When the fire in the old field stone fireplace began to die down, Gilbert rose to poke at the coals. It just felt better in here, and it gave him something to do while he awaited further word about Deegie. The fireplace poker was still outside, lying in a snowbank where Zach had abandoned it after the battle with the zombie-crows. He used the shovel instead and reminded himself to fetch the poker from outside before Deeg came home. The place was trashed again too; he’d have to get started on that soon.
An odd fluttering in the chimney caught his attention as he tried to coax more flame out of the embers. Gilbert stopped and frowned. A bat, perhaps? A bit of paper? He craned his neck, trying to look up the chimney without sticking his head inside the fireplace and roasting it off. Something plummeted down the sooty stone tub and landed on the andiron.
It might have been a huge moth, or an overgrown dragonfly; its wings incinerated too quickly to tell. It had a thick, grub-like body that writhed and sizzled in the heat from the fire.
“What the hell?” Gilbert prodded the insectile thing with the blade of the fireplace shovel. He flipped it over. Its legs were reduced to charred bone, and that couldn’t be right. Insects didn’t have bones.
The creature waved the stumps of its wings. It wailed, loud and shrill, as its head burst into flame. The moth-like fizz burned away, revealing a tiny, screaming human skull. Another one swooped down the chimney. This one managed to pull up in time to avoid the embers, and it left the fireplace in a cloud of ash and soot. Gilbert backed up, keeping a steady eye on the insect-thing hovering in front of him. He cocked the shovel over his shoulder like Zach had done with the poker and waited for his chance to clobber it.
“Hey! You guys might want to come in here!” Gilbert yelled for the others as he swung and missed. “Hey! You guys! A little help here?”
This one had the face of an old woman. Its diminutive mouth, toothless and lined with fine wrinkles, screamed a torrent of obscenities at Gilbert as it dodged the fireplace shovel. Six human legs, the size of wooden match sticks, were arranged along the furry abdomen. A thick stinger spouted from its ass-end. Vicious green liquid oozed from the tip.
The bug-creature exploded in a brilliant flash of light; hot bug guts splattered Gilbert’s face.
Nix leapt in front of him, holding her still-smoking wand aloft. The other witches followed, ready to face this onslaught and crying out in disgust at what they saw.
Flower pointed toward the fireplace. “There’s more of them! Get that fire going again!”
A half-dozen flying horrors rocketed into the living room, bringing a grey billow of fireplace ash with them. Their horrifyingly human faces were of an assortment of races and ages. They spewed curses and vile insults from their mouths as they swooped and dove at the witches with their hooked, dripping stingers.
Zach snatched a stack of junk mail from the coffee table and flung it into the fireplace. Flames burst into life. More insect-people swarmed down the chimney and were disabled by the multicolored flames rising from a blazing catalogue. Next, he grabbed a length of firewood from the stack by the hearth and hurled it onto the blazing junk mail. A fountain of sparks rose up. Singed and dying insect-people rained down. He shoved in more paper and kindling; thick, yellow flames roared. “Got it!” he yelled.
He spun away from the fireplace just as one of the insectile horrors came in for a landing on the top of Rosenstraum’s head. The big man turned in an ever-widening circle, bellowing in pain and protest as he slapped and tugged at the freak of nature that clung to his head. The creature’s tiny hands grabbed and clutched at his hair. Its hooked stinger plunged up and down. Franklin, one of the younger witches, fired off a well-aimed bolt, and the creature detonated in a spray of yellow sparks and green pureed guts. Rosenstraum crumpled to the floor, his face already swelling.
The witches disposed of the rest of the insect-people, but not without a great deal of effort. Cobalt’s latest batch of foot soldiers were small and swift, making them difficult targets. The once tidy, eclectically decorated living room was splattered and streaked with clots of greenish gore and littered with tiny charred bones. They ran as a group to the fallen Rosenstraum; Flower dropped to her knees at his side.
“Witches!” she called out. “Send white light! Everything you have! Right here!”
She raised her arms above her head and held her cupped palms about a foot apart. The witches raised their spell hands; Nix and Gilbert held wands. They sent out six beams of brilliant white light, aiming them directly at the space between Flower’s hands.
Zach pressed against the wall and kept himself out of the way while he looked on. A white glowing ball took shape between Flower’s hands. She let it grow to the size of a beach ball, then nodded at Gilbert and the other witches. They shut off their beams at once, then stepped back so the elder witch could work her magic. She lowered the ball, gently and reverently, until it touched the fallen man’s forehead.
Rosenstraum shifted and moaned. He was still alive; there was still hope. His face, bathed in white light, was a terrible thing to look upon. The virulent poison the bug-things had injected into his head was fast acting. His face was swelling to grotesque proportions, and his body twitched as the ball of light seemed to liquefy and seep into his mouth and nose. The giant clawed at the air and tried to sit up.
“Breathe it in,” Flower urged softly. “Let it enter you!”
A thick gurgling sound rose in Rosenstraum’s throat and he fell back to the floor. The elder witch frowned. Tired grey light drifted out of Rosenstraum’s mouth and dissolved into nothingness.
“I’m afraid we’re too late,” Flower muttered. She took off her multicolored pashmina and covered Rosenstraum’s face.
“Cobalt’s getting stronger,” Gilbert said as he rose to his feet. “How is that possible? I thought the bastard was old and sick!”
“I wonder if …” Nix swallowed hard and started over. “Do you suppose Ms. Tibbs and her father made it? I mean it’s possible they’re—”
“Enough!” Zach stepped away from the wall and moved closer to the group. “Enough,” he said again, holding up both hands. “I know I’m the Normal One here, but please, don’t talk like that. Deegie’s tough. She’s a bad ass. She’s fine.”
Nix’s eyes travelled to the window behind Zach, and her mouth dropped open. “Save it for later, Normal,” she said, pointing. “Look!”
The window’s top pane was still intact, allowing them to see an approaching swarm of the insect people. They made fast-moving shadows over the snow. A couple of them clung to the side of the house already. They had angry human faces and peered through the glass at the witches, shrieking and cursing and beating on the window with tiny, insistent fists. More of them landed on the roof. Their wings made horrid buzzing sounds, and their naked human feet skittered over the shingles as they searched for another way in. Their muffled voices shrieked and chattered.
Something tapped against the square of cardboard covering the broken bottom window. A hooked stinger punched through, a drop of venom glistening at its tip. It withdrew, leaving a round hole. Fingers, no bigger than a grain of rice, appeared around the edge of the hole. They tugged. The hole widened. A miniature human face with faceted insectile eyes peered through the rip in the cardboard. It grinned at the witches, then shrieked with laughter as it tried to force its way inside.
***
Roland’s body stiffened; a look of utter surprise crossed his face, and he struggled to form words. Cobalt’s hand was mired to the wrist in his chest.
“A demon’s heart,” Cobalt purred again. His eyes rolled in his shrunken face and he smiled his jack-o-lantern smile. “I call upon my army of flying death! Fly, my faithful ones! Pierce their filthy skins with your lances and inject them with your venom!” Spittle flew from his lips as he followed up with an old man’s shrill cackle.
Deegie realized she’d been dragging her hands down her face in silent horror. She composed herself enough to yank her spell hand away and fire a bolt at Cobalt. “Stop it!” Sparks crackled from her fingertips as she screamed at him with her mind. “Let him go!”
The look Cobalt gave her was almost apologetic. “Dear, stupid, half-breed bitch,” he said. “He’s dead anyway, isn’t he? I’m simply sending him back where he belongs. But don’t worry, love. You’ll be joining him soon.”
Roland writhed and clutched at the withered arm that had impaled him.
Cobalt smirked. The tendons in his branch-like arm stood out as he tightened the fist buried in Roland’s chest.
She could tell her father was screaming, but she couldn’t hear the sound. Deegie fell to her knees, unable to tear her eyes away.
“Daddy! No!” She didn’t know if she’d screamed the words aloud or in her head. She didn’t care. Red lightening shot from her hand as she fired at Cobalt again.
He raised his other hand and deflected her blast with an almost casual ease. He squeezed Roland’s heart harder.
Roland had ceased his silent screaming. He hung limply at the end of Cobalt’s arm. His body began to fade, as if he were made of smoke and was slowly blowing away. He turned his head to look at Deegie, and right before he disappeared completely, he winked.
Cobalt pulled his hand back and smirked at the horrified young woman next to his bed. “Now then,” he said, “time to finish taking out the trash.” He cocked his arm, taking aim at Deegie.
She didn’t bother with defensive magic. She swatted his hand away, slapped him across the face, and seized his grizzled throat with both hands. “What did you do to him?” Her voice was a deadly whisper in his hairy ear. “What did you do to my dad?” She readied herself to spring onto the mattress and squeeze the last undeserved breath out of him.
There was no fear showing on Cobalt’s face, only insanity. He grinned up at Deegie but did not reply. She caught a flicker of motion at the corner of her eye: Cobalt’s hand moving once again. A comet of hot blue flame missed her head by inches and slammed into her shoulder. She flew across the bed and crashed into the nightstand, taking the bed curtain with her. Cobalt fired again. The bolt sizzled overhead, and Deegie’s nose filled with the stench of burning hair.
“Deegie Tibbs!” Cobalt boomed. His voice held a power that hadn’t been there before, and he sat up straight and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Did you really think you could defeat me? You won’t make that mistake again, will you?” He stood and advanced towards her.
Deegie scrambled backward, trying to dodge Cobalt’s bolts and get up at the same time. The cord to the room’s phone snagged on her ankle and the instrument fell to the floor with a bang and a muffled ding! Her hands scrabbled over the floor, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. She guessed that she had another blast left in her, possibly two. But to do so would surely bring on the Witch’s Cramp and render her completely helpless. Her fingers closed around the handle of a plastic water pitcher, and she threw it at him without looking to see what it was. It struck the mattress and bounced harmlessly to the side.
The rapid slap of rubber soles against linoleum came from the hallway: someone had obviously heard the racket.
Cobalt lifted his lip and snarled at the open doorway. “My servants!” he hissed. “Not yet! You may not disturb me until I have disposed of this brat! This abomination—”
Cobalt stopped where he was, and an almost comical look of shock came over his face. His knobby hands went to his chest and he bent over abruptly. For a long, crazy second, he appeared to be bowing to Deegie. His legs wobbled; his knees buckled. There was the quietest of thumps when he fell to the floor. He landed with his head nearly in Deegie’s lap and she watched the light leave his eyes as he drew a final, ragged breath.
She crouched behind the nightstand, half-covered by the torn bed curtain, and just as the nurses burst into Room 195 her father’s arm slid out from under the bed, snapped its fingers, and disappeared in a rather clichéd puff of smoke.
When Deegie looked down, she couldn’t see her legs again; she was invisible once more. She observed briefly as the medical personnel fought to restore life to Cobalt’s still body. Then, resisting the urge to spit on the dead man, she left the room and ran, unseen, down the hallway. She burst through the rear exit doors at a dead run and didn’t stop until she reached the far end of the back parking lot.
A low brick wall surrounded most of the lot, and she leaned against it, breathing hard. A strange effervescent tingle ran through her body, and she realized she was becoming visible again. From somewhere in a tree branch far above, a jay scolded her repeatedly. Just as she was about to begin the process of grieving for her father all over again, a hot puff of air swirled around her head and he whispered in her ear, “He must have forgotten I’m already dead! Besides, it’s hard to kill a demon. Go home, Bunny. I love you.”
Deegie spun in a frantic circle with her madly hammering heart lodged in her throat. Her entire body broke out in goosebumps. “Daddy, where are you?” she cried. “Please don’t go! Please come back!”
Her only reply was the wind as it combed through the trees and cooled the tears running down her cheeks.
When she made it back to the motel room, the bag was still on the nightstand where she’d left it. She poked at it and dabbed her runny nose with a scratchy motel tissue. “Any chance of a quick trip home in there?” she asked aloud. But of course there was! The cell phone! She just needed to enter a code to open a portal home! She undid the bag’s clasp, and her hand plunged inside, searching eagerly.
But the phone wasn’t there.
“Oh hell no ...” There was nothing left in the bag but a half-dozen twenties, folded in half and secured with the money clip. Deegie remembered the fast-food meal from last night and how it had simply appeared as soon as she’d thought of it. She clasped the bag to her chest and her pale brow furrowed. “I need that cell phone!” she said, and looked inside again. Just the money and the end of a drinking straw wrapper. The heavy rose-print fabric looked old and tired; it exuded a faint thrift-shop smell. The spell had been broken. It was just an ordinary bag now. She threw it down on the bed and patted all four pockets of her jeans again and again. Nothing. It must have fallen from her pocket during her harrowing adventure.
“Shit,” Deegie said mildly. She picked up the bag and dusted it off. There was more than enough money for a cab ride home, but she was exhausted and longed for home; a portal would have made things so much easier. At least her father was still alive. Well, whatever passed for living in his world.
“Nothing should be easy, right, Dad?” she whispered the words as she inspected her face for damage in the fly-specked mirror. “I remember when you used to tell me that.”
One of Cobalt’s fire bolts had singed off a quarter-sized clump of her hair at the roots, and her shoulder throbbed dreadfully. She could just imagine the myriad of colors the bruise would display. Her head complained, too. She hovered on the edge of an attack of Witch’s Cramp.
She saw the reflection of the bed in the mirror. It looked comfortable and inviting in spite of the rough, bleach-scented sheets. The room was paid up for another few hours. A hot shower would be bliss. She imagined she would use up the entire matchbook-sized bar of motel soap before she felt clean again. Perhaps a quick nap next. Home could wait for another hour or two. Maybe she could call Zach with the room’s phone before her nap so he wouldn’t worry.
Something thumped against the door.
Deegie jumped, a scream lodged in her throat.
The door shimmered from mid-point down, and something vague and indistinct moved across the carpet with a guttural hngh, hngh, hngh.
The tension left Deegie’s body in a rush, and her body went limp with relief. “Tiger!” Her voice wavered and broke as she ran to embrace her old friend.
The mattress squawked and flattened as Tiger leaped onto the bed. Deegie lay down next to him, her call to Zach forgotten. Knowing that Tiger was on guard and at her side once again, she surrendered to sleep’s insistent call.
***
Zach glared back at the balefully grinning insect-thing. “Come on, asshole,” he muttered, tightening his hands into fists. “Come on in and see what you get!”
Keeping one eye on the flying monstrosity, Zach turned his head just enough to toss his shout over his shoulder, “Guys! They’re coming in over here!”
Shrill cackles bubbled from the creature’s tiny mouth, and it gave the cardboard another yank. The hole widened. Then the insect-creature twitched. Its grip loosened on the ragged cardboard and the creature dropped from the window. It fell, lifeless, into the snow. The rest of the swarm followed suit. Hundreds of dead insect-people plummeted to the ground.
The sun escaped from a bank of clouds. As its rays hit the fallen bodies, they began to sizzle and pop. Ribbons of acrid steam rose up to a stark blue sky and were borne away on the breeze. High in the branches of the closest tree, a bird uttered a cautious chirp.
“I think they got him,” Zach said. He wiped the sweat from his face. Relief and a sense of triumph made his knees wobble. “They took out Cobalt. I think it’s over.”