While this power probably sounds awesome, it really isn’t. Creatures that use old magic are incredibly rare. So my having this ability is like being a human soldier who’s immune to nuclear strike, but who can still be shot or stabbed. The chances of the former happening are slim to none, while the latter is an imminent threat.
Moo’s gone quiet, and I know she’s working through something. Finally, I hear her voice in my ear.
“I can’t feel anything. There are no power signatures anywhere. If anything, the school is a void.”
At Moo’s words, my inner lightbulb goes off—that special bulb that illuminates when we’ve been idiots. I swear to myself and nod my head like crazy. Moo can’t see me nod, but she can see the movement of the camera. I’m trying to tell her, “Yes, it is odd,” emphatically. It works.
“Of course it’s strange,” she says, and she’s as close as an Alfar can get to a frustrated groan. “It’s always been a blank, but there should be something swirling around these walls, even if it’s just from elemental power in the earth and the air. The water in the pipes. But we don’t get anything from that school.”
Moo’s nailed it. There’s something very powerful in the school. Something that doesn’t want to be found. Something that likes young women and sacrificing pigeons.
It really is a seventies horror film.
My attention is drawn back to the center of the pentagram, where Shar’s greeting all the missing girls. She’s doing a good job pretending she doesn’t know them, even though we have every single one of their files memorized.
There are the first three gone missing: Laura, Rachel, and Alyssa. Their school photos show awkward young women in the sort of clothes women wear to hide ourselves: big jeans and bulky sweatshirts. But now they’re wearing an odd mélange of random sexiness. One girl’s sporting bikini bottoms with a small sweater, another has on a leather vest and men’s boxers, while another girl is wearing only a lei and a smile. They look pretty dopey, and I wonder what they’re on.
As if to tease me, I see two of the girls share something pill-like from a small baggie before passing it on. They place whatever it is on their tongue, then twine together for a passionate kiss. Moo’s sharp eyes watching through my camera catch them, too.
“Ecstasy?” she asks. “LSD?”
At this point, we can’t know. It could be either of those, or a special cocktail just for the girls.
The rest of the missing young women all come on screen one by one. Moo’s ticking names off a list she’s jotted down on her iPad.
“They’re all there,” she whispers.
I’ve done the math, too, and to my relief they’re not only all here, they look healthy.
They’re also ready to get down to business. First Jodi shoos away all the other girls, and then tells Shar she’s gotta strip naked.
“Are you sure?” Shar asks, feigning shyness. Moo gives an unladylike snort.
“Yes, dear,” Jodi says brightly. “We’re all getting skyclad again. That’s how the Master likes us!” Her sentence is punctuated by a saucy wink.
I hope the Master also likes it when women kick his ass. Because he’ll be getting a little of that today, too, if I have anything to say about it.
Shar carefully removes her clothing so she doesn’t jostle her fascinator. But Jodi notices that Shar’s left in her enormous hair clip.
“Everything, Starr. You have to come to the Master free of all vanity.”
“But my hair,” Shar protests.
“Everything,” Jodi repeats, but her normally achingly friendly smile is darker somehow.
Shar carefully takes out her fascinator and places it on her folded stack of clothing. Then she picks up everything and walks over to one of the cots to set down her clothes. The fascinator she perches in one of her tall boots, so the spider’s fat body is pointed toward the pentacle. Shar’s being extra careful, since the spider has a backup camera and mic in both of its shiny eyeballs.
I can’t help but smile at Shar’s actions. With the fascinator on one side of the room and me on the end, Moo’s actually ended up with a better view of the scene.
We watch a naked Shar pad toward Jodi, who has also stripped off her clothes. In fact, all of the girls are starkers.
“Prepare me,” Jodi says, her whole demeanor changing into that of a commanding priestess. It’s like she’s taken off the cheerleader along with the uniform.
Two girls come forward, carrying something. It’s a robe made up of free hanging panels of material, leaving Jodi both naked and robed, which I think is quite a feat. She now looks very much the Satanist, albeit a happy one, and I can’t help but think that the bloody hue of the robe really makes her green eyes pop.
“Starr, stay with me. Girls, take your places,” Jodi says. The girls all move around the pentagram, then sit in a circle.
“The girls who’ve been missing longest are at the points, like they’re leaders or something,” Moo says. I scan the group and nod, but I also move my head so I point my miner’s camera at the point of the star that’s at the top. It’s empty.
Moo thinks again. “Oh, right. That’s empty. Maybe it’s for Jodi? Or the Master.”
Moo’s assessment makes sense. I keep a corner of my eye on that empty point, thinking there’s a good chance that’s where the Master will make his appearance.
Jodi keeps a hand on Starr’s bicep as she turns toward the waiting women.
“Sisters, we’ve come together to welcome another into our midst. She has proven herself worthy of our consideration, needing only to pass this final test.”
“Welcome sister,” the girls chant. They’ve done this before. Shar gives a little wave, a polite gesture rather out of place, considering the Satanic ritual and all.
“We have all been in Starr’s place. We have known the excitement and the fear. We have felt these pedestrian emotions turn to glory, and to the knowledge that all will be well if we submit to the Master.”
“Submit to the Master,” the girls chant. They’ve begun to sway—slowly at first, but increasing in pace until they’re moving with the rhythm of Jodi’s speech. Something tells me that baggie made its way all around the room.
“Since coming to Him, we have felt his glory. We have felt His power as he moves amongst us and inside of us. We share in his strength, and we know his dominance through our love of the Master.”
“Love the Master,” chants the peanut gallery.
“It is through the Master that we know ourselves. He has brought us to the true word, the word that betrays the world, the word that renews us and solidifies us. Without him, we are nothing, and we live to serve the Master.”
“Serve the Master,” chants the group.
“I’m sensing a theme,” Moo says, her dry humor catching me off guard.
“Kneel, sister,” Jodi says, turning to Shar. When Shar doesn’t immediately obey, Jodi’s hands find Shar’s shoulders and the cheerleader pushes our friend gently toward the ground. Shar kneels, her eyes wide. She’s doing a great job looking terrified, although I think I’d be a little skeeved out by Jodi’s pep talk.
Serve the Master my ass…
Once Shar is on her knees in front of Jodi, the cheerleader takes a step back and throws wide her arms, bellowing toward the ceiling.
“Your final test, Sister Starr, is to behold his magnificence. He is power, He is glory, and yet you must be steadfast. You must meet Him as his Bride, submitting to His will and His mastery, and become His slave.”
Jodi slowly lowers her arms, meeting Shar’s gaze.
“Will you be His, Sister Starr?”
“Oh, yes,” Shar blubbers, tears dripping down her face. Our little succubus has masked herself with an expression of ecstasy, and she’s visibly writhing in anticipation.
“And the Oscar goes to…” Moo murmurs. It is a bit ridiculous, but I’m glad we’re finally here. If all goes well, this will be over tonight. We’ll have us one bad guy to hand over to the local superna
tural authorities and a bunch of young girls to get back to their families and into therapy.
Shar’s still kneeling, looking forward. I’m watching closely when Moo hisses, “Move!” in my ear.
Without thinking I spring to my left, just as a huge figure strides past me. If I’d stayed where I was, it would have run smack into me. That would have been difficult to explain.
“What in the name of the moon and stars is that?” Moo whispers. I’m breathing slowly, trying to get my heart to stop pounding, and it’s only then that I really get a chance to study our new visitor.
The thing is at least seven feet tall, with an extra foot or two of penis sticking before him like a divining rod.
I think it’s forked, I marvel, squinting at the camera. The creature’s also red as Hellboy, with the prerequisite horns and tail, and giant goat haunches with huge hooves. He looks a bit like Tim Curry’s demon in the movie Legend, only he’s alternately pinching his own nipples and stroking himself, something that doesn’t happen in the film.
He also passes a little baggie to Jodi, who squirrels it away in the massive robe. Satan’s apparently a dealer these days. How the mighty have fallen, even more.
“Could that really be Satan?” I risk hissing.
Through the magic of video, I know that Moo is giving me a Look.
“There is no Satan.”
My mind is scrambling. Meanwhile, “Satan” is going around the room, greeting all of the girls with a grope and a kiss.
He looks like Satan, I think. And if it walks like a duck…
“I can tell you right now it’s not the real Satan,” Moo tells me, as if reading my mind. She likes to point out my “too human sensibilities” all the time, and she knows most of my weaknesses. “I have lived through the rise and fall of too many gods to believe in that one.”
She, herself, was considered a goddess. But she doesn’t like to talk about it.
“That said, the idea it’s something ancient would make more sense. It would explain some of this mystery if he were old, and of the old magics…” Moo trails off.
I nod to indicate I’ve understood her and her implications. Worst-case scenario, right now, is that we’re dealing with something super ancient. Something that existed before our kind, the Elementals. Something that uses the old magics. Maybe something that is old magic. If it’s the last one, we’re well and truly fucked, and not in the fun way.
I watch, preparing to sprint toward my friend, as the creature walks up behind Shar to let his red hands, replete with long, hooked nails, curl over Shar’s shoulders. I extend my feelers as far as they’ll go under my camo, frustrated at seeing my friend so vulnerable.
Shar’s turned her face to look at the red-nailed claws grasping her shoulders, and she looks scared. I don’t think it’s entirely faked this time.
We watch as the creature turns her around. Kneeling as she is, her face is uncomfortably close to his pronged junk.
For a split second, Shar forgets to react with fear. At the sight of the forked penis, her expression looks positively greedy before she remembers to school herself.
The being looks down at Shar. She’s peering up at him with rapt eyes, and I, too, study his profile. He’s oddly familiar, but I can’t think how. Do I know any Satans? I think I’d remember those horns.
“Little Sister,” he says, his voice booming and low and ominous. If he’s not Satan, he does a good impression, that’s for sure.
“Sweet, sweet little Sister. The Master welcomes you.”
Shar’s practically panting, her huge brown eyes gone liquid like melted Toblerone.
The big red hand grips Shar’s chin gently, but his next words are anything but kind.
“But first we must punish the traitor,” the Master hisses, as everyone in the room disappears.
* * *
I know Moo’s fast, and I’m no slouch in the running department, but you would have thought Moo was Kenyan rather than Egyptian from the way she ran into that school.
She also didn’t bother with subtlety, instead letting her Alfar force boom through the empty halls. After being magically quiet for so long, Moo’s mojo nearly knocks me over, all the way in the basement. It’s easy to forget how powerful she is.
It’s also easy to forget how much she loves Shar, since they fight so much and because Moo finds it as hard to express emotion as Shar finds it easy. But the woman running toward me is anything but uncaring. She doesn’t even pause at the wall we know is a glamour, and I can see her run straight through like a linebacker.
“What happened?” she demands.
“I’ve got no idea,” I say. “One minute it was all, ‘Shar, meet Satan,’ then I felt a tingle of old magic. Then everyone disappeared.”
Moo swears, letting me know she’s really upset. Shar and I are the potty mouths.
“Did you feel anything else?”
“I’m not sure, but I thought the power did not come from Prongs.”
“Prongs?” Moo asks.
“Prongs,” I say, waving two of my fingers in front of my jean’s zipper to help me explain.
“Then where did the power come from?” Moo asks, ignoring my brilliance.
“I don’t know. But like I said, I don’t think it came from Satan.”
“He’s not Satan,” she says absentmindedly before getting to work. Using her power, Moo begins to systematically move everything, including the massive old altar, looking for a hidden door or something. Meanwhile, I prowl around the room under my camo, trying to see if one of these other walls isn’t quite real.
They all are, and both Moo and I are getting frustrated.
Moo swears, dropping a bunch of cots she’s been levitating with her power. They strike the concrete with a loud clatter, but even louder is the power she sends out.
“I’m looking for a dead spot,” she says. “Something that feels like the school.” Her eyes close, and I feel her reach again. I amp up my weak shields, wishing for the hundredth time that my camo would work against elemental magic, as I try to keep my eyes on Moo’s face.
Her eyes snap open, focusing on a distant spot on the wall, when she finds something. She purses her lips in concentration, and then she smiles.
“I think I’ve found—” Before Moo can finish, however, there comes a voice from behind us.
“Get off my land!” it screeches. I start to whip around, catching a glimpse of a hooded figure, as its power booms out.
It’s old magic.
I still have my camo up, so the bulk of its force bounces off my shields with only enough strength to knock me on my ass. Moo, however, goes flying, as even her Alfar strength no match for the old magic. She hits the massive altar hard, her manifested shields taking the brunt of the impact, but it still has to hurt.
Then the hooded figure disappears, apparating with an audible pop.
I get to my feet before hurrying over to Moo. She’s pulling hard on her power, healing herself, and I let her finish before offering her my hand. She stands gingerly, shaking her head as if her ears are ringing.
“Well, that answers one question,” Moo says, her voice calm despite everything. I nod. I, too, have recognized the power signature: a bizarre combination of mostly old magic with a little bit of elemental magic thrown in.
There’s only one creature that starts out elemental like us but ends up being able to use the old magic.
“Gnome,” I say. Then, to clarify, “Young and squatting.”
Moo nods, then gives me the information I need to call Tom so he can round up his paranormal posse.
We may need reinforcements.
* * *
“This is it,” Moo says. “The dead patch.”
We’re back outside the cornfield where Shar had her original run-in with Jodi. But now that we know what we’re looking for, we can feel the same curious blankness that blanketed the school. In fact, the field’s actually not far from the school, separated only by the school’s ample grounds and a thin s
trip of forest surrounding what used to be a railway track but has long since been turned into a nature trail.
The blank spot probably resembles a large oval from above, encompassing the school and its environs, the bit of trail, and a patch of this cornfield.
Not a huge amount of territory, no—but a good patch of land for a very young gnome to squat on and eventually bind with to create its own territory. Gnomes start out like us, able to use only elemental magics. But once they bond to a territory, they have access to the old magic, the essential stuff of which our elemental powers are but a shadow.
They wizen up like tiny elderly beings when they fully bond, giving life to the legend of garden gnomes. But they’re the sort of garden gnomes more likely to wield the power of a nuclear warhead than a wheelbarrow.
After we’ve probed the hell out of the blank patch to make sure we know exactly where the squatting gnome’s territory ends, Moo turns to me expectantly.
“What’s the plan?”
Plans are my job. Sometimes I hate my job.
I cross my arms and think about it. If we charge into the gnome’s territory, it’d just do what it did earlier and thump Moo. I might be able to forge ahead using my camo, but then it’d be me against a field full of drugged girls, someone posing as Satan—who may or may not be powerful—and the gnome. I’m pretty good in a brawl but not that good. So if we can’t go in, we have to divide their forces and get Satan to come out. But how? And will our reinforcements arrive in time if Satan really is a prince of darkness?
“Uh, Cap?” Moo says, interrupting my reverie.
“Huh?”
Something Wikkid This Way Comes Page 5
