It was his spectacle, a performance form which attention could not be withheld, that turned the tides of fate. And through his spectacles, rounded frames of vibrant gold and blackened silver, eyes of verdant passion peered upon the platinum hair of his objective — a sigh of relief that he had made it in the nick of time. His chin — pointed, yet robust — sat firmly on the black chin-rest of the glossy, four-stringed weapon in hand. In his other, a bow — and while bows from any range would certainly never strike the wicked being intent on killing the weak — his bow struck serrated chords of tragedy foreboding not his own misfortune, but the demise of his intended target.

Nick, much like the curly blond hair that sat neatly styled atop his head, played with a disorderly structure. It was a piece were accuracy was less important than acute emotion. In that evocative performance, there was more hidden beyond the shockingly beautiful sounds he was creating. As he played, single notes built up a nearly imperceptible cluster of energy. Nick slid his bow across not one, but two or more strings — left hand sealing the strings against the fingerboard of the neck in a specified order to produce just the right intonation — a wave, like a blade of condensed wind, shot across the still stagnant air within the Veil and hacked across the body of the crow-like figure. Several more, with each chord played, cut into Nick’s black-coated enemy with the toothy grin of a freshly sharpened saw.

The Stygian orb collapsed into a puff of soft feathers, falling gently to the ground. A fifth invisible blade, aimed at the beak of the plague doctor mask darkened figure wore, traveled toward its target. Crows, a murder of them, rose into the sky, all evading the blade as the figure vanished. They collected in the sky falling as a group toward the ground a distance away from where Nick stood, the violinist taking this time to circle calmly and place himself between the dark figure and the cabin, violin lowered as the figure reformed itself.

The barrier dropped as the witch fell forward, the half inch of bladed feather that had pierced Luke in the back was pulled out and he slumped exhausted to the left of the which, Mia falling onto him as the resistance that was once there no longer fought against her efforts.

“Ow!” Luke groaned, scrunching up his face as he looked up at the girl pressing him down against the floor. Her focus not on him, nor the moderate pain she caused his already injured and fatigued body as she unwittingly gripped his chest with more nail than perhaps she realized. He saw as her head slowly shifted in accordance with where this newly arrived man walked. He couldn’t tell if she was happy, angry, or scared. Though, what was evident was that Mia new exactly who this person was. Luke only hoped, seeing as they were in no position to fight back, the blond-haired man was here to help and not just poach another person’s prey.

“Nick…” Mia whispered, her pale green eyes locked on his every movement. “Nick? Nick!” She called out, unsure if what she was seeing was real, or just the imagination of a fool on death’s door. She could feel her heartbeat, hear it pumping in her head as his silence made her question herself further. “Nick…? Please, is… is that you?”

“Sorry if I’m late, Goldy. You’re father was always the timing guy, I sort of just followed him on that front.”

“Nick! I haven’t seen you since-!”

“I know, Mia. I’ll explain everything in a bit, just let me deal with this pest first.”

“Careful! They’re-!”

“Strong? Nah, Ravens, maybe. But Crows? Just a bunch of rats with wings.”

“Keke! I believe you have us confused with pigeons. Trust me, I know a few and they make even sewer rats look domesticated. Keke!” The figure spoke loud, a casual tone that boomed out of the slim figure unnaturally. “Ravens, however, are quite ominous indeed, you are right. In many cultures an ill-omen and symbol of death approaching. But, unlike my black-feathered brethren, I don’t like to wait around for someone to die so I may pick around their bones for a meal and shiny trinkets. Keke! No, no. I much prefer to do the… killing myself. So much more fun, wouldn’t you agree? Kekeke!” The crow raised its palm into the air, black feathers flowing out from its coat and dancing their way up into a growing orb of darkness. “Stygian. Rise!”

“Mia! Help your friends into the cabin and stay away from the windows.”

“Oh, that’s no fun! The children want to stay up and watch the play! Don’t you kids? Mommy and daddy are gonna put on a show, and what a show it is! Nicholas Kaufman against the big, bad Crow! A fight for the ages! Come one, come all! Let’s get this-! Aaagh!”

A blade, invisible to the naked eye, sliced into the Crow at the speed of sound, Nick ready with his violin under chin again and bow playing note after note once more.

“Keke! So eager. I like it when men play rough! Keke!” Androgynous voice howling as the feathers stopped collecting into the now full sphere above its head. “Stygian. Blades!” Out, stiff feathers sharp as knives shot in a steady stream toward the well-dressed man, as if he had just come from a performance with a cream bow tie over a white dress shirt, and tan-colored fitted coat.

Nick responded with a flurry of rapid notes, bullets of compressed air peppering into the stream of hardened feathers and disrupting the flow. He did his best to move just out of the way of the cabin, aiming the Crow’s beam away from his niece in case his body failed him. His arpeggio, cresting up and down the neck, clashed the Crow’s attack in a stalemate of arcane fury. Here, they battled in a game of endurance. Would Crow’s feathers run out out before Nick’s playing grew tired and clumsy? But the dark being was not in it for the long haul. No, instead the Crow aimed away for a more interesting outcome.

“You really should never have moved, Nicky, can’t you see the kids are too scared to run? They must have wet themselves! Keke!” A second stream of blades shot from the Stygian orb, aimed directly at where Mia and Luke still sat, the first stream growing weaker in response as Nick’s bullets over powered it. But the second beam moved too quickly for the musician to react, eyes darting as his focus wavered and his playing stopped, dashing toward the cabin and bringing his bow back onto the strings. Yet, he halted mid way, needing not to interfere as previously thought.

Vapor materialized in the path of the second beam, the witch appearing with a blue light in hand, drawing a circle in mid air. The barrier formed and the beam slammed into it, knocking the witch away, but safely as she flipped and landed crouched on the ground beside Nick. The last of the green-eyed man’s arpeggio pushed through were the Stygian orb once was, Crow having dodged away to preserve it.

Nick turned to where Luke and Mia still were, the rotten wooden porch of the cabin. There, Mia’s fingertips shown a dim, white light. Two bloody quills lay in front of her, miasma gone from the witch’s back. Red light reflected on Nick’s glasses, catching his attention as he turned to face the witch and their opponent. He saw clearly for the first time, the age of her form changing instantly with every blink of his eyes and every moment in which his eyes were not focused on her. It was odd, but now was not the time to concern himself with oddities. The witch placed a hand on her mask again, but now pulled red instead of blue, forming a tight circle in the air and punching through it with a quick jab of her fist. A crimson cannon shot, the ball of energy flew to the Crow, dodged again, a spout of red flames bursting up from where it hit the ground for a second.

“Oh? A threeway? How adventurous… And here I thought a Spirit Witch held no worldly desires. Keke!” Raising a second hand into the air, under the Stygian orb, Crow re-energized it. It filled with feathers rising from around, slicing through the little mist that invaded the clearing.

“Into the cabin! Now!” Nick crouched down to the witch’s level, turning his back to the Crow and pleading at Mia and Luke to head inside for cover. Mia stood, reaching both hands out to Luke as he took hers in his. Up she pulled and Luke rose as he shifted his legs under him, body barely capable of carrying his own weight. He leaned on her, limping to the door as Mia took the handle, turning it and shoving her small frame through it. She bounced off it, back into Luke as he steadied her.

“Stygian. Howl!” From all angles, the Stygian orb released a veritable explosion of stiffened quills. Waves and waves in all directions, covering the landscape in a layer of darkness.

Blue light shown from the witch’s mask, drawing a circle once more, but now where her hand finished the circle at the top, she swung her arm over behind herself and Nick, a barrier of light encasing them completely. Against it, hundreds if not thousands of razor shop feathered blades threatened to break the barrier, but with nothing to push her toward except the ground itself as they rained down, she held it, unworried that she would be blown away this time. Nick watched as Mia slammed a hand against the door, shoving against it to no avail. “No… No!” He cried with worry.

CRACK! The door caved in, snapping on it’s rotted hinges with a solid kick from Luke, the taller man falling in with the door as Mia dashed inside and helped him up to his knees. Luke rolled, shoving Mia behind the wall and just making it himself, feathers falling close after and piercing straight into the wall opposite the door. The windows shattered, braking and scattering glass all over the inside of the cabin and around the two teens inside. Luke crawled over her, cover his neck and head as he laid himself on top of the slim girl. Glass fell down atop his back, scratches luckily the worst of it.

“Yes!” Nick yelled, silence returning. The barrier vanished as the blond man stood, spinning in place and catching sight of the vapor beside him, witch gone. His chin rested above the instrument, a heavy staccato repeated rapidly, and a major chord of finality shot a sweeping blade not but a foot off of the dirt and kicking up dust as it cruised toward its target. As it approached, a red light shimmered above the Crow where its orb used to be, now gone, used up by the large attack of its wielder. There, the witch appeared, drawing a tight red circle and punching through it, down and slightly to the back, forcing the Crow to crouch and move forward in order to dodge, and exactly where the serrated edge of Nick’s compressed blade was headed.

Crows replaced the form of the black-dressed figure, turning into a black cloud of cawing birds and flying away from its otherwise inescapable fate, but not unscathed. A portion of the scattering crows were caught in the plume of flames the witch created with her attack, as the vanished and reappeared beside Nick. Several more were sliced by the musicians blade, falling flat, lifeless. Yet, the majority escaped into the mist, a pained chuckle, heard faintly as the caws faded out of range.

“It’s gone… For now, at least.” Nick stared up at the closing holes in which the crows had flown away, mist concealing the fact that they had ever been here at all, except for the feather covered land scape, of which all had become soft as they should be.

Luke lifted himself off of Mia, looking down at the girl to make sure she was alright.

“You good?”

“Mhm,” she nodded.” “Better than you, that’s for sure.”

“I’m…” he wanted to refute it, to say he was fine. The “walk it off” mentality he had been raised with telling him to keep it to himself. But why did he need to lie to her? “Yeah… I’m pretty messed up,” he admitted.

“Is it over? Maybe Nick has some medicine?”

Luke raised his head to look out of the Window. No Crow in sight, the witch and the other man appeared to be finished with their battle. Nick turned in time to catch Luke’s eye. For a second, nothing, just a stare. Then a smile, and a singular raised thumb. The same confident, brash smile Mia shared through most situations.

“Yeah, all clear,” He assured her, pressing his back against the wall beneath the window sill and breathing a long sigh. “Heh… We’re safe.”