The woman snarled again, but I could see the rising panic in her sunken eyes.
“Well, then, let’s do a demo, shall we? We’ll burn your friends. The scent of burning flesh is, well, oddly terrifying. Maybe you know this, but have you ever been to a luau?” Pammy paused waiting for an answer she didn’t get. “Burning humans smell a lot like a roasted pig. Brings up all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts for normal people. Then again, you feed on witches, so maybe it won’t bother you at all.”
“We feed on magic, you sick fuck. We’re not cannibals.”
Pammy started laughing again. “You really see a difference? They’re one and the same. Your blind following to your family could be described as naïve, but it is willful stupidity. Put someone on a spit covered in pineapples or consume the very essence of their being, these are not different where it matters. The only difference is the special effects, for one would earn and R rating if it were a film the other PG or PG-13.”
Pammy clapped turning away from the woman. “Places people.”
I hurried to my spot, trying to shake the visual of a charred human covered in pineapple. More like NC-17. Her chant began as soon as we all took our places. I stretched my hands out to the east and west, allowing my power to flow through to Dorothy and Bruce, who did the same, connecting me with Pammy as well.
Shifters weren’t able to throw about magic like witches, so he didn’t have a visible stream of magic coming from him like the other two, but he was magic, and he was pushing that persona out toward us, primal, animalistic, raw with nature. It was the first time that I’d personally felt his magic in action, and the power of it almost bit in a friendly way.
Forcing my attention away from Bruce, I focused on Pammy. It didn’t take long to find the rhythm of her chant, the melodic harmony that she requested we all join. I hummed along, trying to decipher the words but failing despite Pammy’s earlier instructions. I’d need to ask for a transcription later, but for now, all I could focus on was the growing power and the heat. A fireball burst in the middle of the pyre, so hot I could see blue flames among the orange in the ten-foot fire. My face burned from being so close, but I didn’t drop the chant, didn’t lose the melody.
The song continued on until there was nothing left but gray ash and bone shards. Pammy stopped the chant, dropping her hands in the same instant before she turned and marched back to the hostage. I dropped my own arms, which ached, and followed Pammy back. I walked up and heard Pammy once again interrogating the woman. I couldn’t reach Pammy levels of deprivation in my threats, so I just stood behind her and tried to look menacing. It wasn’t hard given all of the havoc and pain they’d caused over the last few days.
“Now as you can see I have plenty of firewood left. The only difference this time is that an awful soprano of your screams will be added to my song. Well, you would add to it until your vocal cords burned. Pity that, but I’ll know that you will still be there screaming silently, suffering. Do you think it would take you longer to die given all of the life forces you’ve stolen over the years?”
The woman looked up, her eyes meeting Pammy’s. Moments before they had been hateful but with the flat look that one acquired from witnessing or performing unthinkable deeds. Now they almost glowed. “I’ve lived longer than you, hag, and I will not betray those that have given me the blessing allowing me to live as our true nature demands. Burn me. It will be a fitting end to a life lived dedicated to a higher glory.” The woman spit at Pammy, barely missing her shoe this time. Being bound really limited your physical reaction options.
Pammy sighed and kicked some dirt over the spittle. “Zealots, you can never reason with them.” She looked back over her shoulder at the three of us. “A threat that is not followed through on is a weakness.” Still looking over her shoulder at us, she lifted her arm. The woman was flung on top of the ash that remained of her cohorts. Wood from the pile followed, flying through the air to land on top of the woman. Her earlier silence ended as she shrieked, her reality finally catching up with her.
The disassociation I’d experienced during the corpse bonfire unfortunately disappeared just in time to witness one of my greatest fears. Pammy turned her head and looked at the witch now partly covered in wood.
“Any last words?”
More shrieking was her only answer. Pammy didn’t ask that a circle be performed this time. She began her chant again. Power radiated off her as the words were said with more authority than they had been before. In her song, I heard the bleakness that came with being the ultimate authority. The loneliness that went hand in hand with power. I wanted to be strong for her, to place a hand on her shoulder, so she knew that I recognized the sacrifices she made for all of us, but where the screams had brought on nausea, the smell, just as Pammy had described it, sent what little self-control I had out the window.
I ran from our group and retched everything from my stomach behind a tumbleweed. Behind me, the shrieks had ended, leaving only the sound of a roaring fire and the smell of burnt flesh. The realization had me dry heaving all over again. The chant ended, and I felt a hand on my back.
“It had to be done,” Pammy’s husky voice whispered to me.
Hands on my knees, I took a deep breath in through my mouth, trying to ignore the smell and straightened. I looked Pammy in the eyes. “I know it did. I’ll always be grateful for what you are willing to do to protect us.”
There was a shimmer in Pammy’s eyes, but she turned away. “Glad to hear it. Can’t blame you for ralphing. It’s not a pleasant experience, especially not your first time.” She turned and walked back toward the others, and I followed her. “Okay, people, we need to bury the fire pit. I’d like to say that we accomplished a lot today, but these people were only zealot followers of the true powers, so there will be more work to be done…” Lights caught our eyes from off in the distance. Blue flashing lights. “Hold that thought, you three. Now we’re on our land, performing witch business, but I’d rather the humans not catch a whiff of this one. So scatter, I will take care of this.”
“Pammy, you must be drained. I can help,” I protested.
“I said scatter, and I meant it. Take separate routes. If anyone stops you, you were going for an evening hike, and you got a bit turned around before finding your car. Now get.”
When Pammy told me to get, I got. Back at the cars, we agreed that Bruce and I would take more creative roads home given our all-terrain vehicles. Dorothy would likely be stopped on her way down, but her whole mom vibe would likely end whatever suspicion was aimed at her. I bit my lip thinking about Pammy being left alone, but now I knew, more than ever, that whatever came Pammy’s way would either make nice or never crawl again.
20
Driving through dried-out brush and washes while trying to avoid large rocks with minimal use of headlights did not top the list of my skill set. I thought I’d made it about a mile down the road before I realized that I would die on this mountain if I kept going. So, I pulled off the pathetic trail of a service road I’d stumbled onto behind some spindly tree that would not provide much coverage if a flashlight was involved. Desert plants were not great at hiding people on the run.
I sat there in the darkness, the only light coming from a hazy cloud-shrouded moon and the dim blue of the lights that still danced below me, further down the mountain where they’d stopped to pay Pammy a visit. The quiet of the desert felt unnerving. The soft hoot of an owl had me jumping out of my seat, and my phone suddenly coming to life with the Josie and the Pussycats theme song nearly caused my heart to stop. Partly because it had been so long since I’d heard the campy song, my joke at Lola’s resemblance to the cartoon character that played Melody, partly because the quiet it erupted from.
I scrambled to grab the phone, which made me an instant klutz, knocking it off of the passenger seat. Lunging over the mid console, I managed to grab it about one second before it would have gone to voicemail and answered.
“Hello?” I stage whispered into
the phone in deference to the quiet that surrounded me.
“Peg!” Lola practically shrieked. Excitement coated her voice.
“Lola, where are you? I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?”
“Let’s not start this again, Peg. I just needed to get away for a while, but I have really exciting news! Michael and I are eloping! Can you believe it?”
My stomach felt like a lead weight had been dropped in it. “Where are you, Lola?”
Static on the phone line was all I heard. I looked at my phone screen. There was only one bar available, and it was barely hanging on for life. I pushed it back up to my ear.
“Lola, I’m having a hard time hearing you.”
Through the static came a reply, “Maid…honor…chapel….here….soon.”
“Can you repeat that?”
The static cleared, and I heard a woman the background. “Who are you talking to, you naughty girl?” The tone tried for benevolent, but I heard the underlying anger. Lola didn’t.
“Don’t be upset. I had to tell her. She’s my maid of honor.” Then she giggled.
“Well, dear, let me say ‘hello’ then.” Lola must have passed the phone because suddenly I heard the words I never wanted to hear. “You’re too late.” The call disconnected.
I held my phone for a moment, staring at it. Below me, the blue lights still flared hazily in the night. I needed to get off of the mountain, but I also needed to do so without a police chase. I dialed Pammy’s number, hoping that she’d picked up, and that little service bar hung on for dear life. Lady luck finally smiled at me.
“Little busy now, my dear.”
“Lola called.”
“How interesting.”
“She says she eloping, but another woman came on the phone saying we were too late, so I’m guessing there’s a little extra ceremony to this ceremony, if you know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean.”
I gripped my steering wheel and wanted to scream. “I can’t get off the mountain without the cops chasing me. Can you keep them with you somehow or cause a distraction, so I can get down the main road without driving off the mountain?”
“I can do that. Have a good time, dear. Make sure you get some friends to go along with you.”
I set my phone down and turned on my lights, making my way back to the service trail and finally back to the main dirt road. My old Jeep was not quiet but at no point did I hear approaching sirens, so Pammy had been able to keep the cops busy. My bounce down the mountain made it too difficult to make any calls for help. All I could do was replay Lola’s words over and over in my head.
She wanted a maid of honor, which meant that they were keeping up the farce of a wedding as a cover for some other ceremony. They could have just gotten her a white dress from Dillard’s and currently been in someone’s backyard with a guy named Phil who’d gotten ordained through some fifteen-minute online course that cost fifty bucks. Or was it all real and they were trying to get her to marry in as a recruitment for a new initiate. They were currently down three members, but did they know that?
Then I remembered. She’d said chapel. Phoenix was no Vegas, and there weren’t a lot of “chapels” to choose from, and only one that I knew that Lola both knew of and loved. An antique home near downtown Mesa that had been a farmhouse in an earlier life. Now painted white with green shutters and a white picket fence, trellis roses, and ivy climbing its walls, the Vintage Wedding House was popular for brides looking for an intimate romantic affair with a smaller guest list.
I hoped the chapel didn’t have a secret side business in dark magical sacrifices, but either way I needed to commit to the location. Going with your gut is always better than sitting around with your thumb up your ass, so I pressed the gas a little more, ignoring the minor fishtailing the back of my Jeep performed as my tires skidded along some gravel. What was an axle compared to a best friend?
My tires finally hit asphalt, and I pressed the gas down further. This far into the mountains, I didn’t think I’d run into a deputy at night, particularly given that they were all preoccupied with Pammy. I had no qualms with engaging in a high-speed chase if necessary.
Even with the pavement as an indicator that I’d returned to the modern civilization, my cell service was spotty at best. So I recklessly drove in barely lit streets while fumbling with my phone. Pammy I already knew was occupied, but I still called and left a voicemail to tell her where I was going. I tried calling Bruce after that, and the call went straight to voicemail. I figured he was still high up in the mountains playing possum. Dorothy and I had yet to exchange numbers, so that was a dead end.
Next up was outside help, and one the gods, demi-gods, entities, or spirits deigned to answer my prayers. Deval picked up on the third ring, just as I nearly skidded out turning on to the US 60, leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber and ozone.
“Yes?”
“Are you busy?” A sudden realization hit me. In my panic, I’d briefly forgotten that Lola was a goblin citizen. “Actually I don’t care if you’re busy. Lola is about to be sacrificed, and I need some backup. You do claim her right?”
Deval growled into the phone. “You know that we claim her. Tell me everything.”
I went over everything I knew, including our earlier culling of the rogue witch herd and where I suspected the ceremony would be held.
“That seems a little odd. Why not just kill her in the desert somewhere? Why bother with this drawn out facade of marriage and companionship? It does not make sense, especially to go the trouble to actually reserve a venue for a murder ceremony.”
I thought about t for a moment. “It may be part of their ritual. A happy victim gives a better pay off? If that’s the case, and they’ve been living off of the bite junkies, Lola will be Kobe beef compared to canned Spam. Or maybe they want her to join the family. I’m going in blind.”
“You think this is the case?”
“Fuck if I know, I’m guessing at this point, Deval. All I know is that my friend is in trouble. Are you willing to go against a coven of uber-dark witches?”
“It is my duty. I will see if I can gather others.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” I willed my car to go faster.
“It looks as though I will beat you there. Is Pammy available to attend the wedding?”
“She’s currently disposing of dead witches and holding off the Maricopa County sheriffs. She might make the reception.”
“I will see you there. Be safe.”
21
My foot pressed the gas peddle as far as it would go, and it still felt like I was driving at a snail’s pace. The entire drive there, my heart pounded with anxiety of either being pulled over and being too late to save my friend or just being too late period. Frustration had tears stinging at my eyes. I blinked them back. I’d be no good to Lola if I showed up as an emotional wreck, unable to help her once I got there.
I finally got there after having to slow my demon’s pace after exiting the freeway. Downtown Mesa had a low speed limit and a high police presence given that their headquarters were just around the block. I drove by the vintage house, and sure enough, I saw hints of candlelight along with magic. Someone in the know would recognize the light, colorful hues that played through the lace curtains as magic, but the average human wouldn’t be able to see it.
Full-blown witch with some goblin mixed in, I saw the magic and felt the malevolence of it. I considered scoping the house out, making the smart entrance, but then I saw a luxury black sedan that screamed Deval, and I knew he was already inside. So I parked and quickly sprinted to the house, even managing a slightly less than graceful hurdle over the decorative picket fence to avoid wasting time opening it. The front screen of the little white farmhouse had climbing roses and ivy running up trellises on either side. I slammed the door open, silently apologizing to the blooms I no doubt smashed in the process.
The scene before me left little time to worry abou
t flowers. The front room of the home had been converted to a chapel. A haze of dark magic hovered about the pulpit area, much like we’d seen in the witches’ trailer. Deval and Vegard blocked the aisle while fighting off two dark practitioners. The witches, like their brethren we’d run into earlier, looked emaciated and haggard and should have been no problem for Deval and Vegard, but dark magic often brought a sly strength.
Watching the witches throw spell after spell at my who-knew-what, and his cousin made me realize how lucky we’d been at the trailer. I jumped to Deval’s right and threw up my arms, letting my magic fly at a particularly nasty magic spell that had come his way. The black spell crawled up my own green magical aura for a moment, which left me lightly panicked before it fizzled out. I blinked and remembered the vaccine. Thank gods, I needed all of the help I could get. A hiss escaped the man who’d sent the spell my way.
“Good of you to be so prompt,” Deval called to me. “I believe the bride wishes to see you. We can handle the groom’s guests.”
I nodded and jumped into a pew, climbing over the seats to avoid the small pack standing in the aisle. One reached out to touch me, and I barely managed a quick dodge. His hands were coated with black magic, and I really didn’t have the time to find out what nasty little spell he wanted to infect me with. As I scrambled over the pews, I saw that they had surrounded Lola lying in the middle of a witch’s circle they had made, holding hands and chanting. Decked out in a fifties-style white A-line dress with a small veil on her head, Lola looked like a bespelled princess waiting to awaken.
I wasn’t her prince charming, I was better; I was her gods damned best friend, and that meant no one got to fuck with her but me. I ran forward and did what any highly trained professional who’d recently undergone advanced training did. I plowed into the circle like I was playing Red Rover. I broke the first set of hands and leaped over Lola to break another set. The witches looked up in shock. I did a quick turn to face them, throwing my palms up, adrenaline and my power answering to surge my magic forward. “Maid of honor, reporting for duty!” I called out giving them what I hoped was a maniacal grin. You had to be crazy to take on these odds.
Cursed Lines (A Peg Darrow Novel Book 2) Page 18