“Thanks, Fracco.”
We tossed back our shots and pounded our beers.
By two fifteen we were parked outside the library. Old Ben sat upon the steps, looking up at the stars. I stopped before him and stared. He didn’t seem to notice, but Mushi turned to regard me.
“Gimme a minute,” I said.
He shrugged and went inside.
“What it is, Ben?”
Old Ben was startled. He looked as if he didn’t know me and turned back to the sky. I took a seat beside him. “What can you tell me about Eldermaster Maximillian Snelbecker?”
He smiled, even laughed to himself. “There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him,” Ben quoted himself.
“Are you saying he’s a good man?”
Ben nodded.
“Where have you been? You know I got Azazel on my ass? The corruptor of mankind?”
Ben turned his gaze to the sky once more. “What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is that they don’t want to discourage it completely.”
“Gee, that’s great, Ben, but I got a serious problem here.”
He regarded me with a withering glare.
“You know I really wish you could just speak without this riddle-past-quote shit.”
He shook his head slowly as he gazed through the spell shield at the stars. I had a feeling he knew more than he was saying. He had shown quite an aversion to the demon at the Marks’s residence. At first I had thought it was because he was a ghost and naturally feared such a supernatural foe, but now I had my doubts it wasn’t something deeper.
“What are you not telling me?”
He looked to me with a yearning to speak plainly. “There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him,” he said again.
I too looked at the sky. “Well again, Ben, thank you for your—”
He was already gone.
I entered the library and found Mushi sitting at the far end with Melody.
“Mush told me all about it,” she said when I walked up, looking concerned.
“Mush?” I said.
He winked. “That’s what she calls me.”
“Sounds like you’re part of a dogsled team.”
“Yeah? And Mushi sounds soggy,” she retorted.
“Christ almighty. Who gives a shit, you guys?” said Johnny.
I sat down and leaned in as Mrs. Greene offered our table a disapproving glare. “Melody, can you curse me not to sleep?”
“Uh, why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Yeah? And it’s a powerful curse—it could kill you.”
“So could sleeping.”
She searched my eyes. “Does this have something to do with Azazel?”
“Something like that.”
She considered for a moment. “A curse like that is too dangerous.”
“What about a potion? Something that’ll keep me up. You witches got a Red Bull spell?”
“Oh man, Red Bull…I forgot about that stuff,” said Mushi.
“Yeah, good stuff. Mix it with vodka and you either end up naked or fighting,” I said.
“Or fighting naked.” Melody laughed.
“Exactly!” said Mushi.
Mrs. Greene gave us an exaggerated shush—though there was no one else in the library.
“I’ve never made an insomnia potion,” said Melody, quietly.
“Can you?”
She gave me a flat stare. “Of course I can. I just have to do a bit of research and gather the materials if I don’t have them at home.”
“Great!” I got up. “Let’s go.”
“Now?” She looked at her watch.
“If you would. I’ve been up for over twenty-four hours. I can go longer, but it won’t be pretty.”
She rose with a sigh. “All right, let’s go see what I have at home.”
“Been a long night…” Mushi stretched his arms and yawned. “You kids go on, I’m going home.” He winked at me.
I rolled my eyes when Melody glanced my way.
Mushi’s smirk grew.
“All right, Mush, see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah, bro. Be ’round about noon.”
“If I’m not home, I’ll probably be at Trinity,” I added.
“Later, Mush,” said Melody.
We hopped on my scooter and buzzed to her place at a cool ten miles per hour. The weather remained warm, and the star-filled sky still shone beyond the spell shield. I was surprised that Melody wasn’t afraid of being around me, given that I had just been attacked. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to her that they would attack again.
“So when did Ben Franklin’s ghost first come to you?” she asked.
“He started appearing to me a few years back.”
“You know you sound like a nut job when you say that?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“So…what does he say?” she asked.
“He tells me how to lure them away from public places…and where to put the bodies.”
Silence followed.
In the mirror I saw her roll her eyes—but she was smiling.
“Ooh, scary. Shut up, you dumbass,” she said. “If you were up to no good, I would have known a long time ago.” She punched my arm and added, “Asshole.”
She was still smiling though.
We pulled up to a townhouse on Cedar Street—red brick with black shutters and a gray-blue door. The place didn’t look like much from the outside. The inside was a different story. In the days before the Culling, this place could have gone for a few million. Likely, some rich douche had lived here, but now it was home to a coven of witches.
The kitchen was bustling with activity. Witches and wizards tend to be night owls. The forces we do battle against aren’t broad-daylight types. They like lurking in the shadows, baying at the moon—that kind of nocturnal creepy shit. The coven of cackling twenty-something witches stopped and stared… and I swear to Dog, the music even stopped playing.
There were four of them, all of whom looked to have just had a hair-dying contest. Their perked heads were a sea of pink, blue, green, silver, red, orange, and what have you. They couldn’t really help looking a bit Goth in their all black attire.
“Everybody, meet Orion Rezner. Orion, this is everybody,” said Melody.
I smiled. “Hello, everybody.”
One of them, a plump, freckle-faced woman with orange hair, scowled at me. “High Priestess, you said no men allowed in the house after sundown…ever. This is bat wings!” The others clucked agreement and half-hearted outrage.
Melody headed up the stairs. “He’s not a man, he’s a wizard.”
I began to laugh but caught myself. “Hey, wait a minute…”
“Fire up the cauldron—I’ve a potion to make.” She spoke to no one in particular, but beckoned me upstairs.
The stairwell had a crazy, psychedelic design on the side wall that made me want to puke, but aside from that, the interior was all whites, earthy greens, and browns. The second floor boasted the same light-brown hardwood floors—and not the laminated crap, real hardwood.
She led me down a long hall with three doors on either side. At the end of the hall was another door. She bent and whispered a word into the keyhole, and the door clicked open. I followed her inside. For a room that belonged to the High Priestess of a coven of witches, it looked…normal. A four-poster bed sat against the far wall, flanked by a pair of whitewashed dressers. To the right, a large bay window with a reading nook took up most of the wall. To the right of it sat a vanity with an oval mirror. To the left was a large bookcase built into the wall. She went over to it and began scanning the titles.
“Here.” She took out what I assumed to be a potion book and sat down at the end of the bed, flipping through pages. I sat next to her and looked on.
“Here it is,” she said, running her finger down the ingredients list. “Water-based potion: three coffee beans, three tea leaves, one dried bat wing,
one white owl feather, bull bile, werewolf scat…yeah, I think we have most of this on hand.” She closed the book and headed for the door.
I followed.
“Werewolf scat?” I asked, with a laugh. “Is that what I think it is?”
She smiled back at me. “Yup, werewolf shit.”
“Yummy.”
I followed her through the living room to the kitchen, where she went to a shelf, high in the pantry. It was full of jars with tags like vampire fang, toad spit, dried seahorse, butterfly wings, fish eyes, and a variety of other unsavory items.
“Quite a collection you got here,” I said.
She handed me a basket and began loading jars. “This is nothing, barely the basics. You should see the collection at Harvard Witchcraft—they even have unicorn horn.”
“Unicorn? Those are real?”
“Oh, yes. They’re very shy—even harder to find than Sasquatch.”
After adding the last of the jars, she referred back to her book and concluded that we were ready.
I followed her out the back door and across a small deck. The witches had started a raging fire beneath a big cauldron. As we approached, a blond bombshell smiled at me with an I could eat you in one bite stare.
“Who’s your friend?” she asked Melody, almost purring.
“Orion, this is Ezmerelda Black.”
Melody took the basket from me, and Ezmerelda cast a small scowl at her as she walked past. I moved to follow, but Ezmerelda blocked my path with a pair of plump twins that bounced as she spoke. Her tight, black-leather pants and leather vest were busting at the seams. Her cleavage was so deep you’d need a miner’s helmet to navigate down there.
She threw back her pink-and-blue-streaked blond hair with a sultry toss of her head and looked me up and down. “I’ve seen you around school. Weren’t you in my demonology class last year?”
“I think so. Nice to meet you,” I said, brushing by her to join the others at the cauldron.
I had met women like her before, and they had always gotten on my nerves. She reminded me of one of those too-full-of-themselves cheerleaders from the old high school movies. All tits and ass and attitude. She was about six feet tall and gorgeous—the problem was, she knew it.
“Hi, I’m Ginger,” said the freckle-faced, orange-haired girl.
“Orion. Nice to meet you.”
A woman around twenty, with a red and brown, medium-sized afro, offered me a perfect smile. She shook my hand and introduced herself as Whitney. The last witch was a wisp of a woman, no taller than five feet. She had green hair and eyes and regarded me with a shy half-smile as she stirred the cauldron with a small boat paddle.
“This is Clover Green,” Melody informed me.
“Hello, Clover,” I said.
She nodded at me and turned wide eyes back to her work.
“Would you do the honors, Clover?” Melody handed her the potions book, already open to the page.
Clover’s voice was quiet. “Thank you, High Priestess.”
She took up the book and read over the page. The other witches, Melody included, began dancing around the fire, and I turned to move out of their way.
“I need one of your hairs,” Clover said, in her mousy voice.
Handing over a piece of your DNA to a witch is generally a bad idea. With but a drop of blood or a single piece of hair, they can target you with their magic over great distances. As givers of life, witches have a strong bond to the living world. For this reason they are usually more proficient at magic directed toward living things. They are also empaths and highly sensitive to emotional fields. I suspected that Clover was a very sensitive empath. They tend to be quiet and seemingly withdrawn, favoring solitude or small groups.
I reached up and plucked a piece of hair from my mop.
Aside from the cauldron, the back yard featured another fire pit and a circle of seven Adirondack chairs. A small herb garden took up the entire right side, so I sat on the grass under the big willow tree on the left.
Clover began a low, almost inaudible chant, which the others repeated more fervently. She tossed in my hair as she stirred the caldron. The coffee beans went next, followed by the tea leaves, bat wing, owl feather, and werewolf “scat.” The potion bubbled and hissed as the witches’ voices rose up and echoed off the adjacent houses. They began to thrash and gyrate as multicolored sparks fizzled out of the bubbling concoction. Clover tossed in the bull bile and dipped in a long ladle. Carefully, she poured it into a silver bowl.
The witches ended their ritual and moved to inspect the potion—all except Ezmerelda, who sauntered her way over to me. The night was warm, and a thin sheen of sweat added to her luster. I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be smuggling M&Ms in her bra.
She fanned herself. “Practicing the Craft always gets me so…mmm…”
As I got up, I did my best to seem super interested in the potion and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
When it had cooled down enough, Melody poured some into a long, metal vial and handed it to me.
“Give it a try.”
The others crowded around and watched with interest.
“Just a bit,” she warned. “About two tablespoons, no more often than every four hours or so.”
“Bottoms up!” I said, and tipped back the vial.
What hit my tongue tasted like a crappuccino. I choked it down, trying not to think of the werewolf scat that had gone into its making. My heart fluttered, and my fatigue washed away like I’d been hit by an ice-cold waterfall. I took in a shuddering breath.
Ezmerelda bit her lip and shuddered with me.
Ginger rolled her eyes and offered her a withering glance. “Try to control yourself, Sex Kitten.”
“So?” Melody asked me.
“Wow,” was all I could say. I felt ready to run a marathon.
She turned and headed toward the kitchen’s sliding glass doors. “Thank you, sisters.”
“Thanks, ladies,” I said, in tow.
“Nice to meet you,” said Whitney.
“My pleasure,” Ezmerelda purred.
“Oh, shut up…” Ginger huffed.
An argument broke out as I followed Melody to the front door.
“Lively group,” I said.
“Yeah, sorry about Ezmerelda…she’s not always that bad.”
I shrugged and pursed my lips. “Who can blame her?”
Melody laughed and playfully pushed me out the door. “Goodnight, Rezner.”
I walked to my scooter. “Thanks a lot, Melody.”
“Oh, and Rezner,” she added. “You owe me one.”
Chapter 17
The No Name Group
I returned to my apartment around three o’clock in the morning. Judging by the contents of the vial, I had about a dozen doses. I figured it would last me a few days. As I parked the scooter, a bird squawked in the distance, and I turned to find a big falcon flying toward me. It swooped down and landed on the railing of my apartment stairs. Attached to its right leg was a small tube with what looked like a twist top. The falcon squawked again and eyed me sideways. When I didn’t move, the bird pecked at the tube—apparently, the contents were for me.
Fully expecting to get pecked, I carefully reached for it, not taking my eyes off the falcon’s beak. When I had untied it and twisted off the top, the bird leapt into the air and flew away.
“Thanks…” I said absently.
Glancing around, I retrieved the rolled-up piece of paper inside. Maximillian’s writing was scribbled on it.
Speak your name, the note read.
I did so and new words wrote themselves across the paper.
Orion,
If you want to help the children, meet me at Trinity Church and bring Mushiro. Also, check your apartment for the chimp. He escaped from Harvard.
-M. S.
PS: Drop this letter!
I let go of the note immediately as it burst into flame and turned to ash. Movement in the window caught
my attention. Dude stared back at me, standing in the sill, with his hands on his hips like Superman.
I laughed. “You da chimp!”
He jumped up and down, pounding on the glass. How Dude had gotten in was beyond me. He never divulges his secrets. I ran up the stoop and unlocked the front door, and he leapt into my arms immediately.
“Somebody told me you escaped—you know you’re just going to piss ’em off, right?”
He responded with a fart noise.
“My thoughts exactly. Come on, we gotta pick up Mushi and meet Maximillian at Trinity.”
He signed, “Father.”
“Yeah, Killroy is probably there.”
He was out the door and on the scooter in no time.
Mushi’s ride was chained to the metal railing of his stoop—he was home. I pounded on the door and waited. When he didn’t answer, I knocked again.
“It’s me, Mushi. Get up, man…it’s important!”
A window opened on the second floor. Mushi poked his sleepy head out of it and scowled.
“Rez, man, it’s like middle of night,” he said, yawning.
“It’s important, man. Open up!”
Dude leapt from my back, expertly climbed up to the window, and disappeared inside. A commotion ensued, followed by Mushi’s curses, and the window slammed shut. Shortly after, the door opened.
“Thanks, Mushi.”
He grunted and turned toward the kitchen, scratching his ass and moving like a zombie. I sat at the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room. He mumbled a spell, and a candle in each corner of the kitchen lit up.
Showoff.
“What you need, Rez?” He opened the fridge and stared at its stark contents. No light came on inside, but the fridge still worked…kind of. Mushiro, like many wizards, used a spell stone to keep his fridge cold. I had one too, though I had yet to master the enchantment. Mine only worked for a day or so at a time, while Mushi’s lasted nearly a week.
“I need you to get dressed and come to Trinity church. I think Maximillian is recruiting us to a secret task force.”
He perked up slightly. “Task force for what?”
“I don’t know, man. It has to do with helping the children of the Cain.”
Afterworld (The Orion Rezner Chronicles Book 1) Page 14