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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ulfgeir" data-source="post: 7809279" data-attributes="member: 7015719">Book 2: The Witching HourA few days after the attack during the ritual, I could tell that I was being followed by someone. Not sure, but I think it might have been a warden. I had heard rumours about a group of wardens hitting town. A bit late I must say, had they come earlier maybe some of the deaths could have been avoided. That I still have my head must mean that they found me innocent and not a threat. The police of course couldn’t make heads or tails by what had happened. That lead to a lot of debates, and some support programs for troubled girls were started. It sounded good but I am sceptical of what good it would accomplish.Then FBI started to poke around campus, and started interrogate all male persons with a Hispanic look. They get well-deserved criticism for racial profiling in the media, and they then back off. Not sure exactly what they were after, but I think it might have been connected to what happened to Antonio. Not sure, but I think he made himself scarce when they were around as it seemed they were looking for some kind of terrorist.Imogen seemed very pleased with herself that Obama won the presidential election. Of course he was a better choice than Romney, but he still had done some bad things during his previous term. I must say that I am not that happy with the current system, as basically only candidates from the two big parties have a chance, so yes my vote in the election had in effect been wasted. But at least I had voted.I spent lots of time with my new friends in the sorority, and well at least three of the girls there had some magical talents; Kathleen Hannah, Johanna Faithman and Jude Dee Samson, or J.D. as she preferred to be called. So we spent time trying to develop our talents, and I learned some other stuff not just divination. I bonded quite well with the sorority leader Yukimi who was very friendly to me. No one seemed to blame me for what had happened during the remembrance ritual on the roof, which was good. When I started taking driving-lessons in town, Í even managed to find a store called Starstone where one could buy magical equipment. For most visitors it would be just another new age store, but they had some nice stuff. Most of them were well out of my price-range though. Some of the stuff, I had no idea what they could be used for. Not even sure I wanted to know.On the theatre-side I had unsuccessfully tried to track down our old director. He had indeed moved to Norway to start his new life. Damn it. Well, I had at least managed to inspire Gerald and Nina to look further into becoming directors. I think they would be able to do it as they have the acting capabilities. I asked them what their toughest roles had been, and told them to just imagine that they played the role of a director. That seemed to work. We had some lengthy discussions about what kind of plays would draw the most audiences. We would even hold a fundraiser later on as well. I would need to talk to Imogen about that.Three months later, life had sort of started going back to normal. The sorority had gotten a temporary place to be. It wasn’t much though. Think it used to be used by some geeky computer club. Karl and Antonio helped out a lot in making it better. It seemed to be lots of bureaucracy involved in rebuilding the house.We had however heard worrying rumours that the warfare between the two gangs in the Spanish quarters had escalated. Apparently they used kids as couriers and there were lots of reports of people ending up dead. I really hoped the police would be able to do something, but I wasn’t exactly holding my breath. It felt like that situation would only get worse.At a monthly meeting with other magical practitioners that I had started to get to know in Boston, we found that Jamie was missing. No one of the others had heard from her for the past three weeks, and she didn’t answer her phone. So we decided to go to her place to see if she was ok. When we came there, we found the door unlocked, with lots of mail piling up inside. It was totally silent. We found her cat dead in the kitchen from apparent dehydration, and all her flowers dying. Someone called the police to register a missing person’s claim, but they wouldn’t take it serious. That is so typical. I tell the others that I would look into it more, so I borrowed one of Jamie’s trinkets that she so cherished to perform a divination, and also called Tim to see if he could get some more info from the police as he had some contacts there. Of course I didn’t perform the ritual at Jamie’s place. I wasn’t exactly surprised that my divinations indicated that she was dead. I had gotten an idea of where she were so I called Karl, as I knew that he could track stuff much better than me in his wolf form. I hadn’t expected him to show up together with Star in a van. She had apparently for some reason bought it and had it painted like Scooby Doo’s Mystery van. Why had she done that, and how had she afforded it? And I don’t think she knew how to drive.We drove out to the place where my divination-spell indicated that Jamie would be. Karl changed into wolf-form, and he sniffed around. Sure enough, right under one of the bridges near the harbour did he find her remains. She had been dismembered and stuffed into a plastic bag. Eugh, that was really nasty and made me want to throw up. I called the police, who came and took statements from me and Star. I don’t think they quite bought that I was just out walking my “dog”, and he had dug up the remains. After being questioned, I took and drove the van away, and when we had gotten away, Karl shifted into human form again and I gladly let him take over the driving. We did notice that the homeless persons that had been near the bridge had mysteriously vanished when the police came there.I called the other practitioners later, and let them know what we had found. One of them, can’t remember who said that Jamie had just prior to her disappearance met someone but they didn’t know who as she had been rather close-mouthed about that. I wondered if the person whom she had met could have been the one responsible for her murder.Tim had found out earlier that Jamie had been reported as missing almost three weeks before. The police had been at her place and searched for clues. Her neighbour had been supposed to take care of the cat, but she had herself gotten sick and ended up in hospital. He had also found out that the dismembered parts had been chewed upon. The police couldn’t tell exactly by what, as it looked both human and animal. He also learned that a similar case had happened in Hartford, Connecticut about four weeks earlier. Tim had also been able to track down the homeless persons near the bridge, and they claimed that they had seen twelve children driving up in a car and then burying the plastic bag containing Jamie’s body. They had felt that something was seriously wrong and decided to keep well away. I wondered if it might be something from Nevernever, as I doubted it would be real children. Even if I took into consideration what the gangs where doing. But without a better description or if I could use my Sight on them, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.Star and Karl decided upon hearing this that they should go and see if they could find out more at Jamie’s apartment. I don’t know what they expected to find, and I think the police would be all over the place considering that she was dead and all. I took the time to dispose of the trinket I had used for the divination-spell. Anyways, they came back with a diary. And it turned out that Jamie had been involved with a strange brown-eyed woman whom she had met at a club called Wishes. None of us had heard of it, but Mirou said he would be looking into it.I had a long talk about fundraisings with Imogen, and she gave me lots of good pointers. It all depended on who you wanted to come. The upper class would prefer seeing old stuff with class, like Shakespeare. Theatre-snobs preferred more artsy stuff in my experience, whereas the average Joe would go for something lighthearted.We decide that Star, Imogen, Antonio, Tim, Karl and I would go to Hartford to look into more stuff the day after. Mirou absolutely refused to be seen anywhere near Star’s van. He would instead look for more info on the nightclub. I talked to Antonio a bit about Nevernever and the Summer court in specific. He was indeed a prince there, or rather his father was. A bit surprised that a changeling would hold high status there, but stranger things has happened. He was very happy with the medical attention he had gotten there. I had no idea what that would entail though, but for some reason I gathered that he had been looked after by a lot of pretty faerie women. Antonio is such a ladies man.Once in Hartford, Tim talked to a journalist about the case there. The victim there, had been named Sadie Benning, and her mutilated body had been found near a jogging-track by a woman who had been out with her dog. He managed to track down some drunkard who claimed to have seen the body being dumped. The drunkard claimed that it had been what looked like four children dressed as adults who had done it. But he was very certain that it had not in fact been children. One of them had had horns, and one had been wearing those old worthless 3d-glasses. He claimed that they had been talking in squeaky voices and that didn’t speak English. Someone wasn’t right in their heads, in fact I wonder if they were crazier than Star was, and I wasn’t sure if it was the drunkard who had observed it or the perpetrators.I tried on the other hand to track down any connections to the supernatural through the Paranet to see if anyone here knew anything. No one knew for sure. The others did some digging as well, and we did find out that Sadie like Jamie had been a practitioner and recently met someone. Sadie had apparently had a long-distance relationship with a woman from New York. No chance of tracking her down without anything else to go on. Besides how were we going to persuade the police to believe any findings?Tim got lucky when he talked to the police and learned that there had been a string of similar murders since December in 2010. It had started down in Florida and hit every capitol of every state up along the coast with one case more or less per month. Wonder why the FBI hadn’t been all over this. We then found out that all of the victims had been leaders of local division of the Paranet. Why was someone murdering local practitioners? Was it because we were perceived to be easy targets?Satisfied that we couldn’t learn anything else in Hartford, we headed back to Boston. I believe Tim asked Imogen out for a date on the way back. Good for them. While it would satisfy my romantic side, to have a knight on a white horse and shining armour to come ask me out, I am enough of a modern girl to go ask the guys out myself. If I could find any that’s worth it that is. Heck, there were even some of girls I knew that I wouldn’t mind some snuggle-time with, and I am not even drawn that way. At least I don’t think I am. I could just imagine the outrage that would cause with my parents back home, but I am who I am and I do things my way now.When we got back we learned that Mirou had apparently been to the club in question and it had been very expensive, so how had Jamie managed to get in there? She hadn’t earned much money. Tim tried to get hold of the guest list for the club but got stonewalled. Not much of a surprise. I gathered that the thing about exclusive clubs was their exclusivity.Then from out of nowhere we learned that the sorority house would not be rebuilt at all, instead there would be a dormitory. I can understand it sort of, as that would mean that more students could attend, but I just knew that it would be really demoralizing to my new friends. First everything they had gone through, then having to fight red tape and now this. Imogen seemed to take this as a challenge and claimed that it infringed on our rights. She started doing what she does best; organising things.Then in the drama class, I learned that Roxy and Lynette were talking crap about me behind my back and giving me dirty looks. Well, I had no idea why they would do that. I hadn’t done anything against them. I didn’t care much for that. I was in class to learn things, so decided to just ignore them. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, as a few days later I got called into the dean’s office. He had photographs of me and the others in the sorority, taken during the remembrance ritual. He gave me a warning, and threatened me to expel me. That was so unfair. Luckily he didn’t have any photos of the fight, or at least he didn’t show them to me. It was obvious that the photos had been taken from another roof. I think the same one that Imogen had been at, and the photographer had used some real fancy camera to get such good pictures. I asked the dean where he had gotten the photos from, but he didn’t answer. How had the other girls known that we were at the roof at that time, and how had the mysterious photographer known. Who was it, and why had those photos been taken? As I was dismissed from the dean’s office, I met the other girls from the sorority. They had also been summoned there. I quickly told them what I knew. We agreed that we would have to discuss this later. Damn it, why couldn’t things go well for once?A few days later, I ran into Yukimi, who was ecstatic. The sorority had been given a really large donation from a mysterious donor. Someone had bought a large house on campus and donated to the sorority. This of course got other people upset as that house had not been for sale earlier. My head hurt from the campus politics, but I too was very happy about the outcome. The one thing marring it was that I learned that Jason from the theatre had planned on doing his own fundraising a week after the one I helped doing. And he definitely aimed for the high society. He was such a sneaky bastard. Of course as long as it helped the theatre it was good, but I still didn’t have to like it.Then later Tim called me as he had gotten news about something mysterious happening in the Spanish part of town and wanted the help of the rest of us to see what was going on. Apparently there had been some kind of alteration there that had the police baffled. Antonio seemed a bit stressed out, and I learned that the gangs there had had gone after his sister. Ouch. Family does matter. He claimed that everything was fine, but I could tell that it was something he wasn’t very happy with. I just prayed it wouldn’t come back and hurt either one of them.When we got to the place, we could se that the police had cordoned off a garden behind the houses. We could from a distance see that one part had been badly burned as if someone had gone loose with a flamethrower, while the other part was frozen solid in ice. In the burnt part, we could see what appeared to be a body. It was clear that magic had been used here. I opened up my Sight to get a better look at what had happened. As far as I could tell there had been two persons involved. The one who had wielded fire-magic had not been human. The other one had been. I could also make out that the human wielder had wanted to protect something, probably the neighbourhood, whereas the fire-user had wanted to destroy and it felt dirty and really nasty. There had been lots of anger involved. I had no idea what kind of supernatural being the other one had been. The experience left me with a bit of a headache, like when you eat an ice cream way too fast. When I told the others this, Star claimed that she belonged to the fire court. What was she babbling about, we all wondered? She claimed that there were other faerie courts than Summer and Winter, and that she hailed from the Middle East, as if that would explain anything. Oh, Goddess, what was going on? I realized that there was a lot I needed to learn.Antonio and Tim asked around for any witnesses, and Karl and Imogen tried getting a closer look at the scene without much success. Antonio managed to get some info, and apparently there had been two girls fighting. The dead girl had been a Hispanic girl who called herself Raven. She had been some kind of street shaman or something here helping the community. Apparently she had had special days where the people living here could come and talk to her and she would solve their problems. The other girl had been an Asian looking girl around twenty years old. She had left the place in some kind of luxury car. For some reason I really hoped this wasn’t Yukimi. The very vague description fitted her, but then she was as far as I knew all human, and she wasn’t a practitioner. Why then was I worried?We spent the rest of the day trying to find any clues on what had happened and why. The day after, I got woken up by Mirou, who called me way too early. It didn’t help at all that he was in such a good mood either. Did I mention that I am not a morning person? Anyways he wanted to meet me real early as he had pulled some strings to help me with the fundraiser, and that we should meet some people at the theatre. I got a sinking feeling that he was up to something, and that I had just been suckered. Damn it, I hate it when that happens. He told me to dress up. I don’t have much of fancy clothes around here. It isn’t quite my style, well I count my corsets and velvet dresses to be fancy. Sure I love nice clothes as much as the next girl, but it isn’t like I have tons of cash to throw around to buy all the stuff I want. What was he up to? I got quite surprised when he picked me up in a limousine. Of course he complained about my clothes not being fancy enough.Once at the theatre, we were met by some of the people that he had hired. How much money did he have? I mean he had interior decorators, catering, and even security people. I had to show them all around the Theatre so they knew what they had to work with. I tried to act all professional, and being polite all the time. Once those persons left though, I had to ask him what the hell he was thinking. He only laughed at me and told me not to worry about it, it was what was needed to win over Jason. Of course I worried, and it didn’t help that he had apparently invited some important guests. I prayed that the Goddess would bless it so that it would all work. And I saw no way to persuade Mirou to back down here. I felt like I was so out of my league.I spent the remainder of the day trying to track down information about what the strange beings that had appeared as children to the witnesses regarding the string of murders. Not surprisingly, I didn’t find anything that allowed me to pin it down. I was quite sure though that it was indeed something nasty from Nevernever, and that they didn’t look like children in their natural form. I was quite happy though with the information that Antonio sent out regarding the moving in-party we would have in the sorority later. It would be a wiccan-themed masquerade. What should I wear? Maybe I should dress up as a faerie?The day after, we woke up to a heavy snowstorm. During the nigh, about three feet of snow had accumulated. I and many others had never seen that much snow. We quickly learned that most of the city was closed off, and that there were no classes being held. Antonio in his ever playful mood decided to organise a snowball fight. That was very fun, but getting snow inside my corset was damned cold. That cold feeling against my tits was in a strange way quite erotic though. Star made some kind of tower to the snow fortress that Antonio had built. Not sure what it was supposed to look like, but it got some lewd comments. I don’t think that turned out the way she had hoped. The snow kept falling through the day, and on the news we learned that outside Boston it was hardly any snow at all. Very freakish weather, and there seemed to be no natural reason for it.Both Antonio and I tried finding out through our contacts if anyone knew anything about what was happening. I performed a divination spell, and saw a vision of a huge white hart, that was running over open water. Each step causing the water to instantly freeze beneath it, and it seemed to drag a ferocious snow storm behind it. When all of us except Tim and Imogen met up, I told them of the vision I had had. Karl answered that he had for the last two nights had a dream where he and his wolf pack was hunting a huge hart through a wintery landscape, but that members of the pack had been mysteriously injured when they got closer to the hart. He said that he had been calling home, but everything was fine there so he figured it was just some weird dreams.During the evening, we went to Avalon, as there was not much else to do. I came late as I had been to the theatre first. Was not much people at Avalon, but I saw Antonio managing to seduce some rough looking Asian girl who came in together with four equally rough looking guys of mixed heritage. All of them had a feral feel about them. Apparently Star had the guys distracted as she danced on stage in a provocative manner. The guys couldn’t stop lusting after her, and then even started fighting amongst themselves. Well they didn’t get too far before Karl stepped in and cooled them down. They then started looking for their female companion, who came out from the toilets together with Antonio. Both were looking a bit flustered, so not too much mystery about what they had been doing. Sigh, my love life left a lot to be desired.During the evening I first got a call from Nina at the theatre, she said she would quit if she didn’t get to be the director. I managed to get her to calm down and said we would discuss it the day after.  So I would meet with her and Gerald at a café and talk. We really couldn’t afford to loose anyone. I had some idea on how to sell it though. Then later on my way home, Yukimi called me, and she was totally distressed. I made my way to her room to check on her. She had just had a bad break-up with her boyfriend Steve. Apparently she had caught him in the act with Angelica from the sorority. Ouch, that would turn bad I thought. A woman scorned and all that. Luckily I could calm her down, and we had a long talk before I had to go to bed.The day after I went and talked to Gerald and Nina. I think I came up with a good compromise. Gerald would direct this version of Hamlet, that were doing, and we would reverse the gender roles so Nina would play the role of Hamlet. And then the next play we would make she would direct and they would rotate that role between them. I think that would help them do even more challenging roles, and they could focus on one thing at the time. I really hoped this would pay off. It was worth it to avoid breaking up both their friendship and the cast at the theatre. I had succeeded being a mediator at least.I later talked to Yukimi about both how she was doing after her break-up and about the events that had happened during the ritual we had done earlier. I could in a way understand how the three former members and that guy had showed up. They could have tracked us down through the use of a divination-spell, besides they already knew that that was the place the sorority used. I was however more troubled by the photos that someone had managed to take. How had that person known when to be on the other roof? Someone had probably leaked the information. Yukimi thought it might have been Maria. She hadn’t liked it that Yukimi took over as leader of the sorority. It was plausible, but we didn’t have anything to prove it with. We would just have to keep our eyes open.A bit later on the day when the snow had subsided, I got an urgent text-message from Mirou who wanted all of us to come quickly to an electricity station on campus as something weird were happening. As I hurried there, I noticed that someone had made a lot of improvement on Antonio’s snow fortress, and it was now a work of art. When I was getting closer, I saw Antonio a bit further up ahead. I was just about to call out to him, when a miniature snow tornado buzzed right past him, heading for the electricity station. A few seconds later, the massive steel door from the station, were ripped from its hinges and flew towards us. Antonio just barely ducked and I watched in horror, how it came flying towards me, only to embed itself a mere six feet from me in the frozen ground. I couldn’t see anything except a blizzard at the station, but I could hear growling and what sounded like fighting. Wanting to know what was going on, I used my Sight. The intensity of what I saw nearly knocked me out. I could see that there was a fight between the Winter Court and the Summer Court, with a help of Fire. In the blizzard I saw contours of a bunch of small bluish and vicious looking creatures, as well as Antonio. I thought I could see other shapes moving around, but they were just a blur. I could see that the whole city was supercharged with some very potent magic, but I could not make out what it was. As I struggled to make sense of what I saw, the fight seemed to reach a crescendo, and then the Fire were suddenly torn away from the swirling mass of snow. I fell to my knees almost fainting by what I saw. Then suddenly the blizzard just vanished, and I felt a hot breath on my face and a cold muzzle nudging me to stand up. As I looked up, quite disoriented, I saw Karl in his Wolf form there, together with Mirou and Antonio. Antonio really looked the worse for wear. According to Mirou, Star had vanished in a sort of fireball heading towards the town, and we needed to find her quickly as she might have been injured.Luckily Karl could track her scent. She had indeed said that she was from the Fire Court, and given some of the collateral damage we saw, it appeared to be true. Something very hot had burned through the wall to the electrical station, and then in some zigzagging path burned through signs, chimneys and other things that had been in its way back towards town. I guess it was pure luck that no humans had been in the way. We followed the trail back to the Boston Museum, and saw that it had burned through a window on the 3rd floor of the anthropological wing. The museum had been closed since the snowstorm started, but I guess they had been sloppy in locking the doors, as one of them opened when Mirou tried it. I did a quick divination to find more info where in the huge museum Star would be, and then after that Karl and Mirou dashed in real quickly. I stayed outside with Antonio, who really didn’t feel very well. He claimed it felt like the worst brain freeze ever. I believed him. After a short while Karl and Mirou came out, and they had some strange old oriental lamp with them. That was where the trail of Star had ended they claimed.We headed back to the dorm. Antonio came up to my room for some head-ache pills. He needed to lie down and rest for a while for his migraine to pass. Luckily Melissa wasn’t at home, I had actually not seen her for the past two days, but I knew that she had been around as she had picked up some of her stuff. While Antonio rested, I started long in some books I had about what it was that we had been up against. I could confirm that it was trolls, and that they belonged to the Winter Court. Later in the evening, Karl and Star came by asking about how we were doing. Star looked really tired as well. Karl said that he had some feeling of dread. He and Mirou had earlier tracked the trolls over the campus area and found that three electrical stations had been demolished. He had been in contact with the power company. So the question was how would one stop the trolls? According to my books, iron was a good bet, as was strong Summer magic. I was also quite certain that it was these trolls that had killed all the practitioners. Why? Had they done that, and where there more of them than the twelve we had seen.The next morning, Karl came by again, and wanted my opinion on a dream he had had. He had again dreamt about the white hart. This time he had in wolf form come to a clearing where he saw the stag standing. In the clearing had been lots of dead wolves from his pack. The hart itself had been covered in blood, and then suddenly it shifted into three stags. When he woke, he had called his family back home in Sweden. His mother had said that everything was fine, but he didn’t believe her. He was quite certain that something bad had happened, and he no longer felt the sense of dread that he had done earlier. As far as I could tell, someone had used some heavy magic against his family. Without more to go on, I couldn’t tell him what had been done or by whom.I am not sure where he had gotten it from, but Karl then went and brought me some frozen blood. He claimed it was form the trolls they had fought the day before, and wanted me to track them. I had no problem finding the direction to them, and gave Karl the general whereabouts. Apparently six more electrical stations had been destroyed during the night and it was now freezing cold outside. The FBI was apparently taking things very serious according to the news, and they considered it to be some terrorist actions. I decided to do some more divinations and research to find out what was going on.Later on during the day we spend some time at the Avalon, as nothing else was open and there was not much to do. As we sat there talking, the four feral guys and the feral girl showed up. They were still quite hyper-energetic, and the boys seemed to have been playing a bit rough. The girl had a talk with Karl, before leaving. Not quite sure what they talked about but I gathered that he just got himself a date. Mirou was being very generous and buying everyone at the Avalon drinks. Very nice, though I had to take it a bit easy. I am not exactly used to drinking, as I was underage. Besides, with my abilities, it was definitely in my best interest to maintain control of my mind. I was old enough to vote, drive a car or even getting married but not to legally buy alcohol, but not much I could do about that.I managed to find some information in some of the books I had. Apparently it was not in character for trolls like that to perform wanton violence as they had done now. Something or someone was pushing them. I really didn’t like that thought. I also found some more references to white stag that Karl had seen in his dreams. As far as I gathered they were the protectors of some old Celtic Faerie queens. Apparently they did not belong to either the Summer or the Winter-courts, instead they made up a separate court called the Daoinie Shidhe, and there were three queens; Hecate, the queen of dogs, Nimue, the queen of blood and Baba Yaga who was the queen of mist. The book I had made references to a book called The Thelema by Aleister Crowley. I really needed to find that book and see what it had to say. It could hold some clues to our current predicament. Karl, Mirou, Imogen and Star agreed to accompany me to the library the day after. And if they didn’t have the book, then maybe Starstone would have it. As a precaution we would bring a few rebars of iron. We hadn’t heard anything from Tim for the past few days, and Antonio was still out of it, even though he had decided to go somewhere else to recover from his previous ordeal.The next day was even colder. One could almost think we were living in Alaska or something. Of course the library wasn’t open, but Mirou found a backdoor that was open. How does he do that? It felt wrong to go in like that but what else could we do? Time was probably of the essence. After doing some looking around, I managed to find a book about the Celtic faeries. Someone had mistaken it for a book for children and put it in that department. It had some interesting notes regarding what differentiated the fair folk in different regions. It seemed that every region had had its own type of faeries and different customs on how to interact with them safely. I wonder how accurate that book really was.Imogen managed to actually find the book that I was looking for. Someone had hid it amongst some geography books. The book here was an old and somewhat shortened version that didn’t include Crowley’s satanic stuff. In it were descriptions for rituals to summon the queens, and calculations of dates when each step should be done to gain the most. Someone had definitively used this as there was a photocopied page in it. The dates seemed to add up. The optimal starting date would have been 1st of November last year, and then mid winter for stage 2 and stage 3 would be around the 12lth of March. Damn it.The ritual was in three stages. First you needed to create a sanctuary, and this stage seemed to involve blood sacrifices. Then after that you gather power, and then last do the summoning ritual. Strangely enough there was nothing in the book regarding what safety precautions you should do. I made sure to take the book and note for safekeeping. Having working rituals around like that is probably quite dangerous in the wrong hands.Not sure what Star was up to. She said something about Scooby Doo, and well she did manage to find a secret passageway that led downwards in a narrow staircase with brick walls. It had a very low ceiling. Even I was too tall to stand up properly inside it. Karl had to shift into wolf form to fit. He’s a big boy. Star turned into a glowing ball of fire that flowed just underneath the ceiling. According to my divination spell, this would lead to the trolls. I must say that I was curious, but in retrospect it might not have been such a good idea. We followed to passageway for a few hundred yards, and on the way passed another door in the ceiling, but that was impossible to open. Something heavy barred it. At the end of the corridor we came to a heavy steel door behind a sturdy wooden door locked only by a latch.We heard a loud noise from behind the door as if something large passed by in a great speed. We came out on a maintenance walkway in the subway. To the left we could see East Berkley station on the Silver line some 20 yards away. My spell indicated that the trolls were the other way, so we followed the walkway into the darkness. A bit scary to know that you are walking in such a place where you are not meant to be. Star again took material form, but something didn’t quite go right. She appeared fully dressed in some kind of harem clothing but with burning hair and skin like lava. Imogen really didn’t seem to like that for some reason. Wonder why she reacted that way. When we asked Star about her appearance, she transformed back into the burning ball of fire and then reappeared as her usual self.Imogen and Mirou kept nagging each other as we followed the walkway to Herald Station and there took another way on to Downtown Crossing. A bit into the tunnel, we found some large stone portal made out of limestone in the wall. The portal was completely dark and we couldn’t see what was on the other side. Some kind of magical effect obscured all light, which made it impossible to see when passing by on the subway. As we went through it we found a staircase leading further down, and we started seeing lights. On the wall were old metal hangers with burning torches, just like you would expect in a mediaeval castle or something.The passage exhibited signs of having been used frequently despite all the dust on the floor. As we followed the passage we started hearing some kind of murmuring sounds. Further on we found another portal and a sign proclaiming that to be King’s Crossing. We could now make out that there was lots of people talking and singing, but in languages we could not understand. Beyond the portal lay some kind of large market filled with people. None of them looked human though. For example we saw some merchant who had two very large hulking trolls guarding his merchandise. I had a feeling we were not in Kansas any more.Star apparently had been to this kind of places before, and gave us some quick pointers on what to do and not to do: Don’t accept any deals, don’t accept any gifts, and be very careful of what you say. As if to make a point, Star suddenly materialises a big sword hanging on her back.When we entered the market, the people there noticed us and looked at us intensely, judging us. As I tried getting my bearing son which way we should go, a large man in a strange headgear came up to us and pointedly told us to loose the iron we had with us. We were obviously not welcome if we were carrying it. We reluctantly agreed, and left the rebars outside the market. No use in upsetting the locals. Strange that I had never even heard about this place before, but it was something that I would need to remember.Took some time to find the right passageway, and each one looked differently. Some were elaborately carved and others seemed natural, but all appearing random. Finally I found the right way and we headed down there. After maybe fifteen minutes did we come to an area where the passage was natural stones and lots of glowing trees and other plants. A bit further on, we could hear what sounded like the chatter from children speaking in a strange language. I had a feeling that we were getting near the trolls.Finally we came to a small cave where we could see some kind of large magical circle carved into the floor. I could tell that it wasn’t active so it wasn’t from here that the ritual for summoning the Queens was performed. Luckily the trolls paid no attention to us, instead they played rough with each others and the large amounts of trinkets that they had accumulated, and which lay scattered all over the place.Sadly this was then things turned bad as Imogen decided to get the trolls attention and give them a piece of her mind. Naturally they decided to attack her. Karl who was in his wolf form managed to block the first of many attacks. The trolls attacked with great ferocity, and injured Imogen badly. At Mirou’s insistence, did Star and I grab her and run away with her as Mirou and Karl defended against the trolls. We ran towards the market, leaving a trail of blood behind us. Luckily the trolls quickly lost interest in us, and Karl and Mirou could join us.When we came to the market, lots of people gathered around us, but no one wanted to help us. One old woman even went so far as to gather up Imogen’s blood in a cup, while muttering something about finder’s keepers and virgin blood. Star led us quickly towards a large bonfire that they had at the market, and somehow opened a kind of portal there. She said that would take us to a place where we could get some help for Imogen. We were instantly transported to a clearing in a forest where large stone portals arched up towards the sky, and we could see another marketplace much bigger than the one we just left.It was clear that Star had been there before, as she dragged us towards a large tent in one corner of the market, and we were greeted by a man who obviously was one of the fair folk. After some quick exchanges of greetings, he offered to help us, started treating Imogen’s wounds inside his tent. After he was finished with his magical healing, he offered us tea and coffee as a token of hospitality. According to Star that was fine and we were in no danger from accepting that. In fact refusing it would have been bad. We talked a bit about what had happened, and it seemed that a lot of the supernatural community had left Boston as there was too much Winter magic present at the time. The trolls were just a symptom, and were tougher due to what was going on. Apparently someone was doing some major mojo, and the heralds of the Queens had gathered there to settle things. I asked him if that would have something to do with what had happened in the alley where the street shaman had been killed. He said that was a purely mortal matter. The heralds would take the form of large white stags. He also told us more about the three Celtic Queens. Things would probably be bad if the ritual were completed. If we could disturb it, the gathered power would dissipate and the grip of Winter would vanish.After our long talk, we were ready to head home. We carried the sleeping Imogen on a makeshift stretcher that the good doctor provided. This time Star opened a portal that led us to the boiler room in the basement of the dormitory. We helped Imogen to her room where she would lie down to rest. I went to my room to change clothes and try to get the bloodstains out of the other ones. Luckily my favourite colour is black and that means stains like that aren’t visible. I found Melissa to be at home sleeping in bed with Antonio who still looked a little worse for wear. I decided to let them be, and then afterwards went up to Mirou’s room where we had agreed to meet and talk. As I got there Karl had just gotten of the phone with his parents, and apparently two of his cousins had been killed by some Winter trolls.After getting Mirou’s permission I drew another magical circle on his floor, and then did a divination spell to find where ritual was being conducted. As far as I could tell it came from a place in the wealthier neighbourhoods in town. Great, just what we needed, not only did we have some powerful and potentially crazy sorcerer to deal with, the person responsible was probably well connected, and filthy rich. It did fit with what we had learned earlier though. It definitively piqued Mirous’s interest. Imogen came by later during the evening and apologized for her actions and thanked everyone for saving her life.Some time after that while we were discussing what to do about the ritual, Tim showed up. He had apparently been snowed in at the office for the Trimountaine Arcane and had had to spend the last few days there. Needless to say he was a bit out of the loop on what had happened lately. Antonio also showed up later after having recovered and leaving poor Melissa. I really hoped he hadn’t broken her heart. She is a nice girl and I didn’t want to see her hurt. We decided to head back into town to check out the place that was the centre of the ritual according to my divination-spell. Some of the others had access to weapons. In retrospect, what we did was rash and stupid. We were lucky that no one caught us.So we took a late-night subway into town, and then had to go for half an hours walk to come to the place. Karl had of course taken wolf-form again. Star did some magic that made him look less wolf-like. Her magic is definitively a neat trick, though I have no idea on how she does it. Well Faerie magic I guess, just like Antonio did. So much I don’t know yet about magic. We could tell that this was a fine neighbourhood just by looking at the houses. There were lots of large mansions and gated communities.My spell led us to a large white house with an enormous lawn. It was of course protected by an eight feet wall and a large hedge of cypresses. The entrance was a large gate of wrought iron, with two cameras watching it. We could see a few more cameras on the wall. I had a feeling that something really bad was centred on the house. I could tell by the look of some of the others that they felt it too.According to Imogen the house was in Colonial style. And those houses where originally made out of wood. This house looked like it had been rebuilt a number of times. As we realized we didn’t actually have a plan, we headed back into town again, and decided to settle at a night-open café for a while. We did however learn the address of the place, and we could use that to do some more research. Tim apparently had some contacts to the archives in city hall. Didn’t know they were accessible in electronic form. The house was owned by an old Greek woman, and the house had been in her family for over a hundred years. Imogen’s guess that it had been rebuilt a number of times turned out to be accurate.We spend the next day doing more research. Antonio talked to his contacts to learn what the other faeries knew about the current situation. He learned that the Summer Court was unable to do anything as that would lead to the Winter Court attacking. No one wanted to have anything to do with the Daoinie Shidhe as they were apparently dangerous. We did however learn that near the house three different Ley lines converged. That was really bad news as far as I understood things. Imogen on her hand went and talked to some of the guys in the school’s computer-club to see if they could help getting some extra information. I decided to do some more research on how to disrupt this kind of rituals, and what the expected result would be. As far as I could tell, you had to do it before it was finished, and if done right, the stored energy would probably dissipate harmlessly. However timing was the key factor. Star spent the day working her magic on creating a hidden passage through the deep snow that covered the lawn.So the next night at three a clock we make our way to the house again, and this time we would sneak in. We had during the day acquired certain equipment that would let us do that more easily, such as a portable fire-ladder of the kind that you hang out through a window, as well as better clothes like ski-masks and so on. I should have been really ashamed of even thinking of joining into this madness, but I somehow knew that the stakes were really high. We had to succeed. When we got there, I hexed the camera nearest where we would go over the wall in one of the darker places. Star easily climbed the wall, and then helped the rest of us by attaching the fire-ladder on top of the wall. Once we had gotten over we moved the ladder so it was now on the inside of the wall. Star had indeed managed to create a hidden tunnel of ice under the snow, which lead up to the house. Karl turned into wolf-form and moved first.As we walked through the tunnel, I could feel on immense amount of power pushing down upon us. It felt really bad, and filled me with a sense of dread. When we came to the house, we sneaked to the back of it. We could see light from one of the windows on the second floor.  Mirou very carefully opened the door on the backside, and we silently moved in. Most houses have thresholds, and this was no exception to that rule. I could tell that it was a powerful threshold as soon as I entered the house. Karl had reverted to human form, and Star turned to her fiery form again for a while.We very carefully searched the house, but could only find 4 elderly persons sleeping. One old man had fallen asleep in front of the television set. What we didn’t find though was any signs of the ritual. The only place in the house where such a powerful ritual could have been cast would have been in the cellar or in the dining room. The other rooms were too small and too cluttered with furniture. Given the strength of the threshold, I knew that whoever had performed the ritual had been invited into the house. As far as we could make out the persons sleeping in the house were the hired staff. We had learnt that the woman who owned the house had been in hospital for the past six months. As we didn’t find anything of value here, except some notes regarding the grocery shopping list, indicating that there had indeed been some guests here during the time that we thought the ritual had taken place. So we decided to leave, and Mirou made sure the back door could not be locked properly. After covering up our tracks again, we left. We knew that we would have to get back here when the ritual was due though.The next days I spend a lot of time with the theatre practising for the play and organizing the fundraiser, as well s the few classes that were held.  For some reason, Mirou had during one of those days gotten himself a Jack Russel puppy. It was indeed quite cute. Karl built doggy doors into both the door to Mirou’s apartment as well as his own. Of course the doggy door on Karl’s apartment was much larger. Well, it made sense, that way he would be able to go out in wolf form. I guess the owners of the dorm might have something to say about that later on, but given that both Mirou and Karl had lots of money that was their problem.Star had gotten some coupons for a spa and invited me and Imogen to a visit there. It felt really nice being pampered with hot baths and just relaxing. Star was quite interested in my piercings, and asked me about where I had got them. I told her I had got them at Tír na nÓg – Tattoos and Piercings and gave her directions on how to get there. I felt they were very good, and well worth the money due to how nice the staff always were. Imogen would apparently go on a date later on with one of the guys from the computer club. Guess that was the price for getting his help in finding out everything about the family that owned the mansion we had entered earlier. I don’t think her date with Tim had been that good.The next days, I spent even more time at the theatre, and what time I didn’t spend there, I spent with Yukimi. We had bonded very well, and watched some movies, did some cooking and other girly stuff. She insisted that we should go together to the housewarming-party at the sorority that was held on the 9th of March. Antonio had made it a Harry Potter theme, so everyone was supposed to come as one of the characters from the books or films. He had even used some magic to create fantastic effects. I dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange. It felt good to be wicked. Yukimi also went dark. Antonio had invited all of the gang. Imogen came as Ginny Weasley, Star as Luna. That suited her very well I must say. Mirou came as Voldemort, and he brought his dog with him. The dog was dressed as the snake and was being carried all the time. Antonio went as Fred Weasley, and Tim came as Professor Snape while Karl came dressed as Lucius Malfoy. As expected lots of people came as either Hermione or Luna. I had expected someone to come as Harry Potter though.At the party when I was standing talking to Yukimi, Imogen came up and wanted some help. Yukimi went and got new drinks for us while I talked to Imogen. Apparently during the date she had been on, she had suddenly developed a huge crush on a young girl named Lisa who had been sitting next to her, and they had left the theatre together, leaving poor George alone there. Well, if he was such a geek that he brought a date to a horror-movie and then not paid any attention to her, he deserved being dumped. Imogen and Lisa had been sitting talking on a café and started making out, then suddenly the feelings for Lisa that Imogen had felt had vanished as quickly as they had come. I told her that she probably had been under the mental influence of some kind of spell or supernatural creature. It might not even have been targeted at her. There was no way I could find out anything about that now though, but she would call me if it happened again.After some more time where I had been drinking and talking to Yukimi, we both realized that we had to become more intimate with each other. I guess the alcohol helped, but I had fallen in love with Yukimi and the feeling was evidently mutual, so I apparently was attracted to girls as well. That was the first time I had sex with a girl, but it was wonderful and we spent almost the whole next day together in bed. Some might say that I am a sucker for romance, and it might indeed be true. But I love being seduced and her kisses made me feel absolutely wicked, in a good way.I was rudely awakened way too early by a frantic phone call from Karl. He claimed that the ritual seemed to take place right then, so that would be our only chance to stop it. Quite groggily I asked him what made him think it was happening at that time, and all he said was that all the snow was rapidly melting and the cold was gone, and that we needed to hurry. I quickly got dressed and headed downstairs where rest of the gang was waiting in Stars now repainted van. We quickly drove towards the mansion, and everywhere we saw floods of water as the snow melted away. The lower parts of Boston would be in so much trouble. When we came to the house we saw that everything was covered in a thick fog. Star hid the van with one of her veils. I didn’t need to hex the cameras as they were quite dead as far as we could tell. No doubt from being near such a heavy ritual. Again we climbed over the wall, and saw that all snow was gone, and we could only see the remains of the ice-tunnel Star had created earlier. The backdoor was still unlocked from our previous visit. To our dismay the threshold was still active and just as strong as before. Not wanting to run into any people we quickly searched the house and found all members of the staff as well as a young woman all sleeping very heavily. As they could not be woken up, we decided to move them outside to the porch just in case.As we were just about to head to the cellar to stop the ritual, we heard a very discomforting sound; the sound of crazy children playing outside. When we looked out we saw the trolls that we had fought before, and they were now after the persons we had put on the porch. Karl, Mirou and Star quickly went outside to protect the sleeping persons. One of whom had already been killed by the trolls, who seemed less powerful now. I remembered that the house had an open fireplace, and ran and got an iron poker for defence, while Tim, Imogen and Antonio ran to the cellar to disrupt the ritual. This time we were much more successful in fighting the trolls.I could hear a loud bang that I thought was a gunshot from the cellar, and then slightly after that a strange shockwave rocked the mansion, blowing out all windows and throwing us all to the ground. I was quite groggy when I rose to my feet again, but the explosion had sent the trolls running away. Mirou had managed to kill one of them just before. The remaining inhabitants of the house were alive but still asleep. Tim and Antonio staggered up from the cellar, carrying Imogen who looked the worse for wear. They indicated that we should leave very quickly as some of the participants of the ritual might be quite angry for our disturbance, but that we had some time now as they had been at the centre of the explosion.When we looked around we saw that all windows in many blocks had been destroyed. We ran to the van, which didn’t start until we managed to push it. It seemed that the explosion had also knocked out everything electronic in a large area. Damn, it meant I had to get a new cell phone again. After having driven a few blocks we could fins a payphone, where we sent in an anonymous call to 911 as the house had started burning as well. I had a feeling it would be reported as a gas leak or something like that. As we drove off we saw the snow melting away more and more.The day after was time for the fundraiser, and I was so nervous. Everything seemed to work quite well though. Of course, I haven’t seen the final cost for it yet, nor how much money we made. Mirou had gotten lots of respectable people to visit. Star played violin in the pause, and Tim did news coverage. Karl helped out with security and Antonio, Imogen and Mirou spent the evening talking to various guests. I had of course brought Yukimi with me, and she literally beamed with happiness. I think people liked my speech where I thanked the actors, my friends for helping out and the guests for attending, and hinted that we would be doing more interesting plays in the future. Not quite sure yet what Nina will direct, but I look forward to it.It turned out that the fundraiser was much more successful than I could ever have dreamed about. It drew in 30 million dollars. The fundraiser that Jason held didn’t generate nearly any money, so he and some other actors quit and started a theatre of their own. As the fundraiser had been my idea, the other actors elected me to handle the money. What do I know about economics? I talked to Mirou first to see if he had any ideas about what I should talk to the banks about. I didn’t understand a thing he said though, so I had to just talk to the bank. I made sure the theatre’s old debts were paid off and repairs could start, as well as setting up the money in such a way that it would sustain the further maintenance costs of the theatre for quite a few years to come even if I was not around. Tim wrote a really good article about the fundraiser and I think he managed to sell it to a number of high-profile newspapers. More importantly for me, the play got a really good review.The day after the fundraiser Tim called me, and wanted to show me something strange regarding the old sacrifice-tree. The tree and an area some maybe ten yards away from it was totally covered in a localized mist. I could tell that a lot of power came from the tree, and it felt wrong somehow. I dared using my Sight on it, and could see shapes of various beings move inside the thick fog. As far as I could tell this was a portal to Nevernever. I hoped that what was on the other side would stay there, and that no one would be foolish enough to try and enter the mist. During the night we headed off to the mansion again to see the results of the aborted ritual. I wanted to make sure that the ritual they had used was the one from Crowley’s book, or if they had somehow learned some other ritual. The police had cordoned off the house, but we sneaked in. I could feel the same kind of threatening aura in the garden as before. I noticed that when we walked over the grass it was as if the soil itself was bleeding, and pointed this out to the others. The threshold had been totally destroyed. Once inside some of us removed our shoes to not make any bloody prints all over the place. Luckily no one was at home. Star however left bloody barefoot footprints even though it looked like she was wearing shoes. I asked her about it and she just shrugged and instead turned herself into floating fire again so we could see.Down in the cellar we found the remains of the ritual circle. As far as I could tell it had been a very powerful and complex ritual drawing power form the ground itself, but it had not been the one from the book. This meant that they had learnt it somewhere else, but where and from whom? I was a bit disturbed by the marked outlines of three bodies down in the basement. That meant that we were responsible for the death of at least three persons. Better make sure the police never connected us to what had happened here. We could see that they had also used some props that had been removed after the fire, and we found a hidden door that had been destroyed in the explosion. They had bolted it up wit some plywood, but Mirou could easily remove it. In the room behind it, we saw an old map of Boston where they had pinned some nails in various places. As far as we could make out it was the sacrifice tree, the weird clearing in the forest and the house itself. We also found the remains of a magical laboratory. There was no telling what they had been making down there.Once we were satisfied that there was nothing else to find, we left the house. When I had gotten out, I used the Sight, and here too was a sort of portal to Nevernever. I could see shapes moving and the silhouette of a large man with antlers. The soil was indeed bleeding and the power came from the ground itself. Was also as if the Nevernever was sucking the place into itself, and the centre of power was larger than the garden. We decided to check on the place where the ley lines had converged. There we could see lots of dead birds and squirrels on the ground. That gave me the creeps, and we decided to quickly leave.During the next days, the police and the FBI investigated a lot, and there were talks about terrorism, but ultimately they wrote the explosion off as some kind of gas explosion. Some of the students at school were missing, and we figure that they had been involved in the ritual. Some were according to rumours in hospital, while we got confirmation that some of the others had been those that had died at the explosion.Life sort of went back to normal after that, but the strange mist surrounding the sacrifice tree stayed on, and the mansion did indeed vanish as if it had never been there. The strange thing was that the persons living in the neighbourhood claimed that there had never been a house, but that the missing street number was due to some odd bureaucracy.</blockquote>

Verification