THE COVEN, PROLOGUE: Witch Maclay (conclusion)
Please see
the first post of this thread for summary/description and disclaimer.
Installment rating: R
Installment warnings: violence, profanity
Special note: The angst level on this final installment is extremely high.
---
“…Mack! Ms. Mack, please, I think he’s waking up, oh gods, please get up! Don’t be dead…”
“Not… yet… Not dead yet…” I gasped. There was something heavy lying across my chest--the demon’s arm. It wasn’t moving, but the sense of urgency in Willow’s pleas told me this hell wasn’t over. I managed to pull myself out from under it and looked over to the sorcerer. He was moaning. Not dead, either. But there was a dinner plate sized bloodstain centered by a bullet hole on the left shoulder of his now charred three piece suit. Parts of his face were starting to blacken and swell from the more severe burns from the fire. He must also have been knocked unconscious with the gunshot. I looked around me for the gun to finish him but couldn’t find it. It was likely underneath the Golem’s massive body. I struggled to my feet and stumbled to the kitchen to fetch a knife. The biggest one I had. The #10 titanium chef’s special I used to chop my vegetables would do.
“M-Ms. Mack?”
“Stand back, honey. This won’t take but a second,” I said. I didn’t want Willow watching. As I limped over to finish my task, he opened his eyes groggily. They widened as he saw me approach with my knife. Then Willow screamed. I turned.
Her power shoved me to the floor again as a blur of black and metal whipped past me. A pain so intense it beggared the previous slash on my arm shot through me from the back of my left upper arm to my left hip. I twisted as I fell by instinct onto my right side, dropping the knife. The human was awake, if just, the Golem was, too. It had slashed at me, nearly cleaving me in two. It would have, if not for Willow’s split-second emotion-driven shove.
Willow was the only one with a clear head in the apartment as she ran to me and tugged me up by my right arm--my only working arm. I think I might lose the left one. Stupidly, I thought, at least it had ruined the same side. Part of my mind was still working if sluggishly but it sure seemed Willow was going to have to be both the brains and the brawn of our little outfit. But then it hit me that that needn’t be the case. It wasn’t just my arm--my left side in general wasn’t working properly and I would only slow her down. I stopped her from fussing by grasping her forearm. “Willow, you have to run… Go to the car, call the police now, or… or wake up one of my neighbors and hide there, just leave me here. I’ll give you my phone. Use the number 1 speed dial--”
“NO! I won’t leave you!” she said adamantly. I was amazed that, rather than terror, it was a stubborn protectiveness that was motivating her. Protectiveness of
me. The look on her face was one of pure resolve.
I groaned. Like I said, a mind of her own.
She kept tugging at my arm until I was able to roll over onto my knees and get shakily up. We stumbled out the apartment door with me limping and trailing blood. The blood part was bad--not because of blood loss, though that would be a concern and very soon, but because the sorcerer and his monster could use it to track us once he became ambulatory himself. Willow dropped my arm to run ahead to press the button to call for the elevator, but as soon as she came back to help me limp on, I pulled her to the emergency stairwell. The last thing we needed was to be stuck in the damned thing.
As the stairwell door closed behind us, the man and his monster stumbled out my apartment door. The demon had to squeeze past the doorframe as he was wider at the shoulder than the door. The man, clearly favoring his left side, looked about furiously, thankfully not down at my blood trail, saw the elevator light from where Willow had pushed the button ordering the car down, and headed straight for it. We watched, both of us with baited breath, as he limped over and insanely jabbed the button himself several times until the car finally arrived--thank the gods we hadn’t tried to take it--and they piled in. The Golem had to scrunch itself up to fit inside next to its master, who looked like he’d been holding a firecracker when it went off. It was such a ridiculous image I actually laughed. But that made my side hurt like hell and I sagged against the wall. The doors closed and Willow opened the stairwell door before I could utter a word of protest and ran to the elevator control panel. I shuffled behind her and watched, my mouth open, as she popped the cover off the panel, considered the buttons intently a moment, and began rapidly jabbing a sequence of keys. I followed Willow’s gaze up at the illuminated floor numbers. When the light was between ‘5’ and ‘6’, she hit the Enter button, and something whined behind the panel. The indicator light stopped moving. She looked up at me with a triumphant grin. Huh. “Good job, swee--”
Then she turned and ran back into my apartment. “Goddammit, Will--”
She emerged again mid-swear, with some towels and the medkit from my bathroom and the gun, which she promptly handed back to me upon seeing the look on my face. I shoved it back in my pocket and pulled out the sat-phone instead. She pulled me gently down by my elbow to sit against the wall and I admit I couldn’t have stopped her, I was so weak.
Willow was half in my lap, trying to replace the blood-soaked and encrusted scarf that had been wrapped around my mangled arm as a tourniquet with one of the towels she’d fetched from my bathroom. I gently pushed her back and struggled to my feet. “No time, sweetie. Gotta find a better place to hide first.” I headed back instinctively into the stairwell, breathing heavily with the effort, Willow by my side, carrying the supplies she’d taken from my apartment. The stairwell faced the east and through the frosted glass of the window I could see that the sun was just rising. The building would come to life in an hour or so, another workday for all, blue and white, to get through, the last before the weekend and temporary freedom. The nighttime lights were still on, though, and we started down the stairs as I hit the number 1 speed dial.
After two rings and a floor down, my call was answered. “I need some muscle!” I gasped into the phone.
“Sorry, hon, wrong number. That’s one-
nine-hundred, you want,” Jenny answered deadpan, then laughed. “Jeez, Leigh, do you ever think of anything else?”
I groaned. First thing once we get back, kill Jenny.
She caught on quick, though. “Good gods, you’re serious!” Jenny gasped.
My teeth ground, the vibration in my skull settling me a little. “We have GOT to work on your comic timing!”
“Is it you or Willow?”
“Willow’s fine--well, physically, at least… She’s here with me now... Me? Not doing so great.”
“Is it bad?” Jenny Touched me, briefly. It’s not her primary gift. She’s not nearly as good at it as me, but she didn’t need to be. I was broadcasting enough pain for a NYC hospital ER. “We’ll get someone over there now… I’ll come get you myself!”
I stumbled on the tenth floor landing and I hissed with the sharpness of the pain. The blood was dripping down my side. “Hurry, Jenny.”
“Hang on, Tara…” I could hear the sound of furious key-tapping on the keyboard. “I have your coordinates… Or I did. Are you moving?”
“Kinda… have to… We’re… uh, being chased by a couple of monsters.”
“Monsters?”
“’splain later…”
More keyboard tapping. “Shit! I have to close my end, but keep your phone on, I’ll work something out…. Hang on, hon.”
The line went dead as she closed the connection to do whatever it is she had to do. I shoved the phone, still on, back in my pocket then immediately gripped my upper left arm. Blood spurted from between my fingers.
We made it down another couple of flights to the eighth floor before the pain made breathing an issue. I sunk slowly to the floor of the landing, next to the window. Willow hovered helplessly by me, looking up and down the stairs. “Ms. Mack… we have to keep going. It’s not safe here.”
But I couldn’t. Now that I’d managed to contact Jenny and she was making the proper arrangements, somehow I’d turned a corner in my heart and mind. It had turned out to be a long-fought and hard-won accomplishment and it drained me. “Come here, Willow.” She knelt, not touching me, still hovering. I took a long look at her. “It’s hard to picture now, but I guess she could do worse.” I teased wryly. I wanted to touch her hair, but couldn’t release my grip on my arm to do so. With the sunlight streaming in through the tiny stairwell window and bathing her in its light, her hair almost looked like it was on fire, just like in my vision. Time seemed to blur a little, and I was once more in the room with white-washed walls and high gauze draped windows with my girl and her beloved in their marriage bed. Only now, they are aware of me. There are tears in my daughter’s eyes, and Willow’s arms are around her, comforting her, even as her own face is one of sorrow. I remembered the demon, but felt somehow that that part was a lie. Still, my baby had been through so much already. I was her mother, and I would protect her any way I could. The only way this would be worth it, the only way she’d ever forgive me for not being there for her myself, was if Willow was worth it instead. “You’d better take care of her. Or I swear, I’ll come back and haunt you ‘til you’re stark raving mad. You hear me?”
“Ms. Mack, please, the tourniquet isn’t working, you’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’re not making much sense!”
I laughed, which made me loosen my grip on my mangled arm again. Love that honesty… Now it was my turn to come clean, there might not be much time later. “Aw, honey, you can stop calling me Ms. Mack… It’s a funny name, but it’s not… not me. Not the real me.”
“What?”
“Maclay. My name’s Maclay… Wait.” My eyes kept closing against my will. I forced them open, but the effort left me so weak. “No. It’s Tara. But I’m shedding that one, too. I’m great at that. Pick up names, then give them away when I can no longer use them. But I think now it can go to someone who’ll make better use of it. When you get back, tell Jenny that she can take it with all my blessings, and my apologies.”
“Who take what?”
Panic. It’s rolling off Willow in waves. Now that we’ve made a connection, it’s like I can’t shut if off. Can she feel me, too? “Tara…” Willow was right. I wasn’t making much sense and I was scaring her. I couldn’t do that. Witch Maclay of the Coven still had a job to do, until my relief arrived. But performing my duty didn’t preclude being a friend. And to be true friends, I had to be honest about who I was, first. I sat up, let the new jolt of pain wake me up more fully again. “My-My given name is Kera, I’m pleased to meet you, finally, Willow. On my official records, my full name is Kera Maclay, but Maclay is a name I took for convenience’ sake, it’s not really mine. I have a daughter, a few years older than you, whose given name is Leda. The women of my family are witches, Willow. Long before I joined the Coven we were. When we come to our own as women, if we have Talent, we take on the name of a relative, a grandmother, many, many times removed, the first witch in our line, very powerful, who was called Tara.”
“O-Okay.” Willow now looked skeptical besides frightened out of her mind, but honestly, can I make this stuff up? It’s a wonder any of the women of my family end up sane. Okay, moot point, that.
It didn’t take Talent to know Willow was still confused, and not a little scared that her guardian was starting to lose it. But I had to go on. I realized, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my belly, in the base of my being, that I might not make it back. “Leda will be fifteen this October. She’s preparing for that day when she’ll take on that responsibility and right…” Only problem is, so many of us have taken that one name, Tara, it almost has become like a millstone. The onus of the Tara witches. What a troublesome thought. It’s one that’s bothered me for awhile. Perhaps my daughter should take a new one, start a new tradition. I hope she gives away Leda, though. That was her paternal grandmother’s name and Tom chose it for her, ignoring where it came from, the mythology behind it. I always hated the name, though I loved my baby girl. It was one of the first of many things he had his way with, but I came to accept it. I guess in my mind, she was Leda, okay, but on the inside, she was really just Tara-in-waiting. “It’s a day I really wanted to see with my own eyes…” My voice was tinged with regret and I fought against the self-pity that I knew could easily overwhelm me. But what Willow had told me that time during meditation, at what seemed years ago, about Leda’s happiness and my own came back to me, and I realized what I want for my daughter won’t matter. She’ll have to make her own decisions about these things.
“You’ll meet a woman when you get back to the Coven. Her name is Jenny. Tell Jenny I said it’s okay for Leda to take that name, alright? She never said anything, but I know she was a little worried about that, about there being two of us. But she can take it and still be her own woman--if she wants it, that is. But she shouldn’t be afraid of it, nor should she resent it, despite the baggage it comes with. For me, I think it’d suit her well. Always did. And… And tell her that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn't keep all my promises.”
“You’ll tell her yourself when you get back!”
Oh gods. “Yes, yes. But just in case, okay?”
“O-Okay, just in case.”
“Good.” I could almost not feel the pain anymore. That’s a bad sign, I think. One more thing, though. “I’m so sorry about your family, Willow. I should have explained some of this to you sooner, so you could make your own decisions, make your own plans. Seems to me that we’re all children, struggling to be adults. It’s not always possible, and there are forces stronger than us whose wills supercede our own, but we need to at least have the knowledge to make informed decisions, even if the outcome is beyond our control. ‘Cause not knowing… that’s really a bitch, isn’t it? What chance do you have then? So I should have told you, what was being said about you, about who might be watching. I don’t know if it would’ve saved your parents, but I’m not a seer. Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe it was a mistake, but I was following the orders of people who I thought knew best. I know that sounds lame, like it’s an excuse, but to be honest I still don’t know that I was wrong. There’s so much that I’m still in the dark about myself.”
Willow didn’t say anything.
Maybe I wasn’t making sense again. “It’s so scary… having to grow up. Especially like this. But there’ll be good stuff, too… Wonderful things…” Baby girl. “Take care of Tara, Willow. Treat her well.”
“I-I will! I promise…”
In the end, that’s the best a mother can hope for.
A loud crash from below us, a couple of flights down, followed by a shudder through the building frame startled us. “…by all the gods of hell and their demon spawn children, too! Watch my arm, you blundering idiot!”
Willow and I froze. Had they found us so soon?
“Why couldn’t the Master just make you more compact and efficient? But no, everything must be super-sized with him! No wonder he picked America to kick off his big Hello Humanity, How Nice to Eat You tour!… Just stay behind me--no, wait. You go first!”
We were still holding our breath as we listened. After a few seconds, the echoing sounds of their footfalls, one loud and lumbering, the other much lighter but uneven, began to recede. Down. They were heading down. We released our breath simultaneously and just looked at each other for a long moment.
Willow had that look on her face again. The scary one, with the slightly furrowed brow and the set jaw. Her resolve face. I braced myself.
“They think we’ve left… We need someplace more secure… Someplace to stay so Jenny can find us…” Her expression remained purposeful, even as her eyes darted to consider the options. When she spoke again, it was not a suggestion. “We should go back to your apartment!”
Good gods. Tara’s going to have her hands full.
***
Somehow, they made it back upstairs. It was slow going. Willow had to wedge her small body underneath Kera’s good arm and got the woman back on her feet. Clearing her mind, she reached into the quiet time to find the way to give Kera some strength. It was getting easier and easier to go there, to ask for and receive the power, straight from the Cosmic, even for a friend. Kera gasped as she felt it, raw, fill her, threatening to stop her heart, but Willow tightened her grip on the older witch and it grounded her until it settled inside her. Then they started the long journey back upstairs with the borrowed power.
The tears didn’t come until after Kera had lost consciousness on the ruins of her bed. Willow fought through them, wiping them from her face as they fell. She wasn’t aware that by the time she’d done her best to perform the healing spell, tighten the tourniquet around the woman’s arm, exhaust the contents of the med kit long before she got through even half the major cuts on the witch’s body, her own face was a bloody war mask streaked with flesh-colored swaths where her tears had cut paths through the blood she’d unwittingly smeared onto her face as she wiped the sweat away. She just finished checking for Kera’s pulse--faint, oh so faint, but real, nonetheless, when the muffled ring of the witch’s phone startled her. She fished it out of the pocket of the woman’s skirt with trembling hands and accepted the call.
“Tara?
Willow did not answer the woman’s voice.
“Willow?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Willow, where’s Tara? Is she…” Jenny stopped, unable to continue.
“She’s here! She’s still alive! She went to sleep.” Willow bent over Kera’s body and felt the relief flood her tiny being as she noted the continued slow rise and fall of her protector’s chest. “She’s still breathing, I can see her. Her arm and leg are hurt real bad. She bled a lot. She’s been unconscious about five minutes. I-I did a… did a healing spell, and I think the blood stopped a little, but maybe it’s only because she already lost a lot. Should I try to wake her up?”
Jenny was momentarily stunned as the fact that Willow tried to do a healing spell. How far had Tara gone with “first contact?” Unless she
had to… She shook her head to snap herself out of it, and finally let out her breath. “Good. That’s good, Willow. Yes, shake her a little, see if she’ll wake up.”
Tentatively, Willow prodded Kera at her shoulder. The woman moaned a little, but her eyes did not open. “She’s not waking! But she’s still breathing.”
“It’s okay, Willow. She’s probably too weak to respond. Just stay with her. My name is Jenny. I was the one who was talking to Tara a little while ago. I wanted you to know that we sent someone to you, who’ll help you both. Her name is Catherine Madison, okay?”
“O-Okay.”
“Catherine will be there really soon, then she’ll see to Tara, and take you both the rest of the way back here. She’s about Tara’s age, taller, with shoulder-length brown wavy hair, okay? When she arrives, ask her for her name, and if she doesn’t give it to you, I want you to run, get away to someplace where there’s people, any way you can, okay?”
“W-What about Ms. Ma--uh, Tara?”
Jenny paused a second. “If you have to run and she’s not awake, you’ll have to leave her there, okay? She’ll be fine.” The anguish in Jenny’s voice made that lie transparent. “She… she said you had monsters following you? Can you explain?”
“There’s a man, he was at my house earlier, after a demon killed my mom. He-He had his own demon, though, a golem, Ms. Mack called it, and they killed the one that killed my mom and he’s been chasing us since. I don’t know how they followed us here, but they did, and-and they-he-it tried to kill Ms. Mack, but we got away.” Willow finally took a breath. “They think we left, so… they left, too,” she finished with a shuddering sob.
Huh, huh, and
huh? Jenny took a deep breath herself. “O-Okay… So they’re not chasing you now. Do you… do you know where you are? Exactly?”
“We came back upstairs. We’re in Ms. Mack’s apartment.”
“You are? But I don’t… ” They weren’t registering on her terminal screen. Confused, Jenny ran the information Tara had been feeding the Coven about Willow’s abilities, mystic and mundane, through her racing mind. She recalled that in the first few weeks of contact, something about Willow masked her mystical signature from Tara’s usually expert Talent. “You’re good with computers--electronic devices, right?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good. Hold onto the phone. If you need to leave Tara, if that happens, take the phone with you, leave it on, so I can track you that way, okay?”
“O-Okay.”
“I’m going now, but remember to keep the phone on, and nearby.”
Jenny clicked off. Willow looked at the phone in her small hand, and considered her options. Next to her, she watched Kera’s chest rise and fall with her shallow, labored breaths. Hesitating only a second more, she dialed 9-1-1 and hit ‘send.’
***
Ethan ran into his Golem’s backside as they spilled out of the building entrance. The mindless thing had hesitated then stopped altogether as soon as it got outside and felt the warmth of the early day sun’s rays. Ethan hissed in pain at the jolt. “Don’t be such a baby!” he said and slapped it in the area of the small of its back in reproach. He hissed again as his hand caught the edge of one of its metal plates and stung fiercely. He took the lead again past his servant into the parking lot where the witch’s car was, expecting to find the space empty.
Which it was not. The scratched and dented wreck was sitting in its space in the lot.
“Bloody hell!” He looked around, but saw nothing. They could be hiding in the area, or they could have left by other means altogether. He trembled with frustration. Twice in the past twelve hours, he’d almost had his Master’s prize. The rewards to him would have been--
No. The rewards to him
would be beyond reason. Still. And after some patch-up work with his favorite apothecary-slash-plastic-surgeon, he’d enjoy them to their wicked fullest.
Besides, he didn’t want to think of what Chaos would do to him if he failed--didn’t want to, but really couldn’t help it. He imagined that in his master’s current worldly manifestation, even separated from his home dimension and true source of power, the demon could easily debone Ethan, possibly alive, use his bones to make himself some furniture for his lair, and hang up his meatbag on the wall for decoration and set piece to address an occasional dramatic monologue.
Ethan shook his head. Those years in the drama club at Oxford really weren’t handy at times like these. For a second, he regretted not taking the Sight further than yesterday evening two weeks ago. Perhaps he could have foreseen the outcome of this little venture, a way to have ensured quicker success… But only for a second. He’d already just about passed out from the pain the little the Master had subjected him to had brought…
No, no need to get all misty-eyed with regret over past oversights and misfortunes. Ethan pulled his somewhat only slightly charred cell phone from the lining of his jacket to call Jonathan for a new lead as to where the witches could have gone, as he had yesterday. Perhaps he had other information from the tapped line. It certainly paid to have technically minded friends. Or flunkies. He flipped open his phone.
The earpiece flew lazily in a rainbow arc through the air and landed three meters away with a crash on the parking lot asphalt. Pieces of metal and plastic debris ejected from the point of impact to form the perimeter of a miniature disaster circle.
“Bloody hell,” he sighed.
But then, he heard a loud voice behind him, and turned. There was a woman, not too unusual, that, but behind her, something else. Something…
shimmery. His curious expression soon turned to a wicked smile. Perhaps his luck was changing.
***
Catherine grunted as she was spat out of the makeshift emergency portal Calendar had hastily set up with a wet noise. It sounded disturbingly like a fart. She landed on her backside with a final “oomph!” in the middle of what appeared to be an apartment complex parking lot. Gods, she hated Calendar’s portals, and using this one had been particularly dodgy. More than once after suspiciously entering its threshold, she’s thought about turning around and going back to the Coven to finish her breakfast, give Calendar some time to test it and make sure it was safe and didn’t end up in the middle of Old New Jersey or some other screwed up place. It was still just a little after dawn and the sunlight was weak, but it was already warm. She’d forgotten about California summers and undid the buttons of her jacket. Maclay was nowhere in sight. She picked herself up and dusted herself off, and glanced once more at the shimmering, roughly rectangular mercurial portal with suspicious eyes. “Great job, Calendar,” she muttered. “I love working with amateurs.” At least it seemed somewhat stable.
She fished out the telephone from her handbag and dialed in.
Before she said a word, Calendar was shouting in her ear. “Upstairs! In the apartment building! 12D!”
Catherine held the phone away from her ear defensively. Even so, she could hear Calendar’s directions quite clearly.
“Remember, be careful, there’s someone or something--”
She shouted back, still holding the phone well away from her face. “Get a grip, Calendar! I heard you, 12D!” She shoved the phone back into her pocket, the earpiece still buzzing as Calendar continued her rant, as she headed for the apartment complex entrance. “Jeez! You couldn’t put me in any closer?” she muttered.
“12D? Why, I believe that’s where we were heading,” a British voice interrupted her as she crossed the threshold of the outer door.
The quip to put him back in his place died on Catherine’s lips as she turned to look at the dirty man with no eyebrows and the filthy clothes. Hobos she could deal with. But the thing behind him…? She screamed and ran to the elevator. She jabbed at the call button several times but there were no lights to indicate it was working. She raced to the stairwell, flung the door open, and launched herself upstairs.
“The stairs then? Why, I suppose if we
must.” Ethan stepped aside to let his Golem ahead of him back into the building.
***
Catherine Madison had never run so far and so fast in all her life, even when she had worked as an aerobics instructor after her glory days as high school head cheerleader at Modesto Public High had ended with her inevitable graduation. Behind her, she heard the demon and the human slowly, noisily grinding their way up behind her. She sprinted up to the twelfth floor in under a minute, giving her enough time to catch her breath and gather her wits about her. Goddamn Calendar and goddamn Cylla, sending her to face that
thing down there with just the vaguest of warnings! In fact, they’d probably done it on purpose, just to get rid of her… She had been growing too powerful, had been asserting herself too much in the gathering of Coven masters and elders lately… This was surely an attempt to rid themselves of their greatest rival and threat to their authority. Well, she would show
them!
Power came easy to Catherine. It always had, from the time she was ten and learned that she could do things that no one else could--odd things that couldn’t be logically explained. First push objects with the force of her mind. Then, eventually, push people with the force of her will. Then when she found there was a name for her power, and books that could teach you even more… well, look out, world! This bitch is a witch… She had joined the Coven to increase her opportunities to learn more--and also for a place conducive to training her little girl, Amy, to take her rightful place by Catherine’s side when the time came.
She had favorite spells, ones she perfected and could call, even in the most difficult and pressure-filled situations. This time surely qualified.
She waited until the demon was just a couple of floors below her before she started casting a doozy of a spell, one of her best, that would’ve ripped the thing’s head off, if it had had one. As it came up just underneath her, she unleashed the power that had been building through her frame. The air around her
whooshed and she reveled with the glorious feel of it, as the power ran through her, outwards, and hit the ugly monstrosity square in the chest.
Catherine watched, a satisfied smile on her lips, as the thing tumbled backward, head--uh, shoulders over heels, over and over. She quickly lost sight of it as it tumbled a good 4 or 5 flights at least before the repeated cacophony of thumping and crashing stopped. A lighter set of irregular footsteps followed, getting louder, then stopped themselves. “What the bloody hell are you doing here on your back? Get up! Get up!”
She hesitated, before she heard the heavy footfalls start up again. With a shriek, she turned and left the stairwell onto the twelfth floor, to the door marked ‘12 D.’ She threw herself at it and screamed, “Let me in! Let me in!”
***
Willow heard the banging and the shouting and hurried to the door before pausing at it, hesitantly. It shook as whoever was on the other side was pounding on it pretty ferociously. Not monster ferociously, though. “Who-Who is it?”
“It’s Catherine Madison, godsdammit! Who were you expecting? Fifteen minute pizza?”
Willow unbolted the door and Catherine pushed in past her, knocking her to the floor before spinning round and slamming the door shut and throwing the deadbolt. Catherine spun around, a wild look in her eye, before glancing down at the little girl sprawled on the floor. “Oh. Sorry!” Catherine wasn’t a monster, for all her impatient and haughty nature, and for all of being a bit frazzled at almost caught and done gods-knows-what to by a hideous, headless demon. She helped Willow up. But rather than letting her hand go like any normal child would do, Willow grasped it more firmly and began tugging her down the hallway. “Come on! Ms. Ma--uh, Tara’s this way! What took you so long?”
Catherine kept her mouth shut, mostly out of shock, as Willow pulled her into a room in the back, a huge hole in the wall to the left caught her eye first, then the mattress on the floor. Maclay was on the mattress, and it was not a pretty sight. “Gods, Maclay…” she breathed, instantly sobering.
Willow ran to Kera’s side and knelt next to her. She gently, tenderly, took the woman’s hand into both of her own. “Ms. Mack! Wake up! Your friend’s here! She’s going to help us!”
Catherine knelt on Kera’s other side. Maclay’s eyes opened and she peered up at the other woman. “Catherine?”
“Maclay! There’s not much time. I’ve been tracked by a demon. And there was a man…”
“We met,” Kera said with a pained smile. It quickly faded. “They’re tracking you?”
“They’ll be here any second. They, uh, must’ve seen my portal open up, then they chased me up here, up the stairs. They were right behind me, maybe a minute or two at the most.”
Kera paused a moment, considering. “Where’s the portal?”
Catherine grimaced. “In the parking lot. Calendar couldn’t get it any closer…”
She closed her eyes. Up until now, she still had hoped… When her eyes opened a second later, they were perfectly clear, her voice resigned. “You’ve got to get Willow there.”
“You’re coming too!” Willow interjected.
Kera squeezed her hand, though Catherine ignored her. “Is there another way out?”
Kera pointed with her eyes toward the hole in the wall. “Wait ‘til they’re inside, then leave through the other apartment. Willow can help. She’s smart--brilliant, in fact, and she’s got a lot of power,” she smiled with affection at her small friend.
Catherine looked at the scrawny girl skeptically a moment before her expression hardened. “Gods, Tara. Why didn’t you just stow her someplace and get yourself taken care of first? You know you weren’t the one they were after.”
Willow gasped.
“Catherine Madison,” Kera said, her blue eyes turning dark and stormy before Catherine’s. “Keep your mouth shut and listen well. You will protect Willow with your life. Before she’s harmed in the slightest, you will sacrifice your own well-being, to your very own miserable existence, to get her back to the Coven, safe and secure. Once there, Jenny will tend to her, and only then will your responsibilities in her regard end, with my thanks.”
Catherine sat back, stunned, as the words bore through her, her mouth open at the force of the directive. Maclay had used her Talent on her… Maclay, head of the weak and useless empathic branch of the Coven witches... “Where…” Catherine gasped, “where… did you get that power?”
Kera fell back to the mattress, weary again. She squeezed Willow’s hand again, but with much less force. “Borrowed. But it’s time to give it back.” She turned her head to Willow. “You’ve been keeping me here with you, sweetie, I know. And I’ve enjoyed the time I spent with you, my friend, but we’ve got different places to go now, and you have someone special to meet. Remember your promise. Thank you for showing me the Cosmic.”
“Kera…” The name ended with a wail.
“We’ll do one last spell together, baby. To remember me by. It’s a good luck spell.” She squeezed Willow’s hand once more.
The warmth and emotion swept through Willow in a mad rush through their joined hands, through its tail end to a whisper so bittersweet, leaving her stunned and Kera fading fast.
The walls shuddered as something rammed into the door. “They’re here…” Kera said, weakly. She turned to Catherine, under her power. “Now GO!”
Catherine had recovered just enough to pick up Willow by the waist, who fought through the haze of the sharing then the pain of the severed connection to wail and howl that Catherine needed to set her down and pick up Kera instead, that she would find a way to do it, all she needed was Kera’s help, to put up a barrier, set the building on fire, set the sorcerer on fire, anything, but don’t leave her there alone--
The walls continued to shudder with each loud
boom! Catherine’s directive was clear. She pulled Willow, legs and fists swinging in the air, through the hole in the wall, past the sliced up remains of Mr. de la Cruz, through the hallway identical to the one in Kera’s apartment. She paused at the door, setting Willow, sobbing hysterically, down but grasping her by the arm to hold her fast, until the wall gave a last mighty shudder. She waited a few seconds more, and opened the door. Then they were flying down the stairs, out of the stairwell enclosure, out the exterior doors, out into the parking lot, to the portal, through it, to the Coven.
***
Ethan stood back impatiently as his Golem threw its shoulder into the door once more. This had been far easier the first time, when the fool in the adjacent apartment had just opened the door after he had politely knocked. Finally, the door opened explosively inward. He gestured his Golem to precede him into the apartment--cautiously, as he certainly didn’t want another repeat of the last fiasco that had taken place here. He trailed a good three meters behind his proxy as they made their way once more down the hall to the bedroom. His Golem moved to the side upon entering the room, making way for him and signaling the room was clear.
“Willow, my sweet, are you hiding in--? Ethan looked down at the bloody mattress, at the blonde witch, absolutely bathed in blood and from the looks of it, quite dead. He crouched over her, and He then recalled the path his Golem had taken to gain entrance the last time. He looked up at the hole in the wall. “Oh, bloody hell! The witch--”
“Is no longer a witch, but still very much a bitch,” Kera said. She was sitting up on the mattress, though looking like she’d slump over with a stiff breeze. She held the cocked pistol, shakily, to his head. “With a gun,” she added. “I’m not liking your odds.”
Ethan thought fast. “Now now, love, that wouldn’t be very smart, considering you kill me, my associate goes free.” He motioned with his hand, out of Kera’s field of vision as she focused her attention on holding the barrel of the pistol pressed against the skin of Ethan’s temple. The Golem slowly approached. “I’m his conscience, you know. He’s a wild thing inside, and all he knows right now is he has to find our little Willow, any way he can… Could very well take out the entire building, and then some, without me to restrain him.”
Kera smiled crookedly. “Lesser of two evils, darling. Too bad it usually comes down to that, huh?” She pulled the trigger and the room lit up with an eerie blue light before all went black.
Ethan had lied. Without a mind of its own, his Master’s enchantment was broken and the half-life the Golem had been infused with fled with Ethan’s in a brilliant blaze of eldritch glory. It stumbled onto its short knees, then keeled over next to its dead master. The released energy was deadly poison to all in its range, though Kera had already departed, her heart physically stopped, from massive blood loss just moments before.
***
Willow watched through the portal as the ambulance finally arrived, lights flashing, but no siren. Whether that was because she was now at Kera’s Coven and looking back at her old world through a mystical portal, or whether that was because the emergency vehicle really hadn’t used its siren at that time of the morning for a wellness call, she couldn’t say. The tears were still cascading down her face and there was a constant roar in her ears that made seeing or hearing anything difficult, much less making sense of any of it.
Next to her, Catherine lay on her back, groaning and gasping for air after the carry and sprint she’d just completed, the vacant look in her eyes slowly starting to fade for her signature pissed-off look instead.
Approaching from 100 meters away or so, three figures were making their way toward them. Two were running, the other hurrying, but with a pronounced limp. As they came near, Willow saw that one was a woman, early in her 30s or so, with dark hair and dark eyes. Her horrified expression was incongruous to her pretty face when she saw only two figures had emerged from the portal.
“Jenny.”
Jenny then tried to hold the other running figure back, a girl, in her teens. Even from a distance, Willow saw she had long, dirty blonde hair, a slightly crooked nose, pretty, full lips, and Kera’s beautiful dark blue eyes, but they were wide in panic.
“Baby girl.”
Leda broke free from Jenny’s grasp and ran straight up to Willow, falling to her knees next to the smaller girl. “W-W-W-Where is she? W-Where’s m-m-my m-mother?” she demanded.
Willow could say nothing. The words were all caught inside her throat. She turned back to the portal to watch the emergency crew jump out of the vehicle and rush inside the apartment building doors, just as Jenny reached the two of them kneeling on the grassy field before the shimmering window of the portal.
“Willow… honey, you have to let the portal close. It’s a two-way door. I didn’t have enough time to mask it properly. You have to close it, before one of them sees it…”
She was transfixed, waiting for a glimpse of the crew returning, returning to their vehicle with a stretcher or a gurney. And maybe the sheet wouldn’t be over the occupant’s head…
“Sweetheart, let go. You need to let go…”
“NOOOOO!” Leda was hysterical, tears streaming down her face.
Willow turned to her, helplessly, and the portal slammed closed.
The grief twisted to fury. Leda sprung up, Willow falling backwards onto her back as the older girl stood over her a moment, glaring angrily down. But then she turned and started to run, without a goal, but just to run.
Jenny hesitated. Both girls needed her, she couldn’t choose just one.
Cylla finally reached them, leaning heavily on her cane. “Go to Leda, Jenny,”
Jenny nodded tersely to her superior, acquiescing to the soft order. Then she was off, after the older girl.
Cylla acknowledged Catherine with a slight nod and grim smile, then maneuvered her bad leg, which was stiff and inflexible, to lower herself onto the grass next to the small, shaking, weeping redheaded child, her face and hands streaked with dried blood. “Hello, Willow,” she said softly. “My name is Cylla. You are welcome to stay here, at the Coven, for as long as you need or like.”
***
“Shit! I thought we were here for a nine-year old girl. Nobody said anything about a level 1 HST. The fucker’s huge,” the young, brown-haired EMT eyed the massive, armor plated demon body skeptically. He kicked at its arm with the toe of his steel-tipped boot. The thing didn’t move even a little. “I don’t think it’d even fit in our rig.”
Crouching down over the blood stained mattress, his partner, an older, heavier set man with salt and pepper hair and deep-set eyes looked up from the bloody mess of the two human bodies before him. He had a slight Irish brogue, “well, I guess we won’t know that until we actually try to fit it inside, now, won’t we?”
The younger man stopped from lighting his cigarette at his partner’s pointed remark. “What? Are you kidding me? That’s not in the contract! We’re not getting paid to clean up after two humans and a L1 HST!”
Irish looked into the other room through the hole in the wall. “It’s three humans, not two. And you’re right. It’s not in the contract. But we’ll do it anyway, because that’s the type of on-demand service we provide to our employer, who you’ll remember pays us well--very well, in fact, all things considered. Hell, the Boss is going to hit the roof as it is that we missed the girl a second time. Now how do you think she’ll react when we leave this place like this, and the local and territorial news start their 24-hour feeds of the Sunnydale massacre, and the oh so provable existence of real fucking demons and hellgods on earth?”
His young partner grunted in displeasure as he put his cigarette pack and lighter away to begin the job. “Fine! But you’re taking the HST. I’ll take the regular bodies.”
His partner smirked at having his way, but it faded from his face just a moment later. The Boss really would lose her already tenuous grasp on her prodigious temper when she heard that they had lost Rosenberg again. But he was only a soldier. It was his boss, Morgan, who would have to do all the explaining, groveling, and quite possibly bleeding to get her mood back right. Or at least out of sitcon kill-any-lackey-in-the-immediate-area-to-make-yourself-feel-better. Well, too bad about the girl, but what could Glory do except try to be patient? These things sometimes took time. After all, Rosenberg couldn’t hide from her fate forever.
He grunted as he straightened to his feet, then turned to the massive body he would have to deal with. Shit, Lindsey was right. This thing wouldn’t fit in the vehicle they’d brought. He might need to chop it up to make the job easier… He’d need the chainsaw he kept in the large toolbox down in their vehicle. He walked out of the apartment closing the door on his still muttering partner and headed for the elevator, which was the first thing they got working again, to go back to their rig to retrieve the tool.
No, indeed, he concluded as the elevator slowly descended. You can’t run from the beast that’s your Destiny. The best you could do was grab hold on to it with both hands and hang on for the ride.
***
END – THE COVEN, PROLOGUE: WITCH MACLAY
To be continued in THE COVEN, ACT I: MENTOR
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wow good update...no great update really great you should write books this is so good i can't wait for more.
Touches of humour like that really humanised her, and the whole prologue in fact.
