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A storm brewed outside, much like the poisonous green and diabolical purple in Sebastian’s cauldrons. He stirred them in the shape of an ouroboros, symbolising eternity and rebirth. He traced the sharp angles of a hexagram for the dark magic involved. Lastly, he drew the universal symbol of love: a heart.
Plumes of steam rose from the cauldrons. They imitated the stirring patterns: a snake eating its own tail, the demonic star within a summoning circle, and a heart for everlasting love.
A storm boiled outside, much like the sickly green and nefarious purple in Sebastian’s cauldrons. As the wind howled like a ferocious predator of the night and lightning fractured the sky with its blinding whips, he ladled the thick liquids into a skull chalice, its stem a spinal column around which a serpent coiled. Purple devoured green, birthing a hideous slop of concrete-grey.
Vapours coalesced, forming a link of two hearts, sealed by the looping symbol of infinity.
Smelling the mildly herbaceous result—and disregarding the potent rankness of molten pixie flesh—a smile teased the corner of his lip. With this concoction, his so-called roommate would forever be bound to him in a chokehold of romance. The unappetising colour and odour notwithstanding, he would wheedle his precious, sightless human to drink it.
In order to tip the chalice’s contents past those rosy lips, he would need to find said human first.
“Coco,” he called for his furry companion who had accompanied him a moment ago. Alas, the basement was silent save for the fizzing potion, the late-autumn weather raging strong and unyielding outside still.
“Blasted rat,” he cursed, a moniker of reproval for the weasel-like critter. Sighing, he deposited the chalice on his workstation and snagged his dragonbone staff. Then he swept from the basement and commenced his search.
Entering the quaintly furnished kitchen, he found no signs of life. Only the moiling skies and the ululating air penetrated the mausoleal silence. The pantry hosted no living soul apart from the soil-tucked mandrakes. Only their snores and the heaven-rending cacophony of thunder were audible inside the narrow room.
In the living area, by the guttering fires of the hearth, he sensed unsettling movement.
“Lux,” he said. A sphere of luminosity lit the skeletal cage crowning his staff, illuminating his dim surroundings.
What he witnessed in the dome of light greatly enlivened the beating of his heart.
At the foot of the stairs leading up to the bedchambers slithered a monstrous creature the size of a rolling pin. Body flat and segmented, it sprouted a dozen bony and sturdy legs on each side, its antennae sharp as mirror shards.
“A centibeast!” he yelled, naming the harbinger of evil and ill omen.
The large insectoid’s stare was moored to him in mockery. As though to challenge him as well, it stood up, raising its front half menacingly. It hissed and clicked, then screeched, a sound like claws grooving his windows instead of a rainstorm.
“Have you appeared to curse me for what I have brewed?” Raising his staff, he slammed it back down, sending a ripple of magical energy at the fiend. The intelligent beast dodged by crawling up a few steps. “I won’t let you interfere,” he snarled, bearing down on it as it scampered upstairs.
The infernal thing was fast and nimble, dodging his spells with supernatural ease. The windows of his bedchamber were lashed by hellish rain, shook by brutal winds, and all but shattered from the blasts of magic as he chased the centibeast. He thought he had it cornered when he flung the door closed with a theatrical wave of his staff, but the eyesore did what he had not known the species to be capable of: it shrunk itself to resemble its lesser kin and slipped underneath the door back to the corridor.
Hurrying after it, he spotted it by the stairs again, changed back to its terrifying proportions. Charred and splintered wood from enchanted fire was left in their wake as they raced back downstairs. However, no amount and variety of spells could detain the slippery insect, and no obstacle could thwart its speedy sprint for the basement door.
“Oh no you won’t,” Sebastian fumed, setting afire the bottom of the door instead of the centipede; it had shrunken again to fit through the gap. A splash of conjured water washed away the flames before they could soar. Throwing himself through the door, he dashed after the centibeast before it could wreak havoc in his sacred workspace.
Basement revisited, he lost sight of it. He saw no movement anywhere—not by his neatly organised jars of cyclops eyes and siren tongues nor the vials of virgin blood and troll bogeys.
No sooner had he begun to overturn every table and shelf than he noticed the absence of what he deemed paramount.
The chalice—it was missing.
“Looking for this?”
Sebastian whipped his head to whence he’d come. Standing at the bottom of the stairs was the man he had saved from a pack of werewolves and sheltered for months. A sly smile played on those enticing lips. The chalice was in his grasp, but to Sebastian’s chagrin, it was empty.
“Ominis,” he said, forgetting the centibeast as he surveyed the complacency written all over his associate. “What have you done?”
“Saved myself—and by extension, you—from your idiocy.” Stroking the serpent wound around the chalice’s stem, Ominis sighed and smiled wryly. “I thought you trusted me.”
“I do,” Sebastian lied. He wanted to; he’d granted the comely man with freedom to come and go as he pleased, though he had been loath to do so. There was nothing stopping him from leaving and never returning, not with Sebastian’s bestowal of heightened senses aiding his navigation. Shattering Ominis’ trust in him completely had been out of the question, hence no physical means of making him stay.
Hence the love potion.
“What did you do with the potion?” he deflected, dreading the answer.
“I threw it outside,” Ominis confessed dispassionately. “The storm will consign that devil’s brew to where it belongs.”
“You…” Sebastian seethed, fist clenching around the staff. “You don’t know what you’ve done.” It almost sounded like a warning, though a trained ear could pick up the vibrations of despondency.
Magic crackled at the tip of his staff, his emotions getting the better of him. With his plans foiled, Ominis would never trust him again. In a few beats, Ominis would announce his departure from his humble dwelling for good.
Sebastian could not afford such misfortune to befall him.
“Oh, but I do,” said Ominis, undaunted by the sorcerer's ambivalence. Tossing the chalice to the ground unapologetically—the clatter deepening the furrows between Sebastian’s brows—Ominis closed the distance between them. “I’ve done us both a favour. You ought to thank me for this.”
“Ominis,” Sebastian said. He clasped a hand on the man’s shoulder and kept his voice level. “We’ll discuss this later. I followed a dangerous creature down here, a harbinger of chaos and bad luck. I need to find it and put an end to it.” He spun on his heel, narrowed eyes raking the width and length of the basement. “Stay close to me. I will perform a tracking spe—”
His body was twisted back to face Ominis mid-sentence. A magic foreign to him surged forth in that instant: upon his lips sat the ones he had longed to feel and taste ever since he’d come to care for the magicless youth.
Caught by surprise, Sebastian had barely the time to process or kiss back. It was broken far too soon, but he didn’t dive for more, the need for answers surpassing his baser cravings.
Ominis beat him to it. “Why do you think I stay with you, Sebastian? After all these months bearing witness to your dark practices, why do you suppose I’m still here?”
“Because…” Feeling uneasiness and shame besiege him, he said in a quiet voice, “You’re afraid of what I’ll do if you leave.”
A soft snort is not what Sebastian expected as a response, nor any of what followed.
“So predictable.” There was no malice in Ominis’ tone—just a note of amusement. “I don’t wish to leave because in spite of your proclivity for dark magic and sorcerous mishaps, you have shown me nothing but kindness and hospitality.” His hand rose to cup Sebastian’s heating cheek. “And affection I’ve not had the pleasure of familiarising myself with before.”
Sebastian’s heartbeat accelerated, this time from feelings ostensibly reciprocated. “So…” he started, peering deep into the wintry blues of his love’s eyes. “I don’t have to fear that you’ll abandon me one day?”
Ominis shook his head. Lifting Sebastian’s free hand, he kissed one of the knuckles. “That is the last thing I’ll ever do. I was ostracised by my family—how could I ever do the same to someone I care deeply for?”
Warmth mightier than the fires of purgatory embraced Sebastian’s recluse heart. His long-sought desires of companionship were fulfilled at last.
But the time of celebrations was not upon them yet.
“Wait,” he said, remembering something vital. “Coco is missing, and so is the accursed centibeast. We have to find them.”
To his great perplexion, Ominis stifled a chuckle.
“What?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “Why are you…” And then it struck him, a sliver of a puzzle piece, like a bolt of lightning straight through the roof and floor of his abode.
“Catching on?” Ominis said playfully.
“Ominis,” Sebastian enunciated. “How did you know what that potion was or that I was even brewing it?”
Ominis’ smile was angelic, too innocent for the occasion. “Coco told me.”
Sebastian baulked. “He told you?”
“Yes.” Ominis chuckled again. “He’s not so difficult to understand once you take the time to truly listen.” Crossing his arms, he added, “Isn’t that right, Coco?”
A sack of desiccated goblin remains rustled on their right. Out from it crawled none other than the portentous centibeast.
Sebastian’s reflexes bid him to exterminate the demonic spawn once and for all, but lo and behold, it began to transform right before his eyes. He was forced to stay his hand and watch with bated breath as the magic unveiled.
The rows of repugnant legs retracted into its body, the antennae swiftly disappearing into its head. Like grass, fur grew from its back and its sides until it was completely covered in a soft and warm coat. Penultimately, a fluffy tail stretched from its rear, swinging like an excited puppy’s. And lastly, a whiskered snout and a pair round ears and small obsidian eyes blinked into existence.
The ferret panted happily and bounced forward to leap into his master’s loving arms.
“Coco?” Sebastian said, holding his wondrous pet in awe. He laughed when he received a shower of licks to his cheek. “How?”
“The great sorcerer didn’t know his pet was a shapeshifter?” Ominis teased with a laugh of his own. “How shameful.”
Ceasing the wet kisses, Coco leant back with his paws planted below Sebastian’s collarbone. His tongue stuck out, almost as if making light fun of him too.
One didn’t need a scholarly background to piece together that Coco was no ordinary ferret; it had been clear as day ever since he’d rescued the poor animal from bleeding out on a bear trap. Understanding human speech to an astonishing extent, his mannerisms sometimes uncannily human-like and his capacity for learning were more than enough proof of his unique intelligence. Bestiaries held no record of such arcane creature—therefore he’d never figured out where Coco’s true capabilities lay until now.
“Once I was privy to your abysmal plan,” Ominis continued, “we hatched a plan of our own. Coco assured me he knew exactly how to distract you while I got rid of the potion. Imagine my surprise—and frankly, sheer terror—when he demonstrated his ability right in my lap.” A visible shiver shook Ominis to his core.
Coco yapped in mock affront.
“No offence. Never been thrilled about normal-sized insects crawling on me either.”
“You little rascal,” laughed Sebastian as Coco crested his shoulder. He scratched the fur-collared neck fondly. “You never cease to surprise me. Is there anything you can’t do?”
Coco dooked rhythmically into his ear.
“He says he can’t do magic like you,” Ominis translated, “but he’d be eager to learn more.”
“You really understand him?” Sebastian marvelled, in awe the second time.
Ominis shrugged like it was a trifling matter, but smiled proudly all the same. “I must have been a ferret whisperer in my previous life.”
Chuckling, Sebastian took to playing with a flyaway strand of Ominis’ hair. “That gift seems to have followed you from one life to the next.”
The smirk from earlier returned to Ominis’ lips, a touch more coy now. “And you?” He seized Sebastian’s hand and placed it against his cheek. “Can I trust you to do the same?”
Indulging in his dream come true, Sebastian brought his mouth upon Ominis’ for a deeper exchange of their budding love. Coco sang a chirp-filled tune for them and imitated an applause with his front paws.
They tittered into the kiss. Sebastian let his lips linger, commiting the gentle touch to memory before pulling away. “Does that answer your question?”
“I don’t know. Does it?” The teasing tone made a grand comeback. Applying distance, Ominis suggested with a glint of mischief in his eye, “Let’s put it to the test. I expect you to arrive in my bedchamber shortly. Whether I meet you there or not, I’ll have my answer.”
Dooking joyfully, Coco hopped onto Ominis’ shoulder just as the seductive man swayed his hips up the stairs. Raising his paw, he gesticulated for Sebastian to follow. The sorcerer could have sworn he even heard a faint “Hurry” from the ferret’s continuous string of vocals.
Smiling triumphantly, Sebastian traced the steps of his beau. Being a sorcerer of ill repute, he concluded, wasn’t so bad with two remarkable companions by his side.