Mable was already running toward the house. She was a small woman with frail, bony arms sticking out from her tartan dress of green and brown. Her hair was gray and thin and she wore thick-rimmed glasses high on her nose. Like Vera her disguise, such as it was, fell short of convincing, especially due to the lines of rhinestones studded up the seams of her stockings from shoe to hem along her calves. Or were they real diamonds? The fragile woman sprinted up the steps onto the modest front porch and banged on the storm door. She waited only a breath before pulling it open and pounding loudly on the front door itself, the knocker no where to be seen save for a clean silhouette amongst the grime. Again there was no answer. Mable tried the knob to no avail, she even pushed against the door before spinning around to look at Vera who was now slowly walking up the crooked footpath to the porch. "It won't budge, I can't get in!" she exclaimed frantically. "That is why I'm here," Vera replied. She raised a hand and instantly the door exploded inward. The knob, along with its lock, went spinning into the air while dust and splinters rained over the door that was broken in half having landed several feet inside the house. I came behind her, the three of us stopping just shy of the threshhold and peering down a dark hallway that ended in a ramshackle kitchen littered with shattered beer bottles and cigarette butts. There was a small window over the sink with a thin, yellow curtain on a rack glowing with the morning light. It was the only illumination in the entire house but even in the dim we could see two legs splayed on the kitchen floor, the rest of the body out of sight and alarmingly still. Vera turned toward the footmen by the cars and began backtracking towards them. "Mitkovski, fetch the police at once, there's been a murder." Meanwhile Mable wailed in a sudden pang of grief. She started to run down the hallway but no sooner had she set foot inside the darkness a man appeared to block her path. His buttoned shirt was stained in drink and blotches of brown. His cropped hair was black and his face unshaven and puffy. A cigarette hung loose in the corner of his mouth and slowly - *slowly* he walked towards us over the destroyed front door. "The fuck is this?" he said in a voice more youthful than his countenance would have suggested. Mable screamed, not in fear but in abject hatred. "YOU! YOU KILLED HER!" she flung herself forward to meet the man halfway down the hall. When she was upon him her meager fists struck his chest like stems of pale roses beating against a rock. "YOU MONSTER, YOU KILLED HER! YOU KILLED HER!" The man carelessly grabbed Mable by her wrists and threw her away from him. As she steadied herself the man pulled back a hand and then in a violent rush of motion struck the woman so hard she twirled and hit the wall, crumpling into a heap on the floor at his feet. Her glasses were knocked from her face and broke as they too met the wall and skidded across the corridor. He had just long enough to pull the cigarette between two fingers and let out a cloud of acrid smoke. His indifferent gaze met mine and somewhere deep inside of me I felt a primal surge of aggression like I'd never felt before. Without any sense of caution or reason I hurled myself at him with fists swinging. I was high on the adrenaline. I wasn't thinking. Only fixating on taking him down. I managed to land one good shot to his jaw which nearly broke my hand. But the man didn't even seem to feel it. He turned his face toward me with an expression of rage that matched my own and before I knew what was happening his fingers were locked around my throat, forcing me backwards as if into a baptismal plunge. But before I met the floor his crushing grip lifted me again and pinned me against the wall as easily as though I were made of feathers. His hand was so strong. No matter how I scratched and pried I couldn't get even a single digit to relent, the air stopped perfectly in my lungs and the blood in my face feeling as though it would burst. "Did you think I'd stop with my wife?" the man spoke with words curdled by the alcohol on his breath. With his other hand he brought the cigarette to his mouth again and inhaled deeply before releasing the smoke directly into my face. If I could have choked on it I would have. In the proximity I noticed drops of blood still speckling his forehead and chin, and still more on his ear and one cheek. But not a hint of perspiration. He wasn't even breaking a sweat. And then he brought the lit end closer. Slowly. Closer. I could almost hear it sizzling as it burned, closer and closer until I realized he was directing it at my left eye. I saw the red glow like a sunset. I squeezed my eyelids tight. I tried to scream but not even a gurgling whimper could escape his powerful grasp. And gradually my vision started changing from black to white, and a swoon took hold of me. It felt like a lifetime in that one moment. But then, suddenly, the hand was removed and once again air swarmed into my body and I gasped greedily for life. My eyes were full of tears and I coughed hoarsely thinking that I would vomit. Mable was there, gathering me up as best as she could and trying to get me to my feet. I heard a blast and felt chips of wood sprinkle my back and legs. Mable and I crouched together and headed towards the open front door where Vera's hand was outstretched, her eyes more red than violet. From the porch Mable and I turned to watch. Vera sent another shock of invisible energy into the depth of the house that caught the man full-front and carried him bodily to the kitchen. Amazingly he tremored only a little before picking himself back up using the kitchen sink for leverage. He grunted loudly, animalistically, and then laughed. The man sauntered as though the whole thing were amusing, a smirk pinned into the scruff of his face. In a relaxed movement he stooped to retrieve the cigarette from the floor where it had fallen. "I'm not done yet, by God. And you ain't leavin' here alive, bitch." The man brought the cigarette to his mouth again. Vera gestured a final time and it burst into a plume of fire right in his face. In an instant the flames engulfed the man's head and shoulders so that they caught his shirt and hair. He screamed and slapped at himself in vain. He tried to run but could only slam himself into walls before finding his way back into the kitchen and then out of view. An unsettling quiet then followed. And then an orange light that quickly brightened the dark room at the end of the hall. The remaining footman ran past us from behind and into the house. He grabbed the young woman's body and lifted her onto his back in an impressive feat of strength. She was bruised and bloodied, her features badly swollen, her hair matted, and her dress torn open. When she was laid on the front lawn Mable was next to her on her knees sobbing uncontrollably. She cradled the girl's head and wept without reserve. Broken. Possessed by grief just as if the girl were her very own daughter... It was horrific to witness. "Look, Bathsheba," Vera said solemnly at my side as we watched. "This is magic. One must never be afraid to do the right thing. For those with the power, sometimes doing good means deciding who lives and who dies. This is the nature of our decisions. And such is the burden of our responsibility." The ongoing fire made its presence known. The interior of the house was swiftly being consumed, eaten from within. Vera and I turned to look at each other, ignoring both the scene on the grass and inside the house on either side of us. I tried to speak but couldn't, my throat swelling and anguished. Vera put a hand to my neck and I felt warmth. The throbbing, tight pain in my throat gave way like a cramp that suddenly relaxes and I swallowed normally. "May I ask you something," I inquired, putting my own hands to my neck in disbelief that I could speak again. Vera tilted her head to one side and awaited the question. I cleared my throat, still expecting the words to choke me and surprised by the unnatural ease with which I could speak. "Do you... do you *want* the Diminishing to happen?" The woman smiled and pulled me to herself in an embrace. She squeezed me once and then relinquished me, placing her hands on my shoulders. "You are wise to ask. And I can see the attraction to turning one's back on magic altogether. Would it not be easier to refuse the responsibility, leave the world to run itself? Would I or anyone else prefer a life without the inevitable complications of magic? ...To answer your question, my love, no. That would not be my choice. But then I've seen so much good come into the world because of it. Because of this Guild and what it does." I thought on this for a minute. Whether or not it was her choice to abandon all her power, all these miracles she could perform, Vera still was facing a slow end of everything she knew. "How long does a Diminishing last? It's been so long already. Will it go for many more years?" A window exploded upstairs and glass fell somewhere off to our left. Casually Vera sighed and drew a hand gently over the flaked painting of the railing of the porch. "A power outage that lasts over a year or so is the start of a Diminishing. These have happened on the odd occasion in the history of the Guild, though not ever to the extent we are currently enduring. But to what you refer, a Diminishing that lasts many years longer than what we're experiencing now, would be known as a Great Diminishing and let us *pray* the Guild never faces such a tribulation. As yet ours is the longest and most debilitating fading on record. I suppose to fully disempower the entire Guild a Great Diminishing would likely require many decades to complete with only the strongest holding out until the end, probably the Hilton Head Witches in our case." I recalled again the austere women I first met. "The women who live at Hilton House?" "Aye. Those mistresses of that Unseelie Court in the swamp across the waters." "But even your powers would vanish?" "The Head always has power. But yes, even the Head would eventually find herself weakened in the final days of such a disaster." A rolling heat billowed through the door like a breath and at last Vera deigned to dismiss herself from the porch and step down the three rotted stairs. I followed behind, still rubbing my throat unable to realize that there was no more injury there. The house groaned amidst the sound of fire. Wood crackled and again the shattering of glass could be heard above the growing roar. The woman stopped on the footpath and turned to Mable. The footman was behind her looking away stoically as he stood over her, his cornered hat in his hands. Mable had ceased her sobbing and instead cried quietly onto the ruined face of the young woman. "It's time," said Vera sedately. The footman helped Mable up and walked her to the remaining car, the other having left to seek the police at Vera's earlier command. She was placed in the front, her eyes ringed in red and an empty gaze blanking out any expression. Then the footman came to the back and opened the door for Vera. She stepped forward but stopped suddenly. All at once the woman's entire demeanor shifted. She was like a cat arching its back in fright, hair straight up and recoiling as she screamed. Her hands came to her face in claws and her knees buckled though she didn't fall down. "HOW?! HOOOOOOWWWWW?!!!" she wailed. Through the open door we could all see something sitting on the backseat. A metal box studded with bolts and wrapped in chains, the whole thing dripping with water and puddling in the seats and floor. With a swish of her hand the object went soaring from the car and landed on the footpath nearby. It had a lock on its chains and by the sound of its crash it was very heavy. The woman took a step away from it in utter revulsion. I backed away too, not knowing what on earth was the matter with it. Another gesture and the lock unclicked, the chains slithering away all on their own to free the box still dripping wet. Immediately it creaked open and Vera fainted, caught by the gentleman before she hit the ground. Peering over I looked inside. But there was nothing.