The Elder Witches

by R.E. Packer

  Chapter 17

  Maeve and Eros listened as we told them what had happened at Blue Ridge Excavating, aka the US governments occult hit squad. We told them about the guns loaded for vampire (and witches). Maeve listened with uncharacteristic patience, not interrupting once.

  “Vivian is much stronger than anyone in the coven knew,” Gwen said.

  “— Or stronger than they let on,” Maeve said from the driver seat.

  “She said she was more powerful now. That he had made her that way,” Gwen said, leaning forward to glace at Eros who rode shotgun, mainly because of his size.

  Eros had stayed quiet but I knew he was keenly listening.

  “And now she has a government agency, with near unlimited resources, to play her mind games on. Also, what’s the deal with the shape shifters? Were they werewolves?” Maeve continued.

  “Could be” Gwen said, “they didn’t fully change into anything, so maybe they’re a mutation of some sort.”

  “Wait,” I interjected. “Werewolves?”

  Maeve gave me a look she reserved for slow children and apparently me. “What you were okay with witches and vampires but not werewolves?”

  “Weres can be troublesome creatures,” Eros said. “Were elves are something I hope to never encounter again.”

  All eyes were on Eros, even Maeve took here eyes from the road to give a look of stunned astonishment.

  “Why do you all look at me?,” he said. “They have a fantastic cleverness and dexterity combined with bloodlust.”

  “I never thought I’d say it but lets hope we are dealing with human weres. We have no way of knowing exactly what they are but we saw the guard in the lobby partially change and the others were tracking us by scent.” Gwen said.

  I noticed how tired she looked, dark half circles under her eyes gave her a gaunt look. Using that much magic takes a huge toll on a person and she hadn’t had a chance to recharge yet.

  “This serum is a huge threat to us—”

  “Understatement of the millennia,” Maeve said.

  “I don’t want to go to war with the US government but we cannot allow them to continue production of the serum. They seem to know too much about us and Vivian is not the meek witch she was.” Gwen looked out the window as she spoke, seemingly talking to herself.

  We rode in relative silence back to the mansion. We were a few blocks away when Gwen’s phone rang. The call didn’t last long, and she didn’t seem to be able to get a word in, until finally saying we were on the way.

  “It was Hillary from the bookstore, Marianna is badly hurt. It sounded like soldiers attacked them at the bookstore.”

  Maeve mashed the gas pedal, tires screeched as all four tires fought for traction. Her driving as we headed to the bookstore would have made a cab driver proud. Even hardened urban hikers yielded to her.

  Skidding to a stop outside the book store without bothering to find a proper parking space we ran inside. Hillary was on her knees, hands pressed to her face. Her thin frame shoot as she sobbed uncontrollably.

  “Why would they do this?”

  She was holding hands with what must have been Mariana. It reminded me of the mummies I saw in a wax museum once and I had a hard time believing this was the same person I had just seen a few hours before. I recognized the business suit as the one Marianna had been wearing earlier that day. There were multiple darts sticking out the corpse. More darts were scattered around Hillary, and there were drops of dried blood surrounded by angry red welts visible on her arms and neck.

  Gwen had moved closer and bent over to get a better look at the corpse. She leaned even closer to look at the darts laying next to it.

  “Wait,” I said quickly, “don’t touch the darts, that has to be the serum.”

  She hesitated but relented, taking a small step back. “Who did this?” She said through clenched teeth.

  “I— I don’t know,” Hillary said, “They were dressed like soldiers, they came through the front door and started shooting at both of us with those darts, they didn’t try to ask questions they just started shooting.” She pointed at the darts laying around them on the floor. “Should I go to the hospital, is that going to happen to me?” Panic made her voice waver. The gravity of being injected multiple times with an unknown substance sinking in as her adrenaline wore off.

  “I think your safe” I said. “If it didn’t hurt you by now it probably won’t.”

  “I guess we have our answer, if there was any doubt as to who this serum will effect,” Maeve said.

  Nobody had noticed as Eros knelt beside Marianna. He had a dart in his hands and studied it with interest. “Your enemies have help from a wizard.”

  “He’s right,” Gwen said taking a closer look.

  Like he was helping a child, he took hold of my hand and said, “Look at it in the magical realm. Do you see it?”

  Doing as he suggested I used my Sight to look at the serum in the dart. It had a black sinewy movement that glowed as it moved around the vial. It reminded me of the gremlin I removed from Eros. It seemed like weeks ago, but only hours had passed.

  Without warning, the front door of the store that had already been precariously hanging by one hinge flew completely off, nearly missing Maeve as she was closest to the entryway. Soldiers holding the modified machine guns rounded the corner dressed in full combat gear.

  Gwen didn’t hesitate, ice was already filling the doorway as they charged through, crouching low. The nearest solider took aim as the ice encapsulated him, but the ice froze his gun in place with his trigger finger only partially depressed.

  The rest of the soldiers tried to back out, but any who were touching the ice were glued in place, unable to move, until seconds later when the ice wrapped around them completely stopping all movement.

  Gwen went to the door and took a marker out of her pocket. She drew a box on the floor about twice as wide as the doorway, right inside the door resembling a big door mat. Trotting over to the jars behind the counter she got a handful of what looked like brown dust. Sprinkling the dust, that I doubted was actually dust, around the inside of the box she then put her hand on the floor and closed her eyes. The floor shimmered before going back to normal.

  “We should be going,” I said, “What do you want to do with Marianna?” I asked.

  “We will protect her here until we can safely return. Maeve help me please.”

  “God’s save me, I will burn those bastards down for this,” she said. Her green eyes were glassy with tears but her face showed every bit of truth she spoke.

  They drew three circles around the mummified body, working quickly. Gwen closed her eyes sending her aura into the circle, a winged beast flashed in the circle over Mariana’s body. Next Maeve repeated the steps in the second circle, once again a flash then it was gone. Finally they both held hands and placing their free hand in the farthest most outer circle.

  Eros was also watching and giving me the play by play. How he knew, I wasn’t sure but he seemed to know a lot of what the sisters were doing. When they joined hands, his excitement level went up a notch but he kept his voice hushed.

  “They just joined their power into one. Their magic mixed with each others creating something much more powerful than either could have created alone,” he said.

  “I need one more thing before we go,” Maeve said. We stopped at the glass book case. Waving her hand produce a key. She didn’t actually unlock anything, she put it near the lock for a second and it popped open.

  “Neat trick,” I said.

  She grunted and thrust the book at me. “Hold on to this.”

  We hurried to the back door. Checking the security camera that showed the alley, it looked clear.

  “Maeve, please scan for any unwelcome visitors nearby,” Gwen said.

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds turning her head like she was looking far beyond the closed door. “Two blocks, a group of men on foot are moving in unison toward us. Shit, they’re all weres.”


  “Which direction are they coming from?” Gwen asked.

  “West,” she said pointing.

  After a few seconds thought, Gwen burst through the door into the alley beyond. Maeve had Hillary by the wrist, pulling her along while Eros and I brought up the rear. Gwen had a piece of chalk in her hand and was already drawing a line across the alley from the store to the building next door.

  “Gordon, go with Maeve,” Gwen said not turning her head from the task at hand.

  I promptly ignore her, pulling my .45 out of it’s holster. Hopefully these things could be stopped by regular bullets. Did I need to use silver bullets or was that just in the movies?

  Witches, I found out, learn a lot of what they know through trial and error. Intuition is really more apt as they will learn new spells easily. When a certain danger presents itself a witch (or wizard) will see things around them that can be used and usually given a few minutes will know any missing pieces for a working spell. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but like I said, this stuff just kept coming to me.

  On a hunch I took aim at the closest soldier and as I fired it looked more like a tracer round than a .45 hollow point. It smashed into the soldiers head turning it instantly to mist.

  Gwen had finished drawing some lines across the alley and drew lines on the brick buildings on both sides. When she was done it looked like a big U shape. Putting her hand on the newly drawn lines, she sent magic into them making them glow blue. More faint blue lines cobwebbed their way across the alley.

  Then from the ground they rapidly started filling the space between the two buildings. Before we turned the corner out of the alley I looked back to see men struggling to get out of the spiderweb that Gwen had created.

  “Normal bullets won’t kill a were. It will just make more noise drawing them to us,” Gwen said.

  “Apparently you didn’t see what happened to that one he shot,” Maeve said.

  “No, I missed it…”

  “The cliff notes version is he pretty much erased it’s head,” Maeve said.

  “Fantastic adaptation of the brute force weaponry and magic,” Eros said.