The Burning Time

by J. G. Faherty

  By then, his hand had gone from beyond painful and into another level of torture where each beat of his heart sent waves of throbbing agony from his fingers to his elbow. Doing his best to keep his injured limb immobile, he used his good hand to radio Danni.

  “It’s me. I’m done. Please come get me.” He didn’t even try to keep the pain out of his voice.

  “John? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” In the background, Mitch shouted something and Danni told him to hush.

  “Just hurry. The park. Front entrance.” Closing his eyes, he sat against one of the gate posts and concentrated on not moving. He had no idea of how long he’d sat like that when a sudden voice made him jump.

  “John?”

  He couldn’t hold back a cry as his damaged hand jerked and bumped against his leg. He looked up and saw Danni staring at him. Consumed by pain, he’d never seen or heard her car pull up.

  “My hand. I broke it.” He motioned for her to help him up.

  “Jesus, you sure did. It’s swollen all to hell. We have to get you to the hospital.” She aimed him toward the Mustang, but he shook his head.

  “You and Mitch have to get Mrs. Kopek into the car. We need to get her as far away from here as possible. I don’t want Christian to know anything happened here.”

  “Fine. Then it’s the hospital.”

  “No, everything I need is at your house. Just get her into the car so we can leave.”

  Grunting under the woman’s excessive weight, Danni and Mitch dragged her body to the Mustang and then did their best to lift her into the back seat. John tried to help, but even the slightest movements caused bursts of light to explode in his vision.

  In the end, they had to settle for pushing her onto the floor, her muumuu riding embarrassingly high up on her legs and showing far too much of her faded underwear. Once they were all in, John instructed Danni to drive to the mall, where they left her leaning against the building.

  The ride to Danni’s house was an exercise in excruciating misery for John. Danni did her best, but each bump in the road, each tap on the brakes ratcheted his distress up another notch, until he feared he might throw up. By the time they reached the house, John needed Danni and Mitch’s help to make it up the porch stairs and onto the couch.

  John had to close his eyes and wait for another round of nausea to pass before he could talk. “Mitch. Go up to my room and bring back the jars labeled Yerba Santa, Thyme, and Ten Bark. Also the jar of Holy Water. Danni. Please get me a clean dishcloth or rag.”

  When he had the items, John dampened the rag with Holy Water and then placed two pinches of each herb on top of his injured hand. “Now,” he said to Danni, “bind my hand with the rag, tight enough so that it stays in place, but doesn’t cut off the circulation.”

  “Are you sure?” Danni chewed at her lower lip. “It’s going to hurt.”

  “I know. But it needs doing, and I can’t tie it with one hand.” He held out the hand to her. In the glow of the flashlights and candles, it looked worse than before, swollen to twice its normal size and already turning dark as the flesh bruised. He mentally cursed Christian's destruction of his basement storage room and the ingredients necessary to make the ointment he'd used to cure his injuries from the Hell Hounds. Now he was stuck with less effective herbs and oils, which meant much longer healing times. And more pain.

  John groaned but managed not to scream as Danni wrapped the cloth twice around his hand before tying it. When she finished, he was covered in sweat and shaking. “One last thing,” he whispered. “Please get me four aspirin and a glass of water.”

  “Aspirin?” Mitch asked. “Don’t you have some kind of potion that can take away the pain?”

  John managed a small smile. “Aspirin is one of the oldest herbal remedies known to man.” He took the pills from Danni and swallowed them with a long drink of water. Then he put his head back and closed his eyes.

  Two minutes later, he was sound asleep.

  * * *

  On the morning of the town fair, the people of Hastings Mills woke to blast-oven temperatures and a sky the color of molten lead. At eight a.m., the thermometers had already reached ninety degrees, and the air was so sodden with moisture it made people feel as if they were walking through water.

  The inhospitable heat brought a return of the short tempers which had plagued the town, but physical confrontations stayed at a minimum as excitement to attend the fair provided a counterbalance to anger.

  The fair opened at ten a.m.; by nine-thirty more than two hundred people stood in line at the main gate, waiting with growing impatience as booth owners set up their games, turned on deep fryers, and laid out cookies, cakes, and pies for sale. At the lemonade and ice tea stands, men and women estimated the temperature would reach one hundred by noon, and began calling family members to bring more ice and mix up more barrels.

  Atop of the levee overlooking the park, John Root lay on the hot ground and watched the proceedings through a pair of binoculars Mitch had given him. The scents of the fair—popcorn, cotton candy, fried dough, corn dogs—drifted up, and for a moment, John felt transported back to his own childhood, where the church fair had always been the biggest event of the year.

  John had taken his position just before eight, hoping to trap Christian and deal with him before the fair grew crowded, thereby minimizing the potential for innocent people getting hurt. But whether through cautious self-preservation or cruel Fate, Christian still hadn’t shown up by the time the gates opened and the eager residents streamed in.

  The oddly shaped spiral pattern of the booths was more disquieting in the daylight than it had been at night. John recognized it for what it was, a representation of Chaos, and he made sure not to stare at it for too long at one stretch, lest he grow nauseous, especially in his exhausted state.

  He’d woken before six, his hand still aching but almost fully healed. He’d spent a good hour saying prayers, filling the pockets of his black jacket with anything that might come in handy, and reviewing the spell he’d stolen from Christian’s grimoire. Whether it would help or not still remained to be seen.

  After a quick breakfast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ice tea, Danni and Mitch had driven him to the park. He’d given them strict orders to return home and stay there, and to be prepared to leave town if it looked like things went bad. As he’d expected, Danni hadn’t taken well to that idea and had drawn him aside to argue her point.

  “We won’t leave you behind,” she’d said, her eyes narrow and angry.

  “You have to. You have Mitch to think about. Your job is to keep him safe, keep the both of you safe.”

  Her expression had hardened as she acquiesced to his logic. “Why does it have to be this way?”

  He’d shaken his head. He’d often wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. Fate has roles for each of us. This is mine. It always has been.”

  Then she’d surprised him by throwing both arms around his neck and pressing her lips against his, harder and harder, forcing her tongue into his mouth until he gave in and returned the kiss, finally letting himself express a small portion of the feelings he’d kept locked away since the day he’d met her. For one brief moment, he forgot everything, savoring the feel of her body against his, the salty-sweet taste of peanut butter, jelly, and a hint of sweat, the way her hands clutched the back of his neck.

  It was Danni who’d broken the kiss, stepping back and staring at him. “You lied.”

  He’d stared at her, pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “That night in your room. You said we couldn’t be together because your life was too dangerous. But you lied. You said that because you knew this day was coming, that you might die, and you didn’t want to...to...” She’d stopped, and a tear had run down from one eye.

  “To break both our hearts,” he’d finished. He’d wiped the tear away, placed his hands on her cheeks. “I couldn’t do that to you. To Mitch.”

  “You won’t d
ie.” She’d said it as if she could make it true by sheer force of will.

  “I might.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Danni, I—”

  “Promise me. Promise me, dammit.”

  He’d wanted to. He’d even tried, had opened his mouth, prepared to let the lie come forth.

  But it hadn’t. In the end, he’d simply stood there and stared, unable to provide the comfort she’d needed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She’d shaken her head and pulled him close again.

  When they’d finally separated, they’d done it at the same time, a mutual parting.

  The ride to the park had been a silent one.

  Covered in sweat and itching from countless bug bites, John set the binoculars aside as tears blurred his vision. For a brief moment, a part of him—admittedly, a small part, but it scared him it was there at all—hoped he wouldn’t survive, that he and his sworn enemy would spiral into the great unknown together. What scared John wasn’t so much that he’d contemplated dying, but rather the reasons behind it. Was it a desire to escape from the pain and loneliness of his existence, or was it something darker, a selfish wish to make Danni and Mitch realize what they’d had in John, and what they’d lost?

  That doesn’t make sense. Danni and Mitch want you to stay with them. It’s you who’s saying no.

  “Self-pity doesn’t become you, John.”

  Clara’s voice. And she was right. He’d never been one given to self-pity before. If anything, he was the opposite, accepting his fate as just one of the many burdens life laid on.

  So why...?

  Cyrus Christian.

  John brought the binoculars up and scanned the grounds. Caught a flash of black. Sure enough, there he was, standing near the center of the fair, talking to the Mayor and two other people John couldn’t identify.

  He must have arrived while I was daydreaming about Danni.

  In that instant, John knew it had been Christian’s influence that had caused John’s own bout of depression.

  He’s grown stronger. I have to act now.

  John tossed the binoculars aside and made his way down the hill.

  Chapter 36

  Cyrus Christian paused and closed his eyes as he felt a sensation like fire ants on his skin. He reached out with his mind, tasted the bitter flavor of righteousness.

  And so it begins.

  Opening his eyes, he looked at his three remaining acolytes. The absence of the fourth was now explained. “John Root approaches. You know what to do.”

  The three nodded and moved off.

  John approached the fair with his head down, hoping the crowds of people streaming toward the entrance would hide him long enough to get his job done.

  That hope ended when the Mayor and three other men stepped from behind a large truck, with scowling faces and hands clenched in fists.

  “That’s far enough, asshole,” Mayor Watkins said. He motioned to his men.

  John didn’t wait to see what they had in mind. He pulled a handful of powder from his jacket pocket and flung it forward.

  “Let the spell be broken!”

  The powder, a mixture of herbs and roots, sparkled like diamond dust as it struck the four men and clung to their skin. The moment it touched them, they collapsed to the ground.

  John braced himself for screams, but the crowds continued past without a second glance, talking excitedly amongst themselves about the fair.

  The attack, coming so far from the entrance, worried John. He felt the reaction within himself, a lessoning of his strength, strength he’d need to defeat the Trickster.

  Too soon. I’m depleting myself faster than I’d planned.

  He had no time to rest, however, as Sheriff Showalter and several police officers took up places just outside the entrance to the fair. One of them spotted John and called to the others, who drew their guns. John had no choice but to dip into another pocket, this time drawing out a charm made from shards of mirrored glass glued to a picture of himself he’d taken with Danni’s old Polaroid camera. He slipped the charm over his head and continued walking, enjoying a small satisfaction as the Sheriff and his men stopped and looked in all directions, their faces almost comical in their confusion.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Find him, you idiots!” Showalter shouted.

  The police moved past John, oblivious to his presence. He kept walking, right to the gate, even though his spell was like carrying a heavy weight on his back while wading through a muddy swamp. Despite the effort, he knew he couldn’t discard the invisibility charm until after he’d closed the circle.

  At the entrance, he placed the final two fetishes behind garbage cans, one on each side of the gate. When he let go of the second one, a burst of energy sprang up, leaping from totem to totem and encircling the fairgrounds within a magical wall. Imperceptible to the people entering the fair, it would be solid as stone to anyone trying to exit.

  As soon as the energy ring came to life, John removed his charm. Fifty yards away, Cyrus Christian turned and regarded John, a shocked expression on his face.

  John lifted an arm that felt made of lead and pointed at him. “It’s time, Trickster.”

  Christian’s look changed to one of intense loathing, and then he burst into laughter.

  “Let it begin, John Root!”

  * * *

  “I can’t take it anymore.” Mitch Anderson rose from the couch. “We have to help John.”

  Danni stared out the window. “How? He said we’d be putting him in danger if we went down there.”

  Mitch smiled. “Yeah, but what if we could give John an advantage over Christian? Something to help him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Think, sis. Christian’s at the fair. All his people are there, too. Heck, by now half the town’s there. That means the church is empty. We can break in, get John’s black bag, and bring it to him. He’ll have access to all his magical stuff.”

  Danni started to say no, then paused as she thought about it. The church would definitely be empty, so they’d be safe.

  And let’s face it, you’re going as crazy as your brother just sitting around with your thumbs up your ass while the man you love is risking his life.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Yeah!” Mitch pumped his fist in the air. “Hang on for a sec, I gotta get something from my room.” He sprinted up the stairs, leaving Danni to wonder if she’d made the right choice.

  Too late to second-guess yourself now.

  A minute later, they were in the car.

  Cyrus Christian raised his arms. Townspeople gathered around him, some wearing confused looks, others expressions of pure rapture.

  “The time is upon us, my friends! Behold the true face of the Stranger, he who has come to thwart the will of the Gods!”

  “Kill the Stranger!” someone shouted, and others took up the chant. “Kill the Stranger! Kill the Stranger!”

  Overhead, the clouds grew darker, roiling and churning as if a terrible ocean had formed in the heavens. Lightning flared deep within the tempest, like spotlights glowing in a thick fog. Thunder rumbled, muffled by the threatening black and gray mass.

  “Why not tell them the truth, Old One?” John called out. “Tell them who they’ve been blindly following these past weeks. Or are you afraid?”

  “I don’t fear you, farmer.” Christian waved one hand and a heavy wind sprang up, pushing John back several steps before he caught his balance. Around them, papers tumbled through the air and cups flew from counters.

  “Kill him!” the crowd intoned.

  “He is the Stranger!” John pointed back at Christian, and the gale died to a stiff breeze. “He goes by many names. Chaos. Trickster. Loki. He is Coyote, Fox, and Raven. He is known throughout—”

  A flash of lighting, bright as a miniature sun and cannon-loud, detonated behind John, blowing a hot dog stand into wooden shrapnel that sent several bystanders to the ground screaming in pain
. Untouched, John continued speaking to the crowd.

  “—He is known throughout the world as the Great Liar. Amaguq, Kupua, Kokopelli, Jacob, and Seth. Huehuecoyotl, Anansi, and Bamapana. Juha, Gwydion, and Veles. He is all those and more. Since the dawn of time—”

  “ENOUGH!” People cried out and covered their ears as Christian’s voice roared from every speaker, every radio, every cell phone. “He calls me the Liar, but it is he who tricks you with his lies. How do we deal with liars?”

  “Kill him!” The crowd repeated it over and over. “Kill him! Kill him!”

  “Yes! In the name of Yig, Tsathoggua, and Nug, and all the Gods of K’n-Yan. Kill him now!”

  Christian stepped aside as the crowd surged toward John.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” Danni kept her voice to a whisper even though they’d already made sure they had the church to themselves.

  “Nothing happened the last time,” Mitch said, gripping the knob to Christian’s office door. It turned easily in his hand, and he pushed the door open. “See? Let’s—”

  The attack came so fast he didn’t even have time to scream. Two winged demons the size of small cats struck him, knocking him back into Danni, who cried out before grabbing one and throwing it against the wall. It bounced like a rubber toy and came at her again. Emitting a high-pitched squeal, it swiped at her with clawed hands. She ducked just in time to avoid losing part of her face, but the creature still managed to tear a clump of hair as it went past, igniting a burning pain in her scalp.

  “Get it off me!” Mitch cried, struggling to pull the second demon from his leg. Like its partner, it had a furry body and the face of a deformed toad. Danni kicked it, drawing another teeth-rattling squeal. In tandem, the two airborne monstrosities swooped down the hall and then turned around to mount another attack.

  “Watch out,” Mitch said, pulling his slingshot from his backpack. He took aim at the creatures as they began their run. There was a soft twang and something shiny struck one of the demons, which let out a horrible screech and then disappeared in a burst of black smoke.