XXVI - The Funeral Hotel
At Mr. Franz's hotel, two guests arrived at night. Anette was behind the counter when the doorbell rang. She saw two well-dressed women. They seemed to need a place to spend the night in.
Anette pressed the button to unlock the door. One of the women, the one that looked the oldest, pushed the door.
"Good evening, ladies. May I help you? Are you looking for an accommodation?"
"Actually, we've come here seeking information," said Silene. Her voice was full of authority.
"If there's anything I can assist you with..." Anette volunteered.
"Hi, honey, is everything ok?" Franz came from the kitchen and looked at the two visitors with curious eyes.
"We would like to know about one of your guests, a young man that goes by the name Philip. He is fair skinned and is of Germanic origin."
"What exactly do you want to know?" Franz asked with a strong tone in his voice.
"Where was he headed to?" Asked Silene straight off.
"Who are you? Did Philip get into any trouble? Even though it's quite late, you don't look like police officers," Anette pondered and, at the same time, suggested that they were almost calling it a night.
"We are his relatives. We are here to tell him about the death of someone very dear to him," the other woman answered, whose name was Samantha.
"How funny... He never told us about any relatives." Anette was surprised.
"If you both don't mind, we prefer not to give any information about Philip. We treat with discretion all information about our guests," Franz said, suspicious.
"They don't have to answer anything. I can simply absorb the information we need straight from their minds," Silene told her friend, arrogantly. Then she opened her right hand and moved the air in front of them.
Immediately, the couple's eyes became dull. They were frozen.
"Now, tell me, where's Philip?" Silene asked again. Now she was sure that she would hear the truth.
"He said he was heading to France. He wanted to visit the country." Franz responded promptly like a mesmerized servant.
"Interesting! They must be running away to preserve the girl's life. They would never leave us behind without a fight."
"That's all we need to know. Now you can kill them, Samantha," said Silene.
The hag eyes became red hot. Then, they emitted a blue ray that penetrated the victims' eyes. The rays spread through of organs. Anette and Franz's flesh withered until they were turned into dust. Only their skeletons remained, and they both collapsed on the ground in a pile of bones.
"Good job! I really like your methods, you know... They improve day after day."
Diego and Elina were coming down the stairs smiling and talking. Suddenly, they met the murderers and the and the pile of bones before them.
"What happened here?" Elina screamed in horror.
"Shut up!" Silene ordered with immense cruelty.
"Who do you think you are?" Diego took a step forward to defend young woman he loved.
A soft wind blew in the couple's faces' smooth skin, coming from a blow of the witch, carrying a powder that was on her palm. It was a lethal poison. Elina held her neck with both hands as she desperately tried to breathe. Diego tried in vain to breath some air in as well. Their bodies fell lifeless on the floor. Now they were nothing but a pair of lost souls. The hags, used to being merciless, rejoiced at the look of the dead bodies. The hostel became a deadly place on that fateful night.
The women checked the computer to find Philip's registration info. Then, they went up to his room. There, they made a thorough search to find anything that could lead to him, but they found nothing. Eventually, they left the room in a complete mess and went away.
"The master will like to know that they headed to France. Let's get out of this filthy place," said Silene as she wrapped up the service there.
Back at the train station, other Basnets were also searching for Philip's whereabouts. They bewitched the box office staff, and discovered that Philip, Juan and Alexia bought tickets to London. Klaus decided to wait for them in the elegant city. He had plenty of time, after all. He would let his troop do the hard work. Then he would take action to finish them off by draining their magical powers.
Meanwhile, on the train, two pairs of passengers were on a hunt for Philip and Juan. They had a serious look on their faces as they searched each cabin in a hurry to find the wizards. The clerk stopped them, but the bald, strong warlock with a skull tattoo on the right arm, punched the poor man in the face, and he passed out. The other warlock, who had a beard and a tattoo of a bat on his left forearm, dragged the clerk into an empty booth.
"I'm having a strange feeling... That kind of agony that warns us that something bad is about to happen..." Philip said.
"I'm also sensing something evil on the train," said Juan with narrowed eyes.
"Alexia, stay put! You need to be safe."
"Jesus! You are scaring me again... You are not leaving me here alone, are you?"
"I didn't say it would be an easy trip, but we promise to act fast before they arrive."
Alexia took a deep breath as she saw Juan and Philip getting out of the cabin in a hurry.
At the end of the corridor, Juan and Philip finally met the four warlocks that were looking for them. The young wizard brought Night's Fury to his hand magically. He got into battle position. His eyes began to shine in a reddish shade that meant that he was ready for the fight.
Juan moved his hands in a way that two of the warlocks, a man and woman, were thrown up to the ceiling and stuck there. The bald warlock drew a sword from under his raincoat and started a fierce fight against Philip. The blades crossed aggressively. At each blow, sparks flew. A third Basnet, a hag, delivered a hard punch on the old man's face. The blow left Juan kind of dizzy, but he immediately shook his head to recover. Before she punched Juan in the face again, he brought up before him a shield of magical energy. She ended up punching the shield. It was so hard that she felt a strong pain in her knuckles, as if she had punched a stone wall.
Night's Fury was in flames when Philip thrust it into the Basnet warlock's heart. He turned into dust and a wind that came from the ceiling ventilation blew his ashes away. Noticing that the old wizard was distracted, two Basnets hiding on the ceiling came down. As soon as they reached the floor, they got into fighting position.
Juan felt that Philip was perfectly able to fight that pair of warlocks. He saw when one of them held onto hand supports on the ceiling and then slammed Philip hard with both feet. The young wizard dodged the blow in time. The man's feet broke the train's window. However, the wind invaded the place and sucked Philip out, but he managed to hold himself on the window with both hands.
The old wizard grabbed the sword from the ground quickly and continued the fight against the hag that attacked him, while the other couple tried to make Philip loosen his hands from the window.
Catching the warlocks by surprise, Philip released his hands from the window and disappeared. The Basnets put their heads out of the window. Their hair was blown by the wind when they saw someone standing over the train's roof just above them.
It was Philip, and he turned into the Phantom Man, with white hair and flaming eyes. With a small move of his hands he dragged the two warlocks up to him. There, on top of the train, they started another fight.
Two women knocked on the cabin door where Alexia was in, but they entered without permission, anyway. Alexia saw by their looks that they were witches. They had black make-up on their eyes and skin, tattoos of spider webs and bats on the forearms, and piercings rings in their nostrils. They smelled of incense. As they spoke with hoarse voices, the lawyer was sure her intuition was right.
"Are you traveling with the old man and the boy?"
"I don't know what you're talking about..."
"Look at her scar. The master said that this is how we would recognize her. Come with us, lady."
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"You don't have a choice, sweetie."
Alexia resisted to go with them. She punched one of the witches in the face, and then hit the other in the abdomen using her knee. Alexia was hit in the face, too, but quickly recovered to strike back by delivering a punch in the Basnet hag's face again.
Juan felt the presence of more Basnet wizards in the train. With his sword, he hit in the chest of the hag he was fighting with, and put an end to her existence.
He went straight to the cabin.
"What are you here for, Basnets? You should return to the tombs where you came from."
"A ridiculous old man is not going to give us orders."
They put their hands together and produced energy balls, which they threw against the wizard as they spoke in one voice spell words. Alexia huddled in the corner. She felt the worst was about to take place. There was no room for a fight there.
Juan set Night's Fury on flames. The weapon's blade touched the energy balls. One by one they disintegrated. The hags looked astonished. Then, Juan thrust the sword right into their chests. The soulless hags' lives ended right there when they felt the blade tearing their cursed hearts.
"Thank you, grandpa. Pardon me for still calling you like that, but I don't know how to call you by another name," said Alexia.
"I'll always do anything to keep you safe."
Juan noticed the bruises on the young woman's face.
"Did you get into a fight with them?"
"Just a couple of blows I learned in those Karate classes that you made me go to when I was a child. Remember that?"
"I'm glad that they proved to be useful for you."
"Nonetheless, hadn't you arrived I don't think I would be able to stop them. I don't have magical powers, remember?"
"You're right, Klaus' warlocks are quite dangerous, indeed."
"What about Philip? Where is he?"
"Right now, he is on a deadly fight on the train's roof."
"Have you said deadly? Aren't you going to help him?"
"He's a grown-up man now and needs to get things done by himself. I think he can handle those warlocks."
Up on the roof, one of the witches hit Philip in the face. He struck back by kicking her abdomen. The other warlock tried to hold him from behind. Before he could do that, Philip created a red energy string and used it to entwine the Basnets with a whipping movement. Then he got up in the air, taking with him the desperate tied-up couple. As the Phantom Man neutralized the Basnets, back in the cabin Night's Fury disappeared from Juan's hands. The old wizard then knew that Philip needed the magical weapon at that moment to kill the enemies.
Even though the train was already far ahead from the Phantom Man, he managed to retrieve his form as Philip and appear back in the cabin.
He had bruises on his face, and so had Juan. But then he saw that Alexia also had bruises and blood on her skin.
"Are you all right, baby? What have they done to you?"
"It was nothing. A simple bandage shall be enough to solve that. Juan arrived in time to save me."
"Hey, last time I checked, I was the old one here, but apparently nobody seems to care. I might've have broken a bone, you know..."
"I know you're okay, Juan. After all, you're the most powerful wizard I've ever heard of."
"Still, I'm made of flesh and bone. Sometimes it hurts..."
"Wait a minute, I'll take care of you."
Alexia took the first aid kit from her bag and took care of everyone, including herself.
After such a scary fight, they had to continue the journey, hopefully with no more interruptions. They needed to get some sleep to regain their strengths in order to face the menace that anxiously waited for their arrival in London.
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Also read #TheDeathMoon by #ChaieneSantos
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