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

by Carter, D. L.

  The last time she’d worked slowly, painstakingly removing a fragment of spell at a time because she couldn’t see the layer completely or clearly. Now she could see the whole of one spell. Active. Destroying.

  Amber called the potato peeler out of her memory and slashed along the length of Karl’s torso, down to the activated spell and no further. Then she quickly extended the cut along his legs and up and over his head. The active spell peeled off him like a loosely fitted suit then contracted down into a tight hard ball. Amber held the glowing energy in her spirit hands for a moment. The pain tried to lance into her, but she turned it away.

  She trembled under the malevolent spell’s attack. The other spells she’d removed slowly and their energy had leaked away. This time she had not one, but many spells in her hand. Every spell that had been cast on top of the do-not-read-magic spell was destroyed now, but the energy was still here. She could see the energies twisting around each other as the different intentions fought and combined.

  Amber juggled the burning ball from spirit hand to another. She didn’t know enough about the spells to harmlessly diffuse them. Amber glanced down at Karl’s calm face. His spirit was watching her this time. Trusting her. It warmed her heart to see it. If only she were worthy of it.

  The power bit her hand again and she looked down.

  “Think, think” muttered Amber, then an evil grin containing a lot of satisfaction and spite crossed her face. “I think you should return to the one who created you.”

  Immediately the ball contracted down to a small dot, then lengthened into a stream of light. The sound of its passing tore through the Ethereal, almost deafening Amber. She blinked rapidly, shaking off the trance.

  “What did you do?” whispered Karl.

  Amber climbed off the bed, still grinning.

  “Someone you know and hate is about to have a really, really bad day.”

  * * * * *

  “These have to go out today,” complained the campaign volunteer.

  “They’ll just have to wait. I have to work on them.” Gloria drew a marker pen across the top of a couple of boxes. “These can go, the rest have to wait.”

  “I don’t see …”

  “No, that’s right, you don’t see. You don’t understand anything. It’s your job to go where you’re pointed and do what you’re told …”

  “Gloria, dear. Please, that’s enough.”

  Gloria spun, her bobbed hair flapping across her eyes. Nothing was going right today and now she was here.

  “Mrs. Thomas,” said Gloria, showing her teeth. “Ma’am. Good morning.”

  The senator’s wife ambled across the room on her sensible shoes. Everything about her was chosen to reflect a certain persona, the perfect non-entity. The political wife. She might try and project a harmless, inoffensive image, but Gloria knew she had some pretty sophisticated interests. She should know, since Gloria was required to politely and privately supply what was required.

  “Gloria, you know how hard it is to get volunteers,” said Mrs. Thomas, directing a gentle motherly smile on the worker. “We can’t afford to insult someone simply because you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”

  Gloria growled and wondered yet again if the senator really needed a wife. She’d have to run some numbers on the sympathy vote. Would it help? Would it hurt? If it made no difference whether the senator was married or a widower then Mrs. Thomas’s days were numbered. In the meantime the only thing her theoretical boss asked was that she be nice to his wife.

  So Gloria nicely showed Mrs. Thomas her teeth a second time and turned to the volunteer.

  “I’m very sorry I shouted at you. Please believe me; I have a reason for not releasing those fliers yet.”

  “That’s better,” Mrs. Thomas took hold of Gloria’s elbow and pulled her into one of the few offices with doors. As soon as it was shut the political smile vanished. “Now, I have received calls from six campaign sites this morning. There have been no, absolutely no walk-ins this morning. No spontaneous donations. No action on the site. Nothing at all.”

  Gloria gritted her teeth and straightened.

  “There’s been a … problem with the energy flow …”

  “I’m not interested in excuses. Your position depends on you supplying us with certain benefits. If you can’t provide …”

  “Listen, lady,” Gloria hunched her shoulders and growled low in her throat. Her nemesis jumped back, eyes wide. A satisfactory beginning, but she had to move fast to keep control. She wasn’t going to endure backtalk from someone who owed her so much. Gloria stabbed one delicate fingernail into the other woman’s shoulder. “I chose your husband. He’d be nothing without me. And if I withdrew my support he’ll go back to being nothing. Who do you think is getting all those bums on seats for his boring talks? Why do you think the TV cameras turn up? Because I summon them. I do it all.”

  “You couldn’t do it without us, either. Go ahead, leave. It’ll take you years to find another suitable candidate, someone desperate enough to believe your story.”

  “I can provide proof. I did for you.”

  “Well, if this morning is any indication I’d say you might have a problem with that. You can promise, but can you deliver? Consistently. On schedule. The election is still a year away and the energy you promised us is falling off.”

  Gloria’s lips drew back from her teeth, but Mrs. Thomas laughed and dropped a pamphlet on the table.

  “This is at the printer now. Pick them up and have them treated. I want them out in circulation before the end of the week. We have to educate the public, you know. And do something about the spells at the other offices. Even with all your much vaunted magic we need the money.”

  The senator’s wife sauntered from the room, pausing at one table then the next to encourage the rabble. Gloria waited until the shop front door slammed shut behind her then snatched up a bottle of soda from the table and threw it against the wall. The plastic absorbed the shock and it dropped, intact, to the floor.

  “Dammit!” shouted Gloria.

  The volunteer staff glanced up then turned back to their work, heads low over their desks.

  Gloria considered searching for something glass, something breakable then sank into the nearest chair. It wasn’t worth it.

  Nothing, absolutely nothing was going right today.

  She took a deeper breath to resume cursing and stopped, clutching her ribs.

  Damn Karl. Damn him to somewhere dark and stinking. Gloria staggered across the room to a mirror and studied her face again. Despite the heavy makeup a bruise showed covering most of her forehead and right eye. Under her stylish suit fully one side of her chest, her breast, and one arm were purple and blue. She wasn’t certain, but the sharp stabbing pain when she breathed could be due to a cracked or broken rib.

  Gloria’s lips drew back in a snarl. She’d known, but never bothered to try and overcome the fact that injuries incurred in the dreamscape carried over to the real world. The magical Laws of Sympathy and Association insisted on it, and those laws had been the cause of Mike’s unfortunate death.

  Mike.

  Damn him too for dying when she still had a use for him. Mike’s death had precipitated the events that resulted in Karl leaving where he’d been put. Now he was bouncing about all over the place and asking questions. And fighting back.

  And interrupting her energy harvest.

  It was intolerable.

  Fighting back! How dare he?

  For the first time in years she could barely feel the web. There was no power waiting for her to harvest this morning. Karl had somehow stopped the drain. Now she was going to have to track him down and find out what was going wrong.

  Nothing and no one was going to stand in her way of realizing her ambitions. Particularly not her dear love. Her wonderful and amazing Karl.

  But how was Gloria to deal with the psychic mess that Karl had caused? Didn’t he realize Gloria had commitments? Obligations? There were pe
ople depending upon her magical intervention. Ungrateful people who were overjoyed with the extra power yesterday and had the nerve to criticize her for the lack of power today.

  After the previous day’s drain – and she knew that drain had worked – Karl should be a basket case. He should be barely breathing, let alone up and fighting.

  Fighting. How in the seven hells was he strong enough to fight back? With all the power she had channeled through him he should be almost dead.

  Nothing had gone as it should since the unexpected appearance of a woman in the hunt. The woman who didn’t run. Gloria had been able to persuade the others that it was an illusion, a test she’d created. A ruse to demonstrate how weak and ineffectual Mike was. She did not know if many believed her, but after Mike’s death they knew that Gloria was not a woman to cross.

  Despite the pain a slow smile spread over her face.

  Reaching for the phone Gloria dialed her assistant’s number and gave a few crisp orders.

  “I’m going out,” Gloria called to the room at large, ignoring the huge sigh of relief that followed that announcement. She snapped her fingers and her hunk separated himself from the wall he was holding up and placed himself on her heels.

  She was trying to decide between lunch and going back home to rest when her cell rang.

  “Ms. Simmons?”

  Her assistant’s voice trembled slightly. She was Gloria’s sixth assistant since the campaign had started and was very aware of the jobs her predecessors now performed. And how low their salaries were.

  “What?”

  “Ms. Simmons, I checked the bookstore as you requested. Karl Benn is away dealing with an unspecified family emergency and no one knows where he is or when he’ll be back.”

  “Dammit, you’re useless.” Gloria slammed her hand against the nearest wall. “Find him. Find out where he is right now.”

  “But … but.”

  “Listen, idiot. Call up the private detective agency we hired for the campaign. Let them earn their salaries for a change. Give them Karl’s name and tell them to track him down. I want to know where he is, what he is doing, and what color boxers he’s doing it in. I want that information within an hour. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me ma’am.”

  Gloria clicked the phone shut and faced the nearest window, brushing her dark hair back off her forehead and scowling at the silver strands that had appeared over the last few days. She wasn’t even thirty. Barely halfway through her twenties really, and on her way to becoming the most powerful witch ever. All the other witches she met contented themselves with nurturing the flowers and their spiritual brothers the wolf and the bear and the aardvark.

  Or there was the rare dark witch who dared to reach out and grasp true power.

  But none of them could compare with Gloria’s strength. None of them realized how much greater they could become.

  For Gloria the epiphany occurred in an otherwise useless economics lecture her first semester in college. The professor casually asked all the students for a nickel. Just a nickel. He walked through the auditorium collecting coins.

  Then he said. ‘If I got a nickel from everyone in this city, in this state, let alone this country, odds are they would never miss it and I’d never have to work again. I’d be rich.’

  Everyone laughed, especially when he didn’t give back the coins.

  Gloria had gone home to where she was still laboring, trying to light a simple candle with power raised from the living world around her and pondered. The experiments with magic she’d performed for years yielded very poor results. Despite study, despite all her readings, she never achieved the rush she knew power would give her. Now the professor had given her an important clue. It was the secret other magic users didn’t put openly in their books, but hinted at instead when speaking of covens and group workings. If she gathered a little energy, a little of the life force from everyone in the city, the state, they would miss it – sure. More than just a little. But Gloria would be stronger and that was all that really mattered anyway.

  The problem was how to collect?

  The solution had come to her only a few weeks later.

  Karl.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Did you know that Hitler used ancient magical symbols called ‘Runes’ on his flags?” Karl turned a page and scanned the text eagerly.

  “Yes. Mostly reversed to call negative energy instead of positive. And the word they said when they saluted ‘sieg’ was of runic origin.”

  Amber maneuvered around a tanker truck hauling orange juice and settled back to a comfortable 15 mph over the speed limit. The “see-me-not” spell she had set on the car that morning seemed to be working a little too well. She’d wanted the police to pay no attention, but the drivers in the other cars seemed not to notice her indicator lights. Either that or people in New Jersey considered their use decorative rather than informative.

  “Did you know that witches in England cast a spell to stop Hitler from crossing the English Channel after Dunkirk?”

  “Yes,” she bit back a sigh. “Their descendants hold a reunion to honor them every Lamas eve. If you want I’ll try to wangle us an invitation. I have a couple of their email addresses on the WWWRAPC website.”

  Karl had been reading to her since they’d left the hotel, and although she was delighted that he was showing such a positive interest in magic, he was most excited about a history of magic book that he’d found in the hotel gift shop of all places. She was determined not to discourage his interest. Only hours ago she’d ripped off several layers of spells. What their purpose was she might never know, but since then Karl had been practically dancing on the ceiling. And more worrisome, overwhelmingly interested in magic. Not negative or angry, or positive even. More … . omnivorous. And that scared her spitless. A little knowledge was a dangerous thing, she knew that very well. To go from aversion to attraction in one day … that hinted of spell work. Her spell work. Or her spell removal. She still didn’t know if there were going to be serious repercussions.

  “Did you know …?”

  “Right now, I’m trying to think what we’re going to do when we get to Washington,” Amber interrupted sharply. “The Albany witch is involved with high ranking politicians. She’ll be protected.”

  Karl stared at her blankly for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” he said, closing his book, “I’m thinking that beating her up this morning was … was the dumbest, no, the second dumbest thing I have done in my life. I tipped our hand. How could I have been that stupid? She knows I can fight back now. That I have a way of getting strong despite the drains.”

  Amber nodded. “I wasn’t going to say anything …”

  “Go ahead and say it.” Karl dropped the book on his lap and tunneled his hands through his now snow white hair. “I’ve been cursing myself out about it for hours.”

  “Don’t curse yourself. My mother said if you accidentally draw in power at the same time, it might come true,” She glanced over at him, a half smile quirking her mouth, “We’ve got to be really careful in my family. Never, ever, say ‘drop dead’ to your brother in a fight. You should’ve seen my father’s face. I was grounded for a month.”

  Karl raised an eyebrow at that pronouncement and shuddered extravagantly.

  “So? What do we do?”

  Amber sat quietly, her hands resting lightly on the steering wheel.

  “I’ve got a vague idea right now; I’m not certain it will work,” she said after a long pause. “I suppose I need help.”

  “In the books?” Karl pointed into the crowded back seat with his thumb. Discarded books flowed over fast food wrappers and tangled in the sleeves of his leather jacket.

  “No. I need practical help. I need to connect with a coven. Never mind what Smoke thinks; there are some things you can only get from people. Grab my computer, Karl. I want you to try and get a signal and go to the database I have online. See if we
can find a witch near Washington.”

  Karl undid his seatbelt and knelt on his seat to rummage in the back. Amber glanced over and briefly divided her attention between the road and Karl’s wiggling tush wrapped in tight denim. One day without a drain, a good night’s rest, decent food, and he seemed so much stronger. Add to that the feeling of accomplishment for repulsing the morning’s attack and Karl seemed powerful. Vital. Energetic.

  And passionate. Amber turned her eyes back to the road and forbade herself to blush. He’d been so polite all morning. There had been no mention of the intimate moment. From when he emerged from the shower until now there had been no blushing, no touching, not even a meaningful smile. She wasn’t certain that he’d written it down in his notebook, either. Amber ordered her heart not to miss any more beats over him. Perhaps he already regretted it. Didn’t winning athletic events bring out the sexual conqueror in men? Maybe he was just celebrating beating on Gloria. Getting something back on the woman who was trying to kill him.

  It hadn’t been a true attraction to Amber. It was just that she was in the room, barely dressed and available.

  “What will we do if there’s no witch in Washington?”

  Karl’s voice cut into her reflections and Amber jumped.

  “Karl, my dear boy,” she said, waving her hand regally. “You have no idea how many of us there really are. I remember being surprised at just how many there are in some places. Utah, for example.”

  Amber’s phone shrilled and she clicked on the speaker.

  “It’s probably Davie with an update,” she said. “Helllllloo.”

  “Amber! Where are you?”

  “D … Dad?”

  The car swerved within the lane and Amber hit the brakes, straightened, and slowed down.

  “What’s going on?” shouted her father. “I called you at work this morning and they told me you’d been fired. Fired days ago. Exactly when were you planning on calling me, letting me know?”

  “Um, Dad, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. I was going to let …”