Douglas Brant pushed a terrified Minnie through the door first, his feel fighting for purchase as the ground rolled. He had a gun to her head, and, in the other hand, a piece of paper. I pulled the mojo back, worried the gun would go off.
“I tried to do this nicely. I tried to offer you money. I tried sending a warlock to warn you. My guys were sent to scare you . . . ”
“Your guys were sent to kill me.”
He waved the paper back and forth. “Scare . . . kill . . . you say potato, I say potahto. Like I really believed they could kill you.”
“Well, with the guns and all, I think maybe you thought they could.”
“And look how wrong I was! Gareth didn’t come back either.”
“He’s not going to. He had a pressing problem.”
D.B. shook his head in confusion, but let that last comment slide. “So, we are going to do this the hard way.”
Minnie sobbed. That sound broke me. I made up my mind. I took a deep breath, and then another. I closed my eyes and focused on an image of the baby growing inside my friend. Flo was right. The priority was Minnie and the baby. Everything else could be fixed later.
“I assume that paper is for me to sign over my rights to the mountain and surrounding acreage to you?”
“Well, aren’t you the smart one? Sign it and I don’t kill her. Don’t sign it and I do kill her—and, of course, the baby.”
“I’ll sign it. Sadie, go get the paper from the evil man.” She gave me the eye. “No, you can’t bite him yet.”
Shaking her head as if to say Why the hell not, Sadie walked over to D.B. He leaned back a little and held the paper out by one corner, trying to stay away from the dog’s teeth. She took the other edge of the paper and trotted back to me. D.B. grabbed Minnie by the neck with his now free hand.
“Someone give me a pen.” Someone did. I didn’t notice who, just signed the paper and handed it back to Sadie, who trotted back to D.B. and placed it at his feet. She gave him a quick fake lunge and he almost fell backward in fear. Unfortunately, that caused him to pull on Minnie’s neck and Minnie gave a cry of pain. Sadie gave Minnie an apologetic glance and came back. I shook my finger at my dog. She looked at me, and I swear, she shrugged. I didn’t even know dogs could shrug.
“There. You have it. Now let Minnie go,” I said.
“As part of this contract, you have to abandon your house and leave the land.”
“No problem. Your warlock burned my house. Nothing to go back to.”
“Burned it?” He smiled. “Delightful. Now, I’m going to let Minnie here go slowly, and you are going to stay still or I’ll shoot her in the back. Got it?”
“Yes.”
Minnie pulled away from D.B. and staggered across the street, hurrying as she got closer, wrapping her arms around her tummy. Marc enveloped her with both arms and they held each other, gripping tight.
“Now, Ms. Springfield. I’m getting into my truck right there and you are going to let me go.”
“Why on Earth should I do that?”
“Because I planted a bomb in this diner and I’ll blow everyone to hell if you don’t.”
D.B. held up the detonator, which had been clipped to his belt. I hadn’t even noticed it. He backpedaled all the way to his truck, got in, and drove away with the detonator and his thumb where we could all see it.
When his taillights faded out of sight, whispers about the bomb flittered through the crowd. Flo nudged me with her elbow. “We need to remove that explosive.”
“I know. Let’s go look. Everybody else stay back.”
We tiptoed into the diner and peeked in. D.B. wasn’t lying. There was a small device sitting on the counter.
We walked in close to the bomb, my heart fluttering in my chest. Flo turned the water on in a nearby commercial sink, letting it gush full blast, and gathered her power. The water flowed in a beautiful wave over to the explosive and completely encased it inside a dense water bubble. She floated the water-enclosed bomb toward the door. I shut off the flowing sink and opened the door for her and the bomb. Flo was drenched with sweat from the effort of using both air and water magic. She jerked her head toward a patch of dry scrub.
Suddenly understanding, I ran ahead and opened a hole in the ground several hundred feet deep. Flo dropped the water-encased bomb in and I moved dirt to fill in the empty space. There was an eerie moment of silence and then a concussive blast rose and rippled across the surface. Storefront windows shook. Car alarms shrieked. I’m pretty sure a tree house fell down and a swing set collapsed in the neighborhood park, but no one was injured. Flo and I sank to the ground, exhausted.
Minnie waddled over. “Oh, Holly, thank you! I was so scared for my baby.”
Marc joined her and so did about three dozen other town citizens, all thanking us for saving Minnie and the buildings.
“But Holly,” said Minnie. “You gave up the mountain rights. You’ve lost your land.”
“Don’t worry about that. All that matters is that you’re safe.”
Both dogs grunted their assent. Gimli gave Minnie’s hand a lick.
“You want food, don’t you, big guy? Well, a hamburger for you seems fair. Sadie?”
Sadie’s tongue lolled out.
“I guess so. Anyone else hungry?”
The entire town crowded into the diner. My dogs enjoyed some treats. I finally moved to a corner chair and dozed. Tomorrow, I was getting my land back.
The earthmovers and men in hard hats started at sunrise, roaming my land with impunity, poking here and prodding there as if the Earth had no feelings. I hid in plain sight with the Earth’s arms wrapped around me. True camouflage. The workers could have bumped into me, of course, but that didn’t happen.
Before leaving Flo’s, I had checked the town’s bylaws to make sure I remembered an obscure town statute correctly. That was my ace.
Several men had gathered a few yards yonder. Douglas Brant was with them, his back to me. Looking at him made my heart pound in my ears, and my hands itched to reach out with my magic and drop him into a hole too. But I didn’t. No matter how vile he was, I didn’t want to risk harming the men that worked for him. They had done nothing except their jobs.
The men were planning where to dig and were trying to understand the density of the soil and rock beneath them. That gave me an idea.
I touched the ground and asked the stones, boulders, and even the pebbles to rise to the surface, and asked the Earth to harden Her shell. Some rocks spoke back, explaining that if they moved, the mountain would become unstable. Those stayed where they were, but others travelled up and lay down in a several-foot layer right under the surface. At my request, the Earth moved the silver veins deeper toward the center of the mountain.
The Earth’s movements caused the mountain to shake and roll. Several of the men lost their balance, even though we were nowhere near the steepest part of the mountain’s incline. The tremors continued for several minutes as the entire internal configuration of the mountain changed. Men struggled to hold machines in place, but despite their efforts at least two earthmovers rolled backward down the mountain slope, then tipped over the sides, enormous booms announcing their inevitable acquiesce to gravity. One man, charging after a machine, almost followed it into a crevasse, but a co-worker grabbed his shirt in time.
Shouts reverberated across the mountain and valley below. When the tremors stopped, men struggled to their feet and got their wits about them.
“What the fuck was that?”
“We don’t get earthquakes here!”
“The hell with this!”
The foreman said, “Mr. Brant, we can’t stay up here with active tremors. We have to evacuate and get some engineers out here to double check the stability of the mountain.” Then he turned and said, “Collect only necessary gear and move out!”
The men jumped into their vehicles and skedaddled down the mountain, taking the switchbacks a little too fast. When a few of them glanced behind, I gave the mo
untain a little shake to convince them to keep going.
Douglas Brant was soon the only one standing there. He looked around him in fury.
“I know you are here, witch,” he shouted.
I released the camouflage and stepped forward where he could see me. He was above me, about twenty-five feet up the mountain.
“You stole my mountain. And my land.”
“Stole? Naw, I used extreme measures to procure it, but you signed. You gave it to me.”
“You threatened lives. Minnie’s and then the whole town’s with that bomb.”
“In the end, it doesn’t matter, Ms. Springfield. I have the signed document and it is filed with the county clerk, nice and proper. You can’t prove anything.”
“I have dozens of eyewitnesses.”
“Who will tell their stories to Judge Glenn, the most rampant anti-witch, wizard, and Fae man I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.”
“Who gets the land if you die?” I said through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“Did you already deed the land to next of kin?”
His eyes narrowed.
“The law says that the land reverts to the previous owner if the death comes within forty-eight hours of sale without a designated heir. I, of course, would be expected to return the money that you paid me to your business or family, but since you paid me nothing, that isn’t a problem.”
Dougie-boy’s eyebrows shot up as he realized that he was in trouble. There was no one else around, no backup.
I sank his feet into the dirt about six inches. Eyes wide, he pulled his feet free and jigged to the side. As he did so, he fell to his knees. The sharp jolt to the knees was minor, but it reminded me of the price I would pay for causing a death. The warlock’s death still lived in my mind.
“Okay,” he said, voice quavering. “You win. I see your point. There’s nothing to keep you from killing me. I’ll give you back the land. We’ll go down the mountain together. We’ll go to the county clerk’s office and I’ll re-deed it back to you. No need to get crazy.”
I didn’t trust him but I was hoping not to kill him. “Exactly my thought, Douglas. Glad you can see reason.”
I took careful steps toward the one remaining Jeep. Douglas mimicked my actions and did the same. We both got in at the same time, with him in the driver’s seat. I didn’t like that he was in control of the vehicle but he had the keys. I would rather have walked, using magic to make good time, but I wasn’t letting D.B. out of my sight.
We drove the switchbacks at a steady but safe pace. As repugnant as he was, it seemed like D.B. was going to play ball on this one. We could get out of this with no more deaths.
I was mulling this over when we accelerated. D.B. shoved me out as we hit a hairpin turn smack in the middle of the mountain. The momentum threw me out of the vehicle before I could grab hold of the Earth and I flew downward, hitting the ground with a thunk, rolling and rolling until I stopped. My right side hurt like hell, particularly my right wrist and elbow that took the brunt of the fall. It all happened so fast I hadn’t tried to even grab Air.
I saw the Jeep on the escarpments above me, taking an alternate road to leave me as far behind as possible.
That was it. The last straw.
Asking the Earth for help, I staggered forward. I called Air to push me and bounded across the mountain like a man on the moon. I stopped right in front of him, only a few yards away, and then reached down and rippled the Earth like I was shaking out a long carpet. The ripples jostled the Jeep, toppling it over, and destabilized several larger rocks from above, which came raining down on our position. One of them hit D.B. a glancing blow on the head. That hurt us both. He was bleeding now and his left leg was pinned under the car.
Ignoring the throbbing in my head and the pressure in my leg, I said, “Douglas Brant! I find you guilty of sins against the Earth, humans, and witches. For that, the punishment is death.” I gestured toward rocks higher up the mountain and they pelted down. D.B. looked up one time, hid his head with his right arm, and was swallowed by a hell storm of igneous badness.
I fell to my knees with the pain.
Sharp, pounding hits on the head.
Crushing weight.
Heart hammering, agony and shock.
Gasping, begging for breath.
One final hit.
Then, finally, blackness.
I was shaking hard and barely conscious when I heard a huge crack. I scrambled back in time to see a pine tree fall on top of the rocks with a resounding crash. The Earth yawned and swallowed Jeep, rocks, and man. The tree lay on top like a grave marker.
I touched the Earth. She seemed settled. Creaking and groaning, but satisfied. I whispered a word of thanks and limped back down the mountain, aching from injuries no one could see.
I took it easy and didn’t ask any more help of the Earth. While I had sent the rocks to plummet down on D.B.’s head, I hadn’t made the tree fall or caused the Earth to gulp him down. She did that on Her own.
It’s not nice to mess with an earth witch, but Mother Nature is a true bitch.
J.D. Blackrose loves all things storytelling and celebrates great writing by posting about it on her website, slipperywords.com.
When not writing, Blackrose lives with three children, an enormous orange cat, her husband and a full-time job in corporate communications. She’s fearful that so-called normal people will discover exactly how often she thinks about wicked fairies, nasty wizards, homicidal elevators, treacherous forests, and the odd murder, even when she is supposed to be having coffee with a friend or cheering her daughter on during a soccer game. As a survival tactic, she has mastered the art of looking interested.
J.D. Blackrose is the fantasy and dark fiction pen name for Joelle M. Reizes
sliperywords.com
@JReizes
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A Mother’s Fury
by
C.W. Blackwell
Cora was screaming.
Jeanie was the first to react. She threw off the wool blanket and curled her left arm around the girl with her bowie knife raised in the other hand like some Abrahamic parable. She shushed the girl and patted her forehead and kissed her behind the ear.
“It’s all right,” she breathed, searching Cora’s small form in the pre-dawn light. “Tell Mommy what’s wrong.”
Joe was on his knees with the Beretta cupped in both hands, blinking away the numbness of sleep. He sat that way until Cora settled into sort of a weeping pant and then he rose stiffly to his left leg. His prosthetic struggled for a grip on the leaf-littered aluminum roof.
A cluster of pine needles was in the folds of Cora’s sleeping bag and she was pointing at it with her finger trembling.
“Get it off, Mommy,” she managed with halting breath. Jeanie scooped it with the knife and flung it aside.
“Those pine needles aren’t gonna hurt you,” she said. “We’re safe up here.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart.”
They had camped atop the canopy of an eight-pump ARCO station and built a small fire that was more for reassurance than for warmth. The fire had sunk to a mound of ash and the sun was still just a foggy rumor in the eastern hills. Joe walked the perimeter of the pump canopy, peering onto the road at the minivan below. The windows of the minivan were intact. The ladder they had set across the chasm between the minimart and the pump canopy was still stored safely where they’d hauled it up for security. He watched a fat raccoon growl and chitter across the road with two juveniles close behind and then disappear into the bushes.
Cora was still breathing hard.
“Everything’s okay,” said Joe. He tucked the Beretta in his pants. “Not more than fifteen minutes till sunrise.”
“How long till the desert?” asked Cora, wiping her tears.
“Tomorrow,” said Jeanie.
“So one more night?”
“Yes.”
The
y ate a bag of stale tortilla chips and waited until the sun cleared the trees before they crawled over the ladder to the roof of the minimart. When they got across, Joe pulled the ladder and winked at Cora and kissed her on the head. But he turned to Jeanie with a worried look and tapped on the side of the ladder. There was a spiral mark around the ladder’s frame as if a vine had probed it while they slept. Jeanie rubbed at it with her fingertips and then shook her head.
“It’s growing higher,” she said grimly.
Joe nodded and then lowered the ladder to the ground.
They sat in the minivan for a moment with Joe turning the stereo knob, but there was only static. Jeanie and Cora were buckled in the bench seat with a blanket tucked around them waiting for the heater to warm up.
Joe thumbed the knob and killed the static.
“I’m gonna take a look around the gas station before we leave.”
Jeanie’s eyes were like stones. “We have enough,” she said. “Just drive.”
“We have enough to get there. Who knows what kind of setup Vernon has, or how many folks he’s taken in already.”
Jeanie looked out the window and pressed her hand against the glass. There were wavy marks that ran up the dusty surface from the outside. Cora was lying in her lap, her curly hair blooming from the folds of the blanket.
“Fine,” she said. “Be quick though.”
“I’ll leave the van running,” said Joe.
The door to the minimart was propped open with a garbage can. When he entered, he found the shelves toppled over and the floor littered with crushed bags of junk food and lottery tickets. The coolers had been emptied of beer and wine, but he found a few unbroken bottles of tea and diet soda and he stuffed those in a pillowcase. There was a package of juice boxes, and he threw those in too. He found a quart of milk, twisted off the top and gave it a sniff. He winced, turned it over and a glugged a gooey stream onto the linoleum.
Beyond the cash register was a door that led to an auto repair bay. There were a few cars lined up with their wheels lying flat on the shop floor. Joe rummaged through the toolboxes that were lined against the wall and slid a crowbar and a ten-inch flathead screwdriver into the pillowcase. He found a case of cigarette lighters and threw that in too.
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