Disclaimer: Hi, guys! We're back with a few more weeks to spare! Well,
the gang has moved onto Ireland right now to face more danger and
adventures (although they obviously don't know that, or they wouldn't
go). Hehe ... read and review, pleeeease? We may think of giving one of
our loyal reviewers a cameo in the future ... [wink] And passages in { }
indicate dreams, visions, etc. Anyway, Hunter's reference to killer
roaches comes from the X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages".
Summary: The coven arrives in Ireland and immediately begin to doubt
the safety of their new vacation spot.
Part X: Negative Space
{"Morgan ..."}
{A flash of light. A burst of something red. Blood. The moon was full. Knives sharpening. Growling ... screeching ... and screaming.}
{"Morgan! Stop!"}
{Binding her ... her wrists were sore ... her head was battered and overloaded with thoughts ... sacrifice ... blood ...}
{"You can't stop this!"}
{"They're all going to die unless you let me do this."}
{My friends ... my lover ... my destiny was this, I was certain ... I needed to do this ... why was he stopping me?}
{"NO!!!"}
{Stabbed. Crumpling to the ground. Hurting ... it hurt so much ...}
{Bleeding ... why did I have to do this? I wouldn't let them destroy me along with my coven.}
MORGAN'S P.O.V
My eyes snapped open with impossible speed as my heart skipped a beat and I was jolted back to consciousness. My arms felt numb, and I twisted my neck around quickly, thus inadvertently assuring that I would not be able to bend it for several weeks in the future. I didn't know where I was.
"Morgan? Are you all right?"
Hunter was looking at me, concerned, from his seat next to me; his magazine still open in his lap, he put his hand to my forehead.
"You don't look well," he said, worry starting to dawn in his voice. "Are you okay?"
I just stared at him, my eyes wide. The dream was still vivid in my memory.
"Yeah," I said shakily after a moment, giving my head a slight shake and forcing myself back into reality. "I'm okay. Just ... a bad dream."
I looked around at my friends in the small airplane that we were flying over St. George's Channel in. Robbie was asleep, Bree was looking at a clothing catalogue and clearly struggling to stay awake, and Raven and Sky, who were sitting behind Hunter and I, were giggling over an old photo album that Sky had borrowed from her parents.
"Hey, Morgan, take a look at this one," Sky said, trying not to laugh as she handed me a worn photograph that depicted, upon closer inspection, a six-year-old Hunter, clad in a little Batman outfit complete with hood and cape, being chased by a huge bulldog. "Remember that one, Hunter?"
"Give me that!" Hunter demanded in disgust as I tried to stifle a snort of laughter and ended up nearly choking on air.
"What happened?" I asked. "Or do I not want to know?"
"Hunter was parading around in front of the dog singing the Batman Song," Sky replied, still watching Hunter with a teasing look. "Remember the song? How did it go again ..." She thought to herself for a moment. "Um ... I'm the mighty, mighty Batman ... fighting –"
"I'm the might, mighty Batman / Fighting crime in Gotham City / Strongest in the Woodbane clan / Won't you come and fly with me?" Hunter said in one quick breath and then proceeded to put on his headphones and drown himself in elevator music as Raven, Sky, and I all but exploded with laughter.
When we hadn't stopped five minutes later, Hunter just gave us an annoyed look. "All right, that's enough laughter at my expense. Didn't Sky ever tell you about the time that she swallowed an open safety pin?"
Sky stopped laughing rather quickly.
"I was three," she muttered, and then sulked back in her chair.
"Four."
"Liar."
I had always enjoyed listening to Hunter and Sky's meaningless banter. It almost helped me get my mind off of that dream.
Almost.
PORTRUSH, IRELAND
Ireland was beautiful.
It may be redundant to say that, but it was the only thought on my mind as the six of us walked through Portrush, Ireland, which was a medium-sized town a few miles south of the North Channel. Dragging our luggage behind us, we couldn't concentrate fully on the town, but what I saw of it was incredible. The buildings of tiny Portrush were constructed from faded red brick with small, single-pane wooden windows built into the second and third-story floor's walls; the street scene was exactly what I would have expected from an Irish town with a produce market selling tomatoes, beans, squash, carrots, lettuce, a fish market that was, unfortunately, smelling up the whole street, and a gray, rough cobblestone street. Townspeople were talking in mixes of languages, ranging from English to what I recognized as Irish Gaelic.
"Come on," Hunter said as Bree and Sky both stopped to coo over an adorable terrier puppy that was walking with its owner, who just so happened to be a quite visually pleasing man in his early twenties. As Raven glowered at the man, who was openly ogling Sky, and Robbie sent a glare in his direction that, in an alternate universe, would have paralyzed him from the arms down, Hunter stopped walking and looked up to see a creaking, old, peeling sign hanging from the green-and-white striped awning over a wooden door.
"This is it."
We all looked up at the building that we had stopped in front of; the walls were wooden, unlike many of the other buildings in this section of the town, and painted green. A sign above the awning read, in old-fashioned Celtic lettering, The Candle Lodge.
"This is where we're staying?" Raven asked, her eyebrows slightly raised.
"An old friend of mine runs the place," Hunter said. "I met him while I was investigating a series of deaths related to killer cockroaches." At all of our stares, he just shook his head. "Please don't ask."
Like any of us wanted to.
The lodge's exterior belied its appearance on the interior, however; if any of us had been thinking that staying at the Candle Lodge would be a form of torture that one could complain to at Amnesty International, we were sorely mistaken. The warm tones of the wooden walls and wafting scents of incense and candles instantly created a heavy, pleasant atmosphere, and there was a lingering aroma of flowers in the air. The lobby of the lodge itself was striking, or at least more beautiful than the interior of a Marriott; green velvet-upholstered couches and orange chaisonals were arranged in a semi- circle around the large wooden fireplace, in which burned a crackling fire that cast a soft glow on the furniture.
"So where is this friend of yours?" Sky asked, clearly noticing, as I had, that the place was empty.
"Oh, he, um ..." Hunter seemed a little uncomfortable. "He had to leave town for a week or so, and I convinced him to allow us to care for the lodge for a few days."
"Does that mean we'll have to deal with guests and stuff?" Bree asked, looking discontented at that prospect.
"Oh, no," Hunter said quickly. "No, the lodge is closed for the week. As far as everyone else is concerned, there aren't any vacancies left."
"And you managed to convince him to leave through logic and reasoning, I assume?" Sky asked pointedly. "Hopefully in a non-magickal way?"
"Council member right here. I don't abuse magick, remember?" He paused. "Although I may have done a little chant or something to open his mind to the possibility of a vacation."
Sky sighed.
"So ... we all have our own rooms here, right?" I asked quickly. "I mean, there are a ton of empty ones, right?"
"Right," Hunter said, glad for a change of topic. "Yes, the keys are all behind the desk here ..." He hurried over behind the check-in counter and pulled three sets of keys off of the key rack, then looked back at all of us. "So how do you guys want to split it up?"
We just looked at him.
"Ah, yes," he said after a moment, obviously embarrassed. "The obvious way."
LATER
While this lodge was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and comforting places that I had ever visited in my entire life, I couldn't shake a few of the doubts that I was feeling concerning the town of Portrush that I had felt ever since we had arrived. I couldn't explain them, either, but they felt like ... something was off. Something about this quaint, quiet, old little town was off. Wrong somehow. Something didn't feel right.
I wasn't about to ruin my friends' happiness, though. Hunter and Sky had opted to stay behind and explore the interior of the inn building, but Raven, Bree, and Robbie had headed out into the town to do 'the tourist thing', as Bree had put it. Sky was clearly glad to be out of England despite the fact that she had made her peace with her parents. Maybe being back there was, overall, just too emotionally destabilizing.
Feigning a headache, I had retired to the lodge room that Hunter and I would be sharing and flopped down on the bed, burdened with an intense lassitude. I couldn't even bring myself to kick off my shoes. Feeling great relief when my eyes actually closed, I made a firm resolution to take a quick fifteen-minute nap and then help Hunter and Sky investigate the rest of the building. Suddenly, though, that didn't seem as plausible ...
{Flying ... no, not flying ... falling ... falling ...}
{"Morgan! Morgan, wake up! Morgan, please wake up!" Panic ... fear ... he was calling her, but she couldn't reach him. The black was so overpowering. She knew that the blood was spilling, but she couldn't stop it. She couldn't even open her eyes ...}
{Someone help me ...}
{Morgan ...}
{Morgan ...}
{Morgan!}
"Morgan!" Someone was shaking me.
For the second time in the same day, my eyes snapped open and poor Sky barely avoided the witch fire that I had accidentally hurled at her.
"Oh, my God!" I cried, suddenly wide awake. "I'm so sorry, Sky! You just scared me, I didn't mean to, I –"
"Just get up, lazy," she said with a small smile, clearly trying not to laugh at my babbling apologies. "We have to help Hunter."
"I know," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I was about to, but –"
"No, I mean, we need to help him right now."
My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, it's nothing terribly serious. We were just peering around the basement of this fine establishment when Hunter foolishly decided to test a loose floorboard, fell down through the floor, and found himself trapped in a pit dug into the earth."
The horror that Sky's statement should have instilled in me was surprisingly absent and I found myself wanting to laugh. Something like that could only happen to Hunter.
"As long as he's okay ..."
"Oh, he's fine. I just can't find a way to get him out."
With a sigh, I sat up and pulled my flip-flops on from where they had fallen off of my feet. "I guess we should help him, then."
"I suspected as much."
The rest of the lodge, as I soon learned, was not in quite as good shape as both my room and the lobby. Paint was peeling, water was dripping from a loose pipe in the dining room, in which most of the tables were covered with dusty sheets, and the kitchen was in a state of complete disarray, what with dozens and dozens of old, rusty dishes and pots with food permanently dried to their sides and a tablecloth home to so many wine and vomit stains that I nearly puked upon seeing it myself. It was in this dilapidated and disheveled room that the door to the basement could be found. Sky hesitated to open it and just stood looking at it for a moment.
"Are we ... going to rescue Hunter soon?" I asked hesitantly.
"It's, um ... it's kind of dark in there," she admitted. "And the light switch is at the bottom of the stairs."
I paused after I realized what could have been a stunning epiphany concerning my fellow coven-mate. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
"No," Sky said quickly. "But one never knows what could be down there. Haven't you ever seen any of those horror movies where someone walks down the basement stairs and it's all dark and then they're attacked by a –"
"I can't believe this," I said in awe, my mind spinning as my face split into an uncontrollable grin. "Sky Eventide is afraid of the dark."
"No, I'm not!"
"Yes, you are!" Hunter yelled from somewhere down in the basement.
"Do you want us to rescue you or not?"
"Sky, you've been afraid of the dark ever since you were four and I stole your Mickey Mouse nightlight. Now get down here and take a look at this!"
With an agitated growl, during which I just smiled serenely, Sky stalked down the basement steps and flipped on the light switch at the base of the staircase.
"There! See? I am not afraid of the dark!"
"That's beside the point." Hunter's voice was echoing, as I could see as I stepped down onto the dirt floor of the basement, from a deep pit that was, true to Sky's word, dug straight into the earth. The two of us leaned over the edge and were greeted with the sight of the top of Hunter's head.
"Goddess, that thing is deep," I said, amazed.
"Yes, around eight feet or so," Sky said with a sigh. "Short of levitating him up, I can't see a way to get him out. This place is completely devoid of rope or –"
"What about that step ladder sitting next to those cans of artichoke hearts?"
"What ladder next to the articho – oh."
"Thank you, Morgan," Hunter said pointedly a moment later as he climbed out of the earthen holding pen that he was previously imprisoned in. Sky just glared at him.
"What should I be taking a look at?"
"This." Hunter held out his hand, in which he was holding ... a human skull?
"Is that –"
"A human skull? Yes. It was lodged in the wall of the pit along with dozens of other heads, as well as other human bones," Hunter said, sounding apprehensive. "It's very old. It practically fell apart when I tried to pry it out; I had to use the makeup brush that Sky asked me to hold for her while she poked around the kitchen."
Sky gave an outraged yelp and grabbed the makeup brush that I was certain would never be usable again from Hunter's hands as I took the skull from Hunter's hands. Shivering slightly with the knowledge that I was holding an actual piece of the human skeletal system, I held it up to eye level and examined it closely. It was cracked and stained with a brown substance that I sincerely hoped was dried dirt and not dried blood.
"Hey ... Morgan, Hunter, come see this."
Sky had wandered over to the huge shelves bearing rolls of toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and, for some reason, the artichoke hearts that were previously mentioned. She had somehow shoved one of the shelves aside and was now examining the wood that provided the foundation of the building.
"Hunter, when was this building established?"
"I believe that it was built in 1854."
Sky sounded incredulous. "That's not possible. There's a brick foundation around the basement that is much older than that. I'd say ..." She looked up with a calculating expression for a moment. "Um ... maybe about three hundred or four hundred years old." She grinned suddenly. "Too bad you don't have your pee-wee science kit with you, Hunter."
Hunter gave an fuming and strangely effeminate squeal. "That's not even – that was from first grade."
"Fifth."
"Open safety pin."
"Okay, can we please examine the brick foundation now?" I asked irritably, for once getting tired of their sibling-like tiffs. "We have other more important issues at hand."
"I don't know what this friend of yours has been telling you, Hunter, but this building is definitely older than 150 years old. Most likely around four hundred. It must have been rebuilt after a fire or something of the sort, because these bricks are charred. And ... is this friend of yours a witch?"
Hunter now looked a little worried. "I-I don't think so."
"Well, then, someone who lived here previously clearly was. There are runes carved into the bricks."
"What?" Hunter and I were immediately by her side, examining the bricks of the lodge's foundation. Sure enough, hundreds of tiny runes and sigils were carved into the bricks, runes for death, chaos, famine, disease, and hate.
"A dark coven used to live here," Sky whispered. "And ..." She looked a little closer at a small cluster of sigils and ran her hand over them lightly. "These spell out 'power source'."
Hunter's face had grown ashen. "No wonder I felt such power from this place," he whispered. "It's built on a power sink."
"Is it safe to stay here?" I asked, unable to avoid the tremble in my voice.
"I'd wager that it is," Sky said. "Runes for protection are here, as well, but maybe we should ..." She paused. "consider finding another place to stay?"
"We have nowhere else here," Hunter said firmly. "This is the only lodge in town and most likely the only one for quite some distance."
"Whatever happened to that famous Irish hospitality?" I asked, a semi- mocking tone evident in my voice. "Seriously, though, Hunter, I think that it'll probably be okay. I mean, as long as it's not a dark magick power sink ..."
"No power sinks have an affinity for dark magick, Morgan," Hunter said. "Magick is neutral, remember? It's what people make of it that determines its ... we should be safe. I would, however, like to perhaps call for a few council members specialized to detect traces of dark magick."
Sky nodded, and as she and Hunter began to climb up the basement stairs back to the safety of the main floor, I stayed behind, still staring at the runes.
It was no wonder that my dream not twenty minutes ago had been so much more vivid than the one on the airplane. I was over a power sink, the like of which were known to always bolster and strengthen acts of magick or otherwise. I knew that, without a doubt but with much apprehension, that I would be experiencing more visions of what I had just seen. Visions of spilling blood, visions of death and destruction ... visions of my friends dying.
Visions of the future?
the gang has moved onto Ireland right now to face more danger and
adventures (although they obviously don't know that, or they wouldn't
go). Hehe ... read and review, pleeeease? We may think of giving one of
our loyal reviewers a cameo in the future ... [wink] And passages in { }
indicate dreams, visions, etc. Anyway, Hunter's reference to killer
roaches comes from the X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages".
Summary: The coven arrives in Ireland and immediately begin to doubt
the safety of their new vacation spot.
Part X: Negative Space
{"Morgan ..."}
{A flash of light. A burst of something red. Blood. The moon was full. Knives sharpening. Growling ... screeching ... and screaming.}
{"Morgan! Stop!"}
{Binding her ... her wrists were sore ... her head was battered and overloaded with thoughts ... sacrifice ... blood ...}
{"You can't stop this!"}
{"They're all going to die unless you let me do this."}
{My friends ... my lover ... my destiny was this, I was certain ... I needed to do this ... why was he stopping me?}
{"NO!!!"}
{Stabbed. Crumpling to the ground. Hurting ... it hurt so much ...}
{Bleeding ... why did I have to do this? I wouldn't let them destroy me along with my coven.}
MORGAN'S P.O.V
My eyes snapped open with impossible speed as my heart skipped a beat and I was jolted back to consciousness. My arms felt numb, and I twisted my neck around quickly, thus inadvertently assuring that I would not be able to bend it for several weeks in the future. I didn't know where I was.
"Morgan? Are you all right?"
Hunter was looking at me, concerned, from his seat next to me; his magazine still open in his lap, he put his hand to my forehead.
"You don't look well," he said, worry starting to dawn in his voice. "Are you okay?"
I just stared at him, my eyes wide. The dream was still vivid in my memory.
"Yeah," I said shakily after a moment, giving my head a slight shake and forcing myself back into reality. "I'm okay. Just ... a bad dream."
I looked around at my friends in the small airplane that we were flying over St. George's Channel in. Robbie was asleep, Bree was looking at a clothing catalogue and clearly struggling to stay awake, and Raven and Sky, who were sitting behind Hunter and I, were giggling over an old photo album that Sky had borrowed from her parents.
"Hey, Morgan, take a look at this one," Sky said, trying not to laugh as she handed me a worn photograph that depicted, upon closer inspection, a six-year-old Hunter, clad in a little Batman outfit complete with hood and cape, being chased by a huge bulldog. "Remember that one, Hunter?"
"Give me that!" Hunter demanded in disgust as I tried to stifle a snort of laughter and ended up nearly choking on air.
"What happened?" I asked. "Or do I not want to know?"
"Hunter was parading around in front of the dog singing the Batman Song," Sky replied, still watching Hunter with a teasing look. "Remember the song? How did it go again ..." She thought to herself for a moment. "Um ... I'm the mighty, mighty Batman ... fighting –"
"I'm the might, mighty Batman / Fighting crime in Gotham City / Strongest in the Woodbane clan / Won't you come and fly with me?" Hunter said in one quick breath and then proceeded to put on his headphones and drown himself in elevator music as Raven, Sky, and I all but exploded with laughter.
When we hadn't stopped five minutes later, Hunter just gave us an annoyed look. "All right, that's enough laughter at my expense. Didn't Sky ever tell you about the time that she swallowed an open safety pin?"
Sky stopped laughing rather quickly.
"I was three," she muttered, and then sulked back in her chair.
"Four."
"Liar."
I had always enjoyed listening to Hunter and Sky's meaningless banter. It almost helped me get my mind off of that dream.
Almost.
PORTRUSH, IRELAND
Ireland was beautiful.
It may be redundant to say that, but it was the only thought on my mind as the six of us walked through Portrush, Ireland, which was a medium-sized town a few miles south of the North Channel. Dragging our luggage behind us, we couldn't concentrate fully on the town, but what I saw of it was incredible. The buildings of tiny Portrush were constructed from faded red brick with small, single-pane wooden windows built into the second and third-story floor's walls; the street scene was exactly what I would have expected from an Irish town with a produce market selling tomatoes, beans, squash, carrots, lettuce, a fish market that was, unfortunately, smelling up the whole street, and a gray, rough cobblestone street. Townspeople were talking in mixes of languages, ranging from English to what I recognized as Irish Gaelic.
"Come on," Hunter said as Bree and Sky both stopped to coo over an adorable terrier puppy that was walking with its owner, who just so happened to be a quite visually pleasing man in his early twenties. As Raven glowered at the man, who was openly ogling Sky, and Robbie sent a glare in his direction that, in an alternate universe, would have paralyzed him from the arms down, Hunter stopped walking and looked up to see a creaking, old, peeling sign hanging from the green-and-white striped awning over a wooden door.
"This is it."
We all looked up at the building that we had stopped in front of; the walls were wooden, unlike many of the other buildings in this section of the town, and painted green. A sign above the awning read, in old-fashioned Celtic lettering, The Candle Lodge.
"This is where we're staying?" Raven asked, her eyebrows slightly raised.
"An old friend of mine runs the place," Hunter said. "I met him while I was investigating a series of deaths related to killer cockroaches." At all of our stares, he just shook his head. "Please don't ask."
Like any of us wanted to.
The lodge's exterior belied its appearance on the interior, however; if any of us had been thinking that staying at the Candle Lodge would be a form of torture that one could complain to at Amnesty International, we were sorely mistaken. The warm tones of the wooden walls and wafting scents of incense and candles instantly created a heavy, pleasant atmosphere, and there was a lingering aroma of flowers in the air. The lobby of the lodge itself was striking, or at least more beautiful than the interior of a Marriott; green velvet-upholstered couches and orange chaisonals were arranged in a semi- circle around the large wooden fireplace, in which burned a crackling fire that cast a soft glow on the furniture.
"So where is this friend of yours?" Sky asked, clearly noticing, as I had, that the place was empty.
"Oh, he, um ..." Hunter seemed a little uncomfortable. "He had to leave town for a week or so, and I convinced him to allow us to care for the lodge for a few days."
"Does that mean we'll have to deal with guests and stuff?" Bree asked, looking discontented at that prospect.
"Oh, no," Hunter said quickly. "No, the lodge is closed for the week. As far as everyone else is concerned, there aren't any vacancies left."
"And you managed to convince him to leave through logic and reasoning, I assume?" Sky asked pointedly. "Hopefully in a non-magickal way?"
"Council member right here. I don't abuse magick, remember?" He paused. "Although I may have done a little chant or something to open his mind to the possibility of a vacation."
Sky sighed.
"So ... we all have our own rooms here, right?" I asked quickly. "I mean, there are a ton of empty ones, right?"
"Right," Hunter said, glad for a change of topic. "Yes, the keys are all behind the desk here ..." He hurried over behind the check-in counter and pulled three sets of keys off of the key rack, then looked back at all of us. "So how do you guys want to split it up?"
We just looked at him.
"Ah, yes," he said after a moment, obviously embarrassed. "The obvious way."
LATER
While this lodge was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and comforting places that I had ever visited in my entire life, I couldn't shake a few of the doubts that I was feeling concerning the town of Portrush that I had felt ever since we had arrived. I couldn't explain them, either, but they felt like ... something was off. Something about this quaint, quiet, old little town was off. Wrong somehow. Something didn't feel right.
I wasn't about to ruin my friends' happiness, though. Hunter and Sky had opted to stay behind and explore the interior of the inn building, but Raven, Bree, and Robbie had headed out into the town to do 'the tourist thing', as Bree had put it. Sky was clearly glad to be out of England despite the fact that she had made her peace with her parents. Maybe being back there was, overall, just too emotionally destabilizing.
Feigning a headache, I had retired to the lodge room that Hunter and I would be sharing and flopped down on the bed, burdened with an intense lassitude. I couldn't even bring myself to kick off my shoes. Feeling great relief when my eyes actually closed, I made a firm resolution to take a quick fifteen-minute nap and then help Hunter and Sky investigate the rest of the building. Suddenly, though, that didn't seem as plausible ...
{Flying ... no, not flying ... falling ... falling ...}
{"Morgan! Morgan, wake up! Morgan, please wake up!" Panic ... fear ... he was calling her, but she couldn't reach him. The black was so overpowering. She knew that the blood was spilling, but she couldn't stop it. She couldn't even open her eyes ...}
{Someone help me ...}
{Morgan ...}
{Morgan ...}
{Morgan!}
"Morgan!" Someone was shaking me.
For the second time in the same day, my eyes snapped open and poor Sky barely avoided the witch fire that I had accidentally hurled at her.
"Oh, my God!" I cried, suddenly wide awake. "I'm so sorry, Sky! You just scared me, I didn't mean to, I –"
"Just get up, lazy," she said with a small smile, clearly trying not to laugh at my babbling apologies. "We have to help Hunter."
"I know," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I was about to, but –"
"No, I mean, we need to help him right now."
My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, it's nothing terribly serious. We were just peering around the basement of this fine establishment when Hunter foolishly decided to test a loose floorboard, fell down through the floor, and found himself trapped in a pit dug into the earth."
The horror that Sky's statement should have instilled in me was surprisingly absent and I found myself wanting to laugh. Something like that could only happen to Hunter.
"As long as he's okay ..."
"Oh, he's fine. I just can't find a way to get him out."
With a sigh, I sat up and pulled my flip-flops on from where they had fallen off of my feet. "I guess we should help him, then."
"I suspected as much."
The rest of the lodge, as I soon learned, was not in quite as good shape as both my room and the lobby. Paint was peeling, water was dripping from a loose pipe in the dining room, in which most of the tables were covered with dusty sheets, and the kitchen was in a state of complete disarray, what with dozens and dozens of old, rusty dishes and pots with food permanently dried to their sides and a tablecloth home to so many wine and vomit stains that I nearly puked upon seeing it myself. It was in this dilapidated and disheveled room that the door to the basement could be found. Sky hesitated to open it and just stood looking at it for a moment.
"Are we ... going to rescue Hunter soon?" I asked hesitantly.
"It's, um ... it's kind of dark in there," she admitted. "And the light switch is at the bottom of the stairs."
I paused after I realized what could have been a stunning epiphany concerning my fellow coven-mate. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
"No," Sky said quickly. "But one never knows what could be down there. Haven't you ever seen any of those horror movies where someone walks down the basement stairs and it's all dark and then they're attacked by a –"
"I can't believe this," I said in awe, my mind spinning as my face split into an uncontrollable grin. "Sky Eventide is afraid of the dark."
"No, I'm not!"
"Yes, you are!" Hunter yelled from somewhere down in the basement.
"Do you want us to rescue you or not?"
"Sky, you've been afraid of the dark ever since you were four and I stole your Mickey Mouse nightlight. Now get down here and take a look at this!"
With an agitated growl, during which I just smiled serenely, Sky stalked down the basement steps and flipped on the light switch at the base of the staircase.
"There! See? I am not afraid of the dark!"
"That's beside the point." Hunter's voice was echoing, as I could see as I stepped down onto the dirt floor of the basement, from a deep pit that was, true to Sky's word, dug straight into the earth. The two of us leaned over the edge and were greeted with the sight of the top of Hunter's head.
"Goddess, that thing is deep," I said, amazed.
"Yes, around eight feet or so," Sky said with a sigh. "Short of levitating him up, I can't see a way to get him out. This place is completely devoid of rope or –"
"What about that step ladder sitting next to those cans of artichoke hearts?"
"What ladder next to the articho – oh."
"Thank you, Morgan," Hunter said pointedly a moment later as he climbed out of the earthen holding pen that he was previously imprisoned in. Sky just glared at him.
"What should I be taking a look at?"
"This." Hunter held out his hand, in which he was holding ... a human skull?
"Is that –"
"A human skull? Yes. It was lodged in the wall of the pit along with dozens of other heads, as well as other human bones," Hunter said, sounding apprehensive. "It's very old. It practically fell apart when I tried to pry it out; I had to use the makeup brush that Sky asked me to hold for her while she poked around the kitchen."
Sky gave an outraged yelp and grabbed the makeup brush that I was certain would never be usable again from Hunter's hands as I took the skull from Hunter's hands. Shivering slightly with the knowledge that I was holding an actual piece of the human skeletal system, I held it up to eye level and examined it closely. It was cracked and stained with a brown substance that I sincerely hoped was dried dirt and not dried blood.
"Hey ... Morgan, Hunter, come see this."
Sky had wandered over to the huge shelves bearing rolls of toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and, for some reason, the artichoke hearts that were previously mentioned. She had somehow shoved one of the shelves aside and was now examining the wood that provided the foundation of the building.
"Hunter, when was this building established?"
"I believe that it was built in 1854."
Sky sounded incredulous. "That's not possible. There's a brick foundation around the basement that is much older than that. I'd say ..." She looked up with a calculating expression for a moment. "Um ... maybe about three hundred or four hundred years old." She grinned suddenly. "Too bad you don't have your pee-wee science kit with you, Hunter."
Hunter gave an fuming and strangely effeminate squeal. "That's not even – that was from first grade."
"Fifth."
"Open safety pin."
"Okay, can we please examine the brick foundation now?" I asked irritably, for once getting tired of their sibling-like tiffs. "We have other more important issues at hand."
"I don't know what this friend of yours has been telling you, Hunter, but this building is definitely older than 150 years old. Most likely around four hundred. It must have been rebuilt after a fire or something of the sort, because these bricks are charred. And ... is this friend of yours a witch?"
Hunter now looked a little worried. "I-I don't think so."
"Well, then, someone who lived here previously clearly was. There are runes carved into the bricks."
"What?" Hunter and I were immediately by her side, examining the bricks of the lodge's foundation. Sure enough, hundreds of tiny runes and sigils were carved into the bricks, runes for death, chaos, famine, disease, and hate.
"A dark coven used to live here," Sky whispered. "And ..." She looked a little closer at a small cluster of sigils and ran her hand over them lightly. "These spell out 'power source'."
Hunter's face had grown ashen. "No wonder I felt such power from this place," he whispered. "It's built on a power sink."
"Is it safe to stay here?" I asked, unable to avoid the tremble in my voice.
"I'd wager that it is," Sky said. "Runes for protection are here, as well, but maybe we should ..." She paused. "consider finding another place to stay?"
"We have nowhere else here," Hunter said firmly. "This is the only lodge in town and most likely the only one for quite some distance."
"Whatever happened to that famous Irish hospitality?" I asked, a semi- mocking tone evident in my voice. "Seriously, though, Hunter, I think that it'll probably be okay. I mean, as long as it's not a dark magick power sink ..."
"No power sinks have an affinity for dark magick, Morgan," Hunter said. "Magick is neutral, remember? It's what people make of it that determines its ... we should be safe. I would, however, like to perhaps call for a few council members specialized to detect traces of dark magick."
Sky nodded, and as she and Hunter began to climb up the basement stairs back to the safety of the main floor, I stayed behind, still staring at the runes.
It was no wonder that my dream not twenty minutes ago had been so much more vivid than the one on the airplane. I was over a power sink, the like of which were known to always bolster and strengthen acts of magick or otherwise. I knew that, without a doubt but with much apprehension, that I would be experiencing more visions of what I had just seen. Visions of spilling blood, visions of death and destruction ... visions of my friends dying.
Visions of the future?