For a single heartbeat, Rissa seemed to detonate energy in every direction. There was a brief moment of swirling chaos, and suddenly they were encased in shadows, back on the beach under the boardwalk near the white sandy shore.
“Rissa, please call for an ambulance,” Colt said, pressing two fingers against his throat to check the pulse. “I seem to be seriously hallucinating from the fumes of that blasted carpeting! The Grotto isn’t open yet for brunch, but I’m sure that they’ll let you use the phone—”
“You’re fine! We’re fine. Everything is fine,” Rissa said soothingly, patting his other hand. “It’s just that ... Look, does it really matter? Everybody is safe, and that’s what is truly important. Right?”
Breathing in the salt air, Colt said nothing for a long time. “No, it’s not,” he replied. “Exactly what is going on?”
“It’s sort of difficult to explain,” Rissa hedged uncomfortably, digging the toe of her sneaker into the sand.
“Try me,” Colt said, crossing his arms.
Ten thousand excuses and a million lies came and went in her mind like the fluttering pages of a book caught in the wind. But in the end, Rissa realized the truth was her only real option. He deserved that much, at the very least.
“Okay ... you see ... I’m a witch,” Rissa blurted, feeling as if she had just jumped off a high cliff and the ground was an awful long distance away.
“Ah ... a what now?” Colt asked, tilting his head.
“Witch.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
Just then somebody laughed on the boardwalk overhead and threw a partially eaten fritter at the churning sea. Swooping in fast, a seagull snatched it out of the air and flew away triumphantly.
“What kind of a witch?” Colt asked slowly.
She gave a deep sigh. “Now, I know that this is very ... whatdidyoujustsay?”
“This is Savannah, my love,” Colt explained patiently. “Declaring that you’re a witch is like saying you’re a musician. It tells me nothing. Are you a lyricist, bandleader, composer, drummer, conductor, singer ... and what kind of music? Jazz, rock, marches, classical, disco, hip-hop, gospel, country and western, the blues, funk, punk ... ”
He waved his hand in an endless circle. “So my dear, are you a pagan, Wiccan, shaman, Golden Dawn, Satanist, Gardnerian, Atharvaveda, Shintoist, Taoist, voodoo priestess ...”
“Mechanic,” Rissa interrupted, more thankful than words could express. “I have no powers, but—”
“But something you own does,” Colt finished. “Those amber rings, I suppose?”
“Yes! Wow, you really are smart.”
“Good-looking, too,” Colt chuckled, beating some of the smoke out of his damp clothing. “Well, my sincere thanks for saving everybody, Samantha.”
“Anytime, Darrin,” Rissa grinned, then threw herself forward to hug the man again. “I love you,” she whispered into his uniform.
“As I do you,” Colt said tenderly, nuzzling the top of her head. “Then we’re really at the beach? This where we had our first—”
“Kiss?”
“Well, that’s what we’ll tell the kids. Although officially I haven’t asked you yet, and—”
“I accept!”
They kissed again, and this time it seemed to last forever. A singular moment of perfection, lovingly preserved in the memory of the heart.
“From the first moment we met, I knew there was magic in the world,” Colt said eventually, both arms wrapped about the woman.
“Ah, sweet. You are so getting lucky tonight.”
“Please, my dear! Such language is unseemly in public.”
Curiously Rissa looked around at the vast and empty beach. “Sorry,” she whispered, then violently sneezed. With a curt gesture, she dried their damp clothing, fixed her hair, slipped a condom in his pocket, and warmed the sand underfoot to a more comfortable level. Just in case.
“You know, if magic is real,” Colt said thoughtfully, leaning against a rough wooden post, “that would certainly explain a lot of odd things in the world. Congress, game show hosts, monster truck rallies ...”
“I don’t think they’re actually monsters, dear.”
“Pity. Say! Is ... is this why all of the emergency exits were locked and the windows wouldn’t break?” Colt asked in sudden understanding. “Why the stone burned and the fire extinguishers failed? Magic destroyed the Tower?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Radiating a barely controlled fury, the man rose to his full height. “Who did it?” Colt growled, flexing both hands. “Some rogue mage, or a hellspawn demon?”
“You suspect Laura, then?” Rissa asked, half joking.
His face fell. “She was discharged only a few minutes before the place went up in flames,” Colt said slowly, straightening the lapels of his charred security uniform.
“Wow, I thought she was your right hand.”
“She was! Absolutely the best PA I ever had! But amputation was required.”
“What did she do, embezzle the payroll?”
Opening his mouth, Colt closed it with a snap, and said nothing as his cheeks began to turn bright red.
“For some reason my radioactive spider-sense is tingling,” Rissa said with an artificially sweet smile. “Honey bunny, why did you fire Laura?”
“Now, let me get this out without interruption,” Colt said, and quickly told what happened in his private office.
“That bitch!” Rissa roared, her auburn hair flaring out to writhe in the air like living snakes. “I should have shot her twice! In the tits! With a bazooka!”
“Gosh, I’m really glad that you’re taking it so well.”
“Now, let me get this straight,” Rissa said in a dangerous tone, miniature lightning bolts crackling across her many rings. “There you were ... alone with her ... stark naked ... in a locked room ...”
“Define naked.”
“Then she got on her knees ... used magic ...” Her voice dramatically softened. “And you still said no?”
“Of course,” Colt said simply. “I love you.”
“Good answer,” Rissa whispered, floating off the ground to cup his face and resoundingly kissing the man again and again.
Just then a blue crab scuttled out of the cresting waves to come directly their way. What caught Rissa’s attention was the fact that the creature was walking forward, not sideways like the species normally did.
“Did you see that?” Colt asked as a dozen more blue crabs came out of the surf. Those were closely followed by another dozen, then a swarm ...
As Colt and Rissa watched in growing horror, the volume of the Atlantic Ocean actually seemed to lower as countless thousands upon thousands of blue crabs crawled onto the beach, their sharp pincers snapping and clicking.
Overhead on the boardwalk, people started screaming and frantically running away.
Bending down, Colt hugged Rissa around the legs and heaved upward. “Climb!” he bellowed.
Grabbing the wooden safety railing, Rissa managed to wiggle onto the boardwalk. Not a soul was in sight. Even the staff of The Grotto seemed to be gone. The tables were all neatly laid out for the lunch crowd, but in the parking lot a dozen cars were peeling away with smoking tires.
A few moments later, Colt rose into view ... with a trio of large crabs perched on his shoulders, their sharp pincers stabbing at his bloody face.
Furious, Rissa gestured with both hands. Her palms sizzled as blue beams of dark manna lanced out and the crabs exploded into a roiling allotropic mist of monatomic vapor. The concussion of the blast echoed along the boardwalk and far out to sea.
“Never gonna cheat on you, that’s for dang sure,” Colt muttered, wiping a streak of fresh blood off his cheek. Then his smile faded away completely.
Unexpectedly there came a metallic clattering noise from behind. Spinning around, Rissa saw a manhole cover in the street shift aside, and out boiled a neverending wave of clattering blue crabs.
Quickly she leveled two fingers and the iron manhole cover crackled with sparkling pyrotechnics, but the crabs were unharmed. Damn it, cold iron again!
Rushing forward, Colt toppled over a steam table covered with tiny quiches; a wave of boiling water washed down the stairs and across the pavement to force the crabs back, but not for long.
“Okay, you’re a billionaire,” Rissa said quickly, lowering her voice to a whisper in case anybody was listening. “Which means people are always trying to sell you something.”
“If you have a point, dearest, make it fast,” he growled, picking up a chair to brandish it as a club.
“You must have a hideout; I mean, a weekend getaway,” Rissa corrected. “Someplace that not even your PA knows about. A private spot where you ...” She paused uncertainly, then continued, “...where you take women for intimate moments.”
“The shack!” Colt cried, tossing aside the chair. “Nobody’s ever been there but me and my dad.” The tone of his voice clearly stated that his father was no longer among the living.
The clattering of the crabs increased to a clamor as they began to form a mound on the beach that steadily rose toward the boardwalk.
“Try to imagine the shack. Remember every detail,” Rissa directed, taking hold of his hands. “Make it real in your mind. That is where you want to be, more than anyplace else!”
“In your arms is where I want to be,” Colt replied honestly, then furrowed his brow. “There’s a rope swing on the porch, and a fieldstone—”
“Don’t tell me! Show me!”
With a nod, Colt closed his eyes, and Rissa commanded the rings to take them there. One of them became warm and another oddly cold; she felt his heart beating in time with her own, then there came a bright flash from within both of them ... and the smell of the sea and boiled quiches was replaced with the more earthy reek of a fetid swamp.
No, not really a reek, Rissa corrected, releasing his hand to pinch her nose shut. Just the strong smell of decomposing vegetation and what she hoped was a large pool of lumpy mud. Please let it be mud.
Just then an alligator waddled by and gave a primitive demonstration that it most definitely was not mud.
“It worked!” Colt gasped, sounding pleased and horrified at the same time.
“Usually does, my dear. Now about those walking suitcases full of teeth ...”
“Ignore the gators,” Colt stated confidently. “They never come on the island anymore.”
“Why?”
“I keep shooting them.”
“That’d convince me.”
“Nine times out of ten.”
As if in reply, the gator loudly bawled, then slid into the dark water to disappear.
The aptly named shack was old and dilapidated, the tin roof streaked with rust and the fieldstone chimney decorated with abandoned birds’ nests. The dirty windows were patched with gray duct tape and the shutters were missing, but the shiny brass hinges remained. The splintery wooden porch sagged and was covered with mounds of dry leaves. If there had once been a rope swing, it was long gone.
“Any sign of the crabs?” Rissa asked, looking among the weeds, then around the corner of the ramshackle building. Situated on a small island, it was surrounded by thick black water sprinkled with lily pads and fallen logs and bristling with cattails.
“I think we’re good,” Colt said, twisting around to try and see his own back.
“What if they send gators this time?” she asked.
“How can they?” he grinned confidently. “Nobody knows where we are!”
“Not even us,” she muttered. Wherever they were located now, it was about as far away from civilization as it was possible to get without a passport and a machete.
A forest of huge banyan trees dominated the swamp, most of them festooned with Spanish moss and leafy creepers. Everywhere frogs croaked, birds sang, snakes hissed, and insects chirped in a nonstop chorus of unfettered Nature. Flowers and weeds grew alongside each other on every available patch of dry earth, the combination creating quite a strong smell of its own.
Across a wide stretch of still water was a much larger island covered in green grass and edged with a broken iron fence. Inside were neat rows of headstones, one granite angel, and a squat mausoleum heavily decorated with centuries of dried bird droppings.
After a few moments, Rissa decided that she approved. This was a perfect location for an indie horror film, which rather appealed to her darker side. “Are we still in Savannah?” she asked curiously.
“Not even close,” Colt said throwing open the door. “Welcome to my home away from home!”
“You keep it unlocked?” Rissa asked, stepping into the dark interior. To somebody from Chicago, the very idea bordered on madness.
“Nothing here to steal that I’d miss,” Colt replied with a shrug.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” she muttered uneasily.
Going to the mantle above the fireplace, Colt took a butane lighter from a Ziploc bag and got a couple of hurricane lanterns going. Soon a warm yellow glow filled the room.
The interior was rustic but serviceable, with a large kitchen, shelves of dusty canned goods, a small bed near the fireplace, a brick shower in the far corner, a shotgun hanging above the fireplace mantel, and several posters of buxom young ladies wearing only the skimpiest of bikinis.
“Sorry, never thought anybody would ever be here but me,” Colt apologized, yanking down the posters and crumpling them into a ball.
“Anything that happened before today doesn’t count,” Rissa said, repeating something her mother had said many years ago.
“Wow, I really do love you,” Colt sighed, dropping the past into the plastic garbage can.
Rissa smiled. “Ditto.” Then she gestured and her fingertips tickled pleasantly as the posters flared into monoatomic ash.
Going into the kitchen, Colt turned on the propane and started the water heater. “We can take a shower in about an hour,” he said, cleaning his hands on a rag. “Want some lunch? I can heat up some chili.”
“Well, if we have an entire hour to kill,” Rissa said, holding out both arms in an unmistakable invitation.
Tossing away the rag, Colt strode across the kitchen and took Rissa in his arms, pulling her close. For a long moment they simply stood there, arms folded about each other. Then Colt gently tilted her face upward and they kissed. Tenderly at first, then with growing passion as the physical ache for each other washed away the events of the day; soon there was only the here and now of their secluded intimacy.
Resting a cheek on his chest, Rissa clearly remembered seeing him in the crystal charging through the flames, trying to lead the others to safety. Did that make him a hero? The word was used so often these days in the news and advertising, she wasn’t really sure what it meant anymore. But she felt a visceral rush of pride at the knowledge that while others ran in fear, he stood and fought the beast.
“My gallant Lochinvar,” Rissa whispered contentedly, pressing her lips against the tiny scar on his face.
Recognizing the reference, Colt frowned. “But you saved me,” he stated honestly.
Trying not to smile, Rissa silenced him with a long kiss. Sometimes men are such idiots.
Just then, Colt’s cell phone started playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 and Rissa’s began to softly buzz.
“Surprise!” Laura laughed over both of the speakers, and there came a very loud knocking from the front door.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Yanking out their phones, Rissa and Colt violently threw them at the floor. The devices shattered, cutting off the mocking laugh. But the knocking on the door continued. Only now it seemed to them deeper, more resonant, almost as if someone were bodily throwing himself at the door trying to break through.
Rushing into the kitchen, Rissa grabbed an iron skillet while Colt marched across the shack and yanked down the double-barrel shotgun from over the fireplace.
“Any chance this could just be a neighbor?” sh
e asked, brandishing the anti-magic cookware.
“Doubtful. The closest is six miles away,” Colt muttered, cracking open the breech to check the cartridges inside. Both of the brass bottoms were marked with a splash of blue paint.
“And you didn’t tell anybody we’re here, right?” Rissa asked, peeking out a window. There was only swamp in sight, along with the ever-present alligators.
“While we were kissing? No.”
Starting across the room, both of them paused to wrinkle their noses. Then they each slapped a hand over their mouths.
“Next time, give a girl a warning,” Rissa mumbled in dismay. At least it hadn’t been the dreaded arch-enemy of romance, the Dutch Oven.
“Not me, babe,” Colt wheezed, closing the weapon with a snap of his free wrist.
Just then the door slammed open and in walked a man.
Recoiling in horror, Rissa needed a moment to realize that she was wrong on both counts. It wasn’t a man, nor did it walk.
The ... well, corpse was the only word that came to mind ... was wearing the moldy rags of what might have once been a wedding tuxedo. His decaying skin was a mottled gray and riddled with gaping pits that oozed a thick viscous liquid. Both of his eyes were only tiny shriveled raisins, and the white gums had drawn back to make his teeth seem massively oversized.
Moaning loudly as if in terrible pain or seriously pissed, the thing clumsily advanced in awkward stages, every step dislodging clumps of damp earth from his hair and clothing. Most of them contained insect life. He smelled like rotten meat sprinkled with used cat litter, and there was a large cloud of flies buzzing around his head.
“That’s a zombie!” Rissa shouted in warning, raising a hand. But then she paused, uncertain how to attack a walking corpse. An un-Healing spell? Anti-Resurrection? Summon Lightning? Detonate Underwear?
“Is it? Let’s find out!” Colt snarled, cutting loose with both barrels. The double explosion blew the zombie off his feet and out the front door to land sprawling on the porch.
Rushing closer to try and help, Rissa paused at the sight of the shuddering corpse completely falling apart, the internal offal crumbling into dust until there was nothing left but the dirty clothing and a few gold fillings. A moment later the buzzing flies departed, but the stench remained behind like a birthday gift from Satan.
Belle, Book and Candle: A Fantasy Novel by Nick Pollotta Page 20