Wicked Game

~~~ Meanwhile with Bobby and Leo ~~~

"Oh, that's not good," Bobby says as the scenery around them starts to blur after they enter the warehouse.

Leo looks around, then says, "They're using magic to change our surroundings... Bobby, Aiden, stay together and don't move," while gripping his knife tightly.

The blurriness disappears, but nothing seems to have changed. It's still a hallway with a bunch of small storage rooms.

Bobby looks around nervously, expecting an attack at any second. But when nothing happens, he turns to Aiden to ask if he senses anything, but Aiden is no longer behind him.

"Yes, about that, the other idjit is already missing," Bobby says to Leo, who turns around in shock.

"Damn… we have no choice let's go and find Cassidy first. Aiden can take care of himself, while she's probably badly hurt."

This makes Bobby ponder. As a hunter, he normally prioritizes the lives of his people over supernatural beings.

But since they had to check the storage rooms anyway to find both of them, Bobby nods at Leo, and they start looking through the rooms, which are strangely open.

However, most of them are filled with boxes or completely empty, with no signs of the missing girl, witches, or Aiden.

"Help, please! Help me, I'm hurt!"

After checking nearly forty rooms, Leo is about to open the next one when they hear someone screaming down the hallway.

"Cassidy? Is that Cassidy?" screams Leo and starts running.

"Wait, Idjit! It could be a trap!" but Bobby's screams fall on deaf ears, and he can do nothing but run after the worried familiar.

Leo reaches the door where he hears Cassidy's crying voice and immediately opens it, but what he sees makes him freeze.

There's a severely burned woman bound to a wooden pole in the middle of the room.

"Please, I'm hurt. Please help me!" says the burned woman, crying.

But when the 'woman' sees Leo, she stops crying and smiles at him, then says, "Why didn't you help me? Now you will burn with me. Ignem congrega et omnia quae desidero ignis ure."

(Gather the fire, and let the fire burn all that I desire)

In the next moment, flames erupt from her and surge towards the frozen Leo.

"Get away from there!" screamed Bobby, tackling Leo away from the door and out of harm's way.

The flames burst out of the room and shortly afterward they disappear completely, leaving everything silent once again.

"Get a hold of yourself dumbass. Do you want to kill us both?" screams Bobby at Leo after they stand up.

But when Bobby sees that Leo is completely pale and shaking, he sighs and says in a more relaxed tone, "The witch responsible for all this is somewhere close. So let's go."

Leo calms down a bit and nods, but as they try to walk away from the storage room, they suddenly hear footsteps coming from inside the burned room.

"Why did you evade it? Why don't you want to share the pain with me...? I'm so hurt," says the burned woman with a gruesome smile, as the lights start to flicker and then turn off in the warehouse.

---

*Bang!*

Bobby fires at the burnt woman as the warehouse plunges into darkness, but she simply vanishes after being hit.

"I will guide you. Follow my voice," says Leo to Bobby, shifting into his raven form while leaving his weapon behind.

"Wait, you idjit! We need manpower right now, not bird power!" Bobby shouts angrily in the direction he believes Leo is in.

*Caw! Caw!*

But Leo doesn't listen to him and takes flight, vividly recalling the irresistible call he felt from Cassidy when she awakened her powers.

This memory surges through him, compelling his body to move automatically in a particular direction, and he willingly embraces it even when he can't see in the dark.

"Why doesn't anyone listen to me?" Bobby complains, but still follows the bird's voice.

Bobby walks for a while, unable to discern his direction due to the darkness, until he sees light shining from another storage room.

"Leo, is that the right way?" he asks in front of the room, but there is no sound from the raven.

"... balls!"

Bobby attempts to turn around as he realizes it's obviously a trap. However, when he steps back, a wall appears behind him and on both sides of him.

With no other choice, Bobby takes a deep breath and cautiously opens the half-opened room, ready to jump to the side.

But instead of finding a burned woman or flames approaching, he sees a blonde woman in a white dress sitting in a chair.

"Karen?" Bobby says, shocked, while pointing his shotgun at her.

"Yes, it's me, Bobby. I've been alone for so long. Why don't you join me?" says Karen, standing up and opening her arms as if awaiting a hug.

However, suddenly, stabbing and gunshot wounds appear on her upper body, and blood begins to stain her dress as it pours out of the wounds.

*Boom!*

Bobby freezes for a second but then still fires his shotgun at her, causing the woman to disappear in a blur.

Even though he knows it wasn't really his deceased wife, Bobby starts to shake while staring at the spot where she stood, unaware that the light has turned back on in the hallway.

Suddenly, someone grabs his shoulder and says, "Bobby? Are you alright? ... Bobby, hey!"

A tall man steps in front of Bobby and pushes down the shotgun barrel.

"Bobby, whatever you saw wasn't real. The witch is playing tricks on you."

"Aiden? Yes... Yes, I know. I just lost my composure for a moment... but now I'm fine," says Bobby, finally recognizing Aiden in front of him and calms down.

Then Bobby checks on Aiden, who appears completely unharmed, and asks, "Where have you been? You suddenly vanished."

"Yeah, it was strange. I appeared in a storage room and couldn't get out until just now," says Aiden, looking around, and continues afterwards, "Leo seems to be missing too. Let's find him and the girl and get out of here."

Bobby nods and walks out of the room, then says, "If only I had my cat Rumsfeld with me, he could find the witches quickly."

"Your cat can do that? That's crazy. I should probably get one too." says Aiden amused and walks after him.

Bobby slowly unsheathes his knife from his belt and replies calmly, "Yeah, you probably should." Then quickly turns around to stab 'Aiden'.

"Vade et elevatio!" (Go and elevate)

But before Bobby can stab him, a force pushes him out of the room, causing him to crash to the ground a few feet away, losing both of his weapons in the process.

The shotgun lands nearby, but Bobby needs to reload it after the second shot, while his knife is at the imposter's feet.

"What gave me away? I thought I copied him quite well after reading some of your memories," says the imposter witch with a smile as he walks toward Bobby, pointing his hand at him.

Bobby quickly checks if his body is unharmed, then rises slightly and says in a relaxed tone, "I'm a dog person, but annoying ravens are fine from time to time too."

Suddenly, Leo swoops down from the ceiling, shifting back into his human form before landing on the ground.

Afterwards, grabs Bobby's knife and thrusts it into the witch's back before the imposter even has a chance to turn around or say something.

The imposter witch falls lifeless on the ground, while reverting to a dark-skinned guy in a dark robe.

In the next moment, everything around them starts to blur, and they appear in the middle of a hallway in the warehouse.

Leo walks toward Bobby, extending a hand to help him up, and says, "Strong illusion spells, mind reading, and even environmental manipulation. These witches aren't just some newbies..."

"Yeah, but they all have one thing in common: they're all crazy," Bobby remarks and takes a sip from his flask.

---

Leo is unsure how to react to Bobby's statement, so he simply ignores it and retrieves the hunting knife from the witch's back and hands it back to Bobby, who is currently reloading his shotgun.

Bobby takes it and says, "I should probably say thank you, but since I saved you before and you only cause trouble, I think we're even without it."

"Yeah, I suppose we are... I think we should move on, I can sense that Cassidy is nearby" Leo responds, with a strange expression.

"Yeah, lead the way," Bobby agrees, readying his shotgun and they hurry to Cassidy's location.

Upon reaching a storage room with a sliding gate, Leo nods at Bobby, and together they open it.

However, what they found inside left them breathless.

The room is shrouded in darkness, illuminated only by candles scattered around. But what truly shocks them is the sight of a woman lying motionless in the center of the room.

Her hair is white, her skin dry like that of a mummy, and a red glowing dagger is lodged in her barely moving chest.

"Oh no, Cassidy!" Leo exclaims, rushing towards her and kneeling down with tears in his eyes. Meanwhile, Bobby investigates the room and then approaches Leo.

"What happened to her? Don't tell me she's still alive..." Bobby asks, his voice filled with disbelieve.

Leo tries to compose himself and replies, "The dagger is causing this. We need to remove it. Maybe then we can help her."

"Not quite right. The dagger is the only thing keeping her alive. Ego sum dominus omnium rerum, ergo pare," a blonde young woman with glowing purple eyes interjects.

(I am the master of all things, therefore obey)

Leo and Bobby are suddenly thrown against the wall and become stuck to it, unable to move.

"Yes, it worked! Nathan will be so proud!" the woman named Kelly exclaims cheerfully.

"You monster! How could you do this to her? Weren't you her friend?!" Leo screams at Kelly as she moves closer to Cassidy.

Annoyed, Kelly retorts, "Friends with her? Don't make me laugh. This bitch always thought she was superior. She always had the best clothes, the best grades, and got attention by playing the mysterious one.

And she had the audacity to dictate who I should hang out with, claiming they would only use me if I don't listen to her... All she ever wanted was attention on herself," Kelly says, kicking the barely living girl on the ground.

"Stop it! You're insane!" Leo cries out, desperately struggling to free himself.

"Insane? You call me insane? The only insane one here is her, and the whole town knows it. The crazy girl who couldn't hold a job after college graduation. I even helped her find one, but even there, she acted like a lunatic."

"You helped her get a job because you knew your boss was an abusive bastard," Bobby interjects, recalling the manager's behavior.

Kelly raises an eyebrow and says, "What he did in private was none of my concern… yet I thought he would... discipline her a bit, but instead that idiot started chasing after her like a horny dog."

Kelly then kneels down, toying with the dagger by moving it around with one finger.

---

"But even though my job offer didn't have the effect I thought it would, it still allowed me to meet my dream man. Can you believe that she rejected his offer to join him? Doesn't she know that his word is the law?

Fortunately, one person's sorrow is another person's happiness, and when she turned down Nathan, he offered me her position. I only had to take everything from her to join him... to enter a new world.

And after placing a hex bag in her bag, here we are, and now I possess powers that she didn't even know she had."

"The hex bag in her possession was yours?" Bobby asks, buying some time to think of something.

"Yes, Nathan said she had the ability to see into the future, so he created it to prevent her from doing so. I hope I can create a hex bag soon too, because there are a few people who deserve punishment," Kelly says with an evil smile.

She then continues, "Hmm, what do you guys think? Should I pull out the dagger and put an end to her misery? I have already absorbed all her powers, so we don't need to keep her alive anymore."

"No!" Leo screams, but Kelly only grins and attempts to remove the dagger.

Suddenly, a man in burnt and tattered clothes rushes into the room and grabs the dagger, shocking the people inside.

"Can't you hear the man? He said no!" Aiden says, holding the dagger in place with his left hand.

"Ego s---," Kelly attempts to say as she stands up, intending to chant her spell again.

However, Aiden swiftly moves towards her, swinging his blade at her throat, effectively silencing her.

~~~ Immortal with shredded clothes POV ~~~

She clutches her throat, while blood is pouring out, and looks at me as if I'm the evil one here…

Then, she stumbles back until she leans against the wall behind her and slides down, slowly succumbing to her injuries.

I turn to Bobby and Leo, both having fallen from the wall moments ago. Leo then approaches me, and I hand him my blade.

He takes it, and advances towards Kelly, who is still conscious enough to comprehend what awaits her.

Leo grabs her shoulder and thrusts the blade into her heart, twisting it to inflict further suffering, ultimately ending her life in a painful manner.

After venting his rage, Leo returns to the woman lying on the ground, presumably Cassidy, and Bobby joins us, while casting a strange look at me upon noticing my clothes.

"I failed her... How can I call myself a familiar when I couldn't even save her?" Leo says, gripping Cassidy's mummified hand.

We remain there in silence as Leo holds her hand, tears streaming down his face.

There is hardly any trace of her aura remaining to say that she is still alive, yet she somehow still there.

After a while, Bobby speaks up, "You should end her suffering. She has endured enough."

"I can't. I need to do something... There must be something I can do!" cries Leo out.

"There is nothing. And if you lack the courage to do it, I will," Bobby declares, reaching for the strange glowing dagger to remove it.

However, I place my hand on the handle and stop him.

Then ask Leo, "There is a way, but are you willing to pay the price for her life?"