Blood and Magick

by James R. Tuck

  It squatted on top of the hill, somehow darker, even more tainted than the last time I was here. It had the same redbrick walls, the same busted-out stained glass filled in with moldy plywood, the same steeple with the cross that had been yanked off and replaced upside down.

  There was a perimeter of stainless-steel crosses that Father Mulcahy had planted to save my ass when I went up against that hell-bitch Appollonia. They had all been uprooted and shoved top down into the ground. The church, which used to be a consecrated place to worship God Almighty, now seethed with the taint of corruption and blasphemy.

  It was exactly the type of place three witches needed to hold a Black Mass.

  “It’s a blasphemed church.”

  Wide hands rubbed his muscular arms. “I don’t like it. It gives my heebies the heebie-jeebies.”

  Ronnie’s footsteps were completely silent. The basket was still in her hands, but several of the ghost spiders had crawled out and were riding on her arms and chest. They all bounced up and down on translucent legs, moving in sync like they were tied to the same string. It was creepy.

  Slowly, she turned to face me. “We remember this place. Our mother was here. She was not happy then.”

  What the hell? Ronnie was being mega freaking creepy. She lost a bunch of spiders in the explosion at Polecats and ever since had been becoming weirder and weirder, acting more and more like a spider. I knew that they were tied to her psychically, and that they affected her but she was acting like she had in the beginning.

  The first two weeks after the spiders imprinted on her, she was a big ball of crazy. She swung wildly from catatonic to frenzied. There were long periods where she would find a dark cubby and crawl in it. We would find her tucked away somewhere, squeezed into a small space, just her and the spiders. Back then there were hundreds of the damn things, all about the size of a quarter. Charlotte had helped her through the transition. It had taken weeks for her to be able to function. She still wasn’t right and maybe never would be, but this was super spooky to a whole next level.

  Tiff waved her hand in front of Ronnie’s face. “Are you all right, honey? You don’t have to come?”

  Her head snapped around, faster than human. “We’ll be fine. We are going in there.”

  Tiff’s hand was on her gun. It’s okay, mine was too. She eased back a step and glanced over at me quickly. I shrugged. What the hell did I know? Ronnie had been all right up until now, coping with the spider thing, weird, but okay. She had lost a lot of spiders in the explosion. Maybe there was a psychic backlash and her connection was being fried. I had no idea. I would keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t flip out on us.

  I spoke to the vampire to my left. “Blair, you go first.”

  I felt her push back against the command, fighting to not obey. “Why am I going first?”

  “This line of cars isn’t all Selene and her crew have planned. If there’s a witchy version of a land mine, you get to find out first.” I put a push of power behind my words. “Now shake your ass, sister.”

  She looked at me, anger scrawled across her face. When a vampire gets pissed, you know immediately.

  Blair’s face was knotted into predator mode, fangs extended, eyes gone blood and black, skin thinned over a bestial face. She snarled in my direction but dutifully began to climb up on the hood of the wrecked car in front of us. Slowly, she crawled across the dented metal, really putting a lot of effort into it, shifting her hips in a rocking motion that made her denim shorts ride up. Her face turned to look back over her shoulder. Her features were human again as she gave a wink and wicked smile.

  Special Agent Heck made a small sound. I looked over and he had turned his eyes away. In the low light it was hard to see that his cheeks were red.

  Tiff stepped closer to me. She didn’t take my hand or say a word, just bumped me with her hip ever so slightly so that I knew she was there.

  She had no idea that I would never forget that, no matter what Blair did. Her theatrics had as much effect on me as it did on Boothe.

  I flicked my fingers at Blair in a “hurry up” motion. Flipping around, she hopped off the car, standing on the ground. We all held our breath, waiting to see what would happen.

  Nothing.

  “Walk out about six or seven feet.” Blair did what I said, stepping carefully in bare feet. She stopped at six feet precisely, spun around, and did a curtsy.

  Still nothing happened.

  Fuck it. We didn’t have all night. The two kids in that church didn’t have all night either. I stepped up onto the car hood, took two strides, and stepped off the other side. I stood for a second, waiting again. I felt nothing. Nothing moved. Nothing happened. I waved the rest of my people to follow me.

  I watched the darkness around the church. I could hear them come over the metal hood, their shoes and body weight making it protest by buckling and popping hollowly. Tiff came up beside me, followed by Special Agent Heck, Ronnie and her spiders, and finally Boothe bringing up the rear.

  The Were-rabbit’s boots had just hit the soil when the first noise crept from the shadows.

  A low, sinister mix of a wet, strangled cluck and a dry, sibilant hiss. It was the sound of a python eating a live chicken, slithering and the rustle of feathers. The moist sound of bone popping from cartilage.

  The nerve under my eye twitched.

  Boothe whispered loudly. “What was that?”

  Ronnie’s spiders scrambled down her body, forming a half circle around her feet. Their spindly, translucent legs began to wave in the air like sensory antennae. Her voice was singsong. “Something rotten this way comes.” My hand itched. I scratched it by filling it with gun.

  A pair of yellow dots broke the darkness around us. Two glowing spots about three feet off the ground. Pair by pair, the shadows began to fill with unblinking yellow eyes. The darkness moved toward us. Boothe flicked on the flashlight from his belt.

  The LED light cut through the dark. Its white-hot circle showed a creature that should never exist. It was about four feet tall, standing on two scaled legs. Three horned toes scratched the dead dirt, clawing marks. Its body was slickscaled. Thin, brackish green reptile skin hugged a skeletal body under a short pair of rotten, black-feathered wings; jutting ribs, swollen joints, and protruding vertebrae. Its spine ran down into a long, bony tail that whipped behind it making small tornadoes in the dust.

  It herky-jerked forward in a strut. The head was covered in brilliant feathers that hung long down around its shoulders and chest. They made a brightly colored headdress of reds, greens, and whites. A blood-red comb cut up from its narrow skull and from the center of its feathered face jutted a vicious hooked beak lined with needlelike fangs. Corruption-yellow eyes stared as it slowly walked toward me.

  The darkness broke, revealing a pack of them.

  I stepped back, guns pointed. “Anybody got an idea what we’re dealing with?”

  “Cockatrice.” Special Agent Heck held a small square device that looked like a smartphone. He was pointing it in the direction of the creature and looking at the display. “Known as the Witch Hound. They have venom in their teeth and claws on par with an Arizona Bark scorpion. One dose won’t kill you, but it will make you sick, and multiple exposures may prove deadly.”

  “All that information is in that device?”

  He nodded, slipping the device back in his jacket pocket. “I’ve got to get one of those.”

  The flock of cockatrices continued to strut toward us, more and more of them coming from the shadows. They were filling the space between us and the church. It was a lot of demon-bird-lizard-things.

  I spoke over my shoulder. “We cut our way through these damn things and get inside that church. We’ve got two scared boys who are counting on us.”

  I pointed the .45 at the closest, biggest cockatrice. The others pressed to its back as it drew tall, opening greasy, ragged wings. Its chest expanded, beak yawning open to reveal a tongue the color of pollen. It whipped around, s
linging venomous spittle in a wet swirl around its feathered head. A damp, hoarse caw came from its throat in a mist of poison.

  I squeezed the trigger. Feathers burst apart like bloodied confetti, choking off the sick cry of the cockatrice as the headless body slumped to the ground. The rest of the pack jumped away from their fallen leader in a slither of scales and a rustle of greasy feathers. They clucked and cawed around the body before, one by one, they turned unblinking yellow eyes toward us.

  With an ear-piercing squawk, they charged.

  Hey Chicken Little, the sky is falling.

  50

  My foot lashed out, snapping into the chest of the monster lunging for my balls. Ribs caved around my boot. Clawed feet snagged my jeans and a long, bony tail whipcracked across my hip in a line of fiery pain. I shook the crushed animal off my foot. It fell away with a squawk, twitching in the dirt.

  Another one sprang up, leaping off its fallen brother toward my face in a bundle of feathers and teeth and venom. Beak snapping for my face, its legs wrapped around my chest, claws digging in my skin. Venom slapped across my neck in thin strings from its mouth of murder, burning like lines of acid. Breath that stank of rotten fish and mildew misted my cheeks.

  My hand closed on its neck, fingers clamping around greasy feathers and the bone underneath. I gave it a twist, wringing its neck with a clickity clackity ratcheting noise. I pulled to the left, trying to yank the damned thing off me.

  The head popped free in my hand.

  Gore shot out of the neck stump in a gout, splashing over me. I closed my eyes in time to keep that shit out of them, but it still washed my skin in a cold spray that stunk to high heaven. The body spasmed, falling away in a tear of claws.

  My head swam in a hot, sticky rush as the venom soaked into my skin through the holes left by the claws. I wiped my eyes with my right arm, the other one holding the stillsnapping head away from me. Vision cleared, I saw the body of the cockatrice stumbling to and fro, falling and getting back up. Running around like a cockatrice with its head cut off.

  Excuse me, torn off.

  The head in my hand jerked, fanged beak snapping, looking for a mouthful. I threw it away from me. It sailed through the air, still snapping. The body had fallen and lay quivering.

  My hand closed on a rail to steady myself. The venom burned in my veins, making my stomach feel like it was full of boiling oil. I was at the bottom of the steps to the church.

  Boothe was about ten feet away. He stood on two crooked legs, feet burst out of his boots into big, paddlesized paws. Massed with muscle and damn near seven and a half feet tall, eight with the ears, every inch of him was covered in short gray fur except his white chest. Big pink eyes rolled in his oval skull as he lashed out left and right, crushing unholy beasts with each strike. He had the bowie knife in a clawed hand. It flashed pneumatically in the waning light, stabbing his attackers over and over again. Blood ran freely from scratches and bites, staining his fur. He had waded in, taking the brunt of the first wave, and he had paid the price for it.

  Blair was a flurry of action, blond hair swirling as she spun like a ballerina. Her hands taloned, she tore into the little creatures like they were stuffed animals. She was the personification of liquid, graceful death. Her fangs glistened in the moonlight, and she was covered in the gore of dozens of fallen cockatrices.

  Special Agent Heck had one cockatrice that danced in front of him, hopping from leg to leg, a hissing bundle of homicide. His gun was locked open and laying on the ground. His suit was tattered, bloody slashes showing under on his legs. He stumbled. The cockatrice struck with a hiss. It leaped, claws out as it flew.

  Special Agent Heck righted himself, flinging his arm out. Blessed salt struck the cockatrice in a slicing arc.

  It looked like he had struck it with a Louisville Slugger.

  It flailed, tumbling to the ground as he scrambled away, thin reptile skin boiling with smoke. It writhed, holy salt eating through it like burning embers through toilet paper. Special Agent Heck stepped over it, turning the jar upside down. He dumped salt on the smoldering beast until it stopped twitching.

  Ronnie had a cockatrice on the ground, held under one foot. A dozen ghost spiders had latched on to the thing, fangs sunk deep. It twitched and whipped like it was being electrocuted. Bits and pieces of cockatrice lay scattered around her like garbage strewn by stray dogs. She was covered in dirt and gore, but looked whole and unharmed.

  She was staring at the cockatrice under her foot, hair hanging in a thick ringlet curtain around her face. She looked up, meeting my gaze. Her eyes were glowing red, casting shadows under her cheekbones.

  What the hell?

  I pushed it away, my eyes searching for Tiff. A gunshot behind me spun me on my heel. Tiff stood on the top step, pistol in one hand, machete in the other. A cockatrice tumbled down the stairs, thumping along in a flurry of shed feathers like a molting volleyball. It bounced to a stop at my feet.

  A second cockatrice perched on the railing of the stairs, horned claws wrapped around the rusty metal. It leaped with a ripping squawk, yellow tongue lashing around, toothed beak spread wide and full of venom. My heart cramped as it flew toward Tiff. I swung the gun in my hand up. Too close, I might hit her.

  Tiff spun on one heel, machete held close, blade out, slicing the air in a wicked arc around her.

  The last cockatrice split in two, falling in halves around her to plop wetly on the brick porch of the church.

  She wiped her hand down the front of her zipped jacket, sluicing off the gore splattered there. She flicked it away from her fingers. “Gross.”

  “You looked pretty good there, little girl.”

  She walked down the steps. “I had a good teacher.”

  “True that.”

  My eyes searched for cuts and scratches. There was one across the back of her hand. It was red, puffy, and leaking a yellow fluid, but other than that she was unharmed, her leather outfit was apparently tougher than cockatrice claws.

  Thank You Lord.

  Turning, I found Boothe staggering over. His muscles were spasming, gray fur receding. His ears shrank. The bones of his skull shifted, re-forming. I could hear them grind together. He stumbled as his legs broke and reknitted into human formation.

  He knelt where he had fallen, bent in half. His ribs flared as he tried to suck in air.

  I went over, grabbing his shoulder, keeping him from falling on his face. His skin was ice, so cold it burned my palm. He was whole, all his cuts and scratches healed with his shift. He looked up at me. His eyes were solid red, the crimson pupils dilated to cover his pink irises; every blood vessel in the whites had burst, spilling out to stain his cornea. Sweat ran down his waxy skin in rivers. Jaw muscles bulged as his teeth ground together.

  I knelt beside him. The ground was wet with cockatrice blood, soaking through my pants. He looked at me, eyes unfocused. Unseeing. “You all right, man?”

  He didn’t respond, just ground his teeth louder.

  Ronnie’s eyes had bled back to their normal almond brown. Her head tilted as she looked at Boothe. I realized they were nearly the same height with her standing and him kneeling. “He’s taken too much of the cockatrice venom. His change has sealed it inside his body.”

  I looked her up and down. There were scratches along her arms and legs, thin crooked lines where cockatrice nails had cut into her. Blood crusted her forearm where it had run from a double row of punctures that circled it. I nodded at the bite. “How are you holding up?”

  She looked down, turning her arm slowly. “Venom does not hurt us.” Her arm dropped to her side. Ghost spiders sat on her shoulders, staring at me with pinprick red eyes. “He needs to rest. He will recover, but it will take a while.”

  “I’ll take him back to the car.” My hands slipped under the big lycanthrope’s arms. Ronnie reached over, stopping me.

  “We can take him.”

  I looked at her. She was five foot even and voluptuous. She had a good shape,
but other than dancing, didn’t do anything to exercise. Boothe was six foot seven and covered in meaty bodybuilder muscle. He was going to be a struggle for me to move.

  Bending my knees, I prepared to lift with my legs. I was going to put him in a fireman’s carry to get him back to the Comet.

  Ronnie pushed me away with one hand.

  I stumbled back two or three steps. The tiny dancer hooked Boothe under his arms, straightened, and scooped him up like a newlywed groom carrying his bride over the threshold. “I’ll take him to the car and we will watch him. We will keep him safe.”

  She turned and started down the hill. Boothe’s fingers trailed the ground with each step. She moved fluidly and gracefully, as if she were walking across a room unhindered instead of carrying three-hundred plus pounds of unconscious Were-rabbit over rough terrain. Two rows of ghost spiders marched behind her in a line of translucent death.

  “That’s something you don’t see every day,” Special Agent Heck said.

  “It’s not the weirdest shit I’ve seen on this job.”

  I took in his torn suit. I couldn’t see any blood on the suit, the black material wicked it away into hiding, but where the material gaped there were scratches. “How are you?”

  “My head is pounding, but the blessed salt did a good job absorbing the cockatrice venom before it could do too much damage. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be in worse shape than Mr. Boothe.”

  “So you’re ready to rock?”

  He nodded. I turned to Tiff, her hair was drying stiffly into gore shellacked curls. “How about you, little girl?”

  She lifted the machete. “Born ready.”

  I slapped a fresh clip into the .45, settled my shoulders, and turned to the steps. “Let’s roll.”

  I had taken one step when a southern accent broke the night. “Can I go back to the car?”

  I stopped short. Blair was looking at the ground, blond hair a curtain over her face, hands skimming up and down her arms. The connection between us was buzzing, humming with . . . worry?

  “What did you say?”