Witch Creek

by Laura Bickle

  “I don’t understand what happened. It’s like . . . I have a new body,” Petra said lamely. Goddamn it, she wished Gabe were here to explain it to her. Or at least, that her father was awake to answer phone calls.

  Maria seized her arms and examined them, running her fingers over the formerly scarred insides. They had cooled from the shower to a milky, almost transparent white.

  “Jesus. It’s like you’ve been cloned.”

  “Yeah. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “How do you feel?”

  Petra stopped to ask herself that question. Her stomach wasn’t queasy. She felt . . . normal. Not fragile. Nothing hurt. “I think I feel pretty good.”

  Maria gave a short nod. “Good.”

  “I’m glad you’re taking this well. My mind is blown.”

  “My mind blew up a long time ago.”

  Petra glanced at Nine, who was serenely scrubbing the floor. “Nine?”

  Nine looked at her, then at Sig, who had happily glued himself to Petra’s knee. “Coyote is happy you’re back. I trust him.”

  Petra sat on the edge of the couch. “So . . . what do we do with, uh, me? I guess? With Dead Petra?”

  Maria looked at her levelly. “We do what we’ve been expecting to do for many weeks. We bury you.”

  Chapter 18

  The Elaborate Burial of Petra Dee

  The women drove out to the edge of the reservation to bury Dead Petra.

  Petra sat in the backseat of Maria’s SUV with her dead doppelgänger. Sig curled around her ankles on the floorboards, wanting nothing to do with her double. Maybe that’s what she was, a doppelgänger. Petra didn’t know much about that legend. Except that the doppelgänger was a magical double of a person who shadowed them and eventually killed the target, ultimately taking over the victim’s original life. But Petra was pretty sure that she was the original, but inhabiting a doppelgänger body. It bent her noodle, and she was a mess.

  She had tied back her insane new hair with a scarf, tying it in six knots before it was out of her way. It was heavy as hell, and she was itching to take some scissors to it. The weird sensation of it helped distract her from the very disconcerting feeling of sharing a backseat with her broken-down body. She hadn’t really realized how bad off she had been. Her former body, the shell, looked light and fragile.

  She self-consciously ran her fingers over her unmarked arms. She sure hoped that she’d get to keep this body, that she wouldn’t be evicted out of it. I mean, that could happen, right? The situation was all so far beyond her ken. Her fingers slipped up to the gold pendant around her neck. She’d have to hide it, make sure no one saw that she had recovered it. If the bartender figured out that she had invaded his attic and fucked up his magic, there was no telling what he could do to all of them.

  Maria finally stopped the truck in a nondescript field. Nothing grew here except sage and rocks. There were no remarkable landmarks; only the scrub weeds and the mountains in the distance.

  “This place is as good as any.”

  “So I take it you’ve buried bodies here before? Does Mike know?” Petra joked weakly.

  “No comment.” Maria cracked a smile.

  “No plans to farm it or build on it anytime soon?”

  “Not unless the federal government decides to seize it to build a pipeline on it or some such insanity.” Maria hopped out of the truck. “All bets are off then, and you’ll have to explain your own death.”

  They had gathered shovels from Petra’s Bronco. They hauled the body and the tarps out from Maria’s Explorer and laid out Dead Petra in the moonlight. Beside her, they began to dig a hole roughly the dimensions of the body. Sig stood watch, sitting beside Dead Petra and gazing out across the field, like an incarnation of Anubis.

  They didn’t get six feet deep; the soil was yellow clay and studded with bits of granite, so they went as far as they could before hitting a chunk of sandstone that Petra estimated would take a two-by-four to lever out of the hole.

  Petra unwrapped the body. She stared at herself, at this vessel that had carried her in the physical world for decades. She didn’t know what else to do except kiss her forehead and tell her, “Thank you.” She pulled her wedding ring off Dead Petra and put it on her finger.

  And she made sure to retrieve her purse. It was strapped across her body, and it contained her keys, wallet, cell phone, and most importantly—the Locus. It wouldn’t be difficult to identify the body without ID . . . Petra had been fingerprinted for various security clearances in the past, and she was pretty sure that a dentist somewhere had her dental records. But she wanted to make it as difficult as possible.

  The three women wrapped Dead Petra tightly and lowered her into the hole. They scooped shovel after shovel of dirt on top of the body, without comment. When the work was complete and the soil tamped down, Maria leaned on her shovel.

  “I don’t know what happened back there. I’m not sure I want to know.”

  It wasn’t much of a eulogy, but Petra wasn’t sure what else there was to say as Maria and Nine gathered their tools and headed back to the Explorer.

  In the halo of headlights, Petra crouched by the grave with Sig. Her fingers wound in his fur. Sig thought she was real and that she was herself. That was the only thing she could cling to, as she walked away from Dead Petra. She finally climbed into the SUV, Sig clambering in behind her.

  On the way back, she buried her face in his ruff and cried. She wasn’t sure what she was crying for. But it sure seemed as if something terrible had happened, something irretrievably lost that she couldn’t define, and her soul wept for it.

  Something terrible had happened.

  Lev knew it as soon as he’d parked in the alley behind the bar. There was a gooey mess of footprints leading from the door. He immediately forgot the ram’s horns getting sticky on the floorboards and jumped out.

  His first thought was that somehow the alchemical reaction had occurred without him there. That somehow, Archer had come into contact with that brew to create the homunculus . . . that he had fled into the night.

  But the lock was broken from the outside. With dread, Lev climbed the stairs, two at a time. They were smeared with blood and alchemical albumin. Heedless, he ran up the stairs to see the mess on the floor: a pool of blood, chemicals, and pulp. Something had been in the vat, the vat in which he’d intended to create a new body for Archer.

  Father Caleb and Wilma were standing just beyond the mess. Wilma was staring at it, arms crossed, smoking with what was, for her, a deep expression of contemplation on her face. Caleb’s eyes were wide, and his chubby, shaking fingers worked the rosary.

  “What happened here?” Lev demanded. His hands were already curling into shapes of the Horned Hand. “Did you do this?”

  “No! No!” Caleb sputtered. “It was terrible. These women came, they broke in here, and one of them fell in, and . . . and . . .” He lapsed into speechlessness.

  Wilma tapped out invisible ash into the ether. “It wasn’t pretty, that was for sure. It was that sick woman. The one who was looking for her deadbeat piece-of-shit husband who took off on her.”

  Lev came to his knees beside the glass coffin, opened it with shaking fingers. Archer’s body was undisturbed.

  “Dad?”

  The voice of Archer’s ghost was faint, slipping away. Damn it, the young man had stayed where Lev had ordered him to stay, in his body. Lev reached in to grasp the shoulders of his son’s body, as if that action might hold the spirit there, in this plane.

  “I’m here.”

  “Dad, I’m going to go. I have to. I’m sorry.”

  He lowered his head. He wanted to say, No, don’t. But he had already expended so many decades of saved magic on this single project, all poured into the plastic vat. He intended to create a new body for his son, a vessel to continue his unnaturally short life. He had seen the homunculus created once before, in Prague. He had doubts as to whether it would work. In that regard, he should
n’t have worried.

  It just hadn’t worked for Archer.

  And there was no duplicating this. All the magic was done and spilt, and it wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Not within the hours that Archer had left to wander the earth, anyway. Lev’s thoughts raced. Perhaps he could bind the young man’s spirit here, accumulate enough power to give another try . . .

  A rustling sound emanated from the body.

  “Dad, I’m going to go. I’m glad I got to meet you. I . . . I love you. Thank you.”

  It seemed the body exhaled. And Archer was gone, like a brittle leaf blown away.

  Lev’s hands balled into fists and he roared. Once again, his family was gone.

  He leaned forward, head in his hands. He sensed Caleb at his right hand, Wilma at his left, the devil and angel on his shoulders.

  “What is . . . was . . . all of this?” Caleb asked.

  Wilma shushed him. “It was magic. Beautiful, brutal magic.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lev said. “It’s ruined.”

  Apparently unable to help himself, Caleb sighed. “Well, at least your son is in a better place.”

  Lev lifted a shaking finger. “Do not say that to me. Do not give me that vapid bullshit. So help me, if you utter another word like that again, I will personally see to it that you’re banished to the Dark for the sin of pride for eternity.”

  Caleb shut it.

  Lev sobbed. He remained on the floor, staring at the now-empty glass case.

  Wilma knelt beside him. She was brave. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she meant to do it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “This requires an answer.”

  “Damn.” She sighed. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m going to take care of the body.”

  “Can we help in any way? I mean, this is really fucked up, but . . . we’re here for you. As much as we can be.”

  Her sympathy was palpable. He couldn’t stay mad at her. Wilma had seen more of the foul underbelly of humanity in her two short decades on earth than most people did in several lifetimes.

  “Yes,” he said, climbing to his feet. “You can.”

  He reached into the glass case for the body. He carried it down the stairs. Wilma followed. After a moment, so did Caleb. Lev carried the body to the basement.

  The basement of the Compostela had never been finished to be used as living space. It was shallow, and Lev always grazed his head on support beams when he came downstairs. He kept odds and ends of brewing equipment down here: pipes, barrels, bits and bobs that he wasn’t using at the moment.

  The center of the cellar was dominated by a boiler. It was old iron, painted several times, reaching upward with eight arms of pipes like some kind of mechanical tree. The whole thing was dark and silent now.

  Lev laid the body down before the belly of the boiler. Wordlessly, he opened the door to light the stove. He fed it the last bits of winter wood he’d kept around for chilly mornings. When the fire was blazing, the heat was palpable, sticking Lev’s shirt to his chest and prickling sweat on his brow.

  He gazed into the fire. Fire was the purifier. Fire was the eraser. Fire was holy.

  Caleb cleared his throat. “Would you like for me to say a blessing?”

  Lev was about to snap at the ghost, but then he just slumped and nodded.

  Caleb folded his hands. “Our Father who art in heaven . . .”

  Lev gathered up Archer’s body. He approached the shimmering heat and placed the body, feetfirst, into the belly of the boiler. He pushed, crumpling the body a bit. The shrouded form slid inside.

  Lev stood back, watching the sage curl and crackle. The sweet scent of it soaked the room, pure and clarifying. He had stopped listening to Caleb.

  Wilma stood at his left hand. “He went to the Light,” she whispered. “I saw it.”

  Lev nodded, stone-faced as he gazed into the fire.

  This act, this thievery of his son from him, would not go unpunished.

  Owen was starting to become suspicious; Muirenn could feel it.

  He paced along the shore of the underground river, agitated, kicking gravel and wearing a track in the silt.

  “. . . people have been going missing, killed,” he was saying, rubbing the back of his neck. “People along the tributaries, leading here. If that was you, they’re eventually going to put two and two together, and find you.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Muirenn said. She wearied of the amount of soothing and reassurance her new master required. Lascaris, for all his cruelty, had needed none of that nonsense. She would rather serve Owen, but she suspected that his time might be limited. “And you are in charge of the law here, no?”

  “I’m in charge of the sheriff’s office of this county, and I can keep a lid on those investigations. I can reassign staff and sweep some of these things under the rug. But not the murders in the park. Killings that happen in the park are under federal jurisdiction. And the Feds do not look kindly upon dead tourists. It hurts their revenue.”

  Muirenn shook her head, and the pearls she’d braided in her hair rattled. “I have had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Owen stared at her, his hand twitching to his sidearm. “Don’t lie to me, Muirenn. Just don’t.”

  “Surely, there are other crimes that need your attention?”

  “Of course there are!” Owen said in an explosive exhalation. “Body thieves. Someone stole a corpse from the coroner’s office. And weird things have been going missing—theft of jewelry, some butchered livestock. And of all things, human hair was stolen from a barbershop.” He spread his hands out before him. “I mean, who the hell steals hair?”

  “You have many criminals in your midst.”

  “I guess. But there seem to be some connections to the missing people in the park . . . and the river goes from here into Yellowstone.”

  Muirenn lifted her chin. This tack was starting to bore her. “I promised you the healing of your hand. Show it to me.”

  Startled at the change in conversation, he turned away, only to turn right back. He was wearing a glove on his once-injured hand. He stripped it off.

  It was pink, like fresh salmon. More important, new fingers had formed on his hand, the ring and the littlest one that had once been missing. Dark violet veins were growing in. The flesh looked soft and fragile, but it was there.

  “Don’t doubt me. Or my power, Owen,” she said.

  Owen looked away. “Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop this. Please.”

  He was slipping away. She knew it. He was weak. If he had his way, he’d see to it that she was chained and starved. She had been right in summoning Lascaris, as much as she hated him. A weak king was worse than a strong one, regardless of where his moral compass lay.

  She said nothing to him. She simply dipped below the surface of the water and swam out into the darkness, a song on her lips.

  She may as well eat while she could.

  She was going to have to pay for this new body, one way or the other.

  Petra lay in bed, but she couldn’t sleep. Sig dozed, snuggled up to her belly, snoring softly. He always liked being the little spoon when they slept. That wasn’t distracting; what was distracting was the sound of blood in her ears and the way her lungs filled with air. Nothing ached, nothing was disintegrating. All was perfect. Too perfect. She stroked her smooth arms in the dark. No scars. No evidence that she’d ever really lived a full life.

  It occurred to her that perhaps she should have left the body behind in the attic of the Compostela. Everyone, even Owen, would have believed her dead, and she’d have complete freedom to search for Gabe. But seeing what lay in that attic . . . the bartender would have cleaned up the mess and buried her himself, without sharing the news of her death. He would have known she was to blame. That bartender would have hunted her down more quickly. He would have seen her, and he would have known.

  And he would be looking—she was certain of that. Petra stared up into th
e darkness. It might take him a while to figure out that the gold pendant was missing from his bizarre cloning brew. There might have been other clues left. But no matter what, he would be searching for her.

  With Owen, she knew that he could be stopped with interjurisdictional lines. He had no authority on the reservation, and Maria and Nine were safe here. The tribal police would relish the chance to kick Owen’s ass and drive him off their land, and Owen knew that. He wouldn’t come close.

  But the bartender . . . that guy had no such administrative geas around him. He would come looking for her, and he’d be on their doorstep before the tribal police could do anything. And he knew magic. How much did he know? What could he do? If she had drawn Sig, Maria, and Nine into this mess beyond the extent they already were . . . she didn’t want to think about that, as likely as it was seeming.

  Petra flopped onto her side, and Sig turned over to kick her in the belly. She didn’t believe in fate, that she was scheduled to die of leukemia at an appointed hour. Falling into that vat had been a pure accident. Still, she knew deep in the marrow of her new bones that she’d fucked up something major. Her time in Temperance had taught her something: magic always had a price. The cost for this, whatever it was, was going to be astronomical. She would have to pay it, but she hoped that the debt would be visited on her alone.

  She climbed out of bed to wander to the kitchen. Sig flopped over to take her place, uninterested in what she was up to.

  Petra turned on the overhead light in the kitchen and picked up a mason jar holding the creature that had come from the pearl. It lay at the bottom of the jar, flat as a squished spider. She realized that she’d left her microscope back at the trailer, damn it. But the hatchling still bore some need for analysis. And there was no better cure for insomnia than science.

  She puttered around the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets. She gathered up an odd collection of items to put on the kitchen table: a laser pointer cat toy, some chewing gum, a white Corelle saucer, tweezers, and a flashlight. She popped the gum in her mouth and chewed it while she looked in her purse for her cell phone.