Blood and Magick

by James R. Tuck

  Pulling it over my head, the heat followed it. I tossed it away, eldritch green flame engulfing the shirt as it flew through the air, landing on a pile of shredded chairs.

  My skin laced tight, the burn immediate and sharp. It stole my breath. I stumbled, falling. Twisting, I tried to see my enemies. Athame was in the air, blood running black down her face. Her brow was split from one horn to another. Yellow eyes glowed in the mask of blood.

  Selene was rising to join her. Magick had repaired her appearance, straightening her dress and pulling her hair back into place. More fire swirled around her hands, licking into the air, growing malevolently.

  Static electricity began to pop off my skin as the magick grew. Each tiny black spark was like being poked with a needle. My eyes began to water.

  Athame stepped up beside her mother. Both of them thrummed with magick. The fire on Selene’s hands jumped, lighting her daughter’s taloned hands, engulfing them in balls of eldritch flame. The magick doubled in pressure, striking sparks that drove nails instead of needles now.

  I smeared a hand across my mouth. It came away wet. I looked. My palm was coated in thin blood like watercolor. The whiskers of my goatee stunk of rusty iron. Hemoglobin and plasma thick and hardening into a crust.

  Shit.

  The blood ran from my nose, itching as it trickled through my goatee. It ran in hot streamers down the skin of my neck.

  White light exploded from my chest.

  I was blind. The world went blank and clean, my eyes robbed of sight for a long second. Blinking stuttered my vision back a little at a time. As it cleared I found the witches screaming, moving back from the light that streamed from me.

  I looked down. The St. Benedict medal that always hung around my neck was painted with my blood. Holy light blasted out of it like a miniature sun gone supernova.

  Holy objects glow with light around vampires. I’ve even seen them do it around demons, but this? This was new.

  My medal had been with me since childhood. It was old before being given to me by my grandmother when my grandfather passed on. Generations of Chalk women prayed over this medal. Five priests, two bishops, and one confirmed saint, the blessed Padre Pio, had blessed it. The medal itself is a third-class relic of St. Benedict, patron saint against witchcraft.

  Sometimes I can be an idiot. I should have gone for my faith first. I knew I was up against satanic witchcraft. I should have relied on God instead of my own power.

  I stood to my feet. The holy light still cut a swath through the darkness in front of me. Both witches scurried back, past the edge of it.

  My mind cast back, far back to when I was a child. Words rolled to the front of my memory, cut sharp and clear from when I was a wee boy. I opened my mouth, lips forming the prayer emblazoned from the mists of early memory. A prayer first learned with my grandmother. The prayer she first taught me at the wake for Papa.

  The words fell from my lips, striking the air. A fist. A hammer. A fucking bazooka. Like they weren’t spoken by me at all, even though they came from my throat. “Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!”

  The words quickened, flashing lightning inside my skull. The voice of Nana Chalk translating the Latin. The Holy Cross be my light. Let not the dragon be my guide.

  “Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!”

  Begone, Satan! Do not suggest to me thy vanities! Evil are the things thou profferest. Drink thou thy own poison!

  My fingers moved, tapping my forehead. “In nomine Patris . . .”

  Touching below my heart. “Et Filii . . .”

  Sweeping across my shoulders left to right. “Et Spiritus Sancti.” My hand flared out toward the witches. “Amen.”

  Holy light whipped around me. The fire that danced in the hands of the witches changed, turning inward. It began to eat their clothing, chewing its way up their arms. Consuming.

  Screams tore from their throats. Arms waving, they tried to shake out the fire. Satanic combustion slung off in gobbets of liquid flame, spatting down on the chairs of the theater. The flame-retardant material ignited like a match against napalm.

  Acrid smoke billowed up, filling the air in an oily haze. My eyes watered, chemical-laden smoke burning across my retinas. The world blurred into green and blue flickers of diabolical flame and the white haze of the still-shining projector. I blinked rapidly.

  The screams and curses of the witches were split in two by a sharp, electronic shrill. It pierced my brain, a rusty ice pick in my eardrum. Itchy pain dug into my brain.

  What the fuck?

  Water began to spit down on me, falling in an instant downpour. The smoke was shredded, torn apart and driven down by a sheet of stale, sour water. Water stagnant from being trapped in pipes for who knew how long. I was drenched in seconds.

  Blinking away the last of the burning, I watched Selene and Athame fall from the air.

  The witchfire that turned on them had guttered out. Water sluiced down their arms in runnels swirling around blisters and cracked, scorched flesh. Selene’s hands were black sticks, chubbiness burned away like dross in a furnace.

  Athame shook, body convulsing like she’d been dunked in a snowbank. Her skin bubbled up like plastic packing material. As the water beat down, it washed away her devil form. Horns fell from her head, shed like a torn fingernail. The spaded tail thumped to the floor, twitching at feet that had morphed, becoming thin, pale, and human.

  The light from my medal dimmed, winking out to nothing.

  I rolled my power out, seeking and probing the air. Queasiness roiled hot and oily in my guts, stomach lurching from the effort. My power stretched toward the witches. The swamp of magick that filled the air had been washed away, reduced to a thin aura around them. Weak. Watered down.

  Realization struck me and I laughed aloud. The noise barked out of me, shaking droplets of water off my goatee. Running water.

  Running water grounds magick. Not all of it, but a lot of it. There are sea witches and ocean magick, but most spells are based in earth and fire. It’s why witch-finders used rivers to find out who was and who wasn’t a witch during the Salem infestation.

  Selene stood to her feet. The material of her dress saturated to a dark forest green. Scorch marks curved up the tattered ruins of her sleeves, blending with the dark, sodden material. Raven-wing hair had fallen, weighted by the water. It hung over her face in a veil of black threads. Poison green eyes glowered at me.

  A hand, the fingers burnt black and fragile, rose in front of her face. Her voice trembled, seething with pain and rage, as it rose to carry over falling water and screaming fire alarm. “You will pay for this. I will take from you a pound of flesh and a gallon of blood to have my vengeance.”

  My stomach still clenched around a molten ball of sick, head swimming just slightly with each breath. My hands clenched into fists to keep them from shaking. The skin on my back pulled tight, still burning nerve deep from the fire Selene had thrown on me. Everything felt sodden. The muscles strapped to my bones weighed a thousand wet pounds. It took everything I had to stand straight and look at the witch in her poison eye.

  “Bill me, bitch.” My chin tilted up, nodding toward the exit. “Get the hell out of here before I really get pissed.”

  Selene’s charcoal hands cut a symbol into the air. A loud BAMF! a roil of rotten smoke, and both witches disappeared.

  I collapsed into a theater seat the second they were gone.

  22

  Two emotions rolled around each other inside me, cutting through a cloak of pain and exhaustion. I was pissed and relieved at the same time.

  The Comet sat at the curb, silver-white smoke bubbling out of her exhaust pipe in time to the rumble of the motor. The car shook just slightly as the powerful engine idled. Grass stuck out from under the bumpers in clumps, mud streaking her sides where I slalomed her down the embankment earlier.

  The sight of the Comet drew me up short. My car was not sup
posed to be there. It was supposed to be gone, off and away, whisking Tiff and the others to safety.

  The driver’s side door swung open. Tiff stepped out in a swirl of long skirts, shotgun still in her hands. She looked left and right, then started moving across the sidewalk toward me. I stayed where I was, letting her come to me. She stepped up, stopped short.

  My voice was choppy. “I told you to get Sophia and the kids to safety.”

  “Something held us up, so we waited for you.”

  “That’s not what I told you to do, dammit. Do you think I’m just making this shit up as I go along?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “That’s beside the fucking point. I wasn’t in there getting my ass kicked to buy you time so you could disobey a direct order.”

  Her hand reached out and clamped on my arm. It was hot, the skin of her palm burning against the skin of my arm. “Don’t be Mister Grumpy-face.” She gave a tug. “Come see.”

  I let her pull me over to the car. Sophia slithered out between the front and backseat, nails click-clacking on concrete. She was still a dog. Her back end shook, tail wagging back and forth. She stood just shy of knee high on me, shaggy russet-colored hair in long patches on her slender frame. She sat, brown eye tilted up at me. I reached down, rubbing my fingers along her head. She leaned into it, fur silky under my calloused fingertips. I scratched behind her ear and she made that low gurgle growl of contentment that dogs make when you hit a sweet spot.

  In my head, I knew Sophia was a Were-dog, but in her human form she looked completely normal, so it was weird when we interacted with her in dog form. She liked all the things dogs like humans to do—scratching behind ears, ruffling fur, petting and patting—but her mismatched eyes still held human intelligence. I shook it off and just went with it.

  I straightened up, pulling my hand away. Her muzzle broke open, pink tongue lolling out.

  “It’s good to see you, Sophia.”

  One paw rose up, swiping at the air in acknowledgment. She stretched out, kneeling down, tail wagging in the air. It was a dog’s way of saying thank you.

  Looking up, there were three kids pressed against the back window of the Comet. Their eyes were wide, staring at me. One chubby human face, one half-Were mix of animal and human features, and one kit that was a jigsaw of canine and feline.

  I cracked a smile for their benefit. The half-Were waved, the other two regarding me with the same solemn look on two completely opposite faces. I was Uncle Deacon, but since they were only six months old, I’d only seen them a few times.

  They looked almost as old as my son had been when . . .

  I shut my eyes.

  The memory pressed hard, trying to break the bubble I kept it in.

  Not now.

  I didn’t have time.

  Deep breath. Push the memory down.

  The sound of a car door opening pulled me back. A lifeline to a drowning man, I hauled myself to shore.

  Opening my eyes, I found Special Agent Heck standing at the passenger door. He nodded at me. “Mr. Chalk.”

  That is still annoying.

  Tiff pushed a button on the key fob in her hand. The trunk lid coughed a hollow thunk and popped up an inch or so. Her slender hand hooked the lip of the trunk lid, tendons popping as she lifted. The black metal rose up.

  A duct-taped wizard lay awkwardly on the spare tire.

  Ahriman.

  Tape criss-crossed around his chest. Thighs and ankles wrapped in wide silver bands. His hands pressed together, wrapped in thick duct-tape mittens, covered to keep them still.

  A large patch of the silver utility tape stuck to his shoulder. It was bloody. A makeshift patch over the gunshot wound from inside.

  Wiry strands of black hair from his scalp and chin were stuck in a strip of duct tape that wrapped across his mouth and around his head.

  That was gonna suck for him when it was pulled off. I kept my head shaved, and it sucked the last time I’d had to pull tape off my mouth.

  We had a prisoner. Now we could get information. We could find out what the witches had planned. We could make an actual plan.

  Holy shit.

  Tiff gave a crooked little grin and tilted her head. A sweep of chestnut hair dropped over her eye patch, hiding it from view. “See? There was a reason for us to still be here, so it wasn’t anything to wait a few more minutes to see if you were coming out.”

  “You did good, little girl.”

  “It was Agent Heck’s idea. He grabbed him on the way out.”

  I looked over. The O.C.I.D. man just looked back at me, face bland and impassive. I nodded, once up and then down. He did the same.

  Sirens rolled through the air, coming closer.

  “Is your fancy badge gonna get us out of here with Ahriman in the trunk?”

  “It will as long as nobody checks the trunk.”

  All right. We needed to get gone before they hit the scene. I figured we had probably pushed our luck as far as we could. I looked down at the duct-taped wizard.

  This close I could see his pupils were either dilated to cover his irises or they were both pitch-black. A thin ring of yellow corruption shone around them, fever bright. Stark red blood vessels laced through wide whites. Sweat beaded the dark hollows under them, forming little droplets of oily liquid that rode the edges of the duct tape.

  The goat-headed pentagram gleamed dully against his black cassock.

  The talisman was an object of power. My mind tripped back to Athame losing her form after losing her pentagram. Witches stored magick in an object so they could draw on it later, like a battery of satanic power.

  The goat stared up at me with unblinking ruby eyes. I didn’t want Ahriman drawing any satanic power off the damned thing. I didn’t have time to search him fully, but leaving the talisman around his neck would be a royally dumbass move.

  I try really hard not to be that dumbass.

  I reached down, hand dipping toward the medallion. The last two inches of space between my fingertips and it felt like the air was made of syrup. It was thick. Sludgy. I couldn’t see anything, but my fingers felt cold and sticky. Fucking magick. A staccato tingle crept under my skin, tracing along the nerves of my hand and arm. Tiny centipedes crawled under my skin. My power flared as I touched the slick metal surface of the leering goat head.

  My head swam with images.

  Skinless skulls coated in muscle meat and tendons. Lidless eyeballs pulling back and forth by microtendons in hollow sockets. Child-size candles made of rancid tallow rendered from human fat. The acrid stench of braided hair wicks mixing with the rich bacon smell of the candles themselves burning in my nostrils. The cold press of dead flesh. Welcoming in its lack of resistance, feeling thicker, denser, more solid than living flesh. The slippery lubrication of wet putrefaction . . .

  I yanked my mind away as I tore the satanic symbol off his neck. The sensory assault stopped abruptly, leaving behind the hot taste of bile in my throat. I worked it up to my mouth and spat it out. The foulness was left behind, but the bile arced down, splattering on the ground at my feet.

  I looked down at the wizard. Without a word, I slammed the trunk closed.

  23

  A priest smoking a cigarette was waiting as we pulled up to the front of the strip club.

  This wasn’t as unusual as it sounds. Polecats was my club, the good Father Mulcahy was my bartender, and he always had a cigarette fired up. Silver-gray smoke trailed from the side of his mouth as he limped over. I whipped the Comet by the curb, wide racing slick-back tires chirping against the concrete.

  He leaned his weight over his good leg, switching the shotgun he carried over to his other shoulder. The good father loved a well-made shotgun like he loved a menthol cigarette, a cup of black coffee, or a double shot of Irish whiskey.

  Or all four at once.

  His free hand plucked the cancerstick from his mouth and he squinted as I stepped out of the Comet. Scar tissue masquerading as eyebrows pulled down to
hang over dark eyes gotten from the Italian side of his pedigree.

  His voice was whiskey smooth and honey laced, but rumbled from a deep part of his chest like a cave-in. I’d heard that voice pull tears from a hundred eyes during homily at Mass. Hell, he’d pulled tears from my eyes once or twice. Now it was edged with a bite of sarcasm. “Why is it you never have a shirt on when you come back from being out?”

  “It’s not my fault I live a life of excitement.”

  He looked past me with a grunt as Tiff slid out of the car. Sophia was out of the backseat before Tiff could pull the seat release. I watched the play of fine muscles along Tiff ’s arm and shoulder as she leaned the seat up for the others. Her dress was tattered, filthy from soot and dust, but it still fell open at the back, displaying the long stretch of smooth skin.

  I took a step toward her, wanting nothing more than to touch the shallow valley of her spine. I knew just how it would feel, just how she would shiver as my rough fingertips skimmed toward the sway of her lower back.

  I caught myself.

  I settled back into being on the job as Sophia’s sons boiled out of the backseat, pelted across the concrete, and flung themselves at Father Mulcahy. He dropped to one knee and gathered them into thick arms, hugging them against his wide barrel of a chest. The human child and the half-Were wrapped tiny limbs around his neck. The fullanimal child slipped between them all, muzzle open in a panting laugh, tongue slurping along the priest’s perpetual five o’clock shadow.

  Laughter bubbled out of him. “All right, you three hooligans! Don’t be so rough on an old man.” Father Mulcahy tousled hair and fur as he extricated himself from the tangle of boys. Slowly, he pushed himself up to his feet, favoring his left leg.

  My chest thudded closed. Realization dropped on me like a stone. Father Mulcahy was pushing sixty hard. He’d been by my side since I started down this road almost six years ago, and he had walked it before I came salong. He had a lot of scars. He was still a tough sonnuvabitch, but he had taken some big hits, suffered some big injuries, and at the end of the day, he was only human.