Southern Belle

by Stuart Jaffe

  A wide cabinet sat in the center of the room, out of place and obstructing Max's view of the rest of the room. Slowly, Max entered, walking around the cabinet, trying to prepare for any kind of traps the witch had set, anything that might leap out at him. When he came to the other side, he jumped back, startled by the amazing sight.

  The old lady had built a shrine. A circle of salt surrounded the entire thing. Inside, three green candles burned on an altar of wood with a velvet cloth cover, gold pentagrams hanging from the top of the cabinet, and situated on a silk pillow — the thirteenth Bell of the Damned.

  Larger than he had imagined, the bell had a small chip in the handle but otherwise matched the photographs exactly. Max inspected around the shrine, attempting to locate any form of security alarm. Then he considered the apartment he was in — witches didn't need security alarms. He reached under the bell and guided the clapper against the side so it would not ring out. Holding it in place with one hand, he lifted the bell with the other. Not a sound. In fact, he had been so quiet, he could still hear the impassioned argument coming from his office.

  Max walked around the wide cabinet, took two steps toward the door, and froze. The old lady blocked his way. She stood in the doorway breathing heavy but strong. A growl emitted from her throat, and her head lowered, darkening her eyes, threatening him like a rabid animal.

  "I am the protector," she said in a strong but cracked voice, "and you will return the bell or face my wrath."

  Had he been a common thief, he might have laughed at the old lady, might even have attempted to bully his way by her, but Max knew witches too well to ignore her threat. Yet as much as he knew he should comply, he could only shrink before her strength and hope that this witch had a heart.

  "Please," he said, "I need this bell to save my wife."

  "It is cursed, and so will you become if you use it."

  "A High Priestess has possessed my wife. The witch, Patricia Welling. I was told that this is the only thing that can save my Sandra. If you know another way, tell me. Otherwise, I must have this."

  The old lady thrust out a clawed hand. Max cowered, sure that he would be turned into a toad. When his human form remained, he peeked up at her. She scowled.

  "Max Porter, seer of a single ghost, you have been a thorn in the foot of the Hull family since you arrived here. That is the only reason you have remained untouched by me. But should you press forth and remove that bell from this sacred room, I will no longer restrain myself. Put the bell back, and all shall be forgotten. Take one step closer, and you'll learn how powerful an old witch like me can become."

  Max clutched the bell closer to his chest. He looked at the hall stretching out behind the old lady. Surely he could barrel her down and make it out through that hall. From there, he'd bust out of the apartment, hurry to his office, ring the bell at Patricia, and pray for the best. Yet even as he considered this plan, the old lady seemed to fill out the doorway even more. It may only have been a trick of his eyes brought on by fear and worry, it may have been an illusion cast by the old witch — either way, he saw his chance to leave diminishing.

  He glanced back at the shrine. If he did as she asked, if he returned the bell, would she stay true to her word? Would she let him go and forget his intrusion? And what of Sandra then? A loud crash came from his office. That settled it. If he didn't get in there fast, Drummond would either end up destroyed or turned.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "Unless you can help me stop this witch, I don't see any other way."

  "Don't think that the bluster you've displayed in the past will aid you today. Turn around. Put the bell back. Forget you ever knew of this place."

  Max lowered his body slightly, ready to pounce on the old lady, toss her aside, and race for his office. His heart quickened and sweat broke along his back and neck. He licked his lips and gave one final thought to Sandra.

  Before he could launch into action, the old lady's eyes widened. She saw his intentions, and she already had her hand out, prepared to strike with whatever magic she possessed.

  "I think you should stop this nonsense," a voice said from the hallway.

  Both Max and the old lady peered down the dark hall. Mr. Modesto walked forward. The old lady stepped into the room, allowing him to take the doorway.

  "Good evening to you." As always, Modesto wore a smart suit and held his body perfectly straight. "I see, Mr. Porter, that you have acquired the bell after all. Our employer will be pleased."

  The old lady squinted an evil gaze at him. "Neither you nor your pathetic employer will ever have this bell. I've pledged my life to protect —"

  "Yes, yes. Except, you see, Mr. Porter is the one holding the bell, and quite frankly, you don't have the skill to do anything about it."

  "You'll regret those words."

  She raised her hands and opened her mouth. A tight, choking came from her throat. Her eyes rolled back and she crumpled to the floor.

  Modesto walked in and lifted the bell from Max's stunned hands. Max wanted to fight, but he couldn't imagine how Modesto had defeated this witch with such ease. How could he fight Modesto against that kind of power? It was over. He had failed and now Modesto had the bell. He just couldn't understand what had happened.

  As if to answer Max's unspoken questions, Modesto gestured to the hall. A small, thin woman with a deep scar running from her nose to her jaw stood alone. Dressed in a black gown adorned with symbols Max had seen too many times in recent days, the woman lowered her hands and ran a finger along a bone pendant around her neck.

  "I'll take care of the others," she said and walked off toward Max's office.

  With his free hand, Modesto guided Max back to his feet. "The first rule in fighting with magic," Modesto said, "is to always bring the strongest witch."

  Chapter 25

  Modesto had no need for a gun. As long as he held that bell, Max didn't see any choice but to go along without a struggle. They left the old lady's apartment and walked back to the office.

  Breathing clean air once again revitalized Max's dull senses. His mind leaped from one crisis to another — Sandra and Patricia, making sure Drummond didn't turn, stopping Modesto. All these thoughts made the act of entering the office as a failure that much worse.

  The office desks had been shoved against the walls, and two chalk circles with symbols had been drawn on the floor. Drummond pressed against the confines of one circle, and Patricia the other. Neither looked particularly happy. Drummond paced the narrow space like a trapped puma, turning every two steps, fuming and grunting. Patricia, on the other hand, settled cross-legged on the floor, her face a cold burn of controlled rage.

  Modesto spread his arms as if presenting his vast treasure to a commoner. "This room, Mr. Porter, is going to be the most valuable room in all mankind. Here, we shall return Tucker Hull to the living so that he may continue his important work. And we owe it all to you."

  "Pay me back now by releasing my wife and friend."

  Chuckling, though he showed no amusement in his face, Modesto said, "Let's begin the evening with proper introductions. This diminutive yet powerful witch is Kalon. Born to a German family with a long history in the dark arts, Kalon will not only bring Tucker Hull back, but she will serve him better than any witch has before. She makes our former witch look like a peasant, don't you think?"

  "Dr. Connor looks like a corpse now."

  Modesto ignored the comment. To Kalon, he said, "This annoying man is Mr. Maxwell Porter. He is a pest, and I look forward to the day the Hull family allows me to crush him under my sole. Until then, we must put up with his inability to perform his duties properly."

  "Hey, don't soft-sell me. I try hard to be a pain in your ass." Max wished he felt half as a brazen as he sounded, but he had to keep pushing. As long as Modesto appeared to be driving this night, he would be looser with his mouth, and Max needed that stuck-up prick to talk as much as possible.

  "You often succeed," Modesto said. "Still, despite your innumera
ble flaws, we do have to thank you for acquiring all the necessary pieces to this complex spell."

  The black-draped witch moved like a graceful ballerina as she drew small chalk circles in front of the large ones that contained Drummond and Patricia. Modesto pointed to the first circle. "Here we have the Hull family journal which you stumbled upon for us." Kalon placed the beaten book into the circle.

  "Hardly stumbled," Max said, recalling his first case for the Hulls. He had a ghost stick its hand straight into his skull in order to find that book — an agonizing pain he never wanted to experience again.

  Kalon placed a small bowl in the second circle. In the bowl, lay a single hair. Modesto said, "This is, of course, one of the last hairs that belonged to Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard the Pirate. I believe you found this by accident when you were hired to locate a painting by the granddaughter of a dead art forger."

  "You're quite good at revisionist history." Max had been hired by the ghost of a man betrayed by the Hull family which led to a cursed art forger, his mad granddaughter, and their twisted plan involving Blackbeard's ghost.

  "And last, we have the handbell which you generously provided this evening. All three key elements, all brought to us by you, and all this time you've thought you were working against us, when in fact, we could not be here without you."

  Kalon dashed a white, gritty substance into the bowl containing Blackbeard's hair. With a pestle she produced from a black bag, she ground into the bowl, turning the hair and the white grit into a fine powder. As she worked, Modesto's eyes fired up and he said, "It's begun now. Soon the essence of Tucker Hull locked in his journal will be freed, soon he will rise again."

  Max looked at Sandra — her body, but where was the rest of her? She had to be inside there. If he could reach her, get her to fight back. Stupid, Max chided himself. Of course she fought back. In fact, Patricia must have had to work three times as hard to keep hold of that body. No way would Sandra take a backseat. Patricia might be barely holding on.

  However, Drummond was the one that looked closest to losing control. That dark mist surrounded him like an aura of night. There would be no help from him at the moment. Max was on his own. He only had his original plan, and that sounded awfully weak to his ears.

  Still, a weak plan worked better than no plan. Max pushed aside all his concerns for Sandra and Drummond. He had to focus, now. Clear his thoughts because the next few minutes would be a verbal chess game against an agile and sadistic opponent.

  "I'm impressed," Max said. "The way you've orchestrated this whole thing shows a high level of skill at the manipulation of powerful people."

  Modesto cocked his head, pleased but cautious. "I don't know what you're referring to."

  "Of course you do. It takes a good mind to plan several steps ahead, but this ... this takes a special level of creativity and foresight most people can only dream of acquiring. I may not agree with your goals, but I'm always willing to acknowledge the presence of a great thinker."

  Though preening and flush with excitement, Modesto said, "Flattery will do nothing to enhance your position. The fact remains that we have already won this battle."

  "That's my point. You've been thinking years in advance of where Drummond and Sandra and I traipsed through. The journal, Blackbeard's hair, the handbell — each case, each element, carefully sent our way so that we would take all the risks in finding them for you, that we would have no recourse but to see you take them from us, that we would not even understand their value, even after we had been warned, until it was too late. Until now."

  Kalon dug out an eagle's talon from a pocket in her dress. Gnarled and black with pieces of rotten flesh on the end, the talon clinked against the bowl as Kalon dropped it in. Without pause, she began grinding it into the powder she had made.

  "This had to be meticulously planned," Max went on. "I can't think of a better person than you to do such a thing. Not only the long term vision, but thinking of this last piece, the way you manipulated us all is amazing."

  Modesto could barely contain himself, yet still he said, "I did no such thing."

  "Here's what really impressed me: The fact that you murdered Dr. Ernest and staged it to look like the curse. That was brilliant."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Oh, don't be coy. When we deciphered Dr. Ernest's notes, we found his witch's corpse in an old church. But here's the thing — the corpse was undisturbed. That bothered me but I couldn't figure it out. After all, the whole reason Joshua Leed came to us was that Dr. Ernest had died at the hands of a coven ghost. Except the body was undisturbed. That can only mean that Dr. Ernest had not touched the corpse at all — after all, nobody else knew where it was to begin with. Especially you."

  "You have an intriguing hypothesis going, but I doubt you understand the full ramifications."

  "I most certainly do. I wouldn't be praising you, if I didn't. Because you have to look at the whole thing in context, don't you? Here you are with the journal and the hair in hand. All you need to finish your spell is something one of these ghost-witches can do for you. But you have a major problem. Back in the '40s, the coven was cursed and their bodies hidden. You had no clue how to find them. But you did know who was responsible. You couldn't go to Drummond. You cursed that poor man. He'd never help you. Joshua Leed's loyalty to Dr. Ernest meant he'd never betray the man. And, in fact, Dr. Ernest was too, well, earnest to be bribed or coerced."

  Kalon added what looked like rat pellets to the concoction. Tension seized Max's muscles. How much time did he have left before she would be ready? He had to hurry. But he had to stay calm, too. Act as if he had all the time he could want.

  "So what do you do?" Max said, resisting the urge to walk around the room and tap his chin as he laid this out. "You devised a genius plan. You would have the very people responsible for hiding the bodies uncover them for you by killing Dr. Ernest and leaving hints that only someone knowledgeable in witchcraft, covens, and ghosts would notice. The police would treat this as any old murder, but the person with that special knowledge would see something different in the evidence. Of course, that special person was Joshua Leed. When he hired me, the coven was still intact in the original curse that Drummond, Leed, and Dr. Ernest performed. In fact, it wasn't until Leed contacted me and then went off to destroy the witches he had hidden, only then were the corpses actually disturbed. That's why they were able to attack us at the church, why the corpse in the church was untouched, and why you are standing here with Patricia Welling in my wife's body when that witch should be stuck in the walls of the Federal Building downtown. You created a situation on the gamble that it would result in this outcome. Did I miss anything?"

  "Well, I hardly think it was gamble," Modesto said. Max fought to hold back a triumphant smile — he had that uptight bastard hooked. Modesto peered over Kalon's shoulder, nodded, and continued. "I've been studying you for years now. I know you better than you know yourself."

  "Maybe so, but you couldn't know how Leed would react."

  "A simpleton like that? Honestly, he was the easiest to predict. Of course, there were several variables I had to stay atop of, but when you're a thinker, a man who understands tactics and strategy, juggling variables and adjusting outcomes is not terribly strenuous. For example, I could not know with any degree of certainty who the High Priestess would choose to possess. She could have picked a stranger off the street. However, I knew the more I pushed you to find that bell, the more you would resist. That would, in turn, push you deeper into the mess that Dr. Ernest had created. It was my calculated risk that a person as attune to the paranormal as your wife would be an easier target for the High Priestess."

  "You set us up even more than I realized. But then you actually needed my help to find that bell."

  "I'll admit that was the most challenging part of the endeavor. I had others working on it, but you have proven to be the most successful I've ever hired at finding these items."

  "With Sandra possesse
d, that was all that remained. That's why you gave a final deadline." Max made a show of nodding to Modesto's sage wisdom but a thought suddenly caused an authentic frown.

  "Something troubling you?" Modesto asked.

  "Dr. Connor. There was no way a ghost killed her — not when she put a ward around her office. I saw firsthand how Drummond struggled to get in there and couldn't. Which means that it was another staged event. So, why did you kill her? It couldn't have been because she told us your plan. She warned me of this back when I dealt with the whole Blackbeard thing. There was no point in killing her now."

  "For one, she betrayed me. She showed that she could not be trusted, and just because I didn't dispose of her immediately, hardly meant that I forgave her transgression. For another, there was the matter of the bell."

  "That's the real answer. If she got hold of that bell, she gained control of this entire situation, and you did not want her to have that kind of control. That's what you feared."

  Modesto bristled. "Fear? Me? Do you have any idea what I have endured to reach this point? Can you comprehend the sacrifices I have made for this?"

  "I'm sure you have had —"

  "You know nothing." Modesto spit the words hard enough to dislodge a lock of his hair. It spilled over his forehead, yet he never fixed it. "A spell as complex as this one, as important as this one, requires more than mere skillful planning. It rests on the sheer will and courage to see it through. That was where Dr. Connor proved lacking. I killed her like I did Dr. Ernest, and you know what I discovered? They both were surprised I could do such a thing. I saw it on their faces. How could that be? I realize I may appear outwardly like a stuffy butler, but surely Dr. Connor knew the ruthless man I am underneath. You're not surprised. Why were they?"

  "They've never been on the receiving end before."

  "Perhaps."

  "And now you will be, too." Max unbuttoned the top three buttons on his shirt. Unable to hold back a little gloating grin of his own, Max revealed a thin, white wire taped to his chest. "The FBI have been listening all along. You've admitted to two homicides, though I'm pretty sure that all your talk of witches, possession, and magic spells will set you up nicely for an insanity defense. And don't try running. They've got us surrounded."