A Witch's Path

by N. E. Conneely

  Jacks must have felt it too because the moment the spell solidified he was on his back, wiggling across the ground, with his paws rubbing his face and tongue.

  Standing up, I was pleasantly surprised at how little energy I'd expended casting those spells. I was finally back to normal after dealing with Ty two days ago.

  "Are you ok?" Grady asked.

  Jacks flipped over, landing on his feet, tail wagging.

  "He looks fine," Nell said.

  "Are you guys ready?" Hal asked.

  Nell, Grady, and I nodded. Jacks trotted down the road, and looked at us over his shoulder. I took the hint and started after him, wand in hand. They caught up to me three steps down the road.

  "How far down the road did you go when you scouted this place?" I picked my steps carefully. The gravel had been pushed into the dirt long ago, leaving hard-packed earth with loose rocks on top. Branches and brush crowded the road, leaving enough room for a single narrow car.

  "Within sight of the house," Hal answered

  Reassured that we shouldn't be in immediate danger, I dropped my shields, letting my power expand around me. Letting my power explore the ground and peek behind trees was the passive way of checking for spells and traps. Like was drawn to like, and as my power explored, I could get a feeling for what was around us.

  It was hard to limit the flood of information. Every rock, twig, and pebble was interesting to my magic. I adjusted the way the power could move around me, giving it less freedom, and tuning out feedback from things found in ample supply, like trees, leaves, rocks and deadfall.

  Since I had no way of knowing what could be waiting for us, magical or mundane, limiting the details I received could make me overlook a trap. The flip side was that I couldn't process every bug, misshapen leaf, or broken branch. I would drown in details.

  Jacks stopped and waited for us to catch up. The five of us rounded the corner. Ahead of us the woods opened up, revealing a single story ranch in a large clearing with a rusty pickup truck in the carport. From this angle, there was nothing remarkable about the dwelling. It wasn't in the best repair; sections of the gutters were missing and the paint was flaking off the side.

  I reeled my magic in, only letting it explore fifteen feet around me. Focusing, I cast a fine web over the land and house. The power touched down, sat there, and slowly trickled back to me. There were a few sticky spots in the house, but they felt like minor household spells.

  Blinking, I focused on the road in front of me.

  "Well?" Nell asked.

  "What?" I turned to see four sets of eyes locked on me. "Oh, I can't feel anything. What do you have?"

  Grady shrugged. "I'm the muscle and human bait. It feels like any patch of remote woods with an older home to me."

  Lying down, Jacks let out a big sigh. I couldn't tell if that was agreement, or boredom.

  "The woods and field feel fine. There aren't many creatures around, but there could be more constructs like Ty; I couldn't feel him unless I could see him," Nell added.

  "Hal?" I asked.

  His lips were pursed. "I didn't feel any magic." His voice trailed off.

  "How would you like to proceed?" I asked. This was his investigation and I would follow his directions.

  The buzz of insects and the wind in the trees filled my ears.

  "I don't know about anyone else, but I thought we'd come across magic or a dinosaur by now," Nell said.

  "As far as I can tell, there's nothing alive out here," Hal mumbled.

  "That's the issue, isn't it?" I questioned. "Ty isn't alive. He's a hodgepodge of spells. That he functions like a big dog is rather odd. I've been leaving him alone because I can't find anything wrong, evil, cursed, or bad in him. Ya'll haven't been able to feel any life, and I haven't felt any spells. What do we do?"

  Hal polished his sunglasses before replacing them on his nose. "We call it safe to here, call the officers in and explore the rest."

  "Done." Grady walked back down the road and radioed them.

  The rest of us looked around, trying to determine how we should approach the house. Well, most of us looked around. Jacks flopped on his side and closed his eyes.

  Grady returned, "They're headed this way."

  While I had a healthy respect for Ty's creator, and a distinct lack of desire to confront similar creations, I was losing my patience. For all appearances, this place was abandoned. We could be going through all of this for the wrong house.

  "I'm tired of sneaking around. Why don't we, carefully, walk up to the house and look around?" I asked.

  "I'm game," Nell grinned.

  Jacks shot up, wagging his tail.

  "Fine. Fan out, don't be afraid to communicate. If we do it this way, we're abandoning stealth," Hal directed.

  We marched out of the tree line, adjusting our paths so we came at the house from the front and sides. Jacks trotted off, taking the long path across the yard to the far side of the house. Grady took the path to my right, bow in hand, arrow nocked. I headed for the front door, wand in hand, ready to cast. Nell was to my left, knives in each hand, grin on her face. Hal was taking the short path, aiming for the carport, knuckles white where they gripped his wand.

  We were half way across the yard when Hal grunted. I swung around, wand raised, in time to see his right foot sink into the ground. He stumbled forward a few steps and turned bright red.

  "Sorry, mole tunnel."

  Weapons lowered, we resumed our march to the house. I rolled my shoulders, trying to release the tension that had gathered when I saw Hal's foot sinking.

  Hal's pinwheeling aside, crossing the yard was anticlimactic. Birds chirped, and life continued as usual. I came to a stop inches away from the landing outside the front door. The house didn't look any better up close. Along with the pleasing blue on the side of the house, the white trim around the windows had nearly worn off, and the wood front door was cracked. The two holly bushes on each side of the door hadn't been pruned in years. They were four feet tall and nearly as wide, obscuring all but a small portion of the middle of the landing, just big enough for one person.

  Figuring we'd lost any chance of surprise, I hollered, "Go in or check the back?"

  "Stay put. Jacks and I will check the back. Nell, stay at the side, ready to help. If it looks good we'll go in," Hal yelled back.

  Nell took a few steps back so she could see both areas. Jacks loped away, tail high in the air.

  "How do you want to do this?" I asked Grady.

  "With the bush there, it limits the options. I'll stay here," he was a few feet behind and to the right of me, "If an arrow would be better than magic, you can duck and I'll do my part. Once you're inside, I'll move around and follow you."

  "Works for me. Could you tell the officers it's safe to enter the yard?"

  "Sure," he relayed the information

  I prepared to cast a spell to open the door.

  "We go in on three," Hal yelled. "One, two, three!"

  Jabbing my wand at the door I released the spell. "Purisaz," I demanded.

  The door flew open, and I marched inside, ready to zap anything that got in my way.

  It was dark inside, the only light coming through the windows. Pausing to let my eyes adjust, I could hear Grady walking in behind me. The stench of rotting garbage reached me, but I tried to ignore it.

  When my eyes focused, I could see a flowered sofa with a white coffee table in front of it. The coffee table was covered in ash and a large ash tray was over flowing with cigarettes. Across the room there was a television, one of the old ones built into a wooden cabinet. Books were stacked here and there; some of them had been left open with rocks holding the pages down. Loose papers where piled around the books.

  I slowly advanced through the living room, coming face to face with Jacks. He gave me a toothy grin before heading for the bedrooms. Hal was behind him, having come in the kitchen door.

  "Anything in the kitchen?" I asked.

  "Nothing we need to
look at now."

  I nodded.

  "Entry closet is clear." Grady said.

  "Thank you, I didn't think to check for one," I said.

  "That's what I'm here for. I'll keep watch here if you want to check the rest of the house."

  Hal and I headed down the hall, dodging piles of dirty junk. I could feel little spells on the piles. I'd look at them when we were done with the bedrooms. A door opened up on each side of the hall. I took the one on the right. The bathroom was as dirty as the rest of the house, and didn't have any feeling of magic.

  Hal backed out of the other room. "I can't feel any magic. Heck of a lot of dust."

  "Don't look in the bathroom."

  Jacks nosed his way out of the last room sneezing, and a foul smell grew stronger. For some reason I didn't think it was the garbage.

  Hal stepped in front of me and pushed open the door. The smell hit me, making my eyes water. I swallowed hard, trying not to gag. The part of the room I could see around him was every bit as dirty as the rest of the house.

  "Michelle, you don't have to see this, but I would like to know if you think this was part of a ritual." Hal backed up, forcing me out of the room, and closing the door behind us.

  "Is it what I think it is?" There weren't many things that would have him looking green.

  "It's a body. Adult humanoid, not pretty to look at. I can't tell you anything else without influencing your opinion. Will you look at it?"

  "Do you have a barf bag?" I made a mental note to add them to my kit. When I started consulting for the police, I was dealing with misbehaving toasters and coffee makers that added poison to your morning joe, barf bags weren't a necessary item. By the smell, times had changed, and I needed to be prepared.

  Hal unzipped a pocket on his vest and pulled out one of those little laminated bags. I didn't want to know why he was carrying one; my guess was the story was nasty enough that I'd use the bag before I set eyes on the body.

  If he'd asked me yesterday I would've said no. Today was different. I'd looked at bodies and seen innocent children. I'd found evidence of evil on their skin. Evil discriminated. It went after gentle souls and innocents. It caused mayhem and destruction simply to feel people suffer.

  Evil was sneaky. It wanted to hide, lurk in the shadows, play with lives. Evil didn't care about laws or evidence, as long as it avoided detection long enough to have fun.

  But I wasn't the law. I was a witch, a witch without a clan to limit my behavior.

  I slid my wand into the wrist sheath. Taking the bag from him, I shook it open, wanting to be ready. I took a deep breath of the air in the hall, in a rather foolish hope that I wouldn't have to breathe too much of the air in the room. Opening the door was an act of will. I didn't have a good feeling about what was on the other side.

  Two steps into the room I knew why Hal had said this was optional. There was a mess of something on the bed. It was humanoid, and had been here long enough for decay to distort the body, and push things that should have been inside to the outside.

  I swallowed, trying to force what was left of my breakfast to stay down. The bed was a horrific mess, one that would stay with me for years, but I didn't feel anything magical. To my untrained, and watering, eyes it looked like decay.

  With that, I rushed back to the hall, slamming the door behind me. I kept my eyes focused on Hal as I took deep breaths. After being in there, the hallway air smelled clean and fresh, even though I knew it was foul.

  "You'll need someone else to tell you if that was natural. Nothing indicated that magic was involved and if you want a second opinion you can send it to a firm in Atlanta. I'm not looking at it again."

  "Thank you," he said softly. "I know that wasn't easy."

  "Take your barf bag back. If you have to go back in, you might it." I shoved it in his hands, and marched through the living room and into the yard.

  I took deep gulping breaths of fresh air; air with the scent of fall, and a brisk wind.

  "Michelle?"

  "I'm sorry, Hal. I needed to get out of there." He stood beside me, but I kept my eyes on the woods, and the dwindling fall colors.

  "Nothin' to apologize for. That's an ugly sight, and I've seen a lot of ugly things."

  "Does it ever get easier?" We stood there, the breeze blowing away the stench of death, the earth a comforting presence under our feet.

  "No, your scale of what's horrible changes. It's like when those city folk move out here, and they get upset because there's a gun rack in the truck. Then a few years later they have a gun rack in their truck, and are giving the newcomer the stink eye when he asks about the guns.

  "I can't speak for everyone else, but I've been doing this for twenty years and it still bothers me. 'Course I'm almost as worried by what doesn't bother me anymore. Like everything in life, it'll get easier and harder in equal measure."

  "I really wanted you to say it got easier."

  "Couldn't lie to you." He put his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes on the trees.

  Part of me wanted to walk away, but the bigger, meaner, angrier part wasn't going anywhere. I would find a way to live with the terrible things. I had to make it through them, because it gave me a chance to prevent worse events.

  I exhaled. My life was going to change.

  Hal cleared his throat, "Do you think it's safe to let the officers and medical examiner in there?"

  "I can't be sure without looking at every piece of junk, but I didn't feel anything harmful."

  "I'll let them know. Nell and Jacks are out back. There's a barn back there they'd like to look at. Could you give them a hand?"

  "Sure." I scrubbed my palms down my thighs, and grabbed my wand.

  While I'd been getting the stink of death out of my noise, police had swarmed the property. There were ten different cars here, including the medical examiner's van. I dodged the officers headed for the house, and found the elf and werecoyote alone in the back yard.

  "Jacks, you could've warned me."

  He cocked his head to the side. I guess even nasty decaying bodies didn't bother shifters.

  "Never mind," I muttered.

  "I'm sure it wasn't enjoyable for him, but bad meat is simply that," Nell said.

  I shrugged. She had a point. "Hal said you wanted to check out the barn?"

  "It's the only thing out here we haven't explored."

  "Let's go."

  We headed across the field separating the barn from the house. The uneven ground had me wishing for four feet instead of two.

  The side of the barn was dark and uneven, with old weathered wood that had seen better days, and the red metal of the roof was faded and rusty. There wasn't a door, but an opening with a gate. There were lots of barns like this in North Georgia. They were built years ago, and as land changed hands, and fewer people kept livestock or farmed, they fell into disrepair.

  The barn ahead of us was a prime example; one corner was noticeably lower than the other. Between the gaps in the boards, and the tilt of the building, it looked ready to collapse. I wasn't sure they were paying me enough to set foot in that death trap.

  My magic tugged at me, until I stopped, closed my eyes, and let a strand explore the barn. It raced back to me, having found hundreds of spells. My eyes popped open, in time for me to see Jacks scrabble through the gate and Nell vault it.

  "No. Stop. Wait, there's something in there!" I shouted, taking off to the barn. I tried not to picture another Ty. I didn't have that in me today.

  Something lit the inside of the building in a soft glow. I was hoping it was a light bulb.

  Reaching the barn, I shimmied over the gate with ease. I may not be a farm girl, but I was a country girl. With both feet on the ground, I turned, wand at the ready.

  Rather than danger, I found tables lining the walls and bins of old items here and there. Jacks was busy sniffing a pile of bones in the corner and Nell was examining the ones laid out on a table.

  "Can you feel the spells?" I asked
.

  Jacks turned enough to bob his head.

  "Yes, I haven't touched anything. Would you mind looking at this?"

  I picked my way around tables and piles, until I reached her. Nell stepped back to give me better access.

  The table had most of a skeleton of a deer neatly arranged. Along with the skeleton was knives, a watch, two plates, a teddy bear, and a few items I didn't recognize. I examined each object with my eyes before probing it with my magic. One of the knives had been driven into a bone. The knife had been spelled to be unbreakable, and the bone now shared that spell.

  The next table had a complete skeleton, one of a rabbit. It didn't have household items attached to the bones. When I reached out to touch it, the rabbit twitched and started to move away. I drew my hand back to my chest and it settled down.

  By the fourth table, I wasn't surprised to see parts of a skeleton twitch when I approached. Like the last three, the spells being incorporated into the skeleton were basic, attached to inconsequential items.

  "Do you know what this is?" Nell asked.

  "I know as much as anyone. I know what he was doing, though how and why are up for debate."

  "And?" Nell prodded.

  "We should talk to Hal. It will be easier to tell everyone at once. Jacks, come on, we need to find Hal." Jacks sniffed the bones one last time before following us.

  The walk back to the house wasn't long enough for me to figure out how to break the news to Hal. There were limits to my abilities and what was in that barn was out of my league.

  We found Hal sitting on the trunk of a cruiser drinking water.

  "What did you find?" He asked.

  "It could be worse," I said, trying to gauge his reaction. "There aren't any other creatures like Ty, but we did find fifteen partially reconstructed and animated creatures. There are a lot more bones in there, and piles of magical items, but few of those items are of any concern. I don't know if the person in the house was doing this, or if he had help, that's your job."

  "Whoever did this was twisting and mixing basic spells with bones. From there they managed to reanimate skeletons. If I had to guess, I'd say the ones in there were test pieces and Ty was the masterpiece."