Fall, page 17
“Like I said, you have no idea what you’re mixed up in, girl. If you back off now I’ll try not to hurt you.”
There was something in the witch’s blue eyes that looked plaintive, even sympathetic. But Kerry was in no mood for it. She feinted to Season’s left and then drove her sword, hard, toward Season’s right. The witch parried, then drew her energy blade back and brought it forward again, slamming it into Kerry’s with enough force to rip the flaming sword from her grasp. It spun twice in the air and splashed into swamp water, its flames dousing as it did.
All trace of sympathy gone from her face now, as if Kerry’s resolve had steeled her own, Season charged in for the kill.
She lunged, the tip of her mystic blade slicing the air toward Kerry. Before it reached her, though, Kerry heard a sharp report from behind her, then another, and a third. Season’s advance halted and she staggered back, blue eyes widening, mouth dropping open. Kerry whirled to see Mother Blessing sighting down the barrel of the rifle, which had a trail of smoke rising up from its opening. The woman fired again, the muzzle flash impossibly bright against the dark sky. Four spots appeared on Season’s black leathers, dark against dark, wet on wet.
Then Season bent forward at the waist, hands going up to her mouth. Kerry felt an unexpected sadness. She couldn’t decide if it was because she hadn’t been the one to finish Season off, or if it was something more than that, a kind of sorrow that the whole affair was ended. But ended it seemed to be.
Season had another surprise in store, though. She moved her hands a few inches away from her lips and spat four bullets into them, each one slick with her own blood. Holding them out before her, she smiled and dropped them to the ground. “You’ve got to do better than that,” she said with a chuckle.
Mother Blessing hurled the weapon away, and raised the stick. “Not the gun and not the sword,” she said, “but the rod will vanquish you.”
Now Season’s dry chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh. “That thing?” she asked. “Do you forget who gave you that, daughter?”
“Y’all are on my ground,” Mother Blessing said sharply. “And Kerry is strong, stronger than she has any right to be. There’ll be no walkin’ away, not from this fight. Not this time.” But Kerry noticed that in spite of the certainty of the words, the hand holding the old stick was shaking a little, and there was a quiver in the voice. She couldn’t have imagined Mother Blessing being scared by anything, but there it was.
“I didn’t come here to walk away,” Season reminded her. “I came to make sure you don’t. To make sure you aren’t going to continue to haunt me for the rest of my days.”
“I don’t need to haunt what’s dead,” Mother Blessing said, her voice cracking even more. She held out the stick like it was a weapon and said, “Manistera!”
The stick crackled with energy, traces of blue lightning running up and down its length. After a moment, the energy lanced toward Season. But the witch deflected it with a quiet word and hastily upraised hands. Her magical sword was gone now, back to whatever place she had conjured it from.
Season clapped her hands together hard, creating a sound like a sonic boom. Kerry threw her hands over her ears too late. The boom echoed in them, and she had a feeling they’d ring for hours, if not days. But the blast of power that began at Season’s clap and rippled out toward Mother Blessing like a stone in a pond was sliced by the older woman’s rod. Where it passed, leaves and bark were torn from trees, mud upturned, water churned in the creek. Mother Blessing, Kerry, and the house seemed unaffected.
Season didn’t release her hands, though. She kept them clasped together, and as long as she did, the wave continued. Kerry felt it pressing against her like a surging tide. Mother Blessing felt it too, she saw, and though she tried hard to hold onto her stick—her rod, Kerry mentally corrected—the force of Season’s attack whittled away at it, bit by bit, until all that was left was the tiniest twig. As that happened, tears came to Mother Blessing’s eyes—tears of rage or tears of sorrow, Kerry wasn’t sure—and the older woman, who she had come to think of as all but invulnerable, was driven to her knees. The sight filled Kerry with terror more than anything else that had happened so far.
Finally, Mother Blessing threw the twig aside and brought her hands up in a “Lashifoth!” defense. Kerry joined in, shouting the word simultaneously with her and making the appropriate motions.
A golden glow engulfed them—the punishing rain actually bounced off its blurred edges—and Season’s attack ceased. Still, Season didn’t look particularly frightened or upset. “You didn’t really think that stick would stop me, did you, daughter?” she asked. “A gift from me to you? Your first rod.”
“I remember,” Mother Blessing said, almost spitting the words. She crooked her finger at Kerry. “Help me up,” she commanded.
Kerry wasn’t sure she’d be able to budge the woman, but she hurried to comply. She didn’t want Season to try anything more while Mother Blessing was on her knees.
“You’re right,” Season admitted then. “I am demonstrably more powerful than you, but on your home ground, and with your little helper, neither of us can get the upper hand. I had hoped to bring this little conflict to a close today, but apparently that’s not to be.”
Mother Blessing looked at Kerry, her eyes narrow, her mouth twisted into a scowl of utter hatred. “Don’t let her go!”
Kerry already had her hands on Mother Blessing’s arms, trying to hoist the enormous woman to her feet. “What can I—?” she began.
Season interrupted her question. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do, child. Except perhaps ask the woman you call Mother Blessing to explain what happened here today. Make her tell you the whole story. The real story.”
Kerry looked from one to the other—Mother Blessing, struggling to regain her footing, her face a mask of fury, and Season Howe, beautiful and calm even though her leather jacket still showed four bullet holes. As she watched, Season grew less distinct. Kerry thought at first that she was walking backward, getting lost in the still-pounding rain. But her legs weren’t moving, and she wasn’t getting smaller. She was just …vanishing was the only word that came to mind. Becoming less substantial. Kerry could see the trees behind her, through her, and the rain and the swamp, and then she was gone altogether.
Mother Blessing got a grip on Kerry’s shoulders and forced herself to her feet. She looked at where Season had been a moment before, spat in that general direction, and stormed inside, slamming the door behind her. Kerry opened it again and walked in, wanting to talk to the woman, but Mother Blessing was already back on her scooter, wheeling toward her bedroom. When she reached it, she slammed that door, too.
And Kerry was alone with a million questions.
Kerry Profitt’s diary, November 24.
There’s something very wrong here. I can’t ask Mother Blessing about it because (A) she hasn’t come out of her room since the battle to end all battles that wasn’t, and (B) because if what I think is true IS true, then she’s been lying to me all along.
To me, and maybe to others.
See, the thing is, Season Howe addressed her as “daughter.” Not once, but twice. I know, it could be some sort of traditional witchy form of address, indicating love and respect, but…
No, really. That was what I tried to convince myself she meant. Figure of speech, right? Problem there is that the rest of Season’s speech seemed pretty precise—not one for flowery speeches, that witch.
And there’s more. If Season gave Mother Blessing her first rod, that implies, at the very least, some sort of teacher-pupil relationship. Which could also be a mother-daughter relationship.
If Season is Mother Blessing’s mother, then what else hasn’t Mother Blessing told me? Or Daniel—because I’m sure if he knew Season was his grandmother, he’d have said something. Apparent age, among witches, doesn’t mean much, as Mother Blessing herself told me. Mother Blessing looks older than Daniel and Season, but none of them look anywhere near their actual ages. So Season could easily be older than Mother Blessing.
I had a lot of questions before, but now I have … well, A LOT a lot. Like why was she so willing to send me to Las Vegas after Season, knowing that I had just barely begun my magical training? Was she testing me somehow? Testing my willingness to fight, my courage, my hatred of Season? Or maybe testing Season’s strength? And having my van moved—sure, she let me find out about it, introduced me to Edgar. But why didn’t she tell me when she did it, or even ask permission? My van, after all. And the biggie that’s been haunting me is this—I’ve wondered how Mother Blessing could have described the destruction of Slocumb so well, when supposedly she was already on her way into hiding, trying to protect her unborn children. But what if the answer is that it wasn’t Season who destroyed Slocumb, but Mother Blessing? That’s a big stretch, I know. But it’s one answer to something that’s been gnawing at me. And it goes back to the fact that Mother Blessing has been hiding things, lying to me.
I hate that. Hate lies, hate liars. I had grown to respect Mother Blessing—she’s a real character, and a bit of a handful, but she was teaching me a lot, and I was willing to use what she taught to help her further her goal. Since it was the same as my own goal—revenge for Daniel’s murder.
If she’s been dishonest with me this whole time, though, that changes things. It doesn’t change the fact that Season killed Daniel (although it adds, like, this whole layer of almost Shakespearean irony to it, doesn’t it? Mother persuades son to kill his grandmother, but grandmother turns the tables…). What it changes are all the whys, and some of the whos, if not the whats.
It also changes my plans. I wanted to stay here, to learn as much as I could from Mother Blessing, to try to get close to her since she is my only link now to Daniel—not that she’s the easiest person to get to know, since she will almost never actually talk about herself. But now …
… now, I think I need to get away from here. Fast.
To paraphrase old Willie S., there’s something rotten, but it ain’t in Denmark. It’s right here in the Great Dismal. And I have this feeling that the longer I sit in “my” room, typing on this laptop, the rottener it’s getting. I think it’d be best to get myself gone before MB comes out of her room looking for me.
Is it because I’ve been thinking about Josh and his noir movies that the phrase “you know too much” comes to mind? Because whenever there’s someone in those movies who knows too much, the person who says it is always trying to kill them.
I think maybe I know too much.
Guess it’s time to go.
More later,
K.
End of Book Two
JEFF MARIOTTE is the author of more than fifteen previous novels, including several set in the universes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Charmed, and Star Trek, the original horror novel The Slab, and more comic books than he has time to count, some of which have been nominated for Stoker and International Horror Guild awards. With his wife, Maryelizabeth Hart, and partner, Terry Gilman, he co-owns Mysterious Galaxy, a bookstore specializing in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror. He lives in San Diego, California with his family and pets, in a home filled with books, music, toys, and other examples of American pop culture. More information than you would ever want to know about him is at www.jeffmariotte.com.
Read an excerpt from the second book in the hot new series
the nine lives of chloe king
VOLUME TWO
The Stolen
by
CELIA THOMSON
Two
“What do we do now?”
Paul bent over; there was a stitch in his side and he was puffing like an asthmatic. He only smoked once or twice a week—this was probably just plain old-fashioned out-of-shape-ness. He put his hand on his belly and straightened up. Amy was standing stiff as a rod, breathing normally, hands on her hips, glaring at him like the whole thing was his fault.
Behind them another helicopter was circling the bridge. They had been hovering like pissed-off dragonflies off and on since Friday night. Paul and Amy hoped that the National Guard had caught up to Chloe and whoever was attacking her and split them up—but almost a day had passed, and it didn’t look like there had been any resolution.
Paul thought he’d seen a body fall from the bridge, but he didn’t say anything about it to Amy.
“Well?” his girlfriend demanded again.
Paul sighed.
“I don’t know—what do you think we should do?” “Call her mom …?” But even as she suggested it. Amy trailed off, knowing that it probably wasn’t the right thing to do—or, more importantly, that it wasn’t what Chloe would want. She ran her hands through her chestnut hair in exasperation, pulling on the roots. It was a leftover habit from when she was younger and tried to flatten her big, often frizzy hair every chance she got. “What do you think it was all about—really?”
They’d had this conversation several times in the last twenty-four hours, but somehow Amy was never satisfied with Paul’s answers.
“I don’t know. Drugs? Gangs? Some weird psycho game of tag?”
“Maybe it’s got to do with her real parents or something. Maybe she’s actually some sort of Russian Mafia princess.”
Paul gave her a lopsided smile. Silently they started to walk home, not holding hands or anything. Like they had in the old days, when the three of them were just good friends. Before Chloe almost died from falling off Coit Tower. Before she and Amy got into that weird little snit they were in for days—and had just patched up. Before Chloe started seeing Alyec and Brian …
“You know,” Paul said slowly, “a lot of weird shit has happened with Chloe in the last couple of months, don’t you think?”
Amy shrugged. “Seems to me she got her period and turned into a total bitch. For a while, at least,” she added hastily. Chloe might have been a bitch, but she was still Amy’s best friend, and she was still missing.
“No, it’s more than that.” Paul frowned, crinkling his long white forehead. “I mean like her fall and the bruises on her face and her random absences from school—not to mention being totally incommunicado about general Chloe life issues.”
“She was going to tell us everything,” Amy remembered. “On the bridge … She was just about to explain something.…”
“…when that freak with knives showed up.” They looked at each other for a long moment.
“We were talking about her crush on Alyec when she jumped off Coit Tower,” Amy suddenly pointed out.
“She didn’t jump, she fell,” Paul said, surprised at the way Amy said that. She was the only person on the planet who probably knew Chloe better than he did, and it was a really weird thing to say about their friend. At no point in her life, even at her gothiest moments, had Chloe ever seemed the suicidal sort. A jackass, sometimes, but never suicidal. Jumping up onto the ledge to get more attention had been a little rash, but they had been drinking, and it wasn’t completely out of the range of typical Chloe behavior.
“Whatever,” Amy said quickly, dismissing it. “Her life started going crazy after that. I’ll bet it has something to do with him.”
“That’s insane. How could thinking about him have anything to do with getting mugged or whatever?” Paul asked. He tried not to laugh or smile but couldn’t stop his dark eyes from twinkling. Fortunately Amy wasn’t looking directly at him.
“No! Think about it.” She began ticking off” facts on the tips of her black glitter fingernails. “She was mugged right after we all split up at The Raven, then became a total hag when she started actually dating Alyec—and he’s Russian, just like her. Maybe he’s got her into something bad.”
“What about Brian, then?” Paul demanded. “As long as we’re accusing random people of having somehow screwed up Chloe’s life and sent assassins after her. Brian, the mysterious sort-of boyfriend who never kissed her, who isn’t in school, and, most importantly—who we’ve never seen?”
Amy stared at him with blank blue eyes, at a loss for an answer. He was about to add a few more salient facts that proved she was a complete wacko with insubstantial—crazy—arguments, but then he noticed Amy’s lips trembling and tears forming on her lower lids.
“She’ll be okay. The National Guard is out there. We can call the police if you want or her mom later—let’s say if we haven’t heard from her in a few hours. Okay?”
Amy nodded miserably, and they continued walking home.
Three
Amy looked into the bottom of her locker hopefully. Nope, nothing. She was always making cute little notes for Paul and slipping them into his locker. Sometimes they were quick scrawls—See you in English!—and sometimes they were really intricate things she made the night before with cloth and her glue gun and stuff.
Not. Once. Had he ever done the same for her. She didn’t want to outright ask—but how strongly did a girl have to hint? Now that she was finally dating a nice, nonpsycho boy, she figured she should cash in on some of the perks that were supposed to go along with it. She was being stupid, she knew, and selfish: Paul did all other kinds of nice boyfriendy things, like buying tickets ahead of time for movies they wanted to see and getting her a coffee at the café if she asked. And he would talk to her for hours on the phone about all sorts of things.…
But once, just once, Amy wished someone would treat her exactly the way she wanted them to. All that jazz about the Golden Rule and karma and stuff—her do-gooding didn’t exactly seem like it was making its way back to her yet.
She closed the door dejectedly. Then she kicked it, hard enough to leave a dent with her steel-toed combat boots. Things were so up in the air and uncertain these days. Chloe was still gone. Amy cursed herself for not hearing the phone when she’d called; it had been jammed at the bottom of her backpack and she had been outside, looking for Chloe, of all people. Amy started checking her voice mail about a thousand times an hour, hoping to hear something from her friend, but nothing.
