San Francisco Covens: Crucible

by Manuel Tiger

  The woman knelt down and pushed the little girl over onto her back.

  Her breathing was shallow. She was dying. One tiny hand fell limply away from her body, little fingers curled inward toward the palm.

  After a few minutes she stopped breathing.

  The woman was pleased.

  The scene faded out.

  Chapter Three

  I wasn’t even aware I was tearing at the floor, ripping the boards up till the old smell of decay came to me and filled my nostrils.

  I gagged and paused only for a minute before tearing more flooring up, casting it aside until staring back at me was the skeletal face of the little girl. A sob tore itself out of my throat as I reached within and took the little body out of her grave and into my arms. I held her gently to my chest, rocking back and forth.

  “Show me where she is, show me,” I whispered. “Give me one last vision, one last one!”

  And she did.

  II

  Nob Hill District

  I found myself on Sproule Street staring at a building that occupied the corner of a block. It was new, clad in limestone and adorned with steel framed windows. It looked like something out of an idea for homes for a far distant future.

  I was not concerned about the future.

  I was concerned about the present.

  The rain had become a thin mist now draping itself over the city like a threadbare silk veil.

  I ignored the dampness of my clothing and the fact that it was starting to cling to my body as I moved across the street with a swagger like I belonged here, like I had every reason to be here just like those that lived up and down the street.

  I used my vampiric hearing as I focused on the building, listening intently to the sounds within.

  A party was taking place. I recognized the classical music playing as Chopin which no doubt drifted out of speakers that cost as much as a down payment on a new car. Could she be so basic with her music choice? I could her the tinkle of glasses, could smell the wine being poured, the food that had been prepared and being served from what I could only imagine was probably silver platters and consumed from dishes that cost more than most made in a year. Laughter filled the air and trickled out one of the open windows. She was the center of attention, the darling hostess, the perfect hostess.

  I knew her as something else.

  The cold blooded murderess.

  I felt The Craving rising up now overtaking me, whispering within my mind to feed, to sate it.

  Sate it I would.

  I could have easily leapt the distance from the street to the top of the building, made a grand entrance, but instead I simply went up to the front door and knocked. It was answered within seconds by a young woman in a maid’s outfit. She looked surprised, but allowed me in.

  “Mrs. Jí is upstairs,” the young woman said gesturing toward a set of stairs made of blonde wood and boarded on one side by a solid full wood railing. “Are you arriving late Mister…?”

  “I won’t be staying long,” I replied noticing the spirits that filled the ground floor level of the house. Everywhere that I let my eyes roam, in every nook and doorway, there was a spirit. They were mostly adults while the most curious spirits where that of several teenage girls. All sported some wound that said how they died, how they were removed from this world. I noticed several more spirits standing at intervals on the stairs, and when they all began to understand that I could see them they all lifted an arm and pointed up to where the dinner party was being held.

  How many had she killed? Who was this woman? Who was this dealer of handing out death?

  “Please, let me announce you then,” the maid said.

  I turned to face her as a droplet of water which clung to a curl of my hair broke away and fell downward to land on the floor between us. A teardrop. I’m sure many had been shed here, but none by the mistress of the house.

  “There is no need,” I said reaching up and cupping her chin. She gasped quietly as I stared into her eyes. “You will not scream. You will leave right now,” I ordered watching as her eyes took on the appearance of being compelled; a distant thoughtful look. She nodded her head mutely like a puppet on a string. “You will go home, tuck yourself into bed and forget this encounter.”

  I released her chin. She turned toward the door, opened it and slipped out into the night. I smiled and waved my hand to close the door then started up the stairs following its crooking path upward. The spirits continued watching me silently.

  I arrived at the top of the stairs and saw the dinner party in full swing. Near the stairs stood a man in a white waiter’s uniform, his face as stoic as that of a statue. He held a tray of wine glasses and a small plate of pallet cleansers.

  I walked over toward him and took a glass of wine off the tray, placing myself before him. “Leave. Go home. You never saw me.”

  He tilted his head slightly yet I saw the suggestion take hold as he turned to place the tray on a low table and then headed down the stairs. I took a sip of the wine hearing the whispering of The Craving within my head growing louder.

  Feed me, feed me, it growled.

  “You will be,” I whispered turning around to move within the reach of the bright glow of the overhead lighting above the garish table spread out with the feast for the wicked and damned. At the head she sat like some regal queen in what looked like a black Prada gown.

  I may no longer have dwelled in the world of my upbringing, but fashion I always had an eye for.

  She had her hair pulled back into a stylish bun, revealing her angular face that no surgeon’s knife had touched, yet. She was beautiful, but then, so are most deadly things.

  She was laughing at something someone had just said, clearly enjoying herself, not a care in the world.

  I was noticed right away by a woman in a sapphire blue evening gown, the wine glass paused before her pink painted lips. “Who are you?” she asked staring at me and arching a perfectly sculptured brow.

  At her comment the laughter and sound of forks scraping across plates died away as all eyes slowly turned to look at me.

  I looked down at myself then back up to gift her with a smile. “I’m sorry,” I said striding forward. “I must look a mess.” I shook my head and ran a hand through my hair to gather up drops of rain which I flicked toward the nearest person – a man in an expensive looking tux that flinched and glowered at me. “You know? Once upon a time I use to attend such parties as this,” I said gesturing with my hand over the elaborate set up of the dining room. “Where only those with the oldest money was allowed to those dinners. Where you wore the latest fashion straight off the runaway.” I paused and eyed a woman wearing something that looked as if someone had glued large bird feathers together, added some fabric here and there and considered it done. “That look is just so not working for you honey. Whoever told you that was in fashion? Clearly hates you. Deeply.”

  The woman gasped, but said nothing.

  “Who the hell are you?” The queen of this dinner demanded from her high back chair. “Why did my maid let you up here? This is a private dinner party!”

  “Your maid took the night off. She should be halfway home by now,” I said tilting the wine glass to my lips. Draining it dry I placed it in the middle of the closest plate atop something that looked like a diseased monkey had shitted out. I looked at each one seated at the table staring back at me, the ruiner of their excess and decadence.

  “This man is clearly troubled,” a man near the queen said. “Someone call the police immediately! Before he harms us!” he said in a grating nasal tone.

  “Funny you would think I pose the greatest harm to you when,” I looked directly at the slowly simmering queen. “When you are feasting with the murderer of a child.”

  All eyes swung toward her as she stared back at me, not wavering once in her gaze, not breaking her calm serenity even slightly.

  “Yes, someone call the police,” the queen of murder said slowly, speaking as calmly as she app
eared. “This man is clearly delusional, crazy.”

  I laughed and began to move around the table slowly, pausing behind the woman in the sapphire gown. “You know? I think I might be? But then again, so much has happened to me in my life I would have every right to be crazy by now! But? I’m not!”

  “Call the police!” the queen ordered snatching a phone from the hand of a young man seated to her left.

  I waved my hand and sent the phone flying out of her hand and across the room where it smashed against a statue of a dragon. The act drew startled gasps from the dinner guests. “Actually,” I said as all eyes were once more on me, “You all will leave,” I said then fixed my gaze on her. “But you.”

  Compelled now, each person slowly rose up from their chairs at once. I noticed she fought against my command, struggling to resist it, to get up and run out of here.

  Oh, we had a bad ass here, but my attention was drawn to one of the male guests for a moment whose mind I quickly read.

  “And oh you, the one with the seventies porn ‘stache?” I said pointing at the man who turned to face me. “You will go straight to the police and admit to the embezzlement that you have been doing at the bank.”

  “Right away,” he replied as he and the others began to file down the stairs. A few ticks of the clock and I heard the front door open then close as the last guest left.

  “W-What are you?” she said as she stared at me.

  I made my way over toward her, sensing she was still fighting my command to remain seated. For the first time I saw fractures in that cold calmness of hers as she tried to rise.

  “You’re aware aren’t you?” I grinned and sat myself on the edge of the dining table. “You know what I am. I can see it in your eyes.” I reached out and touched her nose. “Boop.”

  She tried to jerk her head away but found she could not. “What do you want?” she said through gritted teeth. “How much money?”

  “Oh, that old standby? Admittedly I could use the money, believe me,” I said reaching down and picking up a dinner knife and ran my finger along the edge of it as her eyes widened. “But it’s not money that I’ve come for tonight.”

  “Were you sent by Chang?”

  “I don’t know a Chang,” I said pushing off of the table with the dinner knife in hand and walked behind her. I waited and watched as she tried to turn her head to see where I was. I let this game run for another minute before suddenly popping up to her left, bringing the dinner knife to slip beneath the gold chain around her neck. She cried out, jerking back against the chair, her hands gripping the armrests.

  I could hear her heart rate increasing even as she kept her breathing even.

  I brought my lips to her ear, caressing it with my breath. “But what I do know? Is that you killed a little girl whose body you buried beneath the floor of an apartment building right above a dry cleaners in Chinatown. Does any of that ring a bell?”

  I suddenly sensed a throbbing hint of magic on the other end of the chain, but what lurked at the end of said chain was hidden beneath the neckline of her gown.

  “She…she was my husband’s bastard daughter!” she gasped as I wrapped the chain around the knife and began to crank it. “Another one of his bastards!”

  “So, you have killed other children then?” I began pulling what lurked beneath slowly upward.

  “What wife wouldn’t?” she whispered. “He flaunts all his whores in front of me!”

  “You think that makes it okay for you to kill an innocent child?”

  “No one is innocent in this world boy!” she hissed then dropped her eyes downward.

  “If that helps you to sleep at night,” I said as I finally worked out what was attached to the chain. It was a gold prayer ball encrusted in diamond flakes. “Or maybe this is how you sleep so well at night, hm?”

  The prayer ball was about the size of my two thumbs joined. Normally they were made of simple materials, nothing as extravagant as this which meant she had to keep it on her at all times, a charm in plain sight. But a charm against what? And I highly doubted she used it for its intended purpose which was to contain a slip of paper with a prayer written on it.

  No, she used it for something else. I could feel the magic coming off of it, could feel it humming in the air around us and noticed that there were no ghosts here, not even lurking on the stairs. Nor had there been any when the dinner guests were present.

  I rubbed my thumb along it, but could find no hinge or a tell-a-tale line where it had even been fused together.

  I wrapped my hand around it and gave a hard jerk, tearing it off the chain which caused the most surprising reaction from her – she tried to jerk he head toward the blade, but I jerked it away fluidly before she could cut open her throat.

  “What does it do? What does not having it on your person mean?” I asked standing erect, pinching the ball between my thumb and finger. I noticed then that a few feet behind her several female spirits had appeared, but they kept their distance still. I couldn’t help but notice how their eyes kept going to the ball then switching back to her. “Ah, that’s it isn’t it? It keeps the spirits of your victims at bay doesn’t it?”

  “Kill me! Fucking kill me you blood sucking leech!” she hissed.

  “That’s the easy way out that those like you always tend to take.” I walked down the length of the table and spied a marble bread pallet. “We all must face the consequences of our actions, own up to them,” I said reaching out and flicking the bread off the pallet with the knife. “We cannot hide away from them or use trinkets and charms to keep them at the threshold and not bother us.”

  I laid the prayer ball on the table and picked up the pallet. I suddenly felt the air in the room grow colder, could see my breath once more. I looked up and around to see that spirits had gathered at the fringes where the overhead lights did not reach. I noticed a young woman appear, a knife similar to the one that I had held driven into her right eye socket. There was more women, men mixed in as well, then there appeared a man in a business suit with a bullet hole in his head who glared at her.

  “Where’s your husband at?” I said then held up a hand. “Let me guess,” I said as I took up the bread pallet, hefting it in my hand. “Extended overseas business trip that he won’t be returning from? Then you will take over whatever it is that he does right after a length of time has passed. You play the part of grieving widow, the one everyone feels sorry for, gives comfort to.” I stood straighter and drew my arm up above my head. “But what about those that grieve for the family member that will never come home? Do you ever stay awake at night and feel guilty for what you did?” I looked at her arching a brow.

  She shook her head, whispering for me not to smash the ball as tears ran down her cheeks.

  “I don’t believe that you’re capable of feeling guilt.” I brought the bread pallet down onto the prayer ball smashing it.

  The crack of it filled the house as I watched a green stone that was within it shoot off in pieces to ping off the windows or clatter onto the floor.

  The throb of magic ceased to pulse in the air around us, and the spirits flew at her like sharks sensing blood in the water.

  I dropped the bread pallet to the table, turned on my heels and headed toward the stairs, ignoring the wet tearing sounds as she began screaming.

  She began to increase the volume of her screams as I closed the front door behind me and started down the walkway and onto the sidewalk, my head down.

  “You didn’t kill her.”

  I looked up to see the young woman from the apartment above the dry cleaners standing in front of me.

  We both looked up toward the open window where Chopin mixed with her screams drifted out to us. Already lights were coming on across the street in the various houses.

  “I wanted to,” I whispered. “Everything in me wanted to kill her, to even torture her for what she did.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I shook my head. “But I didn’t.”

/>   “It takes a powerful vampire to fight against his nature.”

  I looked at her with wide eyes. “You knew what I was?”

  “My grandmother told me stories about them.”

  “And you knew that the little girl was buried beneath the floor?”

  “No, not exactly,” she said shaking her head. “My family and I just recently moved in there a month ago. The place was empty until then. Then shortly after we had moved in the spirit of the little girl began to show itself more frequently to me. I suspected she may be present, her body that is. I told my mother and father hoping they would look into it, but they didn’t really believe me,” she said. “They just told me to burn incense to appease the spirit. It didn’t work. Then you showed up today.

  “My grandmother told me that vampires could see spirits for they walk in the land of the living and the dead. I figured you might know a way to deal with it.”

  “That’s putting a lot of faith in someone.” I patted my shirt pocket then remembered my cigarettes were in my messenger bag. I desperately needed a smoke.

  “Here,” she said holding my messenger back up. I took it from her with a nod of my head. “And we should go before people see us.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  We both turned and walked across the street, slipping away just as people began to finally come out onto their front porches to point and gesture toward the house across the street. The screaming however had stopped now.

  There would probably be a lot more pointing and gesturing before someone was brave enough to head over and check things out, or have the police do it.

  “What happened to her?” I asked pulling out my cigarettes from within the bag. “Or was happening to her?”

  “The spirits ripped her soul out of her and sent it to Hell,” she said. “She will be in effect a mindless woman from now on.”

  “Well she already lacked a heart,” I said speaking around the cigarette pinched between my lips. “What will you do with the little girl’s body?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet,” she said. “My parents aren’t aware of it.”