Chapter 6: The Witch's Comfort - Tea and Terrifying Truths
Hunter slid down the wall, his back scraping against the ink-bleeding plaster. The heat that had roared through him was gone, leaving a hollow, ashen cold. He stared at the empty space where they had been—where it had happened. The air still vibrated with the echo of that monstrous fucking, the wet, tearing sounds, Isaiah’s shattered cries melting into worship.
He was just a room. A warm, stupid room.
That’s all he’d ever been. A place for Isaiah to hide, to get warm, to stoke a fire just big enough to get his daddy’s attention. A fuckable piece of furniture in a petty, cosmic rebellion. The affection, the teasing, the way Isaiah had looked at him in the ash bed… all of it was set dressing. A means to an end.
A sob ripped out of him, harsh and ugly. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, but all he could see was Isaiah’s distended belly, the outline of that impossible cock, the blissful, broken look on his face as he was filled. He’d been a vessel for Hunter’s clumsy, human love one minute, and a receptacle for a god’s breeding seed the next. The upgrade was laughable. Hunter’s flame guttered, blue embers spitting from his fingertips and dying on the filthy floor before they could even singe the wood. Pathetic.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
The voice was gentle, scratchy, and came from somewhere near the ruined kitchen island. Hunter didn’t look up. Let the empties come. Let them finish the job.
A shuffling sound. A soft, grandmotherly wince. “My knees are not what they were, let me tell you.”
He forced his eyes open. Squatting beside him, peering through a pair of enormous, round spectacles that magnified her piercing blue eyes to owl-like proportions, was an old woman. Her hair was a chaotic cloud of white frizz, escaping a lopsided bun. She wore a lumpy cardigan covered in what looked like cat hair and tiny, embroidered stars that actually seemed to twinkle. Her posture was awkward, her spine curved, one hand bracing herself on the floor.
She looked like a librarian who’d been thrown through a hedge.
And yet, the air around her crackled. It wasn’t like the ozone buzz of the empties or the world-crushing pressure of Metagos. This was deeper, older. A silent, resonant hum, like the sound a mountain might make if it could speak. Terror, vast and geological, settled in Hunter’s bones just looking at her. But her expression was all kindly concern.
“Who the fuck are you?” he rasped, his voice raw.
“Morag,” she said, as if that explained everything. She unscrewed the cap of a thermos she was holding. A scent of chamomile and something like lightning, sharp and ozone-clean, wafted out. Steam curled, glowing faintly with its own inner light. She nudged it into his hands. “Drink. You’re in shock. And you reek of divine spite and angel spunk. It’s a pungent combination.”
Hunter let the thermos sit in his limp hands. The heat was the only thing he could feel. “I don’t want your help. Just leave me here. Let me rot. He’s where he belongs. He was just… using this place. Using me. To get back at his dad.”
Morag adjusted her glasses, pushing them up a nose that was too small for them. They slid right back down. “Well, you’re half right. Which, for a human who just had his worldview sodomized by a higher power, isn’t a terrible average.” She sighed, settling more comfortably on the floor with another groan. “Look at this mess. He really did a number on the place.”
“He was using me,” Hunter repeated, the words a dead weight.
“Of course he was, you great lumbering candle,” Morag said, not unkindly. “You were a tool. A very warm, very rude, very emotionally available tool. Do you have any idea how rare that is for him?” She leaned in, her magnified eyes holding his. “Hunter, that boy is the Prince of the Seventh Heaven. He’s also the Royal Broodmare. His womb is a contested throne. His cunt is a diplomatic channel. His autonomy is a myth told to make the other angels feel better about their own chains. For him to slip his leash, to crash-land here, to build a life out of thrift-store junk and bad movies… it was an act of war more terrifying than anything his father’s legions could muster.”
Hunter blinked, tears cutting new paths through the grime on his cheeks. “He said he loved me.”
“He did. He does,” Morag insisted, her scratchy voice firm. “That’s the terrifying part, don’t you see? You weren’t just a tool for rebellion. You became the reason for it. He wasn’t trying to get back at his daddy by fucking a human. He was trying to build something away from his daddy by loving one. The getting back was just a happy byproduct. Or an inevitable conclusion, given how loud you two were.” She snorted. “He screamed your name during his first escape attempt so loudly that three distant galaxies developed a collective breeding kink. You’re cosmically infamous, my boy.”
A fractured laugh escaped Hunter, mixing with a sob. It hurt his chest. “He… he needed a way back. To that.” He gestured to the empty, stained space. “To that.”
“He needed to be recalled,” Morag corrected. “There’s a difference. He was running out of time. The part of him that is a prince, a breeder, a divine vessel… it was starving. It was eating the part of him that loved you. He was starting to hollow out. What you saw today?” She pointed a knobby finger at the spot. “That wasn’t a punishment. That was a feeding. A horrific, degrading, necessary feeding. His true form was being re-seeded. Now, he’s locked in a cycle of breeding and birth that makes your human porn look like a tea party. And somewhere, buried under gallons of holy cum and eons of programming, the part that is your Izzy is screaming. For you.”
Hunter finally took a swig from the thermos. The tea tasted like sunlight and static. It jolted through his system, clearing the fog of despair, sharpening the agony into a clean, bright point of purpose. “I can’t fight that. My fire did nothing. It just… went out.”
“Because you’re trying to light a match in a hurricane,” Morag said, standing up with a series of alarming pops. She offered him a hand. It was speckled with age spots, but the hum of power was strong. “Your flame is a nice party trick. A subconscious manifestation of your… vibrant spirit. But it’s untrained. It’s emotional. It’s a campfire. You need a forge. You need a welder’s torch. You need to learn how to burn a hole in the fabric of reality, not just singe a monster’s eyebrows.”
He stared at her hand. “Why would you help me?”
“Because it’s amusing. And because I dislike bullies. And,” she added, her eyes softening behind the massive lenses, “because I was once a tool for something greater, too. It’s a shit feeling. Now, are you going to sit there marinating in your own heartbreak, or are you going to learn how to burn down heaven to get your boyfriend back?”
Slowly, he took her hand. Her grip was shockingly strong. She pulled him to his feet as if he weighed nothing.
“I have nothing to offer you in return,” he said, the old practicality returning amidst the chaos.
Morag beamed, a sudden, dazzling smile that made her look oddly young. “Nonsense! Two things. First, I’ll need your autograph. On this.” She rummaged in her cardigan pocket and produced a battered copy of a niche horror novel Hunter loved. His own name was penciled in the margins in Isaiah’s handwriting. “For my collection. A relic of the human who made the Broodmare Prince forget his duty for a full three months. Priceless.”
Hunter took the book, a fresh wave of grief and love hitting him. He nodded, swallowing hard.
“And second,” Morag said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You’ll have to teach me how you do that.”
“Do what?”
“The screaming! The funny noises!” she said, clapping her hands with genuine delight. “When you get frustrated, you make this magnificent growly-groan sound, like a bear with indigestion. And your laugh! It’s this wonderful, booming, unattractive bark. I’ve been practicing, but I just sound like a rusted hinge.” She attempted a imitation. It was, indeed, the sound of a rusted hinge.
For the first time since the door had opened, Hunter felt a genuine, uncomplicated emotion. It wasn’t joy. It was the faint, fragile warmth of connection. This terrifying, dorky, ancient creature saw him. Not as a tool, not as a room. But as Hunter. Weird, loud, fiery Hunter.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay,” he said, his voice still rough. “Lesson one. It’s all in the diaphragm. And you gotta really lean into the feeling of being profoundly pissed off.”
Morag adjusted her glasses, her face a mask of serious scholarly attention. “Show me.”
And in the ruins of the apartment, amid the scent of ash and sex and divine violation, the obese man with dying embers in his hands began to teach the ancient witch how to properly snarl. It was a tender, strange, and perfectly awkward beginning.