by Rainy Kaye
The man removed his foot from between my shoulders. I twisted around to my back, resisting the urge to sit, and stared up at him. He had gray hair and a matching mustache that was either glorious or silly, depending on the angle.
Against the far wall, sitting on the edge of a table, was a man dressed all in black, picking at his nails with a pocketknife. Nancy was nowhere to be found, and neither were any of the members of the family of redheads. It was just me and these two strange men.
I opened my mouth to speak. A woman bustled into the room, carrying a steaming basin of water. She wore a simple pair of gray jeans and a dark blue knit sweater with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. In another life, she shuttled kids between piano and soccer lessons.
Today, she was helping to hold me hostage.
She placed the basin on the floor next to me as she lowered on her knees.
“Let’s get you washed up,” she said. She reached into the basin, pulled up a washcloth, and wrung it out.
I reached out my arm to accept the washcloth.
“Take off your shirt,” she said.
I froze. The mustache wearer in front of me stared down, expectantly. The man on the table continued with his manicure, unphased.
“Um, I can do it,” I said, voice hoarse. My throat felt lined with burning scratches. “Can I have something to drink, please?”
The woman hesitated before dropping the washcloth back into the basin. “I’ll make you some tea. Get washed up.”
She stood, tugging down the sleeves of her sweater, and hurried out of the room.
I started to sit, glancing at mustache man to verify he wasn’t going to slam his foot down like I was an insect scurrying across the floor. He lifted his chin in something like a nod and retreated back. I pushed all the way upright, and then turned to the bin.
A sponge bath wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, but this was just…weird. I tried to shake off the remaining fog and lethargy from being magically squelched and focus, instead, on what my next move was. For now, I didn’t have many options. My powers were still MIA, and there was no way I could make a run for it. As much as I wanted to get the hell out of here, I needed to be smart about it, or at least attempt to be. I would play along, assess the situation, and wait for my opportunity to escape.
Internally, I grimaced. I was becoming far too familiar with the routine of being held against my will. Apparently, it was just part of the gig when hunting down ruthless mages and witches that had escaped from their eternal prisons.
I still had no idea how that had happened, either.
Brushing off the thoughts, I returned to the moment. I pushed up one sleeve and submerged my hand into the bin. The warmth of the water rushed up me, dispelling the ice that had been forming in my veins.
I also kind of had to pee now.
I pulled up the washcloth and twisted the excess water from it before setting to work wiping down my neck under the respirator. They had discussed not removing it, and given the situation, I was going to stick with that plan. I didn’t entirely know what was in the air, but I had seen what the witches and mages in Green River and New Orleans had done. I could only imagine what I was up against this time.
I scrubbed the cloth over the back of my neck and moved down to my hands and forearms. Dread filled my stomach. These people had something awful planned for me, and I had no way of figuring out the specifics until it was underway. As usual, I was going to have to act in the moment and pray for the best.
I glanced at the Virgin Mary picture, taking my time cleaning between each finger and detailing around my nails.
The woman returned with a steaming white mug with a psalm written on the side: My cup overflows with your blessings. Cute.
More so if they weren’t planning to kill me.
She sat the mug next to the man sitting on the table and turned to me, grim expression in place.
“You’ll need to remove your clothes,” she said, matter-of-fact. “We only get one shot at this.”
Apparently, being clean was the utmost importance before one’s death. Cleanliness and godliness and such.
I wanted to ask what exactly their crazy brain cells were plotting, but I kept my mouth shut. So far, I had been spared much physical violence, and I wanted to keep it that way. Something told me soccer mom packed a decent pimp slap. If the previous group had been any indicator, there were guns hidden around here somewhere that they would be more than willing to start waving around too.
Not to mention wherever the couple with the matching attire went. At least that woman, Nancy, had been a witch. In the last week or so, I had gone from believing Jada and I were anomalies, to realizing the world was teeming with our kind.
I seemed to be on the wrong side of most of them these days.
Grimacing, I dropped the cloth back into the basin. My hand hovered over the water. I wasn’t exactly feeling like stripping down, but I liked the idea of getting on their worst side even less. I took the hem of my shirt between my fingers. It wasn’t like I had never been in just my bra around someone before. A bikini top wasn’t much different, and going out to play in the waves was in front of strangers too.
With enough justification, I might just buy it—and ignore that I was being forced to do it as a hostage. Not exactly a day at the beach.
With a deep breath, I pulled the shirt up over my head and dropped it to the side. Keeping my head down, I wrung out the washcloth and scrubbed my torso.
They hadn’t even given me soap. This didn’t really count as a bath.
I let my mind focus on how dumb it was not to have soap, instead of how terrified I was sitting among strangers, a half-undressed hostage.
“Lower half, too,” the woman said, and I could feel her gaze on me from where she stood by the table, next to my tea.
“Right,” I mumbled. Tears welled in my eyes.
No fuckin’ soap. How could they forget the soap?
I swallowed down all the other feelings and, gritting my teeth, kicked off my shoes. I huffed like it was a great imposition to take off my pants as I yanked them down, and then scrubbed my legs until they turned red.
My chest grew heavier with unshed tears.
I dropped the cloth back into the basin and, in just my underwear and respirator, pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I put my head down.
I could get dressed, but it seemed pointless now.
Why did Joseph have to go and die? What a dumb muppet. How could he fall for a trap like that? Wasn’t he supposed to have been some great warrior? This should have been his responsibility, not mine. He should be here, blowing up chairs with a flick of his wrist. Me and my broken magic weren’t cut out for this.
And if there were so many damn witches in the world, where the fuck were the ones on my side? Why was it just me and Sasmita, and our two decidedly unmagical companions? Where was the rise up, the resistance, the fight? Everyone RSVPed to the next great battle in history, but now that it was here, no one showed up.
It was just us.
The woman crossed the room to the built-in cabinets and pulled open one of the tall doors. Inside hung a long linen smock dress that puddled on the interior shelf. On the other side of the shelf stood a group of a few brown bottles and an apothecary jar filled with cotton balls.
She removed the lid from the jar and plucked out a cotton ball. After setting the lid back in place, she picked up one of the bottles, unscrewed the cap, and then held the bottle over the cotton ball. The liquid came out in one slow drop at a time.
Finally, she capped the bottle and returned it into the shelf. Leaving the door opened, she headed toward me.
“Stand up,” she said.
I stared up at her, still huddled on the floor.
“I’d do as she tells you,” the man perched on the table said, without looking up. His tone conveyed enough warning.
I scrambled to my feet, but my body shook so hard I couldn’t quite stand all the way straight. The wom
an held me by the shoulder and dabbed the cotton ball down my abdomen. The liquid tingled a little on my skin. I couldn’t smell anything, but it might have been because the aroma was filtered out by the respirator.
When she reached my navel, she bit her lip and seemed to be contemplating something. For a moment, I thought maybe she was wondering if she was doing this correctly.
Whatever we were doing.
Wordlessly, she passed the cotton ball to the mustache man, and then returned to the cabinet. I tried to keep my focus off the men, off the fact I was just in my underwear. Off the fact that they were daubing me with essential oils and I doubted it was to relieve my stress.
She pulled down the dress, shook it out, and handed it to me.
“Put this on,” she said, but her tone was more pleading than demanding.
I wanted to seize on her weakness and convince her this was a bad idea, or unnecessary at the least, whatever she was doing. If I worked my angle right, I could find a chance to run. Perhaps she wouldn’t bother to chase me; her quiet exhaustion and despair had seeped through the cracks in her voice and her face.
Maybe she wasn’t ready for a fight, but both of her companions seemed prepared to throttle me if I tried to disobey.
So I inched over to her and took the dress with two fingers. I slipped on the garment, grateful to be covered again, but then I felt just as awkward, in a new way. The dress was not my style. In fact, it probably wasn’t the style of anyone from this decade.
Or century.
Sighing, I fluffed out the bottom a little, like I was somehow going to make this work.
Nancy and her matching husband entered the room, single file, and stood side by side. It couldn’t have been choreographed better, though I was unable to decide if it was silly…or creepy.
“Is she ready?” Nancy asked.
Soccer mom sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah, we just finished with her.”
“Did you do it just like the book instructed?” Nancy inspected me with her gaze, and I cringed away from her. “This has to be executed flawlessly.”
“I did it,” Soccer mom said, an edge to her voice.
Nancy did not seem to be everyone’s favorite person, but somehow, she had become the leader during their apocalypse, and maybe even before then.
Figured that in their time of need, crazy had taken the wheel.
“Great. Let’s get her loaded up, then,” Nancy’s husband said with a glint in his eyes.
I had my answer. Creepy. Definitely creepy.
I struggled to find my voice, and when I did, it came out small, breathless. “Where are you taking me?”
The corners of his eyes creased as if he was smiling under the respirator, and it wasn’t the least bit comforting. “You’re going to help us end the plague in this town.”
I felt like Alice, shrinking and shrinking. The world seemed to grow taller, farther away.
“How?” I whispered.
Did they know I was a witch? Like Thibaut, did they have me all wrong?
I’d had myself wrong, too.
“Don’t worry,” he said, and nodded toward the two other men in turn.
The man on the table put away his pocketknife and stood. As he and mustache man came toward me from either side, soccer mom hung back, playing with the sleeves of her sweater and avoiding looking at me. Her mind seemed far away, as if she was willing herself not to be here, and to forget she had participated.
“Well, I am worried.” I took a step back, even though it didn’t matter. There was nowhere for me to escape. Nancy and her husband stood near the door, and any of the people in this room would be able to catch me on my way out. “I just…I need to get back to my friend. She’s very sick.”
“This entire town is very sick,” he said, evenly.
The man wearing black and mustache man grabbed my arms, one on each side. I jerked back, their hands clenching tighter on me, and I forced myself to stay still, to remain calm until I had a plan. It took everything in me not to flail against their hold.
I stared up at Nancy’s husband, barely breathing. “I’ve seen that people are dying. You should be evacuating instead of this nonsense.”
“Haven’t you seen the beast on the road?” he asked, and soccer mom shifted in her spot.
“I’m sure someone can help,” I said, lamely.
“You can, my dear,” he replied, and I could feel his grin behind the mask. “You are exactly what our ritual needed.”
5
I didn’t fight the two men as they led me from the room and down a hallway so narrow, mustache had to fall behind a step, with Nancy and her husband right behind. The man in black didn’t release his hold on my arm. The overhead lights cast a dim glow against the stone walls, and for a moment, I felt as if I were being escorted through a dungeon.
They guided me through a door on the right, which opened into the nave. The ceiling arched upwards, and I blinked against the sudden brightness let in through the ornate flower-shaped skylight. Rows of wooden pews with sides painted with brown and red foliage sat empty.
My footsteps barely made any sound against the wide-plank oak floor as we shuffled past the sanctuary and down the aisle of pews toward an ornately carved door.
Nancy’s husband stepped ahead and pushed open the door, and the man in black nudged me through into the vestibule. An uncovered stone baptismal font sat to the left. The basin was filled with what I could only hope was red wine.
A cold draft drifted over my skin before the man in black pushed open the front door. Icy wind gusted against us, sucking out my breath. My lungs ached as if frozen and, as they started functioning again, felt full of ground glass.
Before us lay a blanket of snow that ended off the edge of a cliff overlooking the main street below that billowed with the red mist. My stomach felt weightless as I took in the view—first, of the town, and then the sweeping expanse of mountains beyond.
I had no recollection of being brought up here. That spell had really done a number.
I was sort of impressed.
The man in black released me and in the same movement, swooped me up. A gargled scream died in my throat as he slung me over his shoulder. Blood rushed to my brain. I lifted my fist to whale into him but resisted. Now was not the time to fight.
He carried me outside, into the cold, and headed around the side of the church, away from the cliff. I tilted my head to get a better view. The building looked straight out of the European countryside, with stone walls, gray shingles, and a steeple that stretched toward the overcast sky.
His footsteps crunched in the snow as we approached a waiting pickup truck. A woman sat behind the steering wheel, engine running.
It seemed their little cult had quite the membership.
The man in black tugged open the passenger door and dumped me into the seat. I wanted to give them no reason to manhandle me, so I sat stiff and straight, resisting all the urges to scream, to run, to panic. Thoughts raced through my brain, instead.
What had Nancy’s husband meant by ritual? For what? Why did they need me? I doubted it was to hold the bowl of burning sage. I needed to run, but how—and where? I didn’t even know where I was, but that was the least of my issues. They weren’t giving me the opportunity to escape to begin with. If I ran, they were sure to catch me. Then what? They would definitely restrain me.
I only had one chance at freedom. I couldn’t waste it, even though maybe I had already let it pass unnoticed.
Nearby, the two men and Nancy and her husband piled into a jeep and followed behind us as the truck started forward on the snow.
Besides the madness I was in, what was happening to Fiona? Randall? Even Sasmita. I may not know her well, but she was on my team, for whatever reason I couldn’t quite understand, and that was a small team indeed.
Even if I managed to escape, I wouldn’t know where to find them, but that didn’t matter yet, because I didn’t know how to get away. I was in a truck headed away from the c
hurch, away from everyone, toward a ritual where I was, apparently, the guest of honor.
My heart ached, probably at the realization it was about to be cut from its body.
I stared out the window as the woman drove, heading down a barely visible road that wound down the mountain, and despite how the truck bumped along, everything blurred like we were speeding.
I was going to pass out.
Deep breath. That was what Randall would say. It was so damn simple and so damn hard all at the same time.
I couldn’t breathe.
But I had to. I needed to escape, which meant I needed a plan. And to make a plan, I first needed to breathe.
My thoughts continued to swirl in a cyclone of chaos.
I forced my chest to expand, and I choked out a small sob, turning away from the driver. Swallowing hard, I collected myself.
Just a little longer.
I took another breath, deeper and slower this time.
The options came together in single file, ready to be examined: I could jump out of the truck. It wasn’t moving that fast. However, they could still track me down before I could hide, given they would have the vehicles and I would not. My only chance was to get up the sheer side of the mountain, but I didn’t have either the gear or CrossFit classes under my belt to make that happen.
I threw out the thought.
Next.
They crowded together.
Deep breath.
Back to single file.
I could try to barter with the driver. Maybe she had a reason to help me, a secret she was keeping, something that would tug at her heartstrings. Anything.
It was impossible to tell her expression with her looking out the windshield wearing a respirator. She could have just as easily been anticipating this ritual as the cure to all her life problems.
Ritual. I shuddered. Was this a thing witches actually did, but Jada and I just didn’t know about them? Our parents’ attempt to give us a normal life had really come back to kick my ass.