by Al K. Line
"And what was it you wanted again?"
"Don't play games with me, Arthur, I am not in the mood. Return what is mine or I shall kill you then I will go into that house and kill everyone you care about. Who is the woman? Penelope?"
"Just someone I met. But c'mon, I think I know you well enough to know you wouldn't really kill them, would you?"
"No, probably not," she admitted. "But I have been known to change my mind. After all, I had every intention of killing you for your intrusion, but look at us now. The best of friends."
"Yeah, besties, that's us."
"So, will you retrieve what is mine?"
"Retrieve? Why, my dear Mabel, it's right here."
And with that I disappeared.
Thinking on My Feet
A gentle bubbling and gurgling filled my ears and darkened my soul as I reached from behind one of Mabel's crones and slit her throat. She dropped dead before she knew what had happened. Witches screamed and shouted, panic setting in, but I twisted the Teleron I held tightly in my hand before anyone had a chance to come wag their finger at me and tell me I wasn't going to get any supper.
Again, I vanished, then was next to another woman, further away this time as none of them were keeping still, which was most inconsiderate as the last thing I wanted was to be melded into a witch for the rest of my life. She whirled as my blade arced, her momentum forcing the knife deeper than I'd have liked. It felt gross as the vibration of the steel hitting her spine right through her throat sang up my arm.
I was away again, appearing behind the last woman who was turning this way and that, trying to anticipate my attack. I whistled and she spun, magic flaring from the tip of a very nice looking wand carved from a red wood I didn't know, but she missed by a fraction and I was upon her, blade already stained with her sisters' blood. I slashed hard and fast, was gone before the blood spurted.
"Surprise," I whispered in Mabel's ear as I appeared right behind her. She hadn't moved a muscle since I began my disappearing act.
Mabel turned her head and smiled. "I'd heard you had one, but didn't believe it. That is a fine artifact you have, Arthur. Would you care to sell it?"
"Hmm, let me think about that. Nah, I'm good." I disappeared, then returned a safe distance in front of Mabel several seconds later, my infinite bag slung over my shoulder, compact yet uncomfortable, weighty yet not weighing a thing, and I almost keeled over backwards until I got used to carrying such a strange item once again. It threw me off balance every time, but I reckoned I needed it now, for it contained something important. Something that had to be explained, maybe even returned if this night was to end with all my important, and even not-so-important, bits intact.
"Let's see what the fuss is all about, shall we?" I said as I reached into the bag.
"What are you doing, you stupid man?" said Mabel, her patience clearly wearing thin.
"I'm getting what you came here for. Do not move," I warned. "One step and I'll be gone, and I will destroy it. You understand?" I glared at her, my face stony, making sure she understood I wasn't messing about, that this had gone on long enough. I'd had a gut's full of the whole bloody business. Hell, I'd only done this to stop the killing, but it was already out of hand. How many dead witches were there now? This was ridiculous.
I wondered again if I should have just left Ivan to deal with it, left him to kill the bloody lot of them. I think maybe I should have.
"As you wish."
"What is wrong with you? Why are you so obsessed with destroying Ivan? And what is with this cauldron? I know magic, and I know artifacts, and there is absolutely nothing that this cauldron could do that you couldn't find another way to accomplish. Whatever it does, you could go after Ivan without it. What's the deal?"
Mabel stared at me but remained silent. If that was how she wanted to play it then fine.
"Well? Answer me."
"You are correct. In fact, it was just an idea, the cauldron. But now, well, it's the principle, isn't it? You stole from me, and that isn't nice."
I remained focused on her, the lights from the stables shining bright, lighting up the whole area. The horses were still noisy, but safe, and at least nobody could sneak up on me. But I wasn't about to look down and give Mabel a chance. Again, I said, "You move a muscle and I'm gone. I will destroy it, and then you. Understand? I may not have much magic inside me, but I can still kill you. You let me live earlier, but you also killed me many times and would have carried on doing so. I showed your women respect even after that, buried them and gave them peace. You let me live because of it. You have morals, you have forgiveness of a sort, so don't push me. I will crush you."
Mabel nodded.
I reached into the infinite bag and grabbed hold. As I pulled my arm out, so the bag expanded, the edges growing fuzzy as space and time and who knows what else rearranged themselves to accommodate this truly magical item. I tried not to think about how it worked. I'd done that in the past and it made my head hurt too much.
Nonetheless, I continued pulling and grinned as I yanked out my prize. It had been easy to take. During the confusion at the house when Vicky had smashed the wall down, I'd grabbed the cauldron in the chaos and stuffed it inside. I hadn't had the chance to inspect it, but I had it. Now Mabel wanted it back. I knew she'd find out, but my plan was to go to her, tell her to keep the peace and I'd return it. No such option now, and I guess it wasn't the smartest of moves. But I'd promised Selma I'd try to get it, and she was sure this held the key to stopping Mabel, so what choice did I have?
"Ta-da," I said with a grin as I pulled my prize out from the bag. It felt bloody heavy, much heaver than I'd remembered.
"A chain?" asked Mabel, frowning. "Don't test me."
I glanced down at the thing in my hand. "Damn, wrong item. That's the problem with infinite bags, it's a bugger to find anything. Hang on, be with you in a jiffy." I reached in again, deeper this time, so deep I worried I'd fall in and be lost for eternity. I rummaged around, all manner of oddities rearranging inside to get my attention. Next out came a furry rabbit that I hurriedly shoved back in; it was one evil beast and no mistake.
Next was a ladder, the first few rungs of metal enough to tell me I had the wrong item, then it was an anchor, but that didn't come out very far as it was from a very special ship and hardly useful when not at sea. Then I grasped warm metal, a curved handle, and I knew I had the right thing.
"Don't move," I warned again as I pulled out the cauldron. The handle creaked as the body of the cauldron swayed back and forth as if pleased to be away from the horrors that lurked within.
Mabel's eyes widened but she remained still. I placed the artifact down on the grass and removed what appeared to be hay from the inside. Good for protection I guess. As I removed the large lump of dry grass, several items tinkled in the bottom of the cauldron. Mabel gasped, I risked a glance down, and there in the bottom of this black bowl were a handful of very shiny pink things.
"Bones? Painted bones?" I asked, not quite sure.
"None of your concern," snapped Mabel.
I tried to figure this out, but couldn't. What were a load of bones, finger bones by the looks of it, maybe a complete hand, doing in the cauldron. And why were they so pink? They were almost luminous.
"Oh no, tell me this isn't them?"
"That depends on what you think them is," growled Mabel, looking anxious as all hell now.
"It's Kinky Bones, isn't it?"
Too late, the bloody things sprang at me and wrapped tight around my throat.
I was going to die at the hands of a set of seriously pissed off bones. Not just any bones, but the Kinky Bones. This wouldn't be nice.
A Kinky Surprise
Everyone thinks of witches as having a certain look, acting a certain way, and doing certain things. I had to adjust my opinion after what I'd been through, but there was still a way about them, a set of traditional values that passed down the many generations, and they all acted and dressed alike for the most part. The deepe
r you went, the more similar they were. Same with wizards. Yours truly being no exception apart from more handsome and skilled than the other scruffy muppets.
Then came Kate, better known as Kinky Bones, short-lived queen of the witches, but never, ever to be forgotten. She came from nowhere, blasting through the ranks of the old, outdated crones, and became one of the first witch queens of the modern era. She embraced the new sexual freedoms of the age, flaunted it, got a reputation the witches disapproved of mightily; she didn't care. Her exploits became legendary, her sexual conquests and perversions shocking both then and now.
She temporarily did away with many of the old ideals, strove for newness, for fresh ideas, for the witches to change and embrace the modern world. This was back in the nineteen twenties, the roaring twenties quite literally for some, including her, for she went too far and paid the ultimate price, with fire.
Kate was burned alive, not by persecutors, but by her own kind. She was too far ahead of her time, certainly too wild, and the old-timers, the witches who'd been around for centuries, wouldn't stand for her meddling and her ideas. She wanted to make the witches into something they weren't, to bring them into the limelight, show off, be proud and in control. Sounds like someone else I knew.
Kinky Bones was powerful and wasn't afraid to show it. She killed numerous sisters who stood against her, and when the old queen died she eliminated the competition in any way she saw fit then took control. She dove headfirst into the heady times of the twenties, embraced the partying and the modern fashions, the new dances, music, and drunken revelry with a wild abandon that shocked most, delighted a few. There was chaos in the witch world for the few years she ruled, until she met her demise. But even death didn't stop her and her obsession with all things perverted and decadent, and chaos followed her to the grave and beyond.
This now dead queen had magic like no other before her, and her death did little to destroy such potent energy. It had to go somewhere, it had to be transformed or it would build and catastrophe awaited, so she became an artifact in her own right. Her corpse refused to burn properly. When the fire died down she still stood, half burned, body intact, hair still there, clothes gone, a macabre smile on her face.
But witches were used to such nonsense and they had their ways. Bury them deep, and far away, and forget, that was their answer, but not this time. Something wasn't right, in fact it was so far from right that for a month nobody would go near the corpse of Kinky Bones. She remained tied to the stake, not rotting, not feeding the worms; even the birds failed to peck out her eyes.
There was something else that kept the witches at bay.
Kinky Bones was pink. Maybe from the flame, maybe from the magic she'd held inside, or maybe she'd always been pink and nobody had known because she always covered up and wore gloves. Her skin shone with an ethereal luminescence, almost dayglo it was so bright, and it terrified the others.
Finally they had an answer. For some strange reason they chopped her up, thinking that would be the end of her and the strange magic that surrounded her and danced above and around her body. But no sooner had she been dismembered than the pieces came together again, and the next day she was whole.
Exasperated, she was boiled, then skinned, until, after several weeks, and a lot of lime, potions, and spells she was nothing but a skeleton. She was pulled apart, and apparently it took two horses to do it, and her bones divided amongst the leaders of the witches. But bad things happened to those who owned her bones, and nobody was prepared to take on the macabre inheritance when those tasked with safeguarding the artifacts died. So she was scattered across the world, young witches tasked with taking the pieces far away and throwing them into the deepest oceans, into volcanoes, placed underground in caves where nobody would find them.
For even her bones were pink, and they became known as the Kinky Bones, just like the woman. Over the years the tales grew wilder, but nobody owned up to keeping any of the bones, for anyone who did would meet an untimely end. There were stories about some of the deaths, none of them nice, of how the bones sent their owners mad, that they would come alive and destroy them, or consume their magic, although when they were found there was never any sign of the bones having moved, only strange markings on the corpse like they'd been battered or choked, strangled or worse.
But it looked like Mabel wasn't bothered by any of that, and she cackled as I stumbled back and landed hard on the ground, five separate digits joined together and strangling me. It wasn't possible. There was nothing connecting each small piece of bone, but a hand it was, and it was annoyed with me for some reason.
"You woke her," cackled Mabel as she strode forward and stood over me, watching as I died.
I would have said, "Ah, so this was your plan. It wasn't the cauldron as such, but what was inside. You were going to let Kinky Bones loose on Ivan, knowing nothing could stop them if he was the focus," but I couldn't, because I was struggling to breathe, so instead I just said, "Argh," or something.
Mabel laughed, a seriously worrying full-on witch cackle, while I flailed about and grabbed at the bones slowly squeezing the life out of me.
As I died, I couldn't help but wonder why this was her chosen way of dealing with Ivan. Then I understood. It was a cruel way to die, as vampires aren't easy to kill, what with the whole regenerating thing. But this, this unstoppable set of bones, it would keep on going, kill and kill again, keep on squeezing as Ivan died and his body refused to do so, fought back with all the vampire strength it could muster. Eventually he would succumb, and Mabel wouldn't have to be anywhere near him.
It was a clever idea, hands-off so to speak. I'd die, come back, die all over again, and like a repeat of my last encounter with this insane woman, it would be easy for her, hard for me. Except, this time my luck would run out.
Sometimes it sucks to be a wizard. I was trying to impress my girlfriend, and as I watched her horrified face, staring around at the bodies yet nonetheless running to me along with George, I knew I'd probably, make that certainly, blown it in a typically epic Hat way.
Grr
Artifacts, by their very nature, are serious and strange objects. Some are sentient, others can be unruly, most are unpredictable, all are dangerous.
The same can be said for wizards. Especially ones who see their new, and soon to be ex, girlfriend and their darling daughter running headlong toward if not certain death then certainly maiming and misery. Plus, I didn't really fancy them having to go out like I was. Being killed by a perverted set of pink bones is not classy, it's downright disgraceful, not to mention embarrassing, so I struggled for all I was worth, not that I was worth much.
Mabel may have thought I was a weakling, that my actions didn't live up to the hype of my name, and so far she'd been right. But this time was different. I was ready and I may not have been as able as I would have liked, but I knew what I had to do and how I'd do it. I had to get into that zone, that place where magic came from, the Quiet Place, and I had to do it quickly. What I'm really saying is, I had to get my mojo back.
You can secure magical energy in numerous ways, and Mabel knew this as well as me. She would have thought I'd maybe got a little but not a lot, but she didn't know what I'd been up to today since I left her, would have assumed I'd rested, tried to recover. I hadn't. I'd been meeting Penelope then having sex in a barn with a stranger that felt like a best friend.
There is a special place where magic always resides, and that's the emotion of the human heart, and sex. Sex magic has been used since the dawn of time, long before humanity understood that this natural yet most sacred and special act is more powerful than any time spent in the Quiet Place. Sex, the act of forging new life, of connecting so deeply with another human being, is a true magic. After all, this immensely complicated series of perfect connections from the entirely physical to the most transcendent is how you create a human life, and nothing is more amazing or wondrous than that. And I, not to boast or anything, but let's face it I was over forty and
over the hill, and utterly knackered before I met Penelope, had done it twice.
What could be more apt when dealing with the pink bones of a sex-obsessed witch?
Inside of me was a chance of life, a kernel of deep-knotted energy forged by the power of emotion and the act of sharing my body with another. The stirrings of life force, of an awakening as the body struggled and tried its best to create another human. A teeny-tiny Hat. That power was stirring. Partly through the act itself and the power it brought to you if you only focused on the wondrous biology going on inside you, but just as much through the emotion that made sex more than a simple yet pleasurable way to spend a few seconds—um, I mean minutes—but something deeper, and much more special. Much more magical.
Hat power of the most primal kind.
Digging Deep
My emotions were running high, and I knew from experience that there's power in emotion. It isn't something you can force, will into being when the time isn't right, that's what settling down in the Quiet Place is for, to access the universe and let its truth enter you.
Just as potent, debatably even more so, is the energy you can harness from inside when your body is thrumming in time to something wondrous, when you're on the right wavelength. It's one and the same really. The underlying nature of the universe at work. I was, after all, a human being, a creature so miraculous, made up of things that by rights should be called magic, that I was a true marvel. Something unbelievably rare. A sentient creature in a universe of almost utter emptiness.
With Penelope on the scene, I was full to bursting with emotions of all kinds, and our little tryst had stirred up deep and powerful chemicals, a furnace fed by the fires of creation itself. I knew I could call on this in my time of need. Call it the body's innate sense of self-preservation because it knew there was a chance to procreate and continue the Salzman gene pool, call it having a reason to live, call it what you will, but I centered myself even as I faded away. Death was standing on an empty beach, waiting for me, as I let magic consume me.