The story of how I met the Witches of the Night is long and complex. To tell it in a way that everyone understands, I must explain the world that exists parallel to ours, which most people don't know exists. As such, I will start with what, for me, was the beginning: the event that made me aware of this world.
From a young age, I have been interested in urban exploration. At the age of thirteen, I joined the Braga urban explorers group and, over the years that followed, I explored the ruins of warehouses, factories, monasteries, and many other interesting buildings. But it was only in my thirties that I dared to do a solo exploration.
It was of a house in the parish of Palmeira, on the outskirts of Braga, that I had discovered during one of the many visits to the Dona Chica Palace that the group had organized. Although I drew attention to the house, no one else showed interest in exploring it. It was a small home, with just a ground floor, and with nothing to distinguish it from those that surrounded it. But something about it drew my interest. Perhaps because it reminded me of my great-grandmother's house, or because it was old enough to contain artifacts of the life of yore, not found in any modern house.
Whatever the reason, on a morose Sunday afternoon, when my wife went to visit her parents with our daughter, I drove to the old house. Taking care that the neighbors did not see me, I entered through a window whose glass and shutters had been broken by vandals.
On the other side, I found what was to be expected: a room full of broken glass, syringes and destroyed furniture. Anything of value had long been plundered. Still, I didn't give up. Carefully, fearing to find some squatter, I continued exploring the house.
I entered the corridor, which gave access to two more rooms. Passing over the remains of broken doors, I entered the bedroom, which didn't look any better than the living room. In the window, agitated by the wind, danced the remaining rags of crochet curtains. Clothes, from black dresses to felt hats, covered almost all the floor, clearly torn from the rotting closet and discarded for being worthless. Oddly enough, and despite the interest that antiquaries nowadays have in such furniture, an iron bed, with its white paint almost entirely replaced by rust, was still in the room, but upside down and tossed into a corner. The mattress had been removed and laid flat against the wall. It was covered in red, yellow, and white stains, and a shiver went up my spine as I thought of all that could have happened on it.
Then I went into the last room, the kitchen. The floor was littered with smashed crockery, and the cabinets were broken into and emptied. Everything else had been taken away.
Discouraged, I prepared to go back home. Unfortunately, there was nothing of interest in that house. The other urban explorers were right.
I was about to leave the kitchen when a metallic glow in the tiny pantry caught my eye. There, between broken shelves and nauseous remnants of rotten food, I found a door. The glow belonged to a primitive latch, which I opened immediately. On the other side, I found a stone staircase that descended into darkness. As I did when I explored a structure, I had a flashlight with me. Its light revealed a basement at the bottom of the stairs, apparently untouched by the vandals. Maybe the lack of daylight in there had kept them away.
Step by step, since I didn't know what awaited for me down there nor how robust were the stairs, I descended. At the bottom, I found a veritable time capsule from mid-century Portugal.
In one corner, I saw an old manual sewing machine, still with the cast iron pedal and the belt that transmitted the movement to the needle. In a table next to it, there was a charcoal iron. I could almost see smoke coming out of his little chimney.
On the other side of the basement, next to a rotting fabric sofa, I found a cabinet containing a tube radio, its yellowish plastic testament of its antiquity.
On top of all surfaces, there were testimonies of past times: oil lamps, slabs of slate, jars of ink, ink pens, etc. However, my gaze fell mainly on a wooden chest that lay on the floor beside the stairs. Curious, I opened it. It wasn't locked. Inside, I found albums with photographs, some of them certainly more than a hundred years old. It was sad to see those pictures of lively groups, couples dancing and dinner parties and thinking that most, if not all, of those people were gone.
Among the albums, however, I found a small notebook. I opened it and found that it was a diary. Normally, I never take anything from the places I explore, nor do I think that any urban explorer should do it, but having an account of the life of yesteryear was too tempting, and my curiosity got the better of me, as usual.
I left the house with the book in my pocket. I wanted to read it right there in the car, but dinner time was approaching.
When I got home, I put the book down and went to prepare the meal with the rest of my family. Despite being somewhat curious about its content, I dined calmly and even helped my daughter with her homework.
At last, I sat down at my desk and started reading. The stories in the diary were, in fact, interesting, fantastic, even, but in a way I didn't expect. They mentioned hidden places in cities, mountains, and even the sea, and encounters with fairies, vampires, witches, goblins and innumerable other mythological and imaginary beings.
Was it a work of fiction, or the reverie of a madman? At the time, I couldn't consider another hypothesis. But I also couldn't stop reading, because many of the stories were in or near places I knew.
When I finally went to bed, it was almost two in the morning, and I only did it because I had to work the next day. Still, with much effort, I was able to push the book away from my mind long enough to fall asleep.
2: Chapter 2 - The Faerie BarAfter a few a other expeditions where we found little sign of the Witches of the Night. Finally, a portal took us to another of the creatures.
Unlike the previous ones, which left us somewhat far from the Witches of the Night and their henchmen, this one transported us directly to their camp. It was similar to the one where all the portals started, in Gerês, with several makeshift shelters built in a grove, but it looked substantially smaller. Furthermore, it wasn’t abandoned. There were goblins, trolls, ogrons, ogres, and even giants everywhere.
For a moment, I looked away from the camp, trying to figure out where we were. I quickly spotted two familiar structures through the trees: the Bridge and the Church of São Gonçalo. We were in Amarante, more precisely on the larger of the two islands in the middle of the Tâmega River.
As was to be expected, there were some people on the river bank and on the old São Gonçalo Bridge. A few cars passed through the new bridge, which crossed the river right over the island, but no one seemed to notice or care about the presence of the Witches of the Night’s creatures. Something was probably hiding the island’s occupants from the town’s inhabitants.
Unfortunately, nothing hid us from monsters. Before we could find cover, a goblin saw us and raised the alarm. All the creatures’ attention turned towards us, and some began to approach with their weapons raised.
Almeida’s soldiers readied their automatic rifles. Even though, after every encounter with the Witches of the Night, our contingent of soldiers had been increased, I still doubted there were enough of them to defeat the horde in front of us.
The creatures were beginning to pick up speed when a howl came from behind them and stopped them. The horde then split, making way towards a huge tent, the only shelter in the camp that hadn’t been improvised with local materials. In front of it, there was the hooded figure of a Witch of the Night.
In silence, dragging its long black robes along the ground, it approached, hovering. As soon as it overtook the creatures’ ranks, it stopped.
For an instant, it stood there, still and silent as a statue. We looked at it without knowing what to do. Almeida opened his mouth several times. Whether to give orders or speak to the Witch of the Night, I can’t say, but he ended up saying nothing.
Finally, the Witch of the Night gave a piercing screech, and the creatures behind her charged us. Almeida’s indecision disappeared immediately.
“Fall back!” he shouted.
We ran back to the portal, located just a couple of meters behind us. However, when we got there, we weren’t transported back to Gerês. Like its companion (or was it the same creature?) in Valença, the Witch of the Night had made the portal disappear.
At first, we were flabbergasted, unsure of what to do, but soon the soldiers started shooting at the attackers. As I had predicted, even with all the automatic rifles and Almeida’s pistol firing, the horde kept approaching, not least because it included several large monsters that could only be killed by a massive torrent of bullets.
Almeida looked around, searching for a way to get us out of that situation. Reluctantly, he ended up opting for the only possible solution.
“Retreat to the town,” he shouted.
With the soldiers firing constantly, we retreated to the water. The river flow was low, so it wouldn’t be difficult to cross the ford that led to the bank near the town’s marketplace. Curiously (or maybe not), we stopped seeing and hearing our pursuers as soon as we left the island. It was undoubtedly the effect of the spell that hid their presence from the town’s inhabitants.
When we got to the town, we simply waited. We had some hope that the Witch of the Night’s creatures wouldn’t follow us out of their camp, but they entered the water without even slowing down. The Organization’s soldiers immediately opened fire on them once more.
The gunshots’ noise then began to attract the attention of passers-by. Fortunately, as it was mid-afternoon on a weekday, the streets were almost empty. Still, as expected, the few who saw the monsters that chased us, after a moment of disbelief, fled in panic. They would certainly not be long in calling family and friends or even the media. The situation could become the Organization’s worst nightmare. However, at the moment, we had bigger concerns.
Even with the water slowing our attackers’ advance, the bullets couldn’t shoot down enough to prevent them from getting closer and closer.
“Fall back to the historical center,” ordered Almeida.
We did so. Even to me, a layman when it comes to tactics, Almeida’s plan was obvious. He hoped that downtown Amarante’s narrow streets and constant climbs would help offset the creatures’ substantial numerical advantage.
With the soldiers firing constantly, we retreated towards the narrow passage that separated the São Gonçalo Church from the old bridge. It was a dozen meters beyond it, in the middle of the Praça da República square, that Almeida’s men formed a firing line. They immediately started shooting at the creatures that tried to cross the passage, counting on it to let only a few enemies pass at a time and thus help compensate our disadvantage.
At first, the tactic worked. Goblins, trolls, and even ogrons crossed the passage and were immediately slaughtered by a rain of bullets from the soldiers, never having a chance to get close. However, as soon as the first giants and ogres arrived, the situation changed. These creatures were large enough to go over the bridge’s parapet, which bordered one side of the passage, and forced the soldiers to split their shooting.
One of the giants even tore off one of the bridge’s stone blocks and threw it at us, killing three of the Organizations’ men.
After these casualties and seeing that the enemy was getting closer and closer, Almeida ordered a new retreat.
This time, we entered the narrow street that led to the top of the historical center. With the soldiers constantly shooting, we went up to the small square in front of the Senhor dos Aflitos’ Church. From there, Almeida’s men could shoot all the creatures that had invaded the Praça da República, including the giants, from an elevated position.
The creatures, of course, went after us, but like the passage between the convent and the bridge, the narrow street limited the number of enemies that could reach the square at the same time. And now, there was no obvious shortcut for the bigger monsters.
During the minutes that followed, the soldiers slaughtered several creatures with impunity. Even one of the giants fell.
However, our enemy soon realized that they had to change their approach. The creatures began to enter the streets adjacent to Praça da República in search of another way to reach us.
I knew that town well enough to know that, although it would take some time, they would eventually find the way to our rear.
I was about to inform Almeida of that fact when he shouted, “Fall back!”
I suppose he came to the same conclusion.
We went up the street that led from the square to the old Santa Clara Monastery, with the soldiers, once again, constantly shooting behind them. When we arrived at the next junction, we could already see, in the distance, the force sent to surround us.
Part of what was once the monastery had been transformed, centuries later, into a residential house, which now served as the Municipal Library. The librarian, when she saw us running in front of the glass that formed the walls of the ground floor, got up from her desk. But when she saw the creatures that were chasing us, she hid under it. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the building to see what the public shouldn’t even know existed.
We crossed the narrow passage between the library and the ruins of a chapel that had once belonged to the monastery and climbed to the top of the walls revealed by a recent archaeological excavation, looking for a high point that would give us some tactical advantage.
Almeida’s men kept firing at the creatures, trying to stop them from climbing up to our positions. The giants and the larger ogres were the only ones that could reach us without having to climb, and they provoked some casualties. Still, there weren’t many of them, and the soldiers’ concentrated fire, mainly when aimed at their heads, managed to kill them.
One or other projectile thrown by the smaller creatures managed to hit a weak point in the protective equipment that the Organization’s men and I wore, but they had little influence in the fight.
Finally, for the first time since our arrival in Amarante, the situation seemed to be under control. My only fear was that the soldiers would run out of ammunition. After all, they had been firing almost constantly for more than fifteen minutes.
Fortunately, the monsters’ attack began to weaken before that happened. New creatures stopped joining the fight, and the rest ended up retreating.
Carefully, fearing a possible ambush, we went back down to the river. Apart from a few bodies (most seemed to have been taken by their retreating comrades), we saw no sign of the enemy. As such, we crossed to the island where the camp was. The creatures had disappeared completely. Only their abandoned shelters showed that it hadn’t all been an illusion.
Almeida used his cell phone and called a helicopter to pick me up and reinforcements to help him hide what had happened in Amarante.
When it arrived, I got on the helicopter. It took off just in time for me to see the reinforcements’ trucks arriving at the São Gonçalo Bridge.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get any closer to discovering the Witches of the Night objectives, and the camp at Gerês was running out of portals to explore.
28: Chapter 28 – The Fifth WitchThanks to our expeditions through the portals in Gerês’ abandoned camp, we have already found the lair of four of the Witches of the Night. Unfortunately, that didn’t take us closer to stopping them or even understanding what their goals were. The only thing we knew was that they didn’t want to involve us or for us to involve ourselves.
However, we still needed to find the fifth witch, so there was still a chance of getting the answers we were searching for, even though we were getting to the last portals in the abandoned camp.
Eventually, we got lucky, if that word can be used to describe what happened next.
Like many other times before, we crossed one of the portals and, in an instant, found ourselves in a completely different place. We were among the ruins of what looked like a castle, on top of a small plateau. A low wall, which had clearly been reduced over the years, surrounded the large space where we were standing, which was littered with what was left of the foundations of long-vanished buildings. I immediately recognized that that was Castro Laboreiro’s castle, as I had already visited it several times.
As always, we immediately began to investigate the site, looking for any sign of the Witches of the Night or their servants.
About five minutes after our arrival, suddenly, we heard a thunder-like crash at a distance. However, the sky was clear, so we immediately ruled out the possibility of a thunderstorm.
Then, a shout from one of the soldiers who had accompanied us alerted us to an approaching point in the sky. This quickly transformed into five black hooded figures.
At an order from Almeida, the soldiers pointed their rifles at them, but that didn’t make much difference. Before they came within gun range, each Witch of the Night launched a high-speed ball of flame at us. We barely had time to crouch behind the crumbling ramparts and walls before they reached the plateau.
Explosions erupted around us, spewing flames and hurling dirt and rocks in all directions. Some soldiers fell, either consumed by fire or hit by shrapnel. And the bombardment continued, with the Witches of the Night unleashing an overwhelming torrent of explosive spells, giving the soldiers no chance to respond. There was only one thing Almeida could do:
“Retreat!” he shouted.
Doing our best to avoid the explosions around us, Almeida, I, and the surviving soldiers ran towards the portal, hoping it was still there. Such was the intensity of the bombardment, that we had no chance of retrieving the wounded, and whoever tried immediately fell.
With great relief, I managed to reach the portal unharmed and instantly found myself in the abandoned camp, far from what had clearly been a trap from the Witches of the Night. Almeida appeared soon after, limping, probably hit by shrapnel.
Of the fifteen soldiers who had accompanied us, only two returned. Unfortunately, they didn’t cross the portal alone. On their heels, one by one, appeared the Witches of the Night.
They immediately rose above the Organization’s men guarding and studying the abandoned camp and began shooting their fireballs again. The soldiers responded with their automatic rifles, but the creatures were flying too high and too fast for any bullet to hit them.
Men and equipment were engulfed and destroyed by flaming explosions.
Unable to do anything else, I took cover behind the tree with the widest trunk I could find and desperately hoped I wouldn’t get hit.
Although it seemed longer, my watch showed that the attack didn’t even last ten minutes. When it was over, all of the Organization’s infrastructure — tents, computers, vehicles, etc. — had been destroyed, and more than two-thirds of its troops lay dead.
Almeida had survived, although one of his arms was severely burned. Only me and two other people were lucky enough to escape unscathed.
After their intensive raid, the Witches of the Night had disappeared through the portal, and no one had dared to pursue them. It was obvious that this attack had been a response to our meddling in their affairs.
Almeida, despite his injuries, immediately began to restore order. He called in helicopters to evacuate the wounded and then one to take me back to Braga.
I spent the trip thinking about what that attack meant for the Organization’s investigation of the Witches of the Night. Almeida didn’t comment on the matter and, given the situation, I didn’t ask him. I also doubt he had an answer for me then and there. Only time would bring it.
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