Rebirth

by D. C. Alexander

  Carl drove us right to her place and continued past.

  “Carl, that was it right there, you missed it!”

  “What say we wait till we know she’s not home before we break in? And we don’t want to park right in front of her place. That’d look a little strange. We don’t exactly fit in the neighborhood, you know?”

  “Yeah, ok, glad you’re here. Thanks.” I was embarrassed, so caught up in getting it done I wasn’t thinking it through, I couldn’t afford lapses like that.

  The cell rang, 7:40. Wanda said “She’s here, just drove up.”

  “All right, you sure it’s her?”

  “Yeah, it’s her. Got cold feet?”

  “Maybe a little, but we good to go. Call you when we done.”

  “Bye.”

  Carl parked against the curb near the house. We’d decided to get out briskly and walk directly to the house with Carl carrying a clipboard. We didn’t have a way to get in, but Mags smiled when it came up and said “Same like door you house? I get in.”

  We walked up to the door and Magscaught the door knob and turned it. She didn’t look like she did much but it groaned and when she released the knob pieces rained to the floor. The door still wouldn’t open, she looked worried, I said “Dead bolt!” and pulled my necklace off. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but as I it came off my neck, it picked up on my idea and became thin, flat and flexible. I stuck it in the crack above the knob, thought at it, and slid it down.

  I felt a little bump and the door opened an inch. Mags pushed it the rest of the way open and we were in. Carl closed the door behind us.

  Mags said “Traps here, don’t do something.” She sat down in the floor and got a peaceful look on her face, she was feeling around for magic. That would be a handy thing to be able to do.

  I waited. She didn’t move for a few moments so I walked toward the bedroom I’d visited before.

  Carl whispered “Hey!” and I turned to look at him to see what was wrong. He said “Don’t move, they might be magic traps here, wait for Mags!” in a slightly louder voice.

  I said, in a normal voice “I got to get this done and get out of here. We can’t stay here all day. If they’s a trap, I’ll spring it and let’s tear it up. Y’all wait right here.” I proceeded on; it shouldn’t matter if I hit a trap fast or slow. Maybe hitting it fast would let me get past it before it did too much damage.

  I made it to the bedroom with no problem. Mags came in with a disapproving frown.

  I ignored it. “The only info I got on this, I saw her at a table with a bowl. She was pushing the stuff from Dirt into the bowl.”

  Mag said “Should be something from bowl, hold energy. Fill up...ah, charge, yes, like phone! Charge it up.”

  She continued “Piece of you she took with bowl. Stays there, when you use power, takes power always.” So it was automated somehow.

  We searched the place and found nothing but jewelry, figurines, nothing at all suspicious.

  “Maybe I was wrong. There wasn’t a trap, we ain’t finding anything. It might be somebody else. I just don’t know who else it could be though.”

  Mags said “Go outside, call Gaius, we see where power go.”

  I walked outside and grounded and pulled, sinking myself into the ground slightly. I didn’t sink much. The power was drained before I could touch it.

  Back inside, Mags stood at the middle of the living room wall feeling that beautiful fresh green paint.

  She said “Here, it goes here. Something we cannot see.”

  The bar in my hand elongated and thinned and became something like a net. I flipped it at the area of the wall in question; it seemed like the thing to do. A string ran from my hand to a rectangle outlined on the wall. The doorway ran from the floor to a little higher than my head. A spot bunched up, maybe a handle. Nothing stuck out to hold on to, nothing to pull, nothing to push.

  The net melted together and became a hatchet in my hand.

  “Oh, yeah, I see where this is going.” I drew back and cut into the wall about where one of the edges had been. With a bright flash of light and a small ‘Boom’ it knocked me on my ass and I slid a couple feet, my teeth felt funny, I’d been electrocuted.

  The hatchet was smoking. A hole in the wall showed only dark. The edges were ragged; it was big enough to step through into the room it concealed.

  A table in the middle of the closet sized room held a rough wooden bowl. Light filtered in through floating dust and made it hard to see. I hurried over and looked; a melted mass of dark hair lay in the bottom of the bowl.

  I reached for it and Mags smacked my hand aside.

  “You lose hand like that, this magic shit. You take more care.” To demonstrate, she tore a chunk of sheetrock from the ragged entryway and dropped it over the bowl. It fell, then seemed to hit thick air maybe, it shivered into dust. The dust vanished as it came off the chunk.

  “How the hell do I get it out of there then?” My phone rang, I pulled it out as Mags carefully lifted the bowl, turned it over, and dumped the hair out on the table. She smirked at me “Magic a little stupid sometimes.”

  I hit the ‘answer’ button on the phone. Wanda said “Whatever y’all did got her attention. She just peeled out of here haulin’ ass. At the rate she’s moving she’ll be there pretty quick, get out now!”

  I hung up “We gotta go, she’s on the way.” I shoved the hair in my pocket.

  Mag picked up a little fat figurine from the table, “This be the charge thing.” I had to work with her on her grammar. She was picking up bad habits.

  Carl said “Get in the car, I be right there.”

  I didn’t ask any questions, I hauled ass with my rescued hair, Mags laughing like a fool. We got in the car. I put the keys in the ignition and started it from the passenger side. I rolled my window down to shout for Carl, whatever he was doing was taking way too long. He came out and walked over to the car like he hadn’t broken into a house and robbed it. I admired his cool, I wanted to hunker down and hide in the floor or get out and run.

  We pulled away and turned around at the end of the street. I noticed the smoke curling out the open front door as we passed. The street was still deserted, empty.

  “I don’t think anyone saw us.”

  Carl laughed “I left that bitch a housewarming present. I set her couch on fire. With a little luck the whole thing will go up and she won’t know we got your hair back.”

  I watched behind us, the smoke got thick. At the stop sign Carl made sure nobody was coming, then pulled out and made our turn.

  He said “Rose, get down quick!”

  I said “What am I hiding from?” from the floor, a tight fit.

  “She’s passing us like a witch that had her hoodoo shit took and her house burned down!” Cackling like his momma he thumped the steering wheel gleefully. Those Roberts knew they could cackle. Wonder if Elizabeth was going to pick up on that?

  Soon as we got home, I got barefooted, stood in my front yard, and sank me down to my waist.

  I was whole again, even though Dirt wasn’t really part of me. Before I could go any further with that line of thought a patrol ‘Whoop whooped’ to a stop at the edge of the street and Henry hurried over to where I was sunk in the ground.

  “Jesus Christ, Rosalee, you fell in a hole? I might owe you an apology.” He reached out and caught my hand and I floated me up as he pulled.

  “No, sir, you don’t owe me an apology, I appreciate you helping me out there. Y’all doin a fine job, this just some yard work and everything is all ok. Hey, do you know what time it is? I got a show I don’t want to miss.”

  He looked at me hard, glanced at his watch and said “It’s 9:05 in the morning. If you got this under control, I gotta patrol to run.”

  I said “Yes sir, it was a pleasure seeing you, as usual. You want some coffee some morning you come on in.”

  He got back in his car and left, he didn’t remark on the fact that there wasn’t any hole in the ground where
he pulled me out. But if we needed an alibi, we had Henry and his trusty watch. That might be close enough to at least throw doubt on my being able to be there.

  And by God, I had my mojo back!

  Four

  W anda and Earl showed up in Earl’s big red tractor.(he told us that’s what you called the part of the truck he drove) Earl parked and shut it down, Wanda rolled down her window and waved at me “Hey, don’t wait for us, we’ll be just a second.”

  I closed the door, maybe we could get something to eat. I opened the refrigerator and looked, thinking about what would work for, let’s see, five of us, and I heard the front door slam open. Hard.

  I turned as I closed the refrigerator and saw the creature standing in my kitchen door. The thing looked horrible, hairy, its skin hung loosely. It stood on two legs and had two arms but they were deformed, lumpy and incomplete, no hands, no feet, just oversized shapeless masses where hands and feet should be. The face area was the worse. It had a snout with two flared nostrils. The smooth black nose showed where blood had dripped down from the nostrils into the mouth, and the mouth was limp and deformed. The eyes were horrible. The sockets had been gutted, the eyeballs were set way back deep in them, it was just wrong.

  It reached up and pulled its head off and let it fall. I gagged and flinched back, the head dangled on its back and I recognized the vampire from the creek.

  It was covered with blood from the deer hide, it was wearing the deer hide and standing in my kitchen before ten o’clock in the morning.

  My shotgun was on the counter by the door. I reached and my necklace fell into my hand, elongating into a large knife as I took it.

  I heard Carl and Mags in the living room. They were alive, good. They’d have to keep till I could get to them.

  Before I could move at it, the thing held a hand up and spoke with a slight accent:

  “No fight. You feed me. I let Andy live. You don’t feed me, I take what I want. I take it all. I take you all, you never safe, nowhere, no time.”

  Carl stood on the other side of it from me in the living room with his pistol pointed. He didn’t shoot!

  He said “Don’t you even… ” and the damned thing had Carl by the neck with one hand, facing me and holding him off the floor. I’d seen him move, I had time to take a step, but he was back before my foot hit the floor.

  I said “If you kill him all bets are off. I’ll gut you, cut you to pieces and burn the pieces.” I focused on his arm, I’d cut his arm off and the hand wouldn’t work. If he snapped Carl’s neck I might be able to heal him; or Mags could heal him while I took care of the vamp. I didn’t see any good choices, they all looked bad, I felt the cool, calculating mindset settling in.

  “We talk now, no fight. No kill. We deal.” It sat Carl’s feet on the floor and released him with a shove at me. Carl’s legs wouldn’t support him, he fell awkwardly against me. I braced so I wouldn’t lose my balance.

  The vampire continued “You put blood in cup with cover, set outside house at tomorrow daylight. Make sure no blood on outside. No blood to be smelled or you die. You do this, you live. You people live.” It moved, I saw afterimages of the deer head going back over its head as it ran out the front door.

  I looked in Carl, he was ok. He stood on his own. I snagged him with an arm and pulled him with me to where Mags lay in the floor in the living room on her face, contorted oddly. I followed out the front door and saw the vampire going between two houses across the street still accelerating. Mags moaned inside and I heard Carl curse. I noticed the door on the truck opening as I turned to go back inside.

  Mags’ breathed slow, eyes closed. Carl kneeled by her with his hand on her back.

  “That bastard hit her in the back, he broke her back. I feel pieces loose in there. She’s paralyzed. Oh Jesus Christ, if I had just been faster.” He bowed his head and stroked her head gently.

  I knelt down by her and reached inside. Two vertebrae were dislocated and fragmented and the spinal cord was torn between them. I pushed fragments away from the spinal cord and back into alignment. I needed more power.

  “Let’s get her out back. We need to roll her onto something so her back doesn’t move, then pick her up and carry her out.”

  Earl stood at the door “Is that plywood still downstairs? I’ll go get a piece of that.”

  “What happened? I saw that monster run out of here.” Wanda sat down by Mags, “Oh shit, this ain’t good. They ain’t no fixin’ this, is there?”

  “We got a good chance if we can get her outside quick enough.”

  Earl brought the half sheet of plywood. We got Mags on it and carried her outside with slow, exaggerated movements to avoid jostling her.

  Once we rolled her off the plywood onto the ground, I sank into her, pulling on Dirt. She maintained her vitals and helped as I did the repairs. Less than a minute later I realized I interfered. I backed off.

  Wanda said “Rose, you can’t give up!” Downcast, she liked Mag, but she knew spine damage was bad news.

  “No, Mags is taking care of it herself. She knows what she’s doing and it’s her body. I was just in the way. She’s gonna be starving when she gets up though.”

  Wanda said “If y’all can heal something like that, I can cook for you. Greens ok?”

  “Oh yeah, greens would be just fine.”

  She called to Carl and Earl, they all left and I stood watch over Mags, she was doing well.

  What to do about the vampire’s demand was the next question. I could spare some blood occasionally, if it kept him from savaging people. He seemed loopy. I had no way of telling if he was able to keep his word. Putting the blood in a sealed cup, I got that from my experience with Andy. He’d go berserk if he smelled it.

  He came out in the daytime when he wanted to, easily. That was a problem. I thought we were safer by day. I never had to pay off a bully. It didn’t set well even thinking about it. If I gave a little he’d want more. He’d own me in a little while.

  Mag moved her hand, just a twitch, making connections. I reached over and patted her hand so she’d know I was there,

  “You’re getting there baby, your hand moved, you’ll have it all back it a little while.”

  I sensed something moving at me and turned to look, except by the time I started to turn I was falling.

  I lay limply on the ground on my side. Sheila stepped into view.

  “You shouldn’t have burned my house. I was nice to you. I only took a little extra. You came and burned my house. Get up.”

  I stood up. I understood what was happening. She had a piece of twine looped around my neck. It was loose. It had a slipknot in it so she could tighten it if she wanted by pulling her end of the string; the tightness wasn’t the problem, the damn thing put her in my head, she drove me like a car!

  “We’re going to leave. You’re going to help me get a new place set up. I’m going to have some fun with you. If I ever let you go you’ll never think about harming anything of mine again.”

  Mag’s leg jerked.

  Sheila laughed “You lie there dear, be glad you aren’t up or I’d fix you too. It’ll take you a little while longer before you’re ready to get up. But why take chances?” She took a step closer to Mag, lifted her foot, and slammed it down in the broken area of Mag’s back. She stood on that foot for maximum pressure and twisted,

  “That should take you a little while.” She waved her hand and said something that shook the air. Out past a shiny black sedan sat waiting. She told me to get in the back and I did, she tossed the string in my lap and got in the front. She didn’t even need to hold the string. “Sleep.”

  “Come,” She stood outside the back door of the car with my leash in her hand. I got out and followed, I had lost some time. Walking into the house I could see the garage, a bicycle against the porch, a pair of boots with dried mud on them to one side of the front door. I could see fine, I could feel fine. I didn’t care. She would tell me what to do and that’s all I wanted to do. That w
asn’t right. I wasn’t anybody’s pet. She broke into my chain of thought and I lost it.

  “I have this place for the week, the family is out of town; I have to wait a few days till my new place is ready. We’ll have time to play, isn’t that nice? Come here in front of me.”

  I stood in front of her. She drew back and slapped me across the face, then back again, then again. It hurt, I could see each blow coming but I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t close my eyes.

  “You’ve upset me and cost me some effort.” She wound the string around my neck, “Go sit in that corner.” She pointed. I sat down face to the wall. I heard her moving but I couldn’t see anything but the wall.

  A pit of fear in my stomach made it hard to take a full breath. I had fear before but I never let it get in the way; I did what I had to do. This was different. It was more than my fear, it reached out and took my desire and drowned it before I could think it. My will drained off into the pit, it was despair. Trying to think made it worse till screaming, running, clawing, total panic crashed in my head and I couldn’t think at all.

  I looked at me sitting there under her control slobbering and drooling, like a damn rat, beaten and defeated. My lips pulled back in a sneer. That colder, meaner person said ‘You’re going to sit here and let her do what she wants because you scared. You, knowing what you know, you’re going let her take you like this, and use you like she wants, and do what she wants with you?’

  My heartbeat accelerated, it tried to be fear I decided it was rage, I decided, this was MY head. The fear was bad enough that I didn’t have strength to lift a finger but the rage lent me strength. And I could think:

  ‘Necklace, knife, sword, thing, can you hear me?’ It had been there the entire time, wondering in the background, helpless without direction. I imagined a choker around my neck exactly fitting between my skin and the noose, with sharp edges pressed against the string.

  The necklace got warm and I was free. The cut string only moved a fraction of an inch but it was the difference between life and death.