09 - Return Of The Witch (15 page)

Chapter 15

After
my shower, I went into the kitchen and found that Ursula had cooked me a huge breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, juice, coffee; the works.

“What’s this?” I point
ed at my wrist where my watch would be if I wore one. “We don’t have time to eat. We have to go.”

She pulled a chair out from the table and
directed me to sit. “Thou art but bones and skin too weak to walk. Be it fight or flight, thou shalt need thy strength either way.”

“No, that’s okay. Just a cup of coffee is all I—”

“SIT!” She crossed her arms at her chest and leaned back against the counter. Then, with a smile that said we weren’t going anywhere, she added, “Please.”

I
sat, and in the course of five minutes, managed to polish off the entire breakfast. Neither of us said a word the whole time. Though I thoroughly enjoyed my first meal in days, the look on Ursula’s face told me she enjoyed it more.

“
Okay.” I slid my chair out from the table while patting my mouth with a napkin. “
Now
can we go?”

She uncrossed her arms and
jingled her keys in front of my face. “I shall drive.”

I
snatched the keys from her hands as she blinked. “No. I’ll drive. The last time you drove, we ended up at the bottom of a ravine. Remember?”

“`Twas no fault
of mine.”

“Still, you almost killed us.”

She gave me a pout, a rather killer one I might add, greatly perfected since marrying Dominic. Though it works well on him, it does little to garner sympathy from me. After all, I’m the one that taught her how to do it.

On the way out to
see Paige Turner, I told Ursula that I understood more of what was going on now.

“You remember that passage Paige read to us from her
Grimoire, the part about the guardians?”

“Aye. ‘Be thee warned thy
Guardians of Four, lest her cunning ways shalt reap what essences thou doth squander.’”

“Exactly.
We know that the four missing witches had each adopted one of the prime essentials. I imagine it’s likely they spent their entire lives mastering the singular expertise associated with their respective elements and incorporated it in their witchcraft.”

“
How so?”

“Take me, for instance. I practice all branches of the energy tree. I scry using water. I
create portal conditions using the power of the vortex. I can generate fire with the point of a finger and I brew potions using herbs plucked from Mother Earth. That’s utilizing all four of the prime essentials. And the kicker, my specialty, is my zip ball, the harnessing of pure energy in the palm of my hand.”

“`Tis the fifth essential.”

“Well, technically it’s just a form of electrostatic manipulation. Harnessing small amounts of energy is nothing like mastering the quintessential. My point is that it’s taken me several lifetimes to acquire the knowledge and skill set to demonstrate these attributes. Imagine if I dedicated all that time to mastering just one essential. That’s what these women have done. They were experts in their respective element.”

“Guardians by default.”

“Yes, but not only guardians, I believe those women possessed the very essential their element represented.”

“I do not understand.”

“Look, it’s not so far-fetched. Terri Cotta for instance, you saw how the ground opened up out back of her house and nearly swallowed us. And is it any coincidence that the fireplace spontaneously ignited at Amber Burns’ house the moment we walked in? A mini cyclone pushed us down the hall in Wendy’s apartment and the water fountain at April’s house flowed up the rocks instead of down? When those women disappeared, their residual energy lingered in their wake.”

“
Doth thou give credence to the prophecy now?”

“
Well I don’t know about that. The prophecy predicts a battle between good and evil, a battle for control over the collective powers of the elements, including the quintessential. That part still seems a bit too far-fetched for me.”

“Be there a part no
t so far-fetched?”

“Sure.
What’s not so hard to believe is that someone is trying to make it look as if the prophecy is coming true. At least from the visions I’ve had, though I still can’t say whether or not I hold some culpability in the matter.”

“Methinks it is Paige Turner, for she seems to know more than any one of us.”

“No, I don’t think so. Paige may be the town crier, but she’s not the wolf. She’s too old for such games.”

“`Tis no game that someone ran us off the road last night.”

“You’re right about that. I think if it weren’t for—” Ursula’s phone chirped out a familiar ringtone, freezing my words in mid sentence. The look on her face confirmed my suspicions. “Dominic?”

She nodded.

“Don’t answer it.”

She answered it. “Hello?
”

I could hear Dominic on the other end, his voice synced to a teakettle’s pitch. “
Ursula, where are you?”

“
I am with Lilith.”

I waved my hand to get her attention. “Don’t tell him where we’re going.”

“You took the car?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

I waved my hand
again, this time more frantically so she couldn’t possibly mistake my intentions. “DO NOT TELL HIM WHERE WE ARE GOING.”

“We
are going to see Paige Turner,” she said.

“
Ursula!”

“WHAT?”
Dominic’s voiced boomed through the phone.

“We are going to—”

I grabbed the phone from her and turned it off. “He heard you the first time. Why did you do that? I told you not to tell him where we were going.”

“He sounded worried.”

“He sounded controlling. You have a life. He needs to stop trying to live it for you.”

“I am sorry, Sister, but he is my husband.
”

“That’s right, your husband, not your
keeper. This isn’t 1692, Ursula. He doesn’t own you.”

She thinned her lips and turned her
eyes away.

“What?
Are you mad at me now?”

She shook her head
faintly. “I am sad.”

“Sad for yourself?”

“Nay, not for me, but for thee.”

“Why me?”

She rolled her eyes back up at me. I alternated glances between her and the road, favoring her mostly. “I have my Dominic,” she said. Her voice sounded strangely hollow. “For good or bad he adores me, I know. It matters not what deeds I do, what promises I break. He holds no ill will no matter my intentions.”

“Well of course
he loves you, Ursula, but why does that make you feel sad for me?”

She seemed surprised at that.
“`Twas all thee had and more with Master Tony. `Twixt thy spite and thy mischief he did love thee still with no conditions upon thee. Methinks what thou hath lost and thy wounded heart, and imagine my own in thy place. `Tis then my heart doth break a million times for thee.”

I returned my gaze to the road, though I admit I don’t remember seeing a thing in front of me. All I could picture was the grief I caused Tony in the few short years we were together. Spite and mischief, Ursula called it, though sometimes
the way I treated him went beyond cruel and unusual. Yet through it all, he loved me unconditionally. He adored me as Dominic adores Ursula. Did he know how much I adored him? I saw then how I seldom showed it.

I looked at Ursula. She turned her head and her eyes away. “I’m sorry, Urs
. I shouldn’t tell you how to live your life with Dominic. It’s none of my business.” I handed the phone back to her. “Here, call him back if you like.”

She took the phone and held it on her lap.

“Aren’t you going to call him?”

I watched her steal a glimpse at me through the corner of her eye. “Nah,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “
It is good that he waits.”

We arrived at Paige Turner’s apartment complex a short while later
. I claimed a parking space beneath a sprawling elm that promised shade for at least another hour. Not that I thought we would need that much time with the old witch, but I knew how fastidious Dominic was about his car, and I was hoping I could pick up a righteous bird dropping or two. I think Ursula figured out my intentions after catching me looking up expectantly into the tree’s canopy.

“What?” I said
, denouncing the sour look she gave me. “The sun can be hard on a car’s paint job.”

I
had just come around the back bumper to join her, when a black Escalade came tearing through the parking lot, tires smoking, engine screaming. It was heading straight at us.

“He’s back!” I yelled.
“Duck!”

I pressed my palms to the small of
her back and shoved Ursula one way as I dove the other. The car’s battering ram smashed into the back of Dominic’s car and drove it into the shade tree.

“Are you all right?” I
asked, reaching Ursula on hands and knees and pushing her to the grass to keep her down.

“Aye, but for
a scratch or two is all.”

I looked at my hands.
“Yeah, me too.”

I stood, pulling Ursula up with me.
We scurried to an old pick-up truck for cover before poking our heads up like a couple of gofers to see if the coast was clear. The Escalade laid down a patch of rubber in reverse and swung around for another charge.

“That’s it,” I said. “This guy is toast.
Can you spin up a zip?”

“Aye, as good as any, I should think.”

“Okay then, we’ll aim—”

T
he driver gunned the engine again, arresting the words from my lips. We had no time for zips. I grabbed Ursula by the hand and jerked her out of the way just as the Escalade’s battering ram found the broadside of the pickup truck. It plowed the truck several feet sideways before flipping it up over the curb.

As
Ursula and I ran for cover behind another elm, I spotted a delivery truck loaded with home heating oil lumbering into the lot.

“That’s it!” I said. “Wait here. I have an idea.”

I shot across the parking lot, waving my arms and yelling for the driver of the fuel truck to stop. The Escalade, meanwhile, had turned around after flipping the pickup and retrained its sights on me.

The truck driver stopped his rig in the middle of the parking lot. I came around
the cab and began banging on his door.

“Please
. You have to get out. You’re in danger!”

He
rolled his window down and stuck his head out. “What’s going on here? You all right, little lady?”

“No!” I pointed
at the Escalade across the lot, its engine revving, its back end hunched and ready to charge. “That man is a terrorist. That’s a car bomb.”

“A terrorist?”

“Yes! He’s been waiting for you. He wants to blow up your truck! You have to get out now. Run!”

I didn’t have to tell the
old goat twice. He jumped from his rig and ran for cover down the block. I stepped up onto the running board, hopped into the driver’s seat and shut the door.

“All right you
sonofabitch.” I drew a bead down on the Escalade, though I still could not see the driver. “Let’s see what you got now?”

I dropped the truck into gear and
moved it a couple of feet.

The
Escalade did the same.

“Really?” I said, under my breath. “You want to play that game?”
I grabbed the seatbelt and buckled it around my waist. “All right, buster. I’ll play.”

I stomped on the gas and popped the clutch. The truck
lurched forward, sputtered, and then a powerful force attempted to pull it back. I let off the gas and depressed the clutch. The truck slowed and then surged forward again as if shoved from behind.

My head snapped
back in whiplash several times before I realized what had happened. The fuel in the big tank behind me sloshed back and forth, pushing and pulling on the truck like a giant wave machine.

I understood then why the driver ran so far from the area to get away.
His truck was carrying a lot of damn fuel. What made things worse was that folks from the apartment complex were already gathering in large numbers around the perimeter of the parking lot. A game of chicken with the black Escalade no longer seemed like such a good idea. I couldn’t take the chance.

I shifted the truck into neut
ral and engaged the emergency brake. The Escalade inched closer. As I opened the door and prepared to make a run for it, I heard a man say, “That’s right, little lady. Out of the truck.”