Mystics
Chapter 5

Marcie stands on the outside deck. A light rain is falling. Strangely the seas are calm. Then again that could change in an instant. Zven is out on the deck with her, the flood lights shining upon the deck.

“Your dimension is so strange.” Marcie opens.

Zven nods, saying. “Strange gets stranger the longer you hang around hunters. Besides, our dimension is way behind yours in terms of timeline.”

Marcie is from a dimension where shit already hit the fan, and Hell took over. That being said, the nephilim being herself, and sharing what she has is a chance to prevent that from happening here.

The sky above flashes, with brilliant veins of lightning streaking across the sky. It’s followed by a low rumble of thunder. The rain picks up but only slightly. Marcie’s skin crawls with a slightly cold feeling from the rain. It’s so different from the burning rain in her own dimension. Different from this reality in hers, if one stood in the rain for too long their bodies would be turned into sulfur.

But this? This was something different. It’s soothing. The jagged ropes of lightning that lash every now and then serve to keep her a little on edge. The rumbles of thunder bring up memories of slaughtering demons in the thousands.

Zven begins watching the darkness closely, spotting what looks to be a sign of movement in the sky. Then he runs over to the rail, and looks at the water around the ship. The seas are alarmingly calm, especially for a thunderstorm. Then again he’s never really navigated the ocean, so he wouldn’t know if calm seas during a thunder storm with light rain is normal.

The man looks to a lightning flash. This time he spots something. A humanoid figure, with long wings. Both Zven and Marcie are sent on edge when hearing a distant but audible screech. Zven for the fact that his understanding of harpies is that they are extremely aggressive. Marcie for the fact that she’s never heard such a sound and couldn’t tell if this was a demon or a different kind of threat.

Raven startles them both, saying. “Harpies aren’t known for their aggression. But like any angel, they are drawn to troubled humans. Because they are among the only known mortal angels, they use the cover of storms to seek out and protect humans.”

That would explain the calm seas and the raging lightning. All that energy has to go somewhere, and if harpies can redirect the energy of a storm, it could come out as lightning instead of heavy rain and wind.

The lightning reaches its peak in the clouds, with lightning covering the clouds like vines covering a wall. Both Zven and Marcie look on with a mix of awe and fear. Despite coming from backgrounds of huge difference, neither of them had ever seen something like this. Raven looks up at the lightning show with a warm smile. Before her soul was released from the church ruins in the Crystal Caverns and before the local town people used to live in was abandoned she would rarely hear stories from people whose ships traveled into dangerous storms, that they would hear this ‘unholy sound’ which would be followed by this amazing lightning show. Much like the other two, she’d never actually seen it, but she knew stories of this.

While harpies aren’t known for their aggression, they are known for being able to read people like an open book. Which in some cases could lead to people being saved and stories of the mysterious change in the storm, or leading to entire fleets being caught in storms like a hurricane.

“I’ve heard the stories, But I never thought they were true.” Zven says, his voice full of shock, a smirk forming.

Taking notice of this Marcie notices the figure of the harpy flying around the outside of the storm, it’s body radiating electricity as though it’s absorbing the storms power. Although she’s never actually seen one, Marcie heard that angels just had a natural source of power. Since harpies are a lower order of angels, they might draw their power from storms. Some could target specific storms so they can help humans.

Raven looks at him, saying. “They don’t have grace, and their mana is about the same as a humans. But that low mana allows them to convert and story energy within their own bodies that can be used later. While it is nowhere near as powerful as a rank and file Angel, it is just enough to allow rank and file smiting. Harpies rarely use it though since it usually depletes the energy they gather from storms such as the one above us.”

“Leaves a spectacular light show. Bet seeing this is a one in a million thing though.” Zven replies.

The three head into the ship, now completely drenched. The rain outside picks up significantly. Not quite enough to rock the ship, but enough for it to be heard from inside. Zven makes his way to his room. As he enters his room, he gives a silent sigh. Although it’s been three years, from his perspective it’s only been a couple months. While he likes being around Raven, and Marcie, he’s happy to have some space away from them for a while.

His thoughts drift to Max, then to Darius. He talked with Leo below deck, and learned that while Sinead was a cult loyalist, she tortured him trying to replace the location. Leo heard from Yinto that Sinead then went after a pro-Seeker couple and got a close enough location, where Sinead ended up running from Izume, then ended up trapped with her in a mine. It was what Izume revealed that caused Sinead to start asking questions.

From the way Leo talks about this ‘Yinto’, he must be an honorable man to have Leo’s respect and support. In his own experience, Leo doesn’t give his trust out to just anyone. Which for a vampire makes sense. Especially if he’s worried about killing someone.

As Zven lays down on the bed in his room, his thoughts drift to the last hunt he worked with Max before he got out of the life. It was a werewolf in the town of Teipa. There were three heartless bodies including the body of a police officer. Zven didn’t tell Max about his plan to leave the life, deciding that the case needed to come first. This werewolf they were hunting was smart. He knew where to put the bodies, so they wouldn’t be discovered until the day after the kill. It wasn’t until Max located a sloppy trail of bodies, that he and Zven were able to locate a recently turned werewolf. They helped her replace her feet, and maintain a diet of animal hearts instead of human, and she in turn led them to the werewolf that was dropping bodies.

After that Zven told Max he was gonna leave the hunting life to help their dad get back on his feat. Max at the time didn’t particularly care to ever see their father, but he supported Zven’s decision. While he has no regrets making that decision, he sometimes wonders if he should’ve gone back into the life once their dad found his feet.