“Are we absolutely sure it’s not just some elaborate costume?” the biologist muttered, arms folded tightly across her chest as she watched Umbra work.
“My wife does theatre,” the physicist replied in a low voice. “She’s incredible with makeup and prosthetics. I’ve seen things that look real. But this?” He shook his head slowly. “No one is that good. Trust me.”
“But if this is real,” the army officer said quietly, “that would mean magic exists. And monsters.”
“The evidence is standing right in front of us,” the physicist insisted.
“It appears to be,” the biologist conceded, adjusting her glasses, “but I would require extensive testing before drawing that conclusion. Not everything is as we perceive it. Hallucinations, advanced fabrication, unknown technologies—”
“She’s a demon,” the older religious woman snapped from near the doorway. “I don’t know why we are entertaining her lies.”
Umbra exhaled slowly through her teeth.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said tiredly, not looking up from her work. “I believe the condition I set was that a limited number of observers could remain present, provided they did so in silence. This process requires focus.”
They had placed her in a storage room on the lowest level of the building, one that connected directly to the underground garage. It smelled faintly of dust and petrol. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Crates had been pushed aside to make space.
Umbra was kneeling on the concrete floor, carefully scratching intricate runes into long deer bones using the tip of a single claw. Each line was deliberate and as precise as she could manage. The deeper and cleaner the carving, the more accurately the spell would function.
That was, of course, assuming the four humans in the room could discover the concept of quiet.
To “observe the phenomenon,” as they had called it, the government had provided a physicist, a biologist, a military officer of some rank Umbra had already half-forgotten, and the token religious detractor who had insisted on “keeping watch over the demon.”
“Right. Sorry,” the physicist said sheepishly.
Umbra muttered something under her breath in a language none of them recognized and finished carving the final rune with her index claw. She set the bone aside with the others in a neat row.
Next, she rose to her full height and lifted her divine spear. Closing her eyes briefly, she willed power into it.
The weapon responded instantly.
It began to glow faintly along its etched seams, then radiate heat. Not painful to her, it felt merely warm in her grasp, but the temperature in the room noticeably climbed. The air shimmered slightly around the blade.
She then drove the spear down into the concrete floor. The sound rang out sharply as the metal pierced stone. The spear stood upright, towering over every human present, its shaft nearly brushing the ceiling.
She knelt back down, then began to speak.
“O Truth, guide my hand and pierce the veil.
Let no shadow hide from your sight.
O Justice, mark the wicked.
Let corruption be made known.
O Harvest, who reaps what festers,
Show me where the fallen one lies.
By divine blood, by bone, by shattered sapphire,
By oath and scar and sacred flame,
I call the covenant sworn in war.”
As the last words left her lips, she picked up the small platinum bar. It was worth an absurd amount in this economy. Perhaps once enough to buy a house. Now? Maybe a third.
The metal began to soften in her palm and the physicist visibly leaned forward as it melted not from any visible flame, but from her will alone.
Umbra pinched crushed sapphire dust between two claws and sprinkled it into the molten platinum. Rubies would have sufficed chemically as they were close enough in structure, but symbolism mattered in ritual. Sapphire bore stronger resonance with Truth.
The liquified metal swirled in her hand as if alive, mixing itself with the glittering dust.
With her free hand, she lifted one of the rune-carved bones and poured the glowing mixture into its grooves. The metal flowed like a living thread, snaking perfectly into each carved line. She repeated the process for a dozen more bones, both methodical and unhurried.
By the end, much of the mixture remained, though it was not wasted.
She rose from her knees and poured the remaining molten platinum along the shaft of the spear. It slid down, filling every etched channel along the weapon before settling into place.
The heat slowly abated.
Umbra released a long breath.
“Did it do anything?” the army officer asked immediately.
“I thought I requested silence,” Umbra replied without looking at him.
“Right. Sorry,” he muttered.
“It was a jest,” she said dryly. “The ritual was successful.”
She pulled the spear free from the concrete with one sharp motion and rested it against the wall.
“My thanks to those who procured the materials,” she added. “On the rare occasions I have had to source such items myself, the results were… less effective.”
The physicist stared at her hands. “How is that possible? I watched the platinum melt in your palm.”
“I cannot explain the mechanics,” Umbra said. “I am no scientist. I was taught a handful of utility spells. I am neither archmage nor high priestess. I am a warrior.” She gestured to the bones. “When this is over, you may study them if you wish. For now, they must be buried.”
“What exactly do they do?” the military man asked.
Umbra tilted her head. “I apologize. Your name again?”
“Captain Gareth Murphy,” he replied, clearly offended.
“Mhm.” She nodded once. “When these bones are placed around the city, they will form a net.” She tapped the spear lightly. “When the creature I hunt crosses that net, this sear will grow warm. Consider it a game of hot and cold.”
She paused.
“Except if I lose, the world ends.”
“That’s… morbid,” the biologist said quietly.
“Yes,” Umbra agreed. “It is. So let us ensure that does not happen.”
“Why are you helping Earth if you intend to leave it?” the religious woman demanded. “Demon.”
Umbra’s dark gaze shifted to her, slow and measured. She did not care for this type. But she understood the reaction. Once, long ago, she had been met with the same fear. The clergy of the Triumvirate had nearly replaced her as champion—until divine intervention proved her loyalty.
“If the Witch completes her rebirth,” Umbra said evenly, “she will end this world. Every living thing will be reshaped into mindless monstrosities. Afterward, she will return to my home—Ganymede—and destroy that as well.”
She stepped closer.
“No. She cannot be allowed to succeed in either world.”
“God will protect this one,” the woman insisted.
Umbra resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Yes,” she said flatly. “With climate collapse, endless wars, and a mass extinction event underway, I see he is doing excellent work.”
Before the woman could respond, Umbra raised a claw.
“I will not claim any faith here is false. But as I stated earlier—I do not deal in maybes. I will purge this world of the Witch. Then I will return to my wife.”
There was a brief silence.
The physicist cleared his throat. “Sorry—did you say Ganymede?”
Umbra chuckled softly. “An interesting coincidence, is it not? Perhaps our worlds are more connected than either of us realize.”
“It is quite the coincidence,” he admitted.
“But speculation can wait,” Umbra said, turning to Captain Murphy. “Are you the one assigned to coordinate this operation?”
He nodded.
She wondered why he hadn’t said as much earlier, but it didn't matter at this point. She didn't exactly broker conversation before the ritual.
“Good.” Umbra lifted her spear, the metal faintly warm to the touch.
“I am ready to begin.” Her eyes darkened slightly. “It is time for a witch hunt.
It was difficult, at first, working with alien creatures.
Their biology was wrong, though not wrong in the sense of flawed—though she certainly believed it was flawed—but wrong in the sense that it did not follow the familiar blueprints she had spent centuries mastering. Organs sat in places that offended her expectations: nerve clusters branched in strange, inefficient webs, their bones were lighter, more fragile, and their immune responses were irritatingly aggressive in some species and laughably weak in others.
Their minds were different too. Simple, most of them, shallow little ponds compared to the deep and terrible oceans she had once ruled. But they were not identical to the creatures of her own world. Their instincts tugged in unfamiliar directions and their fears tasted slightly different when she brushed against them. Even now, inhabiting a corpse that was more puppet than person, she found herself needing to experiment.
Still, the Witch of the Void had never been anything if not adaptable.
Yes, she had been killed, which had been a minor inconvenience, nothing more than a small and irritating hurdle in an otherwise flawless existence.
But she had planned for that. Her hatred for her sisters burned brighter than death. She had woven it into herself long ago, etched it into the deepest layers of her being. Even reborn in this incomplete state, even half-formed and operating through a stolen body, that hatred remained. It was a compass. A memory. A guiding star in the endless dark.
She would not forget who she was.
Her corpse skittered through the forest, movements jerky and insect-like, limbs bending at angles that would have horrified anyone sane enough to witness them. The trees here were tall and damp with life, their bark rough beneath the sticky black filaments she secreted.
Bodies hung from those trees. They dangled like grotesque fruit, cocooned in a black, tar-like substance that clung and stretched in glistening strands. It pulsed faintly, as though breathing, the air smelled of sap and rot and something far sweeter beneath it all. The scent of change.
It was wonderfully corrupting.
Each of her chosen subjects was already well along in their transformation. Fingers had fused into claws, spines arched and cracked as vertebrae reshaped themselves, and fur sprouted in patches alongside iridescent scales. Faces stretched, jaws unhinging, teeth multiplying into cruel rows, some twitching as new limbs budded from ribs or shoulders, slick and trembling.
The sounds were delightful. Wet tearing, the faint creak of bone, the soft, animal whimpers that were slowly fading into something far less human.
Honestly, if the goddess had not been dead, blasted into almost nothing by that sanctimonious fool of a hero, this would have been a perfect day, because three of her children were complete.
They crouched now at the edges of the clearing, breathing in ragged, eager gulps, their eyes reflecting nothing but instinct and devotion. They were not intelligent yet, but they would serve her faithfully nonetheless.
She had also gathered so much raw material. Dozens of animals, birds with delicate hollow bones that she had reinforced and reshaped, fluffy marsupials whose pouches had proven fascinating incubation chambers, a dog that had resisted beautifully before its spine split into a crown of spines, and two cats whose flexibility had made for particularly elegant results.
So much progress in less than a few days.
If she could only secure the right candidate… something sturdy with a robust hormonal system and a strong skeletal frame. She could configure a broodmother, that would change everything! Production would accelerate exponentially with eggs, spores and parasitic larvae that took over the minds of hosts if she was feeling adventurous.
But… patience was required.
Even in death, even in this half-state, she knew the value of patience.
Until then she was ready to go on the offensive, she would enjoy herself.
Creation was pleasure. Creation was defiance. Creation was proof that she was eternal.
If she had full control over her current body, she might have clicked her tongue in mild disappointment at the lack of appreciation for her work. No one ever understood her artistry.
Not her sanctimonious sisters with their tidy little domains and moral lectures. Not the mortals who screamed and called her monster as she elevated them into something greater. No, they saw only horror. They all lacked the vision to comprehend transformation as transcendence.
Except perhaps one. The one who had killed her.
That hero had understood, at least a little. She must have, right? How could she not? The curse she carried was exquisite craftsmanship. Flesh reshaped into something eternal. Power braided into bone and blood. A body that would not age, would not break easily, that would endure for ages to come.
It had been some of her finest work, even if Countess Steelblight’s will had refused to bend.
The Witch felt something like pride at the memory. Annoyed pride, but pride nonetheless. To craft something that strong, that stubborn, that enduring was no small feat.
Soon, though, she would abandon this reliance on corpses and carrion. Reanimated meat was useful, yes. Equally disposable and loyal in its mindlessness, but mindless beasts made for dreadful commanders. They could not strategize, deceive or infiltrate, so their uses were limited.
And as much as it irritated her to admit it, her adversary was competent.
Time was not a luxury she possessed, so she would change tactics.
No more waiting for victims to come close enough to provide her materials. She would begin offering gifts to the living. Whispers in the dark, promises of strength, cures for frailty. Power for the desperate and the angry.
Living converts retained their minds, and minds, once twisted properly, were far more dangerous than claws alone.
Her corpse paused in the clearing, head tilting at an unnatural angle as she surveyed her hanging garden.
Yes.
Soon this quiet little world would understand her artistry.
Whether it wished to or not.