I looked up from the gray, stone floor that gave no hint that a half-demon just got swallowed by a dark void that lead to God-knows-where except just a few red chips of blood on my clothes and face. After struggling to figure out just what the Hell just happened in front of me, whether it was the blood-loss getting to my head or the assload of weird crap that happened today, but I just couldn't understand. Giving up trying to figure out whatever was going on, I just looked around blankly like a lost lamb at the place around me. 

What I saw was intriguing at least; the room around me was looking like an invading army marched through it, with sections of stone walls warped into spirals by the titanic forces of power being unleashed here, a giant scorpion with soft flames tracing its body stood poised to leap on my back but seemed just as shocked as everyone here so it didn't try to make a move, a section of the ceiling had caved in forming an impromptu barricade between Joesphine and the five remaining witches that stood solid like oak trees that did not even glance down at their eight dead sisters, Lionel had bandaged his right arm from his now ruined shirt that had scorch marks and holes torn in it, and everything just looked as expected of a great battle between powerful women.

But what shocked me the most was how they looked at me: Sister Josephine looked like I was a dopey little puppy that had suddenly turned into a Hellhound and was prepared to kill me if I was truly the monster that I looked like, the Coven had wide green eyes, shaking hands that came up to call up green orbs of energy to bear against, frankly they looked like I was a dead man that crawled out of The Pit. 

I expected Lionel to be more scared of me-possibly to the point of tears-but he immediately rushed over to me. He kneeled and grabbed me by the shoulders. 

"Jack! Jack! Are you okay, Jack!" He asked frantically like I was the one that got sucked into the black hole of doom.

"No. But if you keep shaking me like that, then my cuts will probably open up again. Just saying," I said with as much humor I could muster in this bewildering situation. I couldn't believe he wasn't scared considering he was a normal, working stiff, whose only experience with the Weird were probably a few Twilight Zone episodes that were being rerun. Amazing, the tenacity of human beings; I couldn't believe that he was fussing over me like I was just a friend that got into a bar fight who managed to stumble home in a mess of blood.

"While I appreciate the thought, anything that can be fixed with a few makeshift bandages won't kill me. Also, the beating I just got will either kill me in the next few minutes or not at all. So just leave me be, Lionel," I said with a smile.

"Well. Umm. Okay," 

It was clear to me that he still thought that I was about to keel over like the Titanic at any moment, which was a very real possibility. We smile relieved at each other, we both chose not to talk about each other's obvious lies. He extended his one good hand out to me to help lift me up, which I gladly accepted. I was about to speak when I was interrupted by Sister Josephine.

"Jack, are you some breed of dark cultist that has managed to escape my eyes up until now? And if you even think of lying to me, then I will separate head from shoulder," She said gravely to me in a deeply serious voice.

"What?! How am I some sort of cultist! I mean, I do wear a robe and I did do that little spooky thing before but that wasn't my fault! I had no control over that!" I managed to squawk out my sentences like a dying chicken. I swear to God, if I get killed after that intense, little fight then I will be seriously miffed.

"Then what was that dark ritual? With the self-harm, the floating blood, the dark abyss, and the demonic voice? Was that a mere daydream?" She asked me like the Inquisitor she is, with no shame or backing down.

"I. Don't. Know. I am just as scared and confused as you are. If you could help to find out what the Hell just happened I would be glad beyond belief. But I don't know anything about what just happened, each time I had empowered my blade with my life force before it merely made the blade sharper, more powerful. This has never happened before," I said this in a tone that was half pleading and half hoping she would take mercy on me.

Sister Josephine's eyes were a stormy gray like the ocean raging against a rocky cliff with storm clouds approaching from beyond the horizon. She had never let a bad man leave her sight alive-I once saw her jump in front of a speeding car, rip open the roof, throw a holy handgrenade inside, leap off back into the café she was having coffee in, and all because she saw a drug lord that she recognized-but at the same time she never let an innocent man die needlessly.

All I could do was wait for her to decide if I was an abomination in a man's skin that crawled from the farthest corners of Hell or just a man that lost his way fighting forces far beyond his ability. 

Did I even know which one I was? A man burdened by his sins or a weary holy warrior? An insidious imp or warrior angel? A bad man or good? I hope that I will know one day, I hope so badly.

Josephine looked deep inside my soul at things I did not know, at the tragedies I had born, and the people I had failed. She saw the friends I had let die because I was scared and weak. She saw the battles I had fled from in cowardice. She saw the monsters I fought become the monster I was. 

I hoped she saw the good I did, I hoped what comparatively little good I did was enough to convince her to let me stay on God's Creation. Did the bad people that I killed make Avalon a better place? Did the killers I spared even when they tried to kill me make me better or worse? I remember having cases where I had reunited families, but was it enough to atone for my sins?

For seconds that stretched of eternity, she was wordless; quietly judging the weight of my life. After seeing past the mask I presented to the world at large and decided that perhaps I could be killed at a later date.  

She lowered her sanctified straight razor and said to me in a voice that dropped the accent she usually had "You had a bad hand dealt to you, Jack. A real bad one. You did a lot of bad things, but also some good ones," She paused for effect before continuing with "The scales are balanced too closely for me to kill you out-of-hand but you are just one bad choice away from losing it all. Tread carefully, Jack. Real carefully," 

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I knew she was not just being a worried priest but a Crusader telling that based on what she had seen, I was on the highway to Hell. I nodded grimly at her in acknowledgment of her words and looked back at the witches that were still huddled together uncertainly; some looked back in worry, some in hatred, while still some closed their eyes to await whatever judgement we issued upon them.

Before Josephine had a chance to pass sentence and kill them, I stepped forward to say "You are broken. Shattered. Ruined. But I don't enjoy killing beyond what is necessary, so if you were to run to some remote part of Earth and away from the corruption of Avalon I won't follow you. You are just people ruined by the ethics of Avalon, so I don't believe you deserve death right now. But mark my words, if you decide to come back then I will kill you,"

Shocked that they weren't going to die, they couldn't move for a movement but then they hurriedly ran past us up the stairs with sideways glances at us as they passed.

"I didn't think that you were one to spare witches, Jack. I don't think that letting them run rampant on a still adjusting world was the best idea. Nor do I think that letting them go would go with my very strong principles," She stared in my eye as she said this.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against a wall as I considered what to say. I wasn't scared of dying right now, for some reason I found a well of peace and solidarity inside of me. I felt the rough stone rubbing against my hair and the silence around me. I found what I wanted to say and said "Sometimes, you have to reexamine your common sense every now and then. Sometimes, you have see if what you believe in still makes sense when you look at the world around you. You would be amazed at what you find,"

I felt her eyes examine me like I was a dog that started quoting Hamlet, and then I felt her pause in my still bleeding left arm. She spoke to me "I don't think even you understand you. I don't think anyone does,"

I cracked one eye open to look at her balefully, and said sadly "I stopped understanding myself a long time ago. I have been on auto-pilot for the last two decades, just trying to live until I can understand my own heart again. I still cry sometimes at night as I thought of what I could have been if I had picked to walk the right-hand path. I still have broken dreams and I still dream of Alyssa, my would-be wife,"

I was surprised by what I said, I paused in thought again. I wondered "Is this how I really feel? Why now? Why in front of people I barely know?" 

I was struggling with my thoughts as I tried to figure out what made me say those things that I have never even admitted to myself during my darkest hours, my thoughts that I had buried behind a cold demeanor, to tell them of old memories of youth gone by. 

I stood there awkwardly in a torn up room with only two other people in it. I coughed with great awkwardness and said "We should probably go and try to see if your sister is around here somewhere,"

I started moving towards an overturn bookcase as if Sandra, a full grown woman, would somehow be just hiding behind it. Nonetheless, I continued looking behind objects to small to hide even a child and making it really obvious that I wanted what just happened to be ignored. 

Stupidly, Lionel and Sister Josephine both joined in awkwardness to help me check if Lionel's sister was beneath the rug. We continued like this for a time longer than was reasonable before Sister Josephine suggested with a fake cough "Perhaps there is a secret chamber in this room somewhere? Hidden by magic and powers our eyes cannot see through?"

"Ah. Yes. Umm. Maybe. I'll check," I said with a blush that came inexplicably that threatened to set my whole face ablaze with the warmth I felt. We forged past the trepidation in our hearts; in my case embarrassment at the secrets I had guarded for so long that I spilled so easily, in Sister Josephine's case it was worry at what my soul's ultimate destination was, and in Lionel's it was a mix of excitement and anxiety at how close we were to his sister.

I put the words I had said firmly in the back of mind and opened my Third Eye. I gazed across the room in search of a hidden door, I finally found it square next to the staircase we had entered. I motioned for them to follow me as I pick locked the considerably less complex ward on it which made sense since the more magic you pack into a space, the more obvious it would be to those sensitive to it. 

It opened up silently to a pocket dimension with wide green pastures and trees which was incongruous to the personalities of the building's owners. Ignoring this inconsistency, we forged onward into it after checking if there were anymore traps left. 

We walked for only a few minutes before we chanced upon a small glass capsule that had beautiful engravings on it; images of dancing sprites, portraits of flowers, etc. 

Inside it was someone that couldn't have been anyone else but Sandra, Lionel's sister, a fact accentuated by how Lionel broke out into a full-out sprint towards her shouting "Sandra! Sandra! We found you!"

Holding him back from the capsule in case there was a trap set near it, I double-checked it for any curses but found none. I creeped up to the vessel and tapped it carefully, only to hear a deeper than expected chime come from it. Seeing that no summoned creatures had popped out of nowhere to kill us in a variety of gruesome manners, I shrugged my shoulders and concentrated my power into my hands to make the glass implode.

Shrieking like a dying goat, Lionel was shocked by the possibility that his sister might have been harmed and rushed over to her side. Apparently, the only thing keeping her asleep was the vessel and after I broke it she woke up confused by her surroundings but otherwise fine.

I left the siblings to a teary reunion but I still wondered; why did The Dragon's Den have Sandra in the first place and why was she in "imminent" danger if she seemed perfectly fine so far?

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