Sudden Death

by Donald Hanley

  She eased away from me and stared up at me with her lips parted. Kiss her! Little Peter urged me eagerly. It’ll be perfectly natural and no one else can see you do it!

  She’s fifteen! I protested. Rebecca didn’t seem to be in any hurry to remove herself from my embrace.

  She has breasts, more or less, Little Peter insisted, and all the other important bits. That’s all that matters.

  Any further discussion on the merits of exploiting the situation came to an end when something hard rapped on the dome, making it vibrate silently. “Peter Simon Collins!” Daraxandriel’s voice sounded like it was coming from a mile away. “Rebecca! Art thou well?”

  Rebecca seemed to come to her senses finally and she stepped back, ducking her head and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Do you think it’s safe to go out?” she asked anxiously.

  “If Dara’s trying to get our attention, it must be. You can open this, right?” Now that I wasn’t distracted by having a pretty young woman in my arms, I was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she said. She spread her hands again and concentrated. A moment later, the dome faded away, revealing Daraxandriel, Olivia, and the remains of the speeding car. Its entire grille was bowed inwards in an arc and steam billowed up from the shattered radiator. The hood looked like crumpled cardboard and the windshield was crazed into a glass mosaic. At the end of the street, a small crowd of onlookers gawked at us but none of them approached just yet, although there were a lot of smartphones in sight.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. The car must have been doing at least fifty miles per hour when it hit Rebecca’s dome, coming to a sudden and devastating halt. Even hitting the brick wall behind us wouldn’t have caused this much damage. “What happened to the driver?”

  Olivia was closest and she peered through the driver’s window. “She’s still in here!” she reported. “She’s unconscious!”

  I hurried over and tried to get the door open to check on her. The frame was bent and it took me a couple of good yanks before the latch released. The driver lay slumped in her seat, held up by her seat belt, with the air bag lying in her lap like an empty pillow case. Blood dripped from a gash above her eyebrow, probably from the bent glasses dangling from one ear.

  “Hello?” I asked her hesitantly. “Are you okay?” I carefully touched her on the shoulder, afraid of making things worse if I moved her. She didn’t stir, although her chest rose and fell with her breathing. I patted my pocket for my phone before I remembered I didn’t have it anymore. “We need to call 911,” I said urgently, looking around.

  Rebecca eased closer to me, peering through the open door, and her breath caught in her throat. “That’s Gale!” she exclaimed.

  “Who?”

  “Gale Connelly! She’s in the coven.” Rebecca sucked in her breath and took a step back. “Did she just try to kill us?”

  “Oh, shit.” Not-Peter must have ordered her to keep watch on the police station, waiting for us to leave. “We have to get out of here.”

  A couple of men broke free from the onlookers and jogged towards us. “What happened?” one of them called out. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Get moving!” I pushed Rebecca and Daraxandriel into motion and waved Olivia onwards. “Call 911!” I told the closest man and then I wondered if that was a good idea. Mrs. Burns was the town’s 911 dispatcher and she probably had other things on her mind right now. “No, scratch that. Call the hospital directly and have them send an ambulance.” Gale groaned and stirred and I edged away from the car. If she regained consciousness with us still here, there was no telling what might happen. “Hurry!” I urged him and then ran after the others.

  “Hey, where are you going!” he called. “You can’t leave, you’re a witness!”

  “Sorry, we have to go!” I called over my shoulder. “Take care of her! Come on,” I urged the others, grabbing Rebecca’s arm and propelling her forward. “Let’s get out of here before something else goes horribly wrong.”

  19

  What were you thinking about a minute ago? You probably can’t tell me, although you might have some vague idea about the general topic. Part of the reason for this is that our thoughts are more than just words. They’re a hodge-podge of everything our minds have stored away on the subject, including memories and feelings and sensations and dreams and wishes, liberally sprinkled with other random nonsense. What comes out of our mouths is all of that distilled down into, with any luck, a couple of rational sentences. Everything else stays inside our heads where it belongs.

  This is why telepathy is an incredibly bad idea. Communicating with someone with your thoughts isn’t like calling them on a built-in cellphone. It’s dumping the contents of your brain into theirs, whether you wanted to share it or not. Even the most mundane conversation, such as greeting a coworker, immediately goes completely off the rails. You start out by thinking “Hello” but in the background you also notice that she’s wearing a new shirt. It complements her figure, which makes you wonder what she’s wearing underneath it, which then leads to speculation about her breasts, and everything quickly degrades from there into an HR policy violation. In ordinary conversation, you can keep those thoughts to yourself. With telepathy, everything’s out in the open, for better or, most likely, for worse.

  Fortunately, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, and all those other magical powers remain safely in the realm of fantasy literature. There’s no telling what might happen if the general public woke up one morning and knew exactly what everyone else was thinking. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

  We ducked out of sight around the next corner and zigzagged our way across downtown, alert for speeding cars and suspicious-looking pedestrians. We reached Milton Street without further incident, though, and cautiously approached the library, pausing in the recessed doorway of a real estate office to survey the area. In the distance, a siren wailed. With any luck, that was the ambulance coming for Gail. I hoped she was going to be okay but I also hoped she’d be out of commission for a while.

  “Do you see anybody?” Rebecca whispered, as if she was afraid her voice was going to carry down the block. She was the only one of us who was out of breath. I didn’t imagine she did much running outside of PE class, especially not in the summer heat.

  “Just that lady in the park.” Other than the few cars passing by, the only person in sight was a woman sitting on one of the benches in Milton Park. She looked old even from here, so she couldn’t be one of the witches. Unless she’s glamoured, I though uneasily, but if she was, there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. “Okay, let’s cross over and go around the back way. Keep your eyes open.”

  A narrow lane separated the library from the building next door, well away from the main entrance. In theory, it connected to the back alley, so anyone watching the front doors might not notice us sneaking in. We scurried across the road and ran into the lane, keeping close to the tall cinderblock wall marking the edge of the library property.

  Thankfully, the wall ended at the alley and I chanced a quick peek around the corner. Other than the battered remains of the dumpster, there was nothing between us and the back door of the library except broken slabs of pavement. Just to be sure, I sent Olivia out to scout the area while we waited with our backs pressed against the wall.

  “I hope Gail’s all right,” Rebecca murmured beside me.

  “She’ll be fine,” I assured her. “She was just knocked out by the crash. She’s probably awake already.” That wouldn’t actually be a good thing for us but Rebecca seemed worried.

  “It’s my fault she got hurt,” she said miserably.

  “It’s her fault she got hurt,” I argued. “No, I take that back. It’s the incubus’s fault. The sooner we get rid of him, the better off we’ll all be.”

  She looked up at me anxiously. “Do you really think we’ll be able to stop him? He’s got most of the witches on his side now.”

  “But not all of the
m,” I reminded her. “We can do this.”

  She nodded with a faint smile. “I’m glad you’re here. We wouldn’t even have known this was happening if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Well, don’t be too quick to thank me. It’s my fault we’re in this situation in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?” she frowned.

  “He’s using my body and my memories. He wouldn’t have been able to get as far as he did without possessing me.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault,” she protested. “You didn’t want him to do that.”

  “It’s still my responsibility.”

  “If Gail isn’t my fault, then the incubus isn’t your fault.” The set of her jaw dared me to disagree with her logic.

  Why am I always surrounded by stubborn women? I asked myself. Maybe it’s me. “Fine, both of us should stop feeling guilty. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She gave me a look as if she thought I was tricking her or something.

  Olivia reappeared around the end of the wall. “I don’t see anybody,” she reported. “All the doors are closed.”

  “Okay, good. Olivia,” I added for Daraxandriel’s benefit. “Let’s get inside before anyone else shows up.”

  We hurried across the alley to the back door and Olivia stepped through. I heard the rattle of the push bar on the far side but the door was snug in its frame and it took her several tries to before she shifted it enough for me to get a grip on the edge. Between the two of us, we pried it open and I urged everyone inside.

  “Hang on a sec,” I told them. “Let me find something to prop this open.” Daraxandriel held the door open while I scoured the area, finally picking up a shard of concrete about the size of a brick. I wedged it in the gap and pulled on the door to make sure it wouldn’t slip out. “Okay, that should do. Let’s get upstairs.”

  The light coming through the gap was just enough to illuminate the hallway leading to the stairs, but our ascent was in almost total darkness and I could hear Rebecca’s nervous breathing at my elbow. The main floor was a little better but the place was eerily quiet and gloomy.

  “All right,” I whispered, and then I cleared my throat and tried again at a more normal volume. “All right, let’s get set up in the foyer. The others should be here in a few minutes, but stay alert, just in case.”

  “Can’t we turn on the lights?” Rebecca asked uneasily. She stayed in the center of the hallway, as if she expected someone or something to jump out of the empty offices to either side.

  “The power’s off. No lights, no AC.” We entered the foyer and Rebecca’s head tilted back as she looked up at the narrow windows and dome high overhead. My attention, though, was on the Great Seal of Texas embedded in the center of the floor, the famous five-pointed star surrounded by oak branches. This was where Dr. Bellowes set up his trap for Daraxandriel and then released Metraxion from his ring to feed on Susie’s soul. I had to consciously unclench my fists and my jaw when I remembered that horrible day. “So is there really a portal into Hell here?” I asked Daraxandriel.

  She, too, seemed distracted but she walked slowly around the star, her tail twitching back and forth. “Aye,” she said when she returned to her original spot, looking pensive. “With some effort, I could open it anew.”

  “Let’s not do that,” I told her and Rebecca nodded her vigorous agreement. “Okay, let’s make this convincing. What would you do if you were actually going to summon Garrax?”

  “Naught,” she replied, tilting her head at me quizzically. “Garrax Spellbreaker was a Lord of the Court ere his fall and exile. Even now, he is far too powerful a demon to heed my call.”

  “Okay,” I persisted, “but if you were going to give it a try anyway, what would you do? Or at the very least, what would the incubus expect you to do?”

  “I cannot speak to his experience with summoning demons,” she said doubtfully, “yet such an act oft requires a pentacle.”

  “You mean a pentagram.”

  “Nay, a pentacle. A pentagram would entrap the demon, a pentacle opens the way.”

  “They’re the same thing,” I argued.

  “They’re not, Peter,” Rebecca informed me. “A pentacle is a star drawn with a continuous line.” She used her finger to trace the outline of the Texas star in the air, connecting every other point until she returned to the beginning. “A pentagram is a star inside a pentagon or a circle.”

  “I stand corrected,” I said wryly. I hadn’t expected to get a geometry lesson in the middle of a magical crisis. “So can you make a pentacle here?” I asked Daraxandriel.

  “I am a succubus,” she sniffed, “not a conjurer.”

  “Okay then,” I sighed, rolling my eyes as I turned to Rebecca. “Can you make a pentacle?”

  “I don’t think I should,” she replied uneasily. “What if I accidentally summon the demon?”

  “We’re not actually doing a summoning,” I sighed.

  “Mayhap a pentagram would suffice,” Daraxandriel suggested, “an Peter Simon Collins dost remain within its bounds as a sacrifice.”

  “I guess I could do that,” I said warily, eyeing the star, “as long as I can get out of it if I need to.”

  “I can just make my usual meditation circle,” Rebecca offered. “That’s easily broken.”

  “What’s a meditation circle?” Neither Susie nor Melissa ever mentioned anything like that to me.

  “It’s just a different way to commune with the Goddess,” she explained, looking embarrassed. “I can’t greet the dawn like most of the other girls in the coven can.”

  “Why not?”

  Her ears colored pink and she couldn’t look at me. “Our apartment doesn’t face east. There’s no place to, um, you know.”

  “Oh.” I did know. Susie wouldn’t have any problems being skyclad in the middle of a parking lot at sunrise but the neighbors would probably raise an objection or two. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Okay, so what do I need to do?”

  “Just sit in the middle,” she said, pointing. I lowered myself down at the designated spot, sitting cross-legged while Daraxandriel and Olivia stood well back to watch the proceedings. To my surprise, Rebecca knelt in front of me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her, puzzled. “Shouldn’t you be outside the pentagram?”

  “Not for a meditation circle.” She said it like I was an idiot for asking.

  “But –” I was going to argue that we needed to make this as realistic as possible, but I supposed it didn’t really matter. We were going to jump the incubus as soon as he showed himself and I didn’t intend to give him time to critique our demon-summoning techniques. “Fine, go ahead. Olivia, you should go outside and keep watch. Let us know when the incubus shows up.” She looked like she wanted to argue with me but she nodded with ill grace and phased through the front doors.

  Rebecca closed her eyes and rested her hands on her thighs, palms up. She took several deep breaths but a frown creased her forehead and she shifted around uncomfortably. “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

  “Sorry, the floor’s hard on my knees. I usually do this in my bedroom. It’s got carpet.” She tried a couple of different positions and ended up sitting cross-legged as well. “Okay, here we go.” She closed her eyes again and visibly relaxed step by step with every breath.

  Nothing happened for a long while and I wondered if a meditation circle was just a metaphor instead of an actual circle, but then a flickering golden flame appeared above the point of the star to my right, followed by four others, green, blue, white, and red in quick succession. I remembered Melissa conjuring the same lights during her initiation so I wasn’t surprised when, a moment later, lines of softly glowing green connected the lights in a star pattern, enclosed within a circle. I felt a faint tingle on my skin, although that might have been my imagination.

  I waited to see if anything else was going to happen but the only change was the faint smile on Rebecca’s lips. She seemed at ease for the first time today, althoug
h I couldn’t say the same for myself. All I could do now was wait but a multitude of worries started vying for my attention.

  Where are Dad and the others? I wondered. They should be here any minute. If the incubus does bring his witches with him, we’re in for a pitched battle and we’re outnumbered. Maybe Stacy’s back in town already. We should have checked on her. We need all the help we can find. Goddess grant me strength. I blinked. Where did that thought come from?

  I glanced at Daraxandriel, wondering if she’d said something, but she was pacing slowly around the pentagram with her sword gripped in her hand, perusing the doors as if she expected a hoard of witches to come bursting through at any moment. Besides, she was the last person here to invoke the Goddess. I eyed Rebecca suspiciously but she seemed to be completely unaware of anything around her.

  It must have been my imagination, I told myself. I’m just focused on witches, that’s all. I tried to find a comfortable position but I wasn’t used to sitting on the floor for extended periods of time. I arched my back to ease the stiffness, trying not to disturb Rebecca’s concentration. She’s really deep into it, I noted. I doubt she even remembers I’m here. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my legs, and resigned myself to a long wait.

  How long should we give him to show up? I pondered. What if he doesn’t take the bait? How are we going to get close to him? Maybe we’ll have to do what Karyn suggested and try to glamour our way into Mrs. Kendricks’ house. I don’t think Karyn likes me very much. She thinks I’m just some scared kid pretending to be a witch.

  I sat up straight, startled. That has to be Rebecca, I realized uneasily. Am I reading her mind somehow? Is her meditation circle doing this? The circle opens my mind to the Goddess. That proves I’m a real witch. Crap, she’s picking up my thoughts too. I wonder what Peter thinks about me. He tried to save me from that car crash. He’s really brave.

  Well, well, well, Little Peter observed slyly. It looks like you have a new admirer.