by T S Paul
She craved his touch like a drug and wanted to follow him in all things.
"Camilla, it is time." His voice was like a caress upon her soul. She longed to hold him and savor every moment of Setesh's time with her.
"Time for what?"
"Time for you to take your place as one of my priestesses."
Camilla froze and looked up at the man she'd grown to love. "What? A priestess of what?"
"Of the Lord of Storms. Of Set. You said you would give up your soul to gain power. Now is your chance. I have the power to grant your fondest wishes. You must only believe in me and me alone." Setesh glowed faintly at first then eye-blindingly bright. "Choose Camilla. Choose power or weakness. You must choose."
Not wishing to make yet another poor Magickal choice she chose power.
Now she was in trouble. Set had given her everything. Power to twist men's minds and trap their souls. Set needed those souls to trade to Anubis for power, and he didn't care from where they came. Her successive husbands made easy fodder for him.
Still unable to speak or move she set a tone in her head and began to hum the ritual.
"Mighty Set, Lord of the Desert and Ruler of the South
He who slew Apep
Mighty Set, ruler of the Red Land
Hear my plea
Help your servant in a time of great need.
Mighty Set, I am your Shining Spear
Allow me to slay these unbelievers who would dare to profane your works upon the world.
Mighty Set, Hear my plea."
Over and over she prayed for her god to save her.
Hassan felt the Magick she raised moving through her body. That was one feature of the spell he cast upon her. The spell was designed to leech Magick from its victims and leave them broken and powerless. This version stored the Magick within. Its potential bottled like pressurized steam. Reach a certain point and boom. No more bottle or Witch. With luck, she would take out those that she came into contact first.
"Sargu, take the motorcycles and attempt to join us inside the gate. Use this path to clear a way if any stands before us." Hassan's finger traced a faint line on the map he held.
"I will take the main thrust. Upon breaching the gate, we will kill all present. This one." He pointed at Camilla's frozen body. "We will leave to destroy any rescue or reinforcement. If we are forced to retreat, the fallback position is the warehouses."
~~~~~~
It was nice to be home after so long, but I itched to be out there doing the job I was trained to do instead of watching Marvin. Walking out upon the rear deck of the house, I could see the entrance to the Garden and the workers in the fields far off in the distance. The Garden was an enigma to me. I recall playing in it as a child, but now that I think about it, I couldn't remember all the exact details. Two great trees towered over the ancient garden gate that hung between them. Grandmother said the Garden was alive and to never enter it alone. I could see the workers. How did they survive or were they a part of it too? So many questions and too few answers. Normally it was quiet here. I looked to the nearby hills, hearing the sound of motorcycles. I bet they were having a good time.
I stepped back into the house. Marvin and Fergus were still watching TV in the living room.
"... it's a stronger ship. Blake Groundsweeper's fighter would take out that ship of yours in the blink of an eye. Besides, whoever heard of a ship called the Undertaking? It sounds like some sort of business deal. No way that thing could beat him."
"Not true Fergus. The Undertaking has a crew of hundreds. Besides, Markoff is the best pilot in the Universe. Even Captain Turk says so." Marvin and Fergus were almost yelling at each other.
"So how long has this argument been going on?" Marvin was on the floor and Fergus the chair. They could easily see each other.
"Agatha! Which movie is better Star Battles or Star Journey? We saw both of them last year." Fergus was jumping up and down.
"They sound like the same movie. Are you sure we saw them? Everything you make me take you to is like the same movie."
Marvin jumped up. "No. They're really different. Star Battles takes place in the future and has TV shows and numbered movies. Star Journey is just a TV show they made movies about. Big difference."
"Sounds the same to me. Star is in the title. I came in to tell you that Cat and the rest of my team are in town. They have to check into something for the police, but when they're done, they will come here."
"Great! Agatha, can we pimp my barn then? Your Grandmother told me she had some paint here somewhere." Fergus looked positively excited.
"Fine. Whatever. Maybe Marvin or Minerva can help too?" I looked at Marvin, but he only rolled his eyes at me.
"Fergus, I don't think Grandmother would mind if you took a few pieces of furniture from the dollhouse. Have you showed that to Marvin yet?" Fergus was torn between jumping up and down and just jumping down.
"Marvin? My room is the one at the end of the hall on the second floor. The dollhouse is an antique so be careful, please?" I watched him grab Fergus and head upstairs. I was about to follow when I heard a series of tones coming from the kitchen.
"Minerva? What was that... noise?" I paused in mid step. Minerva, the housekeeper and cook I grew up with, was opening closets and pulling out what looked like guns. "What's going on?"
Minerva nodded with her chin as she expertly loaded a shotgun she pulled out of the can goods closet with shells from the cookie jar. "Intruders and they look like they mean business."
Set under the kitchen counters were a series of color monitors showing the exterior of the house and grounds. The gate had a large car parked in front of it. Two men were placing explosives on the hinges and lock. The Missionaries of Death were here.
~~~~~~
"This lady is very cagey. She's left property in all of her dead husbands' name. By proxy, she owns about half the town." Bill pulled up financial records and flashed them onto the screen.
"Do you see anywhere she may be hiding?" Cat stood and stepped up to the big screen.
"Tons of places. An apartment complex here and this motel way out there are strong possibilities." Bill swapped screens and pulled up a map of the town.
"All the red dots are rental properties. Blue is commercial property, and Black is vacant lots or empty buildings."
"How can she own this much here and nobody notice?" Cat traced the number of rental properties.
"Magick. It has to be. Camilla's been on the city council and the school board for more than ten years. We all have seen Agatha use a memory charm before. Think what someone with this much access can do? She's had plenty of time. Maybe this is why they don't like Agatha here?" Anastasia chimed into the conversation.
"Bet on it. Aggy's told me a few stories about her aunt. She's got evil down to a science. Throw in some magick, and it's a box full of crazy." Cat's stopped talking and turned to them suddenly. "We've been looking at this all wrong. She's not working alone."
"What do you mean? The report said she was alone in the house except for the daughter and the State Police have both her and her other sister in protective custody." Bill pointed out.
"Not that part. I'm thinking the murders of her husbands. Consider the police reports. In every one of these, she had an airtight alibi. Most of the town believes she's the unluckiest person living here. If Camilla isn't the one pulling the trigger, who is?" Cat turned toward Ana. "Can you check bank records on all the husbands. Which ones are active? Start with the first one, Henry Fredricks. He's the one that started this whole mess according to Winter, Camilla's daughter."
"Checking." Ana's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Bill look at the facts. One of these guys dropped dead at the grocery store. Another fell off a cliff. All of these deaths are perfect accidents. Even the one that drowned. If you read the original police report, he was in a hit-and-run accident. His car was forced off the road into a residential backyard that just happened to contain a pool. Add all of the
m to the taped confession we have, and you get accomplices. There must be collaborators. There just has to be."
"She's right. I found something." Ana hit some buttons throwing her screen up.
"It was in the second husband's, Harrison French's financial records. He had an offshore account set up for emergencies that has never been closed. Most investigators will miss it because it's in a foreign country. There have been at least twelve payments made from the account to the Setesh ministry and missionary support fund. There's the connection. Camilla hired the Missionaries of Death to kill her husbands." Ana brought up another screen. "Setesh is one of the names for the Egyptian God Set. If Set sends a Missionary to your house, it's probably to kill you."
Chuck grabbed his phone and started dialing. "We need to tell Agatha. If the Missionaries are here, then she and Marvin are in danger."
A thunderclap sounded in the distance as a bright flash of light lit the darkening sky.
"Too late I think she already knows." Cat pointed toward the Blackmore Estate.
~~~~~~~
"Minerva guard Marvin for me. This is my fight." I had only minutes before they blew the gate.
"I am the protector of this house. Agatha. I will do my job." Minerva hefted her shotgun.
"Fine. Great. Just stay inside, please? I've got this." Traveling light means just that. I chose to take minimal clothing but brought my body armor instead. It, along with my backup weapons, was in my bag which I last saw in my room! I took the stairs two and three at a time racing to get upstairs.
Marvin and Fergus were still messing around with the dollhouse when I rushed in. "Bad guys are here. Stay in the house. Minerva will help protect you." Grabbing my bag, I ran back down the stairs. Minerva was turning a table over on its side just as I hit the bottom stair. She watched as I threw on my vest and buckled on my backup weapon.
"Mac-10?" Minerva held out one of the small sub-machine guns to me.
I took the forty-five caliber weapon carefully, giving her a funny look. "Where did you get this?" Maine wasn't an open carry state, and Class Three weapons were definitely not just handed out to anyone.
"It was in with the other one." Minerva pulled a chair over and covered it with a variety of weapons including another Mac-10 she pulled from a big black duffel bag.
Pointing to the guns, I remarked. "When this is over we need to have a conversation about all this."
"Whatever you like dear. Go, strike fear into the hearts of the evil men." She shooed me forward by waving what looked like an original Thompson at me. I noticed she wasn't using the drum on it which was good because they jammed on many of the early models. It helped me out tremendously while at the Academy that Cat was a gun nut.
I opened the door right as the explosives on the gate blew up. There was a huge flash followed by an explosion that shook the house. The sky itself rippled telling me the house wards caught most of the destructive force. Until without warning they rippled and broke.
"Breaker. Your opponent has a breaker. Avoid all forms of red lightning." A strange voice in my head speaking shocked me more than the fact someone broke through Grandmother's shields.
"Certainty, is that you talking?" The voice was silent. I shrugged off the slight against me. Any new information is good information.
The cameras in the house had shown me at least a car full of the bad guys. Grandmother has several large waist-high planters arrayed across the front of the house. They looked like sturdy barriers if someone was going to assault the house. For just a second I wondered if that was the intent. I ducked behind one on my right.
A large black SUV-style car raced up the driveway, then zoomed across the flower bed in the middle of the drive. Sliding to a stop, the car's doors popped open, and men poured out. Six black-clad men charged toward the house in an Echelon Formation. Putting power through my bracelets, I popped up from behind the planter tossed freeze and fire spells at them.
The man at the point of the V formation went down first as my fireball caught his legs and lower torso on fire. His screams still echo in my dreams. The man to his right was hit with the freeze spell. His left-side upper body frozen, he fell over to one side. The man on fire continued to scream and run straight toward the house. A sudden gunshot made me jump, and burning man lay on the sidewalk, a victim of Minerva and her shotgun.
At least three people behind the SUV were now firing at the house. Bullets ricocheted off the planters and deck. The two men to burning man's right, broke off to rush toward the greenhouses and support buildings. The two on the left ran toward the Garden, jumping the short fence looking for cover. I tossed three more fireballs. One at the SUV and the others at the men inside the Garden.
Fire splashed across the SUV igniting the grass around it but not penetrating the shield laid upon it. Someone here was an Adept. My fireballs struck the garden fence and bounced right off it igniting the twelve square inches between the fence and the yard.
I heard screams coming from my left around the edge of the house. I assumed the two men that ran that way met Zeus. Zeus was Grandmother's F1 Savannah Cat. He was the biggest house cat you will ever meet. After living in a magickal house surrounded by Witches, Zeus gained a few enhanced skills of his own. One rule of magick was to never tamper with the laws of Nature. It didn't stop people from doing it, but the results were not usually what was desired. Zeus was indestructible and very, very dangerous when attacked. His two inch sharp claws can rend metal like it was paper. The left-side yard was his. Anyone and everything that entered that space were considered playthings by the over-sized feline.
Drawing as much power from the Earth as I dared, I cast a shield spell that covered my body. Direct fighting wasn't my favorite thing, but with the SUV protected, this stand-off could last forever. In my bag, I had three secret weapons. Handheld spell bombs were a secret of the Blackmore family, and I brought three with me from Virginia: reverse, shield, and explosive.
I stood up straight to draw their fire. Several booms sounded behind me as Minerva returned fire. She opened up with what I assumed to be the Mac-10 on the right side of the house. One man from the Garden had jumped the fence and tried to get in through a window. His broken and shattered body flew off the porch to lay on the ground. At a little over a thousand rounds a minute, forty-five calibers on full auto will mess you up pretty thoroughly.
I tossed the reverse bomb and ducked. It only had a range of fifty feet, but I was at only sixty feet away. There was a bright blue flash of light, and nothing appeared to have changed. The men shooting at me blinked and looked around puzzled. I was in countdown mode, counting even as I pulled out the explosive and tossing it. Each reverse bomb only had an effective length of fewer than sixty seconds.
The second explosion shattered the window on the SUV and tossed it over on one side trapping the man on my right partially under it. I formed a fireball then tossed it at the now overturned car.
~~~~~~
"Get it off! Get it off!" The car lay on top of one of the assassins.
Hassan scrambled out of the way of the SUV dragging, Camilla's frozen body with him. Pulling his silenced pistol, he killed the trapped assassin. "My greetings to Set my brother."
The plan should have worked. He didn't know why it didn't. "Sargu, where are you?" He said another silent prayer to his God.
Sargu had run into his own problems trying to cross a jagged vertical hill on a motorcycle designed for basic off-roading. Parts of the 'goat track' had fallen in on itself and at one point it led over a steep cliff. One of Sargu's men met his end there.
Unknown to Camilla, there was an exit gate on the town's side that could be seen from on top of the hill. Sargu was about to abort when his men pointed at the gate.
"Down there. That is our way in. We must hurry because the battle has begun."
Garden workers and volunteer townspeople rushed out of the Garden at the first flash of light from the house on the hill. Magickal battles were rare here but happened occasional
ly. Standard orders were to clear the Garden as quickly as possible. Daylight would prevent dark things from rising, but with magick on the loose, anything might happen.
Things like six men on motorcycles blasting past the gate guard and entering the Garden.
"Where are they going?" The older man turned to watch the bikers disappear into the brush.
The guard shook his head. "No idea, but the sun is almost down. You can forget about them." After the last worker had left, he closed and locked the gate.
