February 17 | Monday #5
A panicked thought crept into Will’s wandering mind—someone was trying to burn him.
The thing was, the smoke, though choking, didn’t carry the smell of something burning, but rather a strange, not entirely pleasant floral note.
It made him think of incense, but a moment later, as the omnipresent fumes enveloped him, he could barely think at all.
“You finally awake?” A low, male voice reached him.
Will couldn’t react. His body was limp, his head heavy, his tongue foreign.
“Wake up.”
He couldn’t.
“Wake up!”
The loud shout, combined with a slap to the face, brought him back to reality for a moment.
Will opened his eyes, though it didn’t do him much good.
Everything around him was a blur. It felt as if the world had shattered into several hundred tiny fragments which then scattered all around, losing their original places. What he saw didn’t seem to make sense.
“That’s better,” the man announced. “That probably wasn’t necessary, but I was hoping you’d react somehow.”
“Who… are you?” Forming such a simple sentence cost Will a great deal of effort. Even his own thoughts felt alien and out of place.
“No point in asking, we don’t know each other. Or do we? Take a good look at me. Can you recognize me?”
The man’s laughter echoed from several different directions. He leaned over—that much Will could tell, but he immediately lost track of where his attacker was. In front? To the right? To the left? Wherever he looked, he saw the same blurry face.
“What do you want from me?” Will whispered, swallowing hard.
The man hit him again, harder this time. Will spat blood.
“I told you there was no point in asking,” his captor said smoothly. “What good is my answer to you if you can’t understand it anyway, Witch-man?”
The sound of footsteps, and then a scraping noise… Will truly couldn’t comprehend what was happening around him.
“You see…” the man began slowly. “I wasn’t always aware of your existence, though I’d been told it was true since I was a child.
I was raised by my grandfather. Gramps was great, but crazy.
He told me about witches, vampires, and other interesting creatures.
Of course, as a child, I believed it, but eventually, I grew up.
I met other people and finally came to the conclusion that Gramps was talking nonsense.
All his stories about the circle, witches, spells, secret techniques, incense, and charms…
It all seemed like nothing more than symptoms of his harmless but progressive madness.
The day came when I buried Gramps. And I was still sure he was a lunatic.
I probably would have thought so for the rest of my life, if I hadn’t met Alyssa. ”
Will was in danger. This seemingly obvious thought only now broke through to the forefront. He focused on it with all his strength. He had to think. Act. Get out of here before it was too late.
“I fell in love with her at first sight,” the attacker continued.
An unpleasant scraping sound filled the room.
“I tried to impress her, but she was so resistant… At one party, I had a little to drink and gathered my courage. She was so mean… She pushed me away, obviously. At first, she just pushed me away like any normal girl would a persistent guy, but when I wouldn’t back off…
she used magic. Afterward, she tried to wipe my memory.
I resisted, remembering one of Gramps’s techniques.
It hit me that he was right. And if he wasn’t wrong about the existence of witches, he couldn’t be wrong about what had to be done with them, either.
So I killed Alyssa. Her witch friend, too.
And then another one I managed to track down. Until, finally, I found you.”
Will trembled.
“I’m not…” he began, figuring that denial was his only chance of survival.
“Yes. Yes, you are,” the man stated firmly. “I know what you did in that store. I saw you.”
“In the store…?”
“All the electronics went out in an instant.”
“It was a short circuit.”
“No!” the attacker growled. “It was you! I sensed your energy. When I finally accepted the existence of magic, I started to become sensitive to it. You generated that power. You even apologized. Such a charming Witch-man you are.”
“It was a mistake.”
“It wasn’t! And you’re about to prove it to me yourself. Go on.”
Will didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Try to escape,” the man provoked him. “Use your abilities.”
If only he could…
“I know you can. Do it, and I’ll let you go.”
Will concentrated on his supposed energy with all his might, but he couldn’t do anything.
“You think I’m tricking you?” the attacker asked, then laughed unpleasantly. “You’re right, Witch-man! In this state, you couldn’t hurt me anyway, but hiding won’t do you any good. They tried, too. In the end, you’ll be forced to fight. And then you’ll show me your true face.”
Suddenly, a violent impulse shot through Will’s brain.
It was unpleasant, even painful, but it snapped him back to his senses in an instant.
He could make out a large room, lit by the glow of numerous candles.
He saw burning incense, but although he could still smell it, it seemed to have lost its power.
Against the wall was a table full of various tools.
A young, dark-haired man stood beside it. He was sharpening a knife.
Will hissed softly, feeling another impulse, this time at his wrists. He looked down and saw… something like small electrical discharges on his own skin. They burned through the rope binding him without leaving a single burn on his body.
Will couldn’t explain what had happened. Not only did he have no control over it, he hadn’t even had a clear intention. In that moment, he hadn’t been thinking about his bonds, but about assessing the situation.
This was no time for such considerations. The attacker wasn’t paying attention to him, so Will rose slowly, intending to reach the nearby door. He had only taken two steps before the murderer’s eyes snapped to him.
“Well, now, Witch-man…” he said, smiling broadly. “Impressive! The herbs didn’t work? Practiced your resistance?”
It happened again. A sudden discharge, a sharp impulse that shot out of Will’s body, rushed toward the man, and knocked him off his feet.
The blade slipped from the attacker’s hand.
Will immediately picked it up. His captor let out a furious growl and tried to lunge at him, but Will swung the knife blindly, slashing his cheek.
“Don’t you fucking move!” he ground out through his teeth, taking a step back.
He glanced around surreptitiously, trying to figure out what to do next, and when he looked back at the murderer… he was gone! He had literally vanished.
Will felt a cold sweat break out over him. He backed up to the door and grabbed the handle. Then he noticed something. Drops of blood appearing on the floor… forming a trail that led to the other side of the room.
“A very nice knife, Witch-man,” he heard an amused voice, and a moment later the man materialized before Will. He was holding a shotgun, which he had just reloaded.
Will threw the door open and ran out of the room, hearing the roar of a gunshot behind him. He flinched involuntarily but kept running down the dark corridor until he finally reached another door—this one led outside.
A piercing cold enveloped him. It was snowing. Bolting blindly forward, Will wanted to call for help, but there was a dead silence all around. He was afraid he would only lead his pursuer to him.
Suddenly, he remembered his cell phone. It was still in his pants pocket! After fishing it out and dialing Blake’s number, he felt an intense impulse. He hissed in pain, almost dropping the phone.
“Hello?” Alden’s voice came through.
“Blake!” Will yelled in panic. “You were right!”
Silence.
“Blake!”
“…Who’s calling?”
“Will! You were right, do you hear me?” Will shouted, unable to stop himself. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Help me, please. He has a gun!”
“Witch-man!” The familiar call rang out.
“Blake!” Will wailed. “Can you hear me?”
A loud rumble.
Will cowered, at first thinking it was the sound of gunshots, but he soon realized the sound was coming from a distance. It sounded like a passing train.
“Blake, please…”
Will reached some nearby trucks and hid behind one of them.
“Where are you?” Alden asked.
Will struggled to catch his breath.
“I-I don’t know. In some warehouse. You mentioned it yourself, remember?” he asked desperately.
“Where are you hiding, Witch-man?”
“Help me, I’m begging you. He’s going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know…” Will sobbed helplessly.
“Calm down and tell me what you see. I’ll find you, you just have to help me, understand?”
“Th-There are… some delivery vans… semi-trucks…”
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a gun being reloaded. He looked to his right and saw the man, staring at him with a sadistic smile.
“Will?” Blake said.
Paralyzed with fear, Will couldn’t get a single word out.
“Will, talk to me!”
The attacker aimed at him.
“Will!”
…and fired.
Will instinctively squeezed his eyes shut, but then something slammed into him with great force, shoving him out of the way. He landed on the ground. When he dared to look up, he saw Blake standing over him.
“Will?” he heard Alden’s voice yelling from the phone. “Will!”
Blake straightened up and looked icily at the murderer, then said:
“Enough.”
Shocked, Will looked at his cell phone. The battery had just died.
“You’re pretty fast,” the murderer said casually. “But probably not faster than a bullet,” he stated, then aimed and fired again.
Will let out a terrified scream, because Blake didn’t move. The man must have hit him, but Alden didn’t even flinch. He walked unhurriedly toward the murderer, who looked stunned. He fired again, and again it had no effect.
“You…” he said with a mixture of terror and admiration. “I’ve never met a Witch-man immune to my bullets!”
“You’ve probably never met a vampire.”
The man burst into loud laughter.