“Seth. What are you staring at?”

His subconscious grinned, and stepped back, fading into the darkness of the hotel bathroom. Seth looked to Jessica, who was staring at him with genuine concern on her face. Seth hesitated—he’d already been hallucinating seeing Nicole. That seemed more palatable than talking to his own subconscious. “Just…” He sighed, hoping Jessica couldn’t see him lying. “Nicole. I’ve been seeing her in the corner of my eye.”

Jessica’s face softened. “Oh, Seth. I’m sorry.”

Seth shrugged. “It’s fine. I-“

The bathroom door slammed shut. All three of them whipped their heads to stare in its direction.

“Seth,” said Jessica, raising a hand as a light began to glow in her palm. “Do you think you saw Nicole, or did you actually see Nicole?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Seth, moving into a fighting stance and inching towards the door. Made sense that the one who could survive being bitten by a Wendigo should be the frontline, even if the fight was against his apparently creepy subconscious rather than a homicidal lich. Seth reached the door and glanced back. Jessica held one hand up, some spell charged and ready to go. Mariah stood in a competition-style shooters stance, one hand holding a revolver made of black metal.

Seth turned back and reached for the doorknob, ready to explode into violence. His fingers closed around the cold metal. Turn. Push. The door yawned into darkness on silent hinges. Seth reached around the wall and slapped the light on, illuminating a walk-in shower, a toilet, a sink… No subconscious and no Nicole. Seth stepped in and looked behind the door. Nothing.

He walked out of the bathroom, looking at Mariah and Jessica, and threw his hands up. “I have no idea.”

“Translocation,” said Jessica. “Open your third eye. Look for a transmutative aura. Light green.”

Seth nodded and turned back to the bathroom, knowing full well there would be no aura of transmutation as he blinked his third eye open. No, aside from light blue runes moving about the walls that showed Mariah had warded her room, he saw nothing. But how did a hallucination slam a door? Seth’s eyebrows raised. “No transmutation. Evocation. Dark green, right? It’s all over the door.”

“Evocation?” Called Mariah. “Telekinesis. Whoever was in there is still…” Seth heard the revolver cock. “They’re still here. Watch your back in there, Seth.”

As she said that, Seth realized he was also bathed in a dark green aura. Seth stayed behind the door, out of sight of Jessica and Mariah, looking around for his subconscious, but not daring to call out to it. Was it even really his subconscious? He knew it wasn’t the wendigo bloodcurse causing him to hallucinate, he’d seen it before, a few months ago. He half expected it, or him, or whatever it was to materialize into existence in front of him, but even if that happened he had the strangest feeling he’d be the only one to see it.

Seth stepped out of the bathroom again, hoping Jessica didn’t cast her True Sight spell again. “Nothing. Evocation, sure, but no trail otherwise.”

“Are you sure it was Nicole you saw?” Asked Jessica, dropping her hand and letting the light go out.. “She’s banished right now. She can’t reform for more than half a year.”

“You two are just knees deep in necromancy, aren’t you?” Asked Mariah as she proceeded to holster her gun on her hip… without a holster. And then it simply vanished with a flash of transmutation magic. “What are you hallucinating a lich for?”

Seth rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a long story.”

She folded her arms. “I’ve got time.”

Seth looked to Jessica, who shrugged, and sat down on the bed devoid of magic items. Seth crossed over to the desk against the wall, beside the same model of flatscreen television in their penthouse, and leaned back while folding his arms. “It’s a really long story,” he said. “But here goes.”

Seth did his best to fill in what details he could without getting bogged down. All told, it took him maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to summarize what he and Jessica had been through so far. He looked over to his friend. “Did I miss anything?”

Jessica shook her head and turned to Mariah. “And before you ask, no. Neither of us know what he is. I’m sure your Order has the concept of need-to-know as well.”

“Right,” said Mariah, her hands stuck in the pockets of her jeans. She crossed slowly over to the desk and leaned against it next to Seth. “They do. And power-gravity’s a bitch. Almost like someone who’s watched Supernatural too many times through is writing a book about you and they have to keep throwing new monsters at you to keep it interesting.”

Seth chuckled ever so slightly. His stomach gurgled, but the pangs of hunger didn’t shoot though him just yet.

“For our immediate attention, though,” said Mariah. “We have a necromancer with one hell of a blight around his house, a wendigo, and a nightcrawler. Which accounts for the disappearances that have been going on. Wendigo and a nightcrawler are both hungry beasties.”

“So why are you here in the first place?” Asked Jessica. “The Enclave really only sent one agent?”

Mariah nodded. “Few disappearances in the backcountry… Signatures of necromancy from satellite divination… Figured it was something small time. I’m not exactly a Sister of the Inner Circle. I’m a rank and file field agent. Pop in, find the necromancer, put a cold-iron round between their eyes and call it a day. Phone American agencies on the way out to let them know they’ve got a cover up to do.”

“Oh, Brett would love that,” mused Seth.

“Well, the agencies have to make themselves useful at least once in a while for all the things they screw up. Like a few years ago in Iceland. Team of Hunter-33 agents screwed the pooch something fierce. Got a few nonhumans killed. It was mess.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No,” said Mariah. “It wasn’t. But this… We aren’t getting help from Hunter, and we aren’t getting help from any of the Orders unless we want Telluride wiped off the map. And I think I speak for everyone that us peasants are against scorched earth policies for anything less than a full undead invasion?”

Jessica nodded. “Very much so.”

“Right. Then we need to figure out what to do about this necromancer. You two did recon, did you do it in the other Planes?”

Jessica shook her head. “Only Intersection.”

“Well, then,” said Mariah, taking her hands out of her pockets and rubbing them together. “I think it’s time for a bit of fun in Astral. Seth, can you project?”

Jessica interjected. “I’ve been teaching him. He can with some help.”

“Is he a liability?”

“He’s more of an asset. Everything he can do here transfers.”

“Oh?” Said Mariah. “Unusual. Normally only magic transfers.”

“Unless your abilities themselves are magical in nature,” countered Jessica.

Mariah pursed her lips and gave a grudging nod. “Yeah, that would make sense.” She looked over to Seth, sizing him up. “So. Astral tonight? My room or yours?”

“I prefer my body to be in my own wards,” said Jessica. “How about we both go astral at sundown and meet above the lodge?”

“Works for me.” Mariah motioned towards the door. “Now, you two will have to excuse me, but I have preparations to make.”

Seth moved off the desk, his stomach gurgling again. Jessica stood slowly from the bed. As they made their way to the door, she stopped, and turned to look at Mariah. “Seth isn’t a bloodline from the Negative Plane.”

Mariah raised an eyebrow. “No. I don’t think he is, either.”

“Know. Not think.”

Mariah folded her arms. “I’m not going to put him down.”

“You probably couldn’t,” said Jessica.

Mariah raised her other eyebrow. “What is this? I’m not hunting Seth. I’m hunting a necromancer.”

Jessica moved her hand over the wall for a second, looking away from Mariah. “Don’t mention him in your reports.”

“I’m not much one for paperwork,” said Mariah, “but why do you have to make sure?”

Jessica shrugged. “Orders from my Order. You know how it is.”

“Mhm.”

Jessica turned her head back to look at Mariah. “See you at sundown.”

Mariah nodded her head, shooting a questioning look to Seth before turning away from them to study the map on the whiteboard. Jessica moved past Seth to the door as he stared at Mariah for just a bit longer before following his friend to the hallway.

“She thinks you’re undead.”

“Excuse me, what?” Asked Seth as they walked towards the elevator.

“The Enclave of Saint Brigid is a hyper-specialized group of magic-users. They hunt unlawful necromancy and fight invasions from the Negative Plane.”

“But I’m not undead— Wait.” Seth stopped in the hallway. Jessica made a few steps before turning and looking at him with a horrified face that said ‘hurry up’. “Creatures from the Negative Plane have a black aura at their center, right?”

“Not the time for an aura-reading class, but yeah. Generally, they do.” Jessica put her hands on her hips and continued to fix him with the same look.

“Nicole said I-“

Jessica slashed her hand across the air and no more sound escaped Seth’s mouth. Her voice suddenly blasted straight into his head as loud as speaker at a concert.

Are you fucking dumb, Seth?

Oh. It now occurred to Seth he might have been about to announce his potential undeath within earshot of someone who hunted undead.

Jessica waved her hand again and Seth felt a slight pressure leave his vocal chords. Jessica jerked her head and he followed her, remaining silent until they were in the elevators.

“Yeah, you’ve told me she mentioned that before. And the answer is, I don’t know. I’d have to see it myself. Nicole clearly had some advanced divining abilities, because I haven’t seen the black core she claimed was in your aura. You have a red aura. I’ve told you that.”

They came out to the ground level and headed towards the lobby. Seth’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked it. It was from Andrew.

Hey, is Jessica with you? She hasn’t been responding to my texts.

“Your boyfriend says you’ve been ignoring him,” said Seth.

Jessica’s eyes bulged. “Oh, dammit. I left my phone in the room. I’ve meant to respond like three times, I’ve just been researching…”

“Here.” Seth handed his phone to her. “Call him.”

Jessica smiled to thank Seth and dialed Andrew’s number. “Hey, Andrew?” Her smile spread wide as she heard his voice from Seth’s phone.

Seth rolled his eyes as they walked out of the lobby and onto the streets of the resort towards the building their penthouse crested. It was late afternoon, the sun beginning to dip towards the horizon, but while Seth expected the air to bite, it didn’t. Wendigo curse. Made sense. His stomach growled, but the potion Jessica had given him was still holding the actual pangs of hunger at bay.

They walked up the hill, Seth in silence, Jessica filling in what Seth could hear even from where he was to be an extremely concerned Andrew. He wished his best friend was there. Not only for simple camaraderie, for the fact that Andrew was growing into a competent spellcaster. They’d discovered during his kidnapping thanks to Jessica’s scrying and Hunter-33’s MAGINT technology that Andrew was a Class Five soul—exactly middle of the ladder in overall power, but sitting closer to the top twenty percent of users according to Jessica.

“He wants to talk to you.” Jessica handed Seth’s phone back to him.

“Hey! Andrew!”

“Dude, you good? I will catch a flight literally tonight.”

Seth grinned. “I mean no, I’m not. But Jessica’s here, and so is this girl from the Order of-“

“Enclave,” corrected Jessica.

“Enclave of Saint Brigid. They’re Irish, and apparently they hunt undead. So I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Uh-huh.” Seth heard Andrew moving something. “Yeah, I have the money, I can get there in like two hours.”

“Andrew, stay with your family. You wanted to, right?”

“Yeah, dude, but I’m not going to enjoy the holidays if my best friend is going Donner party on my girlfriend.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Seth. He glanced over at Jessica. “I’m just really hungry. Not in a cannibal way.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Andrew. “Jess told me to stay put, too, but…” He trailed off. “I’d feel better if I could help.”

“Okay, for real,” said Seth. “Someone needs to be able to tell Claire I’m sorry I wasn’t better. I need you to be alive for that.”

He heard Andrew blowing air out of his nose. “Tell her yourself, bro. You’ll be fine once I’m out there and we can go after this thing together.”

“Andrew, don’t. Come on. Promise me you’ll stay there.”

“I promise I won’t fly out.”

They reached the entrance to the building they lodged in. Seth opened the door for Jessica as they walked in. “Don’t drive, either.”

“I promise I won’t drive.”

Andrew couldn’t translocate yet. That was as sure a promise as Seth would get. “Good. We’ve got this. I’ll be fine.”

“Then why you asking me to say goodbye to Claire for you?”

Seth shook his head as he and Jessica got in the elevator. “Because things happen. You know that. You’ve been in this almost as long as me.”

“Yeah,” said Andrew, “don’t die. I don’t care how— I’ve seen it, too. I’ve seen fucked up shit, but you’re my brother. Don’t die on me.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“Good, now tell Jessica I love her.”

“Goddammit, Andrew.” Seth shoved the phone over to Jessica as the elevator opened to their suite. She took it, listened, said “you too”, and handed it back to Seth. Seth ended the call and looked at her with a half-serious, half-joking, all annoyed look. “I’m not going to run love messages between the two of you unless one of you is dying.”

Jessica put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. And that’s not going to be anytime soon. Come on. We’ve got to put up some wards before we go Astral.”