The Coven Arrives

At midnight, four women slipped into the club through the firedoor. Lonny gave them a sweaty nod, and they followed up along the edge of the crowd, through a door marked "Staff." Through the empty, unused kitchen and storage areas to an office corridor, dark with bulbs that had burned out and not replaced. The bouncer pointed at the end.

"Last on the right. Can I...can I have my dick back now?"

"When we're finished," the tall blonde in front said. She opened the small backpack she was wearing and brought out a human hand, the fingers waxy and greenish-white, dark threads sticking up from beneath the nails. "Relax, Lonny. It'll all be over soon."

They filed to the door. Striking a wooden match against the frame, Diane Reynolds carefully lit every finger. The corpse-candles gave off a pale white flame, and when the thumb was lit at the end, the brass knob of the door unclicked on its own. The witch smiled smugly to her compatriots.

Diane pushed the door open, holding the hand before her by the stump of the wrist, from which the sawn-off bones emerged. The light seemed to fill the room, reluctantly, leaving dark shadows. Tiny rows of cuneiform characters glowed on the walls where it shed its light. An office of an older age, with plush carpet faded with the years; the antique marble-topped bar mostly empty, the wood paneling on the wall scratched here and there. The great wooden slab of a desk could have doubled as a sacrificial altar for some druid cult, and the loveseat was stained with strange fluids.

The women moved into the center of the room, looking around. Diane moved the unholy torch toward the loveseat—and the framed painting above it, a print of Goya's witches. With an almost silent click, the painting swung aside on hidden hinges...and revealed a safe, the surface thickly covered with the little Sumerian characters of some protective ward or enchantment. The blonde allowed herself a grin.

"See?" She whispered to the others. "It's just like I told you."

A wind whipped through the room. The flames on the corpse-candle blew sideways, and then out. The door slammed shut...and then all was darkness. No more glowing sigils, no light at all. Like the complete darkness of some deep cavern or mine beneath the earth, where sunshine could never reach.

"Fuck. I can't find my matches. Who has a light?" Diane said.

"I thought this was supposed to be fucking easy!" Tonya Wong said.

"It is. Don't be stupid. Just...somebody has to have a lighter or a match." The blonde said to her coven.

Fingers snapped. Around the four women on the carpet, a red pentacle and circle glowed. Black candles appeared at each of the five points, the little wicks bursting into a blue flame that began to illuminate the room...and out of the shadows behind the desk, Angelica Blaze stepped forward, Lois Lane half a step behind her.

"Welcome to my house, ladies," the dickgirl brought her hands before her, fingers steepled. "You have come into my house uninvited. You have injured one of my servants. Your tools mark you as thieves."

Diane Reynolds hissed. She raised her hand and sketched a figure in the air, that glowed momentarily...and then winked out of existence. The blonde's eyes widened.

"My house," Blaze said. "And you are in my power."

Tonya Wong bolted for the door. She made it to the edge of the pentacle...and then thudded against it as if she had run into a solid wall. The young Asian woman fell back, her friends catching her. Blood streamed from her nose. Blaze slid one leg up and sat on the corner of the desk.

"In the old days," the dickgirl said, "I'd be well within my rights to destroy you, and trap your souls for all eternity. However, I've been having a great night," she turned and winked at Lois. "So I'm feeling magnanimous. I will let my girlfriend decide your fate."

Lois smiled. "So we're officially dating?"

Blaze grinned back.

In the circle, Tonya Wong mumbled something about "lezzie cunts." The dickgirl's smile died.

"If I were in your position," Angelica Blaze said. "I would be more polite."

She made a gesture. The pentacle shrank three inches, and the women crowded away from the glowing red lines that crept toward them.

"Well, my love?" Blaze said. "Here are your missing women. What would you of them?"