The Wynne Witch

by H. P. Bayne

  Sully noticed Dez’s use of the word “we.” No, he wasn’t alone. The OC might not see anyone else, but they were here. Dez had as good as told them.

  Just in case they got too cocky in their numbers.

  One man in particular stood out to Sully now, a guy with hands in pockets and a wild grin on his face. Psycho, in name and attitude. The man’s face was a dead giveaway to the fact the OC hadn’t come here to deal. Dez had presented a threat and gangs like this didn’t take threats lightly.

  They’d take their money, but they were going to remove the threat at the same time.

  Boy, were they in for a surprise.

  “We don’t deal!” one of the gang yelled. “OC doesn’t deal!”

  Psycho removed his hands from his pockets and emerged with a handgun which he aimed at the spot Dez must be standing.

  Eva crouched and took aim, but before she could fire, an earsplittingly loud crack sounded. Red spray exploded from Psycho’s head as he flew backward.

  Terrence had just downed his first target. Sixteen more to go, if they insisted on it.

  Sully’s ears rang, but he didn’t need to hear to know the crew had fallen silent. Several standing nearest Psycho stared downward at a dead body Sully couldn’t see.

  This was the moment, the moment they’d find out whether the OC was shaken or stirred by the death.

  One by one, they turned back toward the house. Those nearest Psycho bore expressions of rage as one picked up the nickel-plated handgun he’d dropped.

  Stirred then.

  Time to move.

  Sully gave in to Ned’s hovering presence, opening himself up as he focused on the ghost. He drew Ned’s energy inward, allowing it to mingle with his own. Ned on his own was a force to be reckoned with. Here, combined with Sully’s own powerful spirit, Ned was as sharp and as deadly as a broadsword.

  Sully felt the darkness inside him twisting and turning, as if attempting to claw out from a grave. The darkness had a name: Thaddeus. A past life who wanted control over this one.

  Thaddeus could go to hell. Sully had this. It was his battle to fight, and he knew now he could do it without the dead executioner.

  He felt Eva’s eyes on him without the need to look.

  “You okay?” she asked. “You’re doing that thing, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Better than fine.”

  It was all they had time for.

  With a roar reminiscent of a Highland clan on the battlefield, the gang announced their intentions. Several rushed the house. A few crouched and fired.

  This wasn’t like a movie scene shootout. Everything happened fast.

  Eva dropped to a knee behind Ravenwood’s stone walls and fired over the window frame. Terrence’s rifle cracked from overhead. Pax leapt from the window and charged an advancing gang member, taking him down instantly.

  They were dropping like flies.

  Then Sully heard a cry from somewhere overhead.

  Terrence.

  No.

  Sully had no time to check on his friend, nor to even think about him for longer than a couple of fleeting seconds. Three gang members were charging the house, running right for the front door.

  Dez.

  Sully moved, faster than he would have been able to otherwise, propelled by Ned’s energy. Dez was in the door, firing. He struck one in the thigh, but the other two were still coming, mere feet from contact, both carrying large knives slicing for Dez’s throat and chest.

  Sully reached out with Ned’s telekinetic energy, shoving Dez aside and hammering the gang members at the same time. The pair flew backward, clearing the front steps completely before landing hard in the weed-pocked gravel.

  One lay there, winded. The other quickly sprang his feet and prepared to charge.

  “I wouldn’t,” Sully warned.

  Whatever the man saw in Sully’s face was enough to stop him. He paused and stared another long moment. Then he turned and fled.

  Sully felt Dez’s hands on the back of his coat, trying to drag him backward, into the house.

  “They’re shooting at you!” Dez yelled. “Come on!”

  Sully hadn’t noticed. He did as Dez commanded, turning and moving inside. A blur of fur—Pax—dashed past them into the house, allowing Dez to slam the door.

  A rifle overhead cracked three times more, a handgun—likely Eva’s—once.

  Then a voice called from outside.

  “Stop! Please! Please!”

  The shots stopped.

  Sully turned from the closed door to face Dez and found him staring at him.

  “You did it,” Dez said. “I can tell by your eyes.”

  “Ned? Yeah. Couldn’t avoid it. They were going to kill you.”

  “I know. You saved my ass. You’re okay? I mean, you’re not …?” He trailed off, waving his hand in front of Sully in lieu of words.

  Sully finished the thought for him. “Thaddeus? No, I can feel him in there, but he’s where he belongs. I’m in control.”

  Dez nodded with a smile. “Okay. Guess we need to finish this. Together?”

  Sully nodded in response.

  Then he thought of Terrence. He called out his name, hoping for a response.

  No one called back, and Sully’s heart sank.

  “Terrence was hit,” he said for Dez’s benefit.

  “Yeah, he was,” came a voice from the stairs. Sully beamed as he met Terrence’s eye. “Bastard got me in the prosthesis.” He held up the arm in question to reveal a hole blasted through.

  “Is it bad?” Dez asked.

  “Nah. Nothing here but a battle memento. Your buddy, Forbes, is a fair hand with a rifle though. Don’t worry. I’m back in the game. Let’s finish this.”

  Terrence jogged back up the stairs.

  Dez backtracked and peered into the sitting room. “You good, hon?”

  “Never better. You doing the deal now?”

  “Yep. Like the odds a hell of a lot better.”

  “Okay. Got your back. Go.”

  Dez grinned as he picked up the money bag and moved for the door.

  They’d feel this later, all of them—except perhaps the battle-hardened Terrence. But for now, Sully revelled in their win—this sense of cheating death—as he and Dez left the house, Pax at Sully’s other side, to greet the man who’d called to them.

  It was a war zone out there. All around them, the gang members who’d come to kill them lay groaning or dead. In the distance, several could be seen running away. Not one ghost appeared to Sully, no indication a single life had been taken unjustly. They’d called this down, had made the first play. As horrible as it felt to see lives snuffed out, these guys had left Sully and the others with no option, thus eliminating any options they themselves might have had.

  The horror, pointlessness and pain of gang life.

  Two men stood together, one partially propping the other up.

  “One of you Fly?” Dez asked.

  They shook their heads. “Fly’s dead. Your asshole buddy up there dropped him.”

  “Our asshole buddy only dropped him because he came here to drop us. Shut up and listen. We’re done with you. We made a deal with Fly, and we’re prepared to honour it with you. Just to make my point extra clear in case you weren’t aware of the terms …” He paused to hold up the bag. “This money clears Callum Wynne of any and all debt to the OC. You are to leave him and his family alone. They’ve got nothing of value to you, so they’re not worth the effort. This isn’t their money. It’s ours. You go after them, you breathe their names, you so much as think about them, we come back and finish this. And if you try to come after us … well, I think it’s clear where you come out on that, don’t you?”

  Dez gave them a sneer that ordinarily didn’t belong on his face, then tossed the bag at their feet. He turned and started back for the house. Sully cast them one more glare, before wrestling a snarling Pax toward the house and following Dez.

  Dez shot out one more c
omment over his shoulder. “Oh, and clean up after yourselves, huh? Your buddies deserve what you can give them of a proper burial.”

  They’d taken just a few steps when Eva’s shout put Sully’s nerves on end.

  “Down!”

  Sully spun, in time to see the men they’d just been dealing with taking aim. Sully leapt at Dez, putting himself in front of him as the first shots rang out. He felt a firey impact in his side and pushed out with Ned, sending one man flying no less than twenty feet. The second man was already down, someone’s bullet in him.

  Dez’s hands gripped Sully’s coat and pulled, trying to force him backward. Sully refused to move, eyes locked onto the spot where he’d seen the other man land. He was lost to the tall grass, at least from this angle.

  “Got eyes on him!” Terrence called out. “Move! Move!”

  Sully at last gave in, joining Dez as they rushed back to the mansion, Pax next to them.

  Inside, Dez shoved Sully to the wall and wrestled with clothing to get a look at the wound.

  “It’s not that bad,” Sully said, knowing full well Dez would want far more than his word.

  Dez knelt to get a better look. His raised brows suggested he could see Sully was right.

  “It’s a graze,” Dez said. “Fairly deep one, but it’s already healing.” He peered up at Sully. “I think you should just hold onto Ned from now on. He’s even better than having a full-time surgeon.”

  Sully quirked up a corner of his mouth. Handy thing about his gift—being able to possess the energy of other spirits meant his body had a whole lot to draw from. Ghosts as powerful as Ned fed him enough juice to speed healing significantly.

  “Everyone okay?” came a shout from Forbes upstairs.

  “More or less!” Dez yelled back.

  “All clear up here,” Terrence called down. “Bastard Sully put down is on the run. I’ve got no more movement here.” A moment later, his voice was closer and Sully glanced over to see him on the stairs. “Best we get a move on in case these knuckleheads decide to return with reinforcements.”

  Significantly healed, Sully released Ned back into the mansion. If it was possible for an inhuman entity to experience satisfaction, that was Ned now, he thought to himself.

  Free of the poltergeist’s energy, the rush of the win fell away completely, leaving him nothing but sore, sad and pissed off at the OC for taking this situation over the edge.

  “You okay?” Eva asked him as they made their way back through the tunnel toward the river. She’d been here before too, he knew—forced to play a role in another person’s death in order to save the people she cared about. Sully hadn’t directly taken a life today, but he’d been involved nonetheless. They’d had no choice, but the knowledge didn’t alleviate the guilt.

  She might have meant to ask about his injury, but for Sully, the psychological hurt far outweighed the physical.

  “It never gets easier, does it?” he asked her.

  She shook her head, a sad smile showing on her face in the cast-off glow from their flashlights. “If it did, we wouldn’t be who we are. People hardened by gang life lose the ability to value the lives of others. Most probably don’t even care about their own. I don’t know whether that makes me mad or sad or what. All I know is if it’s between me and the people I love or them, I’m choosing us. You always have too, and I love you for that.”

  He embraced her in a half-hug, holding her there while they walked toward the riverbank.

  Lachlan stood outside when they emerged from the tunnel, wide, fearful eyes returning to their normal shape as he recognized them and appeared to do a head count.

  “Everyone’s okay?” he asked. “I heard a lot of shooting and didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to leave the boat.”

  Terrence thumped him on the shoulder with a half-grin. “You did the right thing, Pops. Little good it would have done us to kick those guys’ asses to come back here to find no boat.”

  Lachlan made to hand back the gun, the last of Terrence’s weapons to be returned. “I’m not sorry I didn’t have to use it, but it would have been fun to shoot.”

  Terrence studied the SIG for a moment, then waved Lachlan off. “Keep it. I’ve got another one just like it.”

  “Seriously?”

  At a nod from Terrence, Lachlan turned to Dez. “You might as well have my revolver, then.”

  Eva stepped forward before Dez could answer. “Not a chance. I’m fine with carrying a gun on the job, but I’m not having one in my house.”

  Dez eyed the handgun wistfully before handing it back to Lachlan. “Yeah, she’s right. I trust our daughter, but I’m not so sure about some of her friends. I’d rather not be worrying about accidental shootings every time Eva and I aren’t around.”

  They piled back into the motorboat and made for the opposite shore. Once they were safely back, Lachlan steering upriver to return his buddy’s boat, Terrence took one final look at the rest of the group.

  “Well, guess that’s that. You sure we’re in the clear?”

  Dez smiled. “Judging by the begging and the expressions on their faces, I’d say so.”

  Terrence pulled out his phone and tapped something into it. A moment later, Sully’s phone dinged with an incoming email.

  “My cellphone number,” Terrence said. “You ever need me or just want to go for a beer, shoot me a text. I get them quicker than emails.” He smiled. “Yeah, I got a permanent number now and a PMC job. Not field work exactly, but security consulting. Life’s good these days.”

  Sully grinned and hugged him. “That’s awesome, man. Thanks again for coming.”

  “Anytime, kid. Anytime.”

  Once they saw Terrence off, Forbes stepped forward. “For my part, you ever need me, call Terrence.” He smirked to show he was joking, then patted Sully on the shoulder. “Catch you later.”

  Pax at his heels, Dez turned to Sully and Eva. “Hopefully, this means the Wynnes are fully in the clear.”

  “Hopefully,” Sully said. “Time will tell, I guess.”

  Dez checked the face of his cellphone. “Speaking of time, it’s past noon.” He eyed Sully. “Let’s get you to a hospital and then we’ll go grab something to eat, huh?”

  Sully patted Dez on the back and led the way back to their vehicles. “You and your appetite. Reliable as clockwork.”

  Sully managed to convince Dez he didn’t need a hospital—nor want one, no way he’d be able to explain a largely healed yet fresh injury.

  Instead, they picked up a few pizzas before returning to Dez and Eva’s. Dez packed away the better part of an entire pie before he’d had enough. Eva, long ago having grasped the realities of his appetite, had learned to pick up a separate small pizza for Kayleigh, ensuring Dez wouldn’t accidentally tuck into her share.

  Having shared a pizza with Eva, Sully sat back on Dez and Eva’s living room couch and dialled Neil’s number.

  Neil answered on the first ring.

  “Sully? Everything okay? Everyone okay?”

  Sully grinned. Apparently he’d been waiting awhile for contact.

  “Yeah, we’re all fine. Deal’s done. We’re pretty certain we convinced them to hold up their end.”

  Certain information he held back. He, Dez, Eva and the people in their lives, had fought wars before. They’d been forced to come to terms with the brutal realities of it, with the casualties it so often wrought. Neil and Drea didn’t live in that world. They were good people, kind people. They did their best to live a peaceful life, and they deserved it. They’d fought their own sort of battle, suffering through loss, family turmoil and fear. Sully would do everything in his power to avoid visiting more on them.

  “Pretty certain?” Neil said. “So they might come back?”

  “We were—” Sully searched for the right word. “Convincing. We made it clear the money’s not yours and reiterated you and your entire family, including Callum, are off-limits. If they’re ever stupid enough to drop the
ir end of the bargain, call me. Anywhere, anytime, we’ll be there, and we’ll re-convince them.”

  “So it’s over? We’re safe?”

  “You should be. Like I said, call if you need us, but those assholes should leave you alone now.”

  An audible whoosh of air escaped Neil’s lips. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I only wish we had something to pay you. I’m sure we can put something together.”

  “Forget it. We wouldn’t take it even if you did.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll take care of each other,” Sully said.

  He heard the smile in Neil’s voice when he replied. “That much we can most definitely do.”

  Still vibrating with tension over the late morning’s events, Sully gave in to Dez and Eva’s goading and agreed to stay the night with them.

  So he was there when, shortly before seven in the evening, Neil called in a panic.

  “Sully? Sully, we need you guys. Please. Something’s not right.”

  Sully had been on the downstairs couch, watching a movie with Dez, Eva and Kayleigh. Now he sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s back. The witch. She’s back!”

  19

  Willow Valley was a fair distance at the best of times. It felt farther away now as Sully sat upright in the passenger seat, fingers clenched around the armrest.

  Dez was driving too fast, yet not fast enough, the autumn scenery speeding past in a blur of golds and oranges.

  “How much farther?” Dez asked.

  Sully occupied himself for a few seconds by rechecking his cellphone’s map, their location a small blue dot on the screen. He clicked to reveal remaining distance.

  “A little under half an hour,” he said.

  The equivalent of forever.

  “Remind me,” Dez said. “If they’re seeing her, it means they’re not out of danger, right?”

  Sully nodded silently before realizing Dez would need a verbal reply. “Yeah, that’s what it means. Damn it.”

  “Those bastards.” Dez’s words had come through a growl and gritted teeth. Sully would hate to be the gang member threatening the Wynnes when Dez arrived.