by Ross Homer
Elsa then returned to the couch. Surprising Elsa, I kissed Nissa just about as well as Elsa had kissed me.
Then I turned and picked up the shirt as they put their hands back on my thighs. This time they were higher than before and almost too high. But I smiled, thankful to have them with me and put the shirt to my face.
That fucker wasn’t going to kill any more people. Not if I could help it.
And I was back in the basement. Jordan saw me first. She whispered, “Jo! Sela needs help. I’m so afraid she’s going to die!”
I knelt and wished I could touch her. But I could see that she was barely breathing. The fear on Carrie’s face was palpable.
She nodded. “Please? That you’re here says you can do shit we can’t.”
I heard Nissa say, “Give her some of your strength, Jo. You can do that. We’ll back you up.”
Jordan asked, “Who was that?”
“She is my friend and helping me right now.” I was surprised she could hear Nissa.
I looked at Sela again and uttered a spell for strength. What I gave her hit me like a ton of bricks though, and I staggered.
Nissa yelled, “Too much, Jo! Too much. Back off!”
I did as she said and felt instantly better. I said to Jordan and Carrie, “When I tell you, help her up and leave here. Through that door over there and up the stairs. I’ll go look first to make sure the coast is clear.”
“We will,” said Jordan as she kissed Sela gently.
I could see that Sela was breathing better as I turned and walked to the door. I had left it standing open.
I jogged up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the dining room. “Leave this realm,” I commanded the creature sitting there, eating what I thought was a human liver. The woman’s torso lay split open on the table beside him. Most of it was empty of other organs.
The creature set the organ down and said, “I am Aato. I recognize you from Sato’s house although you did not see me there.” He looked puzzled for a moment and then said, “But you are not here. Where are you so I can send my minions to fetch you. Those big appendages you have look tasty.”
He was trying to frighten me, and it worked but I tried not to let it show. “These are breasts and they are staying right here where they belong.”
I was wrong about a number of things just then. Next thing I knew I was there, physically. Not my image…me. And Nissa and Elsa. All three of us faced this Aato thing and all three of us were naked.
“Seems you found me,” I said, feeling stronger and a whole lot braver than I am.
Astonishing me, Elsa squirmed loose from the nightwalker that had her. She turned and pinched my left nipple hard! It hurt like a mutha and pissed me off. “What the fuck, Elsa?”
She stared straight into my face then smacked my ass… hard! She said, “Don’t let him rule you, bitch!”
She was trying to make me mad and it worked. Anger blew through me because she was right. I was giving in to his magic.
His nightwalkers grabbed her again, harder this time. She groaned in pain but glared at them and said nothing.
“Release them,” I said to Aato. “Do it now or they will suffer the consequences.”
As if he was dining in a fine restaurant, he took another bite of the woman’s liver and set it down on the table.
“I think not,” he said.
“You asked for it. Go,” I said to them and pointed. Both of them disappeared in a flash of light. They didn’t go anywhere because they had basically exploded. Messily.
Aato stood, his eyes wide in shock. “Perhaps I have underestimated you,” he said. “That was quite a display. On that note, maybe we should work together? It would be far easier than being enemies.”
“No. I want you gone. You can return to whatever hell you came from or I can make you like your cerna nokisases just now.”
“You know how they are called? Interesting. Just who are you? Tell me before I dine on your lovely parts.”
Emboldened now, I replied, “Aato, I am your worst nightmare. As for my lovely parts, they are mine and you will not dine on anything anymore here.”
He stared at me for a minute; a full minute. Nissa and Elsa moved closer and took my hands. I did not like the way he was looking at us and our bodies. What the hell was he doing?
Nissa whispered, “What Elsa said a few minutes ago.”
Of course. Trying to build fear.
I smiled widely now; my fear gone. I walked over to the table and said, “Aato, leave or I will make you a miserable pile of shit.” I pointed at the two bloody smears that were his minions.
He stood. “I will bow before your superior ability.” He did, too. “I am what I am, and I know when I am bested. If in my defense, I may speak?”
I felt now he was being honest. “Speak your piece then leave here and never return.”
“I had no idea about you creatures and your civilization before I came to this realm. To me, you and those like you, are meat. That is all. Meat. I prefer your kind to the other kind…male, I think you call them. You are more pleasing to my pallet. In my realm all we have to eat is vegetal. Meat does not exist. When I first came here, I tasted your kind out of curiosity. I was surprised that you are so tasty. However, eating you is apparently against your rules.”
“Yes, it is. Then why didn’t you stop?”
“Because no one told me to. You have. So, I shall take my leave.”
I held up a hand. “Aato. Know this. I will find out if you return. Should that happen, what I did to your minions I will do to you, too, but much, much slower. I assume you can feel pain?”
“Of course.”
“Elsa, magnify this.”
I picked a part of his body and sent a dagger there. When it pierced his hide, his eyes widened, and he groaned. Then Elsa emphasized it.
Aato yelled, “Please make it stop! Please!”
I nodded to Elsa who did as asked. “Aato, that is only a tiny sample of what I can do to you should you think to venture back here.”
He nodded. “Then I shall concur. I bid you good day.”
Aato, the creature from another realm, was gone. I wondered if we’d encounter him again somewhere down the road. If so, I would fully uphold my end of the deal.
Nissa ran downstairs and brought the girls up while Elsa and I searched the rest of the house. It was a single story, except for that cellar, and surprisingly spacious.
The biggest surprise was a bedroom that was filled, literally filled, with cash and bullion, both gold and silver.
Where in hell did this creature get that kind of money? Did he sell drugs? We didn’t see any of that as we looked around. At the time I wished I’d have asked Aato before he left for his realm. The final count would prove to be in the millions and would eventually be divided between Oregon and Washington.
The other two girls helped Sela lie on a couch in the living room and covered her with a blanket. Both appeared to be brand new and never used. Her eyes were open, and she said, “Thank you. It would have killed us, too, like those others down there.”
“Don’t worry now. You are safe now,” Elsa said as she sat and gently stroked Sela’s filthy hair. “We’ll get you three to a hospital and checked out and then home to your parents.”
Sela struggled to sit up. “No! Anything but that.” Elsa applied light pressure, forcing the young girl to lay back down.
“Carrie and I agree,” Jordan said. “We’d rather die than endure that…that torture.”
Nissa said, “You can’t be serious.”
“Wanna bet?” Carrie was having none of this and I realized there was a whole lot more here than three young women who said they were in love with each other. They were not teenagers playing an adult game.
I shook my head at Nissa and said to Carrie, “No, I don’t want to bet. But we have to call the police and crime squad for wherever we are. We can’t just walk away.”
“We need clothes, too,” Elsa said. “I think it wou
ld be damned hard to explain to the police why we are here with these three young girls, all of us naked, and all those bodies downstairs.” Then she added, “And right there.” She nodded at Aato’s table.
She was right so I magicked our clothes and the backpack with the girls’ clothing. As we dressed, Nissa found out where we were and called the local police.
“There is no reason to lie to these cops,” Nissa said to the girls. “Tell the truth. You don’t know where they came from or where the leader went.”
Jordan came over to me and said, “Fine. We’ll do what you ask but do not take us home. Please? We’ll run away again so you’ll be wasting your time and ours if you do.”
“Okay,” I answered the insistent young woman. “But the police will want you to go to the hospital anyway. Especially Sela.”
Now it was Carrie’s turn to get in my face. “Look, Jo, you don’t know shit about any of us. We can dig that. You don’t know what we three fucking dykes have had to endure to stay together.” Tears crept down her cheeks. “It’s been hell for us. All three of us knew when we were younger what we are despite what our mommies’ wanted. They wanted perfect princesses, not little pre-teen queers. Sela was forced to go to an underground conversion therapy. Thank heaven it didn’t work. Jordan and I faced an onslaught of racist and religious bullshit from our parents. Again, thank heaven it didn’t work.” She paused to breathe and searched my face. “You are pretty cool, and I think you understand us.”
I reached for Elsa. “You aren’t the only ones with a female partner, so we understand what you’re going through.”
We heard sirens in the distance.
Jordan picked up the story as she took Elsa’s place stroking Sela’s hair. “For the last year we’ve been secretly meeting at school and taking counselling to undo what our parents did to us. We could have all of them jailed for child abuse but chose not to. We just wanted to get away and be ourselves. To be left alone! To be just…us! Three girls in love. Then Sela’s parents put her on lockdown. We helped her escape and then we ended up here.”
She looked at me and asked, “We haven’t asked. How did you end up here, with us?”
The sirens were closer so Nissa said, “Right now, the truth will be easier than some wild tale.”
I nodded and told them. “I’m a witch. Nissa here is a fairy. My lady is an Empath. I was hired by Sela’s parents to find her. In the process, I found all three of you.” Jordan nodded.
“Pay attention since your story has to be the same. You were at a party somewhere and had beer. Then you were here. You think you were drugged, and you have no idea how long you’ve been here. Got it?”
Jordan crossed her arms and mocked me. “Yeah? We got it. So, you’re a witch, huh?”
The police were very close now.
I nodded, “Yes.” I made the mess of the two nightwalkers disappear with a flick of a finger.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh.” The fear hit her. “Are we in worse trouble than we were? With you three, I mean?”
“Oh lord no, Jordan.” I hugged her hard.
The police were here.
“We’ll figure out a way you can stay with us when you’re done with the hospital. Okay. Now…show time.”
Sela, Jordan, and Carrie were hustled off to a hospital for exams. Elsa went with them. Nissa and I handled the police and her badge helped. I told them the truth, kind of. I find people for a living and decided to find Sela when I read about her. I left out the part about her parents being involved. Nissa and I tracked them down to here from things we’d heard on the street.
I made up this tale about some pagan group or other practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism. The lieutenant running the investigation bought it.
He said, “Ms. Palmer, I’ve heard of you and I’ll be honest. I didn’t believe it. I do believe what I’m seeing though. We don’t have the resources to investigate this. So, I’m going to pass it on to that Serious Crime unit in Seattle.”
Nissa smiled. “This is your lucky day. I’m part of that unit so consider it transferred. You can call Captain Faroe right now if you’d like. She’ll confirm it.”
In the matter of a few minutes, the locals had packed up and left leaving Nissa and me with this horror of a place.
We hugged and then sat on the couch. Nissa said, “This is going to be a huge mess when the media gets hold of it. Then again when we identify all those bodies, if we can.” Her cell buzzed. She stood and went to the door and answered.
I nodded because she was right. I wondered if I could find out who these parts and bones belonged to with magic. It would be taxing at best. I sure as hell didn’t want to do it here because the stench of dead meat was everywhere. It wasn’t as bad up here but downstairs it was overpowering and not going to get any better over the coming days. I felt sorry for the crime scene people who’d have to sort out all those parts downstairs.
I stood and went over to the torso. She was female. That was it. Female. There was no head, arms, or legs, although a right leg lay beside her. Was it hers?
Nissa rushed over. “You aren’t going to touch her, are you?”
“I think that I’ll at least try. I’d like to help out if I can. Nissa,” I stared into her gray eyes, “it’s the least I can do. Somebody is missing this woman and needs closure. I have the ability and I am going to try to use it. At least on this body.”
She nodded but stood with me.
I touched the torso and who the woman had been flooded into my mind’s eye.
She’d been married. She was twenty-three and wanted children and she had been somewhat shapely.
I picked up bits and pieces of her life and who she was. The leg belonged to her.
When I stepped away from her and let the ME take her away, I was exhausted.
“I can’t do too much of this at a time,” I said to Nissa who held my hand. I could feel my energy improving and knew she was giving me some of hers. “We need to inform her husband about her, though.”
She said, “Jo, Elsa called. We need to go to the hospital and rescue your three children. You and Elsa are their, ahh, foster parents.”
This was going to be interesting. I’m a thirty-two-year-old woman, engaged to a thirty-year-old woman and about to be the parents of three teenaged girls.
I laughed as we left for the hospital.
What could possibly go wrong?
