Twenty-three
The two men ran into the night, Hunter leading with his sharper sight. They had no idea where they were or where they were heading, only running to get away from that house of witches.
Ahead of them lay only darkness. It was eerie to see the English countryside without the punctuation of lights from roads or villages. But they just kept going, hoping to stumble on some form of civilisation.
Eventually they hit tarmac and followed the road to a sleeping town. The houses sat in absolute shadow, and as they walked past, a couple of dogs stirred and barked, but no one came out to see two men armed with guns and knives walking down the nighttime street.
Hunter looked at the cars parked along the roadside. “Can you get one of these running?”
James got closer so his weaker eyes could see the shiny new BMW. “No. But… trust me on this. Come on.”
Without explaining himself, James set off down the street, stopping to look at each car. Then, as though making his mind up, he raised his gun and used is to bash in the driver’s window. There was a loud shatter of glass.
Hunter frowned at James’ choice. An M-reg rustbucket of a Fiesta. A worrying option, because it was essential for them to make it all the way home, however far that might be. “Do you think this one ever worked?”
James used his sleeve to get the worst of the glass off the driver’s seat. “Look, I had a lot of time to think when they treated me as a punchbag, at least, thinking helped distract me. I have a theory about their little powercut.”
He broke off, pulling out his knife and busying himself under the steering wheel. He suddenly swore and pulled back, sucking his freshly bleeding hand.
“Not the best tool for the job.” He admitted. “Anyway, as I was sayin’. The lights and the phone went dead. But not all technology was knocked out - our torches worked, your mobile phone battery still worked, you just didn’t have any signal. Hey - you still got your phone?”
Hunter frowned, but rather than try to make sense of James he reached into his pocket. Miraculously his phone was still there.
“Cool, flick up the screen so I can get some light an’ see what I’m doing.”
Hunter did as directed and held his glowing phone hear the dangling wires. James tinkered for a minute and was rewarded by guttural choking, followed by the small engine rumbling to life.
“Well done, now shift over.” Hunter said, pushing James over to the passenger seat. He frowned at the wheel, never having driven such a wreck. “But James, you didn’t give your theory.”
James clipped on his seat belt as Hunter pulled away, the old engine roaring and lights showing up an empty country road.
“Theory? Oh yeah, well they knocked out all the big and complex stuff - even down to your watch. So anything that requires power or radio signal. But very simple technology with its own power source wasn’t affected.”
“Which is why you wanted the old car?” Hunter said slowly, catching on.
“Yes, less electronics that could go wrong.” James replied with a yawn.
*****
As they rattled along empty roads the wind whipped in through the broken window, freezing Hunter to his seat, but keeping him bloody awake. Next to him, James snored lightly. Hunter felt so guilty about what he’d gone through, that he barely felt jealous of him getting some sleep.
He wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. His body clock told him it was around five or six o’clock in the morning, the world was still dark and silent.
In his mind he lived and relived everything from the moment he’d met Sophie, seeing it all in a new light. She’d played them all perfectly, made Hunter believe that he…
He didn’t know when he fell in love with her, it had happened so quickly, yet the realisation had taken weeks to crawl up to him. He remembered her mother, Bev, warning him off - he had assumed she was being an overly protective mum, not trying to save him from - from this. But she had already been too late, he had already been falling under Sophie’s spell.
He grimaced at his private thought’s choice of word.
Had Sophie cast a spell he hadn’t felt? Or slipped a love potion in the many coffees she had brought him? All to blind him from what she was really up to.
‘As much as she denies it - she loves you irrevocably.’ Bev’s words rang again in his ears. He could only hope it was true, that she would never kill him because she loved him.
But… what about her, would he be able to kill her?
Of course, the voice of reason screamed, she was the Shadow Witch and needed to be destroyed. But when Hunter imagined himself standing in front of Sophie and pulling the trigger-
He leant forward, trying to let the road drive out the image. It was only an enchantment, it would wear off. He’d be able to stop thinking about her, get back to normal.
It wasn’t long before his spinning thoughts came inevitably to the very disturbing idea that he could be a witch. Here, alone in the dark (a snoring James didn’t count), it seemed scarily possible. Each generation of witch-hunter took them further away from their human roots. Why shouldn’t the next step be magic.
Hunter sighed, he hadn’t asked for it and didn’t want it. But if he was entirely honest with himself, if it turned out that he was strong enough to oppose the Shadow Witch it could only help. Like the anti-witch Benandanti. Only one problem, really, he’d never intentionally used magic and he’d seen how skilled Sophie was.
Hunter leant closer to the windscreen, concentrating on keeping up a decent speed in the old Fiesta as he navigated amongst the cars that had been abandoned by their owners. They must have been travelling at the time of the hit, there were signs of collisions as drivers lost control as their trusty vehicles gave up. Hunter wondered how many had been hurt, and his fears were raised as something caught his eye. He squinted into the dark, not sure what he was seeing. The car's headlights picked up increasingly large chunks of debris across the abandoned motorway.
Hunter pulled up on the side of the road and nudged James awake, before climbing out of the car. In front of them the tarmac was ripped up and the grass bank was a churned mess of mud and metal. Hunter clambered up the short bank with James stumbling behind him. The remnants of an aeroplane crash landed.
"Hunter..." James caught up with him. "Hunter come on, there's nothing we can do."
Hunter ignored him and ran over to the fallen craft, he paused at one of the gaping holes, then ducked inside. He called out, but there was no response. As his eyes adapted to the near-pitch darkness inside, Hunter saw that the plane was empty.
"Is there anyone there?" James asked, standing in the broken gap.
Hunter made his way back out of the plane, taking a deep breath. "No. Whether they survived or not, they've already been moved. But then it has been 34 hours since the hit."
Hunter shuddered and walked slowly back to the car, the little old Fiesta was still running with lights on and doors thrown wide at the bottom of the small slope.
The two friends got back in and set off once more, both silenced by what they'd seen. Both of them could only guess at the extent of the damage done.
*****
There was the thin grey light of a late winter’s dawn as they finally turned out of the village of Little Hanting and onto the Astley estate. Right on cue, James groaned and woke up.
“Home?” He muttered.
“Yes, two minutes.” Hunter replied shortly, starting to feel tired again as the familiar ground flicked by.
They were driving straight up towards the Manor when a man stepped into their headlights, blocking the way. He waved at them to stop. More commanding was the gun he aimed at the windscreen.
“Who goes there?” The man shouted as the car stopped.
Hunter leaned out, “Hunter Astley, 7th gen; and James Bennett, 1st gen.”
The witch-hunter didn’t move or lower his weapon. “Do you have proof of identity?”
“Proof?” Hunter gasped, not in the mood for this. “Look, this is my bloody house, so if you don’t mind shifting.”
The witch-hunter looked uncertain, but a second armed figure moved in the darkness to their right. He began to walk warily towards them, then stopped. “Mr Astley? You’re back. Let him pass, Dan.”
The first man moved aside and Hunter got the rattling vehicle down the remaining short length of drive to the front of the Manor. The Fiesta stuttered to a rolling stop as the engine packed in with perfect timing.
Hunter and James went into the wonderfully familiar Manor, and were immediately surrounded by witch-hunters.
“Mr Astley, thank god. We feared the worst when we lost contact.” Anthony Marks, the 5th gen that had been in charge in their absence now stepped forward.
The worst? Yes, the worst had happened, Hunter thought sleepily. His bed was upstairs, warm and comfortable.
“Communications have been down for two days, we’ve been struggling to track down other witch-hunters, trying to re-establish links with police and army forces.”
“Yes, the Shadow Witch knocked out everything technological. James’ll explain later.” Hunter said, struggling to pay attention. “Right now, we have to prepare for an attack. The Shadow Witch is coming. As soon as she finds out that we’ve escaped she’ll know where to find us. She could be here at any moment, so we don’t have time to lose.”
“But the Manor is safe against her.”
Hunter nodded. “Even if it is, it won’t stop her coming as close as possible and forcing us to fight - I think we may have managed to piss her off. Little Hanting. The village, it needs evacuating. Get the villagers as far away as possible, or get them in here if there’s room, I don’t care.”
The surrounding witch-hunters stood there looking far too gormless for Hunter’s liking. “Well, go!”
Hunter turned to James who, although still looking a bruised mess, was keen and wide-awake. “I’m going to lie down. Wake me when - when it’s time.”