by Oxford, Rain
So it was just me she couldn’t be civil with.
I filled my plate with eggs and bacon, since I really didn’t feel like pancakes. I got a mug out and rinsed it, then set the ancient coffee maker. Apparently, Ronez and I were the only ones in our entire family who liked coffee.
“That stuff is so bad for you,” Abigail said with all the snootiness of a girl half her age.
I just smirked. “That’s fine; I’ll just die young. So where are we going?”
Edward gave me a look. “What? You’re finally ready to get to work? You’re done tormenting Abby?”
She gave me a look like a cat that just caught a bird. “I called my sister, Maria, last night. She’s got him under watch; apparently he’s doing his own research to find more witches. He seems to go after covens, not solitary witches.”
“That has always been his M.O.,” Edward said. “He also never goes after males. Even the ones that are deemed accomplices are let off on some religious grounds for forgiveness.”
This sounds like a great mission for Divina. “So we know where to go, what do we do about him?” I asked.
They both paused to think. “Um… kill him,” Abigail said, as if it were obvious. “We could stab him in the heart and bury him.”
“Already did that,” Edward said. “We could shoot him. It’s a little louder, but nobody is coming back without a face.”
“Dad!” I objected. “He’s a human being; you should hesitate before off and killing him.” Having worked in the ER, I dealt with many people who were shot. The worst were those who were shot by loved ones or by accident.
“I already killed him once. What’s wrong with killing him again? He’s killed hundreds of people.”
“If you are sure it’s him.”
Abby pulled her cellphone out of somewhere in her sweater and fiddled with it for a moment before trying to hand it to me. I waved it away and Edward took it. Neither of us were safe with electronics, but they exploded less for him than they did for me.
He sighed. “That’s him.” He turned the phone for me to see the picture.
The man looked rough. He had more than a five o-clock shadow, marred with jagged scars. His face was more wrinkles than skin and there was a deep coldness in his hazel eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was messy and just a little too long.
“Are you sure he isn’t just really similar in appearance?” I asked.
He pointed to a dark spot on the man’s throat. “With the exact same birth mark and matching scars? No, this is him.”
“How did you get this picture?” I asked Abigail.
“One of the housewives that he tortured was able to get this shot of him and email it to my sister.”
“Did Maria email her back, call, or send a text?”
“Yeah.”
“Then if this witch hunter has any computer sense at all, he can track your sister through the housewife.”
“He probably doesn’t have any computer sense,” she said. “People can do that?”
I was supposed to be the one out of date; I didn’t live on Earth. When I was here as a doctor, I had to have constant control over my power in order for the electronics to function. Nevertheless, I knew very well how much technology had advanced. In fact, it was technology that forced me to return to Duran, as I couldn’t work with everyday hospital tools.
“Of course, and I don’t think you should write anything off. Your sister’s life is not worth the risk. If she’s not attached to her phone, tell her to trash it and hide. If she is attached to it, tell her to meet up with us and bring it with her. If he can track her by it, we can deal with him all together instead of her taking him on alone,” I said. Abby looked like she was considering it. “Now. Call her and give her the heads up.”
She got up, taking her phone back and going into the living room to make her call.
“We should either set a trap, or figure out what coven he will hit next,” Edward said. “I don’t like the idea of waiting around for him to start picking off his victims.”
“If he was expecting a trap the first time, he’s probably still expecting it. Why not go find his motel room and pay him a visit?”
“You have no idea what he has set up there. That gives him a huge advantage.”
Abigail returned, looking a little hesitant. She tucked her phone away. “She didn’t answer. She must be in the shower or something, so I’ll call her back later.” I looked at Edward and he shook his head. “If we’re going to set a trap for this guy, I can be the bait.” Edward opened his mouth to argue, but she went on before he could. “You said yourself he never goes after men.”
“He also goes for covens, not individual witches.”
“Did you think Maria was my biological sister?” she asked. I gave her my best deadpan stare. “Of course not. She’s my coven sister. We’re part of a huge coven in Sedona.” Her phone rang with a spooky tune which, considering the phone belonged to a witch, was sort of tacky. She looked down at it and nodded. “It’s Maria. She’s calling me back.”
“Don’t answer it,” I said before I even thought about it. Nothing about this felt right. “Make her leave a message. Don’t answer it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not playing tag.” She hit the answer button and raised it to her ear. “Maria? Hey, my friend thinks the witch hunter might be tracking you by Haley’s phone.”
No damn sense whatsoever.
“Maria?” she asked when she received no answer.
I heard the person on the other end hang up. She pulled her phone away and frowned at it. “We just lost any element of surprise we might have had.”
“How was I supposed to know? I still don’t even know what that was.”
“That was either your sister playing a very cruel and stupid joke on you, or the witch hunter has her and her phone.”
“He could have tracked us through the phone if he kept contact with her,” Edward said.
“I grew up here, and in those days, it took several minutes to track a phone. Now it only takes seconds and if you have enough information, you can track a phone over the internet.”
“How do you know? You can’t even use a phone.”
“I can watch TV. I’ve also dealt with cops enough to know how easily a stalker can track someone. Now, he can probably track us here, and if he isn’t already trying, then he doesn’t think we’re a threat to him. We need information.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll go to a library, get on a computer, and try to see what I can find… carefully,” I said.
“I’ll do it. You get frustrated when computers are too slow, and then they…” he trailed off, looking at Abby. “I just don’t think it would do any good. What would we even look for?”
“Him, for one. We can Google his name, and maybe find a Facebook or Twitter account. I mean, he may be old, but if he’s living in modern day America and can track a phone, I bet he left an electronic trail of some kind. Maybe he has a credit card. Maybe he got a speeding ticket.”
“I don’t know enough about computers to look that stuff up,” Edward said.
“I’m pretty sure if you could, it would be illegal,” Abigail added.
“You wanted to kill him two minutes ago. We can go back to White Hills where the sheriff can help.”
“If we return to the dragons without their leader, they’ll never forgive you,” Edward said.
He wasn’t series, but he had a point. The dragon pack would want to see Mordon and everyone would want to see the boys. We were part of the community. Hell, even my wife and Xul had friends.
Then… Zero awoke, the demons broke into two opposing factions of whether they supported me or wanted to kill me, and Sydney died. After that, none of us could pretend everything was fine.
It would be rude to return just to use their skills. “I can do it.” I would just have to stay very calm and keep my magic at bay. “What’s his name?”
Abigail looked at Edward and he shrugged. “I
don’t know. He was just called “the witch hunter” every time I heard of him. “He never gave his name to any of my contacts.”
“He has to have a name,” Abigail argued.
Actually… There was one explanation for him rising from the grave that would also explain him not having a name. I considered the staff in the magic room, but decided against it. Whatever was in store for that staff, it wasn’t the time. Basically, I had three options; retreat back home, call for my wife, or play the game. The first option would leave people in danger, which was against my every nature, so that really wasn’t even an option. The second option was just stupid.
Abigail’s phone chirped and she clicked the button to light up the screen. After a second, she turned it for me to see the text message.
You’re it, Dylan.
So he wanted to play Hide-and-Seek. “Computers are out. He is very technologically savvy. No computers, clues and questions by texts, and I’d say we have about…” I checked my watch. “Ten minutes before we receive the first clue.”
“Why ten minutes?” Abigail asked.
I sighed. “You don’t know me very well. Try to keep up. Dad, explain it to her, please.”
It was Edward’s turn to sigh. “Don’t mind him; he loves this kind of thing. Dylan only has an attention span of about ten minutes. After that, he’s onto the next thing. For as long as the witch hunter plays this like a game, Dylan is willing to play, but only if the witch hunter can keep it interesting. Basically, he has ten minutes to keep Dylan’s interest or he automatically loses.”
“What happens then?”
“Dylan usually has some weird epiphany and defeats the bad guy.”
“That’s a bit pretentious.”
“You should meet his son. Actually, his father was like that too, just not nearly as bad. In fact, his son is worse… Oh, god, what if Ron had a son who was even worse?”
“I thought you were Dylan’s father.”
“No, I’m the one who taught him magic.”
The phone chirped again and I took it from Abby.
It’s lonely here in the basement, and nobody knows who I am. Come and chill out with me, to figure out my scam. Look without your eyes, hear without your ears, and I’ll tell you all my secrets. I begged for mercy, will you?
“That’s it? Hospitals, what hospitals are there around here?”
“The closest hospitals are in Fort Smith, maybe thirty minutes away. Sparks and Mercy are the major ones. There are hospice centers and stuff like that, too.”
“Okay, we have a place, do we have a car?”
“The garage is full of cars,” Edward said. “I’m assuming we’re going to the hospital.”
“Even better; we’re going to the morgue.”
“We’re going to see dead people?” Abby nearly shrieked.
“What do you beg for if you’re injured and dying?”
“A hospital.”
“But he didn’t say hospital, he said mercy, so it was either a church or hospital with the name ‘Mercy,’ and there are a lot more churches than there are hospitals. He also said to ‘chill out’ which is an unusual phrase for a three hundred-year-old witch hunter. Morgues are cold and usually in the basement. Nobody knows who the dead person is, so it’s a John or Jane Doe.”
“And if you’re wrong about any part of that, we’re chasing our tails.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I hate being wrong even more than I hate chasing my tail.”
“Alright. How are we going to get into the morgue?”
“That’ll be easy; we’re going to sneak in.” Whatever she said in response was drowned out by the nausea that flooded me. Edward tried to steady me as spots formed in my eyes and my head flushed until it hurt.
As suddenly as it came on, the vertigo was gone, leaving me feeling shaky and with an odd sense of loss.
“Are you okay?” Edward asked me.
I nodded and tried to smile. “I’m fine. Let’s go.” I ignored their concern and went through the kitchen door into the garage. As my uncle said, the garage was full… but it wasn’t a normal garage. Instead, the garage was big enough to safely hold ten cars. None of said cars were typical either; all were amazing, new or antique. Most were sports cars, but there was a sweet little gray Smart Car.
I chose the one I thought looked the coolest.
* * *
Half an hour later, we pulled into the visitor parking of the hospital. It was a lot larger than the hospital I worked at, which was to be expected because White Hills was barely large enough for a clinic of any kind.
“How do we want to do this?” Abigail asked as I turned off the engine.
“The simplest way is to go in there and say we are looking for a missing person, but since we have no idea what the victim looks like, I see many ways for that plan to fall through. I say we go in there invisible and find out way to the morgue.”
“Invisibility spells aren’t real,” Abigail argued.
I was powerful enough. I was also powerful enough to stop everyone in the hospital, but I never practiced that ability and only used it once on accident. I considered the newborns and critical patients in the hospital and pushed the option aside.
“I can do a spell similar to invisibility. It would actually do nothing to our appearance, which means we would be visible on surveillance. All it really does is makes people not notice us. Their minds and eyes would skip over us and forget they ever saw us. As far as video cameras go, we’ll just act like we belong there.”
Most likely, my magic would interfere with the cameras. Unfortunately, it would also interfere with any other medical equipment I neared, for my energy would be swarming around us.
“Maybe you should wait out here,” Edward suggested, thinking the same thing.
“You mean, leave the only doctor among us out in the car?” Abby asked.
“I might be necessary in figuring out what we need to do next,” I said. “We’ll just have to be really careful.”
I focused on my energy and the need to be inconspicuous. I knew that nominal energy was capable of doing anything Iadnah energy could, I just didn’t know how to use it as well, so I used Iadnah energy. When nothing happened, I got a little worried.
“It should have worked.”
“It’s working,” Edward said.
“That’s so weird,” Abby said. “I know you’re there, but I want to look away.”
She was clearly struggling to look right at me, so I took her hand and let my energy flow into her. “Better?” I asked, letting her go and taking Edward’s hand to do the same.
“Yeah. How long will this last?”
“I don’t know, so let’s get this done with quickly.”
We went inside the main entrance because we assumed they would keep the most powerful equipment towards the back. Although there were no signs for the morgue, we assumed it would be in the lowest level, thus we found the nearest stairwell and quietly made our way down. Fortunately, there were people coming and going so we didn’t have to worry someone noticing a door opening and closing seemingly by itself.
When we reached the lowest level of the hospital, it was pretty obvious that we arrived at the morgue. It was everything a morgue was supposed to look like, down to the steel cubbies for the bodies. Abigail scowled at a body lying out on one of the three metal tables. “This was what you did?”
“No. I prevented people from coming here. There is nothing I can do once the person is dead.” Otherwise, I would have brought Sydney back for Mordon.
“We don’t have to touch anyone, do we?”
I had the truly inappropriate thought of teasing her for her obvious abhorrence, but I stopped myself from doing anything that would disrespect the dead. Instead, I ignored her and started searching the cabins. Nothing jumped out at me… fortunately.
“What are we looking for?” Edward asked, joining me.
“Check the tags. We
are looking for a no-name. Probably a woman.”
“Gross,” he said, shutting the door on one.
“What is it?”
“A woman who was shot.”
I checked a few more doors, but I couldn’t get over the sense that I was missing something. Finally, I reopened the one that Edward dismissed and slid the slab out. Abigail screamed and even Edward looked sick.
I felt a little queasy myself, and I had worked in the ER. I sewed up children, felt brain matter in my hand, and had blood coughed all over me, but seeing the woman with her chest wide open was… threatening my breakfast.
“She wasn’t shot. There is no shrapnel, no burns, and no entry point. Either there was a bomb in her chest, or this was done by magic.”
“The witch hunter… this isn’t what he normally did,” Abigial said.
“Someone was angry with her,” Edward suggested. I nodded. “How are we going to find out who?”
“I’m going to ask her.” Look without your eyes, hear without your ears, and I’ll tell you all my secrets. I moved to her left side, right next to her head, and placed my palm gently on her forehead. What did you do?
I suddenly couldn’t breathe as my own energy seemed to become heavy, but I refused to pant and clutch at my chest. I had to bear it in order to find out what happened. It wouldn’t be easy; it shouldn’t be easy to see into someone’s death. Whether it was her that was fighting me or some deeper act of nature, I persisted through the tightness, the vertigo, and the misery that I could feel was ahead.
Then it was gone, I could breathe, and I stood in a dark bedroom. The woman I saw a moment before was alive, snuggled happily in the arms of a man she loved. She was in her late twenties, far too young to die the way she did. Her short, styled hair was brown with blond streaks. The man was ordinary to a fault; I noticed nothing distinguishable about his appearance.
The bedroom was dark, yet not too dark to see what was missing. There was a picture of the man with a much older woman beside the bed. The bed had no blankets, only mismatched sheets and white pillows, the walls were white with no pictures or décor, and clothes were strewn about carelessly.
There was nothing womanly about the room. Obviously, that in itself was only a minor detail. Instead, I focused on the fact that she wore a wedding ring while the man didn’t even have a tan line for one. Still, I could sense her love, pure and strong, for the man she wasn’t married to.