Covens and Proxies

52

Reader's POV

When you open your eyes, the room is full of a black miasma so thick, it looks like fog. You smile to yourself, fully content about any outcome that this results in. Still, you close your eyes and keep breathing. When the bolt is slid back and the door opened, the guards will immediately keel over--choking and coughing on something so simple and small.

A disease of your own creation. Every Plague Doctor witch has one, a unique disease they construct from all the accumulation done by their ancestors combined with their own style. Some only emit it like an STD, while others it's more like Herpes. Most are similar to the Black Death, found on flees and other small insects. Yours, however, is especially unique because it is airborne.

Most don't use this method because it is unpredictable and could spread across the world faster then the flu (or Covid). That's why you put a special trigger into it. Only those you truly hate will feel it's effects, a special property that you had more difficulty engineering then the rest.

I have to fight the smile from your face, knowing that that door will open within the next five hours and all Hell will break loose.

Toby's POV

Sneaking past the patrols while my comrades are slaughtering them was the easy part--the rest, not so much. The hatches, to begin with, weigh a ton so it took both me and Callisto to open it. As we silently slide down the ladder, I almost gag at the putrid smell rotting in the tunnels. Callisto doesn't seem fazed, earning a weird look from me.

"You're smelling disembodied magic. Most witches don't know the scent, since we rarely are around each other enough to touch our magic to each other. You, however, has come into direct contact with a very powerful witche's magic and therefore are very sensitive to the smell." She pauses, "I hope you brought a few extra scarfs." She starts down one way, which I follow.

"Do you know where we're going?" I mutter around my hands, trying to be quiet and audible at once.

"No. But I know there are witches closer in this direction."

The first branches we come to are directly across from each other. One leads to the left where there are steal doors with probably bullet-proof windows that reveal countless excruciating-looking devises. On the right there are iron doors with heavy bolts, most of which are open with one or two locked shut. She takes one of the cells, I take another.

Inside is a very small girl with brilliant green eyes. She looks like they feed her once a week--which I don't doubt. I kneel down to her level and pull off my goggles and mask. "What's your name?" I ask softly.

She looks at me with eyes sunken and so empty--I know the feeling too well. "Cylia." She whispers, her voice as light as a wind chime. "You're Toby."

I startle a moment, shaking the shock from me to smile and nod. "That's ri-ight. I'm here to get you out. Do-do you want to leave this place?" I ask, very slowly extending my hand to her.

She crawls on her hands and knees, taking my hands to I can pick her up. I'm not that surprised when she only weighs twenty pounds, pulling her around so she's piggy-backing off of me. Callisto is in the hall with another witch; this one a tall, thin man with wild red hair and dark eyes. At his side is a small girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. I follow her further down.

We get to the second block before encountering four guards, three doctors and someone between them in rags. Another witch. I hand the small girl to the man. In the next second, the God Killers' heads are rolling and their bodies are crumpling to the ground.

When I turn, the prisoners are in shock. "Come on. We need to-to move." I tell them, moving down the hall. This time, we only find one witch and a corpse.

It's three more halls, ten more GKs and three doctors before I start getting desperate. We've got ten witches, which is starting to make too much noise.

"We need to get them to the surface." Callisto stops me.

I look at them, all but two or three walking skeletons and most of them can't even walk well. "You take-take them out. I'll keep looking. When-en you're done, come back down an-and go the other way." She nods, gathering them and turning around.

I keep moving, pushing through the halls. With every God Killer I bring down, my blood sings and my heart feels like it'll explode. Any one of these maniacs could have killed her, sapped her of her magic, put her through worse then even I can imagine. Four halls with nothing in them, two operating rooms full of scientists and a witch each. I leave them with corpses to recuperate, telling each how to block the door as soon as they're capable and a promise to come back.

Six, seven, eight halls down and only three new witches freed to show for it. I know I've almost gone full circle when I reach another hatch, where Jeff is standing next to the ladder.

"What-what the hell are you doing he-here?!" I roar before realizing how fantastic the acoustics in these chambers are.

He grins and shrugs. "Callisto is helping up there, so I came down here." His grin falls away completely, glaring at me like he's mulling over my death--which wouldn't be the first time. "Besides, if anyone's gonna kill that bitch it'll be me."

I growl at him, but don't argue. The three witches climb up while we keep digging.

Twenty three guards, fourteen doctors and six witches later, we're on the last hall. While Jeff checks one cell, I slide open the bolt to another. Inside, with my heart hammering in my ears so loud I can't hear much else, I find another corpse. A shriek nearly deafens me.

Yanking myself from the cell, I watch Jeff scramble away from a dark cloud billowing into the hall. He looks like he's coughing up his lungs, trying to claw away.

I grab him by the collar, wrap my scarf around him and put him in the arms of the strongest witch--an older man with wirey muscles--and tell him to run until they find more witches or a ladder up.

Watching them go, I stop. My heart is beating slower now, but it's pumping so hard I feel like my veins are about to burst with tensions. Slowly, as if I were turning to face an enraged Slenderman, I turn to look at the source of the miasma.

As the cloud ingulfs me, I prepare myself for the same fate as Jeff, but it never comes. It swirls around me harmlessly, as if it were dust. And like dust, it drifts with the currents and into the rest of of the complex, letting the air clear enough to see it's creator.