Hex to the No

by Constance Barker

  Though he didn’t know what he was going to do when he caught them, Sandoval was determined not to let Sir Kain and Basil Augustine get away. And if he was being honest with himself he wasn’t after them to find his father but for revenge at this point. They’d be his outlet for his growing anger.

  Suddenly the road under and in front of Sandoval raised up as if pushed from underneath. He didn’t have enough time to react to avoid it. Before he knew it, Sandoval’s bike flew out from underneath him and he was tumbling down the street.

  Well, that is certainly fortuitous. Upon hearing what sounded like a crash, Sir Kain looked in the rear view mirror. He was pleasantly surprised that not only was he not being chased anymore, but Sandoval crashed. Now he could concentrate on getting his old friend help.

  Sir Kain and Basil Augustine were only about five minutes away. Basil had to survive his wounds, he must. It wasn’t just because he was Sir Kain’s friend but because he was the only real hope they had to restore OLG’s memories. If she could remember then maybe they could get answers to the chaos unfolding in Devil’s End.

  “I’m sorry,” apologized a barely conscious Basil Augustine.

  “For what?” asked Sir Kain, eager to keep his friend talking and more importantly, awake.

  “I should’ve.... I should’ve saved you.” It was hard for Basil to talk, each word took a little bit of his waning energy left. Not to mention it hurt, a lot.

  “Saved me? From what? Hold on!” Sir Kain took a hard turn. Saint Mercy was within his view. Just a minute more.

  “From the Blackwards. I should have...” Basil passed out.

  “Basil? Basil!?” Sir Kain pushed the car as fast as it could go. He came to a sliding screeching stop, not in front of the emergency room but around the back of the hospital.

  A lone gremlin stood out back, smoking a cigarette. To anyone else she was just an ordinary run of the mill nurse. Glamour spells, they are a heck of a thing.

  “Help! We need help!” yelled Sir Kain as he quickly got out of the car and ran over to the passenger’s seat. He picked Basil up like he was a rag doll.

  “I can see that,” the gremlin had a nasally voice. It threw its cigarette on the ground. “Let’s get him in to see Dr. Faust.”

  Sir Kain waited as the gremlin stood in front of two dumpsters. It recited a spell and the dumpsters separated on their own revealing a small door with a neon emergency room sign above it.

  “Well, ya coming or what?” asked the gremlin as it opened the door. Sir Kain, carrying an unconscious Basil Augustine, followed the gremlin inside. The dumpsters returned to their original position behind him.

  A witch hospital wasn’t much different than a regular one as far as how it was laid out. The only real difference was in the clientele. Undaunted by the uncanny, Sir Kain paid no attention to the magical creatures sitting in the waiting room.

  “Come, it doesn’t look like your friend has anytime to wait.” The gremlin motioned for Sir Kain to follow him through a pair of double doors. Before going through the gremlin turned to the troll security guard in his navy blue uniform, armed with a very big club. “Page Dr. Faust, we got a dying human here.” The troll nodded and grunted.

  Seconds after going through the double doors, the gremlin grabbed a bed on wheels. Sir Kain put his bleeding friend on top of it and pushed him down the halls. They were heading to the surgery suites.

  “So what happened to em?” asked the gremlin as he used magic to telekinetically insert an IV into Basil.

  “Skin changers, werewolves.”

  “Werewolves eh? Nasty creatures.” The gremlin kept working on Basil as they hurried down the hall.

  Is that a unicorn? One of the rooms they passed housed an injured unicorn with bandages around its horn.

  “Suite A. Doc Faust should be there soon. Good luck buddy.” The gremlin pointed Sir Kain towards the surgery suite labeled “A”.

  Sir Kain wasn’t filled with confidence about his friend being saved until he actually entered the surgery suite. Nurses, human, gremlin and even fairies were already in the middle of prepping the room. One of them instructed him to carefully pick up Basil and transfer him to the surgery table. They attached a couple units of blood, hung them up above him. Another nurse hooked Basil up to air.

  “Im gonna have to ask you step out sir.” One of the nurses gently took Sir Kain by the arm and led him towards the same door he came in through. “Don’t worry. He’s in good hands.”

  “OKAY, LUCKY NUMBER twenty three,” said Lilith as her hand gripped the door knob of yet another door in the long hallway beyond the high table meeting room. Eve cowered behind her. Some of the previous doors opened to less than ideal places.

  Here goes nothing. Lilith opened the door. All she saw was darkness and was hit by a cold wind. There was a flash of lightning revealing grey storm clouds. She thought she saw something in those clouds.

  “I don’t like this one,” said Eve as she pressed her face against Lilith’s back and peeked at the open door.

  “Yeah, me neither.” There was another lightning strike revealing something very large with tentacles in those storm clouds. She slammed the door shut. “On to twenty four.”

  Lilith moved on to the next door. She had very little hope that it would be a portal to somewhere in town. But she tried anyway and opened the door.

  Wait, I know this place. The train yards. Lilith and Eve stepped through the doorway and found themselves in the Devil’s End train yard, just outside of a very modest downtown. A drunk man watched a doorway made of light appear and two people step out. He shook his head and took a huge swallow from his brown paper wrapped bottle.

  “Perfect! The Grand, it’s within walking distance from here.” Lilith led the way across the train tracks towards downtown.

  Opened in 1923, The Grand Theater was a Devil’s End landmark. It was the only venue not only for movies, but music and plays in town. The ornately decorated old school building was restored in the nineties but nothing was changed so it still had that roaring twenties charm.

  “I don’t think we can get tickets. They are closed,” pointed out Eve.

  Yeah, no kidding. Lilith knew the Grand Theater would be closed. It was closed for over a year now. But she knew a way in.

  All witches and warlocks are forced to work at least a couple years in the mundane world. It was to help them gain a better understanding of the beings whose world they lived in. Lilith had worked at The Grand Theater

  Just like I remembered. Out in the back of The Grand Theater was a door that staff used to take out the garbage and empty out the grease from the concession stand fryers. It was never locked, in fact, it didn’t even have one.

  “Lemme go first!” insisted Eve as Lilith opened the back door to the theater “I really think I should go first!”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno, just in case, there’s someone in there, or there’s a big animal or, there’s sketchy people inside or...”

  “Oh yeah...good idea.” Lilith held the door open and motioned for Eve to go in first. The odd young woman was over the moon about that decision.

  And it is pitch black in here...awesome. Lilith took out her cell phone. She saw that she had four missed calls. Two of them were from Sir Kain. One from Aunt Rose and another from Winter. She figured Sir Kain could wait, Aunt Rose was just checking in and at that point the last thing she wanted to do was talk to Winter. After deciding to keep her phone on silent she turned on the flashlight.

  Eve used her canine senses to guide the way. She made her way through the kitchen, behind the concession stand and out into the theater lobby. Lilith took her time checking around for anything that might’ve been a clue. All she saw through the cell phone flashlight’s beam was abandoned equipment like the popcorn machine and the fryers.

  It wasn’t until she reached the lobby that Lilith found anything interesting. Eve found it first. On all fours, Eve sniffed hard at the carpet in the middle of the cavernous space.
Something very much caught her attention.

  “What is it? What’d you find?” asked Lilith.

  “Blood,” answered Eve. She looked over at Lilith as she came over to join her. She had a very concerned look on her face. “It’s...it smells like him. Like our pack leader.”

  Lilith shined her light on the blood stain on The Grand Theater lobby carpet. From it’s color she could tell that it wasn’t that old. Though not necessarily fresh, it must’ve been spilled within the last couple days. And it didn’t stop at one little puddle, a trail led into the theater itself.

  Where’d the blood come from? And where and how did they get hurt? Before following the trail, Lilith continued examining the lobby. She had to know how the owner of the blood got hurt. Were they beaten, stabbed, shot?

  Lilith hedged her bets on a gun being used. So she started from where the dried puddle of blood was and worked her way out in every direction. It took a little while, and Eve was agitated, talking very fast, upset. But Lilith ignored her. And after about ten minutes she found a spent shell casing.

  A .45 caliber bullet. Most police officers are issued .45 caliber hand guns. Then again you can buy one at the store if you have a license. Lilith rolled her sleeve down over her hand before picking up the single shell casing. It was a .45 caliber round. Interestingly it wasn’t made of steel or lead. The shell casing was made to be out of silver.

  Silver bullet, a skin changers weakness. Whoever did this came prepared. Lilith as well as every young witch were taught about skin changers as kids/students. Naturally stronger than three men put together, as fast as a cheetah and with eye sight and hearing on par with a wolf’s, they were formidable foes. But they were also taught their major weakness, silver. That being such common knowledge didn’t help whittle down the list of possible suspects though.

  “Dad!” yelled Eve as she rushed out of the lobby on all fours, nose to the carpet, heading into the main theater

  Smells like death in here. Lilith slowly followed Eve into the theater proper, light focused on the blood trail. It didn’t look like anyone was dragged. There weren't streaks or anything like that. No, all the blood lost looks as if it dripped out at a steady pace. Whoever was hurt probably tried to get away.

  As Eve freaked out, looking everywhere for Armando Lobos, Lilith was methodical. She not only followed the blood trail but looked around for any other clues. On one of the theater seats was a bloody hand print. They stopped here, probably to make sure they didn’t fall over. From the looks of it they lost a lot of blood.

  Lilith noticed a disruption in some of the blood that led down one of the theater aisles towards the stage. There was a foot print. Whoever made it wasn’t very big, judging from the size and shape, and it wasn’t a man’s print. And near it, under a seat was...

  Another shell casing. Almost hidden, only revealed by the reflection of her cell phone flash light, Lilith found another silver shell casing.

  “Noooo!” Eve sounded like a mix between a howl and scream. She was on The Grand Theater stage.

  Oh no! That can’t be good. Lilith jogged down the aisle to the stage. As soon as she shined her light on it she saw why Eve had screamed.

  Eve cradled her father Armando Lobos’ lifeless body in the middle of The Grand Theater stage. She sobbed as she pressed him against her chest. Lilith knelt down behind her and put her arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry Eve. I’m so sorry.” Lilith looked down at Armando’s body. He’d been shot several times, suit covered in dried blood. That she expected. What she didn’t expect was that his right hand was shut tight.

  “He won’t wake up,” said Eve as she looked at Lilith, tears falling from her big brown eyes. “He won’t wake up friend Lilith.”

  “No.” Lilith helped Eve up. She practically dragged her from her dead father’s side. “No he won’t Eve. I need you to, can you wait over here. I got to...just give me a second. Okay?”

  Poor girl. I guess we both have something in common now. Once she managed to separate Eve from Armando Lobos’s corpse, Lilith went back to work. Sensitive of the situation she was as gentle as possible. Eve started to growl through her tears as Lilith lifted up Armando Lobos’s right arm.

  “It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt him. I just want to know what he’s holding.” Lilith reassured Eve.

  Rigamortis made it difficult to pry Armando’s hand open. But when Lilith did she instantly wished that she couldn’t have opened it. He was holding a tuft of hair, white hair. She only knew one person with hair like that.

  “Eve?” asked Lilith.

  “What?” Eve briefly stopped crying and wiped her nose.

  “That nose of yours. How accurate is it?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Okay. Who do you smell in here, in this theater?” Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.

  “I uh... it’s hard I can’t, right now.”

  “Please Eve. It’s important.”

  “I smell you, me...daddy,” Eve broke down again. Lilith patiently waited it out.

  “Who else?”

  “This scent, I know it but I can’t...”

  Please don’t say it. Please don’t. Lilith was pretty sure who Eve was going to say but needed confirmation.

  “I smell new friend Winter. She was here.”

  Oh Winter. What have you done?

  Chapter 9

  Clean Up

  “Pick up Lilith. Pick, up.” Sir Kain sat at Basil Augustine’s bedside at Saint Mercy Hospital. He needed to get in contact with Lilith but she was either screening his calls or busy. Either way she needed to be made abreast of the situation. And unbeknownst to him, there were things she needed to tell him.

  “Hello?” Lilith actually answered. Her voice was low, she was a little hard to hear.

  “Lilith?”

  “Yeah? What’s up Sir Kain?” Sir Kain could tell, something was very wrong with Lilith. Sure she was a bit moody and could come off as cold and emotionless at times. But that was usually an act. But this time...

  “I can barely hear you.”

  “Sorry, I’m, me and Eve we’re, working.”

  “Oh. Lilith I have a problem here. It is Basil Augustine.”

  “What about him?”

  Sir Kain stood up and started to pace around Basil’s hospital room. “I found him. Which is good. He was at the Midnight Bar getting seduced by vampires. “

  “Okay?” Lilith and Eve stood in a alleyway, downtown, about a half a mile from The Grand Theater. Devil’s End Police sped by on the nearby road, painting the neighborhood flashing blue and red. “What’s the bad news?” At that point there was nothing Sir Kain could tell her that would be more depressing than what she learned within the last couple hours.

  “What’s that sound? Is that the cops? Mundane or ours?” Sir Kain stopped pacing.

  “We don’t have any police remember? We’re renegades, ex-communicado.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Lilith paused for a moment. She looked over at Eve who was in fetal position next to her, silently crying. “Your bad news? What is it?”

  “Well, we were in the Midnight Bar and Armando Lobos’ son showed up. Him and a couple of his friends decided to tear down the place in attempt to find any clues that would lead them to his father. They are werewolves Lilith. And, well, you know my history with those kind.”

  “Please tell me they didn’t kill him.”

  “No, but not for the lack of trying. I am with him at Saint Mercy. You might want to get over here. He is not doing too good. I do not know how much time he might have left.” Sir Kain looked back at Basil Augustine who was in really bad shape. Multiple IV’s fed him a steady stream of clean blood, fluids, chemicals meant to keep him comfortable and a possible antidote for werewolf bites. A machine breathed for him.

  “I’ll be over there as fast possible.” Lilith took a quick glance outside the alley. The Devil’s End PD were down the street at The Grand Theater investigating her an
onymous tip about a body. She wouldn’t give the coven police the satisfaction of getting to him first. “There’s something you should know though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t have to worry about Sandoval Lobos coming around looking for his father anymore.”

  “Whhhyyyy?”

  “I found him already. Armando Lobos is dead. Come on Eve, let’s go.”

  “I see...” Sir Kain didn’t know what to make of that news. “Do you know who-?” He was interrupted by the door to Basil Augustine’s room opening.

  “Look I have to go, I’ll see you soon,” said Lilith before hanging up.

  “Hello.” A medium sized woman with long purple hair and an abundance of tattoos entered Basil Augustine’s hospital room. She had red horn rimmed glasses through which her right eye looked unusually large. Dressed in hospital scrubs and holding a chart, he figured she was a doctor. “My name is Doctor Abigail Faust. Are you a member of Mr. Augustine’s family?” She held out her hand for Sir Kain to shake.

  Careful not to crush Dr. Faust’s hand, Sir Kain shook hers. “Sir Thomas Kain, and no, I am not family per say. But a very close friend.”

  “Well Sir Kain, I won’t lie to you. Mr. Augustine is in a precarious position right now. His wounds, received in any other way are bad but not life threatening. Especially since we stopped the blood loss.” Sir Kain tried to politely listen but he could’ve sworn that Dr. Faust’s left eye suddenly looked extra large through her glasses and her right was normal. “HE’S DEAD!” yelled Dr. Faust in a completely different, almost beastly, gruff voice.

  “Ummmm...?” Sir Kain was perplexed by the jarring lack of bedside manner.

  “Sorry. It’s my sister, sometimes she’s hard to keep in. Anyway, as I was saying, his wounds as bad as they are, are superficial. Some stitches, some blood, time and they will heal just fine. The problem is...HE WAS BITTEN! Sorry. He was bitten by a lycanthrope. Which presents its own set of problems. We have an antidote but typically it needs to be taken within minutes of someone being bit. So we’re not sure of the efficacy of...IT WON’T WORK! Excuse me, one moment.” Dr. Faust, clearly not in control of whatever was wrong with her, reached into her pocket and took out a vial of glowing green liquid. She downed it in one go.