Slamming the fire door behind her, she felt around in the pitch black for a switch. A moment later, the room flooded with light. She found herself in the back of a little Mile End shop that had been there longer than she’d been alive. Everyone in the area had heard ofLe Repaire des Sorcières—The Witches’ Lair—but most had no idea the name was so literal.
The back room ofLe Repairelooked like any old store’s. Paint chipped off the walls, the floors were slanted, and the cracks in the hardwood were big enough to lose a pen in. A tiny table and chair were positioned opposite a cracked sink with a vintage microwave on a shelf above that had to be in violation of a hundred safety codes. Every other inch of the room was packed with shelves, boxes, and racks of stock.
Parting a rack of Harry Potter-esque robing that no real witch would be caught dead in, Lily pushed and shoved her way to the expertly buried far wall. There, a small gap between piles of boxes revealed an intricate sigil on the wall.
Realizing what she needed to do, she grimaced. Why did magic have to be so obsessed with blood?
Iris always had a knife or something sharp on her, but the only thing Lily had was her emergency sewing kit, and she refused to stab herself with a sewing needle on purpose.
Luckily, this was the witches’ lair, and she didn’t have to look far to find a tool. Resting atop the box pile beside her, the knife had obviously been used for this purpose in the past. A lighter on the tray beside it served as the only form of disinfectant.So, so gross.
Gritting her teeth and blocking thoughts of proper sanitary practices, she singed the blade and pricked the tip of her finger with the sharpened tip. Most witches had done this so many times, they’d lost all nerve sensation. Lily, not so much.
Wincing at the pain, she pressed her finger into the center of the sigil. Instantly, the protection spell shimmered and disappeared, revealing a tiny door in the wall. She unlatched the rusty bolt and pulled it open, using her phone flashlight to illuminate a narrow staircase to the underground cellar.
Despite knowing this room was frequented by witches, even her own sister, it didn’t quell the creepy sensation of descending a staircase into blackness by herself at night. She kept expecting the door to slam or a monster to growl from the dark.
At the bottom of the stairs, she felt around for the switch, and the lights flickered on.
The sight before her was not what one would expect after the spooky staircase. The stone walls and floor of the surprisingly spacious, low-ceilinged cellar suggested the building’s construction dated back at least a hundred years.
Rows of bookshelves were surrounded by several large worktables. A chalkboard hung on the opposite wall. Piles of stacked chairs were arranged by the entrance, and casting materials were stored in organized bins beside them. For a basement coven lair, it was all very… conventional.
Except for one thing.
Painted on the floor at the far end of the room was a large, complex sigil with piles of melted candle wax and dusty crystals positioned around it, suggesting it had been there for a while. In the center circle, set in a velvet-lined box, were two vials of blood (gross) and two locks of blond hair that looked eerily similar to Lily’s own shade (also gross).
A chill crept down her spine at the sight, but she didn’t allow her attention to be diverted for long. She was here for a reason and learning the purpose of that sigil wasn’t it.
Feeling like the intruder she sort of was, she tiptoed across the room to the bookshelves. Everything was scanned and organized on the computer database, but she didn’t want to turn one on in case it was somehow traceable.
She scanned the shelves of ancient, decaying grimoires in the ‘D’ section. It didn’t help that half the books were in Latin or other dead languages. Her Latin was terrible, but at least ‘demon’ was a fairly universal word.
Finally, she found what she sought. A book as thick as the length of her forearm, likely older than the building it was being stored in.
Daemonium Compendium.She snorted. They couldn’t come up with a more creative name?
Tugging the hefty volume off the shelf, she dropped it on the nearest desk where it landed with a thud and shot out a cloud of dust. Coughing, she waved a hand to clear the air.
Then she started flipping pages.
Thankfully, despite its unimaginative Latin title, this compendium was written in English. She carefully maneuvered the frail pages until she found the letter M. She knew Mist was a nickname, but his friend had also called him Mishetsu, and she was hoping it would be enough to go by.
And it was.
Breath catching, she carefully read the entry that was shorter than all the others.
“Mishet— Whoa.” She squinted and sounded out the complicated name. “Mish-et-su-meph-tai. Mishetsumephtai. The Hunter. The legendary tracker of Hell. Greater demon of unknown power and status, a creature of mist and shadows. Ancient, deadly, rarely glimpsed. Little is known of this elusive demon.”
And that was it, all the information there was. Some of the entries had pages full of information, but Mist barely got four sentences. Below the short write up was a sketched image of what was supposed to be his demon form.
She peered closer and laughed. The image was of a gargoyle-like monster with a curved spine and hideous snout. His hands looked like eagle talons and his arms like spider legs. Evidently, the artist had never actually seen Mist in the flesh because the drawing looked nothing like him. At least they hadn’t lied about him being rarely glimpsed.
But that wasn’t the information she was after.
Below the write up and drawing was a miniature rendition, no larger than a teacup saucer, of his summoning seal.
She reached over and flicked on the desk spot lamp, peering so closely at the intensely detailed drawing that her nose nearly touched the page. She straightened abruptly and blew out a breath.
