The Curse of Arnford Manor

"What?" Nina responded in disbelief, rushing to Levinia's side. "Levinia, what are you saying? Of course we can stop the curse! We each have the power of the Goddess within us. Together we can beat it! Don't give up! Don't give in to its darkness!"

"She's right!" Demi interrupted. At first, Nina was encouraged by Demi's words, but it turned out that she was agreeing with Levinia, not Nina. "If we stand and fight the curse, we'll be destroyed..." she asserted. With that, she cast her most powerful defensive spell, Medusa's Refuge, upon herself, transforming her entire body to solid stone. The spell made her body virtually indestructible. She was still aware of what was going on around her, but she couldn't move or cast any other magic.

"Demi? Demi?" Swift Coyote called, in panic. "Demi! Wake up, we need you! Demi!" he grabbed the statue-like witch by the shoulders and tried to shake her, but it was in vain. Medusa's Refuge could only be undone when its subject was convinced that the mortal danger had passed.

"Nerine! Cast a protective spell, now!" Nina ordered as she kept trying to reassure Levinia.

"No," came her sister's cold reply. Nina turned to discover that their suitcase of relics was wide open. Nerine stood beside it tightly clutching the coven's golden athame, the long dagger used in their 'Great Rite' ceremonies. "I know your scheme and I shall not let you succeed," Nerine said in a voice dripping with bitterness. "You mean to destroy my heir!"

"What?" Nina cried, anxious and confused. "Nerine, that's not tr..."

"I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE!" Nerine snarled, brandishing the athame in a threatening manner. Though it was strictly a ceremonial object, the athame was still very sharp and potentially lethal. "MY DAUGHTER WILL BECOME THE MOST POWERFUL WITCH OUR COVEN HAS SEEN IN OVER A CENTURY! YOU CAN NOT STAND TO HAVE YOUR OWN BLOODLINE SO GREATLY OVERSHADOWED! But you will not take her! I will not let your jealousy destroy her!"

"Nerine, you're wrong! I would never hurt you or your children!" Nina cried in anguish. "You're my sister! I love you!" Nerine didn't believe her. Swift Coyote crept up silently behind Nerine, about to quickly disarm her. Nina shook her head nonchalantly to dissuade him. But Nerine saw the signal and turned the athame on Swift Coyote before he could get close to her.

"You!" she sneered.

"Easy, Nerine, Easy," Swift Coyote responded, keeping his hands up where Nerine could see them.

"You conspire with her to kill your own child? How could you?" she said as she retreated to the corner, holding the athame out defensively with one hand and shielding her womb with the other.

"Nina, what the hell is going on?" Swift Coyote asked. Nina noticed several loose sticks of chalk in the open suitcase of spell-casting apparatus on the counter. She grabbed a couple.

"Do you remember those protection sigils I taught you?" she asked the Native American warrior.

"Yes."

"Good," she said, handing him a stick of chalk. "Go, mark them against every entrance into this room! Every window, every air vent! Go! Now!" Swift Coyote raced into the second bedroom to do as he was instructed, while Nina did likewise in the main bedroom, starting with the entrance to the room.

"The power of the curse just increased dramatically," she shouted out to her lover, explaining the situation as they hurried to counter it. "We call it a dark energy storm. Something very bad is happening nearby and the dark energy it's generating is fuelling the curse. The corruption has gotten so strong that it's breaking our wills, sapping us of our courage and trust in each other." She turned to face Nerine, who was still glaring at her with a foreboding scowl. Finished with the door, Nina raced over to begin marking the sigils around the window on the far side of the room.

"So why haven't we been affected?" Swift Coyote called out from the other room.

"If we don't hurry up and block out the dark energy, I think we will be soon," she answered. Swift Coyote and Nina finished inscribing the sigils and then returned to the main bedroom where the others were.

"They haven't changed," Swift Coyote noted. Levinia was indeed still crying on the bed, Demi was still like a statue and Nerine looked ready to make her last stand against him and Nina.

"Yes, but they won't get any worse," Nina told him. "That was the easy part. Now comes the hard part... We've got to go out there and stop whatever's causing the storm. If the corruption continues to build it might overpower our sigil magic."

"Okay," he agreed without hesitation. Ironically, Nina seemed more reluctant to go through with her own idea.

"Go get me the rose oil out of Nerine's potions case," she requested. Nerine's potion case was in the other bedroom, for that was where Nerine had planned to sleep. By the time Swift Coyote had returned with the flask, Nina had unbuttoned the top buttons of her dress, enough to expose the middle of her chest. She poured a couple drops of the oil on to her right index finger and urged Swift Coyote to do likewise. Then, with the oil on her finger, she marked a sacred sigil of unity upon her lover's chest, while guiding him on how to paint the same symbol on her chest. Once they were done, Nina drew him close for a long, tender kiss.

"Our love is our shield," she told him. "It strengthens our souls and gives us resilience against the dark feelings that the curse will try to infect us with. Just keep thinking about how much I love you. I will do the same and we'll be able to walk through the storm without succumbing to it." Swift Coyote nodded. He knew that even though they were protected from the disheartening magic, there were doubtlessly many physical dangers awaiting them outside.

He grabbed his bow and arrow-filled quiver and then he and Nina set out, with Nerine's suspicious eyes trained on them until they closed the door behind them.

The inn was only fifty yards or so from one corner of the town square. Upon stepping out of the building, Nina and Swift Coyote naturally followed the sounds of the mindless riot. When they got to the edge of the town square, they stood by and watched in horror.

Hundreds of men, many of whom were already covered in blood, beating the living daylights out of each other like rabid animals. Nina even caught sight of the elderly drug store clerk, running around shirtless and swinging a baseball bat at whoever was within range.

"Dear Goddess!" Nina exclaimed.

"This is what we have to stop?" Swift Coyote groaned with exasperation.

"Wait..." said Nina, "Up there, in front of the tower..." She pointed at the distant figure, who was dancing and writhing naked above the carnage. "By the Goddess! That's Theresa Colby!"

"Who?"

"Gerald Colby's daughter," Nina explained. "I just saw her this afternoon. She was the meekest creature... and very committed to her stringent sexual ethics. She would never have been bold enough to exhibit herself like that. Something else is making her do that!"

Theresa Colby was rubbing her gorgeous body vigorously and squeezing its supplest places. She turned around and bent over periodically, so the men could see her glistening snatch winking at them. Seemingly aroused by the bloodshed before her, she masturbated herself to orgasm over and over, serenading the brutes below with her coos and vocal moans.

"This town was already filled with resentment," Nina remarked, "Theresa's aroused their basest desires and introduced a sense of competition. That's what's triggered the violence. If we're gonna calm these people down, we need to take her out of the equation."

Nina channelled her magic into the lights surrounding the town square and blew out every light bulb. The bangs and the sudden darkness distracted the mob for a second, but they soon resumed their brawl. The men could still see Theresa, writhing in the moonlight, waiting for them to come and claim her.

"No good," Nina sighed. "She's still encouraging them. We have to get her off that ledge!"

"We'd never make it through that square, we'd be dead in ten seconds," Swift Coyote pointed out. "We'll have to go the long way around and sneak in through the back."

"All right, let's go." They jogged over to a thin alleyway between two nearby buildings. In their haste, they stray too close to the edge of the riot and were noticed by a couple of tough-looking men who moved to block their path. They leered at Nina's body with cocky smirks.

"Well, lookee what we have here," the taller guy said. "Her titties ain't so big, but I'll still give her pussy a good humpin'. Outta my way, Crazy Horse!" he ordered Swift Coyote, who stood between himself and Nina. Swift Coyote advanced on the vulgar man and knocked him to the ground with a hard right hook. After easily dodging a punch from the second man, Swift Coyote lifted him off the ground and hurled him in to a nearby pair of trashcans.

"Sorry. Me no understand strange paleface words," he retorted indignantly to the two dazed thugs.

"Come on!" Nina beckoned as she dashed into the dark alley. Swift Coyote followed close behind. They made their way through the deceptively peaceful back streets of the town center until they reached the rear of town hall. After breaking in through a back door, they hurriedly found their way up to the clock tower. They had climbed one level up the tower when they came upon a large, open window. Theresa Colby was right outside, cavorting around on a narrow ledge.

Swift Coyote snuck up silently behind her and quickly dragged her back inside where the rioters below could not see her. She squirmed furiously, growling through clenched teeth as Swift Coyote held her in the sleeper hold. After a few seconds, her body went completely limp.

"The fighting hasn't stopped!" Nina reported, peering cautiously out the window. "We can't just let them beat each other to death..." Suddenly, there was a furious pounding upon the front door of the building.

"I think some people have noticed that the dance act was cancelled," Swift Coyote remarked.

"If we had Nerine, she could summon a tranquil shower, to cool their anger," Nina thought aloud. The pounding below grew more desperate and was accompanied by the sounds of glass being smashed.

"Well, we don't have Nerine!" Swift Coyote snapped. "Nina, we need to get out of here, now!"

"Wait... I can stop it," she assured him. Though Nina seemed reluctant, Swift Coyote nodded in agreement. He layed Theresa Colby upon the floor and loaded his bow, preparing to defend his beloved companion against any attackers who might come up the stairs.

Nina stepped up to the window and extended her arms out towards the rioter. She called forth a strong burst of magic, but only tiny sparks fizzled from her fingers. The dark energy storm had drastically weakened her powers. She gazed up at the full moon and quietly prayed, "Goddess, give your daughter strength in this dark hour." After taking three deep breaths, she thought about the courageous man by her side, who loved her deeply and probably trusted her abilities even more than she did. With that, Nina cast her spell again. This time, a large fireball shot from her hand.

One after another, she hurled her fireballs into the town square, deliberately missing the people. She didn't want to harm them, just scatter them. Every fireball hit the ground with a thunderous boom. It didn't take long for every man to abandon the feud and flee the town center as fast as he could run. The sounds of people trying to break in through the front door ceased immediately. Phrases like, "Judgement Day!" and, "The sky is falling!" were shouted repeatedly by the terrified townspeople as they raced home.

Nina felt terrible about what she was doing. Centuries earlier, thousands of her witch ancestors had been burned at the stake, due to the widespread misconception that witches were evil monsters. Since those times, the greatest taboo within the witch community was to use one's magic to incite terror amongst the populace. Nina consoled herself somewhat with the knowledge that her actions were doing more good than harm.

Within a minute, the town square was cleared. Nina looked over the silent square and bowed her head in sorrow. There were many bodies down there, lying on the ground completely motionless.

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Room 4, Redford Inn, Holliston, NC

July 15^th, 1931, 9:48pm

Nerine ran her fingers all around Theresa Colby's head and shoulders in a seemingly random pattern, as she attempted to diagnose the young woman's ailment. Theresa, who was in a deep sleep had been tucked snugly into the room's single bed.

The dark energy storm was over and Nina's sisters had all returned to normal. The curse had grown more powerful, thanks to the massacre in the town square. But the spiritual corruption over Holliston was far weaker now than it had been during the peak of the riot.

"Soul toxin," Nerine informed her four companions, who had been waiting quietly for her to finish her examination. "It sickens the soul, compelling the victim to say and do things they would ordinarily find reprehensible. That... is stage one. In stage two, it goes after the body. She's got a rough few days ahead of her."

"How would she have been exposed to this 'soul toxin,'" Swift Coyote asked.

"It's not like its something you can squeeze from a weed, or milk from a viper's fangs," Nerine answered. "You need to start out with a substance that's inherently magical, and then you need to cast dark magic upon it. This woman didn't just happen to take the toxin by accident. Someone did this to her."

"Serina Arnford!" Levinia declared with absolute certainty. "It has to be! It can't be a coincidence that this all happened one day after she caught us snooping around her home. She knows we've come to break the curse and so she engineered that dark energy storm to destroy us before we succeed!"

"It is said that soul toxin makes a person more suggestible to dark forces," Nerine agreed.

"I don't get it. If she's after us, why doesn't she just attack us herself?" Swift Coyote asked.

"One of the cons of being a cursespawn," Nina explained. "Her influence over the physical world is extremely limited, now. If she wants something done here, she has to rely on her ability to manipulate people."

"Well, if she was trying to stop us, she failed," Demi remarked. "But she's started this town on the road to self-destruction. We're past the tipping point, now. You two have stalled it for a few hours," she told Nina and Swift Coyote. "But unless we do something about the seething hatred here, this whole town will be reduced to smouldering ruins and corpses by midday!"

"Do we know enough now to design a cleansing ritual?" Nina asked Nerine. Nerine paced around for a moment, deep in thought.

"The curse was created... by a forbidden act of betrayal," she said. "So... It would seem that the way to counter it... would be with a sacred gesture of loyalty." After thinking about her own conclusion for a moment, she turned to Nina and smiled. It didn't take Nina long to realize what Nerine was thinking.

"Wow..." she responded, suddenly very flustered. "We... we haven't even talked about it..." she chuckled as her gaze darted back and forth between Nerine and Swift Coyote.

"I won't tell you what to do," Nerine said. "But if you decide to go ahead with it, you have to sincerely want it to happen. It won't work if you only do it to break the curse."

Nina gazed at Swift Coyote and after considering Nerine's wise words, gave him a loving smile.

CHAPTER IX: Ritual

Functions Room B, "The Arnford", Holliston, NC

July 16^th, 1931, 12:17am.

The chamber was brightly illuminated by a plethora of candles and a handful of oil lamps that had been placed all around. The witches had also turned the large cooking pots from the kitchen into makeshift braziers. The large dining table and its chairs had been pushed to one side of the chamber to make room.

In the middle of the room, just in front of the stage, Nina and Swift Coyote stood side-by-side in a large pentacle scrawled upon the floor in chalk. Nina wore nothing but her magic amulet and her black casting robe, with the hood lowered. Clutched in her hands was a modest bouquet, made of flowers that Demi had puckishly pilfered from a garden along the way. Upon her face was an utterly blissful smile.

Swift Coyote was dressed only in his traditional breechcloth, leggings and moccasins. He had marked his body with the tribal designs that had been worn by his father and his father before him. He, like Nina, appeared unusually happy.

Nerine stood before the couple, presiding over the ceremony as high priestess. Demi and Levinia stood off to one side, acting both as witnesses and as Nerine's assistants. Demi, Nerine and Levinia were dressed much the same as Nina, except they had the hoods of their casting robes pulled up.

They were conducting a handfasting ceremony -- a witch's wedding, in which Nina and Swift Coyote were forging a lifelong unity together. At Nerine's cue, Demi stepped forward with the coven's athame and held it before Swift Coyote.

"Touch the tip of the blade," Nerine instructed him. He complied. "Swift Coyote, as you stand before the Gods, will you take this witch as your partner and mate? Will you swear upon this sacred athame to love her, comfort her and honor her in sickness and health, for as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," he replied. Without a word, Demi bowed her head and stepped back. Levinia stepped forward, carrying one of the coven's ceremonial chalices, which she held out in front of Nina. Nina reached forward and touched the center of the chalice's bowl with her index finger.

"Nina, High Priestess of Fire, as you stand before the Gods, will you take this man as your partner and mate? Will you swear upon this sacred chalice to love him, comfort him and honor him in sickness and health, for as long as you both shall live?" Nerine asked.

"I will," Nina chimed. Levinia solemnly moved back to Demi's side.

"Your intentions are have been heard," Nerine declared. "The God and Goddess have been called upon to join you in holy matrimony, with the vows you shall make to each other on this night. Swift Coyote, please repeat after me."

Swift Coyote turned to gaze into his bride's doting eyes. Nerine guided him a sentence at a time and he repeated her words, verbatim, "I, Swift Coyote, do recognize in you, my love, the form of the Goddess, the vessel of new life, the gateway to ecstasy; my perfect other half. I promise to honour, love and revere you as both holy and human, for as long as my heart beats."

"Nina, please repeat after me," Nerine requested.

Nina spoke precisely as instructed, "I, Nina of the Coven of the Four Paths, do recognize in you, my love, the form of the God, the spark of new life, the bringer of fulfilment; my perfect other half. I promise to honour, love and revere you as both holy and human, for as long as my heart beats."

"Hold hands," Nerine instructed. Before placing her hand in Swift Coyote's, Nina removed her arm from her sleeve and slipped it out through the part in the front of her robe. She knew doing so now would make later parts of the ritual easier.

Levinia presented Nerine with a long strip of aquamarine silk. Nerine proceeded to bind Swift Coyote and Nina together at the wrist with the strip, as she spoke the final decree of matrimony, "With the fashioning of this knot do I tie all the desires, dreams, love, and happiness of the lives you have freely offered each other. Here, in the sight of your friends and family, the two of you have become one. May your union be forever blessed. So mote it be."

Now husband and wife, the joyful couple embraced and shared a long, tender kiss. Swift Coyote slipped his unbound hand inside his bride's robe, to explore the shapely curves of her waist, hips and ass.