Queen of Wands-eARC

by John Ringo

  “Indeed it does,” Mrs. Arquero said with what was an almost unladylike snort. “One has to be…extremely mundane to ignore it.”

  “But…I realized as I was working, not exactly a…negative air. Nor…positive.”

  “Neither,” Mrs. Arquero agreed. “Quite, quite neutral. As neutral as a hurricane. Yet an air that is…workable. Useable. And many come here to install, as it were, wind turbines. Some less neutral than others. While others act as…windbreaks. My husband and I are not the only such. There are at least nine. And perhaps twice as many groups involved in wind generation. Fortunately, those who act as windbreaks are generally stronger than those tapping the wind. Generally.”

  “And now?” Barb asked. “If Janea didn’t come from here…?”

  “As you noted, your friend had been…attacked,” Arquero said. “She was, therefore, in not the best of conditions. Had you considered the strength of the Tennessee River? To swim across is difficult in the best of conditions. It is, however, quite possible to float.”

  “Float?”

  “Have you considered what is on the other side of the river?”

  * * *

  “Kurt,” Barb said, walking up to his cubicle. “What do you know about Girls’ Preparatory Academy?”

  “Oh, God!” Kurt swore. “Not them! Please, not them!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Okay, other than about the ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen in my life,” Barb said, “I’m not really seeing anything different about this school compared to, well, any number of all girls’ schools. Been there, left with scars.”

  “Didn’t get along?” Kurt asked.

  “Not particularly,” Barb said. “Japanese ones were the worst. There is no more arrogant, stuck-up bitch than a billionaire’s granddaughter who can trace her lineage back to the founding of the Empire of the Sun.”

  “That would be…?” Kurt said.

  “Two thousand years.”

  “Ah. Talk about old money.”

  “Akio considered the Medici nouveau riche,” Barb said, distractedly. “We compromised. She didn’t piss me off, I didn’t break her arm by accident. Again.”

  “Very Christian of you.”

  “It’s actually when I truly found Christ,” Barb said. “He was…”

  “Behind the couch the whole time?”

  “Exactly. Actually, on the couch. Took me a while to notice. But being the only Christian in a school made me realize I could be the ugly American or witness for Christ. Witnessing, as in being the nice girl and showing them how a Christian ought to act. Turned out Jesus was right there waiting the whole time. Nothing special here. Okay, their internal network is called ‘bruisernet.’ That’s not so good. Their colors are, you can’t make this stuff up, black and blue.”

  “Hey,” Kurt said.

  “Found something?”

  “Sort of. Girls’ Preparatory Academy. GPA. Grade point average, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s lower than Bluff View, so that would be low GPA.”

  “Kurt…”

  “Returning to work. Really high rate of busts for cocaine possession.”

  “Inverse rates of successful prosecutions.”

  “Might have something to do with…hello. DA’s wife went to GPA. Daughter goes to GPA. So do daughters or granddaughters of half of the city council and county commission. Court judges either graduates or family attending or graduates…”

  “That doesn’t spell Special Circumstances,” Barb pointed out. “You’re just talking about a small town that’s turned into a medium city. I’m not exactly seeing the Kabala or pentagrams.”

  “I’m starting to agree,” Kurt said. “I’m looking at the website and just not seeing Satanic cult here.”

  Barb pulled up the website and paused.

  “Okay, we’ve got a problem,” she said.

  “What?” Kurt asked, rolling over.

  “Look at them,” Barb said.

  “I have been,” Kurt said. “Other than the uniforms…”

  “No, I mean look at them,” Barb said. “This is not normal.”

  “Rich girls. Prep school…”

  “They’re all smiling,” Barb said. “In perfect unison. Mechanically. Like…You ever hear about that case in Connecticut…?”

  “I read the report in background prep. Holy…”

  “Not…”

  “Stepfords,” they both said, simultaneously.

  “Stepfords and zombies?” Kurt said. “Houston, we have a problem.”

  * * *

  “It can’t be a Stepford cult,” Sharice said, wearily. “Okay, they look like Stepfords. But there’s too many of them. A Stepford ritual requires very high-end magics, powerful channels and multiple blood sacrifices. Find me the Ted Bundy, times ten, and I’ll agree that it’s a Stepford cult.”

  Sharice had been napping on one of the couches in the parlor. Barb had checked on Lazarus, who was out cold on Janea’s chest, then reluctantly woke Sharice up.

  “How many blood sacrifices?” Kurt asked.

  “Nine for each Wife,” Sharice replied. “Of ‘good station,’ generally meaning innocent of major evils themselves. For Stepfords, the average crack addict is insufficient. Don’t ask why, you’re getting into occult quantum physics. Let me point out that I spent last night in the astral plane, which is not exactly sleeping. Can’t you just Google this?”

  “Please, Sharice? I heard you were…involved…?”

  “One of my first major cases,” Sharice said, sort of sitting up. “The key was finding Bundy. Bundy was their collector. The sacrifice doesn’t have to take place under the dark of the moon in a temple, simply be a sacrifice by a collector using certain minor rituals. Fortunately, I’m a fairly good Seer and I know Florida.”

  “Wait,” Kurt said. “You…?”

  “How many girls in this school?” Sharice asked.

  “About six hundred,” Barb replied. “And I’ve looked at a few of the ones around town. They’re definitely…something. I’ve never actually seen a Stepford, but their auras are…awful. Not demonic, just awful.”

  “Still doesn’t track. Six hundredish girls. Even if a third were Stepfords, you’re talking about the ritualistic killing of more than two thousand women between the ages of puberty and about twenty-five by a single channeler. Then you have to remove the ka of the Wife.”

  “Which you do how, exactly?” Kurt asked, continuing, “he asked without really wanting to know the answer.”

  “Which is fortunate, because it’s SCAP and you don’t have Level Eight access,” Sharice said.

  “Wait…” Barb said. “You do?”

  “In general, it can be voluntarily surrendered,” Sharice said, ignoring the question, “but it usually has to be removed by force. Either one is a rather serious ritual that does require the dark of the moon. I don’t see even a third of these girls being…those creatures. There’s not that many serial killers murdering basically decent young women running around. More than are generally recognized, but not that many.”

  “Not in the US, anyway,” Kurt said.

  “Yes,” Sharice said. “Don’t ask about Congo and Moldova. Fortunately, there’s a group of Asatru covering the Caucasus. Led by a demon-possessed former SEAL. Good story…I could write a book. Too tired.”

  “Any real-world terminology you can inject here?” Kurt asked, flailing for the shores of sanity. “Like, what’s the effect of soul-death in…I hate to call it ‘reality,’ but…”

  “There are two types,” Sharice said, yawning. “The death of the ba and the death of the ka. The…PCP zombies are ba-dead. True walking dead. The effect of that, with an infilling force is, well, what you’ve seen. Without specific direction, you get homicidal psychosis. Without an infilling force they are, well, dead as a stump. Stepfords are ka-dead. Often diagnosed as sociopaths. There’s more around than just Stepfords, by the way. The only thing they can feel is the pain of others. Generally, psychological
pain. So they get off on inflicting pain and dominating everyone around them. They are…soul-suckers. Succubae, sort of.”

  “More shit I wish I didn’t know,” Kurt said. “Sorry for the language, ladies.”

  “You did ask,” Sharice said, stretching out on the couch. “If there’s nothing else, I need to rest my old bones.”

  “Thanks, Sharice,” Barb said. “Get some rest.”

  “If you haven’t got your health,” Kurt said.

  “Did you just make a Princess Bride reference?” Sharice said, chuckling. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Hey, I can watch movies,” Kurt said. “I didn’t realize till I read the file The Stepford Wives was based on a real event.”

  “The Exorcist,” Barb said. “House on Haunted Hill…”

  “Seriously?”

  “Gilligan’s Island,” Sharice muttered.

  “You’re making that up,” Barb snapped.

  “Check the secure files at the Foundation,” Sharice said. “There’s a reason they never got off the island. The Harlem Globetrotters story was an in-joke, though. Good night. Afternoon. Morning. Whenever it is…”

  “Sharice?” Kurt said, pausing at the parlor door.

  “What?!”

  “Isn’t the problem with Miss Grisham that she had her ka…Pulled out? Sort of like…”

  “Shit,” Sharice said, sitting bolt upright. “There is no fool like an old fool!”

  * * *

  “Let’s think about this,” Barb said, grabbing her head. They’d been going around in circles for nearly an hour.

  “Sleep deprived,” Sharice said. “Exhausted. You think.”

  “This isn’t possession,” Barb said.

  “Wait, what isn’t possession?” Kurt replied. “Let’s get back to the point. We’re investigating the Madness cases. Not Stepfords. If they even are Stepfords.”

  “They’re Stepfords,” Barb said. “Or something similar. And the Madness cases are related. Either that, or Janea’s a hell of a coincidence. Sharice, I know you’re tired, but just…tell me about Stepfords.”

  “They’re seen as the perfect wives and mothers,” Sharice said, sipping tea. “Perfect homemakers, perfectly dressed, perfect hostesses. Honestly…” she said, then paused.

  “They look sort of like me?” Barb said, grinning.

  “That, yes,” Sharice said. “The truth is that they wrap their families in a web of control, both mundane and mystical, and slowly suck the life out of them. Husbands tend to get promoted, often well above their ability, because anyone who stands in their way gets run over. Generally personal tragedies, child dies, generally of some lingering fatal disease, often death, suicide. Murder–suicide is a favorite. ‘He was such a nice guy with a great future ahead of him. I don’t know why he killed his whole family and himself. I guess Ron with the bitch wife gets the promotion.’ And woe betide the husband who tries to escape. You do not divorce a Stepford. Death is a blessing when it finally comes. The same goes for their children. Who are almost invariably basket cases for life unless they drink the Kool-Aid themselves.”

  “So they’re control freak wives and moms,” Kurt said. “What else is new?”

  “And then there’s the secondary effects,” Sharice said. “Leukemia clusters around them. Accidents. The ‘nice guy’ down the street who turns out to be the serial killer who’s been kidnapping and raping girls or boys. Generally, if you find some nice mundane community that suddenly is experiencing tragedy after tragedy, look for a Stepford and you’ll find the source. Only the families of other Stepfords are immune. Specifically, they become cluster points for various malevolent entities.”

  “Sounds swell,” Barb said.

  “Oh, and they are very hard to kill,” Sharice said. “I’m not into the ‘whole kill them all, God will know his own.’ I prefer things like walking the Moon Paths. The Stepford clearance I would have enjoyed, were it not quite so…So. Turns out they’re pretty much immune to poisons; don’t bother trying tear gas as the seventies version of HRT did. Heal in the blink of an eye, too, which turned out to matter when the only thing that worked was head shots and sometimes not even that. You pretty much have to put a stake through their hearts or cut off their heads to kill the little bitches. And that perfect skin is as thick and tough as a rhino. And if you pull the stake out too soon…Don’t. Just…don’t. Leave it. They sort of wake up…really annoyed.”

  “That doesn’t explain the Madness cases,” Kurt pointed out.

  “Let me repeat,” Sharice said with a sigh. “If you find some nice mundane community that suddenly is experiencing tragedy after tragedy, look for a Stepford. They, personally, are all about power and control.”

  “Through men, though,” Barb said.

  “Remember, the case was at the beginning of the feminist revolution, and up to that point, the power was always through men,” Sharice said. “I’m not sure what a feminist Stepford would be like. I’m a feminist, and the thought makes me sort of shudder. And I’ll repeat. Again. This isn’t Stepfords. This is something else.”

  “They’re all about power and control,” Barb said. “More circumstantial. Kurt, the drug cases.”

  “GPA alums and attendees are all through the power structure in this area,” Kurt said.

  “Common in smaller cities and towns,” Sharice said.

  “My point, but there’s something here,” Barb said. “I Looked at some of those girls, Sharice. They’re not possessed but they’re also not…normal. Kurt, known associates of the victims in the Madness cases?”

  “No commonality,” Kurt said. “I mean, some overlap but no major common associates.”

  “Can you find out how many of their girlfriends or female friends were GPA girls? Not the same girl, the same school?”

  “There’s an app for that,” Kurt said, grinning. He pulled out his smart phone and started tapping. He paused, then grinned mirthlessly. “Every single one had dated a GPA girl.”

  “Had?” Barb asked.

  “If I’m reading this right, they were all ex-girlfriends. Reasoning in advance of data, I think if we poked into it, they’d have all dumped a GPA girl prior to going zomb.”

  “You don’t divorce a Stepford,” Barb said. “You especially don’t dump one.”

  “Stepfords can do a lot of harm,” Sharice said. “They could not strip a ba without an additional major ritual, which the victim had to be present for, nor could they then infill them. Both you’re talking heavy-duty hoodoo, and animating a corpse is such high necromancy, there’s only a few necromancers who have succeeded. At least succeeded and survived. Oh…crap. I hate to do this…” She pulled out her phone.

  “Do what?” Barb asked.

  “Phone a friend,” Sharice said. “Augustus, I’m putting you on speaker.”

  “Very well,” Germaine said. “Go ahead.”

  “We’re pursuing a theory that a local girls’ private school is the source of the Madness cases.”

  “I take it you’re talking about GPA,” Germaine said.

  “You know, it would help if we had a full briefing,” Kurt said.

  “Agent Spornberger, a full briefing on the mystical underworld of Chattanooga would take several hours, which…I do not have. Be silent. Go on, Sharice. The last I checked, GPA was simply a dark power center. There are…four in Chattanooga and some seven in Hamilton county.”

  “Barb believes they may be Stepfords,” Sharice said. “Or something similar.”

  “On what basis?”

  “Gut,” Barb said. “And some circumstantial evidence. Item A. Your friend suggested that I bark up the tree.”

  “I would not describe her as a friend,” Germaine said. “More of a colleague. And GPA is…Paris to her London. Minas Morgul to Minas Tirith might be a more current referent. Go on.”

  “Stepfords are addicted to wealth and power. GPA girls are addicted to wealth and power.”

  “A common failing. Go on.”

  “A
ll of the victims in the Madness cases, the ba-ripped, were former boyfriends of GPA girls. You don’t dump a Stepford.”

  “All of the victims?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kurt said then gulped.

  “I see that the evidence builds. And Janea’s ka was functionally stripped, also a Stepford trait. Stepfords do not strip the ba nor infill. They do not create…zombies. Which is why you called me, Ms. Rickels.”

  “Yes…sir,” Sharice said.

  Barb looked at her quizzically. She had never heard the old witch use the “s” word before.

  “My, we tread lightly, do we not,” Germaine replied.

  “My after-action analysis was that the Stepford ritual originated somewhere in the Hellenistic region,” Sharice said. “But that is one of the three most common regions. And the best I could do at the time was Persian.”

  “You wish to know more about the infill ritual,” Germaine said. “I had deduced that. Yes, it is broadly Persian in origin, as well. Probably earlier. Possibly Assyrian. from some of the oldest texts. Give me a moment.”

  Why does Germaine…? Barbara mouthed at Sharice. Sharice just looked at her coldly.

  “I support your theory, in general,” Germaine said after what seemed a very long fifteen seconds. “I hypothesize thus. First, for Agent Spornberger. Zombies, as you call them, are not originally houdoun. African witch doctors learned the technique from Arab wizards, who learned them from Persian sorcerers. Among the Persians and those regions Persian-influenced, the Hellenistic regions including Judea, the term you may have heard is ‘golem.’”

  Barb slapped her forehead lightly and shook her head. “Golems,” she whispered. “Of course.”

  Golems! Why’d it have to be golems? Kurt mouthed, rolling his eyes.

  “Golems, zombies if you prefer, are known for their anger and violence. That is because they must be fed. And not upon brains, Agent Spornberger. The necromancer must continually fill their…beings with, not the souls of victims, but the power of the soul. Thus, the necromancer must have a continuous supply of sacrificial victims. And golems are quite perfect for gathering them, if you can control one. Or more. Elsbeth Bathory had at least five in her control at one point or another: the origin of the Frankenstein myth.