by Ira Bloom
“I just want it to be over,” Ronnie said, sobbing. “Can’t you do anything?”
“Maybe this would be a good time to reflect,” Esme said. “Like, maybe you should think of the consequences before you go around cursing the most talented witch this side of the Mississippi with thunder farts.” She stroked Ronnie’s hair, dabbing at a tear with the cuff of her sleeve. “I talked to Katy earlier. Maybe if you apologized, and begged her to forgive you, and promised her your allowance for a few years … ”
Veronica sniffled. “I could do that,” she agreed.
“And you’d have to give up Zack,” Esme added.
Veronica’s expression went from contrite to defiant in the blink of an eye. She dropped her sister’s embrace as if Esme were a crumbling bag of wriggling, infectious worms. She turned on her heel and headed back toward the stairs.
“Tell Katy to bring it,” she said over her shoulder.
“Hey, Ronnie?” Esme said.
“Yeah?” the girl replied. She’d halted but hadn’t turned around.
“I’ll still love you when you’re a smoldering glob of boneless protoplasm.”
Zack did not know, from one moment to the next, how the Ancient would react to anything he said or did. Sometimes they could carry on perfectly normal conversations for extended periods of time, but every word, every phrase, was fraught with underlying hazard. The Master could fly into a rage at the most innocuous things.
Zack hadn’t felt any sense of danger during his fight with Norman. He was nearly indestructible. His bones could break or his flesh could be torn, but he was a fast healer, and he was fairly impervious to pain. Norman was unbelievably strong. When he’d punched the giant in the head as hard as he could, any decent sort of a bloke should have observed protocols and lost consciousness. Norman had earned his grudging respect.
Norman didn’t frighten Zack, but the Master most certainly did. Over the centuries Drake had acquired speed, power, cruelty, and an encyclopedic knowledge of ways to inflict pain. Even with Zack’s high tolerance, the beatings were excruciating. Sometimes, the Master would beat him for hours. Inflicting pain was one of Drake’s greatest pleasures, and Zack was the only one who could survive more than a few minutes of punishment.
Tonight’s torment had started with Drake’s cat-and-mouse interrogation, after Zack had returned in the late afternoon with marks on him. At the Master’s insistence, he’d told all about his fight with the giant. He could not lie or resist answering any question, if asked directly. He was little more than a cringing underling, insignificant in the shining magnificence of the Ancient. Their association had commenced under the guise of mentor and acolyte, had progressed to commander and soldier, and had now become that of master and slave.
The Master finished his interrogation calmly. Changing the subject, he informed Zack that they were in dire need of new wives, as if he were reviewing minutes from a board meeting. Miss Edwards was out of commission with a broken collarbone and extreme hematoma about the face and shoulders. That left only Michelle, Danielle, and Lisa. Lisa was rather petite, and Danielle was getting a distinct redness to the eyes and would most likely need to be destroyed in a few weeks. There was certainly not enough blood to sustain the two of them. If they went to the well too often, the well would run dry. Or bite back.
The Master had then asked Zack what he’d been working on, in terms of acquisitions. Zack made the mistake of trying to be vague. “There are a number of likely girls,” he admitted hesitantly. “I know you have exacting standards.”
The Master said nothing. That was not a good sign.
“There’s a lovely redheaded girl who works at the organic food store in town. She smells exquisite,” Zack offered. A pathetic attempt at diversion.
“Ah,” returned the Master, studying Zack’s eyes with interest. “Is that so?”
There were, in fact, three sisters, but he couldn’t stand the thought of Drake getting them in his clutches. Zack wondered if he was getting sentimental all of a sudden, if he actually had feelings for them. They claimed to be Wiccans, but Zack had never believed in that Satanic stuff. Though they did have something about them, something almost magical. The youngest, Veronica, was the type of girl who’d make all your mates green with envy, strikingly gorgeous. She was far too young, of course, but in a different life, in different circumstances … if only he wasn’t a blood-sucking monster. She reminded Zack of Helena, the Ukrainian girl he’d murdered. Helena had been so beautiful when first he’d seen her, willowy and lithe. She’d wasted away to nothing over the months. Not that it mattered; the Master would have made him kill her anyway. All the brides had to die, eventually. Veronica would have to die as well, if Drake caught her in his snare.
The middle sister, Katy, was the type of girl you just wanted to hang out with, to joke with and have a good time. She was quite goofy sometimes, and sometimes she said things that you wouldn’t think anyone could ever come up with. Any lad would be very lucky to get a girl like that. And she could be quite alluring, when the mood struck her. With a girl like Katy, there would never be a dull moment. If he weren’t a predator. If she weren’t his prey.
And then there was Esmeralda, a girl with a good head on her shoulders. You couldn’t go wrong with a girl like her. Esme was the girl you brought home to meet your parents, the one you’d marry if you had any sense. She’d go to football games with you and cheer for the Red Devils. You’d sit at home with Esme on a rainy day and read books and drink tea. Esme also reminded Zack of someone; she had from the moment he’d met her: Madeleine. And with his last shred of humanity, Zack had loved Madeleine.
Zack had thought about the three sisters, often and deeply. If he could get a do-over, if he could go back to just being a boy again instead of the horrible thing he’d become, he’d be lucky to get any of them for a girlfriend. But choosing any of the three sisters was a death sentence. Only a few weeks before, he’d thought to bring them back to the lair, to please the Master. But that was before he’d had to kill Sandy, before his regard for the sisters had grown to the point where he simply couldn’t bear the thought of Drake destroying them. He wished he could keep them away. Worse yet, as much as he yearned for their company, he also yearned for their blood. It was getting hard to keep those two impulses separate. While snogging with Veronica, hadn’t he also imagined guzzling her blood? Could he even trust himself with her? Could he kill Veronica with his bare hands, the way he had Sandy? If the Master commanded it, he would have no choice.
“Redheaded, did you say?” asked the Master, feigning interest.
That was when the beating started. The Master used his hands and his feet on Zack, and then a baseball bat until the bat was just a stub, and then the crow bar, avoiding only the face.
Zack told the Master all. He did so within the first twenty minutes of the torture session.
The additional three hours of abuse were just for Drake’s amusement.
Veronica hadn’t slept at all, or fitfully at best. She half expected to nod off and wake up with a pig’s snout, she was so worried about what Katy was going to do. Without the grimoire, she was defenseless. But there was no sense trying to get it back from that attic with all those dogs. Katy had trained them to protect her stuff.
When her alarm went off at six a.m., she swept the covers off, kicking them as if they were tentacles grabbing at her legs. Which they weren’t, thank the Goddess. She did a quick inventory check with her hands: hair, limbs, face … all seemed to be in order. If she could just lie there chanting and invoking the Goddess all day, maybe nothing bad would happen to her.
In the bathroom, nothing worked right. Her foundation clumped. She tried to apply eyeliner, but she couldn’t draw a straight line. Her lipstick went on perfectly, if she’d only been going for the sad-clown-face look. A drunk toddler could have done a better job. Hair was even worse, entirely unmanageable, full of frizz and cowlicks and split ends. The more she brushed it, the worse it got, as if the brush were f
ull of static electricity. She was in tears at the frustration. She scrubbed her face of makeup, getting soap in her eyes in the process. Stumbling around in the bathroom, feeling for a towel, she tripped and fell into the bathtub, and scrambling to get up, activated the shower, soaking her pajamas. Suddenly, she was a slapstick prodigy.
Ronnie dressed cautiously, managing to ruin a pair of nylons and pop all the buttons off a cotton blouse. She settled on jeans. Her hair was useless so she tied a neutral scarf around it. She finished the look with a trench coat. Most likely, she was going to end up in a trench at some point, the way her day was going. Big sunglasses finished the look: Holly Golightly in the rain. She scrutinized herself critically in the mirror. Still gorgeous.
Katy was waiting for her in the kitchen. “Be ready in fifteen, Esme’s staying home sick today, Dad’s driving us,” she advised. Katy was drinking grapefruit juice with club soda, her newest fetish, and eating Nutella with bananas on multigrain bread.
Ronnie grabbed an apple and a glass of skim milk. She sat at the little table in the breakfast nook, and Katy edged away from her like she had Ebola or something. “Okay, Katy, I know you’re dying to tell me. What did you do?”
“Classic jinx,” she said proudly. “I gave you a triple whammy, so keep your distance. I don’t know how far from ground zero is safe. Word to the wise: When something bad happens, it’ll be followed by something worse, and something worse again. They’ll come in threes. Devilishly tricky to cast, but … hey. I’m Katy. People shouldn’t mess with me.”
“Tell me how to get rid of it,” Veronica begged, crying. Crying almost always worked.
“Oh, sweetie. It lasts forever, or until I remove it.”
“How can you do this to your own sister?” Ronnie pleaded. Tears were flowing freely. The trench coat was coming in handy already.
“What was that?” Katy countered. “You’ll have to speak up. I have a little ringing in my ears from all the farting yesterday. That was hilarious, by the way.”
“I thought you loved me,” Ronnie tried.
“I do love you, honey,” Katy promised. “Look, I’ve prepared a bag for you to carry around, with all the stuff you’ll need.” On the kitchen counter was a small green gym bag. Katy unzipped it and started pulling out supplies. “I packed you plenty of safety pins, for when your buttons all fall off. Or your seams all tear open, whatever. I was going to pack you a needle and thread, but you’d probably bleed out before you could fix anything. Here’s a pack of wet wipes. And here’s a pencil sharpener; I guess you’ll be breaking a lot of points.”
“I could use a pen, I guess,” Ronnie suggested.
Katy weighed the idea for a moment. “I wouldn’t risk it, in your nice ecru trench coat.” She reached back into the bag and pulled out a first aid kit. “There are bandages, for paper cuts or if your hand gets mangled in machinery, and some hydrocortisone, for burns and scrapes and poison ivy. And here’s an umbrella. I doubt it will protect you if a meteorite falls on your head, but it’s better than nothing. Oh yeah, here’s a roll of duct tape! A thousand and one uses … ”
But Veronica wasn’t really paying attention. She was silently sobbing into her hands.
With the house to herself all day, Esme worked on her beauty potion. She boiled and distilled and combined liquids and powders and emulsions, her computer open to Google translate, making sure her Greek, Latin, Esperanza, Romany, and Yiddish incantations were correct. It was painstaking work, especially with all the compulsive cross-referencing.
“The language isn’t really important, you know,” Kasha advised, pacing up and down on the lab table. “It’s the witch’s intention that drives the results. However much commitment you put into it, that’s how good a potion you’ll get.”
Esme scrutinized the text she’d uploaded to her computer screen. She enlarged the picture and scrolled. Then she retrieved her phone and went through her photo roll, expanding the picture with her fingers to see if the image was any sharper. “Damn,” she exclaimed.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Kasha quipped.
Esme studied her phone screen intently. She magnified the text with the screen zoom tool, but the image lost resolution. “The text in the grimoire was on lambskin, and it’s a palimpsest. There’s something underneath scratched out. I think this word is ‘omorphia’ but this letter could be a phi or rho or even an English ‘P.’ I need to examine the original text.”
“It’s in Katy’s room,” Kasha said hesitantly. “She’s sure to have set wards.”
“She doesn’t need wards,” Esme reminded him. “She has dogs.”
They went upstairs and approached Katy’s door with trepidation. From inside they heard growls of warning. Esme tried the door. “It’s locked.”
“Okay, so we tried,” Kasha said. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
“A demon cat, afraid of some little dogs,” Esme derided, waving a hand over the doorknob. “Aperio,” she intoned, eyes intently closed, envisioning the tumblers in her mind. Nothing.
“Try ‘recludo,’ ” Kasha suggested.
She didn’t have to. She could hear the door unlock as the demon spoke the word. She turned the knob and entered the room, to cacophonous barking and growls. Dervish the pit bull was crouched low, ready to pounce, bloodlust in his eyes.
“Woof!” exclaimed Kasha, entering the room in a slinky, catlike manner. “Arf, arf! Uh … bowwow?” The dogs were momentarily shocked by the unlikeliness of this new threat, but the barking soon resumed, even louder and more aggressive than before. “These guys are jerks,” he reported, backing out of the room between Esme’s legs.
“What are they saying?” she asked, edging back out the door.
“I don’t know, dogs are too stupid to make sense. Something about a squirrel, I think. Wait, let me try something else.” Kasha reentered, puffing himself up. His fur stood out straight, so he appeared much larger and more intimidating. He arched his back, tail erect, hissing as he stalked into the room. The dogs picked up on the eerie vibe and started whining, but Dervish, with the jaws of a T. rex, stood his ground.
Kasha seemed much larger by the time he was nose-to-nose with the pit bull. His grin widened, and his feral teeth glistened like razors. Dervish took a step back. Kasha planted his feet, threw back his head, and roared. It was incredibly loud, something between a lion and an elephant, with a little Messerschmitt thrown in. The pit bull broke rank and ran behind the bed. The other dogs were quick to follow.
Esme was still shaking as they entered the room. “What the hell was that?”
“Godzilla, from the original 1954 Toho soundtrack,” Kasha explained. “Look at the size of this one,” he mentioned as they passed the Great Dane, quivering with her head and one foreleg under the bed. “I could feast for a month on all that.”
On Katy’s drafting table were all the supplies from Melinda’s apothecary chest. There were powders of herbs and minerals in mortars, and residues of dried animal parts in shallow dishes. There were small covered enamel pots and a large copper one, cooking away on racks above all-day candles. An iron cauldron was ready for use. Esme couldn’t touch anything on the table without raising sparks. She tapped at a glass vial and got an electric shock for her trouble. Wards.
“Looks like she’s trying to make that love potion,” Kasha noted.
Esme felt a thump of panic in her chest. She found the grimoire with a location charm her mother had taught her when she was five and kept misplacing her mittens. It was crammed into the stuffing of a large teddy bear. There was a bookmark between the pages of the love potion. “You’re right, Kasha. What am I going to do? Once she gets Zack to drink this, it’s all over.”
“Yup. On the other hand, she’s going to hell,” Kasha reminded. “So you’ll get the last laugh.”
“I can’t let Katy do that,” Esme wailed. “It’s not just about Zack; she doesn’t understand the repercussions. Can I sabotage it somehow?”
“Don’t worry. A love potion
is the most difficult, advanced magic in the biz. There’s no way Katy can pull it off, potions aren’t her forte. Your great-aunt Becky was the most talented witch I’ve known in all my centuries, and it took her years to produce anything that would even make a guy like her a little, and then only if she wore fishnet stockings and a miniskirt. And Becks had me for a familiar. By the time she nailed it, she was too old for it to do her any good.”
“Are you sure it’s no good? I never underestimate Katy.”
“She’d have a better chance of winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning at the same time,” the cat insisted. “Now check your Greek letters in the grimoire and let’s get out of here. The smell of dog is making me wanna hack up a gopher.”
Midnight, the witching hour. Katy had noticed that Esme had been in her room and tripped her wards. The dogs were still upset about something. But it didn’t matter. Esme couldn’t get near the potion. She probably didn’t even have a clue what it was.
In another two weeks Katy would have her potion, and Zack. She thought about him all the time. She’d kissed him on the lips today, and it was mind-boggling, though he’d seemed a bit reticent. She’d had his full attention all day, as Ronnie was having problems with pipes bursting on her and tree limbs falling on her and tripping over specks of dust, practically. Ronnie had been a lightning rod for cosmic doom. While crossing the quad, she’d been beaned in the nose by an errant Frisbee, conked in the noggin by a football, and had stepped in a big pile of dog poo. Three different people in the cafeteria accidently spilled their entire lunch trays onto her. Katy had never seen anyone endure such misery and pure dumb bad luck. The meteor threat didn’t even seem that far-fetched anymore. Veronica would fold very soon. Or snap. No way she could take another day like today.
In the bottom of Katy’s wardrobe, wrapped in African indigo, were special black beeswax candles and a bundle of dried sage and juniper for smudging. She lit the smudge and went about the room widdershins in a basic purification ritual, then lit the candles. She sat on the floor in full lotus and chanted: “I invoke the spirits of my ancestors.” After all the years she’d been doing this, the connection was so strong it was easier than calling Esme on the cell phone.