Witches Unleashed, page 1
part #3 of Marvel Untold Series
The fireball blasted Johnny with heat, peppering his flesh with bits of burning metal. The pain scourged him.
It was time. He would have to risk transforming. The only alternative was death.
Blaze called upon the power of the Ghost Rider. It came with a sickening ease, shunting his thoughts and feelings off into a corner of his mind and replacing them with a single-minded need to enact justice on the wicked. Vengeance boiled the marrow of his bones, surging out of him with implacable fury. Flames burst from his collar and sleeves. His flesh faded away, exposing the smooth white surface of his grinning skull. Beneath him, flames ran along the sides of the classic Harley, twisting its shape into the familiar lines of his Hell Cycle. The wheels burst into fire as chrome twisted like liquid, rebuilding the powerful machine into something deadly: fire and vengeance on wheels.
FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING
VP Production & Special Projects: Jeff Youngquist
Associate Editor, Special Projects: Caitlin O’Connell
Manager, Licensed Publishing: Jeremy West
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Editor in Chief: C B Cebulski
Special Thanks to Jake Thomas
© 2021 MARVEL
First published by Aconyte Books in 2021
ISBN 978 1 83908 100 2
Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 101 9
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover art by Fabio Listrani
Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA
ACONYTE BOOKS
An imprint of Asmodee Entertainment Ltd
Mercury House, Shipstones Business Centre
North Gate, Nottingham NG7 7FN, UK
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To Larry and Marian Rugg. For motorcycle rides,
biscuits and gravy, and being the best bonus parents ever.
Chapter One
Johnny Blaze didn’t notice the blood until it started flaking off. A deep red blotch circled the base of his pinkie, staining his wrist and streaking up the skin of his forearm. It was too much blood to be excused away, especially in the absence of any cuts. He’d been riding for hours in a plain white t-shirt, the gory mess advertising to every cop on the road, “I am a person of interest in the murder of Muriel Lefevre. Please pull me over. No need to be gentle about it, either.” He couldn’t decide which would be worse, going to jail for killing a woman who had already been dead when he’d met her, or telling the cops that her empty corpse had been possessed by Lucifer. Yes, that Lucifer, officer. They’d lock him up and throw away the key.
He crossed the state line into Georgia, sticking to the back roads. Not a lot of folks here to notice the dead woman’s blood. But he had no water to wash up with, and rubbing at it with spit just smeared it around. He had to ride a good half-hour before he reached a gas station, his heart thumping all the while. Jails didn’t bother him much, but he couldn’t afford to waste time getting locked up, and he didn’t like the idea of burning people who didn’t deserve it. But somewhere deep inside him rested Zarathos, the spirit of the Ghost Rider, and it liked that idea just fine. It was almost eager, and that made him sicker than sending Muriel back to her grave had.
A dingy backroads gas station finally came into view, its lot choked with junker cars and tall weeds. He took a second to pull on his jacket despite the heat, then forced a whistle as he took the gas nozzle off the rusty machine. Places like this gave you a hard time if you tried to use the john without filling up, and he wanted to avoid attention. Just another road-weary biker in need of a piss and a fill up. Nothing to see here.
The numbers on the pump ticked up in excruciatingly slow motion. Johnny wiped sweat off his forehead and immediately regretted it. The last thing he needed was a bloody smear across his face.
An aging bell gave a desultory ding as a shiny SUV pulled up to the pump opposite him. A middle-aged mom in yoga pants got out, offering him a polite smile as she ran her card through the reader. He nodded back, whistling his tuneless song and feeling more than a little stupid about it.
The pump turned off with a bang that made him jump. He replaced the nozzle in its hanger, the motion awkward with his off hand. As he was screwing the gas cap back into place, a high and piping voice said, “Hey, mister. Nice bike!”
A gap-toothed kid stuck his head around the pump, grinning from ear to ear. Johnny turned, shielding the blood-soaked hand from view. He offered a smile. The expression sat poorly on his face. Sometimes he wondered if he’d forgotten how to do it right.
“Thanks,” he said. “You like motorcycles?”
“I’m gonna have one when I grow up. Does she have a name?”
Johnny closed his eyes, shutting out the kid’s bright eagerness. He hadn’t named his bikes until his daughter Emma had insisted on it. For a while, he’d ridden an Indian Roadmaster named Twilight Sparkle without a word of complaint. Emma and Craig were gone now, but he still named his bikes as if she might show up one day, put her hands on her hips in that bossy way she had, and say, “Daddy, you know she needs a name. How else will she come when you call her?”
The irony of that, of course, was that Johnny’s bikes did come when he called them, whether they were named or not.
He pushed the memory away and pasted a smile on his face. “Not yet. She’s new. You got any ideas?”
The kid edged closer, his eyes glued to the graceful lines of chrome.
“Felicia?” he suggested. “That’s my mom’s name, and she’s the prettiest lady I know, just like your bike is the prettiest one I ever saw.”
“Leo, stop bugging that nice man,” called the mom, tossing some trash into the can.
“I’m naming his motorcycle, Mom!” he called back with injured pride. “I’m being useful!”
Johnny snickered. “You better get back into the car. Angry moms are no joke.”
“That’s the T. Thanks for letting me look at your bike, mister.”
The kid offered his hand. Johnny didn’t get many handshakes these days. His aimless drifter vibe didn’t endear him to new friends, and he didn’t stick around anywhere long enough to have old ones. Despite himself, he’d started a new relationship with a trucker named Dixie, but he hadn’t seen her much lately. He’d been crisscrossing the country for weeks, full of death and fear. Touched and surprised at the gesture, he shook.
“Leo, come here right now!”
The mom’s voice had gone sharp and demanding. Johnny turned to see her staring at the bloodstains on his hand with wide and frightened eyes. He released the kid and held his hands out, trying to telegraph his harmlessness.
“Go on to your mom,” he said. “She’s worried.”
But Leo stood his ground, his lower lip thrust out in a stubborn pout. “Mom, you don’t get it,” he said. “He’s a good guy.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Leo. Get into the car this instant!” she snapped.
“Ask him! You’re a good guy, aren’t you?”
Johnny swallowed. He’d done a lot of questionable things in his life. As much as he wanted to talk to the boy just a while longer and pretend to be normal, he couldn’t lie to this woman who reminded him of his dead wife. Roxanne had been a gentle person until their kids were threatened, and then she could have beaten a mama bear in a fist fight.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, avoiding the question.
Felicia picked up on the evasion, assuming the worst. Moving with panic-born speed, she yanked her son toward her by the sleeve of his racecar t-shirt. He toppled backwards, protesting all the while, even as she opened the door to the SUV and shoved him in. As soon as the door closed behind him, a fraction of her tension leaked from her shoulders.
When she turned back around, Johnny met her eyes. He didn’t dare budge lest she interpret it as a threat and start shrieking.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“We should go.”
“That’s a well-mannered boy you’ve got there,” he said. “I remember when my son was that age. He went through a phase where he communicated only in dinosaur noises.”
Felicia let out a surprised laugh. She still didn’t come any closer, but at least now she wasn’t looking at him like he might pull out a cleaver and start chopping. Now they were just fellow parents having a friendly chat, except that one of them was covered in road dust and a dead woman’s blood.
“I haven’t thought of that in a long time,” Johnny continued.
“They grow up too f
“Some of them do.”
“Listen,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be rude. But he’s all I’ve got, you know?”
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
“Do you…” she trailed off, but soon continued in a firmer voice, “I have a first aid kit in the trunk. If you’re hurt…”
She thought he was injured. He only wished it was the truth.
“I’m already bandaged up good, thanks.” Even that lie didn’t want to come out. Her obvious concern rattled him. He wasn’t used to care, and he wanted to wrap himself up in it. But he couldn’t afford that, and he didn’t deserve it either. He continued in a gruff tone, “I ought to go wash up, though. Before I scare the pants off somebody else.”
“OK. If you’re sure.”
“I am. You take care of that boy of yours.”
She nodded. “You take care, too. Whatever’s troubling you, I hope you can fix it. For your kid if not for yourself.”
Heartache stabbed Johnny with such force that his hand went to his chest. There would be no going home to his family after his task was done. He had lost them forever, and no amount of regret would change that.
He nodded, unable to speak even if he’d known what to say.
“We’ll pray for you,” she said, climbing into the SUV.
Johnny Blaze stood at the edge of the gas station awning, watching until they disappeared down the road. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized he was lonely, but there was nothing to be done about it. Instead, he trudged into the dingy station to ask for the bathroom key.
•••
The next morning, Johnny woke beneath the scratchy bedspread in a by-the-hour motel. After the near crisis with Leo and his mom, he’d decided on a shower and sleep. Every hour that passed gave Lucifer more time to sow mayhem and death, but Johnny had been hunting his vessels for weeks now, and he’d been running on fumes. He couldn’t afford to make mistakes born of exhaustion. No more stray bloodstains.
Now that he was refreshed and kitted up in a new dollar store undershirt and blood-free leathers, he could finish this. Lucifer would return to Hell where he belonged, and Johnny would no longer carry around the guilt that came with unleashing the Prince of Darkness and causing the apocalypse.
After returning his room key to the motel office, he climbed back onto his bike and took the highway going south. The stench of Lucifer’s puppets tugged at him, a psychic stink that turned his stomach with dread and excitement. There was nothing to be excited about, not for him. But to Zarathos, the trail promised vengeance. That was all the spirit ever wanted, and it didn’t care much about collateral damage. It had gotten worse lately, too, but Johnny hoped that defeating Lucifer would settle things back down.
The trail burned into his nostrils as he pulled onto a two-lane highway. It smelled like his kids’ hair right after a bath mixed with the stench of a burned-out crack house. It was the perfume of Hell, a place that took your most treasured memories and corrupted them. In the movies, Hell always reeked of burning flesh and brimstone, but Johnny knew better. Hell smelled like regrets, if-onlys, and might-have-beens.
The trail took him down the back roads of Georgia, and he took advantage of the long stretches of road, opening up the bike and reveling in the wind that ruffled his hair. When he rode, he could sometimes forget his grief and anger. But the peace it offered was only momentary. When he pulled to a stop at a crossroads, the real world came flooding back, bringing the pain of loss along with it. A police car stopped opposite him, its driver staring at his cycle with unabashed admiration.
Nothing to see here, officer. Honest.
Zarathos strained at its leash, and it took every ounce of Johnny’s control to keep the spirit under wraps. Steam rose from his shoulders, wisps curling out of the sleeves of his new shirt. His heart went into overdrive as he struggled to keep the spirit contained.
The cop’s eyes remained glued to the bike. He didn’t notice the smoking man atop it as he drove past. In his wake, Zarathos subsided, leaving nothing but a vague feeling of regret.
“What the hell is up with you?” asked Johnny aloud.
The spirit didn’t answer in words. They didn’t really need them after all this time. Instead, Johnny received a wave of emotions: duty, fulfillment. Need.
Great. Not only did he have to carry an inhuman spirit around inside him, but it was turning into a revenge junkie. He’d have to do something about that, once this Lucifer thing was taken care of.
He rode on, but he couldn’t recapture the feeling he’d had only moments before. In everyone else’s eyes, he was a murderer. No one saw the grieving father of two dead children, or the lonely widower, or the rider struggling under the weight of an unbearable curse.
He shook himself out of the unaccustomed fit of self-pity as he nudged the bike onto an exit ramp. Normally he avoided dwelling on his family because it made him maudlin, but the kid at the gas station had torn down his defenses. He had to rebuild them before he faced Lucifer yet again. The battles had gotten hard enough on their own; he had no need to make them worse.
His heart sank as he passed sign after sign for Fort Kenning. As his hunt had progressed, Lucifer began to make things harder. Picking an army base took the hunt to the next level. After all the times he’d been thrown in the slammer, he wouldn’t make it onto base, and he refused to flame up and tear through the gates. That would bring the military down on him, and Zarathos would leap at the opportunity to burn them all and sort the rest out in the afterlife. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
Maybe the trail led somewhere near the base, but not onto it. He tried to convince himself of the possibility, but every passing mile led him closer to the front gate. He stopped just before he got there, frowning at the line of cars waiting to be admitted. Then he nosed the bike around to head back into town. He needed a plan, and maybe a cold drink to go with it.
It didn’t take him long to find a bar. A line of bikes sat outside, and he took a moment to look them over, but none of them called to him like Felicia did. The 1977 Low Rider could have left them all in the dust.
He bellied up to the bar, ordering a brew and a sandwich to go with it. A young Black guy in a putty colored uniform entered the bar just as his beer arrived, all glistening with condensation.
“Who’s got that classic Harley outside?” the guy asked, his gaze sweeping the room. “She’s gorgeous.”
Johnny took a thirsty gulp and then raised a hand. “That would be me.”
The guy walked over. “My pa had a bike just like it when I was a kid. Any chance you’re looking to sell?”
“Sorry, friend. No can do.”
“Well, can’t blame a man for trying. I’m Harrison.”
“That your first name or your last?”
The guy blushed. “Last name. Spend too much time in the Army, and you’ll be calling your mama by her last name.”
Johnny gestured to the seat next to him, the vague outlines of a plan forming in his mind. “Well, Harrison, have a seat. I’m always happy to pass the time with a fellow road hog.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
The soldier slid into the stool next to him, gesturing for a drink. When it arrived, he held it up to toast, grinning widely.
“Here’s to new friends, new roads, and new adventures,” he said.
“I’ll drink to that,” answered the Ghost Rider.
Chapter Two
Over the next hour or so, Johnny and Harrison swapped road stories. Most of Johnny’s were heavily edited to remove the parts where he turned into a flaming skeleton and brought justice to evildoers, but he still enjoyed himself. He’d always been a loner, but he must have been getting soft in his old age.
Whenever possible, he steered the conversation toward the base, looking for an excuse to ask his new acquaintance to escort him through the gates. Harrison’s reluctance to talk about his “boring” life on base didn’t make that easy. Johnny ordered up another round because he didn’t know what else to do. As he mulled it over, Harrison stood up, straightening his uniform with fastidious care. Once he was satisfied, he clapped Johnny on the shoulder.
