by Ward Parker
Great, Missy thought. Am I going to have to search the house like in a horror movie?
In a dark alcove intended to be the dining area, a table was completely covered with mason jars containing unknown substances. Missy moved past this area to the end of the house with a bathroom and two bedrooms. One room was locked, of course. That would be where Bluebeard hid his dead wives, she thought. The master bedroom was crowded with clothes overflowing from the closet as well as stacks of dusty books and ancient tomes. Many of these were black-magic grimoires.
There was no sign of her mother.
Since it was a small house, the garage was the only space she hadn’t searched. Back near the mudroom was the interior door to the garage. Missy opened the door. A small car was stuffed in here among lots of boxes. A workbench at the end held large black burning candles, mason jars, a mortar and pestle, and bags of herbs and powders. Her mother obviously made her potions out here, like Missy did in her own garage. Slight movement caught her eye in a darkened corner.
Her mother hung lifeless from a rope tied to the ceiling.
“Ophelia!” she cried, unable to call her ‘mother’ even in tragedy. She ran to the corner.
Her mother hung unmoving, her face purple and contorted. A noose bit into her neck, partly hidden by her double chin.
Why did she kill herself? And why did she have to do it when I was here? Missy wondered bitterly.
When she reached for her mother’s wrist to check her pulse, her mother disappeared. The body was gone, the rope was gone. Missy stared, shocked, into the empty corner.
“Pretty good, huh?” her mother’s voice said behind her.
Missy jumped and turned around. Her mother was sitting on a stool by the workbench.
“Apparitions are a hobby of mine,” she said. “Just a hobby, because there’s no market for them, except during Halloween, and even then, no one is willing to pay much.”
“Why did you do that?” Missy asked.
“Wanted to see how you’d react. I’m glad you didn’t clap your hands in joy.”
“I should have. You tried to kill me through Jack and the giant mosquito.”
“I believed you’d find a way to beat them. And you did. But I got to say your protection spell has lots of flaws. You need to work on that.”
“Thanks for your concern.”
“I hear you’ve taken a big leap forward in the magic business,” Ophelia said.
“It’s not a business for me. I would never hire myself out like you do.”
Her mother smiled sarcastically. “We’ll see, we’ll see. I hear you have your father’s grimoire now. Don’t play dumb, I know you have it.”
“How did you find out?”
“Word gets around. You know, I wanted that book. Not because of the spells—they’re all about healing and stupid goody-goody stuff like that—but because it would have fetched a hefty price. But that smug Arch-Mage Bob stole it before I could get there. I’m glad you stole it back.”
“It was rightfully mine,” Missy said. “Ted left me a letter bequeathing it to me.”
“Whatever,” her mother waved a hand in dismissal. She lit a cigarette.
“Can you please break the possession spell on the gnomes now? And free Jack?”
“Jack’s gonna cost you some ransom money. Maybe Bob will reimburse you to get his hound dog back.”
“Let’s focus on the gnomes first. I ask you again, please break the spell. Your client released you.”
Ophelia stared at her as she took a big drag of her cigarette. What was the evil sorceress plotting? She was clearly reluctant to give up her bargaining chip.
“Make me,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Missy asked.
“Make me. I’ll break the spell straight away after you force me to. Let’s see if your stupid white magick can do anything useful. You don’t summon demons; you don’t like inflicting pain and suffering. How could you possibly force me to do what you want?”
Actually, it was a good question. How could her magick force a person to do something against their will?
She had the Red Dragon talisman, which had the power to compel obedience, but she didn’t want her mother to know she possessed it. That would be damaging to her health, to say the least. So what else did she have?
Smother them with sweetness popped into her head. Yeah, right.
Yeah, maybe?
Maybe not sweetness exactly. But something innocent and playful—something that her mother might have done to her when she was a baby if her mother had only stuck around.
Sweet, but cruel enough to get her way. She built the spell from scratch, using her natural telekinesis mixed with the energy that dwelled within her and the elemental energy she harvested from the world around her. She didn’t even need the Red Dragon.
She released the spell, using her telekinesis to control what she could only describe as the “magic fingers.”
Ophelia suddenly doubled over on the stool.
“What are you doing?” She began giggling. “Stop!”
She thrashed about, trying to fend off Missy’s invisible attack. The stool fell over and clattered on the garage floor. Ophelia sat on the concrete beside it.
She giggled hysterically without ceasing.
“Stop, please!” She barely had the breath to utter the words in between giggles.
The giggles turned into painful laughter.
“What are you doing to me?”
“It’s a tickle spell. What did you think it was?”
“It’s cruel. Stop!”
“It’s not hurting you, is it? It’s not black magic, I’m sure of that.”
Ophelia rolled on the ground, giggling, laughing, crying.
“I won’t stop tickling you until you command your demon to leave the gnomes now and forever. You were the summoner. You’re the only one who can do it.”
Her mother thrashed about on the floor, convulsing with laughter. Missy couldn’t deny it gave her pleasure to watch the mother who had abandoned her, the supposedly fearsome black-magic sorceress, behaving like a two-year-old.
Missy sniffed. “Oh, my, I think you peed yourself.”
“I-I-I can’t summon the demon while you’re tickling me.”
Missy paused the spell. “Do it now, or the tickling continues.”
“I hate you,” her mother said.
“I know. Now do what you have to do.”
Ophelia, still on the floor, struggled to regain her breath. She motioned for Missy to back off.
“Give me plenty of room. This is dangerous.” She coughed violently. “Got to cut down on the cigarettes.”
Ophelia took chalk from the workbench and drew a large circle around herself, like Missy often did. Only the pentagram she drew within it was upside down, its top point facing the sorceress. She placed small, black tea candles, one at each point of the pentagram, and lit them. Then she brought various materials and implements into the circle with her.
She lit a butane stove and heated a small pot which she filled with various herbs and a liquid from a mason jar, chanting all the while. Missy gasped when her mother drew a long, ceremonial dagger from its sheath, its blade curvy like a snake, and sliced into her inner forearm. Her blood dripped into the pot.
The chanting grew louder as she rocked back and forth on her knees. Oddly, she seemed younger and more muscular while she was fully engaged in her magic.
The temperature dropped several degrees in the garage. Missy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Strange noises, moans and shrieks, appeared just at the boundaries of her hearing. Something ancient and primitive in her brain told her to get the heck out of there, to get far, far from the dangerous entity that lurked just beyond this world.
“O Caorthannach, I command thee to abandon the inanimate beings you are possessing. I release you from the garden gnomes.” Ophelia suppressed a snicker, “I release you from the terrestrial plane. Return now to Hell.”
Th
e ground vibrated with a rumbling as if a freight train were passing in the backyard. Wind somehow swept through the garage, extinguishing the candles on the floor and workbench.
A piercing shriek passed through the garage like a projectile. And then it was gone.
And all was quiet.
“Is it, is it done?” Missy asked in a whisper.
“Yes. The garden gnomes are free to be garden gnomes again. Caorthannach passed through here on her way to Hell, which should be the state motto for Florida. Anyway, I don’t sense her presence on earth anymore, so let’s hope she stays in Hell.”
“Thank you. Mother.”
“Awww, sweet of you to say that.” She erupted into phlegmy coughs. “Now about that ransom for Jack. I was thinking a modest fifty grand would do the trick.”
“I’m a home health nurse. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Like I said, I’m sure Bob would reimburse you.”
“You don’t know Bob. He would say Jack was enslaved while working for me, so I’m responsible for his ransom. Once again, I don’t have fifty grand and the bank wouldn’t loan me fifty grand.”
“Forty grand.”
“I can’t pay you anything. Can’t you stop being evil for once?”
“No,” Ophelia said, “I can’t. Twenty grand. You know you’re good for it.”
“Look, keep the ogre. I don’t need him anymore and you obviously do, based on the condition of your lawn and landscaping. Goodbye, mother, hopefully we won’t meet again.”
Missy went inside and headed for the front door.
“I could enslave you, too,” her mother called after her.
Missy stopped next to the TV. She turned it off, allowing it to cool down for the first time in years.
“I can crank up the power of that tickling spell to the point of death,” Missy said. “You don’t have a defense against it. Ready to die from tickling?”
“Okay. Take the dang ogre. Just make sure he puts the rake back in the shed.”
Missy was surprised how late it was when she and Jack finally trudged down the driveway to the dirt road and walked toward her car.
Matt appeared out of the darkness.
“Finally!” he said. “I was worried about you. You sent me the text that everything was fine, but then hours went by and I haven’t heard from you.”
“Things turned out not to be so fine,” Missy said. “But now they are. Matt, this is Jack. He needs a ride to a rental car office. His van was burned to a crisp.”
“I saw the fire through the trees,” Matt said.
“And you didn’t call 911?”
“No. If you said things were fine, I wasn’t supposed to call.”
Missy shook her head. “It was probably for the best. The firefighters would have just ended up as collateral damage.”
“Did you take care of the gnome thing?” Matt asked.
“I think so. Jack had my gnome in his van. I ended up tossing him into the woods. He should be happy here. Let’s hope I never see him again.”
26
Under the Bus
Josie picked up the keys to the bus from the property management office in Building A, then she and Thelma Lou found the bus parked in the far end of the parking garage. It had last been used to ferry werewolves to a production of Cats in a nearby city. The Werewolf Women’s Club hadn’t ridden in it since their last fateful hunting trip.
“Search the interior for secret compartments,” Josie said, handing the keys to Thelma Lou. “Under the floor, under the seats, in the luggage compartments. I’ll check outside and under the bus.”
“You’ll get your outfit dirty.”
“It’s okay. It will be my second ruined outfit in two days.”
Thelma Lou climbed aboard, and Josie walked around the vehicle looking for compartments. Sometimes small buses like these had additional luggage storage below, but that didn’t seem to be the case here.
Wait—there was a panel in the lower rear. She squatted and looked for a latch. She slipped her fingers into a small gap and pulled. The panel opened. The compartment held a fire extinguisher. Nothing else.
Now came the messy part. She lay upon the oil-stained concrete floor and slid beneath the bus. Surveying the underside of the vehicle revealed nothing obvious, like a rifle strapped to the suspension. There were no box-like objects that didn’t belong. That didn’t mean it wasn’t here. Someone mechanically minded could easily have hidden it among these strange pipes and axles and struts.
A scuffling sound to her left. A pair of men’s shoes—sensible walking shoes—and the cuffs of white trousers were visible on the side of the bus. The door of the bus opened. The vehicle swayed slightly from the weight of someone climbing aboard.
Thelma Lou screamed inside.
Josie struggled to slide out from underneath the bus, bonking her head on the drive shaft. Finally, she was back on her feet. She rushed to the door.
But it was locked. And Thelma Lou had the keys. Inside came the muffled screams and grunts of a struggle. She couldn’t see anyone through the door’s glass panels or the windows of the bus—the man must have pulled Thelma Lou down into the aisle or below a seat. What was he doing to her?
The man roared in pain and bewilderment, the kind of sound associated with family jewels being damaged.
And then the terrified shriek of a woman fearing she was about to lose her life.
Josie stripped off her outfit and shifted. As soon as the transformation was complete and adrenaline flooded her wolf body, she flung herself at the door. It bulged inward and cracks spider-webbed across the glass, but it still held.
Another lunge against it and the door snapped open. She flew up the steps and saw the man atop Thelma Lou in the aisle. The man turned his head toward her.
It was Kevin. And just past them in the middle of the aisle was an open compartment. The black metal of a rifle barrel was visible inside, as were rubber waders, the kind fishermen and duck hunters wear.
“Why can’t you girls mind your own business?” Kevin asked.
And then he shifted. Josie dove into her attack before his transformation was complete.
Where his trousers split open, revealing a human leg sprouting fur and a knee in the middle of changing its shape, she sank her teeth. She chewed and tendons snapped against her tongue. She shook her head, tearing flesh, trying to separate his femur from his knee.
Kevin yelped and punched her in the back of her head. Then the jaws of a wolf clamped down on her neck.
The man in his sixties surpassed the eighty-seven-year-old woman in size and strength. In werewolf form, she was much more formidable than a human. But so was he. If she didn’t get free of his jaws, she would be finished.
She turned, exposing her belly, signaling submission. He released his hold on the back of her neck and held his jaws just above her throat, saliva dripping upon her.
Josie twisted to the side, just before his jaws came down, and grabbed his family jewels in her human-like claw. Kevin yelped and Josie skittered beneath a seat without letting go of his valuables.
Kevin raked her arm with his claws, sending blood droplets flying. He grabbed her hand-paw and tried to force it to let go.
But a snarl came from behind him. Thelma Lou had shifted. And she was very angry.
Kevin tried to face her, but Josie still had a death grip on his begonias. He snarled and sank his fangs into Josie’s arm. The pain was intense and searing. She pulled her arms from his jaws and hoped her werewolf healing powers worked quickly. Often, bites from other werewolves didn’t mend as well as normal wounds. It was something about the werewolf saliva.
Meanwhile, Thelma Lou charged into Kevin, trying to go for his throat. He managed to block her jaws with his forepaw, but his knee that Josie had damaged hadn’t yet healed. It buckled beneath him and he lost his balance, falling on the seat above Josie.
Thelma Lou dove atop him. He kicked her with his hind legs, blocking her momentum, but she stil
l managed to gouge his chest with her front claws. Blood spattered on the seat and windows.
Josie carefully slipped from beneath the seat, pressing against the wall of the bus to stay out of Kevin’s view. She grabbed each of his pointy ears with her hand-paws, held his head steady, and chomped down on his face where his muzzle met his eyes. She arched her back and tore fur and flesh from his face, then clamped down upon him again, her fangs next to his eye sockets.
Kevin yelped and whined, struggling to free himself from Josie’s grip. But Thelma Lou had got past his flailing legs. While Josie held his head, Thelma Lou found an opening and her jaws locked onto Kevin’s throat. Was she going to tear it out?
Josie barked a command to wait.
Kevin’s struggles ceased. He knew they had beaten him.
“Don’t kill me,” he said in speech thickened by his werewolf mouth, but werewolf brains have a way of compensating enough to understand the human words.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Josie asked. “You’re a murderer.”
The word “murderer” merged into an ominous growl.
Kevin had to know that intra-pack justice was swift, brutal, and absolute.
“I’ll confess to the police,” he said.
“You won’t survive in jail,” Thelma Lou said. “On the full moon you’ll be forced to shift. They’ll kill you.”
“I’ve been a werewolf long enough to fight the change on full moons so that I shift only partially. I can pretend I’m sick and hide under the covers of my cot.”
Josie didn’t fully trust him, but if he confessed it would close the cases and keep the police from sniffing around Seaweed Manor.
“You will shift back to human and call the police with your confession,” Josie said. “We’ll stay in wolf form to make sure you obey.”
Kevin shifted to his human form, some of his wounds still unhealed. Josie tossed him his clothes, which were split at the seams and weren’t going to do the job, so she found a blanket on the luggage rack and handed it to him.
