---

"Hmph," Morgana turned her head towards Shane as she flipped him off, "We're just here to recover some stolen property! So do us a favor and fuck off!" Morgana whistled to get the Dog's attention as she pointed in a direction and shouted,

Shane almost laughed. He was hardly verbose but the way these attackers spoke and behaved it would be easy to see them more as petulant teenagers rather than dangerous cultists. Which, come to think of it, was most likely the case.

He watched as the Hellhound, the one thats brains he'd scrambled, limped away when its master recalled the dogs back. If it weren't a giant slobbering beast that seconds ago had tried to eat him, Shane might have found himself feeling a bit sorry about putting a dent in its skull. As it stood though, this day was testing him as it was, and he was fresh out of sympathy. The short yappy one with the red hair yelled another command and off the only untouched Hellhound went, dragging along the kid across the broken up flooring.

"... MORGANA WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

'Well... Learned something at least.' Shane thought, memorising the yappy one- Morgana's name. He looked on in quiet frustration as the kid got dragged into the darkness of the hallway and Morgana saw fit to erect a giant wall of fire before leaving. Shane walked up to it with his brow furrowed, he let the blue light of Guardian Angel engulf him before cautiously putting forth his left hand to the wall. Immediately recoiling back in pain and shaking his hand off.

'Doesn't work on fire. Learned something else.' He thought, grimacing as his hand already began to turn a light shade of pink on his pale skin. Between this and being thrown into a wall, he was taking quite a beating for an implacable man. He watched that "expert" kid jump right through the flames unharmed and narrowed his eyes.

Things happened around Shane for a moment as he stood, seething silently to himself at letting those shitheads get away again. Yet another sibling entered the fray, Aileen, Ezra pointedly explained to Raymond that tearing up the house was not particularly in anyone's best interests. Raymond, for his part, didn't seem terribly bothered as he put his stones back and darted through the flames to give chase. Alexander and Ezra discussed if what Morgana said was true, Ezra didn't seem to place much stock in it but Shane wasn't so sure. He damn sure wasn't going to let them run roughshod on the Estate any longer but it wasn't too difficult for Shane to see his father gallivanting... Well, everywhere magic seems to permit, in pursuit of "knowledge" or some such justification. Shane hadn't poured through them like Oscar but Father's journals were awfully detailed if he only got to look at half the things he wrote about.

Speaking of Oscar, he'd finally caught up with the rest of his family and put the flames out, turning Shane's clothing from dripping wet to slightly damp in the process. Shane took off his suit jacket and dropped it on the floor for freer movement, not like it costed much anyway. Tuyen and Ezra spoke to one another, making plans to head to the Gallery. Good enough place to lockdown, but they failed to also take into account that Morgana and her followers were kind of idiots. Since they seemed to be winging it by this point, god only knows where the hell they all were in the Manor, might as well hunt him off while they tried to find their way.

Preparing to, ostensibly go Rambo on some punk kids, Shane wordlessly exited the dining room to see Justin fighting off the dogs and two girls. He charged forward to put the fleabags down for good but they'd already sprinted off to follow their master, one of the girls was kind enough to leave behind another obstacle though. While they sure hadn't planned any of this they damn well knew how to be annoying little pissants.

Shane watched as Justin threw his flames at the vine, burning them through and creating an opening. Even still he could hear the group cackling as they fled deeper into the Manor much to Shane's continued chagrin. He looked on expressionlessly as Justin continued to throw his flames against the wall, taking note of what they were capable of and how much he was going to enjoy making them wish they had dental insurance. But, not much his abstraction could do to get through a bunch of weeds... As far as Shane was aware currently anyway.

"Happen to see which direction they ran in?" Shane asked Justin, still staring ahead through the growing hole Justin was carving. Normally he wouldn't even bother asking at all, preferring to quietly find out for himself. But, the preceding events had eroded through Shane's patience and his typically withdrawn manner. He was still as pissed as ever though.

Alexander nodded as Ezra told him not to take the words of the Wiccans as cold, hard fact. He did have a point in that people with wierd robes, animal masks, and a seemingly high propensity for stupid plans and disregard for allies were not exactly the most credible source. Their sheer incompetence was a sure sign of that, too. "I see. Huff. I'm exhausted." He had no energy nor motivation to chase after the wiccans anymore; chaining Daniel up and casually giving him threats was just about everything he was willing to do. Heck, this was like the fifth time he had been here, and he just never felt an attachment to this place, as he was in Araminta solely because of the stone curse that was taking a hold over the bodies of every single Vanburen. He didn't even like it here....

“Actually, there is James’ artifact collection. Most of it looks like junk, really, but a few of the items might be valuable. There’s a gallery past the ballroom, near the study. If you think it is safe, Arabelle can show...”

"Artifacts, huh.", Alexander glanced at the trail of dirt that Ray had left behind when he slid off with his earthen coated shoes. "Experience tells me that seemingly worthless objects often hold great power. Especially if they're very old and ancient. And magical. My, I've been watching too many movies lately."

He just sat down beside Ezra, and sighed, leaning slightly towards his half sibling, almost as if he was going to fall asleep. "Wierdest day ever. That's coming from someone who had seen a Beagle fly around a house because it had chewed on a stash of weed."



It wasn't long before Ray had arrived beside Justin in front of the plantine barrier, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust as he stopped gliding along the ground with his terrakinetic Abstraction. He looked at the vines, and grumbled in annoyance of the chase being delayed by another distraction yet again. "Damn, I hate vines.", he said while watching Justin cleave through the plants. These wiccans were rather persistent in their goals, of this there was no doubt. And yet, despite being bad at what they do, the Wiccans seemed to be somehow achieving their goal, as they had successfully delayed the people chasing them once more. Their brazen incompetence was being matched by an overwhelming amount of luck and the voluminous amount of powers that they had in their disposal.

"Tch, if they're looking for some magic artifact, they certainly cannot be allowed to take whatever they are seeking." Ray would then wince, as earthbending was beginning to enact its negative effects on his body. He then took the stones that he had wrapped around his shoes and hands, and then promptly sharpened them while levitating them around his right palm. The sigil on his wrist glowed a fiery light brown as he sent the sharpened stones into a rapidly spinning spiral, shredding through vines in an effort to get to the other side as soon as possible. Waiting for Justin to clear up with his pyro-telekinesis would just make them get in each other's ways while chasing.

---

---

"Fetishists and witches and stolen property? Oh my! Aileen replied, grinning and raising a brow. She was probably one of the few who actually wanted to attend the meeting with the investigators, but this was turning out to be more interesting--and exciting--but dangerous. She was falling in love with the mansion and its quirky inhabitants. A couple of weeks ago when the Vanburen Mansion got broken into, she had felt awful about not being able to do anything to stop it. But this time, there was something she could do. And she would do everything she could to help her new family.

Too much and not enough was going on, here. Too many people talking or running around and getting in the way for Aileen to be dancing with pretty razor blades. She would have to find another way if she wanted to accomplish anything. One great thing about creepy old mansions is one thing: there's always another way.

After feeling along the wall for a bit, Aileen opened one of her previously-discovered doors. It would lead her deeper into the mansion, and hopefully, lead her to some of the witches...

---

Aileen exited the secret passageway closer to the study but still a little far from it. If the witches were truly after a magical artifact, they would wind up around here eventually if not already. So with that in mind, she tapped her thumb and pointer finger to reveal pulsing energy between her fingers. Then, carefully maneuvering her hand, she began to rotate her hand in a circle, and as she moved her hand the light began to trail a ribbon of hard, rainbow light energy. It circled her as she walked down the hall toward where the study would be. The rainbow was probably no more than 4" tall, but grew several feet long and would serve as a sort of weak defensive shield, cutting into and possibly twisting or dislocating any limb that might get into its path.

The girl moved slowly and quietly, squinting her eyes as she went toward the study and gallery. She could hardly see, but she could still hear and detect movement--and from what she could tell, the voices were getting closer.

"They went down this hall, but I doubt you'd have a hard time finding them,"

Justin answered Shane without sounding passive-aggressive or sarcastic, mostly because he could still hear the sounds of those dogs' legs pounding against the ground. He was focused on cleaving a pathway through the barrier that stupid cult left for him. He would theorize that they were mostly wasting their time and creating a distraction, but he realized that they weren't the most intelligent lot. Not one tiny bit, which was a step down from the more cunning Speaker or the other nutjobs that he faced in Farmer Hill. Still, they were obviously getting by on power and strength alone, and just because they were stupid, didn't mean that Justin should underestimate them. Those dogs can take one hell of a beating, and he doubted that he could take all three at the same time.

There was also the fact that they were brute-forcing their way to success and that was not gonna happen under his watch.

However, his attempts at forcing the vines apart were assisted by Ray's stone. Creating a massive drill out of stone that managed to cleave a way through it for him! Easier than what he was trying, but he felt a twinge of shame for not being able to do it himself. Still, he just had to say, "Thanks... Mr. Vanburen," He actually hoped that was an actual Vanburen. However, the young Liao was given an opening and dove his way through it - he wasn't going to wait for the Vanburens when they were the ones who wanted him to solve their problems. He was surrounded by flames as he realized that the Wiccans put considerable distance on him, and he couldn't hear them anymore. However, the mansion was only so large so either they stopped or left the mansion... and the latter was not a good sign given that they were after something.

So, time to make sure that they didn't leave with what they came for.

---

After leaving behind the Asian kid, Morgana caught up with the dog that was dragging Daniel, and then she loudly whistled, screaming, "Heel!" Both dogs came to a stop as Morgana quickly snapped her fingers and the chains that were binding Daniel disappeared in fire. Daniel tried to climb to his feet but he was in agonizing pain due to being dragged through the manor by a dog and getting hit with a pipe.

"Holy shit, Daniel!" Penelope said as she hopped off the dog and ran over to Daniel as she tried to help him to his feet, but that was easier said than done when he had a solid foot over her. However, her head whipped around to Morgana as she pointed an accusatory finger at the girl. "MORGANA, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM?!"

Morgana leaned forward on the back of the Hellhound, crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes at Penelope as she affectionately rubbed the side of her beast's neck. She replied, "And imagine what those rich bastards would have done to him if I hadn't done anything," She deflected, "I saw an opening, and I took it."

"And yet," Penelope seethed as she balled her fists... her anger flooding in as her fists ignited like torches. She slammed a foot on the ground as she replied, "I can think of forty better things to do in that situation that didn't involve Daniel didn't hurt."

"Eh," Morgana shrugged. "Thea can fix him."

"But can she fix him if he's dead?" Penelope's head tilted as a vein nearly exploded in her brain. "Which he totally could have been when your fucking dog slammed him into a fucking wall..."

"Well good thing he's not dead," Morgana shrugged yet again as she played with the fur on her Hell-Hound. "Besides-"

"Morgana!" Maxine shouted but it was too late, a flaming steel bearing ball came from down the hallway and hit her Hell-Hound... directly in his left testicle. The ball hit with so much force that the Hell-Hound's teste was nearly exploded like a grape. The dog loudly howled in pain as it thrashed around spraying fire everywhere as Maxine and Morgana hopped off the thing and turned to face Justin.

The Liao smiled as he finally found a weak spot on the Hellhound. He floated in as he faced Maxine who reached into her pouch, however, Morgana ran up with her teeth bared. She had a dangling chain in her hands as she shouted, "Max, I'll handle this!" Morgana shouted, "Because nobody fucks with my dogs!"

As she shouted, she swung her chain around in a wide arc, trailing a thick wreath of fire behind as she swung it at Justin. He ducked underneath the fire and - he hoped the Vanburens won't get too pissed off - used his telekinesis to rip a door off its hinges. It whipped its way over to Justin and blocked the second time around when the chain came for him. Morgana loudly whistled to get one of the dog's attention and then shouted,

"Block this, asshole! Sic him, boy!" Morgana commanded and a Hell-Hound came running after Justin. The Hell-Hound roared as it charged him... and got a doorframe directly in the face. It came to a sliding stop before it got back up and continued the fight.

Another Hell-Hound was about to run after Justin when it was bound in chains by Morgana and came to a stop. "Here boy!" Morgana commanded as the Dog came to her side. "Lie down!"

The dog did as it was told and then turned around towards Daniel and Penelope. "You two, get on."

Penelope grumbled as she helped Daniel on the thing's back and then climbed on herself, and then Morgana pulled a sock out from underneath her robe. She put it in the Dog's face as she commanded, "Find Thea."

The Dog got up and ran after Thea's scent as Penelope asked nobody in particular...

"... Why the fuck does she have Thea's fucking sock in her pocket like that?"

---

Time was of the essence as Thea quickly went through James' study... Alongside Samantha as the latter didn't notice Arabelle in the room. It had to be somewhere. However, on a stand and behind some glass like a museum exit was a Ram Skull. Propped up and maybe the Horned God was in here and everything was starting to look up for the Wiccans. They can leave here before somebody gets killed... She put her hands on the glass and was about to pull it off.

"Somebody's coming!" Samantha warned Thea as she came to a stop and saw the rainbow shining from underneath the door. Well, whoever is on their way isn't very subtle.

"Grab something!" Thea commanded as she tossed over the stand and the glass shattered into a million pieces. She grabbed onto the Ram skull and heard...

"... Why hello there, who might you be?" The Ram-Skull spoke to her in the voice of a kindly old man.

"Who are you?" Thea asked.

"... I, my dear," The Apparition started. "... Am the Horned God."

Immediately Thea turned towards Arabelle as she shouted, "Catch!"

She threw the skull at Arabelle and hopefully she was a good catcher.

A beast charged through the wall and the remaining siblings scattered to all corners of the room. Junior found himself separated from the family, still in the archway that connected the Dining hall with the other rooms of the manor, while some of his brothers and sisters seemed up in arms and ready for a fight, some others panicked in the youngest's absence. Well it wasn't really surprising, at least they could be bothered to care about the youngest person here when some kind of monster was attacking.

"J-Junior! Where are you?!"

Junior realised his Abstraction was still active and masking him from the view of any eyes, though maybe that was for the best regardless if his siblings were worried about him, why would he let himself be seen if there was a god damn monster in the room?!
Debris flew as his siblings and the monster began to fight.

"Alexander! Answer us! We need to go!"

He heard another one of his sisters cry out for him... maybe he should disable his abstraction.. reassure them all. I mean if they're busy looking for him they can't concentrate on fighting that. He was as safe as could be really, being halfway out the door it wasn't like he was in any immediate danger..
Then chains flew and the hostage, the boy, was dragged out of the room barely conscious- and some more freaks turned up.

Man he really shouldn't be here.

“Junior, wait!”

Nah, forget that. thought Junior No way am I staying here with that thing.
The kid ran off, to leave his brothers and sisters to deal with the fire wall by themselves. He didn't have a place in mind, his legs just carried him further into the manor, into the other room where the Asian kid and most of his other siblings were- cleaving away at some vines and plants with their powers.
If anyone could help it wouldn't be one of his useless sisters or brothers, and this kid could throw fire! though he couldn't really help if he couldn't see Junior... so he disabled his distraction, returning to view around his siblings as the 'expert' ran off, pursuing the weird asses that had attacked the family.
"What the hell," were the first words Junoir spoke to his immediate family, appearing at their side as they watched their 'help' run off ahead of them. "what are you gonna do now? Cmon aren't you gonna follow him!?"

Free scones? Free latte? A chauffeur? Okay, so it had been a cop and she had sat in the front seat, but it was still a free ride. Regardless, pretending to be rich was already paying off; Nisha could kick herself for not thinking of such a brilliant idea sooner. Instead, she just kicked her feet up on the table, sipped her latte, and nibbled on her scone as she amused herself by scoffing at the line of plebs who actually had to pay for their drinks. It only took a third of a scone before her interest faded, turning towards the bundled up shoppers outside. Allegedly, the Vanburen mark would send someone to come fetch her in a pumpkin carriage and Cinderella her away to her new, naive family.

The familiar sensation of falling hit her before the chair completely dipped back. As if on instinct, or perhaps thanks to Nel’s ever vigilant eye, the Long Arms burst out of Nisha and caught against the floor to rebalance the chair. The spike of adrenaline faded as Nisha looked around the room. The people seemed unfazed enough that her spooky arms either were invisible to them or a totally normal sight, although she doubted it was the latter. Nisha didn’t learn her lesson; seconds later her feet were kicked back up on the table as she resumed her waiting.

Five minutes passed. People watching grew tired, so she pulled out her phone, realized she had no service, and went back to people watching. Now that she was pretend rich she’d have to see if her new “family” could buy her a phone that worked in America. Ten minutes passed. She had jumped in line now to get one of those big blueberry muffins and another latte. Even now that she was a pretend rich person she wouldn’t let that allow her to disrespect the queue. Fifteen minutes passed. Cherry, the plump and pleasant blonde woman who had comped her first treat did so for the second. Nisha thanked her because she wasn’t going to be one of those pretend rich who lacked manners.

Twenty minutes passed and Nisha was about to burn the motherfucker down to get back at the rich douchebag who was obviously standing her up. It wouldn’t be the first time she was disappointed by an older man from a wealthy family and she doubted it would be the last. Nisha chewed on her fingernail as the clock’s second hand rolled all the way around again. They were wasting her whole life now and what did she get out of it besides a shitty free cup of coffee and a mislabeled biscuit? This was unexceptable, just unexceptable. Nisha wouldn’t stand for it, so she stood up, her chair clattering to the ground. Just because she was poor the rich thought they could shit all over her. Well she had news for them: this bum had enough shit! Nisha stormed the front counter like her landing craft had just hit sand on Omaha. No queue was respected when it came to getting the goddamn respect she deserved as a fake rich person. Nisha got up in front of Cherry, lifted herself up against the counter to appear taller, and snapped her fingers for the woman’s attention.

“Hey! What’s taking Ezra so long!?” barked Nisha.

The wiccan quickly began searching through the room. Arabelle kept her eyes on the women, but her ears were listening for anyone outside. Her anxiousness was growing by the minute. Someone could come to the door, a hellhound could burst through the wall again, or these girls could turn on her at any moment. It seemed as if she was alone on this side of the manor. The Vanburens were all trapped at the other end and she’d been stupid enough to go off on her own. If anything did go wrong, she was screwed.

And then she heard the footsteps. Arabelle’s body tensed and she positioned the shovel to swing, but she was ready to swing in either direction. She didn’t want to hit anyone again, but she was fully prepared to defend herself. This is what she would do for a student, if she needed to. The Vanburens were no different than the children she teached.

The girl she’d hit warned the other that someone was approaching. Arabelle eyed the strange lights under the door. She felt like she’d seen bright lights in the mansion before, just like this actually, but she couldn’t be sure if it was from a Vanburen or a TV. To be perfectly honest, tonight was the first night she was seeing many of the Vanburen’s abstractions. It was quite a shock, but definitely not as shocking as a hellhound bursting through a wall.

The sound of glass shattering made Arabelle jump. She looked over to see the stand on its side, and that hideous ram skull within the wiccan’s hand. Arabelle frowned. Could this be the Horned God they were looking for? Was this the moment the wiccan would turn on her?

The wiccan turned and Arabelle tensed.

“Catch!”

Arabelle’s eyes went wide. The skull was thrown her way, and in her panic she dropped the shovel just in time to grab onto the skull. She immediately felt a shiver crawl down her spine.

“Are you the one who will release the Horned God?”

Arabelle stared down at the skull. She’d never touched a sealed object before. She never in her life had imagined that souls and demons could be trapped within. Holding it now felt unreal. This whole night had felt unreal.

Without giving the Horned God’s voice in her head any other thought, Arabelle looked at the wiccans as if she was considering what to do next. Then she turned and bolted for the door. She needed to get to a mirror. The one across the hall would do. Arabelle pulled open the door, took one step out of the room, and immediately ran her right shoulder into Aileen Vanburen’s fantastical rainbow shield.

“Ah!” Arabelle shouted. Her shoulder felt like it had popped out of its place and fell to the floor. She was lucky that she’d been holding the skull with her left hand, but it was extremely unlucky that she hadn’t checked the hallway before running into it. She looked down at her arm only to see it hanging there loosely and she felt so so close to fainting, but she kept her cool. “Okay, okay,” she managed to say in a shaky voice. She took a few quick breaths and slowly exhaled the last. “It’s just dislocated. I had a kid dislocate his shoulder on the playground once.” She grimaced and held the skull to her chest. Tears were coming to her eyes, but she continued to act calmly. “Aileen, I… I need you to get me into that room.” She nodded towards the room across from the study. It was the same room she found herself in earlier, after she left the dining room.

Arabelle was doing fine with the pain, even though with every breath she could feel how fucked her shoulder was, but as she looked at Aileen’s face she noticed movement behind the Vanburen. Arabelle’s eyes slid past Aileen’s and focused on what was behind her. She forgot the pain for a moment and instead felt terror. A hellhound was coming their way, with two wiccans in tow.

“They’re coming!” She shouted. In her fear she turned towards the room on her own and rushed inside whether Aileen followed or not. She didn’t stop until she was in front of the mirror. Only then did she turn her head back to see if Aileen was coming. “Aileen, I can get us out of here!”

If the hellhound reached the room before Aileen, Arabelle would have to leave her behind.

---

That little shit didn't answer and Georgie was about done worrying about where he was. This was why distractions were no good. There was a battle going on and she could be safe tucked away in her Garden. It's only been a week and some days, since she's came here and the rest of them were rubbing off on her in the worst way. The illogical decisions will be the end of her, especially when she couldn't do anything useful. Until though dogs were taken care of or gone away all she could do was sit pretty and relax anxiously while the house was set to ruin. She wants to go back to uni.

The fight carried on down the hall once the real "expert" burned down the vine wall. Georgie nearly gave up on Junior when he popped up again.

"What are you gonna do now? C'mon aren't you gonna follow him!?" Junior asked.

She heard yelling from one of the intruders, she assumes, and a loud yelp that sounded more like a distressed howl. Looks the tide is turning for the fight. She can relax and hope they don't destroy the ground floor under her bedroom. It's her only place of escape here if she's not in her dimension.

"No. It'd be a disadvantage to me if I jumped in this fight." She joined Ezra and the expert girl, figuring she's better off staying with the one person in her family, besides herself, with enough brain cells to make good decisions. She overheard him tell her they might be in the gallery.

She snapped her fingers trying to think of her name, but it escaped her so she settled for what she did remember about her. "The Irish girl used the secret passage. It'll behoove us to do the same, since the witches and their dogs went in the direction of the gallery."

She pointed to the open secret door way, knowing it branched off to several rooms on the ground floor. It's been awhile, since she was last in the walls, but if her memory serves her correctly if they went the right way they should arrive in the same hall as the study, ballroom, and gallery, but closer to the gallery.

---

---

The sounds were coming from the Study, Aileen determined. She crept quietly toward the closed door, holding her breath, her heart pounding harder as she approached. Her arms were aching, but she kept her shield up to make sure nobody would catch her unguarded from behind.

Aileen squinted through the crack in the door. There appeared to be three feminine figures in the room; two were rummaging, making a bit of noise as they did so, and the third was facing the others... and was holding a shovel? Nobody was talking now, so she couldn't tell who was in there. Would it be better to wait and keep watching, or to run in and try to take them all out at once while distracted? In the end, Aileen decided to wait a little longer to make sure there wouldn't be any friendly fire.

But then--commotion! Aileen was spotted! Unfamiliar voices were shouting inside. A piece of furniture was pushed over and glass shattered. Aileen took one step back and--FUMP! A human shoulder hit the blunt part of her shield, shattering it, and the young woman crumpled to the floor while shouting in pain.

"M-Miss Matthews?! A'm so sorry!" Aileen hastily apologized as she helped Arabelle to her feet, strangely fumbleling because the hall was...shaking? Thundering footsteps and nerve-wracking barks confirmed her suspicion--hellhounds. As if stirred into action by fear, Arabelle shot off across the hall on her own. "W-wait for me! Let me 'elp you!" Aileen called out, chasing after her.

Ezra's brow furrowed as he looked down at Alex with a tiny frown as he chewed the inside of his cheek. This didn't really seem like the time for levity, but then again Ezra didn't really know his half-brother that well—maybe he was the kind of man who needed to crack a joke to ease the tension. Hopefully he wasn't the kind of man who truly believed he saw a Beagle fly. Ezra's face softened as he exhaled a half-laugh, half-sigh and shook his head, "I imagine that was after you'd already have more than your fair share of the devil's lettuce. Wish that was the case here, but I truly doubt that Arabelle dosed our breakfast."

"Oh... right." Alexander huffed as the Spectre shook its head at him. The ghostly Apparition seemed to be disappointed in its charge, and even had its shadowy arms crossed in disapproval of Alex's rather shoddy work at remembering at how things occured back in the past. "Now that I think of it, I have reason to believe that I'm the one that consumed the stash of narcotics that day... Mmm. Makes perfect sense."

He was still completely out of it, though, as this was the first time that he had seen hellhounds in action, as well as the magic of the Wiccans. He was a newcomer to the world of magic, even if the Spectre had told him many things; it only spoke of topics that he asked it about, and Alex was not the kind of person that would barrage anyone with an endless litany of questions like a little child.

However, his attempts at forcing the vines apart were assisted by Ray's stone. Creating a massive drill out of stone that managed to cleave a way through it for him! Easier than what he was trying, but he felt a twinge of shame for not being able to do it himself. Still, he just had to say, "Thanks... Mr. Vanburen,"

"Glad to be of help, Mr. Liao." Raymond have Justin a friendly smirk as he took back the stones that he had used to drill through the vines back towards his shoes and hands. With that done, he then closely followed Justin through the hallways of the manor, though he took some of the time to sniff the vines that he had shredded through. Smells like magic vines. In other words, vines.

With the wall of annoying vines out of the way, Ray slid through the floor on his earthen shoes, using his Terrakinesis to guide the stones towards the destination; right ahead. He was right behind Justin the whole time, lagging a bit now as he wasn't feeling as well as he did in the morning. There were these crazy cultists once again, being trouble to their hapless manor as their giant dogs were still hanging around then. "Tch. I like cats more."

"Block this, asshole! Sic him, boy!" Morgana commanded and a Hell-Hound came running after Justin. The Hell-Hound roared as it charged him... and got a doorframe directly in the face. It came to a sliding stop before it got back up and continued the fight.

Ray wasn't going to let Justin fight the creature alone. Never. "Hello, doggie." He then jeered at the hellhound before stomping both of his feet on the ground in a Hung Gar-esque stance. Ray would then take another step forward, causing a fissure to erupt on the floor, culminating in a pillar of stone that would strike the hellhound right at the underside in less than a second...

---

The combined efforts of Raymond and Justin finally managed to tear through the vines blocking their path. Justin moved immediately, with Shane preparing to do the same before a familiar, grating, voice shouted behind him.

"What the hell," were the first words Junior spoke to his immediate family, appearing at their side as they watched their 'help' run off ahead of them. "what are you gonna do now? C'mon aren't you gonna follow him!?"

Junior's sudden reappearance caused Shane to turn around briefly, he looked back to see Raymond speed off not far behind Justin and let out an annoyed grunt. Ezra, Tuyen and probably others were planning to go through the secret entrance and defend dad's artefacts from the intruders. Shane on the other hand was hoping to catch up to those dickheads and ensure they didn't even reach that far. Or, he was before his momentum was halted before it could begin.

"Go and hide dammit!" He snarled at Junior before breaking off into a sprint down the hall. Part of him felt a little bad at leaving the kid behind, even if it was Junior. But the cultists didn't seem to have any interest in the Vanburens personally and it seemed all of them were further in the manor, the entrance-way was probably the safest place for Junior right now.

Shane didn't have Justin's head-start or Raymond's... Odd floor gliding ability. But he did have a good few years of track experience, even if he found himself huffing for breath more than he normally would, the flask in his shirt pocket hugging his chest and reminding him of why. Even still, it wasn't very long before he caught up with Justin and Raymond, still fighting those fucking dogs. Shane looked beyond them and narrowed his eyes as he saw the cultist lady, Morgana, make two of her little cultist pals climb aboard one of the dogs before holding something up to its nose and instructing it to run.

He growled to himself as he continued his charge. Morgana and another cultist lady, with some head of hair, stood at the end of the hallway. So Shane sped up, he'd just got here and the remaining dogs were preoccupied with Justin and Ray and making plenty of noise while Morgana and the other girl had only just told their last hound to move. He damn well wasn't waiting anymore, if these two wanted to try and slow them down, Shane was going to run right fucking through 'em. He cleared the hallway and coated himself in his blue aura, as far as he'd seen, Morgana could dish out chains but that was something he was sure he could deflect and absorb, he wasn't as sure about the other cultist.

So, cutting out the middleman, Shane found himself a step away from the unknown Maxine, both girls were turning back to face Justin and Raymond presumably so Shane hoped to take them by surprise and take Maxine out of the equation. Rearing his fist back in his sprint to deliver a vicious running hook across the jaw of Maxine.

The Hell-Hound was launched directly through the ceiling into the next floor by the sudden appearance of the stone spire. It made Justin jolt because of how sudden it was, though now he felt a little less bad about destroying their door. Well, if these rich people had the money to pay for this rampant destruction then what place does he have to criticize them? What Justin was more worried about was just how much can they fucking take? Justin reached into his pocket as he pulled out some more steel bearing balls, and to the surprise of no one, the Hell-Hound burst through the ceiling. Lunging directly at him as Justin flew backward, putting a hand on the ground as he slid backward.

The Hell-Hound hit the ground, opened its mouth, and released an inferno from its jaws that... did nothing to the fireproof Justin. He was just hoping that this place didn't burn down, however, he held the steel balls in between his fingers as he threw all of them forward. He launched them directly down the maw of the Hell-Hound and then the thing loudly hacked and coughed as it thrashed around. Hopefully, the Earth-bender guy will finish it off, but they had to be quick.

Morgana was about to jump into that fight and make it a two-on-four, one of those rich bastards rushed them head-on and caught her by surprise. He punched Maxine out and Morgana's blood boiled as her friend was taken out of the equation with one punch. "Hey, what kinda man hits a girl!?" Morgana screamed as she clutched the chains and then launched them directly at Shane and wrapped them directly around his leg... even over the barrier.

"SIC HIM, BOY!" Morgana screamed the order at the Hell-Hound whose testicle Justin had destroyed a second ago. The Hound was still in incredible pain as it sucked it up, and lunged directly at Shane. The Hound had Shane's head in his jaws and squeezed down on it...

... When there was an explosion of force that nearly killed the Hellhound.

---

The thundering footsteps came to a stop at the door to the study and the Hell-Hound began sniffing at the door. Careful enough not to actually break it down, it scratched at the door as the occupant on top hopped off.

"Heel, ya' bastard!" Penelope said as she helped Daniel down. "Thea!" She screamed.

Thea opened the door and was met with the Hell-Hound which licked her face and then she shrieked as the dog's body temperature was a lot higher than she could take. She grabbed her face as it left a noticeable burn on her face... and she did not have the luxury of healing herself.

"Shit, you okay?" Penelope asked.

"Y-yeah, I'll be fine," Thea said as she looked at Daniel limping, holding his side. She sprung into action and grabbed onto Daniel's side and then he was surrounded by a light-blue aura. His wounds were promptly healed as she sighed.

"... Thank you," Daniel replied.

"Anytime, Daniel," Thea answered.

"Now where the fuck is Tegan and Haley?" Penelope asked as she put her hands on her hips.

"No clue," Thea said, "They went off on their own."

"This is going tits up and you have 'no clue' where our only easy way out is?" Penelope shrugged, putting her arms up, with a tilt of her head.

"Easy now, Penny," Daniel said as he shook his head.

"This whole plan's been a shitshow! We should just hit while we're behind," Penelope said as she kicked the ground.

"Where are Morgana and the others?" Thea asked.

"Hey, Thea..." Samantha asked as she walked out, still with a hand on her head and things seeming a little blurry. "... What was that thing you threw?"

Immediately Thea tensed up as she tried to come up with an excuse because she was certain that Samantha wasn't even paying attention. "... It was nothing."

However, the Hell-Hound sniffed the air and picked up two distinct smells and sounds it didn't recognize nearby. Its attention went towards the bathroom as it quickly marched over there.

"Shit, somebody's in there," Penelope stuck both of her hands out and created a fire in one hand and water in the other. "Get im', boy."

The Hound howled as it charged at the door.

---

---

”Artifacts?” Tuyen repeated thoughtfully, head slightly tilted. “There’s a chance that one of those might be magical, and what they’re looking for. I would appreciate it if you took me there.”

Tuyen held back a frown as she spoke with a false confidence about her abilities that was getting gnawed away by a voice inside her head. She was nowhere near the expert that she was trying to be when it came to this kind of thing, most of her knowledge of apparitions and sealing of them coming from other members of their support group - and there was only so much you could learn from a stupid snapchat group chat. And if there were magical objects that wasn’t that? She had no clue how to even begin identifying that. But she had to pretend, at least.

It didn’t help that it was intimidating, for all her abstraction was powerful when not working against her, to be left with people who were essentially strangers. Especially when one hadn’t approved of Tuyen and Justin from the start.

Well, fake it till you make it, or something.

"The Irish girl used the secret passage. It'll behoove us to do the same, since the witches and their dogs went in the direction of the gallery."

Tuyen followed Georgie’s finger to the secret door that someone else had opened, holding back her thoughts about rich people. Because of course they had a secret passage. Nevermind how the girl who pointed it out was talking.

”Let’s go that way then,” Tuyen nodded, not waiting for any confirmation before heading into the passage. She assumed that they would follow and show where the gallery itself was - or not, and she would wander around until she got lost. Thankfully the passage was easy to navigate and lead her out into another hallway.

And was met with the sight of a hellhound tearing down the corridor, towards two girls trying to make their way from one door to another. Fuck. Thankfully they made it to the other room- and she really didn’t want to face down a hellhound without the guarantee of her shadow helping.

But she couldn’t just stand back as she watched one of the girls (witches?) and hellhound went towards the very door the other two had run into. She glared at the shadow beside her, willing it into action - she wasn’t exhausted enough yet, when it had only been out for a short period of time before. What other option did she have but to beg it? Throw herself at them and hope?

She approached the four in the corridor as she silently pleaded with her shadow, even as it refused to listen. Fuck. She forced a smile and ignored it’s taunting, the constant whispers in her mind that she wasn’t good enough to be doing anything of this. She stuffed a hand in her coat pockets, pulling out a small notebook she carried around. Before she could second guess herself she threw it at the hellhound in the hopes that it would stop it from ramming into the door (an unlikely hope, but a hope nonetheless).

”Surely you’ve done enough property damage by now?”

She was going with what was likely her worst plan: get their attention on her and hope her shadow manifested to protect her, or just heal any damage if it didn’t.

"Now that I think of it, I have reason to believe that I'm the one that consumed the stash of narcotics that day... Mmm. Makes perfect sense," said Alexander.

“Just don’t let Shane hear that. He might narc you out,” said Ezra. Or use them all, thought Ezra as his slight smile became pained as he turned away. Unlike Ezra and his cigarettes, Shane barely even bothered to hide his drinking anymore. It wasn’t a big stretch to think that the former supercop turned shut-in was attached to a few more vices.

”Artifacts?” He heard Tuyen say from beside him, bringing his attention away from blitzed beagles and back to the matter-at-hand. “There’s a chance that one of those might be magical, and what they’re looking for. I would appreciate it if you took me there.”

"The Irish girl used the secret passage. It'll behoove us to do the same, since the witches and their dogs went in the direction of the gallery," said Georgie before Ezra had a chance to respond. He gave her a slightly disparaging headshake, although less because she boiled their half-sister Aileen down to just being “the Irish girl” and more because she said the phrase “secret passage”. It was obviously just a service hallway, designed to allow servants to easily move throughout the house to perform their duties without interrupting the family or any of their guests, and was a totally normal thing for people to have in their home. Still, it was the best way to go to avoid any unwanted confrontation.

“Georgie’s right. One moment,” said Ezra as he walked over to where he had embedded the knife in the wall and pulled it out of the singed plaster. He reapproached Tuyen and gestured to the door with his hand, the bracelet hanging from his wrist glowing orange as he started to channel a spell. “After you.”

He had walked only a few feet after Tuyen before he fully considered what Georgie had said. Ezra stopped and turned sharply on his heels, holding out a hand to stop his younger sibling who was surely following them. The knife in his other hand began to glow orange as he warned her, “If you’re going to come with, stay back and stay out of her way.”

Ezra followed Tuyen through the passageway, keeping quiet except to tell her to go straight at the split as he finished transforming the simple kitchen knife into a Masterpiece. As their expert stepped out into the hallway near the study, Ezra remained with his back against the wall of the secret passage, his head turned ever so slightly so he could keep Tuyen in his periphery while staying mostly hidden.

The girl seemed to have a cool confidence to her as she whipped a notebook at a hellhound and called out to the four hooded figures. Ezra had seen her use her shadow to deck one of the doggies earlier, so he knew that she wasn’t all talk, but Tuyen was still heavily outnumbered. Maybe she was more powerful than she had come off as, or maybe she was just cocky. Either way, Ezra felt his stomach sink at the thought of just watching her get piled on by a bunch of meddling home invaders and their stupid dog, too. He touched his chest as a wave of orange travelled through his channeler, up his fingers, and into his chest as he cast Prodigy on himself again and became the perfect knife thrower.

“I’d told them to get out,” he muttered to himself. With one fluid motion he turned out of the secret passage and whipped the knife down the hallway. The blade flew perfectly straight, as if he had been practicing chucking kitchen knives his whole life, and buzzed straight past Tuyen towards the cultist who was distracted with rubbing their head. Unless there some interference, he was certain it would hit them right in the chest. Ezra didn’t wait to see if the strike landed as he slid back into the secret passage and listened for a scream, hoping that an unseen assailant taking one of them out would force the others to reconsider taking on the lone Tuyen—or at least weaken the strength of the pack pitted against her.

Arabelle was relieved to see Aileen follow her into the room. It was easy to get the Vanburen into the room, but now Arabelle would have to face the difficult part of this escape. It was going to be hard enough to bring a sealed apparition through a mirror and into a different location before, but now she had to bring a friend with a dislocated shoulder. Her arm was numb where it hung next to her. It already took enough energy to ignore the pain and to focus. She fumbled with the ram skull in her left hand and stuck it under her armpit.

“You’re in pain. I can help you with that.”

Arabelle groaned. It was a tempting offer at present, but she knew better than that. She reached out with her left arm, careful to keep the ram skull between her arm and ribcage, and grabbed onto Aileen’s hand.

“Get im, boy!”

Shit.

“No time to explain. This is going to feel weird!”

Without waiting for another wall to be destroyed by a hellhound, Arabelle plunged into the depths of the mirror. Her body disappeared first, and as her arm disappeared it continued to pull Aileen into it. Arabelle felt her head spin as she pulled the other woman inside with her, but once Aileen was inside the pocket dimension she felt better.

Next to her, an opening in the expanse appeared as Arabelle envisioned the room she would exit into. It led into the bathroom of a coffee shop in Araminta. She’d used this mirror plenty of times to grab coffee before, but she never expected it to be an escape route. She glanced back at the opening that they came from and was glad to see that the hellhound hadn’t burst into the room yet. It wouldn’t be ideal for the mirror to break, especially with a guest inside of it.

“Jump through this one, okay?” She smiled at Aileen briefly before turning to face the opening.

She pulled Aileen along again with a wince, still making sure the ram was secure in her arm, and leapt towards the opening to the cafe’s bathroom. If Aileen followed suit, and the hound didn’t break the mirror upon entry to the room, the girls would find themselves safe and sound miles away from the estate. Hopefully someone in the coffee shop this late at night was a nurse, too.

“Just don’t let Shane hear that. He might narc you out,” said Ezra. Or use them all, thought Ezra as his slight smile became pained as he turned away. Unlike Ezra and his cigarettes, Shane barely even bothered to hide his drinking anymore. It wasn’t a big stretch to think that the former supercop turned shut-in was attached to a few more vices.

"Don't worry." Alex responded. "I'm clean." Uncharacteristically, he smiled at Ezra for a split second before going back to his usual stoic expression. True, he did not really any of his half siblings much, but that could change in the days to come. He then sat back, a little tired. Though, something else came up, and he would get up to get back to the action once again.

"The Irish girl used the secret passage. It'll behoove us to do the same, since the witches and their dogs went in the direction of the gallery,"

Alex snorted, standing up from his seat and momentarily shifting into a ghostly state for no apparent reason. "Hah. Secret passages." He would then follow his half siblings into the service hallway, lagging a little behind because he was a little overcautious, and didn't feel like getting thrust into the brunt of the fighting once they found their quarry.

When they got there, though, Alex shuddered a bit, as he had never signed up to be in a close encounter with a Hellhound, but he came along anyway. Tuyen seemed to be distracting the hell dog, and Ezra threw a knife to hit one of the cultists at the chest. Alex just waited and listened; once it was all over, he could bind them in chains... except if they had fire powers like the kid from earlier. Why the hell were these juveniles running around with magic and magic dogs anyway?!

The Hell-Hound hit the ground, opened its mouth, and released an inferno from its jaws that... did nothing to the fireproof Justin. He was just hoping that this place didn't burn down, however, he held the steel balls in between his fingers as he threw all of them forward. He launched them directly down the maw of the Hell-Hound and then the thing loudly hacked and coughed as it thrashed around. Hopefully, the Earth-bender guy will finish it off, but they had to be quick.

Ray launched himself forward, gathering an outpouring of earth from the fissure that he had created earlier. Justin had more or less incapacitated the Hellhound with the steel balls that he had launched into its mouth, and it would take just a little more to kill it. Raymond had been sick of all of this; Hellhounds, witches, a warlock, imposters... with the return of magic to the world, it seemed that everything wrong with the town of Araminta had been dialed eleven fold, with Wiccans gaining actual powers and a curse of stone threatening to kill every single one of the Vanburen Clan.

Now, a pair of earth slabs, either of which were five feet long and weighed no less than fifty kilograms each, levitated a feet away from either of Raymond's hands. With a simple gesture, they turned into sharp stalactites that were fully capable of impaling a fully grown person into a wall, or kill a Hellhound that had been causing so much trouble lately. Shane came in, sure, but things were happening too fast for Ray to really pay attention. He was quite busy with dealing with the Hellhound, which he had stabbed with spears made of rock. For some reason, it was taking more concentration for him to do it than normal; perhaps this was another strange quirk of magic. Either way, it should be dead. Now...

"Tell us what you are here for, Morgana." Ray said, placing himself into a Hung Gar stance. "Or else we can just keep chucking magic at each other until one side gives up."

---

---

Aileen quickly locked the door behind her--and not a moment too soon. One vicious hellhound rammed its snout into the doors, causing it to groan and crack. The door would not hold for long. She looked anxiously to Arabelle, hoping the young lady had a plan. She seemed to be fumbling with what--a ram skull? Aileen shivered just at the sight of it, and it reminded her of the 13 magpies she saw flying earlier that day.

Her thoughts were cut short as Arabelle grabbed Aileen's hand and began disappearing into the full length mirror on the bathroom wall. Her eyes went wide with fear and wonder as she, herself, was pulled into the liquid metal surface.

When Aileen emerged, her head was spinning. "Aye... I feel like Alice through the looking glass..." she commented, rubbing her temple with her free hand as she looked curiously around. Behind them was a doorway with a strage view into the bathroom they had come from. Distorted sounds of barking and thudding and cracking, could be heard coming from their entrance, almost like they were underwater. And all around, they seemed to be surrounded by an endless expanse. Out of nowhere a doorway--or more likely, a mirror--materialized in front directly in front of them.

“Jump through this one, okay?” Arabelle smiled at Aileen briefly before turning to face the opening.

Once again, Aileen was pulled through a portal into what appeared to be... the public bathroom at her workplace? Yes, when her head stopped spinning, she was sure of it. They were at the local cafe, where Aileen worked part time as a barista. The full length mirror seemed to be fully intact and completely normal but she put her free hand on the flat cool surface for a moment just to be sure, then let out an audible sigh of relief.

"Ah... A'm knackered after all that," Aileen said wearily, looking rather pale. She glanced over to Arabelle and the skull. "Is this nawful thing what the brawl was all about?" Aileen asked while pointing, with a frown and a furrowed brow.

But eyes quickly softened and she grew concerned as she took in Arabelle's pained expression and the way she held her arm. "I must have banjanxed your shoulder pretty good, I'm sorry... but I can make it right again. My Ma wasn't a nurse, but she taught me a thing or two to save a pretty penny...."

One of her dogs was finished off by Raymond. Another was blasted down the hallway and she sent the last dog to take Daniel to Thea. Suddenly, Morgana was without her strongest tool and realized that she was near defenseless... she had the thorny chains in her hands which she clutched just a little tighter as everyone faced her down. That Asian kid had many steel balls floating in front of him, waiting to launch them at her. And all Morgana had was a disabled Maxine and a chain.

"For the Triple Goddess..." Morgana said, voice full of fire and passion as she raised the chains and they exploded into flames. "... I'll give my li-"

Morgana shouted before an enormous quake hit the Vanburen estate. It was so much that it sent Morgana stumbling as bits of the ceiling came down. The shaking was enough to make Justin stumble and lose concentration as the building shook... and then it stopped. She could hear the chaos going on outside, it sounded like there was a tornado going on as the building was surrounded by violent winds. Window after a window broke and Morgana could barely pay attention as a bolt of lightning hit the place. It sounded like they were in the middle of a violent hurricane as the ground quaked.

A purple portal appeared behind Morgana and out of it came her twin sister Tegan who looked around with Haley looking over her shoulder.

"What's-"

"PUT UP A SHIELD!" Maxine shouted at Haley who quickly raised her barbie doll and created a yellow barrier between the Wiccans and the Vanburens. It was so thick that they could barely see through it. Morgana's chains disappeared as she and Tegan ran over to Maxine and picked her up and dragged her inside of the portal before it closed.

The steel bearing balls crashed into the barrier as it disappeared. "Fuck!" Justin shouted as the Wiccans escaped without a word. They had no clue what the Wiccans were after, but they should definitely investigate what the fuck is going on outside. He was wondering what the hell was Tuyen was up to.

---

The book didn't do anything to stop the Hellhound's momentum, and instead merely pissed it off as it crashed into the door anyway. It nearly knocked the door down as it craned its neck over towards Tuyen and then growled at her as it walked towards her menacingly.

Penelope scoffed at Tuyen and grinned at her as she created flames in both of her hands as she took a step forward. "I'm about to do some major property damage to your face, dollface!" She shouted at her as she let off a fireball at the ground not too far away from Tuyen. "Now scram bef-"

That was when the knife cut through the air and hit Samantha directly in the chest and Thea loudly screamed as the girl dramatically fell on her back. Penelope's eyes shot wide open as she grits her teeth and shouted, "What the fuck!?"

In a normal situation, Thea would have left the knife in Samantha but this was beyond normal. She used both hands to yank the knife out but immediately put both hands over the wound as Samantha was illuminated in blue light. The wound began to heal... that was when the earthquake hit the building and Thea fell over onto her ass. The healing that she had applied began to slowly undo itself and Penelope hissed as she stumbled over. They heard the storm that was going on outside that was tearing the mansion apart and she could only think out loud.

"... The Triple Goddess."

Thea immediately put her hands back on Samantha and began healing her, and Penelope knew that they had to cover her.

"Daniel!" Penelope shouted as she pointed both hands down the hallway. "Water cannon!"

Daniel nodded as he joined her in pointing her hands down the hallway and then the two joined together as they created a torrential wave of water out of thin air. It created a powerful wave of water that would send away even the strongest person without an anchor - it also went into the secret passageway. They kept it going and going even as sweat dripped down their head.

Meanwhile, the Hellhound was loudly yelling as the water extinguished the inner flame that it had kept going. The creature let out a dying yelp as it crumbled away into ash... flowing down the river



When Junior didn't respond, Sabrina was running around the dining room looking for him. Checking down halls, into rooms, even trying to call his cellphone but hers got destroyed by Daniel's initial attack. Her siblings seemed oddly calm about Junior, their youngest member, being missing and seemed to be a lot more concerned with repelling the invaders. Which was fine and all but they needed to make sure that Junior was okay, it was what James would have wanted. She looked around as those who didn't accept his call to action stayed behind in the dining room... which included Sabrina. Maybe later she'd have the strength to help but with her abstraction being ill-suited for fighting all that she would do is get in the way.

But still, this didn't sit right with her, and nor should it with the rest of the Vanburens. She walked over to Oscar as she said, "Are we just going to sit here while Junior could be in trouble?" She shook her head. "For all we know, they could have been after him all along and everything was a distract-"

There was an orange bolt of lightning that appeared at the corner of Sabrina's eye that directed her towards the window. Out in the white fields was... something strange. It had three faces that floated off of her head and had the body of a woman. Everything was bare to the world, including her genitals, but it was wrong to Sabrina. She had various patches of exposed skin and red and other fleshy colors flowed off of her. Sabrina never has seen anything like it as she walked over to the window with an eyebrow raised... was this an apparition or something else?

The being raised her hand.

Sabrina's heart started racing.

The ground began shaking as Sabrina screamed as she fell onto her ass and she heard the window crash in front of her. However, the ghost of Mary Roberts was always watching her back and covered her face with cloth and enhanced its tensile strength enough so that she wouldn't get cut. However, she still felt it... much like she felt the winds of the storm that the apparition created around the manor.

What was her play here?

Ezra didn’t hear the knife hit, but the terrified shriek and the shouts from the other cultists brought a smirk to his face that he quickly tightened and wiped away. He could use his connections to draw information from the local hospital later to see if anyone arrived with a stab wound, then trace who brought them in to find out what kind of idiots decided to rob from him and his family. He poked his head out from the passage; the cultist was on the ground and another was reaching to pull out the knife. He sunk back into his hiding spot with a stern look on his face as he avoided the gaze of the couple of Vanburens that had followed him. A body could still give answers, but it also demanded questions. The only thing keeping him from getting sick was knowing that the states stance on the castle doctrine would unquestionably side with him.

First he felt his phone buzz, then he felt the whole house shake as the sound of heavy wind smacked against the house and the ground trembled. Ezra doubted it was just an anomaly, thinking instead that it was the doing of one of the cultists. He looked back down the hall to see if one of them was channeling anything in retaliation. He saw the cultist who had been pulling the knife out of the other on the ground, likely unable to steady themselves after their realization that their first aid failure had thrown their friend from being on the brink of death to plummeting straight to hell. He also saw the impostor run over to another one as they summoned a torrent of water that was rushing straight his way.

“Go, go, go!” shouted Ezra as he turned and began prodding his siblings to retreat down the passageway. The alarm in his otherwise normally calm-under-pressure voice would’ve likely been enough to get the others to start bolting even if it was accompanied by the sound of a rushing wave. However, even if they hadn’t been bottlenecked there would be no outrunning the water. The wave slammed into Ezra’s back and lifted him off of his feet, threatening to knock him into Alex and sending the pair cascading through the passageway straight back to the dining room.



In the safety of the stall, hidden from the mob of annoyed coffee drinkers in need of their afternoon brew, Nisha replayed the conversation she just had in her head:

“I’m sorry Ms. Vanburen, he did not answer,” said Cherry, the proprietor of Café, Oh Yay and current victim of Nisha’s abrasiveness.

Nisha had glared down the larger woman, her nails biting through the thin polyester of her light jacket to create tiny indents on her arm, her lip curled at one end. Cherry’s tone seemed overall friendly, but there was something in the way she said Nisha’s phony last name that Nisha didn’t like. Maybe she was just imagining it. With complete disregard to the line behind her, Nisha said, “Then. Call. Him. Again.”

“Your brother knows how to listen to a voicemail.”

“My brother is going to be very angry when he hears about this,” hissed Nisha, already invoking the power of an utter rich stranger because she knew it would set the unhelpful woman straight.

Only she didn’t budge. Cherry said, “Ms. Vanburen, I imagine that, like me, Ezra is busy. Now you can either wait quietly here or I can arrange for Officer Dewey to pick you up again and take you somewhere quiet.”

The two women stared at each other. Nisha only budged when she saw Cherry start to reach for the phone. “Fine, but I want a refill.”

“Anything for a Vanburen,” said Cherry with a smile.

Now that Nisha had time to analyze the event, she began to suspect that the owner didn’t believe her claim about being a Vanburen. Her eyebrow twitched. How dare that lady assume she’s lying just because she is! Nisha had half a thought to go out there and teach the old bitch some manners. She could use the Long Arms of the Slaugh to toss the entire store and that woman even know what’s going on—Nel had told her that the normals couldn’t really detect the arms, on account of them being all stupid. Nisha grinned wolfishly, thinking of how funny it would be to smash a hot coffee pot across Cherry’s smug face. Nisha might not actually be a rich person whose money put them above the law yet, but she could get away with it nevertheless—no cop would buy the story that the girl materialized some ghost arms to assault her.

Nisha heard footfalls coming from outside of her stall, which was odd since there had been no noise of anyone else opening the bathroom door. She pressed her eye up against the gap in the door, holding her breath as she watched two women emerge from the mirror, one pulling the other through. They both had red hair, although one was darker and the other was brighter, and the taller woman’s arm hung in an odd way. Odder still was the skull slung under her arm. Nisha felt her eyes drawn to it. A slow chill ran down her spine as she analyzed the skull, but then there was nothing. The smaller of the two women began speaking, her Irish accent catching Nisha by surprise.

Truth be told, it all was perhaps the third oddest thing she had ever seen happen in a bathroom that she could remember, and she could remember a lot of weird bathroom experiences. Still, the woman who had pulled the other girl through the mirror was the first person besides herself that Nisha had seen use magic. Wait, magic? No, that wasn’t Nel’s word for it, she had called it....something. Whatever. The two women would hear a flush followed moments later by the unlatching of a lock as Nisha emerged from the stall. She imagined they had thought that they were alone. The atmosphere felt heavy. Nisha gave them a once over and nodded at the sink.

“You’re in the way,” she said before stepping between the women to wash her hands. What was the proper etiquette when meeting another magical weirdo? She could’ve used Nel’s advice, but the spirit was always so shy around others. Did she show off her ability like it was some kind of secret handshake? Did they fight? Nisha watched the two in the mirror as she washed her hands.Hopefully it was the former, but if it was the latter they looked pretty soft, one of them was already injured, and she had more fists and although not great with math she knew that meant she could throw more punches than them.

“So that’s a cool little trick you have there,” said Nisha, watching Arabelle in the mirror. Her voice fired off like a machine gun, not letting the others get a word in edgewise. “I bet you can get into a whole lotta trouble with something like that. Outta it, too.” She leaned towards the mirror and placed a wet hand against it: totally normal mirror. A ghostly blue arm slithered out of Nisha’s side, yanked a paper towel from the dispenser, and deposited it in her hands before fading away as she turned around to face the two. “Don’t worry, if there’s a string of burglaries around here I’m not gonna be the one to rat you out to the police.”

“Actually, that gets my brain thinking. Can you do that with any mirror? Like maybe even those security dome ones? Wait, would bank vaults even have one of those guys in”—she pointed at Aileen, whom she recognized from a tabloid story from when she had “researched” the Vanburens—“Hey, I know you! We’re’ sisters!” A mischievous smile radiated from Nisha as she spread her arms out, anticipating a hug from someone who didn’t even know she existed, “Well, half-sisters. Who cares, right?”

“I’m Nisha. Oh my gosh, I was getting worried that Ezra was standing me up too. Phew! He’s such a prankster, you know? Very funny guy. Love him already. I was kind of expecting a limo but I totally get doing something more lowkey like this, way cooler anyway, very slick. How’d you know I was in the bathroom though? Oh whatever. Ahhhh! I’m so excited to finally have a family!” she squealed, peppering in fragments of a convoluted tragic backstory that she was forgetting nearly as quickly as she was making it up. Everybody loved orphans, right? Nisha, no longer capable of waiting for the affection that she felt she was truly deserving of thanks to her performance, launched herself at Aileen to pull her into a big hug, ready to squeeze her “half-sister” as hard as she was about to squeeze the Vanburens for every goddamn red cent they had.

Everything was happening in a breakneck pace. First, Ezra had executed a nice knife throw, which seemed to be successful as there was a rather loud scream from the other side, presumably coming from the vocal chords of the wounded cultist girl. The thing was, Ezra was perfectly fine with giving someone a stab wound of all things, even of there were chances of ending up killing someone. Ah, well. Technically, he was defending his own property from trespassers and hostile intruders, so he was perfectly justified under the law.

Alex though, was not so sure about that. True, he did threaten the kid from earlier with phasing his chains into his body, but it wasn't like he was actually going to do it. Hell, he actually can't phase while the chains were active and vice versa. He'd sooner talk and hug it out in the end instead of putting his hand into someone's chest cavity. It was just that it felt right to put on his mean face at the moment back then...

The wave slammed into Ezra’s back and lifted him off of his feet, threatening to knock him into Alex and sending the pair cascading through the passageway straight back to the dining room.

"Everything just gets better and better, doesn't it?" Alex was forced to lean on the wall as the shaking began. And then... there was the wave. On pure instinct, Alex took a deep breath and turned intangible, letting the wave pass. He would see Ezra get carried away, as he wasn't there to catch him. "Oops... sorry about that..." He determined to make up for it later... after all, these people were technically the only family he had left. Might as well be nice to them, after all these years...

The steel bearing balls crashed into the barrier as it disappeared. "Fuck!" Justin shouted as the Wiccans escaped without a word. They had no clue what the Wiccans were after, but they should definitely investigate what the fuck is going on outside. He was wondering what the hell was Tuyen was up to.

Raymond hissed with irritation as the earthen spears crashed into the barrier without so much as a scratch. With the Wiccans escaping, he could only feel the shaking of the earth as something, or someone, began causing a massive commotion outside. It was causing some real damage, and between the destruction that had been dealt to the house by the Hellhounds and by the ones that tried to defend it, well, this was going to be hard on the insurance. Either way, Ray knew that whatever was going on outside was not a natural occurrence. It was of an anomalous nature, no doubt, and they should go to investigate it.

"We should check it out, Mr. Liao." Ray said as he began to glide toward the outside, seeking to see whatever was causing such a shake.