It had been some time since Anita had been seen, or so Detective Chimp had been told. According to Alice, she had sequestered herself to her room following the events of Fred's murder. The sight of his corpse had sent the woman into hysterics that the house's occupants all heard. That had been the last time Alice had seen Anita, though that didn't mean she hadn't been out and about. The detective was quick to point that out, earning himself an eyeroll from his assistant.
Still, it was the last known location she had of the older woman, so they might as well check in on her. Perhaps she was still suffering from the trauma of finding a body in such a state. Detective Chimp could relate, but it was past time that she made herself useful. She had started this investigation; she couldn't stop halfway to its completion.
That last thought gave him pause. Surely she had seen such corpses before. Why was Fred's so alarming?
Arriving at her door, the chimp rapped his knuckles against the wooden barrier and patiently waited. Alice stood behind and to one side, a little less patient as he was. Seconds ticked by before he knocked again.
"What the heck is taking her?" Alice grumbled as she began to tap her foot impatiently, her arms crossed over her chest. "It's not like she's been doing anything."
Detective Chimp knocked again, but then his ears caught rustling sounds from beyond the door. "Says the woman that prefers not to get up until noon?" he quipped.
"Any time that ends with A.M. should be illegal," she retorted.
"Then calm yourself. She's about to open the door."
His timing could not have been more precise as the door cracked open, Anita peering through the gap between the door and doorway. "Can I help you?" she asked wearily.
"I certainly hope so," the detective replied pleasantly. "I have some questions concerning this house that I believe you can answer for me."
"What do you wish to know?"
"This would be a lot easier if you actually opened your door and talked with us instead of hiding behind it," Alice remarked snidely. "It's called hospitality."
"Yes, of course." Anita immediately opened the door wider, and she stepped through the doorway. "My apologies. I hope you can forgive my lapse in manners."
"Water under the bridge," Detective Chimp assured her. He wasn't one to allow bad manners to interfere in his investigation, even if Alice was one to point it out. Ironically, she was one to point out the flaws in another. She had her own bad behaviors she chose to write off as personality quirks.
"As I recall," he continued, "your family has been in ownership of the House of Mystery for quite some time."
"Centuries," Anita confirmed. "It was Cain of all people who wagered it in a card game and lost it. My ancestor took pity on him and kept him on as a caretaker."
"The man was full of vices," Alice observed.
"He was. Being Earth's first murderer does that to a man."
"So you are well-versed in its peculiarities," Detective Chimp pressed on. He was all for a good tangent, but the timing was atrocious, even if it drew his curiosity. "My understanding is that this house does not exist in one particular location."
"That is correct. It involves its construction as I recall. I'm not quite as familiar with those details, however."
"But because of this…enchantment…let's call it, would it make it possible for someone like the Enchantress to find it?"
Anita raised a finely groomed eyebrow at him. "Where are you going with this?"
"I am merely trying to ascertain how our pursuer was able to locate the House of Mystery, and thus us," the detective explained. "Our working hypothetical options are: one, she followed us here; two, she already knew the house's location and merely waited for us to arrive; or three, there's a traitor among us and that traitor leaked our location to her."
"That last one is quite a disturbing, if not a distressing thought," Anita mused. "What evidence do you have of it?"
"Nothing to convict, I'm afraid, but that is where you come in," Detective Chimp replied. "I wanted to at least consider the idea that the Enchantress could have found the House of Mystery prior to our arrival. If it turns out she could have, then we have more work to do to determine how she discovered us. If she could not have found the house, then we know the only way she could have found us is by being given the house's location."
"I see." Anita leaned her back against the frame of her door, crossing her arms beneath her bosom. "Then I am afraid I will complicate matters. The House of Mystery draws people to it like a moth to a flame. Cain was able to keep it at bay, but he did play into its desire to entertain guests from time to time. Those guests could be ordinary humans to the supernatural entities in our world, it did not matter. The Enchantress could have been drawn to the House at one time or another and learned its location that way."
"That still doesn't eliminate how she found out we were hiding here," Alice pointed out. "All a spy had to do was tell her we were coming here, and she could have come straight here."
This was true, Detective Chimp had to admit. It also indicated which theory his gothic assistant subscribed to. "We know she is here," he told Anita, which caused an alarmed look to appear on her face. "She has attacked Alice, though she was able to run her off. The state of Fred's body is in line with her M.O. of draining the lifeforce of her victims."
"This…this is most distressing," Anita sputtered as she seemed to slink back into her room. The chimp was quick to place one of his hands on the door to make certain she did not close it on them. "How could this have come to be?"
"When we learn that, we'll be one step closer to solving this mystery," the monkey told her. "And we need your assistance to accomplish that."
"How…how can I be of use?"
"Know of any weapons we could use against this hag?" Alice questioned nonchalantly. "If there's some artifact we can use to either drive her off, trap her, or hell, even destroy her, we could definitely use that."
Anita considered this. "Now that you speak of it, I am most certain that Cain would have kept such things in his safe. If we head to his office, we could obtain them."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go get us some mystical weapons!" Alice cheered.
The older woman nodded as she stepped back into the hallway, closing her room door behind her. "If you would follow me, I will lead you there."
Zatanna couldn't help the sense of deja vu she felt as she entered Cain's office, even if it was her second time there. It was just like the visual she had been provided when the House of Mystery told her of Cain's death. Eyeing the desk, she could see a piece of paper with a pen lying next to it, just like Cain had left them.
Faintly, she felt the House's presence in the back of her head, wanting to—
Not right now, she immediately commanded, and the House's presence shirked away. Huh, that had worked a little too well. Before, the House would get insistent that it wanted to tell her a story and would grumble to itself when she rejected it.
Jason Blood came to stand next to her, his eyes surveying the room. You could see he was analyzing everything with just a look, though what he was looking for was beyond her.
Constantine had no such problem. He immediately passed right by them and began searching the room. He didn't bother with the desk, which is one thing she would have checked first if it had been her doing the searching. Jason seemed to notice this as well as he raised an eyebrow.
"I get the sense you've been here before," the redhead observed.
"I may have stumbled upon it earlier," Constantine shrugged as he opened up a dresser drawer, then just as quickly closed it. He slowly began to crouch down as he opened each drawer and just as quickly closed them. Standing back up, his eyes glanced around before he began closing in on a closet.
"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Zatanna asked. "You mentioned something that could beat the Enchantress?"
"That's the idea," the British guy replied, opening the closet door.
"Perhaps we are in the wrong room," Jason said. "I haven't seen one artifact that I would describe as useful since we—"
"Found it!" Constantine exclaimed. That had been abrupt. The dark-haired woman couldn't help but feel curious, approaching the man from behind so she could see what had gotten him so excited. She came to stand just to his left so that she could peer around his shoulder, Jason joining her and looking over Constantine's right shoulder.
The blond man had shoved some hanging clothes to one side of the closet, revealing the back wall. Zatanna couldn't help but note the few scant pieces of clothing in here. What the heck was this guy looking for exactly?
"The last time I was here, I sensed something odd with this closet. Didn't think much of it until now," the blond man narrated as he stared at the back wall of the closet. He then muttered a few words, some sort of incantation, which revealed what exactly he was looking for. Fading into sight was a safe door built right into the back of the closet. It had a handle and a dial on its face, so nothing too modern.
Jason narrowed his eyes. "You were looking for Cain's safe earlier, weren't you." Though that sounded like a question, it was anything but. Jason clearly knew he was right.
"And found it," Constantine responded, reaching a hand into his coat pocket before pulling out a piece of white chalk. He began drawing a circle on the wall, encircling the safe door. "Cain was crafty; he put up a spell to make people lose interest in this spot. It worked me over good, I'll admit. Once you know the trick, however…" he trailed off as he continued his work. The moment he began drawing symbols on the outside of the circle, Zatanna knew he was making a seal.
Reaching out with her magical sense, the magician nearly flinched the moment she felt the sheer amount of spells that enchanted the safe. Dear Lord! That was insane! It was like there were twenty layers of them! Maybe even fifty! Through her eyes, the safe door was awash in every flowing color, a veritable rainbow. So many spells; so many different variants. It was pretty damn clear the owner didn't want anyone just opening it.
And Constantine was drawing a seal around it. Zatanna couldn't help but feel nervous watching him work.
However, it seemed he knew what he was doing. If he could sense the absurd number of spells protecting the safe, he either was ignoring them, or just didn't care. The dark-haired woman wondered how he could be so confident in what he was doing that he could do the equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and going ahead with what he was doing anyways.
"Uhh, you do know there's about a million security spells on that safe, right?" she decided to point out.
"Which is why we look both ways before we cross the road," Constantine murmured back. He was drawing directly on the safe door now, making a square within the surrounding circle. An upside-down pentagon was then added within the square, somehow its lines not crossing over the handle or dial. A few more symbols were added at the five pentagon points.
Then the blond man took a step back and surveyed his work. Zatanna had to give him credit, he had been working his butt off. The inside of the circle had been the last of his drawing. As for the outside of the circle, there was a literal alphabet of written out symbols, each symbol right next to each other until they formed their own outer ring around the seal.
Constantine began to mutter a chant under his breath, making it difficult to understand what he was saying. It was clear his seal heard him though, as it began to glow a radiant purple. Somehow, this didn't activate any of the security spells on the safe, which was a miracle in and of itself. Zatanna was certain one of them would have activated and blast them to kingdom come.
"And a one, and a two, and a…" Constantine suddenly spoke louder.
Much to her amazement, the handle turned and the door swung open. She blinked her eyes owlishly in incredulousness.
The blond man was immediately in front of the open safe then, reaching his hands into as he searched for…whatever he was looking for. A couple of ledgers were removed, Constantine turning to his right and handing them to Jason. He kept digging into the safe, always pulling something out and placing it into Jason's arms. They looked like papers and little knickknacks from what Zatanna could tell.
"Bollocks," Constantine ended up cursing after a moment. "It's not here."
"What's not here?" Zatanna questioned.
"The deed is missing."
Jason's face hardened. "You've been after the deed this entire time, haven't you?"
"Perhaps, a little," the blond man admitted, placing one hand on his hip, and the other on top of his head, where he scratched it. "This isn't good, ya know."
"Is it any worse than you having it in your possession?"
"Knock off the sass, Blood; it isn't a good color on ya." Constantine dropped his hand from his head as he turned to face the redhead. "You know as well as I do that whomever has the deed has complete control over the House of Mystery. Rumor had it that Cain had possession of it and kept it locked up here."
That caused Zatanna to frown. "But doesn't Anita own the House? Why wouldn't she have the deed?"
"Cause this House would drive anyone insane if they didn't have the deed. Cain wasn't one to have ulterior motives; he just liked living in this little house and tormenting any guests that came his way. Way I heard it, the Soulfeedas gave him the deed to hold onto for them. They're the owners, that's true, but no way does Cain live here as long as he did without being driven crazy."
"He could have already been crazy," the magician pointed out. "It's not a long drive to get more crazy."
Constantine stared at her for a moment. "Point," he admitted.
"It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that when Anita found Cain's body, she retrieved the deed," Jason added. "She could very well have it on her person right now."
"I suppose so. Anita doesn't strike me as someone that would leap to that idea all that quickly though, yeah? The way she was screamin' when we found Fred doesn't instill a lot of confidence."
Zatanna found herself frowning again. At this rate, she was going to start forming wrinkles; she needed to talk to Jason and Xanadu about how to avoid that, but at a later time.
See, there was something wrong with what Constantine said. He was right that Anita had screamed, don't get her wrong. Here was the problem though: "Don't you think she was overly dramatic with that scream?" she asked.
The two men looked her way. "I mean, you and I saw how shriveled up Cain's body was, the same way Fred's was. Anita was the one to find Cain, so Fred shouldn't have frightened her as badly as he did. Also, it was Anita that brought me onto this case. She's seen the Enchantress' handiwork up close and personal before. Her finding Fred's body shouldn't have made her scream like that."
Jason and Constantine shared a look with each other. It was clear they saw where she was going with this. Why would Anita make such a commotion if she had seen bodies like that before? Heck, if Zatanna removed the recency of all of these bodies, surely the older woman would have seen worse things than this. A sorcerer or sorceress didn't reach old age without seeing some serious shit and conquering it.
She…she was getting a bad feeling about this.
"Wasn't it Anita that said Cain had a heart attack?" Constantine then pointed out. "Pretty sure that body we saw wasn't a heart attack, even if one did happen."
That was a really good point. No way could anyone confuse that shriveled up husk of a body with a heart attack. So why would Anita say that? That just didn't make sense.
"Does anyone know where Anita is?" Jason questioned uneasily. "I believe we need to find her, sooner rather than later."
With the turn of the doorknob, Anita opened the door. The room was bathed in darkness, though that didn't stop Detective Chimp from walking into it. Alice followed behind him, though she kept a step or two back.
"Illuminate," Anita called out.
In response, the lights came on, revealing a room filled with weapons. There were swords, battle axes, spears, halberds, you name the medieval weapon, it was there. Each one hung from the wall, wooden pegs acting as resting places for each weapon.
"Whooooaaa," Alice responded appreciatively. "Sickness."
"Each weapon is enchanted from the day they were forged," Anita said, gesturing with one hand to the literal armory. "The enchantment is unique to each weapon, of course, so arm yourself wisely."
Detective Chimp turned his gaze from left to right and back at his own speed, eyeing each bladed weapon. Slowly, he walked towards the far wall, arms behind his back, the sound of his feet slapping down on the floor reaching his ears. He was drawn towards a sword, one that he couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship. Coming to stand in front of it, he eyed the edge of the blade, marveling at its sharpness.
Of course, he would have to use the sword on something to determine just how sharp it truly was. Just looking at it told him nothing, but considering he saw no rust and just sharpened steel, he couldn't imagine it was dull.
"How long has this been here?" he heard Alice ask their host.
"Centuries in some cases," the white-haired woman answered. "My family stored some of the more destructive weapons here instead of the family castle. It was deemed these weapons were too powerful to have just sitting around where anyone could get their hands on them. Because of the unique properties of the House of Mystery, it was decided they would reside here where it is more difficult to come across them."
"Make sense," Detective Chimp murmured his acknowledgement. He took a step to one side and ground himself tilting his head back. A long halberd hung vertically against the wall, a wooden peg sticking out just beneath the axe blade and its sharp point on its reverse side to show how the weapon kept its perch. There was no way he would pick this weapon due to the fact it was six feet tall and he was a three and a half foot tall monkey. Some things were too ludacris, even for him. Still didn't mean he couldn't admire the steelwork, even the spike that extended out from the top of the halberd's shaft.
"I thought we were heading to Cain's office?" he called out after a moment. That was indeed where they were supposed to go, or where he assumed they were heading. Stopping here had been unexpected.
"We can continue to go there," Anita responded. "I remembered this place as we were passing by and felt it would behoove us to at least inspect for anything we could use."
"Make sense," he grunted.
"See anything you like?" Alice asked him then.
The chimp resumed his search, walking along the back wall and turning the corner at the side, following that as well. He saw many weapons, but eventually he ended up heading back to the sword he had first approached. The light from the ceiling made it gleam, a sparkle running down its edge as he walked towards it.
"You are drawn to the Falsches Schwart," Anita observed. "A fine choice."
"What are its enchantments?" he asked, staring appreciatively at the blade again. "You mentioned each weapon here has one."
"Why don't you pick it up and find out?"
Detective Chimp saw no reason not to, so he moved his hands out from behind his back, one heading for the hilt, the other to the blade itself.
Only for both of his hands to pass right through the sword and touch the wall.
What…?
There was a startled gasp. Turning his head, Detective Chimp was surprised to see Anita standing right next to him. She held up a fist across her body before she swung it out, the back of her fist striking the chimp across his face.
The force of the blow was incredible. Pain exploded throughout his face as he was sent flying through the air, crashing into the wall with a loud BOOM! Gravity set in and the detective found himself falling to the floor, where he landed in a heap.
"And now for you," Anita said calmly as she turned her attention back to Alice. From where he lay groaning, Detective Chimp eyed the old woman and his assistant. There was something wrong about this whole thing, and it didn't take him getting backhanded to know that for a fact.
For one, Alice was standing ramrod straight, like she was frozen like a statue. Anita held a hand out towards her, the tips of her fingers pointed towards the younger, gothic woman.
That's when Alice's eyes turned black.
"Oh no, we're not doing that again," Anita tutted, her fingers flexing and curling in an intricate pattern. Incredibly, Alice turned around, her back facing the white-haired woman.
That was when all of the displayed weapons began to shimmer. One by one, sometimes by twos and threes, each weapon vanished from sight, revealing a completely bare room, saved for a rolled-up rug in the corner and an empty shelf that hadn't been present when they appeared.
It was then that Detective Chimp realized they had walked right into a trap, one with the illusion of an armory.
"Do you know what the Soulfeeda family is famous for?" Anita suddenly rhetorically asked. "I know in what is known as the Homo magi community, they were demon hunters that went undercover as demons. That is the genesis of the name, Soulfeeda. However, there was something else they were rather infamous for, something that has clearly been forgotten."
Anita took a sauntering step towards Alice's back. "They were masters in the art of puppetry," she continued. For a brief moment, Detective Chimp could have sworn he saw what appeared to be strands of light extending out from the woman's fingertips, reaching out until they touched Alice at various places. Her arms, elbows, knees, legs, even feet and hands were all particular sites for these strands. It was then that he realized Anita was using a spell, specifically this puppetry art, to keep Alice restrained and unable to use her uncanny copying ability.
This…this wasn't good.
"Of course, I had to have that ability. It makes hunting oh so much easier." There was a change in Anita's voice. It sounded drier, raspier even. A chill went down Detective Chimp's spine. He tried to move himself, but his body betrayed him. It felt as if his muscles were locked.
It didn't stop him from watching though. From beneath the sleeve of her dress, Anita's fair skin began to age and browned, spreading down her arm and over her raised hand. Her white hair fell out of its bun, washing over the sides of her head and hiding her face for only an instant. When the hair swung back though, gone was the face of Anita Soulfeeda.
Instead it was the horrible face of the Enchantress, her green eyes focused completely on Alice.
Detective Chimp tried to cry out. He tried to get up. He tried to do anything except laying on the floor like he was. Why wasn't he able to get up?! Why wasn't he able to attack this vicious hag who had killed Fred?! Why, damn it, why?!
Then his eyes picked up on the Enchantress' other hand; in fact, it was the one that had struck him across his face. The same magical strands that paralyzed Alice extended from that hand and reached out towards him. Damn it, no! He had been caught up in this puppetry as well!
"Do you know how I was able to get my hands on this wonderful power?" Enchantress purred in her cruel voice. She had come to a stop behind Alice, her hand nearly touching the gothic girl's back. "I devoured her soul. It was a little old and dusty for my taste, but the reward was very beneficial.
"I expect your soul to be more ripe, especially with that miraculous ability of yours."
With a flexing of her fingers, Alice spun around, her eyes no longer the solid black that they were when she copied the powers of others. The Enchantress hand latched onto the girl's chin, her fingers digging into her cheek. The hag then opened her snout, her jaw dropping lower and lower, appearing to nearly detach from her skull.
And then she took a deep breath, sucking in as much air as she could. In response, an aura began to radiate from Alice's body, an aura that became caught up in the suction of the Enchantress' deep breath. It flowed from Alice's face, pulled towards the hag's mouth, and disappeared down her gullet. Alice gagged and sputtered, her eyes rolling back into the skull, unable to scream as her very soul was sucked right out of her body.
To Detective Chimp's horror, he watched as Alice's body began to thin. Her skin aged into a fine leather, shrinking in on itself until it wrapped around the bones of her skeleton. Her clothes began to slip off of her thinning body, falling into a pile at her feet. Her black hair grayed then, ultimately turning white as snow, growing longer oddly enough. Even her fingernails grew out the longer this went.
And then the last shreds of the aura were sucked into the Enchantress' mouth. This left a withered, nude Alice standing in front of her, her mouth frozen in a silent scream, her eye sockets empty of eyeballs. The moment the Enchantress let go of her face, Alice collapsed to the floor.
"Mmmmmmmm!" the hag moaned as her jaw returned to its normal position, no longer appearing unhinged. "Oh, that was soooo delicious. She was so ripe and juicy. I wish I could bring her back to life so I could do it again." She licked her dry lips before she turned around, her attention falling upon the paralyzed chimp.
A smirk appeared on her horrible face then. Placing her free hand on her hip, she held out the other hand that kept him imprisoned. "Now, what to do with you?" she mused. "I can sense some magick in you, but nothing compared to your formerly lovely assistant. Is all you are a talking monkey?"
Though he was helpless, that didn't stop Detective Chimp from growling, looking up at the hag with a hate-filled eye.
"Oh, I know!" the Enchantress exclaimed. "I can try out your little friend's ability on you! If there is something worthy of taking from you, it'll find it."
Then, as if to prove she had taken Alice's power, her eyes darkened until they were purely black. Detective Chimp just stared up at the hag, helpless to stop her.
That was until there was a stumbling sound by the door.
The Enchantress's black eyes returned to their beady green ones, the hag turning just as Detective Chimp moved his own eye towards the open door. There, standing in the doorframe as if she had stumbled upon something she wished she hadn't—and truly, she had—was June Moone. Her eyes were wide open in horror as she took in the scene.
"Oh, just the person I wanted to see," the Enchantress said as she fully turned to face the frightened girl. "You have something of mine that I really want back, whore."
