Chapter Nineteen

 

There were times when Eric wondered if he hadn’t simply gone stark raving mad one day and all the insane things that kept happening to him were all nothing more than fantasies inside his head as he sat in some bleak room somewhere, bound snug in a straightjacket, drooling and muttering to himself.

Oddly enough, the rest of his life was perfectly mundane. He went to work in the mornings, ate dinner with his wife in the evenings and read a few chapters from a book every night before he went to sleep. He was no more awesome than the average high school English teacher, which he thought probably averaged out to not very awesome at all. Nor did he even care to be awesome. He was happy with his life just the way it was.

And yet for the third time in less than a year, he was living the life of a character in a book far stranger than any he typically cared to read, fighting monsters, risking his life, and all for reasons he still struggled to understand.

Why him? He wasn’t particularly talented, except in his knowledge of literature and his graduate-level writing skills. He wasn’t a soldier or a grizzled cop. He wasn’t trained in hand-to-hand combat. He wasn’t even all that smart. He was just an ordinary guy with an ordinary job. He wasn’t even still in his twenties. Why the universe chose him to deal with this insane nonsense was beyond him.

But here he was, stepping out of the minivan to converse with a coven of witches after narrowly escaping being dismembered by a pissed-off ogre.

Delphinium met them at the door with a warm hug for Cierra.

Then her eyes fell on Eric and she turned to face him. “Thank you so much!” she said, taking his hand in hers. “You really are the hero my spell told me you were.”

“I’m still not so sure,” Eric told her. “But I’m trying.”

She reached up and gently stroked the huge knot on his forehead. “You poor man… That monster really did a number on you, didn’t it?”

Eric glanced at Cierra, who met his eyes only briefly before turning away. “Yeah,” she said. “The monster. Vicious thing.”

Holly giggled.

Delphinium didn’t seem to notice. She was looking deeply into his bruised face. “Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad. I’m a quick healer, remember?”

She gave him a smile and gestured inside. “Come on.”

Inside, Cierra was standing beside the couch, where Poppy was stretched out. “The others aren’t here yet?” she asked.

Delphinium and Holly exchanged an uncomfortable look.

“What?”

Eric turned and left the room. He didn’t want to be there when they told her about the three dead girls. He wasn’t a member of this family. They deserved their privacy.

Besides, he desperately wanted to wash his hands. He could still feel the ogre’s greasy guts on his bare skin.

He stepped into the bathroom and scrubbed his hands with soap and hot water until they were bright red. Out, damned spot! he thought. Out, I say!

As he dried his hands, his cell phone rang. It was Paul again.

“What’s up? You find your way out of Kentucky yet?”

“We did,” said Paul. “Twice now.”

“Twice? You said you hated Kentucky? Why did you go back?”

“I didn’t. We got back on the highway and headed north. Next thing I know, we’re passing another damn ‘Kentucky welcomes you’ sign!”

“That sucks. Where are you now?”

“Signs say I’m heading north toward St. Louis,” said Paul.

“I’m nowhere near St. Louis,” Eric informed him. “You’re supposed to be heading east.”

“I was going east. Now I’m going north. Stupid road just circled back on me.”

“Don’t you have a map?”

“Yeah, but Kevin can’t read it for shit.”

“Don’t blame me, old man!” snapped Kevin in the background. “I keep telling you where to go. You’re the one not listening!”

“I’m listening, you’re just not making any sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense! I’m telling you exactly what the map says. It’s you who can’t follow directions.”

Eric stepped out into the hallway and leaned against the wall beside the bathroom door. “Just get your ass over here. Things are getting messy.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. But the monsters are getting bigger and nastier. I don’t suppose you’ve still got your deer rifle in the truck, do you?”

“You know what, I do. Now that you mention it. I almost forgot it was there.”

“Well I could use some firepower.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Let’s just say I’d feel more comfortable with some armed backup.”

“We’re trying.”

“Maybe if you just let me drive…” growled Kevin.

“You’re not driving.”

Goodbye,” said Eric. He disconnected the call and promptly received a text from Isabelle.

DO YOU FIND IT WEIRD AT ALL THAT THEY’RE HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE FINDING YOU?

“It’s a little odd, yeah.” Paul was usually pretty good with directions. How he managed to drive all the way to Kentucky twice was beyond him.

I FEEL LIKE IT’S ODD THAT THEY KEEP GETTING TURNED AROUND SO BAD

“You think something’s trying to stop him?”

MAYBE. WEIRDER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED

“No kidding… I guess all we can do is wait and see.”

He pocketed the phone again and walked back to the living room. Cierra was sitting in one of the chairs, her elbow propped on the arm, her knuckles pressed to her mouth. She wasn’t crying. If anything, she looked angry.

Delphinium stood up from the other chair and faced Eric. “Come with me,” she told him. “I need to give you something.”

She walked past him and down the hall, back the way he’d come. He followed her obediently, not bothering to ask where they were going or what it was she wanted to give him. He would clearly find out in just a moment.

She led him through a door and into a bedroom with a neatly made bed.

He didn’t think she brought him in here for a nap, and he found himself feeling a little anxious.

She knelt beside the bed and lifted the comforter, then she slid her hand between the mattress and the box springs and pulled out an object wrapped in a towel.

“This was Grandpa’s,” she informed him as she stood up and turned to face him.

Eric said nothing. He stood there and waited as she unwrapped the towel. When she reached the middle of the bundle, she revealed the object to him. It was a knife of some sort. And it looked very old.

Is this a dagger that I see before me? he thought.

“Ogres are nasty business,” she told him.

“I noticed that,” he said.

“You’ll need something to protect yourself.”

“No offense, but I’d prefer something a little more…long range. I don’t suppose you keep a rocket launcher under there.”

Delphinium smiled, amused. It was a little creepy how she kept finding his lame jokes amusing. He didn’t think he was really all that funny.

“That thing kept coming after me even when Holly erased most of its face. I’m not sure how much poking it with a knife will slow it down.”

“It’s more than what it appears.”

Eric looked at it. “Is it also a bottle opener?”

“Grandpa said it was enchanted a very long time ago. He claimed that this blade could cut far more than just flesh. He said that once it began to cut, it would continue to cut, that it would cut deeper and deeper. ‘All the way down,’ he’d say. I never understood what he meant, but he was adamant that it would cut ‘all the way.’ And that it would keep cutting even after the blade was removed.”

Eric didn’t tell her that he thought this sounded crazy. With each fantastic thing he witnessed, there was less and less that he was unwilling to believe. “Sounds pretty nasty. Why did he have something like this?”

“He never said. He kept a lot of secrets.”

Eric nodded. Of course he did. Straight answers just weren’t cool anymore.

“Take this. Use it to fight off whatever the magic man throws at you.”

“Are you sure I should? It sounds like the sort of thing maybe a witch should be in charge of.”

She smiled again. “And a witch is entrusting it to you. Take it.”

Reluctantly, Eric reached out and took it from her. It was heavy.

“It should prove very useful. But be careful. It isn’t a forgiving weapon. Whatever it’ll do to an ogre, it’ll also do to you.”

“Don’t cut myself. Got it.”

She continued to smile at him. “Let’s go back.”

Eric nodded. “Let’s,” he agreed. He didn’t want to be alone with the pretty witch lady in her bedroom. Karen wouldn’t approve.

She led him back to the living room, where the other women (and Jude) were again gathered around the table and the bowl. Someone had relit the candles.

Delphinium joined them and they promptly began the process of joining Cierra’s power to the strange, protective net that she’d somehow cast across the land.

Eric stood in the doorway, still holding the dagger, and he’d have sworn he could feel the atmosphere change around him. A curious warmth seemed to settle into the air, not unlike the weird breeze that accompanied the spells Holly and Cierra threw at the ogre. He even felt a little more secure.

Minutes passed slowly in silence.

He looked down at the dagger as he waited. How, precisely, was he supposed to carry this thing around? He couldn’t very well walk up and knock on a door while holding it. What would Clara have done if she’d seen such a weapon in his hand when she opened the door of the Wordsley House? He certainly wouldn’t have gotten past the bouncers at The Dirty Bunny waving it around. And if Cierra had seen him holding a weapon when she burst from the door of Rob’s fraternity house, he was fairly sure that she wouldn’t have stopped swinging the bat to ask him who the hell he was and how he knew her name.

He simply wasn’t going to be able to keep the weapon on him at all times. But at least he now had a weapon, even if he’d have to retrieve it from the van. If he ever found himself forced to fight another of those creatures, he wanted to be armed.

He dearly hoped to never have to insert his hand inside an ogre ever again.

“Did anyone else notice that?” asked Cierra as she stared deep into the steaming water bowl.

“What was that?” asked Poppy.

“It felt like…a bump…or something…” said Holly.

Delphinium nodded. “Resistance. Something pushed back.”

“Was it him?” asked Holly.

“What else would it be?” countered Cierra.

“The blanket is stretched extremely far,” Delphinium said. “It covers a lot of miles and a lot of people. It could have been someone unrelated, maybe someone like us.”

“Which is more likely?” asked Cierra.

“You know the answer to that,” Delphinium replied. And she did. Even Eric knew which was more likely. They already knew the magic man was powerful. And they already knew that he was under the blanket.

Eric stepped up behind the couch and leaned over it, looking into the water with them. It was already starting to boil. Had it been hotter to begin with? Or did one more witch mean more heat and a considerably faster boiling time?

“I still see chaos,” observed Poppy.

“It hasn’t changed,” agreed Delphinium. “We’re speeding toward a terrible confrontation.”

“Can you tell if we’re going to win?” asked Cierra.

“Too much chaos. It’s in constant motion, impossible to see through.”

“What does that mean?” asked Holly.

Not taking her eyes off the water, Delphinium said, “It means there are still too many variables. The outcome hinges on the events that take place between now and then. And death is always a tricky thing to foresee regardless.”

As the water grew hotter and began to boil faster, Eric thought he could almost see some of that chaos they were talking about.

Or maybe it was only his imagination. It was hard to tell for sure.

“What do we do next?” asked Poppy.

Delphinium stared into the water for almost a full minute and then spoke a single name: “Alicia.”

“I saw her, too,” said Poppy.

Holly squeezed her eyes shut. “I saw Sylvia again.”

“I’ve seen all three of them,” said Cierra, meaning Sylvia, Regina and Marie. The dead girls. “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

“She’s north of here,” Delphinium realized. “It’s time to go.”

Holly stood up, but Eric was still staring into the boiling water.

What was that? He kept seeing a shape on the rolling surface, something that made him think of a snake for some reason.

Who was she really? he thought, though he had no idea precisely why. Who was who?

“Eric?” said Holly.

Eric looked up at her, distracted. “What?”

“You ready?”

He stood up straight. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Did you see something in the bowl?” asked Delphinium.

Everyone was looking at him now. He suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“Maybe a flicker or two,” he replied. “Maybe. But nothing I understood.”

Delphinium was staring at him, as if trying to read his thoughts.

“North then?” said Eric, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

“North,” she confirmed.

Eric followed Holly out the door and back into the weird night beyond.