Death's Shroud

by Robbie Cox

  No, death is an insatiable entity. Just a few short days ago, it claimed Alex Barrister, the only male witch in the Cauldron Coven. Death covered Laci, but never swallowed her. Instead, death took everyone around her, the evil and the good, leaving her as a witness to its passing. Laci was tired of being death’s witness.

  While their mother piddled in the kitchen fixing them a plate of fajitas, the Valentine sisters sat on the living room sofa, legs folded under them. Maria Valentine put most of the house back in order after Baltabek’s attack, the demon who threatened to tear up their world for crimes done against it a million or more years ago, but the destruction remained obvious to Laci. She held tight to her sister ever since the Summerlands, the realm where the dead go to await their next journey, scared to let her go. Jayden, of course, fussed at her to stop being a mother hen.

  Once everyone arrived back at Rhychard’s Thinking Rock, a place Renny decided would cause the least amount of sightseers, the witches and Famallumi returned to The Murky Cauldron while Rhychard placed a still-weak Jayden in the back of Laci’s car. The eldest Valentine wasted no time or words as she headed straight for home.

  “I almost lost you,” Laci said. “I don’t know what I would have done if that happened.”

  “Probably moved into my room since it’s the biggest,” Jayden said with a shrug.

  “That’s not even funny,” Laci snapped, shoving Jayden’s hand away from her in disgust.

  Jayden rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to say? Look, I know what we went through was scary as hell, but it turned out all right. We saved the day, like we always do.”

  “We didn’t save the day. We lost Alex and almost lost you, Kayla, and Wanda. As it is, Alex and Rose sacrificed themselves to rebuild the Nether. That’s not really a win.”

  “Sacrifice comes with being who we are,” Jayden said. “We can’t just turn our backs when we know something bad is happening. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

  Laci shook her head. “I can’t do it anymore. I’m tired and just need to step away. I’m sorry. It’s just too much loss for me.”

  Jayden nodded her head. “And that’s you. I don’t like it, but I won’t force you to remain with the coven if that’s not where your heart is. However, I’m not leaving the witches, and while I hope it doesn’t, this may very well happen again, especially since the universe dumped us into the world of the Warrior.”

  They remained silent for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts, Laci still debating her decision. If she hadn’t been there, she worried that Tryna or Rhychard would have killed her sister to kill the demon. After a few moments, Laci said, “Kayla will need lots of support. She may even need a therapist.” Kayla Lewell collapsed when they returned to the Land Above, breaking down in the parking lot of Rhychard’s condo as the memories of what she did to Alex flooded back in on her. Tansy and Wanda scooped her up and carried her off, both telling her they were always there for her as they reminded her none of what happened was her fault.

  Jayden nodded. “She has the Cauldron Coven, and Tansy will make sure Kayla gets whatever help she needs.”

  “How will Alex’s parents even cope with this?” Laci asked. “They don’t even have a body to bury, nothing to help them mourn.”

  “Famallumi offered to help with that.” Jayden turned so she faced her sister. “He will use his power to conjure up Alex’s likeness, so his parents can put him to rest. It won’t be easy for them, but at least it’s a form of closure.”

  Laci just nodded, not sure she agreed with her sister. There would be no Recapturing Ceremony this time, a ritual witches use to reclaim the residue of power leftover after one of their coven dies, since Alex used his power to seal the Nether. There truly was nothing of him left except his sacrifice. Over the past few weeks, there had been so much death that it clung to Laci like a dark shroud. She grew tired of death always surrounding her, the dark cloak almost suffocating her. She wondered if she would ever truly be free of it, even if she abandoned the Cauldron Coven.

  “Dinner is ready,” Maria Valentine called from the kitchen. “Come eat while it’s hot.”

  Laci and Jayden pushed themselves off the couch and made their way to the kitchen. “What are you going to do now?” Jayden asked her sister. “I mean, you still don’t have a job, you don’t want to be in the coven any more, and you’re basically starting over. Again. So what’s your plan?”

  They both slid into chairs around the small table as their mother put plates of the steaming fajitas in front of them. “Stop rushing her,” she said to Jayden. “Laci doesn’t need to make any decisions just yet. Give her time to breathe a little.”

  Laci watched Jayden roll her eyes. “Do you need time to breathe, Laci?” the youngest of the Valentines asked. “Breathing seems so mundane after everything we’ve been through.”

  “Which is why she needs it,” their mother said as she joined them at the table, her own plate in her hands. “Sometimes, we all need to take some time and catch our breath. No need making decisions when stressed or because we feel we have to be doing something. Leave her be.”

  “Actually, I was thinking of going back to school,” Laci said as she picked up her fajita with both hands. She shrugged. “I need to get my G.E.D., and then I want to take some college classes. I’m just not sure what I want to study yet.”

  Her mother glanced over at her as she lifted her glass of lemonade. “Well, what interests you? When you close your eyes and picture yourself doing something you enjoy, what do you see?”

  Jayden grinned. “When I close my eyes, I see a group of buff firemen.”

  “Jayden,” their mother hissed, shaking her head. She then laughed. “Stop being catty.” She then turned to Laci. “Ignore your sister. What do you see?”

  That was a good question. What did she see? Holding her fajita, Laci closed her eyes for a moment and tried to picture her future. She enjoyed helping people. There had been no one to help her when Jerome had her trapped in his clutches. She had been alone and scared, and she felt as if there was nowhere for her to go, no one who could offer her another way.

  She opened her eyes, glancing over at her mother. “I want to help people on the streets, people who are just as trapped as I was.”

  “You want to be a social worker?” Jayden asked, her tone tinged with disgust. “You escaped that nightmare. Why would you want to walk back into that same environment? I’d think you’d want to be as far away from that life as possible. Won’t it bring back some of your nightmares of what happened back then?”

  “Probably,” Laci admitted, noticing her mother staring at her. “But at least my nightmares are over. For many out there, their nightmares are still happening, and I want to show them there’s a way out.”

  Her mother reached across the table, gripping Laci’s wrist and smiling at her. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. If anyone’s strong enough to do it, it’s my baby girl. Those people would be lucky to have you in their corner.”

  Laci nodded, trying to smile at her mother’s words. She only hoped this was a way for her to bring people out of death’s grip and into a new life. For her, it was penance, a way to make things right for the pain she caused her family. She hoped it was a way for her to cast off the shroud of death that enveloped her as well.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Tansy Paxton stood at the door of The Murky Cauldron, staring out at the darkening sky. The store had been busy that Thursday, the holidays right around the corner. As Halloween neared, people would start thinking of witchcraft and demons, faeries and magic. The Murky Cauldron would be filled with looky-loos with a curiosity but no passion for the reality behind their search. Today was just the beginning, and Tansy had to remind herself to be patient, that not everyone was in the know like herself and her coven, a coven that suffered tremendous loss over the last few weeks, first with Rose Tillery and then Alex Barrister, with three members of her coven being possessed by demons and taken to the Summerlands. The pe
ople entering her store would never know the sacrifice made to protect them from annihilation. However, it was something Tansy would never forget, an image that replayed in her mind since she returned to the Land Above with a devastated Kayla Lewell, an image that haunted her sleep as well as her waking hours.

  Rose Tillery joined them, her arms wrapped around herself as she walked, bent over slightly. “The red coils vanished,” she said, glancing down at herself as well as Kayla and Wanda, their possessions by the demons severed, broken more than likely by most of the demons being back in the Nether and the fifth broken when Baltabek entered the Land Above. “It’s not going to do us much good if cracks still exist in the barrier to the Nether,” the Warrior said. “The demons can just get out again.”

  “Not if there is a great sacrifice,” Pux, one of the gnomes sent to protect the Warrior’s Blade, said as he dropped from Renny’s shoulder to the ground. “Lives created it and lives must repair it.”

  Everyone stared at the tiny gnome, not understanding what he meant.

  “What the hell are you talking about? Someone must die in order to fix the holes?” Rhychard asked.

  Pux shrugged. “The magic of the spell requires it.”

  “I’m not asking anyone to die,” Rhychard snapped. “There has to be another way.”

  “But we’re already dead,” Alex said as he turned to Rose, determination masking his face. “We can do it.”

  “No,” Kayla whined. “Alex, you’ll be giving up your next journey. You can’t do that. This one was cut way too short. You need to live.”

  Alex turned back to Kayla, kissing her forehead. “I have lived thanks to you. I need to do this.” He glanced down at the gnome. “Will that suffice?”

  Pux pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded once. “It will.”

  Alex turned to Rose. “What do you say? Wanna keep the baddies in their cage?”

  Rose took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

  Tansy just stood there, lost as to what to do to stop what needed to happen, but also knowing there was no other way. In order to protect all the realms, especially the Land Above, this had to occur.

  Pux instructed Renny to open a bridge to the barrier of the Nether, and Laci stood beside the Warrior’s Blade, the two women clasping hands as Laci lent her power with auras to Renny’s power to focus on the barrier. The Warriors whom Renny Saunders had brought out of Rhychard’s Guardian Sword stood in a line between the two women and the portal to the barrier, their swords held in front of them, points raised. Their cosheys, the elven hounds bonded to a Warrior, stood beside them, backs straight, heads high as each waited to pay homage to the sacrifice of Rose and Alex.

  Tansy and Wanda hugged them both, Tansy apologizing for not being strong enough to save them. Then both witches took their place beside the Warriors.

  Rhychard and Kree took their spots, and even the gnomes stood in the lines.

  Kayla held on to Alex one more time, each telling the other how much they meant to the other, and at that moment, Tansy almost called it all off, the agony of what she witnessed overwhelming. Alex kissed Kayla’s forehead. “I will always be right here.”

  Kayla held his hand until they reached the line of Warriors, and then she went and stood beside Tansy, the older woman sliding an arm around the younger woman’s waist to show her support.

  Alex brushed his lanky bangs out of his eyes as he turned to Rose. “Ready to be a hero?”

  They clasped hands and started toward the barrier. As one, they held up their other arms, palms out toward the Nether, and willed their spirits into the barrier.

  Tansy watched as the two witches started to dissolve, their spirits fading into white light as it flowed down the bridge and became absorbed by the wall that kept the worst of the Unseelie trapped. The barrier pulsed with new light, and Tansy witnessed the pieces fall back into place, holes sealing up, protecting the rest of the realms once more, sealing all the Gateways from the Nether to any of the other realms.

  Everyone stood in place until the two witches completely disappeared, and then Kayla collapsed on the ground in tears that shook her shoulders. Tansy could only kneel beside her, holding the young witch as her life took another drastic turn.

  Tansy sucked in a deep breath as the image faded from her mind. She hadn’t just lost Alex and Rose at that moment, but also Kayla and Laci, as well. Her coven was down to three witches, and those three were exhausted.

  “This is just...amazing,” the energetic voice shouted from the display of books. “How did the Land Above ever acquire so much information on the faerie realm?”

  Oh, and one elf. Tansy smiled as she turned to face Famallumi who sat in a chair he had dragged over to her bookshelf display, his long blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. To anyone who walked into The Murky Cauldron, he would appear as just another young man, eagerly absorbed in his reading. To those in the know, Famallumi was an elf, more to the point, a Lore Master Apprentice, sent to do a ballad or something on Rhychard Bartlett, the only human Warrior of the Way in existence. The elf, however, had yet to find his way back home, which was good for them since they had required his help on a number of occasions to fight the evil that threatened Harbor City.

  Wanda Patterson glided through the bead curtain that separated the back room and the main store, a box of stock in her arms, giggling at the elf. “Magic tends to find magic,” the older, portly woman said as she shook her head at the elf. “I thought a Lore Master Apprentice would know that.” She moved to the front counter, setting her box down on the glass top. Wanda had been an extreme help since the beginning of the coven’s entrance into the world of the faeries, not allowing her age or desire to travel to keep her from pitching in to the fight and saving a few lives herself. She pushed her wire-rimmed glasses back up on her nose as she opened the box and started to pull out statues of small faeries sitting on rocks and small mushrooms. She had stepped into Rose’s position, not wanting anyone else put in the middle of the chaos that suddenly swarmed their shop as of late, and Tansy knew she would be lost without the older woman’s help and encouragement.

  Wanda glanced over at Tansy, shaking her head at the leader of the Cauldron Coven. “You stand there every day. You need to relax. I made some nice orange spice tea. It’s back there in the kettle. You should go fix yourself a cup. Have one of those butter cookies I made this morning, as well. Definitely the thing to perk you right up.” She stared at Tansy as if her suggestion wasn’t really a suggestion, but more of an order.

  Tansy just smiled at the other woman as she nodded once. “Sounds perfect. Thank you.” She didn’t, however, move to the back room. Instead, she moved over to the counter and helped pull the tiny statues from the box. “Have you heard from Kayla? I’ve tried calling her, but she’s not answering me. Probably hates me right now, blaming me for getting them all into this.”

  Wanda reached over, placing her hand on Tansy’s arm. “She’ll come back around,” the older woman said. “Just give her time. She doesn’t blame you as much she blames herself. It was her hand that killed Alex after all. That’s a shock one doesn’t recover from easily.”

  “I know,” Tansy said with a sigh. “I just wish she’d let me help her. Grief needs company.”

  Wanda gave her a sympathetic smile. “She’ll come around. I know she will. Just give her time, love.”

  Tansy just nodded. “I think I’ll get some of that tea now.”

  Wanda smiled at her. “That’s a marvelous idea.”

  Tansy turned to make her way to the back of the store, not sure if she’d actually fix a cup of tea or not, but just wanting to be alone with her guilt. These were her people, her coven. The responsibility to take care of them remained hers, and she failed them miserably. Now, she just wanted to fix everything, but saw no way to accomplish that.

  She pushed her way into the back room, sliding the beaded curtain to the side, the thought of tea suddenly twisting her stomach.

  Three

/>   The morning brought a steady flow of traffic in and out of The Murky Cauldron which was fine with Tansy as it kept her mind on more mundane things and less on the magical things that surrounded the small coven lately. Wanda continued stocking the shelves in between dealing with customers, most of whom just looked for some cute fairy statue or stereotypical witch paraphernalia, most of which The Murky Cauldron didn’t carry. Tansy didn’t mind catering to a small portion of tourist-type merchandise, but she refused to mock her belief system for a few extra dollars. Are there serious seekers out there? Tansy sighed as she signed off on a request order.

  Famallumi also arrived back at the Cauldron, his glamour fixed in place: long blond hair over normal ears framing a narrow face, looking like a middle-aged man, but still excited about everything he saw. The one thing the glamour couldn’t hide was his catlike blue eyes, so he avoided eye contact as much as possible, which was pretty easy, since his thin nose was always in a book. Of course, with the way contacts were used to change eye color and shape these days, they could easily explain his eyes away.

  Jayden also arrived shortly after opening, deciding to skip her college classes so she could whine about Laci while swearing she understood it all at the same time. “She says she’s tired,” Jayden said with a sigh. “She’s tired of all the death surrounding her lately, and I get it. I really do, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I know she’s been through hell, but she had just begun getting into her powers, just beginning to understand what magic could really do. I don’t want to see her give up so quickly.”

  Tansy scribbled down some more notes, nodding her head. “I get it.” She paused, resting her pencil down on the counter. “It was also the first thing the two of you shared since Laci came back into your life. I’m sure that has something to do with how you’re feeling, as well.”

  Jayden blew out a breath before nodding her head. “It was,” she admitted. “I know we’ll have other things to share, but this…” she gestured around the store, “…this is a part of me, and I wanted it to be a part of her. I just don’t know how to make her see that.”