You're sleeping? You're meant to be coming up with–” he stopped dead when the thrall Glen liked to call Carolyn poked her head out from under the covers, “A plan… isn't that one of your?” He and Glen shared an awkward look.

Glen grimaced, “Don't make it weird”.

Was he being serious? Braran roared in anger, sending things flying in all directions, that red aura enveloping him as he towered over Glen’s bed, “We don’t have time for this!” he snarled.

The ever unflappable Glen smirked at Braran, hopping out of bed to flash his pasty white butt, as he threw on the purple robe. He was still covered from head to foot in those white symbols, although most of them were now smudged.

“You worry too much”, he remained unbothered as he poured himself a whiskey and sauntered leisurely around the lobby with bare feet, “And if you hadn't noticed, I have been preparing”.

Glen indicated the enormous pile of graying dead bodies he’d amassed in a corner of the lair. Braran winced, they were not fresh, and they smelled like it. Glen smashed his tumbler on the ground in a fit of merriment, scurrying around the lobby, swinging around the metal pillars like he was Gene Kelly. Braran realized he’d made a grave error in judgment aligning himself with this madman.

Carolyn was waddling around in her usual stiff manner when Glen grabbed her by the waist and spun her around, while she stared at him blankly with her owl-like face. All of the gallivanting was making Braran dizzy and no less aggravated.

“I don’t think you appreciate the seriousness of this situation”, Braran said as clearly as possible, “Your thrall failed and now she’s teamed up with–”, about to blow his own cover, he stopped himself, “What are you going to do about it?”

“Jump off the complain train, Chad”, Glen grinned, still twirling around, “Yes, the incident with the thrall was unfortunate, but that’s because you weren’t honest about what we were up against, were you?” he danced around Braran pointedly.

Braran rolled his eyes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you would find it so difficult to take out one little demon hunter”.

Glen stopped and narrowed his eyes at Braran, “It won’t be a problem, I’ve got a plan this time”.

He went back to dancing around as if he’d forgotten all about Braran. It had long passed the point of being tiresome, which Braran assumed to be Glen’s motivation for the ridiculous display. That or those borrowed powers of his were gradually knocking screws loose in his head, either option was plausible.

“And that would be?”

Glen stopped mid-rotation around a large central pillar and stared at him, “As soon as night rolls around, I throw bodies at her long enough for me to incant a power exchange spell. Bing Bang Boom, I'm all powerful and she's... well, dead”.

Braran had to admit that was inventive, if a showdown with this idiot didn’t finally push Norah over to the dark side then surely nothing would, “That's actually not a bad plan”.

“See”, Glen swigged whiskey from the bottle with a wink, “All I'm missing is a way to lure her here to the theater”.

Braran squinted thoughtfully then gave a wry smirk, “I might have the solution to that…”

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II

Mary had been on tenterhooks all day, flinching anytime the phone rang. In spite of Mary’s recommendation, Norah had insisted on going to school. Mary had spent the day expecting them to call to tell her that Norah had ditched again, or worse, that she’d blown up the whole building with one of her episodes.

However, the closer it got to 3pm the less likely that seemed. For distraction, Mary placated herself by raging over her finicky client and his tax report, “Well, Mr Snyder, if you don't like it why don't you file your own damn tax return?” she grumbled as she skimmed through yet another of his whinging emails.

As pragmatically as she was able, Mary fired off a reply to the effect of “sincerely, go to hell” and seriously contemplated cracking open a bottle of wine. She’d tried her best to keep a level head since they’d left New York, and that meant not drinking, but she hardly thought things could be worse than they already were.

Mary resisted the urge and decided doing some long overdue chores might be a more productive use of her time. Her hands wouldn’t keep still anyway, so they might as well be dusting something. She’d long since stopped expecting Norah to help out, who was allergic to anything that could be deemed as housework.

Mary collected their faded yellow laundry basket from the kitchen and made her way upstairs. After doing a cursory sweep of Norah’s bedroom, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in 1945 Dresden, she headed into the bathroom to unpacked their shared laundry hamper.

Without really thinking, Mary tipped the hamper upside down into her basket, causing several items to fall out onto her feet. Popping the hamper back into its corner, she crouched down to collect the fallen items, but paused when she found something crusty buried within the pile.

Mary lifted the item up to discover it was one of Norah’s t-shirt bras, but it took her several more seconds to realize that it wasn’t meant to be red. She held the garment up by its straps and her breath caught in her throat. Either she was mistaken or the previously white bra was absolutely caked in dried blood.

Mary shot up in fright, almost tumbling backwards into the bath but managing to catch herself, although not without pulling their new shower curtain off of several of its rings beforehand. After giving herself a moment to recover, Mary picked the bra off the floor again to study it.

Her mind was racing. Whose blood was that? She knew that Norah could heal quickly these days, but there was far too much for her to be able to disguise an injury of this magnitude. Last night in the bathroom, Mary knew Norah had been acting weird but she’d ignored it. How could she be so blind? Her eyes filled with tears as she threw the bra into the basket and stormed out.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Mary went back into Norah’s bedroom and began searching through her things in a flurry of anger and terror, although after upending practically everything in sight she wasn’t able to find anything else incriminating. Mary paused for a moment, there had to be something…

Remembering the mud swill her hapless daughter tracked into the house the previous night, Mary flew down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she found those filthy shoes Norah left by the back door. When she glanced inside, they were grimy but undoubtedly filled with blood, but even that wasn’t strong enough evidence to support her theory.

That’s when Mary turned her attention to the kitchen trash. With shaking hands, she removed the plastic lid and dropped it onto the ground. There were breakfast scraps scattered on top, but she could clearly see a white grocery bag buried beneath them.

Mary reached into the trash to grab the plastic bag, which was filled with something soft and had been tied with a tight knot. Not bothering to untie the bag, Mary ripped into it and her face went pale. Slowly, she reached inside and pulled out the bloodied and shredded sleeve of Norah’s favorite sweater.

When she pulled out the remaining contents of the bag, Mary found a similarly soiled pair of faded blue jeans. These were the items Norah had worn to school. Mary dropped the bag on the floor with an intensity liked it’d burnt her and she started to weep. This was the last straw, she thought, without any idea what that even meant. What was she going to do… kill her?

There was a bang somewhere in the house that caused Mary to flinch, “Norah?”

When no one answered, Mary went to investigate. Her heart was racing as she moved through their eerily quiet home as carefully as possible, not wishing to spook her volatile daughter. When Mary reached the lounge, she found her laptop and papers had scattered off the coffee table and onto the floor.

Mary’s shoulders dropped, seeing that the window was wide open. It must have been the wind. She shook her head in resignation as she bent down to collect her things off the ground. She was careful picking up her laptop, relieved to see that it was far more robust than she’d thought.

Mary set the items down and then stood soaking in the resulting anti-climax. She couldn’t tell if she wanted something to happen or if she’d just become accustomed to chaos over the last year. She settled on the idea that it was probably a bit of both. Mary had always been a bit of a chaos junkie, which was probably exactly how she’d found herself in her current position.

A floor board creaked behind Mary and she whipped around, “Is someone there?”

Though she found herself completely alone, there was something unnerving about the silence. It was like she could sense something in there watching her. When Mary turned back to close the window, a man’s hand covered her mouth and she was dragged back by two weirdly attractive but dead-eyed people, a man and a woman.

Mary screamed and struggled against them, but with her mouth covered her voice sounded muffled. There was a puff of blue smoke before an incredibly pale man with thick rounded glasses and a purple robe appeared before her with a snaky grin on his face.

“Hello there”, he said lightly, as he pulled a strip off a huge roll of silver duct tape.

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III

Though it didn’t look like much on the outside, after walking up a flight of blandly decorated stairs, the three high schoolers followed Paul into a swanky apartment filled with heavy, stylish furniture in perfect condition. The walls were lined with huge built-in shelves that were filled from top to bottom with books.

On another wall there were various sharp weapons hung on walls and several weapons crates throughout the space disguised as tasteful pieces of furniture. While the others hovered near the doorway waiting to be invited into the abode, Paul strolled in and immediately plucked a book from one of the shelves.

“Wow, nice digs”, said Halle, shamelessly crossing the threshold and taking a seat on a plush slate gray sofa, that pointed directly at a gigantic flatscreen television. Halle dragged her finger along the coffee table and it came up dust free, “Very nice”.

Less bold, Josh and Norah remained near the doorway, looking around the room with intrigue.

“Didn't you just moved here?” said Josh, finally stepping into the apartment, albeit with trepidation.

Paul wasn’t really listening, he’d already opened several books and laid them out on a huge 8-seater dining table, with neat upholstered gray benches on either side, “Uh huh”.

Judging there wasn’t going to be any further discussion regarding the apartment, Josh went to take a seat beside Halle, who had turned on the television and was flicking through the copious cable channels.

Norah was still hovering by the front door, prompting Josh to say, “Aren’t you going to invite her in?”

Paul gave him a perplexed look, before Norah stepped over the threshold pointedly, “I’m not a vampire”.

Paul looked up from his books and laughed heartily, “Vampires aren’t real”.

Halle and Josh both turned to look at him in surprise, “They’re not?!”

Norah seemed just as perplexed by this, “Really?”

Paul shook his head in amusement as he took a seat on one of the benches, “While it's highly debated in the Occult world whether vampires exist or not. There are some accounts in the records, of course, but no verified sightings so they’ve essentially been chalked up to an old wives’ tale”.

“Well, what do you know”, said Josh with genuine interest.

Halle curled her lip, “Then what is she?”

Paul gave Norah a hopeful look, “A question I'm sure we can get to in due course”. Paul threw his jacket onto the back of the bench and began skimming the open books.

Norah hovered behind him, cautious of crowding him, the books he was reading were filled with the tiniest text she’d ever seen, and they were filled with sketches of strange creatures, “So, the thing that attacked us…”

Paul started, evidently not realizing she was behind him, but then he signaled for Norah to take a seat on the bench opposite. Paul flicked to an entry in one of the more dog-eared books and passed it across the table to her. The section was titled 'Necromancer'.

Norah studied the text and frowned, “That thing was a Necromancer?”

Paul shook his head, pulling the book back so that he could skim the text, “No, but I suspect it was something known as a thrall”.

“What's that?” Halle appeared behind Paul, causing him to startle once again. She was leaning over him obnoxiously close to read the book.

Paul pursed his lips and pulled it out of her reach, “A corpse reanimated by magic”, he said curtly.

Halle’s eyes bulged in fright, “What like a zombie?!”

Paul sighed, “Yes, I suppose if you want to be reductive about it”.

“So, what they’re going to eat our brains?”

“I guess your safe, then”, Josh appeared beside Halle and grinned.

Norah shook her head, “I don't understand why would they want to hurt me, I just moved here?”

“I can think of a few reasons…” said Halle, causing Josh to give her a sharp jab in the ribs with his elbow.

“Well, there's a certain prison-yard mentality in the demon world”, said Paul, getting up from the table to return a book to the shelve and retrieve another, “It's likely someone’s trying to assert their dominance”.

“Assert dominance?” said Norah. The three of them were staring at him in bemusement.

Paul bobbed his head and sighed, retaking his seat at the table, “Things gain magic in a variety of ways, there are those who have it innately. It can also be given by a demon in exchange for something – say fealty, one’s soul or some other coveted item – and, most importantly, it can be stolen”.

“So, this necromancer wants to steal the power from her”, said Josh.

Paul nodded, “From what I’ve seen you’re incredibly powerful, Norah. You must have an almighty pull on them”.

Norah looked crestfallen, sitting back in her seat with a grimace, “So they’re going to keep coming after me, then?”

“Unfortunately, yes”, Paul sensed he’d upset her and tried to soften his tone, “But there are ways you can disguise your energetic signature”.

Norah sat upright, “Really?”

Paul nodded and she felt slightly relieved, although there was still a knot doing somersaults in her stomach. A small clock on the mantelpiece chimed and Norah shot up, almost knocking the bench backwards, and startling everyone at the table. It was four o’clock already.

“Oh no! I need to get home, I was meant to be home at half-three, my mom’s gonna lose it”, Norah bolted for the door but Paul grabbed her arm.

“You can't go alone. What if another thrall comes after you?”

Norah squirmed, looking at the clock, “I have to go”.

Josh got up and pulled Halle up with him, “We’ll walk with you”.

Halle scoffed and he elbowed her again, “Yeah, fine”, she said sullenly.

Paul cocked his head, he didn’t seem thrilled by the plan, but without another option they headed out.