by Ward Parker
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. I was paid to.”
“I mean, why are you practicing black magic? From what I gather, you were a benevolent witch when you were married to Ted. What made you turn evil?”
“You’re not the first daughter who thought her mother was evil.”
“You are evil. You practice black magic and summon demons.”
Ophelia cackled and then broke into coughing. “If you only knew the half of it.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why did you turn evil?”
“Power. There’s so much more of it when you turn to the black. Your father was getting all the limelight and respect. I was tired of playing second fiddle to him. And I wanted to punish him for making me feel that way.”
“Did you have anything to do with his death?” Missy asked.
Ophelia waved the hand with the cigarette dismissively. “Our divorce was well behind us when he died. I had no reason to want him dead.”
Missy thought she was too proud to ask her next question, but she couldn’t fight the urge.
“Why didn’t you take custody of me when Ted died?”
“The Magic Guild of San Marcos wouldn’t allow it. They banished me from the area because of my sorcery and they completely ruled out you coming to me.”
“But you did ask to have me?”
“Well, sort of. Maybe.”
Missy didn’t know why she was foolish enough to hope to get an admission of love from this woman.
“I’m not here to litigate our lack of a relationship and the fact I grew up believing I was an orphan,” Missy said. “I’m here to convince you to break the spell and free the demon from possessing the gnomes.”
“It’s not for you to decide. I can’t end this prematurely unless my client asks me to.”
“I spoke to him and he seems worried about his legal liability for the people who died.”
“He doesn’t need to worry,” Ophelia said. “The criminal code has no mention of deaths or property damage indirectly caused by spells. Now, back in Salem, Massachusetts, in the sixteen hundreds, that was when spells could get you in deep legal doo-doo.”
“Please, just break the spell, okay? This has gone too far. They’ve killed an innocent police officer. And they’ve started coming after me.”
“My client still owes me one third of my fee, payable upon completion.”
“Call him. Now.”
Ophelia turned her attention back to the television. “Jeopardy’s on now.”
Missy found Frank’s number and called him on her own phone.
“Frank, I’m here with the sorceress you hired for your gnome project. Tell her to end it.”
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s time,” he said.
Missy wasn’t having any of this nonsense. “We already spoke about this. The gnomes haven’t been ‘liberated’ to run off and live in the forest. They’re marauding through town, killing innocent people. Including a cop. You could go to jail for this.”
“I don’t think I can,” Frank said.
“He can’t,” Ophelia said.
“You can,” Missy said. “I’ll make sure of it. Tell her. Now.”
She handed her phone to her mother, who listened, then said, “I will when you transfer me the rest of my fee. Yes, send it there. Good.”
She returned the phone to Missy and turned her attention to the TV.
Great, Missy thought, now I have to wait how long for Frank to get around to transferring the cash?
“Did he say he would do it right away?” Missy asked.
Her mother nodded.
“Can you check your account?”
“During the next commercial.”
Missy sat and watched the game show until a commercial for incontinence panties came on. Her mother reached for her phone, in a garish, black-leather case with evil-looking runes on its cover, and checked her email. She slapped the phone case closed.
“It’s there,” she said.
“Do you need the original gnome to do this?” Missy asked. “Jack the ogre brought it with him.”
“It’s not necessary, but it’ll make the process easier. The gnome is in his van.”
“I didn’t see it in there. Are you sure?”
Ophelia nodded. “Look in the back.”
“We need to talk about Jack next. He works for the Arch-Mage of San Marcos. You can’t keep him enslaved.”
Missy went out through the front door. It was dark outside now. She remembered she needed to text Matt before he called the police.
“Things are going okay so far,” she typed and sent it.
When she opened the rear doors of the van, the interior light revealed the gnome upside-down on the floor. She placed it on the ground, closed the doors, and—
An explosion of light blinded her. Then a rush of wind tossed her in the air. She landed on the roof of the van.
Through her shock, she realized her mother was attacking her. She probably hadn’t taken well to Missy giving her commands. What else should she expect from the mother who had abandoned her?
Another gust of wind blew Missy off the roof of the van. She landed painfully atop a pinecone in the dirt driveway.
Was this attack meant to be a scolding, or something worse? Missy renewed the protection spell around her, just in case.
A fireball arced through the sky and landed on Jack’s van, which quickly erupted in flames.
Okay, it’s something worse, Missy thought as she scrambled away from the van. Just before the gas tank exploded.
24
Witch vs. Sorceress
Missy had never fought true black magic before. And she needed to learn quickly how to do it. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much in the way of offensive capabilities.
She had to get face to face with her mother. So she marched toward the front door.
And was met by a thick stream of hot, foul-smelling liquid. She jumped out of the way and took shelter behind an abandoned washing machine. Her skin burned where the liquid had hit it, but it didn’t scald her. The liquid smelled like . . . pee? Oh, my, this is awful, she thought. Who or what produced a stream of pee at fire-hose volume?
Another stream hit the washer almost hard enough to knock it over. She darted into the woods and circled around the house to find a better way in.
Something landed on top of her head and slowly slid down over her left ear. It was gooey and smelled like rotten eggs. More glops rained down upon her, coating her with the thick, slimy, foul-smelling substance.
So this is the arsenal of black magicians? Disgusting stuff? Evil sorcerers want to make you barf before they kill you?
She moved again through the woods and soon escaped the rain of goo. Now she was behind the house. Jack was still raking the lawn even though it was fully dark. She wondered if she could free him from her mother’s enslavement. Unfortunately, Missy didn’t know what kind of spell bound him.
She crouched in the underbrush and probed Jack for magic. She found a structure of magic, assembled with pieces of hate, fear, envy, and other negative emotions, somehow woven together into a skullcap enclosing Jack’s brain. Many of his mental functions seemed to have been shut down. It was as if he had undergone a lobotomy. Her mother must have given him mental commands that made him docile.
Missy plotted how she could disable or destroy this skull cap and free Jack’s mind. She could definitely use his help in subduing Ophelia.
She probed Jack’s mind, studying the woven cords of misery that entrapped it. She didn’t have the power or ability to remove the skull cap. She could tell it was constructed through complicated black magic that she didn’t understand and couldn’t overcome. But she believed she could weaken it.
She found a cord made from the negative energy of envy. Jack didn’t seem like the kind of character who envied others much. He seemed quite the confident, self-satisfied ogre. Sure enough, this cord made of envy felt weak.
It was
time to use her secret weapon. In her pocket she had the Red Dragon talisman. It didn’t give her superpowers, but it enhanced her natural magick abilities and strengthened her authority when using spells to command sentient beings. Using it took a toll on her and it attracted the attention of powerful magicians, so she used it only rarely, such as now as she grasped it in her left hand.
As if electrocuted, her hand tingled and a current of fire ran up her arm, reached her heart, and warmed her all over. Her face flushed and her hair stood on end.
The talisman alone wouldn’t break her mother’s spell that enslaved Jack. It could only enhance the spells she knew how to cast. It could only heighten the energies already within her and that she drew from the air, earth, fire, and sea. But it would be enough.
“Banish all envy,” she called to Jack as he raked leaves in the dark.
She concentrated on her mental image of the cord made of envy that was part of the magical skull cap that trapped Jack’s brain.
The cord strained. With her mind, she pulled on it. And being the weakest of all the cords of negativity, it snapped.
She tugged at a severed end of the cord. And soon the woven skull cap loosened and came apart. The cap that kept Jack enslaved while Ophelia went about her daily life, attentions focused elsewhere, was ruined.
“Jack!” Missy called, as loudly as she dared.
Jack’s face had an intelligent expression again. His eyes found her and showed recognition.
Missy left the woods and walked toward him.
“Help me subdue that evil old lady,” she said.
A curtain twitched in a rear window of the house. Suddenly, Jack spasmed and dropped to his knees. He looked up at Missy with anger in his eyes.
“Oh, my,” Missy said. She stopped walking.
And Jack got to his feet and ran towards her, brandishing his rake.
Missy sprinted back into the woods. Her mother must have sensed the spell over Jack had been broken and was now controlling him directly with another force of black magic.
This, Missy thought, was not good.
She pushed through the underbrush, getting snagged on some thorny vines. The crunching of sticks came right behind her.
She turned and ducked, just as the rake whipped across her inches from her face. It was a heavy-duty rake, with substantial steel tines. Not the kind of rake you wanted to be hit by.
She freed herself from the vine and ran through a cluster of saw palmetto bushes, pushing through their fans of leaves and thick stalks. Yet the rake snagged the back of her blouse and yanked her backwards. She landed on her back among the palmettos.
Jack stood above her, his face the bright green of ogre fury. He thrust the butt of the rake down toward her chest.
She rolled away just in time to miss it. As Jack tried to recover his balance, she kicked with both feet and knocked the rake from his hands.
What was the fastest spell she could cast to slow him down?
She scrambled away, putting an oak tree between her and Jack. Holding the talisman, she frantically recited the words of a sleeping spell. It wouldn’t knock him out, but it would make him slow and groggy.
Jack’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he dropped to the ground. Wow, it did knock him out. He must have been seriously sleep deprived while forced to labor for Ophelia. The spell wouldn’t last long, however, especially if her mother tried to rouse him magically.
Time for a binding spell, one of the sharper arrows in Missy’s quiver. To ensure efficacy, she knelt and drew a circle around her in the dirt with her hand. She harnessed her energies, recited the Latin words, and grasped the talisman for maximum effect.
Jack stiffened and lay rigid on the ground.
This spell, too, could probably be broken by Ophelia’s black magic, so Missy had to hurry. She ran through the woods toward the house. A loud buzzing came from up ahead. It sounded like a propeller airplane flying right at her, but she kept running.
And was met by a mosquito. A giant mosquito landing in front of her.
Florida is known for mosquitoes. They’re all very hungry and many are large. But this was a really, freaking enormous skeeter, towering ten feet above her on legs as thick as tree limbs. Its proboscis was easily six or seven feet long. It beat its wings, making the leaves of the forest rustle. It hovered in the air and moved toward her.
No amount of DEET in the world would stop this mosquito.
This was one of those times that Missy wished her ethics weren’t so pure and that she wasn’t above using dirty magic now and then. Even a bit of black magic. It would come in handy right now. But at the moment, all she could think to do was run away.
Normally, humans are the lumbering giants swatting ineffectively at the tiny, nimble mosquitos. Now it was the other way around. By squeezing through dense clumps of trees, she kept the giant insect unable to stab her with its spear.
She had to admit she was impressed by her mother’s skill and power. It was hard to imagine how she could turn an ordinary mosquito into this colossal monstrosity. Black magic was deadlier than Missy had realized.
Buzzing more loudly than an airboat, the mosquito swooped down on her through a gap in the trees. She had reengaged her protection spell, but somehow the proboscis cut through it like a needle through cloth. She tried to dodge it, but it still sliced through the flesh on the back of her right arm. After the burning pain came the familiar itch of a mosquito bite. But this was a hundred times more intense.
She ran toward another dense grouping of trees. How had it penetrated the bubble of her protection spell? And how had Jack when he attacked her?
It was her mother’s black magic. It was too powerful. Missy fought the growing feeling of despair.
And her arm itched so badly she wanted to cut it off.
While the monster mosquito attempted to get to her through the trees that blocked its way, she strengthened her protection spell around her. But she wasn’t optimistic it would be powerful enough. She looked at the creature's black-bubble insect eyes, the large, ugly hairs on its face, and the twitching mandibles beneath its deadly spear of a proboscis. She wracked her brain to think of a weapon she could use against it. If it pricked her again, it could drain her of blood in seconds.
Some of her blood was already in the monster's stomach. That gave her an idea.
Blood magick.
Many witches used blood in spell casting. The vital fluid was tied to a person's spirit, giving extra potency to spells. Missy occasionally used drops of her own blood in spells and potions. Black magicians used the blood of others.
The monster mosquito broke the trunks of two saplings, then hovered above them to move closer to her. Though a couple more trees blocked the insect's path, she was almost in reach of its sipping straw. it was close enough that the many discs of its compound eyes were visible, reflecting her image.
Dinner was almost served, the creature was probably thinking.
Missy used her spiritual bond with her own blood to form a psychic link with it as she carefully built the spell. She prayed that there was still enough of her blood in the monster's stomach.
Another tree broke with a loud crack. The mosquito lunged at her and she had to dodge the point of the spear. The insect now used the combined force of its beating wings and its hind legs pushing against the ground to get even closer. Somehow, it had maneuvered her against the trees behind her, so she couldn't back up. She could only escape to the side, making her easy pickings for the proboscis.
Her heart pounding, she finished saying the words and grasped the Red Dragon talisman. Heat built within her torso and she directed it outwards, toward the blood that had been taken from her. She focused it on this blood, in the beast's belly, and unleashed all the power she had generated.
To make her stolen blood boil.
The mosquito stopped its forward motion. It jerked its head from side to side while twitching its lower abdomen. Its wings beat furiously as it tried to escape its agony.
<
br /> Until goo began pouring from its lower segment in a cloud of steam. The wings stopped beating, the propeller-engine roar ceased. And a tiny cry came from the creature.
Its abdomen broke apart, and the insect fell to the forest floor in two pieces, steam still rising from it. The wings collapsed, and it became yet another husk of a dead insect we barely notice. Except this one was the size of a Winnebago.
Missy crept closer to it, making sure it was dead. She felt the evil magic fade away. Soon, the body itself shrank, slowly and barely perceptibly. Within a few minutes it became the size of a normal mosquito. She could see it only when she shined her phone light upon it, a tiny speck upon a philodendron leaf.
Did her mother know her creation had been destroyed? Missy braced herself for another attack.
She saw by her watch that it was 8:00 p.m. A new television program would be starting. Hopefully Ophelia was engrossed in some must-see TV show.
Missy carefully walked through the woods back to the lawn. She passed Jack, still unconscious and rigid, bound by her spell. She made sure he was breathing. All good.
She reached the edge of the woods and waited. Would she be attacked by a giant firefly? Or a swarm of demonically enhanced no-see-ums? The tiny, biting gnats were hellish under normal conditions. Under black magic they would be the death of her. But they didn’t come.
She walked into the yard. The house was ablaze with light. From it came the cranked-up television sounds of studio applause and laughter. This was the calm before the proverbial storm. Missy grasped the Red Dragon and strengthened her protection spell—not that it had helped her much lately.
A door with peeling paint in the house’s rear was unlocked. She opened it and went inside.
25
Make Me
Missy walked through the unlocked door to a mudroom, then into the kitchen. An opened carton from a frozen dinner lay on the counter. The TV blared from the other room. The living room was dimly lit by only one lamp. A talent show of some sort was on the screen. Her mother’s chair was empty. The table beside it held the cleaned-out plastic tray from the frozen dinner, crumpled beer cans, and the overflowing ashtray.
