While the seance spells that Frankie had tried the night before had been complete and utter failures, there was a spell that had worked: the tried and true location ritual. With it, Frankie had tracked down Morta to St. Vincent Hospital on W 25th Street.
As he arrived, he saw Morta lingering just around the corner from the main entry, near two service doors. Clearly, she was looking for her next victim.
Frankie parked the car and made eye contact with the witch as he got out of the car.
Morta’s eyes widened when she saw him and she darted across the street toward the parking garage. Frankie took after her at a run.
“Hey!” he barked.
There was an elderly couple walking along the row of cars toward the hospital entry who looked at him as he shouted, but they continued walking toward the hospital.
At the moment, Frankie didn’t care about exposing him magic. All he wanted was to get revenge for his wife’s death.
The evil witch was quick as she ran, her stringy, straw-like hair bouncing off her shoulders as she moved in a fast, but drunken way. And yet she was surprisingly fast. She made it to the first ramp and started rounding the corner.
Frankie feared he was going to lose her and so he held up his hand to send the witch rolling across the pavement. The magical assist gave him enough time to catch up to her.
Grabbing her by the front of her robe, Frankie slammed her against a concrete pillar and leaned in close to her wrinkled, mottled face.
“You’re the reason my wife is dead!”
Morta cackled. “I thought she committed suicide?”
Rage flared through Frankie’s body at her laughter and he swung a fist right at her face. Immediately, the witch’s nose began to bleed, although she still laughed with blood-smeared teeth.
“That little witch thought she could stop me, but she had her own demons to worry about,” Morta said through cackles. “Didn’t she?”
“The only demons my wife had were the kind who preyed on children—and the vulnerable.” He swung another punch at her, feeling something break in her mouth.
Morta spit out pieces of her teeth into Frankie’s face. “Punch me all you want. Your wife will still be dead. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it!”
“I’m going to kill you for this!” he muttered.
Again, the witch gave him a broken smile. “There’s nothing you can do to me that would take away the high I got from leading the witch into insanity. And now her soul is burning in hell for taking her own life!”
All sense of self-control left Frankie. Using his magic for added power, he began to swing his fist at Morta’s face repeatedly, pummeling her again and again with the added force of his power. After a minute, the cackle faded and her body went limp. As the dead witch slunk to the oil-stained pavement, the broken smile was still evident on her face.
Frankie was so consumed by his rage that he didn’t hear the truck pull up behind him. It wasn’t until James grabbed his arms and pulled him away from Morta that Frankie realized what he had done.
The sight of the battered witch—and the blood on his own hands—caused Frankie to hyperventilate. What had he done? This wasn’t justice. This was murder. Magic only assisted in this execution. The rest had been done with his own bare hands.
“Easy, easy,” James muttered to his son. “Take a deep breath. Relax. Come on.”
Frankie sank into his father’s arms as another wave of emotions came over him: grief. Unhindered, natural grief. The kind that felt like it would physically rip Frankie to shreds.
James wrapped his son in a bear-hug from behind and the two of them sat still for a moment while Frankie cried.
“You know,” James started slowly, “we need to get the body out of here.”
Frankie stood up straighter and nodded his head, sucking in a shuddering breath.
James, meanwhile, looked around for onlookers or security cameras. Neither were in sight. “It’s early yet, so the hospital is not that busy, but it’s going to be soon. We don’t have much time.”
“What do we do?”
“Help me get the body in the truck.”
“But where—”
James held up his hand. “Don’t ask questions until we’re alone.”
Between the two of them, they lifted Morta’s bloodied and broken body into the bed of the truck. James covered the body in a tarp and made sure it was secured strapped down, so it didn’t blow away in the wind. James held the door open for his son to climb into the passenger seat, then James got behind the steering wheel and drove off.