Red Witch: Origins

ONE - GUTTER BALLET

Rain fell in buckets. Thunder growled through the sky. A short, sharp flash of lightning gave brilliance to the green, purple, red, and blue cracks cutting behind the thick clouds. Even the storm couldn’t fully hide the eerie beauty of the jagged scars that painted otherwise empty black skies. I stared up in wonder, fascinated by the symphony of the godly orchestra. Drums and cymbals. So many drums and cymbals. I hummed the absent melody as it played across my head.

Eternity was catching up to me. A mad mind restored was starting to decay again. I almost welcomed it. Everything was so changed. The world was unrecognisable to the Victorian splendour I’d been born and raised in. I’d seen the world wars. I’d seen the rise of the modern era. Computers. Mobile phones. The internet. But none of those marvels were anything compared to The Fall.

The Veil that separated realities had split. Torn down by the pure, undiluted insanity of a god-like sorcerer hell-bent on challenging the devil himself. Impossible worlds and realms had collided. Chaos descended upon London, crushing it into tiny splinters. Bermondsey to Battersea. Tower Hill almost to Chelsea. That was all that remained of my home.

The ruins were as shattered as the sky. Two hundred years of quakes and crumbling had sent many of the once mighty buildings crashing down. The ground had split, opening wide, gaping trenches that dropped down into endless black voids. Some of the newly formed tectonics had risen up as jutting fang-like mountains. Rips in reality lingered, infecting neighbourhoods with alien ecosystems and creating for the old shards of England, a new climate of extremes. Summers hotter than hell. Winter as frozen and desolate as the Arctic. And yet. Somehow. Through all the devastation of post-apocalyptica—

A presence cracked across my perception, strange enough to shatter my mindless musings and draw my notice. Small. Moving closer. A tiny little candle… the kind that could start an inferno without even knowing. Thoughts and concepts scrambled in and out of my peripheral consciousness. Images provoked by that little spark of magic. Past. Present. Future. I tried to grasp them – to make sense of it all – but as always, the effort was futile. They moved in too fast a flurry. As that little creature appeared, climbing over a cracked and ruined wall, our eyes met oh so briefly.

Shocking silver-blue. Sharp. Intense. Already tainted by trauma and stolen youth. For just a fleeting second, I saw those same eyes – older, wiser, and in far greater pain – staring out over all of New London like…? Like an Empress surveying her domain. Magnificent. Powerful. Tragic.

She could see me.

She approached so fearlessly—immune, it seemed, to the childish fears that would have gripped her playmates. Instead, she was curious—fascinated even—by the swirling, misty crimson of my form.

Nine years old. Vivid, ginger curls stuck to her thin, pale face by the damp of rain. She wore a ragged pair of jeans, threadbare and torn. A green t-shirt with a large, ripped neckline was just visible beneath the scratched leather jacket swamping her skinny body. A thick black scarf hugged her waist like a wide belt. To the fabric, she had pinned trinkets she must have found in the debris. Old pin badges, battered almost beyond recognition, all depicting a better world… or funny cartoon animals.

Her head cocked to one side as her wide, fixated glare took in the ghost of my deep eyes, goatee, and familiar curls. She circled me a little, wise enough to be cautious. Her silvery eyes narrowed as her perceptions caught up to her. She was far better at grasping them than I. Where my third eye flitted over concepts like drunken fae, her revelations formed an orderly line and marched regimentally through her understanding.

“We’re related!” she noted with enthusiasm.

“House D’Ken has split so many ways over so many years,” I noted glumly. “Illusia. Arben. Shipton…” I surveyed her as growing interest interrupted the typical tedium of my existence. “And now, Stone.”

She broke into a broad grin. “So, we’re cousins!”

I frowned, thinking it over for a moment. Counting back the years, names, and faces. “Uncle,” I told her. “Twelve generations removed…” With a small smile, I added, “But blood does not forget its roots. Nor its nobility.”

Another drumming rumble of deep thunder. The girl glanced up, eying the writhing cracks in the heavens through the heavy pour of rain. She wrapped her arms around herself and suppressed a shiver of cold. Her living flesh was still susceptible to such things, where I could not feel even a light drizzle anymore. It seemed I fascinated her enough to ignore the discomfort, though. “I’m Mari,” she introduced needlessly. “What’s your name?”

Her power was still developing – still untrained. The fine details of her perceptions were beyond her grasp. So I stood from my rocky perch and bowed to her with a melodramatic exaggeration of the etiquette of my long-forgotten world. “Gustavo Arben, vampire-seer extraordinaire, at your service, Miss Stone.” I gestured flamboyantly with my translucent hands. “I would add ‘ghost’ to my list of recommendations, but I fear that wouldn’t roll from my non-corporeal tongue quite so fluidly.”

She giggled. “And it’s a little obvious.”

“Indeed.” Cautious interest began to mount towards delight. Such sweetness radiated from her aura. Such childish wonder for little old me… and I had so much time to kill. Far more than I needed. When was the last time I had been honoured with polite conversation?

I gestured grandly at the bus shelter now standing at a deep, twisted slant. Its windows were broken, but the pile of rubble trespassing in and the rusting metal roof would provide a little cover for her mortal shell. “Would the young lady care to sit a while? We can mumble and muse and have tea parties with the fairies.”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise as she took up the invitation eagerly “Fairies?” She paused under the shelter, gazing up at me from large, round eyes filled with hopeful enthusiasm. “You sensed one too! I was chasing it…” She gestured back along the path she had arrived from. “There are so few of them left and—”

The spirit in question took its corporal form and peered out from around my neck and under my hair. He cocked his tiny head, then strolled along my shoulder to give her more open scrutiny. He was red in form too. But solid where I was smoke. His black ‘hair’ floated around him in long wispy locks - like mine. The colour matched the full onyx of his large almond eyes - far too ethereal to be like mine.

Mari gazed in utter rapture. Fairies were always popular with children, and this one bore several stark differences from the rest of his kin. He was better formed, with a full face of features where others had only eyes. His wings had taken on a reptilian look and even bore some scale-like detail. His body was toned and defined, glowing bright with inner fire.

Her small mouth opened with a gasp. She dared to come a little closer, holding out her hand a short distance from him with respectful patience. “He’s so beautiful! Look how he shines!”

“George has been my friend for two hundred and eleven years,” I boasted proudly. “He’s as loyal as he is magnificent.”

The fairy – flattered by the girl’s awe – fluttered down from his perch on my shoulder to stand and twirl hypnotically in her palm. Show off. That he deigned to visit her hand filled her with delight so profound it hummed through her entire presence. “Two hundred—” She shook her head, even as the amazement overwhelmed her. “No, that can’t be right. Fairies can only stay in this realm for a few months.”

“George is special.”

She giggled as his dancing feet tickled her. “I see that. But… why?”

“He was made by one untouched by time. And now, so is he.”

She glanced up, meeting my eye again as she processed my words and the deeper perceptions she felt in George. “You made him? But vampires—”

“Cannot typically call them into being.” I floated and made a mockery of sitting on the rubble. “But pain brings power, and power brings forth gifts sometimes beyond our understanding. One day, Miss Stone, you will understand this all too keenly.”

Her face fell into a deep frown. Her eyes cast down to focus on George as he finished spinning and sat comfortably in the centre of her palm. She didn’t like what I’d said, but she’d already known the truth of it long before we’d crossed paths.

“What are you doing out here alone?” I asked gently. The answer was flashing in bits and pieces, and I already didn’t like what I knew. This outside world – dangerous and deadly as it was – felt far safer to her than the place she called home. Freedom comes at such a high cost.

“I can take care of myself.” She reached up, offering George his perch on my shoulder. He took his leave of her and settled instead on the collar of my ghostly coat.

“Of course you can,” I agreed. “But you should not have to.”

She snorted inelegantly. “When has that ever mattered?”

The wisdom of children was often more profound than they were given credit for.

“Besides, my brother arrived home yesterday, which means he just passed through here. The devil dogs won’t have come back yet.”

Her logic was marginally flawed. Devil dogs were swift, and the jaws of hell spat them out all too frequently. But, as an image of her older brother flashed in and out of my mind, all too much was clarified. “You are very brave, Miss Stone.”

Those large, sharp eyes glanced up at me for a moment of mournful understanding… then she turned away to clamber up onto a large piece of broken road rising from the ground. She sat perched atop - so close to the roof of the shelter that her head almost touched it. “What about you?” She asked, still shifting to get comfortable. “What are you doing here? I’ve walked this way plenty of times, and I’ve never even sensed you before.” She frowned, puzzled. “Ghosts and echoes usually stay tethered to a place that’s important to them.”

“I am a long way from home,” I admitted wistfully.

“Why?” She asked again. “How?”

Her curiosity was a delight. How long had it been since anyone asked? How long since they had genuinely cared to know? “I was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” Her voice and nose wrinkled with as much distaste as disbelief.

“Mm, by the Wicked Witch of the East.” I gestured in the direction of Southwark Cathedral. Understanding dawned in her big eyes. Understanding… and fear. I nodded in agreement. “It is one thing to bind a man’s heart. Another to lay a claim on what’s left of his broken soul.”

“How?” Her open sympathy was as shocking as it was refreshing. Her heart shone through her expression, and I saw – as I’d already suspected – that it was made of dazzling gold.

I shrugged. “Your grandmother is a medium. The same as your mother and you, but with decades more experience and refinement…” I paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “And a few friends in all the wrong places.”

Mari was shaking her head insistently. “Mediums can only speak with spirits. Sometimes they’re powerful enough to summon them. But not kidnap. It’s like trying to hold water.”

“Typically speaking, you are correct,” I confirmed. “But our bloodline is anything but typical.”

She frowned, recalling my earlier words. “It does not forget its nobility?”

A small smile curled my ghostly lips. “Indeed.” I gestured east again. “Your grandmother practices a much darker shamanism, rooted in lust for power, and born of the darkest blood magic. Ancient and almost forgotten.” I indicated at a ghostly charm around my neck – an eight-pointed star with the symbol of an eye in the centre. “She found my pendant. It means something to me, and I carried it for over a century, always on my person.”

“So it had your essence tied to it,” she realised.

I nodded. “The witch used her blood spells to rip my tether from its natural place and bind it instead upon the amulet. Now, my tether is wherever the amulet is carried.”

“Why?!” She was outraged, horrified on my behalf. My tattered heart grew with fondness. She was so sweet. So kind.

“The witch seeks to reclaim another ancient magic,” I told her. “One that was practised by House D’ken thousands of years ago, but has since been lost.”

“What magic?”

I gestured with one hand. “To combine a spirit…” then held out the other, “with a mortal.”

Her horror intensified. “‘Combine’…?”

I nodded. “To steal power.” I let my hands fall. “Thankfully, she has yet to succeed. But her study of the craft has given her the ability to imprison spirits like me and sometimes force us to work for her.”

“Are you… working for her?” She asked warily. She thought she knew the answer, but was wise enough to double-check her perceptions.

“No. My power was once much greater than hers, and so my will is ironclad. She can only carry me around and occasionally irritate me enough that I will tell her fortune.”

“No wonder you hate her.”

“I despise her and all that she is,” I confirmed.

She nodded in camaraderie. “Me too.”

“And this is why you avoid the east side of Stone District?”

“I can sense her powers lurking,” she admitted. “I know she comes to my house sometimes too. Her presence seeps into my bedroom. I hate it. My mother hates it.” She frowned deeply. “She always senses that she’s there and gets Dad and Malcolm to help chase her out, so I don’t know why she still comes.”

“Do you not?”

Mari settled her sharp silver-blue eyes on me again. “I don’t want to.”

“Mm,” I nodded. “That is a very different thing.”

Mari looked me over more carefully, her brow wrinkling. “Do you think my grandmother will ever learn the old magic? The one that lets her steal your powers?”

“A river can flow in so many directions. A single ripple can change its course. The same is true of the future.”

“I know, but as a fortune teller you can predict those ripples, right…?” she was pleading with me, her fear growing. Even small as she was, she sensed the dark implications of such power - the weight of consequence and responsibility.

A war broke out within me, one that I was sure she could see in the shifting flashes of my ghostly presence. The vampire was devious. The man was honourable. Always the clashing and bashing between them! This was a daughter of my house! And yet… the visions came, even as I tried to resist them… as always.

I saw two such distinct roads. Both clearly defined under her feet. In one, the world continued as it always did – in monotony and ruin. Sooner rather than later, she would join me in my ghostly form, and I would have a companion – a comrade to the empty relief that only eternal limbo could grant. Protecting her now served her in the immediate, but would end her destiny before it began.

But the other path…? The one that fate had used poor, innocent George to lure her to…?

“Who knew that today would be so momentous?” I mused to the sky. Who knew that the spirits would choose me, of all creatures, to make this choice? Should I have been so surprised? Seers so often had so much to answer for. And I had changed fate countless times already. I turned my eyes back on the little girl waiting patiently for my answer. So what path should I set her on? Should my words fill her with reassurance? Tell her the part of my vision that promised that her wicked grandmother would never claim that power? Mari would go home and forget that she was ever a princess. Or should I walk her to her throne? One that would change the destiny of everyone in New London…

I frowned to myself. The city had suffered. And she should have a chance to grow beyond it - to seize her birthright for the good of all… At least, that was the justification I used to convince myself.

“I do not see her claiming such abilities,” I told her truthfully. “But futures are never fixed.”

“So… there’s a chance?” Her tone wavered with worry.

One in a billion. “Always a chance, Miss Stone.”

Her brow furrowed, concern twisting fast to resolution as a thought anchored in her mind. She jumped down from her rocky perch and stood up tall. “So we’ll get your amulet back,” she stated insistently. “Then we’ll be sure that Grandma Didi can’t steal your powers.”

My eyes flew wide in alarm. That was not the reaction I had been forewarned of - a key detail that had been omitted from the fractured vision. Fate, you tricky mistress! I was used! Violated!

The child was already glancing eastwards, shoring up her courage. You can show me the best path, right?” she was saying. “I’m good at sneaking, but I can’t always sense through her magic to find her traps.”

I shook my head wildly. “No, Miss Stone, this path is far too dangerous for one so young–”

“So is letting Grandma claim the power of any spirits she encounters!” She gazed up with large, knowing eyes. “Mum says there are some out there with the power of Gods!” She gestured at me. “But if I take you away, that’ll be a huge setback, right? She won’t be able to find them without you!” She was so set on the plan that she ducked back out into the rain and began a jog down the broken path.

“Mari! Do not!”

She turned and beckoned me. “Come on! You want your amulet, right? You’ll be able to go home!” Turning back, she continued jogging, then scrambled over a fallen wall with the threat of falling out of sight.

George whizzed out from under my hair. He shot me a scowl, then dashed after the child.

I shook my head in distress, my ghostly chest burning as the guilty man warred against the apathetic vampire. This was my doing, I argued to the inner monster. I had set her on this road. If I truly wanted to see the world changed, then it was on me to protect that future. Fate, you fickle, fickle whore!