09 - Return Of The Witch (31 page)

“Screw you
,” I said, and I tried throwing a handful of the stuff at her. If not for the wind blowing it back in my face, I might have succeeded.

Gypsy backed away, wisely for her, sadly for me. “I’ll deal with you later,” she
hissed.

She drew her hand back over her shoulder as if pulling an arrow from a quiver and then fired a white-hot bolt of lightning directly at Ursula.

Without flinching, Ursula snatched the lightning bolt out of the air and crushed it in her hand. She then pointed to her feet and simply melted into the ground.

Gypsy looked stunned. She had to be. I know I was. I was still catching my breath when Ursula reappeared next to me.

“Holy shit.” I said. “How’d you do that?”

Gypsy
’s surprise quickly turned to anger. She twirled her finger in the air, lifting several large boulders at her command and sending them hurdling at us.

Ursula grabbed my hand and we both disappeared. It all happened so quickly I could hardly comprehend. I remember falling under a boulder’s shadow one second, and the next, sitting
safely on the side of the dry creek bed ten yards away.

“Ursula,” I said, looking up at her from a sitting position. “
Don’t use the quintessential on Gypsy. She’ll take it from you.”

Carlos found himself with a clear line of sight and squeezed off several rounds of his Glock
. Two of the bullets hit the ground by Gypsy’s feet. She turned on her heels and made a quick slicing motion through the trees. In a riot of splintered wood and snapping branches, a dozen or more Northern Birch and Honey Locus toppled in his direction like so many giant dominos.

Ursula, acting on instincts, snapped her fingers and shredded the trees
in mid-fall, burying Carlos in a harmless heap of sawdust and pulp.

“Nice going
,” I said, but we weren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak.

Gypsy, more riled now than ever,
turned her fury back on us. She balled her fists up and threw her hands outward, pushing a shockwave our way that cleared every standing thing between her and us.

Ursula
crossed her arms at the wrists and broke them with a jerk as the wave hit us. I felt a rush of wind in my face and a tug on my hair, but otherwise unaffected by the blast. The treetops above us began snapping like twigs as their leaves disintegrating into mulch.

After deflecting the shockwave, Ursula snatched my hand up again and whisked me away on a thread of white vapor. We reappeared this time on the other side of the crumbled bridge.
As Ursula let go of my hand and started toward Gypsy, I warned her again. “Don’t use the quintessential, Urs. Don’t let her have it.”

I don’t know if she heard me. She seemed to be in a zone all her own, lost in a mindset I had seen
only once before back at the cannery. I crawled up over the pile of crumbled bricks and stone, dragging the dead weight of my sprained leg behind me. I didn’t think about the pain, though thinking back on it now, I realize it was quite considerable.

I saw Ursula, walking with confidence towards Gypsy
. I knew then what she was doing. She was sacrificing herself for the rest of us. If she let Gypsy kill her, then Gypsy could never have the quintessential. The prophecy would die with her. It would all be over.

A sudden ringing in my ears blotted out all the other sounds around me. Somewhere in the woods, Carlos was yelling for someone to free him from the pile of mulch and sawdust. Dominic may have been firing his weapon. I cou
ldn’t say. A dull thud like
popcorn popping vaguely entered my mind. Then again, it might have been my heart breaking all over again. First for Tony. Now for Ursula.

I
felt my body grow numb. My blood ran cold. I thought I was dying myself, imagining I had severed an artery in my leg and was bleeding out, but I didn’t know it.

It
didn’t matter though. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to live, not without the two people I loved most in the world.

I felt the dew of r
aindrops on my cheeks, warm, salty raindrops. My vision blurred for the stinging behind my eyes. It was then I realized it wasn’t raining. My tears, though I had cried a million, felt strange and new once more. I heard myself asking, is this how it ends?

Chapter 27

I watched from the top of the rock pile, Ursula and Gypsy squaring off
with each other only five yards apart. Such close-quarter combat. It didn’t seem fair. Gypsy had to know that even by winning she would lose. Ah, but then I knew Gypsy. With such evil in her soul, there’d be no loss in hollow victory.

The two stared at each other for what seemed like minutes
, though I suppose in reality it was only seconds. Ursula spoke first.

“Thou art getting old, Gypsy. Thy magick doth pale to that of younger witches.”

Gypsy laughed. “Is that so? I don’t see you spinning into a tornado, turning into fire, freezing the very ground you walk on. If not for the quintessential, you’d not have been able to disappear like you did.”

“Aye, but for the essence thou hath stolen, thy own magick would fair thee less
, as well.”

“So we both have essentials we didn’t earn. The difference is that I have four and you only have one.”

Ursula smiled at that. “Methinks not, old witch, for I have the essence of four plus one.”

“What?” Even from a distance, I could see the confounded look on Gypsy’s face.
“What do you mean, child?”

“I mean, blessed be the righteous. Forfend she wilt the vile cloud. Dudgeon fuels her battle. Possessed of right and quintessential, she shalt fear naught and availeth much.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“Aye
, but I did. Now prepare as thou wilt, for thy maker awaits.”

“Prepare I shall,”
said Gypsy. She drew her witch’s key to her lips.

But
Ursula was quick, snatching the key away with a flick of her hand and sending it flying. I followed its glittering trail into the sun and lost it over the trees.

Gypsy
’s expression hardened like stone. She turned back to Ursula and shook a clenched fist at her. “You bitch!” she cried. “Do you know what you have done?”

“Aye,” said
Ursula, thinning her lips in a savvy grin. She then opened her hand and fired a rocket’s flame at Gypsy. Gypsy countered by turning herself into a column of water and dousing the flame. Ursula countered that by balling up her other hand and freezing the column solid.

I threw my hands up in the air and shouted at the top of my lungs. “Ursula! You did it! I don’t believe it. You’re the Pentacle Prodigy!”

Ursula turned to me, smiled proudly and curtsied. I was so excited I didn’t care about the pain. I started down off the rock pile in a one-legged hop. Up on the banks, Dominic had freed Carlos from the mulch and the two were heading down.

I was just about on solid ground again when I noticed the ice block behind Ursula starting to crack open. I pointed to warn her when the entire column of ice exploded. Gypsy
appeared like a phantom, wrapping her hands around Ursula’s neck and choking her violently.

I tried
to help, but before I could reach her, Ursula turned herself into stone. My initial thought was what a brilliant move that was, for no way could Gypsy hurt a stone. But I was wrong.

Gypsy reeled in a crazy woman’s laugh. She stomped her heel
in the dirt, causing a tremor that shook the earth until every leaf on every tree for a hundred acres fell from its perch.

I landed on my ass before the first leaf hit the ground. Carlos and Dominic held steady on bended knees a little longer, but eventually tumbled the rest of the way down the hill. Then Ursula’s statue crumbled into a thousand pieces.

“Nooo!” I cried, “Nooo!” I crawled along the ground, picking up tiny pieces of stone and assembling then into a neat little pile.

Dominic
, already fueled with the fires of hate, plowed on in staggered step toward Gypsy, discharging his weapon at her in rapid fire. Amused beyond caring, Gypsy stood immune to the bullets behind a wall of cyclonic wind. When Dominic’s bullets ran out, Gypsy returned to human form, directed that wind against him and blew him back into the woods a hundred feet.

By then, I had gathered all the pieces of Ursula’s stone into a pile. I leaned over them, whispered an incantation that I hoped might find its way to her through all the
lilite still powdering my body, and then I pushed myself away.

Amazingly, Ursula
pieces regenerated. I gasped upon seeing her in the flesh. Gypsy reverted into wind, but Ursula caught her in mid-transformation. “Hurt my Dominic, will thee?” she said, and then punched Gypsy right between eyes.

The
hit was so hard it blasted Gypsy’s changing form into a million bits. The pieces scattered like buckshot before forming into as many individual tornados spread all about the creek bed. The tiny twisters seemed harmless enough at first, even whimsical, until I noticed they seemed to be finding one another and joining forces.

I reached for Ursula from a sitting position.
“Um. Ursula? You want to help me up please. I don’t think this thing is over yet.”

Ursula helped me to my feet, and none too soon. Already, the midget dust devils had formed a man-sized tornado, and still only half the little ones had been collected.

By then, Carlos and Dominic had returned to the creek bed, shaken some, but otherwise unhurt. Dominic took Ursula in his arms and the two hugged as if for the first time in years.

Carlos let me hold on to his shoulder, and the four of us slowly eased back to give the swirling beast
the room it demanded.

“So what was all that?” Dominic asked Ursula. “Did I see you do something that no witch should be able to do?”

I answered for her. “There’s nothing she can’t do now, Dominic. This girl is special.”

Carlos said, “That’s good because um…that thing is getting bigger. It’s almost done gobbling up all the little tornados.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Ursula, what do you make of that? Are you going to just let her fly away once she finishes gathering up all her pieces?”

She smiled slyly. “What doth thou think?”

“I think not.”

She walked over to the rubble that used to be the old stone bridge, picked up the mason jar and lid and returned them to me.

“Please, Sister. If thou would oblige?”

“
Sure.” I took them both.

She turned to address the tornado, which was now as big as a house.
“Ready, sister?”

“Ready.”

As the twister picked up the last mini cyclone, Ursula stepped back, sighted the monster between her index finger and thumb and pinched the entire thing down to the size of a dime.

I knew then what to do. I hurried over, scooped it up in my mason jar and screwed the lid down tight.

“Holy cow!” said Carlos. “That was neat, but will it hold her?”

I held the jar up for inspection. The twiste
r was zipping around in circles, bouncing off the sides of the glass and making no gains for its efforts. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s your classic fish tank, Carlos. I think it’ll hold her.”

“Can she breathe?”

“She doesn’t need to, so long as she stays in wind form.”

I
turned the jar to the fading sunlight. There was still plenty of lilite dust inside it. As long as Gypsy didn’t use any witchcraft, I figured she’d be all right. What to do with her was another story. I tried handing the jar to Ursula.

“This is your conquest, Urs. You want it?”

Dominic pushed it back. “She’s your mother, Lilith. Besides, if she ever gets out of there, she’s going to be one mighty pissed off witch.”

“Carlos?”

“Oh no.” He laughed and waved me off. “I don’t want her.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you that. I was going to ask you if you wanted to head on down to the Perc for meatball madness.”

“Really?”

“
Sure. We’ll all go. We can celebrate. I’ll buy.”

“Oh no,” said Ursula. “I shall buy.”

“You? But you don’t have any money.”

She looked off into the trees and smiled
slyly. “Mayhap at this moment, but we shall see.”

Chapter 28

Two weeks after
battling Gypsy at the old stone bridge, things had pretty much settled back into a routine of sorts. Internal Affairs reinstated Dominic to active duty after clearing him of any wrongdoings in the stolen dynamite case.

Carlos had his home theater rebuilt
. Dominic’s insurance company and mine both paid for the damages to our cars. That was good. I even bought myself some new furniture to replace the stuff I burned in the bonfire. I especially like the new trophy case I got. That’s where I keep the jar with Gypsy inside. She’s still a little tornado, which seems right because she never had her head screwed on straight to begin with.

The real
Paige Turner, well that’s another story. She remains a mystery, if she and Gypsy were ever really separate individuals. Attempts to locate her since that day at the bridge have proved futile. Her web page is down. Her apartment’s empty and no one at her complex seems to know if she ever even existed. Not that I find that unusual for a witch as old as Paige. Disappearing off the face of the earth is something a witch gets good at after the first hundred years or so of returning to prime. I only hope in the big scheme of things that she gets what she deserves. I know the coven will never have her.

Oh, and I got my shed flipped back up onto its pad. Haven’t looked inside it yet to see what’s broken. May never. I’m not much of a yardsie person anyway.

Speaking of sheds. I talked to Ursula. She told me she hadn’t experimented with any of her new powers since that day at the bridge. I think that suits Dominic just fine. Frankly, I think her newfound powers scare him. Probably should. It scares me to think of the things she can do but doesn’t yet know it. Seems to me if she sneezes and farts at the same time, she could start World War III.

But I digress. I wan
ted to tell you how my life had changed after that day on the bridge. Immediately afterward, I mean after we went to the Perc and ate meatballs until we were seeing them in our dreams, immediately after that, I felt a sense of excitement, an exuberance I hadn’t known in years. It lasted all of twenty four hours, until the sadness rolled in again.

I found myself, once more, despondent, heartsick
and lost. I started going back to that one place where I could be alone with my thoughts, back to shores where ancient spirits of the sea welcome me without prejudice. Back where my heart can beat in rhythm to the empty drum that is my lonely, wretched soul. Back to Gloucester Beach.

It was
after six o`clock. The tide had gone out and was on its way back in. A pale moon rode the waves on the horizon, awaiting a chance to steal the night.

It had been ten days straight this time. Ten days, ten nights that I’d come to my jetty to watch the waves. The tides they vary, but only in time. The show is always the same. Always
satisfying.

I named the Jonah crab,
did I mention that? I call him Jerome. Cheeky, I know. He still scurries ahead of the waves just before they break on the rocks. It’s a game he always wins. At least I think it’s him. I’ve come to realize he has at least one look-a-like, a brother, I think. I call him Paul, you know, like the walrus?

So,
there I was last night at the beach, on my jetty, watching the waves and feeling as one with the spirits. Carlos and Dominic had tried calling me, several times. I never answered. I figured they were worried about me because earlier in the day I had left my front door wide open. I don’t usually do that, but a squirrel snuck in when I went out to get the mail. I didn’t want to lock him in the house all day, and possibly all night, so I left the door open.

Anyway, as I said, th
e tide was on its way back in. Jerome the Jonah crab had made his last appearance of the evening and the sunset show was nearly over. I started picking up my things when I heard the unmistakable sloshing of legs through the knee-high surf.

It was Carlos. I was sure of it. I could smell his cologne. I
felt sorry then that I hadn’t answered his last call. After all, he was only expressing concern for me.

I figured what the hell, I’d make it up to him. Maybe bu
y him a drink at the old Crab Trap on the beach. We could make fun of the barkeep and laugh about how much he looked like Tiny.

I waited until I heard him climbing the rocks, huffing and puffing like the old man he is. It was cruel, I know, seeing I was just about to climb down myself. But he was invading my space, not the other way around.

“Sorry I didn’t answer your call,” I said. I didn’t turn around to look at him because I didn’t want to laugh. I mean I do have a heart. “But you could have left a message, you know.”

“I would have,” he said, “but I didn’t have a phone.”

“Oh, my god!”

I
looked back over my shoulder. He was just a silhouette against the setting sun, no details, no features but for his broad shoulders, his wide stance and his strong hands planted on his hips.

I
stood to face him, still blinded by the sun. I could feel the wind at my back, pushing me toward him. The spirits were guiding me. My eyes pooled with sea mist, so I told myself. I caught my breath, which until then I hadn’t realized I lost.

And then it escaped me, the one word I thought would never part my lips again.

“Tony?”

# # #