by Kenny Soward
But the demon didn’t go kindly at all. In a burst of ferocity, the thing lunged at Torri Dowe, who, in her questioning, appeared to have gotten too close. Even in its restrictive, thorned bonds, the thing stretched an arm to snatch the witch up.
But it didn’t get her.
Torri raised her hand, and the bonds of boughs and vines strained and constricted so fast that the demon’s claw swiped just inches from her face. Would have torn her head off had it got her.
The ground sprung open beneath the demon, dirt flying and roots pulling apart, and the thing fell halfway inside. Claws scraped at the sides of the pit, eyes glaring furiously at Torri Dowe. The vines and boughs constricted again, forcing it slowly down and down until only its straining shoulders and head were visible.
“I told you to leave peacefully,” Torri scolded, “but you wouldn’t listen.”
And then the ground closed around it, the demon’s eyes falling downward as if it were being grasped by something from below. It bellowed, raged, and fought, but to no avail. Its maw disappeared. Then its eyes. Then its horns. The last things to go were the claws and their tenuous hold on the edge. And then they, too, disappeared beneath the surface, dragging dirt and rocks with it.
There was another rumble, reminding Lonnie of a colossal belch, and the place went silent but for the attempted reformation of Torri’s garden. Trees leaned straight again. Vines fell to the floor and recoiled, retracting their deadly stickers.
The demon gone, Torri brushed her hands on her dress and rushed to the Rowan Tree. Lonnie followed her, thinking she might work some magic on it, but all she did was walk around the trunk, testing its roots, shifting some of the dirt around its base. Occasionally, she glanced up as if expecting the leaves to turn brown and come tumbling off.
“Can I help?”
“Nope,” Torri replied, backing up. She seemed satisfied, a smile working its way onto her face. She patted the tree a couple of times, then turned to Lonnie, saying, “There’s a gate deep below the ground. Oh, don’t worry. Nothin’ can come through. But I use it to flush demons back to Hell. Sometimes, when they pop up in other parts of the county—they’re hardly ever this big, mind you—I gotta bind them and drag them all the way here. In that sense, this one was sorta easy.”
Lonnie shook his head. Easy didn’t seem to be the right word for what had just happened.
“Anyway, it’s a painful trip down for any demon, I’d imagine. See, the hills never forget. And they are unmerciful to those who wish to harm them. Ask the mining companies. Had to bring in their own witches to protect their mining interests back in the day. Been fighting them for years, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, that demon is going to go through some painful shit before being cast back.”
Lonnie nodded. “Good.”
Torri smiled at him, her green eyes expressive.
Did she consider him a friend now? Or at least something less than an enemy?
“Torri, I need a favor. Elsa is hurt bad. She can heal herself but, shit, I just don’t know. I’d feel better if I knew for sure she wasn’t in pain. I think she needs some kind of healing. Can you do that?”
“I can heal some, yes. Seems easier just bringing dead things back to life though. The living, well, they’ve always got a mind of their own. The dead, not so much.”
“Anything you can do, I’d appreciated it. And I’d owe you one. We’d owe you one.”
“No, you saved my tree. I owe you. We’ll get Miss Elsa all straightened out eventually. Like Ingrid said, she’ll be fine for now. First we need to find your sister. She was the one did this.”
Chapter 13
Azarah drew back from the mirror that lay flat before her on the table. Her nose burned with the scents of sulfur and blood. Her eyes watered, threatening to ruin her makeup. The blood was her own. The smell, that was from the demon that had just failed her.
Smoke singed the hibiscus and salt ring that encircled her, protecting her from any mishaps. The table itself, a wobbly fold out thing, was half-collapsed on one side where she’d fallen on it, struggling to keep control of the beast.
It had been a long shot, a hastily thrown together summoning ring soon after she heard her granddaughter’s call from so close to the heart of one of her mortal enemies, the hill witch Torri Dowe.
A long shot but one worth taking.
Azarah couldn’t pretend to know her granddaughter well or understand how she’d come to be in Torri’s woods. She’d only heard rumors of the battle in the Under River between Makare and Gruff and wasn’t sure if she could even believe those. She knew one thing, though; Gruff was dead and it seemed to have been at Makare’s hand.
Quite a feat, if true. Her granddaughter certainly deserved respect for that, and Azarah was curious to meet her progeny. But all efforts to reach Makare had failed, and so Azarah had given her up for dead at the hands of those ECC meddlers.
Until today.
Quite a bold move from Makare to make the call from Torri’s own pond, and one Azarah thought to capitalize on. Despite the risks of summoning a demon and sending it to her daughter through Torri’s pool on such short notice, she couldn’t resist. Had to strike while the iron was hot. Her reward? For the first time, she’d seen Torri Dowe’s home through the eyes of her beast. She knew exactly where the witch lived.
She’d have her assistant, Remi, follow up on that to get a more precise location.
And the Rowan Tree, the source of Torri’s power, was a pretty thing. Her demon had almost ripped it from the ground.
Almost.
“Almost got you,” she whispered, her eyes lingering on the mirror’s cracked glass. The only drawback to this failed attempt was that Torri now knew Azarah was alive and well. The witch would have time to prepare.
Finally snapping out of her long distance stare, Azarah looked around the tiny room as if seeing it for the very first time. She hadn’t been paying attention when Remi had shoved her in here after quickly preparing her circle. It was some storage room where the hotel staff stored extra tables and chairs. Remi had taken a bag of salt from the hotel’s kitchen. The hibiscus had been Azarah’s own, something she carried with her in some form or other at all times. It was the flower most attuned to her energy.
With a sigh, Azarah stood and smoothed the business skirt over her long legs. “Time to make the donuts.”
Her heels made her another two inches taller than her already heady six feet, one inch height. She wore no stockings, nothing too fancy or too prudish. Leaning over the mirror, she checked her face. She wore little makeup, allowing the naturally olive-toned skin her constituents constantly complimented her on to show through. She blinked her big brown eyes, which were weapons in and of themselves, capable of withering anyone with their simultaneous ferocity and warmth. Long, brown hair fell over her shoulders on both sides, longish bangs lightly drawn behind one ear. She would let those bangs fall forward during a political debate, an effect she knew made her look earnest and concerned.
A quick smile in the mirror and she was ready.
Good thing, because Remi was already knocking on the door.
“Coming,” Azarah called in a sing-song voice, switching over to her American Mom persona, so practiced by now that it was almost second nature.
She stepped to the door, opened it to a rush of cool air from the hotel’s basement hallway, and smiled at Remi. Remi was a short, bald man of powerful stature. Azarah often thought he looked like one of those men in a health infomercial trying to sell some juicing device or workout routine. In his forties, with a wicked combination of youthful vigor and old man strength, Remi was her right hand man. A powerful ally who she trusted with most things, mainly her protection from certain elements. Not that she needed much protection, but she couldn’t damn well do everything herself.
Bundled up in a suit and tie, with a white wire curling over his shoulder from the earpiece he wore, he said, “How’d it go?”
She practiced her smile. “Not h
alf as well as I would have liked.”
“Oh well, maybe next time.”
“Definitely next time.”
They stood in a long, carpeted hallway somewhere in the belly of the Charleston Hotel where she’d given many speeches before. The cool air felt wonderful on her skin which was still hot from the summoning. Four of Remi’s people were there with them, a security force to keep the protesters and reporters at bay.
“I’ll have someone clean up,” Remi said, his arm sliding stiffly behind Azarah’s waist. “You’re late.”
“Indeed. Let’s go give `emhell.”
The irony of that wasn’t lost on any of them.
They started down the hall, Azarah picking up speed, transforming into her political persona with confidence and efficient grace. Not that she wasn’t any of those things normally, it was just that it became more of a show for the cameras and reporters whenever she gave speeches, a show for the people out there she hoped would be voting for her in the upcoming primaries.
Remi and his people were having trouble keeping up with her now, and she burst through the doors at the end of the hall and stopped at the elevator banks where the others finally caught up.
Remi reached for the elevator call button, but saw she’d already pressed it. He relaxed, a smile worming onto his face.
The elevator slid open and they got on. Remi pressed the button for the third floor and they waited.
“Make sure you take care of those fucking hippie protesters. I don’t want their filthy bodies anywhere near me.”
“I always do.”
“No, don’t just kick them out. From now on, I want anyone protesting at one of my rallies to understand it’s going to cost them something. We can’t afford to show any weakness now.”
“Take it up a few notches,” Remi said with a nod. “Understood.”
“And make sure you get their phones first in case they are recording. We don’t need you showing up on YouTube.”
“Got it.”
Azarah fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. The elevator was so damn slow, the hotel old, but it was necessary to establish herself as a class act, someone who came from money but could understand the common person’s plight.
In truth, she couldn’t have cared less about a single person on this planet. Earth was just a stepping stone for greater things. Their natural resources of metals, oils, gasses, and flesh would be valuable if Azarah wanted to rule over Heaven and Hell. She’d failed before—Azarah herself had barely escaped with her life last time—but she’d learned many things from the experience. Most of all, she’d learned to have patience. To set plans. To worm her way beneath the fabric of it all.
She sighed, clearing her mind, focusing on the task at hand; winning the greatest political office in the entire world. To become President of the United States. From there, she would own the electronic highway and jurisdiction over the world’s commerce. She would own the world’s soul. She would become untouchable.
And her company, Turu Corp, would not only go global, it would go otherworld.
In return for her subjects’ fealty, in return for their flesh and blood, she would bring stability to a world ever-teetering on the edge of self-destruction. She would make everything all right.
In the end, they would come to love her.
It all started right here, right now.
Remi leaned in, his deep blue eyes peering at her above a thin smile. “Ready, Miss?”
Azarah nodded, and the elevator doors flew open.
Cameras snapped, flashes firing like rapid-fire machine guns. Ten or fifteen microphones jammed at her like spears against a Hero of Olympus. Azarah gave them her trademark grin. A sort of playful wickedness combined with the smart, sexy intensity of her gaze.
Whipping her hair just enough, she practically dared any of those microphones to come another inch closer. If one did, she’d make sure the reporter holding it got a lesson in manners later. A lesson her bodyguard Remi was more than happy to teach.
All the reporters knew it so they gave her plenty of space in that respect.
The questions, well, those were a completely different story. They bombarded her with them, as fast as the rapid-fire flashes, it seemed. Not even with her preternatural hearing could she actually pick one to answer.
And then Remi and his crew cleared a path, pushing ahead of Azarah in their black suits, each one of them grim and thick and well-trained. Even Pam Lee was a brute, the squat Asian woman who could kick a man’s balls so far up in his throat they’d never fall back down again. Azarah had actually seen her do it once.
One bodyguard remained behind her, moving close without stepping on her heels. They were a crack crew, much needed in this crazy world where anyone could come up and blow your fucking head off. And especially now that Azarah had swept things up in the Independent Primaries, laying waste to that pitiful field like the farmer reaping a field of grass with his scythe.
No competition at all.
But the protesters were annoying. Entitled little shits. They’d brought bigger and bigger crowds to each rally and press conference, taunting her ardent supporters, calling them racists and criminals and any number of things. There weren’t as many as there were for past Republican or Democratic candidates, because Azarah had a way with people on both sides of the fence, yet they were still a nuisance.
It took everything she had not to sic Remi and his crew on them straight away. Especially the one who’d nearly taken her head off with a tomato three rallies ago in Chicago, one Missy Gray. No, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. People like Missy needed to be taken care of on the sly, in a dark side ally behind some dumpsters.
Azarah strode boldly through the lobby, smiling, staring sexy daggers at anyone and everyone. Making women blush and men look away. She caught one question, firing back, “Thanks, Jan! I’ll email you my designer’s name.” And then another. “In your dreams, Michael. I’m not dating and you know it!” They kidded with her and joked behind her back about her actually winning the whole shebang.
In the end, they couldn’t take their eyes off her.
Remi turned sideways and ushered her up a short series of steps to the stage. More of Remi’s crew were there, standing inconspicuously, but also purposefully visible, eyes searching the crowd for anyone who looked even remotely threatening. They’d not have a repeat of Chicago.
There was one on the stage who wasn’t a bodyguard, senator, or celebrity. One who she gazed upon with the loving look of a mother who’d hadn’t seen her child in several days.
And the creature that played at being her son, Barry, smiled back, opened his arms, and accepted her embrace.
“Son.”
“Mom. I love you so much. Good luck.”
“Thanks, kid.”
She broke off, giving the handsome, twenty-something man another quirky mom smile before turning to the podium to the sound of cheering and shouts from her adoring supporters.
“Knock `emdead, Lindsey,” an older, fifty-something man shouted as he slapped his hands together like a seal.
A thick woman holding a babe against her ample breasts screamed, “Miraculous Mom! Miraculous Mom!”
She could never tell when she changed from Azarah to Presidential Candidate Lindsey Walls. Sometimes she felt like Lindsey when she was checking her makeup, or striding confidently to the podium. Other times, like now, it was because the people transformed her. Lindsey sauntered across the stage, raising her fist and giving the woman a silent, “Hell yeah, lady!” and then did some more waving and smiling just to remind everyone what a babe she was, before finally getting behind the podium.
Clearing her throat, she adjusted the goose neck microphone higher. That, of course, was a planned move. Remi always pointed the mic down before press conferences and speeches so Lindsey could move it up again as another subtle reminder to the crowd of how tall she was.
The crowd noise dimmed to a buzz. When Remi came to stand behind her, it fell d
eadly quiet. Her cue to begin.
She began her speech, addressing the people of North Bend directly. Detailing the shift in politics of the past forty or fifty years. Recessions and rhetoric. The middle class taking it in the gut. Boring stuff, but necessary to set them up for the big smackdown. She was a single mother and could relate to a lot of what they’d gone through. Getting a raw deal from government and corporations alike.
By the end of the first act, ten minutes into the speech, she had them pretty riled up.
Act two asked them if they wanted change. Hell yes, they did. They wanted change now and in a big way. They clapped and applauded at just about every new point Lindsey made about how change should be approached, and exactly how she’d handle it. Lindsey flashed that wicked smile of hers again, as if implying that she had all the secrets and solutions to just about everything in the world.
And they believed her.
She let them know they could fight against the odds and win, that they could have jobs to be proud of once again, and if they got behind her, she’d take them straight to the top.
Their cheers intoxicated her. At times, it got her blood flowing more than magic. Hell, it was magic of a sorts. The ability to bring a crowd to a frenzy, thousands of people ready to fight and die for her.
Lindsey winked at the crowd, setting them up for act three, and then she let them have it. She spent the next five minutes pointing out how her adversaries had failed the American people, and how they didn’t give a crap about anyone but their own special interests.
Several nods from the audience. More applause and cheers. She had them on the hook. Smiling, she readied herself for the sprint to the finish.
Not only did she dive into how she was going to beat her rivals, but told the people of North Bend how she was going to be a smart energy president but still work for oil and coal by bringing everyone ahead to the future, putting America in a position unlike it had ever been before.
She rode the emotional wave of whoops and yells, and some whistles, too. A few chants of, “Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey!” cut through the assembly. The crowd of three thousand packed into the room with its curved and glimmering windows looking out into the city streets would have probably listened to her talk for another hour if she wanted.