The Witch of Tophet County: A Comedy of Horrors, page 1
THE
WITCH
OF
TOPHET
COUNTY
J. H. SCHILLER
For Mike, who never doubted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Jennifer Holyfield Schiller
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Organization Chart by Sandro Fazlinovic
ISBN: 978-1-0394-5226-8
Published in 2024 by Podium Publishing
www.podiumaudio.com
Contents
CHAPTER ONE Read at Your Own Risk
CHAPTER TWO The Dread Lord of Human Resources
CHAPTER THREE Nerdomancer
CHAPTER FOUR The Sockrifice
CHAPTER FIVE A Coven of She-Devils
CHAPTER SIX I’m with H(eath)er
CHAPTER SEVEN Lightly Fettered Access
CHAPTER EIGHT The Murder Machine
CHAPTER NINE Dr. Unibrow
CHAPTER TEN The Unseen Creeping Horror
CHAPTER ELEVEN May Cause Permanent Madness
CHAPTER TWELVE Necessary Cruelty
CHAPTER THIRTEEN WTF
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Children and Fools
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Witchin’ Ain’t Easy
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Love Is a Devil
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Tooth by Tentacle
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Neighborhood Watch
CHAPTER NINETEEN No Rest for the Wicked
CHAPTER TWENTY It Hurts!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Friggin’ in the Riggin’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Widow and the Devil
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Mindless Mother
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Cat Who Ate the Cockatrice
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Enemy of My Enemy
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Rhymes with “Witch”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Home Sweet Hell
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT The Nefarious Agents of Order
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Dee’s ’Nuts
CHAPTER THIRTY Third Base
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Silent but Deadly
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Juggling Balls
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE The Community Repository of Torture Implements
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Fake News
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE The Godsdamned Pickles
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Send in the Threenagers
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN This Time, It’s Personnel
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT The Great and Terrible Bearded Clam
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE The Equal Suckitude Principle
CHAPTER FORTY Coming Home
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE Magna Innominanda
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Read at Your Own Risk
The witch of Tophet County traced her index finger along a line of arcane runes as she read the final words of The Necronomicon. She slammed the heavy human-skin-bound piece of shit closed. It shuddered and sailed to an empty stretch of shelving in the Read at Your Own Risk room.
Cthulhu’s scaly tea bags. She’d wasted eight months of her life translating eye-screwing squiggles into human words only to find out the entire 666-page turd contained not one freaking word about magical contracts. She glared up at the book, which ruffled its pages in a taunting flutter.
The witch braced her hands on the table and stood, preparing to summon a swarm of silverfish, but a ripple of motion on the shelf above The Necronomicon drew her gaze. The corner of a slim volume now protruded from an otherwise-flat row of spines. It would’ve been difficult to spot in the flickering light of wall-mounted torches, but its jaunty angle bared a flash of white pages. After suffering through an infestation of sentient spores a few years back, the witch knew better than to handle unfamiliar Nomicons. She picked up her barbecue tongs, grabbed the book, and deposited it on the table.
The Necronomicon exploded in a frenzy of eat-shit page flapping, obviously trying to distract the witch from her discovery. She ignored it.
The new book’s cover was that blacker-than-black shade known in occult circles as fuligin. It looked like a window into the lightless void of deep space. She sat down and eyed it with growing excitement. In contrast to The Necronomicon’s tantrums, this book fell open invitingly, displaying the title page: The Archonomicon.
Now, that was interesting. She’d slogged through dozens of Nomicons over the years. Not this one. With growing excitement, she turned the page and began to read.
Za’gathoth, the Mindless Mother, matriarch of the Archons of the Nether Realms, lies dreaming in her profane temple beneath the Catachthonic River. To reveal hidden truths, seekers may call upon the Mother by standing on the Bridge of Sighs and speaking her name. Za’gathoth will emerge from the waters and take the seeker to her lair, where she will either divulge esoteric knowledge or consume the one who dared summon her, rending mind, body, and soul until not even the phantom of a memory remains. Depends on her mood. It’s a crapshoot, really.
A loud tone chimed through the library’s intercom. “Attention, patrons,” gargled a wet-sounding voice. “Derleth Memorial Library will close in five minutes. Please collect your belongings and proceed to an open kiosk to check out your materials.”
By all hell’s devils, the books in the Nomicon section were for in-library use only, and the Dread Librarian’s bibliophasic sorcery prevented them from being copied or photographed. The witch scowled up at the shelves. She’d never seen The Archonomicon before. If she didn’t take it now, she might never find it again, and time was running out. The probationary triskaidecade of her County employment contract ended on the winter solstice, giving her less than two months to sever the bond that held her in thrall. She’d tried everything she could think of over the past thirteen years, but her contract still had her in a magical chokehold. This book might be her only shot at freedom.
The witch bent her head and whispered, “Will you come with me?”
The last thing she needed was to abscond with it, only to have the damn thing screech like a banshee or shoot her with poisoned darts. The Archonomicon flipped itself closed and assumed an air of readiness. She’d take that as a yes. She stood and circled around the table to block The Necronomicon’s view, then shrugged out of her hoodie and used it to swaddle the book.
Soft, rasping snores emanated from her oversized backpack, which was propped against one leg of the table. She eased the bundle inside and wedged it under the sleeping body of her familiar, then slid her notebook and pocket dictionary of barbarous tongues in as well. The Necronomicon thrashed on its shelf as she pushed through the iron-barred door, stepping out of what looked like a medieval wizard’s study—complete with meticulously scattered artificial dust—into the fluorescent multimedia nightmare of a modern library.
Sprinting for the exit would only draw attention, so she forced herself to cross the lobby in a nonchalant stroll. The door was a mere ten feet away when someone grabbed her arm and tugged her to a halt. A burly man in a security guard’s uniform glared up at her.
Perfect. Todd the Incredible Asshole.
“I’m going to need to search your bag.”
The witch crossed her arms, looking down her nose at his freckled bald spot. “Is that so?”
“Something triggered the RAYOR room alarm,” he said, hitching up his belt. “You were the only one in there.”
That godsdamned Necronomicon…more like Narconomicon.
“Suit yourself.” She jostled her bag as she slid it off her shoulders, startling its occupant into surly wakefulness, and held it out to the uniformed man.
Todd hefted the backpack by its padded straps. “Awfully heavy.” Then he loosened the drawstring and peered into the bag. “Gee, I wonder what you’ve got in—”
Twenty-one pounds of snarling rage catapulted out of the shadowed depths and latched on to Todd’s face with all three paws. He shrieked and dropped the bag. The witch snatched it, held it open, and whistled to Keyser Söze, who hissed and leaped inside. They’d have to make a run for it.
A bubbling, phlegmy voice called, “Halt, Witch!”
The witch plastered a vapid smile on her face and turned to greet the Dread Librarian. “Is there a problem?”
Chlogha, Keeper of Arcane Knowledge, glowered at her. Even for an Archon, she had an impressive glower—the kind that turned hair white and loosed bowels. Then again, as a nine-foot-tall toad with a single bloodshot eye, an insectile proboscis bracketed by pincers, and corpse-green skin that shimmered like an oil slick, she didn’t need to do much to strike terror in the heart of man. Or witch.
A tentacle unfurled from the wriggling nest under Chlogha’s mouth. “The book, please.”
“Book?” The witch bit her lip, as though struggling to remember something that had slipped her mind. “Oh, the book. I’ve got it right—”
She spun and darted toward the door. With a moist roar, Chlogha lunged after her. The witch had just touched the push bar when a tentacle tore the backpack from her shoulders. A razor-sharp pincer the leng
The Dread Librarian unfolded the witch’s hoodie, revealing the purloined book. The Archonomicon seemed to wear an aura of regret.
“This is your third strike, Witch.” Chlogha’s dinner-plate-size eye fixed her with a baleful glare. “I hereby invoke Rule 42 of the Archonic Library System,” she croaked. “May Azathoth have mercy on your soul.”
The great toad handed her the backpack and lurched away, shaking the floor with each hop. Keyser’s worried face appeared in the circle of the open drawstring, and the witch released a shaky breath. She picked up the bag and cradled it to her chest. Thank Discordia, that eldritch nightmare hadn’t hurt him. She closed her eyes to whisper a prayer of gratitude. When she opened them, she was standing on the sidewalk in front of the library.
What the tentacled fuck…
The witch shouldered her backpack and turned to head back toward the library, but Keyser issued a low growl of warning. She froze and opened her third eye. An astral bubble surrounded the building, adorned with shimmering script that read System-wide ban in effect. Forty-one days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-nine minutes remaining.
A ban?
First Starbucks, now the squidsucking library.
Just when she’d found a promising lead, that frigging frog exiled her for six weeks. She’d only have nine days to find The Archonomicon after her banishment ended. But under the smothering weight of disappointment, a seed of hope took root. This book was different. It had wanted her to read it. The witch rode a wave of growing excitement as she walked through the crisp autumn air to the motorcycle spot where she’d parked her broom. There was more than one way to skin an octopus. She’d find a way back in tomorrow, rules be damned.
What were the Archons going to do—fire her?
CHAPTER TWO
The Dread Lord of Human Resources
Abaddon County Library System interlibrary loan request denied. This patron’s Rule 42 ban extends through December 10.
Nice try.
The witch deleted the email with a disgusted sigh. That amphibian asshole had banned her from all libraries—not just the Tophet County branches. Even Starbucks hadn’t been that harsh.
She was out of ideas. After Monday evening’s disaster, she’d used her last three sick days trying to storm the library. Brute force, always her tactic of choice, had been a spectacular failure, leaving her to sleep off a magical migraine. Sneaking in disguised by an illusion hadn’t worked, nor had riding shotgun in the body of another patron, astrally projecting into Keyser Söze, and wriggling through the book-return drawer, nor coming up through the sewers. The force field around the library recognized her etheric signature no matter what she tried. It was enough to make her borderline homicidal.
Adding insult to injury, a new email from Tophet County’s Online Services Department appeared in her inbox. The subject line read Mandatory upgrade for scheduling software.
Not happening, Chad.
She tried to delete the message unread, but a dialog box popped up saying she had to install a security patch first. Considering the amount of entropic energy she invested in her daily hex of the scheduling system, she wasn’t about to comply.
The witch glared at the only bit of decoration in her office—a photograph taped to the wall facing her desk. She met the haunted eyes of the photo’s subject and exhaled a plume of icy breath. A rime of frost covered the image.
The desk phone rang.
The witch smiled.
“County Witch,” she said in her sweetest voice. “How can I help you?”
“I see you got my email,” Chad said. “Look, I know you’re upset about the software update, but—”
“Whyever would you think that?”
“Could you just make it stop snowing in my office? It’s not good for the electronics.”
The witch lit a Swisher Sweet cigarillo and puffed smoke into the handset.
Chad coughed theatrically. “Did you know the County curse breaker bills upward of ninety percent of his time undoing your temper tantrums?”
“Is that so?” She’d have to up her game.
“I ought to file a complaint with HR,” he said. “Especially after what you did to my…to Heather.”
“I didn’t do a godsdamned thing to her.”
Wait…had she cursed Mrs. Chad?
“‘May your wife find an amazing opportunity in direct sales,’” Chad said. “Ring any bells?”
Ah, yes—retaliation for mandatory cybersecurity training, if memory served. “That was ages ago. Why complain now?”
“First, she spent four thousand dollars on leggings inventory and turned the garage into a pop-up boutique. Now she’s selling It Hurts!™ weight-loss wraps on Instagram.” Chad sighed. “She says she’s found her why, whatever that means.”
“You’re going to bother the Dread Lord of Human Resources about a prank I pulled last year?” The witch whistled. “That’s bold, Chad. He isn’t exactly a patient entity.”
“He’s been way more chill lately, but it doesn’t matter,” he said with another long-suffering sigh. “Not anymore.”
Jeez, Heather was just hocking leggings. No need to be so dramatic.
But an uncharacteristic pang of conscience pricked her soul. She snapped her fingers, putting an end to the indoor blizzard.
“Thanks,” Chad said.
“Whatever, just tell me how to make the computer skip this stupid update.”
“Turn it off and turn it back on again.”
“I swear by the many limbs of the County Clerk, if you ever say that to me again, I’ll—”
The witch froze. A pinprick of octarine netherlight appeared, hovering in midair on the other side of her desk.
“Chad, you worthless shitweasel,” she hissed. “You already sicced HR on me, didn’t you?”
The pinprick grew. This was bad. Her usual protocol before a one-on-one with a senior Archon required a seventy-two-hour period of intense preparation. Worse, Keyser Söze was home sleeping off a hangover. Without her familiar, she was limited to her body’s natural reserve of magic-powering entropine.
“No!” Chad cleared his throat. “I mean, I may have made a few tiny complaints over the years, but nothing recent.”
The pinprick continued to dilate. Whipping tentacles lashed through the opening, catching the edges and pulling the hole wider. The witch’s stomach lurched. She slammed the phone down and looked around her office, fighting a growing panic. She needed to find a fitting receptacle for her most priceless possession. Her eyes landed on a half-empty bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, the champagne of soft drinks. Any port in a storm…
Keeping one eye on the growing hole in reality, the witch lunged for the soda and unscrewed the cap. She poured the contents on the floor and shook the bottle, dislodging the remaining droplets. The hole was about two feet in diameter now. Tentacles grasped the edges of her desk, pulling a large, heavy body that stretched and thinned the edges of the opening. The Dread Lord of Human Resources appeared to be crowning.
