The Coven Reborn
Copyright© 2026 by Phillip Marks
Chapter 11: Out-Cabaling the Cabal
Supernatural Sex Story: Chapter 11: Out-Cabaling the Cabal - The Coven of the Moonlit Grove recruits a new member and faces a new supernatural threat as it enters a new era.
Caution: This Supernatural Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual Fiction Magic Light Bond
My eyelids opened in the darkness of Nebelgutt. Insomnia would be my companion tonight. I was in Rayven’s room. The soft bump of her sleeping form was next to me in the bed, cloaked in a variety of blankets, including the fuzzy pink one she liked. I looked at her and smiled, feeling a wash of love wash over me.
Rayven had a slight, satisfied smile on her face as she slept. Her long hair was a shock of amber against the light colored bedding. I gently stroked her hair, being careful not to wake her. I wondered, as I had for a hundred times, what she dreamed of after all the years she had lived. Did she dream of me? Were her thoughts of modern things, like cell phones, cars, and the internet? Perhaps her fantasies reached back to the Edwardian glory of her true youth, when Nebelgutt was new? I would never be sure.
I rose and pulled on a T-shirt, shorts, and some flip-flops. In the darkness I crept out of the room and made my way down the hall to my office. I hoped some videos or a couple of solo card games on the computer would even me out and allow me to fall back asleep. My laptop hummed to life in the thin darkness of the office.
“Are you having trouble sleeping Adeptus Renard?”
The female voice from the corner of the room startled me but it recognized it as well. That recognition send a spike of electric fear down my spine. I whirled around in my chair.
“Callistra!” I said a bit too loudly.
“Hello young adeptus.”
The dark-skinned cabalist was comfortably seated in the corner of my office. Her brown eyes pierced the darkness around her and her long black hair was in a long singled braid to one side of her face, its distinctive white highlight obvious in the gloom of the room.
She was wearing an amorphous black dress and a cloak. A matching wide-brimmed hat was atop her head. The heavy cane she always seemed to carry was easily leaning against the chair. I unmistakable shape of Misty, Delia’s cat, was on Callistra’s lap, purring under her gentle strokes.
“What ... what are you doing here?” I stammered.
“No ‘Welcome honored cabalist’ no ‘Hello Mistress Callistra’? I suppose.” Misty hopped away from Callistra and padded out of my office.
“Sorry. I just ... You surprised me,” I said.
Callistra smiled but it had all the joy of a lioness toying with a prey animal. “I’m here to answer your question.”
“My question?”
“Yes,” said Callistra knowingly. “You can sense something surrounding you. In your own words you call it elusive. I am here to help you understand what you are sensing.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Callistra. “There is more to all of this but we will get to that later.” Callistra stood, taking up her heavy ornate cane.
“Okay I guess it’s –”
“This is hardly the proper forum for our discussion, Adeptus Renard. I suggest you grab a sweatshirt.”
“What?”
“The sweatshirt on the back of your chair – take it. You will be happy you did.”
I grabbed the sweatshirt without taking my eyes off of the powerful sorceress in front of me. She smiled again and raised her cane. Magic enveloped us.
I found myself standing in a sparse woodland of spruce trees. I couldn’t tell the season or the time of day – it was light out though, mostly anyway. The air was damp and there was a icy bite to the light wind that rustled in the trees. I felt cold air tumble into my lungs with my first breath and suddenly I coughed savagely.
I staggered a bit as a fit of coughing wracked my chest. Callistra was standing nearby. “It will pass Michael,” she said. “Just breathe.”
“What’s wrong?” I managed to croak out between coughs.
“You’re used to breathing the poison you call air in the 21st century. What you are breathing now is actually too clean for you. You will get used to it.”
My companion was correct. The coughing fit passed in a moment. It was replaced by the blast of cold atmosphere I suddenly felt as I regained my footing. I struggled to get the sweatshirt on. “Christ it’s cold! Where are we?”
Callistra smiled slyly. “Nebelgutt,” she said.
“What?”
“This is the site that will be Nebelgutt. We are standing below the exact area that serves as your office,” answered Callistra.
I coughed again as I tried to respond.
“It is approximately 10,000 BC. It is the end of the final Wisconsinan Stage of the Ice Age.” Callistra pointed. “In that direction about 400 or so miles away is the edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. One day, Nebelgutt will stand here. Look around Michael.”
My breathing stabilized. It was cold – high thirties Fahrenheit maybe – and the woodland was very damp. A thin mist roiled between the trees and there was a lot of water on the ground. It looked clear, like glacial melt water. My eyes continued to scan the trees around me. Interspersed between them were primitive icons: woven banners of feathers and whicker-work, skull poles, and a full-sized totem. In the middle was a crude altar of earth and stone. A fur clad figure was hunched over it.
My eyes went wide. “Nebelgutt was built on a burial ground?”
Callistra snorted. “Nothing so mundane. The Paleo-Indians that live here have only the barest concept of spirituality. This is a ley-line nexus – they of course cannot use those words but they understand the world around them well enough.”
“A ley-line nexus ... that’s just twentieth century pseudo-archaeology,” I said.
Callistra sighed. “How did you manage to slay a demon? No Michael, that’s what the Cabal wants you to believe. Ley-lines are manifestations of the mystic power in the Material Plane. Where they come together that power is multiplied and can be controlled. Why do you think anyone built the Pyramids?”
I was at a loss for words. I stepped forward. The fur-clad figure at the altar was performing some sort of ritual with primitive bone tools. Her hair was dark and tangled. She looked almost Asian but strangely different. She was naturally changing after thousands of years.
“She cannot see us Michael. Even if she could we would only be ‘spirits of wind and fire’ to her,” said Callistra.
“That woman is practicing magic,” I stammered.
“Yes. This is where Nebelgutt started. A place of inherent power that has been magnified and enhanced over thousands of years of practice. By the time of the 21st century this power has reached a semblance of sentience.”
“I’m starting to understand. The presence I can sense all the time, the calm, the protectiveness ... I’ve always know it was Nebelgutt but there’s more isn’t there?”
“Yes,” answered Callistra powerfully. “You know the answer to the question you have. I have only made you think of it.”
“Of course!” I said triumphantly. “Nebelgutt’s a trap, a trap that Thriza and her predecessors fell into. It’s not malevolent but protective ... it surrounds you, protects you, and lets the world race by you as you embrace it’s power. Nebelgutt is like an over-protective parent. It means well but doesn’t understand.”
“And...” responded Callistra.
“Thriza figured it out at the end but she couldn’t break out. It was too late for her but – she realized I could. That’s why she left me in charge!”
“You already knew the answer to your question, Michael. You just didn’t frame it correctly in your mind.”
Suddenly there was a flash of magic from the altar as the proto-sorceress completed her ritual. My discussion with Callistra changed direction abruptly. We both could feel the magic enhanced by the natural power that surrounded us, even in this early epoch.
“And the Cabal?” I said.
“Yes,” commented Callistra. “I told you that the Cabal was old when the Pyramids were new. Mankind learned magic alongside fire-making and stone-knapping. For most of humanities’ history you were far closer to the natural world than you are now.”
“As the Coven of the Moonlight Grove enters the world, the Cabal –”
“Will be coming for you,” interrupted Callistra. “They already are in fact.”
“Well we have to stop them!” I blurted.
Callistra smiled. “Many believe that the highest order of competition is a war between two nation states. They are wrong because they have never seen the intricacies and dangers of Cabalistic politics. Your Coven cannot stop the Cabal. You lack the power.”
I thought about that for a long moment. “You’re right Callistra. The Coven cannot defeat the Cabal but we can outmaneuver them.” I was a bit surprised by the power of my own voice.
Callistra smiled at me. “Very good Adeptus Renard. You do not disappoint.”
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