Necessary Evil

by Donald Hanley

  “I’m here to help you, Peter.”

  I looked around the back yard, half-expecting one of my friends to jump out of nowhere and yell, “Surprise! We sure fooled you!” The circle of petrified people convinced me that my situation was still deadly serious. “Help me do what?” I asked carefully.

  “Survive the next few days,” she grinned.

  “Why? Not that I mind,” I added hastily, “but I’m confused. Aren’t you on Lilith’s side?”

  She made a rude noise. “As if I’d listen to anything a succubus would have to say. No, my motives are purely altruistic.”

  It was hard not to laugh out loud at that bald-faced lie. “Really,” I said flatly. “You’re helping me out of the goodness of your heart?” The word goodness didn’t apply to her in any way, shape, or form, not after her little demonstration, and I was willing to bet that heart was a foreign concept to her as well.

  “Well, I do get a bit of a benefit from you not dying for a while,” she admitted cheerfully, “but that’s beside the point. I owe you a big thanks, after all.”

  “What for?”

  “For letting me out, of course.”

  I blinked at her, trying to figure out what the heck she was talking about, and she wiggled her finger at my chest. I flinched automatically before I realized she was actually pointing at the Philosopher’s Stone. I held it up cautiously, trying to discern what she was getting at, but it looked exactly the same to me, gleaming with a faint but steady ruby light. Then my breath caught in my throat. The flickering mote of light was gone.

  “That was you?” Her smile broadened. “You were trapped inside the Stone this whole time?”

  “Your little witchy sister probably should have been a bit more specific when she cast her spell,” she said. “She released everything inside, not just that soul binding.” She spread her hands in a ta-da sort of gesture.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “Why were you in there? What did you do?” My mind instantly conjured up a dozen possible scenarios, none of them suitable for the faint-hearted.

  “It’s a long story,” she said with a careless wave, “but don’t worry. I’m not going to go on a murderous rampage or anything like that. In fact, I’m going to help you and your merry little band of magicians deal with Lilixandriel.” She cast a disparaging look at the others.

  “But why would you do that?” I asked again. “Shouldn’t you be helping her instead?” I realized belatedly that talking this girl into killing me herself really wasn’t a good strategy on my part but she heaved another long-suffering sigh.

  “Peter, Peter, Peter,” she said with a dramatic shake of her head. “Think about it. What is Lilixandriel trying to do?”

  “Kill me?” I said hesitantly.

  “And why is she trying to do that?”

  “Because she doesn’t like me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why else?”

  “To get my Philosopher’s Stone?”

  “Good answer. And why does she want it?”

  I tried to remember what Lilixandriel’s bargain with Bellaxragor had been. “She wants to be Queen of Hell?”

  “Precisely. And what’s stopping her from just waltzing in and sitting on the Burning Throne right now?”

  I blinked my way through that one. “The Dread Lord?”

  “And he is –?” She pointed at herself.

  “Your father?”

  “Exactly.” She let her breath out with a shake of her head. “That was an uphill climb,” she muttered to herself. “So if I help you take care of Lilixandriel, certain people might be a bit more inclined to overlook certain –” she waved her hands aimlessly as she searched for the word, “transgressions on my part and let me go back home.” She smiled winningly at me.

  “Wait a minute,” I said suspiciously. “Who put you in the Stone in the first place?”

  “Let’s not dwell on the past, Peter,” she said blithely. “Let’s talk about what happens next.”

  “Not so fast, um –” She put on an attentive pose while I tried to get my train of thought unstalled. “What did you say your name was?”

  She snorted. “Your tongue would strangle your tonsils if you tried to pronounce it. Call me Amy.”

  “Amy? Seriously?”

  “Absolutely. It’s from the French word ami, did you know that? And ami means friend and that’s who I am, Peter, your newest and bestest friend.” I just stared at her in disbelief. The name Amy completely and utterly failed to convey the sense of ominous danger and impending doom I would normally have associated with the supposed daughter of the Dread Lord. Maybe that was why she picked it, to put me off my guard.

  “So, um, Amy,” I said, “what did you do to everybody? Are they going to be okay?”

  “Of course,” she assured me. “I just wanted to have a private little chat with you first. All that screaming just gets on my nerves.”

  “Why would there be screaming?” I asked uneasily.

  “Who knows?” she shrugged. “It just seems to happen a lot. Anyway, I’m going to help you help me get back home.”

  “And why exactly should I help you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll rip every bone from your body without cutting you open first,” she smiled.

  “The, um, the, uh, Stone won’t let you kill me,” I reminded her.

  “Well, probably,” she agreed, waggling her hand in a maybe, maybe not gesture, “but it’ll still hurt. A lot,” she added.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed shakily. “Okay, so what do you have in mind?”

  Amy smirked in triumph. “So here’s the thing, Peter. You need to stay alive until Lilixandriel runs out of demon lords to send after you.”

  “Um, why? Not the staying alive part,” I hastened to add. “Why don’t you just, you know, kill Lilith now?”

  “Well, for one, she’s an elusive little bitch,” she sighed. “But two, and this is the important part, every demon who agrees to kill you and take the Stone is someone who’s planning to betray my father. So we need her to keep going while you thin out the ranks of the disloyal.” She spread her hands like she was offering me an all-expenses-paid cruise around the world. I was, to say the least, unenthused about her plan.

  “So what exactly do I get out of this?”

  “Practice?” she suggested brightly.

  “Doing what?”

  “Killing demons, of course.”

  “That’s not my job,” I protested. “That’s his job!” I jabbed my finger at Agent Prescott, still frozen in his chair.

  “Now it’s your job too,” she said with a nod. “For now, anyway.”

  “I can’t hunt demons! I don’t have any magic, how am I supposed to fight them? I wouldn’t last two seconds!”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” she intoned, shaking her head. “I’m not going to paint a target on your back and send you off to your painful demise, Peter. The whole idea is to keep you alive so Lilixandriel keeps trying to kill you, remember? I’m going to give you all the help you need.”

  “What sort of help?” I asked carefully. This entire conversation was an ever-expanding spiral of darkness and despair, growing worse with every twist.

  “I’m going to give you your powers back,” she announced proudly.

  “My powers?”

  “The ones you used to take down Dr. Bellowes, remember? That was a really impressive piece of work on Daraxandriel’s part, I have to say,” she added grudgingly. “Anyway, that worked out well for you and why reinvent the wheel, I always say. So, here goes.”

  She reached up to poke my forehead again and I backed away hastily, tripping over the planter and landing on my butt again. Before I could scramble out of range, Amy’s finger touched me and –

  Lightning snapped and crackled through my skull, searing mystical lines across my cerebral cortex that didn’t belong there and leaving trails of writhing agony behind as –

  Amy stepped back and I blinked up at her, trying to convince my eyes to
focus again. My temples throbbed like someone had jammed a wand straight through them but everything seemed a bit sharper and more colorful now, except for Amy herself. Her image fluttered and wobbled for a moment before it settled back down and my heart started racing for some reason as a cold trickle of sweat ran down my back.

  “Wh – what did you do?” It took me a couple of tries to get back on my feet and I had to steady myself against the patio table to keep my balance.

  “I just flicked the switch back on,” Amy said off-handedly. “You’re an enchanter again, Peter. Give it a try if you like. Set something on fire,” she suggested with mischievous grin.

  The powers Daraxandriel had given me to defeat Dr. Bellowes had been an exact replica of what my main character Coronox used in Legends of Lorecraft, right down to the spell bars and the targeting reticle. I carefully raised my right hand and I sucked in my breath as glowing blue crosshairs appeared in midair. I shifted my hand over and Amy was outlined in a soft white glow.

  I lifted my left hand and my main spell bar appeared, twelve icons in a row representing my primary damage powers. A flick of my wrist replaced them with my control spells and then my support spells. Everything was there, waiting for me to tap an icon and launch a Fireball or a Conceal or a Restore.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “I can do magic again.”

  Amy’s delighted smile stretched from ear to ear. “See, I told you I’d help you. In fact, just to make things a little more interesting, let’s see who else could use a boost.”

  She moved over to the circle of chairs and perused their occupants thoughtfully. “Well, it’s Daraxandriel’s fault her sister is causing all these problems,” she declared, “so she’s on her own.”

  “Dara didn’t do anything!” I protested.

  “Well, maybe she should have instead of just going along with everything Lilixandriel said,” Amy retorted. “Moving on.” She continued around the circle and stopped behind Susie’s chair. “Now she’s an interesting case. Imagine what she could do if I doubled her power.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told her uneasily.

  “Oh, Peter, where’s your sense of adventure?” she chuckled. “Well, it doesn’t much matter anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “She has a ward. Quite a nice one, too,” Amy noted approvingly. “It’ll be too much of a hassle to break it.” She continued on. “He’s warded,” she reported with a hint of disappointment, tapping Prescott on the top of his head. “Warded.” She tapped Mrs. Kendricks’ head. “Warded.” She tapped Stacy. It was like a diabolical version of Duck Duck Goose. Then Amy stopped behind Melissa’s chair and smiled. “Not warded.”

  “Wait a minute –” I said, alarm squeezing my heart in my chest, but I was too late. Amy touched her finger to the crown of Melissa’s head and absolutely nothing happened. “What did you do to her?” I demanded.

  “I just reopened her mind’s eye,” she assured me, which wasn’t very assuring at all. “After all, she’s the one who killed Bellaxragor. Lilixandriel’s not going to just let that slide.” She stepped back and inspected Melissa with her head tilted, like she was admiring a statue in a museum. “Some of my finest work, if I do say so myself.”

  “Leave her out of this!”

  “Nonsense, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Well,” she said, clapping her hands together with a satisfied nod, “I think we’re done here. Good luck and try not to die too quickly.”

  “Wait, you’re leaving?” I asked in dismay. “How am I supposed to explain this to everyone?”

  “Oh, thanks for the reminder. Let’s just keep this our little secret, shall we?” She reached over and pressed her finger against my mouth. Something shocked my lips painfully, as if she’d scuffed her shoes across a carpet before touching me. “It’s much more fun if everyone’s surprised.”

  “I don’t like surprises!” I told her but she just grinned.

  “It’ll be fine, Peter,” she insisted, waving away my protest. “You worry too much. Well, I’m off,” she announced, raising a hand over her head. “I’ll check back in every now and then to see how things are going. Ta!”

  “Wait!” I yelled but Amy snapped her fingers and vanished an instant before the screaming started.

  6

  Meetings have got to be the most inefficient way to make a decision. The only person in the room who really cares about the result is the one who called the meeting in the first place and he already knows what he wants the decision to be. Nobody else really cares one way or the other, as long as they don’t get any action items.

  Running a meeting like a democracy, where every attendee gets a vote, is a sure-fire recipe for failure. Half of them don’t have the necessary background to make an informed opinion, a quarter of them will agree with whatever the boss says, ten percent are busy checking their emails on their phones, another ten percent are trying to prove that they know more about the subject than everyone else, and the remaining five percent are just there for the donuts.

  The best approach to gain consensus is to declare your proposed solution to be the answer, table any objections as enhancements to be considered in Phase Two, and thank everyone for their valued input. This way, the meeting is over in fifteen minutes, everyone feels that they’ve been involved, and there’s still time to have donuts before the next meeting starts.

  “Peter!” Melissa leapt to her feet, gaping at my empty chair. “Oh my God, Susie, you killed Peter!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Susie argued, inspecting her wand with a frown. “There’s no body.”

  “Then where is he? Oh my God, what happened to Olivia?”

  Olivia was still there in her chair, looking completely lost, but her shift had dropped onto the seat underneath her. Everyone else jumped up, looking around and yelling instructions to each other, completely failing to notice me standing beside the patio table.

  “I’m right here, people!” I called but I couldn’t make myself heard over the noise.

  Olivia got up slowly, plucking at her nightgown as she realized she was a ghost once more. She looked around doubtfully and started when she caught sight of me. “Peter?” she asked worriedly. “What happened? How did you get over there?”

  “That flash caught me by surprise, that’s all,” my mouth told her, even though that wasn’t what I wanted to say. “You were blinded so you didn’t see me move.”

  She looked doubtful, as if her memory of events was different, but Daraxandriel’s tail poked her on the shoulder and directed her attention to me. “Peter Simon Collins!” she exclaimed in relief. “Thou art whole!”

  “I’m fine,” I assured her. The words matched my thoughts this time. “Susie must have put a little too much oomph in her spell.” Those ones didn’t.

  “Oh my God, Peter!” Melissa threw herself at me, pinning my arms against my sides in a full body hug while pressing her softer bits against my chest. “I thought I lost you again!”

  “I’m fine,” I said again. That was me. “Nothing happened.” That wasn’t. Amy’s spell or whatever it was refused to let me talk about her. “How do you feel?” That managed to slip past Amy’s magical censor.

  “I’ve got a bit of a headache, actually,” she admitted, rubbing the top of her head with a grimace. “That flash was really bright.”

  Can you do any new spells? I tried to ask, but what came out was, “It’ll pass in a minute.”

  “Peter, are you sure you’re okay?” Mrs. Kendricks asked worriedly. “An unbind spell shouldn’t have done that.”

  Amy, Spawn of Darkness, gave me my powers back so I can fight demons. “I’m fine, really.” I considered casting a small Fireball on something but my fingers refused to move the right way.

  “Susie, you should have waited until we were ready,” Mrs. Kendricks told her sternly. “The Philosopher’s Stone isn’t like a normal warding crystal. Who knows what might have happened?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” Susi
e grumped, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. “The bond’s gone.”

  All of the other witches – and one warlock – leaned closer to peer at the Stone resting against my chest. “True,” Mrs. Kendricks admitted grudgingly, “except – where did she go? Is Olivia still here, Peter?”

  “She’s right there,” I told her, pointing. “She tends to disappear when she’s surprised.”

  “Peter!” Olivia protested, as if I just revealed some embarrassing secret.

  “Oh, good,” Mrs. Kendricks sighed. “Is she free now? Is her bond truly gone?”

  I looked questioningly at Olivia and she gave a diffident shrug. “I guess,” she allowed reluctantly. “I don’t feel it pulling me anymore.”

  “So you can ascend now, right?” I asked.

  She crossed her arms and glared at me, echoing Susie’s posture. “I’m not ready to go yet.”

  “There’s no hurry,” I sighed. “She’s fine,” I reported to Mrs. Kendricks. “She’s planning on sticking around for a while, though.”

  “I’m not actually sure she has a choice,” Mrs. Kendricks mused uneasily.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Dread Lord’s curse is still inside her, isn’t it? Heaven won’t let her in with that and Hell doesn’t have a hold on her soul. She may be stuck here forever.” Mrs. Kendricks looked regretful but Olivia gasped excitedly.

  “Really?” she asked eagerly. “I don’t have to go?”

  “That’s not a good thing,” I pointed out. “You’re still dead, remember?”

  “Mostly dead,” she argued. “I can still become real and be your girlfriend.” She looked down at herself. “Sometimes,” she amended.

  I let the girlfriend comment slide. “Speaking of which, maybe you should change so everyone can see you again.”

  “Oh, right. Be right back.” Every other conversation on the patio stopped as everyone watched her dress fly across the patio. Halfway to the back door, her panties fluttered to the ground and Olivia hastily reversed her course to retrieve them. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice before hurrying into the house.