8 Gone is the Witch (6 page)

“
Like magic,” Carlos remarked.

“Yeah,
only there, maybe everybody’s a magician. In the presence of excessive dark matter, nothing is what it seems. An object that is a solid one moment might turn into a gas or a liquid the next, dissipating into thin air. That same gas or liquid might then reform down the road as a tree, a brick or a four-eyed fish.”

“
Un-freaking-believable.”

“
Yeah, well you better believe it, Carlos, and you better not let it trip you up. You’ll need to doublethink everything. Look before you touch.”

Tony stood up, brushed the dirt from his butt and clapped his hands clean. “That all sounds wild and exciting
, but sitting here talking about it isn’t getting Leona back any quicker. What do we need to do to get going?”

The rest of us stood and brushed ourselves likewise. “Do you all still want to go?” I asked.

“Aye,” said Ursula. “I am ready.”

I saw Dominic reach
for her hand again and squeeze it, perhaps silently coaxing her to change her mind. I knew she wouldn’t.

“I’m definitely ready,” Tony said. He looked to Carlos. “You don’t have to go with us, you know. I’ll understand.”

I watched Carlos’ grin inchworm across his chiseled face. “Are you kidding? Gas that turns to liquid and then becomes a four-eyed fish? I am so on board this crazy train.”

“All right then
. Let’s get started.” I pointed to the box with the magnets. “Carlos, set three magnets on the floor and triangulate them approximately ten feet apart, there, there and there.”

“Got it.”

“Tony. In the other box you’ll find a two-foot strip of rawhide. Start making a witch’s ladder with it.”

“Forty knots?”

“Is there such thing as a thirty?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then yes. Forty knots, and stop asking dumb questions. Ursula.”

“Sister?”

“Do you still have the Incubus ring I gave you?”

“Aye, `tis in my clutch bag with my
ah-hmm….” She covered the side of her mouth and whispered something.

“Your what?”

“Her tampons,” Carlos said. “It’s in her purse with her tampons.”

I put my hand out and wiggled my fingers. “Give it here please.”

Ursula untied the drawstrings on her bag, reached in, removed a tampon and passed it to me.

“Ursula!
The ring, damn it! I meant give me the Incubus ring!”

She blushed
three shades of red before reaching into her bag again and handing me the ring.

“Thank you
. Now then, Dominic. Do you know how to hook up the three magnets to the truck battery in series?”

He scof
fed at the simplicity of the task. “Of course.”

“Good. There’s some insulated number te
n wire in the box with the battery. Have at it.”

“Tony. Done with the witch’s ladder yet?”

“Almost.” I waited until he cinched the last of the forty knots tight. “Done,” he said, and held it up for my inspection.

“
Great. All right now.” I gestured toward Carlos, Tony and Ursula. “The three of you, come join me in the center of the triangle here and have a seat again.”

The three joined me, following my
instructions to sit Indian style in a tight circle. As Dominic finished wiring up the magnets, I removed the witch’s key from around my neck and placed it on the floor in front of us.

“This witch’s key
came over on the Mayflower in 1620 with my great, great, grandmother, and is––”

“Only two greats?” Carlos interrupted.

“No, Carlos, actually it was Ursula’s great, great grandmother. My lineage goes back too many greats to count. The point is that this key is a consecrated object, tied to the Eighth Sphere by virtue of its connection with the Supreme Coven of Witches from 1620 Plymouth.”

I looked over at Tony. “I’m going to
start the key spinning while I recite something from the Grimoire. When you see the key float off the floor, I want you to untie the twentieth knot on the ladder.”

“The twentieth?”

“Yes, not the nineteenth. Not the twenty-first. The twentieth. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, start counting. Ursula?”

“Aye, sister.”

“My eyes will be closed, so I’ll need you to watch my hands. I’ll have them steepled under my chin like this.” I demonstrated for her. “Watch the Incubus ring. When the eyes glow red, I want you to snatch the witch’s key up and hold on to it as tightly as you can. Do you understand?”

“Aye.”

“Carlos?”

“Yes
.”

“You just sit there and look handsome. Can you do that?”

He smiled. “It’s what I do best.”

“Good. Dominic, are you almost done?”

“Finishing up now. Just one last wire.”

“
Okay, remember. As soon as we’re gone, I want you to go and get that dynamite, bring it back here and wire this place to blow sky-high.”

“What if the demolition crews come to tear th
e building down before you get back?”

I shook my head. “Then you’re going to have to pull the trigger
on this without us.”

“I won’t.”

“You have to. If you don’t blow the conversion points before they tear this place down, you won’t get another chance. You can’t let that happen.”

“If I close the portal, then you guys will never find your way back. You said so yourself.”

“No, I lied. We’ll find another way back.”

“You will?”

I forced a convincing laugh. “Of course. Now hurry and finish up. Time’s-a-wasting.”

While
Dominic returned to the task of connecting the battery terminals, Tony tapped my foot to get my attention.

“Is that true?” he whispered. I know Carlos and Ursula heard him, but Dominic did not.

I shook my head faintly.

“
Done,” said Dominic, as he stood and backed away from the battery.

“
Okay.” I gave the others a nod. “Let’s do this.”

I set the witch’s key on the floor, standing
it on edge, facing Tony. I then gave it a push, spinning it with a feathered touch until I got it to pick up a momentum of its own.

It spun in a golden
blur, the strobe effect planting the face of the medallion in a stationary position through optical illusion. I placed my hands together, my fingertips steepled below my chin. I shut my eyes and recited a modified version of an old Grimoire favorite.

“Spin thee wicked web of wind and weave what we unfurl. Lest not we bilk in spider silk a passage through this world. Feed thy hunger, quench thy thirst, lo the witch’s ladder. Deliver us through Incubus from light to darker matter.”

I opened my eyes and the witch’s key was floating chest high off the floor. Tony opened the knot on the witch’s ladder. At once, a howling wind blew in through the open windows and circulated counterclockwise around the room, whipping our clothes and hair in a riotous frenzy.

A dark cloud form
ed above our heads. It swirled and condensed into a body of vaporish matter resembling a mix of chimney soot and volcano ash. Dominic backed into a corner. I thought that was good, for what I expected to happen next could likely have pulled him into the vortex with us.

“Now?”
Ursula yelled over the rush of wind.

“
Not till the eyes are red!”

A perfectly funnel-shaped vortex appeared above us
then. Our hair and loose clothing stood on end as if a giant vacuum hose hovered directly over our heads. I closed my eyes again and repeated the incantation, this time louder.

Everything happened so fast
after that. The funnel cloud had grown incredibly violent. I thought for a moment it had developed intelligence and that I had pissed it off. Perhaps I had.

“Now?”
cried Ursula. “I cannot see thy ring!”

She sounded
so far away. I squinted into the wind. She was halfway across the room. The wind had scattered us like marbles. I glanced down and saw the pulsating red orbs on my Incubus ring.

“Yes!
Now!” I yelled, choking from the rush of air stealing my breath.

She
crawled on hands and knees, frantically searching for the key, her hair pelting her face in angry whips. Upon finding it, she snatched the key up in mid-air. The vehement winds then scooped us up and sucked us into the abyss of its pitch-black belly.

Chapter Four

I remember
groping for Ursula’s hand, the one holding the key. She had clamped down on it so tightly her knuckles burned. In the turmoil of noise and confusion, I had lost sight of Tony. I tried calling his name. Then a hand reached through the swirling blackness and found my arm. I clamped down on his wrist and pulled him in.

Carlos grabbed
Tony’s other hand and Ursula grabbed onto him. A second later, a brilliant flash turned everything white. The rush of wind grew deafening; the pressure in my ears so intense I thought my eardrums might rupture. A mixed sensation of falling and rising churned in my gut, as the G-forces tugged on my body like a rocket sled shooting a vertical rail.

Someone in the group screamed. Carlos, I thought, but it could have been Tony. I tried screaming myself, thinking it might help m
y breathing because the pressure in my lungs made it feel as if an elephant was sitting on my chest. Yet, when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. Worse still, when I tried to draw a breath, I couldn’t do that either.

My mind began racing
. I knew I was going to die. We were all going to die. I thought about Spinelli, the poor kid waiting on the other side for Ursula, not knowing that she’d never return. I squeezed Tony’s hand harder. He reciprocated. Then I squeezed Ursula’s. She still had her fist balled up around the witch’s key.

The key!
I thought. That’s it! I pried it from her hand and tossed it into the wall of white. A jolting kick jarred the stale breath from my lungs. I gasped for air and found it.

T
he sensation of falling had ceased with a thump. I was again on solid ground. I blinked through the dust gradually lifting around my face.

Tony was there
. So was Carlos and Ursula. We landed on our asses and elbows, but otherwise were okay.

“Is
anyone hurt?” Tony asked, looking dazed.

“
No, I’m good.” I said, determined never to let him know how the ordeal had scared the shit out of me.

“Me too,”
said Carlos, already on his feet, brushing himself off.

“Ursula?”

“Aye.” She rolled onto hands and knees and pushed herself up. “`Twas the ground what broke my fall and left me in one piece.”

I
looked at Tony looking at me. A curious grin inched across his face.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that… did you arrive on the same vortex we did?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look at you.” He appraised my appearance favorably. “Not a hair on your head mussed.”

I looked at the others, all of whom
looked as though they had gone through the spin cycle down at the Laundromat. “Yeah well, I guess I just travel better than most.”

Carlos
said, “So this is it, eh? We’re here?”

I splay
ed my hand in a broad sweep of our surroundings and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Eighth Sphere.”

I looked around, bewildered by a pitch-black sky framing barren patches of slanted forests
, where impact craters pockmarked jagged paths toward a distant horizon. There, a staggered line of active volcanoes and rocky snow-capped peaks stretched high into the clouds and as far as the eye could see.

Though
neither moon nor stars dotted the night, a strange neon-like luminescence originating from no particular place allowed me to see much better than I expected.

“Unbelievable,” I said, though mostly to myself.

“I know,” said Tony. “Have you ever seen an ocean so sapphire blue and white with foam before?”

“Ocean?” I turned to see him looking in the same direction as my mountains. “What are you talking about? There’s no ocean out there.”

“Aye. `Tis a wasteland of ice and snow, is all.” Ursula remarked.

“Snow and ice? Urs, did you land on your head or something? I see no such thing.”

“Of course not,” said Carlos. “That’s because it’s a cow town. Anyone can see that. Just look.” Tony and I both turned to look at him. He was smiling; his eyes wide and full of wonder. He pointed out into the street. “See?”