Sisters of the Mists Ch. 14

The color in question rose in Andrea's cheeks as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I'll get to work on your brassiere as soon as I have a chance, and I'll bring patterns so your seamstresses can learn to size them and make them."

"Guessing from the glimmer in your eye regarding your young man, I would imagine we'll be seeing a lot of you here in the Hall."

Andrea shrugged, and sighed. She smoothed back her hair and said, "There's so much to do, and so much danger in the world. I feel selfish even considering it."

Christi sat up next to the younger woman and tucked an errant blonde lock behind Andrea's ear. "You can't deny your feelings. Do what you must to fulfill your duties — even those you impose upon yourself — but take the time for you too." She leaned in and kissed the young witch, kneading Andrea's bottom. "Now, you'd best head for the bath, or I'm going to hold you up."

{*****~~o~~0~~o~~*****}

Danica peeked into Celes' room as she walked to the study to find Celes dressing for the day. She could smell breakfast cooking down the hall, and no hint of anything burning. The girls grew more competent in the kitchen and in their studies by the day, it seemed.

Danica hugged her arms around her and shivered as she considered how much havoc Zoraster could have caused with his amazing cloning magic, had he not chosen to devote it almost entirely to base pleasure.

A step into the study revealed the surprising presence of Edna, who sat next to Ashley considering the plan and trap that Celes and Ashley had devised. Edna looked up and nodded. "I thought it might be a good idea to let them spread their wings a little without their mother bird hovering over them."

"So far, so good. I don't smell anything burning," Danica agreed as she crossed the carpets to sit down.

"Have you thought about where you're going to put your demon once you've captured it?" Edna asked. "I doubt the valley will let you return it here."

Danica answered, "Darkni's island would probably be best. Even demons would shy away from the amount of magical power there, and the thing wouldn't last long if it escaped."

"The beastie isn't getting loose," Celes scoffed as she entered the room. "This trap would hold a demon ten times as strong for a thousand years."

"Never hurts to be prepared," Danica said with a smile.

Melanie, the younger clone of Marlena, walked into the study and said, "Breakfast is ready." She then inclined her head as though she'd heard a sound.

Danica certainly heard something, although it wasn't a real sound. The silent mental chime announced someone arriving in the pattern room — in this case, Andrea and Marlena. "Did you hear that?" Danica asked.

"We all can," Melanie said with a roll of her eyes as she turned to leave the study.

"Oh gods," Danica groaned. "They're taking on a teenage mindset now. I think we're in deep trouble."

Edna chuckled. "I can just imagine your mothers trying to contain their laughter. Every woman takes a little guilty pleasure in watching her daughter deal with this. In your case, it's even closer to seeing what you were like at that age."

"Aye, we're in trouble," Celes reiterated.

Looking a little alarmed as she walked in the room, Andrea asked, "What's wrong?"

Danica laughed and waved to the blonde witch and Marlena. "The girls are just starting to show a bit of a maturity that isn't altogether pleasant to look forward to. Your outfits are gorgeous. Did you find everything we needed?"

Marlena sat down and glanced at Andrea, who blushed. "It's all in the pattern room."

Danica knew there was a story behind the glance and the blush, but decided to let it go and allow Andrea to tell it when she felt ready. "Feeling up to giving me a little of your magic after breakfast, then? I'm sure Ashley is ready for some space of her own."

"Certainly," Marlena answered. "Breakfast sounds wonderful. I'm famished."

Ashley helped Edna to stand, and everyone proceeded to the dining room. They found the girls in the midst of a hushed conversation that immediately ceased upon the arrival of the adults.

Danica knew it was yet another ominous sign.

{*****~~o~~0~~o~~*****}

Danica let her arms fall to her side and her chin drop to her chest. When she saw movement in her peripheral vision, she offered a weak wave of her hand to indicate that she was okay. She took in a deep breath and blew it out again before lifting her head.

The glow around the cottage had already faded, and Danica had little doubt that her magic had worked. She nodded to Ashley and said, "Go ahead."

Ashley picked up the model cottage, her green eyes aglow with anticipation. Everyone followed her out back and waited as the redheaded witch positioned the model on the shin-high grass behind the manor, directly across from Edna's cottage.

"Whenever you're ready," Danica said when Ashley returned to stand with the rest of the group.

Ashley's smile grew even wider as she took a deep breath, and then said, "Home."

The model cottage rapidly expanded, emerging into exactly what the command word for the magic item stated — Ashley's new home.

Danica leaned up against the wall of the manor with a sigh. "I need a little rest before we go demon hunting."

"We need time to teach Andrea the spell, anyway," Celes said with a shrug. When she looked at Ashley admiring her new home, she let out a laugh. "Or rather I need to teach her the spell."

"I'm going to go lie down, then," Danica declared, and then pushed off the smooth stone wall of the manor to walk toward the door.

Celes watched her friend, and couldn't help but consider the phenomenal powers that the redhead possessed. After weaving such a powerful enchantment, she should be on her knees. Even the joining spell that Celes had cast to lend her power and Marlena's to the enchantment shouldn't have prevented that.

Celes knew that there was more to Danica than anyone understood. The knowledge left her in awe — and a little frightened for her friend. As an Archmage, Celes knew the strain that great magic put on her when she called on her full wellsprings of power. She couldn't imagine how Danica managed to contain such vast arcane energies.

"Celes?" Andrea asked, noticing the distant look in the dark-haired witch's eyes.

"Sorry," Celes responded, pushing aside her ruminations. "Let's go teach you that spell so we can trap us a beastie and wring some information out of it."

{*****~~o~~0~~o~~*****}

The orange-striped cat hissed and arched its back in alarm as fog suddenly rolled up from the paving stones of the shadowed alley. The feline darted away when figures congealed from the mists.

Celes stepped from the cloudy portal first, followed by her sister witches. Danica and Marlena brought up the rear, the magical fog already evaporating even as the two redheaded magic users stepped into the alley.

Andrea pinched her nose against the stink of urine and garbage permeating the alley. "This smells like a place a demon would like."

"Let's try to do this quietly," Danica said. "The last thing we need are superstitious townsfolk organizing an impromptu witch burning."

"At least they'd be getting real witches for once," Celes grumbled with a shake of her head. While most of the world accepted magic due to its almost unavoidable abundance, some rural areas still clung to the old superstitions like a lover. This frontier town stood dead center in just such a collection of family farms.

Though Danica and her friends had dressed in a nondescript fashion, Marlena wove invisibility around them all before leaving the alley — save for Danica. Ashley had suggested that such magic would normally prove useless against even a minor demon, but questioned that common wisdom in the face of Marlena's mastery of illusion.

With soundless footfalls — another element of Marlena's magic — the group stepped out of the alley and into the crumbling flagstone street. Wagons rumbled down the pothole-laden thoroughfare while pedestrians stayed close to the edges to avoid the heaps of horse manure in the center. The attire of the people moving about suggested that most were visitors from the neighboring farms, though a few in cleaner clothes were likely townsfolk.

"The merchant's shop is over there," Celes revealed as she pointed toward a building at the end of the street. The place looked a little worse for the wear, and a general store on the opposite side of the street, closer to the center of town, appeared to garner the lion's share of the local business.

Danica popped a pair of buttons at the top of her blouse to reveal the swell of her bosom as she approached the shop and patted the coin purse on her hip.

"What's that all about?" Celes asked.

Danica sent her thoughts to her friends telepathically since no one but her could see them.

'I imagine that our shopkeep could use a little cheering up. The whole point is to give him some hope, isn't it? Besides, with the way demons seem to lust after women, it could distract it a bit as well.'

Celes chuckled and said, "You're the bait." She then nodded off toward the side. "You're attracting attention from more than demons and demoralized merchants, though."

Danica glanced over to see a young man staring at her with wide eyes — just in time to see him trip over his own feet and stumble down the weathered boards of the porch he was crossing. She looked away with a pursed lip smile and fought against the urge to laugh, not wanting to embarrass him any further.

"Okay, here we are," Ashley announced upon reaching another, much longer alley about halfway to the merchant's shop. The first alley had provided cover to mask the arrival of the five women. This one provided a path to the edge of town where the smell of a charcoal maker would keep away most prying eyes, and a stand of trees would serve as the perfect place to set the trap.

"We'll be waiting," Celes said as she turned down the alley.

"Be careful," Andrea admonished as she followed.

'I will,' Danica telepathically responded as she continued toward the shop.

The plan was quite simple. The demon feeding off of the merchant's fears accosted just enough people who visited the shop to keep the man on the edge of ruin. Anyone who spent a large amount of coin in the shop became an immediate target. Danica would do exactly that, and then lead the demon back to where the three witches awaited with their trap.

When Danica pushed open the creaking door of the shop and triggered the bell hanging inside, she saw the merchant seated behind his counter with his forehead pressed against the wood and his hands atop his head. He popped up upon hearing the bell and greeted her with none of the depression he obviously felt in his voice. "Welcome. How can I help you?"

Danica smiled, having heard the stutter in his thoughts that he masked in his words upon seeing her bared cleavage. "A lot, I hope. I seem to be out of nearly everything."

The merchant's eyes brightened even more. "I am at your service. Just tell me what you need."

Though most of the things Danica purchased were merely for show, one of the items that went into her bundle was something she actually needed. The gems that she and Celes had taken upon their escape from Zoraster's complex had included no jade, and it had several uses in magic. The merchant happened to have a small pouch of the stones. The cost helped further Danica's goal of spending as much money as possible, as well.

The merchant was in a much more pleasant mood when Danica walked out of the shop, but she was seriously questioning some of the things she'd chosen to buy. The weight of the bundle proved extremely awkward to carry, especially since she was used to slipping anything that she carried into her bag of holding.

Danica bore her burden, hoping that the expectations Celes and Ashley expressed about the way the demon operated were accurate. If their observations were correct, the demon would seek her out in short order.

Sure enough, Danica spotted the demon wandering in her direction before she'd even managed to cross the street. The creature appeared to be a young man who suffered from mild retardation. Though he physically stood out amongst the populace, few took notice because of the stigma of his apparent condition.

The demon stealthily followed along behind Danica, and she knew that she would have never noticed it if she wasn't looking for the disguised hellspawn. Once in the alley, away from the busier parts of the small town, the demon drew upon its powers. Only Danica's empathic ability let her keep track of the monster. The demon was angry about her purchases cutting off its food supply, but also surging with lust for her.

Danica exited the alley and shifted her burden to a more comfortable position. She knew that she still had a fair walk ahead of her, because the place for the trap had to be deep enough into the woods for the demon to catch up after waiting for her to cross the open field between it and town. Though the demon would sometimes steal things to make a customer think that the merchant had cheated him or her, it most often waited until the victim returned home and somehow despoiled the goods there in crafty ways.

'I'm at the edge of the trees,' Danica thought to her friends as she stepped into the shadowed woodland.

'We're ready,' Celes thought back, her mental words tinged with anticipation — and just a hint of amusement.

Danica wished that she'd rested just a bit longer as she walked down the narrow trail through the trees, dead leaves and twigs crunching beneath her feet. She felt weaker with every step, her bundle of goods an anchor trying to drag her to the ground. She couldn't help a sigh of relief when she recognized the clearing from Celes' scrying.

Celes and the others hid in the foliage, combining the cover with Marlena's invisibility spell in an attempt to escape notice until the time was right. Danica started when she stepped out of the clearing and heard Ashley shout, "Now!"

Danica spun around and her eyes widened when she realized just how close the demon had managed to approach her. It was barely five feet away, writhing and growling in an attempt to resist the power of the crystals the three witches had slapped to the earth around it. The demon's previously slack expression turned ferocious as it struggled.

"Through blessed earth and crystals pure," Ashley began the chant.

Celes continued the spell, "Your black powers we now abjure."

Andrea delivered her line next. "Never more to bring on fear."

All three spoke the final line in unison. "We witches three — we bind you here."

The demon's disguise vanished in an instant, revealing the creature's true, jet-black form. As the book had described, the demon closely resembled the bat-like imps, but was about double the size of such creatures. It immediately took to wing, bashing against the invisible boundaries of the cage formed by the crystals while screeching in rage and pain.

The three witches scooted their crystals closer and walked toward the demon, restricting its movement with every step. By the time the three women stood up straight, the demon crouched with its limbs and wings tightly wrapped around it, twitching from tiny sparks of blue-white arching from the mystical cage.

Celes leaned down in front of the demon with a deceptively sweet smile and said, "Behave yourself, and we might just give you a bit more room."

The demon snarled and shook its head violently in response, about the only action it could take without receiving another excruciating jolt from its invisible prison.

Andrea hugged her arms around her as she watched the demon twitch in pain and asked, "Couldn't we move the crystals just a little farther apart?"

"Bah, the damn thing's a demon," Celes scoffed as she stood. One look at Andrea's innocent, generous face caused her to feel a sting of regret, however. "Okay," she relented and bent to pull her crystal out a few inches.

Andrea and Ashley did the same, allowing the demon to stretch out and stand up.

Marlena suddenly launched into a quiet rush of words, her hands flying through the gestures of the Art. Everyone else tensed, looking around for a source of danger.

The illusionist completed her spell with a flourish and said, "There are people at the edge of the woods. They must have heard the demon screeching. I just barely heard someone speaking. I included Danica and the demon in my spell to keep us hidden."

Danica opened her mind and called upon her powers. "They're gathering up their courage to come this way. They haven't seen us, and have no idea what they heard. We should take the demon to Darkni's before they come this way." She then turned to Celes and said, "Something tells me that your gift isn't going to accept a demon passenger. We'll have to use the Hellgate."

Celes nodded in reluctant agreement and said, "Make it quick. Whoever is out there is on their way, and I don't want to have to try to stay away from them while carrying the crystals."

"One misstep could break the resonance between them, and they'll lose power every moment that they're not in contact with the earth," Ashley agreed.

Danica waved over Marlena, and stepped in closer to the three witches surrounding the demon. As soon as Marlena reached them, Danica cast her spell and summoned up the disk of light at everyone's feet. The luminous circle rose upward, and everyone appeared within Danica's personal pocket realm.

Ashley gasped and then exclaimed, "The crystals are weakening!"

Danica quickly shifted the focus of the portal to the room Darkniciad had set aside to contain the demon, and slammed the doorway open. In the blink of an eye, everyone stood within the room.

Ashley blew out a sigh of relief and let her hand fall to her side again. She'd raised it in preparation to freeze the demon in time, should it have escaped. "It's okay, the crystals are as strong as ever now."

"Okay, that was a bad idea," Danica said apologetically.

Celes shrugged. "No harm done. I should have thought of it. We're going to have to figure out some way to move the beasties around if we need to do this again, though. We can't use my gift — I'm positive that you're right about that. The Hellgate is obviously out of the question. Normal teleport spells wouldn't work on the crystals."

"Maybe rift magic," Danica suggested. "We'd have to prepare both ends in advance, but that should work."

"We have one end right here," Celes agreed. "I'm sure Darkni will have someone prepare a permanent rift anchor in this room, if we ask."

Danica nodded in agreement, a familiar glint sparkling in her eye. "I have an idea about the other end, too."

"Let's have a little chat with our demon, first," Celes said as she turned toward the creature.

The demon cowered and hissed, not at all pleased with that prospect.

{*****~~o~~0~~o~~*****}

C'seka hissed in delight and caressed the cheek of his second slave. His demon seed still seeped from her gaped sex to flow down her leg, and yet he had already caused her to join her Hellgate to that of his first slave.

The demon felt the power of the joined realms flowing through him, enhancing his strength and magic. The demons of the Hellgates were subtle, patient creatures by nature, and C'seka's release to walk the world beyond the place that had spawned him had done nothing to change that.

The demon released his slaves to return to their lives, completely unaware of their servitude until such time as he summoned them again. The joined realms of the two Hellgates remained open, however. A small Kingdom, but one over which C'seka ruled without question.