Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1)

by Sara O. Thompson

  I sobered. This was getting weird. Even for me.

  “Is he some kind of spirit?”

  Victor screwed up his face. “Mmmm, sort of. More like a reincarnation. Most Humans think about the Buddhist reincarnation, you keep coming back until you get it right and reach Nirvana. There are other kinds of reincarnation. Something so bad, so evil, it can’t die. Like a boulder rolling down an eternal hill. It might get smaller as it rolls, it might get bigger, but no one can stop it hurtling along. Not without just the right hammer to smash it.”

  “Shit. Okay, let’s get back to why this one may be after my family.”

  Victor shrugged. “Your coven was too powerful? Only reason it would come. They say the Witchfinder was created to kill Witches, its sole purpose. Like a vacuum―only vacuums? This being only kills Witches. Created by whom?” He waved a hand. “Nobody knows.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “What?” he squawked, watery eyes going huge. “No, you don’t find him!” I had never seen the little guy so animated. He practically yelled at me. “This is madness, Tessa. No!” He slammed his thick palm on the table.

  After a furtive look, Victor dropped his voice again. “You do not find him. You pray he doesn’t find you.”

  “Victor, I’m desperate. Where else can I learn about this thing?”

  He looked pained. “I don’t know. You can read history books, watch the History channel. But you won’t know much. No one knows exactly where it comes from, or when, or what makes it come when it does.”

  “How do you know this much about them?”

  He squirmed. “I spent some time with a clan of Vampires in Siberia. One of them returned from a long journey around the world, visiting other clans. He told of a coven that had been wiped out by a Witchfinder, in South America. He spoke of a man with the power of a god and a sole purpose. Nothing could sway him from that. And as I mentioned, Oliver Cromwell.”

  I pushed my fingertips into my forehead.

  “Tessa.” He took my hand in his rough one. “I don’t know if the Witchfinder is hunting you. But if he is, you cannot fight. Run. Hide. Run some more.” He sighed. “Find allies? Not weak such as me. Or so cowardly. He is too old. Too powerful. I wish I could help more.”

  We sat for a while, but it was clear he had done all he could. When the bottle of palinka was empty, he stood up.

  “You take care, Tessa.” He patted my hand awkwardly and shuffled away.

  When I left, I still didn’t have a plan, but I was a hell of a lot better off than I had been an hour before.

  As I drove, I called Qyll and filled him in.

  I could almost see him nod. “I’ll come to you in the morning. It’s Saturday, so I do not have to report to work.”

  “Have you found anything?” I tried to keep myself from sounding too hopeful.

  He paused. “No. I haven’t. But I’ve only just gone through SI’s files, which aren’t terribly old. It’s going to take some time to look in the regular FBI archives, and I’ll have to sort of sneak that in. There is something else, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Charlie Bartley. He’s going to make it. He’ll be in the hospital for a while, but they think he’ll pull through.”

  I sighed. “Good. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  Ordeal by water was associated with the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries: an accused who sank was considered innocent, while floating indicated witchcraft. These tests came to be part of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Some argued that witches floated because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil’s service. King James VI of Scotland claimed in his Daemonologie that water was so pure an element that it repelled the guilty.

  ―Naturalis Historia, VII, ch.2

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  he pounding started early.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I muttered. “You’d better have brought me a very expensive coffee, Qyll.”

  Yawning, I pulled open the deck door. No one was there, so I stepped out to look around.

  Before I could get a word out, I felt like my lungs were being sucked out through my face. For a brief second, I knew I was going to die. It was a certainty. Tremendous pressure mounted on every internal organ. I couldn’t see. I heard rushing and the sound of my own frantic heartbeat.

  Then water. Extremely cold water.

  I’m a good swimmer. Not even, “I’m a good swimmer. For a witch.” No, I’m very good with water thanks to my mom and Papa Myrtle. But right then, I had no idea which end was up. I could see only bubbles and bluish haze. I struggled against my wet clothes.

  A hand wrapped around my neck and pulled me sideways, which, it turned out, was up.

  Water streamed across my face as I gasped and spit. Blinking into the white light, I saw him.

  “Charlie?” was all I could manage. My stomach was trying to evacuate itself. My lungs were trying to reinflate. My feet kicked desperately to find solid ground.

  “Witch.” He kept squeezing my throat until everything went black. I woke up on the ground by a purple lake, shivering.

  He kicked me in the stomach. I saw stars and then threw up.

  Oh, this was not good. This was very, very, very not good.

  “Is that you, Charlie?” I sputtered.

  My answer was to be thrown against a tree trunk. Sitting there, back against the bark, I saw him more clearly. It certainly looked like Charlie Bartley. But the longer I stared, the less he looked like the nice old man with the insane wife I’d rescued just a few hours before. But, but…

  I couldn’t make sense of anything. Nothing was right. He bent down.

  “Ann tried to kill you. The golem tried to kill me,” I croaked.

  “No. I tried to kill you. It’s been me the whole time. It’s always been me.”

  The voice. The voice.

  I fired off a spell that was probably the equivalent of a fly swatter. He punched me.

  Lip bleeding, lying now on the ground, I let my gaze tangle in the trees. They weren’t regular trees. The bark was purple and the leaves glimmered silver. I was in Otherwhere.

  “Come on. If you’re going to keep punching me, at least tell me who you are and what you want,” I choked out as I will myself to roll to my side.

  “And the soul that turns after such as have familiar spirits, and after witches, to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

  “Come on, Tessa. Put it all together.” He sneered. “The golems. The phone call telling you exactly where to go.”

  Wham! Constellations exploded in my eyes.

  “I was called by the Holy Lord to stop the abomination. You were supposed to die in Earth after I killed your kinswomen. You were to take the blame. The Humans were to kill you so that your lineage died out, so your coven would cease, so everyone would know the truth about your kind.” Spittle flew from his lips. “That almost worked. But almost is not enough.” He laughed. “It is like almost being pregnant.

  “On the subject of which, poor, deluded Ann. Next, she tried. I had her send golems after you, always with me, tucked in among the spirits. Nice little spell, written by some old Chaos Magician who wanted to stir up trouble with his Hebrew friends. But oh, a resourceful little abomination you are. And so, a little steering of Charlie’s feeble brain, and here we are.”

  He charged me and at the last moment, I pulled myself out of the way, but he managed to grab a hunk of my hair and sling me into a boulder. I slid off into the lake.

  “For the sake of Odin!” I sputtered, finally standing, hands clawing at the rock. I was knee-deep in frigid water.

  “I had to gain entry to your home.” As he strode toward me, I staggered back and fell again. “And I had. You never did suspect bumbling old Charlie. He even hid me from your blasted protection charms. So I slipped into his brain. Ann’s too. A little nudge here. Divine guidance there. It was easy.” He licked his lips. �
��She was so full of anger.”

  This wasn’t the real Charlie Bartley. It was something that looked like Charlie.

  “All that was left was to put down that failing bag of meat, and I would have had the sacrifice I needed.” Not-Charlie shook off his hands, as if having touched something rotten. “A blood sacrifice to bring me fully into your world to cleanse it of its wickedness. Alas.” He sighed, stepping into the water. “I am mist and shadow now, without an Earthly form to host me. When you shot me with aeris, I was forced out of the mud body.”

  Aeris. I racked my brain.

  Copper. The bullet (bullets?) were powdered copper in a solution of rainwater. Metal and water subdue earth. It wouldn’t have killed a golem, or the spirit inside, but it would turn the whole thing toxic for many beings. Enough to force it back out. Well, duh! I guess hadn’t had time to think much more about that.

  “Ann set everything up so nicely for me, and then she destroyed it.”

  Oh, sweet mercy, he was trying to come through. All the way through. Corporeal, not just whatever little bit lived in the Bartleys.

  “You came back, though,” I bit out through a mouthful of blood as he forced me down and I fell under his touch like overripe fruit. “Boy, General Witchfinder man, you sure don’t let a little thing like being… you know, unwelcome and dead, get you down.”

  “Until that bitch Ann turned on me,” the Not-Charlie growled, fists clenched. “She knew how to undo her handiwork well enough to make it rather uncomfortable for me.” And this was nice and cordial, almost genteel.

  Okay, this thing isn’t just murderous. It’s manic. As realizations went, this one I could have done without.

  He held me down by my neck in the freezing water. Cold sluiced into my lungs. Water bubbled in my ears.

  When he pulled me out again, my teeth rattled so hard, I was sure I’d break them all. If I didn’t shatter myself into a million bits.

  I vomited water and what little I had in my stomach everywhere.

  His face was a mask of pure boiling black rage.

  Into my face, he spat, “Yes, I killed your family. You were supposed to pay for the crimes of your lineage. But you had the audacity to not die. But unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and witches, and liars, all shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” He punctuated every other word with an enthusiastic shake. My brain bounced in my skull. “By the name of the one true God, I am the Witchfinder General.”

  What happened next, I can only describe as this: the Witchfinder General took off his Charlie suit. Reaching up, he pulled the scalp apart with both hands, and ripped it all the way down. It dissolved into fine mist that blew away in the chill breeze. What was underneath? A massive brutish mountain of a man. Very medieval.

  I’d like to point out here that I’d never felt this close to dying. Not even remotely. Not even when I fought Ann or her mudmen.

  It’s a weird thing to face death. I had no magic to save me and no friends at my side.

  I realized I’d never see Qyll’s beautiful shaggy mop again or feel Dorcha’s tractor purr. As corny as it sounds, I would fail to avenge my family’s murder.

  My life didn’t flash before my eyes. In fact, I was quite calm about it as the Witchfinder General knocked me around like a dish rag. Warm tears rolled down my swollen cheeks.

  I lay face-down in the cold sand by the lake, all the bones in my body on fire. One eye began to swell shut. From what I could see, my left hand pointed at an odd angle from my arm, but I couldn’t feel it, so it just looked strange. I spat blood and tried to drag myself to all fours. A chill wind fanned the flames of my pain.

  My magic sputtered and died in my mouth. What’s a Witch with no magic? Dead.

  I braced myself, waiting, panting.

  Tessa, if you get out of this alive, you should learn how to fight. Like really fight. Because you are full of book-learnin’ and you have zero fighting skills.

  When nothing happened, I opened my good eye and looked up.

  Witchfinder Bartley faced me, but his focus was on a point beyond me. Past me. Sitting carefully back on my heels, little waves of the lake lapping against my legs, I turned my head on the bruised stalk of my neck.

  Through the one good eye, I saw a cloud of silvery fog coming across the lake. Bright sparks flew and the air was full of crackling that I only later realized was the lake itself as it froze before the entourage of the Holly King.

  A sort of pleasant warmth washed over me as they glided past and around me, every animal and person neatly avoiding my body. It was like being the snow under all the Olympic bobsled teams.

  They came to rest, in a circle around the General.

  I heard a familiar growl, and when I turned to look out of my one open eye, it was Dorcha. She pushed against my shoulder. It hurt like the dickens, but I buried my face in her neck and let out a muffled sob.

  “Who dares assault one of my subjects?” A voice boomed. I stumbled to my feet. Dorcha helped me hobble out of the way and under a birch copse. Then she came behind me and formed a bench at the perfect height, which I gratefully occupied.

  The King stepped out of a great silver chariot, purple robes swirling. His crown glinted in the light.

  My calm pre-death despair retreated, ever so slightly.

  “I have no quarrel with you, good sir. This woman is an abomination. A baseborn evil. She is a plague in this world, and all worlds.” It might have been too many head shots, but the Witchfinder seemed to have grown larger, so he was almost as tall and broad as the Holly King. His face changed too, into something out of a Dark Ages painting, all craggy brows and lantern jaw.

  “Oh? Is that so? Friends, we have been misled! We were under the impression that this,” he gestured to me, “was our cherished friend, Tessa Reddick. Apparently, this is an abomination! A plague!” The Holly King smiled at me. I gave a very half-hearted wave and then threw the middle finger that wasn’t broken at the General.

  The Witchfinder General began to cough. Then, it sounded like he was gagging. The court watched him, uncertainty playing on all their beautiful features.

  I finally had a chance to really look at the guy I had thought was Charlie Bartley. He wore a long black robe of roughspun with a shirt of chainmail beneath and a thick gold belt around his middle. His hair was thick, and black, and drawn back like a samurai’s. He seemed to glow, like he was sitting before an invisible bonfire.

  As he choked, a sword handle emerged from his mouth. He reached up to draw it out, gagging softly.

  When he pulled the blade free, it was aflame. Literally. On fire.

  In an instant, the entire of the Holly King’s group had brandished their own weapons, but not before the General made a slash at the King. A rip in the fabric of his purple robe gaped where the flaming sword had cut. A muscular leg appeared in the tear.

  The Holly King’s face, what I could see of it, was a mixture of outrage and indignation.

  The fighting began in earnest.

  I thought at first that it would be over in moments. After all, the Holly King had two dozen armed fighters on his side, and the Witchfinder General, only himself.

  I was wrong. Whatever used to animate Charlie Bartley moved his weapon with lightning speed and accuracy. Two silvery centaurs went down almost immediately, relieved of their front legs. Next was a man who found one of his battleaxes impaled in his own face. Soon, others fell, wounded or worse. Finally, all but the King and the General remained, circling each other, biding their time, then engaging.

  Back and forth over the sandy terrain they went, swords ringing across the water. The King forced the General closer to the trees with a series of economical stabs. The General returned the favor by throwing himself toward a thick trunk and rebounding with equal speed then making a lunge for his foe. In mid-thrust, the King flicked his silver blade so delicately, the General didn’t notice his bleeding face. Red dripped from
a neat line running parallel to his jaw.

  “You are a formidable opponent.” Sweat gleamed on the King’s body, the flesh barely pink from the fight.

  “And you are an appalling abomination. Just like the bitch,” parried the Witchfinder General, fumbling when his hand brushed the wounded skin. When his fingers came away bloodied, he let out a roar. “Violator! Perversion! Monstrosity!”

  “You are on my land. You are a trespasser. I am well within my rights to lop your bloody head off. Which I plan to do,” the King said. I privately applauded the sentiment. I didn’t have the energy to do anything more.

  “I am charged to deal with all who deny the one true God and call themselves Witches. You tolerate that creature, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching, she misleads my servants into vanity, immorality, and the denigration of the one true God. And I say unto you, I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who follow her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.”

  My laugh was a cracked bark. “He doesn’t believe in your one true God,” I rasped.

  They both stopped and stared at me.

  “What did you say?”

  I cleared my throat. “He’s not a Christian. He’s not a… a… monotheist. Athena’s tits, he’s a pagan deity! You think I’m the one you’re after? He’s got followers! People worship him! Nobody cares about me!” Another cackle escaped me. Maybe, I’d lost too much blood or been whomped on the head too many times, but this whole thing struck me as hysterically funny.

  “I am not permitted to baptize any but a Witch,” the General admitted with what sounded like true regret.

  Erran looked confused and said, “What she says is the truth. I do not worship your… God.”

  “And for that, you will be made to pay, but that is not my cross to bear. Only she is.”

  The Holly King let out a roar and slammed his blade into the Witchfinder General. Their sinews stretching and muscles working, their weapons came together like worlds colliding. Again and again, the King attacked, backing the enemy down. Until finally, he shoved his sword through the other man’s chest. The Witchfinder’s face registered surprise, as though he’d just learned it was Friday instead of Thursday. The flame on his sword died out, and he slid to the ground.