Witches (19 page)

“Tell Jane when she wakes that I was here. I’ll be back.” She shoved her arms robotically into Jake’s old jacket. Put on her hat and her gloves. As much as she’d need them. For Ernie, for appearance’s sake. Old habits died hard.

Ernie suddenly blurted out, “I’ll give you some advice. Don’t show your face today in town, Amanda.” As if he’d forgotten momentarily what she was and what she was capable of.

Amanda glared at him, a quick frown skimming her lips. “You mean the town still thinks I might have a part in murdering all those people?” she asked acidly. “Maybe a part in Jonny’s disappearance?”

Ernie evaded her eyes. “Yes, as I was afraid of before,” he said quietly. “They were in a frenzy before Jonny disappeared and now, with no one else to blame and strike out at, you’ve become their prime suspect and target. Especially since they discovered you’d left yesterday. They all have kids, too. I heard them whispering about it when we were out looking in the woods last night. I think they’ll come after you as soon as they know where you are. They think you’re part of the coven.”

How were they to know that the coven wasn’t human? Even if the townsfolk knew the truth, they wouldn’t believe, just like Ernie wouldn’t believe she was a real witch, not a human bloodthirsty cultist.

“I’m sorry, Amanda. I’m ashamed of the town I’ve grown up in.” His face was full of disgust. “But if they see you now, they’ll come after you. So don’t take any chances. Keep a low profile.”

“Looking for someone to lynch, huh?” There was bitterness in her voice, but no real anger. She’d been there before. Anger was a waste of her time and energy.

“Amanda, they’re only scared. Everyone is. I am. Jane is. We’re absolutely terrified for Jonny.”

The ice went out of Amanda’s stare. “I know they don’t mean it.” Ernie was right, they were merely frightened. She was a good vent for their hostility and fear.

“Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself.” No one would see her, anyway, so she had nothing to fear.

She was about to leave when Jane came stumbling out. Dressed in a loose robe, her hair uncombed, her fingers clutched at her throat, she moved slowly into the light of the kitchen like someone in a trance.

“I heard voices out here...Amanda? I thought it was you.” Her face was blank, her eyes moved erratically, her mouth drawn into a taut, colorless line. Amanda recognized shock in her actions as she shuffled across the distance between them. She made it to a chair and stood there swaying like she was drunk. The sedative. Unlike Ernie, Jane didn’t even mention that she’d just talked to her from Boston on the phone.

“Sit down, Jane
.
”
Amanda took her friend’s arm and coaxed her into the chair.

The woman turned dead eyes on her. “Have they found Jonny yet?”

“No, not yet,” Amanda said softly, her heart aching for her friend.

“No news?” Now a monotone.

“No. I’m sorry, Jane.” She couldn’t tell the poor woman the truth, it would only make her torment more unbearable.

Amanda didn’t sit down again. She had to go. Quickly.

“I knew you’d come and help us look for Jonny. No matter what they said. The townspeople think you took him.” Jane shook her head sadly. “They don’t know you. They don’t know anything.” She laid her head on her arms on the table, staring through Ernie. She was out of it.

Amanda threw Ernie a meaningful glance. “You ought to put her back to bed, Ernie. She’s in shock. I’ve got to go,” she whispered, aware of the precious time slipping through her fingers.

Abruptly, Jane sat straight up. Her eyes widening. “Amanda, have they found my boy yet?” she cried again. Her lips were quivering and her face was screwing up like a child about to weep. Then tears slid from her eyes and tracked down her face. “They’re going to kill him, I know,” she sobbed. “Kill him. Like all those other poor people.”

Amanda knelt down beside her and grasped her hands, looking into her stricken eyes. “I’m going to get your son now, Jane. Don’t worry. I won’t come back without him,” she promised fiercely.

A small spell to help put her friend to sleep wouldn’t weaken Amanda that much. She wove it. “Sleep, Jane. You need sleep.”

Jane uttered a low moan and slumped against Amanda, her face finally peaceful.

“Tuck her in, Ernie,” Amanda said flatly.

Ernie picked Jane up and turned to Amanda with her asleep in his arms. “Are you really going to get him? You know where he is?” His eyes filling with a wild hope.

“Yes, I think so.”

“I’ll come along. I’ll help.”

“No, I have to do this myself. It’s too dangerous for you.”

He looked disappointed. Only because he had no concept of what he would have been facing. If he only knew, thought Amanda.

“Good-bye, Ernie, wish me luck, I’ll need it.” Amanda’s chin tilted bravely up and then as Ernie looked on in amazement, she disappeared into thin air right before his eyes.

“Good luck, Amanda,” he murmured in her wake.

He carried the sleeping woman back to her bed, still shaking his head in disbelief at what he’d seen. Maybe he was going over the edge, too.

* * * *

Amanda knew that the coven and the boy were somewhere in the woods, but from the moment she’d left Jane’s house the walls had come up again and she could no longer see the boy in her mind. He was somewhere out there, she knew that much.

She did something she rarely did and shape changed into a panther with glittering ruby eyes and sped through the forest under an obscured dim sun. It was swifter than her human form and her sense of smell was sharper. She would have transported herself but she didn’t know where to transport to. She had to find Jonny first. The day was overcast and storm clouds hovered close above her as she raced along the ground, frantically trying to find the boy before they killed him.

She searched for most of the dark day among the leaves and trees, creeks and hillsides. She even tried Black Pond. They were nowhere and her strength began to wane. A hard, steady rain began to pelt her and the woods misted up until she could hardly see three feet ahead of her even with her keener animal vision.

Finally, as true dusk began to settle and the rain fell harder, she slunk back to her cabin, weary and heartsick, her paws cut and bloody. She’d failed. Not even all of her magic had enabled her to find him.

They were out there somewhere. She knew it.

By the time she got to the cabin and had returned to human form, night had come, cold, dark, and wet. The rain continued as the wind soughed through the grabbing trees. She wondered if it would snow like it was in Boston.

Inside the cabin, she dragged herself around and lit the fires. Put out candles. She found dry clothes, another pair of Jake’s old blue jeans and a heavy flannel shirt, and put them on woodenly.

Her stomach growled, she was hungry, but she didn’t eat. No time. She had to find Jonny.

She sat down cross-legged before the fire in the living room and went into a trance, first to check on Mabel and make sure she was safe because she didn’t have time to go over there.

Mabel was eating a supper made from the supplies she’d brought her a couple days ago, watching her tiny television in the dimly-lit trailer; humming softly to herself, half-asleep. All was well.

So Amanda returned to desperately searching for Jonny as the minutes drained away. Some urgent sense inside her telling her not to give up. Still, something kept her from seeing.

Scratching at the door aroused her.

Amadeus was back. He didn’t wait for her to open the door, though; before she knew it he had it swinging on its hinges and was in her lap. His fur was wet and he was shivering. His missing ear had never grown back, but other than that, he seemed to have fully recovered. She hugged him tightly until he squirmed out of her embrace.

“Amadeus, where have you been? I’ve been worried.”

Looking for Jonny. Like you.

Amanda caught her breath and stared into his clever cat eyes.

“What have you found out?”

Found coven. At Witch’s Pond. Now.

I was just there, she thought, confused.

They were coming. Just missed them.

“They have the boy.” It wasn’t a question. Amanda knew. She stood up.

Yes.
Going to kill him. Hurry.

Amadeus headed for the door, which opened before he even got there and as he scooted through and out into the rainy night, Amanda metamorphosed back into the huge panther and slipped out after him.

She followed him through the blackness and the swirling rain to Witch’s Pond. Her paws skimming the ground, black fur flowing over steel muscles, her eyes glowing crimson with rage. If they’d hurt Jonny...she’d kill every one of them.

There under the old willow tree, gathered around the churning waters of the pond stood dark-robed figures chanting and moving slowly in the heavy rain. The fog curling about the dreamlike shapes and settling on the pond was as thick as soup, but the foul stench of evil was so overpowering, Amanda could have found them by that alone. How could she not have located them before? She had no answer. Unless she wasn’t meant to find them until now.

There was an eerie glow about the whole place, a faint flickering light, but she
could see
no source. She edged in nearer, her
needle sharp claws sheathing and unsheathing from under the black fur of her paws, as she readied to spring.

Then she saw Jonny. A small bundle in one of the cowled figure’s arms. He wasn’t moving. The figure had laid the body on a makeshift altar, a flat slab of rock close to the water. As it spun around slowly to speak to the rest of its coven, Amanda caught a glimpse of its shadowed face as the head came up and the cowl slipped back. Only a man, or so it appeared to her at first. A sharp-eyed, brutal face, pockmarked, with a hook of a nose. It smiled cruelly, showing blackened teeth. Long stringy dark hair. The high priest, no doubt, by the imperious way he was acting.

A mere second later, as it spoke, the planes of its face began to melt like wax set over a flame...until what glared down upon its sycophants was a drooling, fang-toothed, hideous monster with demon-red eyes and a serpent’s tongue that flicked out of wet leathery, deformed lips. It laughed, a hellish sound, its shoulders hunching and stretching, and its body shifting under the robe like huge worms moving under a thin blanket. With every movement, it grew taller and larger until she could see ghoulish, thickly muscled legs peeking out from under the fluttering robe and cloven hooves at the bottom of them.

At least a mid-level demon. Someone very powerful had called him from his place in hell. He’d be very difficult to fight, even for a witch as strong as she.

Out above the misty waters of the dark pond Amanda spied a glimmer of light, also growing in size and strength, drawing nearer as the coven’s chanting increased. Rachel. Amanda had the feeling that if she didn’t act soon, the odds would be even more against her.

She was crouched behind a tangled thicket of vines and brambles. She didn’t know where Amadeus had gone to, but she was sure he was somewhere close by, waiting for her signal.

The rain had formed a curtain hiding away the rest of the world, except for the coven and the altar.

The circle of hulking vultures converged around the child on the stone. Grunting and hissing spiced the feverish chanting, unearthly tongues lolled hungrily from inhuman mouths. A hazy steam rose from some of the robed creatures in the rain and Amanda realized at that moment that some of the followers, but not all, were demons.

Her eyes locked on the child and to the demon that held the knife. She followed the gleam of metal as it raised the serrated long-bladed dagger, and her muscles bunched for the attack.

If this kill was like their others, it wouldn’t be a merciful plunge of the knife, but a slow and heinous butchery. Still, alerted as she’d been, she didn’t pounce swiftly enough, and as her panther shape leapt through the heavy air, the child released one long piercing cry.

Amanda exploded into their midst like an avenging angel, slammed down one of the robed demons at the edge of the circle and with a swipe of one of her huge paws, took a claw-like hand off. It shrieked a shrill bellow and as she came in again for another attack, its image wavered a moment and then faded into a column of black smoke, spiraling up, up, and into the black sky until it was gone.

She’d taken care of one, twelve to go. She spun on her paws and growled at the rest of the coven, barring her fangs, her slitted feline eyes on the boy as the high priest glowered over his shoulder at her and raised the knife again. He halted its descent when it kissed the boy’s already bloody cheek. Jonny was conscious, shuddering with terror, whimpering, his childish eyes fixed on the demon hunkering above him. Scared speechless.

“One more move, witch, and the boy will die.” The threat was guttural; full of arrogance and hatred. The demon who issued it wrinkled its snout in disgust. White magic smelled just as bad to it as black did to her.

The rest of the coven hesitated in the mist, repulsive faces expectantly turned toward her, some human, some fiendish. The humans were wild eyed, their faces distorted with bloodlust and evil. Some of the demons had the features of reptiles, others were a grotesque combination of a person’s worst nightmares—snakes, rats, or huge snarling bugs with snapping mandibles. Some reminded Amanda of gargoyles. Horrid, ugly monsters.