by Kenny Soward
“Torri! Come on!”
It was Em. Behind her. Putting her hand under Torri’s arm and lifting her to her feet. She came willingly enough until she realized Em was dragging her toward the mirror.
“No… Wait…” Torri twisted to to stop her progress. Tried to hang on so she could get—
And then she was flying backwards into the room, windmilling to land on top of Em on the couch.
Azarah appeared in the mirror, her upper body still smoking and pocked with flaming tendrils. She held the Rowan branch in her hand and was staggering toward the gate.
Em threw Torri aside. Stood in front of the mirror, looking for something to throw.
And then, as if struck with a revelation, Em grabbed a truck pad that lay behind it. Probably what Azarah had wrapped it in to ship it from location to location.
Em threw the cover over the mirror and stand. And then, when there was nothing heavy nearby to strike it with, balled up her fist.
“Em, no!”
But it was too late. Em’s bony fist punched the truck pad with a muffled sound of cracking glass. She struck it again and again, up and down the entire frame as pieces of glass cracked and crashed to the floor.
Torri sunk down in front of the couch, watching Em destroy the mirror.
It was no doubt exactly what Azarah had wanted to do to Torri.
On the other side, Azarah screamed in rage and frustration. Her voice echoed in that deep black emptiness for what seemed like a very long time. The distant sound of wood striking a hard glass surface reached them. So faint, almost undetectable above the howling woman.
And then Em struck the mirror one last time.
And the howling stopped.
Chapter 32
Weeks later…
Torri picked up a scatter of dead branches beneath her Rowan tree and put them in a pile. They’d been broken off when Azarah’s demon had tried to rip the tree from the ground. Broken, yes, but they still retained some life and could be put to use for certain rites and rituals that would benefit from the once magical branches.
Lida was helping. The little girl was such a blessing this past week as Torri tried to sort things out after everything that had happened. All the branches and twigs were accounted for, Torri making sure of that.
All except for one.
She eyed the nub where the missing Rowan branch had been. The one she’d broken off and carved for her use in the fight with Azarah. The spot was just sprouting new leaves, the tree in general looking good and healthy. It would survive, and her woods with it.
But she didn’t know if Azarah could ever come back. Didn’t like the idea of the woman trapped in the Fade with the missing branch. Although there probably wasn’t much the woman could do with the magical wood, you just never knew.
Magic was an extremely unpredictable thing.
After the fight, she and Em had packed the broken mirror in a crate that lay off to the side with Azarah’s other belongings. They’d even foregone getting help for Em’s badly broken arm until every piece was put away. Had even vacuumed all around and tossed the vacuum bag in with the rest.
Missy Gray, looking a little beat up and tired, came in near the end. The undercover operative had taken one look around and immediately made a phone call, recording Torri and Em’s story on a digital device while they sat on the couch waiting for help to arrive.
“It will be the first telling,” Missy had said.
The rest had been a whirlwind of activity. Being whisked away in an unmarked vehicle to a hotel where they were met by a medical team who set Em’s arm, cleaned them up, and left the two witches until another stuffy operative arrived in the afternoon to ask about a million more questions, nodding the whole time and taking notes on his tablet.
That night, as they rested in the protective custody of the ECC, she and Em talked about the Old World. The Scottish Highlands and other places they might visit together again someday. Snuggling in the same bed like two sisters, Doideag and Grasgall they talked about how they’d first met at a gathering of witches in the hollow of an old moor, the two of them becoming fast friends, dancing and carrying on together for centuries.
They talked about how they needed to visit each other more now that they weren’t so scared about leaving their roots so much. They laughed about a lot of things that night, giggling in their warmth until falling asleep in the early morning. Torri thought it was about the nicest conversation she’d ever had.
But the truth was, they were old witches now. A lot of the fun had been sucked away by time and age. And tomorrow they would go their separate ways and probably not talk for another decade. They’d probably not stand in the same room again until the world needed them.
They’d gotten up in the late afternoon, eaten some fruit danishes an ECC person brought them, and waited in the hotel lobby for their rides.
Two cars, each of them with a driver and two guards to see them home. They’d hugged, kissed in the old way, and gone their separate ways. The six hour ride home had been boring for Torri, none of her company very talkative. They’d given her a phone to play games on. She liked Candy Crush a lot, but it made her head hurt. At least time passed quickly, and she’d hardly noticed when she was entering the Eastern Kentucky hills again.
They’d dropped her off at the parking circle near her hill, and she thanked them. The Grace Baptist Church van was gone, and there was no sign of Lonnie and his gang. She made the trek to the waiting circle by herself and, upon seeing no one there, continued on until she was home.
Lida had been waiting for her there, and she hugged the little girl with just a bit more ferocity than she’d intended. Through teary eyes, Lida told her her father had been killed, leaving her mother no choice but to take herself and Lida’s little sister back to Hazard.
But Lida stayed, and that touched Torri’s heart.
On the hill, the ECC operatives had packed up all their things, leaving without a trace, taking as much as they could with them and leaving Torri and Lida to clean up the rest. At least they’d been respectful enough to leave her animals where they’d died. Those were well on their way to becoming bones already, being re-absorbed by the ever-loving hills.
They found Old Man Gray and most of the pack down by where Azarah’s troops had parked and started their assault. Just like she’d figured, and confirmed by Lida who’d been there, they’d taken out some of those traitorous witches and made a tremendous difference in turning the fight around.
She’d made little Lida tell her the story a hundred times as they walked through the woods discovering bodies, some human and some beast, some completely otherworldly, and buried them as best they could. They’d gone over and over it, so much so that Torri knew it by heart now. Every detail.
They hill had held out. Just barely. Crash and Ingrid had swept through the woods like a windstorm against Azarah’s creatures. Things Torri had heard of before, and others she hadn’t. Kristanna and the remaining ECC folks had bravely held the northern slope even as they’d taken horrible losses. So many dead.
Half the southern slope had been burned to ash by some chemical, the diseased foliage still weeping with pain in Torri’s head.
And, finally, the people of the hills had gathered together for one last charge, some fifty more, came up behind the invaders and cut them to pieces with shotguns and old firearms, some of them aged back a hundred years or more to the Civil War. Family heirlooms come out once again to deliver justice.
But none of them besides Lida had stuck around to chat, and she’d not seen hide nor hair of Lonnie or the Eighth Street Gang at all. That was sad, because she thought she’d gotten along well with them. Thought she might call them friends.
She took another look at the nub of tree where the Rowan branch was missing.
Yep, magic sure was unpredictable. You never could tell.
And then there was a sound…
Lonnie climbed out of the sleek black van, courtesy of the ECC. He wore a pair of n
ew jeans, his trusty Springfield XDS tucked into the holster at his hip, and a pair of combat boots made for ass kicking. And he still had his old jacket with the upside down crosses on the sleeves. It didn’t sit well with his new ECC teammates but they understood he wasn’t cut from the same Christian mold they were.
Crash exited the other side dressed like he always was. Jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt that stretched tightly over his big arms and shoulders. He took off his sunglasses, hung them from the front of his shirt, and peered up into the woods. Ingrid and Elsa threw open the side door of the van and climbed out. The whorchals, while still feral to the core, now moved with a more professional air in their new ECC blacks. Elsa strode over and took up a position to his left, her fingers sliding around his waist as she went by. He watched her walk, couldn’t keep from watching, her skin-tight leather pants practically painted on. And she’d kept her hair short in a pixie style, this time dyed blonde with black tips around her ears.
Ingrid dressed similarly, although where Elsa tended to have cut off sleeves to show off her pale arms, Ingrid preferred to be almost fully covered in black except for her hands and head.
They both wore pistols on their hips.
And don’t forget the crucifixes. They had them embroidered into their outfits and hung them from thin chains around their necks. They loved them. Bracelets and all, they’d completely adopted the Eminence Command Central icons, and many of the operatives didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing.
Luckily, most of their communication with the Lexington Base was remote and they seldom had to be in the office. They were traveling killers, cleanup artists for the ECC, and they got paid well for doing it.
Lonnie drew a cigarette out of its pack, lit it with the dragon lighter, and hoped they were about to do something cool.
The drug addiction was still there, of course, barely under control as always. Hell, he wasn’t sure they knew how to live without it, not without relocating to Hell all together. The drugs made getting up hard, made life hard, but they always found a way to do it. To keep on going. To keep on killing and looking good doing it.
Yeah, all that was hassle free now. Their special needs were provided by their employers in clean doses at safe pickup points so they didn’t have to involve themselves with the fade ripper gangs anymore.
Blood and heroin both.
It was almost fun getting high again. Almost.
And with their new connections, especially the ECC’s interest in delving deeper into the realm of Hell, Lonnie was inclined to keep tabs on them. Especially after what happened back at the tether temple. After the guy named Paul and his angels—fucking angels—had hacked through Azarah’s tether and given Torri the opportunity to defeat Azarah and seal her away forever.
He’d heard the story a half dozen times already.
And he’d been wanting to get back here to see Torri and thank her. Hell, just to touch base with her. It had been incredibly rude, them leaving without saying goodbye. But as soon as they’d come back from Hell through the gate into Torri’s underwater cavern, the ECC had whisked them off to begin their debriefing and orientation into their ranks.
It had been a head-spinning moment when Lonnie thought the worst was over. But you quickly learned, as a member of the ECC, the worst was never over. There was always a new fight to be won as the political and religious players in Earth’s future vied for power and control.
Now the Eighth Street Gang was just another cog in that wheel. Not so much different than before, really. Another cog, another day. Although this cog was certainly easier in many aspects. Especially now with the courtesy dope, the courtesy everything. Having a growing army of operatives and information at his beck and call didn’t hurt either.
Seemed a good place to be for now.
He took a drag and exhaled, following Crash’s gaze.
“Think she’s home, brother?”
“Yeah. She’s home.”
“You think she’s pissed at us?” Elsa asked. “Think she’ll appreciate the effort we took to pull this off?”
“It wasn’t that much trouble.”
Elsa gave him a wink. “True. Ingrid did all the work.”
Ingrid had taken an instant liking to the ECC work. She was the coordinator of the gang’s activities and had taken to new technologies extremely well now that she had a reason to use it. And probably, in an ironic way, his sister Makare had something to do with that.
“It wasn’t any trouble at all. Just did a web search for local Renaissance Festivals and found exactly what I wanted. They weren’t too happy to come along, at least until I waved some big bills at them. I love waving the bills around.”
Lonnie chuckled. He’d also put her in charge of the gang’s finances and, through her newfound passion, she had acquired some nice real estate in four cities. Not all of them were amazing, mostly plain, comfortable places to crash between jobs. But the one on the hill in Covington overlooking the Ohio River, they called that one home.
“Okay, let’s get them out of the van.”
The ladies went to the back and threw open the doors, revealing what appeared to be four Scotsman, fully dressed in kilts and boots. Their T-shirts were not exactly Highland attire, but they would have to do on short notice.
Lonnie nodded as each one of them got out of the van. The first, Pete, with his long beard and wild hair, gave Lonnie a nod as he got out and looked at the woods. Grayson was next, tall and bald-headed. Stevie came next, another long-bearded fellow, although his was a youngish brown to Pete’s gray. Lastly was Galen, a short fellow with short-cropped, golden hair and pale blue eyes.
“Y’ain’t gonna shoot us, are yeh?” Pete said.
“No. Not today.”
“Ya sey this is fer a ceremoneh?”
“Something like that.
Pete scratched his head quizzically. “Yeh got the moneh?”
“Ingrid?”
Ingrid handed Pete an envelope and waited while the Scotsman counted it.
He shook his head. “All right. Fifteen hundred then for this little show.”
“Right.”
“Okeh, lets do thas.”
“Crash, let’s give `ema hand.”
They unloaded the van and carried things up the hill to the terraced clearing with benches all around. The one they’d passed when they first came up here weeks ago. Lonnie was not surprised to see a family there waiting.
Lonnie nodded at the bell hanging from a post at the edge of the clearing. “You ring it?”
A woman with greasy dark hair holding a big baby nodded. Her husband, who’d been watching the procession with a dubious expression, stood. “What’s all this about?”
“You’ll see. Just have a seat and—”
“We rung the bell first,” the guy said, lip curling just enough to give rise to Lonnie’s ire.
He turned on the man, resisting the urge to blow smoke in his face. “Look, man. We got a bigger bell. So, if you want to see Old Torri sooner than later, take a fucking seat.”
The guy looked a little scared then, but he had that stubborn pride only certain men can have. Still, he gave a curt nod and went to sit on one of the rickety benches.
The couple had another three kids with them playing in the dirt at the edge of the grass. A girl and two boys. All small but old enough to understand what was going on. And, unlike their father, smart enough not to press the strangers about their weird clothes and instruments.
Especially the big guy with the wild dreadlocks. Lonnie saw their eyes go wide as they watched Crash set down his share of the gear and flex-stretch, rolling his head around on his neck. He saw the kids staring at him and gave them a sudden, toothy grin, drawing a gasp out of one of the little boys.
But then his gentle laughter filled the space, leaving the kids smiling shyly at him.
The Scottish fellows were all gearing up, shouldering big drums while Galen breathed big puffs of air into the blowstick of his bagpipes, filling up
the bag.
Pete came over, giving the big base drum strapped to his chest a couple of experimental taps. “You say somethin’ `bout Old Torreh?”
Lonnie nodded, looking up into the woods. “Yeah, you heard right.”
Pete followed Lonnie’s gaze. “This some kind o’ witch’s rite or somethin’?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“Is et gonna get weird, man?”
“Not too weird, my friend. You just play. Have fun.”
Pete looked between Lonnie and the woods one more time just as Galen’s bagpipes began a low drone. Then Pete shrugged and took up a position in line with the other three in his troop. He called out something to his mates and beat a medium-paced tempo on his big bass drum with a soft-ended mallet. As he played that steady beat, air flowed through the pipes like a low gale.
Grayson had a heavier drum, too, only it was situated on its side. He started hitting the thing with mallet-shakers, giving the rhythm a smooth feel. They built this up, building the volume, Pete’s body rocking back and forth as his wild hair shook.
The bagpipes picked up, a bend in sound that went from low to high, and then back down again, sending a chill up Lonnie’s body from his heels to the nape of his neck.
A sideways glance and he caught Ingrid and Elsa moving to the backbeat, their eyes fixated on the Scotsmen like vipers to a piper. And maybe Bess had been right in a way. No matter how much the Eighth Street Gang belonged to no one, they were the easiest pawn to play. Lonnie couldn’t allow them to ever be manipulated. Always and forever, they had to remain the true to themselves.
Yes, Lonnie would need to be very careful in the days ahead.
The drums rose in volume, Pete’s hips moving beneath the big bass drum as he tore into it. “Redeh!” Pete called with a growl that sounded like a battle call. Stevie jumped in, working in a rhythm on two of his tom toms that were sitting on stands before him. Suddenly, he ripped off a riff that cued the coming together of it all.
Air exploded through the pipes, a higher drone now accompanying the lower note. It remained that way for several moments before morphing into a mournful melody that flowed from measure to measure along with the beat.
