Chapter 6: Six for Coven
Only a ticking clock broke the silence. Everyone was staring at the garnet cup. Compared to its golden equivalent, it looked quite simple and dreadfully old. It had kept its brown metallic shine even with its long stay in (spectre-haunted) water. The garnets circled the middle, glimmering under the electric lights.
"How is that supposed to open a door to hell?" asked Abbie as she dropped in the chair Crane had pushed for her.
She was exhausted. A trip to New York, a hike, a fight against spectres and responding to an attack by a cult, all of these had made it a very long day for both her and Crane. A very long day and not nearly enough apple pie to compensate any of it!
"Well," Tom started as he sat back on the table, apparently unable to use a chair like a proper human being, "I'd lie if I said I knew every details of the story, for the Wikihow , we might need to ask Mrs Uiara and her coven. What I'm sure of, however, is that the procedure must be a pain in the ass for the one doing it." he pursued, making Crane facepalm.
"You talked about a cell in between worlds, how hard would it be to open a new one if they had the cups?" asked Jenny without looking up from her phone.
Tom remained silent for a moment before sighing:
"Harder than to simply reopen the one that has been created by the witches. To access the first one, you already need to have both a power source and a conducting element to act as the key, it's a bit like physics and electricity if you'd like. The Radiance cups were created to be such an element, however, they were so deeply marked by the ritual that they now radiate energy. That's why they've been given that name and why they're so hard to hide. So, the cups are the key, the power switch, the witches were the battery and the portal is the lightbulb." he explained, using his bubble-tea cup and two pens to illustrate what he meant.
"Given they consider Uiara to be an abomination, I doubt our dear french fries will happily use witches." Abbie remarked, struggling to hide a yawn.
"I do not believe we can still call them French leftenant," Crane corrected with a small smile, "moreover, the fact that they loath the occult does not mean they will not use it for their own gain." he added as he thought back to Barbier's unnatural resistance.
"They already got rid of the circle, maybe they plan on using a different 'power source'?" Abbie suggested, "What could possibly equal or top that?"
At Abbie's question, Tom let out a short, exhausted chuckle:
"Oh dearest… Demons are not all powerful like Moloch was. Some can kick his ass, some have asses I can kick on my own. But to answer safely your question, I'd say angels, Nephilims, gods or, well, -he chuckled once more- the antichrist I presume."
Jenny shook her head. Angels. Right. She had seen her fair share of estranged creatures during her lifetime, but angels seemed so… Far-fetched. Too good to be true. In a world of shades of gray, she simply could not see how they would exist.
"Barbier said you had stolen something from him, do you mind telling me what it is? Maybe it's something we can use against them?" Tom pursued, as if he had not noticed Jenny's reaction.
Before Crane would think of a sarcastic (and actually polite) way of telling the red-head that yes, he fucking minded since he had no wish of seeing him here in the first place, Abbie answered:
"He says we stole his medal but his dumb ass actually dropped it when he stole the golden cup at the office." she explained, pulling a small transparent evidence bag from her pocket.
In it was the small golden plate she had found, the cult's symbol easily recognisable carved into the metal. Tom examined it briefly, innerly scoffing about the design.
"Tell me miss Mills," he eventually said as he looked up to Jenny, "how hard do you think it would be to cast a permanent location spell on such a thing?"
Jenny grabbed the medal, turning it between her fingers as she examined it.
"It looks pretty old already, it has good integrity, the spell would be able to anchor itself pretty easily for at least a few years, that's for sure. I was planning to meet with Adair, my 'friend' of the coven tomorrow, you should come with me to talk with Uiara, maybe we'll be granted access to their cup."
Crane nodded:
"Maybe we will be able to reverse the spell and track them down instead. If we could also protect both cups, we might just have time to get back the golden one."
"Yeah, 'bout that," Tom started, absently biting his lower lip, "How long d'you think it's going to take them to realise they don't need the cups to open the cell?"
The three others stared at him hardly. The red-head awkwardly smiled. It was fairly logic. The cups had been used to open a portal to lock something in and controlled by two covens. The two covens had charged them with magic but the cups had likely had a role in keeping the creature still. It would be immensely easier to just crash into reality's wall and tear a path to hell using the cage than it had been to create said cage and locking that thing away. Sure, the cups would have been a nice touch to both decoration and to avoid a huge power consumption, maybe it would have even reduced the number of witches necessary to a single one but still. Tom was well aware that, to take a walk down to Lucifer's back garden, one only needed a sinner, ambition and the occult equivalent of a bomb. He had had the three once upon a time.
"Don't look at me like that! It's not my fault they're stupid enough not to have realised it sooner. Or they're not stupid and huge drama queens, you take your pick. The Radiance cups are powerful artifacts but for what they intended to do, having the three is useless! Sure, it'll make things easier, but they already have one, let's assume whoever gave that bastard his resistance has the bare minimum in occult power, they'd need like, two cups out of the three!" he eventually explained, "Good news, you guys now have one and the witches have another one, which means you should be able to take the night off, no offense, but y'all look exhausted."
And, indeed, they all looked tired.
The morning had risen way too quickly for Abbie's taste, leaving her with only a handful of hours of sleep, a coffee and a shower hot enough to boil hell. It was now about nine a.m and Crane, Jenny and her were currently standing in the green themed living room of a middle-class house near the historical centre of Sleepy Hollow. Last night, or had it been early morning? Jenny's 'friend' had texted her this address where they had been let in after giving their names.
The room was an old-fashioned salon with a stone fireplace, empty, two blue-ish sofa, a few bookcases and club armchairs. Between the two sofa was a coffee table with a glass top below which had been put a maquette version of the city. The whole left wall seemed to be made of glass thanks to its many windows whose curtain had been pushed away to clear the view. It also had two white doors, one just behind their back, through which they had entered, and another one, identical, in front of them.
The latter opened a few minutes later on the strangest duo. Mrs Uiara was one of the two, wearing a tailored black suit with thin purple stripes, you could barely see the bandages below the collar. It was hard to believe that, just the night before, she had been in the hospital. The second person was an androgynous young man with striking pink hair and a well-kept seven-day beard (black, not pink), he was wearing light but expensive (in both time and money) make up with an eyeliner sharp enough to kill God. As soon as he noticed Jenny, a bright smile appeared on his lips.
"It's nice to finally see your face again, Jenny!" he exclaimed as he walked towards her to pull the young woman into a bear hug.
Jenny laughed. Abbie looked like she had seen a real bear juggle with the Radiance Cups. Crane seemed slightly concerned (for Abbie). The man eventually let Jenny down who turned to face the two others:
"Abbie, Crane, this is Adair, Adair, meet my sister."
Still smiling more brightly than his hair, Adair shook strongly both of the Witnesses' hands.
"Adair and I met when I did a few errands for Corbin in Morocco. We kinda hang out since." Jenny explained with a shrug at her sister's astonished face.
"Thank you for helping Rayen last night, somehow, she was not able to contact us." Adair pursued on a more serious tone, "We could not possibly be more grateful."
"There's nothing to thank us for, it's our job. Well, especially mine." Abbie answered once he had (finally) let go of her hand.
"Tea?" Mrs Uiara asked.
Leaving them to their greetings, she had somehow brought back a silver tray with five cups, cookies, a tea pot, sugar and what was likely a pot of milk. And yet, Abbie could've sworn she was not British.
"With pleasure." Crane answered as he followed Uiara's sign to sit down in the sofa.
Adair sat with Rayen on the second one while the Mills' sisters sat next to Crane. Soon enough, everyone had a hot cup of tea between their hands. With small talk, they quickly learnt that, since her house was currently a crime scene, Mrs Uiara had been forced to seek refuge in one of the coven's safe house.
"It should be more protected than my own house but I hope to leave soon enough, this house will be way more useful to someone else." Rayen confirmed with a nod as she blew softly on her tea to take a sip.
Crane did not miss Adair rolling his eyes.
"You're the only one who's been attacked so far, it's only fair for you to use the safe house."
"Oh, that reminds me," Abbie started, putting her cup back on the tray, "I'm not familiar with covens and even less with their hierarchy but I meant to ask: what role do you have exactly in your circle?" she pursued, unable to see if her question was inappropriate or not.
After all, she had met like, what? Five witches? Including two who had tried to kill her, one she had more or less blew up and none of them had been part of a coven at the time. What she knew came from old books, and surely it had changed by now.
"That's a very good question lieutenant Mills and I wish I knew the answer myself." Rayen sighed, her tea cup making a metallic tinkle as she put it back on its saucer.
Abbie and Crane exchanged a confused look while Jenny only stared at Adair. The latter bit his lip, suddenly gloomy.
"Witch coven often don't follow true hierarchy rules, at least ours does not. We however do have a founder who's considered to be our spiritual leader of some sorts, but our coven is just a sort of club where we shared knowledge and keep ourselves safe. Sadly, Luciana (our founder) disappeared about a month ago now." Uiara explained calmly, although she was clearly affected by that subject.
Adair pursued:
"We did everything we could to find her but there's nothing, not the slimmest clue. We tried every spells in the books and some that aren't written down, we even signalled her disappearance to the police but nothing. As for now, since she's the next elder, Rayen acts as our leader-"
"But it's a temporary solution, I have no wish to lead nor the capacity. Children were enough when they didn't have magic powers at the tips of their hands!" concluded the oldest with a sharp exhale.
The subject was closed.
"Now, Adair told me you wanted us to examine something to check for spells?"
She barely had time to finish her sentence that Abbie had Barbier's medal in her hand. Rayen took the evidence bag carefully.
"What spell are you looking for exactly?" she asked as Adair handed her white gloves to manipulate the necklace.
"A location spell," Crane answered, "Miss Jenny already informed us it was more than likely to find one but we would like to be sure and maybe find a way to reverse the process."
Unlike what Crane or Abbie had expected, Rayen made no invocations of any sort and only tapped the left lens of her glasses. The latter turned slightly purple as the witch observed the talisman, turning the chain around to examine the medal correctly. As the sun glimmered on the metal, golden reflections were sent all over the room, shining on the trinkets hidden behind the glass. Eventually, Rayen nodded:
"There is something looking like a location spell. It's ugly work but it's powerful enough to work for a good decade, I'd say it has already been renewed at least twice since the first spell was cast."
Abbie and Crane barely exchanged a look: they had obviously reached the same conclusion.
"Whoever cast that spell must know where the necklace is, it won't be hard for them to get to us."
The grey haired woman nodded, giving back the medal to Abbie.
"Absolutely, which isn't much of a problem for us anyway since I should be able to invert the spell. The closer they will be, the easiest they'll be found. It might take a while for me to untangle this mess of a spell though, they didn't bother to undo the previous one before casting again." she warned them, shaking her head as she judged the quality of the enchantment.
Adair had finished his cup of tea and stood up.
"In the meanwhile, maybe I could show them the vault?"
Jenny's eyes lit up as she heard the last word. Crane could only hope their vault would be less of an ordeal than Tom's hideout in the lake. He had had enough haunting voices already and had no intention of adding new ones. Mrs Uiara glanced at Abbie and Jenny before nodding.
"Sure, tell Nina I agreed, we don't need her trying to slam punch a Witness."
According to Crane, the coven's vault had many advantages compared to the lake. The greatest being the lack of melodramatics. Adair had led them to the elevator which had taken them to the house's basement, way lower than it should have been. Outside the sliding doors was a white corridor with a wooden floor. There were no objects, exception made of a stone bust. Now that she was closer to it, Jenny couldn't look at anything else. The statue was almost scary. It was a realistic depiction of a woman of unknown origin who looked like anyone and no one, whose long hair had run slim on the left side of her head where a large burn scar was. It was painful to look at those details, carefully carved into marble skin. Under the bust was a bronze plaque with the following quote: Elsewhere is where we hope to arrive .
Honestly, Jenny had almost expected Adair to flip the head of the statue up to reveal a big ol' red button to open a secret door. Instead, he walked through the corridor until reaching its end. There, he pulled a handle which no one else had noticed and opened a large door, letting it slide until the entrance was fully revealed.
"Nina, you here?" Adair asked as he moved further in, leaving the others to catch up.
As they did so, Abbie heard a few words in Spanish that suspiciously looked like swears. What she had guessed to be the vault previously mentioned was actually a room with brick walls which would have looked perfectly normal in a basement if not for the bow window on the east wall. Through it, you had a postcard-perfect view of a starry night sky, not one you would be able to see anywhere near cities. On the side near the door was a bulky desk made in pine-wood which seemed to be organised to the millimetre. There was a portable computer, a pencil-case with colourful pencils and two stacks of papers which dreadfully looked like administration paperwork.
"Well, now I am, thanks to you." someone answered in English and annoyance.
At the desk sat a woman in her very early twenties, with deep brown hair in a messy bun which held to dear life only thanks to a green coloured pencil. She had dark eyes, hidden behind dark circle and round purple-ish glasses. She was definitely the one Abbie had heard speaking in Spanish, however, the lieutenant was rather certain the voice had came from the other side of the room.
So far, Crane had to admit his expectations and ideas on witches were being slowly corrected by what he was seeing (with a sledgehammer). First, he had not expected for Jenny's friend to be a man, not in a witch's coven which he would have expected to be women's only, and they all seemed to be… Colourful characters, far from the Gothic aesthetic he had been led to think of.
"Glad to see you again too, Nina," Adair retorted, rolling his eyes, "maybe you could try to play nice with our guests?"
'Nina' stood up and observed the three others from head to toe, obviously suspicious. Abbie noticed the same purple glimmer in her glasses' lens that she had seen with Rayen's. Eventually, the younger woman left her desk and joined Adair:
"Pleased to meet you, I'm Saturnina Arechavaleta and I will try to 'play nice' as long as you do not mess with anything down here." she said with a smile so fake and tensed it could have been part of the corridor's statue.
Abbie took on herself to smile politely before introducing them:
"I'm lieutenant Abbie Mills, this is my sister Jenny and my partner, Ichabod Crane."
Nina's face lit up with understanding as she heard their names.
"Oh, I see. I guess Rayen's the one who said yes for them to be here?" she pursued, turning towards Adair
The latter nodded:
"Yup, she said they needed to see the vault where we keep the Washington cup."
"I suppose it's the name you gave to your Radiance cup?" Crane guessed as Nina was looking through the left stack of administrative papers on her desk.
"Yes, since the Sapphire came for them, it seemed legit. It does piss of Greg but no one really cares about what she says so…" Adair answered, his voice trailing off as he shrugged the matter away.
Without a word but with what seemed to be a printed Excel sheet, Nina walked past them to the opposite wall. Abbie hadn't looked much into it, honestly. It was just bricks, without anything else to cover it. But now that she thought about it, nothing was the best cover (and moreover, she had read and watched Harry Potter and The Philosopher Stone enough times not to trust simple brick walls, she would never admit it but she somewhat hoped for Nina to tap on the stones and reveal a secret passage to some magic shopping mall). For her greatest enjoyment, Nina did tap on the bricks with her paper but it seemed mostly random, without any link to an invocation.
"Alright, let's see…" the youngest muttered, reading the lines of her sheet before pursuing, "Vault Charlie twenty-four Alpha seventeen ten please."
As she finished, the wall rearranged itself brick by brick until a tall metal door appeared. It had, on its right side, an elaborated control panel which was composed of a retinal scanner, a digital print one and a keyboard to type a code. There was something quite ethereal to see technology and magic mixed so elaborately, and rather fun too, as Crane understood little of both.
As expected, it took a long minute (and a few swears) for Nina to complete the two scans and the code. As she took a step back, the doors slid open to reveal a small room, about the size of a cupboard, blindingly bright.
"Feel free to enter but do keep your hands away from everything, the safety procedures are still up." Nina warned as she gestured for the three to move forward.
Inside the room, Jenny quickly realised that its walls were covered in light panels. In the center, lazily floating above a black stand, was the silver cup. The metal it was made of was so pure it could have been a prop on the set of the Lord of the Rings. It had been carved to represent a lake in the middle of an eerie forest, with the blue stone as the water. In Jenny's opinion, it was a bit too much and the garnet cup was way better.
"I guess we can't touch it, uh?" she asked, barely turning her head towards Adair who had stayed near the door.
He opened his mouth to answer but was cut short by the younger woman:
"Not if you want to keep your hands attached to your body."
"They don't joke around with their security, I can see why they think their Radiance cup would be safe here." Abbie shrugged, looking around the safe as she cared little for the whimsical cup in the middle.
Crane didn't seem to agree, eyes still locked on the sapphire. It made sense not to trust witches for him after all.
"You seem to forget how easily Barbier broke through Mrs Uiara's defences, and she appears to be the current leader of the coven." he therefore retorted, straightening his back, "Without speaking ill, I believe the Sword might be able to steal it here too which would lead to even more deaths."
Someone laughed. Ichabod turned around, cocking an eyebrow in annoyance. Nina was half leaning on the whole, a cocky grin on her lips.
"I'd like to see them try. First, they would need to find the safe house, manage to break its defenses, find the elevator, break through more defenses, let's say they manage to get to the corridor unarmed, they'd face ol' Mhairi who doesn't like intruder! Then again, they'd have to find the entrance to this room, kill me or whoever is in charge at the moment, find the right safe, ask for it politely, pass the two scans, find the codes and deactivate the security inside the safe both occult and technological."
Jenny glanced at her sister and crane before shrugging:
"You gotta agree it does seem hard."
As the three exited the Vault, the large door through which they had entered the room reopened on Uiara and her tailored suit. Nina greeted her with a smile, and Abbie would lie if she said she had not noticed the young woman straightening her back as the oldest walked in.
"I believe I should give this back to you lieutenant," she started, handing her the evidence back inside which she had put back the medal, "I've managed to invert the spell but I had to undo the two first, it shouldn't be a problem though."
She brought up a recent map of the country and unfolded it. It had the advantages of showing every road which had been constructed recently, it was always better than those old paper ones Abbie had got used to work with since she had met Crane.
"I linked the medal and the spell to this map, the blood drop show where the spell as been produced and will move along with the caster, as you can see, they already started moving." Uiara explained as she pushed away what was on the desk to unfold the map (all under Nina's horrified look).
With the strains of blood lingering on almost all the region of the Great Lakes but especially over Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, it might as well have been used for some ritual sacrifices to a high-school geography teacher.
"Thank you Mrs Uiara, you've been a great help." Abbie tanked her.
"Don't mention it and please, do call me Rayen."
As Jenny was about to fold back the map, she brutally stopped. A droplet was sliding down the side, slowly. The movement was so natural that she believed she had messed it up by folding the paper too quickly. But surely, it could not be so simple with magic.
"Looks like our prep time ran out." Adair noticed as he looked over her shoulder, "They're moving towards our state and I doubt they're just going for a tourist strut in Central Park."