Chapter 4: A Coven's Ambition

Chapter 4: A Coven's Ambition

Vince O’Connell’s trailer was a psychic echo chamber, and the whispers of the “Red Girl” clung to Carina long after they left. In the cramped motel room, she spread out photos of the charcoal drawings, the frantic scrawls of a man whose sanity was being scraped away layer by layer. Jon, his ribs still tightly bound, examined them with an unnerving focus, his consultant persona completely gone, replaced by an occult scholar deciphering a dead language.

“He’s not just drawing her,” Jon said, tapping a photo of a particularly detailed sketch of the girl in the red dress. Her face was a blank oval, but around the edges of the paper, almost hidden in the furious cross-hatching, were other symbols. “Look here. The way these branches twist. It’s not random. It’s a sigil for binding. And this pattern… it’s a stylized representation of wolfsbane, belladonna, and silver birch. An old combination. Very specific.”

Carina leaned in, her eyes tracing the lines. To her, it looked like meaningless dementia. To Jon, it was a road map. “Specific to what?”

“To a certain tradition of folk magic practiced in this region for generations,” he answered, a grim set to his jaw. “They’re not exactly public record, but they have a public face. If you know what to look for.”

An hour later, they were standing outside a shop called “The Gilded Root.” Tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop on Bonners Ferry’s tired main street, it presented itself as a high-end herbalist and apothecary. Wind chimes made of polished stones tinkled musically by the door, and the window display was a tasteful arrangement of dried herbs, artisanal soaps, and amber-colored bottles. To a tourist, it was quaint. To Carina, now attuned to the low-level static of the town, the place hummed with a quiet but undeniable energy, a focused field of power that pushed back against the encroaching dread of the Hive.

“This is it?” she asked, skeptical.

“This is it,” Jon confirmed. “Let me do the talking. These are not street-level thugs. They’re territorial, and they value protocol.”

The bell above the door chimed, a pure, resonant tone. The air inside was thick with the scent of lavender, sandalwood, and damp earth. A woman behind the counter looked up, her smile polite but her eyes instantly analytical. She was in her forties, with silver-streaked dark hair and a calm, unnerving self-possession.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice smooth as river stones.

Jon rested his hands on the counter, his demeanor casual but his presence filling the small space. “We’re looking for information. About a local ghost story. A girl in a red dress.”

The woman’s smile didn’t falter, but a subtle tension tightened the corners of her eyes. “This is a place of wellness, sir. Not a library for folklore.”

“Our interest isn’t academic,” Jon pressed, his voice dropping slightly. “We’re with the federal government, investigating a series of disappearances. We have reason to believe this… folklore… is connected.”

At the mention of the government, two other people in the shop—a young man stocking shelves and an older woman browsing tinctures—stopped what they were doing. The atmosphere shifted from serene to predatory. The hum of energy in the room sharpened, pressing in on Carina, making the hairs on her arms stand up.

“You have no jurisdiction here,” the woman at the counter said, her voice losing its warmth.

“When a Class 4 psychic entity starts using your town as a feeding ground, my jurisdiction is wherever I’m standing,” Jon retorted, the coded language a clear signal. He wasn’t asking anymore.

The woman, Elara, as Carina would learn she was called, stared at Jon for a long moment before giving a slight, almost imperceptible nod. She led them through a beaded curtain into a back room. The comforting scent of herbs was replaced by the sharp tang of ozone and something metallic, like blood. The room was a modern ritual chamber, with a chalked circle on the floor, computer monitors displaying astrological charts next to shelves of ancient-looking leather-bound books. The other two from the shop followed them in, their expressions now openly hostile. This was a coven.

“You’re Division 7,” Elara stated, not a question. “I thought you were all fossils and conspiracy theories.”

“We keep a low profile,” Jon said. “The entity you’re tracking—the Hive—is our primary target. We know you’ve been watching it. We need your intel.”

Elara let out a soft, humorless laugh. “You assume we have the same goal. You see a pest that needs to be exterminated. We see a catalyst. A force of nature.”

Carina felt a surge of disbelief and anger. “A force of nature? It’s a predator. It’s consuming people. We found one of its victims, a man named Vince O’Connell, and it’s hollowing him out.”

“The cost of progress is often steep,” Elara replied coolly, her gaze unwavering. “That creature, that Hive, is a psychic singularity. A nexus of raw, untamed power unlike anything seen in a century. You want to kill it. We intend to harness it.”

The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of her words stunned Carina into silence. They weren't trying to stop the Hive. They were waiting for it to grow fat and powerful, a psychic battery they could tap for some unimaginable ritual. They were just as monstrous as the thing they were tracking, willing to sacrifice the entire town for their own ambition.

“You’re insane,” Carina breathed. “You can’t control something like that.”

“That is where you are wrong, Agent…” Elara’s eyes flicked to Carina, and a cruel smile played on her lips. “You, of all people, should understand. You have a fire inside you, too, don’t you? A chaotic little spark.”

As she spoke, the young man to her left muttered a single, sharp syllable. The air thickened, and a wave of psychic pressure slammed into Carina. It was a suffocating force, designed to overwhelm, to induce panic and confusion. Her vision swam, the room twisting.

But the Crimson Cipher reacted instantly. It wasn’t a choice; it was a reflex. Red text flared across her vision, no longer just informational, but operational.

[HOSTILE THAUMATURGICAL INTRUSION DETECTED: PSIONIC DISORIENTATION WAVE] [ANALYZING… ATTACK IS BASED ON SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION.] [COUNTERMEASURE AVAILABLE. EXECUTE NULL_WAVE PROTOCOL?]

The world was a nauseating blur, but the glowing crimson question was a point of absolute clarity. Without hesitation, she focused her will, her entire being, on a single, silent command: YES.

She didn’t shout or move. She just pushed. A wave of invisible, silent force erupted from her. It wasn’t destructive; it was pure negation. The young warlock cried out as if he’d been electrocuted, stumbling back with his hands clutched to his head, blood trickling from his nose. The oppressive psychic weight in the room vanished, the coven’s ambient energy field sputtering like a blown fuse. The glowing chalk lines on the floor flickered and dimmed.

Elara and the other witch stared at Carina, their composure shattered, replaced by a mixture of shock and naked greed. They hadn’t seen a weapon. They had seen a power source even greater than the one they were hunting.

“The Keel bloodline…” Elara whispered, her eyes wide with horrified awe.

Jon seized the moment, his hand already inside his jacket. “This is your only warning,” he snarled, his voice dropping to a lethal growl. “Stay away from the Hive. Stay away from our investigation. Or the next time, my partner won’t be so gentle.”

He backed towards the curtain, pulling a stunned Carina with him. They retreated through the shop, the tinkling of the chimes behind them sounding less like music and more like a final, broken alarm.

Out on the street, the mundane world felt fragile, a thin veneer over a reality of warring gods and monsters. Carina leaned against the car, her heart hammering, her mind reeling from the raw, terrifying power she had just unleashed.

“They knew my name,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “My family name.”

“Your father made a lot of enemies, Carina,” Jon said, his eyes scanning the street. “And you just showed them that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He looked at her, a new, complex expression on his face—part pride, part profound fear. “The hunt just got a lot more complicated. Now we’re not just chasing a monster. We’re in a race with a coven who wants to chain it to their altar.”