Cover My Eyes
Ten minutes later, anyone within earshot had thrown on a coat and made their way to the town square. Bennington continued to call out and demand to be freed. Given that the key to his cell was somewhere on one of the halves of Jonas Cooke, no one was making his release a priority.
John-David Sloane had covered Jonas’s body halves with a horse blanket. It was instantly soaked through with blood.
The townsfolk gathered in a three-quarter circle around the pillory, staying well clear of the bloody, blanketed lump in front of Sloane’s store. Someone had ridden hard to the Cooke house a mile away. Now they were riding back just as hard, with the Cooke men well in front.
“Someone come here and release me now!” Bennington called. Chloris felt guilty to be glad her master was going ignored by the muttering crowd. His integrity would dig graves for both of them.
Luckily, the clamor of Adonijah’s horses drew their attention. The people crowded together to make room for the remaining Cookes, who rode their horses right up to Sloan’s shop, hopping off the instant they stopped.
“What is that?” asked Adonijah, already teary-eyed.
“Jonas.” Sloane gestured grimly toward his bench. When Adonijah lunged to pull the blanket away, Sloane seized him in a tight embrace. “It’s better you don’t, Adoni.”
The patriarch pushed Sloane away and snatched hold of the blood-glossed horse blanket. He stopped himself from yanking it away at the last instant, instead drawing it carefully.
Cries of shock and horror emerged from everyone—except Adonijah. He stood as if frozen, holding the edge of the blanket in fingers going bone-white.
Conal O’Herlihy pushed through the cowering bystanders. “What is th…?”
With Conal suddenly shocked silent, clever Chloris saw her moment. She screamed, pointing at Conal’s feet. “I saw them!”
Their silence was promising. “Those feet! Those are the shoes of the man who killed Jonas!” She pointed at where Conal had stood to threaten her, where his footprints remained.
Adonijah knelt to examine Conal’s shoes.
“No! She’s…” Conal didn’t finish.
Elias lowered his lamp to the shoe print. “Have him to stand here, Father!”
Phineas and Rufus grabbed Conal’s arms and dragged him to the print.
“Careful!” Chloris cried. “He has a knife!”
Phineas made a quick search of the folds of Conal’s coat and found the bone knife Conal had taken from Schroeder—the one with which Conal had stabbed the corpse of Hezekiah Hardison. Rufus forced Conal’s feet into the footprints.
“Conal came and threatened me to make me say my master was guilty!” Chloris continued. “When Jonas came to confront him, they fought. Conal took up the axe, and…” Her sobbing was both calculated and genuine.
Adonijah had glowered at Conal since her first exclamation. Now, satisfied by the paltry evidence, the elder Cooke snarled as he charged Conal. “I’ll kill you here and now, bastard!”
The Cooke sons held the Irishman still to allow their father whatever vengeful act he wished.
“Adonijah Cooke, you listen to me!” From the jail, Bennington’s thundering voice finally cut through the rising discord.
“Say your piece later, Bennington!” Adonijah took the bone knife from Phineas.
Conal’s panicked pleading was silenced by Rufus’s meaty hand, as he yanked the Celt’s head back to expose his throat.
“Are we no longer men of law, Adoni?” Bennington shouted. “How will you serve this community and your Lord if you murder the man?”
Adonijah shook with rage. Everyone was silent for a terrible time. Then he released Conal. “Get Bennington out of that cell and put this filth in his stead.”
As the boys shoved him toward the jail, Conal caught the eyes of a handful of his followers and gave a subtle nod. They all slipped away, as the citizens remained to share their shock.
* * * *
Modern day
The rains increased, the scarlet lightning flashed longer and brighter, the animalistic growl of thunder sounded deeper and louder as the vigil for Ysabella progressed.
Though there was some flinching among the chanters, no one broke contact or concentration. Bernard squeezed the hands of his wife and daughter as if they might float away, articulating the strange words with the same intent he applied to complex chemistry problems, remembering what he had learned—and said to McGlazer—about the power of ceremony and focus.
“Okkala Boro-Tah Cam-Ura Taaaaaahn!” Brinke’s incantation was now a shout trumpeted to the heavens on the voice of one of its own warrior angels, insistent to the point of godliness.
“Okkala Boro-Tah Cam-Ura Tahn!” the chorus of well-witchers enjoined.
The sentience of Violina’s storm grew as well, the thunder becoming angrier, more disturbingly alive in response to every repetition. The roars funneled to every ear as if from mere inches away—yet all eyes remained closed, all hands remained joined, all voices continued in perfect rhythm.
“I pass this piece of my life into you, Ysabella!” cried Brinke. “This piece of my essence!”
The others were unsure whether to repeat these words. They continued with the earlier words, their insistence, if not the same elements Brinke gave, moving and passing into the crone.
“I pass THIS PIECE of my BEING into Ysabella Escher! My queen mother! My Self!”
The storm’s thunderous protest was wasted.
Ysabella rose from the bed and floated into the air on wings of Will, eyes, mouth and hands opening to unleash orbs of pure white light that warmed the faces of her attendants.
Brinke had anticipated the sudden power surge. As she was tossed from Ysabella, she grabbed Emera in a protective shell. The child giggled against her breast as they rolled onto the floor and away from the shaking bed, its sheets billowing as if from hurricane winds.
As the expulsion of light dimmed, Ysabella floated down to stand on the mattress, smiling at everyone around with joy and gratitude. Her eyes fell on Brinke and Emera.
“Oh, my beautiful girls!” she called “Thank you!”
* * * *
“Whoo!” said Violina. “’Tis a night not fit for man nor beast, aye, Kenny Killmore?”
Her use of Dennis’s stage name was as infuriating as the kisses she kept giving his cheeks.
“We should see my little pumpkin pets soon. The ones that are going to eat your friends and family, I mean. Including your petite little punker girl.”
She whirled toward him in a sudden flourish, with mock-imploring eyes. “Oh, Dennis! Could you? Would you…have me as your bride then?”
She giggled like a coyote and patted his groin. “Of course you would. But first, the inn. To see my old friend Ysabella. Should be fun, no?”
She drew the flask and raised it to Dennis’s mouth. “Take a sip, lover.”
He did, hating and loving the taste of alcohol spreading across his tongue.
“There we are.” She lidded it and tucked it back in her cleavage. “If you need more, just reach right in and take it.”
Dennis remained silent, knowing any threat would be meaningless without a physical will to enforce it. But he did not give up hope, even as he felt his arms turn the wheel to take the hearse into the Blue Moon Inn’s parking lot.
“I want you to go up there to Ysabella’s room and kill her,” Violina said, thinking. “But I can’t decide how…Any suggestions?”
Dennis could not resist. “I bet if you had me tear you limb from limb, she would just be heartbroken.”
“That is good,” Violina began. “But only half of it, really. Hey! What if I had you kill all of her little friends right in front of her!?”
Dennis now regretted his satisfying burst of sarcasm.
“Let’s do that!” She opened the door and donned a raincoat over her robe, then popped up her umbrella. “Use this!” She handed him Matilda Saxon’s athame.
Dennis didn’t bother trying to swallow the rainwater this time, feeling more than a little foolish for ever thinking such a desperately contrived scheme would work in the first place.
Something told him Jill was up in that room, with Ysabella.
He tried to drop the knife, then to raise it to stab himself anywhere he could, preferably a vital organ or artery.
Violina sashayed into the lobby and rang the desk bell for service. “Should I do the talking, or…?”
Inn proprietor Lonnie Duckworth eventually appeared from the room behind the desk, his pristine blue oxford-cloth shirt wildly contrasting with his rumpled and stained, ill-fitting khakis.
“Hi, Lon,” charmed Violina. “We’re here to check on poor Ysabella.”
“She’s pretty sick, I think,” Lonnie said. “You sure you want to risk catching it?”
“I’m just afraid she might not be around much longer,” said Violina. “I…want to make sure I get my goodbyes out.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lonnie said. “Go on up.”
“Call the sheriff,” Dennis said.
“Huh?”
“Dennis has the worst sense of humor,” Violina explained. “Now, Dennis, don’t say another word to our host, naughty boy.”
He didn’t, because he couldn’t. But he stared pure intention at Lonnie, who stared back in confusion.
“Come along, Dennis,” Violina sang.
Dennis issued a strange grunt as he followed her to the elevator, further confusing the innkeeper.
Once inside, Ysabella raised a rebuking finger to his face. “You are testing the very limits of my patience, punk boy.”
She glowered at him like a cruel mother, and he was helpless to fire back with his Johnny Rotten–style sneer.
“You just take that little knife out of your pocket, mister.”
He did.
“Now. Let’s see you get all emo. Jab yourself right in the tummy with it,” she mocked. “Slowly.”
Dennis pressed the point against his stomach, hoping the elevator would open before he could pierce his leather jacket, that someone would be there when it did, so she would be forced to make him stop.
Better yet, if only he could trick her into making him stab her.
Alas, the elevator opened onto an empty hallway gently washed with ambient lighting.
“You can speak now,” she allowed. “Or cry. Whatever.”
She said he “could,” not “must.” He stoically resisted doing either. The point of Matilda’s athame finally pushed through the leather and pierced his lower stomach a half inch deep.
“All right, stop and pull it out, little boy.” She waved him forward as she stepped from the elevator. “Save the real stabbing for…”
A door opened at the end of the carpeted hall…and out stepped his mother. “Dennis?”
“Ma!”
“Your mother? Oh, my dark gods, this simply could not be better!” Violina clasped her hands together like an excited child preparing to blow out a birthday candle. “Run down there and stab her in the heart. Be sure and look her in the eyes until she stops moving.”
Dennis ran toward his mother, tears bursting from his eyes the way his stomach wound bled. “Run, Ma!” he shouted.
She stood there, perplexed. Bravo appeared, raising his ears in confusion at Dennis’s strange behavior.
Dennis raised the knife high, just as his mother was pushed against the far wall.
By Jill. The drummer covered her boyfriend’s mother, her petite back the only shield against the athame.
Someone else was at the door, with her hand extended toward Dennis. He stopped running so abruptly he pitched over Jill and Elaine like a triple-run hitter gunning for home. He landed directly on his face and lay still, bleeding from his nose into the patterned carpet.
Violina hadn’t the breath for a gasp. She had stopped laughing as abruptly as Dennis had stopped running, and it made her choke.
Ysabella stood strong and fierce, just outside her door, wearing an expression of such rage her eyes physically glowed like fire, her hair blowing back from a sudden hot wind.
Brinke stepped out beside Ysabella, sporting a decade’s worth of fresh crow’s feet and a streak of gray in her hair that matched Candace’s. “Go inside and rest, Ysabella. Let me deal with her.”
“Together, Brinke.” Ysabella grabbed her hand. “As we should have done from the start.”
Stella emerged and took Brinke’s other hand, but addressed Violina directly. “You should never have come to Ember Hollow, bitch.”
Violina quickly got over her shock and regained her imperious smile. “How sweet! The crone, the matron, and…the hippy.”
She clasped her hands together as if pleading. “I do hope you won’t hit me with an expelliarmus!”
She swept her hands sideways, unleashing an arc of hurricane wind that peeled the wallpaper and knocked the women off their feet.
Bravo barked with rage.
Jill got Elaine back into the suite, grabbing Bravo by the collar as well.
Brinke recovered first, rising to a knee and extending her thumb and little finger. Twin beams of pink energy flowed as though from a high-pressure hose.
Violina blew like she was dousing a match, making the pink light disperse into harmless, quick-fading sparks.
Brinke stood and helped Ysabella to a stand, from which she continued forward, flying like a rocket with glowing hands outstretched.
“Des Irtix!” Violina shouted. The words turned to a black net that opened to entwine Ysabella. It burned away on contact, but Ysabella continued forward, her hands a battering ram to Violina’s chest, knocking her back into the elevator doors.
Ysabella, momentarily spent, fell to her hands and knees with a grunt.
Stella glanced into the suite to check on her frightened little girls, relieved to see Leticia dragging them away from the door.
“Think iceberg!” Brinke shouted, as she grabbed Stella’s hand.
A starburst of blue light sailed over Ysabella and fell on Violina like a boulder, spreading across her body. As the glow died, ice remained, trapping Violina, the momentum knocking the frozen witch statue onto her back.
Ysabella struggled to her feet and stumbled toward the other witches. “It’s not enough! We three must…!”
A tinkling sound told them Violina had already broken free. She rose like a catapult, her left hand extended and cupped. A violet bubble grew and flew from it, enveloping Ysabella.
Brinke and Stella watched in horror as the energy blister began to close in on the elder witch like shrink-wrap. Ysabella’s scream was silent within the vesicle, but her pain and terror were plain for all to see.
The bubble trap crushed in on the old woman at alarming speed.
Brinke knew how this spell worked, knew that Ysabella would soon be a basketball-sized bag of crushed flesh. “Stop it, damn you, Violina!”
“Why, of course!” said Violina. “Just relinquish your magic energy to me, and I’ll let her hobble back to bed.”
“What is she talking about?” asked Stella.
“There’s a spell of transference,” Brinke said in a defeated voice. “I used it to revive Ysabella.”
“You too, my fledgling friend,” Violina said to Stella. “You will repeat her chant and grant me your powers…such as they are.”
Stella glanced toward the little girls and saw they were huddled with the terrified Leticia against the bedroom’s far wall. “All right.”
Violina stopped the bubble’s shrinking by turning her cupped hand sideways. “Begin.”
Brinke wept as she did. “Crotus Keemay Kah…”
Stella regretfully repeated.
“Sunoo Gemma Kah…”
Stella felt a pull, a draining from her solar plexus, like a powerful vacuum hose was pressed to it. “Sunoo Gemma…”
“’Scuse me.” She was shoved to the side.
Dennis stood beside her, his chin and shirtfront drenched in blood from his broken nose. In his right hand was Matlida Saxon’s athame, held aloft.
Dennis slung his arm like a baseball pitcher. The athame appeared in Violina’s throat. As if by magic.
Stella stared at him in astonishment.
“I took a mail order ninja course when I was Stuart’s age,” he said, sounding congested.
Violina grabbed the handle of the athame and began reciting an incantation, which came out as mere lip movement. This quickly trailed off as the baneful witch toppled face-forward, plunging the knife point through the back of her own neck as she landed face-first.
The bubble around Ysabella dissolved to a fine mist. She gulped fresh, glorious air. Dennis went to her, offering a helping hand. “I ain’t trying to be no nick-of-time cowboy here,” he said, “but I owed that bitch.”
He took a black bandana from his pocket and wiped his bloody nose and chin. “Besides, you ladies are gonna need all the magic you got for our real problem.”
Jill blindsided him, driving him against the wall as she laid a kiss on him that seemed shockingly violent to the onlookers. Their age of celibacy was quickly coming to an end.