by Jessica King
There was only one note written on it. “I was wondering what you thought of our last phone conversation, though I figured this might be a less invasive way of asking you. Sometimes, it takes time to contemplate my offer. However, I hope you’ll accept. I think you have the greatness in you needed to take on a task so important.
Best,
Justice
“I saved Tatiana,” Father Nicholas said to Father Simon. “Don’t you see that? She was just going to leave and practice witchcraft again. It’s the same with all God’s children. They sin and they confess, but then they go sin again. Tatiana was headed down the path of witchcraft, Simon.” He shook his head. “I killed her after she had repented. She was right with God. She’s with Him, and I’ve saved Tatiana and the world from the witchcraft.”
Father Simon paled. “You don’t know if she was going to continue,” he said. “You could not have known that. Have you truly lost your faith in humanity?”
“You cannot have this job and maintain your hope,” Father Nicholas said.
“This job has been my hope,” Father Simon said. Tears lined his eyes with silver. He reached for Father Nicholas, pulling the rosary over his head. The emerald beads clinked together, a tiny ivory cross dangling from the bottom of it. Father Simon placed it with care in his own pocket and stared at the man he’d considered a brother. Ivy averted her eyes. Father Simon was not the type of man who was made to bear betrayal; she could see it in the set of his shoulders. It weighed too heavily on him. He took a step back.
“People can always change,” he whispered. “I hope you do.” Father Simon left, his mousy footsteps trailing toward one of the sanctuaries. He normally stuck around Ivy and Vince until they let themselves out of the basilica, but he couldn’t seem to stand to be around Father Nicholas. Yet something told Ivy told Simon was slipping away to pray for the man in handcuffs.
“What now?” Father Nicholas asked. He didn’t look defeated or triumphant. He seemed rather emotionless, which left Ivy cold.
“Chief Vitali is on his way to pick you up,” Vince said. “We don’t like driving through the traffic here.”
Ivy turned away from him and dialed Joyce. She picked up on the third ring.
“Ivy?”
“Hey,” Ivy said. “Chief told me you were under the weather.”
Joyce grunted. “I have that fever,” she said. “I banished the husband until further notice; I’m so scared he’s going to get it too.” Her voice scratched out the words so that her friend’s voice was barely recognizable—a beaten record player trying to glide along a scratched path.
Ivy swallowed. “Are—are you okay?”
A pause. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “I feel awful now. But the doctor said it should be over in maybe two days. I’ve never felt this bad, though.” She coughed so loudly that Ivy pulled the phone back from her ear. “Sorry.” A sneeze followed by a groan. “It hurts to even wear clothes,” Joyce said, and Ivy’s eyebrows scrunched together.
“Get some sleep,” Ivy said. “I’ll check on you when we come home.”
“Only if I’m better,” Joyce said. “I’m going to have to disinfect everything after this.”
“Hang in there.”
“Doing my best.”
Vince had been watching her while she talked on the phone. Father Nicholas had finally conceded to sit with his hands cuffed behind him while they waited for the cop car. “She okay?”
Ivy shook her head. Her mind replayed Joyce’s croaking voice, the sound of her coughing. Chills ran along her arms. “I don’t know.”
It took another twenty minutes before Chief Vitali was able to get to the basilica. By the time he arrived, Father Nicholas had managed to keep his face impassive and still, but when the Chief made his entrance, Father Nicholas’ face twisted into a sour expression. “I live by God’s law above yours,” he said. “I saved that woman, despite what you might say.”
“Well, you can live by whatever law you want,” Chief Vitali said, his accent dipping and rising like a bobber in water. “But you’ll be living in my prison.” He thanked Ivy and Vince, nodding at each of them in turn. “You’re headed back to Los Angeles?” he asked.
Ivy nodded. “Looks like it.”
“I see,” he said. “Be safe, yes?”
“Yes,” Ivy said.
“Bene,” he said. Good.
After he’d gone, Father Simon slipped into the offices. “I pulled a few strings to get you back to Los Angeles without going through the airport,” he said. “I thought it might be safer.”
Ivy snuck a glance at Vince, and he raised a brow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 8:00 a.m.
Andrew Justice Wilkins stared at his screen. Ivy Hart had arrested his ally in Italy, Father Nicholas. His swallow was audible. Surely, the foothold the Kingsmen had gotten in Europe would fall apart without him. He’d hardly managed to begin compiling the list of witches in Europe with Nicholas’ help.
He was certain Ivy would be coming to ask him questions, and he’d be damned before he was killed by a witch reincarnation, especially not Mary Caste. He’d already killed Mary Caste once before, right before she’d outed him for being a Kingsmen. Her latest reincarnation in Ivy would be coming back for him with a vengeance.
He still remembered when Mary had first found him. Her reincarnation was under the name of Ivy’s mother, Bethany Hart. She’d been powerful enough then to split her soul into two pieces, to occupy not only one body as Bethany but two as both Bethany and her daughter. When she’d sent him the letter, he had trembled more than when he first found out that witches were even real, that they even inhabited the planet beyond portrayals in films and storybooks.
He burned that letter now. If he were ever to save the legacy of the Kingsmen, his own part in it could no longer exist.
Dear Justice,
So many of my friends have died. So many women who have come to me have died. I fear it’s you doing the killing. You, my friend and mentor for so long. I knew you hated witches the moment I talked to you about the coven, about the fact that I thought I might contain some of the supernatural power that would allow me to fit into such a group of people.
I did not anticipate that you might hate witches so much that you would lead a group bent on destroying them.
I’m sure that if you are not guilty of such a horrible thought, you are angry at me for even making the guess that you are the leader of this horrible cult. If you are guilty of these deaths, as I am certain you are, I’m sure you’re wondering how I found out you were the ringleader of this needless destruction.
A woman named Barbara Harris, supposedly a reincarnation of Amelia Partridge, was killed in 1974. At the time, you were twenty-two, and you had just finished your degree at UPenn. I looked up your degree, and while I found that you did go on to receive your doctorate in psychology, you didn’t major in only psychology, as you had originally told me. You double-majored in law enforcement. I would consider this to be a simple oversight if I had not asked you about adding more classes when I was considering a double major, and you told me you had only completed one major when you had completed two. Now, why would you have lied if you had not used that time simply to learn how to evade law enforcement? Many of your professors have retired or even passed, but the few I did manage to get ahold of all confirmed that you were particularly interested in the loopholes of the law in the cases where the bad guy got away.
I also remembered a story you told us in class. Your parents showed up for your graduation, but you claimed to have slept through the ceremony. Another time, you told us you moved from Pennsylvania to California the day after your graduation. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Until I realized that Barbara Harris was killed during your graduation—when police would be distracted by crowds—and fleeing directly after would likely be your best evasion tactic.
Perhaps a coincidence—if Marina Mitchell, the so-called reincarnation of Martha
Eaton were not killed in 1984 in Los Angeles. Since you left a card with Barbara, and then the second occurrence of the card was with Marina Mitchell, there was a sudden fascination in the media with a serial killer who had taken a decade-long break just to reemerge across the country.
I kept a daily calendar and journal throughout my high school and college and decided to look back just to see. You canceled class that day. Not only did you cancel it, but you also left a note on the door unexpectedly.
It was then that a media blitz about this killer with a K on their calling card occurred, or I suppose, as much of a media blitz that could occur in the ‘80s.
When the Kingsmen site popped up in 2000, covered in that fingerprint image found by the bodies, I thought it was a joke. A client had seen my name on it. That was before public records were so easy to find before social media began to let us follow each other so closely. But my profile was filled more than any other’s. The other profiles barely had names, which slowly filled in over time. But me? It was up from the get-go. I think that it is because, not only did I remain in close communication with you after my graduation, you already believed that I was a witch and had been keeping tabs on my work and residence. You once told me my daughter is the spitting image of me. If she grows up to look like me, I beg you to keep her off that site that has marked so many other women and me for death.
You once told me that I have good gut instincts when it comes to understanding other people. It was what made me a great student in your classes, what has made me a great asset in my job and has allowed me to perform powerful spells and connect with others who have needed my help in the witch community. I have given them strength, even as so many of our members continue to show up dead with cards by their sides. I know it can’t just be you anymore, I know you must have found a way to recruit others. But I have a gun. If you show up at my home, I will shoot you.
I hope I am wrong. But I fear you, Justice. I fear you. And I fear death.
Have pity on me, on my daughter, on my soul. I beg you do not hurt me, and for the love of God, do not hurt my daughter.
Bethany
Andrew waited for the paper to dissolve into blackness before putting out the fire in the fireplace, picking his gun up off the mantle and leaving his house for the last time.
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 9:10 a.m.
The scientist was anxious on the drive back to his house. He’d barely slept, watching the feeds of the mice. They’d started exhibiting symptoms in five to ten minutes before he’d even reached the motel. After that, they cycled through the virus, his predictions coming true in exact amounts. All dead in the first cage. Two dead in the second. Half dead in the third. He ached for better equipment, he wanted to test it on human subjects, but he had no way to run the right tests.
He parked and circled to his back yard, where he suited up in his hazmat suit.
“What are you doing?” a small voice asked. His neighbor’s son was peeking at him through the knot in the fence, his glasses reflecting in the changing light.
A jolt of surprise ran through him, and he broke out into a smile. “Practicing for Halloween.” He gestured to the wrinkled white suit. It was far too large, but it’d do the trick.
The brown eye examined him. “Are you supposed to be an alien?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Good guess.”
Two blinks. “Thanks.” The little boy coughed. He heard the kid spit into the grass. The boy’s little fingers held onto the knothole in the fence, the tips of his fingers pale.
The kid said nothing else. This was normal fare for the neighbor’s child, who was normally outgoing one moment and shy the next. He went to pick up the key on the windowsill of his kitchen window. He skimmed his hand across the wood, chipping paint sliding against his glove. No key.
Another spike of panic flew through him as he searched the dirt behind the bushes. There it was, shining against the dry dirt. His brow crinkled in confusion. The back of his house was protected from the normally west winds of California. He raised on tiptoes so he could get a better view of his window. A tear in the plastic he’d placed over the apparently permanent gap between his window and its sill had him trying to cough all the air out of his lungs, despite the hazmat suit. It wasn’t the even tear of scissors. It was the uneven bite marks of mice.
He ran to unlock the door. He could have cried when he saw the cage full of dead mice was intact. The cage next to them, filled with mostly alive mice, was still there as well. The fifty-fifty was empty. When had this happened? He’d been watching the feed all night. One of them must have been smart enough to undo the hinge from the inside. It was possible but unlikely. How was he supposed to know it’d manage to push the lever? He growled. This is what happens when you have to buy cheap materials. Another thought formed in the back of his mind. Slowly at first. He felt as though he’d seen a vision.
Maybe fate was giving him his human test trial.
He searched for the disinfectant. He needed to clean up. He had work to do and one more dose to administer.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 6:30 p.m. | Central European Time
The papal plane was like a normal plane, although it had the pope’s coat of arms embroidered onto clothes that covered the headrests. The pope wasn’t coming to Los Angeles, but he’d been the one to request the plane, so they’d gotten the full treatment.
“We are getting served salmon,” Vince said, using his best impression of an uppity Brit. “How mundane.”
Ivy laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’d take peanuts on this flight; I’m just happy we don’t have to go through the regular security screenings.”
The Italian polizia and the pope himself had used some finagling to allow the two of them to board a smaller plane at a private airport instead of risk the possible illness of going through a public airport and landing in LAX. Instead, they’d land at Catalina Island and had been escorted by a private four-person to Los Angeles. Of course, that didn’t exactly protect them from getting sick, but it was a start. And it meant not risking a thirteen-hour flight during which they might begin to, apparently, feel as though they were dying.
That had been the most recent vlog of a person exhibiting “L.A. Fever.” They looked into the camera and started crying. “I feel like I’m absolutely dying.”
Ivy knew it couldn’t always be trusted, that they might be playing up their symptoms and pain for the sake of social media popularity, but the girl in the video hadn’t been looking too hot. Deep circles under her eyes and chapped lips. She did indeed look like she was feeling a good bit worse for wear. Ivy tried to think about L.A. Fever as a possibility, not an inevitability. But in the thirteen hours that it took for them to get home, it seemed that nearly half the world had come down with the thing.
“Cases of L.A. Fever, formally known as RAUVI (Rapid Unknown Viral), have been diagnosed in nearly all fifty states. Researchers have identified a secondary, stronger strain making its way onto the scene, a much more lethal version (RAUVI-2). However, as RAUVI-1 has been identified as an airborne pathogen, it is much more easily contracted and transmitted. In contrast, RAUVI-2 is droplet-based. It’s unknown how the virus would have made this jump from transmission method as well as the sudden uptick in its lethality, though Maximus Hampton, a lead scientist at the CDC, says discovering why this change occurred is not “top priority at the moment, though it is something scientists will surely study after the pass of this disease.” Hampton said teams across the country are instead focusing on developing vaccines and testing kits.”
Vince read the news from his phone as Ivy stared wide-eyed at him. “We left for five minutes and this happens,” he said, trying to play off their shock as a joke. They’d only had a few moments of wi-fi when they’d switched planes at Catalina Island, and Vince had downloaded a few news stories to read on the way over. They all said the same thing. Both strains of RAUVI had led to mass panic in only three days as cases popped up in bunches. “There’s no to
ilet paper,” Vince said, reading through a tabloid-version of the “modern-plague watch.”
“What?” Ivy asked, mentally checking the bottom cabinet in her bathroom. There was toilet paper there when she left, right?
“Yeah, people storming grocery stores trying to stock up. Everyone’s afraid to leave their houses.”
Ivy’s palms began sweating, and she felt the need to wash her hands. She searched her bag for hand sanitizer, fishing out an orange bottle. Vince made clasping motions with his fingers until she handed it over.
“Peach,” Vince said happily as he rubbed his hands together. The alcohol smell filled the tiny plane.
“So,” Ivy said, trying to clarify. “If you get sick and you have the bad strain, you find out in forty-eight hours which one you have because you’ll either live or die?”
“Well, you still might live if you get the bad one, but the odds aren’t, you know, great,” Vince said. “Hence the panic.”
Ivy pressed her fingers into her temples. She turned to look out the window, needing a reprieve, needing to call her father and stepmom. The water below them was a deep blue with veins of bright, crystalline turquoise. The entirety of it sparkled in the sunshine, and it all looked too bright and beautiful in comparison to the news stories mauling her mind. She leaned further, and the plane was so small, she worried the motion would cause it to capsize the plane. It didn’t, and instead, she saw the fins of dolphins rising up in the water, the dark shapes of their shadows swimming alongside the shadow of their own plane.
The sound of the engine roared in her ears, and Ivy sucked in deep breaths of air. What if it was the last truly clean air she had in a while?
“There will be appropriate face masks for you when we touch down,” their pilot said, seemingly reading her thoughts. “Regular face masks don’t hold up against the RAUVI-1 strain, but the filtered ones do. We have a pair for you.”
