by S. A. Hunt
At the end of the hall was a utility closet, the door gently easing closed on its hydraulic arm.
The hell you going in there for? Robin moved past the restroom. She pulled the door open and slipped through into the utility closet, pushing it shut.
To her left were several floor-to-ceiling racks piled high with clean linens, to her right were three washer-dryer combo machines, one of which was drying a load with a warm, steady rumble-bang-tumble. In the back of the room were more steel shelving units, these packed with cleaning chemicals, scrub-brushes, sponges, and green scrub pads. Beyond that was a chain-link enclosure through which Robin could see some sort of sleek machine with a digital readout. A hot water boiler, perhaps.
The gate was unlocked; she pulled it open and stepped into the enclosure. Opposite the boiler, she found a deep industrial sink and a big soap-scummed mirror. A mop bucket stood sentinel, full of milky gray water.
No witch. Robin sighed.
Where did you go?
She went to the sink and poured a double-handful of water, washed the sleep out of her eyes, and straightened back up, toweling her face dry with her T-shirt. When she opened her eyes again, the old woman’s reflection stood behind her own.
Robin gasped and spun to face her.
“I know who you are,” said the crone, backing her against the mop-sink.
“You do?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You’re huge on the Internet, you know.” Weaver grinned, flashing peanut-colored teeth and black gums. Her breath smelled like skunky weed. “You’re the witch-hunter on that Malus Domestica channel, aren’t you? Oh, I’ve been subscribed to you for ages. I even have a few of your T-shirts.” She threw her hands up in mock exasperation, her gaudy rings glittering in the fluorescent lights. “My friends, they don’t think much of you, but I think you’re a very brave young lady to do what you do. I’m a huge fan.”
“You believe in witches, then.” Smooth. You’re the fucking smoothest. Trying to act like you don’t already know she’s a witch. Her breathing quickened, and suddenly she realized her inner monologue was Heinrich’s reproachful voice, echoing in the channels of her brain. Chick, she’s been waiting for you, she’s on top of this, she knows, she knows you know she knows, and—
“Believe in them?” Weaver laughed. “My dear, I am one.”
“You’re one of the Lazenbury House coven.”
“Ah, it looks like you done your homework.” The witch wrung her hands. “Are you here to, ahh, slay us too, then? Stop playing coy. I know why you’re in town.”
Swallowing, Robin put a little steel in her spine and stepped into Weaver’s personal space. “You murdered my mother and turned her into a dryad. If you been watching my videos, you know I been doing this for a couple of years now—” She jerked the collar of her shirt down. Tattooed on her sternum, just below the pit of her throat, was the protective Viking rune, the algiz. “—so I’ve learned a few things from Heinrich.”
“Heinrich—?” Weaver was unimpressed. “Honey, Heinrich Hammer is a fool,” she said sweetly, encouragingly. “The only reason he ain’t dead yet is because he quit huntin’ us years ago. He’s made a puppet of you, a henchman, a bloodhound to hide behind and exact his mad, mean crusade against us without having to risk his own life. You know, you should be proud of yourself. You’ve accomplished more than he ever did.”
The witch traced the symbol with a painted claw. “Now, this is very pretty, dear, quite a lovely tattoo, but it won’t save you. Your little Viking protection rune may protect you against being made a familiar, but it won’t protect you from the rest of our bag of tricks.”
“I saw you looking at the boy’s ring.”
“I was, I was,” said Weaver. “Very interesting—secret doors? A house stuck in the past? A monster? Are you thinking what I’m thinking, girl?”
“Illusion magic?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so—being a master of Illusion and all, I know my own magic when I see it. I think it’s something else. Conjuration, perhaps. I dabble in Conjuration, you know—it’s one of my lesser Gifts. You know, speaking of Gifts…” Weaver laid a flat palm on Robin’s cleavage, and she sidled away from the cold hand, sliding her butt along the edge of the sink.
Following, the witch migrated her hand from Robin’s left breast and then to her belly. Her fingertips were cold as December, even through the cloth. “Oh, dove, I think I feel something kicking. Don’t you?”
Robin pushed her away. “Get off me.”
“Wait a minute,” said Weaver, snatching her hand away. “Did you say dryad? Mother?” Her rheumy eyes widened and she swept in, staring into Robin’s face. “Are you…? Could you be? Annie Martine’s daughter? Oh, how you’ve grown, my dear. How lovely you are now! I knew a few years ago you were sprung out of the nuthouse, Marilyn said as much, but we had no idea where you went! Oh, who could have guessed such a beautiful girl could have come from such a homely woman?”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” growled Robin, and she let out a mild cough. Maybe she was coming down with a cold too—bit of a tickle in her chest. “She may have been a witch, but she was a good person, and better than any of you. You had no—cough—no right—”
“Who knows rights better than you, eh Malus? Malus Domestica, YouTube star, traveling the roads, living the American dream, killing innocent witches by the fourscore. You wouldn’t know your right from your left.” Weaver emphasized right and left with palsied fists, then marched off in that sweeping, handsy Gargamel way of hers, reaching for the door handle.
Before she could leave, Robin had a fistful of her coat. “You better leave those people alone. Stay away from—cough—the Parkins. And tell Marilyn I’ll be—cough, cough—making a house call.” She pulled the witch close and said through gritted teeth, “You three can prepare all you want, but—cooouugh, cough—I’ve gotten a lot of practice doing what I’m gonna do to the four of you. Believe that.”
Silence fell over them as the dryer stopped tumbling and the machine shut off. The threat devolved into a coughing fit, and she gasped for air. Her lungs felt like they were full of down feathers, itching and wispy.
“You don’t know your mother as well as you think you do. I’m pretty sure Annie Martine is responsible for whatever creature Marilyn found out there in your mama’s old house. The one them black folks is living in now.”
“Wait, you mean—cough, cough—that’s not yours?”
“That thing is a little above my pay grade, as powerful as I am. And if your mother had magic that powerful, then it’s a good thing we killed her dead as shit.” Weaver opened the utility room door and wrenched her sleeve out of the girl’s hand, her expression one of genuine concern. “You don’t know what you’re gettin’ yourself into. Stay away from the Lazenbury House, let us take the Conjuration ring, and we’ll leave you be. Get out of Blackfield and I’ll … I’ll convince Marilyn not to come after you, yes, that’s what I’ll do. Stick around and we’ll kill you dead too.”
With that, the witch slipped out the door. Robin wanted to retort, but she couldn’t stop coughing and catch her breath long enough to speak. The cavity of her chest was alive with fluttering-itching-whispering. A lump in her throat. She made long, drawn-out huuuckkkk sounds as if she were trying to muster up a loogie, and some wet little wad popped up into her mouth, lying on her tongue like a swallowed cigarette butt.
Robin staggered over to the industrial sink, coughing as she went, and spat it into the basin.
A dead moth.
“Ugh,” she said, and coughed again.
This time the tickling sensation intensified, rushing up her windpipe, and when she coughed again a cloud of fat fluttery moths burst from the depths of her lungs.
Their tiny legs fought for purchase on the roof of her mouth, filling her throat. The ones that managed to escape fell into the sink and battered the mirror, dragging their saliva-wet bodies across the dirty glass, leaving smears of bitter wing-powder.
Wheezing, sucking wind, fighting to breathe, Robin braced her hands on the edge of the sink. Tears clung to the rims of her eyelids. The convulsion came without preamble, as it always does, and she loudly and rudely unleashed a torrent of sour vomit into the mop sink.
“Guh,” she gasped, staring down into a brown slurry of coffee and eggs and dead moths.
Rummaging through the shelving units, she found a roll of paper towels. Ripped off a handful and scrubbed her tongue with it in disgust. The sensation of having moths in her mouth was unbearable—after chasing the supernatural for several years there wasn’t much on this planet Robin was still afraid of, but insects never failed to make her skin crawl. That’s most likely why the witches usually utilized them against her. They somehow just knew what got your goat, and they beat you over the head with it.
Shivers danced down her back, turning into a pins-and-needles prickly feeling, goosebumps running across her shoulder blades and down her arms. The hair stood up on her wrists and the backs of her hands. She hugged herself against the chill, wringing her hands.
Itchy, so itchy, suddenly she was scratching her hands, and then her arms, the goosebumps had become this helpless, crazy-making itchiness. It wouldn’t go away but it felt so good, it was so satisfying, Jesus, she was digging miniature orgasms out of her skin like a paleontologist unearthing fossils. Her fingernails left burning streaks down her forearms. She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down to her knees, scratching her legs.
Opening her eyes, she looked down. Her arms were covered in pimples. Dozens—no, hundreds—of whiteheads. Not only were they on her arms, but they’d spread to her thighs, too. “What the hell?”
This is wrong, she thought, slowly turning her arms this way and that, inspecting the surprise acne. Something is wrong. Something is really wrong here. She dug at one of the largest whiteheads, picking at it until it came loose in a tiny plug of wax.
Two little red-green eyes stared up at her.
Horror made her scalp crawl as a housefly wriggled up out of the pore in her skin and struggled to its feet.
The fly rubbed its forelegs all over its head as its wet, glassy wings unraveled, drying and hardening. Robin slapped it away. “No. No no no no.” Her boots clomped a jig of panicky disgust on the tile floor. This dislodged several other whiteheads on her thighs, and she fell against the wall, her back sliding down the rough cinder block. More flies pushed and floundered up out of her skin. “No, no, no, no, no.” As the flies emerged they left holes, stretched and hollow like toothmarks, and within seconds, her arms were covered in a honeycomb of gaping pores. Her thighs resembled the surface of a sponge, freckled with holes.
Dead flies littered the floor around her, rolled into wet bits by her frantic slapping and rubbing. Hundreds of them buzzed and droned around her head, crawling on the shelving units and white linens. She pressed her palms to her face again and tried to will it all away, tried to picture the algiz rune in an attempt to pull a mental shell over her mind.
That’s it—maybe it’s an illusion. Maybe I can think it away. Acne littered her cheeks with lumps. The pimples on her forehead squirmed restlessly under her fingers. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. The little engine that could, goddammit, let it be an illusion and not an actual conjuration. Let it just be a visual suggestion, don’t let these flies be real—
Robin opened her eyes to silence.
No flies. She checked out her arms, expecting the holes to linger, but they were gone.
Relief crashed into her system, such blessed relief she fell over and lay on the cold cement floor. She stumbled back to the sink and washed her mouth out, washed her arms, washed her face.
The GoPro on her jacket was still recording. “Weaver,” she said to her subscribers, checking for acne in the mirror. She shuddered, pulling the camera off and pointing it at her own face. “She’s an Illusion witch. I hate Illusion magic so much. So freaking much. I am so going to kick her ass first.”
When she was finally convinced the vision was out of her system, she washed her hands, washed her mouth out again.
As she stood bent over into the sink, sharp fingernails trailed delicately along her upper arm. A cold, hard hand cupped the soft point of her shoulder, thumb and index finger encircling the back of her neck, wiry hair brushing her skin, a huge hand, the hand of a man reaching for a little girl.
The corner of her eye. The mirror above her head.
A glimpse of red.
Coarse red hair.
Her heart seemed to pause in her chest, a breath caught halfway into her mouth. IT’S HIM IT’S THE RED LORD HE’S TOUCHING ME HE’S TOUCHING ME—
Robin stood straight, turning, backing against the sink.
She was alone.
She let out a frustrated growl that broke at the end, turned into a high, angry shriek. That had to be another one of Weaver’s illusions. The witch knew about the monster. Did she know what it looked like? She’d said it didn’t belong to the coven, said it must have been conjured by Annie.
No. There’s no way. Robin stared at her face in the sink, with mild alarm at how much older she suddenly looked. Must have aged ten years in the last half hour. Took me years to accept Mom was a witch at all, much less be able to conjure something like the Red Lord. Like Weaver said, it’s above her pay grade. If Mom could magic something like that, the coven would have never gotten the drop on her.
Right?
Besides—that thing had been terrorizing Robin for a while now. Why would Mom sic something like that on her own daughter?
No, she thought, and spat again. Illusion or not, that thing belongs to the coven.
She dug in her pocket and took out the bottle of aripiprazole. Screwed it open and took two of them. No more bugs. Gave it a second thought, steeled herself and slipped a third into her mouth, and swallowed them all with a gulp of water from the mop sink. She wasn’t a big fan of loading up on anti-hallucination meds, but sometimes you just have to bring out the big guns.
There may be bugs on some of you mugs, but there ain’t no bugs on me.
* * *
At such an early morning hour, the roads were nearly dead, and the ride back to the apartment was much warmer inside the cab of the truck. She stared out the window as she rode, her mind sorting through options, the GoPro aimed out the window collecting B-roll footage. Joel rode in the middle, the gearshift protruding between his knees.
The protective algiz rune on her chest had been mostly sufficient until now, defending her from all manner of energy, ricocheting it back into its source. It still worked on familiarization and possession, which was its primary purpose, but Weaver’s moths-and-flies-and-maybe-the-Red-Lord illusion … well, it had been a bit of a shock.
But why should I be surprised? After all, according to Heinrich, the Cutty coven is the most powerful in America.
And now it is one of the last. Under his tutelage, she had roamed the continent, hunting down every witch she could find in the Lower Forty-Eight, and a couple in Canada. Nineteen of them, from Neva Chandler, the self-proclaimed King of Alabama, to Gail Symes, who called herself the Oracle of the Sands. There were still hundreds of minor witches out there—newbies, idiots, little girls who had no idea their hearts had been sacrificed to Ereshkigal, and those like Neva, vapor-locked mummies too run-down to migrate out of their own ghetto—but most of them were too embedded, too well-hidden, or so weak they might as well have been your normal everyday hippie.
The witches had no real hierarchy. They had no structured government. Most of them had divvied up the country as the first presidents were buying it piece by piece from the Mexicans and the Spanish, and ripping it from the hands of the Native Americans.
Ever since, they moved from town to town every couple of decades, eradicating the weak ones or dueling each other like Highlande
rs. Robin had never witnessed a witch-duel, but it must be a sight to see.
The truck stopped for a red light. Without the radio on, the atmosphere inside was quiet and contemplative.
She turned the camera around and pointed it at Joel. “I think you should stay a couple nights somewhere else. Maybe at Kenny’s place. Y’know, in case the killer knows where you live.”
Joel wore one of Kenway’s old gray exercise shirts, ARMY across the chest. His face broke into a warm, grateful smile when she mentioned protection, and it gave her a motherly pang. Suddenly she wanted to gather him up in her arms and carry him over the threshold into Kenway’s apartment like a new bride, which was a very strange sensation. She almost laughed, which—considering the last thing she said was in case the killer knows where you live—struck her as the worst possible thing to do.
“I’ll be aight,” he told her, “Got my mama’s old shotgun at the house. I don’t think he knows where I live anyway.” Pointing at the camera, he added, “How you gonna put me on YouTube, and I ain’t fixed up at all? I look like I been through a wood chipper.”
“You look fine.”
“At least give me a ride back there and let me take a shower.” Joel tugged the chest of the huge T-shirt out. “This thing like a tent on me. And, no offense, hero, but your clothes are all beat to hell.”
On the other side of the intersection was a McDonald’s. They crossed the road and pulled into the parking lot. Robin offered Kenway her debit card, but his face conveyed reluctance. “Go ahead,” she said, urging him on with the card in her hand. “You know I’m good for it. I’m stayin’ in your apartment, after all. I owe you anyway.”
While Kenway ordered them coffee with a discontented grumble, Robin took out her cell phone and dialed a number. It rang several times, but no one picked up. A recorded voice told her the owner of the number hadn’t set up his voicemail yet, so she couldn’t even leave him a message.