The 5th Witch

by Graham Masterton

  He bunched himself up in the fetal position, his eyes shut tight, expecting at any second to have the clothes ripped off his back and the flesh pulled away from his ribs.

  God forgive me. Gayle forgive me. Please don’t let it hurt too much.

  But then he was suddenly drenched with something wet and warm, and he heard a hoarse, despairing shout. He rolled over to find that he was plastered with blood and to see the kukurpa attacking Ernie.

  “No!” he shouted. He grabbed hold of the railings and pulled himself onto his feet. “Get off him, you freak! Get off him!”

  But the kukurpa’s claws were lashing at Ernie in a frenzy, and when Dan tried to pull it away, it knocked him over again, onto his back, so hard that all the wind was jolted out of him.

  Ernie lifted his left arm to protect his face, but the kukurpa tore his entire arm out of its socket and tossed it away into the darkness. Blood was spurting everywhere, and even as he climbed to his feet again, Dan knew that Ernie didn’t stand a chance of survival. Ernie glanced up at him, and there was an expression in his eyes worse than agony and worse than dread. It was resignation.

  The kukurpa tore into him like a threshing machine, relentless and unstoppable. Dan turned away as it lashed into Ernie’s chest and stomach, and slashed his intestines into bloody rags.

  He limped up the decking, back toward the country club’s main entrance. His head felt empty, like a gas-filled balloon, and he could hardly manage to keep his balance. He passed one ripped-apart SWAT officer after another. There were so many body parts in the gardens outside the convention center that it could have been the scene of an air crash.

  He saw two or three kukurpas moving in their strange stilted way through the shadows behind the trees, but he no longer cared. If they wanted to tear him apart, too, there was nothing he could do to stop them. He walked straight to the steps outside the private dining rooms, where the three witches were still standing.

  As he approached them, the wind began to falter, and the leaves and rose petals whirling in the air began to sink to the ground. By the time he reached the steps, there was nothing but a soft breeze blowing, and the glittering lights of West Hollywood had reappeared out of the darkness.

  Dan stood in front of the witches and pointed back toward the pool. “One of your things just killed my partner.”

  “The perils of police work,” said Lida Siado. “You can’t tell us that you we didn’t warn you.”

  “You’ve massacred these men. Do you really think that you’re going to get away with this? They’ll bring in the National Guard.”

  “They can bring in whoever they wish,” said Miska. “All will meet the same fate.”

  Just then, the White Ghost appeared in a dazzling white tuxedo, followed by the Zombie in a green velvet smoking jacket, and Vasili Krylov in a pinstriped Bill Blass suit.

  “Bonswa, Detective.” The Zombie grinned, showing his golden teeth. “Sorry for what just happened here, but you knew what our lady friends would do to you if you tried to pull us in.”

  “There were more than a hundred officers here tonight,” Dan told him. He was so shaken that he could hardly speak.

  “You can send a thousand if you like,” said Vasili Krylov. “You can send ten thousand. We have the power of hell behind us, my friend. All hell, let loose.”

  “That thing killed my partner! He was my friend. He was a husband and a father. He had two little boys. And that thing tore him to pieces!”

  “We are deeply sorry for your loss,” said the White Ghost. “We never wanted violence, believe me. We simply came to have a friendly dinner with Signor Guttuso. We had an arrangement with the police department. We never expected you to interrupt us.”

  At that moment, Giancarlo Guttuso came out, accompanied by four bodyguards with shiny black hair and shiny black suits. Giancarlo Guttuso was at least seventy years old, with wobbly jowls and a face the color of liverwurst. He made his way between the mobsters and the witches, and pushed past Dan without even looking at him.

  When he saw the carnage in the garden, however—the bones and the blood and the long hose reels of intestines—he stopped and looked around, and his face was distraught. His bodyguards took hold of his arms and quickly led him away, and even they were coughing in disgust.

  “I don’t think that Signor Guttuso will be making any more complaints about us,” the Zombie remarked. “In a way, Detective, you and your friends saved us a great deal of unpleasant wrangling. Once Signor Guttuso saw a live demonstration of what we are capable of doing to protect our interests, he accepted that we could take over as much of his business as we wanted.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Dan repeated.

  “You don’t think so?” asked the White Ghost. “How will you prove in court that we had anything to do with this? Hah? A natural disaster, that’s all. It was a freak of the weather that killed all these men—a localized hurricane. A tragedy, for sure. But an act of God.”

  “That creature of yours killed my partner!”

  “But it didn’t kill you, did it, msyé?” said Michelange DuPriz. “Has it occurred to you to ask poukisa?”

  “I can tell him why!” called out a thin, shrill voice. “I can tell him why he’s still alive and why he can still see out of his peepers!”

  Michelange DuPriz and Lida Siado both stepped to one side. From behind them, Dan was stunned to see the fourth witch appear in her wide felt hat and her raggedy cloak covered with hooks and dried herbs. As always, she was carrying her staff with the cat’s head on top.

  “Surprised to see me, my good sir?” the fourth witch mocked. “Thought I was locked up in the choky, did you? You can’t keep one of his majesty’s favorites confined like that!”

  Dan dropped to his knees, defeated. Now this evening’s tragedy made sense. He couldn’t imagine how the fourth witch had broken Annie’s sigil and escaped from her cell, but here she was, with her overwhelming magical power. It seemed as if she and her three sister witches were unbeatable.

  “Don’t be depressed, Detective!” said the fourth witch, hobbling down the steps. “If we all learn to rub along together, there won’t be any further need for blood to be shed!”

  Dan looked up at her wearily and said nothing.

  “If we all treat each other with a little more respect, we won’t have to tear each other’s lights out, shall we, or roll our heads around like bowling balls.”

  “Go to hell,” Dan told her.

  “I probably shall! And pay my respects to his majesty and then return! Come on, my good sir, I know you’re grieving for your friend, but all of us have to meet death one day or another, and at least his death was quick, and dare I say heroic in its own insignificant way?”

  Dan didn’t know what to say. The pain he felt for Ernie’s death was almost too much for him to bear. The fourth witch stood very close to him—so close that he could smell her rancid odor, dried urine, and lavender. But there was an extraordinary expression on her face—thoughtful, almost tender, as if she could feel how grief stricken he was.

  “You mustn’t hate me,” she said. “I shall be around for a very long time now, and hating me will get you nowhere.” She laid one of her bony hands on his shoulder. He tried to twist away, but she dug in her fingernails, gripping him tight. “You will never be free of me, my good sir, not until you go to meet your friend.”

  “So why am I still alive now?”

  “You are alive because I want you alive. You are alive because you are useful to me. You have something that is shared by no other man in the world.”

  “Oh, yes. And what the hell is that?”

  “If you knew, my good sir, you would no longer be useful. And if you were no longer useful, I should have to kill you, too. With centipedes, perhaps, or lightning, or I would ask my sister Lida to conjure up one of her kukurpas for you.”

  “If I really thought that I was any use to you, I would kill myself anyhow,” Dan told her.

  “No, y
ou wouldn’t. It’s not in your nature. You are the kind of man who will fight death to the bitter end. Just as you will try to fight me to the bitter end. But you will never succeed in besting me, I am happy to say.”

  “So what happens now?” Dan asked.

  “You may go. You have to tell your surviving colleagues what happened here this evening, don’t you? And you have to tell your unfortunate friend’s wife and children that he has met with a sticky end. And you have to go back to your young lady friend and discuss how you can get your revenge on us.”

  She gripped his shoulder even tighter, until it felt as if her fingernails were going to break his skin. “You should rest, too, my good sir, and try to have pleasant dreams. When your waking life is a nightmare, what other escape can you find?”

  She released him, and he stiffly stood up. He looked at Michelange DuPriz and Lida Siado and Miska Vedma and their smugly smiling employers, and pointed his finger at each of them in turn, the same way that Lida Siado had pointed at the SWAT officers when they attempted to arrest her.

  He said nothing, but he left no doubt that he was making each of them a promise: that he would come back for them, as soon as he could, and punish them for what they had done here tonight, whether he did it legally or not.

  He weaved his way between the empty squad cars and SWAT vans, their lights still flashing, and climbed into his Torrent. He swerved away, back along Mulholland, but after he had driven less than a mile he pulled to the side of the road and took out his cell phone.

  He called Captain Friendly, back at the station.

  “Fisher? What the hell is going on? We’ve totally lost contact with Lieutenant Harris.”

  “There’s been a problem, sir.”

  “Problem? What kind of a problem?”

  “Maybe problem is the wrong word.”

  “All right. So what’s the right word?”

  “Massacre. They’ve all been killed. All of them except for me.”

  “Fisher, are you drunk?”

  “No, sir. You need to alert Deputy Chief Days and the coroner and maybe the governor, too. I’m not too sure what the procedure is when a hundred officers get torn to pieces.”

  “Where are you now, Fisher?”

  “On Mulholland about a mile east of West Grove. Listen, have we lost any prisoners from the cells? Any of them escaped?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Why?”

  “I just need to know if any prisoners have gotten out, that’s all.”

  “Listen, Fisher—come on in. Don’t talk to anybody else. And I mean nobody.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before he switched off, he heard Captain Friendly say, “—Fisher…sounds like he’s smashed—”

  He called Annie. She took a long time to answer, and when she did she sounded as if she had her mouth full.

  “Annie? It’s me.”

  “Dan! Are you okay?”

  “Not really. The whole thing’s been a disaster. The witches have killed all of them—the same way they did the last time, at Orestes Vasquez’s house.”

  “Oh my God. How could they?”

  “The fourth witch was there, that’s how. Somehow she managed to get out of her cell.”

  “But she couldn’t. Not even a grand wizard could have gotten past that sigil.”

  “I’m telling you, Annie, she was there. I saw her, and I talked to her. I was the only survivor.”

  “I don’t understand it. I simply don’t. Her wrists and her knees and her ankles were bound by that Enochian incantation. Even if she’d persuaded somebody to take the sigil off the door, she still couldn’t have escaped.”

  “Seeing is believing, Annie. I’m going back to the station now, and I’m going to check for myself. Why don’t you meet me there?”

  “Okay. My friend Sally’s here, so she’ll give me a ride.” She paused for a moment, and then she said, “You are all right? You’re not hurt or anything?”

  “Physically, no,” he told her, but it was all he could do to hold back his tears.

  The station was grim and quiet when he arrived. News of what had happened at West Grove Country Club must have spread through the building already. Annie was waiting for him by the front desk, wearing pink jeans and a loose long-sleeved T-shirt.

  The desk sergeant said, “Detective? Captain Friendly wants to see you up in his office right away.”

  “There’s something I have to check on first. Who’s on lockup duty?”

  “Manson. He just went for coffee. Is it true what they’re saying about that country club bust?”

  Dan nodded.

  “Lieutenant Harris?”

  “All of them. Ernie, too.”

  “Ernie!” said Annie, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh no, not Ernie!”

  The desk sergeant said, “Shit, man. I can’t believe it. And they was armed to the frigging teeth.”

  “Listen, I’m not supposed to talk about it, not yet.”

  “But how did it happen? Don’t tell me those mobsters have that much of an army?”

  “Oh, they do, believe me.”

  Officer Manson came back along the corridor with two Styrofoam cups of coffee.

  “It’s true,” said the desk sergeant.

  Officer Manson put the cups down on the desk. “Shit,” he said, shaking his head.

  “All of them,” said the desk sergeant. “Lieutenant Harris, Ernie Munoz—all of them. Except for Detective Fisher here.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I can’t tell you yet,” Dan said. “Right now, I urgently need to take a look at that old bag lady downstairs.”

  “She didn’t have nothing to do with this, did she?”

  “I just need to see her, that’s all.”

  “Okay, Detective. But you must be some kind of masochist. That woman stinks like a rotten chicken.”

  He led Dan and Annie down the stairs and along the corridor to the end cell. “The sigil’s still in place,” said Annie, wiping her eyes.

  “That wax thing?” asked Officer Manson. “I was told to leave it on there, no matter what. Looks like some kind of hex to me.”

  “Well, you’re almost right,” said Dan. He slid back the inspection hatch and peered inside the cell. But the witch wasn’t sitting on her bunk. She wasn’t standing in the corner, either.

  “She’s not there. I can’t see her, anyhow.”

  “Hey, come on—she must be there. She was there at five when I gave her a peanut-butter sandwich, and this door hasn’t been opened since. Not by me, not by anybody.”

  “Well, let’s take a look.”

  Officer Manson fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door. He and Dan stepped into the cell and looked around. The smell was nauseating—worse than rotten chicken, more like rotten chicken stuffed with rotten mackerel heads. Officer Manson said, “Jesus H. Christ,” and clamped his hand over his mouth and nose. Dan felt his mouth flooding with bile.

  In one corner of the cell there was a heap of maggots—enough maggots to have made a witch. They squirmed and writhed and tumbled over each other, as if they were trying to climb up the wall.

  “What the hell happened to her?” said Officer Manson, behind his hand. “Nobody decomposes that quick. Not even a stinky old bat like her.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” said Dan.

  They left the cell and Officer Manson locked the door behind them. “That is totally disgusting. That isn’t her, is it?”

  Annie nodded. “In a way, that’s what’s left of her.”

  “How come she went all maggoty so quick?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  “I’d better call the coroner’s department. That’s if they have any MEs to spare.”

  Dan and Annie went back upstairs. They walked together to the elevators, but before he pressed the button, Dan said, “You do know what happened to her, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “So are you going to share it with
me?”

  Annie said, “The witch didn’t escape. She couldn’t have. Instead, she killed herself.”

  “She killed herself? But I saw her up at West Grove, and she sure wasn’t dead then!”

  “That’s because there’s more than one of her. The Quintex. Not only did she have five lives, but unless those five lives were brought to an end by execution or murder or suicide, they would carry on forever. Rebecca Greensmith went to the gallows, as we know. We saw the picture of those men hanging from her legs to make sure she was dead. But that was only one Rebecca Greensmith. The other four must have left Hartford and gone to live secretly elsewhere.”

  “Annie, we’re talking three hundred fifty years old.”

  “And after everything you’ve witnessed, you don’t think that’s possible? The fourth witch isn’t a descendant of Rebecca Greensmith. She is Rebecca Greensmith.”

  Dan pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. This was all too much. The fourth witch had been right: all he wanted to do now was forget about the nightmare of reality, and go to sleep and dream. Except that he would probably have that dream about Gayle and the scaffolding pole.

  Annie said, “Don’t you understand? That’s why she turns maggoty so quickly. She’s probably full of maggots already, just bursting to get out.”

  “Those maggots in your apartment—were they her, too?”

  “I’m sure of it. She came into my living room and deliberately killed herself so that I would be surrounded by maggots. She hoped that she would intimidate me so much that I would stop trying to find her.”

  “That’s kind of extreme. Losing one of her lives, just to scare you off.”

  “But that tells me that she’s more scared of me than I am of her. It also tells me that I’m much more powerful than I thought I was. She can’t hurt me, Dan, not directly. Otherwise she would have done it by now. And she must have thought that it was worth losing one of her lives, just to get rid of me.”