Glendale 1688
"Will this work?" Gomorrah asked as Gaal poured the infinite chaos into a series of candies that she had procured.
"Yes," Gaal answered, "the law followers all use logic and reason like a chain on the mind. Our magic will break those chains and everyone will break free."
"But will people support us using it?" Gomorrah asked, "people may be suspicious of people handing candies out to their children."
"No one will notice us, and besides, we've made sure that the children will listen to us already," Gaal said confidently.
"We'd best test it on someone that won't be well defended first," came Golgotha's voice as she entered with Joella trailing behind her, "which will mean no Leoman and no Lupman. Not at first anyway."
"Test what?" Joella asked.
"Something to free people, dear," Golgotha answered.
"Oh," Joella responded, "free them from what?"
"Evil."
"I met a couple of kids who live next door," Joella reported innocently, "they seemed nice."
"You befriended them?" Gaal asked, ignoring the fact that Joella had made a friend other then themselves as her desire to test her latest idea.
"Yes, they want to roll a hoop through the yard today," Joella answered.
"Thank you," Gaal replied, "Run along now and get ready for your play date."
"Yay!"
++++++++
"This was the candy they used on Mal'akh's family, wasn't it?" Abbey asked, making Cassandra and Lilly clutch their father in response.
"This was the candies, yes," Marie slowly nodded, "but that was their final mission with the candies. For whatever reason they did not want to fight the Pack or the Pride directly, probably for fear that in the end they'd be overpowered through sheer weight of numbers... so the candies were to insure that neither intervened until there was nothing they could do."
"They deliberately planned to drive that lioness's sister insane?" Maddex gasped, feeling Lilly and Cassandra hug him tightly.
"To free them from logic and reason," Marie spoke, "and with the idea that having several "free" young ones running around would ultimately keep the Pack and the Pride away from them."
"Such horrid monsters," Alice spoke, "the gargoyles look quite ferocious, but they can be very gentle. Frontdoor lets us climb on him!"
Marie ignored the comment about the manor's leading gargoyle protector.
"They had already crossed the point of no return," Marie spoke with a heavy sigh, "they no longer could even perceive what was right or wrong. If it wasn't THEIR way, they didn't care. Earlier on, they might have even admitted that much of what they were doing in 1688 was wrong, but after years of going a little further and then a little further... they'd crossed a threshold from good to evil... and the failure of the rune spell finally drove them insane. A good lawyer today would probably given them a defense based on insanity... that they could no longer tell what was right or wrong."
"They wouldn't have accepted such a defense," Lawrence pointed out.
"True, but that's not the point," Marie explained, "by that time they had been driven into a deluded madness that would frighten many and draw anger upon them... and ultimately lead Marie Cruz to them."
"So they went after Mal'akh next?" Betty asked.
"Not immediately," Marie spoke, "they tested it on the neighbor children first..."
++++++++
The witches calmly watched as Joella ran along with two human boys rolling a hoop that they had found somewhere. They seemed to tolerate Joella's presence as she ran with them after the hoop as it rolled along. After a little while, the hoop came up to the witches themselves. The three children were quick to follow.
"My, you've all gotten rather sweaty running after this hoop," Gaal commented.
"It's not that hot out," one of the boys protested.
"But the sweat is just pouring off of you," Gomorrah spoke.
The boys didn't say anything, but they did agree that they did feel warm.
"I suppose we have built up a lot of energy," the second boy admitted.
"Joella, dear," Golgotha spoke, "why don't you go inside get some glasses and then meet me by the well. And we'll get them some water."
"Okay, Goldwyn," Joella answered and hurried off inside while Golgotha walked away toward a well on the other side of the lawn while the two boys stayed with Gomorrah and Gaal.
Once Joella was inside, Gaal pulled a small pouch and pulled two candies out of it.
"In the meantime, why don't the two of you have a nice snack while we wait for Joella and Goldwyn to return with some water," Gaal offered as she handed the candy to them.
The two boys eagerly snatched it up and ate it. As they did so, Gaal eyed the two the way Lilith eyed rats and rabbits when she fed the snake. For a moment or two, nothing seemed to happen, then all of a sudden one of the boys screamed. Gaal focused on him as fell backward clutching at his head.
"Are you alright?" Gaal asked, playing the role of a concerned babysitter.
"Mem... mem... mem... mem," the boy only mumbled as he rolled over and and over on the ground for no apparent reason.
Gaal was about to test this further when she heard soft laughter from the other boy. She looked up to see him chuckle as he stared out of his eyes. The look on his face was totally blank and there was some drool escaping his mouth. That didn't stop him from laughing. Gaal then looked down to the first boy, whose stare appeared equally blank.
"It worked," Gomorrah spoke.
"As I told you it would," Gaal answered, and used her magic to put the boys temporarily under a hypnotic trance, "you will go home and will forget all you saw here. You will not remember who you played with..."
Both boys only answered with a blank stare and laugh, but did get up and left the witches yard. By the time they had left, Joella had come back out.
"Where did Jimmy and Johnny go?" Joella asked as she held up the empty glasses.
"Their mother called them home," Gomorrah told her, "but they said you could keep the hoop."
"Run along to our sister, Joella," Gaal instructed, "after a nice drink of water, we can play with the hoop."
"Okay," Joella skipped along, having no clue what the witches had just done to two innocent people.
++++++
"And since you already know where they went from there, I won't repeat that part of the story in detail," Marie sighed, "They began to execute their plan to get rid of the Pack and Pride as threats to them, ran into Mal'akh and her sister and their dog, and lost Solome and all of the candy in the process... though not without killing the dog as well as driving Mal'akh's sister insane."
Lilly and Cassandra clutched at their father's side, remembering what Kurse had made them do on Big Bad Island. The "dance of chaos" wasn't that bad in and of itself, but most everything else was insane and evil... and the fact that they made Samantha bring the people on the yacht "join" them in a way only made it worse. They didn't like that.
"This is getting hard on them," Maddex spoke.
"We'll be brave!" Cassandra and Lilly pleaded.
Maddex bent down and lifted the brownish colored twins up into his arms, "I'm sure... but this story is getting to you. I can tell."
"Please don't make us go," Lilly pleaded, "We'll be brave."
The twins give him their best "puppy dog" eyes.
"Pppllllleeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssssssseeeee!"
Maddex only sighed, "This is going to give you nightmares."
"We'll be brave, we promise," Lilly spoke, "with some of this... we're just getting the reassurance that you love us."
"You mother and I will ALWAYS love you," Maddex sighed and clutched his children to him.
"If it helps, we are getting closer to the end of the story," Marie commented, "by 1688, Katherine's training was progressing and those that join Marie Cruz were getting closer to being ready to leave for the new world."