Chapter One: The Catalyst
The three witches had been afraid before, but never like this.
The silence around them was eerie in a storybook way, and they huddled closer to one another as they peered down into the cauldron.
They weren’t quite sure how to articulate what they were seeing, because it was very, very bad. And the three witches liked giving good news to paying customers.
But there was no good news for the man who sat with one leg crossed over the other, on an old armchair angled towards the fireplace.
All they could see was the bottom of his pinstripe trouser leg, and the soft, dull shine from a pair of leather Oxfords.
He had one long, thin brown hand curled around the top of a cane. The top of the cane was delicately carved into the likeness of a lion’s head and was made of real, burnished gold.
The witch furthest away from the visitor looked down into the cauldron again. The message they were receiving was quite clear. No matter how many times they stirred and looked again.
The three looked around the room. They had gone through five crystal balls, eight packets of tea leaves (such a waste), and twelve divination rods.
The answer had not changed. It hung, unwavering in the air, a fact more than a prophecy. And certainly not what their guest wanted to hear.
“Can I safely surmise,’ the three witches jumped in tandem when the man spoke. His voice was perfectly neutral, drawling and refined, like someone who had spent too much time in the company of the monarchy.
The second witch shuddered. No one liked it when someone turned up in Limehouse sounding like they spoke the Queen’s English.
Ye Gods.
The man continued, ‘That the answer to my question has not changed?”
He stood then, and very gracefully too, uncrossing his long legs, and straightening his trouser cuffs. Their visitor wore a three-piece suit, and now he pulled on a cream linen coat that he had discarded upon entry.
The witches swallowed in unison.
“Well sir, there you have it,’ the first witch spoke in a crackly voice that betrayed her two-century long life. She glanced over at the other two witches who were her sisters and each only a few years younger than she, and then at the portraits that lined every wall of the room.
She continued, her thin, ugly hands balled into fists, as she tried to conceal her fear.
“I don’t know what else to tell you sir.
We’ve gone to every Hell and back. The Gods and the Devils- they’re all determined to make this prophecy stand. And we see no way to overturn it.
Not unless you go to the Tribunal of the Creators. And that will cost you quite a bit sir.”
The three witches, the three sisters, weren’t even looking at the man anymore.
Instead, they reached for one another under the tabletop and were fiercely clutching one another by the hand. They were all looking at the portraits lining the walls.
Portraits of the people they loved. Husbands and lovers and children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
They knew they were going to die. And they didn’t see why they had to look at the face of their murderer before they did.
The man sighed as though they had greatly disappointed them. As if they had any control over the Fates.
As if they, three cockney witches with only five teeth between all of them, could go up to the Gods and tell them to divert a sure and certain future.
They weren’t quite sure why they had been chosen to die right then. Two centuries wasn’t old in the world of Gods and magic, and the third witch was still in her prime.
It had to be because of their divining skills. The three witches were the best clairvoyants in all of Europe, and that was their only skill. The first witch had been a better mother than she had ever been a witch. She had had ten children and her six daughters had inherited her fertile womb, and none of her family’s old magic.
The second witch had been a bit loose around the edges, and only her two sisters knew that she had entertained several World War Two soldiers in exchange for wealth. That explained why none of her five children looked like each other, even though they were all born in quick succession to one another.
And the third witch. She barely looked into the future unless she couldn’t help it, and instead spent her time helping young couples have babies.
She had eight of her own and would have had more if her ex-husband hadn’t cursed her when they were younger.
The three witches had never had to cultivate their gift of foresight, and they were the envy of many. To be able to just close one’s eyes and see the next twenty years? Many would have killed for that gift.
And it seemed they would be killed for that gift now. They gulped as the man unsheathed a sword from the apparently hollow cane.
“Sir?” The first, oldest, witch spoke. The man smiled benevolently.
“Could you take messages to our children? Tell them we love them.”
“Of course, I will.” The man, in his crisp accent, spoke soothingly, as though to sleepy children.
“Don’t worry ladies. This won’t hurt a bit. I just can’t let anyone else hear about this prophecy. I am quite sure you understand.”
The three witches nodded, and were dead, not several minutes later.
***
The three witches would have been glad to know that every magical being in the East End mourned their deaths. It is quite common that we, mortal creatures, underestimate the mark we have left on the world.
Probably more people will mourn you than you think.
There was not only sadness. There was fear too. Their murders had been brutal, and almost senseless.
Almost senseless.
Because when the first witch’s daughter had, unluckily, found her mother and aunts, rummaged through their things afterwards, the unexplainable amount of crystal balls and broken divination rods said a lot.
Someone had come to ask about the future, Dinah realized. She wasn’t very bright and was currently carrying her eighth. But she did know what her mother and aunts did for a living.
She waddled to her mother’s neighbors, a centaur husband, and his pixie wife whose bedroom logistics no one wanted to question and told them about the fortune telling tools.
News spreads like a veritable wildfire in Limehouse, and soon several alcoholic wizards and a limp satyr from Bethnel Green showed up at the Limehouse witch’s bingo night.
It had to be a prophecy, they said. It had to be. And whoever had come to enquire about it had left unsatisfied.
Why hadn’t they lied, the wizards asked, almost setting fire to one another as they exhaled gaseous vapors of alcohol near the crackling fireplace. Why hadn’t they ignored the request? It wasn’t as though they wanted for money. The first witch’s fifth husband had gotten rich at the Lotto’s, to no one’s surprise. And the third witch was raking it in hand over fist with every baby she helped conceive.
No, it wasn’t the money that made them invite their murderer in.
Someone more powerful then? Someone who had forced them, coerced them, who had used them and then killed them for the gift of knowledge.
The wizards argued that this did not bode well for the rest of them, and most everyone agreed.
Except for the third witch’s only daughter, Cynthia, who sat at the bingo table, her eyes wide and fixed. She hadn’t slept since her mother’s murder, and it was starting to show.
Probably because the third witch had found a way to breach the plane of the living and was now, effectively, haunting her daughter.
“It’s a prophecy.” Cynthia said as she stood and then promptly collapsed from exhaustion and grief
***
On the other side of London, in an area more illustrious but filled with equally alcoholic wizards, there sat a group of people in an overly dark room.
Westminster was beautiful in the winter. Frost sat gently atop bare tree branches and dying hedges and stretched across windowpanes as frost was wont to do.
The people who sat in the room could not be described as humans- certainly not.
They were beings beyond what humans could ever wish to be. One was the alcoholic wizard mentioned before. Another was a witch, who was probably the oldest one there. The werewolf and bear shapeshifter were the youngest, and because of their age they were deemed the most untrustworthy.
There was also a vampire who made everyone uneasy because she wore her fangs like jewelry.
They had been discussing the weather and the delicious supper they had eaten, and the price of dwarf gold.
And then, in the midst of an uncomfortable silence Hayley, the werewolf, burst into speech. “Aren’t we going to speak about the elephant in the room?” She demanded, tossing her thick brown hair back and forth.
Her voice was hot and sharp, and her eyes sparkled with youthful vigor that her companions had lost a long time ago.
“Those bloody witches know about the prophecy!”
“Yes, they do.” The wizard, Kingston, intoned. He burped slightly and Zahra, the vampire, shuddered away from the sour fumes that escaped his mouth.
“It is not an issue yet,” Zahra spoke, her voice quiet and smooth. Hayley and Kingston both calmed down instantly, like she had placed a spell on them.
“They know there is a prophecy, but I managed to banish the third witch before she could say anything else. It is a pity you killed them,” she spoke at the unidentifiable figure who sat apart from the group.
All that was visible of the long, slender shadow, was a pin striped trouser leg, and the head of a cane, held gently by a thin brown hand.
Zahra continued, staring directly into the darkness. The darkness stared back, challenging her to disrespect the man who sat in the shadows.
“We could have kept them, used their services.” She sniffed as she spoke. “But no matter. They might know there is a prophecy, but they do not know what it is about, nor do they know we’re involved.”
“I hope so.” Emerald, the witch, grumbled. She shivered and moved her chair closer to the fireplace. “That prophecy won’t be coming to pass. Not in my lifetime. I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way, and none of you,” She stared fiercely at everyone in the room, “Will get in my way.”
Emerald was about five centuries old and looked as frail as a five-hundred-year-old woman should look. What little hair she had left was white and wiry. Her face was collapsing in on itself from all the teeth she had lost. And she wheezed every time she inhaled, and every time she exhaled, the room was filled with the sounds of bones rattling.
But despite all that, everyone in the room, barring the man who sat in the shadows, was deathly afraid of Emerald.
“That is all any of us want, darling Emerald.” The man in the shadows spoke. “That prophecy shall not come to pass.
Whoever stands in our way will regret ever being born.”