Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #16 July 2015 | Seite 59

the fact her entire house was filled with corpses and
ashes.

viving spell.” The black-haired half-Vuur had begun to
study the pentagram, crouching next to it, and sliding
his fingers over the runes, fascinated. Unlike the other,
he was in his human form and was wearing a grey suit
without a tie, with his hair neatly combed on one side.
“And here are other marks. The source of energy used
must have been enormous.” His Scandinavian accent
seemed out of place.

“We need to clean this before anyone reports
it.” She spoke loudly, making everyone snap to attention and start cleaning. She slowly walked to the
kitchen where she caught a blonde woman sitting in a
puddle of blood on the floor, clutching the male witch
in her hands, crying silently. The old woman grabbed
her hands and made her get up. “Clean it up. The secret needs to be kept.”

“Must’ve been that guy.” The smaller Vuur
answered. He couldn’t get up from his crouching
position. His serious tone didn’t quite mask the fact
he would have preferred this had happened in a place
with high ceilings. “There is no evidence she knows
how to revive demons.”

The young woman took a deep breath, and got
to work, as the old woman climbed down the basement stairs.
“He was an idiot.” A Vuur was crouching
down, barely fitting in the basement. His horns were
in the middle of his forehead, curving up in a large
arch, their tips grazing the ceiling. He was different
from the others in the fact that his lines were very
thick and appeared on his horns. He was obviously the
leader. Two men, one dark haired, one brown haired
were standing nearby, and another slightly smaller
Vuur was crouching next to him.
“Take your corpse and get out!” The old woman didn’t even wait to come down the stairs to yell
this. She stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed
the Nexus wasn’t here. It was always disconcerting,
even though she had cast the concealment spell herself before allowing the trap to be set. She continued
standing there, cold expression on her face. She was
the last line of defence now. The ashes in the corner
could only be her daughter’s.

“Well Aksel, does that mean we get to go hunting?” The brown-haired half-Vuur finally walked over
to the group. He put his hands in his pockets, wide
grin on his face.
“No, Ted, it does not.” Aksel got up.
“Vincent is too heavily guarded.” The largest
Vuur finally spoke again. His calm deep voice would
make you believe he was on a stroll, not awkwardly huddled in a space three times shorter than him.
“Those monks would die for him in an instant, making
sure they took us with them.”

“Cool your jets lady.” The brown-haired halfVuur had leaned on to the staircase railing, his head
dangerously close to the ceiling. The lines on his body
were very thin and distributed like a web. He was
wearing a pair of old acid-washed jeans and a t-shirt
that seemed to have oil grease on it. His hair was
longish, slightly curly and messy.“If you want us to
figure out how they managed to get out of here, you’re
gonna stop complaining.”
“Alright, here we have the remnants of a re-

“Then we are looking for…” the black-haired
half-Vuur took out a notepad and flipped around it.
“Vincent. He is one of Jake’s contacts and the only one
who could have done this here.”

“So, we go after her? We better make sure we
know what we are dealing with then. I wouldn’t want
another death,” the smaller Vuur suggested. He hated
seeing one of his own dead, even if he was a halfwit
bent on macabre displays of his ‘talent’ rather than
actual efficiency.
“We can test her.” Aksel suggested, then turned
to Ted. “You know a lot of expendables. Let’s see her
style.”

59

“I’ll setup an operation. Probably something