Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 5.3 - The Wild Hunt

No, this is not a repost of an old chapter. I edited the former one and this is a new chap. Last time, Marissa and her friends met again and decided on how they needed to call Nathan.

I ate the fruits on the table to restore my energy. Pizza served as the main course menu while the gingerbread and the muffin made for decent desserts washed down by the orange juice. Siris would have liked it.

I didn't have time to ponder about his loss. Darcy and Simon needed the table once I was ready in a combo discipline they called sympathetic divination.

A black-haired doll clad in a scarf and jacket lay placed on it. A pencil-drawn circle on the paper below it helped Simon focus his energy while he read out the name on its nametag.

"JONATHAN FROST, JONATHAN FROST, JONATHAN FROST!" Simon shouted.

Simon and probably not even Darcy didn't have the life energy for a link with a being of Nathan's strength, let alone sending messages, but if everything went right, he should feel a mild nudge.

We had a radio on our table. That way, we listened to news about the storm and how bad it was shaping up to be. "It's a truly unprecedented event! The storm has been covering New England and started engulfing New York and New Jersey, too! A ten on the Beaufort scale with speeds of fifty-six miles per hour and meteorologists have no idea where it has come from. And as if that wasn't enough, there have been floods everywhere, even outside the coastal regions. Food crops are burning everywhere and earthquakes have been reported in seven states.

"President Jackson reassured his citizens that everything is under control. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing camps while the National Weather Service has issued a warning against leaving the house until then. Meteorologists are still debating why the disasters seem less severe in inhabited areas."

"Wow," Isa said, "I've heard songs about the end of the world, but to see it play out right before your eyes is something else entirely."

"The world won't end," Darcy said. "Our people will ward these elemental spirits out of our towns and counteract their storm. If the crisis reaches S-ranked proportions, we can even get guys like Heracles or Sun Wukong to leave their Centers of Worship and come here."

"The Faerie Monarchs already failed to help," I said. "And by ourselves, we aren't strong enough against the Erlking. He can act in the open. We can't. We don't even know his name. He's at a huge advantage."

"So?" Darcy asked. "Magic isn't about power, it's about knowledge. Our people have worked in the dark for centuries and they won't be stopped by a crisis like this."

"Maybe," I said. "But not on their own."

"What are you planning?"

I didn't answer. It was more important to listen to what the reporter had to say. "A #BurnTheWitch hashtag has linked the storm to the Witch of Summer Hill and her psychic powers. It has been criticized for hysteria and demonization of what might be an innocent. Experts consider claims of psychic powers unfounded and investigate natural storm causes. Silicon valley entrepreneur Adrian Kravos meanwhile attributes the recent disasters to global warming and wants to present his newest invention."

I turned the radio off.

"They don't know you," Isa said.

"I don't care what they think," I said. "If anything, it only makes me stronger."

"Stronger because your good name to fight for?"

Stronger in a different way mainly. One I couldn't mention without losing my life.