Author's Note: Sailor Moon and all related characters are the property of Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation and DIC. All references to Vulcan are the province of Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Studios. So, please, don't sue me because I haven't any money. I do this strictly for entertainment purposes, not copyright infringement.
The Witches Of Philadelphia
by Jeffrey C. Branch
Chapter Three: Do You Believe In Magic?
Rating: PG-13
Charlotte McCoy, a styrofoam cup of 7-11 coffee in one hand stood on the corner of seventh and South Street shortly before six a.m. and surveyed the damage from yesterday's incident that the police had called an accident.
The handsome black woman snorted at the lie. The street had been cordoned off by sawhorses and a police car sat at both seventh and sixth streets while uniformed officers stood watch. In the center of the block, a fire engine stood nearby in the event of any reflashes.
Taking a sip of the hot black coffee, McCoy and several bystanders saw that the damage had been considerable. Nearly every storefront along the street had destroyed while rubble from badly damaged buildings lay everywhere and numerous craters pockmarked the street and sidewalk, reminding her of a lunar landscape. The acrid smell of smoke from buildings that had burned yesterday wafted past the nose of the parapsychologist, making her wonder just how horrific the battle had been.
McCoy closed her eyes and concentrated, attuning her senses to detect any sign of paranormal activity. McCoy's father had taught her ten years ago that in order for someone to use any sort of superhuman ability, a tremendous amount of mental energy would be expended. With extensive training and practice, McCoy used her telepathic powers to pick up on that mental energy. It didn't take long for the black woman to find what she sought, and the feedback hit her like a runaway locomotive.
McCoy barely managed to keep from screaming from the tremendous pressure on her brain from the influx of expended mental energy. Her face contorted, McCoy forced herself to end the scan before she passed out. Curious onlookers watched as McCoy stumbled away from the corner and, walking halfway up the street, the parapsychologist slumped on a doorstep to recover. The things she felt in her mind were almost too terrible to contemplate.
"Jesus. The power that was used down here. Staggering!" muttered McCoy, squeezing the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on. She involuntarily shuddered from a sliver of fear that crawled slowly up and down her spine. McCoy had never experienced anything like that before. Reaching into her leather jacket, the parapsychologist pulled out a cell phone with a slightly trembling hand and dialed a number. It was answered on the second ring.
"Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Father O'Neill speaking."
"McCoy here. Didn't think you'd be up this early, Father," she said in a shaky voice.
"I was in the Army for twenty years before I answered God's call. It's become a habit. You sound a bit ragged, Charlie. Is anything the matter?"
"You could say that, sir," said McCoy, her nerves rattled. "I'm on South Street. I just did a telepathic scan to get a reading on any paranormal power that might have been used. What I detected was nothing short of terrifying."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I sensed a tremendous amount of thaumaturgical energy which, at its peak must've been seriously off the scale. Even after sixteen hours, the faint traces I picked up were strong enough to almost fry my brain. Unchecked, that force could've flattened this neighborhood like straw huts in a hurricane."
"Thaumaturgical energy?"
"Magic, Father O'Neill. Magic. And I don't mean tame stuff like Harry Potter. I'm talking about power on a level that makes a nuke about as potent as a firecracker."
"From the Darkhold?"
"Yes, and no. I've been trained to detect black magic, and it definitely came from the book, but I sensed the white variety too. However, it felt....alien. Not of this world. Two opposing forces fought here. The very personification of good versus evil. Problem is, I doubt that the good guys were human."
"Hmm. Interesting. I might just be able to help you identify the forces of good, Charlie," said O'Neill. "Have you ever heard of Sailor Moon?"
McCoy cocked an eyebrow from puzzlement. "Sailor Moon? Who's that? A Korean Navy man?"
"Not quite. Why don't come by my office. You can relax and have breakfast while I brief you on some information I've just come across. It could explain part of what happened yesterday."
"You got it. I can use a break after this. I'll be there in twenty." After ending the call, McCoy, her head throbbing wearily got to her feet. She took one last, long look down the shattered street and frowned. "Something tells me this town's gonna be in for one hell of a rough ride."
A creature of habit, Raye woke up at six every morning so she would have time to do her chores at the temple before going to school. Despite being seven thousand miles away from home, Raye dutifully maintained her routine. Rolling over on her right, Raye was surprised to find Serena's bed empty.
Sitting up, Raye reached for the lamp on her nightstand when she saw the silhouette of Serena staring out the window at Market Street and Independence Mall in the distance through the slightly parted drapes as the sun began to rise. Puzzled, Raye quietly sat up, reached over and placed the palm of her right hand on Serena's bed. She was shocked to find the sheets cool to the touch.
Her bed's cold. How long has she been up, a concerned Raye wondered. Standing up, Raye padded over to where Serena stood, put an arm around her friend's shoulders and pulled her close. "Are you okay, 'Rena?"
Serena, her hair down, turned to face Raye. There was a haunted look in her eyes which were red from crying. Serena tried a smile, but it was a doomed attempt. "More or less. I'm sorry if I woke you."
"Don't worry about it, kiddo. You know me, up before dawn," Raye said. "It's not like you to beat me to the punch. What's wrong?"
With a sigh, Serena rested her head on Raye's shoulder. "Yesterday. I can't stop thinking about it. After everything we've been through over the last two years, I still treat this like some sort of game. Then reality kicks me in the face when we get hurt, or someone dies."
Raye's face clouded from sadness. "The cop who was killed."
"Yeah. That poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it cost him his life." Fresh tears filled Serena's eyes then fell down her cheeks. That wrenched at Raye's heart. "If using the crystal hadn't worn me out, I wouldn't have slept a wink last night. I feel like I'm responsible for his death."
"Don't say that, honey. It wasn't your fault," said Raye, wrapping Serena in her arms with all the affection a mother would her child. "You may be the most powerful being on this planet, but not even you can save everyone."
"That doesn't cut it, Raye! I'm supposed to be the Champion of Love and Justice! But I'm a champion failure instead!"
"No you're not! Think about all the lives you've saved, including mine, and how you've kept the Earth from being conquered by the likes of Queen Beryl, the Doom Phantom, Pharaoh 90 and all those other maniacs we've fought. You're the reason this world is in one piece today. Never forget that!"
Serena dwelled on Raye's words for several moments before she spoke. "Yeah, you're right. You must think I'm the world's biggest wuss."
"Nope. I think you're the most beautiful and caring person I've ever known," a smiling Raye replied as she gently dried Serena's tears. "I know I don't say this to you enough, but you're very important to me, Serena. And I'll always be here for you. Now, how about giving me that goofy grin I love so much! Or, so help me, I'll squeeze it out of you!"
Now it was Serena who giggled as she gave Raye a wide smile. "Thanks for cheering me up, Raye. I really needed that."
"The pleasure was all mine. Just don't make it a habit!" Raye jokingly warned Serena as she broke the embrace and wagged an index finger at her best friend. "The others might start thinking I actually get along with you!"
"Well, golly! We can't have that!" said Serena who burst out laughing. "I think I'll go back to sleep. Could you wake me when it's time for breakfast?"
Raye came to attention and saluted Serena. "Yes, ma'am! Any other orders, ma'am?" she said sarcastically.
"Yeah. Keep it down, willya?" said a yawning Serena who returned to her bed and crawled under the covers. "I need my beauty sleep you know!"
With a derisive snort, Raye whacked a giggling Serena on the head with her pillow. Grinning, Raye went to the bathroom to take a shower, then she would watch over Serena as she slept.
After Serena drifted off to sleep, she heard that sinister female voice in her dreams again, but a little louder than last night as it filled her subconscious mind with visions of death, of rebirth. Of revenge against men. Just like before, Serena will not remember her dream later. The evil presence that was slowly and furtively growing in Serena's mind like a hidden cancer, secretly thrilling to the incredible power she possessed would make sure of that.
Tossing and turning under satin sheets, Blair Witasick was tormented by nightmares of her own.
In the four months the book had been in her possession which she bought from a shady book dealer during a trip to New York, Blair rarely enjoyed a good night's sleep. But her dreams over the last week had become different: dreams of a beautiful, enigmatic woman who practiced the magical arts and presided over a secret cult of witches that had been betrayed by men.
Of how that woman, enraged over the trials and hangings of her friends swore to live beyond death to avenge her death and the deaths of her friends. Before she died, the woman sold her soul to the ultimate force of evil, and her spirit was sealed into the cult's book of spells. Only the blood from a young girl with a pure soul could break the seal and release her. And once freed, the woman would carry out her revenge against the world and all the men within it.
It was at this point that Blair bolted up from her pillow, barely able to choke back the scream in her throat. Just like the past six mornings. The redhead breathed heavily for several moments in the darkness of her bedroom before she brought herself to calm down.
"A pure soul whose blood would free the witch from the book. But whose soul?" Blair wondered, running a perfectly manicured hand through her hair. She thought about herself and the others and knew that they weren't virtuous.
Despite attending Catholic school, Sabrina was a notorious flirt with an endless procession of boyfriends, some of whom she boasted of having slept with. Jeannie, having grown up in the hardscrabble neighborhood of Kensington was a bigot who occasionally ran with a gang and got into fights with minorities while Samantha, a brilliant hacker was suspended for breaking into the records database of her high school to alter the grades of her Korean friends. And then there was Blair who spent the last two years of her life dabbling into the occult and the black arts of witchcraft.
"We're all about as pure as the driven slush," Blair growled. Getting out of bed, she padded over to the far corner of her spacious bedroom where the book sat on a raised stand.
Blair stared intently at the book, trying as hard as she could to discern the meaning to the new dreams. She neglected to tell the others about the premonitions she had been having of late as they already thought she was crazy. Even Sabrina begun to have doubts about her sanity, so Blair didn't want to give them additional ammunition.
"Just what are you trying to tell me?" a scowling Blair whispered to the book, hoping against hope it would give her an answer. "Where's the person whose blood we have to spill? I've already killed twice, how many more lives must I take to free you?"
Blair closed her eyes, cleared her mind and used her powers to attune herself to the book and the presence she alone knew existed within its weathered pages. For ten minutes, the redhead stood stock still and concentrated with all her will, hoping to gain knowledge to help her with the mission she had been tasked with. But she heard nothing.
"Fuck!" she growled, frustrated at having failed. As has always been the case since the book came into her life, it called the shots, controlled her instead vice versa. And the rich girl hated was not being in control.
Stomping away from the book, Blair pulled off her sleepshirt and padded into her private bathroom to shower before breakfast. Under stinging hot jets of water that pelted her skin, Blair dwelled on the turmoil in her life that from a young age that seemed neverending.
Even though she was born into wealth, Blair was never satisfied, not with money, cars, clothes, jewelry, boyfriends, jetsetting, anything. While she had friends like Sabrina and the others, there were times Blair felt horribly alone, but didn't know why. That lack of fulfillment led to experimenting with drugs, but a near fatal overdose just after her fifteenth birthday swore her off narcotics and steered her into the occult after talking with a boy in an outpatient clinic who was a rabid believer in black magic.
At first, Blair's interest in the occult was mildly casual, more curiosity than anything else, but the more she read and studied the black arts, the more fascinated she became with them. Finally, the jaded rich girl found something she could devote her life to. Blair became intrigued with the infamous Salem Witch Trials from the late 17th century, soaking up everything she could about the rituals witches performed and the power they were said to have possessed.
That was when she learned about the Darkhold.
Blair had read numerous texts, decades old articles and writings about a secret group of women who lived in Salem called 'The Coven of Twelve' who practiced the arcane arts. Those women created a book in which they wrote down all their spells, presumably written with their own blood, said to have given the tome a menacing power all it's own. The book was called 'Darkholde' because it held within its pages, the secrets of the dark.
Intrigued to the point of obsession, Blair spent two years and thousands of dollars quietly searching for the book which was said to had disappeared shortly after the end of the infamous Witch Trials in 1692. To Blair, finding the book had become her entire life. If the Darkhold possessed the power rumor said it did, her life would finally be complete. Blair could become more than just another spoiled rich kid, she would become a weilder of power.
As Blair came out of the shower, draped in a thick, monogrammed bath towel, she paused in front of the book. Now that she had the Darkhold, and had shared its power with her closest friends as it commanded so it would give her the power she craved, Blair thought about the next phase: having to spill the blood of a girl with a pure soul to bring about the great change, something she had no idea about a week ago.
In the silence of her room, deep in the recesses of her mind, Blair could hear soft laughter coming from the book. It was the laughter of a woman. It was the laughter of purest evil.
"Wow! This is a dream come true!" cried an excited Melvin Grier, standing outside the main entrance of the Franklin Institute Science Museum. "I've always wanted to visit this place! Aren't you excited too, Talia?"
Talia, standing next to Melvin nodded. The notion of being excited about anything was an alien concept to her. Or so she kept telling herself. "Indeed. Even though I have been here before, the opportunity to visit an institution devoted to the pursuit of science is a most welcome one."
Melvin's eyes lit up from joy. "You have? Fantastic! Could you show me around? Please?"
"Of course."
"Wow! You're the greatest!"
"Of course."
Mina and Lita, standing next to Amy giggled. "Talia's got a boyfrend! Talia's got a boyfriend!" joked Mina in a loud sing-song voice. Talia shot the bubbly blonde a frosty look while Lita and Amy chuckled.
"Goofball and I are off for the Art Museum. I wanna run up those steps like Sly Stallone did in 'Rocky'. That'll be cool!" said a grinning Lita, her arm around Mina's shoulders. "Where are you headed, Ames?"
Amy, an eager smile on her face pointed at a large building across the street. "The main branch of the Philadelphia Library. It's one of finest libraries in the world. I can't wait to check it out." Amy then turned serious. "Actually, this will give me an opportunity to study about magic users like those girls we fought yesterday. Perhaps I can gleam some clues about our opponents."
Lita nodded in approval. The girls got together over breakfast and decided to put yesterday's incident behind them as best they could and try to enjoy the rest of their trip. While they knew there was a powerful enemy out there, one that seemed bent on killing them, the girls had to resume their lives or run the risk of arousing suspicion among the other students. Yet they would try to figure out who the enemy were, and when they would strike next.
"Great idea. We'll compare notes over dinner!" said Lita. Taking Mina's hand in hers, Lita headed up the block. "Hopefully Serena won't get Raye in any trouble down at Independence Hall!"
"Wishful thinking, babe! See ya, Ames! See ya, Tal!" said a giggling Mina.
"Have fun," Amy called back. After waving to Talia who headed into the Institute, Melvin close on her heels, Amy glanced to her right down the always busy Benjamin Franklin Parkway before jogging across the thoroughfare. Amy stopped right across the street from the library and gazed up at the building
like it was a shrine. The look in her bright blue eyes was one of undisguised awe. A voracious reader, Amy lived for the chance to visit a major library like Philadelphia's and it made her happy beyond words. "Wow," she said.
"Quite a place, huh?" said a voice from behind Amy. She turned around and faced a pretty Oriental girl with long dark hair who gave Amy a friendly smile. "Hi. First time in Philly?"
Amy nodded. "Yes. I'm from out of town on a class trip. I've always wanted to visit a library like this. I think it's awesome."
The girl chuckled. "I know. Just wait until you see inside." She held out her hand to Amy. "My name's Samantha. I'm a nut for books too. Would you like me to show you around?"
"Would you? I'd like that a lot!" Amy grinned as she clasped Samantha's hand. It wasn't often she had the opportunity to meet a kindred spirit, someone who loved books as much as she did. Almost immediately, she found herself liking Samantha. "My name's Amy. It's a pleasure to meet you, Samantha."
Samantha grinned back. She found Amy to be pleasant. "Call me Sam. Love your hair, Amy. That's a cool color! C'mon! Let's go inside!"
The girls crossed the street and entered the library. Standing in the middle of the large and spacious lobby, Amy, wide eyed, gasped, then giggled from delight. She felt like the proverbial kid in the candy store. Samantha, looking at her new friend smiled. Amy's expression reminded her of how awestruck she felt the very first time she visited the library when she was six, igniting her lifelong love for reading and gaining knowledge.
"Impressive, isn't it?" said the Oriental girl. "And this is just the lobby. The books are upstairs."
Amy nodded. Overjoyed, she was having a hard time putting her thoughts into words. It took all her willpower to keep from bursting into tears of joy. "I....I don't know where to begin. I could spend the rest of my life in here!"
"I know the feeling, Amy. This is my favorite hangout. It's lots quieter than the mall, and less expensive too!" Samantha replied. "Say, if you're into computers, there's a really extensive section here."
"Computing? Good Grief! You just said the magic word, Sam! I love computers!" cried Amy. She then remembered where she was and blushed from embarrassment at having raised her voice. "I have an 800 megahertz G4 Power Macintosh at home."
Samantha gasped from shock. "A G4? Oh, man! I'm jealous!" she whispered. "All I have is a 500 megahertz iMac! Your machine must rock!"
"And then some! Wow! I can't believe we have so much in common!"
"I know! C'mon! Let's check out the computer section!" said a smiling Samantha as she took Amy by the hand and led her up the marble staircase to the second floor. "I've got all day to kill! So I hope you're ready to have your ears talked off about hardware and software!"
Amy smiled, happy to have met someone like Samantha. "Don't worry about that, Sam. Bill Gates would have trouble keeping up with me when I start talking about computers!"
"Bill Gates? Gag me! Talk about a royal loser!"
The two girls giggled like old friends as they climbed the stairs.
It was close to dusk when Amy and Samantha finally left the library. They marveled at seeing the sun starting to set.
"Holy cow! I didn't think we were in there that long!" said Samantha.
"I know. Time just flies by when you're having fun," said Amy. For several hours, she and Samantha chatted merrily about computers and leafed through dozens of books on the subject. Samantha was incredibly bright and knowledgeable, but was also down to earth and personable. In a way, she reminded Amy of her late friend, Sarah Womack. That made Amy like Samantha all the more.
"Talking about computers gives me a killer appetite. You wanna go to Mickey D's for some burgers?" Samantha asked.
Amy scratched her head from puzzlement. "Mickey D's?"
Samantha giggled. "McDonald's."
"I'd love to, but I should get back to my hotel. My friends are probably wondering where I am."
"No problem. So, how long are you in town?"
Amy sighed. "Just four more days, then it's back home."
"That's a shame. I really enjoyed being with you, Amy. You've got a real head on your shoulders," Samantha replied. "My friends are as dense as they come. All they care about are boys, clothes, dating and listening to boy bands! UGH! I tell you, there isn't one working brain cell between 'em!"
Hearing that made Amy think about her friends. Between boy crazy Serena, hot tempered Raye, lovestruck Lita and ditzy Mina, they weren't geniuses, as evidenced by the help Amy gives them with their schoolwork. But that didn't change the fact that Amy loved them, along with the taciturn Talia with all her heart, and would gladly die for them without a moment's thought. Amy lived solely for her friends who meant more to her than life itself.
"Well, no one's perfect, Sam. Least of all us. When it comes to friends, you have to take the good with the bad. More often than not, the former outweighs the latter," said Amy in a philosophical tone. "Always focus on the positives, never the negatives. Go beyond what's on the surface and look into a person's heart. That's what counts most. That's what makes a friend a friend."
Samantha grinned. "To quote Keanu Reeves: 'Whoa'. That's deep. You're really something, Amy. Well, would you be my friend?"
With a smile, Amy nodded. "Yes, I would. I like you, Sam."
"I like you too. Hey! I've got an idea! There's a couple of big computer stores in the 'burbs with Apple departments! And my dad's pretty liberal about letting me borrow his car. Do you wanna check 'em out tomorrow?"
Amy's face lit up from boundless delight. "Oh, yes! That'd be great! We could make a day of it!" Amy opened her purse and pulled out a notepad and pen. She then scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to Samantha. "Here's where I'm staying. How about you pick me up around ten a.m.."
"Cool! The expressway's not far from your hotel. And tomorrow's Saturday, so traffic will be a breeze," said a gleeful Samantha. "It's a date!"
"I'll see you then." Amy squeezed Samantha's hand and gave her a warm smile. "Sam, I'm really glad I met you."
"Same here. Good night, Amy."
With a wave, Amy hurried off for Market Street and the subway back to her hotel. She knew the others would be wondering where she's been. She'd also have to come up with a reason for not having done the research on magic users like she promised them. But her head was already filled with visiting computer stores with her new friend. Amy giggled delightedly. She couldn't wait for tomorrow to arrive.
"What an awesome girl," said a grinning Samantha as she watched Amy leave. It wasn't often she met people as brilliant as she was, and Samantha often looked down upon people who failed to meet her standards for intelligence. But Amy impressed the Korean girl with her mind, her love for books and her vast knowledge about computers. Already she looked upon Amy as a kindred spirit. "She must be a real genius at her school. I wonder where she lives? Oh, well. I'll ask her tomorrow."
Samantha started to leave for home when she stopped and looked back in the direction Amy travelled. She suddenly felt an icy chill, followed by a feeling of deep sadness from a premonition that she would soon lose something, or someone close to her. The Korean girl frowned. She used to be too cynical to believe in such things, but all that changed when she bonded with the book.
Samantha raised her right hand and stared intently at the scar on her palm. She shivered from the grim memory of the ceremony Blair and the others participated in, of the pain from the knife that opened her flesh, of the blood they spilled to gain the power they now wielded. A power Samantha vacillated between loving and hating because of the cost to her soul.
The Korean girl crossed the street and into the nearby park that faced the library. She stared at an emanciated homeless man sleeping on a bench, his possessions sat in three large trash bags on the ground at his feet. She pointed at the bench and concentrated. "Materium... structorous....CONSTRICTOUS!"
The bench shuddered, then constricted like a bear trap. The homeless man cried out briefly as the wood and metal of the bench crushed him like an insect before he died. Samantha looked at the contorted bench for a few seconds, her face coldly impassive, she turned and headed for home.
"It's about time you got back!" an irate Raye snapped at Amy. Impatient to a fault, the temperamental Shinto priestess hated being made to wait for anyone, not even for a friend. "What kept you? It's not like you to be late!"
Amy, chastened, lowered her head. "I know. I'm sorry about that. I lost track of the time. That happens to me a lot when I'm in a library."
"Don't sweat it, Ames. It's no big deal," said Mina. She then shot Raye a harsh, withering stare. "Not all of us are that cranky. Did you find anything?"
"Er, no. Nothing of substance," Amy replied. She felt ashamed for having lied since she never did her research. "I'll go online and check Internet resources. I might have better luck there."
"Don't bother. I've got an idea. I'm going to do a reading," said Raye.
"How? You aren't near the flame at the temple," said a puzzled Serena.
"There's another way to perform a divination. But we'll have to transform to do it."
"And where are we gonna do it'?" Lita asked.
Raye smiled slyly. "I'll show you."
Nearly a mile away at fourth and Chestnut Street in her room at the Omni Hotel, McCoy, seated at a desk in front of her laptop computer was online browsing through numerous websites devoted to Sailor Moon. In fact, she had spent most of her day engrossed in the subject.
After her meeting with Father O'Neill who told her about his having spoken with someone who saw the battle between the Scouts and two of the Darkhold witches, a skeptical McCoy, refusing to believe that a cartoon had come to life decided to do some research into Sailor Moon.
The parapsychologist went to Tower Records at Broad and Chestnut Streets where she bought several videos of the Sailor Moon anime, chronicling the Scouts' battle against Professor Tomoe and his heartsnatchers, followed by a stop several doors up Chestnut to a comic book store where she picked up a dozen issues of the manga.
Back in her hotel room, McCoy spent the day watching the videos and reading the comics and had come away unimpressed, still unwilling to believe those fictional heroines were indeed real. This lead to McCoy going online to search for additional information. By nightfall, the black woman was tired and was about to log off and go to dinner when she suddenly clutched her head and cried out from an intense pressure on her brain.
Almost falling out of her chair, the black woman hissed and tried to put up mental barriers to keep from passing out as her weariness caused her to let her guard down. But she knew immediately just what caused the pain she felt in her mind. A powerful surge of white magic.
"The Sailor Scouts. They're on the move," she muttered. Bringing herself to calm down, McCoy opened her mind to get a psionic fix on their location. "Can't trace where they've gone, they're already out of range, but I think I know where they left from!"
Bolting up from her chair, McCoy hastily slipped on shoes, grabbed her jacket and quickly left the room. She was determined to see the Scouts in the flesh. And learn what their connection to the witches were.
After leaving the hotel, the girls found a secluded place nearby and transformed. With Sailor Mars giving precise coordinates to Sailor Mercury who fed them into her mini-computer, the Scouts clasped hands, formed a circle and teleported themselves to the city's expansive and lavish Fairmount Park.
Once there, the girls secreted themselves behind some trees near the park's Japanese House, an uncannily accurate recreation of an actual Japanese temple, complete with an authentic garden surrounding the premises. The others were suitably awed from what they saw. Even Sailor Vulcan was impressed, though it didn't show on her face.
"Oh, wow! It looks just like your house, Raye!" a grinning Sailor Moon whispered.
Mars nodded. "Yep. A little slice of home. I read about this place during the trip from Tokyo. I planned to come here and meditate, but figured this would be a good place for a reading. Amy, spot anyone?"
Mercury, scanning the area with her VR visor shook her head. "No. The coast is clear. How do we get in with breaking anything?"
A grinning Sailor Venus pulled out a hairpin. "Leave that to me, kids. An old friend from my days at Interpol taught me how to pick locks. I'll get us in lickety spit."
True to her word, the Scout of Love needed only needed twenty seconds to pick the lock on the house's front door and the Sailors entered, closing the door behind them. Respectful of Japanese tradition, and mindful of the noise their heels would make on the wooden floors, the girls removed their footwear and, following Mars, crept into the shrine room. Once there, the girls, at Mars' instruction, clasped hands and sat in a circle with the Fire Scout seated in the center facing east.
"At home, I use the energy from the fire to focus my psychic powers when I do a reading," Mars said to everyone. "Here, I'll need to draw upon your mental energy to perform the same function that the fire does."
"Couldn't we have done this back at the hotel," a wary Sailor Jupiter asked, looking around her. She didn't feel comfortable in this building.
"Yes, but the familiar surroundings of this place will help boost my concentration," Mars explained. "Besides, I'm still a little weak from yesterday, so I'll need all the help I can get."
"Are you sure this will work?" a nervous Moon asked.
Mars smiled sheepishly at her best friend. "Not really. But what the hell? There's a first time for everything."
"Let us proceed. We will not enjoy this solitude for any lengthy period of time," Vulcan cautioned.
Mars nodded. "Right. Everyone, clear your minds and focus your mental energy on me."
The Scouts all closed their eyes and concentrated, focusing their will onto Mars who immediately felt the surging power of the mental energy from her friends. The energy was unlike anything the Fire Scout ever felt before and it was heady and intoxicating to her. Mars, her psychic powers heightened by the flood of power opened her mind and began to softly chant.
"Spirits of my ancestors who sleep in the great beyond, I humbly seek your guidance," said the Scout of Fire, her eyes completely rolled back in her head, showing only stark whites. "There is a great evil here in this city, an evil that seeks to destroy your unworthy descendant. I beseech you! Show us the faces of this evil so that it can be fought against!"
In the wink of an instant, the pure essence of Mars' soul, her mind amplified a hundredfold by the mindpower from the others burst free of her flesh and blood prison in a ghostly, astral form that the others couldn't see. Mars streaked up and through the roof into the star filled nighttime sky, borne aloft by huge, white, feathery angel wings.
Hovering miles over the city, Mars' spirit form, naked and pristine, took in the incredible sight before her eyes as the city, it's millions of lights was spread out before her. Sparkling crystal tears streamed down her cheeks in rivers from how beautiful she felt, making her wish she could stay like this forever. Here, she was free of human worries, human concerns, human frailties and weaknesses. But that also meant she was also apart from Serena. That sobered the Fire Scout instantly. Mars got to work and scanned the region, her psychic senses attuned to the evil which she sought.
Her mind touched the spirits of four young women in the northern area of the city. Mars sensed right away that their souls had been corrupted by the evil that inhabited their bodies. Mars also sensed the presence of a fifth spirit, one far more powerful and menacing than the others combined, but she couldn't get a fix on where that spirit was, almost as if it knew Mars searched for it and was hiding it's presence. Mars concentrated harder, finally, she touched the thing. Mars shivered as she felt it's anger, it's malice, it's power, it's insatiable hatred of men.
Worse, it was close to her. Very close. Mars tried harder to get a fix on its location. When Mars discovered where the presence was hiding, the knowledge was too much for her to handle. And she screamed from sheer horror.
NEXT: Black Magic Woman