Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey

by Steve Windsor

  The moon’s almost right above the clearing now, and I can feel the warm white light building up inside me. My eyes close on their own and my head tips to the side slightly, all by itself. It feels like I almost smile.

  “That feeling right there,” Maxxine says. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Imagine that a hundred times more powerful. All the power of the light and all the might of the darkness, serving you in any way you choose. And to prove it to you. . .” She turns around and hands the sack to Father Felixx. “There, ya see.”

  I tilt my head at her.

  “Oh,” she says, “he’ll let them go as soon as we go back to your mansion. They’ll be taken back to the Black Lake where they can be properly . . . rewarded for their efforts. No one’s gonna kill them, just return them to their true nature.

  “You see, mortals and mystics aren’t supposed to live together in sin, Dixxon, any more than morphers and magic are supposed to go along and get along.” She cackles. “You’da thought that The Purge would’ve taught us somethin’ about that. But there are those who still believe we can coexist alongside burning brain-dead buffoons. And magic has paid a high price for their ignorance. Bile Island, Dixxon, you’ve paid the highest price of all. Last White Witch. . .” She looks around the clearing.

  I hadn’t noticed, but the students have all fallen into a staring stupor. They look like the undead, swaying back and forth with buggy eyes bulging, flames flickering from torches. The only ones who seem awake in this clearing now are Maxxine, Father Felixx . . . and me.

  I look at the sack in Father Felixx’s hands. I shake my head at him. “Any harm comes to them,” I say, “no Saint in your book will save you.” By now, we both know I’m not bluffing.

  With that, Maxxine turns to him, waves her hand at the entire glowing group. “Gone with you then, sheep,” she says. “You’ve got what you wanted. Make sure those two get back to Bile Island. My sister’s waiting.”

  Without a word, Father Felixx turns and holds up the bag above his head. “Brothers and sisters,” he says, “we’ve got the dazzling devils who’ve caused so much of your suffering. We shall return them to the fire that birthed them, so say the Saints.” He walks toward the edge of the clearing.

  The entire zombified lot of them follow him out of the clearing and through the forest with barely a murmur or open mouth.

  Maxxine and I watch their torches flicker through the trees and then disappear into the darkness. Then I look back at her.

  She’s staring up at the Blue Moon. “We have to hurr—”

  I had to get them out of here first—couldn’t risk them anymore. My hand’s up before her head turns back toward me. “In the name of the light”—I don’t trust a single word she’s said—“I call the bright!” And a bolt of white lightning shoots from my hand and explodes into her side.

  Maxxine goes flying backward and slams into a tree and falls to the forest floor. But she’s up in an instant. “Little lying white. . .” Her umbrella swings at me faster than I can react and a bolt of purple light pounds into my chest.

  And the pain is—I’m flying backward and I bounce off the logs at the base of the burning poles and land in the flames, and my skirt catches on fire. And I spring—more like fly—straight up in the middle of the clearing, and I spin and the fire on my skirt blows out.

  “The only lie in this light,” I say, “is the bile bubbling out of your miserable mouth!” I shoot another bolt of light at her, and another and another. Because she’s gonna kill Baxxster and Alexxis no matter what I do. I smelled that on her when she walked up with the spell sack.

  Maxxine’s umbrella opens up faster than my first bolt of light can get to her, and they all deflect and fly wild into the forest, exploding into the trees, bursting branches into flames.

  I smelled something else, too. Something about my mother . . . and this very clearing.

  “What did you do to her?” I say. Then I look at the burning posts. I can feel. . .

  “Oh no,” she says, “you lost that knowledge for good.” She flies up into the center of the clearing across from me and we’re both floating, eyeing each other. “Clever girl, though. Reminds me of . . . me. I woulda never fallen for that hoodoo either. Good for you, sugah.”

  I can feel my power peaking, and I think she can too, because she’s not making a move to cast another bolt at me. I look toward where Father Felixx led them all out of the clearing. “And them?”

  Maxxine cackles. “That old crazy Christ-catcher? He’ll have to burn them for sure. Fleece his flock, you know. Honestly, I still don’t know what he sees in them. Forsaking his own beliefs to shove theirs down their throats.” She frowns across the clearing at me. Then she shakes her head and looks down. “Fire and burnin’. . . Honestly, let’s stop all this crazy, Dixxon. We can still rule this roost. Put priests like him back in their place, hovering and haunting over humanity like the soul suckers they are. Come back to Bile Island with me, take over the council, and bring our brethren out of the black and into the dark depths of bad dreams where we belong.”

  She catches me off guard, trying to sift through her words for the truth. I’m new to all this rage and ruin. CRACK! And I’m in the black before my hand gets halfway up to stop it.

  — 16 —

  I WAKE UP to a loud SNAP! A glowing orange ember lands right in front of my face and I shove myself back away from it.

  My cauldron. . . The kitchen. . . I groan and try to sit up, but my hands are tied behind my back. I roll onto my back and will my way to sitting upright.

  “Missy?” That’s Pot’s voice.

  Back at the mansion?

  “You gotta wake up,” she says. “Black boiler be comin’ back any sec—”

  The door creaks quickly. “How about right now,” Maxxine says. She waves her umbrella and Pot goes flying across the floor. “Thought I told you to boil up some brew. Honestly, Dixxon, your house witchies have gone feral right along with your mansion cat. Why I have to stay and shape this mangy monstrosity back to magic is beyond me. I should make my sister come down here and roll around with you rabble. She doesn’t—” She stops and frowns at Pot. “Make . . . the tea, before I melt you back to molten metal.”

  Pot hurries back up onto her hanger and leans into the fire under my cauldron. She shakes and shivers, but doesn’t say anything.

  I pull at whatever’s binding my arms behind me.

  Maxxine smiles down at me. “I warned you.” She points at my arms. “That’s how they used to tie us up . . . before they burned us at the stake. Those who were magic, anyway. Others, their own kind, unlucky Lucy for them.” She squats down next to me. “Ya see, you can burn any old woman with any old rope, but an all-powerful white witch like you. . . A wraith rope is the only way to tie up a real witch. Short a wanding you senseless, anyway, and you forced me to do that.”

  She grabs my arms and jerks me up to my feet. I stumble a little. “And Baxxster and—”

  “Oh, I suspect Felixx has got them smoking and screaming by now,” Maxxine says. Then she looks past me. “Kinda like your oven over there was doing a few minutes ago.”

  I jerk away from her and look and—“O!” Oven’s door is ripped off on one side and smoke is billowing out of her door and she’s limp.

  Maxxine pulls me back over beside my cauldron. “Now,” she says, “I know you’re boiling up some kinda trouble in this cauldron. Last White Witch power potion or some other voodoo-hoodoo you figured out. And I’m not as naive as the rest of your mansion minions. I’ve watched you sneaking in here to pinch and speck this pot every day since I got here.”

  She pushes my head right up next to the boiling, bubbling, and puffing green and purple smoke concoction.

  “Yet, to their credit,” Maxxine says, “even under some of the blackest bright I could burst into them”—she glances back at Oven—“they wouldn’t tell me what this concoction of yours does.”

  She’s killed Oven. I can’t. . . Everything’s gone so wrong. How did t
his happen? Less than a week ago, I was just a wicked little witch, wanding around with Magnolia and wondering what my life would be like after my birthday. Now, Baxxster . . . and Broom. . . How have I wanded things up so badly . . . in a week?

  A single tear rolls down my cheek. “What do you want from me?” I ask her. I whimper a little.

  “In a few minutes,” she says, “the Blue Moon will be gone for another sixteen years. And you’ll be in the black. Seems a shame to let the moon go without someone getting all that magic. Might as well be little ol’ me.”

  The tear hangs there, helpless on my face just like I feel right now. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. I’ve failed all of them. I never even knew what to do. “Stupid. . .”

  Maxxine leans right down next to my face. “Aw,” she says, “don’t be so hard on yourself. There was never any hope for you, anyway.”

  The teardrop feels like my life now—just a drip of pointless regret that’ll be boiled along with the rest of the potion, forgotten soon enough and lost to the great Cauldron of Conjuring that was witches. When it falls from my face and into the pot, I know whatever life I had . . . is over. “Please tell me what’s left?” I mumble. “Why is this. . .?”

  “Oh,” Maxxine says, “don’t go out like your mother, trying to understand something she never could. You’re going to die because your mansion cat didn’t do his job correctly, and I’m going to kill you because I did mine. I keep on living because I do my job better than anyone else does theirs. And it don’t matter if it’s mortal or magic or those croakin’ fat mushrooms in the Prien, all the worlds are simple like that. It’s only people and pixies that make them more complicated.”

  “What happened to. . .?” I ask. “How did you get to be this way?”

  “No use stalling,” she says. “That’s too long a story to tell before the end of yours, anyway. Now, you gonna tell me what’s in this cauldron, or am I gonna make you drink it to find out? And so you know, if you think your mansion cat can meld his way into your mind, you have no idea what I can do.”

  I hang my head. I can feel her thoughts in mine. I let them roll around until she finds what she’s looking for.

  “Immortality?” she says. “But that’s. . . No witch in history’s been able to conja an immortality potion.” She leans over the pot and sniffs in. “Mmm. Dies tryin’, maybe, but never—Last White. . . Maybe you coulda. . .” She sniffs the steam again. Then she looks into my mind one last time. “Little wicked. . . You figured it out. Somehow, you potioned your way to it. Or maybe you just want me to think that.” She grabs my face and squeezes my cheeks hard and I whimper—I can feel her thoughts pushing at mine, surrounding them like black goo. “Ahhh, there it is.” And that’s all she needed.

  Maxxine grabs the ladle hanging above the cauldron and she dips it into the pot. Then she grabs my face again, whips back my head, and forces the ladle into my mouth. “You think I’m that stupid, witch?” she shouts. “Think I can’t find where you potioned all of your ’locks into this pot of poison! Wicked little whelp, I’m Maxxine Levine from the Black Lake and I was boiled from oil before your mother burned beneath a Blue Moon.”

  I choke, and the entire room gets blurry and I fall sideways and bounce off the floor. Then I lie limp, sideways on the floor of my favorite room in the mansion, staring into the orange flames beneath my cauldron. “I’m sorry,” I say to her. “I couldn’t see any other way.” Everything’s going black now, and I close my eyes to welcome it.

  Maxxine kneels down next to me. “Way to what?”

  And I’m gone into the black—the Great Cauldron of Conjuring takes me.

  The night air around Bile Island was blacker than it had ever been. The six of them stared into the flames. The Great Cauldron of Conjuring puffed purple smoke and an occasional waft of light green gas.

  Planning and scheming to end the balance between dark and light magic was one thing, but actually watching it die in the flames, as the last white witch of the new world faded into the black from her own potion. . . Most of them were too amazed to speak right away, but being who they were, soon enough they found their tongues.

  “You’ve . . . you’ve done it,” Zoé said. “Sucked the life right outta the light. I didn’t think it was possible, but you did it.”

  Varg growled. “Now we can get back to the old ways. The packs will be happy.” And he could get back to finding the one who killed Amia.

  Travis Déjean stared at the flames, almost too dazzled to banter. “No thanks to your whelp,” he finally said.

  Varg just growled back. There was nothing left to do. He’d deal with Bane later.

  Gog grunted, “White witch gone. ’Nother one come soon enough.”

  Suzette shined bright pink in protest. “I hope you’re happy with yourselves,” she said. “Look at what you’ve—children killers. Proud mommas all over the swamp tonight. Bile Island be damned . . . with you all in it.” And with that, she streaked up into the sky and flew across the Black Lake until her bright pink light was a speck . . . and then she disappeared.

  Roxxanne Levine stared at the projection in the flames. Her sister hovered over the young witch’s body for a few seconds before turning around and speaking through the fire, “There you have it, sister,” she said. “Simple enough. What do you want done with her mansion?”

  For Roxxanne, relieved to be rid of the threat for another sixteen years, there was only one answer, “Burn it.”

  Maxxine’s projection looked behind her and then back to the flames. “And her?” she said. “The body?”

  Roxxanne grinned. “Put her in her own potion. Boil her to bones . . . just to be sure.”

  “Of course,” Maxxine said. Then she looked over her shoulder again. “And her broom?”

  “He’s served his purpose,” said Roxxanne. “Burn him in one of his own boomers.”

  “Oh, sister,” Maxxine said, “you are certainly in a murderin’ mood. But it’s all for the best, I suppose. Can’t keep that knot-headed knob wanded against his house witch for too much longer anyway.”

  Roxxanne could feel the dissent around the clearing. “Get it done and get back here. I’ll need your services for other matters . . . soon enough.”

  Maxxine muttered around the kitchen. Mopping up the mess after a murder wasn’t something she was fond of, so for his final duty before being burned, she speled Broom into sweeping up the kitchen . . . among other things. “Get her feet,” she said to him.

  They both waved a hand and Dixxon’s body lifted up.

  “Come on, come on,” Maxxine said, “while I’m still young and beautiful.”

  Dixxon’s body rolled into the cauldron, the thick bubbling liquid splashed, and then she slowly sank out of sight. A few puffs of purple and green smoke mixed together and wafted toward the ceiling.

  Pot shuddered and shook on the counter, trying not to cry.

  “Quiet,” Maxxine said, “think I won’t potion a pot to the poison as well? One less blathering bucket to burn.” She turned around, looking for her umbrella. “Ahh, there you are, sweetheart. Thought I lost you for a sec—”

  It feels hot, but no more so than a nice steaming bath, and the salts and specks are better. I stand up slowly, letting the thick liquid drip down my hair and over my shirt and skirt, like black oil making its way around water.

  That’s what I am now, water and oil. Light and dark, white and black at the same time. More powerful than I’ve ever felt and more at peace than I’ve ever been.

  She’s got her back to my cauldron, looking for where I kicked her umbrella to, I suspect. There’s no sense in drama or talk anymore. I gave her all the opportunities to repent and repay that I’m going to. She’s too black to save. “Maxxine Levine. . .” I say.

  She whips around and I almost laugh. Her eyes are bugged out like the undead, and it’s clear this is the last thing she ever expected to see. Her umbrella’s still at her side, but it hardly matters.

  My body continues to rise out of my
pot. I stop about three quarters of the way clean. My feet are warm. “For your crimes against all creatures of this world and the last. . .”

  She whips her umbrella at me and shoots two bursts of lightning right into my stomach.

  The bolts bend around me and then up and around my head and crash into thunder above the kitchen. “For the murder of magic and mortal and mystic alike”—I raise my hand slowly, I want her to see it coming—“and to bring balance back to the benevolent and the beguiled, I sentence you to the black”—white light balls up around my hand and she squints—“for all eternity!”

  CRACK! The entire kitchen explodes with spidering lightning and crashing thunder. And when it’s over, Maxxine Levine, Black Witch of Bile Island . . . is gone.

  — 17 —

  WHEN THEY SHOW up on the front steps of the mansion, at first, I don’t recognize either one of them. But I must say, Baxxster has never looked so happy and handsome as he does standing next to Magnol—I mean Alexxis.

  Mangy moans them in without my even asking. I’m surprised he recognizes them, because Alexxis. . . Well, she’s no white cat any longer, but Magnolia doesn’t look like Magnolia anymore either. She’s still my best friend, but now she looks more like an aunt than Maxxine turned out to be. And Baxxster. . .

  “What on Bile Island?” I say. “How did you. . .?”

  Alexxis has her arm under Baxxster’s and the both of them look more like they’re going to a ball than joining Broom and me back in the mansion.

  “Six lives left,” says Baxxster. “I hope this one’s less exciting than that last nightmare. I’m assuming you figured it out. Brewing and boiling in the kitchen. I thought you’d never get that potion pure enough to use it on her.”

  “Why didn’t you say. . .?” I ask. “You could’ve at least given me a hint.”