by David Risen
Five feet away from her, the fire lifted from the concrete and broke into fifteen beams. The jewels absorbed the power and burned hot against her body.
The flames ceased suddenly, and a gale force wind tore after her, but once again, the jewels vacuumed the fury.
The Matron intensified the gale and shot bolts of lightning toward her.
The jewels, burning white-hot against her drew it all in.
“You should just let me perform the ritual,” Polly cried over the roar. “All this rage would never trouble you again. No evil, sick man to try and rape you. Just peaceful sleep.”
The Matron pulled back her attack.
Polly felt the other woman gaping at her. She opened her eyes to find The Matron glowing brighter than ever suspended in the air – nude.
“Are you finished?” Polly said. “Take a hard look at yourself. You will destroy the world if you continue down this path. Your kind of power was not intended to enter the realm of mortality. Let me take all this sorrow and hate away from you. The reason you’re broken is because of a rape, and that has left you with a bitter weakness.”
The Matron smirked.
“Our greatest weaknesses are also our greatest strengths. Saving the world is only secondary to you. What you really desire is to siphon off my power to increase your own.”
The Grand Arch Sorceress went inside herself for a moment, and then her face darkened with black resolve.
“We serve a noble purpose. We will use your power judiciously to preserve the tedious and fragile balance that perpetuates the corporeal realm.”
The Matron’s glowing, red eyes narrowed to slits.
“And how could you possibly presume to understand the divine purpose of one such as I? You wreak of hubris, and you fail to understand that you are less than an ant in the grand scheme of things.
“As for this mortal realm that you are so intent upon protecting, have a look around and take in the foul odor of what you have all done with the place. You are all like a bunch of selfish toddlers seeking to take away that which belongs to your brothers and sisters due to pride, vanity, and envy. The only redeeming features of humanity are virtues. Patience, humility, charity, empathy, mercy integrity, love, responsibility, and forgiveness. But these things are in short supply. If I am here to end this world, it is because the supreme God decreed it. Would you presume to know more than God?”
The Grand Arch Sorceress gave her a stern, professorial expression.
“And my divine purpose is to test and challenge the elements of our undoing. I am here, and I have power, too, because the Supreme Creator opened that avenue to me. We can talk in circles like this all day and night. Bottom line, you don’t have the knowledge to defeat me yet, and that means that the end is not at hand. If you’re finished with your temper tantrum, I believe it’s my turn.”
Polly’s hands flew up into the air. The jewels burned against her skin. Bolts of lightning streaked through the air after Amelia.
A protective circle of white light formed around her, and the lightning encircled and flashed around it.
Lilith tightened her fist.
The bubble shrank to half its size from the gravity-based spell she cast.
Amelia’s face contorted with strain as she pushed at her protective bubble with her arms and legs.
The deflected spell caused the boards and girders in the walls the groan and pop.
Deep chasms opened in the dry wall from the floor to the ceiling.
White sheetrock powder sprinkled from the gashes in the vaulted ceiling.
Slowly Amelia pushed back the force attacking her, and with a sudden burst of strength, she shoved the aura surrounding her back to full size. Every plate of sheetrock in the room crumbled to dust. A loud crack resounded through the room as the studs in the walls snapped like dry twigs beneath the pressure.
The Matron glared at her.
Polly Rider’s heart sank as the light from the Matron’s eyes turned from red to white. A pang of fear tore through her chest, and she fell limp to the floor.
She opened her mouth to speak, but her muscles didn’t respond.
She couldn’t move.
The Matron drifted through the air and hovered over her.
“You’ve forgotten that I can not only read the deepest and darkest intentions of your heart, but I can also read your mind. I don’t know how to defeat you, but you do.”
Delilah Powers, formerly Dena Carcer, soon to be Sharon Motes was just about all set.
She packed her bags with second-hand clothes she bought at the Goodwill in Brunswick over time.
She had new stockings, socks, and hose that she picked up at the Dollar General last week.
Hair dye that she grabbed at Wal-Mart last month, and right now, she wore a short, blond wig that she used in her new driver’s license photo with a pair of blank lens glasses she purchased at Wal-Mart.
She loaded all of it in the trunk of her little, brown Focus following her unfavorable meetings with the High Priestess two nights ago. She’d be damned if she was going to be the Sisterhood’s whore.
At present, she sat at the traffic light before the onramp of I-95 steeling herself for the five-and-a-half-hour drive that was to come.
That’s when her cell phone buzzed in the back pocket of the thrift store jeans she wore.
“Shit!” she snapped.
She meant to leave the phone and any other items that could give away her new location in Subject A’s Navigator.
She pulled the Android from her back pocket and looked at the screen.
“1 new text message.”
She turned left into the Darien McDonald’s parking lot, parked, and opened the message simply from 913-05.
Her phone buzzed indicating a new text message.
Delilah sat back hard in the brown cloth seat.
Now she was torn.
What could have suddenly befallen the Grand Arch Sorceress that would have required an immediate leave of absence?
Her new High Priestess asked her to bring Subject A in for rituals that he likely wouldn’t survive.
Her previous High Priestess told her that combined with Subject B, Subject A was one of the most dangerous people in the world – together they’d cause an end-of-the-world level event.
She knew from her original instructions that she was expected to keep tabs of Subject A’s dealings and report any contact with Subject B immediately regardless of the time of day or night. If by chance she were to come face to face with subject B, she was not to engage her.
It would stand to reason that if the sisterhood called Subject A in that they may also collect Subject B.
But could Subject B be so powerful that she could best the Grand Arch Sorceress of the Sisters of Divinity?
Subject A clearly knew more last night than he told her while chitchatting in the Navigator.
It was time to get some real answers, and if she didn’t like what she heard, she might just call delivering Subject A to the Sisterhood her last act.
“Allow me to explain why you’re having so much trouble getting around,” Amelia said. “You should feel honored, really. You are the victim of a brand-new type of parasite that feeds off the nutrients in your blood and the neurotransmitters in your nervous system that relays tiny electrical impulses to receptor cells in your muscles.”
A rumbling in the room around her seized Amelia’s attention. A sandy sprinkling of sheet rock dust mixed with dirt from the ground above the ceiling of the vaulted chamber powdered the concrete floor a few feet away from her.
Amelia looked back down at the frightened eyes of her adversary and smiled.
“Our hostilities have compromised the structural integrity of this room.”
Amelia eyed the fiery jewels in the broken Grand Arch Sorceress’s earrings, necklace, rings, and anklets.
“I almost forgot,” she said.
Amelia snapped and the jewels shattered sending a blast of tempest-like rage through the roo
m, and causing the structure to grumble. Partially broken boards cracked a little more.
Then she waved her hand and all the magic protecting the Sorceress including the glamors that caused her to appear young disappeared. The paralyzed woman lying on the floor at her feet now appeared as she really was – a dried-out, washed-up, middle-aged woman whose beauty faded long ago.
“In case you’re wondering, I’ve just released the powers you’ve stolen, and I’ve also bound you so that you may never again invoke the powers of a supernatural spirit.”
Amelia homed in on the woman’s thoughts.
Please don’t kill me.
Amelia smiled. “I think you’ll find me rather more merciful than you, but I cannot predict Rider’s reaction.”
You bitch!
Amelia squinted at her.
“You dragged me from my bed, chained me, put me inside what was to be my coffin, had me raped, and you were going to steal what is mine and trap me for hundreds of years. Who’s the real bitch?”
Amelia composed herself.
“Now allow me to explain your new itinerary for the rest of the day. You will accompany me back to Darien where we will spare Rider whatever torments you have scheduled for him. Once he gets his bearings, we’ll take a little ride to somewhere quiet, and the three of us will have a little chat. I’ll be using your behavior during this little quest to determine my willingness to free you of your little pest, so it would behoove you to be cooperative.”
Fuck you!
Amelia disrobed the so-called Grand Arch Sorceress and clothed herself in her black dress slacks, white shirt and blazer, and she replaced the old woman’s white ceremonial robes and drug her out by her died-black hair.
She found fifty or so sisters of divinity huddled by what she thought must be the exit clawing at the sheetrock where the door had been.
Amelia stopped ten feet short of the crowd, released the Grand Arch’s hair and cleared her throat, but the frantic women didn’t notice her until she slashed her hand through the air like a knife sending a hot blast of air through the tiled, white corridor.
They turned to face her, and a terrible hush fell over the hallway.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting your entertaining hysterics, but I’m looking for three women. Rose Walden, Claire Jacobs, and Lauren Fields-Rider. If you’d be so kind to push each of them to the front of your little mosh pit one at a time, I’ll waste no more of your time.”
No one moved.
Amelia sighed with frustration. “If you fail to assist me in my calling, I’ll roast all of you.”
Ruckus broke out in the back of the heard, and in a moment, they pushed a woman to the front of the pack. The clasps on her black ceremonial cloak snapped in the chaos revealing that she wore nothing beneath it but a pink underwire bra and blue panties.
Several locks of her curly red hair fell out of her hood.
Amelia smiled.
“You were aware of how dangerous I can be when crossed, so why did you violate me in that manner?”
Rose said nothing.
She stood silently with two women behind her holding her in place by the upper arms.
Amelia sighed.
“Someone please remove her hood. It’s useless to have a conversation with someone when you cannot see her face.”
A pale hand reached up from behind her and pulled her hood down.
Rose stared at the floor as if ashamed.
“There she is,” Amelia said. “Now if you don’t mind, please answer my question.”
“I was following orders,” she muttered like a small child explaining misbehavior to a parent.
Amelia nodded.
“You joined the order following your rape by a baleful spirit when you were only thirteen. Why would you choose to pass along that brand of pain?”
She looked away.
“The Grand Arch Sorceress ordered me....”
“At the risk of sounding like someone’s mother, if the Grand Arch Sorceress told you to lop off your own hand, would you do it?”
Rose bunched her lips.
Amelia nodded. “You’re a foolish girl. You should count yourself lucky that I can read your thoughts.”
She nodded, and Rose’s skin sagged. Her fiery hair turned iron gray streaked with red. Her skin paled and wrinkled, and a dumpy, old woman more than seventy years old stood before her.
“I’ve removed all your protective wards and stripped your powers. You will never be able to invoke the powers of another spirit.”
Amelia waved her hand vertically.
Rose’s hair turned vibrantly red again. Her skin tightened. Her freckles returned, and now, a thirteen-year-old girl stood before her.
“For your transgressions, you will be thirteen for the balance of your life. Your soul will long for love, but you’ll have to settle for fumble-fingered adolescents looking merely to get their rocks off or pedophiles looking to debase innocence. You will meet your mated spirit the day you die, but that night, you will burst into flames.”
Amelia looked back at the crowd.
“Claire Jacobs?”
Another commotion broke out in the back of the crowd. The woman fought hard as they pushed her to the front.
She stumbled out to the empty space before the hordes of witches.
Her dark hair was tangled and her face contorted in a look of fear.
“Hi Claire,” Amelia said.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded.
Amelia’s face darkened.
“So, after all the pain you’ve caused others, and all the people you’ve killed, you believe you have the right to mercy?”
Claire furled her brow and looked away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Amelia smirked.
“Perhaps your sisters don’t know, because it’s not exactly something that makes it into the news, and police don’t tend to over-investigate dead drug addicts.”
Most of the witches were not afraid now, curiosity replaced fear. And scanning the crowd, Amelia hadn’t found one of them who hadn’t abused their powers in some way.
“Sister Jacobs, as I’m sure you all know, took a special interest in the drug addicts when she presided over the Bridgeton Ward, and her NA and AA programs enjoyed a high success rate among regular participants. Would you like to know why?’
No one said a word.
“Allow me to tell you, anyway. Sister Jacobs is a rare, female Serial Killer. Rather than helping addicts who struggled with recovery, she tortured them to death. She justified her actions by calling her hobby Scientific Experiments on the Addicted mind much like the Nazis in the Second World War.”
Several women in the crowd gasped, and Amelia shook her head.
“You stood in judgement of me, sight unseen, and now all your peers stand in judgement of you, never mind that all of them are guilty of their own iniquities.”
Amelia scanned the room. No one made eye contact.
“Most people judge others because they think they need to know that the people around them have committed iniquities worse than their own. Righteous judgement punishes without condemning and it always offers the opportunity for atonement and new wisdom.”
Amelia eyed Claire Jacobs.
“You should be happy you’re facing this now and not in the Spirit World.”
Claire looked down at her feet.
Amelia studied her demeanor a moment longer, and then she said, “You’ve misused the powers you borrowed from the Spirit World, so I’m taking them away forever.”
Before her eyes, Claire turned into a fat, old woman.
“All of your degrees and the knowledge you gained from them are gone. In fact, you now have average intelligence, because you used intellect often to harm others rather than using that tool to give fire to the people.”
Claire began to cry.
Amelia smiled maternally.
“I’m not without mercy, though. You can have your yo
uth back.
Claire transformed back into an attractive, young brunette who looked fresh out of high school.
“You looked at drug addicts as sub-human while constantly saying that drug addictions begin as a misbehavior but turn into a serious illness that will kill you. For your judgement, you are now addicted to heroin. Let’s see how you like fucking for drugs.”
Claire began shivering uncontrollably.
“Because of what you did to these people, you will not live to see a natural death. Someone awful will see you in this state and make the same odious judgement.”
Amelia looked around.
“Lauren Fields-Rider?”
“She left,” someone called out from the back of the room.
Amelia nodded and looked about at the rest of the women.
“All of you have misused your powers, so they’re gone forever.”
She grasped a handful of the Grand Arch Sorceress’ raven hair.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Lauren felt helpless.
Once she dropped off Subject B, The Grand Arch Sorceress ordered her back to Darien with a coterie that included the Arch Seer from Italy, the High Priestess of the Rome, Georgia Ward – mostly because the queen Diva wanted her out of the way, and her first and second counselor.
But they weren’t on the road an hour before the Arch Seer, Maria Zottolli who sat in the passenger’s seat of the black Chevrolet Suburban, went rigid and her eyes rolled back in her head as if she were having a seizure.
When the episode ended, her face darkened into a grim expression.
“The Grand Arch Sorceress defeated by the Conciliatory Matron. Fallen is the white flag just as foretold.”
This isn’t happening.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” High Priestess Smidt of the Rome Ward said, “How are we supposed to stop a spirit powerful enough to defeat the strongest Grand Arch Sorceress we’ve had in nearly a century?”
Lauren scowled at her, but then she realized the validity of her point. She leaned forward from the middle seat and touched the seer’s shoulder.
