Ann bent down and pulled the sheet from the figure. I choked back a cry, my suspicion confirmed. Charlie Bartley, pale as his shroud.
I put my back against the tree, sliding down the rough bark to sit on the roots. Trying to slow my breathing was like trying to stop a freight train. From where I hid, I couldn’t tell if Charlie was dead. Though knowing Ann’s M.O., if he wasn’t yet, he would be.
Stand up. Deep breath. Fake it until you make it.
“Cosmo says mud is great for the skin,” I said loudly, stepping out from the trees.
They kept going, either ignoring me or so deep into their thing, they didn’t hear me.
I walked around the circle. “Hey. Hey you.” I waved my arms and jumped up and down. Ann finally broke off. The others squinted through the smoke and magical haze. “I mean, if that’s what you’re into.”
I pulled out my athame. (In my mind, when I unsheathe it, it makes that same cool “sching” like when knights whip their swords out in movies.) The little knife glinted in the weird light as I slashed the circle open. Thick tarry magic sluiced over me and into the forest, kicking up leaves and twigs. I sheathed the athame and with another deep breath, stepped into her sphere. The uneven magic snapped like a million tiny live wires. Lord, what my Aunt Ellery would’ve done with Ann and her jerry-rigged, back-alley, paid-for hoodoo.
Ann Bartley looked aged beyond her years. The woman from the photos was a healthy-looking sixty-something. Now, she was gaunt and crazed, her stringy hair pasted to her forehead in sweaty clumps. Her eyes were wild. Skin clung to her bones like a wet sheet on a coat rack.
As I drew closer, I noticed a small table, like a TV tray, beside her. On it was a folded packet of papers, a rather impressive gold knife, a tiny vial, and a crystal bottle full of dark liquid that I guessed was Antaura’s blood. I suspected the vial was my blood.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Wicked Witch of the West.” Ann sneered.
“Oooh, been a while since I heard that one. Take you a while to think of that?”
I glanced down at Charlie. He wasn’t moving. Ann glared at me. “You are not welcome, Witch,” she hissed.
“No, I know that. I’m, like, totally crashing your party.”
Two of the cultists came forward, grabbing my arms roughly. I let them, so I could shoot the shit with their ringleader for a minute. They couldn’t hold me for long if I didn’t want them to.
“I know what’s going on here, Ann. You’re hurt. You’re practically made of pain at this point.”
She ignored me and started to smooth out the energy of the circle where I’d barged in, murmuring under her breath. I kept talking.
“This won’t help. You’re not strong enough to control this, and you don’t know what you’re dealing with. These people? They’re going to die. They’re all going to die. I’m willing to bet they don’t deserve it. And this is not going to change anything for the better, I promise you. When this thing gets out of hand, and it will, you’re going to be way, way, way out of your league.”
“You think we fear death? We are washed in the blood of the lamb and we are saved.” She raised her hands and closed her eyes.
“Lady, dying is going to be the least of your worries. There are worse things, my friend, than death, let me tell you.”
She stopped and faced me. “I tried to warn you, Witch. But you just. Won’t. Listen.”
Ann grabbed the golden knife and slashed at Charlie’s face. “No!” I started toward her, but the lackeys held me fast. Again, I let them. I needed Ann to feel in control. It was difficult though, because what I really wanted to do was blast her to kingdom come and save Charlie… if I still could.
Ann wiped some of the blood from her husband’s cheek as she whispered something that sounded like a spell. Her hand flew out as if throwing something at the golem. Magic flowed into the clay man, and its body quivered.
“Ann, please, it’s not too late.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “We can stop this. I can take you home, you can go home with Charlie. He loves you, Ann. He’ll forgive you. Your God will forgive you. You can stop. Antaura is too powerful for you to kill. God doesn’t expect you to kill her. He doesn’t want you to murder people.”
As I tried to find something she would latch on to, I made a note that if I got out of this alive, I’d really work hard on my negotiation skills.
While the golem warmed up, Ann stalked over, her face a mask of rage. “Charlie was a useless fool. A spineless, whimpering little boy. He wouldn’t―couldn’t―help me.” A strange purple glow lit her eyes. I had never seen a Human so brimming with that kind of darkness.
“Is Charlie…?”
“I can’t imagine how he’d be alive at this point. But he does have a little use left.” She leered.
Sadness and anger congealed in my throat. As I considered how far off the edge she’d gone, my captors let go of my arms, moved away, and joined the others, praying and chanting.
I was totally unprepared when Ann lobbed a fireball at me. Luckily, she had poor aim and only singed my cloak. I had a full protective shield up in half a heartbeat. A tree behind me crackled as the fireball consumed its branches.
“Who’s the Witch now?” I asked, keeping an eye on Mr. Mud who was trying out his new appendages behind Ann. It was like watching a baby learn to use its arms and legs, only sped up to about ten thousand.
She laughed, a hollow, hard sound, and opened her hands to the sky. “This is divine power, my dear. This is God’s gift to His army on Earth!” She raised her arms and streams of fire shot into the trees.
“Jesus Henry Christ!” I cried as the woods began to burn. “You’re going to send the whole place up in smoke, including yourself and your claymate!”
“Do not take the name of the Lord in vain, you dirty heathen whore!”
I dove aside, dropping to a roll as gouts of flame zoomed past. Something was seriously wrong here. She couldn’t have all this power from white magic, obviously, but even black… And then, it hit me, again, like that ton of bricks people are always talking about.
“Ann, what have you done?” I whispered. I got up and looked for somewhere to hide.
The book, the magic, the spells. Golems and magic and Demons. It whirred into place in my head. She was too angry to see what she’d brought from the bowels of the universe. She used her husband as a blood sacrifice and whatever was coming was not going to play nice.
The golem set off toward me, its heavy legs planting firmly with each step.
“I told you, this is God’s will. God himself gives me the power to defeat the Rift-dwellers in Earth. Like you. Then, oh then, I will bring down the Demon Queen. Burn her to cinders like the Lord burned Sodom and Gomorrah! Turn her followers to salt like Lot’s wife! It’s time for payback. I will not sit idly by while you horrors-of-the-night abuse the Lord’s earth.” She pushed her face up to mine and whispered, “Did he tell you that they stole my baby?”
That line. My throat constricted for a moment, and it was as though my own heart beat in time with her grief. I nodded. “Yes. I know about the baby. And I’m so sorry.” In that moment, I felt her loss burrowing into me. “What happened to you was awful. But not all Others are like that. I promise.”
For the briefest second, her wild face relaxed into relief. Did I get through to her? Was it so simple? But like all good things, that petered out pretty quickly. She set her jaw and went back to meet her golem in the center of the circle.
She still didn’t have the first clue what was going on. “Ann, you’ve called a… I don’t know, but it’s not good! You haven’t animated your golem with the breath of God. I swear. That ritual is black magic.
“Listen to me. This guy, he’s a professor in town, he did this ritual. Last night.” That got her attention. “He used the same one you’ve been using. But I could tell it was no angel, Ann. Maybe you don’t know this, but there are signs, pretty obvious signs, that help you know when you’ve summoned a Demon. Or, an
evil spirit, or something.” Her eyes were fixed on me, her expression inscrutable. I kept my voice steady. “Number one. They smell bad. Like rot and decay and refrigerator science experiments involving slime mold. Number two. They demand a blood sacrifice. What god would demand you kill for it?” I gestured to poor Charlie. “Kill your husband? Who is a really nice guy? Who loves you?”
The golem, now totally fired up and rearing to go, growled. It was every bit as terrifying as the one March conjured and then some.
“No,” she shook her head viciously. “He told me he is an agent of the one true God. He promised to be at my side. He is my champion.” She threw her skinny arms in a V over her head.
“I am at your command, lady,” the golem boomed. Ann giggled. Something snagged my attention. It was the golem’s voice. I needed to hear more to be sure.
“Hey. Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” I waved at it. It turned to me and sneered.
“Tessa Reddick. We meet again.”
That gave me pause. What the hell? “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. Where did you say I know you from?”
It chuckled. (What is the deal with these creepy motherfucking laughs?)
Oh. Oh, shit. Christ on a crispy cracker. It was the same voice I heard at March’s house, at the very end, saying what sounded like a Bible verse. And then again, when Charlie called me to say he was locked in the closet. It was all the same voice.
I wished desperately for bourbon and a cold compress.
The golem first tried to step on me as I ran. The hem of my cloak caught under its monstrous foot, snapping me backward as I choked. One thick hand reached out. I was going to have to undo the clasp if I wanted to stay out of its grip. Mental note: capes = bad idea in a fight.
I scooted out of the way at the last second, its cold muddy fingertips brushing my shoulder.
“And what do you know, Witch?” Ann called. She sat on a fallen tree like she was on a Sunday picnic. “You don’t know the mind of God, you pagan abomination! Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!”
She lifted a hand casually and shot another spout of fire at me.
“Not my boots!” A black patch smoked right above my left ankle. Dammit.
“You can come out now!” I hollered desperately. Dorcha emerged from the shadows.
In one fluid motion, she leapt at the golem’s head, claws fully extended. Like the X-Men’s Wolverine, her paws were multi-bladed swords, and she neatly sliced the thing’s head off.
She landed almost noiselessly beside me and bumped my leg with her head.
Ann shrieked in anger.
“Nice work, girl, but I don’t think that’s going to make a difference,” I said, my voice hoarse.
The golem’s body faltered for a moment, then stood still. I wasted no time and hustled to the fallen head, plunging my hand in the crudely molded mouth to find the shem. As I searched, cold clay began to creep up my arm, squeezing like a snake swallowing a rabbit.
Well, shit.
I tried to push the muck off with my other hand and succeeded in getting elbows-deep in living mud. “Where is it? Ann, where is the shem?”
Dorcha paced around the mud body. From the neck, a new head began to emerge.
The minions appeared to be still lost in their fervent haze. “Dorcha! Round up those idiots and get them out of the way.”
My huge cat sprinted to the far side of the clearing and looking like nothing so much as a sheepdog, began to herd the crowd.
Mud had reached almost to my shoulders and I could no longer feel my fingers. I kept digging.
“You’ll never find it,” Ann called gaily as she blasted an oak with a gout of fire meant for my ass.
The mud I’d shaken off rejoined the larger body. The golem’s head had regrown, and the whole mess stomped off toward me again. I hurried to shake off as much goop as I could before scuttling out of the way.
“Call it off, Ann! Call it OFF!” Ann
Ann snapped and snarled. “Kill the Witch!”
The flames she sent to the trees intensified, the little bits of smoldering bark and burned leaves floating to the ground. Fire and earth are mighty powerful together, and I didn’t have a big window of time to get my act together. I was going to have to try calling on my water power.
I came around the golem to see Ann. Her fury was palpable. It spewed from her like lava from a volcano.
When she saw me, she screamed again, “Kill the Witch!”
The golem shuddered its face through the back of its head, the same way the first one at the professor’s house did. And it thundered after me.
Then Rabbi Loeb walked once around the body, and placed a piece of parchment in his mouth. He bowed to the East, West, South, and North, and all three of them recited together: “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The Golem opened his eyes and looked at his creator. They dressed him and took him to the synagogue, where he could get ready to start his mission.
―from the story of the Golem of Prague
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
huge fist plummeted through the smoky air, and if my shield hadn’t been so strong, I would have been squashed. The hand glanced off with a resounding ring as though made of iron.
I reeled and loaded a new series of spells. Quick as a wink, I fired off a half-dozen water charms that sent a decent-sized wave at the golem. It splashed against the thing, smoothing out its facial features and dissolving the arms into the body. Water spells pull water from the nearest sources, which in this case was the Ohio River about a mile away and probably the water table beneath us.
Ann gave a strangled cry.
I rinsed and repeated, the golem effortlessly rebuilding itself.
“Vengeance is mine,” it roared, stalking after me.
“For God’s sake, will you just die already?” I roared back, stomping my foot.
The mudman bellowed and swung both mammoth arms at me. I made to fire off another spell, but as a limb came toward me and I ducked to avoid it, the arm stretched like silly putty and slammed into my hip. I shot sideways into a tree, lights bursting against my eyelids as my head hit the rough bark.
Despite the pain, I had to keep going. Others and Humans had already died because of Ann; I couldn’t let any more suffer the same fate. I struggled up and hit it broadside with more water then started to pull out the big guns. But it got too close, and I was sent tumbling again and again.
I limped into the surrounding trees, ducking behind a bulldozer. A quick search of my bag resulted in Nana Fairfax’s anyshooter, a nearly empty holy water spray bottle, and a handful of Elisha salt. I chambered my two remaining bullets in. Could be more alithis. Could be something to sprout horns made of candy on the victim.
The golem crashed around in the forest. I darted back to the clearing, making sure it heard me. Ann and Qyll dueled on, but Dorcha had gotten everybody else out of the way. Charlie took up the center, bleeding and still.
With an eye on the mud-creature, I tried talking sense into Ann again. “They know about you,” I shouted. “They’re coming for you, Ann. Supernormal Investigations. The Arcana. Antaura the Demon Queen. Unless you let me help you.”
It was a gamble, sure. I actually had no idea if the Arcana knew or even cared about Ann Bartley’s foray into dark magic. SI wanted a piece of her, and surely the Red Queen would like to take a crack, but I needed to play it up if any of us were going to get out of this alive.
Her face was drawn and pale. “My judgment is in Heaven with my God.” She spat as her golem stomped out of the underbrush toward me. “Then they will know that I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, clap your hand, stamp your foot and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by sword, famine, and plague! He who is far off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I spend my wrath on them.”
“Zeus’ b
alls, can you stop with the Bible crap?” I growled and aimed the anyshooter. I couldn’t afford to miss, so I had to wait until I could see the mud in its eyes.
The little gun barked twice and the bullets sailed into the golem’s torso. I held my breath.
It looked surprised. Staggering along, it pawed the air like a blind man. “What is this magic?” It stumbled and looked around. It was like watching a tree fall in slow motion.
“No. No, what did you do?” Ann abandoned her fight with Qyll and rushed to her creation.
“It burns me,” it complained in a raspy voice.
I looked for Qyll. No sign of him.
“You, bitch!” Ann cried. She stumbled over to Charlie’s body and used her tunic to collect some of the dark fluid on his cheek. Again at the golem’s side, she touched the fabric to its mouth. “I’ve done all you asked. I’ve made the sacrifice. I’ve brought you the Witch.”
All those pieces I thought were fitting together? Yeah. A few of them fell off at that point.
“I am wounded.” Its voice weakened.
Ann beat both fists against the golem, sobbing. “Fight! Damn you, get up and finish this!” She began an incantation or spell in the same odd tongue she’d used before. Between choking gasps, she tried to revive her champion. Current score: Nana Fairfax―one, mud monster―zero!
I started to back away, suddenly realizing I didn’t want to be this close to Ann after I’d mortally injured her pet mud pie. I sidled up to my cloak and was refastening it when she sent a double shot of flames at me.
“You hurt my golem, Witch. I will destroy you.” Her voice was thick and garbled. She bent and sprayed fire at me like a pissed-off dragon.
I was so sapped that all I could do was turn so my cloak caught the flames. Thank all the tiny gods I’d gotten it on in time. The fabric refused to burn, but hot air seared my lungs and scorched some more of my hair. The rest of me remained uncharred. Mostly.
Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1) Page 23