by Brian Harmon
“He started it,” said Poppy.
“We’re just declaring that we’ll finish it,” agreed Cierra.
“We’ll stay close to the house,” Delphinium decided. “Guard the doors and windows. Eric will be in charge.”
Eric nodded.
“Poppy will man the water. Jude, Marissa and Siena will stay with her, lend her strength. This is the most important part. We’ll need guards to post in this room in case anything gets in.”
“We’ll do it,” volunteered Margarita, gesturing at Emily and the blonde and brunette whose names Eric still hadn’t learned.
“And me,” said Shondra.
Delphinium nodded. “Good. If you don’t have a weapon, get one.” She nodded toward the corner of the room, where a pile of tools waited. Eric hadn’t noticed them before. It looked as if they’d scoured the entire farm for anything they could use as a weapon. There were shovels, garden rakes, steel pipes, lengths of lumber, hand tools, even an axe. He saw a huge, iron hammer—a post mallet—that looked too heavy for any of these women to lift, much less wield in battle.
Outside, lightning flashed. Thunder cracked.
Everyone suddenly fell silent.
Eric felt it, too. A ghostly chill upon the air, an almost electric charge. Unthinkable dread crept into the pit of his stomach. He turned toward the front door. A dark shadow had fallen over the yard. Beyond the far end of the driveway, where Delphinium’s blanket spell now stopped, he could see smoke rising from the fields.
Fire had come to the farmhouse.
“By the pricking of my thumbs,” breathed Eric as deep, icy fear crowded into his heart, “something wicked this way comes.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Eric stepped out onto the front porch and stood at the top of the steps, casting his gaze across the surrounding fields as the others gathered around him.
The sky above was dark. Clouds churned overhead, thunderheads more ominous than anything he’d ever seen. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled. On the ground, gray smoke was blowing in from the burning fields.
“I’ve never seen such power,” said Delphinium as she stepped out of the crowd and stood next to him, her voice wavering between awe and terror.
Eric looked over at her. “Did Desmond?”
She met his eyes only briefly before turning her gaze back to the sky. “I don’t…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He used to talk about this sort of thing. Stories his mother told him about the old witches, women and men so powerful they could conjure storms, summon monsters and even raise the dead.”
He watched another bolt lick the lightning rod at the top of the silo and nodded. “Okay. So that can happen too. Good to know.”
“He said it was impossible today. The secrets to those kinds of powers were lost.”
A gust of wind roared across the yard, rattling the doors on the barn and making the entire house groan behind them.
“Looks like somebody found them,” said Norval.
Eric glanced up at him. “Yeah. Definitely going to go with not impossible.”
Holly took his hand and squeezed it. He didn’t resist her. He needed strength as much as she did.
“The spell,” said Delphinium. She turned and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t forget. No matter what happens, the spell brought you to me. I asked for help and it gave me you. The magic can be ambiguous, but it never lies. No matter what happens, you’re going to save us. One way or another.”
Eric nodded. “One way or another,” he repeated. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that one little bit.” After all, if it was truly as hopeless as it looked, wouldn’t death, in itself, be a sort of salvation?
He remembered the voice of the slumbering Mr. Hamblin back at the hospital speaking of a sacrifice. What kind of sacrifice was he going to be forced to make? What would victory cost him today? What cruel irony might this magic have in store for him?
His thoughts returned again to Macbeth, who was assured by the weird sisters that no man of woman born could harm him. He remembered all too well how that had worked out for him.
Delphinium knew this all as well as he did. He could see it in her eyes. Fear. Doubt. Uncertainty. She knew perfectly well that this could be their last stand. And yet she stood with her head held high, determined to meet whatever was coming head-on.
It was clear why her sisters looked up to her so much.
“What’s that over there?” asked the bouncer with the ponytail and the throat tattoos. He pointed far out over the field to the left, where a burly shape loomed over the tops of the corn, pushing its way through the green stalks toward them.
“Ogre,” said Eric. It was difficult to see in the gloom and the blowing smoke, but he’d recognize that monstrous form anywhere. “Watch it. These things are hard to kill and they don’t feel much pain.”
“There’s more over there!” warned Bernie, pointing out two more hulking shapes rising from the field on the right.
“We’re surrounded,” said Holly.
“They’ll come from every direction,” promised Delphinium.
“But that spell’s going to help, right?” said the realtor-looking bouncer. He sounded about as brutish right now as a cub scout.
“It’ll definitely keep them from storming us all at once,” she assured him. “But they’ll keep coming. A lot are going to get through.”
More things were pushing through the corn each time Eric’s eyes swept the fields. Smaller shapes were joining the ogres, slimmer things that only rose a little above the tops of the stalks. Super imps. The regular imps, if they were there—and he was sure they were—would be hidden beneath the corn. There could be millions of them and they wouldn’t know until the little monsters came pouring into the yard.
Then something else rose out of the corn at the far end of the field, a great shadow in the swirling smoke, towering over the others.
“Oh good,” said Eric. “He brought the giants. I was worried he’d forget those.”
Behind him, his meager army of bouncers reacted to the sight with a mixture of cursing and grumbling that was far less a battle cry than a whimper.
Two more rose up from the field on the other side.
“How are we supposed to kill something like that?” asked Bernie.
“Same way we kill anything,” replied Norval. His voice was surprisingly calm, considering the situation. “Just imagine what that’ll look like mounted on your wall.”
“That would be something,” admitted Bernie.
Eric decided not to ruin his enthusiasm by informing him that these things usually turned to smoke as soon as they were dead.
He let go of Holly’s hand and ran to the minivan, where he retrieved Desmond’s dagger from under the seat.
“Well now I feel better,” said Realtor, eyeing the weapon as Eric hurried back to the porch steps.
“You should,” said Cierra. “I’d rather have that blade on our side than on theirs.”
“Why?”
“If you can cut one of those giants with that thing…” Delphinium told him. “Just a nick.”
Eric nodded. “The dagger should do the rest. Yeah. But it doesn’t work instantly. It’ll still have plenty of time to squash me.”
“Poisoned blade?” guessed Ponytail.
“Something like that,” said Cierra.
Out in the fields, the monsters were now too numerous to count. Eric could see dozens of them fading in and out of the blowing smoke. The vast majority were ogres and super imps. A few looked like they might be the same sort of abomination as the messenger. Still others appeared to be new horrors they hadn’t yet faced. His eyes fell on a tall shape that looked a little like those skinny aliens from the UFO programs he sometimes liked to watch, the tall ones with the long fingers and big heads. Off to the right, a large hump parted the corn like the back of a whale breaking the surface of the ocean.
They were forming a circle around them. They’d reached the perimeter and were
beginning to gather there. More were appearing with each second that passed. Eric felt like a goldfish in a bowl, looking out at a family of hungry cats.
“I don’t like this…” grumbled Realtor.
“Easy, Doug,” said Bernie. “Don’t lose your head.”
Eric glanced back at them. Doug? He hoped at least one of these guys had a name like Chainsaw or Biff.
“How long before they start breaking through?” asked Norval.
“Not long,” replied Delphinium. She turned to face the crowd behind her. “Spread out. Eyes open. Shoot to kill. They won’t stop if you just wound them. You’ll only make them angrier.”
Norval and his fellow bouncers descended the porch steps and scattered, circling the farmhouse with their weapons ready. Norval and Bernie flanked the porch. Doug and Ponytail positioned themselves near the front corners of the building, where they could cover both the front and sides of the house. The last two, The Dirty Bunny’s receptionist and the bald guy with all the tattoos, circled around to the back corners of the building.
Eric’s cell phone chimed and he pulled it from his pocket.
GOOD LUCK
“Thanks.” He started to put it away, then he stopped. In all the excitement, he hadn’t taken a single picture today. He snapped one now of the invading army in the distance, making sure to get two of the giants in there. If he didn’t make it out of this, at least his family would know what he was looking at before he died. He could think of better ways to go than in a magical last stand against hordes of evil monsters, but at least it wouldn’t be one of those embarrassing deaths. (Unless, of course, one of those giants sat on him or something, which really wouldn’t surprise him.) He added a ridiculously optimistic message that read, WRAPPING THINGS UP HERE. SEE YOU SOON. And then he sent it to Karen and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.
The smoke rolled in thicker, graying out the surrounding horde and plunging the already terrifying scene into an ominous haze. The storm seemed to be churning it so that it circled the farmhouse instead of dissipating into the atmosphere. Now and then, little funnels of smoke danced across the yard and little trails, like miniature, gray jet streams streaked low across the sky.
One of the giants let out a heart-stopping roar and hurled something at them that looked too much like a flailing ogre to be anything else. Eric expected it to slam into Delphinium’s blanket and slide down, cartoon style, but it passed right through as if there were nothing there. He had time to wonder what good the spell was if they could just lob each other over the damn thing, but then the unfortunate beast landed on the lawn with a great puff of black smoke.
It was dead before it hit the ground.
“They can’t force their way through the barrier,” explained Delphinium. “It’ll tear them apart at the cellular level.”
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Bernie.
“It’s like microwaving a hotdog for too long,” said Cierra. “But with every cell in your body.”
Bernie grimaced. “Ouch.”
Ouch was right. Eric made a mental note to not piss these ladies off. Ever.
Several of the monsters were now trying to rush the blanket’s perimeter. Each one promptly fell dead. “It’s holding them back,” said Holly.
“But it can only handle so many,” warned Delphinium. “When they overwhelm it, some are going to start getting through.” She turned to her sisters on the porch. “Alicia, it’s time.”
Alicia descended the steps and walked out into the grass. She looked scared, but determined.
“What’s going on?” asked Eric.
“We’re taking the first shot,” replied Delphinium. Turning to Alicia, she asked, “Are you ready?”
Alicia nodded. She knelt down and placed her hand in the grass. She closed her eyes.
Her sisters gathered around her.
“We’re surrounded by nature,” Delphinium told her. “Feel the grass. Feel the trees. Feel the corn.”
Eric looked out at the gathering monsters. They were trampling the corn. And whatever remained was burning in the fields. He wondered if that made a difference.
“Feel the enemy,” instructed Delphinium. The words weren’t an incantation of any kind, he realized, but simply a means to help her focus her thoughts. And perhaps her energy. “The blanket empowers you. We empower you.”
Eric remembered the spell Alicia cast outside the hospital, how it had felt like a lightning bolt frying the air right in front of him, and he took a step back.
Alicia’s expression hardened. “Regina,” she said. “Marie. Sylvia.”
There was no sound, but the grass reacted. It blew outward, as if a wind had blown from her hand, pushing away from her in a rapidly expanding ring, passing under Eric’s feet before he could even try to jump out of the way.
A second later, it was as if lightning crashed in every direction at once. Blinding light streaked across the fields. The army of monsters crowding the perimeter was devastated. Most of the ogres and the super imps exploded into smoke and ash and were immediately carried away by the wind. Others were thrown through the air. Even the giants stumbled and fell, shaking the earth beneath them as they landed (and probably squashing more than a few unfortunate monsters in the process).
Alicia collapsed into the grass and Charlotte and Delphinium lifted her to her feet.
“I’m okay,” she assured them, but her voice was terribly weak.
“Rest inside,” Delphinium ordered. “Recharge. With the defensive spells at full power, you should be able to do that again within the hour.”
She nodded, too exhausted to argue.
Eric turned and looked out at the invading horde surrounding them. They were already regrouping. They seemed endless. How could anyone possess so much power? Had Desmond Weizner been this powerful when he died? Even half this powerful? It was hard to imagine that anyone had ever been able to defeat this guy. It was like facing the wrath of an angry god.
He didn’t have time to consider it further. The world warped before his eyes. The ground began to tilt, threatening to send him sprawling into the grass.
Then, as quickly as it came over him, it was gone. The ground was firm again. His footing was steady. It was like it had never happened. But when he looked around, he saw that it hadn’t just been him. Everyone looked disoriented. Holly was clinging to the railing of the porch steps.
“What was that?” he asked.
Delphinium met his eyes. “It’s him.”
It happened again. The world tuned wonky, making him stagger. Stars danced before his eyes.
Then it was over again.
“They’re coming!” shouted Bernie.
Eric looked out over the field again and saw that he was right. Two ogres had broken though the perimeter and were charging toward them.
“Over here!” shouted Doug. From the other direction, a super imp had emerged from the corn stalks and was racing toward them, bounding across the field on all fours like a charging gorilla.
He looked toward the driveway. Two more were racing toward him. Super imps.
Fortunately, the blanket was cast wide enough to allow them plenty of room to see the monsters coming. It would take at least twenty seconds for each of these monsters to close the distance between them, giving them all more than enough time to react. The bouncers could take their time to aim their weapons and pick their shots. And Eric had plenty of time to brace himself and plan his moves.
“They’re already coming in faster than I expected,” Delphinium told him. “We can’t let them overwhelm us.”
Eric lifted the dagger. Again, he wished it was something a little more practical. Maybe a tank.
Delphinium fixed her gaze on the super imp. As if responding to her very thoughts, it was launched high into the air and then slammed downward, dashing itself into a smoking pile in the gravel. Then she turned and faced one of the two approaching ogres and lifted her hand toward it. She pointed her middle and index fingers at it and na
rrowed her eyes, aiming. She didn’t yell or grunt. She didn’t even move. But a hot breeze blew past her, felt even over the wind of the storm, as if the two things somehow existed completely separate of each other, and an ogre’s head exploded in a foul puff of smoking gore.
Bernie had been training his rifle on the monster. Now he jumped, startled, and glanced over at her.
It was the first time Eric had witnessed her thrust. She didn’t look even remotely drained. She turned back to him and smiled as the headless ogre stumbled forward a few more steps and then fell into the grass. “We’re not completely helpless,” she told him.
“Clearly.” He turned toward the approaching super imp and held out his dagger. Behind it, an ogre broke from the corn and rushed forward with two imps trailing after it.
At his back, Norval and his companions fired their first shots.
He didn’t have the luxury of watching to see how their aim was. The super imp closed the distance and threw itself at him. His timing was getting better. He slashed downward as it lunged and buried the blade in its ugly head, promptly dropping it.
He immediately turned his attention to the approaching ogre, but it suddenly stumbled to the side instead, as if it were experiencing the same disorientation that had washed over him a moment before. Except that as the ogre veered to the right, it was met by a cinderblock brick traveling about sixty miles per hour, an unexpected projectile launched from a small pile next to the foundation of the barn. The impact was enough to obliterate most of its head.
Delphinium gave him another smile.
“I forgot,” he told her. “You can move things with your mind. It’s your original gift.”
“Grandpa helped me learn to control it. Without him, I could only make things fly around randomly.”
“That must be handy around the house.”
“Very.”
“I wish I could do that every time I sit down on the couch and realize I can’t reach the remote. You ever use it for that?”
She laughed. “Not when anyone’s looking.”
