Night of the Witch-Hunter, page 6
Behind her, someone was crying. A hand grabbed for Josey’s. She flinched, but settled when she saw it was Nikki. Surprisingly, Nikki was the one sobbing, her hitched breaths following each expulsion of tears.
“We. . . we. . . we need to. . .”
Before her friend finished her plea and pulled Josey through the back exit and out to a parking lot filled with fleeing dancers, the tumult outside the dressing room drew to a immediate silence—followed shortly by a sudden, unmistakable, hacking and slicing combination. These sounds were accompanied the snarl of the witch-hunter.
The severed head—belonging to one of their school’s football players—soared through the kaleidoscopic club-lit semidarkness and landed with a splat at Josey’s feet. Nikki and Josey held onto each other, somehow managing to keep themselves upright. The dumbfounded expression forever etched on the dead boy’s face unsettled Josey’s stomach. She gagged.
With no time to turn aside or swallow it back, she barfed, spraying the mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce she’d split with Nikki prior to the summoning—a moment that seemed a lifetime ago. It splattered the coat and tunic of the witch-hunter, who was already returned. raising his cutlass above his head, preparing for another strike.
“Foul witch!” he growled, before lunging into the dressing room, swinging his sword back and forth. He swung one way and the girls dove to the other side to avoid the sweeping arc of the blade. It smashed against the mirror glass above one table, sending silver shards everywhere. The witch-hunter seethed with rage and pain, white, foamy spittle speckling from between his clenched teeth.
Josey and Nikki clasped hands and ran for the exit, the friends moving in tandem.
But they weren’t fast enough. Pryce’s sword-wielding hand, now studded with mirror-glass, slashed the weapon before the thin space just shy of their faces. “You,” he said, speaking to Josey. “You are of the witch’s bloodline. I feel her presence within you.”
Facing the panicked and stunned faces of the two girls, he added, “Did you think you could hide from me, Rebecca? All this while knowing that I was the one who taught you how?”
Taught you how?
Never mind that, Josephine! Rebecca’s voice came as a shouted command inside Josey’s head, the words echoing in her skull. The force of the witch’s voice was painful to experience this way, forcing Josey to drop her friend’s hand and clutch at the sides of her head.
Blood, deep red and potent, dribbled from Josey’s nose, ears, and even her eyes.
“Josey, are you—” Nikki’s question was cut short, as Pryce rushed forward. Instead of finishing her query, Nikki only had a moment to pull her friend away, moving them deeper into the dressing room, closer to the still open exit.
Luckily for the duo, Pryce’s forward motion was not of his own accord. After crashing to the floor, nearly missing having a spiked stiletto heel impaled through one of his eyes, the witch-hunter found himself covered by a scrum of football players, their jerseys still on but with blood now as prevalent as grass stains and spilled celebratory beers.
Ashton Gore raised his head from the center of the pile-on. Eyes wide, lips chapped, giving Josey the impression that underage boozing might not have been the only illicit activity the footballers were engaged in that evening, Ashton rallied his teammates one more time. “Let’s kick this Pilgrim Dude’s ass!”
He and the other jocks rained down punches and delivered swift kicks to Pryce’s prone form. A linebacker’s foot came down hard on the stranger’s sword-wielding hand. The crunch of newly-shattered bones went off like a gunshot in the dressing room. The sword slid from Pryce’s grasp.
Josey found herself reaching for the abandoned weapon.
However, realizing she wasn’t in control of her body, or her actions, she forced herself to stop.
No, she thought, addressing the other presence within her mind, I won’t let you control me like this. Not until you. . .
Girl, you are as big a fool as I was when Pryce slithered his unholy way into my presence. . .
Before, Josey could fire back or defend herself or ask just what the hell Rebecca meant by all that, Nikki pulled on her again, dragging her toward the exit. DiDi was still there, her fear and confusion evident, but her protective spirit covering for both of those emotions.
As Nikki and Josey escaped the dressing room, the girl with the witch inside her head made brief eye contact with Ashton, her longtime bully and tormentor turned inadvertent rescuer. His hands were bruising, his face already red and flushed. “Witch Bitch?” he asked with a strange smile crossing his lips.
Then, perhaps realizing it didn’t much matter why or how the strange Goth girls from his school had got there, he shouted, “Get outta here! We’ll take care of the freak.”
A new crackling energy signature appeared, similar to the blue light Josey manifested earlier. This time, crimson radiated from Pryce’s body and penetrated the tattered remnants of his cloak, putting the lie to Ashton’s statement.
As Josey was yanked by Nikki and her sister into the back lot, the heavy door slamming shut behind them, she watched the red light becoming a physical presence, blood-red fingers lifting Ashton and the other would-be heroes and then throwing them about helter-skelter.
The door was closed before her. The witch-hunter and his unnatural powers were out of sight, the grunting of their town’s gridiron heroes and the smack of fists against the woolen clothes of the man out of time, all were gone to silence. It took Josey another moment to reorient herself, to get used to the new forms of chaos that awaited her outside the club.
More screaming and shouting filled the parking lots, both front and back, punctuated by the clatter of heels against the asphalt or the squeal of tires on the fleeing dancers’ and patrons’ vehicles.
“Josey!”
There was Nikki, already in her bug, with DiDi waiting by the passenger side, ready to let Josey climb in first.
Josey looked from the closed door that led into the club and back to her friends. Behind them, in the distance, the night sky was lit up blue and white and red in spiraling patterns. Police sirens squealed to match this light show.
“We have to. . .”
We have to flee. You are not ready for what must be done, Rebecca said inside Josey’s head. Her voice was curt, almost sounding disdainful.
Moving toward Nikki’s car, Josey felt this burden of disappointment inside and out. She was tired, her body aching and her mind a raging storm. For a long while, when it came to her family—what they wanted for her, what they wished her to be, she’d felt herself failing to live up to those expectations. She’d felt like she was never enough, never exactly what they wanted.
It hurt worse when it was her ancestor, an actual witch and someone she believed would actually understand her, who was the one passing judgment.
In silence, she climbed into the backseat and buckled up, letting DiDi take the front passenger seat next to her sister. Then, Nikki sped from the parking lot and pulled onto the service road, passing a police car heading the opposite direction, to the strip club and the witch-hunter rampaging inside.
The blue light shone on Josey for a moment but her eyes were cast down to her lap. Staring at her hands. Opening and closing them, trying to find a spark of magical power still there.
Finding nothing, she felt more powerless than ever before.
What was it the tow-headed one called the Wesley descendant? Ah, yes, “Witch Bitch,” that is what he said. How crass, how vulgar. . . how delightfully appropriate. I suppose I’ll let that boy live. For now. But as for these other roustabouts. . .
Turning thought into action, Goodman Pryce imagined a mighty hand, an oversized appendage of an angry God, flexing and squeezing tight around the bodies of the sinners. The crimson aura he’d generated wrapped tendrils tighter and tighter around those young men who’d moments before assaulted the witch-hunter with zealous fervor. There is rage in these young men, perhaps something to harness, to redirect.
But Pryce pushed those notions aside for the moment, thinking, No, no spare the rod and spoil the child. An example must be made.
Even as Pryce’s body healed, his bruises fading, skin and bones stitching themselves back together, the young men’s ribs cracked, their hearts burst, and their lungs exploded. The power coursing through Pryce allowed him to treat his attackers as nothing more than some child’s cornhusk dolls.
Rising to his feet, brushing himself clean, Pryce gave a nod, recalling the manifested power back into his mortal form. The dead boys fell at his feet. All that remained was the one living young man, down on his knees, muttering prayers, pleading for forgiveness. A broken, humbled man-child. It made the witch-hunter smile to see the arrogant lad brought low. He stepped closer, his gloved hand taking the boy’s chin and forcing him to look up into the face of the one who’d spared him.
“Wh—what. . . what are you supposed to be?” the boy asked, his confusion and fear prominently displayed.
“I am the witch-hunter and my night’s work is just beginning,” Pryce said.
“Freeze!”
The shouted command came like a cur’s bark from across the main hall.
Uniformed men, seemingly armored for war, aimed strange devices that somewhat resembled weapons, guns even, at Pryce and the young man in his grasp. There was an air of authority, of power about these new personages. And beneath that power, the same untapped rage I sensed in the ruffians previously. Like recognizing like, Pryce released the young man and held his hands up in the air, slow and cautious. Making it clear that he meant no harm and would come peacefully to wherever they might wish to take him.
It was a calculated move. Pryce sensed there was still much to learn about this future version of Fallen Church. As the witch-hunter, he could be patient. He’d wait and watch and learn, gathering the necessary intelligence to maneuver his quarry to exactly where he wanted them.
Later, Pryce sat stiff-backed and still in the rear of the justice of the peace’s horseless carriage. The vehicle appeared to have magic torches attached to its thick, purring metal roof, swirling blue and white beams across the night sky. The uniformed man, acting as escort, sat in the conveyance’s forward compartment, separated from Pryce by a physical barrier. It’d taken two of the other uniformed men, working in tandem, to harness the witch-hunter into the cotton-soft seatback of the carriage. Something they kept calling a “car.”
Other men had taken Pryce’s weapons. With hands cuffed behind his back, he had not missed the raised eyebrows and whispered questions the men shared about his appearance and his righteous instruments. But he’d stayed quiet. Nodding or shaking his head, depending on what he was asked. He made no mention of the year from which he’d come or of witches, warlocks, and other corrupted powers. These future men only thought of him as a stranger. A violent stranger, yes. But still, just a stranger. He was content to keep their opinion of him limited in this manner.
I can be strange without being out of place. I can show them the purity of my heart, my intentions, and my holy mission.
Voices emerged, garbled and crackling, from the front of the carriage. Strangely, the uniformed man, turning a wheel and moving the vehicle by doing so, sat with lips closed. It was as though he communed with a demonic, otherworldly presence.
“All units. All units. Be advised, we are looking for a Volkswagen Bug. License plate. . .”
Wrists bound behind his back, hands too close together so he couldn’t properly make a sigil, Pryce had to settle for listening and absorbing more information. It was an easy enough thing for him to do. While he was a witch-hunter first and foremost, the heart of a scholar also beat within his chest.
He’d learned under the tutelage of great minds—from men, women, and things that dwelled in the shadows left by hellfire’s wake. These mentors were without mercy, without compassion, without pity, and they’d passed those traits to Pryce.
“. . . vehicle’s believed to hold Josephine ‘Josey’ Wesley and Nikki Farr, students at Fallen Church High School, both wanted for further questioning concerning a recent house fire at the Wesleys’ home on the 1200 block of. . .”
To their understanding, witch’s spawn has been quite busy this evening.
“. . . with Denise Dianna “DiDi” Farr, 27, an employee of the Meeting Hall and sister of Nikki. Proceed with caution. You all know how the Farrs can be.”
The last part made Pryce laugh. Even as the metal cuffs chafed the skin of his wrists, he threw his head back, unleashing a continuous stream of guffaws.
“Hey! Hey!” The lawman sitting up front, bashed a fist against the mesh screen separating himself from his prisoner. “Shut up back there!”
Then, the officer picked something up from the front of his vehicle and pressed down on a button.
Hearing his laughter bounced back, Pryce paused. There’s magic in this future world, he thought, much more than I could’ve imagined. So much to learn, to master.
And all the time in this world to do it in. . . perhaps I should stay. . .
The angry, uniformed lawman spoke to the seemingly demonic voices issuing from the front of his vehicle.
“Dispatch, I’m en route to the precinct with prisoner in tow. Some of the others involved in the, uh, incident are heading that way in McGregor’s squad car. You tell ’em to throw that Gore kid in the drunk tank and let him sleep it off. . . I know his Daddy’d want that. Somethin’ to keep his boy scared straight.”
Hearing this strange conversation, Pryce considered how he’d started his day in the year 1693 and somehow wound up in the year 1999.
“Is it truly 1900 and 99?” he asked.
Releasing his grip on the strange speaking device, the officer’s eyes flashed with questions of its own into the mirror above his seat. “Yeah,” he said. “But why do you say it like that?”
Pryce ignored the critique of his word choice and continued. “So that means the new millennium’s dawning. Are you not afraid of what’s to come?”
“What? Afraid? You kidding me, pal?” The lawman’s protests petered off, revealing more of his heart’s truth than he might’ve liked.
They continued in silence for a few more moments, past a few more streets familiar but different to the witch-hunter.
Then, the officer spoke again. “They say we’ll be okay. Tell us the computers won’t crash or shut down or whatever. Say it’ll be like any other day. But. . . that’s not how it feels. Feels like we’re past due for something bad to happen. Something we’ve maybe earned.”
“Judgment Day,” the witch-hunter said.
From the back, Pryce watched the other man slowly nodding.
“Yeah, yeah,” the lawman said, “like we learned in Sunday School. Judgment freakin’ Day.”
Pryce smiled, relieved to be connecting with a Godly man, or at the very least one who appeared to aspire to such ways. “Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but would you mind sharing your Christian name with me? I am Nathaniel Pryce and I am here to do the Lord’s work.”
At last, Josey had got her way, and they were going to the Farrs’ house. However, their stay there didn’t seem likely to last long. She, Nikki, and DiDi had pulled to the curb in front of their house, tires crunching over broken, neglected asphalt, when the front door slammed open. Nikki’s mom Linda stormed outside in a Tweety Bird nightshirt, with a worn-thin olive green bathrobe over that, pink rollers in her hair, and a cigarette dangling ash balanced on her bottom lip. “Nuh-uh,” she said, making sure to lock eyes with each girl as she stomped across the porch and down the cracked and splintering wooden steps.
“They got everybody all over town looking for you. I heard it on the police band,” she said.
It shook Josey a bit, to think of Mrs. Farr on her couch or lying in her bed, listening to the coded back-and-forth dialogues between dispatchers and officers. But when she considered the legal troubles their family had had since moving to Fallen Church and the fact that their little brother was currently in juvie and her dad “taking some time away,” Josey supposed there was some sense to it.
DiDi took the lead, continuing to walk toward the house, on a collision course with her mother. “Mama,” she said, “give us a break, okay? Do you even know what just happened back there. . .”
The older woman stood with hands on hips, the yellow cartoon bird thrust forward as further warning. “They got that girl’s house burnt down with them two fleeing the scene,” she said, pointing to Nikki and Josey in rapid succession. “Then, they got a heap of dead folks at that damn club of yours, and the Wesley girl throwing bullets at strangers or something, couldn’t tell for sure the way they were talkin’ about it on the radio. . .”
“But that wasn’t—” Josey started to protest, but felt her ancestor stirring inside. Worn out, exhausted, finding herself facing yet another obstacle in a long night of obstacles, Josey relented to Rebecca’s control.
Fine, she thought, you wanna take over? Be my guest.
No, Rebecca said, speaking within the girl’s mind. If you want this sanctuary, then it’s you who will have to earn it. Open your mind and heart and soul to the power. . .”
“I don’t know if I can. . .”
“Who’s she talking to?” Linda asked, paranoia and fear present in each syllable.
Nikki took Josey’s hand. The redhead girl, the one she couldn’t stop thinking of—no matter how hard she tried, no matter how sure she was that the feelings she held for her friend would only lead to more bullying, more torment, more everything awful—gave her a squeeze.
“Whatever it is, you can do it,” Nikki said.
Her words and the nervous smile following were all the permission Josey needed. She took a deep breath and directed her next thought to her ancestor inside her head. Okay, show me how to fix this. Teach me what to do.
Rebecca began the lesson: First, make the connection. Your body and the other’s and the earth at your feet.
Josey slid her shoes off her feet, her socks came next. The ground was cold, with dead grass crunching under the soles of her feet. She walked forward, doing her damnedest to fake confidence, to appear as nonchalant and casual as she could. An impossible task most days for a teenage girl, much more so on that chaotic evening.
“We. . . we. . . we need to. . .”
Before her friend finished her plea and pulled Josey through the back exit and out to a parking lot filled with fleeing dancers, the tumult outside the dressing room drew to a immediate silence—followed shortly by a sudden, unmistakable, hacking and slicing combination. These sounds were accompanied the snarl of the witch-hunter.
The severed head—belonging to one of their school’s football players—soared through the kaleidoscopic club-lit semidarkness and landed with a splat at Josey’s feet. Nikki and Josey held onto each other, somehow managing to keep themselves upright. The dumbfounded expression forever etched on the dead boy’s face unsettled Josey’s stomach. She gagged.
With no time to turn aside or swallow it back, she barfed, spraying the mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce she’d split with Nikki prior to the summoning—a moment that seemed a lifetime ago. It splattered the coat and tunic of the witch-hunter, who was already returned. raising his cutlass above his head, preparing for another strike.
“Foul witch!” he growled, before lunging into the dressing room, swinging his sword back and forth. He swung one way and the girls dove to the other side to avoid the sweeping arc of the blade. It smashed against the mirror glass above one table, sending silver shards everywhere. The witch-hunter seethed with rage and pain, white, foamy spittle speckling from between his clenched teeth.
Josey and Nikki clasped hands and ran for the exit, the friends moving in tandem.
But they weren’t fast enough. Pryce’s sword-wielding hand, now studded with mirror-glass, slashed the weapon before the thin space just shy of their faces. “You,” he said, speaking to Josey. “You are of the witch’s bloodline. I feel her presence within you.”
Facing the panicked and stunned faces of the two girls, he added, “Did you think you could hide from me, Rebecca? All this while knowing that I was the one who taught you how?”
Taught you how?
Never mind that, Josephine! Rebecca’s voice came as a shouted command inside Josey’s head, the words echoing in her skull. The force of the witch’s voice was painful to experience this way, forcing Josey to drop her friend’s hand and clutch at the sides of her head.
Blood, deep red and potent, dribbled from Josey’s nose, ears, and even her eyes.
“Josey, are you—” Nikki’s question was cut short, as Pryce rushed forward. Instead of finishing her query, Nikki only had a moment to pull her friend away, moving them deeper into the dressing room, closer to the still open exit.
Luckily for the duo, Pryce’s forward motion was not of his own accord. After crashing to the floor, nearly missing having a spiked stiletto heel impaled through one of his eyes, the witch-hunter found himself covered by a scrum of football players, their jerseys still on but with blood now as prevalent as grass stains and spilled celebratory beers.
Ashton Gore raised his head from the center of the pile-on. Eyes wide, lips chapped, giving Josey the impression that underage boozing might not have been the only illicit activity the footballers were engaged in that evening, Ashton rallied his teammates one more time. “Let’s kick this Pilgrim Dude’s ass!”
He and the other jocks rained down punches and delivered swift kicks to Pryce’s prone form. A linebacker’s foot came down hard on the stranger’s sword-wielding hand. The crunch of newly-shattered bones went off like a gunshot in the dressing room. The sword slid from Pryce’s grasp.
Josey found herself reaching for the abandoned weapon.
However, realizing she wasn’t in control of her body, or her actions, she forced herself to stop.
No, she thought, addressing the other presence within her mind, I won’t let you control me like this. Not until you. . .
Girl, you are as big a fool as I was when Pryce slithered his unholy way into my presence. . .
Before, Josey could fire back or defend herself or ask just what the hell Rebecca meant by all that, Nikki pulled on her again, dragging her toward the exit. DiDi was still there, her fear and confusion evident, but her protective spirit covering for both of those emotions.
As Nikki and Josey escaped the dressing room, the girl with the witch inside her head made brief eye contact with Ashton, her longtime bully and tormentor turned inadvertent rescuer. His hands were bruising, his face already red and flushed. “Witch Bitch?” he asked with a strange smile crossing his lips.
Then, perhaps realizing it didn’t much matter why or how the strange Goth girls from his school had got there, he shouted, “Get outta here! We’ll take care of the freak.”
A new crackling energy signature appeared, similar to the blue light Josey manifested earlier. This time, crimson radiated from Pryce’s body and penetrated the tattered remnants of his cloak, putting the lie to Ashton’s statement.
As Josey was yanked by Nikki and her sister into the back lot, the heavy door slamming shut behind them, she watched the red light becoming a physical presence, blood-red fingers lifting Ashton and the other would-be heroes and then throwing them about helter-skelter.
The door was closed before her. The witch-hunter and his unnatural powers were out of sight, the grunting of their town’s gridiron heroes and the smack of fists against the woolen clothes of the man out of time, all were gone to silence. It took Josey another moment to reorient herself, to get used to the new forms of chaos that awaited her outside the club.
More screaming and shouting filled the parking lots, both front and back, punctuated by the clatter of heels against the asphalt or the squeal of tires on the fleeing dancers’ and patrons’ vehicles.
“Josey!”
There was Nikki, already in her bug, with DiDi waiting by the passenger side, ready to let Josey climb in first.
Josey looked from the closed door that led into the club and back to her friends. Behind them, in the distance, the night sky was lit up blue and white and red in spiraling patterns. Police sirens squealed to match this light show.
“We have to. . .”
We have to flee. You are not ready for what must be done, Rebecca said inside Josey’s head. Her voice was curt, almost sounding disdainful.
Moving toward Nikki’s car, Josey felt this burden of disappointment inside and out. She was tired, her body aching and her mind a raging storm. For a long while, when it came to her family—what they wanted for her, what they wished her to be, she’d felt herself failing to live up to those expectations. She’d felt like she was never enough, never exactly what they wanted.
It hurt worse when it was her ancestor, an actual witch and someone she believed would actually understand her, who was the one passing judgment.
In silence, she climbed into the backseat and buckled up, letting DiDi take the front passenger seat next to her sister. Then, Nikki sped from the parking lot and pulled onto the service road, passing a police car heading the opposite direction, to the strip club and the witch-hunter rampaging inside.
The blue light shone on Josey for a moment but her eyes were cast down to her lap. Staring at her hands. Opening and closing them, trying to find a spark of magical power still there.
Finding nothing, she felt more powerless than ever before.
What was it the tow-headed one called the Wesley descendant? Ah, yes, “Witch Bitch,” that is what he said. How crass, how vulgar. . . how delightfully appropriate. I suppose I’ll let that boy live. For now. But as for these other roustabouts. . .
Turning thought into action, Goodman Pryce imagined a mighty hand, an oversized appendage of an angry God, flexing and squeezing tight around the bodies of the sinners. The crimson aura he’d generated wrapped tendrils tighter and tighter around those young men who’d moments before assaulted the witch-hunter with zealous fervor. There is rage in these young men, perhaps something to harness, to redirect.
But Pryce pushed those notions aside for the moment, thinking, No, no spare the rod and spoil the child. An example must be made.
Even as Pryce’s body healed, his bruises fading, skin and bones stitching themselves back together, the young men’s ribs cracked, their hearts burst, and their lungs exploded. The power coursing through Pryce allowed him to treat his attackers as nothing more than some child’s cornhusk dolls.
Rising to his feet, brushing himself clean, Pryce gave a nod, recalling the manifested power back into his mortal form. The dead boys fell at his feet. All that remained was the one living young man, down on his knees, muttering prayers, pleading for forgiveness. A broken, humbled man-child. It made the witch-hunter smile to see the arrogant lad brought low. He stepped closer, his gloved hand taking the boy’s chin and forcing him to look up into the face of the one who’d spared him.
“Wh—what. . . what are you supposed to be?” the boy asked, his confusion and fear prominently displayed.
“I am the witch-hunter and my night’s work is just beginning,” Pryce said.
“Freeze!”
The shouted command came like a cur’s bark from across the main hall.
Uniformed men, seemingly armored for war, aimed strange devices that somewhat resembled weapons, guns even, at Pryce and the young man in his grasp. There was an air of authority, of power about these new personages. And beneath that power, the same untapped rage I sensed in the ruffians previously. Like recognizing like, Pryce released the young man and held his hands up in the air, slow and cautious. Making it clear that he meant no harm and would come peacefully to wherever they might wish to take him.
It was a calculated move. Pryce sensed there was still much to learn about this future version of Fallen Church. As the witch-hunter, he could be patient. He’d wait and watch and learn, gathering the necessary intelligence to maneuver his quarry to exactly where he wanted them.
Later, Pryce sat stiff-backed and still in the rear of the justice of the peace’s horseless carriage. The vehicle appeared to have magic torches attached to its thick, purring metal roof, swirling blue and white beams across the night sky. The uniformed man, acting as escort, sat in the conveyance’s forward compartment, separated from Pryce by a physical barrier. It’d taken two of the other uniformed men, working in tandem, to harness the witch-hunter into the cotton-soft seatback of the carriage. Something they kept calling a “car.”
Other men had taken Pryce’s weapons. With hands cuffed behind his back, he had not missed the raised eyebrows and whispered questions the men shared about his appearance and his righteous instruments. But he’d stayed quiet. Nodding or shaking his head, depending on what he was asked. He made no mention of the year from which he’d come or of witches, warlocks, and other corrupted powers. These future men only thought of him as a stranger. A violent stranger, yes. But still, just a stranger. He was content to keep their opinion of him limited in this manner.
I can be strange without being out of place. I can show them the purity of my heart, my intentions, and my holy mission.
Voices emerged, garbled and crackling, from the front of the carriage. Strangely, the uniformed man, turning a wheel and moving the vehicle by doing so, sat with lips closed. It was as though he communed with a demonic, otherworldly presence.
“All units. All units. Be advised, we are looking for a Volkswagen Bug. License plate. . .”
Wrists bound behind his back, hands too close together so he couldn’t properly make a sigil, Pryce had to settle for listening and absorbing more information. It was an easy enough thing for him to do. While he was a witch-hunter first and foremost, the heart of a scholar also beat within his chest.
He’d learned under the tutelage of great minds—from men, women, and things that dwelled in the shadows left by hellfire’s wake. These mentors were without mercy, without compassion, without pity, and they’d passed those traits to Pryce.
“. . . vehicle’s believed to hold Josephine ‘Josey’ Wesley and Nikki Farr, students at Fallen Church High School, both wanted for further questioning concerning a recent house fire at the Wesleys’ home on the 1200 block of. . .”
To their understanding, witch’s spawn has been quite busy this evening.
“. . . with Denise Dianna “DiDi” Farr, 27, an employee of the Meeting Hall and sister of Nikki. Proceed with caution. You all know how the Farrs can be.”
The last part made Pryce laugh. Even as the metal cuffs chafed the skin of his wrists, he threw his head back, unleashing a continuous stream of guffaws.
“Hey! Hey!” The lawman sitting up front, bashed a fist against the mesh screen separating himself from his prisoner. “Shut up back there!”
Then, the officer picked something up from the front of his vehicle and pressed down on a button.
Hearing his laughter bounced back, Pryce paused. There’s magic in this future world, he thought, much more than I could’ve imagined. So much to learn, to master.
And all the time in this world to do it in. . . perhaps I should stay. . .
The angry, uniformed lawman spoke to the seemingly demonic voices issuing from the front of his vehicle.
“Dispatch, I’m en route to the precinct with prisoner in tow. Some of the others involved in the, uh, incident are heading that way in McGregor’s squad car. You tell ’em to throw that Gore kid in the drunk tank and let him sleep it off. . . I know his Daddy’d want that. Somethin’ to keep his boy scared straight.”
Hearing this strange conversation, Pryce considered how he’d started his day in the year 1693 and somehow wound up in the year 1999.
“Is it truly 1900 and 99?” he asked.
Releasing his grip on the strange speaking device, the officer’s eyes flashed with questions of its own into the mirror above his seat. “Yeah,” he said. “But why do you say it like that?”
Pryce ignored the critique of his word choice and continued. “So that means the new millennium’s dawning. Are you not afraid of what’s to come?”
“What? Afraid? You kidding me, pal?” The lawman’s protests petered off, revealing more of his heart’s truth than he might’ve liked.
They continued in silence for a few more moments, past a few more streets familiar but different to the witch-hunter.
Then, the officer spoke again. “They say we’ll be okay. Tell us the computers won’t crash or shut down or whatever. Say it’ll be like any other day. But. . . that’s not how it feels. Feels like we’re past due for something bad to happen. Something we’ve maybe earned.”
“Judgment Day,” the witch-hunter said.
From the back, Pryce watched the other man slowly nodding.
“Yeah, yeah,” the lawman said, “like we learned in Sunday School. Judgment freakin’ Day.”
Pryce smiled, relieved to be connecting with a Godly man, or at the very least one who appeared to aspire to such ways. “Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but would you mind sharing your Christian name with me? I am Nathaniel Pryce and I am here to do the Lord’s work.”
At last, Josey had got her way, and they were going to the Farrs’ house. However, their stay there didn’t seem likely to last long. She, Nikki, and DiDi had pulled to the curb in front of their house, tires crunching over broken, neglected asphalt, when the front door slammed open. Nikki’s mom Linda stormed outside in a Tweety Bird nightshirt, with a worn-thin olive green bathrobe over that, pink rollers in her hair, and a cigarette dangling ash balanced on her bottom lip. “Nuh-uh,” she said, making sure to lock eyes with each girl as she stomped across the porch and down the cracked and splintering wooden steps.
“They got everybody all over town looking for you. I heard it on the police band,” she said.
It shook Josey a bit, to think of Mrs. Farr on her couch or lying in her bed, listening to the coded back-and-forth dialogues between dispatchers and officers. But when she considered the legal troubles their family had had since moving to Fallen Church and the fact that their little brother was currently in juvie and her dad “taking some time away,” Josey supposed there was some sense to it.
DiDi took the lead, continuing to walk toward the house, on a collision course with her mother. “Mama,” she said, “give us a break, okay? Do you even know what just happened back there. . .”
The older woman stood with hands on hips, the yellow cartoon bird thrust forward as further warning. “They got that girl’s house burnt down with them two fleeing the scene,” she said, pointing to Nikki and Josey in rapid succession. “Then, they got a heap of dead folks at that damn club of yours, and the Wesley girl throwing bullets at strangers or something, couldn’t tell for sure the way they were talkin’ about it on the radio. . .”
“But that wasn’t—” Josey started to protest, but felt her ancestor stirring inside. Worn out, exhausted, finding herself facing yet another obstacle in a long night of obstacles, Josey relented to Rebecca’s control.
Fine, she thought, you wanna take over? Be my guest.
No, Rebecca said, speaking within the girl’s mind. If you want this sanctuary, then it’s you who will have to earn it. Open your mind and heart and soul to the power. . .”
“I don’t know if I can. . .”
“Who’s she talking to?” Linda asked, paranoia and fear present in each syllable.
Nikki took Josey’s hand. The redhead girl, the one she couldn’t stop thinking of—no matter how hard she tried, no matter how sure she was that the feelings she held for her friend would only lead to more bullying, more torment, more everything awful—gave her a squeeze.
“Whatever it is, you can do it,” Nikki said.
Her words and the nervous smile following were all the permission Josey needed. She took a deep breath and directed her next thought to her ancestor inside her head. Okay, show me how to fix this. Teach me what to do.
Rebecca began the lesson: First, make the connection. Your body and the other’s and the earth at your feet.
Josey slid her shoes off her feet, her socks came next. The ground was cold, with dead grass crunching under the soles of her feet. She walked forward, doing her damnedest to fake confidence, to appear as nonchalant and casual as she could. An impossible task most days for a teenage girl, much more so on that chaotic evening.
