Chapter 6

The coven emerged into the mundane world above a battle-in-progress. There were plenty of wrecked vehicles scattered about but, despite all the bullets and grenades being used, there were almost no dead bodies in evidence. All the ordnance was being used exclusively by one side, a coalition of human army and police. The other side, with their waving tentacles, looked definitely non-human and seemed impervious to the human weaponry. As the coven looked on, one of the others managed to catch an army human with its tentacles, then lift him up high before dropping him into its gaping maw.

“What are those things?” Georgia asked Gabby. “ Are they hellspawn?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gabby. “They don’t have the stench of Hell about them.”

Another of the others managed to catch and devour a blue-attired Deputy.

Griselda was doing what she’d done best for the past few months, hiding where she could see the action. She realised the sloshing noises the others were making was a form of communication and she constructed a simple translation invocation on the fly. It was surprisingly effective. What Griselda learned horrified her. She used another invocation to project a likeness of herself in front of Gabby.

“Hello Gabby, have you figured out what’s going on yet?” she taunted.

“How did you get here?” demanded Gabby, casting a lightning bolt at her nemesis. It passed harmlessly through.

“I’m not really here,” misdirected Griselda. “The creatures with tentacles are actually mundanes from a very, very long way away. And they’re eating the mundanes you covet as your subjects. If I were you, I’d think about defending your mundanes.”

Griselda dissolved the insubstantial likeness.

“How did she do that?” asked Georgia.

“Do you think she was right?” asked Giovanna.

Gabby suspected she was being manipulated but she couldn’t see how or to what purpose. What Griselda said made sense: her mundanes were indeed being eaten by those things.

“Listen everyone,” announced Gabby. “Those tentacle creatures are eating our mundanes. We have to defend our property. I want a co-ordinated attack firing lightning bolts. Follow my lead.”

Some of the coven groaned. They were still tired from expending the energy needed to break through the barrier. Gabby led the way, swooping down towards the thickest concentration of the tentacle creatures. At the bottom of her swoop, she unleashed a lightning bolt at one of the tentacle creatures ahead and below her. Her aim was good and the tentacle creature was sent reeling from the lightning strike but incurred no permanent damage.

The other coven members achieved mostly the same results, although with one or two severed tentacles, but the two weakest coven members got their timings wrong and ended up firing lightning bolts at targets vertically below. Both strikes resulted in the target tentacle creatures exploding spectacularly.

“The tentacle creatures have a weakness,” crowed Gabby, once the coven had assembled back on high. “Aim your lightning bolts at targets vertically below. Now let’s go again.”

The coven’s air strikes took a withering toll of the tentacle creatures. The army and police looked on with amazement as what looked like a coven of witches, flying on broomsticks, joined the battle on their side and instantly had more success than they themselves had managed with all their modern and not-so-modern weaponry.

Senior Commander Lushram was worried. “What are these flying creatures and how are they doing it?”

“The creatures are more of the same primate primitives,” said the Sensor Senior Ensign after taking some readings. “But the technology they are using is beyond our ability to detect.”

“They’re just picking us off at will,” complained the Defence Senior Ensign. “If only we had some projectile-firing weapons like the other primate primitives used against us.”

A Defence Junior Ensign overheard the remark and, looking around, spotted some suitable rocks. He picked up one with a tentacle and on the coven’s next pass, launched it full force at one of the witches. His aim was slightly off and the rock narrowly missed, but the Defence Senior Ensign immediately saw the value.

“Excellent work, Junior Ensign,” praised the Defence Senior Ensign, causing the Defence Junior Ensign’s tentacles to undulate with pride and gratitude. “Everyone grab a rock and prepare to launch them on my order.”