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Anna's
car limped over the cobblestone driveway. The muffler scraped on a broken
chunk of sandstone and the rusted clothes hanger holding it up snapped. The
old car roared, misfired and bounced hard. It chugged once before wheezing a
death rattle.
Crawling
out of the sedan, Anna tried to slam the door shut to vent some of the wrath
burning within. It screeched and shut with a moaning clunk. Anna stumbled
around to the back of the car.
“Blasted
piece of rejected slag.” She stared in dismay at the muffler.
It
was rusty, battered. And flattened. She must have run over it again. Anna
kicked it to the side of the drive and into a thick, spicy scented cover of
pine needles under the wild lilac bushes. A gaping hole showed on the other
side.
Scowling,
hands on hips, Anna hoped Benny could find a replacement on his way to school.
The roads were rough, people often lost them. Maybe Davis, his bus driver,
would stop to let him snag it. Though rarely seen at the real powwows, the
Davises were fam.
She
allowed a smile to tug at her lips. The kid's sharp eyes kept her in
hubcaps, too. Found ones. As in found-along-the-road, not
found on other peoples' cars. He knew better. If the kid ever pulled that
one again Carl promised to erase Benny's face and Carl was a too rare sort
of man who's word was his bond.
Anna
glanced down the lane through the gathering dark. Pain filling her heart, Anna
whispered, “Carl, baby, please come home.”
A
chill crept across her flesh. Arms going under her breasts, Anna hugged
herself.
No
lights brightened Melancowski's ugly shack. Something winked in the tall,
ominous hemlocks behind the house. Anna felt a bite of apprehension. Whoops
and chanting came in a faint, haunting mockery of Eagle-Mother's
prayer-songs. A scream drifted up the road.
The
Witch Stone?
Benny
-
Her
gaze shot back to the high round window up under the gables of their cottage.
Dark.
Benny?
She
felt her legs about to give way and sagged onto the rear of the car.
No.
So
long as Carl lived, Leda would never dare harm Benny.
Relief
washed over Anna. Carl . . . was being Carl. She knew his reason for acting
the way he did. But, dear God, how it hurt not to feel him spooned against her
back in the dead of night. How cold she felt.
With
a pain that was almost physical, Anna shivered and sighed. She gave the rear
bumper of the sedan a small kick. Ready to fall off, it rattled under her
foot. Even if Carl were still around to work on it, the whole car was on its
last legs. And there was no money to buy another. The courts and old man
Greylov's family had seen to that, and the law demanded anything older than
ten years be junked.
“Some
day,” full lips stretched in a wry smile, “I'm going to trade you off on
an old mule. Then eat the mule. A year's worth of indigestion would do me
more good than you do, scuds. Yo, like I'd love to trade you off at the
junkyard, but old man Orloff would probably charge me
for taking you to his place.”
She
grinned, calling, “Benny?”
The
old car's guardian was forced to keep an attitude of prayer about her. It
was that or burst with laughter at the imp who had shorted out the wires and
made Anna come home early.
Hey,
bub, she told it, The
Beloved-Priest-Spirit-People work in some real wild ways, he:wa?
It
spit at her and fled when the rest realized that she had tricked them. She
fell onto her back and howled with laughter.
“Benny?”
A
premonition of fear eating through her, Anna stared at the window. She wet her
lips. “Ben-nee. Yo, come on out,
you little fart. I got grub that needs carrying. Come on,
dude. Move it and lend your aging ma a hand.”
The
whispering in the pines died. Racket from the ‘Stone was gone. Shrill,
frightening silence beat at her ears. Anna squinted at the darkened loft and
tried to still the ice flurry in her stomach.
It
was pretty early yet. Where was Benny? He loved to go for hikes through the
woods, but it was unlikely he would be gone this time of night. Too many
undesirable. Shon:gili, Leda's
wannabe werewolves, sniffing coke and hunting the forest in bare-ass abandon,
made nighttime hikes impossible. Made it deadly.
Anna
whispered a prayer. She cast uneasy glances at the forested mountain to the
east of the house. According to his parole officer he was supposed to be home
by dark.
That
was another thing that angered her. Why the heck did the kid need a parole
officer after being acquitted? That goomba judge, Wilson, insisted, or he
threatened to remand the case to a higher court. Right now they were too deep
in law-rat debts to take it any farther.
She
scowled at the car. It took her as far as Leaders old building, up in Freeland
and not one inch more. By the time she found a mechanic to work on it, she had
to call the Shawnee-Blood Longhouse in Nescopeck and tell them she couldn't
make it. That hurt.
Blasted
car. Sometimes it acted as if it were possessed instead of protected.
She
should have just told Charlie to come back for her. He would have been glad
to, though it meant missing most of the Sing. If not for the solid faith of
her brother, she might have given up years ago.
Anna
sagged. She missed so much when Benny was growing up, and she was in prison
for a politically incorrect self-defense. She grinned coldly at the house. It
was about the only thing she had that the Greylovs couldn't steal or tie-up.
Her
dearly departed, thank You, God, father-in-law had been evil. That the old man
had been insane there was no doubt. But he had been rich. Very, very affluent,
with a wealth of political clout, and an abundance of revenge minded
supporters.
Popping
open the rear door, Anna hauled out a pair of homemade grass twine net sacks
loaded to the bursting point. Shoving the door shut with her knee, she glanced
down and muttered a few choice words at the dusty mark oxidizing car paint had
left on the faded cabre leather
dress. No helping it, and the dirt would wash out.
Staggering
over the rocks to the screen door, Anna glowered. Tricky, with her hands
loaded, but she managed to get through without the door falling off its
hinges. It was just something else Carl was going to fix. Then he lost his
mind. Anna set hers to replacing the entire door, frame and all, as soon as
there was a little spare cash for the wooden parts. Old man Greylov might have
died filthy rich, but law-rats and his greedy, squabbling relatives had it all
tied up.
Anna
smiled. The Greylovs were pretty much alike. Only her two Bens were different.
All that gelt, and she, as Greylov's ‘murderer' couldn't touch a
penny. To his relatives' horror, it would all go to Benny when the kid
reached thirty. As Benny's guardian the Project tried to claim the Greylov
fortune. But they weren't the only ones who knew how to use a little
judicious blackmail and a few terror tactics.
Carl
. . . Crap happens. Anna shrugged the name from her mind. For years, Anna got
along fine without a man, and would for years more, need be.
But,
dear God, how lonely she was.
There
was an empty spot on the stone floor of the porch, where the Night Sun should
be, quietly dripping oil over anything that came near.
Shocked,
Anna let the sacks drop from her hands.
“You
rotten, lousy, no-good little brat.”
Snatching
up the groceries, Anna shoved her way into the house. Both sacks were dumped
on the kitchen's trestle table. One spilled. Oranges danced over the table
and onto the golden maple of the kitchen floor. A mouse ran out to explore the
mess. Spitting mad, Anna ignored it all. She scrambled up the ladder to the
loft.
Benny's
collection of tapes and disks crashed down into a waiting recycling tub.
The
Owl floated in a tree far above the Stone. He stared off into the night.
Leda
raised the knife. He nodded, floating down to accept her paltry offering.
The
boy smiled at him. Owl leaned over to capture his soul.
Leda
raised the knife. She muttered in an ancient dialect that was far older than
any nation of Europe, dating back to the time before her ancestors departed
Asia.
The
knife whispered a sigh. The tip brushed the Cu'alani boy's straining
chest. Lines of fire opened. His eyes widened.
Master?
Sh
. . . Hush.
Leda
raised the knife again. It whispered louder. Black-robed Hunters answered.
Acolytes mumbled, stumbling over unfamiliar words.
In
the days since Greylov's death, the coven was depleted, but growing again,
drawing believers from across North America to this one small valley. Shocked
and disgusted by Melancowski's greed, her love of blood sacrifice, the few
Native Americans in the coven melted away.
The
eye on the haft opened, straining, pleading with her not to do it.
Leda
ignored the suffering. She closed her eyes and the black tip came down,
scratching fire in the muscular chest.
“Please
- It burns.”
She
gave the Cu'alani a faint smile. The knife went up, the spirit trapped
within shuddering against her and completely helpless.
“I
want more money -”
Owl
raised his hand.
Wouldst
thou do this to gather power from the beyond?
As harshly as only he could, the Owl told her, Rather,
thou shalt help the woman VanTur do mine will.
Leda
shuddered. The cold poison in his voice was a cancer, eating her will to
resist.
Doeth
thou this, else thou shalt take the Cu'alani's place.
In
trembling hands she raised the knife.
Mouth
like dust Leda shouted, “To our lord of the darkened-suns. Give him glory.
Give him praise. He rules us. He gives us power
to rule over sheep called humanity.”
Tom
screamed, “Sig heil. Sig heil.”
Shuddering
under the force of Owl's presence, the coven stumbled to its feet, singing
in cracked and hoarse voices, bottles raised to the weeping boy on the
‘Stone.
The
Owl lay a cold hand on the boy's forehead.
With
a gentle smile to cover a savage hate for mankind, he said, For yet a little. Do ye thusly for me, my son. Soon, thou shalt be with
me in paradise. Yea, an eternity of hungry women and drugs and vices.
Relieved,
the boy forced himself to endure and did not hear an echo of mocking contempt.
The words of the song penetrated his pain-hazed mind. A shadow of fear touched
the Cu'alani. He whimpered. Arms that could bend iron struggled against
bonds of human skin until blood seeped from the wrists.
“Gracious
master/our lord and god/give us this day our bread and wine
“Wine
of Night/Wine of Moon
“Wine
of Night/Wine of Moon”
Wine
of Night was semen. The fear left him. With the demon's cool hand on his
face, the Cu'alani relaxed even more. Release was coming. Satan was
compassionate. Loving and merciful. He had only to suffer a little more for
the god.
But
the Wine of the Moon depended on the color of the moon. Wine of Gold was
urine. That was OK. He had to consume a lot of that in the White Rose's
ashram.
Drugged
into complacency, he blinked up at a smiling, blood red moon. A murderer's
moon.
Mocking
laughter whispered though the forest.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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