by S. A. Hunt
“Indeed, ignorance is one of the many talents your mother passed down to you.”
The wooden gut-ball splintered a little bit.
“You were trying to recruit me for your coven. You were trying to get me to give my heart to Ereshkigal so I would become indebted to you, my life-force and power would have become linked through your Matron, and you could hold dominion over me. Well, I’ve got news for you, chick—you know what a Matron is?”
“The oldest member of a coven. The matriarch and the love central to the survival of our people and our ways.”
“No. A Matron is just the last surviving member of a dead coven. The queen bee of a dead hive. They’re all failures. When you eradicate a coven except for one member, that member moves on to become the Matron of a new coven. They’re all failures. You’re all one long cycle of fuckups.”
“I sure missed that sass,” Cutty interrupted, with a sly smile. “Failing you was one of my biggest regrets.”
“My mom scrambled my brains trying to keep me safe from you. What she did was wrong, but—” she started to say, but then, as quick as a camera-flash, Marilyn Cutty’s face twisted into the most feral, frightening expression of rage she’d ever seen: teeth bared, nostrils flaring, brow furrowed, eyes impossibly wide. Goose bumps raced down Robin’s arms.
“You tricky little—” snarled the witch.
The spotty gray cat had followed them out there and was sitting on Cutty’s shoulder. Cutty reached up and snatched the animal down, holding it by the throat. Taking the cat’s neck in both hands, she wrenched it violently in opposite directions with a sickening celery-like crunch.
“Holy shit,” blurted Leon.
As if his brain had been unplugged, Wayne’s father bonelessly sank to his knees and fell over.
Foam spittle bubbled between his lips. He writhed and thrashed on the grass like an earthworm, his eyes rolling back. Wayne ran to his father’s side and tangled his fists in the man’s shirt, screaming in confused horror. He didn’t put an algiz on himself, thought Robin, as Marilyn Cutty flung the dead cat into the flower bed and stormed away, hitching up her skirts. That skeptical idiot.
“You,” shouted Cutty in a frantic, staccato tone, pointing at Theresa LaQuices as she left, “kill the girl and come to the house. Hammer is there and he’s trying to kill Mother with the Godsdagger.”
Looks like the time for flattery and deal-making is over. Theresa turned and grinned at Robin. Her gums were jet-black, and now too were her eyes.
Throwing his son off, Leon scrambled up and hurtled into the vineyard after the witch, loping and capering, using his hands as much as his feet. The boy shouted after him and started to follow, but the frothing darkness in the spaces between the trellises cowed him and he hesitated, glancing at Robin for guidance.
“My covvy-sister Karen is good at illusions, you know,” said Theresa. “And Marilyn’s good at divination, manipulation. Brain stuff.” She tapped her skull with a clawed finger. Theresa’s breasts and thighs bulged and rolled under her peasant dress like a sack of potatoes as she paced around in front of Robin in a languid, confident way. “But do you know what I’m good at, girl?” Her head tilted as she said this, and at first it looked as if she were cracking her neck, but it was immediately obvious the muscles around her throat were thickening, tightening. “Alteration,” she said, her voice going bell-deep, threaded with pain. “Transfiguration.” Her elbows rose as if she were about to dance the funky chicken, but then her shoulders broadened, and her hands began to enlarge, and she stumbled and fell on her hands and knees. “Transformation.”
Bones crackled thickly inside as if her skeleton were rearranging itself. Theresa’s dress split up the back with a brittle pop! of white linen, revealing her shoulder blades and flabby, age-spotted flanks, and then her bra strap broke in half.
Vertebrae surfaced from the flesh behind her head, widening, standing up, becoming spines. The witch’s head turned and bobby pins slipped out, her coal-black hair spilling free. Her jaw was lengthening, and she growled through a maniacal jackal grin. Her face was the gray, hairless bastard of a dozen beasts.
As the first drops of rain finally arrived, Robin fled.
11
Opening the bedroom door, Heinrich found himself face-to-face with a ghost. And then he didn’t.
One second, a man floated in the hallway, in his underwear, with puke all over his shirt, his face all chalky and blown out. And then he was gone, pop, like a light switch. In his place was the Illusion witch.
The youngest member of the Blackfield coven ambled down the hallway with a satisfied cackle. “For a big army dude, that was easier than I thought it would be,” Karen Weaver said, and she put on her shabby riverboat hat, tugging the brim low. Turning to Heinrich, she grinned, revealing black gums and mottled yellow teeth. “Now that I’ve gotten rid of your sidekick, let’s you and me settle this like men.”
“Cheap move,” said the witch-hunter. Heinrich stepped out of the bedroom, fully preparing to clobber the witch with the gas can, and immediately took a haymaker to the face that staggered him against the doorframe. He slid down the wall, knocking down and breaking a picture.
The groundskeeper stood over him, the skinny ginger dude. He was lanky, but he had fists like bricks. “Wasn’t you taught to knock before you waltz into somebody’s shit?”
Before he could react, Ginger knelt and delivered another stunning blow to the old man’s cheek. “You know breaking into somebody’s house is illegal, yeah?” Punch. Lightbulbs exploded in Heinrich’s brain. “I could kill you right now and there’s not a jury in the world that would convict me.” Shadows tried to converge on Heinrich’s eyes, but he fought off unconsciousness just briefly enough to reach out and grab the ginger’s sleeve. He thrust the Osdathregar into the man’s forearm, lengthwise, as if he were gutting a fish.
“JESUS!” shrieked the ginger, jerking away. Fresh blood pattered on the hardwood underfoot as the blade slipped out of his arm.
Gotta get on my feet, or I’ll be in a world of hurt. Heinrich rolled over onto his hands and knees. Some of his front teeth were loose. Not that I ain’t already. Fingers of steel and leather closed on his throat and Weaver lifted him off the floor, slammed him against the wall. More pictures fell with a collective crash. Broken glass crunched under her boots. She pinned Heinrich against the tomato-red paint.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he gurgled.
“Spend a lot of time out in the woods,” Weaver said through gritted teeth. “Back in the day, my first husband and I had a gold claim in California. We built our own cabin. You wouldn’t—”
“Who gives a fuck about a cabin?” screamed the groundskeeper, clutching his arm. Crimson ran down his arm and pooled in the palm of his hand. “I’m bleedin’ out, old woman!”
Irritation burned in the witch’s eyes. “There, Roy, you idiot. It’s fixed.”
The groundskeeper inspected his arm. The dagger-wound was still filleted open in a three-inch laceration up his wrist. Blood ran in rivulets down his fingers. Whatever illusion Weaver had hexed him with seemed to make him think she’d put the Jesus voodoo on him and fixed his arm, because the expression on his face went from terror to surprise to relief.
“Oh, wow,” he said, flexing his hand. “Thanks.”
“Can’t find good help these days,” she said, and then Heinrich shanked her in the ribs with the Osdathregar.
Rip! The blade sank in all the way to the cross guard, punching through her rag-coat, the leather underneath, her shirt, and into the meat of her rotten belly. Her mouth fell open in a shocked grimace. She seized up and let go of him, backing away, hugging herself.
Back on his feet, Heinrich took the opportunity to stagger down the hallway toward the stairs. “Where d’you think you’re going?” The ginger Roy had him by the coat. The witch-hunter spun on him.
A gun barrel pressed against Heinrich’s forehead, cold and hard.
At the last instant, he looked
away, and the gun went off next to his head with a deafening POP. A bullet hole appeared in the wall with a puff of sheetrock dust. Heinrich flinched in pain, grabbing his ear. The ginger tried to readjust his aim and attempt another shot, but Heinrich dropped the dagger, grabbing the gun.
This was the first step in a dance of death, “Roy” pulling the trigger—POW—as they did an awkward tango in the hallway, staggering around each other, Heinrich squeezing the trigger—POW—each trying to shoot the other with the same gun.
“Think the two of you could take this outside?” asked the witch. “I don’t think Marilyn is goin’ to appreciate you shootin’ the place up.”
“Thanks, asshole,” grunted Roy. “I’m going to have to spackle and paint all this myself.” Completely oblivious to the fact he was still injured, Roy was bleeding all over both of them. The pistol became more and more slippery, as if they were fighting over a bar of soap.
The pistol slid through Heinrich’s wet fingers, the ginger almost fumbling it.
Lost the gun. I’m fucked.
Apparently, gaining the upper hand took Roy by surprise, because he paused mid-wrestle to glance at the pistol in his bloody fist, as if he’d forgotten how it worked, or perhaps he saw through the witch’s hallucination and discovered much more blood than he expected to see.
For a few brief seconds, Heinrich found himself off guard as well. Both of them hesitated, staring at each other. Make a move before he does.
Do or die. Heinrich charged, Roy raised the gun.
First one to make contact was the witch-hunter, who clocked him square in the face with a right hook. Teeth against knuckles. Head snapped back. The ginger hit the floor on his ass.
Claws. The bang of bootheels. The witch, on his right.
Unarmed versus a pissed-off witch and a squirrelly Irish guy with a gun. No contest. In a growing panic, Heinrich ran for the stairs again, stumbling down them two and three at a time, nearly falling. He collided with a big plush La-Z-Boy at the bottom and darted across the living room, almost crawling.
POP! The television’s screen shattered, inches from his head. He hurdled the couch. POP! Cotton batting geysered out of the upholstery as a bullet tore through it.
Footsteps thundering down the stairs behind him. Heinrich ran into the kitchen, kicked his way through the screen door, and ran out into the night. Rain dotted the tarmac driveway with blue polka dots. Too late, he realized he’d left the Osdathregar behind.
He was halfway down the dirt road, sprinting into darkness, when a bullet punched through his right calf.
“UURGH!” he cried, collapsing on his belly. Gravel bit into his knees and elbows.
Weeds to his right. The trailer park. The burning in his leg swelled until it was a red-hot iron rod in his muscle. Heinrich dragged himself toward the culvert and out of the road, already formulating plans in his head to hide among the shadows of the mobile homes, maybe crawl into the underpinning, pull out his cell, call Robin to come g—
Click.
The ginger stood at his elbow, the revolver’s barrel gaping down at him. Roy pulled the trigger again. Click. He pressed that horrible black tunnel against Heinrich’s smooth scalp, dripping warm blood on his cold skull.
Rain hushed the cicadas, hissing in the grass all around them.
Click.
“You’re lucky, you dumb piece of shit.” The ginger opened the cylinder, sighed at the empty casings inside, and tipped it closed again. “You may not die tonight.”
Moonlight danced on a silver blade, dripping rainwater from the tip. Weaver emerged from the shadows, wielding the abandoned Osdathregar. “Oh, trust me, dear man,” she said, twirling her spoils between her fingers like a master knife-fighter, “when we’re done with him, he’s going to wish there’d been one more bullet in that gun.” She crouched next to Heinrich as the cricket-song swelled over them from the trees, covering them in a burlap blanket of sound. “So, what the hell was that back there, hmm? I expected more from the ex-Dog that trained the mighty Malus Domestica.” She poked him with the Osdathregar. “As a matter of fact, you fight pretty sorry. Was this your first go-round or what? Fess up, you’re getting old, ain’t—”
He spat blood in her face.
All over her face, from her hairline to her chin, a shotgun spray of red. Weaver didn’t flinch. Didn’t even close her eyes. What she did was take a handkerchief out of her pocket, un-wad it with a whip motion, and mop herself with it.
Stuffing the cloth into Heinrich’s pocket, she put the tip of the dagger to his throat. “Does the little girl know she’s been followin’ some know-nothin’ charlatan this entire time? I bet you been pullin’ all that trainin’ outta your ass, ain’t you? Yeah, I been watchin’ them videos of hers. Y’all been holed up somewhere, readin’ stolen history books and doin’ kung fu on each other like a couple of assholes. Hell, at this point, she’s better than you’ve ever been. You ain’t know shit, buddy. You and them Dogs you used to run with, you ain’t know shit.”
He said nothing, just lay on his back, trying not to scream or pass out from the pain in his leg.
“Why?” she asked. The witch’s breath stank, a noxious skunk-and-roadkill mixture that made his head swim. “Why did you lie to her? Why did you build that girl up on horseshit and send her out to die? What was your master plan, man? Did you train her to be some kind of supernatural suicide bomber? Is that why she fights like that? What’s so special about her?”
Before he could answer, a trumpeting roar the likes of which Heinrich had never heard in his life came from the vineyard behind the house. Sound filled the night with red prehistoric rage, prickled his skin with adrenaline. If he had to describe it, he thought he might go mad.
The witch glanced over her shoulder. “Sounds like your unfortunate little Girl Wonder is learning the hard way when we tell you to fuck off back to where you came from, you fuck off.”
Horror drove him to kick away from the witch and try to wriggle off into the grass again, but she had him by the leg. Weaver dragged him back into the road and plunged the Osdathregar into his shoulder. Fire and ice drilled through his coat-sleeve, pierced muscle and bone, threatened to burst from his chest. He screamed, possibly the first time he’d ever screamed like that in his life, a full, shrieking wail that echoed in the valleys of the trailer park.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” she said, jerking the blade out of his body. He howled in agony and the stars in the sky tried to fade. His mind threatened to give up, to black out. “Don’t pass out on me now. Sounds like the show’s just startin’. You wouldn’t wanna miss watchin’ your little jihad come to a nasty end, would you?” She dragged him back toward the house as easily as if he were a sack of rocks.
In her other hand, the Osdathregar sang faintly as she walked, the fine, high-pitched whistle of a razor-sharp blade cutting the air. She laughed out loud, cackling. “Wait ’til Marilyn sees what the cat dragged in. No pinochle or Discovery Channel for us tonight. No, tonight, you’re gonna be our pastime. I shore hope your schedule’s clear.”
12
“Go!” Robin bellowed. “Run!”
Wayne’s eyes widened behind his torch-glared glasses, and he took off into the vineyard, following her.
Darkness and rain enclosed them. Silent heat lightning flickered across the clouds, affording her the occasional glimpse of the trellises blazing past. Wayne was running at full speed and she was pleasantly surprised to find he was not the asthmatic nerd of a thousand after-school specials, regardless of the BCGs (“Birth-Control Glasses,” as they were called in the army, as Kenway might tell you).
No, that kid was hauling ass.
“Don’t stop,” she panted, clawing handfuls of air with each frantic step. Rain ran down her face, plastering her Mohawk to her scalp. “She’ll kill you when she’s done with me.”
“My dad. What?”
“Familiar. Witch put a cat in him.”
“A cat?” He glanced over his shoulder, losing a bit
of ground.
“Tell you if we get out. Focus!” She jabbed a finger at the night ahead like a general. “Don’t slow down!”
The ground shook, the grapevines rustled, and the night trembled with a growing rumble—the three-note gallop of the William Tell Overture: boom-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom. Something big was chasing them. She ran backward for a few steps, checking her six, but if there was anything back there in the dark, she couldn’t see it, especially with the rain now falling in earnest and muddling her eyes with water that clung to her eyelashes.
Echoing from the vineyard to their left was a great noise of grinding and snuffling like an engine made of meat, and only after it had faded away did she understand it as beastly, inhuman laughter.
“What is—” Wayne began to ask, and the arbor trellises to Robin’s left exploded as the thing that was Theresa LaQuices smashed through them.
Ivy whipped across the air and she smelled the sick syrup of mashed rotten grapes. Theresa kept going, crossing the row and crashing through the other side. We’re never going to outrun this monster. Robin poured on a little more speed, snagging the hood on the kid’s shirt. He skidded in the wet grass, with a yelp, and Robin pulled him through a gap between two of the vine lattices. She shoved him down in the grass, lying down next to him. “We can’t outrun it,” she told him. His breath came over her face in waves, redolent of steak. “We’ll hide here, and sneak out when—”
Boom-boom-boom, CRASH! The trellis some thirty yards to the south went down in a tangle.
Whatever the witch had transformed into trampled across the grape arbor until it was halfway to merlot, and crossed several rows, smashing sidelong through the vineyard. Apparently, the coven didn’t care about wine or grapes anymore, because she was giving it hell, tearing down fences left and right.
Lifting her head a bit, Robin peered up the row.
Heat lightning continued to whisper across the clouds, tracing blue sweat across the rainy shoulders of some mammoth creature, and Robin caught a flicker of pink, a glimpse of scimitars of bone jutting from the lips of a snot-slick muzzle. Theresa’s black hair had become a mane of coarse wool bristles, and fat nipples jutted from a swinging belly.