How To Kill a Songbird

Chapter 39: Rituals Make You Lose Control

The sky was slightly dark, and the rain had stopped for a while. We passed by the green blur of trees and the multicolored blur of old houses, and businesses. I was following Morgan's directions to her witchy mentor's place. As we drove through town, there was something very strange. The ravens that littered the town like rats in New York City were dead in piles all around us. It was like someone swept them up like leaves on a lawn.

"What the hell?" I asked as I started at the dead birds.

"It's a sign," Morgan sighed. "The demon is warning Harlow that this is his last chance. This is the first sign."

"Wait, how many signs are there exactly?" asked Gentry, clearly freaked out.

"There are four in total: Harbinger, Portent, Prodigy, and finally Presage," she sighed. "The animals dying is the Harbinger sign."

"So, what do the others mean exactly?" I asked, slightly glancing at her in the passenger seat.

"Is it weird that I want a sword right now?" asked Gentry.

I shot him a look in the rearview mirror, "Yes, that is weird, but also normal because I can see that you are afraid."

"The other signs will be coming in the next twenty-four hours," sighed Morgan. "Baal is pissed. We definitely are ahead because you are the preferred sacrifice, Asher. Still, he may try to kill Soph as a last-ditch effort to appease him since she has the same potential as you."

"Great," I sighed. I pulled into the driveway of Morgan's mentor's house. We all got out and headed to the door. It was a gothic-inspired house with its paneling falling off everywhere. It looked like the house the Addam's Family lived in. The front door was made of a thick wood. It had a cast iron knocker on it.

"This is the place, right?" I asked. We got out of the car and walked up the steps of the porch.

"Yeah, it is," Morgan confirmed as we gathered around the door. The door was purple with a plain jute matt. On the top of the door was a long white crystal. Morgan grabbed the cast iron knocked and slammed it into the door three times. "The moon is high."

"Was that a code phrase?" I asked.

"You will see," Morgan smiled. The air was bitter and cold.  Everything being cold and wet made it even more miserable.  I shivered a little when a breeze whipped by us,  bitting through my leather jacket

"Can she hurry up? I am freezing my ass off out here," complained Gentry through his shivers and chattering teeth. "I may have the body of a bear, but I cannot take the cold."

We waited for a second before the door opened. It was a sweet old lady who had white hair and was slightly hunched over like a hunchback. Her muscles must have frozen that way from being hunched over a desk all her life due to her old age. She shuffled towards us with a big toothy grin.

"Morgan, my girl!" the old woman smiled as she hugged her. "How is your momma?"

Morgan's face fell a little mentioning her late mother. I stepped in to save her from the pain of explaining, "Morgan said you will be able to help us."

I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves to show her the wound. It was healed, so the bandage was off. It still had dark veins that spread through my right bicep and up the curve of my shoulder. It looked like the Venom symbiote was bubbling in my veins the way it moved. 

The woman put on her glasses and lightly grabbed my arm, examining it, "Ahh you have been cursed, my dear. Yes, I can help you. Come in! Come in! Take off your shoes at the door."

We went inside and it looked like a sweet old lady's house. The house must have been built in the 60s. There were stairs to my immediate right. To my left was a small kitchen and dining room. Down the hall in front of me was a circular study. We all took off our shoes and coats as she requested.