Something Wicked

by Brian Harmon

She reached up and gently stroked the huge knot on his forehead. “You poor man… That monster really did a number on you, didn’t it?”

  Eric glanced at Cierra, who met his eyes only briefly before turning away. “Yeah,” she said. “The monster. Vicious thing.”

  Holly giggled.

  Delphinium didn’t seem to notice. She was looking deeply into his bruised face. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not too bad. I’m a quick healer, remember?”

  She gave him a smile and gestured inside. “Come on.”

  Inside, Cierra was standing beside the couch, where Poppy was stretched out. “The others aren’t here yet?” she asked.

  Delphinium and Holly exchanged an uncomfortable look.

  “What?”

  Eric turned and left the room. He didn’t want to be there when they told her about the three dead girls. He wasn’t a member of this family. They deserved their privacy.

  Besides, he desperately wanted to wash his hands. He could still feel the ogre’s greasy guts on his bare skin.

  He stepped into the bathroom and scrubbed his hands with soap and hot water until they were bright red. Out, damned spot! he thought. Out, I say!

  As he dried his hands, his cell phone rang. It was Paul again.

  “What’s up? You find your way out of Kentucky yet?”

  “We did,” said Paul. “Twice now.”

  “Twice? You said you hated Kentucky? Why did you go back?”

  “I didn’t. We got back on the highway and headed north. Next thing I know, we’re passing another damn ‘Kentucky welcomes you’ sign!”

  “That sucks. Where are you now?”

  “Signs say I’m heading north toward St. Louis,” said Paul.

  “I’m nowhere near St. Louis,” Eric informed him. “You’re supposed to be heading east.”

  “I was going east. Now I’m going north. Stupid road just circled back on me.”

  “Don’t you have a map?”

  “Yeah, but Kevin can’t read it for shit.”

  “Don’t blame me, old man!” snapped Kevin in the background. “I keep telling you where to go. You’re the one not listening!”

  “I’m listening, you’re just not making any sense.”

  “I’m making perfect sense! I’m telling you exactly what the map says. It’s you who can’t follow directions.”

  Eric stepped out into the hallway and leaned against the wall beside the bathroom door. “Just get your ass over here. Things are getting messy.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. But the monsters are getting bigger and nastier. I don’t suppose you’ve still got your deer rifle in the truck, do you?”

  “You know what, I do. Now that you mention it. I almost forgot it was there.”

  “Well I could use some firepower.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Let’s just say I’d feel more comfortable with some armed backup.”

  “We’re trying.”

  “Maybe if you just let me drive…” growled Kevin.

  “You’re not driving.”

  Goodbye,” said Eric. He disconnected the call and promptly received a text from Isabelle.

  DO YOU FIND IT WEIRD AT ALL THAT THEY’RE HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE FINDING YOU?

  “It’s a little odd, yeah.” Paul was usually pretty good with directions. How he managed to drive all the way to Kentucky twice was beyond him.

  I FEEL LIKE IT’S ODD THAT THEY KEEP GETTING TURNED AROUND SO BAD

  “You think something’s trying to stop him?”

  MAYBE. WEIRDER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED

  “No kidding… I guess all we can do is wait and see.”

  He pocketed the phone again and walked back to the living room. Cierra was sitting in one of the chairs, her elbow propped on the arm, her knuckles pressed to her mouth. She wasn’t crying. If anything, she looked angry.

  Delphinium stood up from the other chair and faced Eric. “Come with me,” she told him. “I need to give you something.”

  She walked past him and down the hall, back the way he’d come. He followed her obediently, not bothering to ask where they were going or what it was she wanted to give him. He would clearly find out in just a moment.

  She led him through a door and into a bedroom with a neatly made bed.

  He didn’t think she brought him in here for a nap, and he found himself feeling a little anxious.

  She knelt beside the bed and lifted the comforter, then she slid her hand between the mattress and the box springs and pulled out an object wrapped in a towel.

  “This was Grandpa’s,” she informed him as she stood up and turned to face him.

  Eric said nothing. He stood there and waited as she unwrapped the towel. When she reached the middle of the bundle, she revealed the object to him. It was a knife of some sort. And it looked very old.

  Is this a dagger that I see before me? he thought.

  “Ogres are nasty business,” she told him.

  “I noticed that,” he said.

  “You’ll need something to protect yourself.”

  “No offense, but I’d prefer something a little more…long range. I don’t suppose you keep a rocket launcher under there.”

  Delphinium smiled, amused. It was a little creepy how she kept finding his lame jokes amusing. He didn’t think he was really all that funny.

  “That thing kept coming after me even when Holly erased most of its face. I’m not sure how much poking it with a knife will slow it down.”

  “It’s more than what it appears.”

  Eric looked at it. “Is it also a bottle opener?”

  “Grandpa said it was enchanted a very long time ago. He claimed that this blade could cut far more than just flesh. He said that once it began to cut, it would continue to cut, that it would cut deeper and deeper. ‘All the way down,’ he’d say. I never understood what he meant, but he was adamant that it would cut ‘all the way.’ And that it would keep cutting even after the blade was removed.”

  Eric didn’t tell her that he thought this sounded crazy. With each fantastic thing he witnessed, there was less and less that he was unwilling to believe. “Sounds pretty nasty. Why did he have something like this?”

  “He never said. He kept a lot of secrets.”

  Eric nodded. Of course he did. Straight answers just weren’t cool anymore.

  “Take this. Use it to fight off whatever the magic man throws at you.”

  “Are you sure I should? It sounds like the sort of thing maybe a witch should be in charge of.”

  She smiled again. “And a witch is entrusting it to you. Take it.”

  Reluctantly, Eric reached out and took it from her. It was heavy.

  “It should prove very useful. But be careful. It isn’t a forgiving weapon. Whatever it’ll do to an ogre, it’ll also do to you.”

  “Don’t cut myself. Got it.”

  She continued to smile at him. “Let’s go back.”

  Eric nodded. “Let’s,” he agreed. He didn’t want to be alone with the pretty witch lady in her bedroom. Karen wouldn’t approve.

  She led him back to the living room, where the other women (and Jude) were again gathered around the table and the bowl. Someone had relit the candles.

  Delphinium joined them and they promptly began the process of joining Cierra’s power to the strange, protective net that she’d somehow cast across the land.

  Eric stood in the doorway, still holding the dagger, and he’d have sworn he could feel the atmosphere change around him. A curious warmth seemed to settle into the air, not unlike the weird breeze that accompanied the spells Holly and Cierra threw at the ogre. He even felt a little more secure.

  Minutes passed slowly in silence.

  He looked down at the dagger as he waited. How, precisely, was he supposed to carry this thing around? He couldn’t very well walk up and knock on a door while holding it. What would Clara have done if she’d seen such a weapon in his hand when she opened the door of the Wor
dsley House? He certainly wouldn’t have gotten past the bouncers at The Dirty Bunny waving it around. And if Cierra had seen him holding a weapon when she burst from the door of Rob’s fraternity house, he was fairly sure that she wouldn’t have stopped swinging the bat to ask him who the hell he was and how he knew her name.

  He simply wasn’t going to be able to keep the weapon on him at all times. But at least he now had a weapon, even if he’d have to retrieve it from the van. If he ever found himself forced to fight another of those creatures, he wanted to be armed.

  He dearly hoped to never have to insert his hand inside an ogre ever again.

  “Did anyone else notice that?” asked Cierra as she stared deep into the steaming water bowl.

  “What was that?” asked Poppy.

  “It felt like…a bump…or something…” said Holly.

  Delphinium nodded. “Resistance. Something pushed back.”

  “Was it him?” asked Holly.

  “What else would it be?” countered Cierra.

  “The blanket is stretched extremely far,” Delphinium said. “It covers a lot of miles and a lot of people. It could have been someone unrelated, maybe someone like us.”

  “Which is more likely?” asked Cierra.

  “You know the answer to that,” Delphinium replied. And she did. Even Eric knew which was more likely. They already knew the magic man was powerful. And they already knew that he was under the blanket.

  Eric stepped up behind the couch and leaned over it, looking into the water with them. It was already starting to boil. Had it been hotter to begin with? Or did one more witch mean more heat and a considerably faster boiling time?

  “I still see chaos,” observed Poppy.

  “It hasn’t changed,” agreed Delphinium. “We’re speeding toward a terrible confrontation.”

  “Can you tell if we’re going to win?” asked Cierra.

  “Too much chaos. It’s in constant motion, impossible to see through.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Holly.

  Not taking her eyes off the water, Delphinium said, “It means there are still too many variables. The outcome hinges on the events that take place between now and then. And death is always a tricky thing to foresee regardless.”

  As the water grew hotter and began to boil faster, Eric thought he could almost see some of that chaos they were talking about.

  Or maybe it was only his imagination. It was hard to tell for sure.

  “What do we do next?” asked Poppy.

  Delphinium stared into the water for almost a full minute and then spoke a single name: “Alicia.”

  “I saw her, too,” said Poppy.

  Holly squeezed her eyes shut. “I saw Sylvia again.”

  “I’ve seen all three of them,” said Cierra, meaning Sylvia, Regina and Marie. The dead girls. “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

  “She’s north of here,” Delphinium realized. “It’s time to go.”

  Holly stood up, but Eric was still staring into the boiling water.

  What was that? He kept seeing a shape on the rolling surface, something that made him think of a snake for some reason.

  Who was she really? he thought, though he had no idea precisely why. Who was who?

  “Eric?” said Holly.

  Eric looked up at her, distracted. “What?”

  “You ready?”

  He stood up straight. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Did you see something in the bowl?” asked Delphinium.

  Everyone was looking at him now. He suddenly felt very self-conscious.

  “Maybe a flicker or two,” he replied. “Maybe. But nothing I understood.”

  Delphinium was staring at him, as if trying to read his thoughts.

  “North then?” said Eric, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

  “North,” she confirmed.

  Eric followed Holly out the door and back into the weird night beyond.

  Chapter Twenty

  Twenty minutes later, Delphinium contacted them with the news that Alicia Vaine could be found at a place called Clodsend Park, but that she was having trouble narrowing it down any further.

  Eric hoped that Clodsend Park was an actual park and not the name of a city.

  “You need to be extra careful from now on,” she warned him.

  “Believe me, I know.” First one imp, then two, then nearly a dozen, now an ogre. Would they be attacked by two ogres next? Or would they jump straight to twenty? Or would they be met by something even nastier this time?

  “I don’t think you do,” Delphinium informed him. “I know I don’t. Why, if he has the ability to conjure an ogre, did he even bother with those imps? Why did he start so easy on you?”

  That was a good question, actually. What was the point?

  “I get a very strong feeling that he’s toying with us,” she warned. “Maybe testing us.”

  “Cockiness is a trait I’ve seen before in bad guys,” Eric said. “It’s practically a job requirement. It usually doesn’t serve them well.”

  “This guy might’ve earned the right to be cocky. Whoever he is, we can’t even muster enough magic to see him.”

  “He can’t be that powerful, or he would’ve killed you all by now.”

  “I guess that could be true,” she agreed.

  “Just keep thinking positively.”

  “You’re right. But I still want you to be careful.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “And don’t hesitate to use what I gave you.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. The dagger was tucked under the driver’s seat, safely out of sight and within easy reach. He still wasn’t sure how a simple blade was supposed to help him fight off more ogres, but anything was better than nothing.

  (Hand grenades would’ve been even better, though.)

  Delphinium said goodbye and Eric returned the phone to the cup holder.

  Holly looked over at him, watching him drive.

  He focused on the road, ignoring her, but he could feel her pretty eyes on him, and eventually he felt compelled to turn and meet them.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re so in love with her.”

  This caught Eric off guard. “What?”

  “Your wife. You’re so in love with her.”

  He fixed his attention back on the road. “Of course I am.”

  “She’s the reason I make you so uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m not.”

  YES YOU ARE, said Isabelle from the cup holder.

  “Shut up, you.”

  Holly smiled. “It’s okay. I like you. You’re an exceptionally good person.”

  “No. I’m certainly not.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You came all the way here at the risk of angering the woman you love, not to mention your life, to help a bunch of strangers claiming to be witches.”

  “Jude was very convincing.”

  “You came because you couldn’t say no. There’s a part of you that will always help the people who need you most.”

  Eric glanced over at her again. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She gave him another smile. “I know. That’s the best part.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She looked at him for a moment longer and then turned and looked out the window.

  Eric returned his eyes to the road ahead.

  Of course he came to help them, what else was he going to do? A sixteen-year-old boy came to him and told him that someone was trying to murder his family. His and his mother’s lives were in danger. Could he really have refused to help them?

  That didn’t make him a good person. It only made him human.

  Didn’t it?

  Besides, she didn’t know about the other times. She didn’t know about the people he let die.

  He could tell
himself that he didn’t have a choice. He could tell himself that they were the bad guys, that each of them were cold-blooded killers, ready and willing to murder him and the friends he’d made along the way. But regardless of what he told himself, the simple fact remained that people were dead because of him.

  He glanced down at the phone. The only person who knew how deeply this affected him was Isabelle, and she’d never spoken to him about it. She understood him, after all, knew that he didn’t want to talk about it, that he didn’t really want to face it. But it was there, bottled deep inside him. And as this night dragged on, he kept wondering if he’d be forced to kill again.

  He’d even been given a weapon this time.

  No, he certainly wasn’t a good person. He was sure of this.

  They drove on in silence, except for the times when Holly gave him directions. They made good time, too, and without any monster sightings. But their good fortune ran out when they arrived at their destination. Eric saw immediately that Clodsend Park was indeed a park and not a city, but his hopes of finding the next witch simply loitering on a nearby bench were dashed when he saw the sign informing them that they were about to enter Clodsend State Park.

  Nearly a thousand acres of wooded nature stretched out in front of them.

  How the hell were they supposed to find anyone in such a massive space?

  He parked the van and stepped out into the chilly, night air. “What the hell’s she doing out here? Camping?”

  “Probably. Alicia’s a nature witch,” explained Holly. “Cierra calls her an eco-witch.”

  “Eco-witch? You’re kidding.”

  Holly shrugged. “More often she says eco-bitch, actually… She’s…not the nicest member of the family.”

  “Really? My skull hadn’t noticed.”

  “She’s kind of the scary one.”

  Scary was a good word for her.

  “Alicia loves being outdoors. This is definitely the kind of place she’d go to hide.” She looked out into the dark woods that loomed before them. “Of course, she’s a lot braver than me…”

  Eric pocketed the cell phone and then withdrew the dagger from under the seat. One thing about this turn of events was that he probably didn’t have to worry too much about frightening people with the weapon. There wasn’t likely to be anyone around to see him carrying it.

  He closed the van up, but didn’t bother to lock it. He didn’t want to fumble with the key in case they needed to make a fast getaway. And if the events of the night so far were any indication, he’d be amazed if they didn’t.