Knight in Charlotte

by Edward McKeown

  “We have you now,” shouted one of the Echols twins, her hair twisting and flailing though there was no wind.

  Llewellyn’s eyes went wild and she raised clawed hands. A cloud of fire burst from her fingertips, aimed at Jeremy. Prosperine leapt in front of him, her hands cutting symbols in the air that burned green. The bolt of fire rebounded at a right angle, into the Echols who shrieked and dodged

  Jeremy raced around Prosperine, sword raised. Llewellen glared at him. “Slow,” she commanded.

  And Jeremy did, into a nightmarish feeling of crawling in slow motion, of running through treacle. Prosperine broke the spell by hauling him backward; her powers as a familiar seemed to disrupt the witch’s abilities.

  “We’re in a witch bubble,” Prosperine shouted, “a ball of space-time they made. I can’t break it. We’re dead if we can’t escape. Summon the angel.”

  “Shadowheart,” Jeremy called out, “help us.” He’d never had to summon his guardian angel before. She’d always appeared when needed. There was no answer, and Jeremy knew fear. For the first time since they had been joined in Scotland years ago, he was out of touch.

  The Echols twins recovered, hair singed and smoldering; they too waved their arms. The air filled with shards of sharpened steel. “Steel Rain,” the Echols cackled and the barrage of pointed metal flashed toward them.

  This time Jeremy thrust Prosperine behind him and whirled the bloodsword in a figure eight. The steel rain fell to the ground as natural water.

  Llewellen fired a lightning bolt at them and the charge fell on the bloodsword, which glowed blue but neither took nor transmitted harm from the bolt.

  “A Templar,” snarled Echol One, “with a familiar to block our spells. Oh, someone will suffer for this.”

  “Hold them under fire,” Llewellen said. “I’ll return with the others.” She wrapped a fold of her cloak over her face and disappeared. Bolts flew from the Echols and Jeremy parried frantically

  Prosperine’s hands waved, leaving behind a glowing net in the air. “Use the jewel. I’ll protect us.” The glowing net enveloped them

  Jeremy knelt and placed the gem to his forehead. Shadowheart, he sent, find me. Find me. Hurry. There was the sense of shouting into a great distance that did not echo. Then with a snap that dazed him, contact was made. Jeremy felt himself pulled spinning into the sky.

  Alone.

  Below, still in her net of blue, Prosperine’s outraged face turned up to him. Llewellen reappeared with five witches. They surrounded Prosperine, closing in with blasts of fire and smoke, swarming over the familiar.

  “Nooooooooooo,” he screamed. Then she was lost to sight and he was in an icy limbo with neither light nor sound.

  Suddenly the universe reappeared and he fell, landing on the side of a forested hill outside the warehouse, near where they had parked. He felt hands that held no human warmth on him and looked up into the eyes of his Guardian Angel’s youthful manifestation.

  “Jeremy,” she said, her blue eyes wide with shock. “Where were you? How did this happen? It felt like you were on the other side of the universe, I could barely get a trace—”

  “Never mind,” he cried, leaping up. “You left Prosperine behind. The witches have her.”

  Shadowheart raised her hands. “She was with you? Jeremy, I could not see her. Even with the stone’s help and all my power I could barely touch you. It was as if you no longer existed.”

  “Can you send us back?” he demanded.

  She shook her head, biting her lip. “No, Jeremy. I have no idea where you were.”

  “Damn,” he said. “God damn it all to hell. She’s probably dead by now. And she died thinking I abandoned her. Ran like a gutless coward. Oh, some knight, some Templar I am.”

  Shadowheart gave him a puzzled look and again put her hand on his shoulder. “Jeremy, remember what Prosperine was, a demon familiar. If she fought by your side it was because she had no means to flee. She’d have left you behind in an instant if she could and without these pangs of conscience, as she has none.”

  “We have to see if she’s still alive,” he demanded.

  Shadowheart startled him with a rueful laugh. He looked at her, angry and offended. “Oh Jeremy, and I so doubted your faith. Here you are trying to rescue a familiar because deep down you think there is something worth saving in everyone. Oh poor child, poor child, I thought you a cynic and you are the most dewy-eyed of innocents. You need a better angel than I to protect you. I’ve never understood you even a little.”

  He looked at her face, gone sad and distant. “Well I don’t know about any of that, but I want to see if we can find her.”

  She nodded. “Tell me everything you saw and heard.”

  Shadowheart paced as Jeremy filled her in. “Kitsune has her victims nearby. While you were inside,” she said, gesturing across the street, “a legion of women in pink showed up at the Sleeping Dragon restaurant.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, fighting fatigue. “The dojo? Right, it’s a vegetarian restaurant too. Kitsune must have rented it.”

  He flipped open his cell phone and called Bob.

  “Diablesse,” Bob answered.

  “Leclerc. The ceremony is tonight and the bad guys have Prosperine.”

  “Did you complete the mission?”

  “Yes, damn it, but they sprang a witchtrap on us. I got away but they have your familiar.”

  “Wow, I’ll miss her.”

  “She may still be alive,” Jeremy said.

  “Bummer for her,” Bob replied. “They’ll probably eviscerate her or something.”

  “Gather your forces and meet us at the Pink Lady Warehouse across from the Sleeping Dragon on Steel Creek.”

  Bob laughed. “Oh, Jeremy, you kill me. Hey, revel in the fact that you’ve set the witches up for disaster, saved the town and reduced the demonic population by one familiar.”

  Jeremy stared at the phone, then put it back to his ear. “You’re going to leave her? Doesn’t she have value?”

  “Oh, yeah, but not enough to tangle with dozens of powerful witches and warlocks at night on their turf. I renounce her.” He hung up.

  Jeremy looked at Shadowheart. “Looks like it up to us.”

  “Yes,” she said softly, “but understand, as witches are humans, my powers against them are limited in the Realm of Earth. We will be in peril of our existence.”

  Jeremy considered. “I guess it comes down to the question of who we are. How can you tell the good guys from the bad if we act the same? Ends may sometimes justify means, but not always and not tonight.”

  Shadowheart morphed before his eyes into her tall, black-haired, warrior princess form, black and red wings spread wide. She put her arms around his chest. “Then let us face our doom.” She vaulted into the sky with a rustle of great wings.

  The ground fell away and they rose to about five hundred feet, well above any stray beam from the streetlights. The wind whipped Jeremy’s hair and coat and he was grateful for it in the coolness. Shadowheart’s black hair streamed out behind her as her wings beat slowly, with surprisingly little sound. But the night was not quiet. Every sound of a human city, traffic, voices, airplanes, reached him. He spied a couple walking a dog and wondered what would happen if they suddenly looked up.

  They flew south over the Sleeping Dragon. He could have used every black belt in it, but no fierce warriors laired below tonight. The parking lot was filled with pink cars and women walking into the building under pink parasols and hats.

  The warehouse remained dark, save for a few small lights near the main entrance. In the parking lot beyond, he saw bobbing blue will-oh-wisps and shadowy figures. Shadowheart dove for the treetops in a motion that made Jeremy gulp, and landed in cover of some trees and bushes, just short of the asphalt.

  “Closer than this I cannot go unless we plunge into open battle,” she said, her voice strained. “They have many magical safeguards I’ve circumvented and I have wrapped us in a magic they cannot
see through. I cannot remain undetected closer than this. There are at least thirty powerful witches and warlocks out there.”

  He looked up at his towering angel. “Only stealth serves us now. We must wait till the Witchwind is summoned and the pentagram breaks. Then I can race in and find Prosperine, if she is still alive. Can you hold the Witchwind off me?”

  “Yes. But you must hurry back to me. The range of my defense is only tens of feet if I must battle witches at the same time.”

  Jeremy nodded and, drawing his bloodsword, circled around the parking lot. A couple of vans were parked back there and he moved among them. Finally, as close as he dared, Jeremy saw the coven. Witches and warlocks stood in the pentagram, drawn on the parking lot’s surface. As he watched, the horrid candles were lit. The witches outlined the shape of the pentagram with their bodies and there, just outside the pentagram, lay Prosperine, nude, bound and bruised.

  Kitsune stood forth, dressed in a white and orange kimono that changed shape and colors as they watched. Behind her the coven began to chant in a low deep voice.

  “Shu,” Kitsune called. “I invoke the ancient bargain. Souls and life I offer you, including this traitorous familiar.” She glared down at Prosperine, who returned the favor. “Come, sup deep and refill our powers, rejuvenate our bodies and our fortunes.”

  The trees rustled. The chanting rose. Leaves and paper trash began to whirl about. Prosperine rolled onto her back. A snarl burst from her lips. But the sound was quickly drowned by blasts of wind that struck in the lot, rocking the van near Jeremy. The wind rolled over him, feeling somehow filthy, cold and hungry. Yet it did not bite. Shadowheart held the hungry wind off him but Jeremy could feel its malicious intelligence questing about, as if it knew something was there but frustrated was unable to seize on it.

  Jeremy, stand ready, Shadowheart’s voice said in his mind. The Witchwind senses a weakness in the pentagram.

  As if to confirm this, the wind’s probing blasts abandoned him. It whipped over Prosperine, who screamed in pain.

  And then a candle guttered out.

  “No,” Kitsune shrieked as the wind invaded the pentagram. It was as if a hurricane had poured into the contained space repressed by the pentagram and its glowing magic candles. Witches and Warlocks were tossed like matchsticks. Some fought back and the resulting bolts of energy sizzled against the interior of the pentagram.

  Jeremy plunged out, running for Prosperine. She lay, temporarily safe outside the pentagram with the Witchwind raging within it. As he closed in, a warlock, his clothes blasted away along with much of his skin, stumbled out over the extinguished candle. He looked at Jeremy with crazed eyes. The warlock's hands flew up, blood spraying off them, and a bolt of radiant force licked at Jeremy. He parried it with the bloodsword, and in the same continuous motion whipped the sword in a circle and plunged it into the warlock. Then he booted the man off his sword, back into the maelstrom in the pentagram.

  Jeremy reached down and hauled an astonished Prosperine to her feet, slicing the bonds off her wrists and feet. “Follow me,” he shouted.

  They raced back to Shadowheart as the wind howled around them. In seconds they reached the angel, who cast her great wings around them shutting out the wind. The battle to keep the wind at bay must have lasted only minutes but it seemed like hours. In a gap over their heads Jeremy saw the Witchwind. Saw its prisoners, the thousands of souls blown through the night without rest. Saw Kitsune’s face, mouth open in a scream, before her image disappeared into wind and clouds.

  Finally Shadowheart’s wings opened. They turned back to the pentagram and a scene of slaughter. The candles were out, their magic exhausted. A pile of shattered and torn bodies lay in the center.

  “Hey,” a voice called. “Did I miss the party?”

  They turned to see Bob Diablesse emerge from the woods at the head of a company of ogres and goblins. But none of the company approached Shadowheart, closely watching the towering angel with a wary fear.

  “Thought you weren’t coming?” Jeremy said, fatigue and pain slowing his words. He handed his long leather coat to Prosperine who slipped it on. The sight of a naked redhead in his black leather coat made him glad he’d survived.

  Bob shrugged. “I changed my mind. Figured I would come by with the boys and see how things were going.”

  “Meaning whether or not we were winning,” Jeremy said.

  “Umm, yes.”

  “What are we going to do with all the bodies?” Jeremy wondered.

  Bob waved his army of ogres and orcs forward. “Come on, boys, team-building dinner. Everybody finish your plate.”

  The ogres jogged by chanting. “Yum, yum, eat em up, eat em up good.”

  Bob grinned. “They’re doing that for your benefit. They’re really a lot more sophisticated than they let on.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said, carefully not looking at the human smorgasbord. “We’re going to go now.”

  Bob looked at Prosperine, his pointed tail lashing. “You going with them?”

  Prosperine looked down her nose at him. “Your power over me was broken when you gave me up for dead.”

  Bob shrugged. “Hey, if you want to give up a great 401K and a killer benefit package, that’s your issue.” He joined the shuffling mob, pointed tail standing straight up between his leathery wings. “Hey boys, wait up, save me a leg.”

  Jeremy, Prosperine and Shadowheart wasted no time setting off at a brisk pace.

  At the rise of the hill Shadowheart was again her teen self, clad in mall-rat clothes.

  “I suppose,” Prosperine, said to her, “that I must thank you for your help.”

  “Your thanks would be as uncomfortable for me to receive as for you to give. Thank Jeremy if you must. Anything I did, I did for him.”

  “What are we going to do with her now?” Jeremy looked from Shadowheart to Prosperine. “I’m not sure I can go for catch and release on a familiar.”

  “Well,” Shadowheart said, “based on your prior track record I expect you’ll sleep with her.”

  Prosperine grinned. “He won’t be sleeping.”

  Shadowheart’s right hand snapped up. There was a flash. Where Prosperine had stood was now a tiny black kitten. It gave a piteous mew as it sat on Jeremy’s coat.

  Jeremy sighed. “Shadowheart.”

  “Oh, all right,” Shadowheart said, snapping her fingers again. Prosperine reappeared, made a squalling sound, and, naked again, leapt up into a tree.

  “We could call the Fire Department,” Shadowheart said, crossing her arms and tossing her blonde hair.

  “No,” Jeremy said, “but you’ve given me an idea. Come down, Prosperine. She’s not going to hurt you.”

  “And if I was,” Shadowheart murmured, “hiding in a tree wouldn’t help.”

  Prosperine dropped to the ground on the other side of Jeremy and peered around him at the angry angel.

  “Your natural form,” Jeremy asked, “is a panther. Right?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I was born a jaguar in South America a thousand years ago. An Aztec priest invoked my demonic essence, and I became a familiar.”

  “I can’t have you hanging around here snacking on the locals. If we let you go, will you return to the wild?”

  “Great solution,” Shadowheart applauded, “maybe she can make lunchables out of a few hundred humans as she hikes back to Brazil.”

  “Oh, I imagine that you could ensorcell her with something special that would making eating people unpalatable.”

  A smile stole over her snub-nosed face. “Yes. Cramps from hell and explosive diarrhea…”

  “Humans taste lousy anyway,” Prosperine sniffed.

  “Well?” Jeremy said. “It’s a long way back to South America where the jaguars lair in trees and drop on peccaries but you’ll make it. It beats a Templar dungeon in Scotland.”

  Prosperine gave him an enigmatic look. “I’ll take your deal, Templar.”

  Jeremy turned to Shadowheart and no
dded. Prosperine steeped clear of Jeremy as Shadowheart’s hands came up again and waved through the air, cutting blue lines through the air. Prosperine’s form shimmered and in place of her red-haired slim form was a beautiful, black jaguar.

  But only for a moment, the image shifted again and a smaller, tawny cougar appeared in its place. It looked up at him with golden eyes and to his surprise Prosperine’s voice sounded in his mind. I like you, Jeremy, you’re interesting. Fun things happen around you. If you find yourself in need of a familiar, head for the mountains near Asheville. Open your mind on the highest hilltop. I’ll find you. Something like laughter rippled through his mind and the cougar made a long leap and vanished into the bushes.

  Jeremy picked up his coat and Shadowheart fell in with him as they walked back to his car. Before they got there, they were surrounded by a horde of women in pink, shrieking and leaping about.

  “Look, look,” one woman said to the crowd, “all the lines on my face are gone. My arthritis doesn’t even hurt.”

  “The heck with that honey,” said a rare brunette. “My breasts are three inches higher and firm as rocks.”

  The crowd of rejuvenated pink ladies swirled around them. Shadowheart shook her head at Jeremy’s bemusement. “The coven was set up to drain the Pink Ladies’ life force. I guess when we broke the pentagram the energy flowed the other way.”

  “Well,” Jeremy said, “looks like there is some justice after all.”

  The End

  Medi-evil

  “An elf is walking into your studio,” Shadowheart mindspoke.

  Jeremy saved his latest graphic design and pushed back from his flat- screen Dell. “Okay, what’s the punch line?”

  “No punch line,” his guardian angel sighed from her home in the crystal and gold housing he wore on his chest. “If you could take you mind off making money for a second, there is an actual elf walking up the stairs.”

  Jeremy debated reaching for his bloodsword, hidden under his desk. It was the weapon of the Knights Templar, but the folk of Faerie were not usually evil.