Chapter 4: Not Every Villain has their Lair Underground 

As we reached the town’s high street, I had once again regained a familiar emotional equilibrium. Centered within a state of zen-like unfeeling null where only the strongest of both internally originating emotions or empathetic echoes could be felt. I’d allowed my mind to go quiet, my entire focus directed towards following where the pull was leading me.

I’d known the pull had been leading me towards the center of town since the very start, but I’d been too distracted to register surprise. That is to say that the center of town had not been what I’d been expecting when the witches explained their evil sorcerer theory. 

When an evil or rogue sorcerer had been brought up as the cause for the pause I’d had a number of different ideas come to mind concerning what their lair might be like and where it might be. The center of town was not what I’d been expecting.

If the center of town had a medieval castle or tower I might have, but given that this town was only built in the last century or so I was kinda expecting it to be somewhere on the outskirts of town. Some ramshackle house maybe, an old manor, an overgrown farm or an abandoned warehouse even. But no, it was the center of town. The sorcerer didn’t even have the decency to build their lair in some underground cavern or dungeon. Not even in the sewers.

No.

The spell’s pull and the epicenter of wrongness it led to seemed to be pointing towards the tears and likely the villain’s lair being near the top if not the penthouse of a high rise residential tower smack bang in the middle of town. One in walking distance of the high street shops, a supermarket, the town hall, a bus stop and a nice park beside the river. Any apartment in that building would be expensive based on location alone, not even counting that the entire tower had been built for and marketed to high paid white collar workers and the wealthy retired.

No wonder reality was broken if a rogue sorcerer could afford to live in the penthouse of a building like that. The slight whiplash caused from seeing the building had been enough to knock me out of my safe null.

Standing out on the street below it felt like there was a dark malice filled cloud above me. Facing the wrongness, I couldn’t help, but let loose a full body shiver as my heart started to race. 

I’d felt a taste of fear before from my previous thrill-seeking, but that had been dull, muted in comparison and that had come with a hint of exhilaration for spice. It was all I could do to just not run away. Where was my null when I needed it?

The hand holding mine squeezed lightly. Anchoring me.

“You said it's the penthouse, right?”

Without looking up at it again, I nodded.

“Alex. You know… Since we know where it is, you don’t have to come any further if you don’t want to. You’ve led us this far, we’d understand if you wanted to wait down here or further back,” Blythe gently offered, before looking to her teacher for confirmation.

“That's right Blythe,” she agreed. “It is likely that being in close proximity to the wound’s heart will be dangerous. Possibly even more so for yourself, dearie. Nobody will think any less of you if you wish to stay here. You’ve already been more than helpful towards our investigation.”

Their offer was tempting. I’d been avoiding, looking up at it and I still remembered the fear, no, terror of just minutes earlier. 

Ignoring the terror, my companions were witches. They had magic and I didn’t. My talents were apparently limited to following routine, being human duct tape and being a human homing pigeon. Unfortunately this was way out of my usual routine, I’d already completed the homing pigeon part and the duct tape part would likely be as useful as trying to plug a crack in a dam with the stuff.

But staying out here would probably only be delaying the inevitable. Succeed or fail, I wasn’t likely to be living much longer and not going with them would be surrendering any chance to affect the outcome. I might not be sticking around much longer, but maybe I would be able to ensure everyone else in this town made it out alive.

Maybe even somehow protect my new companions. 

That would be enough.

“Thank you for the offer, I appreciate it. I’m not sure what help I’ll be… But I’m staying till the end. I need to see this through.”

* * *

Elevators are always awkward, especially when there are other people and even more so when you are socially deficient. It's a fact of life and it applies to all sorts of other confined social spaces where circumstances prevent coming and going at will.

Waiting in an elevator that’s traveling from the ground floor lobby all the way to the top floor penthouse, with two others standing with you in tense silence and crisis or confrontation awaiting at the top is hell. At least three times I opened my mouth to ask a question about what we were going into, only for the questions to catch in my dry throat and be lost as I dry swallowed.

Awkwardness is a hell of an emotion to feel. Slow torture by silence and your own thoughts. Not something I was looking forward to feeling more of, no matter how much longer I will live. 

Examining the emotion, it seemed to be a composite of several others. Fear made up a large part of it, it had the tell-tale anxious heartbeat, goosebumps and hairs on end. The imagined sensations of eyes dissecting you. A hint of anticipation of some misdirected distillation of disgust… Embarrassment, that was it.

Even with all that I was surprised by the sigh of relief that escaped me when the elevator’s doors opened upon a small landing space or corridor with a single unadorned door with watching peephole in front of us. With the horrific feeling of wrongness behind it, the peephole seemed to mind a glaring baleful eye.

Standing with my back almost up against the elevator doors, I watched as the witches began to fuss over the door. 

Reaching into a pouch at her side, the student drew out a fistful of a grey ashy powder. 

“Spider’s web, sound of cat’s step, mountain’s roots, fish’s breath, rainbow’s end, spittle of a bird. Let the ash and essences of the unseen call to kind and reveal,” whispered Blythe into her fist, before she blew the powder onto the door revealing the soft glow of moving lines, shapes and runes covering the door’s surface.

Stepping forward, Ester brought forth a sprig of mistletoe that had had it’s stem sharpened to a point. 

“In leaf, stem, berry and root is remembrance held still. Of sin committed in plant’s youth. Of dart and spear that set all the world’s tears flowing. The beloved unpierceable one pierced and slain. Let forbearance be put aside and may memory pierce still,” chanted the crone, as she stabbed the door’s face with the stem’s sharpened point.

Almost instantly as if wounded, the glowing marks on the door flared with light then flickered and faded. Watching my companions slump from their exertions, I knew I wasn’t alone in releasing held breath this time.

“Let me have a moment to gather myself,” panted Ester. “Youth first, I think. Blythe will you be a dear and open the door?”

“Yes, teacher,” she answered, reaching into the large bag they shared and pulling out an old fashioned barrel key that was etched with runes and made of silver. Tapping it against the lock, Blythe turned the key in the air as if she was turning it in the lock. 

Click… 

Now unlocked, the door opened slightly inwards as it slipped ajar. Drawn forward before I even realised it, with one hand on the door I pushed it open and stepped inside.