My body started to vibrate with a kind of weird charge. I could feel the energy building at the base of my spine and then travelling into my chest, neck, and the crown of my head. I had never felt this kind of rush before, but I knew what it was even if I didn’t understand why it was, or even how. It was.
This was Magick.
The sky grumbled as the Magick poured out of me. In only a few seconds, the car started to skip and choke, and then come to a complete halt. The driver cursed and slammed the steering wheel, frustrated. I heard him pull the parking brake and step outside to pop the hood and find out what had happened.
Now was my chance.
I opened my eyes, checked at the car door at my feet, and still using the strange vibration coursing through my body wished for the lock to open, and it did. Fuck. It worked! I squirmed on my ass and pushed the door open with my foot. My pulse started up again as soon as my feet touched the asphalt, but I slid out of the car and crouched beneath the door without hesitation.
The tree line, and freedom, lay before me, only a few feet away. I could dash toward it and steal my freedom back or get a glimpse of my kidnapper. The feeling in my gut said you know who it was, now just run! But my logical mind, the one that likes facts, said you know nothing; find out who it is.
Going against my gut—and arguably my better judgment—I snuck around the car with my hands tied behind my back to get a view of the man standing by the hood and confirmed my suspicions in an instant. The unmistakable Sheriff’s Department vinyl on the hood of the car gave it away.
I stopped dead in my tracks. All of the blood drained from my face and my skin prickled all over. Why did I drink that water? He must have spiked it. I should have known to trust my gut then, just like I should have known to run instead of confirming the kidnapper’s identity. I could have been half way into the trees by now, but I hadn’t taken the chance.
So now, without thinking, I ran for the tree line as fast as my feet would take me, only narrowly avoiding tangles of vines, weeds, and flowers as I went. With my hands tied behind my back I had a hard time navigating, but I was sure I was making good headway. I had a head start, I was light on my feet, and he probably hadn’t heard me run anyway.
But that bubble soon popped.
Behind me there were footsteps racing through the woods. No voice accompanied them, only a steady grunting sound and the sound of heavy boots crunching on wet dirt. I couldn’t look back. My tied hands kept me from balancing correctly so I had to concentrate on looking straight ahead, but a tree trunk came out of nowhere, slammed into my shoulder, and sent me spinning to the ground coughing and groaning.
I tried to stand, but the boots caught up to me. Powerful hands lifted me from the ground and dragged me through the woods, silently, toward the road and into the car. The tall, strong man shoved me into the back of the car so hard I hit my head on the opposite door. Stars danced before my eyes, but I turned around to look at him anyway, breathing heavily through my nose.
“Did you really think you’d get away so easily?” the Sheriff asked. “I guess it was you who fucked with my engine too, huh?”
I stared at him from the seat, the anger plain on my eyes.
“Don’t try that again,” he said, “I don’t want to have to kill you before I’m done with you.”
He shut the door and made his way around the car again. I’m not sure how long he spent in front of the open hood, fixing whatever damage I had caused to the car with my Magick, but we were on the road again; and now I was out of options.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The car had been stopped for a while before the Sheriff opened the door to the backseat. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the car. Gods it hurt. I couldn’t help but scream, but the duct tape around my mouth stifled all of the sound I could possibly hope to make.
Finally he dropped me on cold, hard rock. A strong wind caressed my face, trees rustled nearby, and I could smell smoke.
The Sheriff ripped the duct tape from off my mouth with a loud criiiiiip, but he immediately covered my mouth with his mighty hand before I could say anything. “Don’t scream,” he said, “If you scream, I’ll make this hurt even more. Understood?”
I nodded and he let me go. I screamed anyway. Birds flew out of nearby trees at the sound of my shrill voice, but the Sheriff answered my defiance with a swift and painful back-hand smack to the face that burned so hard I could have cried. My cheek stung, my lip was bleeding, and I had shut up; point taken.
“I told you,” he said shaking his head. “What did I tell you? Don’t scream. How is that so difficult to understand?”
The Sheriff walked away from me toward what looked like a makeshift ritual circle. Candles had been laid out in a circle, a chalk pentagram had been drawn on the rock, and a Ram’s skull—complete with two large, curled horns—was sitting at the center of the display. To the right of it I also saw a small wooden box, although it was closed.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “What did I ever do to you?”
He approached me again and squatted, grabbing my cheeks and squeezing them with his large hand. “You’re an abomination,” he said, “Your kind shouldn’t exist, and I won’t rest until you’re all gone.”
I couldn’t speak. My jaw started to throb from the pressure.
“Does that answer your question?”
I nodded, barely, and he let me go.
“So, what are you, then? Some kind of religious fanatic?”
“Religious?” he said, scoffing. “No. Nothing like that. This isn’t about religion.”
“You call me an abomination and you say there’s nothing religious behind that?”
“I call you an abomination because you are one.”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know plenty. You’re a Witch, just like those other two whores. With three of you dead, my part in this is complete.”
“This? What’s this?”
The Sheriff smiled and shook his finger at me. “No,” he said, “I’m not going to tell you.”
“Then tell me what you’re doing there. You owe me that.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” he said. “And this whole thing on the floor isn’t anything. It’s just a… convenient little display. You’re gonna commit suicide here—in veneration of your dark God.”
He’s gonna kill me and make it look like suicide.
When he turned to inspect his handiwork on the ground again, adjusting the position of the Ram’s head skull, I took a moment to take stock of my surroundings and realized then where I was. This was the stony peak of Ever Dark Mesa; a cliff overlooking Raven’s Glen and a place of power any Wiccan in the local area had at least heard of. Eliza and I hiked up here once for bragging rights, just to see what all the fuss was about.
You didn’t need to be a True Witch to feel the power in the rocks; power I thought I could use to my advantage right now.
I closed my eyes and took slow, deep breaths, feeling the rocks with my mind. My mental fingers explored every groove, every rough indent, every tiny bump, teasing the power out of the very ground. As I went, the breeze pushing up from the side of the cliff started to pick up in speed and the Sheriff’s candles blew out.
He turned to me and stormed in my direction. Before I could react he grabbed me by the neck and lifted me square off the ground.
“You think your magic is going to be useful here?” he asked, nostrils flaring. “I’ve killed two of your kind with my bare hands. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get rid of me.”
He threw me to the ground hard and I went skidding across the rough rock. Flowers of pain opened up on my shoulders, knees and legs when I came to a halt, but the adrenaline rushing through my system did a good job at numbing them quickly. When the Sheriff pulled out a wavy blade my eyes went wide and my breath hitched in my throat. I would feel that if it went in to me, adrenaline or not.
“Get up,” the Sherif
f said, picking me up off the ground by my hair and marching me to the center of his ritual circle. The pentagram was ornate, but it certainly wasn’t Wiccan. An artistically accurate image of a Ram’s head had been drawn into the rock with white chalk. Each horn made a point on the star, the Ram’s cheeks made up the other two, and its chin made up the lowest point.
The Wiccan pentagram held the single point facing up toward the sky. The devil worshiping pentagram, however, had the single point facing down into the ground. The inverted shape of the star coupled with the Ram—an iconic image representing the devil—was the latter kind of pentagram.
My eyes went back to the Sheriff and his blade as he paced around me. Maybe he was trying to figure out where, or how, to cut me first—but I thought he had already decided that before coming here. He seemed the kind to plan ahead and not take risks or operate outside of his plan.
I wanted to use Magick again, but my pounding heartbeat and the gleam of the blade prevented me from concentrating and forming an image. Finally, the Sheriff approached from the front and slipped the knife into my dress, cutting from the belly up. I gasped as the knife teased my skin.
“Stop!” I begged, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill you, Amber,” he said, “But first I’m going to take a few things from you.”
Oh no. Oh, Gods no!
“Stop!” I screamed, squirming as his hand came for my bare chest, but he didn’t go for my breasts. Instead he yanked off my Triquetra necklace and then ripped Lily’s bracelet from my wrist. Dumbfounded, I watched as he walked away from me and placed the items in the small brown box by the side of the pentagram. I didn’t catch what was inside the box, but given that he had just removed something personal to me, and something personal to Lily, I suspected the inside box I would find something personal to Joanna.
Trophies?
“You can’t do this!” I said, “People will come looking for me!”
“Like your out of town friend? And the junkie? And Eliza?” the Sheriff asked, “Don’t worry, they’ll all be taken care of, and Aaron too. I’ve got them where I want them.”
“My father’s wealthy,” I said, “He can give you money. Whatever it is you want, please, just don’t kill me and leave my friends alone!”
The Sheriff came toward me again, stepping into the pentagram with me. His blade twinkled against the candlelight, hungry. I’m going to taste your flesh, it would say, if it had a voice to speak with.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“I do have to, Amber,” the Sheriff said, “People like you cannot be allowed to exist. No one should be able to manipulate the laws nature. Nature doesn’t like being meddled with.”
I swallowed hard and fought to keep myself from begging anymore. He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of hearing one more plea from my lips tonight, even if I would end up screaming from the pain once the blade started to do its thing. I didn’t want that to happen. Gods, no. Goddess protect me.
The clouds churned from high above. The wind picked up again and the Sheriff looked up into the roiling night sky. If I could just concentrate just for one moment, I could unleash the power of the Southern Watchtower on him. I didn’t even need to concentrate for that, only invoke it.
So I started.
Hail unto you, O’Guardian—
“You know,” the Sheriff said, interrupting my thoughts. “Your friend Damien will make a perfect scapegoat for when I’m done with you.”
Damien.
“No!” I said.
The Sheriff plunged the cold, steel blade into my gut.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I dropped to my knees like a sack of potatoes. The hairs my arms and back rose as the cold of the blade soon turned into a throbbing, hot pain. I could feel myself shaking as I stared at the Ram’s head on the rocky ground beneath me, breathing in and out in bursts. The Sheriff’s circled around me like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. And as hot blood spilled out of my stomach and onto the pentagram, I was sure he wouldn’t have to wait long.
Then he stopped moving. This was it. The Sheriff had finished examining my naked flesh and decided where he would stick the knife next, where the final blow would go. He grabbed my hair and yanked hard, exposing my neck. I yelped from the pain but bit my lip to stifle the scream that wanted to get out.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked into my ear.
I tried to make words, but through the pain I could only manage to blow air out of my mouth. The wet blade kissed the skin of my neck but I forced a word out through my lips.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“F-fuck you,” I hissed.
“You have balls. More than the others did.”
I closed my eyes and breathed through the pain, concentrating on the wound in my stomach and flooding it with green orbs. A strong vibration started to pick up at the soles of my feet, Power rising through my body from the very rock itself and rushing into the open gash in my stomach. I was sure that Magick was the only thing keeping me from bleeding out, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my concentration for long.
The Sheriff shoved me to my side and my shoulder hit the rock. He turned me onto my back and knelt over my body, straddling me, his knees on either side of my waist. His jeans were rough on my belly and the open wound stung from the pain caused by his movements, but I had the bleeding under control so long as I could keep my concentration.
He stared down at my chest with the knife, waving around like an artist trying to decide where to start with his masterpiece.
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“Shut up and keep still.”
He pinned my shoulder down with one hand and carefully brought the knife down upon the space just above my right breast. The tip of the blade cut through and pain filled my body once more, but I was filled with something else now, too.
Power.
I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stifle the scream. Above, the clouds rumbled angrily and lightning whipped and cracked as if reacting to the situation unfolding just beneath them. But they wouldn’t help me on their own. I needed to push them. I had to nudge nature itself into action, and as my body numbed to the pain from the wounds I had suffered, I attained a kind of calm I hadn’t felt in a while.
Hail unto you, I said in my mind, Guardians of the Watchtower of the South. The clouds flickered in shades of red and purple. A stormy wind descended upon the mesa at breakneck speed, with animalistic ferocity. Thunder roared above like a lion charging through a desert plain to face an opponent on the field of battle.
The Sheriff pulled the dripping knife from my skin and looked over his shoulder, shielding his face with his hand. He snapped around and shot me a glare.
“Are you doing that, witch?” he asked.
I kept quiet, breathing hard through my nose.
I invoke thee, I thought, I invoke thee.
“Answer me!” he yelled, bringing the knife to my eye.
I invoke thee.
A shockwave exploded out of me and the rock beneath me fractured and cracked. The Sheriff lost his balance and fell to his back a few feet away. I floated to my feet as if the wind itself were carrying me, and as the binds on my wrists undid themselves I stretched my blood soaked hands above my head.
I took a deep breath of crisp air and stared at the Sheriff’s fuming face. “I invoke thee!” I said, screaming into the heaven. And at the sound of my voice, a crack of lightning fell from the sky and struck the Sheriff as he tried to stand, sending him sprawling to the ground and rolling along the rock.
I advanced, anger fuelling the fire burning within me. My fingers and temples burned, I could hear my heart in my head, and I was sure the wound I my gut was open and bleeding. But I was free, and the Sheriff was struggling now, propping his body up with a hand and holding his chest with the other.
He searched for his knife but couldn’t find it. “Bitch!” he said. Then he pulled a gun and trained it on me.
“I should have just killed you,” he said, gritting his teeth.
The gun went off, several rounds fired at point-blank range in flashes of gold and red. But none of them found their mark. It was as if the bullets refused to touch me, or couldn’t touch me. So I reached for the gun with my mind and visualized the weapon ablaze, and in an instant the Sheriff dropped the pistol and cradled his hand. Thunder and lightning crackled above, each roaring rumble seeming to shake the Ever Dark Mesa to the core.
Disarmed and hurt, the Sheriff turned to look at me. “You don’t have the balls,” he said, “You’re just another pathetic creature!”
“You have hurt too many,” I said, advancing. “Now you’ll feel our vengeance in this life and the next.”
Though injured, the Sheriff stood up and charged, but he didn’t get far. A second bolt of lightning surged from out of the clouds and struck him in the chest. Then another strike came like a whip-crack from the Gods, smashing him in the back and forcing him to the ground, flailing and frothing at the mouth.
For a moment it felt as though I was walking on air. Incomprehensible whispers were fluttering around me, male and female voices speaking in a cacophony I couldn’t understand but whose tone was clear. Vengeance. Righteousness. Death. But when the Sheriff’s body went limp, the wind and whispers died down and vanished. Even the thunder seemed to start putting distance between itself and the Mesa.
I fell to my knees and crawled toward the Sheriff’s body with one hand on my wound. When I reached his blistering, sizzling body—Gods, the smell of it—I stuffed my hand into his pocket and checked for his phone. Miraculously his old phone was intact and still working! And although it weighed a ton in my weakening hand, I hit the call button and dialed the last person the Sheriff had spoken to.
I collapsed to my side before someone picked up on the other line.
“Is it done?” asked a smooth, female voice. “Is she dead?”
“You fucked with the wrong witch,” I said.