Witch wars

Prologue

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley and Charlotte wasn’t always a dragon. Charlotte roused at the stretch of her love, the slow movement lifting her out of a beautiful dream. Softly opening her eyes she saw him in the gentle glow of the afternoon light, Dmitry her dragon and the master of her heart. His olive skin glistening slightly in the rays filtering in through the trees outside their bedroom window. His long dark locks curled and twisted over his shoulders. He looked so peaceful she dare not wake him as she climbed out of bed and took a steaming cup of coffee onto the porch. Another sleep in after a long night of conjuration, phantoms and coded messages.

She listened to the flowers song as she often did, the wind kissed her cheek. Images flashing in her mind of people she once knew. A hint of anger rising within her that the wind would bring news of those who she’d forgotten what seemed such a long time ago. People who she had trusted and thought of as family, only to be drawn into their insane games and betrayed with every ounce of their beings. Charlotte challenged her reaction and softened again thinking that nothing could touch her here in this valley with Dmitry she was truly happy. Yet a part of her wondered, why? Why now was she being shown their faces by the wind? A deep husky voice spoke assuredly into her mind. “They come my lady, they will not forgive the insult. They will not rest until your life is such a misery as theirs is.”

Charlotte smirked and couldn’t hold back a slight giggle. She concentrated and thought back the words “They have been trying now for 3 years, let them come and they can see the dragon they have forced me to become, I will stand against them as I have before and they will truly know the meaning of misery if they try to take this life that I have built for myself.” Charlotte smiled in thanks for the warning and poured half her coffee into the soil as offering to the spirits she worked with. She stood and went back to bed curling into her lovers chest and breathing in his slightly sweet aroma.

Dmitry yawned and stroked the back of Charlottes' head. “My love where have you been, I woke up and you were not in bed.”

Charlotte answered sweetly “Dear one I didn’t want to disturb you after you exerted yourself last night but I have just received news.” Charlotte sighed. “They intend to try again.”

Dmitry opened one giant jeweled eye and in a slightly annoyed tone said “Lets be done with them quickly then because we have some business to attend to.” He grabbed Charlotte by the shoulders and playfully threw her to the bed before he kissed her shoulders softly and afternoon light disappeared behind the mountain.

Chapter 1

Charlotte was a very small 22 year old. Short, bony and not at all intimidating with her pasty white skin and ink black hair. Threatening is not how they’d describe her, bookish had been said, nerd, freak. But never scary. Charlotte felt quite isolated from people like her, magical people, occultists, witches, magicians and was quite bored with the day to day goings on around her. The same people who would look through her as if she didn’t exist were the same people who just went through the motions each day, no thoughts of their own, no ideas, no identity. Work, sleep, play, work, sleep play. Always the same routine for them. But it wasn’t enough for Charlotte, she would not be found at the local pub on a Friday night. No Charlottes' nose would be buried in a book or she’d be found on her back out to the world while her spirit roamed in lands filled with other beings. Gods and monsters. Charlotte was magic but she was no dragon.

It was during the pandemic while Charlotte was locked at home no longer able to go to work or even out into the woods to speak to her invisible friends and ask the trees what new secrets they had for her. Charlotte thought it was time to go online and maybe just maybe find some more minds like hers. She was so eager to meet some more magical people and talk about the only subject that interested her and so very trusting and unaware of the types of predators lurking in the forums.

It began when Charlotte met a man online called Trevor. Trevor took a quick liking to Charlotte boasting that it’s rare to meet someone so serious about the occult arts who actually has the skill to back up their interest.

“Armchair magicians” Trevor scoffed. “None of them can keep up and they only end up embarrassing themselves.”

Charlotte didn’t think anything of his attitude towards other magicians as she hadn’t really interacted much in the occult community and Trevor seemed to have some wide ranging and interesting areas of specialization. Trevor was obsessed with the dead and a self proclaimed expert at ceremonial evocation. He sent photos of his ritual knives, black mirror and scrying crystal with great pride and spoke about his exclusive and highly skilled group who consisted of his girlfriend the vampire, a generational grimoire magician, a chaos magician and a necromancer who had an unfortunately sad life despite some impressive initiation titles.

Charlotte didn’t know what to make of the strange group of people despite being welcomed so quickly into their ranks. What did they even mean by vampire? She asked but they never elaborated. Each day Charlotte would talk with Trevor and strange occurrences started happening. Charlotte had a heightened sense of not being alone, of being watched. She started waking up with the smell of an unusual cologne on her pajamas. One day feeling stressed and exhausted from the lack of sleep and the late nights Netflix binge she sunk into a hot bath, ignoring that now familiar feeling of having eyes on her. She nearly drifted off when a hand on her wrist startled her awake.

“Who is it, she screamed.” Her eyes flying open only to see that there was no one there. It was only her in the room only when she looked down at her wrist she could see the skin crinkled and feel the force of something pushing her down, restraining her hand. Charlotte submitted, not quite sure what to do, the pressure lessened and she felt a hand squeeze her knee. Just as quickly as Charlotte had felt the presence it faded away and left her wondering if she had imagined the whole incidence out of tiredness.

Charlotte mentioned the event in the bath tub to Trevor. He sounded concerned but was very happy to have been consulted, so gladly supplied his opinion.

“It’s either a spirit or a magician.” Trevor proclaimed.

“A magician, how do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

“Likely a perve astral projecting to watch you in the bath, I can do stuff like that. Let me show you.” Twenty minutes passed with no response from Trevor and seemingly nothing happened. Charlotte thought it must be a joke, albeit one in very poor taste.

The following day Trevor messaged and said “what did you think?”

Charlotte was confused “What did I think of what?”

Trevor called and spoke with an annoyed tone “Hello? You mean you didn’t feel me there yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?”

Trevor grumbled back “Well I was there and I saw you, you were wearing those pink pajamas with rabbits on them.”

Charlotte was once again in those same rabbit pajamas but knew that he had no way of knowing that. She’d never mentioned them to him or sent any photos containing them. They were also new pajamas so she knew she had not uploaded any photos with them on facebook either. She had not other option than to go along with what he was saying and find out where he was going with this, despite her sudden discomfort.

“No answer? Don’t believe me?” Muttered Trevor. “No matter I’ll show you again until it sinks in.”

The call dropped.

Ten minutes later while Charlotte was laying back watching Netflix her glass rattled. She stared at it and saw it move slightly before a tissue floated into the air despite all the windows being closed and the fan being off.

“That’s coke in the glass.” A new text from Trevor. Okay so he was showing her what he could do. Charlotte wasn’t convinced, was Trevor doing this or was it a spirit he had that was telling him details. Charlotte was not unfamiliar with spirit contact, one of the things she had remembered was coming home to a large glass bowl in the middle of her side table broken clean in two, while no one had been home and nothing around the bowl had been disturbed. However probably her favorite odd happening was while she was in the shower, she’d seen in the fog on the glass letters and numbers appear Ps 51:1-12. Psalm 51 was about cleansing and washing away sins, Charlottes' spirits tended to have a bit of a naughty sense of humor.