Chapter 48


It was 2 a.m. and the Riverdale Morgue at the police station was quiet. The only people in the station were the officers on desk duty, and they didn't notice a red blur come streaking in making its way specifically to the morgue.

Barry came to a stop in morgue and looked around. Lying on the slab partially autopsied was the body of the man from the supermarket who had died from blood loss from his amputated hand, who had resurrected and grown a gigantic slimy black claw that had attacked Betty, only to be killed a second time by Cheryl.

"Man that is just gross," Barry muttered to himself as he looked at the body.

He peeked under the sheet and saw that the man's insides had started to turn black, but it didn't look like they were rotting per say, but rather that something else was happening. Probably from the demonic possession Barry thought to himself.

He went over to the cold storage drawers and went looking for the body from the Lodge Mansion. The first two drawers he checked were empty but then the third one he opened contained a portly balding man with wisps of dark hair. His skin was incredibly pale and his veins could be seen beneath the skin, but they looked to be a dark purple in colour, which Barry found odd.

Barry looked around to try and find the autopsy report. He looked it over and found that the coroner had been unable to determine a cause of death but was waiting on toxicology reports.

Barry took out his phone and using the camera he took a few pictures of the body and of the report. He then put everything back where it had been and closed the drawer and ran out of the police station.


In her cell Midge sat up as she thought she saw a red blur fly past. She found that her vision was extremely sensitive now that she had weird segmented insect eyes and the lack of eyelids now meant that she couldn't close her eyes to sleep so the smallest little change in lighting would wake her up.

The holding area she was in had three single cells and there was a wall of bars that led to the area just outside the cells. That was currently covered up with thick plastic, probably as a way to protect against her pheromone powers, although Midge wasn't sure if she even had them anymore. She'd had no contact with anybody since regaining consciousness.

However she had overheard people talking about her. Apparently she was going to be transferred to some place called Arkham Asylum. If she was recalling correctly it was located near Gotham.

Midge got up off of her bed and walked over to the cell door. She pulled on the bars trying to pull the cell door open but it wouldn't budge. When she had been possessed by the demon she'd had an incredible amount of strength, but now it seemed like she just had her normal strength once more. But Midge knew that something about her had changed, she just needed to figure out what, hopefully before she was moved to Arkham because escaping from there would be a lot more difficult.


It was fairly early in the morning and Betty arrived at the farm. She made her way to the barn and up into the loft. Sabrina and Cheryl were already there. Sabrina had spent the night at the farm along with Cheryl. Cheryl was sitting in one of the chairs with her feet up on the coffee table while she drank a cup of coffee. Sabrina was sitting crossed legged on one of the couches while she had a cup of tea.

"Hey Betty, do you want some coffee or tea?" Cheryl offered as she indicated a tea pot and a coffee pot sitting on the table.

"No I'm okay," Betty said as she sat down next to Sabrina. "Have you heard from Tim or Barry?"

"Tim said he was on his way," Cheryl said. "I guess Barry talked to him about what he found."

"I'm surprised Barry didn't talk to me," Betty commented. "I feel like he's upset about something."

Just then they heard the sound of a motorcycle engine getting louder till it came to a stop just outside the barn. Moments later Tim entered.

"Is everyone here?" Tim asked.

"Everyone except Barry," Sabrina replied.

"You'd think he'd be the first one here," Tim said. "What with how fast he is, I'll text him."

Tim pulled out his phone and sent Barry a text. Not even fifteen seconds later Barry arrived.

"Hey Barry, how's it going?" Betty greeted him.

"So I found something rather strange last night," Barry said ignoring Betty. "Tim do you mind grabbing that lap top?"

Tim went over and grabbed one of Dilton's laptops and set it down on the table and turned it on for Barry. Barry pulled his phone out and plugged it into the laptop and uploaded the pictures he had taken the night before. He then clicked on the files and opened the picture up. Sabrina gave a gasp almost immediately as they all saw a picture of a man who looked incredibly pale with dark purple veins prominent all along his body.

"Are the colours here accurate?" Sabrina asked.

"What do you mean?" Barry asked.

"His veins," Sabrina said pointing at the picture. "They were the same dark purple?"

"Yeah pretty close to that," Barry replied.

"Crap," Sabrina muttered.

"What? What is it?" Tim asked.

"I took a picture of the coroner report," Barry said bringing up another picture. "There was no listed cause of death yet, but they were waiting on a toxicology report."

"It will be negative," Sabrina said. "I know what killed him, or at least how he was killed."

"What killed him?" Cheryl inquired.

"His soul was consumed," Sabrina answered.

"Something ate his soul?" Betty asked somewhat confused.

"Eaten isn't quite the right term for it," Sabrina said, "Because it's not quite the same as when you or I would eat something. Certain demons are able to draw the soul out of a human and absorb it into their body. A removed soul is simple a floating ball of energy kind of like a small sun. Some of them absorbed seemingly by inhaling it, others simple absorbed it into themselves."

"So why's this so bad?" Tim asked.

"Because consuming souls isn't a power that most demons have, it's something only the most powerful demons, the ones known as the Lords of Hell, can do" Sabrina said.

"Okay that doesn't sound good," Barry said.

"Are you saying that one of the Lords of Hell has been brought here?" Cheryl asked.

"It looks that way, but it's not possible," Sabrina said. "There's a barrier between our realm and hell that prevents the most powerful demons from coming here, and if that did happen the balance of hell would likely be disrupted."

"So what exactly is going on?" Betty asked.

"I don't know," Sabrina admitted. "I'm going to need to talk with some others to find out."

"Talk to who?" Tim inquired.

"Well I wasn't just born with magical knowledge," Sabrina said. "I had to learn some how and I had several teachers, witches, warlocks, sorcerers, and even a couple demons; not all of them are evil."

"You're going to go talk to demons?" Barry asked in disbelief.

"Well a demon, multiple demons would probably be unnecessarily dangerous," Sabrina corrected him. "It might take about a day."

"Take me with you," Barry insisted. "Please?"

Sabrina looked at him surprised.

"Why do you want to come?" Sabrina asked.

"Because I want to see this stuff," Barry said.

Sabrina shrugged.

"Alright," she agreed. "But don't say anything and stay close to me. However I need to go back to my place first to get something."

She took a hold of Barry's hand.

"Tropelet su ot ym emoh," Sabrina cast.

Suddenly she and Barry vanished in a cloud of smoke.

"I am never going to get used to seeing that," Tim commented.

"Why do you think Barry wanted to go with her?" Betty asked.

"He's interested in demons and stuff probably," Cheryl said as she sat back down and sipped her coffee once more.

"I dunno, I feel like he's upset about something," Betty said.

"I guess," Cheryl agreed. "Kind of reminds me a bit of when Reggie would get jealous when I would talk to other boys."

Betty slapped her forehead as she suddenly realized what it was.

"Oh my god I know what it is," Betty said. "It's because Barry has a crush on you Cheryl."

"So? Most boys do," Cheryl said. "I am pretty hot. I recall he was staring at my breasts for quite a while yesterday."

"I don't mean like that," Betty said. "Well okay, that's part of it, but I think it's more than that."

"Really?" Cheryl asked a little doubtful. "I mean we don't really know each other that well."

Betty shrugged.

"Well to be perfectly honest I'm not that interested in boys at the moment," Cheryl said.

"That's disappointing," Tim commented.

Betty and Cheryl both looked at him having forgotten he was even there.

"Oh don't stop on my account," Tim said holding up his hands. "This is all utterly riveting."

"You know I could throw you all the way back into town without breaking a sweat," Betty commented.

"So could I," Cheryl said.

"Hey, hey no need for violence here," Tim protested. "We're all friends."

"You know, maybe we should figure out which of us is stronger," Betty suggested to Cheryl.

"That's an interesting idea," Cheryl said. "How do you propose we do so?"

"Probably the simplest way would be for the two of you to arm wrestle," Tim suggested. "Although I would recommend taking it outside and doing it on the ground. I have a feeling if you did it on the table here it would break in half."

"Yeah, avoiding excessive damage is probably a good idea," Betty agreed.

"Alright, let's go do this," Cheryl said as she stood up.

Cheryl hopped over the railing from the loft jumping all the way down to the floor of the barn, not bothering to take the stairs. Betty followed doing the same.

"Show offs," Tim muttered as he took the stairs so he could watch.

Betty and Cheryl made their way outside and found a nice flat spot outside and they both lay down. The two of them held their hands out and interlocked their fingers.

"I'll start you," Tim offered.

Both girls glanced over at him and then nodded.

"Alright, ready, go!" Tim started them.

Cheryl and Betty both began pushing trying to force the other's hand to the ground. Betty didn't use all of her strength immediately and found herself being pushed down by Cheryl. She put more force into and began forcing Cheryl's arm the other way. Across from her Cheryl frowned and growled and suddenly Betty found her arm being pushed back down once more. Betty responded with a loud grunt of her own and slowly began pushing Cheryl's hand to the ground.

Cheryl strained trying to reverse the effort, but Betty was too strong. Betty slammed Cheryl's hand into the dirt leaving an imprint.

"Ha, ha!" Betty exclaimed triumphantly as she got up.

"I almost had you there," Cheryl said.

"You did," Betty agreed. "Although I wasn't using all my strength until the end there."

"Me neither," Cheryl admitted.

"Well now we know which of you is stronger," Tim said.

"Of course how strong that is, well that's going to be pretty hard to measure," Betty said.

"So… what should we do while we wait for Barry and Sabrina to return?" Cheryl asked.

"Well Jughead and Sheila will be coming by soon, we were going to play Settlers of Catan," Betty said.

"What's that?" Cheryl asked.

"It's a board game," Betty replied.

"A board game, no it's THE board game," Tim said. "Settlers is like the best strategy board game ever!"

"Do you want to play?" Betty asked. "Because Jughead has the expansion so you can play with up to 6 players."

"I never say no to a game of Catan," Tim replied.

"Awesome, I'll text Jughead asking him to bring the expansion," Betty said.


Barry and Sabrina appeared outside a large Victorian style house.

"This is your home?" Barry asked.

"Yes… sort of," Sabrina replied. "I live here with my two aunts. They're a little… odd."

"I'm the fastest person alive, one of my best friends is an alien and the girl I've got a crush on can fly," Barry said. "I'd say my life is filled with odd, how strange can they be in comparison?"

"Hold on to that thought," Sabrina said as she led the way up the steps to the covered porch.

As they reached the top of the porch the door burst open and a woman with long bright orange hair who was dressed like a 1960's hippy came out.

"Sabrina!" she exclaimed spreading her arms and then embracing Sabrina in a hug.

"Hello Aunt Hilda," Sabrina said somewhat reluctantly returning the hug.

"Oh and who is this?" Hilda asked as she broke off the hug and looked at Barry.

"Aunt Hilda this is…" Sabrina began.

"Barry Allen," Hilda finished for her.

"What… how did she?" Barry stammered in surprise.

"It was in the cards," Hilda said.

She held up what looked kind of like a Tarot card, except it had an image on it that somewhat resembled Barry's hero costume. Underneath the image it read LXII. - The Flash – Barry Allen.

"What the heck?" Barry muttered as he looked at the card completely confused.

"My Aunts are witches," Sabrina said as if that should explain everything. "They can help us with what we need to do."

"So this isn't you bringing a prospective husband home?" Hilda asked her niece.

"No," Sabrina replied emphatically. "Barry's only 16, he's still in high school."

"Love doesn't care about age Sabrina," Hilda said.

Sabrina just sighed and shook her head.

"Is Aunt Zelda home?" Sabrina asked.

"She's inside," Hilda replied.

"Come on Barry," Sabrina said as she made her way inside. "My Aunt Zelda is odd too, but in a different way."

As Barry followed Sabrina into the house he wondered just what he should expect.


A little delay on this most recent update I know. I had a busier weekend with family things than I was expecting and this past week has been a busy one too. It might be a little while before the next chapter too because I'm currently working on a Sabrina origin story which will have some things in it that will also explain other elements I have planned for the next chapter. Please review!