by Jessica King
“I’m glad you came,” he said. “I wanted to explain to you the evils of witchcraft.”
“I know them, Father,” she said, bowing her head. “It’s not right of me to try to play God in such a way.”
The priest nodded. “Exactly. Giving black magic even that portal into our world through yourself is a horrible thing to do, not only to yourself but to those around you. When you take that step from humanity toward trying to be a deity yourself…” He shook his head. “I was worried about you. As that sort of thing becomes quickly addictive.”
“I never want to repeat that,” Tatiana said. “I feel miserable for trying a spell. I knew it wasn’t right; I was just so…” Desperate was the word she didn’t say. Because now, it sounded silly. She was young, and just because she might have had to wait a bit longer for a child didn’t mean having one now was life or death. She pressed her hand against her stomach. She’d wanted the baby so badly. Was it wrong to be happy to find out she was pregnant the day after she’d performed such a spell? The timing seemed nothing more than consequential, though she knew Livia would have told her that the spell was powerful enough to speed her body so that she would have detected the child just now because of the ritual. She pressed her hands to her temples. It was much to think about. She still hadn’t told Leo.
The first time she brought it up, he’d been pretty adamant she shouldn’t do something like that, and she’d done it anyway. He liked Livia enough, but he always called her a bit extreme or eccentric.
“It’s okay,” the priest said. “Follow me.” He stood and walked toward the altar. The space looked bigger without the usual clockwork-precise movements of bishops and altar boys and girls and the music, which took up its own space in St. Peter’s.
“Kneel here,” he said, pointing to the small space on the steps between the two wooden barriers that separated the altar from the rest of the congregation. Tatiana did as instructed, her knees pressing into the unforgiving wooden steps. “You’ll hear me move around you, but I want you to keep your focus on the prayer, yes?” the priest said.
Tatiana nodded. She shifted to one of her hips, her legs tucked next to her on the step. She propped her elbows on the step in front of her and clasped her hands, pressing the knuckles of her thumbs against her forehead. Her eyelashes tickled the skin above her cheekbones, and in her mind’s eye, she pictured the white dove surrounded by golden streaks of light as she prayed.
She heard the priest approaching her and heard the feathery noise of paper, so close she might reach out a hand to touch it. A metallic noise rang in her ears, and she tried to dispel the distraction, though a piece of her mind skimmed her memories for a metal crucifix on the priest, and she couldn’t remember one.
It was then that the sharp point of flame entered the back of her shoulder, piercing through muscle and cartilage and bone. By the time she was able to try to turn around, to ask the man behind her why, why would he do this? the piercing point of metallic fire had reached her too-harshly beating heart. Before she closed her eyes, she looked to the paper next to her. It was a small piece of paper, cut with sharp edges from cream-colored cardstock. The kind she used to love for watercolor. Sitting in the center of it was an intricate oval, a fingerprint, with the letter K wound into the whorls of the lines.
“We will never allow a witch to bring a cursed child into this world,” a voice said behind her.
When she tried to take a breath, warm metal flooded her mouth, and she didn’t have enough energy to spit the bright red blood from her mouth. So, she didn’t whisper aloud, but she screamed with her heart. For forgiveness. For the soul of the baby she would have had. For Leo, who was making dinner in their tiny apartment, wondering what her “big news” was.
Before she could cry for what might have been, she closed her eyes, her brain begging for air, only to be met with bubbling blood. The last sensation she had was sound—metal pulled from flesh, then running footsteps.
CHAPTER FIVE
New Notification: Saturday, March 26, 2017, 3:00 a.m.
Kingsmen Rally
TOMORROW: March 27
Join us as we support our brothers and sisters in captivity for their blameless hopes of creating a better world without the darkness of black magic. As the trials of Kingsmen involved in the Long Beach and Venice Beach eliminations gains significant traction in the media and within the justice system itself, they need our help more than ever.
Come show your support—costumes welcome—for the Kingsmen at a PEACEFUL RALLY in downtown Los Angeles on North Spring Street (between Grand Park and Los Angeles City Hall).
ALL Kingsmen are welcomed to join. NEWCOMERS WELCOME! Come see why the Kingsmen are passionate about ensuring the continuation of purity in our world and ridding society of black-magic menaces.
+++
Saturday, March 26, 2017, 5:13 a.m.
David had arrived at the lab early, a habit he’d had for years now. When he was working on a new project, he woke early to the concern of what might have happened overnight despite the sterile environment and heavy security system.
He slid into his white lab coat and checked his phone. Two nights before, he’d set an alert on his phone for anything related to Kingsmen in his area. This had resulted in countless notifications about the imprisoned Kingsmen. Both claims of innocence and inflammatory accusations toward the shooters beyond the murders that occurred only a week before. Some believed the Kingsmen were at fault for various murders, for broken spells and ineffective rituals, for reincarnating themselves, coming back over and over to rid the world of the light magic of the Wicca religion.
But seeing the Kingsmen event, a physical gathering of the people who had planned, endorsed, and encouraged the murder of his daughter…
The thought would plague him all day. He tried to view the gathering as his wife would—an inevitable meet and greet of horrible people who would one day get what was coming to them.
But one day wasn’t soon enough, and whatever was headed their way could never be harsh enough. It had been seven days, and the anger that boiled deep in his stomach hadn’t gone away yet, and it had given him no hint of ceasing. He pushed all the lab’s stools against the wall and out of the way. A regular, daily ritual.
He shook out his hands and opened the refrigerator, keeping the original sample he’d used to create DB1307. In its unconcentrated form, it was deadly upon contact, but his gloved hands were careful and steady as he created an extra vial of DB1307 and tested the aerosol can he placed it in—a small canister hardly larger than a can of pepper spray. That was all it would take. Inside the glovebox, it blew an invisible spray.
“If I get sick, too, I get sick,” he said to the canister, knowing that a simple shift in the wind would turn his creation back on himself.
+++
Saturday, March 26, 2017, 6:22 a.m.
The camera crew—Lindsey, Jordan, Audrey, Lorenzo, Cara, and Mikey, Chief Marks’ grandson, and the lighting assistant’s intern—had visited Ivy in the hospital. She didn’t know why she was so shocked to see them waiting for her in the lobby of the LAPD on her first day back.
“Tried to get them to lay off, but they were excited to see you,” Vince said, flanking her before she’d even made it through the front doors. She smiled at him. “They got here before I did.”
“I missed them a bit, too.” When Vince raised an eyebrow, she said, “Them, not the cameras.”
The crew had grown to be a little piece of her and Vince’s team, having helped stage the fake murders of several members of the L.A. coven by a fake Kingsman, Mason Gillis, in order to keep them from being tracked down by truly murderous Kingsmen.
As soon as she opened the glass doors, reflecting L.A.’s still-blue morning, Lindsey stormed her with a hug a careful hug.
“I’m glad to be back,” she said and could tell from the longing in Lindsey’s eyes that she wanted a full account of what had happened on the fateful day a week ago. “Later,” she said, promi
sing. She’d already had to go through the whole of it yesterday, and she wasn’t ready to repeat it all again for a camera yet.
A sudden rush of officers made Ivy jump. She scolded herself for the spark of adrenaline that made the top of her head prickle with awareness.
“What’s going on?” Vince asked the officers around him. “Kenshin!” he said, yelling to their friend on the force.
Kenshin’s head whipped toward them. “Woman broke out of Met Detention!” he said, pulling on his Kevlar vest. At Ivy’s widening eyes, he shook his head. “Don’t know how, but she took a gun from a guard. Fought her way out, like a machine.”
Ivy’s heart fought, trying to beat through her chest, suddenly needing fresh air. Detainees were kept in the LAPD Metropolitan Detention Center until their arraignment. A woman who fought like a banshee to get out of a place when she hadn’t even been convicted yet was a person who knew they were guilty and knew they were going away for a long time. Knew that someone testifying against them would be taken at their word. Someone like a police officer.
“Who is it?” Ivy said, her feet already moving toward the front doors.
“Marsha Leeds,” he said. His lips pursed, and his eyebrows tilted as if to say, I’m sorry.
Ivy’s mind flickered back to the cabin in the woods, and she rubbed at the long sleeve shirt she was wearing despite the warm weather outside. The scabs beneath it itched, and she cringed against the feeling of the top scabby layer flaking off.
Vince stopped their motion forward. “This is your call,” he said. “We can stay.”
Ivy shook her head. “No, I want to go.”
Two minutes into the ten-minute drive, Vince had asked Ivy at least ten times if she was okay.
“Vince, you’re going to have to trust me,” she said, shaking her head. “The more you ask, the worse I feel.” She remembered Wilkins’ warning to take it easy and swallowed her nerves. She didn’t want to give Vince the opportunity to talk her out of it, to turn the car around and head back to the empty office where she’d feel worse for not helping.
Vince nodded, remaining quiet for the three seconds he could manage to do so before saying, “Just trying to rile you up. I expect you to take her down, full-body tackle.”
Ivy couldn’t quite smile, but her lips did jerk up in imitation of amusement. “Uh-huh.” She brushed her fingers against her duty belt, making a mental check of what she already knew was there. Gun. Knife. Cuffs.
“10-98. Female. Khaki pants, white tank top. Headed down West Temple Street.”
“10-4.”
“Turning on to South Broadway, cutting across Grand Park.”
“She’s not coming out the other end of the park. Pursuing on foot.”
“10-32, 10-32, proceed with caution.”
“Eyes? Anyone got a visual?”
The radio was a mess of static and updates. As Vince pulled up the edge of the park. Before the car was fully stopped, Ivy was barreling out the car, seeing a speck of khaki and white across the expanse of lawn. Ivy pressed the button to talk on her radio.
“Headed for some sort of festival at the far end.”
“Right behind you,” a voice she recognized, Figgins she thought, through the radio.
Ivy’s breath came in harsh pants as she sped after the woman, the tough material of her vest scraping against her skin. As she got closer, the face of the ex-marine became clearer, and she remembered the taunting voice.
“Get on the ground!” Ivy yelled. “Drop your weapon and get on the ground!”
The bark of a K-9 unit echoed far behind Ivy.
Marsha Leeds lifted the gun, but Ivy was quicker. She pulled the trigger, and before Marsha could pull fire, her hand flew out from her body with a spray of red. The gun fired into the ground next to Ivy, falling away from Marsha’s body as she stumbled to her knees and tried to stand.
The festival a way down had heard the bullets and were screaming and running, colorful umbrellas tumbling and rolling like comical wheels and tables clattering as people fled.
Masha scrambled to her feet and ran, and Ivy yelled after her. “On the ground, Marsha, or I’ll shoot!” The woman turned around at the mention of her name, momentarily slowing down. But she quickly turned and sprinted again. It wasn’t necessarily a bluff; Ivy’s hands were up and ready to fire. But she wanted Marsha alive. She wanted to see her when she took her down. Red, the color of blood, blurred at the edges of her vision as she pushed her legs harder, heat pumping through her muscles, still lethargic and weak from her stint in the hospital. They’d give out soon if she wasn’t careful. Adrenaline would only take her so far.
She pressed herself faster, holstering her gun at the last second before she leaped for Marsha, who came down to the ground with a screech as she landed on her bloody hand. Ivy straddled her, pressing her face into the grass with one hand as she reached for her handcuffs with the other. She should have expected that Marsha would try to flip her.
The woman bucked underneath her and turned, pinning Ivy beneath her, reaching for her throat. Where was the backup? Prone on the ground, Ivy pulled up her legs and wrapped them around the woman, pulling down until the back of Marsha’s head hit the grass. She sat up, bringing a fist down into the space between her ribs. When she heard the air push out of Marsha’s mouth, she moved back and stared into the woman’s eyes, pulling her arm back for a lights-out punch. She’d get a note in her file. It’d be worth it.
Marsha’s eyes grew wide, and Ivy focused on the jaw-breaking point on her cheek.
“We’re here! We’re here!” Vince’s voice. Hands wrapped around her arm before she could swing, and another officer, Figgins, was yelling for Marsha to comply as he flipped her over and jerked her hands behind her back and into cuffs.
“Could’ve let me punch her,” Ivy said, even as her blood cooled.
“She’d use that against you later,” Vince said. “I’m not going to let her get anything.”
“I’ll take her back,” Figgins said, pushing Marsha along in front of him. His partner ran up to join him, sucking in air. Marsha stared at Ivy as she was shoved forward, and Ivy stared back. The smell of Marsha’s soap—lemongrass—hit her nose with an acridity she hadn’t expected, and Ivy felt her stomach turn, threatening to upchuck everything she’d eaten since being released from the hospital.
“We need to leave,” she said quickly, quietly. “We need to leave now.” She didn’t wait to see if Vince was following her as she turned on a heel and walked toward the car. She pushed her nose into the crook of her elbow and breathed in until her lungs pressed uncomfortably against her ribs. She took in the Tropical Blast or Hawaiian Breeze, or whatever it was, she put in her laundry and tried to clear her head. She told herself the story she’d listened to again last night, per the possible ex-murderer Dr. Wilkins’ advice. And then I waited for her to go into the woods and I escaped. She shot at the car, but I made it to the highway. And then Marsha Leeds was arrested.
Again.
She slid into the passenger seat, not wanting to drive with the fresh memory of her car ride through the woods. She took three deep breaths, and by the time Vince had stored the gun Marsha Leeds had stolen and got into the car, she felt normal again. Back to herself. Or as back to herself as she could be with liquid lightning still in her veins.
“Hungry?” she asked.
Vince started up the car. “Always.” He put the car in drive and pulled onto the road. “Didn’t eat enough breakfast.”
“You never do.”
“There is never possibly enough breakfast.”
This Ivy agreed with.
Saturday, March 26, 2017, 12:14 p.m.
“Did I scare you?” Marsha asked.
Ivy stared across the table at her with a closed expression. Marsha’s clothes still had grass stains, though her hand had been bandaged.
“No,” Ivy said. “Because in a fair fight without zip ties, I knew I’d win.”
Marsha smirked. “So, this is goin
g to be an ethical thing for you then, Mary,” she said.
Ivy wanted to grind her teeth but kept the urge at bay. Being called the sixth reincarnation of the witch Mary Caste had become her biggest pet peeve in the past month and a half, but it felt petulant and childish to correct her.
“Who else did you kill?” Ivy asked, moving away from Marsha’s question. “I counted at least ten lethal bloodstains on that carpet.”
Marsha’s eyes rolled back like she was trying to remember. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m clumsy, but those stains weren’t blood.”
Ivy narrowed her eyes. “I’ve dealt with enough Kingsmen to know what shed blood looks like, even when you sick people have tried to clear it away.” Her voice was a growl.
“Sick?” Mary said. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” She shook her head. Her hair was down. Ivy hadn’t seen it like that in the cabin, and now it looked dull, the premature gray streaks standing out harshly against her natural color and youthful face. “The witches are sick. They’ve traded a piece of themselves—of their souls—in order to maintain power over life and death. Now you tell me who’s sick.”
“Still you,” Ivy said, standing. “Look, if you’re not going to tell us who else you killed, then you’re not going to. Whatever. I want to see you rotting in a cell for the rest of your miserable life. But if you decide you want to give us a few names, then by all means. Maybe you won’t rot. Maybe you’ll just mold.”
Ivy raised one brow, remembering her own thought from earlier. “Just remember you tortured and almost killed a police officer. No court is going to forgive you. You’re going to jail for a long time, even if they don’t find the others you killed. They might throw you a bone if you throw them one.”
Marsha blinked once, slowly, but didn’t move her chapped lips. Ivy left the room and closed the door behind her, her body breaking out into shudders and cold sweat as soon as the door clicked shut. Seeing the woman up close had reminded her of how close she’d come to losing her life, and she’d wanted to pull her gun out and shoot Marsha between the eyes. How did that make her any better than the murderer in front of her, if she fantasized about killing her right then and there? When she told this to Vince, he smiled and shrugged.