The echoes of the past roil and swirl, naturally drawn to the one most capable of hearing their cries. A childs final breath and the screams of distraught parents, the overwhelming joy of a woman being given a ring by the one she’s loved for so long, the simple memory of a dog waiting for its owner to come home. The voices and feelings are a storm at sea, waves crashing into each other, emotions overlapping and memories interrupting each other. At the center of it all, Vera sleeps as best she can.
Born to a family of natural mediums, though she personally preferred the sound of ‘necromancer’, even if it was less accurate. She had been plagued by nightmares and maddening dreams since she was a child, as echoes of all kinds were drawn to the refuge of her sleeping mind. She always attracted the ghosts, but when she slept her defenses were down and they washed over her to show her a firsthand perspective of whatever they echoed. They weren’t souls, simply afterimages of past events and emotions. Whether she dreamed of being in the position of a murderer during a kill, or an old woman falling down the stairs, the dreams were chaotic and antithetical to restful sleep. Her mother had made her a functioning dreamcatcher when she was younger, to keep the dreams away. She had apparently learned it from an Ojibwe tribesman, years before she had met Veras father and discovered it would help her new husband sleep more peacefully at night. Her mother had been of mainly Apache descent, but apparently she spent some time visiting and learning from other tribes and had picked some things up.
Vera had lost the dreamcatcher, leaving it behind after escaping the Witch Hunters and meeting Ollie and Parker. She had gone years without any bad dreams, and now they were back in full force as they tried to drown her each night. The main attraction tonight was a particularly potent Vestige, an echo of a person that retained enough of the original persons memories to be self-aware. It was a Frenchman, a soldier from the British American wars, come from France to support the northerners stand against the press of the invading force. He mistakenly thought he could take her body and be alive again, and he physically fought the other echoes for territory in her mind. His bayonet tore through the memory of a man having an agoraphobic panic attack, and his musket blew apart a woman losing custody of her twin boys. The soldier fought as hard as he had when he was alive, his never-ending charge burrowing deeper into her psyche.
A hand gripped Veras shoulder, shaking her awake. The soldier howled in despair as her mental defenses rose once again, throwing him from her mind like a ragdoll. His ghostly form mixed with those of the other echoes shunted from her skull, and her bleary eyes saw a gray mist that slowly dissipated as the echoes dispersed.
She groaned and pressed a hand to her temple, a headache making itself known now that she was awake. Blinking, she finally registered that it was Ollie who had shaken her awake, kneeling over her and wearing blue footie pajamas of all things. Her face was very close to Veras, and her big blue eyes were full of worry.
Quickly, Vera rolled away from her and stood, her brain taking a few moments too long to wake up. When she spoke, her words were full of sarcasm as she said “Did you need something? I was having the most wonderful dreams.”
Ollie was still kneeling, looking up at Vera now. “You kept squirming and gasping, it seemed like you were in pain so I thought waking you might help a little. Should I have just let you sleep?” The sincerity of her concern was uncomfortable. Vera still wasn’t used to it. Looking down at her companion, Vera saw that she still didn’t look fully recovered yet. Her pajamas were thick wool, keeping her warm despite the winter chill leaking into the abandoned building. The front was unbuttoned to make it easier to change the bandages on her stomach wound, and the red was seeping through.
Looking at her wound, Vera asked “How much longer until you’ve got that hole closed up? You keep bleeding all over the place, and it’s not like we’ve got tons of spare clothes for you to bleed into. I swear I’ve seen you handle worse injuries than that before.”
Ollie blushed a bit, sheepishly pulling the front of her onesie closed to cover the red bandages. “Not too much longer. I have to eat and rest to produce more blood, and then I can expend the new blood in tiny amounts to help the wound heal faster. Pricking my finger a few times over the next few days should be plenty. I made sure to avoid any vitals when I stabbed myself, I was just going for a spot that would bleed a lot. I could close it faster by using more blood, but honestly the lack of fresh blood in my veins is a more immediate concern than the wound itself.”
“Gotcha, kind of like when you were growing your hands back. You wiped yourself out so you could grow them back quicker.” Vera intertwined her fingers and stretched her arms over her head, working out the kinks in her shoulders from how tense she’d been while sleeping. While she did that, out of the corner of her eye she watched Ollies expression. The topic had changed to something more serious, too many things had happened that day that should have traumatized any normal person. So why didn’t Ollies face even flicker, not a drop of pain or grief. Vera had tested the waters a few times, checking Ollies reactions when bringing up the events of the day the three of them had met. Her responses never matched what they should have been. Nobody who loses what she did just brushes it off, not unless there’s something off deep inside them.
But the tears she kept expecting never came. It was always goofy smiles, always Ollie worrying about Parker and Vera, making sure they were taken care of. Even now, Ollie didn’t react to the minor reference to what was probably the worst day of her life. She was standing and placing one hand on Veras forehead, the other gripping her shoulder to pull her closer. “That was an extreme example, yeah. I pushed myself hard and it made me sick. Like how you’ve been pushing yourself, and Parker has been too. You’ve got a bit of a fever, and I still don’t like how high your blood pressure usually is. I know it’s mostly due to how poorly you always sleep, but there are things we can do to help get it lower. We should get you some medication somehow, I’ll do my thing and help your body make the most of the meds.”
Wriggling free of Ollies examination, Vera walked over to where Parker was sleeping. “I’ll be fine, you two are the ones in rough shape right now. You said a couple days until you’re at one hundred percent, what about her? You said she was dehydrated and malnourished right?” Vera nudged her sleeping form with a foot, but the girl was in a deep and much needed sleep. Parker slept in short pants and a black tank top, and had kicked her blankets off in her sleep despite the cold of winter coming inside. She was sprawled out across the blankets that formed her bed on the floor, limbs going in every direction. Her mouth hung limply open, the deep sleep having taken her completely. Her top was out of place and pulled up to reveal most of her stomach, showing even more of the tattoos that covered her body. Intricate and detailed, black lines and sigils arched and curved around nearly every inch of her torso and limbs, branching text in a dead language inked into her skin. She usually wore clothing that concealed her tattoos completely, but at night she allowed herself to dress more for comfort. They stopped before reaching her wrists, ankles, or neck, but other than that her entire body seemed to be covered in detailed rune-work and lettering. She had asked Parker about it before and apparently the tattoos were contracts with spirits, put on baby Parker to protect her, and channeling energy into the tattoos was what let her use veils and other things. Vera personally thought there had to be an easier way to do that, but she admittedly didn’t know the details of how Parkers family practiced.
Ollie knelt next to Parker, pulling the blanket back over her and saying “It was less about being malnourished and more about her burning through all the energy her body had stored away. If it were just a lack of food then it wouldn’t have been as bad, but she was also constantly keeping up a veil to stay hidden, which taxes her reserves. I think she’ll feel weak for a few days, but if we keep her eating properly she should be okay again pretty quickly. When she uses her tattoos too much it can really exhaust her, forcing power into those connections. For you it’s mostly mental strain, for me it’s more physical, and for her its exhaustion. Magic costs, and Parker spent too much the last few days.”
Snorting, Vera said “She gambled and lost, she spent all that time and energy just because she was curious, and she didn’t even learn what was going on. I’m almost tempted to not tell her what I found out while she was in there, it would serve her right to never know what the deal was with those people.”
“Oh but we have to tell her!” Ollie protested. “She went through all of that, we should at least let her have closure and let her know what was going on!”
Shrugging, Vera responded “Fine, but you’re not doing her any favors. It’s a bad habit of hers, focusing too much on one thing and ignoring the safer choices in front of her. If you keep feeding that habit, she’s gonna get herself hurt one day. Tell her if you want, but it’s your choice to do it. In the meantime, I’m heading out for a little while.” She stepped behind a bookshelf, changing out of her own striped pajamas, which she had picked out due to the similarity to prison stripes, and into something more comfortable. Her usual large overalls with all the pockets, a gray strapless top, and a black leather ballcap she had snatched off a stores shelves when it caught her eye. She stepped out into view again, and stopped when she saw Ollie casting a disapproving glare at her outfit, which hardly accounted for the weather. Vera rolled her eyes and grabbed one of Ollies warm coats. The pink colors were loud and not at all her style, but she liked how many pockets it had, and it had a silly hood with cat ears to help cover her face. It was actually warm too, which was a welcome feature.
“Don’t forget to take out your piercings if you’ll be outside too long! It’s cold enough out there that it could actually be a problem.”
Vera begrudgingly did as she was told. “I’ll swap the metal ones out for bone, how does that sound? I don’t like the way it looks quite as much, but apparently there’s a glamour on the set that lets me change my eye color? That could be cool, I haven’t tried them out since I got them.”
Ollie sat up straight and turned to look at Vera, an oddly intense frown on her expressive face. “I like your eyes though, they’re a good color. Kind of like a campfire that hasn’t gone out yet.”
Vera just blinked at that. She really couldn’t figure this girl out, she keeps getting thrown off by her reactions to things. Smiling, she said “Thank you, nobody’s said that to me before. I’ll leave the eyes the same, I’m wearing the bones to help with the cold though, okay?” Ollie relaxed a bit at that, and went back to tucking Parker in more thoroughly, a soft smile spreading where the frown had just been.
“Sounds good to me.” Ollie said, fussing over Parker as she tried to free herself from the blankets again. “Your boots are tucked into one of the shelves over there by the way, in the science fiction section.”
Vera looked, and found them sitting on a dusty shelf. Steel toed combat boots, the kind soldiers wore in the United Nations. Not as popular in the States, here they just work enchantments into the leather for added protection at a fraction of the weight. Steel was still more durable, but there was a tradeoff. She had gotten these off of a soldier who had taken them as a prize from a soldier from China, apparently. The soldier had wagered the boots in a card game, and Vera had cheated the other woman out of her boots, as well as her gun. It wasn’t a nice gun, most soldiers didn’t bother carrying them these days, but it was easy to conceal and it caught people off guard.
The boots flickered a bit, and Vera had to briefly focus her eyes to see past the memories caught in them. A Chinese man, shorter than average, his feet small enough that they fit her well. He was eager to bring the fight to the devils across the sea, who had been taunting the world with a threat of annihilation for centuries. His pride welled at being accepted into the army despite his poor health and small stature, and he left his home country to station on the Hawaiian Islands, halfway between home and the States. Vera cut off the vision before she saw the man die, gutted on a beach by the woman she’d taken the boots from. She sighed, reminding herself once again that she needed to perform an exorcism on the boots and get those memories out of them. She kept forgetting to do it, and it was starting to become a habit to ignore the issue.
“Could you get more vegetables while you’re out? We have plenty of stuff for sandwiches, but we need to make sure we’re getting more greens too.” Vera absently nodded ascent to Ollies request while she put on her boots.
“Anything specific? I know we’ve got lettuce and tomatoes we’ve been using for sandwiches, maybe I get broccoli and asparagus or something? Maybe some mushrooms, I’m sure we could do something with all that.” Vera rummaged in a bag, transferring things from the bag to pockets in her clothes. Tarot deck, switchblade, a bag of bones and feathers, pry bar and lockpicks, and lighter all went in the pockets. She considered bringing her flask, eyeing the demon face design of the metal. She took half a swig of whiskey before tucking it back into the bag.
“Oh that sounds perfect actually! Maybe if you get some rice and meat to round it out? It’ll help all of us get back up to full strength!” Ollie flexed her biceps, looking ridiculous in her silly blue onesie. She draped another blanket over Parker, then finally crawled under her own blankets, rolling into them like a burrito with only her head poking out. “Don’t stay out too long okay? You already don’t sleep enough, and these late-night outings don’t help. What are your plans tonight anyways?”
Vera gave a lopsided grin at her companion. “Probably can’t follow those instructions doc, I’m gonna be running damage control tonight. Parker getting ‘trapped’ in that house for so long is just the sort of fuck-up that sets me on edge. If anything was going to end our run of good luck it would be something stupid like this. I’d rather get out ahead of things and stack the deck in our favor. I’ll be spending the night making false trails, drawing attention to different neighborhoods, and frustrating the authorities. I would have done it in the morning, but since you woke me up I might as well do it now, then I’ll sleep during the day. Afterwards, I’m thinking it would be a good move to find a new hideout. We’ve been in one spot too long, we’re practically begging them to find this place.”
Ollie did her best impression of a pouty earthworm, wriggling disapprovingly in her little cocoon. “But Parker likes this place! Its cozy, and libraries are her comfort space, even if the books are gone.”
Vera raised a hand to halt the protesting. “I know, and it honestly has been a really good location. But when it comes to shit hitting the fan, I’m the expert. Trust me when I say the timing makes sense, if we stay much longer then this will be the time that someone’s boot comes down on our neck.”
Ollie whined unintelligibly, her cheeks puffing out like an upset toddler, but seemed to concede the point. She laid her head down on her pillow, which was shaped like a fat cartoon toad with oversized eyes. It was honestly a little creepy, but Ollie had thought it was adorable and had needed to get it at the store.
Vera shook her head as she climbed out the window, still struggling to understand the older girl. One minute she was motherly, nurturing, and mature. Then the next minute she was childish and ditzy. She was erratic, but not in an unpredictable or dangerous way. Just confusing, and her actions often caused Veras mental footing to stumble. Having a healer around was useful though, and the eye candy was a welcome treat. It was just something she was still getting used to, having someone around that she couldn’t really see through or predict.
Parker was easier, she was quiet and thoughtful, to the point where it was easy to forget she was in the same room if she hadn’t been participating in the conversation. But if you were paying attention, she wore her emotions on her sleeve, the worst poker face Vera had ever seen. There were a lot of mysteries around her, and Vera was very curious to learn more about her, but she wasn’t a terribly difficult person to read. It hadn’t taken Vera long to peg her as the ‘righteous outrage’ type, seeing injustices and feeling compelled to actually do something about it. Counter to that, Parker was cautious enough to think things through and come up with a plan instead of just charging in blindly. She was a clever person when she was properly focused, the issue was that she was inclined towards tunnel vision, and would completely miss the most obvious things if she wasn’t focused on them. The most recent example was of course letting herself nearly get caught in that house, focusing so much on the couples odd behavior that she forgot her priority should be escaping.
She was sure to kick herself when Ollie explained what had been going on with those two, it wasn’t anything that unusual. Vera had consulted Omens around the house, asking the echoes what they had seen from the couple. Apparently the two of them had been perfectly normal until a few months before, and then had fallen on hard times financially when both of them had lost their jobs in quick succession. What followed was a fairly common story. Desperate, they had both volunteered to take part in experimental drug trials for the doctors of the Witch Hunter Corps. It was supposed to be some sort of ‘artificial vigilance’, taken over the course of a few months to make the user more capable of reacting quickly in combat situations. Very gradually, the husband and wife both appeared to react strongly to the drug, remaining in a constant state of ‘I’m ready to stab my spouse if I feel threatened’.
She suspected the professors of the Witch Hunter Corps were just loving the data they got whenever those two went in each week for testing. The two of them could gut each other while lying in bed together, and the folks in lab coats would stroke their chins and call it ‘fascinating’. Luckily it was just a vigilance enhancement and didn’t actually enhance their senses, or else they might have noticed Parker and turned their knives on her.
Vera strolled back towards the neighborhood of the psycho couple, enjoying the cold night air and the full moon. Light pollution from the city hid most of the stars, but the moon hung large in the sky. A full moon could mean a lot of things, depending on the culture of the person looking at it. Vera liked to think of it as making things altogether more, making everything more intense in little ways. Shadows got deeper, fires burned brighter, ghosts spoke louder. She only felt more certain that this would be the last night before the sky fell somehow. She had good instincts for this sort of thing.
She was over a block away from the neighborhood of the husband and wife, but she stopped and sat cross legged behind a bush in someones yard. She took out her tarot deck, and began laying out a spread of cards in front of her. She had made the cards herself, they were thin wooden things with tree resin she had treated to form a layer of laminate coating the cards. Each card had its face etched in carefully, a slow process done under the light of the moon. She remembered her dad walking her through the process, tutting disapprovingly when she put her own spin on some of the cards.
She laid down five cards. The Wolf card was set down first, with the Page of Cups lain overtop of it. The Seven of Cups and The Adversary were laid down one after the other, and finally the Ten of Wands. The last card was barely touching the snow before several Echoes appeared in the space before her.
There were three in total, though only one looked usable for what she intended. The first was an amalgamation of Dregs, scraps of other ghosts that didn’t form complete memories, which had stuck themselves together to form something new. It was a broken image, a boy with a shaved head and womens heels which produced clacking footsteps despite standing still. Its hands a larger size and darker skin tone, clenched in tight fists with the knuckles clearly bleeding. The face was missing, a smudge in the ‘ink’ that the ghost was made of. It was missing torn pieces of torso and legs, only remaining standing due to the lack of any physical body. This sort of amalgam could be interesting, but was useless for what she needed it for. She waved a hand and the thing dissipated, and it was unstable enough that it might not come back together on its own.
The second, she identified as a Vestige by its expression. It was a woman in a laborers uniform, broad shouldered and muscular. The womans face twisted in disgust as she looked at the cards and at Vera herself. “What do you want, witch?” She said it like a curse word, which Vera supposed it was, in a way. The laborers clothes seemed outdated, so she was probably from a time where folks were even more hateful of witches than they were currently. Which was saying something, considering being outed as a witch these days guaranteed the authorities would come haul away both you and your family. This woman wouldn’t be helpful, she was aware enough to gather information, but would undermine her if she could get away with it.
“Nothing, actually. You can go back to haunting a house or whatever you had been up to.” She waved a hand and the woman flickered, face contorting with rage before disappearing. Vera turned to the third candidate. This one was an old woman, tall but stooped from age. Her hair was tied back into a huge frizzy white orb behind her head, and her round oversized glasses perpetually reflected the light to conceal her eyes. The way she moved her whole head to turn and peer at her surroundings, she was probably an Omen. Aware of their surroundings, taking in information, but without the personality to make choices or form opinions on their situation. She was perfect.
“Miss? Can you understand me?” Vera spoke softly, gathering her cards and stepping closer to the old woman. The Omens attention turned to Vera now, and she nodded.
“That’s good. Are you able to speak? I need you to check on something, and then tell me what you see.”
Slowly, the woman seemed to consider whether or not she was capable of speech. After a few seconds, she seemed to decide. “Yes, I can speak. What do you need, child?”
Am I really so short that she thinks I’m a kid? Vera banished the thought, focusing back on the task at hand. “Theres a house a little over a block in that direction, I’m betting it will still have guards there, and probably an investigation going on. There might also be blood on the front step, but the snow probably covered that up by now. I just want you to stroll by, take a look and report back, okay? Tell me what you saw at the house, and see if you can listen in on any conversations if you can. They shouldn’t be able to see you, but stay hidden anyways just in case.”
The old lady nodded haltingly, then started walking in the direction of the house, walking through fences and other houses on the way.
While she waited for the Omen to return, Vera started building a snowman. Not a standing one made from snowballs stacked on top of each other, she pushed snow together on the ground, digging to mix in dirt and pack it all into the rough shape of a person lying down. She then laid out another spread of cards. This time she laid the Knight of Swords overtop The Soldier card, with The Spider card laid next to them in the reversed position. She waited a moment, until a man appeared before her.
He was a bruiser of a man, the battered face and the way he was dressed made her think he was probably some back-alley street tough. His cauliflower ears and permanently broken nose made it clear this man was used to taking hits, and his hands were calloused into miniature wrecking balls. He was perfect. She looked him over, and he didn’t have that same awareness of his surroundings that a Vestige or an Omen would have. His eyes were locked on something that wasn’t really there. A Poltergeist maybe? The intense emotions captured in a single moment, the complete picture of a persons thoughts, but only as far as the exact situation that created it. Not complicated or intelligent, but intense and dense with feelings, to the point they were more able to interact with the physical world.
“What’s your story big guy? Get your ass kicked particularly badly? Who are you looking at that’s got you so pissed off?” She raised a hand over her head to pat the giant of a man on the chest. He still didn’t move his gaze from whatever invisible enemy he had been looking at when he came into being.
“Let’s sit you down, okay champ? Something tells me you would love to hit something, and if things go wrong in a few minutes I might give you a chance to vent some of that anger, okay? That’s it, just sit down right there, go ahead and lie back, alright?” She gently pushed him down into a sitting position, his body sinking through the snowman she’d built on the ground. She laid him back into a reclining position, his body overlapping with that of the snowman. Vera paused for a moment, considering, then she searched and found some rocks on the ground that she pressed into the fists of the snowman.
She took out another card, just one this time. The Thread, she set it down on the chest of the snowman. “I’m helping you stay connected to this body I made you, okay? You’ve already got the juice to move it, I’m just making it easier to keep it all together when you’re up and walking around.” The snowman shuddered, then slowly sat up. The card dropped from its chest, and Vera collected it. She picked up the other cards, and showed him The Spider card that she used to call on him. “We’re gonna make our own little web, okay? For now just stick with me in case I need some muscle, if it turns out I don’t need it then I have other plans for you.”
For the first time, the bruiser looked at her, an odd thing since she hadn’t given the snowman eyes of any sort. Maybe having a body grounded it more in the present moment. It was possible that the poltergeist would evolve somehow after this experience, becoming a different type of Echo entirely. That sort of thing happened fairly often, though the changes were usually negative, a ghost coming apart as it was exposed to outside forces that damaged it, eventually being torn up and becoming nothing but scattered Dregs. It would be interesting if the bruiser made a positive change out of this somehow, once she had left and no longer needed his services.
At this point, the old woman was making her way back, sticking to shadows and passing through walls to stay out of sight. She approached Vera and the snowman, looking at the snowman as she got closer. Vera eagerly asked, “Well? What did you see?”
The Omen thought for a moment, remembering. “There were bodies in the house. The people who lived there killed two guards, the third killed them and went for backup.” She spoke slowly, her voice hesitant as she recounted things. “They have the area marked as a crime scene, there are quite a few members of the Peace Guard examining the scene. There were also two members of the Witch Hunter Corps, talking inside the house.”
Veras mouth splits into a wide grin, even as her pulse quickens at the information.
“The Witch Hunters were a young man who seemed far too young for the streaks of gray he already has, and an African man with strange eyes. The young man had quite a few spools of colored thread beneath his coat, and he was fiddling with a large pair of scissors. The African mans eyes glowed, and I could see his veins bulging beneath his skin. That one was speaking more than the young man, he said he could smell a third person had been living in the house, not just the husband and wife. I left when the young man began unwinding his threads and tying them to different points in the house, saying he would use them to find whoever had been in the house.”
The more the old woman said, the more Vera felt she had done the right thing, both by coming and by telling Ollie they should leave soon. Two Witch Hunters, actively investigating a scene they had just left behind. She was betting they probably had a way to figure out it was a witch that had been in the house, that might even be what the younger one with the thread was doing right now. Running interference and throwing them off the trail would be important, and making sure they didn’t notice how close she was while she was at it. More details would help with that.
“Was the older guy actually from Africa or just black? Did something make you think he wasn’t from the states, or was it just an assumption on your part?”
The Omen spoke again. “He had an odd accent, I didn’t recognize it. It didn’t sound like anything from Europe or the Americas.”
That was fair, though it hardly guaranteed anything. If she was right though, then that was interesting. Most African countries were part of the United Nations, and emigrating from any UN country to come to the Orphic States was a rare thing, especially in the last couple decades. Hell, a lot of people with African or Asian heritage had been leaving the states even if they had been born here, it was just getting too tense and people didn’t feel safe. Then going on to become a member of the Witch Hunter Corps? There was a story there, she was sure of it. The thing with his eyes and veins, and he could smell that Parker had been in the house? Maybe some sort of enhancements done to him, senses overclocked past normal limits? Most Witch Hunters relied on their equipment, crafted from the finest advancements in Hollow Science. But if something had been done to this guys body instead, to make him a living weapon instead of being dependent on his gear, he could be difficult to deal with. The younger one could probably just be disarmed of his scissors and thread, which she was betting could be used as some sort of binding tool. They would most likely have multiple uses, since he was also somehow using them to get more details on the houses occupants.
“Did either of the two seem like they were in charge of the other? Or did it seem more like they were partners?” Vera asked the Echo, hungry for every tidbit of information she could use.
“The young man seemed uncomfortable with the situation, either the bodies or the other man were making him nervous, and he kept fidgeting. The other man seemed more confident, though he didn’t speak to the younger one as if he were giving him orders.”
Vera nodded, taking off her hat and running her fingers through her hair, messing it up as she tried to stimulate her brain and think of a good plan. Obviously her snowman couldn’t take two Witch Hunters, not to mention all of the Peace Guards that they had with them. He would be better as a distraction, while she does something else. A fire would be good, torching the house to destroy more evidence. She could spread it around the neighborhood to have the smoke and ash cover any scent trails, since they apparently needed to worry about that from the black Witch Hunter. She wished she had brought her flask, it would have been nice to help start a quick fire.
Quickly grabbing her lockpicks, she ran to one of the nearest houses. Her frosty bruiser and the old woman followed after her. It didn’t take long at all to get the door open, and then she was inside, looking for the kitchen. She spoke in a hushed tone to tell the snowman to shut the door behind him. Moving quickly, she rummaged through cabinets in the kitchen until she found what she was looking for. Over half a dozen bottles of different alcohols, cooking oil, even bleach and ammonia just for fun. She took a kitchen knife and started cutting strips off of the curtains in the living room to make Molotov cocktails. While she did that, she heard a noise behind her and turned to look.
A girl had come downstairs, probably four or five years old if she had to guess. Her blonde hair was messy from sleep, and she wore pink nightie that was a little too big for her. The girl rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned, seemingly unbothered by Veras presence. Vera stood and walked over to the girl.
“What are you doing up young lady?”
The child mumbled sleepily, “Want juice, want some?”. The kid obviously hadn’t figured out stranger danger yet, or maybe she thought that since the stranger was in her house it didn’t count somehow? Either way, she had apparently accepted that a grown-up she didn’t know was in her living room shredding the curtains, and wanted to share a drink with her. Vera laughed internally, and asked the girl to make her some juice too, but to be quiet and not wake anyone up.
She finished making the Molotovs, and when the girl asked what she was doing, she explained that she was making ingredients to make a big fire. She asked the child if she wanted to be a big girl and help, which the little girl agreed to immediately.
She stepped outside, bringing the child and her ghosts along with her. The child stared at the snowman in wonder, having never seen that sort of magic before and not knowing that it’s something the law would insist she disapprove of.
Lugging a chair and several pillows from the living room, she pulled them across the street and leaned them against a different house, touching the bushes surrounding the place. She passed the kid a bottle, and kneeled down to explain.
“Here’s the plan, okay? I’m going to set the chair on fire, and I’m going to leave after to go make more pretty fires somewhere else, understand so far?” The child nodded, seemingly excited in the innocent way adults rarely were. “Once I leave, I want you to count to ten, really slowly. Then hold out the bottle and let just the very edge of the cloth dip in the fire to make it light. After that you need to be fast, alright? I want you to take the bottle and throw it at that window of the house right there okay? Throw it as hard as you can, then run really fast back to your house and shut the door behind you. Do you think you can do all that for me?”
The kid looked determined, kids loved participating when they were given the chance, and even simple tasks could feel like an important mission to them sometimes.
She held out her hand to shake with the little girl. “I’m Vera by the way.”
The childs tiny hand took hers, shaking it and raising her chin as she tried her best to seem like a grown-up. “I’m Beverly.”
“Well Beverly, you’ve been very helpful so far tonight. Now make sure to do exactly what I said to do, it’ll be really cool to watch through the window once you get back in your house.” Beverly nodded eagerly. Vera flicked on the lighter, getting the chair to a steady burn before she started walking away, moving out of sight of Beverly and the fire. She heard a crash of breaking glass, and kept walking, moving to a side street and approaching the direction of the Witch Hunters. She beckoned to the old woman, the Omen who still followed in the shadows.
“I want you to make yourself obvious back in the neighborhood with Beverly. Wake her parents and tell them that a wicked witch tricked their poor daughter into helping with her plot. They’ll figure out Beverly was involved eventually, kids are shit at secrets and I didn’t tell her to hide her involvement anyways. They’ll be more worried about their daughter than angry, and terrified that a witch was in their house. After you do that with the parents, go house to house waking people and kicking up a fuss, make the neighbors freak out and get them upset. Walk through walls, whatever is gonna make them nervous. And walk in and out of the burning house a few times, make sure it’s clear it wasn’t some random arsonist or accident. Draw as much attention as you can, we want them spreading the word and calling for the authorities.”
The Omen walked back the way we came, and was quickly out of sight. Vera then turned her attention to the bruiser-turned-adorable snowman. “You in the mood for setting fires and cracking skulls?” He nodded his head and clenched his fists, the sharp rocks jutting out of the knuckles.
She pressed a few bottles into the snow of his torso, leaving his hands free to hold one more. Looking around, she tore down a low hanging branch from a tree, dead from the winter cold. She poured cooking oil on it to help it burn, then set the end of it ablaze before passing it to the snowman.
“Use this, run down this street and throw a lit bottle in windows of houses, doesn’t matter which ones specifically. Just make a spectacle and throw subtlety out the window, draw as much attention as you can. Fight anyone who comes after you, just do what comes naturally to you.” He gripped the burning branch tightly, and took a bottle out of his torso before running down the street, quickly getting to work on starting fires.
Vera grinned at his eagerness, and practically skipped her way towards the house with the Witch Hunters. She waited a few houses down, standing on one houses wraparound porch to observe from around a corner with a better angle. There were about a dozen Peace Guards investigating the yard and house, some examining the blood at the front door and others that she could see through a window who were taking notes about the corpses inside. She could see the body of the wife who had lived in the house, fallen onto a sofa. She had been nearly bisected, the Peace Guards weapons having cut her from one shoulder to the opposite hip, only barely failing to leave her in two separate pieces.
She probably wouldn’t tell Parker or Ollie about the specifics of tonight. She didn’t get the feeling they would approve of the fires or her interaction with Beverly, and she knew they would both somehow feel responsible if she told them about what happened to the husband and wife. Too bad, she would have liked to have someone to tell this story to. She’d run with different groups over the years, and she had always liked the parts where the group would regale each other with stories of their various exploits. Most delinquent groups she would hang around with didn’t mind that she was a witch, it made them feel like they were getting away with something just by hanging out with her, the same rush that a teenager had when sneaking out at night or swiping their parent’s liquor. Parker and Ollie didn’t seem to have a lot of stories that they would like sharing, and she had told a few herself that hadn’t seemed to sit right with them. Too kind, both of them.
That train of thought ended when the guards outside noticed the light and smoke from the fires. One went to alert the Witch Hunters, and in a moment they were both outside. She was far away, but she got a pretty good look at both of them. They were both easily identifiable by their long gray military coats, the style of which had hardly changed since the Washington Rebellion, heavy material with the Witch Hunter Corps’ insignia embossed on the shoulders. A simple black noose and gallows on a gray background. That was all they needed for their uniforms, anything else was a personal choice, whether it was personal preference or equipment they had tested and decided made them more effective.
The younger man looked to be in his early twenties, he was thin but with a seemingly athletic build beneath his winter clothes. His eyes were dim and dispassionate, and his messy black hair had thick streaks of white mixed in. At least one obvious scar was visible on his face from where she could see. A little handsome if she was being honest, and she kind of liked the look in his eyes. She blinked with intent, activating her Sight so she could See more clearly. Immediately the faintest of Echoes were visible everywhere in line of sight. Overlapping memories and feelings moved like an ocean through the streets, a chaotic mess that she quickly had to sift through to see what she was wanting to look at. The dead-eyed young man had a few Echoes centered on him, a not-quite metaphorical weight on his shoulders. They seemed mostly in tatters, fragments of memories he had probably long since left behind. Her eyes were drawn downward, to his waist. At his belt he had a few dozen spools of thread, each in different colors, as well as an oversized pair of scissors with elaborately wrought silver handles. The scissors looked fancy, but didn’t draw any particular attention from her Sight. The threads, however, practically shone. They were dense with memories and emotions, each spool glowing with a different radiance.
She pondered to herself. “That could be good news, or very very bad news. If we use similar tools it could mean I can counter whatever it is his threads do. Or he might be able to turn my Echoes against me somehow. I really need to learn more about Hollow Science, I have no clue what the hell he’s carrying with him.”
She shifted her focus to the other man. He was tall, to an intimidating degree. His bald head shone with sweat despite the intense cold, and she could see the orange gleam of his eyes from here. He didn’t hold any weapons that she could see, and he moved with menace, reminiscent of a large predator like a tiger or bear. Dark skinned, he was obviously of African descent but that didn’t mean he was definitely a foreigner like the Omen had said, rare as it might be to see black people in the Americas these days. Parts of him were off-colored, thin lines that were hard to make out from this distance. It took a moment to realize that she was seeing his veins, bulging out and with a faint orange glow just beneath the skin. He walked fast, and the Echoes parted around him, giving way to his own entourage. Where the younger man had a few scattered memories hounding him, this man was practically swarmed by ghosts. The silhouettes and figures of maimed bodies followed him, clutching at his hands and legs, trying and failing to grab him as they passed harmlessly through. Screaming and angry Echoes followed in his wake, enough of them that he caused a visible ripple among all the Echoes on the street.
He spoke briefly to the guards posted outside, then said something to the one with the threads, pointing in the direction of the fire Beverly started. Then he took off running, straight towards the other series of smoke columns created by her snowman. When she expected him to make a sharp turn to go around a house, he leaped upward, kicking off the side of the house to vault onto the roof. He then kept to the rooftops, leaping from building to building until he was out of sight. Vera revised any potential plans that may have ended in a footrace, there was no outpacing that guy if he caught sight of her. She watched the other Witch Hunter running away, three guards tailing behind him. She waited another ten seconds before moving.
Avoiding the gaze of the remaining guards, she approached the rear of the house they had all been inside. She reached into her overalls for her pry bar, and began working at the window, trying to open it as quietly as possible. It took less than a minute, and the window was now open just enough. She took out the ammonia and bleach. Her mother had told her that mixing the two made a potentially deadly gas, and she’d always wanted to try it out. Admittedly, she wasn’t sure if it was a more complicated process than just mixing them together, but this part was honestly just for fun anyways. She emptied half of each in the open window, then poured the remaining ammonia into the bottle of bleach, shaking it thoroughly before dumping the rest inside. Taking the cooking oil, she removed the lid and threw it in the window as well, a bit further so it would spread more. She then took her last two liquor bottles, lighting them and tossing them in the window before taking off at a run. Now that she thought about it, Beverly’s parents may have a drinking problem, they had a lot of partially empty bottles just sitting in their liquor cabinet and on counters. Lucky for her in the moment, she supposed.
She ran for some time, giddy from the excitement and wondering if all the little details had ended up mattering at all. Did the cooking oil help the fire spread even faster than it would have? Did the bleach and ammonia help cover any lingering scent of a witch being present, due to the poisonous chemical smell? Even if none of it actually helped, the main goal had just been to give the Witch Hunters a headache to deal with while she and the girls moved out of the library. Anything else was purely a whim on her part. She doubted that the house would even burn at all, it was a nice neighborhood and the construction was mostly solid concrete, but the goal was just to torch the interior where Parker had been. Hopefully the snowman got in a good hit or two on the man vaulting buildings, but if she was being honest with herself he was probably a momentary distraction at best. The young man might discover Beverly, and they would spend some time questioning her and her parents, as well as any neighbors who saw the Omen making a spectacle of herself.
Speaking of which, she relaxed a bit, releasing her hold on the old woman’s ghost, as well as the angry bruiser. She felt that connection break, the two of them free to wander like they had been before she called on them.
The roads weren’t completely empty even this late at night, and she waited for a horseless carriage to roll by, timing it so she could hop up and grip the back, hitching a ride for a while before repeating the process twice more. This took her to a completely different part of town, where she commenced the ‘shopping’ that Ollie had asked her to take care of. Her lockpicks let her get into a grocery store, cat-eared hood up, and she helped herself to whatever she pleased. She tried to remember the list she’d been given, and even decided to treat herself and the others by snagging some assorted candies. And an extra treat for herself, a fresh bottle of whiskey, found its way into her bags as well.
Eventually she got back to the hideout, letting herself in. She was tired from running, and had a bit of a headache, but it had been a good night.
Ollie was still asleep, as was Parker. Vera grabbed a piece of charcoal she used for drawing, and went over to draw on Parkers face while she slept. She was thinking of what exactly she should draw, when Parker abruptly started snoring loudly, startling Vera and making her drop the charcoal. She chuckled and shook her head, picking it up and putting it back in her bag, having changed her mind about the prank.
Instead, she set about starting to pack their things, getting all of their possessions and organizing their bags to make enough room for it all. She wouldn’t sleep again tonight, but that was okay. If she was quick then she could have everything packed and ready to leave by the time they both woke up in the morning. They would move to one of the other prospective hideouts that they had considered, and then she would sleep.
No rest for the wicked, she supposed.
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