Ch 11.
Caliban starred into the eyes of Sabrina Spellman, the one who was making waves of recent, and grinned.
"Do your worst, I'm immortal and unkillable."
"But not invulnerable. Athena, Mistress of warfare. Hecate, grand goddess of fate. Molly Monroe Great Hag of the Sea. Maiden, Mother and Crone, I summon all of the to come this day. Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!" Sabrina started chanting and Harvey felt how the knife that he had thrown at the apple of Nick's head started to glow with magical power.
Acting on instinct and of his experience in the world that was, Harvey immediately put the knife over Caliban's heart and turned his gaze towards the hunters.
"For two ranks. Each with one hammer, double time strike pattern, change after 3 strikes and rotate now!" Harvey said, shouting with the voice of someone who was in charge, it worked on the hunters as they all scrambled to join in and formed two ranks in front of Caliban.
The first two of each ranks took the great war hammers and struck the knife, one after the other in a synchronized fashion.
"One-two, one-two, one-two! Switch!" Harvey kept the pace and then the first in rank went to the rows back, keeping a fresh hammer wielder for the whole process.
"Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!" Sabrina's chanting continued, and soon Zelda, Hilda and Ambrose all joined in and helped her.
"One-two, one-two, one-two! Switch!"
"Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!"
Nick and the Weird Sisters then joined the chant as well, as the witchunters continued to rotate their exhausted men with fresh ones, keeping a firm and steady pace.
"One-two, one-two, one-two! Switch!"
"Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!"
Eventually every witch an every hunter was united in giving aid and striking against the Prince of Hell, who despite being tied to a tree, continued to smile and laugh, even and gasps of pain escaped between giggles.
"One-two, one-two, one-two! Switch!"
"Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!"
"One-two, one-two, one-two! Switch!"
"Sisters, give aid to our men, strength for them to smite our foes!"
"One-two,. STOP!" Harvey said and they complied, the knife that he held had finally pierced Caliban's skin and gone straight through Caliban's heart and Harvey felt how it now pierced the tree trunk.
"Is that all you got? Pathetic!" Caliban berated them and gave a maddening laugh from his mouth.
"What is there to be done?" The Lieutenant asked, voice filled with a yearning for an answer, for this unkillable hellspawn before them.
"Get lead, stone, plenty of coal and fire fuel, and coffee. This is gonna be long night…..cough…..cough" Harvey said both in sadness, disgust for what he knew needed to be done, and exasperation as he took another drag of his inhaler.
The witchunter looked to their Captain for guidance, the man simply nodded and they complied to Harvey's request.
Once the gathered ingredients where brought, Harvey explained his plan and with Harvey leading the hunters and Sabrina the witches they slowly, yet steadily, hacked Caliban's arms, legs and torso into smaller pieces, separating his head from his body.
"You think this will work? This will barely slow me down!" The severed head of Caliban said as Harvey picked up the still talking head, put it in a small mold made of rock and dirt, and then the witchunters poured molten hot lead over the head, encasing the still alive Caliban's head into a great brick of lead.
"Inchis pe vecie!" The witches placed a powerful sealing spell on the lump of lead, making sure that it would be neigh impossible for it to be broken.
After that came the arms, legs, and half of torso that were also encased in pieces of lead, then sealed with spell.
"Endor, you are remembered!"
"ENDOR YOU ARE REMEBERED!"
The Captain said after the sealing was done and the hunters all returned in a choir.
"Endor? Do you perhaps mean the Witch of Endor?" Sabrina asked them.
"Yes, though many of the record have been lost over the centuries, there have been ma examples of witches who spread good and gave aid to the servants of God over the centuries. The Witch of Endor is the most prominent." The Captain said as he then removed his war helm and the rest did the same.
With the last enemy dealt with, it was okay to take it easy.
"We will take the pieces of the demon and hide them across the most isolated regions of the world, within the Vatican's Vaults. He will never plagu—What?" The Captain interrupted himself as he saw that many of the witches where looking at him and his hunters with strange gazes in their eyes.
"You are all so….so very young!" Dorcas said with a smile, and the other witches giggled at that.
"We have all earned our ranks of warriors and have earned victory in each of our baptisms of war. Know that despite our youth, each one of us has it where it counts." The Captain said in indignation and glared at their 'allies', the others followed suit.
"That's what all men say." Prudence said and the witches giggled heartedly at that.
The witchunters all glared at the witches, promise of murder in their eyes.
"Something the matter?" Prudence asked.
"Nothing." The Captain replied.
"Then why is your right hand twitching like that?"
"Cause it wants to strangle you until your eyes pop out." The Captain replied.
"And what does the other hand want?"
"To hit you witch a truck." The Captain said and then the witches all did strange whistles and what appeared to be wolf like calls, this caught the hunters of guard and they all looked at each other in confusion, uncertain how they should react to this turn of events.
"Oh, look at my hand! We should all get some rest, long night and all that!" Sabrina quickly intervened and the hunters looked at her, then turned their gaze towards Harvey.
"Sounds good to me." Harvey said and the hunters then all gave Harvey a nod, before they left with Caliban's trapped body parts. Taking the still alive Prince of Hell to be scattered around the world.
"We have slayed many demons and a General of Hell. The first victory is ours, this is a good omen for the war to come." The Captain said as one last parting word to their new 'allies' and then lead his men away from the forest.
The hunters where all lodged in a hotel than they fully booked in Greendale and kept their distance from the Greendale Coven, all the while patrolling the area around Harvey's mines and a few even joined the workers there to keep an eye out for any demons coming from the door to hell.
Others were dressed in civilian clothes and regularly walk in shifts around Greendale, making sure that no surprises came.
But most where half praying for another demons attack like the one where they fought Caliban, for the witches sought them all out and mocked and teased them mercilessly.
The hunters could not touch or even insult this new coven, since they were nominally allies now, but the temptation was there.
On Sunday's they all gathered to Roz's fathers Church, but after as soon as the ceremony was over they all dreaded walking out since, the witches would always be in the streets waiting for them, ready to tease once more. And they had to abstain from retribution.
One bright spot was that the feast of Saint Valentine was near and this coincided with Lupercalia, which meant that the witches would be busy in the forest, so the hunters all gathered in praying robes and ashen face on a hill far away from the forest.
On that hill they would pray, and have communion. Then feast on homemade bread and fish.
After the prayer was over and communion was shared, night fell and it was time to return to their lodgings.
But once there they saw that the hotel's doors open and rushing forth, they discovered that their rooms had been ransacked, but nothing had been stolen from any room.
Immediately the Captain lead his hunters, still in praying robes to the Spellman home.
"Is there a reason you ransacked our lodgings?" The Captain asked Hilda, who was sitting on the front porch, apparently waiting for them.
"Oh, sorry about that. I sent the girls to invite you all to our festivities, looks like they wanted to make sure you would turn up." Hilda said apologetically, though one could hear the merriment in her voice.
"All you wanted was for us to come to a feast? You could have just asked!" The Captain said.
"And where's the fun in that?" They heard from the woods, and turning their gaze towards the tree line, the hunters saw the witches emerge from there, all covered in red hoods.
The captain then turned towards his hunters.
"Remember that they are no longer foes, but rather a neutral religion that we are trying to keep on our side. Treat them with respect and act as honored guests and do not provoke or respond to their provocations. With God as my witness if this alliance fails it will not be before we vanquish the devil and the failure will not be of our making. Do you understand." The Captain told his troops and they nod and they all turned their gaze towards the witches, who all approached the group of hunters.
They all swarmed and circled around their ranks, seemingly appraising each hunter, then one by one they stopped until each hunter had a witch standing near him.
They all took a step closer until they were within a breath away from the hunters. As one the witches smiled, then grabbed at prayer beads, prayer bracelets, cross necklaces and small icons strapped to their belts and then ran with them.
For a moment the hunters stood still like statues, then they realized what just happened and with a blood curling scream they all ran after the witches, they removed the monk prayer robes for more speed, and with only cloths wrapped around their private areas, the hunters ran screaming murder after each which that robbed them.
The red hooded witches all giggled with delight as they lead the hunters on a merry chase.
"Where are they?" Dorcas asked as the witches stopped running, realizing that the hunters where no longer behind them.
"Did we lose them?" Elspeth asked as they saw nothing from behind them.
They then turned back around and jumped back from shock, the hunters where in front of them, somehow they outmaneuvered and snuck up on them without being seen or heard.
The hunters where all breathing heavily, both from exhaustion and anger, murder and purest hate in their eyes.
But surprisingly none of the hunters found fear or hatred in the gaze of the witches, but….delight and anticipation was on their features.
"Give it back." The Captain said and took a step towards the witch that robbed him of his cross necklace. The other hunters did the same, each cornering the one that robbed them.
The witch that stole from him held up his necklace cross up in front, stopping him in his tracks.
"Ask us nicely."
"What?"
"As us nicely and we'll return what we stole." The Blonde haired apparent ring leader of this lot said. And another round of giggles emerged as they witches all looked at the dumb faces of the witchunters as they didn't know how to deal with these crazy witches.
"Will you please give us back our property?" The Captain said trough gritted teeth.
"Of course." The witch replied and like a starving wolf the Captain snatched his cross back.
"Mine!" the Captain said in a low wolf like growl, and held up his necklace near the witches' face.
The witch only smiled softly, gently grabbed the before mentioned hand with both of her palms.
"Mine." She said and then gently tugged on the Captain's hand.
This made the anger dissipate from the young hunter, and calmness and confusion reigned as he out of sheer curiosity from this absurdity allowed himself to be lead away from the group by the blond witch.
Looking around he saw that the rest of his hunters where in similar situation.
What was going on this holy of nights?
"Ah, to be young once more." Zelda said from a vantage point as she watched the festivities of Lupercalia bellow as she and the older members of the coven all shared wine and gossip.
From another hilltop, from where everything could be witnessed, Harvey and Sabrina watched what was going on.
"Why are they….cough…. they treating this like it's a mixer…cough…?" Harvey asked Sabrina with worry in his voice, as the witch was causally leaning against him and preparing some kind of potion.
"Because it is." Sabrina said cheekily.
"WHAT? These are all guys who have been trained since birth to hate witches and kill on sight, and they're gonna… why?"
"I heard that it's become fashionable for witches to try and use sex to control hunters to do their bidding." Sabrina said with unabashed smugness as she gave a raised eyebrow at Harvey.
"Sabrina it's a miracle that…cough….they haven't draw blood yet, please tell the other witches to stop trying to seduce them, they could end up screwing things up."
"We'll they certainly will tonight, that is if they get lucky." Sabrina replied with no ounce of shame as she finished her potion by prickling her finger and putting a drop of her blood inside the goblet, then handed the potion to Harvey.
"Did…did you just do a share my strength potion? Brina, I can't accept this."
"Yes you can and you will." She insisted.
"Sabrina, this will shorten your lifespan by years! I won't steal your life-force….cough….cough….!"
"They will be my final years Harvey. Which are all miserable and pain filled anyway. And just because I can live for centuries, doesn't mean that I will. You said it so yourself, that I died in my 50s, that's a lifespan that's much shorter than most mortals have. You outlived us all by almost double that, do don't you dare argue about that! All I want….all I want is that not to wake up one day and find that I'm eating at a table and I'm all alone!" Sabrina said with tears in her eyes as she now held with both hands the bubbly chalice to Harvey.
Harvey looked away for a moment, as if avoiding his gaze was a way to take that cup away from him.
He kept his gaze down as he took the cup and downed it in one gulp.
"Thank you." Sabrina said with adoration as she hugged the coughing boy. Harvey hugged back and kissed Sabrina's forehead. As he felt both warmth for her in his heart, and fear.
This woman was unstoppable once she set her eyes on something. And now she was determined to keep Harvey.
"Why are you so…into me? What do I have that others don't?" Harvey asked in curiosity.
"They are all boys. You're a man. You don't fool around, you think before you act. You use all your time to prepare for the future instead of goofing off. You're so mature Harvey…..I….I like that a lot about you." Sabrina said with a blush on her face as she kissed Harvey, pushing him on his back.
"Goddesses. Give us thy blessings on this holy night. Spring has come and with it may love bloom!" Sabrina chanted as she straddled Harvey, while bellow the witches had the hunters in their mitts.
They were all pressed against tree, on the ground straddled by witches or a few that tried to escape where chased and tackled by their chosen witch.
"Won't you're men seek revenge for this?" The Lieutenant asked the brown skinned witch called Prudence.
"Most of them men remained loyal to the Dark Lord. We slaughtered them." Prudence replied as she continued to play with the Lieutenant.
The hunter shifted his gaze towards the one he knew as Ambrose Spellman, who according to rumors was involved with Prudence.
The warlock in question was standing next to him and was kissing another warlock, one that from memory was the infamous Dorian Grey, the two saluted the captain with their wine bottles and grinned as they watched as Prudence ravaged him.
"I…I…I killed many witches." The Captain said to the blonder witch that straddled him in turn.
"How many, half a dozen, a full 12?" She asked with glee in her eyes.
"Over half a hundred." The captain replied and that only made the witch's eye gleam with even more delight.
"Did you make them suffer, did you stretch them on a rack? Rip off their finger nails? Whipped them with a nodded cloth?"
"Yes, yes, yes!"
"That's so very sexy!" She screamed out.
"A natural born killer, like Sabrina's beau. Agatha is also involved with Harvey's brother. He's not a killer, but he's very sweet on her, so it makes up for his lack of body count. Will you kill the witches that are my enemies for me? I promise I'll make it worth your time." She said alluringly and French kissed the captain, and guided his hands to her bosom.
The Captain felt light headed.
Witches asking him to kill other witches? Delighting at their torment? Witches thinking that hunters where sweet?
Was he going mad?
"Heavenly fathers, blessed be thy name, may thy kingdom come, thy will be done….."
The Captain started praying as the blonde witch above him seemed to be getting more energetic from every verse of the prayer.
"Lead us from teeeeemmmmptaaatttiiion….!"
The Captain's mind went blank at that, as he and all of his hunters gave into temptation and shared their passion with the blonde witch.
The Captain prayed for forgiveness from heaven many times that night for giving into the weakness of the flesh, but that only seemed to make the witchs even more amorous.
"All….all who worship the Morningstar shall dye by our hands." The captain said as morning was about to come, he was drained of breath and strength as the one who slept with him the most during the night then snuggled up to him.
"Music to my ears." The witch said before sleep claimed her.
"God's will be done." The Captain said as he then also let sleep embrace him.
The next day the company stirred first and all moved to grab their gear for battle, their spy network found a cluster of loyalist warlocks and witches within the area.
And the hunters where gearing up to go and either convert or kill that group.
"These charms will instantly teleport you back here after you finish with that coven."
The Elders of the Greendale Coven said and gave them all strange crystals.
As they did so, the younger witches that laid with them last night also returned from the forest, they had slept in more.
"Bring back the head and hands of any Dark Lord witches you slay, Mambo Marie is teaching us about monkey paws and shrunken head trinkets." The blonde witch from the other night said and boldly kissed the captain.
All he could do was nod hesitantly.
" Rip out the still beating heart and put it into this jar, it will keep it fresh for my spell rack." Another one said to one of his knights and handed him a jar, and a parting kiss.
The 77th company all received various requests from each of the witches that they laid with the night before, and they all departed for war, as blown kisses, friendly waves and winks where given to them as a parting gift from the coven.
"Sir, what do we do now?" His chief Sergeant asked.
"Our duty sergeant, we slay the worshipers of the Devil and we keep our allies firmly on our side."
"But sir, that means that we must…share their beds again, gather their spell ingredient and perhaps even…sire children with them, with witches!" The Lieutenant exclaimed.
"God has plan for us all, and if his plan is for his knights to be breading mares for this coven of non-believers, then so be it. Ours is not to question why, ours is to do or die. This is the way." The Captain said and they all departed to raided the nearest loyalist coven, after receiving kissed and favors from a non-satanic witch coven.
These where strange times indeed.
It was a grueling 20 hour drive by car, and then a two days and one night forced march through swamps and hilly country before they reached the area where the loyalists gathered.
Once there they used another set of spells and charms given to them by the Greendale coven to make their targets sleepy. Once they all fell prey to the spells, the coven used their knives to slit the throats of at least 100 satanic warlocks and witches.
The only ones that they spared where those the spell didn't affect.
They were ones that held contempt with the Dark Lord in their hearts, and the spells where made in a way that such witches and warlocks would not be affected.
They were surprisingly eager to not only abandon the devil, but a few even help kill the loyalist ones and even aide with burning down the local Church of Night.
They all prepared to return back to Greendale, they had not lost single hunter, and even gained a few dozen new allies, but before they did so, the Captain saw how one of his knights harvested a still beating heart.
Another was shaving the hair of a dead loyalist woman. He then remembered of the request made of him and so he made his way to what appeared to be the highest ranking members of the loyalist coven and took out his chainsword.
Latter they return to Greendale and after the teleportation spell faded and they recovered their bearings, the hunters barely managed to make a few steps towards the town, when the wind blew strong and all around them the Greendale coven teleported in and the WICA witches all rushed to greet them.
"The head and hands of the priests of the witches and warlocks that we butchered." The Captain says to the short haired blonde witch that he laid with before and handed her a bag filled with them.
"Thank you. These will make excellent charms!" She said and gave him an appreciative smile.
"I..I am grateful that the death of the enemies of God brings you joy. I must go and recover from the campaign."
"Well just come inside the Academy, you can take a nap in my dorm room while I do the prep work."
"I thank you for your kindness, miss?"
"Oh silly me, it's Dorcas!"
"Thank you Dorcas."
"And yours is?"
"Gregory."
"Come on in Gregory, you have to tell me about the raid. Did they scream much? How long did they last under torture? Can I come with you on the next one?" Dorcas asked and despite himself Gregory did feel a smile come onto his lisp.
These where all strange times, but they were not necessarily unpleasant times.
Gregory thought as he entered the Academy.
While back in Harvey's house, as he slept in the main bedroom, Sabrina was at the bed's side waking up and stretching a bit.
Harvey opened his to sneak a peek at that.
"I think I'll unwind a bit." Sabrina said and turned with a wink towards Harvey.
The boy watched as she removed her clothes, then she started to change, all of a sudden horns grew on her head, her teeth became razor sharp, claws emerged from her nails, cloven feet and yellow eyes appeared.
"Oh, it's nice to be in my natural witch form from time to time. Though between you and me I prefer my human disguise, the nails are impossible to manicure this way." Sabrina said to Harvey.
Harvey was speechless from shock.
Why, you may ask.
Well, for a very simple reason.
For in his first life witches weren't demi-humans that shaped shifted to a human form .
Which meant one horrible thing.
Cough…..cough…..cough…
Harvey started coughing like crazy as the realization struck him. The shock sent his already weak body into short-circuiting itself.
Sabrina jumped and cradled her boyfriend as she started chanting healing spells in her demonic form.
Harvey jumped out of her embrace and ran out of the bedroom and straight towards Sabrina's closet, where she kept a few spell books.
"Harvey! HARVEY!" Sabrina shouted and ran after him.
Catching up to him, she stopped as Harvey found a particular page in the Encyclopedia Magica.
"Happened before….the drain spell from beyond the mirror." Harvey looked up from the pages that described the spells used on him during his first life's deathbed.
"And four winds spread. Where a different source of strength is given from a different location each time."
"Two spells merged into one, a new spell, one designed to…..to take a bit of the life-force from….from multiple dimensions, not enough to kill but, it backfired….. " Harvey said and looked up to the semi-demonic Sabrina that stood before him.
"Harvey, what are you saying?" Sabrina asked him with worry.
"I…I'm not…this isn't the past, I'm…I'm not Harvey …." Harvey said as dropped the book and fell to his knees in despair
"What!? Of course you are! You're Harvey! You're my Harvey!" Sabrina said and kneeled to his level, grabbed his face and turn his gaze towards her and caressed his cheek lovingly.
"No….the spell backfired. It was supposed to take a bit of life from Harvey's from other dimensions, but…..but it did something else. ….. I jumped into the body of your Harvey."
The cough did not come, the horror of what he realize where so much that not even the price of the spell could manifest itself. He was in pain beyond suffering, agony beyond comprehension. He was now so enveloped in pain that he could not be hurt anymore
For now he realized that Tommy of his world still died horribly, that every single one he loved still died to young.
That everything he did, every joy he earned in this second life was not his. It was someone else, someone else whose life ended in the woods on Sabrina's failed baptism when Old Harvey opened his eyes and discovered he was young again.
"…. I'm not your Harvey…..I took over his life."
"W-what do you mean?" She asked with dread.
"I killed him."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Another dimension, a very familiar one.
Harvey opened his eyes and found darkness before them, he coughed as he could not breathe, he felt his entire body being pressured from all sides, it was like drowning but it was in mud and dirt and not water.
Survivals instincts kicked in and Harvey dug himself out of the shallow hole he seemed to be buried in.
The last thing he remembered was walking in the woods with Sabrina before her 16th birthday, then everything went blank.
And he found himself buried alive in the woods.
Going to a nearby brook he found that he was now blonde haired, and then memories started flooding him. How he was the school football star. How someone named Evangeline Porter, but had miss Wardwell's face said to him that Sabrina may be cheating with him in the woods.
"Did I…I just jumped dimensions like in the comic books?" The Harvey from the second world thought as a flood of memories struck him. He remembered being devoured by strange corpses in the woods.
Then another round of memories came, of another life, of another brown haired Harvey, of dying as an old man and waking up in the woods again
The woods!
He was in the woods, a wood even more cursed than the ones back in his Greendale.
"Okay, I just did a dimension jump, probably someone else is in my original body now. They guy here is dead and gone and in heaven, Calm down, calm down."
Harvey thought to himself as he made his way to the house where from blonde Harvey's memories he knew this version of his parents lived.
He ran with all his might to get out of the woods before nightfall, and once he was in blonde Harvey's home he was to overwhelmed by the shocking amount of love that his not mother and not father gave him that he didn't know how to react.
They were in such euphoria that he was pretty sure he could have told them that he was their son from another dimension and was dating a witch, and that their real son was dead and in probably in heaven, and they would not even perceive it.
But he didn't, all he did was reply as curt as possible, talk with them for half the night and then go to his room.
And despite knowing now from the memories of two lifetimes that this would end in tears, like it ended before he picked up the phone and dialed her number.
"Harvey?"
"Hello Sabrina." He said with a smile, despite knowing that this time it would end in tears as well.
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