After the corpse vanished, the gloom and eeriness ebbed.
Bright lights once again filled the room.
If not for the wreckage everywhere, like it had been hit by a hurricane and then by heavy artillery, Rai might have thought it had all been an illusion.
He glanced down at himself. The nauseating gobbets of rot that had splattered on him were gone, along with the corpse.
"This is hands-down the most thrilling thing I've experienced in my eighteen years." Madison, savouring the afterglow, set her pointed chin on Rai's shoulder. "Thinking back on it now… It's a whole different kind of rush."
"Rush?" Rai's aching forearms raised an eyebrow.
"If you don't believe me, check." Madison seized Rai's hand and slid it under her skirt.
A few heartbeats later-
Rai: "…"
Looking at Madison's flushed, sweat-slick face, Rai understood at last Queenie's past assessment hadn't been wrong at all.
He coughed, withdrew his hand, and thanked her properly. "I owe you for this one, Madison."
It was true.
Without Madison's help, he would've been in deep trouble.
Supernatural incidents were never easy, especially when the exorcism props he'd pinned his hopes on turned out to be useless.
Madison waved it off. "Call it paying back last night's favour. And if something like this happens again, remember to call me. I'm not letting someone I actually like get taken out for nothing."
"Of course!" Whatever her real motives, having muscle like Madison on call was exactly what Rai wanted.
"So, shall we pick up where we left off?"
The glamour-dripping Madison hooked a finger under his chin. 'Sis, I just decided you were reliable, and here you go again… Is this really party time?'
Luckily, Rai didn't need a long speech; voices sounded in the hall.
"Good Lord, did a machine gun tear this place up?" A passerby, seeing the fallen door, peeked in and blurted in shock.
"In fact, worse than a machine gun," Rai said gravely to the very normal-looking face at the threshold.
…
By rights, with all that racket earlier, the howling wind, the corpse's shrieks, Rai's gunshots, the hotel should've heard and come running.
But for the longest time, it was as if the room had been muted from the outside world.
Only after the corpse disappeared did the sound barrier lift, and the commotion drew a crowd.
Ten minutes later,
besides hotel staff, Rai and Madison's room was jammed with curious guests.
"So, sir, you're saying it was a haunting that did this?" the hotel manager asked, all seriousness.
"Yes. I'm certain. And I can guarantee neither my companion nor I were on anything, no hallucinations. I swear to God, I'm telling the truth."
Hoping to dodge heavy fines and a mess of trouble, Rai stated sternly that they'd encountered a ghost and everything here was beyond human control.
Of course, he didn't mention the golden arm.
Hearing him, the guests snapped photos and started posting, chattering excitedly.
"Whoa, so cool!"
"Dude, what did the ghost look like? Was she hot?"
"Lucky! Why didn't I get one?"
"So the rumours are real! Amazing, I'm extending my stay!"
"…"
People who booked this place mostly knew its haunted reputation; plenty had come from far away hoping for a meet-cute with a ghost.
So when they heard Rai, no one looked at him like a lunatic. They envied him like they wished they could switch places.
What a weird world, Rai thought, taken aback by the bystanders' reaction.
And then it got even weirder.
The manager beamed. "Mr. Rai, we absolutely believe you."
"Hotel Monteleone has a long lineage and a rich history. We've always served the living and from time to time, the dead check in as well."
"As for these ghosts, there's no need to be afraid. They mostly like to pull pranks. As you just experienced. See? All they did was make a mess."
Rai looked at the room like a war zone and wasn't sure whether to say "f..."
The manager went on: "Mr. Rai, it's clear now this was caused by the supernatural. As an apology, we'll cover all damages and move you to a new room."
"Of course, we do have one small request. We hope you'll recount tonight's events in detail and allow us to use that account. To ensure authenticity, we'd like Miss Montgomery to vouch for it."
At that, the manager glanced at Madison, clearly recognising the still somewhat known Hollywood actress.
"No problem," Madison said breezily.
But as for switching rooms, forget it.
After the corpse, neither of them had the iron stomach of the rubberneckers. They decided to head back to the witches' school.
After a round of interviews and photos, and warm farewells from the staff, Rai and Madison walked out the front door.
Looking back at the brilliantly lit hotel, Rai couldn't help asking, "What are they thinking? Are they not worried at all?"
Madison lit a cigarette, utterly unfazed. "Forget ghosts, if a demon showed up, they'd use it to juice the hotel's fame before they died."
Monteleone was famous for hauntings already; a fresh, verifiable incident endorsed by a Hollywood actress was a clear win for them.
That was why the manager, seeing the wrecked room, hadn't gotten mad but instead waived the penalties.
Exhaling smoke like an old pro, Madison added, "Believe me, they won't restore that room. They'll keep it as-is as a living exhibit, proof of a haunting, and draw crowds. My name will get a bump, too, maybe I'll even land a horror gig."
"I believe it." Rai nodded hard, then extrapolated: "Too bad there was only one man in the room. Otherwise, Madison, your fame would've gone nationwide."
Madison pictured it, then doubled over laughing. "Exactly! This fucked up world!"
Rai took her cigarette, inhaled, hacked a few times, and sighed. "Yeah, what a fucked up world."
-
When Rai and Madison returned to the witches' academy, most of the house was already dark.
The academy's management was loose.
They were all adults; even the headmistress didn't mind students staying out at night, let alone their classmates.
Unless someone went unreachable for several days.
Of course, there were exceptions.
Like Zoe, when she couldn't find Rai and Madison during the day, she kept it in mind.
When she saw them come back together that night, her sense of crisis only grew.
Fortunately, compared to Madison, Zoe was less headstrong and listened to Rai.
After hearing his explanation, she didn't press further, just told Rai, with concern, to get some rest early.
Part of that attitude, too, came from her quiet guilt as a Black Widow who couldn't fulfil a girlfriend's role.
"Maybe… there's another way."
Watching Madison clad only in black lingerie, her curves blazing, step out of the bathroom, Zoe picked up her phone and began scrolling through study notes.
Elsewhere, Rai, freshly washed as well, opened the bag and took out the golden arm the corpse had obsessed over. After checking it carefully and finding nothing odd, he put it away again.
This was the witches' academy, not only packed with young witches, but watched over by the Supreme Witch herself.
Even if there was more to the golden arm, he didn't need to worry too much.
Rai summoned the Grimoire of the Eternal Prison.
After a full day's work, the "mission" still wasn't complete; all he had to show was 10 Containment Points.
From what he understood, CP could awaken abilities and enhance Physique and Spirituality.
As for abilities, he hadn't even seen a shadow of one yet.
But the latter…
Rai opened his personal page:
[Physique: 1.1]
[Spirituality: 0.1]
Physique was a catch-all for constitution, strength, and agility.
According to the grimoire, Spirituality was the measure of a person's supernatural power.
Zoe and Madison, born witches, had high spirituality.
Those who could occasionally see ghosts, the ones who really could, also had spirituality.
As for the vast majority of ordinary people, they had none.
In a way, that was a good thing.
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.
Rai's original body had been an ordinary person with no spirituality, that was why he was killed by Zoe's Black Widow ability.
After Rai crossed over, the grimoire awakened spirituality in him.
But that amount was still far from enough for Zoe.
So even for his own happiness, he had to resolve more anomalies.
Rai tried investing the 10 CP into Spirituality.
[Spirituality: 0.1] → [Spirituality: 0.2]
Ten CP bought +0.1; by that math, 100 CP would raise a whole point.
He closed his eyes to feel the change.
Soon, he opened them again.
He felt nothing, maybe because the total was still too small.
He should've put it into Physique for a visible boost.
After all, if you can run fast enough, even the scariest thing can't catch you.
Rai shook his head. So be it.
No more overthinking after such a day, it was time to sleep.
…
Late at night.
While the witches slept, in Fiona's room, the Supreme Witch had an elderly, heavyset woman, dressed in a last-century gown, lashed tight to a chair and struggling with all her might.
Delphine LaLaurie, the infamous original mistress of the LaLaurie Mansion, Rai had read about online.
She delighted in torturing enslaved Black servants; she'd even mutilated the Voodoo Queen's lover into a Minotaur, and so, cursed by the enraged queen, she'd spent a hundred and eighty years alive in a coffin, unable to die: a perverse monster.
That morning, when the class passed the LaLaurie Mansion on their field trip, thanks to Nan's mind-reading, Fiona discovered this two-century-old relic and dug her up, brought her back, planning to interrogate her properly tomorrow.
Newly freed from the lightless coffin, Delphine LaLaurie couldn't sleep at all and tried to escape yet another prison to win her freedom.
But she failed and woke Fiona.
"Heavens, can't you behave? Staying up ruins a woman's skin," Fiona said, annoyed, walking over to silence her with a little spell.
Suddenly, she frowned and turned toward the door.
"Why is there an evil spirit's stink in this house? What's going on?"
Even as Fiona spoke, in Rai's room.
A thunderous crash snapped him out of sleep.
He opened his eyes just in time to see a rush of cold wind surging through the open window and door.
The room's temperature dropped before his eyes.
"You've got to be kidding, again?"
The opening was all too familiar; Rai shivered, grabbed for the bag without a word.
"Hiss… give… me back… my golden… arm!"
With the familiar voice, the one-armed corpse appeared before him again.
"Damn it, persistent hag!"
With experience under his belt, Rai didn't panic like an ordinary man; he swung the golden arm hard at her.
He forgot: the last time worked because Madison had held it in place.
Rotten as she looked, the corpse moved faster than a normal human.
Catching him off guard, it hit him hard like a car. Rai flew backwards.
Thud!
His back slammed into the floor. Before he could even cry out, the corpse pounced, crashing down at him.
Rai jammed the golden arm up across his chest, barely keeping from getting crushed.
"Hiss… my… golden arm…"
"Damn… thief… give… back… my golden… arm…"
Maggots crawling in its rotting mouth, the corpse roared in his face as its lone left hand clamped the golden arm, trying to wrench it free.
The golden arm was his only weapon that worked.
Rai could not let it go.
Disgust churning in his gut, he still dug in with both hands, locking it down.
But the corpse's strength was shockingly great.
As the seconds ticked by and the arm inched toward the corpse, Rai's panic rose.
Footsteps sounded.
And with them came a violent, invisible shockwave.
Boom—
All at once, the corpse mouthing "golden arm" in crazed delight was knocked into the air like a golf ball, slammed into the wall, and hit with a heavy thud.
Rai looked back in relief just as Fiona strode in.
Finally.
He let out a long breath.
"Boy, in a minute I want the whole story," Fiona said coolly, pinning the raging corpse back down with a flick of her hand.
"Of course!"
Rai scrambled up, grabbed the golden arm, and moved behind this absolute powerhouse of a thigh to hold on to.
Zoe, in a nightgown, and Madison, in nothing but black lingerie, hurried in as well.
"Rai, are you okay?" Zoe rushed over, worry on her face, gripping his arm to check for injuries.
"I'm fine," Rai reassured her.
He looked to Madison; her expression wasn't great. "The corpse showed up in my room, too."
It showed up in Madison's room as well?
Rai glanced around the one that had attacked him was being hammered by Fiona.
So there was more than one?
How?
There was only one golden arm.
Rai couldn't make sense of it.
Fiona didn't bother to toy with the thing. She fixed her gaze on the corpse.
In an instant, flames roared up from its body, burning on their own.
The corpse screamed shrilly and tried to beat the fire out, but the blaze only grew.
At the end, it stretched out its left hand, just starting to point at the golden arm in Rai's grasp, then its body slumped, and it vanished.
As in the hotel, the moment the corpse disappeared, all traces evaporated, leaving only Rai's room in disarray.
Fiona, unsurprised, waved away the lingering flames.
That was that.
What had taken Rai and Madison a great effort and a lucky strike with the golden arm to beat was dispatched by Fiona with ease.
That was the Supreme Witch, the strongest of the Salem witches.
If ordinary witches possessed one or a few gifts, the Supreme had countless, some said all of them.
Notably, Fiona was now far weaker than in her prime.
"All right, Rai and Madison explain what mess you've made in a single day," Fiona said, clapping her hands and turning back to them.
Rai was about to speak when footsteps sounded outside.
Cordelia, Queenie, and Nan hurried in.
"What happened?" Cordelia asked, anxious.
"A corpse. A really scary corpse," Nan answered first, looking unwell.
Queenie rubbed her eyes, still lost. "What the hell?"
At the rising chatter, Fiona sighed. "Let's just have a late-night meeting. Girls, change your clothes and come downstairs. Spalding, make a pot of coffee."
Having had to change out of his doll getup, Spalding arrived last, nodded blankly at the order, and headed down first.
Ten minutes later, in the first-floor parlour.
Caffeine in hand and changed into proper clothes, they formally convened.
"Tell me properly, how did you manage to attract an evil spirit in one day?" Fiona opened.
Everyone looked at the two culprits: Rai and Madison.
Rai, who had sketched it out in his head during the lull, set the golden arm on the table and began.
In short, he and Madison, at loose ends, went to a famous haunted hotel to see if they could spot a ghost; a man dumped the golden arm on them, drawing the evil thing to them; everything after followed from that.
"Foolish youngsters," Fiona said, lighting a cigarette. "Is living quietly so hard? You lot look for death all day long."
Queenie chimed in, gloating, "Madison, did you pee yourself when you saw the corpse?"
Madison shot her a disdainful look. "If you'd been there, you'd have curled into a ball."
"Enough," Cordelia cut off the looming spat, then asked her mother what everyone wanted to know: "Is the spirit dealt with?"
"Of course not," Fiona said. "This is only a curse."
Madison startled. "What? Even the Supreme Witch can't fix it?"
Zoe clutched Rai's arm, face clouded with worry.
Queenie stopped teasing; Nan looked like she wanted to speak, but didn't. Fiona sighed again, giving them all a look like they were dim. "You girls should read a book. Sometimes I truly worry about the future of witches."
She explained, "A curse isn't some game boss you erase by emptying a health bar. In witchcraft, it's a rule or a pattern. Unless you identify its track and break it, or eliminate the one who laid it, the curse persists."
"You touched the golden arm, so you picked up the owner's curse. The corpse was only a product of that curse, not the true body. Even if you 'destroy' it once, it'll come again."
Queenie, who'd been about to toy with the arm, snatched her hand back in fright.
Rai asked, "So the curse on the golden arm means we'll keep getting attacked by the female corpse from time to time?"
Fiona exhaled smoke. "Yes. When night falls, the curse comes once or twice, variable. Over time, the interval lengthens. Plenty of cursed people keep right on living."
Cordelia looked to Fiona. "Is there a way to resolve it?"
Fiona spread her hands. "I can ward the house. As long as you don't go out at night, the curse won't descend."
"No." Madison immediately shook her head, face darker than when she'd faced the corpse.
She had no intention of giving up her nightlife.
Cordelia looked unhappy; that was only a temporary solution. As a conscientious headmistress who cared about her students and even the help she pressed: "As the Supreme, you should have something better."
"The Supreme Witch isn't a god," Fiona said, shaking her head. "Not that there isn't a one-and-done approach. Forget decoding the pattern thankless and a waste of time. The simplest way is to find the source of the curse and take it out."
"Then that's what we'll do!" Cordelia looked to Fiona, eyes firm.
"The Supreme Witch has a responsibility to protect the coven. You should be the one to handle this, and with your power, dealing with an evil spirit should be easy." Fiona fell silent.
After a moment, she glanced at her daughter and shook her head. "I have something very important to do right now. I can't spare the focus."
Watching her body age rapidly, terrified of death, she had to find a way out, especially after discovering Delphine LaLaurie as a living, breathing case study.
She wouldn't waste time on a young witch and a manservant.
Of course, as the Supreme Witch, she would still lend some help.
"I'll locate the curse's owner. Madison, I'll teach you an exorcism spell. You and Rai together will be more than enough to deal with the spirit behind the curse. Consider it another practicum."
"I'm going with them." Before Rai and Madison could answer, Cordelia spoke up.
She knew her mother; if Fiona said she wasn't going, she wasn't going.
In that case, Cordelia would go. A teacher was supposed to protect her students.
"You?" Fiona gave a dry laugh. "What are you going to do dose the spirit with potions? Bringing you is less reliable than bringing a gun."
Cordelia was raised by a Supreme Witch, and because of this, she never really developed her gifts. However, she was good at making potions. In a fight, she might not even match Madison.
Fiona, who did care about her daughter, would not allow her to go.
"I'll go. Rai is my boyfriend," Zoe said.
Fiona rolled her eyes. "Girl, you've been here a few days. What can you do besides scream?"
Nan, who'd been about to say something, closed her mouth.
Queenie hesitated. Her power was decent, but the thought of helping the ever-irritating Madison…
In the end, kindhearted as she was, she lifted her hand to volunteer only for Fiona to cut her off, impatient.
"That's settled. Bringing more people only makes it messier. If you really want to help, think about how to improve yourselves instead of putting on a show of sisterly love."
Fiona made the call.
Then, without the slightest concern for the curse, she picked up the golden arm, closed her eyes, and began to divine.
To an ordinary person with no spirituality, it might have looked like hocus pocus.
But the witches watched intently.
With his Spirituality now at 0.2, Rai could faintly feel a mysterious ripple from Fiona.
It reminded him of the "spirit mediums" he'd seen before. Maybe ninety-nine out of a hundred were fakes, but there was always that one real one.
A few minutes later, Fiona opened her eyes and gave an address: "Alpena County, Michigan."
Rai and Madison exchanged a look and nodded gravely.
Finally, Fiona said, meaningful: "Every generation of witches gives rise to a Supreme. Madison, I'm looking forward to your performance."
Madison, who had always longed for the title, brightened at once, eagerness burning away her worry.
As for Rai, Fiona reminded him: "Every steward of this house serves the witches. Rai, remember why you're here."
Under the Supreme's overwhelming presence, Rai kept very quiet and "solemnly" nodded.
"I'll keep it in mind."
…
Alpena County is in the northeast of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, on the west shore of Lake Huron.
From New Orleans to there, they would practically cross the U.S. from south to north.
Time was tight. After saying goodbye to a worried Zoe and the others, Rai and Madison took the golden arm to the airport and boarded a small business jet Fiona had chartered to fly to Alpena County Regional.
As Supreme, with centuries of coven resources behind her and her own abilities, Fiona had amassed plenty of wealth. It was how she'd spent decades living large and even funding anti-ageing research.
Chartering a small plane was nothing for her wallet.
Otherwise, on commercial airlines, they'd have to make multiple annoying connections.
Yes, there were no direct flights between New Orleans and Alpena County, or even to Michigan's capital, Lansing.
For a superpower, public transport coverage was middling.
Hence, the American habit of a car per household.
On the business jet, Rai accepted a drink from the curvy flight attendant with a thanks, took a few sips, then glanced at Madison reading a fashion magazine. He lowered his voice, "Did you memorise the exorcism spell Fiona taught you?"
"Relax. Compared to film dialogue, the spell is easy," Madison said without looking up. "And if I really blank, I'll just read it on the spot. I brought the paper with me."
Rai was speechless.
The first half reassured him; the second half, he couldn't tell if Madison was just fearless or had a death wish.
Young people who court death die fast, that much every horror movie makes clear.
To avoid a disaster where she forgot her lines mid-fight and threw the whole thing, Rai urged Madison to practice more.
If it were anyone else nagging, Madison would've tossed them far away.
But Rai, forget it.
This tasty fresh meat hadn't been sampled yet.
Though she wore impatience on her face, she still set the magazine aside and went over the spell. Seeing that, Rai finally exhaled and turned to his Grimoire of the Eternal Prison.
On the second encounter with the corpse, even though he hadn't finished it himself, he'd still earned 10 Containment Points after Fiona acted.
It proved that teaming up to resolve anomalies would still net him CP.
He looked at [Physique] and [Spirituality].
With a fight coming, boosting Physique would pay off more than trickling up Spirituality.
Remembering how the corpse had slapped him across the room, Rai poured 10 CP into Physique.
[Physique: 1.2]
Unlike the subtle bump from Spirituality, this came with a warm current through his body; when he flexed, his muscle lines looked a touch clearer.
If only he had more CP.
Then, no matter how the corpse screamed, he could put it down with pure physics.
With that in mind, Rai looked out at the drifting clouds, full of expectation.
Here's hoping this run opens with a big win.