8 Gone is the Witch (12 page)

It
was all over then, but for the creature’s say in the matter.

T
he hulking beast reached down with its massive hands, wrapped its claws around the man’s head and ripped it off his body. The crowd loved it, switching their allegiance to the creature and rewarding it with applause.

The creature tossed the head
over its shoulder and thumped his chest like a gorilla. We watched the head sail over us and land with a thud in the tall grass behind us.

Still,
the beast wasn’t finished. He picked the gladiator’s limp body up off the ground and shredded the arms and legs from its torso as if plucking petals from a flower. It then tossed the appendages into the cheering crowd and discarded the bloodied torso into a nearby fire.

The spectators roared. T
he creature pumped his fists up over his head and returned to the crate victoriously. The swordsmen shut the big wooden door and began collecting bets for the next round.

“Well,” I said. “
That was some show.”

Tony and Carlos
shook their heads in disbelief. Ursula, the poor thing, was mortified. She fell back against the boulder and began to sob. I went to comfort her. Tony and Carlos joined us.

“Don’t cry,” I said to her. “You have to remember why these people are here. They
’re all evil. They deserve a horrific end.”

She looked up through tear-filled eyes. “`Tis not for h
im I cry, but for my Dominic.”

“Oh,
you miss him, eh?”

“Aye,
what ye say is true. Uneasy lies the heart that misses the one it loves.”

Carlos took her hand. “Don’t worry, Ursula.
You’ll see him soon. We’ll all be home before you know it.”

She shook her head
softly.

“What?
” I said. “Why are you shaking your head?”

“`Tis a feeling, is all.”

“What feeling?”

She thinned her lips
.

“Ursula
.”

Her
gaze fell to a lonely place out in the darkness. “I fear we shall not return. But I have my Dominic in my heart, and in that I shall find comfort no matter the distance between us.”

“Nonsense.
You’ll see Dominic again. You hear me? You’ll get back. We’ll all get back. I promise.”

She nodded, accepting my words, but not
entirely believing them. I would have pressed my case further, if not for a muffled cry that caught our attention. It came from out in the field a few feet away.

Tony raised his bayonet and
started toward the sound. “I’ll go and check it out. Don’t anyone follow me.”

Naturally, we followed him.

We found the source of the anguished cries: the young gladiator’s head. It had come to rest in the field, face down. He seemed pissed, bitching about something, though I can’t say I blamed him. Already, ants had begun feeding on the back of his skull.

Tony stuck the tip of his bayonet in the man’s ear and rolled the head over. It looked up at us through squinted eyes, its mouth spitting out clumps of grass and dirt that had lodged between its teeth.

“So,” he said to us. “Did I kill it? Is it dead?”

I shook my head. “No, not so much, I’m afraid.”

He seemed disappointed. “It’s not dead? The motherfuckin` malodyte.”

“What did you call it?”

“Malodyte. That’s what that was you know, the fiercest creatures on the planet. You sure I didn’t kill it?”

I started to assure him
that he most certainly did not, when Ursula interrupted.

“Aye,
at first thou had but wounded it only. `Twas that last twist of your spear what did him in. Be that not true, so say you all?”

“
Oh, yeah, sure,” I said. “That last twist, man, that’s what did it. Brilliant.”

“Of course,” said Tony.
“I saw it.”

Carlos
said, “Yeah, he went down right after he ripped your head off.”

“Carlos!”
Tony elbowed him in the side, but it didn’t matter. The head seemed pleased with what he heard.

“So listen,” I said, “I see you guys don’t die so easily around here. What
’ll become of you?”

He hooked his brow, which I understood to be a shrug of sorts. “I guess I’ll just
lie around here for a while. Sure will miss the games, though.”

“The games?”

“The malodyte fights. You know I’m entitled to a thousand difermium pellets for killing it.”

“
Well, que sera, sera,” I said.

“Yeah,
it’s too bad I can’t collect. My brother, Frank, could sure use it.”

“You have a brother, Frank
?” asked Tony.

“Yeah
, Frank James. Second quickest gun in the west. I’m the first, of course.”

“
I’m sure. So, your brother’s here with you?”

“
He is, but I reckon he’ll be plenty angry with me now that I got myself all tore up like this.”

I could see where Tony was going.
“You wouldn’t by any chance be Jesse James, would you?”

“
I would.” The head turned up a cocky grin.

“
The
Jesse James?”

“The one and only.”

I saw Tony give Carlos that look again, the one that makes me think they share a telepathic bond sometimes. Carlos took his cue from that, leaned over Jesse’s head and said, “You know, Jess. We might be able to get that prize money to your brother if you help us with a little problem we’re having.”

The head laughed. “I hope you don’t want me to help you rob a stage coach
or anything, because as you can see, my head’s just not in it today.”

Ursula thought that was funny. She tried stifling her laugh through splayed fingers, but it came out
in sputtered snorts. It was good to hear it, and I let her know that with a little wink.

Carlos
said, “Jess, we’re trying to find a man who is probably well known around these parts. His name is Dr. Lowell. Do you know him?”

Jesse
’s expression grew noticeably curious. “You mean Lord Lowell?”

“Lord Lowell?” said Tony. It sounde
d even stranger coming from him.

“
Yeah, the old guy, right?”

“He’s older, yeah,” Carlos
said. “Not ancient.”

“Right, but he
’s old like you.”

“
I’m not old. I’m mature.”

Tony
tapped Carlos on the arm. “I’ll handle this. Jesse, do you know where we can find Lord Lowell?”

“
Sure. Everyone knows where to find Lord Lowell. He’s up in his fortress.”

“What
fortress?”

“Are you serious? The Dark
Fortress, of course.”

“How do we find
it?”

“Boy, you are new around here, aren’t you?”

“Please, just answer the question.”

“All right, but you promise me you’
ll get the difermium pellets to my brother, Frank, right?”

“Yes, as soon as they give us the pellets, we’ll get them to Frank.”

“Okay then. You’ll find the Dark Fortress on the other side of the Dark Forest.”

“That’s a lot of dark places,”
said Carlos. “I don’t like dark places.”

Tony let it ride. “
How do we get to the Dark Forest?”

Jesse rolled his eyes off to the left. “Is that the way to the
malodyte crate?”

“Yes.”

He rolled his eyes in the other direction. “Then the Dark Forest is that way.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

“
All right then. Thanks.”

“You’ll have to be careful though.
The Dark Forest is home to the malodytes.”

“What
, those things?” Tony looked back over his shoulder at the giant crate.

“Yeah. They’re thick as thieves out there and they
guard the fortress for Lord Lowell.”

“
Okay. Thanks again. You’ve been a big help. We appreciate it.”

“
What about Frank? You will get the pellets to him, won’t you?”

Tony shook his head. “No. I don’t think so
, partner.”

“Why not? I told you what you wanted to know.”

Carlos leaned in gave Jesse a love tap on the cheek. “Because we’re cops,” he said. “We just don’t roll that way.”

Chapter Seven

Night was falling as we neared the outer edge of the Dark
Forest. Of course, you couldn’t tell by the setting suns. Black suns in a black sky leave no visible trace of their migration.

What gives it away is the
temperature drop. And by the time we decided to make camp for the night, the cold that settled in had us all shivering in our boots... or rather, our moccasins.

“
We’ll sleep there tonight,” I said, pointing to a cluster of jagged boulders forming a neat semi-circle in the sand. “They’ll offer good protection from the wind.” I pitched my ear toward the tree line, beyond which was too dark to see even the next row of trees. “I hear water. Might be a stream. With luck, the water’s clean and drinkable.”

“Aye,” said Ursula. “
Methinks I hear it, too.”

“Might
be fish in it,” said Carlos, rubbing his stomach. “I could eat. I’m starving.”

“We
all could eat,” I said. “But right now we need to think about staying warm. Let’s start collecting some firewood first.”

I
began picking up what measly twigs I could find scattered at my feet. Tony took the challenge more seriously. He snapped his fingers to get Carlos’s attention, and the two of them went off into the woods. After a while of silent gathering, Ursula and I stacked our modest collection of kindling into a pile.

“
There. That’s a good start,” I said to her. “Don’t you think?”

“
Aye, `tis that. I shall like to see a fire again. Mayhaps it shall remind me of home.”

By home,
I knew she meant back in seventeenth century New Castle. I had almost forgotten that she spent all but the last couple of years of her life in days of simple means, such as that offered in the ES.

Back
then, she did all her cooking over an open fire, stonewashed her laundry in an icy river, carried water from a well and did her business in a detached outhouse, even in the dead of winter. For Ursula, the ES was probably not so foreign a place as it was to the rest of us.

“It
’s going to get cold tonight,” I said, almost under my breath. “A fire will be nice.”

“`Tis cold now,” she offered. “B
arely sunset and already I am freezing my wits off.”

I laughed.
“Don’t you mean tits?”

She looked at me strangely, as if contemplating the adjustment in meaning. A moment
passed before she gasped and smiled upon her discovery. “Aye! Tits! What more sense that makes.”

“Does when I’m freezing
my
tits off.”

Oh, how
we laughed then, I mean really laughed. It felt good seeing Ursula express an emotion so profoundly genuine and happy, something I hadn’t seen since she lost her baby. I skirted the pile of kindling, hurried to her and gave her the biggest hug.

We were still laughing
when the boys came running back, half-frenetic and out of breath. Tony was the worse, wielding a piece of wood over his head like a club.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Carlos had one, too, only his club was more twig than branch. I imagined he thought Tony would knock our attacker unconscious first, and then he`d poke the bastard’s eyes out.

“Tony! Please.
” I let go of Ursula and splayed my hands to stop him. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re fine.”

“
You screamed. We heard you. We thought you were under attack.”

Ursula
said, “We were freezing our tits.”

“What?”

I coaxed the club from his hand. “Nothing. We’re not freezing anything. Sorry. False alarm. That’s a nice piece of firewood. Now go back and get the rest of the tree. We’re gonna need it. We have a long night ahead of us.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Now go.” I reached out and took the twig from Carlos. “You, too.” I gave his stick a pathetic look before tossing it in with the rest of the kindling. I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t have to. He volunteered on his own.