Sorceress Super Hero

by Darius Brasher

  “The fact he figured out how to get down here means he’s a powerful magician, whoever he is. Was,” I corrected myself. “If his out of fashion clothes are any indication, he’s been down here for decades.”

  Other than us, the dead man, the burning cross, and the seven spears, the large chamber we were in was empty. I had not expected there to be a sign telling us which spear was the true Spear of Destiny, but it would have been helpful.

  “I wonder why there are seven spears,” I said.

  “I have no idea,” Ghost said.

  She wasn’t talking to you, you big galoot, Puck said. It’s probably because the number seven has a lot of significance in the Christian faith. Genesis says it took God seven days to create everything, if you include his day of rest. Why an omnipotent being would need a rest day is beyond me. There are seven sacraments in the Catholic church. Noah was instructed to bring onto the Ark seven of every kind of clean animal—whatever that means—and seven of every bird. According to the Book of Joshua, God instructed the Israelite army to march around the city of Jericho seven times over seven days before they blew their horns, blowing down the city’s walls. I could go on.

  “Don’t. We’ll be down here forever.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Ghost protested.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” I crouched down next to the spear clutched in the dead man’s hands. I balanced on the balls of my feet and examined the spear, being very careful to not touch it. I had no interest in becoming mummified like the dead man.

  Before Ghost had picked me up, I had looked up pictures online of the so-called Spear of Destiny housed at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. When I’d first met Daniel, he had told me the Austrian spear was a replica of the real spear. I’d figured that before I came down here with Ghost, I’d better know what the Spear looked like. Score one for thinking ahead. Perhaps I was finally beginning to plan ahead instead of acting on the fly all the time.

  The spear in the man’s hand looked identical to the pictures of the Austrian spear I saw online. Like the Austrian spear, the tip of the spear on the floor was a brown metal, and over a foot and a half long. Shiny gold leaf that looked a little like angel’s wings was wrapped around the middle of the metal tip. In the online pictures, the Austrian spear was missing its shaft. The spear in the dead man’s hands had one, though. The shaft was a dark, smooth wood.

  “Doesn’t this look like the pictures we saw online, Puck?” I asked, wanting a second opinion.

  “Who’s Puck? Who do you keep talking to?” Ghost demanded. I waved at him to be silent. I wished I had a sign that read Quiet! Sorceress at Work.

  Yep. Puck’s voice was thoughtful. I don’t understand why this dude’s dead if this is the right spear.

  “Me neither.” I stood. “Let’s check out the others.”

  One by one, I stood in front of the spears sticking out of the floor, careful to not touch any of them. They were all exactly the same length, about six feet high. One of the six upright spears matched the one on the floor of the chamber. Five of the others were gem-encrusted and had shafts or tips made of precious metals; they were weapons fit for royalty. The last of the six spears was plain, with a head made of rusting iron and a shaft made of a medium-brown lumpy wood. Ash, maybe.

  Puck said, Two spears here match the one in Vienna. I guess one’s a replica, and the other’s the real McCoy. Obviously, Mummy Man picked the replica. It’s Darwinism in action. Only the fit shall survive. Sucks for him, but great for us. Grab the real Spear, and we can get out of here. Puck made a vivid image of dark walls closing in on a red cloak flash in my mind. I’m not claustrophobic, but if I stay down here in the bowels of the earth much longer, I’m gonna be.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said. I had misgivings, though. Something nagged at the edge of my mind, trying to get my attention.

  Pushing my misgivings aside, I reached for the upright spear that matched the one Puck and I had examined online.

  My hand hesitated before it touched the smooth wood of the spear’s shaft. I pulled my hand back. I started to undo the eagle clasp on Puck.

  Hey! What are you— Puck’s voice in my head cut off mid-sentence as the clasp came undone and I released my hold on the spell which kept me connected to Puck.

  I carefully folded Puck up. I handed him to Ghost. “I know this sounds crazy, but this cloak is a friend of mine. One of the few I have. I don’t want something bad to happen to him if something bad happens to me when I touch the spear. He’s grown to be too important to me.”

  I thought of whom I could entrust with Puck if I was about to do a female reboot of The Mummy. Daniel was the first to spring to mind. Then I dismissed him as a possibility. I had too many unanswered questions about him. “If something happens to me, give the cloak to Oscar Hightower. He’s my boss at Capstone Security. Tell him the cloak is a Relic of great power. An ancient and valuable one. He needs to be safeguarded, and a good home needs to be found for him.”

  Ghost held Puck gingerly, like an insane person had just handed him a rattlesnake. “I’ll tell him. But I must admit I do not fully understand what is going on.”

  “Join the club,” I said. I hesitated. I had the sudden, inexplicable impulse to lift Ghost’s mask and kiss him. Whether goodbye or for luck, I did not know. I guess him cradling me in his big powerful arms had appealed to me more than I wanted to admit. That or I had an unexamined fetish for masked men who liked to tie me up. Maybe I had seen Fifty Shades of Grey one too many times.

  I turned away from Ghost before I gave into the temptation. Focus, Sage, focus. What was next? Me texting my BFF about how the barrel-chested Hero who had whisked me off my feet was Soooooo dreamy, followed by a string of heart emojis? Staring potential death in the face had apparently turned me into a hormonal adolescent again.

  I again reached for the spear Puck and I had picked out.

  Again, I stopped before touching the spear. I dropped my hand. The nagging thought at the edge of my consciousness had leaped to the front of my mind and grabbed me by the lapels.

  Something about this whole situation was wrong. As Daniel had pointed out to me on more than one occasion, I was no Biblical scholar. But I did know enough about the Bible to know the people who crucified Jesus did not think he was the son of God. To them, he was just a common criminal. Surely the Roman soldier who used his spear to pierce Jesus’ side had not been an elite soldier. He’d be some low-level grunt who had been stuck with the unpleasant task of dealing with the men who had been crucified.

  Why would such a grunt be armed with a spear as nice as the one I’d been about to grab? Maybe it, like its replica in Vienna, was fake. Just like the five spears here which were fashioned from gems and precious metals. The magicians who had hidden the Spear of Destiny here were trying to trick the unwary and the careless.

  Besides, even if I was no Biblical scholar, I was something of a scholar of action and adventure movies. One of my favorites was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In that movie, Indy and his antagonists searched for the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. It turned out that instead of the cup being ornate, it was a plain cup someone who was a carpenter like Jesus would drink from.

  My jaw clenched with resolve. If the logic was good enough for my boy Indy, it was good enough for me.

  I stepped away from the spear I had been about to grab.

  I instead reached for the spear with the lumpy shaft and the rusty iron tip.

  CHAPTER 22

  In the wild and reckless years I went through after Dad died, I experimented with illegal drugs. One of my favorites was cocaine. After a few snorts of coke, I felt on top of the world, like I could do anything.

  Touching the spear with the rusty iron tip was like that times a billion.

  The spear throbbed under my touch, beating like a heart. As I hoisted the spear out of its holder, my mind expanded, disgorging thoughts, ideas, and feelings like an overstuffed suitcase I ha
d never bothered to unpack. I felt the currents of magic here and everywhere all around the world. It felt like all the magical waters of the world were dammed up and ached for release.

  And I was just the woman to do it.

  Why had I been afraid of the wererats? My former fear puzzled me. My anxiety about rodent Otherkin seemed foreign now, like the emotion belonged to a different person. A weak person. With a simple Word, Wave, and exertion of Will, I could teleport into their midst. From the Rat King on down, I could slaughter every one of them. I could erase their species from the face of the earth. I could use their blood to write my name in the sky to remind everyone who looked into the heavens to never threaten me again. It would not only be easy, it would be laughably easy.

  My money problems? Why was someone like me living the life of a pauper, hounded by her money-grubbing landlord and creditors? I could raze my entire neighborhood, and erect my palace in its place. The world was my oyster. I merely needed to crack open its shell. I could do that easily now. Everything was free if you were strong enough to take it. Money was unimportant and irrelevant.

  Millennium? People thought he was the most powerful sorcerer in existence. Hah! What a joke. A simple spell would summon him to me, wherever in the universe he might be cowering from his pursuers. I could squash him like the bug that he was. Show him and the world true power.

  The Conclave? I had no need for their certification, no need for their approval. I dared them to question me and my actions now. I was to them what a goddess was to chimpanzees. I could make them my pets. Willow I could make my slave. I looked forward to whipping her morning, noon, and night.

  I glanced at Ghost. I had thought to steal a kiss from him, though for the life of me I could not remember why. He was puny. Weak and worthless. Not worthy of my presence, much less my affection. I could have any man I wanted. Gifted, Otherkin, Metahuman, mundane—to the woman I could easily become, they were all the same. I could slake my thirst with thousands of men if I so chose. Millions. I could have the pick of the litter. And if they did not submit willingly, I could bend them to my will.

  With my magic and the Spear of Destiny—for it was obvious that was what I held in my eager hands—no one could stand against me.

  I could have anything.

  I could have everything.

  I could be a god. I could make the world worship me.

  I wished my father were still alive to see me now. I would make him worship me too.

  I suddenly shuddered. Thinking of Dad shook my delusions of grandeur.

  Killing? Enslaving? Become a modern-day magical Hitler? That wasn’t who Dad had raised me to be. That wasn’t me.

  And it wasn’t who I would let myself become.

  I dropped the Spear of Destiny like it was a red-hot poker. It clattered on the floor. I stepped back from it. Before I knew it, my back was pressed against the wall.

  I found myself panting like I had just run a race. Everyone had dark thoughts from time to time, but holding the Spear of Destiny had taken mine and amplified them a thousandfold. If I wielded the Spear, I knew I could make those dark thoughts a reality.

  If this was a holy Relic, I’d hate to see an unholy one.

  “Are you all right?” Ghost said. His voice was filled with concern.

  “No.” I was still breathing hard. Now I understood why the magicians who had hidden the Spear here had committed suicide afterward to try to keep its whereabouts a secret. The Spear’s power should not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. It shook me to my core to know I was one of those wrong hands. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but at heart I’d thought I was a good person. The dark thoughts that lurked in my mind, unknown until now even to me, disturbed me. I thanked heaven Hitler hadn’t been Gifted. He had done enough damage to the world with the Spear as a mundane.

  What they said was true: Power corrupted, and absolute power corrupted absolutely.

  I reached into my pocket. With shaking hands, I pulled out my gloves. I didn’t know how I knew, but I somehow knew I could handle the Spear safely if it didn’t touch my skin.

  I picked the Spear up with gloved hands, careful to not let the Relic touch any of my exposed skin.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I told Ghost. “We have what we came for.”

  And more, I feared, than I had bargained for.

  * * *

  I leaned against a tree on the edge of a small circular clearing deep in Rock Creek Park. Rock Creek Park was the over 1,700-acre green space that ran roughly north and south through the District. I came here sometimes when I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

  The sun was bright in the cloudless blue sky. Nature’s canvas. Cicadas and birds chirped in the surrounding trees. Nature’s symphony. Horseflies and mosquitoes kept landing on my face and neck, trying to get a sip of Sage cocktail. Nature’s vampires.

  Gnats buzzed around my damp face. Sweat trickled down my spine. Though I was in the shade of a vine-entangled tree, I was still hot and sticky. I didn’t know how D.C. residents survived the summer before the invention of air conditioning in the early 1900s. Maybe they didn’t; maybe they all had spontaneously combusted.

  The fact I wore long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, gloves, and Puck did not help. Other than my head and neck, none of my skin was exposed. I didn’t want to chance touching the Spear of Destiny with my bare skin again, not even by accident. It lay on the ground in front of me.

  Puck said, If somebody told me a few hundred years ago that I would one day be hanging out in the wilderness waiting for a fallen angel to show up to claim a magic spear while being pooped on by birds and sweated on by a sorceress, I would’ve called them a filthy liar. Back when there was still slavery in this country, there were house slaves and field slaves. Well, I’m what you’d call a house cloak. Being out here is for the birds. Literally. You need to get me back inside before I drown in sweat.

  “I don’t sweat. I glisten.”

  Your glistening reeks. Have you considered changing your diet?

  A rustling in the undergrowth across the clearing saved Puck from my withering retort. Daniel stepped out from the shadows of the tree line and into the light of the clearing. He was dressed more appropriately than I for the hot weather in cargo shorts and a plain gray t-shirt. He carried the Ark fragment. The same old duffel bag Daniel had pulled money out of when he broke into my apartment was slung over his shoulder.

  Daniel spotted me and headed toward me. I picked up the Spear with my gloved hands. When Daniel was within earshot roughly in the middle of the clearing, I called out to him. “Why don’t you just stay there.”

  He stopped, frowning. “Why?”

  “I want to talk to you before I give you the Spear. It’s why I had you meet me out here, away from everyone.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll talk face to face. I’m not going to yell a conversation with you like some kind of savage.” He started walking toward me again.

  “Terra,” I said, waving my free hand in the pattern of the spell as I exerted my will.

  The ground erupted under Daniel, climbing up his legs like green and brown snakes. In the wink of an eye, the ground covered him from his waist down, immobilizing him.

  The duffel bag slid off his shoulder as Daniel squirmed and sputtered, demanding to know what I was doing. The bag hit the ground next to him. A separate earth spell made the ground under the bag ripple like a rope whose end has been picked up and flicked. The ground’s ripple carried the bag across the rest of the clearing to me.

  I bent over and unzipped it. Even a cursory glance made it clear there was more in there than the thirty-five thousand Daniel owed me for recovering the Spear.

  Seeing the questioning look on my face, Daniel said, “I decided to pay you extra for recovering the Spear. It’s not like I need the money. Though I’m regretting my generosity now. I take it you trapped me here to verify I had the money before you give me the Spear?”

  “Not exactly.”


  “Our deal was I’d pay you the rest of the money in exchange for you giving me the Spear. You have the money. Now give me the Spear.”

  “Perhaps I will in a minute. But first, I want to talk without you getting too close to me with the Ark fragment. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in retrieving the Spear, it’s that it should not fall into the wrong hands. Convince me you’re the right hands.”

  “How many times do we have to go over this? Millennium is looking for the Spear. If someone doesn’t safeguard it, he’ll eventually find it.”

  “So you say. But, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since this whole crazy excursion started. Nor has anybody else. And I know for a fact there are some determined people all over the world looking for him.” I shook my head. “All I have for proof that Millennium is looking for the Spear and that he knows it’s here in the city is your say-so. And that’s not good enough anymore. Though I’ve always been a little skeptical of you, how you reacted to me saving those Howard students the other night turned my skepticism to full-blown doubt. What kind of a person, much less an angel, gets upset about the fact I acted to save lives? Plus, you and your money showed up in my life right when I needed it the most due to my tangles with the gargoyles and the wererats. Maybe that’s just a coincidence. But, as someone recently said to me, if there’s more than one coincidence, it’s not a coincidence.

  “It’s almost as if someone was conspiring behind the scenes to push me into searching for the Spear. Since you’re the only person I’ve encountered in a lather to find the Spear, I have a sneaking suspicion that person was you.”

  Daniel just stared at me for a bit, blinking. Then he smiled at me indulgently, like a parent at a child who had just told the parent two plus two equaled four. “You are not nearly as foolish as I had first supposed,” he said.

  Me neither, Puck agreed. Lovely. It’s good to have people in your corner.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t swoon at the backhanded compliment,” I said to Daniel. Since I had him trapped, I had the Spear, and he couldn’t touch me with the Ark fragment, I had the upper hand. And yet, Daniel smiled at me like the cat who had just eaten the canary. His inexplicable confidence made me nervous. “It was you who animated the gargoyles and sent them to the Institute of Peace, wasn’t it? I’m guessing with the Ark fragment. And it was you who hired the wererats.”