Chapter Seventeen

 

Eric and Holly climbed into the van and headed away from the farmhouse. As they made their way down the long, gravel drive, Delphinium and Poppy began the process of joining their magic into the protective blanket that was supposed to shield them from the magic man but somehow failed to keep him from piggybacking her spells to locate the girls.

At least they now knew how he was doing it. This time, she’d only sought enough information to determine the basic direction: south. Delphinium waited until they’d been gone for twenty minutes and then called Eric’s cell phone as she performed the spell again.

The intention was to give them a time advantage over the magic man, hopefully allowing them to retrieve Cierra from wherever she was hiding and be gone before he could send any more imps against them.

But even the best laid plans could go wrong. If the magic man happened to be closer than they were, he’d still beat them there. Or for all they knew, he could have some kind of supersonic magic carpet.

Eric had learned long ago not to dismiss anything, no matter how crazy it might sound.

Cierra Lennenston, according to Delphinium, could be found in a house near Weaver Lake, about an hour south of the farmhouse.

Holly handled the directions, allowing Eric to keep an eye on the roadsides for suicidal imps.

He didn’t like having to travel so much. All it would take was one unfortunate deer to strand them out here in the middle of nowhere and leave Cierra and the others at the mercy of the killer.

Before leaving the house, he’d stepped aside and asked Isabelle what she thought of the magic show. She told him that she’d sensed a tremendous amount of energy flowing from that table and compared it to the energy she felt from the unseen structures he encountered back in June. It was definitely a different kind of energy, but it had the same kind of feel.

She couldn’t quite describe it, but she still didn’t think the two were connected.

They drove to Weaver Lake as quickly as they dared on the dark, country roads and followed Delphinium’s directions to a modest little home nestled between a sprawling cemetery and a little patch of dense woods.

A single car was parked in the driveway, a little Ford with a bent front bumper. Eric parked beside it and the two of them stepped out into the chilly night air.

There were only a few lights visible in the windows. If this wasn’t the right place, they’d likely be getting these people out of bed.

“Wait here,” said Eric.

“What? Wait! What if you need me?”

“I just want to make sure it’s safe first. Don’t forget what Delphinium said, she’s going to need all of you to hold her spells when the magic man finally comes for her.”

“She also said we’re going to need you,” she reminded him.

“True…” He gave her a brave smile. “But I’ve got mad healing skills.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “If I come home without you, I’ll be in big trouble.”

“Just let me check to see if it’s safe. If an army of imps come pouring out of there, I want you in the van and buckled in because I don’t want to worry about you while I’m running back here screaming like a girl.”

“Just be careful. Please.”

Eric walked to the front porch, his eyes open wide, watching for anything that might warn him of an impending attack.

Nothing seemed out of place. No windows appeared broken. The door hadn’t been forced. It didn’t appear to be on fire. If the magic man was here, he hadn’t left any evidence that he could see.

He pulled out his phone. “Anything?” he whispered.

NOTHING

Eric nodded.

IF HE’S HERE, I CAN’T FEEL HIM

That was good. But then again…

I DIDN’T FEEL HIM THOSE LAST TWO TIMES UNTIL HE WAS RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU

“Right.”

Eric pocketed the phone and looked up at the house. In a perfect world, he’d simply knock on the door and Cierra would answer. He’d tell her that Delphinium sent him and she would happily get in the van and leave with him before the scary magic man could show up. But it was never that easy.

He glanced over at Holly, saw that she was standing safely beside the van, and then turned and knocked firmly on the door.

He waited, but no one answered.

God, he hoped they weren’t too late. Why the hell didn’t these girls just have cell phones? Everybody else on the planet had the stupid things.

He knocked again. “Hello?” he called. “I’m looking for Cierra Lennenston? Is she here?”

Still nothing.

He looked up at the softly glowing windows, watching for moving shadows, a glimpse of someone peeking out, but the place was utterly still.

He turned and looked back at Holly again.

She gave him a worried smile.

Finally, the lock snapped back and the door opened. He turned to greet whoever was there, and was immediately struck in the face by a hard, blunt object.

He reeled back, startled and dazed, and fell against the porch railing, lifting his arms to protect himself. Immediately, he was struck again, this time in the stomach. The wind knocked out of him, he dropped to his knees. He lowered his arms to defend his aching belly and was promptly struck across the side of his head hard enough to send him sprawling across the porch. When he rolled onto his back, struggling to protect himself, he was pinned down. The baseball bat that had twice rattled his brains and once socked him in the gut was now shoved violently against his throat and a woman’s face was suddenly hovering over him.

She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and was extremely skinny, with a too-pronounced jawline and cheekbones, very short-cropped, blonde hair, fine lips pulled back in an angry grimace and pale, blue eyes full of rage.

See? It was never easy.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “How do you know my name?”

Eric wasn’t sure how she expected him to answer these questions while she was strangling him with the bat, but fortunately, he didn’t have to figure it out before she choked the life out of him.

“Cierra! It’s me!”

The enraged blonde turned and looked toward the voice. “Holly?”

“He’s with me! Don’t hurt him!”

Too late… thought Eric as his vision began to swim out of focus.

Cierra looked down at Eric again, confused. Then, finally, she let him go and stood up. “Oh shit…”

Eric gasped for air and coughed. The motion sent thunderbolts of pain through his aching skull. “What the hell?” he tried to say, but he couldn’t seem to form any words, so all he did was cough and sputter.

Holly ran up the steps and knelt beside Eric. “Please be all right!” she pleaded.

“What the hell, Holly?” snapped Cierra.

“We came to find you.”

“I didn’t see you! I just saw him and I panicked.”

“I know,” said Holly as she helped him to sit up. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“My fault,” Eric coughed, rubbing at his bruised throat. That’s what he had coming, he supposed. He should’ve known that would happen. Poppy had even warned him that their sisters wouldn’t trust him without Holly. And why should they? How were they supposed to know that a strange man who showed up out of the blue wasn’t the strange man they were supposed to be hiding from? He only wanted to make sure it was safe before calling Holly over. It never occurred to him that he might be attacked before he had a chance to mention that she was with him.

“Are you okay?”

Eric nodded. “I’m hard-headed,” he assured her. And fortunate, too. The woman’s wild swings caught him in the forehead and above his right ear. Both were going to raise sizeable lumps, but they could just as easily have broken his nose and jaw.

Karen was going to start making him wear a helmet when he did these sorts of things.

“He’ll be okay,” Decided Cierra, which seemed rather cold, given that he could easily have a concussion, but what did he know? He was too stupid to listen to Holly when she warned him not to approach the house alone. “Come on inside.”

Holly took Eric by the arm and led him through the front door.

Cierra ushered them by and then turned and looked out at the front lawn one last time before locking up. Even through the pain, he could tell that she looked afraid. His unannounced arrival on her doorstep had clearly unnerved her.

“Whose place is this?” Holly asked.

“It’s a frat house, I think. There’s a college of some kind near here and a bunch of boys rent the place. Most of them are gone for the summer.”

“And they let you stay here?”

“Sort of.”

Eric walked into the living room and sat down in the nearest chair. He was going to need some pain killers after this. He rubbed at his forehead and then looked up and saw the body lying on the couch.

“Whoa!” he shouted, jumping back to his feet.

Holly rushed in to see what had startled him and let out a shriek when she saw it, too.

“Yeah, don’t mind him,” Cierra told them. “He’s fine. That’s Rob.”

Eric’s heart was still pounding, but he’d already realized that the young man lying on the couch wasn’t actually dead. He was on his back, his head propped up on a pillow, one arm dangling over the side, his hand resting on the carpet. His eyes were open and expressionless, but not glazed over. He seemed to be in some kind of trance.

“Who is he?” demanded Holly.

“He lives here. I met him at a bar the other night. He was trying real hard to pick me up. He was bragging about having the place to himself for the week and I really needed a place to stay, so I let him bring me home.”

“What did you do to him?” asked Eric.

“I just reached inside and made him behave. He was a little handsy. Like I said, he’s fine.”

“He doesn’t look fine,” Eric observed. A closer inspection revealed that he was drooling onto the pillow. It was soaked.

“He hasn’t been there the whole time. I move him around, let him stretch it out.”

“That’s not right,” said Holly.

“He was asking for it.”

But Holly was not having it. “Let him go. Right now!”

Cierra looked annoyed. “I’m not hurting the stupid kid.”

“Now!”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But he’s totally going to freak. I usually wait until I’m gone to let go of them.”

“How many people have you done this to?” Eric asked, horrified.

She shrugged dismissively. “I lose count.”

The young man jumped, gasped, his eyes darting around the room. For just a moment, he remained still, as if afraid to move. Then he let out a yell and leapt off the couch.

“It’s okay,” Holly assured him, but Rob wasn’t listening. Half-screaming, he ran for the door, knocking over one of the kitchen chairs as he went and barely managing not to go sprawling onto the floor.

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad!” Cierra called after him as he ran out the door, screaming for help. “I let you get all the way to second base!”

“Cierra!”

“What? I’m not entirely heartless.”

“You can’t go around doing that to people!” scolded Holly.

“Letting them get to second base?”

“You know what I mean!”

“Please. The kid needed a healthy dose of fear. Horny little prick wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He’ll think twice about picking up a strange woman in a bar from now on.”

“It’s just wrong!” insisted Holly.

Before they could discuss the matter any further, the kid let out another howling shriek from somewhere in the driveway and then ran back through the door, still whooping at the top of his lungs. Although he’d knocked over furniture to get away from the witch who’d turned him into a puppet against his will, he now passed right by her on his way out the back, his voice receding after him.

The three of them watched him go, then looked at each other.

“Well that can’t be good,” said Eric as they all turned to face the open front door.

Clearly, something was out there, something far worse than the mean blonde who’d enslaved him in his own home in return for trying to weasel his way into her pants.

“More imps?” asked Holly.

“Probably.”

“Imps?” said Cierra. “You’re kidding, right? I thought that was a fairy tale.”

“They leave real enough bite marks,” Eric assured her. “The real question is how many are out there?”

“Oh dear…” sighed Holly. She didn’t have to say what she was thinking. Last time there were eleven of them. And this time they didn’t have a masculine, sharpshooting women’s shelter resident to help them fight the little monsters off.

“Get ready,” Eric warned. “Can you do that spell thing of yours again?”

“I think so,” replied Holly.

“You finally learned your thrust?” said Cierra.

“I did.”

“Nice.”

“Do you have one of those, too?” asked Eric.

“I do.”

“Good. We’re going to need it. There’s no telling how many are out there.”

But as he started across the kitchen floor to peek outside, it wasn’t a little imp that appeared in the doorway. Eight feet tall and nearly as wide as the grill of the minivan, the thing blocked out the entire porch as it glared in at him with big, angry eyes.

Eric said a very bad word again.

“That’s not an imp!” shouted Holly.

It was as muscular as the imps were thin, with a great, sagging gut and huge, taloned feet. Its hands looked mostly human, with no visible claws, but they each looked strong enough to easily crush a man’s skull like an egg. Its head was a strange assortment of features, with huge, drooping lips and great, angry eyes, but also a very tiny nose and ears.

Holly wasted no time launching her spell. Eric felt the warm wind rush past him. Twice now, it had done the trick of cutting an imp in half and ending its rampage, but this time all it did was open a wide, smoking gash across the creature’s chest and knock it back a couple of steps.

Instead of dropping dead, it became enraged and threw itself into the doorway, trying to force its massive bulk through the small opening.

“We’re going to need more of those,” said Eric.

“I need time,” gasped Holly.

“We can only use our thrusts once,” Cierra told him. “Then we have to recharge.”

“Not cool.”

“I’m sorry,” said Holly.

Cierra pushed past him. “Let me.” She closed her eyes, crossed her hands over her chest and then gave a loud shout and thrust her arms forward. At the same instant, Eric felt that warm air rush past him again.

The breeze didn’t come from the witches themselves, he realized. It was strange, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. He didn’t have to be in front of them to feel it. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. It happened too fast.

But he did manage to wonder briefly if the warmth he felt was related to the heat that caused the water in the bowl to boil back at the farmhouse.

The monster took two hits this time, one in the right side of its belly, the other in its arm. Again, it staggered backward. Again, wounds opened in its skin, this time in the form of deep, gushing holes. Dark blood poured onto the floor, where it began to smoke, just like the imp carcasses.

Clearly, this thing had some kind of relation to the imps. Perhaps they both came from the same hellish universe.

Even with three large, gushing wounds, the thing still didn’t drop. It let out an awful roar and then threw itself into the doorway again.

“Oh shit…” said Cierra.

Eric nodded. She took the words right out of his mouth.

He snatched the baseball bat off the table and rushed forward, swinging it with all his strength, but the monster easily deflected it with its massive arms.

“We have to get out of here!” shouted Holly.

“She’s right,” said Cierra. “Come on. Out the back.”

The creature was worming its way through the doorway. Eric could hear the frame cracking. It was only a matter of time.

“Hurry!” urged Holly.

Eric turned and followed the two women through the house.

Behind them, the creature let out a furious roar and something crashed to the floor as it finally forced itself into the house.

“What the hell happened to the imps?” yelled Eric.

They ran through the house and out the back door left open by Rob as he fled the building the second time.

Eric wondered vaguely where he’d gone. And what would he tell people? Nobody would believe the truth. With any luck, he’d realize the hopelessness of trying to find someone to listen to his crazy story and keep these bizarre experiences to himself. It would be safer for him that way.

He couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the poor guy. How was he supposed to know how dangerous it could be to pick up a strange woman in a bar?

“Back to the van!” he shouted as they descended the back steps and bolted around the side of the house. The front door had slowed the beast down considerably. Hopefully the back door would do the same, giving them plenty of time to drive away.

But again, things were not that easy.

As they rounded the side of the house, the bay window exploded and the monster stumbled into the yard in front of them.

Both women screamed as well as any girl in any good horror movie.

Eric wasn’t too bad, either, he’d later recall.

If he had one wish, he sometimes thought, it would be to lose that shrill pitch in his voice when something blood-curdling jumped out at him and started chasing him. (Or…you know…to just never have these sorts of things happen again.)

Holly and Cierra turned and ran the other way, but Eric had to dive to the side as the beast came at him, its huge, crushing hands reaching for him. He turned and ran out into the cemetery instead, veering around headstones and then racing up one of the aisles.

The creature followed him, clearly undeterred by the idea of disturbing the dead.

Eric had to appreciate the cliché of cutting through a dark cemetery to flee a dangerous monster. If he was reading this in a book, he’d call out the author for a stunning lack of originality. Especially since this wasn’t the first time it had happened to him. There always seemed to be a cemetery.

The headstones didn’t slow the beast down much. It was surprisingly agile for its size. Eric glanced back, thinking that he’d outpaced it, but found instead that it was right on his heels, swiping at the air behind him, only inches away.

He found that he could run a little faster, after all.

He made it to the far side of the cemetery without being caught, but nearly collided with the tall fence that materialized out of the gloom.

Somehow, he made the turn without tripping himself and falling on his face, but the creature caught hold of his tee shirt and yanked him off his feet. In the space of a single, frantic heartbeat, he found himself airborne, hurled bodily through the air, his arms and legs flailing.

By some miracle, he didn’t bash his brains out on one of the dozens of granite headstones. He landed only on soft grass, but even that was brutal. He bounced once, and then skidded to a stop, his body racked with pain, his clothes savagely grass-stained.

He knew he had no time to lay there, waiting for the pain to subside, and yet, he couldn’t quite make his body move. He rolled onto his belly in a strange state of slow motion, and struggled to rise to his hands and feet.

He saw it coming from the corner of his eye, a great, hulking form. Having already demonstrated its impressive strength, he felt maddeningly sure that the thing was going to seize him in its massive hands and crush the life out of him. He could almost hear the sounds of his bones splintering inside him, the shards shredding his organs as they ground together.

In situations like these, his vivid imagination was rarely his friend. And yet, the abject terror of that thought was enough to jumpstart his body back to full speed and he began to simultaneously crawl forward and stagger to his feet.

But the thing grabbed his foot before he could fully stand and he was dragged backward through the grass and then lifted into the air.

Hanging there, upside down, the blood rushing to his head, he knew he was only seconds from a nasty demise. He had to think and he had to think fast.

His eyes washed over the creature. It was nasty, its skin blotchy and filthy, bloated and slimy with sweat, with that foul, black smoke pouring from the wounds the witches had left in its flesh. And the disgusting thing was naked, too. His racing mind flitted over the idea of reaching under the thing’s fat, sagging belly to find out if it had any genitals to damage, but a better and marginally less traumatizing idea struck him as his darting gaze fixed on the smoking hole Cierra’s spell left in the beast’s belly.

Grimacing at what he was about to do—a task only slightly less nauseating than grabbing the monster’s foul scrotum—he reached out and plunged his hand deep into the wound.

It was hot and greasy-feeling, and quickly made his belly flop, but it definitely did something. The beast let out a fearsome howl and gave him a violent shake.

Eric held on for dear life, forcing his fist even deeper into the monster and squeezing…something…

Oh dear lord!

He’d never vomited upside down before. This was going to be unspeakably unpleasant.

The monster pulled at him, trying to dislodge him from its body, and Eric barely managed to hold on.

The beast roared.

Eric roared right back at it, cursing the filthy thing.

Suddenly, it seized his other leg. All at once, his feet were moving in opposite directions. Apparently, if he wasn’t going to let go, the monster was just going to tear him in half.

Eric had no doubt that this was going to hurt like hell.

He felt the muscles in his groin stretch. One of his hips popped. Pain surged down both thighs.

Then he felt that warm breeze pass over him again.

The monster let go.

He fell.

Something in his fist gave a wet pop as his hand was dragged out of the thing’s filthy innards by his own falling weight.

He landed hard on his side, knocking the wind out of him.

All he wanted to do was lie there in the cool grass and wait for the pain and the sickness to go away, but fear kept him moving. Another five seconds and he would have performed the ultimate split. Next time, he wouldn’t get away.

He rose to his hands and knees, gasping for breath, and heaved as the hot lump in his belly gave another flop.

Tears streaming from his eyes, he looked up at the gravestone directly in front of him. Jackson Lippens, the moonlight revealed.

Eric forced himself to rise to his feet.

He had no idea who Jackson Lippens was. The man had died before Eric had graduated high school and was buried in a town he’d never even heard of before tonight. He was as much a stranger as anybody on the planet. But he would not vomit on someone’s grave. That was just wrong.

An awful, gurgling howl rose from behind him and he turned to see the monster staggering around, swinging its massive fists.

Its hideous face was now split wide open, its ghastly features wiped virtually away by a huge, smoking gash. Foul, steaming fluids oozed out.

Another of Holly’s vicious spells had struck it, this time with deadlier aim.

And yet the monster continued to thrash around! Even blind, its huge hands slashed at the air, still searching for its prey. Each time it pumped its powerful arms, a gory spray of foul, smoking bile erupted from the hole in its belly.

Eric had to redouble his efforts to keep from barfing on the late Mr. Lippens.

Someone called out to him.

He turned to find Holly looking back at him from several rows over. She was kneeling in the grass, clutching the side of a wide headstone as if too weak to stand.

Recalling what Cierra told him about her needing to recharge, he felt a renewed surge of energy at the thought that she had over-exerted herself. He ran to her and helped her up, careful not to touch her with his soiled hand.

“Come on,” she panted. “We have to hurry.”

The monster’s ears must have still remained intact, because it turned and rushed toward them. But it didn’t make it far. As they looked on, it tripped over a headstone and fell with a thud onto the ground.

As quickly as they could go, the two of them made their way back to the driveway, where Cierra was waiting behind the wheel of the minivan.

“What the hell were you doing out there?” she demanded as they climbed into the side door and collapsed onto the seat.

“Just screwing around,” replied Eric. “Can we please get the hell out of here?”

At the very least, the police were likely to be showing up soon. Even if Rob hadn’t raised an alarm by now, they’d likely made more than enough noise to concern the neighbors.

Cierra pulled out of the driveway and turned onto the street.

“And can we stop somewhere so I can wash my hands?” asked Eric, looking down at his gory hand. Black smoke was pouring off of it. He couldn’t seem to get the awful feel of the thing’s greasy guts out of his head.

The monster lurched out in front of them.

Cierra screamed and jerked the wheel.

The van swerved.

Holly let out a loud yip of a cry and Eric cursed as the van clipped the creature with a loud thump that reverberated throughout the vehicle.

As Cierra sped away, he turned and looked out the back window in time to see the creature collapse onto the side of the road.

He very much hoped that was the last he’d seen of that thing.