by Ray Garton
Bob went on. “They’ll be taking it to the parkin’ lot behind the church. Probably have a little party.”
“The church?” Redferne asked.
“Yeah.”
He turned to Kassandra. “We must go. Be quick.”
She signed her credit card receipt with a shaking hand and got in the car.
“What is it, Redferne?”
He didn’t reply.
“C’mon, you’re scaring me.”
He turned to her slowly. “I, too, am scared.”
As she started the car, Kassandra whimpered, “Ooohh, shit.”
Redferne opened the door of the coach before it had stopped moving, anxious to get out and see if his worst fears would be realized.
“Goddammit,” Kassandra snapped, following him, “will you tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Hold your tongue woman,” he hissed. “ ’Tis a church.”
She mumbled quietly to herself after that: “. . . tell me to hold my fucking tongue . . . goddamned Puritan . . .”
The men were gathered in a circle around the animal; women stood back a small distance.
Redferne stepped forward and looked into the circle. A dead coyote lay on the hard black ground, its mouth and eyes open wide.
A woman broke through the circle and glared at the animal. Her face was bloated from crying, her hair askew, and her face twisted into an agonizing sob as she fell into the arms of one of the hunters. He was a tall, rugged man and whispered, “We got him, honey. Got him . . .”
The couple turned from the circle and slowly walked away.
Redferne followed.
“Hey,” Kassandra whispered, “what’re you—”
“Pray, wait!” Redferne called.
They stopped and turned to him. The woman looked numb; the man appeared annoyed.
“ ’Twas your son?” Redferne asked. “The boy killed?”
They glanced at one another and the woman nodded.
“For your loss, I grieve. But I have need to ask one thing. Had he been baptized?”
The woman looked about to cry again as she said, “Who are you? Why are you asking us this?”
The man stepped forward threateningly, snapping, “Jesus H. Christ, buddy, what the hell’s your problem? You wanna—”
“Was the boy baptized?” Redferne asked firmly, spreading his legs a bit with one hand on his whip, prepared for combat.
The man was big, but Redferne was bigger. The anger on his face gave way to serious concern as he looked Redferne up and down.
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow him to be baptized.”
A cold fist punched Redferne in the stomach; the worst was true. Mixed with his dread were frustration and anger; who with a clear mind would not have his child baptized? At the same time, Redferne pitied the man; he obviously lived in a confusing and frightening time and place and could not be expected to behave reasonably.
Redferne said, “Then may God have mercy on your soul,” and walked away. Kassandra joined him on the way back to the coach.
“Oh, yeah?” the man called. “Well why the fuck didn’t He have a little mercy on my kid, huh? Fuck my soul. Where was God then, huh?”
Redferne ignored the man’s words, but could not shut out the pain in his voice. He ached for the man and sent up a prayer.
“So clue me, Redferne,” Kassandra said, tugging his arm. “What’s going on?”
“The warlock will travel swifter now.”
“What? I don’t get it,” she said as they got in the car. “You think he killed the kid?”
Redferne spoke slowly, hoping the news would not cause her too much despair.
“Of all the ingredients used by a witch, the most coveted is human fat. And if that fat is cut from an unbaptized male child . . . there is but one purpose . . . one thing it will beget . . .”
“I’m . . . I’m listening . . .”
“Flying potion,” Redferne said. “The warlock has taken flight. We may never catch him now . . .”
13
One for the Road
He stayed out of sight until night had fallen and then he found a fire.
It was burning in an old rusted barrel and was surrounded by half a dozen filthy, rangy transients, beggars with their precious tins of food salvaged from the scraps of others. They eyed the warlock suspiciously as he approached the fire, carrying his green bundle.
There was a grill placed atop the barrel and cans stood on them, heating. The warlock removed one and tossed out its sloppy contents.
“Hey!” one of the men barked, stepping toward him. “That was my dinner, you god—”
“One step closer and ’twill be your heart roasting on the fire,” the warlock said quietly.
The stooped little man believed him and backed off.
The warlock untied his green pouch and some of the transients stepped forward timidly to see what he might have to eat. He waited a moment, enjoying their curiosity, then unfolded the pouch suddenly, revealing the bloody, congealed gob of human fat.
Some of the men groaned, some cursed, but they all moved back.
The warlock scooped some of the fat into the can, then reached into his pocket for some of the leaves and roots he’d gathered and crushed that afternoon. He sprinkled them onto the fat as it began to heat over the fire.
He removed the bundle containing the eyes and the men around him stood motionless; none had the least interest in seeing what he had wrapped in the cloth.
The eyes waited until the warlock’s attention was focused on them, then rolled, once again, to the east.
He returned them to his pocket and looked at the potion. It was nearly ready. Removing the belt from about his waist, the warlock strapped the bundle of Grand Grimoire pages to his side, preparing for flight.
The men watched in a dead, frightened silence.
The warlock stirred the contents of the can with a stick and passed it beneath his nose. It smelled perfect. He tipped the can to his mouth and drank it all in a couple gulps.
Slamming the can back onto the grill, he waited to feel its effects. After a moment, he turned to the men, smiled, and said, “Gentlemen, you have been most cooperative. I suggest you now concentrate on removing the small stinging spiders from your trousers.”
In an instant, all of the transients were slapping at themselves, crying out like pinched children, hopping and rolling on the ground.
The warlock flew away.
14
On the Road Again
They’d entered Arizona hours ago and the broad, skeletal landscape, shrouded by night, was hypnotically repetitive and Kassandra’s eyes began to grow heavy as she drove. Her head began to nod forward when Redferne shouted, “Woman!”
Kassandra’s head snapped back and she felt an alerting burst of adrenalin. “Okay, okay,” she said. “And my name’s not woman. It’s Kassandra.”
“So be it, Kassandra.” He watched her closely for a moment, then asked, “Is’t possible I could drive the coach so you might sleep?”
Kassandra almost blurted a laugh and said, What, and end up a radiator waffle? But she stopped herself.
He’d sounded so timid, and the way he was sitting—upper body inclined slightly toward her but braced to pull back, head cocked uncertainly, brow wrinkled—suggested he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing.
He’s probably used to women who jump at his every word, she thought. That’s how they were back then, isn’t it?
She decided he was at least trying and probably with a big fat gulp of pride.
Kassandra said, “Uh, no. Appreciate the thought, but no, thank you. And it’s called a car.”
“Car,” he said, nodding. “Car . . .”
Kassandra needed something to break the lulling hum of the tires on the pavement. She turned on the radio but, as usual, got no response until she pounded a fist on the dashboard. Then a mixture of distant voices and music crackled through the small speaker.
Redfe
rne leaned forward and stared in amazement at the grill as Kassandra searched for a station.
“No little people inside,” she said.
“I gathered.”
The only stations that came in with any clarity played country and western music, and Kassandra finally switched it off, muttering, “I’d rather crash. Hey, Redferne, dig me up some gum, will you?”
“We . . . have none.”
“Whatta you mean? We just bought some when we stopped for dinner tonight.”
Redferne looked away from her like a guilty boy.
“Fine. Great. You ate it.” She sighed heavily. “Okay, no gum, no music . . . guess we’ll have to fall back on stimulating conversation. Let’s see . . . you know the earth is round yet?”
“For years now.”
“Mmm. Hey, do you guys eat a lot of turkey back there?”
“Turkey? Well . . . not an unhealthy amount. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “Just always had the idea that you guys ate a lot of turkey back then. Okay, so you ask me something.”
He hesitated.
“Go ahead. I took two years of high school. Ask me anything.”
It came slowly, cautiously: “Why . . . why is it . . . you paint your face?”
That wasn’t what she expected.
“My face?” She touched her cheek. “Well . . . nothing wrong with a little makeup. Is there? I mean . . . especially now.”
“Satanists paint their faces,” Redferne said ominously, eyes front.
“Well, you know I’m not a Satanist, Redferne. I’m on your si—”
“Satanists. Not goodly women.”
“Aww, c’mon. You know—”
Kassandra stopped, remembering something. When the warlock first spoke to her, he’d said. You’ve a painted face, and he’d said it as if it pleased him.
She asked, “You telling me that in sixteen ninety-one, women don’t wear any makeup? Nothing?”
“If my Marian had but once—” He stopped himself and quickly looked out the window at his side. “Nay. Goodly women do not paint themselves.”
“Hey, were you married back there?”
He shook his head tightly.
“You just said ‘my Marian.’ Who’s she?”
Redferne pulled out his wooden box and the rods inside rolled around noisily. “We’ll need new bearing. It’s been hours.”
“She your daughter?”
“Pray, stop the coach.”
“Some squeeze? A lover?”
“Stop here.”
“Well, c’mon, who’s Marian?”
“Stop!” he roared.
Kassandra stopped the questioning and, after pulling onto the shoulder, the car.
Redferne got out of the car and moved into the headlight beams to erect the witch compass.
An occasional car rushed by on the highway, but the traffic was thin.
Kassandra leaned her head on the window and closed her eyes, pissed at herself for pushing Redferne so hard. She just wanted some conversation to fight the deadly highway silence. She’d been driving for over twelve hours.
No, she knew that wasn’t entirely true. She was also curious; she really wanted to know about Marian. It wasn’t every day she got to meet and talk with some guy from the seventeenth century and she wanted to know a little about him.
But she doubted she would learn anymore about him after her little interrogation.
“Think, then talk, bananabrain,” she grumbled to herself, reaching for the radio to try again, but an uncontrollable tremor passed through her arms and hands and she couldn’t close her fingers on the small knob. “What the hell is—” she began, but—
—a hellishly painful seizure gripped her stomach, doubling her over so suddenly that she bumped her head on the wheel and, unable to muster a full voice, began to whisper—
—“Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh—”
—as a car passed and its headlights filled the cab of the Corvair and, lifting her head from the steering wheel, Kassandra saw—
—her hands growing puffy, saw liver spots spread like spilled ink and watched her knuckles become arthritic bulges burning with pain and she felt—
—her jeans split as her legs swelled and—
—her insides seemed to shift in her abdomen with a back-breaking cramp and her heart fluttered and another passing car illuminated—
—her face in the rearview mirror as her skin moved, sagging over her eyelids and forming jowls below her cheeks and she watched her hair and eyebrows lose all color and go completely gray and then—
—it stopped.
She stared at the reflection in the mirror, old and unfamiliar, and she groaned, pawing for the door handle as her groan became a cry and then a scream as she spilled out of the car and onto the ground.
Kassandra scrambled to her feet, feeling smaller, stooped, and unable to move as well. She staggered around the car and away from the highway, toward the desert, clutching herself as if she might fall apart.
“Where do you go?” Redferne asked.
She kept moving.
“Wait!”
She heard his footsteps catching up with her and covered her face when he took her arm and spun her around.
“Just get lost,” she said, and her voice horrified her. It sounded pinched and cracked and . . . so old. “I . . . I don’t wanna know how bad it is. Just . . . leave me alone.”
“Come,” Redferne said, gently prying her gnarled hands from her face. “Come, now.”
She lowered her hands.
Even in the dim glow of the car’s headlights a few yards away, Kassandra could see the horror and pity in Redferne’s eyes.
“Don’t look,” she breathed, too humiliated to even cry. “Please don’t look.”
But he kept looking and squeezed her shoulders with firm affection: a silent apology.
“Why didn’t he just kill me, Redferne? Nothing could be worse than this. Nothing.”
Redferne nodded. “His very thought.” He put a steadying hand on her arm as they started back toward the car. “Let us go. The distance between us and the warlock is growing. You must teach me to operate the coa—the car. You must sleep.”
“You can’t drive the—”
“You shall teach me.”
Kassandra knew he was right; she couldn’t possibly drive.
“You know,” she said as they walked, “this morning, I freaked because I looked like my mother. Now here I am—my grandmother.”
Quietly, Redferne said, “A goodlier sixty-year-old I’ve seldom seen.”
“Oh, what was that, a seventeenth-century compliment?” she snapped, immediately regretting her tone. “I’m sorry, Redferne. Thanks for trying. But . . . that’s not why I mention it.”
“No?”
“My grandmother died in her seventies, Redferne.”
He considered that a moment, then let go of her arm as he said, “I would give no weight to such thoughts. ’Tis . . . ’tis hard to say it—”
“C’mon, let’s not yank each other, here. Next time, I don’t grow older. Just deader.”
“Unless we find the warlock and reclaim your bracelet in time. Which is why you must teach me to drive your coach.”
Kassandra sighed an old weary sigh and got into the car . . .
15
Down on the Farm
The room was dusty and the air stale, but even in the hazy light, the warlock read. He sat on the floor with his back against the side of a bed. Beside him, a wooden trunk lay broken open, splintered and cracked. Its contents were spilled in a heap: books, religious robes, a communion chalice, and a sepia-toned photograph of the long-dead minister to whom they’d once belonged.
Also among the religious objects was the second third of the Grand Grimoire. It had been stored in a false bottom.
He’d stopped earlier the night before to rest a bit, lighting in a patch of woods. When he removed the eyes from his pockets and held them in his palm, they flared, the gold
irises deepened in color and they rolled briefly to the east, then glared at him again.
He knew he was close; he saw it in the eyes, felt it in his gut.
The warlock began walking and had hardly gone a quarter of a mile when he spotted the house, the barn beyond it, and the fields bathed in moonlight farther still in the distance.
When he stood in the yard in front of the house, he looked at the eyes again. They glowered over his shoulder.
The warlock turned and looked above him; just atop one of the second story windows, there was an access door to the attic.
He looked at the eyes again; they stared directly at the high narrow door.
And there he remained, in the attic reading, with wonder, the second section of the Bible.
The attic had once been converted to a spare bedroom, but now held the clutter of an attic again. The furniture was covered and most of the floorspace was filled with stuffed boxes and bags.
He’d flown a great distance, but was not sure where he’d landed. The farm was somehow different than all the others he’d seen. None of the monstrous beast-like equipment hunkered in the fields. It looked . . . simple. And strangest of all, it felt distantly familiar.
It mattered little, though.
What mattered was the book. He’d planned to move on earlier, but he couldn’t stop reading. He grew stronger and more powerful with each word he read. He’d even been trying what he’d learned.
He’d produced an enormous snake coiled on a stack of boxes; it even hissed convincingly. But it wasn’t there at all. It was no more than a shadow, a visible thought. But very convincing and infinitely useful.
His new talent grew with each page until he was able to make the entire attic disappear; he replaced it with a deep, dark forest. It was ripe with the smell of pines, of damp earth and mossy wood.
The warlock laughed delightedly as he tested and toyed with his new knowledge and abilities, producing gray phlegmy ectoplasm from his fingertips and palms as the new sun turned the skies outside to thin blood and the farm began to wake.
The warlock continued as the morning went on, reading, experimenting, and thinking, sometimes staring restfully at the blue sky through the small attic window, below which stood . . .