Whiskey & Witchcraft

by Kiki Howell

  "You don't have to. I heard them in the office this morning, only adding to my concern."

  "He wants out, mom, and I don't know how to help him."

  "He should get out. Like I said, I heard them this morning, in the office, his brothers and the rest of the coven, plotting against him. Seriously, they want some serious revenge. Are blinded by it. They foolishly think, just because they want it so badly, they may have devised a way to overtake Ciaran's demon, kill him basically, and then take over the company themselves. They are so blinded by greed that they couldn't care less if they kill Ciaran in the process, or run the company into the ground, which they will, not that it matters. They are crazy. I fear their demons are taking them over, the arrogant nonsense they are yelling at each other."

  "Mom, I mean he wants the demon out of him. He doesn't care about the company."

  "Oh," she said, followed by a long pause.

  In the endless moments where her mother made her deep thinking noises, exaggerated sighs verses sharp inhales, Allanah attempted to find two shreds of patience to rub together. She banked on the fact her mother came up with her best ideas after such moments, though the waiting grew agonizing, burning her frantic lungs, tightening her worn out muscles.

  She observed her surroundings. The office had remained as it had been created decades ago, merely maintained while leaving all the old world charm. Behind a dark wooden desk, small yet detailed, stood basic bookcases that took over the entire wall, floor to ceiling. On one of the remaining walls wood paneling gave way to some outdated, deep green wallpaper with a diamond design. She couldn't stop a grimace infused smile, looking over the cherry leather couch in front of a marbled fireplace topped with a gold-framed mirror. Outlandish and elegant, her regard for her cousin's need to maintain what had aged well, regardless of style, put him a rank above.

  "Well, that I can help with," her mother finally stated, her voice frightfully calm despite the obvious reluctance, maybe fear.

  "You can?" Allanah shrieked so high her throat burnt from the rush of air through her tired lungs.

  "Yes. I guess I can, although I'm a little more than surprised Ciaran doesn't know how to help himself. He has all of the components in his possession. I guess I'm confused. It's all too easy, I think, which makes me fearful I don't know everything I should."

  "Mom, please, if he knew a way he would have used it long ago. I'm not sure how you know, but that's a story for another time. Please. Quickly. Tell me what you know."

  "Okay. Well, there is a failsafe for the spell his family used. Ciaran has it, though I'm guessing he doesn't know he does."

  "How do you know this? How come you never told anyone?" The questions fell from her mouth before she could stop them, regardless of what she'd just said about urgency. Things were not adding up for her either.

  "I didn't know the boy wanted out. He didn't confide in me. Hell, he could barely look at me, though he kept me on here. I figured I reminded him of you, so we interacted as we had to and that was it. Anyway, not the matter. His father, the arrogant bastard that saved me, he gave me access to everything. He thought I wasn't clever enough, maybe, or trusted me enough, whatever, but I've seen the spell to send those demons, all of them, back to hell. I can get it without anyone knowing. It's in a private room where old papers are kept. All it requires is the bottle of whiskey, one of the original ones made by the company, and the amulet his father used to always wear. I know he gave both to Ciaran when he died. If he can tell me where to get them, I can bring them to you, too. You know I can—"

  "Pop in and out of places undetected. Teleport," Allanah answered for her. "Even though you have always claimed it dangerous, I know you do it, Mom. Wow. Just wow. We had no idea this spell existed. Ciaran is going to be shocked, but so thrilled beyond anything I can say. Ciaran, he's here, and I think he's dying...so I'll ask him where the whiskey and amulet are. You grab the spell in the meantime. Then, once you have it all, you can teleport. Get here fast."

  "Just tell me where you are," her mother said, the words followed by an exasperated sigh.

  "Oh...sure. So, Mom, don't freak out. I wish I had a better way to tell you, but we're in Ireland, in the place you were trained to use your magic. I'm sorry to tell you like this, so quickly and over the phone, but, Mom, your sister is gone. She passed away last year. Her son says you are welcome to come. I believe him. It's safe. He said your sister forgave you. But, anyway, please, can we talk of that later. Let me go ask Ciaran where the stuff is. In the meantime, get the spell, and wait for me to call you back."

  She hung up before the back and forth of all that had been revealed could go on any longer, waste precious time Ciaran might not have. A pang of guilt threatened to hasten her stride, but she moved past it, prayed her mother would move quickly, too, despite all the bombshells she'd just dropped on the woman. She knew her mother to be the strongest woman she'd ever known, so, she hung on to that belief as she ran down all the stairs, thorough the tunnels, to get back to the secret room where her cousin sat with Ciaran.

  "How is he?" she asked as she flew in as fast as her trembling legs could carry her.

  "Getting worse," Ciaran answered for himself, his voice faint, pained. "Just let me go, Allanah. I love you, but I won't have you dealing with this beast. He's going to win here soon. I'm too weak to hold him off much longer. Remember your promise."

  "No need. And no time to explain in detail. My mother has the spell to banish all of the demons. All she needs is the original bottle of whiskey your father gave to you along with his amulet."

  "What?"

  "I will explain after you tell me where they are so she can get here, save you."

  "Ah, okay... They are together, in my safe, in my room. I can give her the combination, but she will have to get past my staff."

  "Not if she teleports. She can get the spell, what she needs from the safe, and then get here, in minutes really. I just have to call her. Give me the combination, and I will run up and call her back."

  Allanah exhausted her already weary body taking care of all of the details to get her mother there with the right supplies. The nervous energy mixed with hope, true, real hope, had her shaking, her energy falsely soaring, until she couldn't sit still.

  "Stop pacing, my love. Save your strength. You have to be weary, worn out yourself," Ciaran said.

  "Yes, stop," Aedan added. "Here, drink more of this juice. Get your energy really built back up. You may need it depending on how this spell works."

  "I just can't believe," Ciaran continued on, his voice weaker than ever, "that what I needed was right under my nose all this time. I don't know whether to be excited or pissed, as in resentful, but of what I don't know. Life, for screwing me again, for taking away years I could have spent with you?"

  "If you had been nicer to my mom, then maybe you would have found out a long time ago," she teased, matching one raised eyebrow with a smirk so he'd know.

  "I was beyond nice to your mom, but I couldn't risk much time outside of work business with her. Some days it was all I could do after my father died not to beg her to help me get you to listen to me, but I wanted to wait until I was free of all of this. The sick and sadistic irony of it all. If I had talked to her, I'd have been free long ago. I almost can't take it."

  "You guys just need to focus now on what is to come, the end of all of this beast and demon business," Aedan reminded them.

  "We couldn't have done this without you. Thank you again," Allanah gushed.

  "Stop with the thanks already. You've thanked me a thousand times. This is what families are for, and I'm just thrilled to meet more of mine. It helps take away the sting of losing my mother. This house has seemed so big and empty."

  As if on cue, Allanah's mother appeared out of thin air with a bottle of whiskey, an amulet, and a ratty piece of paper clutched in her hands. She rushed to Allanah, threw her arms around her.

  Aedan came to rescue the precious items dangling from her fingertips. "No time
for reunions or tears, ladies. And, introductions after. We need to get started before Ciaran loses all control."

  "Oh, Ciaran," Allanah's mother exclaimed. "You always took the brunt of all of your father's sins."

  Ciaran just bowed his head, dropped his face against the earth, his breath coming erratically.

  "Give me the spell," Allanah demanded.

  She followed along, trying to decipher the scribbling of a madman on the paper. Her hands shook as she poured the whiskey into a cup, as instructed, started reciting the spell, some of it in a different language she was unfamiliar with.

  "It's a mix of Gaelic and Ogham, which is sometimes called Primitive Irish, used by the druids and scholars as a secret means of communication. Luckily, I've studied it some. Let me see if I can help."

  Allanah followed along, hoping to get it right as she dipped the amulet in the whiskey. When the metal touched the amber liquid, a fire started to burn within the alcohol. She could feel the power of it moving through her fingers, up her arm, as if making the blood in her veins boil.

  The sounds from the cage gave her no time to pause and worry about herself. She continued on, her voice strained from pain. Her mother and cousin stood behind her, reciting as well. She heard their voices catch like hers, and glanced at them both until she was sure they would continue on. The flames eventually leapt from the glass, to ride along the floor to where Ciaran laid sprawled out and convulsing on the floor, becoming his beast in a slow and obviously excruciating manner.

  ***

  As the flames came closer and closer to his fur, Ciaran believed himself dying along with his demon. Hearing her recite its name, Ariazural, along with all of the demons names within the coven, the sounds hit his ears like the fire now lapping at his fur, yet not burning him. The demon clawed around inside. He believed his internal organs bled as she continued. His beast form, sadly familiar, felt weak, though, as it never had before.

  "Promise me, Allanah, no matter what happens, you won't stop. We are killing this demon today, even if it takes me to hell with it. I'm done. I won't live another second with this monster inside of me," he managed, each word a struggle, each syllable costing him the last of his energy, energy he used just to stay conscious as his demon screamed, an unholy sound making the earth beneath him shake. His fingers showing claws grasped the ground, dug in, if only to hold on.

  When she just shook her head, fell to the ground, he yelled again, the words given rise by a severe pain, "Promise me!"

  Just then, his insides caught fire. His beast screamed again, an inhuman sound like even he'd never heard before.

  Faintly he heard Allanah scream, 'No!' but the sound of her voice washed over his ears like a whisper on the wind, a moment of coolness granted to a burning, dying man.

  "You must," he heard Eilean demand of her daughter. "You must do as he asks if you love him. You haven't watched him suffer as I have. Continue the spell, Allanah. Or I will, without you. I owe the magical world this, to right my wrongs."

  The words started again, louder. Though, still, he could only hear them faintly. Other words flowed over them, Allanah protesting maybe. He couldn't be sure of anything any longer. Somewhere in the mess of organs burning to cinder, blood boiling to lava, and beast melting away, he smiled.

  I love you, Allanah, he thought, hoping somehow she could hear, she would know. Then his world went dark.

  When he woke back up, surprised to be opening his eyes, he felt Allanah's hand on his, her tight grip, her wondrous magick tingling all over his body.

  When his eyes fluttered open, she said, weeping, "It's over, my love. We watched the demon go screaming, screeching into the ground. You've slept for so long, but I haven't left. I've watched you breathe, sending you every bit of healing energy I have left in me with my mother and cousin's help. We covered you up, tried to make you comfortable, although they wouldn't let me open the cage, not until you woke, and we knew for sure how you'd wake. Although, I don't feel it squirming inside of you anymore, we still didn't know what you would be like now, after all of that. I didn't care, but they set down the laws of reason. I just couldn't stand the separation any longer."

  "It's gone," he said, not ignoring her, but giving sound to the thoughts wondering around his head, dazed and confused like he was. "You did it, Allanah. All of you. I don't know how to ever repay you. I haven't felt this free, this clean, if that makes sense, my own man, since I was a boy. You did this. You gave us a life together."

  "And, what will that life look like?" Eilean broke in.

  "I know exactly what it will look like. I've dreamed of nothing else for years and years. First, right or wrong, I need my revenge, to slay my own personal demons by laying waste to the company that held my life hostage, destroyed me for so long. I have the papers all set to go. A long list of proof of illegal doings of my father, my brothers, my coven, my business. They should all be very pissed right now to be without their demons as well. Their demons are gone as well, right?"

  "I've already called back to the states while you were asleep," Eilean added in. "Another secretary said all of them were huddled in the board room, pissed, shouting, when the anger turned to horrible screams, like they were dying. She'd already been instructed, as all employees have, to not take notice of the sounds in that room. To do nothing or lose their jobs, the insinuation on their life as well. Anyway, she said it had gone quiet for a while, but when they all came out later, they were even more pissed, but looking battered and worn, more so than when they went it."

  "Good," Ciaran growled, a sound that blessed his ears by being all human. "One call, and all that proof goes straight to the proper authorities, local, FBI, everywhere. We will watch on the news their arrests, and then Allanah and I shall go to a house I had built for us on a remote island. Staff already lives there, they care for the place, keep it stocked well. I have money enough to live off of for the rest of our lives, in hidden bank accounts. I can give us a care free life for as long as we live. Say you will live that dream with me, Allanah. Your mother is more than welcome. There is more than enough room. And, if you teleport us there, there will be no trace of us leaving if these men, once in prison, get inspired to have some out in the world seek revenge on us."

  "Give me the key," Allanah demanded.

  Aedan did so.

  When she opened the door, Allanah flew in before he could even think to move a muscle toward getting up. She hugged him so hard that as he wrapped his arms around her, he had to tell himself not to crush her to death. He couldn't get close enough to her. As he did what he could to pull every inch of her against him, the absence of the demon's protests were the most welcome omission ever experienced.

  "I would like it if you would stay here with me, Eilean, for a bit," Aedan interjected, interrupting Ciaran's thoughts enough that he remembered to breathe. "You can let Allanah and Ciaran settle in to their new life, and I can have some time with my aunt who I never got the chance to know. No one has to know you are here. We can tell the staff you are someone else. Then you can go to the island. Please. I would love to get to know you, hear your stories about my mother when you were both little."

  "Sounds like a plan," Eilean offered, then looked to her daughter, as did Ciaran, waiting for her answer.

  "It all sounds like a hell of a plan. Count me in," Allanah said, letting her tears, happy ones he hoped, finally flow.

  Chapter Ten

  The ruin of his family had all gone as Ciaran planned after the arrests of his brothers and his coven. Since the business still technically belonged to him, and he'd been reported missing, believed dead given what went down, the estate would stay in some sort of legal limbo until his will could be carried out. At that point, his brothers, hopefully still in prison, would get a surprise when it all was liquidated and donated to charities, ones he'd specifically chosen to help right the wrongs of those his father, and his father's father, had screwed over in their lifetimes. He knew it wouldn't personally touch those they'd hurt,
as they would have grown old and passed on as well. Still, he liked to think somehow the money would get to their families surviving them, to next generations if they had the same need.

  Allanah and her mother had been reported missing as well. Allanah, last seen with Ciaran, the news reported thanks to those who knew them, didn't hold out much hope for either's return. They'd successfully disappeared without a trace, just as he'd hoped for so long.

  So, they began their new lives.

  She stretched out like a contented cat alongside his sleeping body. Looking down the bed, past her feet, she never tired of the view. The doors of the bedroom left open provided a stunning view the white sand and blue water. This was the only room with an ocean view, the house built in a grove of trees on the island, obscuring it from planes, giving only a lost traveler view to a small portion of the house. It happened rarely, and in such cases, they stayed out of sight, let the staff handle whatever needed to be handled to help the wayward.

  The staff, a nice, aging couple without children or family, took care of the house in exchange for every luxury; a retirement, according to them they never imagined possible. Even here, they were pampered. He'd seen to that. Being together, it proved everything they'd ever wanted, and never let themselves envision beyond a desperate hope.

  The whole place proved unbelievable on a daily basis, no matter how many days passed. Warm sun caressed her skin almost every day, with the exception of a fierce tropical storm which only excited her. Bright and beautiful landscapes spread out before them wherever they turned here, from trees and flowers to sea and sand. The crash of the waves, the sound of his voice, they wrought comfort in a reality she'd never let herself wish for. Beyond that, even though all of it was more than enough, she existed in a real home, like none she'd ever known, with beautiful, rustic walls surrounding her, and comfortable furniture which smelled like him to rest upon.

  He took care of her daily like a princess. Even after months here, he looked at her like she wasn't real, a dream still. She felt cherished, though, like she never thought she would be. He sated her every desire, even some she'd not known she had. Her every need, he met, pampering her with more than any one woman needed. She'd never complain, though. In fact, she made sure to thank him every day until, at times, he'd tease her, chase her, to stop, until they ended up in a tangle of limbs, burning off excess energy.