In Memoriam Read online

  I’m about to levitate when something hard slams into the back of my head hard and I’m out.

  When I come to, there’s rope around my neck. A noose, it would seem. And Ken is holding the rope, which they’ve hung over a thick branch of a tree. All Ken has to do is pull the rope hard enough to lift my weight then my neck will break and that’ll be the end of me. And lest I try to escape, Troy and Harvey have guns pointed at me from just a feet away.

  “Oh, good, you’re back,” Ken says. “I was hoping I’d get to look you in the eyes as you die.”

  “Well, I’ve got news for you,” I say.

  “What?” Ken demands.

  It takes all my concentration, but I manage to teleport to Ken’s side and slip the noose around his neck; my magick batteries must have replenished themselves some while I was unconscious. Holding the rope tightly, I try as hard as I can to fly. Please, Gods and Goddesses, let me get out of this alive. Please, Lord and Lady, let me fly. I rise up thirty feet and the noose starts closing around his throat but Harvey and Troy shoot at me. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  A bullet pierces my right arm just below the shoulder and I let go of the rope as I scream bloody murder. I teleport away, but I can still hear them talking when I appear standing up elsewhere in the woods, which means that I didn’t get far enough away. Now my magickal batteries are getting weak again and I’m dizzy. These bullets have to contain mercury. I can still run though. Only I can’t. Because, just as I’m about to start, two skeleton hands rise up out of the ground and grab my ankles, making me kiss the ground. Then they start pulling my feet down into what would seem to be quicksand. And now I’ve got a mouthful of dirt. Only it feels like it’s moving and when I spit it out I see that it’s maggots and start puking. When I stop my gums feel weird and I realize I’ve just lost all my teeth and now my mouth is full of copper-tasting blood! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Lord and Lady, let this be a nightmare and wake me up now, please! I’ve never felt pain this horrible when I’m dreaming.

  “This way!” I hear Troy yell to Ken and Harvey. Meanwhile, a faceless woman with creepy straw hair in a fancy black dress appears just a few feet in front of me, her head tilted down like she’s looking at me. Then she points at me and my heart skips a few beats. Putain!

  Freaking out, I attempt to grab a long branch but it’s just out of reach. “Come to me, that of which I speak, let the Gods understand, I need you in my hand. So mote it be,” I whisper. The branch moves slightly, but not enough for me to reach it so I say the spell again. “Come to me, that of which I speak, let the Gods understand, I need you in my hand. So mote it be.”

  The branch suddenly moves into my hand. Whew. But I’m not out of the woods yet, in either sense of the phrase.

  The faceless woman levitates back about five feet, just out of range of the branch. I’ll worry about her in a beat, but right now I’m trying to pull myself up with my hands by using the branch for leverage. It’s longer than the quicksand is wide, so it does the trick. I wasn’t moving my legs – so that I wouldn’t sink any deeper – and manage to pull myself a foot out of the quicksand. Then my ankles are yanked. Those fucking skeletons must still have their hands locked around my ankles. I hold the branch tightly so I won’t sink further in, but now I’m kicking. Now I’m kicking like crazy. It doesn’t seem to be helping, but I keep it up. I need to get out of here before Ken and company shoot me to death or this faceless bitch sets me on fire or something.

  My legs are still being held by the skeletons, but I kick so damn hard that their bony hands have to release me. It’s still a struggle to stop myself from sinking further into the quicksand, which is up to my waist, but I manage to do it, praying for strength all the while. Lord and Lady, please get me through this, dream or no dream, I can’t take it much longer. Please give me the strength I need to triumph.

  As soon as my abdomen rises from the quicksand, I fold my legs and raise them until my knees are out of the water and slide them onto the branch between my hands. They kill, but it’s what I have to do. Now I slowly move sideways on the branch, placing my left hand on the ground as I continue moving, all the while hearing Ken and company’s voices getting closer and being pointed at by this faceless bitch. Once my left leg is on the ground – out of the quicksand’s range – I roll the rest of my body onto it.

  It’s painful to stand up, but I hurry past the faceless woman because I hear Ken’s voice coming from the opposite direction. She doesn’t attempt to grab me, thank Goddess, but she turns as I go by her, continuing to point at me. When I’m about fifteen feet away from her I hear her laugh. And laugh. It’s a familiar cackle – it’s J’s! All the more reason to keep running. I can’t go that fast, however, as there are clumps of quicksand stuck to my jeans, slowing me down. Still, I think I’m running fast enough to evade the bullies. Especially since some of the quicksand is falling off with every step I run. But then I see something that makes me halt in my tracks. My cat, Mister Black, leaps from behind a tree, landing in front of me.. “What are you doing here?”

  Naturally, he meows. Then he starts running to the East of where I was going so I follow after him. Then I hear two gunshots. BANG! BANG! They must be gaining on me. Merde, merde, merde!

  After I’ve followed Mister Black another few hundred feet, the sky starts to grow brighter and brighter. I brush the remaining quicksand from my jeans so it isn’t weighing me down and haul ass as the sun glows more and more brilliantly until it’s daytime.

  “This way!” I hear Troy yell, but in the distance I see a most welcome sight: my Great Grandmother Ruth’s house. I grab Mister Black and run toward it as fast as I can.

  “Emma, where do you think you’re going?” J’s voice whispers in my ear and a chill runs up and down my spine. Ignore it, ignore it, I tell myself.

  I’m about halfway there when the faceless woman appears in front of me, still pointing. I guess she’s J? In any case, I hear the evil trio yelling and a few more gunshots. BANG! BANG! BANG!

  As I run past the faceless woman, just out of her reach, I hear J whisper, “They’re going to kill you.” It sounds like it comes from closer than the faceless bitch, though. Like J whispers it directly into my ear. Like she’s standing right beside me.

  Whatever is going on, I try to teleport the rest of the way to the house, but nothing happens aside from my headache getting worse. So, I just keep running at full speed, moving from left to right and vice versa, trying to dodge their bullets, which they’re firing one right after another. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG. I wish they’d run out of bullets. Their guns must be supernatural, for crying out loud. Thank Goddess they only have pistols, though. If they had automatic weapons I’d be dead for sure.

  I’m almost at the house when the ground suddenly tears open in front of me. I halt in my tracks just in the nick of time. As it is, I almost fall in but manage to straighten myself then I walk backwards, putting a good ten feet between me and the crack. This seems so familiar, although I can’t recall the last time I experienced a quake. But I don’t have time to think about that because the ground rips open further and further. The rupture is twenty feet wide and thirty feet long now. Good thing I stepped back as far as I did. But I need to get across or I’m dead. I try to teleport again but it doesn’t work. And I don’t think I could leap it. No, instead I attempt to levitate. But that faceless J or whatever it is seems to be blocking my magick. Shit, she must be getting close!

  That’s it, I put Mister Black down and whirl around, only to discover that she’s just ten feet away. I attempt to zap her, but it doesn’t work. I try as hard as I can, but nothing happens. What is that spell for electricity? Shit, I can’t remember. But it invoked Electra! That’s right, Electra! So, I improvise. Goddess Electra, please let me zap her. Goddess Electra, please let me light up this bitch. So mote it be!

  Nothing happens, but the faceless one begins to levitate in my direction. Slowly, but still. I am so fucking fucked! Goddess Electra, please help. Please, please, please. Let m
e zap this bitch. Please, so mote it be!

  I feel a tingle in the palms of my hands and my fingers. As bitch-without-a-face gets within five feet of me, electricity lights up my hands. Thank you, Electra. I zap her... but the electricity passes right through her, as though she was a hologram, and she gets closer and closer. Merde, j’ai pas de la chance ce soir! (Shit, I have no luck tonight!) Just when I think I’m completely fucked for the tenth time tonight, she disappears. Please, Lord and Lady, make her stay gone.

  Now that she’s gone, it’s time to try levitation. A bullet whizzes by my ear; I can feel its heat. Close call.

  I rise up a few feet into the air and then I take a step, trying to walk on air. Thank Goddess, it works. I waste no time – I literally run over the crack in the ground and teleport to just outside my great grandmother’s house. I tried to teleport inside, but this is as far as I made it. I pound on the door as – BANG! BANG! – bullets are fired at me. Mister Black runs over and leaps up into my arms. I hold him tightly with my back to the gunfire to protect him.

  “Hey, you,” an unfamiliar female voice says behind me. Startled, I turn to look and see Amy and Ella, Troy Culour’s sisters. If anyone we’ve had to kill to save ourselves didn’t deserve to die, it’s these two. That must be why I’m frozen, as the guilt washes over me, feeling cold like when I have premonitions.

  Please, Great Grandmother Ruth, open the door! I plead telepathically, uncertain if she’ll even hear me.

  Amy grabs my left arm hard and Ella grabs the right. Then something totally unexpected happens. White lights come bursting out of Mister Black’s eyes and slice Amy’s head off at the neck like powerful lasers. Ella lets go of me and steps back, but Mister Black severs her head just the same.

  BANG! BANG! More bullets are fired at me.

  “You can’t outrun your destiny,” J whispers, sounding like she’s right beside me.

  I don’t turn to see if she’s really there. I’m too afraid to. Afraid of her as much as I’m afraid of the bullets.

  I pound and pound at the door, a sweaty, bloody mess carrying a magical black cat. I try to turn the knob, but the door is locked and the bullets are getting dangerously close now that I’m a stationary target. BANG! BANG! BANG! A few of them just barely miss me and pierce the door. One scrapes my neck dangerously close to a jugular vein.

  I pound on the door for what feels like another five minutes, my knuckles a bloody mess, when it finally opens. Great Grandmother Ruth swings her arm in the guys’ direction and an unseen force knocks them all on their asses and out cold. Then she takes Mister Black in one arm and grabs me by the front of my night shirt and pulls me into the house.

  “What took you so long?” I ask.

  Ruth’s brow furrows. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I was knocking for five minutes.” It’s a wonder I manage to get the words out, I”m so breathless.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Ruth says, shaking her head. “I only heard you knock just now, but let’s not worry about that.” She looks at my pajamas, which are covered in blood. “You look like you’re in bad shape.”

  “It’s just my arm now. I was shot in the stomach, too, but Angel Raphael helped me.” I say, lifting up my bloody shirt to show her the tiny scar. “But this is still a problem.” I show her my arm.

  “You’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s just a matter of making you the right combination of healing ointment and tea. And a spell, perhaps.”

  I sit down on one of the rocking chairs and have to fight to catch my breath before I speak. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I think the bullet has mercury in it.”

  “Let me worry about that,” she says, looking at the shelves she keeps some of her larger jars of herbs on.

  I can feel the bullet in my arm. It burns and throbs like someone stuck a hot coal in me. It feels like it’s truly happening, but none of it makes one iota of sense. “Is this a dream or are you really here?”

  “I’m really here,” she says, pouring various herbs into a small jar.

  I notice that my teeth are back and sigh. “So, this is a legit visit?”

  She nods. “Yes, dear.” From time to time, Ruth visits me in my sleep, or when I’m unconscious, to offer guidance. She’s the one I inherited my natural witch abilities from. She also gifted me with extra magick from beyond somehow.

  I clench my jaw. “But what was all that outside? Were they real? Or was it a nightmare?”

  “It was black magick playing games with your head while you dreamed.”

  “How? Is the evil witch who I’ll only call J still alive? I heard her voice. And there was this faceless woman in a black dress, which I suppose could’ve been her.”

  “No, she’s still dead, but I’m afraid her black magick lives on inside you.”

  “Inside... me? Or all of us?”

  “Sadly, it’s inside Lia, Shar and Juliana, too. Those of you who actually destroyed her.”

  “I thought you had to drink a witch’s blood to get their magick?”

  “No, unfortunately, you just have to extinguish them. J might have believed she needed to do that, but she probably just did it because she was demented. In actuality, you simply need to murder a witch to steal their magick. But it only works if the person who kills them is a witch and thus able to receive magick. Otherwise the magick dissolves into nothing.”

  “I see. So, January didn’t get any black magick even though she torched her because she’s not a witch?”

  “Exactly. Besides, fairies can’t absorb magick from others. They have what they’re given by their fairy godmother and that’s that.”

  “Does that mean they can’t do evil?”

  “No, no, no. Fairies can do evil if they desire to. And plenty do. But it just means January’s magick remains pure and isn’t tempting her to go dark. But she could still use her own free will to do so if she wanted to.”

  “Does that mean Lia, Shar, Juliana and I will be tempted to do evil now because we absorbed black magick?”

  “It can’t make you do anything you don’t want. There might be more temptation to do the wrong thing in a given situation, but it can’t make you choose that option. You’ll still be able to resist temptation as well as ever, Emma.”

  Shit – I just remembered something. “Oh my God, J had possessed you,” I say as I remember battling J while she was inside her. “Are you OK?”

  “Yes, yes, good as new. Now, try to stay calm as I go prepare what we need,” she says and hurries off toward the kitchen.

  “I think I might collapse onto the floor,” I say half-jokingly.

  “You’ll be fine,” she yells. “And that was smart thinking, that angel spell you remembered.”

  I’m mighty perplexed. If what happened outside was black magick screwing with my head then why did it feel so real? I could smell the pine trees in the forest and taste the dirt on the ground and I can never smell or taste in my dreams. Not even my nightmares. And how did those gunshot wounds feel so real? Like the one I still have because I forgot to heal it. Is what I’m dreaming real while it’s happening? Will I discover that I was actually shot when I wake up?

  I remember that I had put my head back down on my pillow, but I still couldn’t fall back asleep and was getting out of bed when I “woke up” again in that coffin. No, wait, someone tripped me first. Was I knocked out? Either it’s that or I must have fallen back to sleep after all, which means that I should be fine when I wake up. Although I’m sure I’ll have a nasty headache, either from my noggin colliding with the floor, or stress making my TMJ act up, or both.

  Anyway, if that was evil screwing with me because J’s black magick really lives on inside of us then is this going to keep happening every time I sleep? I’ve endured enough pain and suffering without being mentally traumatized every night. This must be one of those awful night terrors that Shar experiences. That would explain why I didn’t wake up when I realized I was dreaming and tried to. Speaking of which, I’m suddenly so
drowsy I have to shut my eyes. Apparently, you can fall asleep in a dream? Or is this not a dream since I’m at Ruth’s now? I wonder if...

  When my eyes open I find myself in my underclothes in Ruth’s bathtub, the water so hot it’s almost scorching. Ouch! I bet she used magick to get me to the bathroom and into the tub because I’m not a sleepwalker. (I was when I was a kid, but not since I was around ten.) She probably used magick to undress me, too. All I know right now is thank Goddess I inherited Ruth’s gift and can’t be burned. I mean, my skin is practically cooked lobster red right now, so I’m sure the water is hot enough that it would burn the skin of the average person. As it is, it’s almost to the point that I’d call it painful. You see, I can feel the pain of a burn. I just don’t physically burn.