Practise Bits: Sacrifice
May 22, 2012 in Fiction
Robert Magellan cracked his neck, and then made a sqwishing noise with his lips to encourage his Golden Retreiver, Rover, to finish up decorating the signpost. Heavy clouds were coming on toward the harbor, and the hillside town, and Robert glanced at them puzzled. A shape almost seemed apparent in those vaporous mists of dark portent. Rain was coming, and thunder, but something more. And then he heard a scream from up the street.
Without thinking, he was running, and Rover came with him. Going downhill along the street, they came on a young girl tangled up in green vines, and Rover whined a peculiar note.
“Good boy.” Robert said, casting his eyes out into the unnatural deepening dark of the further slope of the street that led down to the cold, stony beach, and the piers, and small boats. The girl murmured, but her mouth was caught by a vine, and she could not speak.
Twisting purple strands of energy richochetted down the New England street, enlightening the dark of the moon, tossing ozone into the air to twitch the nose, and halting in a flash of white at the man’s held up palm. He rocked back and forth in his penny loafers, and wished he’d had the good sense to wear his boots for this night’s dog walk.
“That’s going to do you no good.” He said, striving to sound calmer than he felt. A woman in a long black dress, slit up her right thigh, and boat shaped at her neck to display her significant curves walked barefoot out of the shadow.
“A fellow adept. I thought I felt some working of the Art.” She nodded. He bowed slightly in response, always keeping his eyes on her, while murmuring ‘heel’. Rover took its accustomed postion behind his right heel, and crouched down, but the dog’s eyes were bright with fury and keen attention.
“Save me.” The girl muttered, spitting out enough of the entwining vine to beg.
“The girl is mine. She cast spells, and is a member of my coven, mine to do as I will.” The witch said stiffly noting his interest.
“Ah.”
“Step aside then.”
“I’m not a member of your coven structure.”
“A free warlock then?” The witch’s eyes widened. “Impressive. The Bolts of the Twilight Doom are not easily withstood. And you without formal training.”
He shrugged, neither agreeing or disagreeing.
She looked thoughtful.
“I am a witch of several centuries of life. I can call spirits from the Astral, from the Ethereal, from the Past, and from the Shadows. I can bind the dying to life. I can call storms and wreck ships. Do step aside. It would be a shame to destroy such a gifted newcomer.”
“Well. If credentails are what is wanted. I am a verser, a traveller of many worlds and times, immortal in my own right, and a Worker of Power, and an Adept of the Inner Path, and a minor student of the Outward Spiral.” He smiled faintly.
“This means nothing to me.”
He shrugged. She huffed. She frowned. He shrugged.
“Look if you’re immortal, like you say, then you should know that this girl is but a mayfly, a flicker of a candle flame, nothing.”
“I must disagree. She has her life. I have many lives. It is my duty to protect hers.”
And with that the Witch struck, for she had been gathering power all the while. And lightning flared in the Heavens, and began to fall. And the verser ran toward her, and embraced her for in a fatal tenth of a second, he saw that the Witch was truly his superior in the Arts Magica. And so he embraced her, and the lightning fell on them both, and consumed them in a fury that cracked the stone for ten yards in all directions, and with a boom that was heard all over the small town, and tumbled the sherriff out of bed thinking that a terrorist had unleashed a bomb.
The verser and his dog were elsewhere, and the foolish girl was pulling herself free of now powerless strands, and the church bells were ringing.
Ding, dong, the witch is dead.