Southern fury, p.16
Southern Fury, page 16
“I guess you’re planning on talking to us until eternity, then, because it’s sure suffering to listen to you.” The big man coughed and laughed as Grandma Mobley set her hand on the circle and ignited the curse.
The two women climbed down the ladder, amused with their magic. Unable to curse William Crutchfield specifically, they opted to curse all the residents.
Max looked toward Sick Girl. “You’re all tethered to the house because it’s all you have left.”
The world dipped again and the nausea-inducing shifts in his eyesight and equilibrium struck harder than before. He wondered if a ghost could vomit. He’d certainly seen Drummond make the motions but how did a stomach empty itself when it did not exist exactly? When the blinding light returned, he welcomed it because he knew it meant the disorientation would end sooner.
Sick Girl removed her hand from his chest. They hovered on the edge of the energy dome around the pest house. He had returned to the present.
Max turned his attention toward the woods. The ghosts out there, tethered to their actual bodies, must have been buried long before that moment. The others — their ghosts remained with the house while their bodies had been removed into the woods or some cemetery further away. And ghosts like Sick Girl and Mr. Derby — they had simply been caught up in the curse. Their bodies could be anywhere.
The worst part of the curse, however, was not the tethering. The truly insidious part was that being unconnected to their bodies, they continued to suffer, never to know where they were physically located. Even if the curse were to be broken, moving on would be difficult until they discovered their resting places.
That was why Mother Hope and Grandma Mobley worked together to make the dome. They had to keep out the pest house ghosts; otherwise, they would have to fight off those angry spirits long before they could fight each other.
But there was one angry ghost that had never been cursed — at least, not in the same way. Max pressed through the barrier and zipped across the air, straight for the attic. He flew through the ceiling and found the two witch leaders still locked in their stand-off.
Things had changed.
The differences were not subtle. Grandma Mobley stood in her triangle with two black candles burning at her sides. Her left foot slid forward, bent at the knee with the heel off the floor. All of her weight pressed back on her right foot. It reminded Max of the martial arts stances he had learned in Tae Kwon Do. But this witch would not be performing any acrobatic maneuvers — at least, not the kind found in the martial arts.
Across the way, Mother Hope also stood. She had a single blue candle at the tip of the triangle, dark smoke snaking up through the air. With her weight evenly planted on her feet, she had her fists pressed together and her head lowered. She mumbled her spell like a mantra.
The air smelled different, too. The musty odor of an attic long forgotten had dissipated, leaving behind two competing odors — fresh cut wood from a newly constructed house and hints of the revolting stench Max recalled from Sick Girl’s memory.
Grandma Mobley lowered her center of gravity as Mother Hope inched her foot back and leaned forward, ready to strike. Both women began audibly breathing — hard, slow inhalations and short, powerful exhalations. Like two angry beasts revving up to charge, their nostrils flared as they rolled their necks and shoulders.
Mother Hope lifted her head and opened her eyes — they glowed red. Grandma Mobley zeroed her attention on one strike point of her enemy. And her good eye glowed an emerald green.
As the glows pulsed with their heartbeats, Max knew this was it. After all their feints and calculations, their spells and rewrites, each witch had committed to a final move. They would only have one chance. They had picked an attack which the other clearly would recognize — it’s doubtful either could fool the other — and both felt confident they would be able to defend, out maneuver, or in some way be victorious.
Max had to admit that part of him watched with the same fascination of watching an old Western shootout. If he really wanted to dig deep, he would have admitted that part of what kept him watching was the same draw in seeing MMA fighters brawl in the octagon — blood. Two great fighters, seasoned, knowledgeable, but in the end it came down to blood. Yet at his deepest core, at a place where the truth rested that he did not fear admitting, he wanted to know, had to know, the outcome. He had to see it for himself. Had to know beyond any doubt who would become his greatest threat.
A strange rumbling sound began, and it took Max a moment to realize that it came from Mother Hope. As the sound grew louder, Grandma Mobley began her own utterances. The hairs on Max’s half-ghost arms stood up. He could feel the magic energy thrumming in the air, keeping time with the glowing eyes of the witches. That’s when Grandma Mobley made a mistake.
She let her heel drop — a subtle movement but enough to warn Mother Hope that the attack had begun.
The low rumbling turned into a high-pitched warcry as Mother Hope burst into action. An instant later, Grandma Mobley launched forward. The two women charged with the energy, speed, and agility of Olympic athletes in their prime. All the magic necessary to give them that unnatural edge streaked off their bodies as they raced towards each other.
If Max had not been cursed, he would have died from forgetting to breathe.
Chapter 23
IN THE HALF-SECOND before the witches clashed, a thought hit Max with all the strength of a trampling rhino — he needed Mother Hope to win. She had created the curse that locked him in this half-ghost existence. While other witches might be able to patch him back together the way Sandra had once done, Mother Hope’s skills were superior to almost all. Truly, only Grandma Mobley could be considered an equal. The only real chance he had to be completely free of the curse was through the witch that created it.
In the next half-of-a-half-second, Max saw Mother Hope’s skin light up from within. Strange and archaic symbols flickered through her skin, seemed to burn their way out, in a sharp, orange light.
In the next flicker of time, Grandma Mobley shrieked across the attic, black smoke trailing in her wake. Her clouded eye cleared with emerald light and she salivated like a ravenous wolf.
In the final moment, Max saw his own body lift an inch off the ground. Wisps of gray mist pulled out of his pores as if his body smoldered but the smoke had nowhere to go. It tried to reach for Mother Hope, only to be lured back toward Grandma Mobley, only to be yanked back by Mother Hope. The end result — the smoke formed a winding gray path like a narrow mountain pass full of switchbacks.
As he watched this, he felt a tugging within his own chest. He did not want to know what would happen to him if either witch managed to gain control of that mist. He suspected he would welcome being a cursed half-ghost by comparison.
Both witches leapt into the air, crossing over his body, and when they reached each other, their magic exploded in a phosphorus-white light. A concussive force smacked Max against the ceiling — not through it but against it. The sheer power of their magic gave him solidity — at least, for a few seconds.
When the blinding light dimmed, he saw Mother Hope had dropped to her knees. She faced the attic ladder, wobbling like a spinning top about to fall. If she lost her balance, she would tumble forward through the hole in the floor. Probably break her neck in the fall.
On the other side of his body, facing the circular window, Grandma Mobley sat on her knees, gazing up at the moon. Like a hopeful princess, she let the moonlight bathe her. Her arms were open and resting at her sides. Her head bent to the right, letting her white hair drape her shoulder. She did not move.
Max watched one witch, then the other. Like following the ball at a tennis match, he bounced between the two, waiting to figure out who had won.
A creak of wood to his left. Mother Hope fell to the side. Her strained breaths spoke of a woman with only a few left.
“As it should be,” Grandma Mobley said. She bowed her head, and Max heard an awful sound like the crunching of brown paper balled up and tossed away. Grandma Mobley’s skin flaked off into little pieces. She let out one long sigh, and her entire body crumpled to the floor. Her skin, her bones, her hair — all turned to dust as if she had been cremated.
Max sped across the room, diving down to Mother Hope’s side. His own body had fallen back to the floor, as lifeless as the witches around him. No. Mother Hope still had breath in her.
She rolled on her back and craned her neck to look over at Grandma Mobley. A sadistic grin twisted her lips. “I win.” Her wrinkled face softened as her eyes fell upon Max. “Oh. I see.”
He did, too. If she could see him, then her life had neared its end.
“Don’t do this,” he said. “You’ve used me for what you needed. Please, have some decency.”
Twirling a finger in the ends of her headscarf, she said, “I never could get the best of that witch. Even now, she gets the last hit.”
“You can still break my curse. You could do something good to balance out all the wrong you’ve done.”
Her hard stare returned. “Everything I did was to protect the world from people like the Mobleys. I should be made a saint.”
“Then make your last act a saintly one. There’s no reason my wife needs to be a widow. No reason those boys need to be fatherless right when they’re getting parents. Come on.”
He could hear the whine of desperation in his voice but didn’t care. If she wanted him to sing like a showgirl craving any role on stage or cry like a baby needing its pacifier, he would do it. For all she had put him and his family through, no way would he let her die before freeing him. No matter what.
He grabbed her and gave her body a hard shake. “Have you lost all your humanity? Have you no soul?”
She hacked a loud, creaking noise from the depths of her lungs. Max let go, afraid his sudden outburst might hasten her demise. When the coughing fits subsided, her skin had reddened. He thought that to be a far better sign than if she had turned blue.
With one ring-laden hand, she gestured for Max to come closer. He inclined his head, pushing his ear towards her mouth. If she went Mike Tyson on him and took a bite, he swore he would find some way to curse her for eternity.
In a shallow voice, she said, “Cecily Hull is here, right?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I smelled her disgusting aroma. No doubt she has asked you to find William Crutchfield.”
Max nodded. “She wants me to get his finger.”
“Makes sense. Well, you should do it.”
“What?”
“Don’t make a dying woman repeat herself. There’s only one way left. You want to hurt that scab of a Hull, go find William Crutchfield’s finger and use it. Give Cecily the finger.” Mother Hope cackled at her poor joke, but it only lasted a breath. Her eyes rolled up and her head dropped to the floor.
Max stared at her. He waited. Any moment, she would raise her head with another body-wracking cough. She would finish her laughter and continue to mock Max with her long-winded words. She had to. And maybe, if Max found the right angle, he could convince her to break his curse.
But she did not move again. No matter how hard he stared at her, he could not will her back into existence. He had lost.
Except, if she died, he could talk with her ghost. He waited. The two bodies on the floor — Mother Hope’s and his own — remained still and lifeless. The powdery remains of Grandma Mobley had no dream of returning whole. Other than himself, not a single ghost appeared. Which suggested they had gone somewhere else. He could not imagine that either witch had the clout to move on, but perhaps they had jumped to the Other right away. Or perhaps there were more planes of existence that he knew nothing about.
Because, without a doubt, neither witch was alive.
He could not have been sitting at her side for long, though it felt like hours. But soon the sounds that surrounded him returned to his attention. And those sounds were filled with screams and cries and violence. Max jolted straight up. Both witches had died — but the battle outside had only begun.
Chapter 24
MAX FLEW OUTSIDE and saw chaos. Like a machine gun, the Mobleys sent bolts of magic across the sky while the Magi used their protective charms to deflect the attacks. But no shield was ever perfect. Some of the bolts found their targets, cutting down several Magi with a horrid sizzling sound.
Max had never seen such violent magic. The Mobleys showed no mercy. Their blasts came down like grenades. Limbs were severed and heads removed.
But the Magi were not powerless. Annie thrust her arm into the air like a Civil War cavalry Lieutenant and bellowed, “Charge.” The Magi stormed forward — a human wall of magic pendants, protective charms, and sharp blades.
Lena Mobley shouted commands and pointed at Annie. The Mobley sisters marched steadily forward. Balls of fire formed in Lena’s hands and she catapulted them into the air. A young woman no more than ten feet from Annie went up in flames. The heartbreaking sound of her screams was matched only by the stomach-churning smell of her burning flesh.
The faces of the Mobley sisters opened in triumph — they thought they had won. But Max knew Annie’s plan. The Magi’s charge had more than one intention. They hoped to cause damage, but they also meant to distract from the flanking maneuver around the house.
Those four brave souls raced in from the side of the Mobley line. The forerunner, a gangly man, lunged his sword through the nearest Mobley sister. The Magi behind him ignited cursed objects or swung swords of their own.
As Mobleys fell, Annie’s grin rose. Of course, the Mobleys were not without their own tricks. The three sisters forming a triangle at the fire sent streams of jagged green energy barking through the sky. When one stream came down like a bolt of lightning, it struck a well-dressed Magi hard at the top of the head and continued straight to the ground, short-circuiting his brain. He had a seizure, foamed at the mouth, and continued flopping on the ground while others fought on around him.
The whole thing struck Max as brutal and clumsy — amateurish — but it was war nonetheless. None of these witches had fought in such a vicious conflict before. Max guessed that if he did the research, he would find that the last witch war had been generations upon generations ago. These people knew nothing about what they had started.
A loud crack like the earth breaking open fractured through the air — but it came from above, not below. The energy dome created by Mother Hope and Grandma Mobley fell apart like a sheet of ice. The pest ghosts slowly descended through the air. With the casters of their curse dead, they knew that like Max, they had no clear or easy way to break free of their curse. Max spotted Mr. Derby and the sheer fury on his face twisted his entire body into a specter of rage.
The dread that permeated the area heightened as each ghost reached the battlefield. These ghosts did not care about the pain they would endure in touching the corporeal world. The time for vengeance had arrived — and if not against the witches that had cursed them, then against those who worked for the same witches. The ghosts swung punches, froze limbs, and attacked everybody on the battlefield.
Amidst this symphony of mayhem, Max hovered, watching it rage around him. Despite their various viewpoints, he wanted to help those who had fallen yet managed to survive. But there was no helping. If he touched them, he would only cause them and himself pain. Anyone that attempted to crawl on the ground or find safety beneath a car or near a tree, only found destruction at the hands of the pest ghosts.
Max spun back toward the house — Sandra.
As he blazed across the clearing, he spied the three witches by the fire. Their magic changed color turning burnt-amber. Before it launched, Max connected the change with the pest ghosts’ arrival. The Mobleys and the Magi both would have been warned by their leaders that these ghosts existed. Mother Hope and Grandma Mobley probably left out a lot of details, but their armies had enough to expect an attack once one of the old witches died.
Burnt-amber spewed into the air with volcanic force. While witches and Magi fought on the field and others took cover behind trees, rocks, and cars, this brightness called all eyes upon it with the awe of a fireworks finale. As the lava-like pillars of energy split and broke away, pest ghosts began to wail.
The portly ghost that turned her back on Max became a standing post of fire. All those who could not see ghosts could easily see the outline of a person aflame thrashing in anguish. More of the spellfire dropped on the ground, and the pest ghosts scattered.
Max dodged and weaved as he hustled for the house, but something planted a burning kick on his back and sent him into the ground. He cried out, the fire shooting up his spine into his head. His momentum saved him — that, and the fact that he was half-ghost.
Because he did not stop moving when he hit the ground. He broke right through, soaring deep into the clay with the ants and worms. While he moved with ease, the fire upon his back still followed the properties of the corporeal world. Being underground snuffed out the flames.
Max thought about traveling under the house, avoiding the battlefield altogether, but he had no idea what direction he faced or how to judge the distance. His mind did not like it either. He knew he did not need to breathe, yet his chest tightened and he could feel claustrophobic panic rising.
With an unconscious shove, he blasted upward until he reached the surface. The pest ghosts that had survived the initial assault had taken cover. The battle raged on but a few had become less brazen and more sensible in their bloodlust.
Several feet away, he saw Madame Ti and Cecily staring out the corners of the first floor windows. Not far to Sandra now.
“Max, over here,” Drummond called from the corner of the house.
Gesturing to the house, Max said, “Sandra.”
Drummond understood. He shot off faster than Max had ever moved as a ghost and cut through the walls. When Max finally caught up, Drummond hovered in front of Sandra like a pale bodyguard.
