There was a coldness when they went down to greet Violina in the Blue Moon’s lobby. Maisie noted a faint fog accompanying her speech and realized that the coldness was manifesting in a very literal sense.
Now, quietly alarmed by Ysabella’s trembling, constant since the healing of Aura, Maisie held her mentor’s hand and sent waves of vitality into her.
Though Violina and Ysabella were outwardly professional, the tension between them was worse than ever. Maisie was beginning to feel crushed between the conflicting energies.
As they walked to the Ember Hollow Community Center entrance, Violina maintained a default smile that seemed more like an imperious sneer.
“Ooh!” she lilted. “Maisie, what’s another word for quaint?”
Maisie only gave her a quick smile. Violina had a stronger vocabulary than Maisie or anyone else she knew. She never needed anyone’s help with antonyms or anything else. The query was an oblique dig at Ysabella and at this small-potatoes endeavor.
The coven queen did not dignify it, remaining as placid as a Zen monk.
On this summery-warm day, the Center’s doors stood open, allowing in sunshine and errant leaves. With the Community Center serving as an ersatz church during Saint Saturn Unitarian’s “mold” crisis, McGlazer maintained the same habit he had at Saint Saturn’s, of staying available during daylight hours and leaving doors open for folks to come and go.
Stella appeared at the door to sweep out a cluster of leaves that would soon wander back. “Morning! Hope you all slept well! That was some adventure you had!”
As she regarded the guests, Stella had to hide her alarm at Ysabella’s wan, almost sickly appearance. The elder witch clearly had not fully recovered from the exertion of taming Aura. The newcomer who accompanied them, attractive as she was, bore a smile that would shame a shark.
“Hello, dear,” Ysabella grasped Stella’s hand, skipping the small talk. “Is there a private room we could use?”
Stella felt a slight tremble in the witch’s hand. As a wave of agitated energy washed over her, she looked at Maisie and saw a confirming tension in the girl’s face.
The quartet made their way in absolute silence across the center and to the office where the door stood ajar. Stella stuck her head in. “Visitors!”
McGlazer stood up from behind a mountain of paper, ping-pong paddles in mid-repair and decorations for the center’s Halloween lock-in, offering his gracious smile and hand to Violina. The way she extended hers was like a queen expecting a kiss upon her ring. The reverend returned only a kind pat upon it.
“Could they use the office?” Stella asked.
“It’s a terrible mess…”
“Thank you,” said Violina, patting the reverend’s shoulder with what might be condescension as she breezed in and took the seat behind the desk.
Ysabella’s gratitude, though strained, rang sincere.
In the echoing click of the closing door, McGlazer pivoted to Stella. “What’s wrong here?”
* * * *
The plain, wooden office door was like a thick snow cloud, quiet yet pregnant, radiating cold.
Reverend McGlazer and Stella filled the silence by telling Maisie how they had adjusted to using the Community Center as a church. Then they made some small talk about planning the party. Both topics dried up quickly, leaving them all to glance around the basketball court for a new filler.
“Know what? We should introduce Maisie to Pedro,” Stella told McGlazer, starting toward the closed door of the weight room at the other end of the wall from the office.
“He’s the…bass player?” asked Maisie.
“Yes. They’ve been rehearsing h—”
Stella was interrupted by a resounding crack, like a long-dead pine succumbing to gravity and decay. The trio tensed with alarm as they realized it had come from the office door. They looked at it, just as it exploded.
Three large, jagged sections and a mist of splinters flew from the frame like a grenade had gone off.
McGlazer threw himself over both women and brought them to the floor. He covered them with as much of his body as he could, certain that the terrible and towering specter of raging murderess Ragdoll Ruth had escaped both the grave and his nightmares, to claim revenge.
He shot a look back at the now-empty door frame. To his relief, no cackling, doll-costumed harridan emerged to finish the job of killing him.
The weight room door swung open. “What the jumped-up jack-o’-lanterns is going on out here?”
Neither McGlazer nor the stunned ladies he sheltered had an answer for Pedro.
“Is everyone all right?” Ysabella asked from the office threshold. She looked pale and drawn before the skull session with Violina. Now she looked ashen and exhausted.
Pedro, in his sweaty, sleeveless, bloodstained Sex Pistols T-shirt, helped McGlazer and the ladies to stand.
Despite her alarm, Maisie found her appreciation for the male form well intact as she regarded the big bassist. The feel of his calloused fingertips and palms were an appealing contrast to her own well-kept hands.
“I’m Maisie,” she said before she was fully on her feet.
“Pedro.” His smile was as boyish as his arms were powerful. “But you might as well call me Petey.”
“Sorry about the door,” said Violina, flippant as ever. She strolled out of the office behind Ysabella, making a shooing gesture at the door fragments. “I’ll have it replaced.”
“What happened in there?” asked McGlazer.
“Let that stay between us,” Ysabella said.
Maisie scrutinized her mentor’s expression for signs of a resolution. What she found was despair and resignation, as if etched with acid.
Chapter 9
Beyond The Darkness
The post-midnight chill was like a fall from a great height, so violently did it shock Yoshida awake.
Awake?
He was surrounded by forest, under a haloed half-moon.
His feet stung and ached. They were bare and dirty, like the rest of him. “Just great,” he grumbled. “Where the hell am I?”
Shivering, he did a quick three-sixty to find his sleep clothes, cursing when he didn’t. Not that the boxer shorts and T-shirt would offer much warmth, but at least he’d feel less vulnerable.
Yoshida slapped himself, hoping to come out of this new dream level and find himself in his bed, with soft music playing at low volume on the nightstand as usual, his digital clock dimly reassuring him he had many hours of night left. But the slap changed nothing.
Yoshida searched his last memory. It was what it should be—lying in bed, whitewashing the day with some focused breathing to carry him off to slumber.
After that—dashing through the woods—on the hunt.
He didn’t remember killing anything. Only wanting to. Hungering for the chance…
Naked and filthy, he could expect exactly no late travelers to stop and help, if he could even locate the road.
Then, rubbing his cold arms, he circled forty degrees and stared assuredly into darkness between trees. He saw something—but not with his eyes.
The way home.
He could not have given directions if asked, nor could he have seen his own footprints in the dark to retrace them. He could walk to his house, though, in a straight line, with no misgivings, no doubt that he would find his way.
Beginning the trek, Yoshida rubbed the place on his arm where Aura had bitten him but felt nothing.
A hot bath, a cold beer and back to the sack he’d go—hopefully to stay.
* * * *
“Thank goodness, the boys didn’t jump the fence again.” McGlazer said to Stella. He was not about to let anyone enter without him. Not even Hudson.
Though McGlazer’s house was within walking distance of the church, Stella had picked him up, still accustome
d to doting on him from when he was recovering from the crippling assault at the hands of Ragdoll Ruth. “Oh, yeah.” Stella gestured at the gate. “We all know how insistent you are that no one goes in without you.”
She let him out right at the gate. “Did you get some sleep, officers?” he asked Hudson and Yoshida.
“Ten solid hours,” Hudson said. “Leticia apparently threatened to murder anyone dumb enough to wake me.”
Yoshida’s haggard face was his answer.
The three witches gave their greetings. Ysabella looked little better than she had after the ritual to cure Aura. Maisie stood between her elders, a folded white cloth clutched to her chest.
Dennis Barcroft’s flame-painted hearse rumbled around the corner of Ecard Street, loaded down with bodies: Pedro, Jill, DeShaun and Stuart.
“Hmm.” Violina all but rolled her eyes at the cartoonish hearse, but smiled her appreciation for its lanky androgoth driver.
“Now it’s a party,” quipped Hudson.
“Damn right,” said Dennis.
Stella unlocked the gate. “Who’s driving up?”
“Looks like a nice walk, actually,” Ysabella commented, and started doing just that. Only Maisie noted the slight wobble in her gait.
Yoshida issued a quiet, irked huff as he began to follow.
“Maybe you should head home,” Hudson told him. “Pretty obvious you didn’t sleep.”
Yoshida waved him off.
“Something up?” Hudson asked.
“Insomnia, I guess.”
As they trekked up the long hill, the others broke into groups as well.
Maisie looked to Ysabella, as if for permission, and received a knowing smile. The young witch dropped back to greet Pedro, presenting him with a proud smile and the tightly folded cloth she had been hugging.
“No way!” Letting the Sex Pistols T-shirt unfold, Pedro inspected the collar. “You got the blood out!”
“As promised.”
“Don’t tell me it was magic.”
“Of a kind.”
“And the logo ain’t even faded!” He side-hugged her, gave her a kiss on top of the head. “You’re the coolest, lady!”
“‘Sex Pistols’…” She took the shirt from him to make one more inspection of the pristine white fabric. “So…should I give them a listen?”
“If you hear us—old us, that is—then you’ll know.” He flashed a smart-ass grin at Dennis.
Maisie watched him admire the shirt, remembering the day before when she met him at the Community Center and coaxed from him the story of how he had gotten blood on his favorite shirt.
“See, I got scratched during the, ya know, howl-a-baloo with The Fireheads…or Furheads, as it were.”
She laughed so loud it made her instantly self-conscious, until he said “Ah, you ain’t gotta sell it like that.”
It seemed a wild contradiction that this well-muscled, overtly theatrical rock-and-roll personality was so modest, until she learned just a little more about his past. The muscles were more armor than decoration, and the music, escape. These had kept him alive during the kind of harrowing childhood only Candace could top.
“Maybe I could watch you rehearse then,” she said. “Or even record, if we’re around long enough.”
“Maybe we could have a picnic or something first.” He gave her a shy smile. “Believe it or not, I’m a little shy at first.”
“Warm-up picnic, then rehearsals,” Maisie said. “Sounds like a full day to me.”
“It’s a date then,” Pedro said. “’Cause if you chicks are here to do what we’re asking of you, you’re gonna be staying a while.”
* * * *
Dennis bumped against Jill. “Aww, ain’t Petey cute over there snuggling up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch?”
She nudged him back. “Ain’t you cute, though.”
Dennis met her gaze and put both hands over his heart. “There goes all my focus for the day.”
“Don’t you worry, Sugar-Tits,” Jill said. “We finish this demo, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“You’re moving quite well today,” Violina told Ysabella, a curl of the lip betraying her sarcasm.
The crone returned a genuine smile. “Sensible shoes and simple living, Violina.”
“Mmm. That’s all it takes to make it so long?”
“That,” Ysabella said, “and disregard for petty slights.”
“You scared?” DeShaun asked Stuart, too quiet for the others to hear.
“Nope!” The answer came quickly. Stuart had expected the question. “But I swear, DeShaun, if you so much as goose me, jump out of the shadows, make creepy moan sounds”—Stuart counted off the many possibilities on his fingers—“do your Candyman impersonation, or your Pinhead impersonation, or your Pennywise…”
“Dude,” DeShaun stopped, grabbing him by the arm, “you saved my life up there.”
Stuart felt his face flush. “Yeah, well. I guess you owe me, huh?”
“Always will.”
“Then you can talk your parental units into not moving, and we’ll call it even.”
“I’m trying like hell, man,” DeShaun said, stone serious.
“Either way…” Stuart held out his hand and the little scar there, and DeShaun displayed its match on his hand.
* * * *
“Do me a favor and stay with them,” Hudson said to Yoshida, nodding at McGlazer, Stella and the witches as he led the others around to the maintenance shack built against the church’s least-seen side.
“I don’t get why we can’t start ahead,” said Pedro.
“’Cause it ain’t our place to come and go as we please, meathead,” explained Dennis.
“Since when are you such a square?”
“Abe’s the only one with a key anyway.” Hudson yanked down the sign reading no entry by order of cronus county health department he had fudged when they locked it down. “Even Stella didn’t get one.”
“Anybody else freaking out a little bit?” asked DeShaun.
“Don’t worry.” Stuart opened his backpack and reverently withdrew from it something that looked like a slate-gray corndog.
“Mega-sparkler!” DeShaun exclaimed.
“You know those aren’t even remotely legal,” said Hudson.
“Sorry, sir.” Stuart’s apology was sincere.
“Just put it away,” warned Hudson. “Unless you need it.”
* * * *
As he entered, McGlazer looked around the stained-glass-filtered sanctuary wistfully. Stella gave him a gentle pat on the arm.
“Don’t tell me you already miss the place.” Violina’s tone held understated mockery.
“I just hope I won’t have to.”
“We’ll get your church back up and running,” Ysabella said. “If that’s what you really want.”
McGlazer didn’t ask her to elaborate. “This is where…Ruth beat the hell out of me with the gun.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Maisie. “Is it…painful to be here?”
“It will be if I…if we never hold services here again.”
“Violina, would you be so kind as to sage?” asked Ysabella, subtly supporting herself against a pew. “Every room, please.”
“Saging?” Violina gave a smug smile. “That’s more of an apprentice task.” She looked to Maisie, who was already drawing a bundle of the dried herb from her bag
“Our ghost loved to play this,” Stella strode almost wistfully to the organ, “and scare the living daylights out of me.”
Ysabella beheld the mahogany instrument dreamily, touching a D key but not quite playing it. “No longer?”
“Not since Halloween before last.” Stella gave a self-conscious smile. “Sometimes I almost miss it.”
The witch laughed. “I shou
ldn’t promise to bring it back.”
They proceeded to the hallway beyond the sanctuary’s rear door, leaving Maisie to smudge the room with the smoking sage bundle.
Discreetly, Violina lingered.
In the hallway, McGlazer pointed to his office door. “Here is where I first became…possessed.”
Ysabella opened it and stepped in, leaving the light switch untouched, remembering the power was off. “No windows.”
“The place needs a lot of renovations. Modernization.”
“And light,” added Ysabella.
Chapter 10
Procession
Maisie, mostly a jeans-type girl, had worn an out-of-season floral skirt, as Ysabella sometimes did, once again in defiance of the black-garbed witch stereotype. Was the girl imitating her role model? Or was this in deference to the fundamentalist Christian directive against women wearing pants in a church?
Violina was sure it was one or the other, or both. The young enchantress was impressionable, malleable—and this would be useful.
“Maisie, sweetie.” Violina placed a motherly hand on Maisie’s arm as the girl waved her burning sage around the foyer. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Maisie ceased her mumbled chant. “Oh, no, it’s fine!”
“I feel bad about talking down to you the way I just did.” Her face filled with shadow as she made a contrite expression. “As if…this was beneath me, and you were a lesser witch.”
“No apology needed. I am still learning.”
“We all are,” Violina continued. “And I should know by now that no one is above doing good work. Can I help?” She took the smoldering bundle and divided it.
“I’d be honored!”
“Our rocker boys are handsome, aren’t they? I see you’re friendly with the bass player.”
“Pedro. He’s really nice.”
“Nicely muscled, right?”
Maisie giggled. “That’s a bonus.”
“I think he’s a good match for you. His energy syncs with yours.”
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