Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  Okay. Okay then. I will just have to do this.

  Lunabelle broke the contact with my malformed hand, and as she did so, the burn marks featuring the name of the man I was about to kill disappeared also.

  “We have had a stay of execution, child. When we entered this room, I cast a spell that would throw Denzel off about our exact whereabouts. If you feel any compassion for him, remember that after he kills me, he will kill you, and your Toril, whatever she is to you, will have suffered at his hands for nothing.”

  “I just can’t believe another member of the coven would want to kill you.”

  “I am the only member of the coven to come into contact with that Mirror of yours,” said Lunabelle calmly. “Right now, I stand between Denzel and the Mirror.”

  “But he can’t handle the Mirror,” I suggested.

  “He doesn’t have to. His Master will not be far away, and he, I assure you, can handle it.”

  She kept her gaze on me for the entire time. “I am about to remove the protection of the spell, child. Are you ready?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Lunabelle took it as a sign I was as ready as I was going to be.

  ***

  I expected Denzel to make an entrance, crash through the door or something, but he appeared behind Lunabelle just as I imagined. His dark skin just about separated itself from the shadows behind him.

  Underneath the table, I removed the gloves from my hands. In such close proximity to the Mirror, I was feeling pains in my hands like never before. They began to shake, so I clasped them together.

  I had gotten used to the feeling, and using this destructive power in anger. Whoever this Denzel was, he appeared to be an unsavoury character. Maybe Lunabelle wanted rid of him and there may have been some rule about how one witch could not attack another. That’s where I came in.

  All the same, I would have to live with this for the rest of my life. My fault for trusting the safety of the Mirror to someone else. I would not let it out of my sight after this.

  Lunabelle made no movement as Denzel placed a knife on her throat, cupping her chin with his other hand. He pulled her head up slightly so that I could see the knife clearly.

  “The Mirror, gal. Now.”

  He stretched out his free hand in the direction of the Mirror. A chill went through me as I heard a chink-chink sound emanate from my heirloom. Was the glass splitting? Oh God, please don’t let it be broken.

  “I’m not your gal,” I said. “Leave her alone. Now.”

  I waved my hand at him, and the distraction was enough for Lunabelle to utter three words that I could not pronounce. But it caused an earthquake within me, as Belial felt his sanctuary collapsing in on him. I felt like Lunabelle’s spell was crushing my organs. But it soon passed as my stomach generated a fire.

  I now understood what she had said. “In the shadows, where evils hide, expose them now and I do bind. Never again to pass my way, this binding spell will keep you at bay. With the candles flame burning bright I destroy you now with the archangel’s might. With their help I shall be strong. And banish all that do me wrong. I expel this evil with the wave of my hand, Let the Circle remain strong and let the watch towers stand.”

  Candles flickered in the room as she repeated the words. Lunabelle had been as good as her word too, for I felt a weight lift from me that had been there for far too long.

  Sure enough, I could now see the demon. He lifted me into the air before dropping my body to the ground. Denzel kept his eyes on the demon for the entire time, distracted from cutting Lunabelle’s throat, who had kept to her promise of being bait for Denzel. When the demon passed by the Mirror, I passed my hand through it, the balance, its sense of order was further disturbed and destabilised.

  It was then that it entered into Denzel’s body, and it was his turn to have his body slammed into the wall.

  Lunabelle stood between him and the Mirror, ordering me to pick up the knife, and act.

  Denzel, with the power of the demon inside him, was too quick for me, grabbed the knife and slashed wildly at me. I managed to block his arm, and kicked him hard in the chest. I was as surprised as anyone, Lunabelle included, when his body lay still with him face down on the floor.

  Lunabelle was calmly repeating the incantation, over and over again, breaking only to warn me to be careful.

  The demon lies with him for now. Take the knife from his hand and slash his throat with it.

  I hated what Lunabelle was making me do. I had only wanted the return of the Mirror. It seemed she wanted me to settle whatever problem she had with this man and have no blood on her hands.

  Witches code. To hell with the Witches code! I would do this, and be done.

  It was at that moment that Denzel found some life still within him, and yet I reacted a little quicker this time, managing to grab his wrist and bend the hand holding the knife towards him. He tried to move, his eyes wild and furious looking at me, but I had applied enough pressure to break his wrist. The knife pointed towards his throat, and though I didn’t want to look, I needed to. I needed to see this through. Just a second, that was all it took on television. I always looked away when such things happened on the box. I could not do that this time.

  I felt the tip of the knife burst his skin. I also felt the unpleasant sensation as the knife cut its way through his throat. I felt like I was slicing through a melon. He grunted at me, thrashing around, but I followed through, pushing the knife so far in that the blade was sticking out of the back of his neck.

  Finally, he was still. I stepped backwards only to fall towards the floor. I surveyed the horror in front of me. I had killed someone, actually killed someone. It did not matter that Lunabelle had said I had killed before. This was different, totally different. And just like the time the Zeryth attacked me, I felt sick to my stomach. Call it what you will, an execution, an act of self-defence, I could only call it murder.

  Lunabelle rose from her seat, checked the body of Denzel, then turned to me.

  “You did good, Romilly. I hope you can live your whole life and not be asked to do that again. But if you are, I know now that we can fully trust you.”

  I said nothing. I could feel nothing, only a numbness.

  “You’ve read the Art of War, I presume? A martial artist, a fighter would not train without the aid of such a text.”

  I nodded. Lunabelle was looking for the book to justify what I had done. Maybe there was a way to twist the words we read, so that they mean something to us, something else entirely to someone else. What tricksters we had become.

  “You’re not supposed to feel good, if that’s what you’re feeling, child.”

  Finally, some words came from me, and they were not the words I was expecting.

  “Can I have my Mirror now? I just want to go, go somewhere, and get out of here.”

  “You can,” replied Lunabelle. “In a moment.”

  Lunabelle pulled the knife from Denzel’s throat, and his body turned to ash a few seconds later. There was a howling, a screaming, a sound I had become accustomed to, but as I had placed one hand on the Mirror, the demon Belial dared not to come towards me once again.

  The words of my Nan kept running through my hand.

  The Demon, Belial, Romilly. He is not going to let you go.

  Lunabelle placed a wooden bowl on the table and gestured to me to sit down. She poured three different oils into the bowl, took my injured hand, and placed my thumb and two fingers inside it.

  “When you next see your friend, Beth, ask her to hold your hand, and give you her healing power. Your missing digits will be returned to you.”

  “I-I don’t miss them. Not as much as I thought I would,” I said. “I learned to adapt.”

  I wondered would the Mirror adapt? Had Lunabelle heard, what I had heard? The Mirror was cracking.

  “We adapt when life challenges us. We move out of the way of a speeding car, do we not? We adapt because we wish to survive. You are, and you will, child. Remember what I
have said.”

  “Where do witches go when they die, Luna?” I asked.

  “Ah, you want to know if we have a heaven and hell, like the Christians believe, am I right?”

  I nodded. The oils were soothing, and whatever Lunabelle had rubbed into my hand, the ointment was doing some good.

  “Let’s just say that if there is a Hell, one you and I can believe in, then Denzel Tanner is in it, and he will burn for all eternity.”

  I suddenly felt extremely alone without my demonic friend for company. I was in the presence of someone who had compelled me to kill another human, and that frightened me far more than anything else I had ever experienced.

  “I have just one more question to put to you, Romilly. A scenario, if you will. One day, you leave your house, only to see a neighbour of yours lying on the ground. He is having a cardiac arrest. There is no-one else nearby. Only you can help him. But he is a mortal enemy of yours; a grown up version of the bullies you encountered at school. Do you help him, or walk on by?”

  I didn’t understand this line of questioning. Hadn’t I just been complicit in the death of a man just now? Hadn’t I proved I could be trusted with the Mirror? When it was bequeathed to me, I did not want it. Now, I simply have to have it. It’s my destiny to have it.

  “Is this a hypothetical scenario, Luna?”

  “Of course,” she nodded. “What is your answer?”

  I answered almost instantaneously. “I wouldn’t help him.”

  That was putting mildly. The Dawsons were okay, who lived across the road from me, but as for the lowlifes next door; if they were bleeding to death or having a heart attack, I would dial 998. There would be no ambulance for those bastards.

  “The man is dying, Romilly. He needs your help. On a human level, won’t you help him?”

  Whether or not Lunabelle was psychologically testing me did not matter. I would be taking the Mirror no matter what.

  “I would spit on him, and stamp on his face whilst I was doing it.”

  Lunabelle’s calm look disappeared. I would have gone as far as to say that she looked visibly shocked. She took a deep breath, then changed the player.

  “Same scenario, only this time, it’s Beth.”

  I did not hesitate to answer. “Of course I would help her.”

  “Aye,” said Lunabelle. “It’s easy to help our friends. Not so easy to offer the olive branch to our enemies.”

  I looked at the dead carcass of Denzel Tanner.

  “Are you going to offer an olive branch to him? Or will you beat him back to life with it?”

  “He was my enemy, and Toril’s enemy also. He would have killed you too.”

  That neighbour I was thinking of? He was killing me also, a bad man who lived his entire life to make mine a misery.

  “I will not show compassion to my enemy. I will be merciless, clinical, brutal; and I will not stop until I have achieved my goal.”

  “Then I believe you are ready, Romilly. You can take your Mirror now.”

  The Lazarus Conundrum:

  Chapter 19

  “And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

  John 11: 26-27

  Beth gripped the knife tightly, knowing that any moment now, the demon spirit of Dana Cullen would have to react to Toril’s incantation. This is what Beth wanted, to be rid of the evil one, and whilst she had been recovering in hospital, she had dreamed a wicked dream, one where it was Beth plunging the knife into Toril.

  She would never get a better chance.

  For her own part, Toril stayed completely still. There was no Mirror here, and nowhere for the demon to go. Toril wanted Dana to go into her body, she was convinced this was the best way to get rid of her, once and for all.

  Beth began to feel something similar to me, only Dana was not willing to leave. Toril’s impassive expression changed when Beth’s eyes turned red, with tears in her skin breaking out all over her body.

  “No!” commanded Toril. “You will come to me,” and as she spoke, she pointed her wand at Beth.

  “Force me to leave, Toril, and Beth will die. You know me. You know I am not playing around.”

  Dana’s voice was clear enough in Toril’s head.

  “To me! Leave her, and come to me!” A tear began to fall from Toril’s cheek. She knew it wasn’t going to plan. Dana was killing Beth.

  “No, Toril, you don’t have the power.”

  “To me!”

  Beth’s body shook violently, and the restraints could no longer hold her. The knife flew from her hand and had only one destination.

  Toril just about ducked in time.

  “I warned you, didn’t I Toril? I told you that if you and I crossed paths again, you and anyone you care about would be just gone.”

  It wasn’t something Toril should have been frightened of. But Dana stood on the table, over the body of Beth, who had stopped moving but was still breathing. Toril could see the slight rise and fall of her chest.

  Stay alive Beth, that’s an order. Toril hoped that her thoughts would reach Bon-Bon. And if I ever saw Beth again, it would be the first thing I would call her too.

  Dana lifted a foot and stamped down on Beth’s knee, and there was no reaction from her at all.

  “Leave Beth alone,” ordered Toril. “Why don’t you put your cards on the table, Dana? You aren’t so bad, are you? If you wanted to kill me, why haven’t you done so? Huh?”

  Toril hadn’t understood at first, but the longer Dana delayed striking a death blow, the more she grew in confidence.

  She fears my mother’s wand. She actually fears it.

  “You’ve seen this wand before, haven’t you Dana?”

  The demon didn’t answer, but remained on the table in front of Beth. Toril jabbed the wand towards Dana.

  “Haven’t you?”

  Dana stayed in position, but it seemed to Toril that she was wavering.

  “Maybe it’s you who should stay gone. Stay dead. You’re the one whose power is waning, Dana. Let her go, or I’ll destroy you. On your feet or on your knees, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  Toril tried not to look too triumphant. A wounded Dana would be far more unpredictable than one who felt she was winning.

  “Enjoy this moment, Toril. You don’t understand how much you still have left to lose. More tears will flow from you yet.”

  Dana disappeared from view, and the darkness that had been over the house lifted. Toril was startled out of her trance by Beth coughing on the table.

  “What has a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”

  “I was just thinking the same question, Bon-Bon.”

  Toril made certain Beth didn’t move until her wounds had healed a little. The physical injuries inflicted on her by Dana were numerous, but far from life threatening. Dana had lost, actually lost a battle against Toril. Maybe, finally the tide was turning in our favour. I just hoped that the girls would make the right decision now and allow me to finish things. They had won a battle, I now had to win the war.

  Signs of the war seeped into Gorswood. The war that in my vision, would claim Beth’s life. I could not and would not let that happen. But whilst I was thinking about prevention, Toril was thinking about resurrection. It would not have even crossed her mind if her mother was still alive.

  But now it was Toril, not Tori-Suzanne, who was in charge of that great and powerful wand. Her enemies would no doubt call her a mere novice with her own wand. But with this one, Toril had grown in stature considerably. Removing Dana from Beth, without having the former kill her, was something I wouldn’t have believed possible from Toril.

  From another witch, yes – Lunabelle was highly skilled and had proved it. I may not have agreed with her methods, but the way I saw it, one less nutter on the earth was a good thing. I would not mourn Denzel; only my loss of innocence. Killing people was not something I personally wanted to do, and I would obtain Toril’s gratitude for Denzel’s demise before all this was over.

&
nbsp; ***

  Beth’s state was returning to something measuring normal. Toril hadn’t noticed the temperature drop around the house. As a general rule Toril felt the cold easily, so she preferred to wrap herself up in as many layers of clothing as possible. Right now she wore a thermal top, her thickest wool jumper - purple with a black cat on it, of course; a scarf for her neck and a bobble hat for her head.

  And yet the heat was at its highest in the house.

  The colour was back in Beth’s cheeks, and her drained look appeared to have left her.

  “How do you feel?”