London, 31st of October 1885
With a screech the coach came to a stop, Magnus got out of it and circled around to pay the scowling and lazy coachman. As soon as the man, dressed in a dark cloak with a turned up collar, had the money, he cracked the whip and drove the two brown horses. Magnus couldn't blame him for wanting to leave in a haste. He also didn't want to be there.
Magnus had left his fabulous life in New York to visit his old and emerald green friend Ragnor Fell – the High Warlock of London - for some days. But as soon as he had arrived in London, he cursed himself for doing so in the end of October. The city was muffled in thick layers of mist, it was freezing cold and if it wasn't foggy, it rained. He missed the last golden rays of sunlight and the last few warm autumn days in New York.
As the carriage was out of sight – or better out of earshot - it was so foggy that Magnus couldn't hardly see his own feet – he turned around and faced an old, abandoned and crumbling church and a graveyard. Wafts of mist billowed between the askew and rotting tombstones.
Magnus let his mind relax and looked through the glamor, that covered up, what was behind it: The London Institute. Through the haze Magnus could only sense the massive portal, high up the stairs and the tall, narrowing spire with its countless windows.
As Magnus started to climb the stairs, he turned up his collar up and wrapped himself in his jacket against the cold. He was dressed in an elegant black swallow-tailed coat, black trousers and pointed black shoes – just his waistcoat wasn't black. The silken fabric was beige and beautifully embroidered with flowers, grass, reed and some butterflies. Fitting rings in sapphire green, aquamarine blue and amber yellow decorated his fingers. Magnus was dressed for the opera – he wanted to escape Ragnor's permanent bad temper and moods. But Ragnor had left in the afternoon and had not come back – as Magnus was bathed and dressed for La Bohème a fire message fluttered through the open door, right in the moment as the coachman, who should bring him to the concert hall, arrived.
Cursing Magnus ordered the coachman to change directions and bring him to Fleet Street instead of Bow Street in Covent Garden. The message simply said in Ragnor's compact and illegible handwriting before it lit up into ashes: Emergency. London Institute. Don't loiter.
As Magnus would dawdle if someone was in danger. Okay, once in Singapore… but Ragnor had played the "Emergency-card" once too often. To get out of parties, of meetings, of everything.
As Magnus reached the top of the stairs, he pulled the bell pull. A deep, loud chime rang through the rooms of the Institute, letting the floor vibrate with its sonorous bass. Nothing happened. No hasty steps, no raised voices behind the door. The sound of the doorbell just died in the mazelike halls of the building. Magnus raised his hand to pull the cord a second time, as he realized that the door was slightly ajar. Slowly he pushed it open – goosebumps raising on his spine and all over his arms – and not just because of the cold. The door to the Institute was never – NEVER – open.
Under Magnus's push the door gave away with a squawking jar. The entrance hall was gloomy. No candles were lit, nor was the chandelier illuminated. Magnus had visited the London Institute a lot of times and often hostility and disgust had greeted him on the doorstep to the great entrance hall, but the hall itself had never failed him with its beautiful grandeur and its thousands of lit candles. And he couldn't conjure any good idea, why Tessa and Will would fail to welcome him – except something had happened to them. And where was Ragnor?
Magnus snapped his fingers and the candles suddenly burst into life with blue flames – and Magnus jumped backwards, crashed into the wooden door and slammed it shut with a loud bang. Right in front of him sat a fluffy, grey-blue cat on the floor and watched him indignantly with its yellow slit-pupiled eyes.
"Church!", Magnus exclaimed. "What the…?!"
Church, the Persian cat, which lived in the Institute, raised slowly, stretched and turned around. After a few moments he walked some steps and turned his head. Then the same again: Church walked some steps, then turned around to look at Magnus. After the third time Church repeated this little ritual, he meowed an irritated snort. Magnus, who was at first too astonished, finally realized and started to follow the feline. Without a further turn, Church ran to one of the corridors on the left hand side of the entrance hall and vanished into the shadows.
On the way to the hallway, where Church had vanished, Magnus picked up a three-legged golden candleholder and walked through the archway – but Church was gone. The blue light of the flames illuminated the space in front of him, but the cat was nowhere seen – as if it had vanished into thin air.
Magnus started to walk slowly and alertly down the aisle – somewhere he had to start to search for Ragnor, Will and Tessa and this place was as good as any other.
He had walked just two or three careful steps as a cold breath of wind stirred the tiny hairs on his neck. Quickly he turned around, but there was nothing – except a faint girly giggle in the distance. But this couldn't be… could it? He turned again and started to walk again as suddenly an ear-piercing screeching noise filled the halls of the Institute and a loud bang vibrated through the air. Magnus jumped.
"Calm down", he whispered to himself. "It's just a door thunked shut…"
Suddenly some things happened at the same time: the hairs all over his body started to raise and to stand on end – starting from his neck and flowing down over his shoulders and spine, down his arms and legs - two ice cold hands had grasped him on the shoulders and turned him slowly around. As he tried to turn and see who was behind him – there was nothing… with an icy breath the light voice of a woman whispered in his ear: "Look!"
And Magnus stared: a grotesque face appeared at the end of the corridor and came hovering nearer. Its features were twisted into a grimace: holed eyes, were the nose should have been was just a triangular hole and the big mouth was full of jagged and copped teeth. From the inside of the skull suddenly burst light and intensified the horrible look of the distorted face.
Magnus conjured a ball of red magic in his hands and threw it against the grimace – but it just skidded to the side and the energy sphere just passed by.
Like evil fireflies in a forest, one by one more and more blazing heads appeared – each looking more malicious and vicious than the other.
Although Magnus threw fireball after fireball and hit some of the grotesque faces, they became more and more and started to close the distance between them and Magnus.
Magnus slowly walked backwards, trying to withdraw – until his back hit the door at the end of the hallway. With one hand he pushed the handle down, yanked the door open, threw himself through the opening, slammed the door shut and leaned his back on the now closed door. He breathed deeply. Magnus mind raced: he had to scheme a strategy, an escape plan… something.
"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" voices suddenly screamed and the candles in the room flared to life with a greenish light.
And there was everyone!
Magnus had ended up at the famous ballroom of the London Institute, which was decorated all over with orange and black candles burning with green flames, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, big black spiders on the walls, skeletons sitting on the tables, some skulls in the corners of the hall and black bats circling though the air.
Tessa came running over to him and gave him a tight hug and pressed a glass of punch into his hand. Will was sitting on a chair, laughing tears, with his legs unable to hold his shaking body. Ragnor Fell conjured some more of the flying Jack O'Laterns and asked Magnus smugly: "Afraid of pumkin demons?". Even Brother Zachariah in his parchment robes seemed to giggle. Church sat on of the tables watching everything with indifference, while the ghost of Jessamine Lovelace flew through the wall with a good-humored "Booo!"
The End