The Accidental Witch (26 page)

* * *

At least I didn’t black out this time. I stood in what was clearly a very crowded market someplace in Asia. Everyone was staring at us. And why wouldn’t they? I was in a tattered purple dress, smeared with blood, dirt, and sand. I was bruised and bleeding and my hair was a large frizzy bush. Fred was still shirtless and also dirty and bleeding. It didn’t help that the pooka had turned into a giant bunny man and that we had just materialized from thin air.

“Bad call,” I said and cast the spell again.

We were on a mountain-top. It was windy. There were a few trees, but there wasn’t much else around us but rock. In fact, we were quite precariously placed. I slipped a little and almost fell. Fred grabbed me before I slid down the scree to my death. I touched the circle again.

We were in the middle of the ocean. I slipped beneath the water. The water was warm and I quickly gained my bearings and pushed myself back up to the top. We weren’t alone. A small fisherman in a boat looked down at us like we were Santa Claus on a cracker. I reached out to touch the circle again, but Fred grabbed my hand.

“Dear God,” Fred said. “Stop. We could do this for the rest of our lives and never end up where we want to be. You have to learn to focus.”

“What? You know this spell?” I asked angrily.

“No,” Fred answered. “But I know magic. You have to focus. Focus on your goal. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Imagine where you want to be.”

“Where do I want to be?” I said. I knew I needed to go back home, but honestly I preferred the beach or even the market.

“Let’s go back to the beach,” he said. “We can talk there. We can make a plan. This place is giving me a headache.”

I closed my eyes and visualized the beach. I imagined the waves crashing against the shore. I imagined the texture of the sand in-between my toes and the color of the blue sky. I saw the trees bending with the breeze. I felt the bright sun on my back and the warmth all over my filthy body. I tried to see myself there. I took a deep breath and touched the tattoo. I said the words and opened my eyes.

We were there.

“This is amazing,” I said. “Really, this is amazing. Can other spellcasters do this?”

Fred shook his head. “No.”

“Holy shit!” I said. “This is amazing. Should we try it again? Where should I take us?”

“Calm down,” Fred said. “You need to focus. We need to stop Abaddon.”

I sat down in the sand and drew a deep breath. Fred was right. I knew we had to stop that monster, but if I were being honest with myself, I was afraid. I was afraid of Abaddon. He was completely and utterly terrifying. I certainly didn’t want to end up dragged into eternity with him. I was equally afraid of killing Nineveh. I put my head in my hands. All the courage I had earlier had vanished with the cold and the screaming and the reality of what I was facing.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I saw death there in the cold and I didn’t like what I saw. Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”

Fred took my hand. “We need to dispel the demon. We need to kill Nineveh. We don’t have much time.”

The damn pooka giggled. It was now some kind of fishy creature.

I nodded and took a deep breath.

I closed my eyes. I tried to focus. I imagined The Black Magnolia. I imagined the red brick and the white porch. I imagined the darkness. I imagined Nineveh lying in the dirt, screaming. I focused on her body writhing in the dirt. I focused on the grass beneath my feet and then I touched my arm and said the words and when I opened my eyes, we were there.

We were back in front of the house and it was cold as an arctic winter. Fred was beside me and he immediately put another circle of protection around us. The sun was rising behind him and I could smell Abaddon coming. He was still drawing energy from the town and he was stronger than ever.

C
HAPTER
10

D
ISPELLING
THE
D
EMON

Fred was fast and efficient. He had a large circle around us as quickly as I could get my mind around where we were. After that, he worked within the circle. He created another circle out of wax and then a triangle in front of the larger circle. He lit four black candles and put them around the wax circle and four black candles within the circle. He placed three white candles around the triangle.

He looked at the configuration with a worried brow. The pooka was a cat again and it sat inside the circle with a look of utter contentment on its face. Nineveh still looked unhappy, but she had stopped screaming. She didn’t seem to be in pain anymore. She just seemed disoriented. Fred began writing symbols I didn’t recognize.

“What are you writing? What language is that?” I asked as I watched him work.

“It is the
Transitus Fluvii
. It means the passing through the river. It is the occult alphabet used by warlocks and witches to summon and control demons. It is used in the black arts. I use it sparingly and carefully.”

“You can’t control Abaddon,” Nineveh croaked from the corner. “Only the Phoenix can control him.”

“Lucky for us you aren’t the Phoenix,” Fred answered.

Nineveh’s face went white. Fred threw me some rope.

“Bind her,” he said.

I went to work quickly. I bound Nineveh before she had time to realize what was happening. When I was finished tying her up, Fred dragged her to the center of his large circle and staked her to the ground. By this time, she was fully aware of what was going on around her.

“You can’t kill me,” she said. “I am the Phoenix.”

“You are not,” Fred said.

“I am. I am. I am. I am Nineveh. You can’t kill me. The demon won’t even take me. Abaddon will only take blood from kin.”

Nineveh looked at me and her realization was complete.

She spoke to me. “You can’t kill me. I’m your mother. I love you.”

I shook my head.

“I am the Phoenix,” she screamed.

“You are wrong. Phaedra is the Phoenix. You are just an old witch who is going to pay for all the death and destruction you left behind you.”

“No!” she howled. “I am the Phoenix.”

“We spoke to the oracle. She said the girl is the Phoenix.”

“No! I am!” she wailed again. “I am your mother. You can’t kill me!”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If there were any other way out, I would take it, but I can’t let that thing hurt anyone else. My town is dying. I have to stop the demon. I’m sorry.”

“Time to die,” the pooka said with a giggle.

Fred touched one of his tattoos and whispered something under his breath. The pooka didn’t look too happy about it. “Time to go,” Fred said as the pooka vanished.

“I hate pookas,” Nineveh said.

Nineveh lunged for me but was cut short by her bindings. I bit my lip and suppressed the desire to cry. I wasn’t sure I would have the strength to kill Nineveh. I wasn’t sure I had it in me.

A sudden scream from the house pulled me away from Nineveh. I looked up. There was a light on in Diane’s room. I dropped the candles I was holding and ran. Fred grabbed me in a futile attempt to keep me in the circle.

I ran as quickly as I could. I didn’t think. I just moved. I ran up the stairs and pushed my way into Diane’s room.

Diane was on the bed and Abaddon was on top of her. He was straddling her with one long claw cutting into her flesh. Diane wailed again. Diane’s blood dripped from the demon’s claws. He turned and looked at me. He looked like a toad, but when he saw me, he became the handsome man from the woods. He turned towards me and smiled. It was a disturbingly artificial act that was designed to elicit a positive response in me. The affect was quite the opposite, however, and my repugnance only multiplied with the demon’s cruel grin.

I walked towards the creature. It watched me with its reptilian, green eyes. I moved slowly and deliberately. I put my hand on its arm. It was cold, like a snake. Abaddon climbed off of my friend and leaned towards me. I kissed Abaddon on the lips and it grabbed me in a greedy violent motion that made me so sick, I had to swallow the vomit that was rising in my mouth. I smiled up at Abaddon. It was a false smile, but he wouldn’t know the difference. Abaddon looked quite pleased with himself. I could feel him drawing from me already. He was taking my strength.

I fell onto the bed beside Diane. Abaddon expected me to be weak. He took my weakness as a cue that I had surrendered and I could feel him feeding off of me even more intensely. I lay down on top of Diane and touched my tiny circle.

I hadn’t focused on anything in particular. I hadn’t had the energy. I had just drifted. My mind had wandered away and in its weakness, it had carried me right into Aaron’s bedroom. I hardly had the strength to stand. I lay on the floor by Aaron’s bed with my body over Diane’s. Her blood covered me. Aaron woke up and looked down at us.

It would be impossible to describe the series of emotions that went over Aaron’s face. They ranged from disgust to shock and hit every other emotion in-between. I waited. I had to gather my strength before I could talk. I just lay on the floor next to Diane, breathing.

Aaron was much quicker than I was. He leapt to his feet and pulled open Diane’s shirt. He looked, in horror, at the terrible jagged gash Abaddon had left on her abdomen. He grabbed some linens and ripped them up, stopping the bleeding. He bound her wounds as tightly as he could and then he grabbed the phone from beside the bed and called 911. While he was talking, he sat Diane up and looked for other wounds. He then moved to me. He lifted me up and checked my entire body. He cleaned and dressed my wounds.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

I nodded.

“What’s going on? What happened? How did you get here?”

I laughed. It was a mad, brittle laughter. “I don’t think you’d believe me,” I said.

“Try me. The ambulance will be here in five minutes.”

“I’m a witch and a demon wants to take me. It did this to Diane and me,” I answered.

“You’re right, I don’t believe you. Are you high?”

I touched the small circle on my arm. “Promise me you’ll get Diane all the help she needs?” I asked.

“Of course,” Aaron said in a very professional tone.

“Thank you,” I said and I whispered Odin’s name and vanished.

* * *

I stood in the middle of Fred’s ring. He was finishing up writing his strange script around the circle. He looked at me with heavy eyes. There was no way for him to soften what he was asking me to do. Fred handed me the knife. I took it and looked down at Nineveh. My mother. I knew she was a monster. I knew I would never fully understand the extent and depth of the darkness that lived in her rotten soul. I knew all these things, but it didn’t matter. I held the knife in my hand and I couldn’t will myself to move. I couldn’t make myself slit her throat. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to be a woman who could kill her, but I couldn’t do it. Taking a life is harder than it seems.

I looked into her emerald green eyes. She was an utterly beautiful woman. I could understand how she was able to lure both men and demons for so many centuries. But there was evil behind those eyes. She’d never cared about helping people or making the world better. All she cared about was power itself. There was a crazed look on her face. There was a desperation in her. I wondered if she’d ever truly faced death before, or if she’d always known there would be some way to cheat or murder her way out of it. I held the knife to her throat and she pleaded with me. I tuned her words out. Outside the circle, the demon had sent its minions. They stood around the circle watching me with their fiendish green eyes.

The cold came again. It began to snow and I started shivering. I looked up at the black sky and let the snow fall on my eyelids. I couldn’t remember the last time it had snowed in Dismal. The knife grew cold in my hand.

“You have to do it,” Fred said. “There is no other way.”

I shook my head and the knife fell out of my hand. It dropped in the snow that was beginning to accumulate around my bare feet. It was so cold. I looked at Fred and smiled and then I walked through the snow and stepped out of the circle of protection.

Before I had time to fully digest what I had done, Abaddon had me again. He had me pressed up against his chest and he was licking me. He didn’t even bother with the human form anymore. He held me to him and all his vile stench crept through every pore of my body.

“To hell with this,” I said.

I touched the top band on my arm and flames engulfed Abaddon and I. I put everything into the fire until all I felt was pain and burning so intense, I imagined that this is what Hell must feel like. The demon screeched and attempted to flee, but even as it ran, I clung to it. It attempted to vanish, but I had it and wherever it went, I was there too. I was there and I was burning. I touched the small circle and whispered Odin’s name and in my mind all I could see was fire and all I could feel was pain. It was the only vision I could muster and the only place I could take Abaddon. So Abaddon and I went down. We went down into the fire.

The fire went through me with such intensity, I knew I would die with the demon. I knew I would die and I felt that moment people describe when your life flashes before your eyes. I saw my life and I knew that everything good I’d done, I’d done in the last year. I saw the things I loved. I saw my shitty little hospital and all the patients I had loved helping. I saw Diane and her infectious smile. I saw Fred and I saw Ellie. I saw all that I had that I was losing and then there was nothing but pain. The pain was so intense and so brilliant, I knew I had to be dead. I was dead and this was Hell. I was in Hell and all I had was the demon shrieking in agony at my side.

* * *

I opened my eyes. I was in my bed and it was a beautiful day. I yawned and stretched. I rolled over and hugged my pillow. Someone had cleaned up. There were fresh cut flowers on the nightstand. For a minute, I thought it was all a bad dream. Of course, it was a bad dream. What rational person would believe what had happened to me in the last seventy-two hours? It had to have been a dream. I stood up and stretched again. Something smelled good. I ran my fingers through my hair and all I could feel was fuzz.