Back at Cass’s apartment after the second meeting:

Cassandra and Joseph entered her apartment a little after midnight, the front door closing with a soft click, her body was tired, but she performed an enchantment on the door’s lock, so she could at least be alerted if any kind of magical or non-magical entity tried to break in.

A gentle gold aura formed around the door handle and lock mechanism, she tapped it again with her fore finger, “don’t let me down” she said aloud, as if it would do any good.

Joseph padded over to his round shaped cat bed by the couch, stepped in, kneeded a circle, sat back on his haunches, yawned and fell over on his side and popping into a small cloud of darkness.

Cass made her way over to her desk, that also doubled as her personal potion work station, several vials with faded post-it notes attached to them lived here in various states of testing, she had started taking her work home years ago and nobody batted an eyelid, so she just continued to do it, Cass found the atmosphere here more productive and Joseph was an excellent foil for her ideas.

She placed the scroll that Joseph had found in the cemetery on the table and unfurled it, it held it’s curl at both the top and the bottom meaning that was relatively new and potentially something to throw her off the scent, either way it felt important and she placed pieces of stationary at the top and bottom to hold the curls down.

It contained a poem or a set of verses of some type, which read:

We are all equal,

In his blanched gaze.

Deciding life’s maze,

And finality’s crawl.

Curved features,

No longer a creature.

Carrying an anchor,

Holding score.

We are all equal,

In his glass chains.

Humanity will remain,

Until we heed his call.

Given the horde’s form,

He has been reborn.

Doth the sign he writ,

Doom’s loom he will sit.

He doesn’t know your fate,

Just his anchor will carry you.

It’s hunger he must sate,

Death the only thing true.

She stood back, let the words tumble around her head, she needed a shower to wash away the last few days’ events, cass could magic all away for sure, but that would not wash away the feeling of grimy death and the mere thought of being in the presence of that ‘Graves’ demon made her feel sick.

Cassandra turned, made her way across the living room down the hall which was connected to the living room, started peeling off clothing coated in the blood, gore, mud and the days’ events until she stood on the threshold of the bathroom in her underwear.

Her body ached and even though her clothing had caught all of the days’ detritus, Cass felt as though it had seeped through and somehow stained her skin, memories of the witch trials hung, burnt at the back of her mind and the smell of the charred bodies of her sisters returned to her nostrils.

She shook her head, trying to knock loose the history which clung to her and a tear stung, ran down and made a trail through the dirt on Cass’s cheek. Wiping it away she stepped into the bathroom, removed her remaining clothing, turned on the shower to cold and got into the shower.

In the living room, Joseph regained his cat form and padded, tail swishing to Cassandra’s workbench, jumped up narrowly missing the vials situated there, sat down and stared at the text on the scroll. He heard ‘The Night King’ by Ramin Djawadi start up from the hall and the single piano keys echoed into the living room.

Joseph turned around and curled up on the edge of her desk and stared out through the glass balcony doors and into the inky black night.

…

I love you Baby 🖤