Chapter 10

**Noch**


I was just busy binding the cells of the dummy together on my transfiguration pad when suddenly, I felt a sizzle of energy behind me. Without turning around I knew that it was Thyrion that had shifted into my little working area.

“What can I do for you on this lovingly wretched evening?” I asked, as I finished adding blood vessels and texture, using my energy to guide the concoction into imitating the likeness that I held within my mind’s eye. The organs were already finished long ago, they were actually the easiest to make, and also discounting the fact that I had a ready supply of every organ I would need in the infirmary. We tended to cultivate a ready supply for whenever anyone was mortally wounded. Or for the kinds of situations as the one we had on our hands right now.

Thyrion didn’t speak for a while. But when he did he was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. “It looks almost exactly like her.” He said silently.

“Well, we’d better hope that it does, or else this would make things a little more complicated.” I made the finishing touches and stimulated the heart to start beating artificially. Color slowly ran into the corpse’s cheeks as we looked on.

“You are planning on bringing her here, aren’t you?” Thyrion asked, eyeing the likeness of his lover uneasily.

“Indeed we are. And if you try to stop us we will seal your ass in a bottle and stick you in the dungeon for 50 decades.” I declared as I sat the dummy up and gave her a good once over, making sure that everything was as it should be. Obviously there would be no neurological activity in the head since we did not need it. The arms were slender and pale, check. The neck was long and slender, check. The hair was mortal blonde and the right length, check. The breasts were small, check. Even though I had the teasing urge to make them even smaller just to spite her when she catches on. I opened one eyelid. Eyes were the same blue as what I’ve seen, check.
Through the whole inspection Thyrion did not say a thing, he just stood to one side trying not to glare at me as this was not really his lover, but still a scarily close likeness to her.

I heard Thyrion give a sigh of defeat as he sat down in one of the chairs by a desk filled with cabinets of vials and dried herbs.

“I will not stop you.” He said after a second. “It’s too late to keep up any pretenses in any way.” He muttered, running a hand over his pale face.

“I know.” I said, laying the dummy back down and pulling out clothes that I had snagged from Merianna’s closet while she was sleeping.

Thyrion gave me a puzzled look so I decided to fill him in.

“I already heard. After I came back to the Order I was looking at you knuckleheads through the scrying bowl. I heard everything. So yes, we are going to throw caution to the wind and bring her here and see what we can do to help her.” I lifted the dummy’s legs one at a time and slipped on the pair of panties I had swiped.

Suddenly Thyrion was at my side. Well, more accurately speaking, he was trying to forcefully push me out of the way. “I’ll do that.” He loomed.

With a knowing chuckle, I handed him the bra next. Blushing he bent to the task of dressing the likeness of his lover.

While he was busy he asked. “Who else is involved in this plot?”

“Well,” I said, thinking “just about whoever is left in this gods forsaken building. Me, Ara, Fog and Nelia. I don’t know how much help Sirus would be, he’s forever in the library anyway. And whoever else is still in the Order are all out on bounties and rarely come in on occasion.”

Thyrion lifted his eyebrows at me like he had never heard anything so ridiculous in all his life. “I know.” I said solemnly. “After Merianna died and you and Zerial left, the place had become a graveyard. Even Jasnine and Raska fell off the map.”

Thyrion shook his head as he put on the dummy’s pants. “To think that things had changed so much after that moment. I thought that you and Fog would at least still have kept the classes going for the new bloods.”

I shook my head. “No, after all that happened, even the newbies were listless and wary. If something like that happened to Merianna of all people, then what would it have meant for them?”

Thyrion nodded. “Having their revered boogieman be killed by Hunters would really have them second-guessing the value of living a true witch’s life.”

I grunted. “So you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here? Isn’t there someone out there yanking your chain?”

Thyrion gave me a dark sidelong look. Then he looked back down at the dummy and closed his eyes. “I’ve decided that I’m sick of this, I’m tired of all this crap.” Then he turned back to me.

“I’m here to help you with Merianna. The culprit is a warlock, his name is Orbus. He’s very old and very confident. His mother was a demon while his father was a witch. I’ve done as much research on him as I could since I met his arrogant ass.”

I blinked at him. “Orbus? Seriously? You were blind sighted by Orbus of all warlocks?!!!” I laughed.

Thyrion blinked at me. “You know him?”

“I kicked his ass into a sealed realm ages ago! He was no more than a powerful push over back then!” I paused for a second as his words hit me. “How did he get out?” I murmured to myself, suddenly serious.

“I have no idea, but he has goals. The like of which I’m not sure of. Everything he had sent me out to do with the threat of making Merianna’s remaining lifetime worse has not made any sense since the beginning.” Thyrion started to pace.

“Orbus should not have been able to get out of that realm on his own. I sent him to the Fergeril realm.”

Tyrion’s eyes widened. “That would be an exceptionally hard place to get out of, even for us.”

I rolled my eyes and waved him off. “He had slaughtered a few covens back then, ranting on about how it was a sacrifice to the ancients. Especially the ancient goddess Denaue… which now probably has a lot more meaning than back then.” I frowned.

Thyrion went pale. “Do you think he knows?”

I shrugged. “That our little Demon Spawn has that exact deity in her soul, or rather, is actually a mortal version of her? If he has only been ‘preparing’ and having her wander around in the mortal world, and is prepared to destroy her soul if you step out of line, I doubt it.”

All of us knew better now thanks to what had happened with Dermon. The fact of Merianna basically being a mortal version of the deity Denaue has constantly been pushed aside. She was just Merianna. A normal little witch girl with a past that neither she nor anyone else felt the need to dive into. We all loved her for being her, not some ancient deity that needs to be forced back onto an ancient pedestal because of the greed of others.

“Orbus is a fanatic. And if he had you doing things for him over the years then it has to have something in connection to Denaue. Thank the gods he didn’t notice that he actually had her in his grasps this whole time.” I put my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my fingers.

“If I know him well enough, then he originally didn’t plan on letting Merianna go once whatever he wants to do is done. He would use both her and you as a sacrifice. Since he already has a hold on her soul, that would make it so much easier for him.” I felt a pit of unease getting dug in my gut again, getting deeper by the minute. What a nostalgic feeling…

Suddenly I heard an explosive curse from Thyrion and looked up in time to see him whirl around and punch my stone wall. The wall cracked spider-like from where he had hit it, but didn’t come crashing down as I would have expected and was used to.

This made me frown. “Somehow it seems that Merianna isn’t the only one who has been bound.” I studied his energy carefully for the first time. Since he was more demonic but also a witch it made things harder to pick up on occasion. It also made things more complicated since he didn’t really fall under the general category of ‘warlock’. His race of people were practically extinct after all.

He gave a gusty exhale and turned around to face me. He looked more determined than I have seen him since he declared he was going to marry Merianna.

“You’re right. My power is bound to the spell that is holding her captive, as long as she stays bound, so do I.” He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. “Dammit. I should have come to you all for help sooner. I should have picked up on this pattern. The things he had me do, Noch. It makes a sick sense now.”

I stared grimly at the carpet under my feet. “I guess that would have been the best plan of action. But we can’t dwell on that now, what has me worried right now is the fact that he couldn’t have gotten out of that realm on his own no matter how you look at it. So the question then is…” I looked up at Thyrion and saw his eyes widen.

“Who or what helped him, and might still be helping him.” He finished.

I nodded my head grimly. If we were dealing with something stronger than Orbus, stronger than a fanatic demonic warlock, we would be oh so slightly screwed if it is any one of the numerous powerhouses exiled to that particular realm. Not to mention, Dermon was still lurking about, having been suspiciously quiet since that last battle at the Warlock Caves. Well, if my suspicions were correct, he might also have been behind the Hunter attack on the Order that killed Merianna as well, unfortunately proof was still lacking.

I let out a long exhale and looked over at the dummy. Even more convinced now than I was before that Merianna had to come home, and very soon.

I just opened my mouth to start saying something to Thyrion when Arasule suddenly came whirling into the room in a flurry of papers and the thick volume that she said she would research the shit out of.

“GOT IT! I know how we can help our girl! I’ll obviously need to have a look at her first but this is what we need! Get these supplies!” She exclaimed, shoving a parchment into my face. I quickly scanned over the contents and noticed quite a few very tricky to find objects, and then some that didn’t look like they’d have anything to do with scraping a spell off of a soul.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Seems like you want more than you need.” I commented dryly.

She gave me a self-righteous huff. “Just get these and I’ll show you how much we will need them indeed!”

I looked down at the list again and picked out the ones that seemed the least likely to help. “The eye of an albino troll. A vial of mud from the Kelpie’s pond. A cursed dagger from the Deroch clan…” She snatched the parchment out of my hand and scanned it, then blushed a little. She stuffed it underneath her pile of papers and shoved a different paper in my face.

“Ah! This makes much more sense.” I said reading through the list. I eyed her papers again. “Is that perhaps a wish list dear Arasule?”

She huffed and looked away from me without answering and finally spotted Thyrion. She blinked. “Thyrion! Well, call me crazy, it IS you!” She said putting down the books and papers then went over to give him a hug. Thyrion blinked, thoroughly confused about her overly friendly gesture, but accepted the hug. The poor fool…
From the hug she grabbed his hand, twisted it behind his back and had him pinned to the floor in one second. Hyperextending his arm so far that I heard a grinding sound coming from his joints. “You wretched bastard of a donkey’s ass! How dare you keep this to yourself?! How dare you keep her from us all this time?! How dare you show your face to me and think I wouldn’t kill you?!!!”

“Calm down you bat shit crazy hag.” I deadpanned while conjuring my pipe. I was enjoying the show, but we did need to get moving if we wanted to get Merianna here as soon as possible. Who knows when the next crazy bastard would strike.

“Don’t call me CRAZY!” She growled while still keeping Thyrion pinned. He was bearing his teeth in agony as Ara leaned on his arm, almost at the verge of dislocating the shoulder.

“You said to call you crazy so I just did.” I chortled.

Her hands were full, so she just sat on Thyrion’s back and fumed at me. “Ara, it seems like we have a bit of a snag. New information came up that I will share with you and everyone else later. So, let Thyrion go so he can keep an eye on Merianna, and get busy prepping. We have to get her home and ready as soon as possible.”

Arasule gave me a penetrating look, assessing what I had said. Then she nodded once and got off of Thyrion.

“Glad to see that you still hate my guts.” He groaned as he slowly stood back up and clutched his arm.

“I hate a little more than just your guts for a long while now. So don’t make this harder for yourself. I’ll get my revenge on you later, you can count on that.” She seethed at Thyrion. Then in the blink of an eye she flickered out of the room and probably back to her potions room.

“Can’t say that I’ve missed her.” Thyrion muttered afterward. Yet he had a smile on his face.

“Oh yes, you should have seen her after the brat died. Then you would’ve really genuinely missed her.” I took a pull from my pipe and gave a gusty exhale.

Thyrion looked back at me. “I am to go to her?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yes I’ll be able to get these supplies in a matter of hours.” I looked outside, noticing that it was still dark. “The sun should be rising where she lives now. Keep an eye on her until I call the meeting, update us on her status if possible. Hezerial should be doing the same right about now. We have to do it today. We have waited more than long enough already.”

Thyrion nodded then disappeared as easily as he had appeared.

I sat there for a little while longer, letting my head spin in circles and to possibilities that I hadn’t thought of in a very long time.

I hoped, beyond all hope, that I was wrong.