The Wizard's War (5 page)

“Never had the pleasure. You came to investigate the
witch hunter?”

“Yes,” Edward answered. “I tried to call you earlier
to help us find him.”

“I must have already been heading here. I don’t know
where he is, myself. Ask any demon or witch and they will lead you right to
him. Ask the right one and they will help you.”

“How did you hear about him?”

“There was a witch coven that was gaining power and
attention. My sister was investigating it and told me that it was a bunch of
housewives trying to get back at their husbands for one thing or another. They
had power, but that was all. Then men from their town started dying of strange
causes.

“The witch hunter arrived and spread the word of
magic and demons. The people were religious and let him in. He did something to
them. One of the people unfortunate enough to witness it said that the witch
hunter did some sort of exorcism that had the poor woman screaming. She was
hospitalized in a vegetative state. All of the seven women guilty of witchcraft
were soon hospitalized. Two of them died.”

“The men who went missing?” I asked.

“Nobody knows, but the witches all promised none of
them knew what happened to the men, either.”

“Suspicious,” I said. “So you don’t know where he is
right now?”

“I was already in the state when you guys arrived.
He’s somewhere close.”

“Okay. Do you want a blanket?” I asked. She was
shivering pretty hard and water was forming a puddle on the hardwood floor.

“A towel would be great.” Her smile changed her
completely from a frightening, ethereal figure to a very pretty, friendly young
woman. I went to the bathroom and pulled a fluffy white towel from the cabinet.
The door snapped closed behind me and I turned to see Edward.

“Be careful around Abigail. She can sense that you
are powerful, but you can’t let her know about your Iadnah magic,” he said.

“She said there were stories about me.”

“She’s right. The demons fear you because your father
spreads your name and you have a very powerful demon under your control.
However, Abigail doesn’t believe the stories and that’s how it should be. She
doesn’t like to be threatened, and we don’t want her to see you as a threat.”

“Is she a threat to us?”

“Not outright. Her power would never hold up to a
Guardian’s, but she is a very powerful and opportunistic witch. She makes for a
better friend than enemy.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” I stepped around my uncle to exit
the bathroom. “Here. Do you want me to start a fire?” I asked Abigail, handing
her the towel.

“No, thank you. The weather will be worse the rest of
the week, so I suggest you conserve your supplies. Who would have predicted
that global warming would cause freezing winters and polar vortexes?”

“Actually, quite a few scientists, like Doctor Michio
Kaku---” Edward put his hand over my mouth, interrupting me.

“That was a rhetorical question,” he informed me. “I
suggest we wait until the sun is up before we try to find this guy. There are
plenty of rooms. I’ll see you both in the morning.” He left the hallway to
return to his room.

“I’ll show you to a room.” I led her upstairs and
pointed to the door against the opposite wall to the left. “That’s my room.” I
had taken over my father’s old room, which had a private bathroom and study. I
walked her down the hall, pointing out three bedrooms and a bathroom, as well
as a small library. “You can use any room. Nobody will walk in on you or
anything, except for maybe a ghost. But be careful; one of the ghosts is a
major pervert.”

She picked the room closest to the bathroom and left
the door open as she entered. “How long have you been doing this kind of
thing?” Abigail asked.

I entered the room and leaned against the door.
“Eighteen years.” Sometimes it felt like no time… then I looked at my teenaged
kids and I felt so old.

“Do you have a regular job?”

“I was a doctor, but I couldn’t get on with the
equipment.” Or, to be more specific, machines like the MRI machine liked to
malfunction horribly in my presence.

It was a decent guestroom with a full bed,
nightstand, and dresser. The walls were a light tan color and the floor was
hard wood with a black rug in front of the bed, which was against the far wall.
The blankets were dark brown. Above the bed was a fairly wide window,
displaying the forest.

“Are you married, Dylan?” she asked, stripping off
her wet jacket. She had on a dark blue, open-neck blouse and black pants.
Facing me, without an ounce of hesitation, she stripped off her wet shirt and
started drying her hair with the towel.

I played with the ring on my finger. It took a lot of
work to get it there, and I would be damned if I ever had to take it off. “I
am. For nearly fifteen years. I have two fantastic boys.” Honestly, looking at
her face was easier than it should have been. Even though she was a beautiful
woman, with great curves and a toned abdomen, I just really had no interest. It
wasn’t even the fact that my wife was unbelievably gorgeous, being a goddess
and all.
Maybe I should to introduce Mordon to her.

“Are you going to have any more?”

“I hope so.”

“How do you balance family and work?”

Balance
was usually the only problem we ever
had. “When we have arguments or problems, we just stick together. They all do
this kind of thing, too.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yeah, but trying to stop them is more so. That’s a
pretty necklace,” I commented, noticing the silver pentacle she wore on a thin
silver chain. The star was embedded with little emeralds, so it was more
jewelry than an article of power.

“Thank you. My sister gave it to me when my father
died.”

“Hey, I’m really tired, and Edward will be up at the
crack ass of dawn, so I’m going back to bed.”

“You mean ‘ass-crack’ of dawn?”

“That, too. Good night,” I said, closing the door
behind me. I headed back to my room and settled into bed just in time to enjoy
the remaining wisps of heat. “I’m getting so old,” I told my pillow.

*          *          *

As predicted, the smell of food woke me way too early
in the morning. I rolled over onto my stomach… but I couldn’t go back to sleep.
Divina wasn’t lying next to me, warm and breathing gently, Hail wasn’t
complaining about something loudly as Ron cooked breakfast, and I couldn’t
sense Mordon because he wasn’t on the same world. Even with my uncle, who was
more like a father to me than anything else, right down stairs, I felt kind of
lonely.

I got up and made my way to the kitchen to find
Edward sitting at the small wooden table and Abigail cooking. I was shocked
that the kitchen appliances, which hadn’t been touched in over eighteen years,
still worked.

I would have given them a proper greeting if not for
being totally exhausted. Instead, my brain-to-mouth filter was nowhere to be
seen as I spoke to the woman I barely knew. “You can’t go out dressed like
that,” I said. Edward and Abigail both looked at me like I was nuts. Mordon
would have supported me. “It’s freezing outside; you’ll get sick.”

Abigail was wearing a black miniskirt with a grey,
sleeveless, open-neck shirt. Her black satin bra could be seen over the low
neckline. Edward was reasonably dressed in pants and a long-sleeved black
shirt. He should have told her how crazy she was.

“Dylan, would you like to go through my clothes and
tell me what I
can
wear?” she asked.

“Yes, that would be fine,” I answered her sarcastic
question.

Edward put his face in his hand and Abigail waved her
spatula in a threatening manner. “I’m not the one that married you, buddy! Do
you dress your wife at home?!”

“No, she knows enough not to go outside naked in
negative ten degrees.”

“I’m not naked!” she yelled in outrage.

“Abby, please just put pants on. It’s windy out
there,” I said, trying to speak calmly. It was so easy to reason with my boys,
and Divina was never unreasonable, but I didn’t know how to talk to this woman.

She flung her spatula at me, which I barely caught,
and stomped out of the room.

“What was that about?” I asked Edward. Maybe he could
explain to me why she was in a bad mood.

He shook his head. “I just wanted breakfast.”

I looked at the spatula and the stove. “I’ll call
Ron.”

He stood up and took the spatula from my hand before
heading to the stove. “You are so stubborn. You get that from your father.”

Abigail returned with blue jeans, black leather,
high-heeled boots, and a fitted grey sweater that looked great with her Asian
complexion. “Better?” she asked.

I smiled. “That’s much better, thank you.”

“Oh, shove it.” She sat with a huff and crossed her
arms. Edward set a plate in front of her with eggs, bacon, and pancakes, then
got her a glass of orange juice. “Thank you,” she said politely.

So it was just me she couldn’t be civil with.

I filled my plate with eggs and bacon, since I really
didn’t feel like pancakes. I got a mug out and rinsed it, then set the ancient
coffee maker. Apparently, Ronez and I were the only ones in our entire family
who liked coffee.

“That stuff is so bad for you,” Abigail said with all
the snootiness of a girl half her age.

I just smirked. “That’s fine; I’ll just die young. So
where are we going?”

Edward gave me a look. “What? You’re finally ready to
get to work? You’re done tormenting Abby?”

She gave me a look like a cat that just caught a
bird. “I called my sister, Maria, last night. She’s got him under watch;
apparently he’s doing his own research to find more witches. He seems to go
after covens, not solitary witches.”

“That has always been his M.O.,” Edward said. “He
also never goes after males. Even the ones that are deemed accomplices are let
off on some religious grounds for forgiveness.”

This sounds like a great mission for Divina.
“So we know where to go, what do we do about him?” I asked.

They both paused to think. “Um… kill him,” Abigail
said, as if it were obvious. “We could stab him in the heart and bury him.”

“Already did that,” Edward said. “We could shoot him.
It’s a little louder, but nobody is coming back without a face.”

“Dad!” I objected. “He’s a human being; you should
hesitate before off and killing him.” Having worked in the ER, I dealt with
many people who were shot. The worst were those who were shot by loved ones or
by accident.

“I already killed him once. What’s wrong with killing
him again? He’s killed hundreds of people.”

“If you are sure it’s him.”

Abby pulled her cellphone out of somewhere in her
sweater and fiddled with it for a moment before trying to hand it to me. I
waved it away and Edward took it. Neither of us were safe with electronics, but
they exploded less for him than they did for me.

He sighed. “That’s him.” He turned the phone for me
to see the picture.

The man looked rough. He had more than a five o-clock
shadow, marred with jagged scars. His face was more wrinkles than skin and
there was a deep coldness in his hazel eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was messy
and just a little too long.

“Are you sure he isn’t just really similar in
appearance?” I asked.

He pointed to a dark spot on the man’s throat. “With
the exact same birth mark and matching scars? No, this is him.”

“How did you get this picture?” I asked Abigail.

“One of the housewives that he tortured was able to
get this shot of him and email it to my sister.”

“Did Maria email her back, call, or send a text?”

“Yeah.”

“Then if this witch hunter has any computer sense at
all, he can track your sister through the housewife.”

“He probably doesn’t have any computer sense,” she
said. “People can do that?”

I was supposed to be the one out of date; I didn’t
live on Earth. When I was here as a doctor, I had to have constant control over
my power in order for the electronics to function. Nevertheless, I knew very
well how much technology had advanced. In fact, it was technology that forced
me to return to Duran, as I couldn’t work with everyday hospital tools.

 “Of course, and I don’t think you should write
anything off. Your sister’s life is not worth the risk. If she’s not attached
to her phone, tell her to trash it and hide. If she is attached to it, tell her
to meet up with us and bring it with her. If he can track her by it, we can
deal with him all together instead of her taking him on alone,” I said. Abby
looked like she was considering it. “Now. Call her and give her the heads up.”

She got up, taking her phone back and going into the
living room to make her call.

“We should either set a trap, or figure out what
coven he will hit next,” Edward said. “I don’t like the idea of waiting around
for him to start picking off his victims.”

“If he was expecting a trap the first time, he’s
probably still expecting it. Why not go find his motel room and pay him a
visit?”

“You have no idea what he has set up there. That
gives him a huge advantage.”

Abigail returned, looking a little hesitant. She
tucked her phone away. “She didn’t answer. She must be in the shower or
something, so I’ll call her back later.” I looked at Edward and he shook his
head. “If we’re going to set a trap for this guy, I can be the bait.” Edward opened
his mouth to argue, but she went on before he could. “You said yourself he
never goes after men.”

“He also goes for covens, not individual witches.”

“Did you think Maria was my biological sister?” she
asked. I gave her my best deadpan stare. “Of course not. She’s my coven sister.
We’re part of a huge coven in Sedona.” Her phone rang with a spooky tune which,
considering the phone belonged to a witch, was sort of tacky. She looked down
at it and nodded. “It’s Maria. She’s calling me back.”