Night of the Witch-Hunter, page 12
She whispered harshly. “He’s in the circle. The blood is spilled.”
Still in shock, Pryce gazed at the damage, taking in the wounds he’d made across his descendant’s palms. But that sight offered him no pleasure, not as he might’ve hoped for.
Blood oozed from her wounds, like stigmata, running down her arms, down her body, across her pajama pants-covered legs. Then, as though brought to life, the blood moved in swirling funnel cloud-shapes. The brick red, run through with the crackling blue energy, formed a new purple tone as it touched the symbols drawn onto the art room floor, walls, and ceiling.
Watching this, Pryce turned his head, only to find Nikki no longer at Josey’s feet, but moved away. During that shocking moment of his initial attack, she’d moved behind the witch-hunter. There, she’d sprinkled salt, replacing what the witch-hunter’s boots scuffed away in the attack. There, she read the final words of the spell, the ones written on her arm in black marker—produced the same way that the girls might draw the tattoos they wanted someday, whenever they were bored in class.
Now, Josey smiled. It was a smile she felt damned sure she’d earned. She followed this grin with a primal scream, venting all her anger, frustration, fear, and sadness, pulling from everything that’d held her down, held her back. Following that scream, the witch-hunter’s curved blade was flung backward, drawn out of her wound. The blunted edge of the metal caught the man in the face.
Pryce stumbled backward, appearing to teeter on the edge of disaster. Josey reached for him with bloodied hands, grabbing onto his thick woolen coat.
If he falls out of the circle it’s over, she thought.
Luckily, the spell was already working. When she grabbed the front of his coat, she caught a glimpse at his boots where another set of hands, soft and white and shaped almost like hers, reached up from the past—as if time could have a direction other than the usual forward march of progress. The art room floor melted away under her feet, becoming sticks and leaves.
She heard Nikki cry for her from outside the circle. “Josey! Josey, watch out!”
But Josey shook her head, knowing the witch-hunter couldn’t be defeated in the present by her alone, the same as how he’d survived in the past when pitted against her ancestor by herself.
This was an old family matter and it would be settled by Josey’s family. And Josey’s family alone.
And then, she was falling.
Josey Wesley hit the leaf-strewn floor of the woods outside Fallen Church, a tiny village in the New Hampshire colony. The breath was knocked out of her briefly. Her eyes snapped open, wide. Curled, chilled breaths followed. It took Josey a moment to realize where she was, as though she’d just awakened from a bad dream.
Except what she’d awakened to was far worse than any nightmare. She found herself in the middle of a walking, waking vision of Hell. The bare, skeletal trees, ready for a brutal New England winter, were lit up like matchsticks. Birds and forest creatures scurried amid leaves and twigs and vines, fleeing the roaring flames. The scent of burning pine was on the wind. Mystical energies sizzled and crackled as they were tossed about like grenades. The explosions reminded Josey of the static on her Discman when it was turned up too loud. Looking skyward, she found reds and blues, laced with white-hot lightning, combining into a twisted American flag-like light show.
At the center of this conflagration, her ancestors continued their supernatural combat. The witch Rebecca Wesley and her mentor, paramour, betrayer, and hunter Nathaniel Pryce, were locked in this brutal back-and-forth exchange of unholy, unnatural powers.
Returned to the past, Pryce had found his voice again. A vainglorious, gloating, cocksure voice. His words were laced with venom. Each sharp syllable showcased his rage toward Rebecca. She had defied him, not just in their time, but in the future as well.
“I intended to let them kill you,” he said. “I was going to give them the honor, the pleasure of it, witch. But I see that’s not enough. I see now how your message will live on.”
He moved toward his former lover, toward the mother of his child.
“So, once I burn you alive, I think I’ll go return to the village and wipe Fallen Church off the goddamned maps. Set fire to every man, woman, and child there. Every! One! Just so I can be sure your stain’s erased forever.”
Josey caught Rebecca faltering, her glowing spectral energy flickering like the flame on Nikki’s lighter.
“That’s not. . . you can’t. . .” Rebecca said, trying to get the words out.
“Can’t I?” The witch-hunter’s arrogant retort was punctuated by the crackle and pop of more trees burning. “I’m more powerful than you. I always have been. Always will be.”
Josey had heard enough. She moved to Rebecca’s side. Adding her own powers to those of her ancestor.
“You!” Pryce sneered. “Little girl from a future that will no longer exist. You’re hardly as practiced in the dark arts as that witch next to you. Both of your powers pale in comparison to mine.”
“You might be more powerful. More skilled. More indebted to dark forces. But you know what else you are?” Josey asked.
She didn’t give Pryce a chance to answer.
“You’re alone,” she said.
With that, she drew the cutlass the witch-hunter had dropped in the future from behind her back and ran full force at the phony Puritan. It was a short distance to Pryce, especially at a sprint. Josey gripped the handle as tight as she could, her blood-slicked hands daubed in dirt and leaf particles. She did her damnedest to ignore the searing pain traveling from her hand and up her arm.
She put her head down, the top of her black hair aimed like an arrow at Pryce’s chest. She hoped to feel the impact of her skull cracking against his body, thinking she’d get lucky and crack a rib or two. But before that happened, she felt a sudden squeeze and found her progress halted. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the sweat-soaked odor of the witch-hunter’s leather gloves, as he caught her.
Pryce began to mock her. “Foolish girl—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Because he hadn’t listened to what Josey was saying and had missed her point entirely. But Rebecca?
Rebecca had listened. Rebecca had understood.
As the witch-hunter released her, Josey saw him crashing backward, toppled by Rebecca Wesley launching herself at the man just as her descendant had done. The pair of them, the two women separated by time, but united by blood, climbed on top of the witch-hunter. Punching, tearing, clawing him. Josey took the witch-hunter’s sword and stabbed it down into the body of the wicked man. She stabbed as hard as she could and watched the blade cut through cloth and flesh. She did this again and again, over and over.
The attack repeated until the last split second when Josey stopped to study their handiwork. Pryce was not finished and was powering up another spell. His hand, doused in blood, still glowed with his corrupted crimson energy.
“Come on!” Josey shouted to Rebecca.
Both witches grabbed the witch-hunter’s arm, pushing it backward, not stopping when he cried out in pain, ignoring the sounds of his bones cracking and tendons tearing. Indeed, they used his bellowing cries to their advantage, taking that blood-slicked gloved hand and shoving it into the witch-hunter’s mouth. Pushing as hard as they could, going past his rotted teeth and swollen tongue.
His eyes widened. The energy Pryce had summoned, intending to strike the women, could not be recalled or paused. It could only be released. His cheeks glowed red like a lit Jack-O’-Lantern on Halloween night. The light even penetrated the black of his clothing. Soon, his eyes bulged even more unnaturally from their sockets.
Josey and Rebecca fell back, away from the witch-hunter and onto the smoldering forest floor. Before them, the witch-hunter expanded, bursting at the seams as his wicked magic continued to fill him.
Suddenly, Josey felt a nudge at her arm. Rebecca nodded to the bladed weapon still in her descendant’s hands, as if to say, Go ahead. It’s your turn now.
And Josey was ready to take that turn. She swung the sword like a baseball bat. She swung the curved blade hard, so it struck true and deep, creating a crescent-shaped wound in the witch-hunter’s neck.
A spray of crimson, bloody and electric, splashed onto her face, covering her eyes.
As if she’d expended all of her power on that final blow, Josey crumpled to her knees. Somewhere nearby, she heard Rebecca chanting. Lying on her back, Josey stared up from the center of a circle she didn’t remember drawing. But there wasn’t any sky to be found above her head.
All she saw was Mr. Mundy’s classroom ceiling and Nikki’s face, tear-streaked, smiling.
Josey reached for that face. She stretched upward, wanting that face more than anything she’d ever wanted.
There would be no more falling. This time, she would fly.
Passing through the portal and out the other side, returned to the present, Josey collapsed against Nikki. Still blood-stained, bruised, and sore, Josey was also very much alive. The relief she felt at her continued existence and at her subsequent reunion with the person she cared about more than anything else, made it so she first missed out on all the things around them that differed from the Fallen Church she’d left behind.
Like the fact that they were standing in an open brick-paved pavilion rather than inside the school. Or the fact that Nikki was now dressed in a fancy black gown, pearl buttons clasped up to the neck, with a voluminous skirt hovering like a storm cloud below. All Josey cared about was the fact she was together with the girl she loved.
“Nikki!”
That was all Josey could say, all she wanted to say. She gratefully accepted the other girl’s embrace, letting her body be pulled in close until their foreheads touched.
Her head tilted, Josey leaned in for a kiss and found the other girl matching her movements as well. Lips parted and they seemed to breathe each other inward until their tongues were dancing, moving nervously at first and then with more surety. It was as magical a first kiss as Josey could’ve hoped for.
When they finally stopped, Josey laughed, overwhelmed by the emotions racing inside, each of them vying for prominence.
“That was. . . that was. . . incredible.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Goodwitch Josephine,” Nikki said.
“But you never call me Josephi. . .”
Josey trailed off as she finally noticed the glow of mystical energy in her friend’s eyes. She tilted her head up and back, taking in the blue-tinted, sun-dappled early morning sky of Fallen Church. The pale expanse was crowded with witches, young and old, men and women, all of them flying. Soaring through the open air, free and fearless.
Taking in these impossible sights, Josey wondered just where or when she’d traveled to. To a different time, a different world, one where Nathaniel Pryce had died and Rebecca Wesley had lived. The realization of what that change meant, of how far-reaching its consequences might have been slowly sank in for Josey.
The night of the witch-hunter had ended, but the witches’ day had just begun.
Unlike many other books of arcane knowledge and terrible secrets, this particular tome was not written, crafted, and published in solitude. And thank goodness for that! I’d like to take a moment to pay tribute to the many who added their own bits of magic to the mix.
First, thanks to Alan Lastufka for being open to the pitch and for taking on this witch-tacular project. Your editorial insights helped elevate the story to the next level and you are a true pro through and through. One of the absolute best publishers to work with and I’m so grateful for this collaboration and others ahead. I can’t imagine a better home for Night of the Witch-Hunter than the Killer VHS line at Shortwave.
Thanks also to other key team member who’ve helped make this book as wickedly good as it can possibly be. Line editor Nancy LaFever and proofreader Erin Foster demonstrate the vital importance of getting one’s magic words in just the right order. Thanks to their efforts, this story became the book in your hands and not—I dunno—a frog.
And Marc Vuletich (aka Vulture34) conjured up cover art that perfectly captures the mood and overall vibe of the tale being told. From front to back, this book is wrapped up in so goddamn beautiful artwork, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Finally, and forever, thanks to my family. Jenna, Grant, and Avery, thank you for your patience, your inspiration, and the constant swirling chaos that we dance amid every single day.
Patrick Barb is an author of weird, dark, and horrifying tales, currently living (and trying not to freeze to death) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His published works include the dark fiction collections The Children’s Horror and Pre-Approved for Haunting, the novellas Gargantuana's Ghost, Turn, and JK-LOL, as well as the novelette Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare.
He is the editor and publisher of the anthology And One Day We Will Die: Strange Stories Inspired by the Music of Neutral Milk Hotel. His forthcoming works include his talking animal/ crime/cosmic horror novella The Nut House from Undertaker Books and his debut sci-fi/horror novel Abducted from Dark Matter Ink. His interview column "Your Favorite Author's Favorite Author" is a monthly feature in Shortwave Magazine. Finally, his 2023 short story "The Scare Groom" was selected for Best Horror of the Year Volume 16.
Visit him at patrickbarb.com.
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Patrick Barb, Night of the Witch-Hunter
