The Warlock's Curse

by Hobson, M. K.

  It was a Body a young lithe body. Cowdray’s whore. He smelled her reeking carnal stench, the salt of her tears. Her body was warm against his. He felt something else then. Sharp pain. He saw his son turn at the sound of the harlot’s cry, watched as astonishment and horror spread across James’ young face.

  She had stabbed him, Anson realized, as his knees buckled.

  And he saw her hand, covered with his own blood, coming up to do it again. With the strength of reflex, he seized her wrist, pain screaming through his side as he wrenched the silver knife from her grasp. She squeaked like a stepped-on kitten as he jerked her arm up behind her, laid the knife against her throat.

  James was at his father’s side immediately, Bradstreet’s men at his heels. But Anson forestalled them all with a small shake of his head. Instead, he jerked the whore around to where Cowdray was taking his last breaths on God’s earth.

  “You’ve taken everything from me.” His side throbbed with pain. Hot blood trickled down his leg. “Here is one thing ... one miserable, wretched thing that I can take from you.”

  “I care not ...” Cowdray’s voice was barely audible. But even through his agony, through the pallor of swiftly approaching death, Anson saw tenderness in the warlock’s eyes. He pressed the knife harder against her throat, drawing blood. The girl’s hand came up to clutch his; their blood mingled, sticky as raw honey.

  Anson was certain that he would slit her throat. He wanted very much to slit her throat. He wanted to cause this demon pain, do the work that even God had scrupled to do.

  But then, in the soft moonlight, he saw his son’s face.

  It was held, as it always was, carefully and blankly. But something—something divine or demonic—allowed Anson to see, for the first time, the horror hiding behind the boy’s eyes. His son had always wished to please him, and he had concealed his disgust well. But it was there, just as strong as he himself had ever felt it. Killing the witch would do no good. It would not rectify the unfairness God had ordained for the world. It would not please Him. Nothing would.

  He shoved the girl away. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees at Cowdray’s side. She seized the warlock’s bloody hand, held it tight.

  And then Anson realized what a horrible mistake he had made.

  Cowdray could lift his hand just barely, just enough to touch the blood at the girl’s throat. His swollen purple fingers encircled her neck. He did not have the strength to hold her, but she did not resist—instead, she leaned into his grasp. There was magic dancing around Cowdray’s fingers, magic drawn from the blood of the girl, and from Anson’s own blood, mixed with hers. As the warlock began to speak, Anson felt magic beginning to burn within him—blood calling to blood. His body felt hot, as if he had coals in the pit of his stomach.

  There was an unearthly scream from the warlock. But the sound was coming from between the girl’s lips, and then it became words. Chanting, high-pitched and wild, in a bitter old language. Power, brighter than the full moon, brighter than the sun at summer’s zenith, wreathed the pair of them.

  Anson fell to his knees, agony burning through his veins.

  “More stones!” he screamed to Bradstreet’s men. “All of them! Now! For the love of Christ!”

  But Cowdray’s voice continued to stream from the whore’s lips, even as one, two, three more stones were heaped upon him.

  “I curse you, Anson Kendall,” the girl mouthed, her eyes wholly black. “I curse your children, and your children’s children, and your children’s children’s children. Every full moon, from this time until the end of days on earth, I will take the body of one of your descendents and I will use it to do all the evil—all and more—that you think you have thwarted. I will be the everlasting curse of your lineage. I curse you. I curse you!”

  Cowdray voiced the final word in high church Latin—maledictus—and Anson felt the force of it like a bolt from a crossbow. It slammed into him. He shrieked.

  And then he realized that James was screaming too, clawing at his own flesh.

  James. His child. His son.

  Anson staggered to his feet, ignoring the agony that was melting his bones, ignoring the force of magic that was lashing him with molten fury. Bradstreet’s men were cowering in terror; from one of them, Anson seized a short sword.

  “I curse you,” Cowdray rasped in his own voice as Anson seized him by his blood-soaked hair.

  It took several strokes to hack off the warlock’s head. But as the last ragged sinew was severed, the maelstrom of magic calmed. Blood gouted from the warlock’s ruined neck; the girl who had been his voice, who had channeled his magic through her own Body collapsed—dead.

  The sudden stillness seemed even louder than the deafening thunder that had preceded it. Anson looked to where James lay on the ground—the boy was unconscious, but he was breathing. His son was alive.

  Anson Kendall lifted the severed head in his trembling hand, intending to cast it away into the darkest well of shadow he could find. Only then did he see that the warlock’s eyes were still open, glittering with moonlight and malice. And his lips were curved into a satisfied, mocking smile.

  Maledictus, the dead warlock whispered.

  Part I: Waxing

  Chapter One

  A Battle of Wills

  SACRAMENTO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

  29 DAYS UNTIL THE FULL MOON

  Will Edwards lay on his belly in a stand of dry grass, peering through field glasses at the old farmhouse nestled in the bowl-shaped valley. His bicycle rested where he’d dropped it, the click of its still-spinning rear wheel drowned by the susurration of cicadas. The day had been Indian-summer hot, but the sky was deepening purple and the chilled-ink shadows of late November were beginning to pool in the valley’s hollows. Soon it would be time to fire up the electric generator, to power the lights that would make the farmhouse seem the only warm place for miles beneath a cold, waning moon.

  Tonight, though, the lights would stay dark. Because Will was the only one in the family who knew how to coax the stinking old kerosene power-plant into operation. And he’d be damned if he lifted a finger to help any of them ever again.

  In fact, there was only one reason Will had staked out this observation spot at the top of the hill. It was Thanksgiving, and it was rumored that Ben might be coming home.

  Will had never really seen his brother Ben ... not that he could remember, anyway. Ben had left home before Will could even walk on two legs, and he’d never come home since, not even once. All Will knew of his brother was based on incomplete snippets of information overheard from his parents or bartered for from his older brothers. Ben had had a fight with Father. It had been a fight so bitter that he’d been sent away, far away, across the country to New York City. There he’d built a whole separate life for himself. He had studied at the famous Stanton Institute as a student. After graduation, the Institute had retained him as an employee.

  These unornamented facts did not suggest much common ground between Will and his older brother—save for one still-smoldering patch. They both thought that their father was an insufferable bastard.

  For Will had had his own fight with Father, on his eighteenth birthday, and it too was bitter enough to make him leave home (well, for three days at least—and not to New York, but rather to his buddy Pask de la Guerra’s neighboring spread a few miles over).

  On the surface, it was a fight about birthday presents. Which, when considered in such a way, sounded awful petty even to Will’s mind. But of course it was about so much more.

  He’d had no cause to complain about quantity, for Father had given him no fewer than three presents. It was the quality of these gifts that he objected to, for each one had turned out to be worse than the last. The first was mingy, the second superfluous, and the third ... well, the third one was downright intolerable.

  The mingy present was a silver dollar, almost fifty years old, a sentimental piece Father had kept on his watch chain for years. It was a nice piece of money�
��if one wanted to buy a steak dinner. But it was not enough for anything else. Certainly not enough for a train ticket to Detroit. Not enough to get free of this place. And Father knew it. It was nothing more than a pointed—and cruel—reminder of Will’s powerlessness. It was as if Father had presented him with a ball and chain and expected him to be pleased that the shackle was lined with velvet.

  Next came the superfluous present. Advice. What eighteen-year-old boy needed more of that? And not only advice, but advice that came wrapped in a Latin test to boot. Laying a hand on Will’s shoulder, the old man had asked, “Will, can you tell me the meaning of the phrase Veritas vos Liberabit?”

  “The truth shall make one free.” Will offered the translation with slight hesitancy, trying to remember if vos was singular or plural, certain Father was trying to trip him up with the pronoun.

  But Father didn’t seem to care about the pronoun, he had just nodded gravely, then released a heavy sigh. “It’s a very simple motto and it sounds very good. But I’m afraid it does not accurately capture the actual cost of truth or freedom.”

  What the hell did that mean? It sounded like Father was rehearsing another political speech for Argus—probably trying to figure out how he could work in something about the blood of martyrs. Will must have made a noise of exasperation, because Father had dropped his hand, and Will was left hoping beyond hope that he was saving the best for last. Maybe he’d changed his mind about the letter Will had received from Tesla Industries.

  But as it turned out, the last present had been the worst—the absolute worst—and Will still got so mad when he thought about it that he didn’t think about it. And so he had run away to the de la Guerras’ and lost himself in work on Pask’s auto.

  Mechanical tinkering always set Will’s spirits at ease, and Pask’s 1906 Baker Electric was always in need of some kind of repair. Pask—the grandson of Don Diego de la Guerra, an eminent Californio—had been wildly enthusiastic about the machine when he’d gotten it three years ago, but had since grown as tired of it as any toy. The more Pask neglected the Baker, the more it acted up—and the more it acted up, the worse Pask treated it, driving it with the unconscious negligence he might use toward one of his father’s field hands.

  The culmination of Pask’s mistreatment of the Baker was slapping red and green paint on it for Homecoming, then—after he and Will had one too many nips of whiskey at the game—driving it into an irrigation ditch. Pask had vowed he would leave the half-submerged heap there to rot, but Will had convinced him to have a team haul it back to the de la Guerra’s barn, where Will had spent the better part of a month disassembling and cleaning the electrical motor.

  Will lowered the field glasses, catching a glimpse of his own hands as he did. He’d scrubbed them with pumice soap, but they were still seamed with grease from his most recent work on the Baker. At least the time he’d spent hiding out at the de la Guerras’ had been well spent. It had given him the opportunity to execute the coupe de grace of his rebuild—retrofitting the jalopy with a nifty little power system of his own design.

  He called it an Otherwhere Flume. He’d come up with the concept during his last year at the California Polytechnic. While it was, in the main, a standard Otherwhere Conductor (its design taken straight from his teacher Mr. Waters’ third year Otherwhere Engineering textbook) Will had introduced several significant improvements. Mr. Waters had been astonished by Will’s ingenuity, but Will had never quite understood his teacher’s astonishment. The inefficiencies of the standard design were all so obvious. They stood out as prominently as wrinkles in a tablecloth. All Will had done was smooth out the cloth.

  With the Flume installed, Will could conceivably drive the beat-up old Baker all the way to Detroit. It wouldn’t be comfortable or fast ... but he could do it. And Will was in such a desperate state of mind that he was actually considering it. It had been almost a month since he’d gotten the fat letter from Tesla Industries, informing him that he’d been accepted into their apprenticeship program. A whole month, and the acceptance letter had said that they wanted him to get there as quickly as possible.

  Tesla Industries was the foremost center for scientific research in the United States, and their apprenticeship program was world-renowned. They only accepted one or two candidates a year—usually college men—but Mr. Waters had been so impressed with Will’s work that he had recommended Will for consideration.

  And Will had been accepted.

  The fat letter had arrived on Hallowe’en. The acceptance letter itself wasn’t fat, but the boilerplate apprenticeship contract enclosed with it was a hundred and thirty-two pages. Will had been giddy with excitement. His father, however, had hemmed and hawed. He told Will that he would have to review the contract before he could give Will his permission.

  And of course, I let him, Will thought bitterly. Trusted him, like an idiot. And wasn’t that just like Father! To pretend he was doing you a favor, looking out for your best interests, when really he was just stalling for time, stockpiling ammunition to fortify his position, so he could ultimately deliver the devastating answer from a position of unimpeachable strength:

  No, Will. I’m afraid I don’t think it is a good idea for you to enter this program. There are many more suitable opportunities closer to home. I’m afraid I cannot give you my permission.

  “Bastard,” Will muttered. Just remembering the old man sitting behind his heavy desk, delivering that shattering pronouncement so smoothly and casually, made him want to punch something.

  A cooling evening breeze blew up the hillside, and along with the smell of dry grass and aging lupines, Will caught the buttery, sugary odor of baked squash. His stomach rumbled traitorously, and his mind joined in the rebellion, suggesting that there would also be roast turkey and mashed potatoes and pies. Ma’am made such good pies. Gosh, he was hungry. He sure wished Ben would hurry up.

  Will caught sight of a flashing glimmer, like a trout leaping from a still pond. He quickly lifted his field glasses back to his eyes.

  An automobile emerged from the dark cluster of oaks that hid the road leading to the Edwards’ homestead. But not just any automobile. Will recognized it instantly as a Pierce Arrow—a 66-QQ. It was the biggest one they made, the six-passenger touring style. The gleaming chrome trim against the elegant French gray enamel, the bright-polished dark wood of the spoke wheels, the smooth blackness of the Panasote top ... what a honey of a machine! And if all that weren’t enough, it was next year’s model, a 1911. It would have to have been special ordered—and it must have cost a mint.

  The car came to a luxuriant surcease before the house’s front porch. The driver was first out of the car on the right-hand side. An imposing, heavily built man, he wore green-tinted brass goggles and a long motoring overcoat that brushed the tops of his mirror-polished black boots.

  Well, well. If it isn’t the Congressman, Will watched as his brother Argus peeled off his dogskin driving gloves. Celebrating his victory with a big new car, and so proud of it that he won’t even stand for a driver.

  The really hilarious thing was that Argus had run his recent campaign as “California’s Man of the People.” The newspapers had been amply supplied with photos of him earnestly shaking hands with laboring types in grimy overalls. The voters of California had swallowed that bunch of guff hook, line, and sinker, electing him to the U.S. House of Representatives just the past September. Will found himself wishing he had a camera right now. Wouldn’t he send those newspapers some pictures! California’s Big Goddamn Show-Off would be the headline.

  And I just bet he’s going to insist on being called “the honorable” now, Will thought. Pft! As if!

  He watched as Argus came around to open the door for the well-dressed woman in the front passenger seat; Lillie, his wife. Lillie’s hat emerged from the car first, her face swathed in taupe gauze to protect her from the environmental hazards of motoring. She was also positively smothered in furs. Though the day had grown hot, they would have had to h
ave left San Francisco in the chill of dawn to motor the entire eighty miles to the middle of the Sacramento Valley.

  Argus left the passengers in the back seats to shift for themselves while he saw his wife to the porch. Argus had married into an obscene amount of money, and while he suffered no lack of success in his own professional and political ventures, he was always mindful to keep that particular slice of toast butter-side up.

  How lovely it must be to be the honorable Argus Edwards! Everything in life handed to him on a silver plate. Well, there was one thing he wasn’t going to get ... his baby brother, the gearhead squirt, sure as hell wasn’t going to show up fawning over his new car, no matter how amazing it clearly was. No sir!

  Fuming, Will watched the passengers emerging from the back seats. First out was another of Will’s brothers, Laddie. Unlike Argus and Lillie, he was not kitted out in motoring togs, but wore his customary well-tailored suit. Upon getting out of the car, he was quick to open his gold cigarette case and light a smoke. He did this with the air of elegant desperation that he did most things.

  Next, a very large older man unfolded himself from what must have been a very cramped middle seat. He quickly vanished beneath the shady overhang of the broad porch, where Will’s mother had come out to greet the new arrivals, wiping her hands on her apron before extending them in welcome.

  Will’s heart sank as he watched the final passenger emerge from the automobile, for it was clearly not Ben. But disappointment gave way to curiosity as Will noted the many extremely fascinating ways in which the passenger differed. This “not-Ben” was a girl, about his age, with long wavy brown hair held back in a red satin schoolgirl’s bow. When she removed her light canvas motoring duster, he saw that she wore a neat embroidered shirtwaist and a navy skirt trimmed in white cord.

  Everyone else had gone into the house, leaving her alone in the quiet, lowering twilight. Breathing deeply, she stretched. It was a languorous, cat-like movement that made Will’s heart thump. Gosh. She was even prettier than the car. Was she one of Lillie’s society friends, maybe? Or what if she was here with Laddie, one of his empty-headed conquests? Oh, that would be just terrible, if Laddie had taken to preying on innocent schoolgirls now. Will was simply dying to find out.