Austronaut

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

Do we need a post from Morgan?

Let sleeping dogs lie.

We could always pose as a travelling circus

Avalon: A Tale of Arthurian Legend

Ohhh this sounds very interesting!

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Lenya nodded.

“It is usually easier to just wear a coat, and it will only last until the salt melts away.” As she spoke the small pile of salt seemed to slowly shrink. She ran a black leather glove along one of the benches, her fingertips painful as the blood flow returned.

“I think we might be dealing with a child, a juvenile I mean,” she clarified cursing English as the imprecise hodgepodge it was. With a wide arm gesture she encompassed the manga and anime.

“Young person with too much power and not enough sense,” she frowned thoughtfully at the crumbled wall.

“Maybe they shifted, used a spell to transform into … whatever went through that wall. I don’t see a lot of disturbance and destruction to indicate an angry summoned spirit.” She arched a pale eyebrow at Max.

“Of course that isn’t really my deparment.”

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

Emma just summoned some major bad luck for everyone.

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Lenya’s teeth audibly chattered as she surveyed the room incredulously. It didn’t strike her as the lair of a powerful mage bent on evil designs. It looked like it belonged to a kid with too much power and too little sense. Not a new phenomenon that. Whatever the nature of the opponent it was clear he, or she, was not here and that now clever spell lay over the place to ambush intruders.

Reluctantly she abandoned the shelter of the afghan.

“It will be alright,” she assured Max in response to his unspoken concern.

“This will only take a minute. Despite her bravado the biting cold was enervating, she would need to work quickly. After a few moments of fumbling with the catches of her briefcase she tore off her gloves and pulled open the case. Instantly her fingers began to sting with exposure. Reaching deep into the case she withdrew a white stick of tropical coral. One of several she had been given during her time in Melanesia. Carefully she scribed a circle on the hard concreted, the rough surface abrading the coral like chalk.

Once she was completely enclosed she began to dance. A slow sinuous rolling affair, distinctly Polynesian in its tempo and gyrations. As she danced she spoke words in low tones, ancient tribal invocations to gods she didn’t believe in.

The whole procedure took nearly five minutes and by the end of it her teeth were chattering and her body was trembling uncontrollably from the intense cold. She reached forward with the toe of her boot and scuffed the circle open. A rush of almost tropical air erupted from nowhere, the warm salt smell of the sea. The temperature rose to just below freezing in a matter of seconds. It felt like a furnace compared to the chill settled into their bones. She opened a palm and poured a large handful of salt out onto the ground. It slowly began to dissipate, like a chemical accelerant devouring itself without oxygen.

She rushed unsteadily over to Max pressing herself close to the flame and wrapping herself in the afghan once again.

“It will last a few minutes,” she managed through chattering teeth.

“We should search and take what we need back to the office.”

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

His strong hands cupped her face, calloused fingers running through her auburn hair. Dawn would break soon, ending their time together, perhaps forever. The wrongness of the scene ground in Emmaline’s mind like the gears a seizing clock, strange and alien perspectives only half understood. Like tectonic plates, finally slipping to relieve ancient and unimaginable forces, she slid back into her own mind with a crash. Emotional transference. It was always dangerous to touch the mind of another and that was doubly true with other practitioners. People weren’t as similar on the mental level as science and psychologists might have them believe. She blinked hard trying to clear her mind and focus on what Beth was sending her.

Carefully she stepped away from the car, the bruises and contusions on her back and ribs howled for attention. Adrenaline still coursed through her body and she worked to keep her mind walled off from the aches and pains of the body.

Rob and Jacob still fought with the monster, making quick, stinging attacks with their improvised weapons. Doubtless the pair were the only reason they hadn’t all been torn to bloody rags. In her attuned eyes she could see green and gold tendrils of magical energy trashing around the spirit like the tentacles of some deep sea horror. That was new; a few minutes ago they had been taut bands, binding the spirit to whatever purposes its summoners had imposed. As she watched she saw the tendrils bend, as though against their own will, towards Mandy. In a rush she grasped the meaning of the images Beth had sent her.

Reaching into her pocket she produced a sharpie permanent marker. With the familiar and comforting smell in her nostrils she began to write rapidly on the hood of the car, the only available surface appropriate to the task. With practiced skill she theorized the spell she would need, a series of integrals and mathematical transforms. Try as she could, she was unable to find a solution that was within her optimal parameters. Perhaps if she had time and leisure to rework the Fourier transform… but she had neither time, nor leisure. Licking her dry lips she focused on the numbers, she touched her thumb to a small sharp protrusion on one of her rings. A tiny drop of blood welled up and she took a deep breath. This would be bad.

With a quick thrust she smeared the drop of blood over the hood of the car in a diagonal slash, cutting through the hastily created calculations. The numbers spun in her head as the spell raced along its own internal logic. She felt it take hold, the randomly lashing tendrils of energy bent towards Amanda like grass bending in a gale. The girl would still have to master them but it should at least be possible. She felt the backlash almost immediately. All the negative probabilities she had foreclosed coalesced into a single malign energy. The Hex bloomed into being, seeking a place to land and balance the cosmic scales. She hoped they would all survive it.

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Lenya shivered and pulled her winter jacket close around her slender body. She was a lean and long limbed woman and neither of those traits did much for heat retention. Instinctively she crowded in behind Max, taking a little warmth from his flame.

“I knew the Macabee’s cheated,” she murmured in his ear, her teeth nearly audible chattering and her breath visible in short puffs of vapour. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets and hope that if she needed to use her athame that she would be steady enough. It occurred to her to take the glock out of her briefcase but the thought of exposing her hands just to clutch a freezing lump of plastic and metal seemed intolerable.

“I suppose with all the banging around, if we haven’t been murdered yet…”

None the less she kept her mind as clear as the cold allowed, feeling it sting at the tip of her nose and exposed ears.

“We should have bought balaclava’s like real burglars,” she managed in weak jest as she followed Max down the stairs.

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Let's force new employees to get a private detectives licence...

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

There were too many things going on at once for Emmaline to keep track. Ties and tethers leapt into being in her magical sight, like competing puppeteers trying to work the same marionette. Flames leaped over the creature as the two men ducked and weaved, hurling their improvised firebombs, igniting the bark and wood where it was dry enough to allow such things.

She didn’t understand what was going on and that made her uncomfortable. Action was the only tonic for indecision her mother was fond of saying. Lowering her athame, she reached down and half lifted, half helped Morgan to her feet. The half familiar buzzing sensation began at the back of her mind as their skin touched. Carefully she helped the other woman into the car.

Turning back towards the creature she found it surprisingly indecisive. It seemed by turns irritated by the flames and intent on turning Rob and Jacob into greasy smears and regarding Amanda with a type of curiosity. Not friendly exactly but neither did it move to smite the girl. Beth was out of her sight, in the garden centre doing… something. Emmaline pursed her lips. Blood magic made her uncomfortable. So much imprecision in blood, its centrality to life gave it power and meaning but there was always an element of flux to it that she mistrusted.

Carefully she reached out for the bundle of emotions that considered itself Beth Buchanan. She was careful not to brush the other witches mind, keeping herself a respectful distance removed, but close enough to be noticed when the other woman had a free second. She pushed the image of the indecisive guardian towards Beth, trying to keep her own analysis out of it. Thoughts could be could be easily coloured by the opinions of the observer.

“What is going on?” she asked, cutting her eyes towards Morgan.