A Curse Awakened: A Weird Girls Novella (6 page)

“Uh, okay.” I cleared my throat. “Emme, call Danny and put him on speaker. Then tuck your phone into your back pocket with the speaker out so we can all hopefully hear him.”

She nodded and did as I asked.

Danny answered immediately. “How’s it going? You girls okay?”

“We’re here,” Shayna said, mimicking the little kid from
Poltergeist.
She yelped when Taran smacked her arm.

I stepped through the gate, wondering if anyone would follow. By some miracle, each of my sisters did, with Shayna skipping ahead with her battle-ax. Sometimes, I really wondered about her.

“We’ll leave you on speaker in case we need you,” I said.

“All right, but please be careful. This altar has to be destroyed by your hands in order to free you from the bind.”

“How will we know if it’s the right one?” Emme asked hesitantly. “What if it’s someone else’s altar?”

I groaned. “Emme has a point. I don’t want to accidently free hell’s minions. We’re in enough trouble.”

“I think you girls will know for sure. Everything I’ve read says altars designed to bind are identifiable to those held. It goes back to the rule of maintaining balance. If it’s cast on someone, that person has to at least be given the opportunity to recognize it.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re right.” I reached the garage and stood on my tippy-toes, trying in vain to peer through the grimy and darkened glass. “I can’t see anything. It looks like there’re plastic garbage bags taped to the window. Let’s go around. There has to be a side door.”

Shayna skipped ahead, finding a door around the corner. Deadbolts lined almost the entire rim of the wooden door. “Can you break it, Ceel?” She lifted her battle-ax. “If not, I can use Junior here.”

Taran pointed at her. “What I think you should do is calm the hell down. You’re a little too excited, princess.”

Shayna grinned. “I just know we’re close. We’re going to get control over our magic and save Danny’s dad. I’m sure of it!”

Taran huffed. “I just don’t want to be eaten. Son of bitch, is that too much to ask for?”

Emme inched closer to Shayna and her little friend, peering over her shoulder. “I hope not,” she mumbled.

I held up my hand to silence them. My gaze cut side to side and my ears took everything in, focusing on our immediate surroundings. For a crowded neighborhood within a large city, all seemed a little too quiet. “I think I should break it down in case there’s something waiting for us inside.” I took in the number of locks I needed to bust through. “But it’s going to make a lot of noise.”

Taran rolled her eyes. “You’re worried about someone reporting a breaking and entering out here? Trust me, these peeps learned to keep their mouths shut a long time ago.”

“Good point.” My sisters gave me plenty of space as I whipped my foot back. Fear must have fueled my strength; I kicked the door from its frame with just a few strikes.

Thick musty air carried dust and the bitter stench of menace into my nose, making me sneeze. My eyes searched through the darkness. This wasn’t just a place of worship, it was a crypt laced with suffering and pieces of the dead.

Black candles in clear glass gathered in rows formed a circle at the center of the room, while skulls in varying sizes lined the shelves encasing the perimeter. It was obvious that no one had entered this place in years, and yet the flames flickering from the candles had barely chewed through the wicks. Griselda’s residual magic must have been feeding the candles’ energy.

“H-how is it in there?”

I think Emme had expected dead squirrels hanging from nooses. Hell, so had I. “Creepy,
definitely creepy. But aside from the skulls lining the shelves and some candles, it’s not so bad.”

Or it wasn’t until I stepped inside and so did my sisters. The air popped in sections like a cluster of balloons, releasing the rancid aroma of death. Torturous, bloodcurdling death. We gagged, trying to beat down the sudden surge of nausea.

Something moist and sticky landed at the center of the circle. I fixed my gaze straight ahead. Nothing that smelled this bad was worth seeing. My tigress insisted otherwise and forced my head up.

My body staggered backward and my knees threatened to buckle. “Oh … 
God
.”

My sisters glanced up, muffling their screams. Terror kept me quiet and slammed my mouth shut.

A woman was sprawled against the ceiling, anchored in place by nine-inch nails. Decomposing flesh slid along the metal shafts, splattering the concrete below while we stood frozen by the sheer brutality. Railroad spikes had been driven through her breasts, eyes, and belly button, and words were carved into her skin.
NO SEE
etched into her forehead.
NO BREED
lanced across her belly.
NO COMFORT
sliced above her breasts.

She’d suffered long and hard. And despite the spikes blinding her and indenting her skull, she bore an uncanny resemblance …

To me.

My breath came out in a shudder and my eyes burned.
It’s not you,
I told myself.
It’s not you.
I repeated the phrase over and over. Too bad I didn’t believe me.

“Hello? Hello? Are you girls okay?” Danny’s shaky voice echoed through the dimness.

“No. No! We’re not fucking okay.” Taran’s speech mixed with gags. “There is a goddamn woman nailed to the goddamn ceiling and she fucking looks like Celia!”

“Oh, God. It must be the altar.”

“You’re just a friggin’ genius, aren’t you, asshole!”

Another lump of skin fell. Loud enough to be a foot.

Taran spit on the concrete. “Son of a bastard’s ass … I’m going to hurl.”

“Okay … okay … okay … t-tell me what’s happening.”

I beat back the burn of my roiling stomach. “The woman is falling apart in … in … 
chunks
.”

Danny coughed as if unable to stand the thought. “That’s just … 
wrong.
” He coughed a few more times and sounded as if he were shuddering. “But believe it or not, it’s a good sign.”

A larger portion fell. Shayna clutched her battle-ax against her like a child would a teddy bear. “Oh … I don’t think so, little guy.”

“You may not believe me, but the woman is not real,” Danny said soothingly. “She’s a culmination of the suffering your aunt caused.”

“Then why does she look like me?” I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling.

“I think because you’re the strongest, and the leader of your family. If there was a war, and the first to suffer was the general, the soldiers would panic. The image of you there is meant to cause fear and dread.”

Even through the darkness, I could see Emme’s soft green eyes water. “Well, it worked,” I told him.

Danny swallowed hard, tears of regret heavy in his voice. “I’m so sorry I did this to you, Celia, to
all
of you. Believe me when I say my research of the curse was intended only to help you—not to cause you distress or pain.” He sighed. “If you don’t want to do this,
don’t.
Get out now. I’ll figure something else out to help my dad.”

I watched the candles burn. Griselda was dead, and still she mocked us with her spellwork, keeping us firmly within her magical grasp. I took in my sisters with narrowing eyes. “If we don’t do this, Gris still has us and we’ll never be free.”

Shayna adjusted her hold on her battle-ax. “Ceel’s right. This whole thing started out as a totally evil spite against us. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can use it to our advantage and totally kick her in the tush.”

We waited for Emme and Taran to speak. As much as Shayna and I thought the destruction was necessary, we couldn’t charge forward without them. This was a family problem. And every member needed to agree.

Emme finally stepped forward. “Griselda’s curse killed Mom and Dad. Who’s to say this bind won’t eventually strangle us if we don’t sever it?” She stroked my hand with hers. “She meant for us to die, didn’t she?”

“She did,” I answered.

She pursed her soft pink lips. “Well, I want to live. Don’t you?”

Emme never spoke much. But when she did, she was typically profound. Taran quirked a perfect brow her way. “Tell us what we need to do, Danny,” she said. “Just ’cause we lost our family doesn’t mean you should lose yours, too.”

Danny sighed. “Are you sure?”

The candles flickered as if taunting us. I cracked my knuckles. “Yeah. We’re sure.”

“Okay.” He riffled through his notes. “You said there are candles, right?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Black or red?”

“Black.”

He let out a breath. “Destroy all the candles, and you break the bind.”

I lifted the closest candle. The clear glass surrounding it felt unnaturally cold, but I didn’t hold it for long. I smashed it to the floor before Danny could finish. Pain raked up my right arm as the skulls whipped in my direction and collectively opened their jaws.

A chorus of haunting screams echoed from all directions. “Holy
shit
!” Taran yelled, falling to the floor and taking Shayna and Emme with her. Their heads jerked around to each of the bleating skulls, their faces blanching to white when the skulls shrieked louder.

The cries slowly dwindled. I remained cemented in place, dripping blood from a gash
along my right arm and trying not to wet my pants. Taran’s “Holy
shit
!” didn’t quite sum up the level of super-suckdom we were in.

“Uh, was that the skulls I heard shrieking?” Danny asked. His voice quivered and he wasn’t even in the damn room.

“Yup.” I continued to gape, waiting for them to attack.

“That’s unfortunate … and disturbing.”

“Yup.” Panty-wetting terror apparently made me quite articulate.

“The good thing is they can’t hurt you—they only vocalize their displeasure. However, it says here the power of the bind will probably scratch your flesh.”

I examined my arm before glancing back at my sisters. “Danny, this isn’t a scratch. The cut I have after smashing just one candle is deep.”

“Jesus,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

At least sixty candles awaited us. Another hunk of Celia-esque dead person fell. “No. But Griselda prepared all the same. Look, this is obviously going to be painful and bloody. Can I do the majority of the smashing?”

My sisters tensed, waiting while Danny flipped through more pages. “I’m sorry, sweetie. It doesn’t appear so, since the bind links all of you. While the candles don’t have to be destroyed in equal parts, the book states you must each take an active role in the altar’s destruction.” I heard him pacing. “Had the candles been red, or any other color—or even if there had been a simpler altar—you wouldn’t be dealing with any of this.”

The soft flickering light continued to mock me, spilling its ugly glow and reminding me of the person who had so cruelly and strategically planned our suffering, and that of our parents. If Griselda was alive, I would have killed her without hesitation and without regret. “The spell protecting the altar is strong, Danny. It could easily sever a vein or artery.”

“Then don’t do it. Just come back.”

Taran raised her hand. “Hold up. As we know, Emme’s healing sucks balls—no offense, baby girl.” She ignored Emme’s blush and continued. “But if we do this, she’ll have full control of her healing, right? If so, then she’ll fix us after we bust this shit up.”

“In theory, yes.”

“Then screw it.”

“It really hurts,” I warned.

Taran beat back the emotion that momentarily crumpled her perfect face. “I think we’ve been dealt enough pain to handle this, don’t you?” She shrugged. “Besides, anything we feel is temporary. The bind’s permanent and so is his dad’s fate if we stand here like losers and do nothing.”

Shayna lifted her battle-ax from where she’d dropped it and edged her way to the opposite side of the circle, cringing when a few toes dropped like chunks of wet snow from the ceiling. She shook off the willies and readied the battle-ax to swing. “Let’s do it then. What the heck are we waiting for?”

The rest of us spread out around the circle. “On the count of three, okay? Push past the pain, no matter how bad it gets—the faster we are, the quicker it ends.” I crouched and gripped two candles at once; so did Taran. Emme levitated four from the floor. Shayna swung her hips like a batter ready to save the game. “One. Two.
Three!
”

Griselda deserved to burn in hell.

The harder I smashed, the worse the pain. What felt like serrated knives stabbed through and across my arms, filleting my skin in layers and spilling my blood. I grunted from the burn and the horrific impression of my skin peeling away.

And still I refused to pause.

Despite my sisters’ blatant anguish, and how the skulls’ eerie shrieks cackled above us, I moved forward—blinking away the tears and noise disorienting me.

Deep within me, my tigress roared—encouraging me as if she knew only my human side could save us.
Lift and destroy. Lift and destroy.
The words became my mantra until lightning crashed and the world exploded in fire.

No … not the world—
Taran.

Torrents of blue and white flame shot from Taran’s hands, striking each bleating skull and silencing them as they erupted in mini-bombs of shattering bone. She rose from her kneeling position, her bleached white eyes glowing, and panted hard as blood dripped from the slices on her arms. I lurched to her, thinking she was in shock until the corners of her lips curved into a wicked “F-U” smile.

Only one shrieking skull escaped her fury. It bounced along the floor, clicking and clacking its jaw open and shut, audibly conveying its displeasure in the form of disturbing howls.

Shayna made sure the wicked thing didn’t make it out the door.

She split the base of her battle-ax like melting silver, converting the small section into a deadly spike by the time she raised it above her head. I didn’t see her launch it; the motion was too quick even for my sharpening vision. I only saw it puncture the bone between the skull’s eye sockets and stake it to the wall, deadening the last of the horrid cries.

Shayna’s bloody shoulders shook as the first of her crazed giggles broke through the tension. “Heh-heh. I nailed a skull to a wall. Hee-hee. I’ve got aim. I’ve got mad skills. Ha. Look at me go. Ha-ha-ha.”