Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 5.2 - Reunion

Recap: Last time, Marissa experienced what might have been her darkest hour before having a confrontation with her literal inner demon and searching for her friends in the PPE Facility.

The wind's banshee-like howling dispelled all doubts that any hiatus in the Wild Hunt was over now. Swarms of black dots swam in the white-gold light of the full moon like thousands of little shadows.

I made out shapes among these mote-sized figures. Humans, canines, deers; all of them resembled tiny, dancing shadows that covered the moon like an eclipse.

Since most of them were camouflaged against the wine-black sky, I had no idea how many of them were there in total. But given that we were likely dealing with an A-ranked threat, the tiny swarm I saw before barely even qualified as a prelude.

If I didn't hurry to get to the library, I was going to get blown away. Windspeeds of roughly forty miles per hour were, from what I read, the fastest in which a human could walk at all and the wind was quickly approaching this limit.

Luckily, the PPE Library lay adjacent to the park. With its squad and sturdy exterior, it had an easy time withstanding even the harshest winds.

The rusty fence and the yellow police tape had been blown away which might have been more of an advantage than a disadvantage. It was technically illegal to enter the building, but this was not why the building was empty.

It was empty because the madness started here. The Witch of Summer Hill and the Nuckelavee left marks.

Stepping past the door and the rest of the entrance hall, one was greeted by torn-apart shelves and traces of the goo from the monster we had slain. Wooden planks covered the holes torn into the ceiling by the Nuckelavee.

No madman was fearless enough to seek shelter in a place so cursed. Expect those four who did.

A scene of devastation met my eyes as I looked behind the toppled-over shelves. Darcy, Isa, and Simon had climbed on a skeleton of a book frame to avoid being mauled by the red fox prowling the ground.

The same red fox Isa went after during the Sluagh's attack charred the wood by rubbing air molecules around it to create a spark that set the frame on fire. Yes, I paid attention during the Academy. Most familiars had an affinity to a particular phase of matter, be it gas, liquids, solids, or plasma. I didn't know what Siris' was, but Darcy told me that Lyfa was good with gases before her skills at elemental magic atrophied from lacking practice.

Yet, this fire fox wasn't a threat to anyone. It stopped as Isa spread out her hand and shouted. "Mozilla, no!"

Mozilla? Really?

Isa was wearing the same red bodice dress she had worn during the dance and considering how worn it looked, she probably hadn't switched out of it in mean the meantime.

Simon also kept his blue astrologer's robe with the pointy hat, only that this time, he had a crow sleeping on his sleeve like a pirate's parrot. I did vaguely remember having seen that familiar in the Sluagh swarm, too.

The two were practitioners now and they noticed me. For the first time since I met them, we watched each other at eye level. They were apprentices, too, now, with only two months less experience than I did. The fox must have filled Isa in on every knowledge gap she had.

Except for the monster, sorry, angel in my head.

All that fear I didn't feel when I destroyed the school now came back to me. I had to explain myself and I had to do so without being able to tell the full story.

"So," I said, "I wrecked a building."

"That, I can live with," Isa said, "but running away and leaving us worried was a crime. Don't do that again!"