She had a brief dizzy spell as she reached the gate. Perhaps she was losing a bit more blood than was healthy. She leaned on the fence for support until the spots cleared from her eyes and gave the gate a solid push. Death was again in front of her, apparently puzzled. “Well, this is a working farm!” she said, gesturing at the fenced-off pasture with her good hand. “I can’t just let the herd go anywhere, can I?” Mrs. Morrison was gratified to learn that empty eye sockets can indeed roll.
Another dizzy spell struck her as she reached the door to her house. She forced the spots from her eyes and pressed on through the kitchen door. She reached for the cordless phone that hung on the wall, one of those large-button models that her son had given her when her cataracts began to cloud her vision, and hit the first button on speed dial. Death looked on as Mrs. Morrison listened to the phone ringing on the other end.
“Hello, Susan? Yes, dear! I’m well, but I’ve had a little bit of an accident. Do you think you could come over and—it was the chainsaw. I hurt my hand. Well, I might need stitches, but you—all right, if you insist. I really think you could put them in, though, I won’t need that many. All right, dear. I’ll see you soon. Love you, too.”
Mrs. Morrison hung up the phone and muttered through gritted teeth. “She said she was calling an ambulance. I really don’t understand why she can’t just do it herself on the table here—she is a nurse, after all.” Death gestured insistently with the hourglass. Only a few grains of sand remained. Her eyes stubbornly shot away from it, and widened when she saw the awful mess that she’d tracked right into her kitchen. The blood had finally soaked through the thick canvas jacket, and was dripping on the floor, and here and there on the walls were smears from where she’d leaned to keep her balance.
“Oh dear, this won’t do,” she said, shaking her head. “This won’t do at all!”
Mrs. Morrison took a clean dishtowel from the drawer and packed it onto the jacket. She covered it with a plastic grocery bag to keep it from dripping more, and reached for the roll of paper towels stowed neatly above the sink. “My mother would have a fit if she saw this on her spotless kitchen floor. You know her, don’t you? I assume you were there when the stroke happened.” Mrs. Morrison stopped scrubbing. “She didn’t suffer, did she? I mean, I never asked…I always assumed that it was too quick for her to even realize what was happening, but no one was there to know. So. I’m asking now.” Mrs. Morrison looked up at the apparition. “Did she suffer?”
Death stood silent for a moment, cocking his head to one side, and regarded Mrs. Morrison. Then the skeletal head moved—left, right, left, right.
Mrs. Morrison closed her eyes and exhaled. “Good. Thank you.” Death reached out to her again, but she waved him off and returned to her work on the floor. “No. Not now. I’ve done it for five years on my own, so you can wait until I’m ready.” She got to one knee to wipe a spot where her jacket must have grazed the wall, bracing herself with her left shoulder to ward off the dizzy spell. “I’ve left such a mess here, and with company on the way!”
The last few grains of sand bounced into the neck of the hourglass as the knock came at the door. “Mrs. Morrison?” a man’s voice rang through the open window. “Are you in there?”
“Come in!” she shouted, rising to her feet again. “The kitchen door’s open!” A matter of seconds later, two paramedics opened the appointed door. She recognized one as a former classmate of her son’s but couldn’t place a name to the face—John Something? Maybe James? “So I suppose my daughter called you,” she said as she lifted her arm up to show them. “I apologize for the mess, I tried to clean.” Her son’s classmate rushed to her side as his eyes went wide, and the other paramedic immediately moved to get a chair for her.
Mrs. Morrison smiled—she’d finally remembered. “Jeremy, is it? You were in my son’s graduating class.” The man nodded as he unwrapped her makeshift bandages. “So, I think I just need a few stitches. Can you do it here?” she asked. Jeremy shot a meaningful glance to the other paramedic.
Mrs. Morrison looked away from the two men for a moment as she sunk down into the kitchen chair that the paramedic had offered her. Death was still in the room, but was getting harder for her to see. The impulse to offer her own hand was strong. Her mother, the rest of her family, and her dear Felix were all there in that place of rest and refreshment she was promised, and she had the chance to join them. But here, there were grandchildren and great-grandchildren to spoil on their birthdays, and graduations and weddings to attend. There were cattle to sell and calves to raise, and no one else would clear those awful multiflora rosebushes in the western pasture. All that aside, Jeremy was trying to tell her something important, and it seemed rude to leave as he was talking to her. She pressed her lips together in a smile and slowly shook her head in the direction of the skeletal figure in the corner.
The skeletal hand now held an hourglass in which the sand was flowing upwards. Death stowed it in his voluminous black robe, and with a heavy soundless sigh, faded away.
DEATH AND THE FASHIONISTA
Faith Hunter
The sun was setting when I slipped out of the house and over to the pile of boulders jutting on the crest of the hill. Sitting on the boulders gave me a clear view of the skyline in every direction, of the mountains that arched high and the valley that fell low, bright with the lights of Asheville. Of the sickle moon rising and the few early stars glittering, of the last of the sunset in the west, a scarlet reminder of the day.
If I turned my head, I could see inside my home, the lights glimmering through the windows, my children at the table with their father. The TV’s muted laugh track sounded, stagnant and repetitive.
I ran my hands through the herbs planted around the boulders in the rock garden, releasing the scent of rosemary, basil, thyme, and chives, and pulled my ratty house sweater close against the autumn chill. Night birds called. Something crashed in the underbrush. But I was paying attention to one thing only—the forest I had killed.
I stared at the bare trees, bark sloughing off, revealing the pale wood beneath, limbs broken and pointing at the sky. Pointing at me as if in judgment. The accusation of death. Everything alive there had given itself to the pull of my new and unwanted death magics; the cursed gift had destroyed every blade of grass, every tree, vine, bird, lizard, snake, deer, squirrel. Everything.
With my native earth magics I had blessed and nursed that woods for years, bringing the trees from saplings to full grown and healthy, and then I had killed it all in a slow attrition of leaking Death. Since that time I had managed to encourage a honeysuckle vine to grow there. One vine. A few blades of scrub grass. Nothing else.
I came out here often to remind myself of the dangers of my cursed magics. To remember that if I didn’t tamp down my curse-gift, strangle it, I might kill something more precious than the woods. If I let go, I might kill my husband. My children.
The power was seductive, forbidden. With it I would curse and kill, withering the land and bringing death to the ones I loved.
I massaged my belly and the baby who resided there, a magic user of undisputed power but unidentified future abilities, and I shivered. Night in the heights of the Appalachian Mountains was cold. Or maybe fear made me tremble. That was always possible. Death and fear rode the same horse and, for witches, pregnancy came with the likelihood of peril and sorrow.
As if in answer to my thoughts, the baby kicked. At the same instant, I heard the clop of hooves, two horses, iron shoes on the asphalt road. I pulled on a seeing working. The outer ward was still active, still in place, a pale reddish ring of protection around the house and grounds. A stronger one surrounded just the house. Double wards were difficult to maintain, but with Big Evan’s and my magic combined, not impossible.
The back door opened and Angie poked out her head. “Mama!” she whispered, the word magically amplified by her will and desire. “Company’s coming.”
At her side, EJ, her little brother, stuck out his
head. “Com’pee com’n.”
They couldn’t have heard the horses’ hooves, not with the TV on, but Angie was a dangerously strong witch. The clopping grew louder. Closer. I climbed to the ground. “Who?”
“Don’t know his name,” Angie said. “But the lady is Sally.”
“Sauwee,” EJ repeated.
“My angel says she’s a ‘piece a work.’ What’s a piece a work? And he says, ‘Death is the Truth and the Lie. And Death can be cheated.’ My angel’s confusing, mama.”
Confusing. Yeah. And the warning made about as much sense as anything else ever said to me by a supposedly celestial being—which was no sense at all. I clenched my sweater tighter across my chest and rounded belly. “That’s it?”
Angie tilted her head. “Yep. Cheating’s wrong, right mama?”
“Right. Take EJ back inside. Tell Daddy what you told me.” Angie took her brother’s hand and closed the door. I walked around the house to the front, to the darkness at the edge of the driveway, and the sound of horse hooves, getting closer. Cue scary music, I thought.
The outer ward dinged smartly and juddered as horses turned into the drive and stopped.
The security lights came on, illuminating a man on a…a yellow horse. A heavy warhorse in daffodil yellow, its coat gleaming, its feathers, mane, and tail a brilliant white. The man atop the gelding wore black: a leather jacket and pants, Western boots, black saddle, while his flowing hair matched the horse’s white mane. The man was gorgeous and color coordinated, like something out of an airbrushed Ralph Lauren ad.
Beside the yellow horse was a blood bay mare, a woman on the mare’s back, her clothing matching the red horse: scarlet moto jacket, leather pants, boots that came to mid-thigh, matching riding gloves, and lipstick. Her scarlet hair was piled high in an eighties style. She carried a red leather handbag slung over the Western saddle horn, the kind of pricey handbag my sisters loved. Sally and the man were improbable, ill matched, and doing a poor job of aping human. When paranormals came calling, it meant trouble.
Something gleamed on the sole of the man’s boot, darkly glowing, reflecting the silver moon. A taint of hellfire and brimstone. The man had been walking where he shouldn’t. These two were far more dangerous than they looked.
When she saw me, the woman on the blood bay mare laughed. It was the sound of bones dancing, of dead bodies floating on still water, of ravens on a battlefield, laughter that ruined her harmless eighties style statement. Terror skittered up and down my spine at the sound and the thoughts stimulated by her laughter. I dropped my arms and put back my shoulders. Holding my comfy, shabby sweater closed was not saying good things about my self-confidence.
The woman in red looked me over and lifted her eyebrows, mocking. “You’re not what I expected, Molly Megan Everhart-Trueblood.” She had a caustic high-class Southern accent, maybe Georgia. Rich, old-money-Atlanta. Servants, cotillions, and finishing school money. “Such a tacky cardigan.”
“What’s it to you, Sally?” I said.
The woman’s gaze razored in on me, and when she spoke, the words went rough and sharp, like broken glass, her silly eighties façade cracking. “How do you know my name?”
I didn’t answer. “What do you want, Sally? And who’s your pal?” I glanced at the man. His face was pale, his eyes the bright white of the moon.
I heard the front door open, and Big Evan’s air sorcery lifted my hair. We had created the wards to allow him access to air currents and weather outside the magical protections. He whistled a long note and the security lights brightened about a hundred percent. The two uninvited visitors turned aside, blinking. “I asked you a question,” I said to the woman.
“Two,” the man said. “You asked her two questions. Specificity is vital to such as we.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Fine. I asked two questions. I still haven’t received replies.”
Behind me, Big Evan’s whistling trilled. A harsh wind sprang up and blew back Sally’s scarlet locks, whirling, playing havoc with the mounts’ manes and tails, wrapping the man’s hair around his face. The chilled breeze fluffed my own red curls. The heavy animals danced from hoof-to-hoof.
The woman sniffed, scenting the magic, and focused on my hubby standing on the porch. “You know my name,” Sally said, sitting forward in the saddle and gathering her reins into one hand, “but you don’t know his?” She flicked a thumb at the man.
Her question and change in posture sent more fear skittering across me, and I had no idea why. She swirled the fingers of her free hand, amassing power, curling it into her palm. In response, Evan started to hum. The ward began to glow a pale red at the corner of my witchy-eyed vision. My eardrums fluttered as if the barometric pressure had changed with a fast-moving weather front. Sally’s magic spread around her in a slow spiral. I had no idea what she was, or what her gift was, but she was powerful. Fear skittered up my spine like baby spiders hunting.
I wanted to gather my own power, my earth magics, which were still available to me, but Death magics taunted, whispering of the brimstone on the man’s boot. So easy to blast these unwelcome visitors and be done. So easy, it whispered. Just reach and out crush the threat.
But death magic was powerful, a nuclear arsenal compared to the slow, life-giving energies of my earth magics. I might use it—but at the risk of destroying everything. My earth magics were weaker, but came with a much lower price.
I shoved down the desire to rip the visitors apart and said, “All I know about you two is that Death is the Truth and the Lie. And you are a piece of work, Sally.”
The magic in Sally’s hand tangled, fell to the ground, a reaction I felt as much as saw. Eyeing me the way a cat eyed a goldfish in its bowl, Sally said, “No one insults a Death.”
“It isn’t an insult if it’s the truth.” I pressed my small advantage, repeating, very carefully, as if in some mild warning or threat, “What. Do you want. Sally. And who is your pal?”
The pretty man smiled. “I am Death come riding, one of Seven am I. Not youngest nor eldest, Death of Magic, I cry. Untested, unconquered, waiting beyond the veil. Till a ruby haired lass calls, ‘Death Magic, Avail!’”
Riddles. I hated riddles.
Sally said, “You know what your sister thinks about prophecies.”
“Death of War is tired,” the man said, his eyes on me. “What she wants will soon be unimportant. It’s my time to rule.”
I narrowed my eyes at the two, absorbing and dissecting the riddle and the banter. I had red hair; so did my child. There was no way I’d avail myself of death magics. “Death of Magic. Death of War. Titles, not a names.” It wasn’t sneering, it was stalling so Evan could finish whistling up his working. I added, poking the bear only a little, “Death of Magic sounds like a Marvel comic character.” Evan chortled on a breath and went back to whistling softly. In the sky clouds started to build. “Do you kill all magic or everyone who has magic? Either way, you die, too, and no one left alive likes you much.”
Sally said, “Death of Magic has come to offer you a bargain and assistance.”
I said, “Not interested. Not now, not ever.” A cat interrogative sounded. KitKit mewled, winding around my ankles, her tail looping, a steady caress.
“A pet,” Sally sneered. “I expected more of you.”
KitKit leaped at the ward, claws spread, ears back, fangs showing. She hit and screamed a challenge, sticking to the magics for just a moment. The blood bay bolted. The yellow gelding sat back on his haunches, nearly unseating the man. Sally used her entire body to regain control of her mount and Death lunged forward, his arms around his horse’s neck. KitKit slid and dropped to the ground. I laughed as my non-familiar cat sat, lifting her back leg to clean her nether regions, bored. “Name,” I said, taking my cue from the cat and sounding jaded. When neither answered, I said, “Come,” to the cat and turned my back on the uninvited visitors. The man growled at my pointed insult. I kept walking, KitKit loping in front of me. Big Evan’s eyes wer
e on me, my husband not questioning my decision to toy with predators, but offering support and protection. In the distance, I heard the howl of wind. KitKit raced inside.
I climbed the steps and stood beside Big Evan, his bulk and height dwarfing me. I took his hand, his magic surrounding me, surrounding us. Rising, humming with power. My earth magics responded and the ward, the upgraded hedge of thorns 2.0, was glowing so brightly red now that any witch could have seen it even without a seeing working. Even a human could have seen it.
“Tell me,” Big Evan said.
“Brimstone on his boot.”
My husband muttered an imprecation. The two looked a bit silly. They weren’t. Outside, the wind grew stronger.
The man had dismounted and was standing before the ward, hair and clothing blowing in Evan’s wind, his arm up, his palm open, flat. He placed it on the ward. A single loud dong rang, the warning of protection. He pressed, his power creating a prism of hues, iridescent blacks, like oil on ink. The ward gonged again, deeper, heavier. The wind whipped. The black iridescence of his attack spread, the shape of the hand growing, as if he claimed the ward.
Behind him, the horses moved restively, hooves dancing in distress. The wind blasted across them. Sally fought to keep control and slid to the ground, to hold the reins close to their heads.
I watched as hedge of thorns’ energies coalesced at the bottom boundary, where they entered the ground. The red haze of the ward grew thick and bisected the black energies with a sizzle of power, like scarlet lightning. Death’s attack fractured across the dome of energies and fell apart.