Warlock

by Ray Garton

  “Hey,” she called, waving back at him, “let’s tarry not, okay?”

  Redferne pointed out the window. “Those . . . winged machines . . . the ones that thunder . . .”

  “Planes. They’re called planes. And we’re gonna miss ours if we don’t haul some ass.”

  “But . . . men travel inside them? Through . . . the air?”

  “Men like us. Let’s travel.”

  “Look, you,” he said firmly. “In my day, those even endeavoring to fly are accused of witchery.”

  “Look, yourself. The book came from Boston, right? So we gotta beam out there, find someone who knows—”

  “My boots work best with ground beneath them, thank you. Directly beneath them.” He folded his arms across his chest and stood firm.

  “Redferne, I’m helping you. You wanted me to help you because I know my way around, right? Well, this is one of the ways we get around these days. Planes. And if we don’t catch this one, the warlock is gonna get to that book first.”

  He considered it casually, but did not move.

  Kassandra stepped forward, saying, “What do I have to do, hold your hand?” She took his hand, held it for a while, until his eyes began to soften and his frown relax.

  He allowed her to lead him through the gate.

  Kassandra was relieved she’d gotten Redferne out of the terminal before he saw the warlock. She knew he would have freaked and probably gotten them arrested.

  As they entered the plane, a pretty female flight attendant named Jayne chirped, “Ah, looks like you just made it.”

  “You’re tellin’ me,” Kassandra sighed, handing her their tickets.

  Jayne’s smile took a blow when she saw the large weathervane strapped to Redferne’s back. She nodded toward it, saying, “Um, can I take that for you?”

  “Over my rotting corpse can you take this from my—”

  Kassandra buried an elbow in his ribs and said, “Family heirloom. Give it to her, Redferne.”

  He started to protest.

  “Give it to her!”

  Eyes blazing angrily, Redferne unstrapped the weathervane and handed it to Jayne, who hefted it into a booth-like closet, then returned, smile intact.

  “You’re a real pal, Jayne,” Kassandra said.

  “Oh, thank you, and so are you, I mean that. Let me show you to your seats.”

  As they followed her down the aisle, Kassandra looked up at Redferne, rolled her eyes, and pointed at Jayne, whispering, “That’s what we call an airhead.”

  Redferne cocked his head and said, “Airhead.”

  Jayne slowed her pace, stiffened self-consciously, then stalked ahead.

  Once they were seated, Kassandra patted Redferne’s hand and whispered, “Try not to speak, okay?”

  He frowned at her for a long while and she smiled, patting his hand again, so he’d know it was only a joke, but still he stared. The frown disappeared, fell away like a mask, and suddenly he looked so scared and frantic and . . . sorry.

  She wanted to kiss his cheek.

  As if seeing the thought in her eyes, he turned away.

  Kassandra removed her hand from his and settled into her seat.

  An hour later, Kassandra was asleep in her seat and Redferne was frantic with fear.

  Minutes before, he’d seen a man sitting across the aisle and down a few rows open a little ramekin of cream. When he poured it into his coffee, a ball of congealed cream plopped into the cup. The man sniffed the container, winced, and pushed the coffee aside, waving for a flight attendant.

  That was enough to frighten him, enough to make him suspect the warlock was near.

  Then a woman sitting directly across from him put a cigarette into her mouth and flicked a small purple cylindrical device with her thumb. It instantly produced a flame.

  The flame was blue . . .

  Redferne suddenly leaned forward in his seat and fought with his seatbelt.

  “What? What?” Kassandra gasped, startled awake.

  “There is a witch among us. Set me free. Set me—”

  The belt came loose and Redferne was on his feet.

  “The vane,” he growled. “Where did that wench put my—”

  “Chill out,” Kassandra said, pulling on his coat hard enough to land him in his seat. “Think about it, Redferne. We’re like, thirty-nine million miles in the air. There’s no way he could be on board.”

  “Cream that spoils, a flame that burns blue, I tell you, he’s—”

  “—not here!”

  “I know the signs.”

  “And I know he’s not here!” she hissed.

  “How?” he asked, turning to her. “How is it you’re so sure?”

  She didn’t answer—wouldn’t answer—and looked away.

  She was keeping something from him, Redferne was sure.

  “You saw him,” he said.

  “We’re after the book, now, remember? Not him.”

  “You saw him and told me not.” He was getting angry but trying to fight it. She probably thought she was doing the right thing in not telling him. But to be so close once again . . .

  “We left him behind, Redferne,” she assured him. “We’re on our way to Boston and he’s still back there beepin’ the X-ray machine.”

  Her assurances did no good. Redferne still sensed peril.

  “There is witchery afoot,” he whispered, looking around. “I draw breath and taste it.”

  “Maybe it’s another witch,” she said, cuddling into her pillows again. “Like, Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.”

  “Good witch?” Redferne gasped, glaring at her. He was offended to the very core of his being at the very use of the words good and witch in the same breath. But Kassandra was already settled down to sleep.

  “Sweet dreams, Redferne.”

  “Good witch,” he repeated to himself disgustedly, galled.

  He tried to relax, tried to tell himself they were safe. That was not easy, though, especially when he knew that directly beneath his boots lay the endless open sky . . .

  What really lay directly beneath Redferne’s boots was the cargo hold. It was usually very dark and cold in the cargo hold, but now a soft glow fell on the luggage containers and animal carriers and the hazy air was warm.

  Nestled in a corner of the hold was the warlock; a globe of ectoplasm bobbed in the air before him, radiating light and heat. Over the globe, he warmed his green pouch of human fat, smiling.

  The warlock found it fascinating that, by nineteen eighty-eight, man had found magic powerful enough to make enormous passenger-carrying machines fly, almost rendering his potion obsolete.

  Almost . . . but not quite.

  He would have to fly to follow them once they left the flying machine.

  So he warmed the fat.

  Smiling . . .

  STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS

  CITY OF BOSTON

  Year of Our Lord

  Nineteen Hundred Eighty and Eight

  22

  Gettin’ to the Church on Time

  “Lemme guess,” the cab driver said, spinning them around a sharp corner. “California, right?”

  Kassandra rolled her eyes thinking, Here we go.

  “How’d you guess?” she asked.

  “That thing.” He glanced in the mirror at the weathervane on Redferne’s lap. “Probably bled you dry for that thing at some antique store, huh?”

  The flight had gone smoothly; Redferne, however, was a wreck. He sat beside her, bobbing in the seat, peering out every window, looking in all directions. His already long face seemed even longer, drawn and heavy with fatigue.

  “Bear to your left,” he suddenly barked at the driver.

  “Huh?”

  “ ’Twas Boston Common we just now passed?”

  “Yeah, I was gonna—”

  “And we travel north on Tremont Road?”

  “Yeah, we’re on Tremont, but I’m—”

  “Then bear west. The church lies not far off.”


  “Look, pal, I know this town pretty good. Lived here since fifty-eight. How ’bout you?”

  Kassandra quickly said, “Don’t answer that, Redferne.”

  “Lest you favor throttlings,” Redferne spat through clenched teeth, “bear west here!”

  The cab driver glared in the rearview mirror a moment, then swung left, mumbling, “And they wonder why we hate the Lakers.”

  When they finally lurched to a stop in front of the big stone church, Redferne burst out of the cab while Kassandra paid the driver. By the time she got out of the car, Redferne was bounding up the stone steps.

  At the top of the stairs stood a small young man locking the church’s enormous front doors. He looked pretty mousy and Kassandra was afraid Redferne would scare the shit out of him, so she picked up her pace, reaching the top of the stairs as Redferne said, “Pray, might we speak? Inside?”

  The young man spun around, startled. His sand colored hair was receding on both sides, leaving a small widow’s peak high above his smooth forehead.

  “Sp-speak?” he stuttered. “Uh, regarding . . .”

  Kassandra tugged on Redferne’s arm, hoping to quiet him, and said, “It’s important. It really is.”

  The man seemed relieved by Kassandra’s presence.

  “Well,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the blood-caked end of the weathervane held at Redferne’s side, “you could call the office tomorrow after eight. Ask for me. I’m Pastor Lawrence. I’d be happy to—”

  Redferne interrupted: “ ’Tis regarding the Grand Grimoire.”

  Pastor Lawrence’s face darkened and he looked to Kassandra for confirmation.

  She nodded.

  Troubled, the young pastor turned to his right and looked across the churchyard. In the window of the small free-standing rectory house next door stood a pregnant but frail looking blond woman, her hands resting on her bulging belly.

  Pastor Lawrence waved at her, chuckled nervously as he said, “My wife,” then unlocked the church’s door and led them inside, flicking on the lights. His voice echoed gently inside as he said, “Quite a puzzle, the Grand Grimoire. Some of the other clergy know of it, too—I’m not the only one who’s seen the records—but nobody seems to know how or why it came into church hands. I’d be very interested to know how you learned of it.” He turned to Redferne sheepishly. “Some sort of . . . witch’s book, isn’t it?”

  Impatient, Kassandra asked, “Can we see those records? Tonight? Now?”

  “Oh, church papers wouldn’t be for sale. You . . . you are document collectors, right?”

  “We don’t wanna buy anything, we just have to see that book. Soon.”

  “It’s certainly not here, if that’s what you’re hoping. It was broken up long ago, divided into—”

  The church doors flew open untouched and slammed against the walls. Dead leaves flew in, fluttering past their feet and down the center aisle, gathering at the foot of the altar that stood before the columns of pews.

  “He’s here,” Redferne whispered. “The wretch is on us like a tail on a hound.”

  Kassandra hissed, “He’s not here.”

  “He is.”

  “He’s not, okay?”

  Redferne turned away from her, muttering, “He is,” under his breath.

  “May I ask what your interest is in such a book?” Pastor Lawrence asked timidly, but with suspicion.

  Kassandra started to reply, but Redferne stepped between them and said, “Our interest lies in stopping those who would see all good falter.” His pace quickened and he raised his voice. “It lies in stopping the Powers of Misrule from coming of age.” He stepped closer and the nervous pastor stepped back. “It lies in finding that damned book and thwarting a vile beast of a man who shall not rest until God Himself is thrown down and all of Creation becomes Satan’s black, shit-besmeared farting hole!”

  Trembling, Pastor Lawrence turned to Kassandra for help and stammered, “I-I-I . . .”

  She shrugged. “You asked.”

  Without asking anymore questions—Kassandra thought, Probably because he doesn’t want to hear anymore of Redferne’s answers—Pastor Lawrence led them down a dark, narrow staircase to the damp, cluttered basement of the stone church.

  Dozens of rickety old filing cabinets rose above the clutter. One bare bulb hung from the ceiling, glaring away the darkness.

  Lawrence sifted through folders of brittle paper in the cabinet drawers until he found what he wanted.

  “Here,” he said, removing one of the folders and opening it beneath the light. “Yes, here we are, um, ‘. . . some few remarks on a book most dire, called by some the Book of Shadows, by others the Key of Solomon, and named by others still the Grand Grimoire.’ ”

  “Aye,” Redferne said, “that’s the one.”

  “Uh, there’s more. ‘The need for exquisite caution . . .’ er, wait . . . ‘many-faced lieutenants of Lucifer . . . soldiers of Satan . . .’ Well, the language gets pretty thick. But I remember something about how the book was distributed.”

  Excited, Kassandra gripped Redferne’s elbow and asked, “Like where?”

  Pastor Lawrence scanned the pages. “Well . . . here. One part was placed, um, ‘within the slender hollow of a table used in the taking of Communion . . .’ ”

  “Chas’s table,” Kassandra said, holding Redferne’s arm close to her side.

  “Another part was ‘given over to a vicar who had recently founded a ministry west of the Carolinas . . .’ ”

  “The farmhouse,” Redferne said.

  “Gotta be,” she agreed.

  Pastor Lawrence frowned as he read on, muttering, “And the third part . . .”

  “Yeah?” Kassandra barked.

  “Well . . . if I’m reading this correctly, the third part might still be here in Boston . . .”

  As they headed down the steps in front of the church after saying goodbye to Pastor Lawrence, Kassandra groaned, “A fuckin’ graveyard?”

  Dusk was settling over Boston and shadows were spreading and darkening.

  “A burial site,” Redferne said, leading her down the sidewalk. “One I know.”

  “So we’re gonna, what, dig up some graves? Jesus, somebody check the time. Is it midnight?”

  “If luck looks upon us, there’ll be no digging. Should the earth be hallowed, the pages lie safe. Never can a witch set foot on consecrated ground.”

  They were hurrying down the sidewalk with Redferne leading, their pace nearing a jog.

  Kassandra asked, “So where are we going?”

  Redferne stopped and looked around. “So much has changed. Yet, at times . . . I spy a familiar stretch of park . . . or a turn of the road . . .”

  “Well, he gave us directions. C’mon,” she said, leading him back the way they’d come. “I saw a subway back there across the street.” After a few yards, she threw an arm around his waist, gave him a squeeze, and laughed, “We’re almost there, huh, Redferne? Was this a plan, or what?” For the first time since it had all begun, Kassandra realized she was actually enjoying herself.

  She was disappointed to see he did not share her enthusiasm.

  “Do not become too confident,” he said. “He is near. No matter what you say, I know he is near. I can feel him . . .”

  Halfway down the block, the warlock stood behind some shrubbery, watching them descend a stairway that led below the sidewalk across the street.

  He pushed through the bushes and dashed across the street, still favoring his wounded ankle, running through the beams of car headlights. Tires squealed over the pavement and horns honked, but he reached the other side and hurried down the stairs, skipping two steps at a time.

  It was noisy and crowded below. Beyond a row of waist-high barriers, the warlock spotted Redferne and the girl quickly boarding a long cylindrical vehicle with a row of windows. A moment later, the long coach roared away, disappearing into a black tunnel.

  The warlock calmly turned and headed back up the stairs . . .<
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  23

  Rock-a-bye Baby

  Pastor Stuart Lawrence took his time leaving the church. His hands were still trembling and he didn’t want Joyce to sense his nervousness. She was seven months pregnant with twins and she certainly needed no unnecessary upsets.

  The visitors had shaken him. Not the girl so much as the man. There had been something about him—a desperation, a purpose—that made his presence discomforting to Stuart.

  On top of that, he spoke with knowledge about the Grand Grimoire, something that had been an enigma to church officials for decades—even centuries.

  Once he’d calmed himself, Pastor Lawrence turned out the lights again and locked up the church.

  The night had brought a chill that made him shiver as he crossed the churchyard to the rectory house.

  Soft light glowed from the kitchen window and, as he neared the house, Stuart could smell his wife’s meatloaf cooking. She made the best meatloaf he’d ever tasted, even better than his mother’s.

  He entered through the kitchen door and deeply inhaled the aroma, calling, “Joyce?”

  No reply.

  “Joyce?”

  “In . . . here.” Coming from the living room, her voice sounded strained, frightened.

  Stuart hurried through the house, calling, “Honey, are you—”

  He stumbled to a halt in the doorway when he saw the man standing beside Joyce in the living room. Joyce was seated in one of their two recliners, her back stiff, face white.

  “I’ll say good evening,” the stranger said with a smile, “even if it does seem unwarranted.” He was tall with black hair and black clothes, and the darkest, most sinister eyes Stuart had ever seen. “The two who came to you earlier. What was told them?”

  Pastor Lawrence couldn’t find his voice at first. “D-do you . . . are you . . . friends?”

  “Age old acquaintances.”

  “Well, we . . . we talked about . . . many things.”

  “Then talk to me.”

  The other recliner was behind Stuart and the stranger glanced at it. Stuart heard the chair rumble over the floor until it bumped the backs of his knees and plopped him into a sitting position in the chair.