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

by Carter, D. L.

  “Charming.”

  Amber blinked in surprise at the attack. She was trying to help him and he was mad at her. The nitwit didn’t even have the sense to stay on the good side of the people who were trying to keep him alive. Then she remembered all the spells layered over his intuition, on his hands, and tied chokingly around his heart. In his current state of health, who knew how much more he could tolerate?

  “How can I resist such a gracious invitation?” Amber drawled and wiggled out from under him, “In the meantime, we both need to rest.” She climbed to her feet and extended a hand down to him. “Let’s go inside.”

  “To hell with that,” shouted Karl, “Grab your broomstick and get stirring. This has been in me long enough and I want it out now.”

  Amber lowered her eyes to the grass. “I can’t do it. I don’t know how yet.”

  Karl dragged himself off the ground and clutched the altar for support. Amber was impressed. She hadn’t thought he would be able to stand unassisted for another half hour at least.

  “What do you mean you can’t do it? You said …”

  “I said it was dangerous,” said Amber taking a leaf out of Smoke’s book and speaking with deadly calm. “I also said I hadn’t any idea what that was and how it’s bound to you. I still don’t, but we have more information. For one thing, you now remember the nightmare, which we have to take a closer look at, and what the heck’s this thing with the wolves?”

  Amber started walking the end of the circle, pulling down the energy she’d raised. Karl followed her, ranting, anger boiling purple black in his aura.

  “You’re wasting my time. I should have known this was some sort of setup. What am I going to have to pay to get you to …?”

  Amber snatched her fan-wand from the altar and shoved the tip in his chest until he stepped back.

  “Listen, bozo, money isn’t an issue in this house. You have no idea to what extent money isn’t an issue. But even if I knew how to remove all of the stuff that is on you, it’d take time. Have you any idea how many spells you have on you?”

  Karl batted the fan away and growled. “No.”

  “Neither do I, because they are layered, spell on top of spell. Someone has been using you as a magical bull’s-eye for years and if I were idiot enough to try and take them all off at one time, you would go insane. Assuming that you lived through the process.”

  “I want this stuff off of me.” Karl gritted his teeth and moved closer to Amber, pushing her back against the altar.

  Amber pushed back, her hands flat against his chest.

  “And I will help remove them, I promise. But I can’t do it now, and I can’t do it all at once.”

  “You may be prepared to wait,” shouted Karl, “but I’m not. Or have you forgotten that I had a near fatal heart attack this morning? You dragged me out here saying that I’m going to die if I don’t get free of this.”

  “You’re not the only one in danger,” said Amber, “I can feel what it’s doing to me as well. It’s tearing me apart from the inside. And you know something? We aren’t the only people involved. The web I told you about has hundreds, maybe thousands of threads. That means there might be hundreds and thousands of people who can barely function and have no idea what’s going on. I’ve got to think about them as well. So don’t dump on me.”

  “Okay,” Karl took a step back, breathing hard.

  “Okay,” echoed Amber, “just so we understand each other, I promise I will do my best to look after both of us until we can get free.”

  “Fine,” Karl turned and glared around the circle. “Now what, Sabrina?”

  Amber snarled something that would earn her a few pointed remarks from her cousins before continuing in a more moderate tone. “Since I have to find out what’s wrong and then work out a solution we have to think about temporary measures first. Making sure we survive until we get free. Come on up to the house. We should have something to eat and rest. And I’ll do some research in the library. I have some more information now; maybe I’ll find something to help.” Amber’s eyes lost their focus for a moment, then she snatched up her fan and started running from the circle. “Oh, Elementals!”

  She reached out to grab the remaining energy of the circle of power and shoved it, hard, back into the earth and started running back into the house. Karl followed close on her heels, refusing to be left behind.

  “What’s wrong?” he gasped out.

  “My family went into your bookstore to help you.” Amber cried over her shoulder, “Smoke, Lightning, Manny, Rust. They could be caught, just like us.”

  Amber pounded up the back stairs and slammed the sliding door aside. In the kitchen Smoke was reading a newspaper, his feet up on a chair. He hit the floor hard and was on his feet the moment Amber shot through the door.

  “What now?” he shouted.

  “Stand still,” commanded Amber, relaxing her vision and staring at her cousin’s aura.

  She sighed and sank down onto the nearest chair. Smoke poured her a glass of cold water and tried to force it into her hand. Amber recoiled, dodging his touch.

  “What?”

  “Is he caught, too?” demanded Karl, sliding to a halt beside her chair.

  “No, thank the Elementals,” Amber rested her face in her hands. “I don’t understand it, but they’re clean.”

  Karl hesitated, then groaned. “But I shook hands with him outside.”

  Amber looked at her cousin again. The aura shone, bright and clean and covered with an opalescent shell. She reached out and tapped her fan against the glow.

  “And this is?” she asked her cousin.

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” muttered Smoke, but he carefully kept his distance from the fan.

  Amber smiled at Smoke. “Your aura is sealed over, probably by the house. Unless it’s an older spell. One that precedes your coming here?”

  Smoke settled back in his chair, his pale face thoughtful. “Ah, now. Now I know what you’re talking about. Yes, that’s it.”

  “What is it?”

  Smoke smiled. “I asked Lucinda and Robyn to put a protection on us when we first arrived here. Didn’t want to get hit by any stray blasts of anything. Not after giving up our magic.”

  She turned her attention to her third eye, and closing her mundane vision, opened her higher sight.

  “So what did you see?” demanded Karl.

  Amber laughed quietly. “My aunt and uncle covered Smoke and the others in the psychic equivalent of full body armor,” said Amber, “and now the house has put a protection on a few of the rooms, as well. It looks like the house will permit me and Karl in the kitchen, the library, and the guest bedroom downstairs. That’s it. The house, it’s covered everything that is vulnerable within it to prevent contamination.”

  “Psychic condoms,” laughed Smoke. “Sure and you shouldn’t leave home without one.”

  Karl glanced from Amber to Smoke. After a moment he sighed, tension visibly draining from his body. Then he snorted and almost fell off his chair, shaking with laughter.

  “Never have psychic sex with a witch without one.”

  “Available in many colors, all of them shades of black,” added Smoke grinning.

  “They’re a shiny white, actually,” muttered Amber as she watched her favorite relative, and the irritating pain-in-the-Ethereal ass store manager rolling about, laughing and making condom jokes. They ignored the comment – assuming they’d heard it.

  She stood and walked stiffly across the room. Men, and she used the term loosely when referring to her cousins, were born with a teenage sense of humor and never grew out of it. Filling the kettle with water, she set it on the stove and fiddled with the burner. She dropped her favorite soothing tea into the pot and waited, watching the steam rise. Her aunt’s gang, her family, what could she do? They were themselves and she just had to live with it. She welcomed Karl’s laughter. His anger in the circle had frightened her. Not that she feared harm to herself. She smiled into h
er tea cup. Anyone making the mistake of seriously attacking a witch in front of her family wouldn’t have long to regret it.

  At the table Smoke and Karl were telling each other jokes, that based on the tone of the laughter, she was glad she couldn’t hear. They looked comfortable together, leaning companionably on the kitchen table eating spicy pretzels. She could remember lounging about with her parents and her annoying brother, playing silly board games and throwing candy at each other many years ago. She didn’t have many happy memories about her family. Most of them were buried under the memories of family fights. Family tension. All the battles of magic versus science.

  It was nice to see someone happy. Just for a moment. Nice to see that Karl could put his prejudices aside for a few moments and be human. Even if Smoke wasn’t.

  Amber closed her eyes, remembering the spreading dark stain. Every time someone entered Karl’s store they walked out contaminated. She wasn’t certain that it was spread by casual touch onto other people, but there’d been other places visible on the Ethereal Planes that were spreading the infection. How long before it reached all the way to Florida? How long before her crazy brother, who practically lived in bookstores and internet coffee shops on the West Coast – how long before he got caught in the same web that had caught her? And Jim with no magical abilities at all.

  Turning off the kettle she stalked from the kitchen.

  “I need to make a phone call and then you and I need to talk.” announced Amber, stabbing a finger at Karl.

  Karl barely glanced at her. Amber hurried to the library. Her mother, bless her paranoid soul, was going to go ballistic.

  Her mother’s phone seemed to ring forever and be picked up too soon.

  “Mom?”

  “Amber. Baby. Where are you? I haven’t heard from you for ages.” Her mother’s voice echoed cheerfully down the line. There was a pause and before Amber could shape an answer her mother continued, her voice rising shrilly. “The caller ID says ‘hello niece.’ What are you doing at Lucinda’s house?”

  “Mom.”

  “Your father told you not to have anything to do with her.”

  “Mom.”

  “Have you any idea what could happen to you?”

  “Too late,” whispered Amber, her heart pounding in her throat.

  There was a pause and all Amber could hear was her mother’s heavy breathing.

  “What is it? What did Lucinda do to you?”

  Her mother’s voice trembled. Whether it was with anger or fear, Amber was not certain. It suddenly occurred to Amber that telling her mother that Aunt Lucinda was on her second honeymoon and incommunicado wouldn’t be the best plan. Something soothing and a little stretch of the truth would be the best technique.

  “Nothing. Nothing. Why would you say something like that? Lucinda would never hurt me. Lucinda didn’t do anything to me. I had a little … um … accident. I ran into something outside the house. Could have happened even if I wasn’t hanging around with Aunt Lucinda. But, Mom. It’s something … contagious. Something you can see on the Ethereal. I’m, we’re, working on fixing it.”

  Her mother hesitated.

  “Are you still human?”

  Chapter Seven

  “Mom! Really! What sort of question is that? Of course I’m human.”

  “Good.”

  Amber ground her teeth together and concentrated on unclenching her fingers, one knuckle at a time. Under her breath she recited her mantra for surviving conversations with her nuclear family.

  I’m not five years old. I’m no longer five years old.

  Her mother’s sigh echoed down the line and Amber squelched her nebulous guilt.

  “Mom, I called to warn you about the contagion. What I caught … I don’t want you guys getting caught, too.”

  “It has been a very long time since I went out of body, miss,” her mother bit each word off hard. “I told you that it’s a dangerous practice.”

  “I didn’t actually catch it out of body, Mom. It is only really visible when I’m traveling the Ethereal. I caught it in a bookstore of all places. Aunt Lucinda’s house has made a protection for the cousins. I’ve got to work out a way to make it into something that I can send to keep you and Dad safe.”

  “And Jimmy,” continued her mother.

  Amber rolled her eyes. Her mother acted as if she intended to leave her brother out for the trolls to eat. Parents saw sibling rivalry in everything, even if the kids had moved on.

  Of course, she wouldn’t mind if Jimmy got eaten by trolls – maybe just his toes. It wasn’t as if he walked often.

  “You don’t have to send anything,” continued her mother. “Your aunt gave me a mini lodestone as a wedding present and it’s got the house protection spell on it. What Five Corners knows this lodestone can protect against. And she put strong protections on Jimmy the last time the two of you were there at the farm. But I want you out of there as soon as Lucinda sorts this out. Do you understand me? And don’t talk to your father about this, ever!”

  I’m not five years old. I’m not five years old. I’m all grown up and want to come home to hide, Mom.

  “I hear you, Mom. I’m not five years old and I … we’re dealing with it,” Amber was only mildly ashamed of the evasion. “I’ll leave protecting Dad and Jim to you. Maybe you could talk him into coming home for a few days?”

  Parents’ strange power over their offspring had puzzled her for years. What magical power did they possess that could reduce seemingly adult and independent people to small children with just a look or a word? She sighed. Solving the puzzles of the universe seemed easier by comparison to family dynamics.

  Amber heard a footstep behind her and turned to face Smoke who was frantically waving to her from the door.

  “Mom. I have to go now.”

  “Call back soon, Amber. You owe me an explanation. What are you doing with Aunt Lucinda when the last I heard you were working with computers in New York?” Her mother sniffed sounding more irritated than afraid. “I hope they’re looking after you properly, despite this current problem.”

  “Yes, yes. Everyone is fine. I have to go, Mom. Bye.”

  “Get over here now,” demanded Smoke.

  “What the hell?”

  “Your friend, he just had a seizure.”

  They charged back through the house, doors swinging open as they approached. In the kitchen Karl was on the floor struggling against Rust and Lightning who were trying to keep him down.

  “What happened?” cried Amber, skidding to her knees beside Karl and grabbing his arm.

  “We don’t know,” said Rust. “He just started to shake. Then he stopped. Do we have to call an ambulance?”

  “Who are you people?” demanded Karl.

  “Maybe exhaustion has confused him,” said Amber. “That ritual took a lot out of me and I can recharge. I shouldn’t have left him.”

  She pulled energy out of Air and tightened her grip on Karl. She sent a wave of strength into the pale man. Karl blinked, shook his head, and stared at her.

  “Who are you?” repeated Karl.

  “I gave him the burden of a dream, a nightmare he’d been …” She closed her eyes and repeated. “Bring this burden into the light and thereby defeat it.”

  Karl rubbed at his face and his whole body trembled, the vibrations growing stronger and stronger until he was barely in contact with the floor. Amber seized his arms and pressed down, while the cousins sat on his legs. Smoke knelt at his head, his palms pressed flat against his temples.

  “If he looks like he’s gonna swallow his tongue we call the ambulance,” declared Smoke.

  Then the trembling stopped.

  Karl blinked at them all absently then focused on Amber.

  “What? What?”

  “You should have told me you had a seizure disorder,” said Amber. “I would have been more careful.”

  “Yeah.” Karl stared at her for a moment. “Amber?”

  “Yes, that’s right.
Amber.” She smiled at him. Karl turned to Smoke and the cousins who nodded, releasing him and jumping to their feet.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”

  “Do you have these seizures often?” asked Smoke.

  “I don’t have seizures.”

  “Ah, yes, you do, my boy,” said Smoke. “We just saw you. Twice!”

  Karl shook Amber’s hand off his sleeve and climbed to his feet. “And I tell you, I don’t.”

  “Okay, be like that,” muttered Smoke, turning his back and preparing to walk away.

  “Smoke, please, give us a minute. Karl, I’m sorry. It might be my fault. I gave you energy as part of the ritual. And again here. I might have triggered it. I’ll be more careful in future.”

  Karl blinked bleary and confused eyes at Amber.

  “Okay?”

  “Now we need to talk. It you’re strong enough would you come with me?”

  Karl climbed to his feet using the chair as a crutch and followed Amber to the library. Once there Amber tried to get him to rest on the daybed, but he was distracted by Lucinda’s collection and wandered up the curving ramp to the top landing of the library, studying the contents of the shelves as he walked. He worked in a bookstore because he deeply loved books. He lifted a copy of Two Towers from a shelf and turned it over in his hands with a smile.

  What else did he expect to see in this crazy house?

  Then he spotted a shelf filled with physics textbooks and started examining the displayed books with more interest.

  This library’s huge,” cried Karl, “I can’t remember seeing so many books in one place outside of a university.” Amber grinned as he went from stack to stack. “The way the bookcases ascend the walls is great.”

  He walked past a bookcase of political science commentary and another of ancient history. A huge photo book on the space race sat open on a carved wooden podium

  “Tell Smoke,” said Amber, “he’ll be pleased. He and his brothers designed and built it.”