Witchy Eye

by D. J. Butler

“Ha!” Cal clambered up on top of the altar in his muddy moccasins. “Sorry ’bout your table, Lord,” he muttered. “I know this ain’t polite.”

  “Cal,” Sarah called to him, drawing her silver letter opener, which suddenly felt small and useless. “What’re you doin’? We need you!” Her companions backed with her into a loose circle around the altar, facing outward.

  “Checkin’ the bore of these here guns,” he called back, “and hot damn if they ain’t half inchers!” He dropped lightly to the floor and pressed the weapons into Cathy’s hands.

  “I’m not much of a shot, I fear,” the tall woman said, “but I can certainly load them.”

  Cal drew his tomahawk.

  Obadiah fired first, one gun and then the other. The reports of the shots were loud and echoed long, and the bullets bit into the flesh of the foremost of the Lazars advancing from the apse. They chewed open little black holes in the flesh of his face and chest, but no blood flowed and the impact only rocked him back, slowing his forward progress a moment.

  Sarah saw in her mind’s eye the coming return fire, and she reached deep into her being for energy. She found a tiny handful and she molded it quickly into a defensive spell Thalanes had taught her, one of his favorites. She thought for a moment about material components and wished she carried a few bullets in her pocket.

  “Pallottolas averto,” she whispered, brushing away the bullets with her hand before any of them had left the barrel.

  She felt woozy as the spell’s energy flowed out of her, and took a deep breath. Turning to check on the progress of her enemies, she caught, ever so slightly and far away, the gaze of the Sorcerer Hooke.

  A mind-presence crushed down upon her, and in her weakness she almost fell over. Die thou, die, die, she heard Hooke’s rattling whisper in her mind’s ear, and she felt a cold hand wrapping its clawed fingers about her heart to squeeze it. Other hands seemed to grope her; the cathedral wavered and faded from view, as if a sheet of water had fallen over it.

  She had no strength to resist, and breathing became difficult.

  Gunfire erupted in the church. Sarah wished she could see the results, but her vision was blurring. Hands closed in around her and pulled her slowly from her friends.

  “Thalanes!” She fell to her knees, dropping the knife.

  Die thou! Die! Die!

  Then Thalanes was there, and his gentle hand that smelled reassuringly of coffee was prying the cold talons from Sarah’s soul. Sarah took a deep breath. Her vision became crisp again.

  One of the Lazars was bearing down on her.

  Cal reached out to try to grab him as he barreled past, but Calvin and Obadiah were engaged in a fight with the other three Lazars—his grab missed, and the Lazar rushed at Sarah with a dull grin on his white lips and a knife in his hand.

  Sarah held up the white ash staff to ward him off—

  bang!

  The Lazar fell back to the floor. He shrieked and howled, clutching at his hip where the bullet had struck him, and thick black ichor gushed from the wound. He rolled back to his feet again and lunged forward topsy-turvy, knife first.

  Sarah looked up and saw Sir William looming over her, holding one of the Lafitte pistols in his hand—

  bang!—

  he fired again, and this second shot hit the wounded Lazar in the face, bowling him over in a shower of black liquid and leaving him still on the floor.

  “Again, Mrs. Filmer!” Sir William’s voice was incongruously merry. He handed the woman the smoking pistol and took up his saber to meet the charge of Black Tom Fairfax.

  Sarah shot a look at Thalanes; strain was visible in the contorting muscles of his face, but she no longer felt the Sorcerer Hooke in her spirit, and the hands were gone, so the monk was at least fending off the attack, if not doing more than that. She considered rushing Hooke in a physical counterattack, but he was still far down the nave, and her other friends were in mortal peril right beside her.

  She dropped her staff and picked up the silver knife.

  * * *

  Black Tom came in low and fast, the tip of his long knife pointing up and a fierce leer exposing yellow teeth, bright against the white skin of his face. Bill would have liked to take his time, playing to his advantage of a longer reach, but there were enemies at his back too, attacking his queen.

  Bill swung for the head.

  Black Tom didn’t slow down to defend, he only hunched his shoulder slightly, to take the blow there rather than in the neck. Bill’s saber bit into the dead flesh reluctantly, as if into hard wood, and then twisted out, and the Lazar was unfazed.

  Fortunately, Bill’s blow knocked the dead man slightly aside, so his knife thrust missed Bill’s heart and instead the blade skidded along his ribs, slicing coat and skin with its razor edge. Bill gasped and clamped his arm down over the Lazar’s elbow, grabbing him by his lank hair and pinning the dead man.

  If the advantage of reach was gone, Bill would play to size and strength.

  The Lazar reeked of decay, and Bill looked into his eyes to find them white and milky, but writhing with small black worms. Corruption tainted his foul breath.

  Bill battered Tom Long-Knife uselessly in the jaw with the basket hilt of his saber, then hacked again at the dead man’s neck, pounding the base of his sword-blade at the bunched muscle. He scored the skin but barely bit into the flesh, and after a second, similarly futile blow, and a third, he stopped.

  He needed a better weapon.

  He punched Black Tom in the face again and pulled his hair back at a more extreme angle to keep the Lazar distracted. What else could Bill attack with? He looked around desperately. Shouldn’t there be some silver on the altar? The dead man’s feet kicked at the stones below him as Bill hit him again in the temple.

  Bill was stronger than the dead man, but soon he would tire, the pain in his ribs would bleed away his strength, and then the calculus would shift to Bill’s distinct disadvantage.

  There was something on the altar, toppled and plaintive among the Appalachee lad’s muddy moccasin prints. It looked like a little pyramidal box, and it had a dull gleam that might be silver. He punched Tom again. The box wasn’t sharp, but it was pointed on top.

  He punched the Lazar in the throat, then looked down—

  and found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol.

  Damn.

  Bang!

  For a split second, Bill knew it was over, and he was going to die, his skull blown into fragments by a low-down snake, failed rebel, and traitor who had died, throat slit with his own knife, over a hundred years earlier.

  But Black Tom missed.

  Astonishment registered on the dead man’s face, but Bill didn’t stop to check the horse’s teeth. He tossed his saber in the direction of the altar and whipped off his trusty hat with his free hand.

  Tom pummeled him twice in the shoulder with his empty pistol, and then Bill crammed the hat down over the dead face, smashing it on as completely as he could and grimacing at the pain that lanced into his injured arm and side.

  He dropped the dead man and sprang out of reach of his darting knife, leaping toward the silver object on the altar.

  No doubt Black Tom had missed him because of his lucky hat. Every soldier needed a good lucky hat.

  * * *

  Cal kicked himself for not going with the lariat.

  He could have at least roped one of these rotting white bandits into immobility, which would have evened the odds. Instead, he parried the attack of one and then the other with his tomahawk, circling and dodging to avoid being caught between them. It was like playing at Indian Fighter with the Calhoun younguns, and Cal was the only Indian against a large troop of John Smiths and Daniel Boones. Only these Daniel Boones weren’t just armed with withies, and Cal desperately wanted to smash their brains in.

  But all he could really do was dodge. He didn’t dare put away the war axe now, and he was pressed too hard to have any opportunity for counterattack.

  He’d h
oped briefly that the Englishman—what in tarnation Sarah was thinking bringing along Father Angleton’s pit bull, he couldn’t imagine, but Dogsbody did seem to be fighting on their side—might somehow dispense with the single Lazar he was facing and help Calvin, but Obadiah grunted and swore a stream of bitter curses Calvin didn’t recognize as he struggled with the dead man, arms locking and blades flashing in an off-kilter dance about the choir’s seats.

  Cal would tire, he would slip, he would put a foot wrong, and it would be over. He needed to get one of them down, now, or he was a dead man.

  One Lazar overextended himself in stabbing for Cal’s stomach, and Cal took his chance. He clubbed that corpse aside with the handle of his tomahawk, knocking away his knife in the process, and whirled, swinging with all his might for the center of the other Lazar’s chest.

  Thwack!

  The sharp war axe struck home, sinking a couple of inches into the cold flesh of the dead man. The Lazar stumbled back, then lurched forward, stabbing at Cal’s head. Cal caught the attacking knife arm by the wrist with his hand, stopping the blow with an effort, and smashed his elbow into the Lazar’s face. The dead fellow grinned, and with his free hand clawed at Cal’s eyes. Calvin caught the incoming claw and now held the Lazar by both his wrists, struggling to throw the dead man to the ground, but feeling himself forced inexorably down.

  He couldn’t take this much time, he knew he was vulnerable.

  When would the pistols be loaded again?

  Cold fingers closed around Cal’s throat and teeth sank into his shoulder.

  * * *

  Bill scooped up his saber and grabbed the silver object on the altar. A pyx, he thought it might be called, and up close the peaked roof of the thing was disappointingly blunt.

  He wheeled to face Black Tom Fairfax and blinked hard as his own hat struck him in the face. Bill threw himself back to avoid the blow he knew must be coming. The altar struck him in the kidneys and then he felt Black Tom’s knife bite into his upper thigh, on the outside.

  The pain seared him, but it was a wound he could live and fight with.

  He could see again, his traitor hat out of his face, and he swung the pyx up just in time to deflect Tom’s knife. This wasn’t what he’d wanted the pyx for, though, so he punched with his saber at the dead man’s weapon hand, attempting to move the blade aside and make room for a bludgeoning with the pyx.

  He made contact; it felt like an awkward blow to Bill, but, to his surprise and satisfaction, Black Tom dropped the knife.

  Bill swung with the pyx, and Tom stepped back from the arc of silver. His right arm hung still at his side as he dodged Bill’s attack, hissing.

  Bill stepped forward to press his advantage—crunch—his boots crushed something long and brittle.

  Bugs. They’ve let bugs infest the cathedral. Bill didn’t look down.

  * * *

  Calvin hollered as the Lazar bit into his flesh; Sarah felt terrible guilt.

  He’d come all this way, had evaded Imperial officers, had fought demons in clay vessels, and now he was being killed by two walking corpses. And he’d done it all for her; he loved her, and she had refused to take his feelings seriously. She owed him better than that.

  Whether his love had some origin in her hexing of him hardly seemed relevant now.

  Sarah tightened her grip on the tiny silver dagger and leaped in. A better fighter than her might have made a tactical decision about which Lazar to attack based on position and relative strength. Sarah simply knifed the dead man closest to her.

  It turned out to be the one in front of Cal. She stabbed with all her anger, plunging the sharpened letter opener through the rotten fabric of his jacket and into his back. Cold, wet, black ichor gushed out onto her hands and moccasins, and the Lazar broke his silence to howl wordlessly.

  Wraaaaarooooooghh!

  He spasmed, he twitched, and he sank to the floor, tangling up Sarah’s feet and giving her a close look at the other Lazar’s face, yellow teeth sunk into the flesh of Cal’s shoulder, white eyes staring at her, black worms squirming and dropping in an obscene, wiggling dance onto Calvin’s skin and into his loose shirt.

  The white knuckles of the Lazar’s hands writhed as he choked Cal; Cal threw an elbow back, but couldn’t free himself, and his struggles were slowing.

  Sarah strained to roll the downed Lazar over and recover her knife, but he was too heavy.

  Cal gasped and choked, fingers pawing at the Lazar’s hair and ears.

  Sarah reached inside herself for power to try to cast a spell and found the well dry.

  Cal was doomed.

  Bang!

  The Lazar choking Cal released him, hissing in anger and spinning to face a new threat. The shot had come from Cathy Filmer, who now calmly laid down one Lafitte pistol and took up the other.

  “Are you well, Mr. Calhoun?” she called.

  Cal sank to his knees and gasped, scrabbling to remove his tomahawk from the dead man Sarah had destroyed. It squeaked as it came out, like the sound an axe head makes when it’s pulled out from being deeply embedded a log.

  The remaining Lazar, black blood streaming down his side, jumped at Cathy.

  Bang!

  Cathy coolly fired her second shot. She hit the Lazar square in the chest, knocking him prone in gouts of his own dark ichor.

  As Calvin staggered to his feet and recovered his breath, Sarah managed to extract her knife from the dead man. The twice-holed Lazar flailed in his own black, mephitic mess, and Sarah crawled over to him with dagger in hand. He stared up at her with white eyes, wormlets streaming down his cheeks and into his hair. He had once been a man. What had made him hate so much that he had turned to murder? What was worth so much to him that he’d been willing to make a pact with dark powers, to return from beyond the grave and attack her?

  Or had he been forced into it? Was he a slave, like Tom Fairfax?

  Or a willing accomplice, like Robert Hooke?

  The dead man grinned at her mutely, and she shoved her dagger into his throat. Cold liquid spurted out, spraying Sarah and covering her hands. His eyes filmed over and went dark as his body spasmed, shook, and finally grew still. The worms twitched and wiggled around him and dried up before her eyes into crispy, twisted threads.

  Sarah clambered to her knees and surveyed the scene.

  Sir William dueled Black Tom Fairfax. He was wounded but seemed to have the upper hand. Obadiah wrestled with a Lazar, cursing obscurely; they had both lost their knives, and were reduced to battering each other, so the Englishman’s face was bruised and bloody.

  Were they winning? Was it possible they were winning? But where was Thalanes? She found him slumped against a column.

  Thalanes looked bad. His eyes fluttered and sweat streamed down his face, though the church was chilly. He murmured, and she couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like an incantation. He was still fighting Hooke, and Sarah was filled with gratitude—this could have been her, and she would have been long dead by now.

  She wanted to help him, but how?

  Sarah tightened her grip on her silver knife and bent over. She shook the blade to clean it of the black ichor of the Lazars, rolled up the gray sleeve of his cassock, then pressed the flat of the knife to Thalanes’s arms.

  He groaned, and a red welt appeared where she had touched him, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  She pushed harder. The welt turned to blisters and he groaned louder.

  Sarah rotated the knife blade and cut into his skin. Red blood flowed and Thalanes gasped, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  What, then?

  Sarah stood. She looked down the long nave at the Sorcerer Robert Hooke, and she knew. Shaking Thalanes’s blood from the silver dagger, she propelled herself, awkward and uncomfortable though it was, into a sprint.

  * * *

  Bill didn’t know whether he could bludgeon the Lazar to death, but he was game to try. He smashed the pyx into the dead man’s skull with a satisfying cra
ck.

  Tom Long-Knife hissed. He slashed with his blade, a blow Bill managed to turn aside, but only by a hair.

  The Lazar still favored his right arm, leaving it hanging limp by his side. Bill saw no blood, even of that ugly black variety the Lazars had, and he wondered whether the Lazar suffered from some previous injury.

  Bill hilt-punched Tom in the jaw to keep him guessing, then jabbed with the pyx. The Lazar hurled himself sideways to the floor, rolling and coming up with the knife in his left hand, stabbing again. Bill dodged with a slight shuffling backstep. His breath came in ragged gasps. How many more times would he be able to avoid the bite of Black Tom’s famous blade?

  Dying impaled on a weapon of historical significance was not an end to which Bill had ever aspired.

  Truly ambidextrous men were rare, but a good fighter trained himself to be dangerous with both hands. That was especially true, in Bill’s experience, of knife fighters, and Black Tom Fairfax was proving to be no exception. Setting his jaw, Bill closed in.

  His feet stepped on something crunchy again, and he decided he should know what it was. He swiped at the dead man with his sword to create space between them, then drew back half a pace to throw a quick glance at the floor.

  It was strewn with fingernails.

  They were the long, yellow nails of the Lazar, neatly snapped off. It sheds, Bill thought in disgust. Like a dog.

  “I find, suh,” he said, “that the name Tom Long-Knife does not suit you so well as Tom Long-Nail. You, suh, are unkempt.”

  Black Tom hissed and lunged.

  Bill stepped forward again to answer the attack, ignoring the crunch of the Lazar’s fingernails underfoot as he parried Tom’s short sword and checked the undead’s body with his own.

  Someone rushed past them, behind the Lazar, springing up the aisle of the nave.

  It was his queen.

  Bill glanced toward the end of the nave to ascertain where she was going, and saw one more Lazar, one that hadn’t joined the fight and had instead hung back, fingers flickering.

  Hell’s Bells, had she been trapped in some bit of arcane jiggery?

  Black Tom stabbed him. The knife took him in the forearm and Bill dropped the pyx, shouting in startled pain, but when he slashed with his saber Tom was gone, turned and already running after Sarah up the aisle.