First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association)

by Carter, D. L.

  “How? And why would they give me anything? If they wanted to help then they wouldn’t have pushed me away.”

  “You didn’t have your marching orders from them before,” pointed out Rust.

  “How come you know so much?” demanded Amber.” You’re always saying you don’t do magic.”

  “We don’t,” said Smoke, pulling on his flannel shirt and smirking at her. “Not anymore. But we were all practitioners of the arts before we gave our magic to your aunt.”

  That caught her attention enough that Amber raised her head from the floor.

  “You never said that before.”

  “You didn’t need to know,” said Smoke. “Now you do. Listen, Amber. Most of the time when you’re casting spells you draw in energy from the people in the circle with you, from the elements, from life, the world, and then you wrap it up in your intention and put it out into the universe. Yes?”

  “Well, yes. Roughly.”

  “And your aunt always warned you that if you raised too much energy from a spell working you were to ground it back to the earth or else you wouldn’t be able to sleep. Also, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she lied.”

  “Huh,” said Amber. “Somehow, not surprised.”

  Smoke grinned. “Under certain circumstances with suitable precautions, you can draw in Elemental energy and hold it in your body. It is a very, very bad idea to do it without good reason and to continue for any length of time or to do it more than once. You’re more than the usual amount of tired, so just this once, recharge yourself from the Elementals directly and keep the power.”

  She considered this for a moment then checked. The circle was still in place. The quarter candles still burned. She had not dismissed the invoked elements.

  “Okay,” she repeated. “Starting with …”

  “Earth, for stability,” said Smoke. “You have to direct it carefully. Earth to support your bones, Air to fill your lungs, Water to fuel your blood, Fire, very, very cautiously, to fuel your spirit and determination. And I do mean careful. I don’t want you turning Rambo.”

  With that chilling thought in mind Amber managed to climb up to a seated position then scuttled around on her ass to face north. Raising her hands above her head she said, with intention, calmly. “Element of Earth, grant me stability and strength.”

  For a moment nothing happened.

  “You have to reach out. Reach down. You know the rules; do it as if you’re grounding, but instead of shaping it for a spell just let it settle into your bones.”

  Reach out. Reach down. For the first time in two days it was hard to get outside her body. After being attacked at the bookstore she’d gone around with the strange feeling that if she turned a corner too rapidly her soul would continue in a straight line. Now it took an effort to reach down into herself, then down, through her center, down into the depths of the earth. Down beneath the stubborn mountains, down through the soil that fed and supported. Down.

  The earth beneath Five Corners stirred, familiar with the touch of magic, of witches and reached up to meet her. It recoiled, briefly, sensing the web, but somehow managed to avoid it, continuing on to link with Amber. She welcomed the soothing touch. Not hard or harsh or heavy but enfolding and nourishing. In the beginning. After a moment she noticed the sensation of dirt. It seemed odd at first that the sensation should worry her. She was reaching for Earth, after all. Dirt was part of the earth as well as Earth, the power. Then she “tasted” the contamination. The stain. The contamination that was the web.

  She recoiled, pulling back into her own body, remembering only at the last to thank Earth.

  “Now, Water,” came Smoke’s voice. “To strengthen your blood and heart.”

  Water was not too far away. She could sense above the house that rain would fall just before dawn. A little friendly rain to feed the streams, satisfy the plants. The cedar lake just downhill from the farm house. Yes, the lake had been used for magical focus in the past and it reached out to her.

  “Element of Water, free flowing one, sustain me.”

  She hadn’t been aware of how parched she was, emotionally and physically. She’d been alone by her own intention in the most crowded, unfriendly city on the planet, intentionally avoiding her family, and her heart was aching and hollow. Water flowed into her, lifting her wounded soul, but not enough to wash the sticky filament away.

  Amber sighed and turned to face Air.

  Again the Element responded with satisfying speed and left Amber feeling a little light-headed and giddy.

  Fire took care of that.

  It barely waited for her invocation before tearing into her body, highlighting and attacking the bond between her and the mysterious, hungry web. It burned, hot and angry in her center, but the invader resisted. The element raced through her body, filling each cell with heat and fury, then retreated.

  It wasn’t very soothing or sustaining, but it did make something quite clear to Amber.

  She was in a shitload of trouble if the elements couldn’t shake her loose.

  “Now Spirit,” commanded Smoke.

  Amber opened one eye and squinted at him.

  “Spirit, too?”

  “All of them.” Smoke gave her a smug look. “And remember to be polite.”

  “Okay.” Amber straightened her spine and lifted both hands straight up directing her will nowhere in particular, but thinking of the strange, overpowering glow she “met” on the Ethereal. “Spirit. Please. Sustain me until I am free of this … web monster. If you don’t mind.”

  She winced; that sounded pathetic, but it seemed to work. There was no sensation as with the other Elements, but she felt better than she had for weeks. Better but still not normal.

  “How do you feel?” asked Smoke.

  She thought about it.

  “Itchy.”

  He laughed. “Okay. It’s safe to dismiss the circle. What are you going to do next?”

  “I think … I think I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  “Sleep might be a start,” suggested Rust, yawning.

  Amber turned to the nearest window. To her surprise it was pitch dark outside.

  “What time is it?”

  “Near onto midnight,” said Lightning.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been in soul-flight and meditation for hours,” said Lightning patiently.

  “Do you think you can sleep?” asked Smoke. “It might be a good idea if you can. You’ve had a near concussion and you’ve been in soul-flight in one twenty-four hour period. Personally I think you should rest.”

  “I think I can. I’ll read if not.”

  “Fair enough and tomorrow …”

  “Tomorrow, I think I need to go back to Laurenville Books.”

  “Not directly,” warned Smoke. “This time you’ll, I dunno, just for kicks, just for the novelty value, why don’t you think first and plan.”

  “Nasty,” said Rust as Amber stuck her tongue out at the eldest cousin.

  * * * * *

  It had taken Karl four hours to drive from the Poconos to Buffalo, New York. His mother was waiting and it seemed that she’d saved all her tears for his arrival. They didn’t leave his mother’s apartment for another hour while she wept herself out for the boy who had been like another son to her.

  Then Karl had driven them to where Mike’s family sat Shiva.

  Karl climbed out of his car and stared down the tree lined street. Hard to believe that a few short years ago he’d learned to drive a car here. Of course, he hadn’t been more than fifteen when they’d stolen Mike’s mother’s car and his father’s beer. Karl sighed, eyes focused on the past. His mother came around the car, took his arm, and walked him up Mike’s front path to where the grieving parents waited. Karl ignored the headache lingering behind his eyes as he walked up to the door that Mike would never enter again. Mike’s mother hugged him tightly to her as his father patted him on the shoulder, then they pulled him into the h
ouse. They passed clots of grieving relatives standing about, sipping drinks and nibbling on those foods that people insisted on bringing to funerals and walked into the comparative peace of the kitchen.

  “You saw him not too long ago?” Phyllis Clark asked, passing him a coffee cup and pushing the sugar and cream across the table.

  “He drove through every month after I moved to Laurenville.” Karl blinked and stared at his cup wondering how many sugars he’d added and concentrated on the task of stirring the liquid. He felt so tired that his heart kept missing beats. His stomach cramped painfully around the fast food he’d eaten on the way up. He couldn’t remember taste or texture. It was just a lump that left him feeling emptier. “I saw him last week. He stayed over with me and we went bowling.” Aware that the parents were needy, he continued. “He was the only one from high school and college that kept up with me. Emailed me jokes. He kept me part of the world. We’d go out, get drunk, and check out the girls just like when we were teenagers. I’m so sorry,” he glanced up at Phyllis’s pale face. “I never expected …”

  She gave him a weak smile.

  “You saw him more recently than us, but when he called he always told me that he saw you. He worried about you.”

  Karl stared at his cup again.

  I’m sure from what he told you that you expected to be going to my funeral, not his, he thought. I expected it myself.

  Mrs. Benn jumped into the silence.

  “Does anyone have any idea what happened?”

  “He was fine at work yesterday, they tell me.” Phyllis replied and tried vainly to find a coffee cup that needed refilling. “His boss called to say that he hadn’t come in and Gregory drove across to the apartment with my spare key. He was … in bed. Just lying there.”

  She dropped the carafe roughly onto the table and started crying. Gregory Clark pulled his wife into a tight embrace and hugged her as they rocked back and forth.

  “We’ll be sitting Shiva tonight,” said Gregory, stroking his wife’s hair, “and the internment is postponed … the investigation, you know, so we’ll have a memorial service noon tomorrow. They won’t say when they’ll be releasing … him …”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Karl again. “I’ll stay tonight if that is okay with you.”

  Gregory and Phyllis glanced briefly at Karl’s mother before nodding. Karl’s lip twisted and he looked away. He was well enough to go without sleep one night, for heaven’s sake.

  He was alive, at least.

  Phyllis reached into her pocket book and pulled out a long silver chain.

  “He used to sit in that chair there,” she said, pointing at Karl, “talking about you and the mischief you’d get up to. He would sit and rub this pendant, for hours it seemed.”

  Phyllis dropped the chain into Karl’s hand and closed his fingers around it, patting his fist absently.

  “You can have it back now,” she said.

  Karl opened his hand and poked at the pendant.

  “I didn’t give him this,” he whispered, but Phyllis was crying again and didn’t respond.

  Karl tucked the chain into his shirt pocket. If giving this to him was something his old friend’s mother wanted to do, then he would accept and always remember it. Or he’d hang onto it for a while then offer it back to her. Yeah. Give it a little while and she’d be wanting all the mementos she could get. Leaving his mother reminiscing with Phyllis, he wandered out past the living room. He didn’t really didn’t want to talk to anyone about Mike or anything else today. He was sure that Mike didn’t want to be spoken about in the past tense either, but life was a bitch.

  He walked out onto the front lawn. Gregory joined him within a few minutes, standing silently staring at a tree with an old gash torn in its side. From a failed reverse parking attempt, Karl remembered, pressing his palm against the wounded tree. He and Mike had laughed themselves sick, right up until the moment they’d seen his father standing on the lawn.

  “You might hear something, Karl,” said Gregory. “I don’t want you saying anything to Phyllis. She knows, but she’s blocking it out. Doesn’t want to think about it.”

  Karl pushed his hands into his pockets and waited apprehensively. There was something about the set of Gregory’s shoulders, the tension in his arms and hands, that sent chills through Karl.

  “His throat was cut,” Gregory gasped and closed his eyes, “The police won’t say with what.”

  Karl blinked and turned, almost falling.

  “He was murdered? Mike was murdered? Who?” Karl shuddered. A cut throat? He’d seen enough movies, enough video carnage to imagine the scene. “Gregory. I’m sorry. That’s a terrible thing to have to see.”

  “There was no blood,” Gregory’s voice shook. “They must have killed him somewhere else then taken his body back to his apartment. I have to be grateful for that; at least we know where he is. Oh, God, someone killed my son.” Gregory’s face was white and the grip on Karl’s arm was bruisingly tight. “He never hurt anyone and they killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Gregory hugged the still living boy, the warm link to his dead son, close to his chest and sobbed. “He wasn’t doing any harm. He was a kid, a baby, and someone tore out his throat.”

  Karl clenched his teeth against a scream.

  * * * * *

  Amber groaned as she examined the sky. The blue and yellow color-scape was already boring and she’d only been here twice.

  “I do not need this,” she complained to the uncaring universe, ashamed to hear the whine in her voice. “I’m too tired for games tonight. Why are you doing this to me?”

  The same dreamscape two nights in a row, considering what else was happening in her life, was not a good sign. A sign, yes. Just not a good one.

  She scanned the horizon. So far, no wolves.

  No spirit guides of any kind. She sighed as the heat sucked the moisture from her mouth, her skin, her eyes. This was most unpleasant. If this was another aspect of Spirit come to tell her she’d made a mistake, okay, message received. It would now be a good time to give her useful information. Like how to solve the problem. How to find her aunt and give back the grown-up witch responsibilities to someone with skill, ability … patience.

  The landscape remained empty.

  She called out, but no sound came. Nothing above the volume of her heavy breathing. She held her breath for a moment, and the sound continued.

  Her heart stuttered and she turned around seeking whoever was doing the breathing, but there was no one. Counting that as a good thing since the opposite made her nervous, Amber started walking, the dust her feet disturbed rising and falling in noiseless puffs.

  Eventually the dreamscape faded away and she awoke, safe and confused in the library.

  * * * * *

  The day when he buried his best friend should be dank and miserable. Okay, it was only a memorial service and it was likely he was going to have to come back for the actual internment, but … Karl turned his attention away from the rabbi standing at the podium and was annoyed to see that outside the window the sun was shining. His mother and Mrs. Clark had decreed that he should be given the duty of reading a poem. With the police holding onto Mike’s body there was no casket to carry, no procession of cars to the last resting place. It seemed less real without a motionless body to pass by. Instead he was carrying a piece of paper, leaning unobtrusively against the wall behind a bank of flowers.

  There was a stir at the back of the hall and a tall man in a dull black suit came into the room, looked around, then turned to beckon to a small woman who was waiting just outside. Karl caught a glimpse of a Bluetooth device in his ear and a suspicious bulge under his arm. A gun? A bodyguard?

  The police? A detective at the funeral? How CSI.

  The woman strode down the central aisle while everyone stretched and twisted around in their seats as if watching the approach of the bride. The rabbi stuttered to a halt and ruffled his papers. Ka
rl peered through the foliage protecting him from the audience and snarled a curse when he recognized her. The last person he’d expected to come and pay her respects to the departed.

  Selfish. When he’d known her, she wouldn’t cross the street to spit on a burning man unless there was something in it for her.

  “Dammit, Gloria. Why are you here?” he whispered as the guard tapped a startled mourner who was sitting on the first seat in the second row and jerked his thumb. The mourner leapt to his feet and hustled to the back of the hall leaving the prime seat available for Gloria.

  Mr. and Mrs. Clark, disturbed by the whispering behind them, had turned to watch. Gloria settled herself gracefully on the hard metal folding chair and nodded regally, first to Mike’s parents, then to the rabbi, and the service continued.

  Karl watched, so tired he didn’t have the energy to get angry. Today all he could manage was a vague, numb acknowledgment of her continued existence. The years since college had been kind to his ex-girlfriend. The dark-haired, unnaturally thin girl who had messed around with Tarot cards, dream catchers and weird silver jewelry, now dressed in power suits, wore conservative makeup with style, and stopped traffic without moving a muscle. Sexy. God dammit, sexy enough to wake up every living man at a funeral.

  What the freaking hell was Gloria doing at Mike’s funeral? She’d hated all of Karl’s friends. She wouldn’t give Mike the time of day alive. She liked to surround herself with acolytes and Mike preferred girls with more … physical natures.

  Which brought the muscle man back to his attention. The hulk retreated to the rear of the hall and stood endlessly scanning for danger.

  What was she doing now that rated a security detail?

  Karl crushed the paper in his hand into a ball and thrust it into his coat pocket with the necklace Phyllis had given him. Strange, Karl could not remember Mike ever wearing it. Couldn’t remember any jewelry at all, let alone a small silver wolf howling at the moon. Yet every time he looked at it Karl’s heart pounded and he wanted to run, to be anywhere but here.

  When the rabbi called his name he stepped forward, ignoring Gloria, and read the words Mike’s mother selected with as much passion as he could summon. Afterwards he ducked out the side door to wait for his mother on the front steps.