"Are you sure this is the place?" Callie asked as they drove along a long tree-lined driveway.

"It's the address they gave me."

Irene stared out the window at the dense trees lining both sides of the road. The sky was clear and the sun bright, but it hardly penetrated the thick trees towering around them; their branches mingled overhead to create a tunnel. Lights reflected back at them in the mist swirling gently around the car as it crawled toward their destination, making it harder to see.

"This place is seriously creepy." Callie shivered, trying to shake off the need to turn the car around and leave as quickly as possible. "I don't think they like many visitors."

Twenty minutes later, they broke through the mist. Thinning trees allow more of the bright sunshine to penetrate their path. As they rounded a sharp turn, a large stately building loomed ahead. It had flat, well-kept twinned lawns on either side of the driveway, which split in two and enclosed a circular flowerbed containing an elaborate fountain.

The building itself was sandstone finished, standing three storeys high with twelve sets of double windows on the second and third floors. On the ground floor, a grand entrance took up half of the building, with several steps leading up to an open courtyard. The entrance doors were in a covered porch, surrounded by deep-purple flowering clematis on a climbing a trellis on one side and a pale lilac rose climbing the other. They met in the middle in a symphony of colour - light against dark.

A small man, dressed in a plain black jacket over a white shirt, danced down the steps to greet them as they exited the car. "Good morning, ladies," he greeted them. "Welcome to Shadow Academy. Do you have an appointment?"

"We've come to see Rachael," Irene replied. "I spoke to her yesterday over the phone. She said to drop by anytime today."

"Ah yes, her class is due a break in ten minutes. If you would like to follow me, I'll show you to the waiting room." He ushered them in through the main doors.

He strode purposefully across the wide foyer, passing a door marked reception, and stopped at the next unmarked door waiting for them to catch up. Both Callie and Irene were dawdling, taking in the grandeur of the place. A prominent sandstone staircase faced the doors they came through, flanked on either side by a carved wooden balustrade. The staircase split in two, leading in opposite directions at right angles to the first part. Around the edges of the foyer were four doors, two on either side. Between each pair of doors and the open staircase were open hallways.

"This way please," he interrupted their perusal, hurrying them along. He opened a door and stepped aside, granting them entrance. "Please wait here, Ms Rachael will be informed of your arrival."

Irene chose to sit by the window overlooking the extensive grounds at the side of the building. Callie examined the numerous framed academic certificates and photographs lining the walls.

"Did you know this was a school?" Callie asked, moving on to look at the frames on the other side of the room.

"I didn't even know magic schools existed. Grandma taught me at home with the others in the coven one evening a week."

The door burst open a few minutes later when a harried mid-twenty year old rushed into the room. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Williams, Miss McIlroy. I'm Rachael, the school librarian. You mentioned on the phone about viewing our archives. Can I ask what you hope to discover in them?" Rachael panted and nudged her glasses back onto the bridge of her sharp nose. The brisk walk up two flights of stairs and a jog across the main building had left her out of breath.

"We require information on a certain demon," Irene began.

"His name is Lucien, Master..."

"Shush Callie, don't say his name or he'll hear you," Irene blurted, interrupting her.

"I'll explain later, but he knows what we're looking for and why."

Rachael raised her eyebrows. "You will explain now, or there will be no access into my archives, young lady."

"Fine." She briefly laid out the conversation she had had with Lucien just hours before. "We have a deal; he doesn't kill, maim, or otherwise injure any living or un-dead creature and I help him become mortal and release him from his prison. Or find a way to kill him permanently."

"What do you get out of this deal?" Rachael asked, narrowing her eyes and peering over the square rim of her glasses.

"The same as him in a way... Peace and freedom."

Rachael nodded. "Okay, you may search the archives. I'll take you there now, but you'll be looking on your own. I have classes to take." She hurried them along, not giving them time to look around the Academy. Young girls and boys dressed in matching navy blazers cast them curious looks as they hurried by. She left them at the top of a set of steps.

"Follow the steps to the very bottom, and take the door directly opposite, the toilet is on the left. Do not enter the door marked Private under any circumstances or the consequence will be dire. Do you understand? I must get back to class."

Callie led the way down the narrow steps and opened the door directly in front of her. She searched the wall just inside the door for a light switch and flicked it down. Florescent lights flickered and blinked to life, illuminating row upon row of deep industrial shelving, each containing four shelves with half a dozen foot-square boxes on each shelf. The entire basement of the huge building was used as the archive store.

"There must be thousands of boxes in here! This is going to take forever," Irene groaned in complaint.

"There must be some sort of system for filing. Have a look around for a reference centre."

"A what?"

"Probably a tall unit with lots of little drawers in it. You take that side and I'll go this side. It's probably not too far from here."

They parted ways, each walking up and down the isles, starting at the nearest and working outward. Within a few minutes Irene called out, "I think I found it."

Callie was there in a flash, she opened the first drawer marked 'A' and read the card, "It says Animals: Allies –Chickens R1 S2 B1. R must be row, S shelf, and B box. Lets see," she flicked through more cards, "Rabbits – Spiders R4 S1 B3...Row 4, shelf 1, box 3. Lets go find row 4, this one is row...93, this one...92, this way."

Callie already had the box on the floor and was pulling files from it by the time Irene caught up with her. Discarding most into one pile until she found one marked 'snake' she speed-read the thick file within a few minutes.

Placing it aside, she shook her head, "Nothing in that one, where to next?" They replaced the files in the box and the box to its shelf.

"This could get exhausting, running back and forward to every box," Irene complained.

"I think we should make a note of as many points as we can think of regarding Lucien, and reference each one first before we go looking. We can split up and get through a few more that way," Callie suggested.

"Okay, I've a pen and paper here, fire away."

"Write down snake and serpent then score them off so we know we've already looked at those. Obviously Lucien... master of blah blah...you know the rest of it, but try them separately just in case. Demons might give us some useful names but be careful not to speak them aloud. That will give us something to work on for now."

They set about searching up each of the points and ended up with a list of placements scattered around the basement. Irene wrote them out again in order of row number first so they would start at the far edges and work inward meeting the centre. They worked for hours, crossing off each section as they came to them. By 7pm, Callie had just about had enough. She packed up the files into the box and set off to rescue Irene. She found her sitting in the middle of a sea of paper, oblivious to her approach. Callie couldn't resist spooking her. Irene screamed like a banshee, jumping a foot into the air and sending the file she was reading into a waterfall of paper.

Callie held her stomach as she rolled around the floor in fits of laughter. "Your face was priceless."

"Yeah hilarious," Irene agreed sarcastically. "You made me lose my place, and I think it might have been something. Help me clean this up and look for it again."

They spent the next thirty minutes scanning each sheet of paper and putting them in order.

"Yes!" Irene squealed excitedly. "This has to be it."

"What? Let me see." Callie snatched the paper Irene was holding and speed-read through it. "It's about a curse placed on a mortal for screwing around with Neptune's daughter."

"Read on," Irene insisted.

"He was cast into the underworld for eternity...no escape from life...feared by all...only visible to mortals as the serpent demon...Harvest souls..." Callie read. "You're right, this sounds like him. Does it give the wording of the curse? Is there a get out clause? There usually is, right?"

"Not that I've come across so far, but we have the name of the witch who placed the curse. It's a step in the right direction. If we can find her grimoire it might tell us more."

"Not tonight. My eyes are gritty and losing focus with all the reading. We'll come back tomorrow for a fresh look."

They put the box back on the shelf and made a note of the RSB number on the sheet. Callie flicked off the lights and closed the door. A few seconds later, there was faint tapping from across the hall. Callie turned to listen, stepping forward toward the sound.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"A faint tapping followed by what sounds like help me please. It's kinda muffled though." She moved closer to the door, reaching for the handle.

"Wait! Rachael said not to go in there." Irene grabbed her arm to stop her from opening the door. Next time when the tapping came, Irene could faintly hear it too and removed her restraining hand. "The question is why does Rachael not want us to go in there?"

"We'll soon find out," Callie said as she pushed down on the handle. The door creaked eerily and loudly through the empty stairwell.

The area beyond the door was pitch black. The darkness sucked the light from the hall, making it even dimmer. Callie searched for a light switch along the wall and on finding none, called a small orb of fire to her hand. She held it in front of her so the light revealed a long narrow corridor stretching further than the light could penetrate.

"Do you hear anything?" Irene asked, breaking the eerie silence.

"No, nothing. I'm going to go a bit further in." She walked forward, her steps silent on the dusty concrete floor. The corridor started to slope gently downward before a gradual sweep to the right.

Irene hesitantly closed the door behind her and ran to catch up to Callie before she lost sight of the light. "Where do you think it leads to?" Irene whispered, coming to a stop at the top of a narrow, very steep set of steps. The walls had changed from plaster to rough sheet rock, becoming a tunnel. The steps formed from the same rock disappeared downwards out of sight.

"Down," Callie stated the obvious.

The tapping came louder, followed by a faint, "Please, someone help!"

"What do we do? Should we go get help?" Irene hedged, knowing Callie would probably just charge ahead anyway.

"There's a girl down there and she sounds hurt. We're both pretty powerful witches and I'm a vampire to boot. I reckon if there's anything bad down there we should be able to take care of it no problem," she said, sounding more confident than she felt.

The two edged their way, in single file, down the narrow steps, keeping one hand on the wall for support. The fire in Callie's hand began to flicker, the flame pulled forward as a light breeze of air was drawn downward. On and on the steps took them, deeper into the earth. The walls around the tunnel began to lose their chill, becoming warmer the further down they travelled.

They stopped abruptly, faced with a solid wall that Irene tapped lightly. "I think it's a door. There may be a lever or button somewhere."

Callie joined in the search. The great sheet of rock slid sideways suddenly, becoming part of the wall. It revealed a round, torch-lit cavern, which was empty, bar a young, blonde-haired girl perched on a rock shelf. She was chained to pipes that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Silver chains, wrapped around the pipes, bound her raw and bleeding wrists. She scurried back as far as she could when the door slid open. The girl squealed, relaxing visibly on Callie and Irene, who rushed to her side.

"Let's get you out of these chains." Callie began working on one of the links, making it bend and twist with her mind. "What's your name?"

"Maggie," the girl whispered, looking between the chain link and the other door in the cavern. "Hurry, he could come back any second." The chain snapped and Maggie's arms thumped to her side with the release. She sprang up and ran for the door. "Come on. We have to get out of here."

The rock door slammed back into place, trapping the three in the cavern. "No!" Maggie cried. "Not again." She slumped down on the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her head fell onto her knees and she sobbed.

Callie approached her and ran her hand along the girl's hair in a soothing motion. "We'll find a way out. Shush, its okay, don't worry," she soothed.

Maggie's sobs slowly became laughter. The pitch of her voice became deeper. Her hair changed in texture, becoming darker and thicker. She lifted her head, revealing menacing red eyes. Her face distorted, the jaw lengthening to become more masculine, as did her body. Within seconds, a bearded demon sat before them. Callie backed up toward Irene, calling fire to her hand. The demon laughed harder, the sound bouncing around the cavern, mimicking him.

"Oooh." He chuckled, managing to control the laughter a little. "It has been too long since I have been able to pull that illusion." He spotted the fire in Callie's hand. "Please if you think a little fire will hurt me." He curled his clawed fingers in a bring it on motion. "By all means have a go."

Aiming for his chest, Callie released the fire. It hit him square in the centre, but he stood on as if nothing had happened.

"I am waiting...Oh, was that it?"

She called fire again, hotter this time, putting more energy into its forward momentum. Again, it hit him square on the chest and he didn't even flinch.

"You are boring me. Do you have anything else or are we done here?"

Callie and Irene looked at one another. Callie called air, creating a vortex in front of her. Irene added her energy to it and sent it toward him hoping to trap him inside it. It surrounded him, drawing dust up into its centre, and blocking him from sight. They turned, intending to run out the other door, only to find him standing there, clapping slowly at their pathetic attempt to restrain him. He raised one hand and, with a flick of his wrist, both girls were flung against a wall.

Callie crawled to Irene's side. Cosain. She thought the power word and a wall of white flame erupted to block the demon from coming any closer.

"Now that is impressive," the demon hissed as he tried, and failed, to cross through it. "How long can you keep it up?"

Callie had no idea what to do to get them out of this mess. She didn't know how long she could keep up the protection flames either. Calling Sidney through the mind link failed. She pulled out her phone, it had no signal. Cursing, she forced her mind to concentrate on holding the flame. After several minutes, the flame began to fade to pale blue. A few minutes more and it became a darker blue. She was tiring, her power fading rapidly. Spots appeared before her eyes - a twinkling of rainbow-coloured stars dancing in her vision.

Seconds before she collapsed, she shouted with every once of power left in her. "Lucien, Master of the Seventh Underworld, Commander of Legions, Gatherer of Souls, and Slaughterer of Parents, hear me. HELP ME!" she screamed, just before the stars blinked out.