8 Gone is the Witch (11 page)

“I know.” I shook my head. “I can’t explain it.
There’s something about this place. There are hot spots scattered about where my magic works beyond expectations and dead spots where it doesn’t work at all. One minute I have this awesome power; the next it’s all out the window.”

“
Speaking of windows…” Carlos shook his head and laughed. “What was with that one back there? How could a window in the back of a building look out over the front of that same building?”

“
It’s contravista, a contrary or opposite view of reciprocal nature. I imagine it’s a common phenomenon around here. We have to get used to things like that. I told you to expect the unexpected. You said so yourself, we ain’t in Kansas anymore.”

“
What, so you’re telling me all the windows look out over the opposite side of the building they’re in?”

“I don’t know.
Maybe.”

“
That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of.”

“That’s
the Eighth Sphere for you.”

“Lilith
, what about now?” asked Tony. “Are your powers of witchcraft greater or weaker?”

“I don’t know. Good question.”

He pointed down at the riverbank. “See if you can move that rock.”

“That one?” I
pointed at the larger of the two.

“Yeah. Try
and move it.”

Carlos and Ursula scooted back some, opening up the circle enough for me to gain unfettered access to the rock through trans-migrating waves of energy.

I could feel it almost immediately. Just the thought of making the stone move seemed to feed my ability to make it happen. I reached out with splayed fingers, and before I could will it, the rock shot off into the night like a comet, blazing red tail and everything.

“Holy
cow!” Carlos stared out into the distance. “That was awesome. Do it again.”

I
held back my smile, trying not to be too much of a show off, but he was right. I was awesome. “You really want to see it again?”

“Oh, please,
sister,” said Ursula, clapping. “Thou art a most powerful witch.”

“Yes, I am.
I know. All right then. Stand back. I’m sending this one to the moon.”

Carlos
observed, “There is no moon.”

“Then
I’ll make one.”

I
turned my attention to the second stone. It was smaller and rounder than the first, so I imagined it would be easier to displace. I gave it the old hocus-pocus, mostly for show. It included the standard twirling of the arms and the classic flip of the wrists. Ursula just eats that shit up.

I pointed at the stone and gave it a flick.
To my chagrin, however, the damn thing just sat there like a... well, like a stone.

I regrouped and
tried again, this time investing a bit more concentration and less showmanship. Still, scarcely a tremble.

“H
ey. Maybe it’s defective,” Carlos joked.

“
Maybe you’re defective,” I said, though I was beginning to think he was right. I mean, it couldn’t have been me.

I
decided to break out the big guns. I stood up to face the stone proper, hiked my sleeves up to my elbows and drew a long, steady breath designed to muster up all my inner mojo.

It came
to me slowly at first, starting with a tingle in my bones. I could feel it collecting from all points in my body, funneling into one centralized point down deep inside. My heart pounded. My muscles tensed, as tiny sparks of light began snapping around the tips of my fingers.

The others stood. Tony
started towards me, but I waved him off. Carlos took Ursula’s hand and eased her back.

With the heighten
ed energy, came an aura of white light that surrounded my body and lifted me off the ground. It continued building, compounding and concentrating to a point I could bear no longer.

I
extended my arms toward the stone, my fists clenched, my nails biting into my palms as I fought to hold back the urge to blast the hell out of it. Then, like a bursting dam, I let it rip. I fired both barrels of pent-up energy at the rock and watched it…. fizzle?

“What the
...” I heard myself say.

“
Nothing happened,” said Carlos, staring at the rock, unimpressed.

He was right. Not a damn thing happened. I released all that energy at the stone and all I got was a watered down poof.

Tony, ever the wiseass, cupped his hand to the sides of his mouth and said, “What’s wrong, Lilith? Cat got your magick?”

I flipped him
the bird. “Cat will have your ass if you don’t shut up.”

“I’m just saying
, you seem to have a consistency issue lately.”

“Yeah,
if you’re so smart, you give it a go?”

“What
, you want me to move that––”

R
ock, is what he started to say, but when he pointed at it, the damn thing spontaneously blew into a hundred little pieces.

We
gazed upon the swirl of stone dust, speechless. I couldn’t believe it. All I could say was, “Son-of-a-bitch.”

“What?”

“I said son-of-a-bitch! I mustered up half the power of the H-bomb and couldn’t so much as nick it. And here you come along, barely look at the thing and send it into oblivion.”

“Yeah, well…,”
He blew on his fingertips and buffed them against his chest. “Sometimes you got it and sometimes you don’t.”

“Bull!”

“What do you mean, bull?”

“It’s this place
. I’m telling you.” I waved my hands to encompass the entire stinking universe. “It’s the paraphysics factor. Don’t forget that.”

“What you mean is don’t forget you’re the queen.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Guys!” cried Carlos. “Hey, what is this?” He held his hands out to catch a strange grayish-looking soot floating down from the sky.

“Yeah, what is that?”
Tony did the same. “Ash?”

“It
ain’t snow,” I said.

“Are you sure
?”

“
Tony, it’s ninety degrees.”

“Yeah, but y
ou never know around here.”

“Good point.”
I worked the silvery soot between my thumb and index finger. It wasn’t gritty, but it wasn’t entirely smooth either. I remembered the volcano I saw when we first arrived in the ES, and I suggested it was from that.

“No,” said
Carlos. “It’s Auschwitz ash.”

“Not funny,
” I told him

Ursula didn’t get it. Just as well, persecution is a touchy subject with her.

As we stood debating the strange anomaly, it ceased falling. I brushed my hands clean on my pant legs and gestured across the stream. “Hey, guys. Check it out.”

A string of lights
in the distance illuminated what looked like a town gathering of sorts. We could hear voices. Laughing. Shouting. Some screaming. I looked at Tony. He was looking at Carlos. I swear sometimes the two of them can communicate telepathically just by making eye contact.

Ursula, perhaps thinking the same thing, said simply, “I agree.”

Tony looked at her strangely. “You do?”

“Aye.”

He gave her a shrug. “All right then. Let’s go.”

The three started across the
knee-high river towards the lights. I caught up with Ursula, snagged her arm and pulled her back. “Hey,” I whispered. “Back there you said you agreed.”

“Aye.”

“Did you know what the guys were thinking?”

“Nay, I knew not their thoughts, but mine.”

“Why did you say you agreed?”

“What matter of difference would it have made? `Twould
have been my answer either way.”

“
Ah, you were fucking with them.”

“Aye.”

I slapped her on the back and pushed her onward. “It’s fun, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer, but I saw the
dimple in the side of her cheek deepen. She was definitely starting to enjoy her adventure. It made me glad Dominic hadn’t come along. He can be such a killjoy at times. Deep down, I believe that Ursula is a real rebel rouser. After all, she is a part of me. She just needs a little coaxing sometimes.

We crossed the
shallow river and proceeded through an open field of dried, black reeds that crackled underfoot like a kindled fire. Their hushed whispers murmured in cold stretches along the ground, haunting our steps, conspiring, taunting, forbidding our passage.

We pressed on.

Trees grew sparse and distant ahead. Their leaves gone. Briary branches reached out like skeletal arms through the darkened landscape, catching thin wisps of wind and relinquishing them in faint whistles.

Beyond the trees
stood a large clearing with car-sized boulders forming a neat Stonehenge-like circle around it. We approached the circle, crouching behind one of the larger boulders just five yards from where a dozen armed men had gathered before a large wooden crate. A few had hatchets. Others had swords or similar weaponry.

F
ifteen yards back, a hundred or so spectators assembled on blankets, chairs and cots. Small campfires dotted their line of demarcation.

The
men with the weapons had their backs toward us, their attention focused on one of their own, a young warrior, armed only with a wooden spear and a molded shield.

He
stood defiant before the crate, his muscles hard and lean; his body shaved, oiled and heavily tattooed. He appeared battle-ready, though something told me he’d need more than a sharpened toothpick and trash can lid to battle whatever was inside that crate.

I scooted up next to Tony and whispered, “What do you think
’s in there?”

“The crate?”

I backhanded him on the shoulder. “No. His shorts. Yes, the crate.”

He
shrugged. “Don’t know… a bear?”

I
looked again at the crate. It was eight feet high by four-foot wide. “A bear? You gonna stick with that answer?”

“
Hell, Lilith! I don’t know. Maybe a lion. A tiger. What do you think it is?”

“No
ne of the above.”

The men with weapons opened
the door on the crate. The crowd reeled in a collective gasp, which was a good thing, because the gasp that we let out would have surely given us away otherwise.

So h
ow do I describe the monstrosity that came out of that crate? I can’t, it’s impossible. The one-eyed, horned-headed, hunched-back, monster with saber-tooth fangs, hooked claws, and bellowed muscles was just too damn hideous to…. Oh, wait. I guess I just did. Doesn’t matter. Even that description can’t do this creature justice. It was that repulsive.

After catching my breath and pulling my talons out of Tony’s arm, I asked him, not so quietly, “What the fuck is that!”

He turned to me, his eyes unbelievably wide. “You’re asking me?” I realized then he was squeezing my arm nearly as tightly as I had been squeezing his.

“No! I’m just saying
. What the fuck is that!”

“I’ll tell you what it ain’t
,” said Carlos. “It definitely ain’t something you’d find in Kansas.”

“Enough with Kansas
, will you?”

“I’m just saying.”

At the risk of someone spotting us, we all slid around the boulder for a better look. Though the creature was free to wander some, a twenty-foot chain around its ankle kept him tethered securely to the crate.

Perhaps that was the only
advantage afforded the young gladiator who approached the beast on flexed knees, his spear tip angled downward, his shield raised.

He
was scared, I could tell, and reluctant to get too close at first, but the cheering crowd inflated his confidence and built his bravado. He stepped closer, jabbing his spear, though still too far from the creature to affect anything more than a menacing gesture.

Oh, but
the spectators loved it. They rooted him on, and between their ruckus and the young man’s advance, I could see the creature’s aggression escalating by degrees. It lumbered forward before lunging at him, dragging the heavy crate by its chain through the dirt.

The fighter fell back
. The spectators booed. He tossed his shield aside and two-handed his spear low on the shaft. The crowd rewarded him with another wave of cheers. He steadied his aim, lowered his head and charged the beast, impaling its mid-section with the spear tip and running it clear through the other side.

The
beast howled in agony. The vindicated gladiator, still holding his spear with two hands flush against the creature’s belly, looked out at the crowd and smiled. He then gave the spear a twist and another jab. The spectators approved.