by Chanel Smith
Amy sighed as she closed the browser window and shut her laptop down. She pulled on some clothes and put her shoes on, grabbing her handbag and making for the door. She opened it and found someone had just arrived. A woman had just come up the stairs and was about to knock on her door.
“Veronica!” Amy exclaimed. “What a pleasure to see you again!”
“Amy,” Veronica Melbourne said curtly. “Can I come in?”
Amy Garcia waved her hand and stood aside, letting Veronica pass. “So are you in need of attention today? Has Rand left you hanging again?” She smiled and came closer to Veronica, swaying her hips slightly as she walked.
“Could do with more attention, always can. But no.” Veronica went to the white sofa and sat herself down. “I came here for your other skills.”
Amy opened her eyes wide. “What other skills? My skills to please Rand maybe? He’s getting too much for you?”
“Stop playing,” Veronica sighed. “I need your help.”
Amy dropped her smile and sat down on a chair opposite Veronica. “My help as what?”
“Your help as a witch.”
Amy nodded and looked down at her Louboutin pumps. She had been born a witch, her mother having been one too, but she had always hesitated to use her powers. She suspected her work was influenced by her subconscious use of her powers, but she did not mind that. All her life she had strived to be normal, like her mother had strived to do after she had come from Ireland. But she was a witch, and she was a good one, and a well-informed one.
She kept silent for a long time, thinking, but then she decided she would at least hear Veronica Melbourne out.
“So what do you need help with?”
“Ida Averbach,” was the short answer.
Amy frowned.
“The Russian vedma? What about her?”
“She’s here, and she did something.”
Amy shook her head slightly, looking at Veronica with a puzzled expression.
“She created something. Something to draw me out. She wants me dead and created this thing so I would hunt it.”
“What did she create?”
***
Amy listened carefully to everything Veronica told her.
The story was a strange one. The creature that Ida Averbach had conjured was not like anything she had ever heard of. The story Veronica told her about Ida Averbach fascinated her as well. She was intrigued by the details of how the woman had come to the United States, as far as Veronica had been able to trace. She had apparently traveled through Siberia and gone by boat via Japan and Hawaii to California. There she had spent several months working herself into the public eye as a darling of society. Her good looks and her elegant manner made it easy for her to blend in with the great and the good of Los Angeles and San Francisco, her decades in charge of manipulation and people management meant she was capable of influencing people without even using her significant powers as a witch. Amy was well aware of the power a woman could have without even using magic, and she knew Ida Averbach was one of the greatest witches who had ever lived. She was a force to be reckoned with.
Some aspects of the creature rang a bell with her as Veronica told her about it, but then another aspect came up and it did not make sense any more. There was not a single creature in her mind who could be all of those things.
When Veronica was done talking, Amy just sat silently thinking. She did not know what to make of it. It sounded dangerous, but then all the things you do not know about tend to be the most dangerous ones.
A knock on the door roused her from her thoughts. A sweet young male voice called from the other side and she shook her head and made for the door. She opened it and smiled at the teenage boy who was standing in front of her. He was an eighteen year old boy from the high school who was infatuated with her. His rich father had taken him to Amy for his first time, as he did not want the boy to be without experience when all his classmates had bedded several girls already. Amy had blown his mind, and he still came to call on her at least once a week.
“I’m sorry Frank, sweetie, I’ve got company already,” she said, running her hand along his face. His face dropped and she knew he was jealous. He knew what she did, of course, but he could never come to terms with her entertaining other men. “It’s a friend of mine, sweetie. She just came over from LA and thought she’d say hi.”
Frank’s face cheered up and he nodded shyly. She smiled at him. “I’m free this evening, you could come and see me then?”
He muttered something about baseball practice and Amy planted a small kiss on his lips. “Then come when you are free. Or call me.” He nodded again and scuffled off down the stairs again.
“Such a sweet boy,” Amy remarked, turning to Veronica again. She sighed and walked back to her chair. “Look, I don’t know what it is, but it sounds like she has managed to engineer something completely new. Like a synthesis of different creatures and demons. And somehow she managed to make it all happen in that hotel room.”
Veronica frowned at her.
“How?”
Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. I have an idea, but I’d need to know some details.”
“I just gave you the damned details.”
Amy shook her head. “Not those details. There’re some things you didn’t tell me, and I doubt you know them.”
She watched Veronica frown and give her an evil look.
“I mean, there’s stuff you wouldn’t know to ask. I need to talk to someone who was there.”
Veronica jumped to her feet.
“It’s your lucky day then.”
***
About an hour later, Veronica came to pick me up. She was still not very talkative but she said she needed me to talk to someone about Pinewood. She took me to a house close to the center of the city. She marched me up the stairs and knocked on the door of the apartment there. A gorgeous woman opened the door and let us in. She was absolutely breathtaking and I was instantly attracted to her, just like I had been attracted to the blonde woman in the Pinewood Hotel. All those thoughts reminded me of Chelsea in an instant and I felt the tears well up in my eyes.
Veronica looked as though she would slap me when she saw the expression on my face, but the gorgeous woman led me to the couch and sat me down. She placed a hand on my shoulder and another on my knee, in a reassuring gesture to calm me. She introduced herself as Amy and asked me to tell her everything that had happened at the Pinewood Hotel.
She inspired confidence and I calmed down. I told her my story again and she asked me some questions. It felt good to talk to her. She made me feel comfortable and it was as though the world turned more serene than it had been before. My mind calmed too, it was not racing for the first time since the events that took my Chelsea away from me.
When I had finished telling the story, I noticed the sun was setting outside and Amy took me to her bedroom. She had a King size bed with satin sheets and she laid me down on the soft covers. She told me to rest and she ran her hand over my forehead. Almost immediately I felt my body and mind relax and I felt my eyes close.
***
Amy went back to the parlor where Veronica was waiting. She smiled at Veronica and then went to her kitchen. A few minutes later she came out again carrying a cup of tea.
“Didn’t think I might like a cup?” Veronica asked her.
Amy gave her a blank look.
“You don’t drink tea.”
“Might have wanted something else?”
Amy smiled. “You know full well I don’t have any blood stored for you.”
“Thought maybe you had bat blood or something? Don’t you witches always have some of that handy?” Veronica smiled brightly as well. Amy saw the relief in her. It must have been a long time since anything or anyone had made her smile. It was hard for anyone to be that serious for such a long time. But she reckoned Veronica had been under a lot of pressure for a while now.
“Not since the Middle Ages, love,” Amy sat down and stir
red her tea.
She stared at Veronica, daring her to take the bait. And Veronica did.
“So, what did you find out?”
Amy smiled and set down her cup of tea. “Well, first of all, she created the beast by sex. It seems she took the man first and then there was the blast. The blast must have been to make sure the other woman bore the creature, not herself.”
Veronica frowned.
“Creating a demon through sex?”
Amy nodded happily. “Yes, indeed. Very old magic. Following the old tales of the incubus, succubus and their supposed offspring, the cambion. You remember Omen, don’t you? The first one, of course.”
“Yeah, duh!”
“Damien was a cambion.”
“Ah! I got you. But still, doesn’t she have to be a demon herself?”
Amy pursed her lips. “Yes, normally that would be the case. But she seems to have found a way to get around that. There is something I have not quite figured out, but it’s definitely obvious that she has. The creature seems to be a combination of various demons as well. One is definitely a succubus, but the rest I cannot tell. Yet.”
Veronica huffed. “So you still don’t know anything then? Why did I even come and ask you about this?”
Amy reached forward and touched Veronica’s knee. “Because of my pretty blue eyes? Or perhaps it’s because you know I won’t let you down with this?”
“Think you just have. The combination thing, I already knew.”
Amy smiled again. “Ah, but I have not told you the best bit of what I now know.”
“And what would that be?”
“That she never touched the woman. She only went down on that man. There might still be a way of getting some clue from him.”
Veronica veered up.
“Oh, come on Amy! Is that really the kind of information you need?”
Amy smiled coyly.
“It’s important to understand the witch’s spell in its entirety.
“So what do we do?”
Amy sank back into the chair. “There is a process, which I can perform, but it is dangerous, and you’d better pay me very well for it for me to even consider it.”
She hushed Veronica as she swore loudly.
“Don’t fucking do this to me, Garcia! You know I need to find out what’s going on, and you’re whining about money?”
Amy shrugged. “I just told you it’s damned dangerous, and that’s danger for me, not for you. And even then, it’s not money I’m after.”
Veronica rested her head in her hands. “So what do you want?”
“You know Francis Drake had magic?”
This time it was Veronica who gave Amy a blank look.
“He stayed just north of San Francisco for a while, after landing there with the Golden Hind on his circumnavigation of the world. He found a native witch there and took her as a lover. She bore a child, who was one of the greatest witches on the continent, until she was burned at the stake by the Spanish. I want her bones.”
Veronica blinked. “You want the bones of Francis Drake’s daughter?”
Amy nodded happily again. “Yes!” Then she had to hush Veronica again as a stream of curses spilled over her lips.
Chapter Four
“Even in the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?”
―Anne Rice
I do not know what happened then, but in the morning I woke up in the car as we drove through vineyards. Veronica offered no explanation. She did not even speak. There was not a word. I tried to get her to speak to me, but all I got was an angry glare. She just drove on in silence.
I saw the buildings grow larger ahead of us, figuring out that we must be passing through the last bits of either Napa Valley or Sonoma Valley. I had no idea what was going on. I figured by the vineyards that Veronica had chosen to turn off the highway for a part of the way.
I saw the shores of the San Pablo Bay show up in the distance when the vineyards ended. We ended up following the shore and heading south still, toward the distant city of San Francisco.
It was then I realized Veronica was following something. There was a piece of paper in her lap. But the lines on the paper seemed to move. Of course they could not, but they did. A star shone in the center of the paper and it seemed to shine brighter the more the lines converged.
We entered San Rafael and Veronica still did not speak. We drove through the streets and just when I thought we would keep going south toward San Francisco, she turned the car onto the road that leads to the bridge to Richmond and Berkeley. And then, just before the bridge, she slammed on the brake. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” she swore loudly. She was looking to her right and past me. I looked too and saw what she was looking at. She was looking at San Quentin Prison.
***
Michelle Kelly yawned as she entered the prison again.
She had just slipped on her heels in the car, not having wanted to drive while wearing them. She straightened her skirt and adjusted her bra inside the pinstripe blazer of her skirt suit. She adjusted her skirt as well, never sure whether to pull it down or hike it up. In the end she just straightened it. She shook her hair out and yawned a last time before making her way to the security desk. She showed her security pass and went to her office.
She passed one of the galleries and looked down at the inmates who had gathered for their breakfast. Some jeered and whistled, but most were quiet by now. They had grown used to the idea of a woman running the prison now and quietly admired her. She was fully aware she was probably the subject of many a fantasy in the lonely nights in the facility, but she couldn’t care less.
She reached the office block and knocked on the glass of the security box there.
“Anything?” she asked.
The guard there looked up, shook his head and looked back to his newspaper. Then, as she walked on, he jumped up.
“Oh wait, there is someone waiting in your office for you.”
Michelle Kelly rounded on him. “What do you mean in my office? My office is off limits! Nobody gets in there without me approving them first.”
“I, uhm...” The guard was at a loss for words still deep under the glamour he had received. “She said she needed to talk to you and would wait for you, so I let her in.”
“Fucking idiot,” Michelle Kelly hissed. “If anything is wrong there, you can just consider yourself out of a job, you get that?”
The guard nodded meekly. He had not known what else to do. In his mind it still didn’t compute that he had possibly done something wrong.
Michelle tried to push the door of her office open, but it was locked. It surprised her that it was if someone had gone in. She swiped her keycard and unlocked the door. Angrily, she threw the door open. She wanted to shout at whoever had dared to go into her office and tell the man to leave, but the words never came out. She just looked at the intruder who sat on her chair with her feet on her desk and she froze.
The intruder was a dark-haired woman in tight leather trousers, high-heeled boots, a black corset and a Victorian-looking ruffled blouse. A long leather coat lay on the desk. The woman had bright red lips, but a pale complexion the like of which you normally do not see in California. She had bright, keen eyes that shone with passion.
The woman smiled at her and Michelle Kelly lost it. She came forward and finally managed to speak. “You, uhm, you’re in my chair.” she stammered.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said without moving. There was a look of complete insolence on her face.
Michelle Kelly opened her mouth again to protest, but she somehow could not. Meekly, she sat down on one of the chairs that was normally reserved for visitors.
“Who are you?” she finally managed to ask.
The woman took her feet off the desk, slowly, observing Michelle Kelly carefully. She pursed her lips and leaned forward, looking into Michelle’s eyes.
“My name’s Veronica Melbourne. Are you the warden?” Her voice sounded sweet and
smooth. It was the most seductive voice Michelle had ever heard.
“Yes... I am... I am Michelle Kelly, warden of the San Quentin Prison.” For some reason, Michelle seemed to have lost the power to react like a normal human being. She felt like her brain had completely melted away. She laid her purse on the desk, knowing she wanted to have her hands free for some reason.
Veronica leaned forward and placed her elbows on the desk, close to each other so her breasts were pushed together slightly, emphasizing her pale cleavage. She ran her fingers over Michelle’s hand. Michelle was surprised by how cold the fingers were, but despite that, or perhaps because of it, she almost reached a crisis.
There was that smile again and Michelle just felt weak.
“Listen Michelle, I am looking for something, and I think it might be in or under this prison. I need to get to your basement.”
“My basement?” Michelle asked.
Veronica nodded. “Yes, your basement. Could you take me there?”
“What? As in right now?”
Veronica smiled and nodded happily. “Of course right now, silly.”
Michelle Kelly stood up, her legs almost folding. She almost felt dizzy and she wanted to drop to her knees. Her mind was full of the woman before her. No one had ever made her feel like that.
She led the woman out of the office and showed her security card to the guard. Kelly moved through the prison in a trance-like state, focused only on one thing. The woman she had just met had asked her to be taken to the basement, and she wanted to oblige her. That was all she wanted. To please that woman.
***
