Wicked Folk (Witchy World Book 2)

by Jamie McFarlane

  "Farha, bring the car," Anderson ordered. "I'll ride with Slade."

  The morning's drizzle was turning to a heavier rain as the five of us piled into the Suburban, Gabriella surrendering shotgun position to Anderson. The sound of a wailing siren echoed down the otherwise quiet street as I started to pull away from the curb. A moment later Sheriff Merritt's white SUV came toward us, slowed and then pulled across the road, effectively pinning us in against the curb, his cruiser pointed in the opposite direction as my truck.

  "This can't be good," I said. I rolled my window down as he rolled up even with me.

  "Sheriff, you need to move," Anderson said, talking across me. "There's a hostage situation at Eppy Fair."

  "That's my jurisdiction," he said. "I just got a call and saw you here. I'll give you an escort."

  "FBI has this, Sheriff, and we're already coordinating with the State Patrol," she said.

  "I get it, but I have to live here when you're done making a mess," he said.

  "Fine," Anderson said, frustrated. "We'll follow. Just move it."

  Merritt backed up, fired up his siren and pulled out, temporarily blocking the light traffic in both directions. Vintage 1970s Suburbans aren't well known for their turning radius and I had to swing wide onto the opposite shoulder, u-turning to follow Merritt's SUV. A spray of mud and rock flew up behind us as I accelerated to catch up with Merritt's much newer and more powerful vehicle.

  The trip up the mountain in the rain was a combination of harrowing experience and thrill ride. Vehicles on both sides of the highway pulled aside for the sheriff's approach and I struggled to keep up with him.

  "What are children doing at Eppy this early in the morning?" I asked. "Shit, I remember. There's a book swap."

  "We're fortunate we got there before too many visitors showed up," Anderson said.

  "He's using the children," I said.

  "I understand," Anderson said. "He's threatened to start killing them."

  "No," I said. "The books are cursed. He's recruiting."

  "How do you know that?" Anderson asked.

  "I saw the curse in Eppy's book store," I said.

  "He's trying to draw energy so he can escape Willum's body," Lace said from the back seat.

  "Careful, Lace," Maggie warned. "The FBI locks up people they're scared of. Trust me, I know."

  "We made a mistake with you, Sevena," Anderson said. "Those agents lost their badges."

  "But not their paychecks."

  "Jardeep wasn't involved with your incarceration," Anderson said. "We don't have time for this. Ms. Faa, what do you mean? How can whatever is in Willum escape?"

  "Can't you guys see it? That's why he wants Felix," Maggie said. "Fuck! Stop the car. We can't go. If that thing gets out, we'll never stop it."

  I turned onto the secondary road leading up the back side of the mountain to Eppy Faire, not slowing down. "If we don't go, he'll kill those kids."

  "She's right," Lace said. "Ma told me when I was younger, but I didn't believe her until that night Willum was taken. The demons want to walk the earth."

  "So it is a demon?" Anderson asked.

  "Ghrelin," I said, making a decision. Anderson and the FBI might turn on me, but I'd make sure we had the best chance to win this round.

  "Damn," Anderson said.

  "Might have thought about that before you tried to lock Mom up," Maggie said.

  "That wasn't me," Anderson said.

  "Always an excuse handy. And the agents were just following orders when they grabbed me," Maggie answered sarcastically.

  "We've made mistakes," Anderson argued. "That changes nothing."

  "Other than now you're looking to throw my brother to the wolves," she answered.

  "That's enough, Maggie," I said.

  Anderson pulled out her phone as we crested the final hill and looked into the valley where Eppy Faire sat nestled in the foothills. While the Faire was no stranger to chaos, today it was accentuated by a myriad of flashing lights atop state patrol cruisers, all surrounding the big-top. Just outside the front entrance, a heavily armored truck boasting an FBI logo sat pointed into the colorful tent's grand entrance.

  "Keep going." Anderson placed her hand over the microphone of her phone as we followed Sheriff Merritt's vehicle through the entrance and past a barricade where armed troopers held assault rifles at the ready.

  "Felix, you need to think about this," Maggie pled. "If there's really a demon in there, you'll never make it out."

  I pulled to a stop next to Merritt's truck and jumped out, looking back at Gabriella. "Promise me, if this goes south, you'll get my sister and Lace out of here."

  "I will."

  Big Top

  I walked through the ruined grand entrance of the big-top tent. Red and white canvas fabric hung in tatters, fluttering in the light wind as I allowed my eyes to adjust to the dark interior. Even with Dana's urging, the commander of the FBI team had been completely against my presence. In the end, however, it came down to simple logic. Willum was threatening to kill hostages and the FBI had already failed one breach attempt, which had them baffled given it was just a tent.

  "Felix Slade, I find that I'm both disappointed and pleased to see you," Willum announced. The man stood on a stage that had been erected in the center of the hard-packed dirt arena. In front of him sat a score of children along with their parents.

  "Disappointed? You asked for me." I approached warily, walking down an aisle between bleacher style seats.

  "Surely you know how this will end," he said, spreading his hands wide in front of him.

  "Let the kids go," I said. "Or I'm walking out."

  "Said the fly to the spider." In the wan light his eyes glowed a sickly green; the same color of the spell he'd spread across the children's books.

  "You can't possibly escape," I said. "You might be powerful, but the FBI will never allow it."

  "Join us, Felix." Thea stood from where she sat in the darkened bleachers. "With you, we will be unstoppable."

  "Two years ago. Was any of it real? Or was it all just an attempt to take my magic?" I still burned with feelings of betrayal.

  "A lover's quarrel. How precious," Willum clapped his hands together. "Tell him the truth, darling. He deserves to know."

  "You're a nice boy, Felix." Thea stepped over the long benches, working her way down to the arena floor where long tables filled with books had been thrown over. "But really, we're not in the same class. You had to know that."

  My heart pounded and my face flushed. I'd seen Thea's cruel side before, but hadn't had it directed at me quite so pointedly. She enjoyed finding a person's weakness and poking at it.

  "If I join with you, you'll let all these people go?" I turned back to Willum.

  "You wear the lie on your face, Slade," he answered. "You believe that once they are gone, you'll make your move against me. What you don't understand is that I love them all, each and every one."

  "Who's lying now?" I asked, impatient with his blathering.

  "Not everyone expresses their love in the same way and frankly, some love requires sacrifice. A lesson Althea learned from you," he said.

  "From me?" I asked.

  "She thought you would give yourself to her fully and yet you nearly killed her," he said.

  "I had no idea what was happening," I said.

  "True as that may be, your spirit was unwilling to give everything. Let me demonstrate." He stepped down from his platform and stood next to a cowering woman who covered her child protectively. "See what this woman is willing to give?" He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her upward as she screamed.

  "Stop! Willum!" I cried out.

  Even as I did, the woman stopped screaming and attempted to comfort her son, asking him to move away from her.

  "I believe I could pull her still beating heart from her chest with her permission, as long as I promised to spare her child."

  He cruelly twisted the woman's head around so she was looking at
him.

  "Yes, yes. Please," she begged.

  It was more than I could bear to watch. "Adoleret." I incanted, stabbing my arm at him. A gout of flame bridged the gap between us and splashed off his shoulder, burning a hole in his shirt and scorching the skin.

  He roared in pain, tossing the woman aside like a rag doll. She flew several feet before landing heavily against the first row of bleachers.

  "Felix, no!" Thea screamed, pulling a wand from her pocket.

  "Scutum." I raised my shield just in time to deflect a nasty stream of thorned vines. The ghostly buckler shimmered between us as she continued her assault, pulling vines from the ground all around her. The ferocity of her attack took me off guard. I'd never seen her use an offensive spell before.

  "Dear me," Willum cackled, having recovered from my attack. "Always the gentleman with the ladies. Why do you not simply kill this one? Surely it is within your power. By my count, this is the third time she's tried to do you in, yet you refuse to respond."

  Thea screamed in frustration and changed the direction of her attack, pulling vines from behind me and then from the side. Each time, I repositioned the shield and cut off her attack.

  I reached out for the flying brambles and allowed thorns to scrape across my unprotected hand. As the blood dripped, I dropped my shield and incanted, "Rhamno." It was a guess on my part that Thea's magically summoned vines would work with my rooting spell. It was even more unexpected that I ended up turning her spell against her. The vines, instead of attacking me, turned in midflight and wrapped themselves around her. She screamed, first in surprise and then in pain as the thorns bit into her flesh and toppled her to the ground.

  "Look at you; shaping her spells. If anything, I've underestimated you," Willum taunted and then reached forward with his hand forming into a claw.

  Hastily, I attempted to reconstruct my shield, but I was too late. Pain exploded inside my chest. I could feel his clawed fingers puncture my skin and I frantically swatted the air in front of me, hoping to make it stop. My hands simply passed through the space between us, while Willum laughed but nothing stopped the intense pain.

  "I see now that I'll never be successful in turning you," he taunted, twisting his hand. My mind flitted between agony and an attempt at finding a solution. I'd never been in so much pain and it crippled my ability to think.

  "Stop," I managed to say through clenched teeth.

  "Stop? But we've barely just started." He lifted his arm and it felt as if his fingers were tearing through the wall of my chest.

  A blurred shape burst past me and lunged at Willum. It was Maggie in panther form. Distracted, he was too late to do much as Maggie sank her teeth into his shoulder, clawing at his torso with her powerful back legs. Relief flooded through me as he released me and I fell to the ground. With his hands free, he tore Maggie off and flung her from the stage, the cracking of bones loud as she slumped and slid to the ground.

  I turned to the sound of automatic gunfire. A foursome of agents hustled down the aisle, weapons leveled at Willum, peppering his body with rounds. Whatever spell had been holding the police back no longer restricted their movements.

  "Enough!" Willum cried out, sweeping his arm in an arc at the advancing agents. The gunfire stopped almost immediately as they, too, were thrown back.

  "Maggie!" I ran forward to help my sister, who still hadn't moved.

  "Felix, stay back." Gabriella cried from a distance. The crack of a much heavier gunshot rang out and Willum was tossed back, pin-wheeling like he'd been struck with something very powerful.

  Unexpectedly, Willum jerked to a stop, caught himself before he fell off the stage, and turned back toward the entrance. In a quick move, he pulled Gabriella from the entrance almost as if she was on a string. Her body flew through the air and she hung suspended in front of him. The flaps of the tent sealed closed behind her.

  "Humans never learn," he said. "Your FBI has nothing that can stop me. And neither do you. I had so hoped you would be like your mother, but alas, you are just a child."

  Gabriella screamed as Willum extended his hand, grabbed her by the neck, and pulled her close. I must have screamed as well when he reached back for me. The pain was so great I blacked out and came to a few moments later when he backed off his grip.

  "Don't give in." Gabriella looked at me in anguish.

  "Such a pure heart," Willum said. "I can't resist any longer; she is too beautiful."

  Distractedly, he clawed at me as he leered into Gabriella's face. The human façade had slipped, the demon fully surfacing. I knew the ghrelin couldn't actually reside on our plane of existence by itself, but it clearly had the capacity to get very close. It licked at Gabriella's face with a long greasy tongue and winked at me.

  The motion of Maggie transforming back into her human form caught my attention. She'd told me that when close to death, she would return to her natural state and I hoped this wasn’t what was occurring. She only appeared to be semi-conscious as she looked up at me. "Stop him," she whispered.

  "I can't," I said, shaking my head.

  A fresh scream from Gabriella tore my attention back to Willum. The look of rapture on his face was so hideous that I rocked forward, finding I had some capacity to move. Pain coursed through my body as I fought against the demon's iron grip and moved slowly forward onto the stage. Willum felt my movement and increased the damage his invisible hand was doing, but I pushed against it nonetheless. After closing to nearly an arm's length, his eyebrows darted downward in doubt and he swiveled his head to look at me. His bliss turned to surprise as he dropped Gabriella to the ground, her screams evaporating into whimpers.

  "Main course before dessert, you say?" If I'd caught him off guard, it was short-lived. He physically grabbed my chest this time and my hands flew up instinctively to wrap around his wrist. His arm was thick and green, just like when he'd appeared in my vision.

  Anger welled within me as his claws sought to penetrate my skin. So many had been killed by this creature and it had, or would shortly, kill Gabriella and Maggie. What right did it have to wreak such destruction? "You have no place here!"

  "The earth-wizard lecturing me about survival of the fittest. How deliciously twisted," he mocked.

  "You are not of nature," I spat and realized at once what I had to do.

  I released Willum and allowed his claw to grab my chest, the pain nearly more than I could bear. I dropped my arms and reached out to the earth beneath us, connecting to the sleepy mountain.

  "NO!" Willum bellowed and fresh pain coursed through me as his claws tore into my skin, only momentarily stopped by my ribcage.

  The mountain offered a quiet alternative, beckoning me to join it in its slumber. The pain would cease if I gave in. I demurred. The life I was meant to live with my friends was on the other side of that pain.

  "Now you die, Felix Slade," Willum said, his claws burning as they pushed into my chest.

  Anxiety threatened to overwhelm me and the darkness I’d always lived in fear of welled up. I knew it was part of me and it wasn't without trepidation that I stoked its fire. A fresh surge of energy coursed through my body as I pulled from the mountain. Angrily, I redirected it all into Willum's chest. A look of surprise crossed his face as a bright explosion threw us away from each other.

  My head struck something hard and I fought to remain conscious. A scream of terror from Willum as he jumped up from where he'd been thrown was abruptly cut short as bullets riddled his body. Whatever barriers he'd constructed around the tent had fallen a second time and the tactical teams were taking no chances at being locked out again.

  The restraint shown by the tactical teams as they rushed in and secured the scene amazed me. In all, I suspected Willum had only been hit maybe twenty or thirty times. If it had been me, I would not have stopped firing until I'd run out of bullets, even with all of the friendlies nearby.

  Gabriella made it over to me before I was able to move. I reached up to wipe away the makeup tha
t streaked down her face. The thought of the agony she'd endured was almost too much for me to bear. "Are you okay?"

  "I will be," she answered, gingerly pulling my blood-soaked and tattered shirt aside. "Oh, Felix, you need help."

  "Maggie." I pushed her hand aside and struggled to my feet. My eyes fell on Maggie, lying on the ground beneath the stage. Gabriella followed my eyes and gasped.

  About half-way there, a firm hand grabbed my arm from behind. "Hold on, help is coming." I turned to find Dana Anderson looking intently at me. "You need medical attention." She spun and called out. “Can I get help over here?"

  "What about Willum?" I asked.

  "He's dead," she answered. "When you went on the offensive, he dropped his defenses and we were able to breach."

  "Help me over to Maggie," I said.

  Dana did as I requested. "What's her prognosis?" Anderson asked.

  "Severely dehydrated, malnourished," the first paramedic said over his shoulder. "She's also taken quite a blow to her head. Is she bulimic?"

  "Something like that," I said, not interested in explaining. "Is she going to be okay?"

  "Stop talking about me like I'm not here," Maggie grunted. "I'm not bulimic."

  A gurney arrived and the paramedics lifted Maggie, all eighty-five pounds of her, onto it. I ran my hand across her forehead. "I told you not to come in."

  "Like I'm going to start listening to you now," she said. "I almost had him."

  My head started to swim and I reached out for Gabriella. "We'll find you," I said.

  "Bring food," she called back as they wheeled her off.

  "You need to sit," Anderson said.

  "No. Take me to Willum. I need to be sure," I said.

  She nodded and helped me over to where a body bag had been laid out next to Willum Gordon.

  I cast my planar view and inspected the body. Part of me hoped the demon was still present so I could burn the body. I wasn't sure what good that would do, but I was willing to experiment. Residual traces of the ghrelin's magic clung to the body, but it was equally clear both the person and the demon had been destroyed.

  "Can demons be vanquished by force?" I asked.