A Lying Witch

by Odette C. Bell

  Along the top of the tall, long building were a row of windows. Or at least a row where windows had once been. Now there was nothing more than shards of broken glass, random scraps of fabric and plastic skewered on them and flapping in the storm.

  The building itself was made from some amalgam of steel sheets and wood. It looked cheap, and it obviously hadn’t stood the test of time as the sheets that constituted the walls were all bent and warped, thin, yellowed, torn insulation puffing out from the gaps.

  There was a barricaded door, two large, heavy wooden beams slung across the front, held in place with a seriously mean looking chain and lock.

  Max didn’t hesitate. He didn’t have time, after all. That heat was now ten times worse. It felt like we’d walked out of the storm and right into a sauna. No, scratch that – a volcano.

  I grit my teeth, trying to fight against the pain. Max just moved.

  As soon as we reached the door, he whispered something under his breath. His body lit up with light. Power charged down his torso and into his shoulder.

  He twisted on his foot, his boot squeaking as he plowed shoulder-first into the locked and barricaded door.

  I winced as I expected us to fly backward, rebuffed by the steel and wood.

  We weren’t rebuffed.

  There was a great snap, and the wood splintered, shards blasting out in a great arc as if the poles had been struck by a cannon ball and not a Scotsman’s shoulder.

  The chain shattered, too. Max’s magic appeared to do something to it. Eat into it, weaken it in a cascade of light and crackles.

  With a roar splitting from his lips, Max managed to push his way in.

  Instantly the musty scent of the warehouse met my already seared nostrils. It smelt like this place hadn’t been opened in years.

  Though the terror of the chase still filled me to the point of popping, I managed to perceive enough through the darkness to contemplate what the hell had been stored in this warehouse.

  There were plastic sheets everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. There were upturned milk crates and old 44-gallon drums. And covering them were old, moldering sheets of thick white translucent plastic.

  The plastic was stained in places with some dried up red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood.

  No… it didn’t look like blood; it was blood. That’s what that awful metallic smell was.

  I didn’t have time to draw a hand up and cram it over my face to block out that godawful realization – Max abruptly and violently screeched to a standstill.

  “Shit, this is a trap!” he bellowed.

  My stomach sank so far and hard I could have retched.

  I could no longer hear that awful, ear-splitting screeching from outside. Instead, I heard silence. Total eerie silence. The kind of silence that felt like it was ticking down to something.

  “Max, what's going on?” I stuttered, barely able to push the words out.

  Max didn't answer. He turned hard on his foot, swinging around as he appeared to search for something. It couldn't be a way out – as there was one right behind us: the doorway he'd just crafted with his shoulder.

  Yet, a second later, that doorway no longer existed.

  Something rammed into it, closing it shut. Except it wasn't the actual doors that slammed to. Oh no – it was some enormous gelatinous black mass.

  I screamed as soon as I saw it, shuddering further back into Max's tight embrace.

  I didn't have to point out that I'd never seen anything like it. Because it was completely impossible. The wet sound of it was the most awful thing I'd ever heard – a cross between someone plunging a drain and some old codger clearing his throat.

  It also stank to high heaven, a cross between cloying sulfur and burning nails.

  I crammed a hand over my mouth and tried to breathe through my sweaty fingers.

  Max swore again, his brogue shaking down his chest and into my arm.

  With wide-open eyes, I stared at the underside of his face.

  It was half dark in this warehouse. Though it was a dark, raining night, somehow there was still enough light making it in from the broken windows high above that I could make out the side of Max's face. In fact, as he twisted on the spot and tilted his head back, I suddenly realized that the roof was broken in several places, massive gaping holes letting in the wind.

  But not the rain.

  The holes in the roof weren't just tiny cracks. Oh no. It looked as if someone had plunged a wrecking ball through the steel and tin.

  So there should be rain all over the floor. Massive pools of it. There wasn't, though. Just that blood-soaked plastic.

  I had zero experience with magic. Absolutely zilch. Apart from the sparks that sometimes invaded my vision and the grass-and-sunshine magic of Max, magic was nothing but an enigma to me.

  Well, now I felt it.

  Faint, but there. It was like tiny electrified pins plucking at my skin and stabbing at the base of my spine.

  Max swore once more, his powerful brogue shaking through the room until I swore the roof shook.

  “W-where are we? What's happening?” I managed.

  Max didn't answer. He warily moved into the middle of the room, constantly darting his head from left-to-right as he obviously searched for a way out.

  But there was no way out.

  I caught sight of the side of his face once more. I'd seen Max act tough, and god knows I'd seen him act indignant. Now? Now he looked terrified.

  “You – you can put me down,” I managed in the world's highest falsetto.

  He didn't answer.

  “Max,” I forced myself to say, “you need your arms.”

  He jerked his head down to me and made eye contact for the briefest fraction of a second. I looked right up at him, making no attempt to hide the tears of fear touching my cheeks, and yet making no attempt to retract my offer, either.

  “Aye,” he muttered, word snapped like a sapling suddenly buckling under excess weight.

  He put me down. It was a quick and yet gentle move. My mind wanted to suggest that that summed up Max completely, yet my reason couldn't forget his anger and arrogance.

  Or could it? Because right now Max was the only force capable of keeping me safe.

  I had to use all my balance and strength not to fall over the moment he put me down. It wasn't because the floor was covered in that sickly stained plastic. It was that I felt so weak my muscles may as well have been dried up jelly.

  “Keep close,” Max warned, voice shaking through me.

  I pushed into his back. He probably hadn't meant that close, but I couldn't help myself. He didn't push me away, either, just kept spinning on the spot as he desperately searched for a way out.

  But a way out didn't come.

  I saw several sparks collect to the right of my vision. I jerked my head up just in time to see some indistinct form climbing along the broken windows.

  “Max.” I latched a hand on his arm and jerked him backward, pointing towards the windows.

  Despite the distance, I saw the eyes. The red eyes that reminded me of those devilish glowing pinpricks I'd seen outside of my bedroom window.

  “Shit!” Max roared. “Darklings.”

  My back seized up on that word, on the terrifying way he said it.

  Again I caught sight of the side of his face, and again I was almost bowled over by how terrified he seemed. And if Max the strong magical fairy was terrified, then I was a goner.

  I kept a hand pressed into his hard back, feeling his muscles practically twang under my sweaty fingers.

  I… had to do something. But I didn't get the chance to finish that thought.

  I saw more of those fiendish red eyes appear near the windows. Then I heard the unmistakable sounds of climbing: scrabbling feet, plucking fingers, creaking bones.

  “Chi, first chance you get, you run,” Max demanded, his accent thicker than I'd ever heard it.

  I didn't reply.

  “Chi!” he screamed.<
br />
  “I run,” I managed through a choked gasp as I watched more and more of those darklings climb through the shattered window. I heard the unmistakable sound of fabric tearing over the remaining shards of glass, but it didn't even appear to slow them down.

  Though my fear-filled mind should have been beyond counting, I managed to figure out that there were ten of them. Ten darklings. Max had been terrified at the prospect of one darkling. Now there were ten.

  Something suddenly struck me. It felt like a baseball bat to the face.

  I wasn't going to make it out of here, was I?

  I was going to die tonight. Violently.

  The tears suddenly dried up. So did the terror. In its place, I didn't suddenly grow a set of balls.

  Nope, I became a cold, frozen, numb lump.

  Max, however, didn't give me the option to remain frozen for long. He struck out with his hand.

  A blast of his magic sailed towards the closest darkling. The thing jerked to the side, but it wasn't quick enough. The magic sliced into its black arm.

  No – that wasn’t right. Its arm wasn’t black. Its arm was pure, crystalline white as if the flesh had never seen the light of day. It was just wearing black clothes. Clothes that seemed to cover its entire body right up to those pinprick red eyes.

  The scent of burnt flesh filled the air, cloying at my nostrils and raking at my throat.

  Two of the darklings circled towards us from behind. Before I could point this out to Max, he roared, pivoted on his foot, and threw himself towards them, a scream bellowing and pitching from his throat.

  With two snapped words, the magic pulsed over his form, covering it entirely until all I could make out was his sneering face.

  He pelted towards the two darklings, throwing his arms wide in a rugby tackle. They didn’t have the time to dodge out of the way, and there was a sickening crunch as he brought them to the ground. There was more than a crunch, too, as a splitting hissing filled the air. I quickly realized it was the sound of Max’s magic burning through the darkling’s defenses. They screeched, but as he pinned them to the floor with his massive arms, they could not escape.

  “Chi, run,” Max bellowed.

  His snapped word sent a thunderbolt sailing through my gut, and I spun on the spot.

  I did not, however, run. I didn’t get the chance.

  Suddenly two of those darklings sailed down from above. I hadn’t heard them climbing through the windows, but they must have scaled them and clambered over the walls. Now they dropped down around me like two silent spiders descending on threads of web.

  I jolted back, sweat slicking my brow until I thought I’d drown under it.

  “Chi!” Max screamed.

  I couldn’t respond.

  The darklings seemed to be half human, half animal. The way they moved was like a cross between a monkey and a snake. Their heads twisted to the side in jerking fashions as they hugged the ground with their bodies, their legs bent low and their arms hanging close to their knees.

  I shook with pure terror.

  “Chi!” Max managed, but his voice was muffled, choppy.

  I didn’t need to turn my head to realize he was occupied in a fight.

  Which left me alone.

  Though I now knew what these creatures were, a name was hardly a weapon. I had no clue at all what they were capable of, let alone how to fight them.

  As the desperation powered through me and shook hard down my back, I begged for the sparks to come back. After my disastrous bath, I’d pushed them away, terrified of what they could bring. Now I prayed for their return with every scrap of energy I had.

  But praying would get me nowhere.

  I heard another light thump behind me, and I twisted my head sharply to the side to see another darkling drop down from above.

  There could be no doubt that they were after me.

  I heard Max try to scream my name a few times, heard the unmistakable sound of his heavy boots squeaking against the floor. But it was obvious he could not come to my aid.

  I was on my own.

  The three darklings circled me, all on their haunches, all with their heads tilting and snapping to the sides with quick, sickening moves.

  I shook so violently I could barely remain standing. My bare feet kept slipping against the blood-soaked plastic.

  The only thing running through my mind was that I was about to die – die like whatever creatures had offered up their blood to cover this floor.

  Max didn’t get the chance to scream at me again. The darklings pounced.

  I slipped as I jerked backward, slamming hard onto the concrete floor, the move jolting painfully through my hips and down my leg.

  I didn’t have time to let out a scream – the first darkling was upon me. I heard its scattering claws slip and slice through the plastic as it leaped high and landed on my back.

  Its black-clad fingers snaked out and locked around my mouth, pulling my head violently to the side.

  A pulse of fear sailed through me, obliterating the last of my hope as I realized this was it.

  This was it.

  Yet rather than snap my neck, I felt another darkling leap towards me, heard the scattering of its claws as it tore up the plastic beside me and came to a shuddering stop by my side. It locked its sinewy fingers around my left wrist and pinned me in place. From the other side, I heard the remaining darkling pounce. He did the same – coming to a shuddering stop by my side and clamping his rope-like fingers around my wrist to lock me in place.

  The darkling on my back pushed me into the floor with all its weight. And though I bucked and fought, I didn't have the strength to throw it off. All I could do was shudder as I felt its thin, strong fingers wrap tighter and tighter around my mouth as its weight and magic pushed me harder and harder into the floor.

  I started to feel more than the thing's strength. I started to feel its magic, too. It ate into me like thousands of mouths trying to tear through my very cells.

  A new blast of panic shot through me as I tried to shove it off with the last of my strength. It didn't work.

  I felt the darkling on my back suddenly yank my head up. My shuddering heart told me it was about to bash my head against the plastic-covered floor.

  And that's exactly what it did. With a soft hissing sound like air escaping a high-pressure pipe, it yanked my head back then slammed it against the floor.

  Pain exploded through my forehead and nose as blood started to drip over my lips. Then the stars started to swim through my vision. These were not the bursts of light that indicated a vision. No, these were the last sparks of consciousness before I blacked out.

  I had time enough to hear Max scream my name before the darkling yanked my head back one last time and slammed it against the moldered-plastic-covered floor.

  I lost consciousness with a blast.

  Chapter 10

  I didn't wake up straight away. My awareness returned to me in flashes.

  I felt myself being carried, heard the patter of quick feet, felt sinewy arms wrapped around my back.

  My eyes were caked with blood, and I could barely move them, but I saw bursts of rooftops, of chimneys, of faint flickering lights, heard the pound of rain.

  I tried to hold onto my attention, but it flitted in and out like an indecisive insect on the wing.

  I heard cars, the putter of engines, the screech of tires negotiating wet asphalt.

  I couldn't smell, though. My nose felt as if it had been wrapped in pure pain. I could feel it was clogged with blood, and that same blood felt like a dried mess down my cheek and neck.

  … I started to black out again….

  The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor. It took me so long to be able to wink an eye open, even then, I had to fight against the dried up blood covering my face and making me feel like I had a plaster mask on.

  I heard something, right by my face. As I winked and I open, I saw an amplifier.

  It took my broken mind a l
ong time to realize what it was, but as my eyes ticked over the speaker and saw the smudged brand name painted across the top, I frowned. Or at least I tried to frown. I had absolutely no muscle control whatsoever.

  The amplifier was on, and a low, thrumming hum filled the air, vibrating the floor beneath me.

  Finally, I heard voices.

  Sharp and quick with a warning. Footsteps, too.

  I fought against my fatigued body, trying to move it. But it would not be moved.

  I felt the footsteps shudder up something, and I realized they were climbing stairs.

  I had to be on some kind of stage.

  Though I squeezed my eyes shut at the footsteps’ approach, I caught just enough of a glimpse of the room around me to realize I was in some kind of bar. It wasn’t just the low, sultry lighting – I could feel sticky alcohol under my cheeks, smell the left-over musty scent of sweat and sweet cocktails.

  I felt someone draw to a standstill behind me. If I had to guess, there were two or three men. Suddenly, one reached out and pushed me in the back with his boot. “She up, yet?”

  I squeezed my eyes tightly closed and tried hard not to move a muscle.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” one of them commented.

  There was a pause. I felt somebody lean down beside me. My hair was a loose mess around my body, and as they shifted forward, the tread of their shoes snagged my long fringe. I couldn’t help but wince with pain.

  Someone grunted, locked an arm around my throat, and pulled me up.

  I fought. Pushed out, jerked my arms and legs in every direction, but there was no use.

  The guy was stronger, so strong, it was as if I were fighting a pro wrestler.

  As he jerked me around, I got a better glimpse of the room and realized I was right – this was definitely some kind of bar. I was right about another fact, too – there were three men up on the stage with me. One was dressed in an impeccable silver and gray suit with a neat black shirt and tie underneath. The other two were nowhere near as smart. One was in torn blue jeans, heavy boots, and a dark shirt.

  The other? The other one was the guy that held me, and as I twisted around, using all my strength to fight him off, I caught sight of his chest. Of his neck, too. And twisting along his throat was a tattoo. A strange diagram of geometrical shapes, almost like a close-up of a snowflake.