I was shitting myself. There’s no other way to say it, I was full on bricking it. Everyone else seemed to have it all together but I can’t help but feel I was heading for a bit of a meltdown. I looked over to Liam who seemed to be at ease somewhat, but I bet he was actually shitting himself too. He was to stay outside with my cousins who were going to be “running interference” as Auntie M had requested them do. Running interference for what I haven’t got a clue, it was mentioned that some lesser demons may be summoned hence why some of my coven were to form a barrier, I guess to keep them in and contained.

My Aunt had grabbed hold of me and directed me over to where the rest of our group was stood, waiting to breach this odd little building. Arne, Duncan, Mr Evans, Mai and Marcus were stood chatting as they glared at the door of the little building the killer Bruce had chosen for some reason; the disgusting smell omitting from this door, laced with evil magic that seemed to give Bruce away every damn time. Auntie M was concentrating, holding her hands hands together tightly as I could see a silvery light emit from them.

The light sparkled and glittered and became even more intense as the time passed. Auntie M turned her head over her shoulder, signalling that we should get ready to rush the door, when she got the magical barrier preventing us from opening it out of the way. Auntie M separated her hands slowly and forcibly pushed the silvery light toward the door. The heaviness and oppressive feeling of the door was becoming more and more weak as my Aunt forced more of the silvery light toward it. And with a second or two more, I heard an audible cracking noise along with the silvery light that was surrounding the door; disperse with a tinkling sound. The barrier had broken and now we were making our way in to Bruce’s lair.

I kept my mouth shut and did as I was told, as I was following my Aunt and the others quickly through the strange underground tunnels. There were small, dim lights that lined the tops of the walls closest to the ceiling; away from the moss, mould and rising damp. It stank of the horrible magic that Bruce used but it smelt old and musty, like wet laundry that hadn’t been hung out and the familiar rusty tang of blood. It got even stronger as we ran through the winding halls of the underground building, the smell was leading us to where we needed to go. Then the sound of moaning and whimpering let us know we were heading in the right direction.

We all burst in to a large room, better lit than the tunnels with large, bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling bathing everything in a harsh light. Bruce’s victims were all there, half a dozen women tied up to the pillars supporting the rooms ceiling. They were all crying, sobbing and were generally dirty; covered in blood from cuts and grazes and full of dark sore looking bruises. I spotted my friends Katie and Victoria; crumpled on the floor and tied to each other, trying to keep each other upright. Francesca was tied to another pillar with two other women who I recognised from town but who I couldn’t remember from my dream. There was another woman who Bruce had just dragged in and tied up, she was also covered in cuts and fresh bruises. I noticed my friends and the other women before anything else, before Bruce even. Seconds later I noticed he was kneeling on the floor in front of a huge sigil that was painted on the concrete, black candles, incense and what looked like dead rats dumped on random points of the sigil. All of the women he had kidnapped were lined up on the other side of the sigil, watching what the psycho Bruce was doing.

Nobody in my group spoke, we all fell in to place and played our part in this drama. But we were seconds too late. I could feel the surge of pure evil energy radiate from the sigil; a huge black swirling hole had formed in the middle and I could see shapes escaping from it, dark and shadowy but deformed corporeal forms that shot out of the swirling hole. They weren’t quite ghostly but I could feel like they had some solid kind of presence. They disappeared as soon as they flew out of the hole, one of them actually shouldered me on the way past leaving my arm with a strange numb feeling. I mean it actually hurt when the thing barged past me! My Aunt had told me before that she had some of the others stationed outside, specifically for the reason that they could take care of whatever got out; whilst we took care of the horrors going on inside.

I looked over to my Aunt who wasn’t even bothering with what must have been the lesser demons escaping the portal, but she was making a bee line for Bruce and the portal. Arne had already dashed over to Bruce and now had him up off his knees and was restraining him. Bruce was screaming at Arne to let him him go. I hurried over to my friends with the others. Mai and I were to raise the most powerful shields we could muster as Duncan, Mr Evans and Marcus set about untying everyone so we could get them to safety, whilst Auntie M and Arne dealt with Bruce and whatever was trying to make it’s way out of the portal.

I had thought that too soon. There was an almighty cyclone kicking up in the bunker, swirling up dust from the floor and even uplifting the dead rats in to the mix, one of them flew over the heads of Katie and Victoria who were both glaring at me intently as I concentrated on forming a protection sphere big enough to hose a few of us. Mai seemed to having difficulty as the intensity of the wind blowing about us was making her loose her balance.

‘Maddie… is that you?’ I heard Katie wheeze as she tried to sit upright. I knew she was about to bombard me with questions but they could wait.

Both she and Victoria looked awful which made me feel awful. But it spurred me on to get this shield up and try and maintain it. They looked around to see Arne making short work of keeping Bruce under control but in a few moment, we were all focusing on the swirling portal. There was a grotesque figure rising from the centre, a body that seemed to be made of squirming black bugs and insects whilst the head was a forever morphing combination of several random creatures I couldn’t quite make out. I could feel the energy coming from this being and it was starting to make me nauseous. It was Baal and even him not being fully released was making me feel sick. Then, he spoke. Directly to my Aunt, who was stood holding her ground in front of the portal. I could hear the demons bellowing voice over the sound of the vortex happening around us; sounding coy, thick and almost seductive.

‘Morrigan. I would like to say the pleasure is all mine, but much like your namesake; you and even the rest of your wretched family continue being nightmares to the underworld.’

Um, what exactly did he mean by that? And why is Baal now looking at me?

Shit.