by R. D. Hunter
The only way I knew to teleport was to have two rituals going simultaneously, one at the sending end and one at receiving. She’d done it on a dime, but the cost was catching up to her. Her hands were shaking visibly and her heavy breathing was audible in the open room. Hawkins grinned and stalked towards her, death and pain in his intentions. He was done with the theatrics. He was just going to rip the coven leader’s head off and revel in the sight.
I looked around. Lacey was still down, but showing signs of recovery. Vampires were tough and Lacey was a particularly stubborn vampire, but she wouldn’t be on her feet in time to help Isabelle. The rest of the coven had fled and most wouldn’t have been much help even if they’d stuck around. Jack was still here, although not by choice, but he was stuck behind the bar until his contract expired. It was up to me.
I pulled my sidearm in one practiced motion, took aim, and fired off four shots. They struck Hawkins in the back, center mass, just as I’d been trained. The grouping was tight and would probably have killed any normal man. Hawkins was no longer normal.
He staggered a bit from the impact, a thin trickle of blood from one of the shots trickled down his back, but that was it. He turned to look at me, a malicious sneer on his face and pointed one gnarled finger in my direction.
“I’ll deal with you in a minute,” he said. “Don’t go nowhere.” Shit. He was still going for Isabelle. She must have really gotten under his skin…er, crystal. I had to do something.
“Hey, Hawkins,” I called with as much contempt in my voice as I could manage, “you know all that stuff you were saying about the Fringe? About how we always get ahead and leave the rest of you to eat dirt behind us? Well, you’re right.” He paused for a second, looking at me in confusion, so I went on.
“I mean, why shouldn’t we have everything? We’ve got all the power. Those guys who out-shined you in school, probably used a simple knowledge spell in the hallway before class. The ones who got all the pretty girls that wouldn’t give you the time of day? A few drops of a love potion or an enchanted aphrodisiac got them a date on Saturday night while you stayed at home and played with yourself.” I stepped closer, my own sneer prevalent on my face. “Even now, as an adult, we get everything we want, and leave the scraps for little pissants like you to fight over. It’s just the way things are. And no amount of stolen crystals from a dead witch is going to change that. You might as well crawl off into a corner and die. Nothing you do matters. You’re just a mundane, little human.”
I shot him the bird and watched as the fury inside Hawkins ignited into a raging inferno. He made a choked sound that was somewhere between a bellow and a swear, then charged straight for me, his hands outstretched and ready to wrap around my neck. I’d poked the bull, and the bull was coming. I turned and ran.
The nearest door didn’t lead to outside, but deeper into the warehouse, which was actually several storage areas under one roof. While the room hosting the Gilded Moon’s celebration was empty, I found that the next one was piled high with crates, pallets and loading and unloading equipment. I darted between the stacks of good, vaulting over those I could while never breaking stride. One significant advantage of wearing an amulet that reduces pain to almost nothing is that I could really motor. I didn’t have to worry about twisting an ankle or stubbing a toe. I’d pay for it later, with interest, but right now I just had to focus on getting as much distance between myself and Hawkins as possible.
I heard the doors behind me crash open and fall off their hinges as Hawkins stalked into the room. I didn’t bother looking back. Now that the coven was safe, I knew Isabelle wouldn’t stick around and Lacey could take care of herself. All I had to do was focus on pulling my own fat out of the fryer. A prospect that seemed to shrink to nothing when the warm amulet around my neck suddenly grew cold, and a fresh wave of pain assaulted my body with such force that I went down in a tumbling heap.
I lay there, unable to move or breathe. My chest was on fire, probably from the broken ribs I’d suffered. I hoped I didn’t have a punctured lung. My left ankle and leg were on fire, and there was a cold numbness spreading up to my shoulder on that side. My head felt like someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer and my vision was so blurred and swimming. In short, I was screwed.
In desperation, I tried raising my power. It took every amount of concentration and force of will I possessed to break through the blanket of agony that made every moment torturous, but I did it. I forced it into the amulet, which again became warm against my skin and the pain faded to a passable level. It wasn’t completely gone, as it had been before, but I could move and, best of all, I could think.
I rose to a crouch, wincing a little as my leg protested the movement. Hawkins had stopped. I could make out his hulking form a few yards away, his breathing coarse and ragged. He’d lost me. It wouldn’t last. I’d have to move at some point, then he’d hone in on the sound and that would be the end. I needed another option.
There were two pallets of bottled water stacked in front of me, and a crate of canned goods to my left. Close by, there was a few large containers marked “SELF RISING FLOUR.” Great, I could make Hawkins a meal when he spotted me. I’d always been told my cooking was lethal.
To my right, though, offered more promise. Sitting just a couple feet away was one of the forklifts they used to move and stack heavy products. Those things had some serious power packed into a small space, and would be more than enough to make life painful for Hawkins, if I could only figure out how to use it.
Driving it was out of the question. Even if I could figure out how to work it in record time, Hawkins would be on me before I got the key turned in the ignition. And even if he wasn’t, I had no idea how to operate one of those things. I was just as likely to injure myself as I was my enemy. Which left me with only one card left to play; more magic.
I knew there was a spell where I could temporarily transfer my consciousness into an inanimate object, but it required the thing being covered in runes and sigils, encased in a magic circle, and a butt load of power to boot, so that was off the table. But maybe I’d make it obey a simple command, like go from Point A to Point C. And if Hawkins happened to be standing at Point B, so much the better.
I raised more power, already feeling the reserves deep in my soul growing low. The constant trickle to the pain amulet that kept me barely functioning was a tax on my resources. But I could do this. I had to do this.
Once I felt I had enough, I wet the tip of my finger and traced a rune on the cold metal of the forklift. I couldn’t remember the one to signify control, so I had to make do with a simple power marking that would better accept and channel my magic with less runoff. Gods knew I had little enough to spare. After mapping the route, I wanted the machine to take in my mind, I released the gathered energy with a single word,
“GO!”
No time for a fancy incantation. The words didn’t matter that much anyways, as long as I wasn’t calling on a spirit or divine presence for assistance. And I wasn’t. This was all me.
The forklift came to life, lurching forward with more speed than I’d have given such a bulky machine credit for. It wheeled around a stack of boxes, threatened to tip over, then righted itself. Hawkins heard it coming and whirled to face it, but he was too slow. The crystals that were slowly killing him had begun impeding his movements as they replaced his flesh, bit by bit.
The forklift hit him square in the center as it continued on its way towards the far wall. There was the heavy sound of it colliding with his mutated body, followed closely by the sound of shards scattering across the concrete floor. Hawkins bellowed in pain and fury as the vehicle took him for an unexpected ride. The noise was music to my ears. I watched as he tried desperately to disentangle himself from the possessed machine, but he couldn’t get free in time to avoid the crushing impact of being slammed against the reinforced wall and pinned in place. The forklift’s tires spun in place for a few seconds before finally coming to a stop. Hawkins struggled
for a few terrifying moments, before finally bowing his head as death finally claimed it’s prize.
It was over. I’d won. I wanted to cheer, to dance, to do something to celebrate my victory and the continuation of my life, but I just didn’t have it in me. My body was a wreck, my magic was slowly being drained by the pain amulet, which was rapidly weakening, and more people had lost their lives at the hands of this monster, despite my best efforts. No, celebrating wasn’t the thing to do here.
I plopped down on the cold floor, trying to catch my breath. I knew I should be moving, going to check on Lacey and make sure Jack was all right, but I needed a minute to come down. Coming through a life-or-death struggle required a moment to process. After a few moments, though, I heard what sounded like a low, guttural mumbling coming from the direction of Hawkins’ corpse.
I turned and looked, and was horrified to see that the crystalized man wasn’t dead yet. He was praying. His head was still bowed, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped in front of him as he sent pleas to whatever Almighty presence he believed in.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said, struggling to my feet. “You’ve spent the last two days on a murder spree, all because of a massive inferiority complex, and now you want to ask God for forgiveness? Seems a by hypocritical, don’t ya think?” I hesitantly took a few steps closer. “I mean, I’m all for deathbed confessions, trying to make your soul right before passing on and everything, but come on. You’re not sorry for what you’ve done. You’re just sorry you lost.”
I felt something. The hairs on my arm stood up as an invisible charge manifested in the air. It was magic; a butt-load of magic, and it was coming from Hawkins. He wasn’t praying. He was casting. And with that much juice, there’s only one thing he could be doing.
“Oh, shi…” I didn’t have time to finish, as a familiar, high-pitched laugh resonated through the warehouse, and incredibly strong fingers latched on to the back of my neck and dug in like iron spikes.
“Hello again, little mortal,” the Smiling Man said in my ear. “Now, where were we?”
Through all the terror and pain, I was actually a little impressed. Summonings usually require a whole ritual to make happen. You have to find the entity you want to bring over, open a way for them, and provide enough energy for them to exist in our reality without their own physical bodies. Ideally, it takes two or three fully-trained witches to make this happen over a period of several hours. Hawkins had done it in minutes.
Before I could reflect too much on this grudging admiration, I was flying through the air, tossed like an empty beer can by the Smiling Man’s otherworldly strength, barely missed one of the cement columns that reached up to the ceiling, and crashed into a pallet of goods. I went with the momentum as best I could, tucking my head and trusting in my training to keep me in one piece.
It worked, more or less. I didn’t split my skull on any hard corners and my arms and legs stayed intact. It hurt like hell, though. I was pretty sure I could hear my broken ribs grinding against one another and I was finding it harder and harder to move my left side. But I was still alive and in the game.
A steel barrel filled with God-knows-what, shot through the air like a cannonball, straight towards me. I managed to roll out of the way just in time, only to do it again a second later as a metal pipe, hurled by the Smiling Man, almost impaled me.
I couldn’t keep this up. Sooner or later, I’d run out of room, move the wrong way, or fail to move at all. Then, if I was lucky, I’d be killed by the next missile he sent my way. If I wasn’t, I’d be hurt just enough so as to be unable to defend myself while he took his time finishing me off. I had to attack; do something to stop his momentum, but I didn’t have a lot of options.
Magic was out. Every last trace I had now was flowing into my amulet, trying to dull the pain enough so that I wouldn’t be completely helpless. A physical fight was no good either. All the Krav Maga in the world wouldn’t do much to put down a preternatural killer with the strength of a German tank. Which left me with only one choice. I pulled my gun.
To be fair, I didn’t expect it to do much. I wasn’t exactly sure which nightmarish hellscape the Smiling Man hailed from, but from everything I’d seen, I didn’t think he was fragile enough to be taken out by a few bullets from my little sidearm. A machine gun might do the trick, especially if it had an extended magazine filled with armor piercing rounds, but I was fresh out of those.
The Smiling Man must have come to the same conclusion, because the ever-present grin on his face widened as I took aim.
But then something happened. The energy I kept flowing to my amulet altered course a little. Now, it flowed up and into my arm, directly into my weapon, which glowed a fiery red in the thick shadows. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Nothing like this had ever happened before and I didn’t know how it was happening now. All I knew is that the Smiling Man froze in his tracks as my weapon came to bear and, for just an instant, that maddening smile of his wavered.
“Who’s laughing now, you bastard?” I snarled. Then, still focusing my power through my weapon, I said,
“BANISH!”
I pulled the trigger. The gun roared, far louder than it should have. A jet of angry, red energy burst from the barrel, striking the Smiling Man dead-center in the chest and passing through him like he was made of soft cardboard. The hole it made was no bigger than half an inch, but as I watched, it began to rapidly expand, eating away at the Smiling Man like cancer.
He screamed then, when he saw what was happening, a harsh, grating sound born from a place of terror and pain. In less than a second, though, it fizzled away to nothing, as the murderous creature was ejected from our universe and sent packing back to his own. Good riddance.
I had only a second to feel relief and wonder exactly how the hell I’d done that, before a tearing sound coming from the far wall drew my attention. Hawkins was still alive and, seeing his pet fail in its task to tear me limb from limb, was hellbent on doing it himself.
Shit! I glanced at the weapon in my hand, still glowing red from my power. Well, it worked once. Maybe I could do it again.
By the time I struggled to my feet, pain bordering on agony shooting through my body, Hawkins was left than a dozen feet away. I braced myself in a shooter’s stance, took aim, focused my magic and said,
“SHATTER!”
I squeezed the trigger once, then twice, and finally a third time. Each time the gun belched out a steady, scarlet bolt that struck Hawkins square in the chest. Each time it did, huge chunks of the crystals covering his hulking form blew away, revealing a mass of twisted and grotesque flesh underneath. He staggered back, bellowing in pain, and I reveled in it.
“This is what happens when you mess with a witch, you bastard,” I all but screamed.
When I joined the Police Academy, I always prayed that I would never have to take a human life. But, in my book, the thing before me didn’t count as that anymore. He was a creature of death, who would continue to hurt anybody and everybody he saw as a threat until the source of his own power sent him to the grave. I was just hastening the trip, and saving lives in the process.
I ran out of energy before I could pull the trigger a fourth time. Running out of magic is a bit like doing as many push-ups as you can, until your arms are trembling and your body feels like it weighs a ton, then you try to bust out ten more. You might be able to get a couple more out of your tired muscles, but in the end, your arms will give and collapse, unable to bear your weight any longer.
That was what happened to me now. The pain of my injuries, barely held in check, washed over me like a tsunami, causing me to cry out and sink to the floor. Distantly, I heard my gun clatter to the ground somewhere close by. That wasn’t good, my foggy brain informed me. If I were shot with my own firearm, Lt. Calloway would never let me hear the end of it. I had to get it back.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option at the moment. I felt a tremendous pressure settle on my chest. The broken ribs und
erneath cracked loudly as they rubbed against one another. I focused my vision enough to see that Hawkins had settled himself on top of me, his two hands wrapped around my throat. He bore down, and the supply of molten air I’d barely been able to inhale, shut off.
“Gonna enjoy this, Bitch,” he said, his speech slurred and barely audible. “Gonna take my time and do it right.”
I fought back. I wasn’t going to just give in and let him have his way. I twisted and thrashed, even though each movement made me want to curl up into myself, away from the pain and fatigue. It was no use, though. He was too big. Even hurt as he was, (and I was proud to say that I had managed to severely hurt him) he was too strong for me to do any real harm with just my bare hands.
I was fading fast. My limbs were beginning to fill with lead, spots danced before my eyes and darkness threatened the outer corners of my vision. It was almost over. My right hand flopped to the side, desperately hoping to find some kind of purchase to be able to push myself up. Instead, it landed on something sharp and pointed, about a foot long.
I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t hesitate. One second either way meant the difference between life and death. I rammed it upward with all the strength still left of me, twisting my hips as I did so to gain more reach. The object, which I now saw was a crystalline spike blown off of Hawkins’ own body, stabbed neatly up through the bottom of his chin and continued on into his skull.
His one good eye widened in disbelief; the injury too severe to seem real. His hands lifted from my throat and moved towards his head, but they seemed to get lost on the way there. Out of sheer malice, I twisted my weapon sharply to the left. There was a ripping sound, the hot, metallic smell of blood, then the crushing weight of my enemy as his body went limp and fell on top of me. Blackness soon followed.