Immortal Stonekeeper

Chapter 10: The Witch Market

For such an elusive marketplace, it was certainly much livelier than expected. 'People', to describe its residents loosely, buzzed around arrays of stores lining the road, haggling for items that could easily put a novelty gift shop to shame. Jonathan tried his best not to stare at the interesting physiology of the market dwellers, and he was failing spectacularly. It was probably one of the only moments that not even a beautiful woman walking by could catch his attention. Jonathan stuck close to Lucy, just in case he was mistaken for some kind of live artefact and sold off to a well dressed minotaur.

"Baldurant, long time no see! How's your daughter doing? All grown up, I imagine?" Lucy waved cheerily at a humanoid being behind a stall with a bright orange fish for his head. It somehow reminded Jonathan of a certain talking clownfish.

"Auntie Lucy! You haven't aged a day!" The fish-like being flapped what looked like its gills excitedly. "I'm Gelfant; Father passed away many moons ago. Oh, and I'm no longer his daughter; I'm his son now."

"And you look absolutely dashing, dearie. How long has it been since we last met, fifty years?"

"Eighty, actually." Gelfant's head wobbled from side to side as though it was swimming. "I took over this store after reaching full maturity."

"Carrying on the family business, I see. Your father would be so proud of you." Lucy nodded warmly. "Anyway, I need a few demonic protection charms; gotta go somewhere pretty holy. Think you can help me with that?"

"Link up your arm and we'll give you the charm!" Gelfant piped. "Speaking of which, is your familiar where you store your reserves? He's practically overflowing with magic."

Lucy turned around to Jonathan in gleeful surprise. "You didn't tell me you were magic. Mind paying this one for me then? Consider it payback for my taxi services."

"How?" Jonathan blinked in confusion.

"Just hold out your arm."

Jonathan did as he was told, and the fish brought out a device that resembled a blood pressure monitor with two straps. He wrapped one end around Jonathan's arm and another on a tablet with some strange carvings on it. The straps began to glow, and a strobe of light began travelling from his arm to the tablet.

"Just a moment more, and we're... done!" Gelfant flapped his gills again as he removed the strap from Jonathan's arm. The carvings on the tablet were now swirling around like fish in a pond. Lucy reached for it and the inscriptions flowed from the wooden board into her wrist. They stopped halfway through her arm and turned into tattoos.

"These basic charms should protect you from blessed air, so you may step foot in a chapel now," Gelfant said. "But if you want resistance against holy magic, Axtrrpuq's talisman store is in the same old place. Just take the air lift and get off on the third ledge."

Lucy thanked the store owner with a curtsey and ushered Jonathan along. He hurried beside her avoiding the scary looking stares of the market occupants.

"Calm down. Some of them are empaths and can sense your nervousness," Lucy whispered to him. "Don't worry, nobody is going to dare lay a finger on a vampire's familiar. We have quite the reputation here."

They stepped off a cliff. A strong gust of wind lifted both of them along the jagged cliff walls and dropped them onto a much darker area.

"Did we get off on the wrong floor?" Jonathan looked around. "I don't see anybody here."

"Axtrrpuq is the only occupant on this level. Dark magic keeps him on edge, so I cannot hasten our journey with my magic. We have quite the distance to cover on foot."

"Vampires use dark magic?" Jonathan scratched his chin. "Duncan and I noticed a dark magic user at the auction, although he didn't cause any trouble. He only bidded for an item and left peacefully."

Lucy furrowed her eyebrows. "Dark witches were mostly weeded out during the Salem witch trials, along with many more innocent women. Only vampires or werewolves would dare employ dark magic out in the open nowadays, since that's the type of magic we naturally wield."

"So you're saying another vampire was at the auction?"

"No, that does not make sense either. Most of us went into hiding, and we have no love for artefacts." Lucy shook her head. "Us Nephilims prefer to keep a low profile, since mankind has shunned us from the moment we came into existence."

"What about Dracula? He caused quite a big rumpus back then," Jonathan asked innocently. "Weren't you pretty close with him at one point?"

"Speaketh thee not of that wretch!" Lucy hissed sharply, stopping in her tracks.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself before continuing their stroll. "I am going to have a word with Duncan about a lady's privacy when I see him. Speaking of which, I haven't told you about our target."

Jonathan kept his awkward silence.

"His name is Paul Newman, a pastor in a Tennessee church," Lucy said. "Don't let that fool you though; he used to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan."

Jonathan widened his eyes in response.

"Duncan had many families in the past, but there was one he fervently cherished. In 1954, he married a Jewish woman," Lucy continued. "And despite his infertility, they were a happy couple. In fact, I have never seen him happier in all five hundred years of our acquaintance."

The pair turned a corner.

"But good things never linger, and she was brutally killed by a small faction of the Ku Klux Klan. He was away when they struck his house, and her body was cold by the time he got back. There was nothing Duncan could do to bring her back to life. Her soul was way past the gates of heaven, which is something no magic can undo."

Lucy's face darkened. "Enraged and utterly heartbroken, he hunted down her murderers one by one. Duncan killed them in increasingly gruesome fashion, until only one was left. A boy, barely eighteen summers old then, had caught wind of Duncan's revenge plot. He fled the country before Duncan could find him."

Lucy pointed at a small light in the distance and gestured Jonathan to go ahead. "Duncan's frustration and grudge only grew stronger over the years, and he channelled all that energy into feverishly creating more elixirs of life."

"It's a pity Duncan can't kill that racist himself," Jonathan muttered bitterly. "If anyone harmed my family, I'd want to make them suffer too."

"It will never be worth it," Lucy said. "Revenge dangles an empty prize while you tear out your own skin chasing it. Even the thought of fleeting satisfaction when finally achieving it is naught but an illusion. Heed mine advice, boy. Do not ever stray down that path."

Jonathan increased his pace wordlessly. Lucy followed suit and overtook him soon, running to the overturned store in the distance. She knelt down and single-handedly propped up the centaur groaning on the floor. Its breaths were shallow, but at least they were consistent.

"Axtrrpuq! Axtrrpuq, speak to me!" she patted its bearded face. Its eyes tried to focus on her, but they kept rolling back. A red glow flared in her irises as her expression slowly turned into one of shock. Lucy backed away from it and motioned Jonathan to do the same. She looked at him grimly.

"He's been cursed."