“Could be.”
Michael Myers watched Laurie Strode from behind a bush. Claire involuntary broke out in goosebumps.
“But she didn’t seem crazy to me,” Claire said. “There are usually signs: hearing voices, babbling, screaming, that kind of stuff.”
“She seemed like she was babbling and hearing voices to me. Didn’t she talk to you about a kid named Duke who told her all of this? If that’s not schizo, I don’t know what is,” Tabby said. She looked toward the television and smiled at the sheer creepiness of the film.
Claire had always thought Tabby was weird, but now Maria took the crown as her weirdest friend.
“Yeah, she did,” Claire answered. She put her hands over her face, expecting a jump-scare from the movie. Nothing happened, as was often the case in classic horror movies like Halloween, Carrie, and The Shining. “But I think she meant it,” Claire finished.
“You really do?” Tabby asked incredulously.
Claire turned toward Tabby. A bowl of popcorn sat in the crease of the couch cushions between them.
“Now she’s talking about going to another freaking planet? Doesn’t that sound a little weird to you, Claire? I’m worried. I’m honestly worried,” Tabby said.
“Why can’t that be real? Who’s to say there can’t be witches and wizards and other planets with intelligent life out there? You’re telling me you don’t believe any of that stuff; in all the vastness that is our universe, you don’t believe there are things out there beyond our comprehension?” Claire felt the need to get intellectual on Tabby. Sometimes that was the only way to make your point, her dad had once told her. Sound smart and people will believe you. “Sure, we’re lacking any concrete evidence, but do you believe in God, Tab?”
Tab arched an eyebrow. “God? How are we on the subject of God?”
“Answer the question.”
“Yeah, I do believe in God.” Tabby motioned to the crucifix around her neck. “I don’t really see how that much matters.”
Claire waved a hand. “I’m just saying if you can believe in God, why can’t you believe in witches and wizards and aliens?”
Tabby shook her head. “Watch the movie,” she said.
They did.
When it was over, they sat on the couch in an uncomfortable silence. Cages had been rattled. Normally, friends as close as Tabby and Claire were above uncomfortable silences—at least, since they’d been out of high school.
“I’m still worried about Maria,” Claire said, breaking the silence. Tonight was supposed to be a movie marathon. Neither one had turned on the next movie after Halloween ended. It was Claire’s choice, too. She was going to pick The Notebook; a real palette cleanser after a slasher flick.
Tabby didn’t answer. She must’ve been madder than Claire had originally thought. She turned to hug her best friend and end the animosity, but when she saw her, she froze.
Tabby’s mouth hung open, her jaw nearly came to her collarbone. In her right hand, she held her iPhone. Her face was pale, the white glow from the screen washing away her features.
“What?” Claire said, fearing the worst. “What is it?”
No answer.
“Tab!”
Finally, Tabby turned her head to answer. Claire could hear the creak in her neck. Tabby didn’t answer with her voice; she was currently unable to speak. Any words that tried to escape her mouth fizzled and turned to vapor before they could come out. No, she answered by turning her cell phone toward Claire.
Claire screamed.
It was worse than any horror movie, worse than her worst nightmare, worse than everything bad she’d ever seen—and Claire had seen her grandmother’s dried out organs, when the platform that her casket rested upon during viewing hours collapsed and spilled her body. Before Claire saw the image on Tabby’s screen, the incident at her grandmother’s viewing hours was at the top of her most depraved moments list, but now it was bumped to second.
What Claire saw was a spider; a giant man-like spider, its limbs dipped in the shining red of blood. And Claire knew that the beast was not fake.
It was real, and it was what Maria had talked to her about.
“Oh, God,” Tabby said. “Did Andy really see that?”
Andy Franz posted the picture on his Instagram page. It was uploaded just an hour ago. Tabby recognized the house that the creature stood in front of as the big blue one off of Main Street. The picture was blurry, but Claire could see enough to know it wasn’t a hoax, and that what Maria had told her in the parking lot at Rolling Hill Mall was true.
Unfortunately.
“Yeah. Yeah, he did.” Claire managed to say once the shock of the picture subsided. “And keep talking to God…we’re gonna need him. We’re really gonna need him.” She got up from the couch, the cushions wheezing as she did. She put on her shoes, which were by the front door. On the coat rack, devoid of all coats, was her key ring.
“What the fuck?” Tabby said, breathless. “Where are you going?”
“You mean, where are we going?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until I see a different picture, one that shows that creature dead and surrounded by a SWAT team.” Somehow, Tabby knew that giant spider was not fake…and neither was the blood. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
“Yeah, you are. I don’t think a SWAT team is going to be able to handle that thing. Only one person can.”
“Who?” Tabby asked. She started to get up—she already knew who.
“Maria Apple. The third leg of our tripod. Come on; let’s go find her. We have to help her. Or at least warn her that the creature is close.”
Tabby took a deep breath. She looked up to the ceiling and closed her eyes. In her head, she said a silent prayer to God.
Gramps’s voice boomed. The thunder in it was enough to rival Oriceran’s biggest storms.
Maria sprang forward with the sword in her hand. She chopped at Malakai’s shoulder, and he danced away, spinning on his toes like the world’s most sadistic ballerina.
But he was not fast enough. The blade tore down his back; the sound of steel scraping steel filled the air again and set Maria’s teeth on edge. Sparks shimmered off her blade. Her skin was the color of nebulas, of comets burning in the vast expanses of the dark universe. She could feel the magic all around her. The ice cream shop’s power oozed and flowed through her, but it also flowed through the Arachnid.
Sherlock barked madly, but he stayed back, out of harm’s way, injecting his comments heedlessly. Kick his spider ass, Maria. That’s it! You almost got him! Come on! He was Maria’s own telepathic cheering squad.
Gramps shouted his spells. Lightning rose up and struck Malakai, driving him farther back. That was all they did. Maria had the idea that these types of spells and incantations would be enough to topple over buildings, yet they seemed to bounce off of Malakai’s chitinous armor.
Maria swung down again, this time going for the chink of flesh missing and leaking his black blood. She gritted her teeth and shouted with all her might. The magic buzzed inside of her head, but she could not control it, not yet. The only thing she could control was her blade. And as it whistled through the air, she tasted the victory on the tip of her tongue—the victory and the blood.
Thunk.
The Arachnid’s two bottom arms caught the sword. Malakai’s hands looked like he was ready to pray to some dark god. His top right arm came up and out in a gesture that seemed to say ‘Stop,’ and a burst of light deflected from his palm, setting his claws ablaze.
Maria’s eyes got bigger as Malakai’s glowed darker red.
Now he not only deflected her blows and her grandfather’s spells, but he absorbed them, it seemed. To Maria, he appeared taller, larger, stronger.
He opened his mouth and cackled. All the damned voices of hell escaped his throat with that laugh. Maria’s hands went weak. She felt the sword slip from her grasp.
“No!” she shouted, but it was too late. The blade was free. No
longer was it her blade. Now it belonged to Malakai.
“Maria!” Gramps shouted.
With one of his other hands, Malakai pushed Maria to the street. Her head clonked off of the pavement and her vision fuzzed out. She yelped in pain—should’ve rolled over and taken the loss, lest she lose her life, but already she was trying to scramble back up. ‘You get knocked down, you don’t stay down. You keep fighting.’ It was what her grandfather had once told her after a particularly nasty bout with the third grade playground bully Velma Sheers.
That’s all Malakai is, isn’t he? A bully. She was taught to stand up to bullies.
So Maria tried to stand up. She didn’t need a blade.
Malakai laughed again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her grandfather. He no longer slung spells in the Arachnid’s direction. He was too busy watching Maria, who was hunched over on the ground, trying to get up like a drunken woman who’d taken a particularly nasty spill.
Maria turned her focus back to Malakai. He cocked the sword behind his bulbous head, his eyes glowing so fiercely they were almost impossible to look at, like looking directly into the sun. He threw the blade.
But not at her.
It sliced through the air like a bullet. The spinning, glinting metal was all but a blur as it plunged toward her grandfather.
“Gramps, no!” she screamed.
But it was too late.
The sword struck him so hard, he didn’t even have a chance to cry out.
“NO!”
He fell over, his body crumpling into a frail mess of bones and skin. Maria couldn’t even see the sword any longer. She couldn’t see anything at all.
The fury and rage blinded her, and the magic took over.
She yelled words she didn’t understand, incantations and spells she’d picked up from her grandfather, either subconsciously or telepathically. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that the joy on Malakai’s face changed into pain and anguish, and he was driven back farther.
“This. Is. Our. World!” Maria shouted. A great burst of energy plunged into Malakai’s chest, hitting him where he was already wounded, where the dead heart no longer beat inside of his chest. The hole grew larger. The brightness and malice blazing in his eyes dimmed.
Yes, the real end was near, but victory was closer.
Then, as fast as it had come, the magic left Maria. She fell to her knees drained. Malakai also collapsed, this battle of good versus evil momentarily on pause.
You got him, Maria! Sherlock said. You kicked his ass. He’s as dead as that squashed squirrel! You—
But he stopped.
Maria—her vision almost gone, her body exhausted, her muscles and tendons like jelly, floating around, detached from the spots where they should’ve been—saw that Malakai was slowly standing up. He hadn’t been beaten. Not yet.
No. Impossible, Maria whimpered. How do you kill something that’s already dead?
Tires screeched. Headlights bathed the giant spider. A revving engine screamed. Maria, dimly aware of her own demise if she didn’t haul ass, looked in the direction of the car.
It was a Kia.
A horn honked.
The cabin light flipped on. Claire sat behind the wheel, her hands gripped on the wheel, teeth bared. Next to her was Tabby, and she held her arms out in front of her as if she were on a train that had jumped the rails.
Maria, move! Sherlock barked.
And she did.
Just in time. The wind the Kia made as it flew by blew her hair out in every direction. Exhaust and tire smoke filled her nostrils. She hit the ground again, her eyes closing, but not before she saw the Kia plow into Malakai at upwards of fifty miles per hour.
The Arachnid was launched into the air; a black creature in the blacker night sky. He seemed to fly, to float.
Until he didn’t.
Until he fell down, his body clattering and shattering on the road.
Maria
Mariaaaa
“Maria!”
It was Gramps’s voice. But that was impossible. He’d been speared by her very own sword.
Her eyes flicked open. She saw faces hovering above her. It was Tabby, Claire, and Sherlock.
“Maria, finish him,” Ignatius said.
Her friends helped her up. Her legs were wobbly and numb. She turned and saw Gramps on the curb. He held his wounded shoulder with his good hand.
“How…?” she managed to say. It was a question that encompassed the entire battle. How could he have survived? How could she finish Malakai? How could she kill what was already dead?
“The hilt,” he said. “The hilt hit me.” He motioned to the sword. There was a small puddle of blood near it. Gramps managed a smile to reassure Maria he would be okay…if she could end this.
She picked up the sword. Holding it made her feel a little better—which was not saying much, since she’d felt close to death.
Do it, Maria, Sherlock said. Do it for Dominion and Duke. Do it for both worlds.
She nodded at the Bloodhound.
She walked over to the mangled hump of blackness that was Malakai. He was not dead. His limbs twitched and his eyes blinked open, but the fire that had been in them was gone.
“For Dominion village,” Maria whispered. “For Duke, and my mother and father, and all those you have hurt.”
She raised the blade above her head. Somehow, her muscles allowed her to do it. Her muscles and her magic.
Malakai laughed and wheezed. Black blood flew from his mouth and dripped from his limbs. “Go ahead…go ahead and kill me. It won’t matter. It won’t…matter at all.”
Maria said nothing.
“The Widow’s reach s-s-stretches across worlds. She…she won’t stop until the music b-b-box is hers.”
Then Maria spoke. “Last words,” she said. “Should’ve made ‘em count.”
She brought the sword down point-first.
Before the blade sank into Malakai’s wounded sternum, something like disappointment passed over his many eyes.
Then he died for a second and final time.
The blade struck the pavement beneath him; a clean impalement. Maria didn’t smile or cry or scream. She was too tired and beaten for any of that.
As she fell backward, passing out, Malakai’s body began to catch fire. By the time her friends and family had woken her up, the body was nothing but a pile of ashes, scattered in the night wind.
Chapter Seventeen
“Holy shit! Did you see me cream that son of a bitch!?” Claire yelled. It was the first thing Maria heard once she regained consciousness.
Maria opened her eyes. She stared at a tiled ceiling.
“I don’t think I can, like, go to jail for that…can I?” Claire said. “It’s kinda like hitting a deer or something.”
Laughter came from behind her. Among it sounded like Salem and Agnes, even the Muffler twins.
“That was pretty awesome,” Tabby said. “I was sure we were going to die. I thought that…that thing was going to unhinge his jaw and just swallow the Kia whole.”
“Now that would be ridiculous,” a tired old man’s voice said.
It was Gramps. Ignatius Apple, formerly known on Oriceran in the village of Dominion as Ignatius Mangood.
“Ohh,” Maria moaned. She brought a hand up to her head and touched what felt like a wad of napkins. One pulled free, and she squinted her eyes, reading Salem’s on the paper. World class medical care, she thought. Ice cream shop napkins instead of gauze and Band-Aids. I wonder what they used to sterilize the wound—whipped cream?
“She’s up!” Claire shouted. “Maria!”
Maria tried to sit up.
“Easy, easy,” Tabby said.
“Yes, young lady, you took quite a beating,” Agnes said. She entered Maria’s field of vision, her wild gray hair swallowing up her view of the tiled ceiling.
“Yeah, I feel like I died,” Maria rasped. It hurt to talk.
“You should’ve,” Salem said. He hob
bled over next to Agnes and put an arm around her waist. “How I could be so stupid as to miss a plain old cloaking charm, I don’t know. I am sorry, though, Maria. I know that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of what occurred, but know that I’m eternally grateful to you. You saved my life.”
“Our lives, too!” the Muffler twins said from somewhere behind Maria.
“And mine,” Gramps said.
Maria managed to turn her head, but not before her neck cracked about twenty times. Yeah, she would definitely be sore in the morning.
Maria found Gramps with her eyes. Sherlock sat next to him. They both seemed to be smiling.
Seeing them gave her strength, just like the sword had done earlier. She sat up, barely registering the pain that wracked through her body.
“Gramps!” she said.
“Maria. Maria, Maria, Maria!” he laughed. “You are such a reckless fool. But what would I have done without you?”
“Died, probably,” Salem said. He laughed as well.
“I didn’t want you to risk your life for me,” Gramps continued. “I’ve lived long enough, but you, you have so much life left ahead of you. You are going to do so many great things.”
Eh, don’t push it, Ig, Sherlock said.
Maria rolled her eyes at him.
Suddenly, something popped into her mind. “The music box!” she shouted. “Where is the—”
Gramps seemed to produce it out of nowhere. “If I’d known how much trouble this little thing would’ve caused us, I think I would’ve gotten you a candy bar.”
“You did know,” Salem told him. “You knew it would cause trouble, but you also knew Maria could handle it.”
Gramps swallowed, the knob in his neck bobbing. He nodded. “I did. I guess you’re right, Salem.”
“Almost always am,” Salem said, grinning. His face was bandaged with napkins, too. He looked ridiculous. Maria knew she probably didn’t look much better.
“I knew she could handle it because she is my granddaughter. We Apples can handle almost anything,” Gramps said.
“Yeah,” Claire said. She and Tabby stood by Maria’s side. They always would, from then on. “Now that I’ve seen a giant spider-man…thing, I really do think you guys can handle anything.”
Midwest Magic Chronicles Boxed Set Page 19
