The max porter box set, p.49
The Max Porter Box Set, page 49
While Max and Sandra stared in shock, Lena moved into the side bathroom and returned with a clear bag. She bent to the side of the bed and carefully switched out the old witch’s colostomy bag. As Lena cared for the old woman’s medical maintenance, she nodded toward the chairs.
Max and Sandra sat. When Lena finished and had removed the full bag to the bathroom, she said to the old woman, “Are you sure?”
“I am,” the woman said, her voice a series of snapping clicks that forced Max to shudder.
Lena nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Porter, allow me to introduce Grandma Mobley. You might know her as Eunice Mobley, the founder of our coven.”
Chapter 16
MAX AND SANDRA DID NOT MOVE. Though the sight of the woman disturbed him and her voice caused an unsettling involuntary response, Max showed no surprise at her identity. He did not need to look at Sandra to know she also remained calm.
Lena, however, did not appreciate their relaxed attitude. “Do you not believe me?”
“We do,” Max said.
“This is Eunice Mobley. Born in 1877. She’s nearly a hundred and fifty years old.”
“We understand. We’ve met people far older, though, so let’s get on with this. I have a hunch that a lot of the pieces are about to fall into place.” Raising his voice, he said, “Isn’t that right, Grandma Mobley?”
Under great strain, she lifted her hand to briefly touch Lena. Her fingers poked out at odd angles from arthritis and possibly breaking numerous times. Max studied the woman’s face, finding it hard to equate what he saw with the vivacious, defiant woman from the photograph of Eunice Mobley with three unidentified women in front of a barn.
“Yes,” Lena said. “You wanted the full story, the truth of what’s going on, then so be it. But remember, you are still working for us. We paid you a lot of money, and you chose not to walk away from us. We now expect you to see things through.”
“You say that like we had a choice. The moment we agreed to take on the case, we knew we would have to see it to the end.”
“My, aren’t you a noble bunch.”
Sandra snorted a laugh. “Not at all. But we learned long ago that the best way to deal with all of our cases was to push right on through until it ended.”
“Let’s start that pushing now,” Max said. “You have something to tell us.”
Lena lowered onto the edge of the bed. She reached out and laced her fingers in the crooked bones of Grandma Mobley’s hand. “Very well. I won’t bother with the early years of her life. If you are half as good a researcher as I have been told, you can find out such details later.”
“I already know that part. You want to pick up when she moved to Greensboro. Perhaps around 1920?”
Lena sneered at his cockiness. “1917. A few years before, Eunice had been, more or less, evicted from Winston-Salem, and rather than risk facing the same from the locals in Greensboro, she chose to live in a small cabin off in the woods to the north of the city. Of course, people still came to her, seeking out her services even as they decried her existence, happy to pay her anything for her spellwork, but equally happy to hang her for the same if they got found out.
“Despite this, despite the precarious life of a witch, despite the bigotry and hatred and all the evils perpetrated against our kind, Eunice persisted. She did not want to die. She loved life. More than most. She reveled in all its wonderful beauty and charm. She was a free spirit, a progressive woman in a regressive world, simply waiting for society to catch up with her.”
Max thought of the way the town had distrusted her and of the strange deaths that had surrounded her. “I thought you were going to tell the truth. Eunice was not some carefree peace-loving guru whose only crime was being misunderstood. She liked to play on the dark side of things, didn’t she?”
Bristling, Lena said, “You obviously need to learn more from your wife. Witches are many things, and while we do skirt the edges of powerful forces, we also can love, laugh, and thoroughly enjoy life. Why do you think most of us get involved in this? Our lives are enriched, strengthened. We are filled with excitement and power. We get to truly live, and for most, we wish all women could join us.”
“You’re like an ultra-feminist movement.”
“Only if we take over the world.” She grinned, and Max could not tell if she meant to be taken seriously or not.
Sandra pinched Max’s leg to shut him up. “Please continue.”
“Eunice is a smart woman — one of the most ingenious minds I’ve ever encountered. Back then, she realized that a day would come, far in the future, when our kind would not have to hide, when our power would no longer be used for parlor tricks or to help desperate souls willing to risk the scary forest to find the lone cabin. A day would come when we could sit amongst the wealthy and strong, and we could influence our world in a significant way.
“She understood this future awaited our kind, yet she also understood that she would not live long enough to see it. Unless ...”
Sandra stepped over to the bed and intently inspected Grandma Mobley’s skin. “The only spells we’ve ever come across that can let a person live inordinately long are curses.”
“Indeed. But this is no curse — not in the way you mean.”
Returning to her seat, Sandra said, “A spell gone wrong?”
“There are no good spells to let you live eternally. If there were, you’d have thousands of witches, each hundreds of years old, still walking around. Now, Eunice did not know many witches back then, and amongst those she did know, she was the most advanced. She began studying her books, searching for a good spell, but as I have said, she only found curses. She considered a Call to Power, but that seemed a poor substitute since it still meant dying. Her strength, her power, would be transferred to another, but that did not appeal to her.” A squeeze from the twisted hand and Lena chuckled. “I know, Grandma. It still doesn’t appeal to you.
“But in 1917, she read the book that would change her life and ours. It was called The Book Beyond, and it had been rumored that it held one of the darkest secrets to be found anywhere — something so profound that it could only be read once or the student would go insane.”
Sandra straightened. “I’ve read about a book like that, but it was called The Forever Book.”
“It’s had many names. Don’t bother searching for it. She had the only copy and when she cast the single spell within it, the book was destroyed. It consumed itself.”
Grandma Mobley coughed, a feeble sound that still managed to threaten to break the last of her intact bones. In her sandpaper voice, she said, “I don’t want any other lips to say his name. I’ve dealt with the consequences, but too many have paid my price as well.”
“We love you,” Lena said. “No price is too high.”
“Sweet child, I love all my sisters, too. But allow me this. His name was Mr. Dahlston.”
Before Max could repeat the name, Sandra grabbed his hand and shook her head. “This is a name that you should never say in the company of the witch that cast the spell in that book. To do so, will call him upon us.”
Max wrinkled his forehead. “But she just said it.”
“That’s because he’s always with her. She can sing his name all day long, it won’t make him jump to her again. He’s already there, watching her, watching his investment. But if you or I said that name, he would take form, ready to strike a deal. And he’s not one to walk away without his deal made.”
Lena tilted her head. “You have been reading about all of this. I’m impressed.”
“What is all this?” Max said. “Are you saying she sold her soul to the Devil?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There is no Devil — not in the sense you mean. Here is what happened: After casting the spell, the gentleman in question arrived at her cabin door. He is not the Devil nor a demon nor any such ridiculous thing. But he is a powerful being, once a man, who lost himself inside the darkness of dark magic. That book, The Book Beyond, he created it as a calling card of sorts. He found ways to prolong life — ways that are far superior and more reliable than the trinkets Mother Hope uses or the curses others foist upon their victims. This man, for lack of a better explanation, is an agent of Evil incarnate, and he’s always happy to make a deal for that power.”
“Evil incarnate? I hate to play the skeptic, especially because we have seen a lot of weird crap in our time here, but I’m having trouble believing this.” To Sandra, he asked, “Is this possible?”
Sandra said, “From what I’ve read, that was the purpose of the spell. It took all the evil energy surrounding the casting circle and brought it together in a human form. Probably required a cadaver to possess. But it’s not like evil is actually a living, breathing being. This spell within that book simply gave that energy temporary form.”
“A form that can make deals?”
“Hon, you speak to a ghost all the time. What do you think he is? What do you think a soul is? It’s all about forms of energy.”
“It should be quite clear now,” Lena continued, “that Grandma Mobley wanted to live forever, wanted to build a coven that would be the strongest of all, wanted to see the world change so that our kind could live in the open. The man promised he could fulfill that request, and of course, the question on her mind was obvious.”
“What’s it going to cost?”
“Exactly. A being composed of evil energy has no interest in material goods. It lives off further energy. Mr. Porter, you want to know why many witches do evil things — it is because sometimes that’s the price required for the things we seek.”
“Wait a second,” Max said, failing to keep the ridicule from his face. “Are you trying to suggest that the only reason your coven of witches has ever done anything remotely wrong or evil is because you’ve been paying the debt of dear, sweet Grandma Mobley? You really want me to swallow that?”
“I don’t care what you choose to believe. This is what I believe, and you wanted our story. This is how I know it to be. Besides, that truth only lasted a few decades. Eventually, our own suffering would be required to satiate the man.”
Sandra said, “Why are you suffering?”
Stroking the back of Grandma Mobley’s hand, Lena said, “After the deal was made, the evil man told Grandma Mobley that she must pick a vessel for her spirit. It would reside in this vessel until the day came when she failed to satisfy the man’s need for energy.”
“Clever. As long as you continue to do evil acts, then Mr. Evil gets what he wants while your matriarch and your coven continue to exist.”
“Except we were promised more than mere existing,” Lena snapped. Grandma Mobley lifted one finger and that proved more than enough to calm Lena. “I apologize for my outburst. Well, the time had come and at that moment, Grandma Mobley — Eunice — arrived at a bright solution. Whereas most witches would have named something precious to them or something they thought they could hold onto, Eunice understood that the easier the object was for the man to hold, the easier it would be for him to betray her, control her, or manipulate her — and, down the road, betray, control, or manipulate the coven. So, she pointed to the red clay beneath her feet and named it. All of North Carolina is covered in the dense clay, and she expected her spirit would be dispersed throughout.”
Max listened to the struggling breaths of the old witch. “Let me guess. It didn’t work out that way. The man feeding off evil betrayed you anyway.”
“He did. But like all deals of this nature, his betrayal did not break the bonds of the spell for he kept to the spirit of the deal. You see, just because Eunice expected her soul to be spread thinly throughout all the red clay of North Carolina, the man instead placed it within a relatively narrow radius of the cabin.”
Max jolted in his seat. “The bricks. That’s what this is about.”
“Red clay is one of the key components of a brick, and in North Carolina, for a time, brick-making was big business. As the decades went by, the coven came to be, we grew stronger and more influential, and we moved to Winston-Salem. At the time, Grandma Mobley had no idea her plan had been thwarted. But since then, it has become clear that her spirit has been imprisoned in several of the bricks throughout Winston-Salem. We have spent years searching for them yet have found none outside our city.
“We were content to leave it as such. Whether the clay lay dormant in the ground or baked into the walls of a building did not matter.”
“Until you all started dying,” Max said. “Hold on. Why is this hurting the coven and not just Grandma Mobley?”
“As part of our initiation into the coven, we ingested some of the red clay, made it part of ourselves, knowing that her spirit would bond with our own. So, we are all bound together.”
Sandra said, “And with each brick destroyed, one of you is destroyed as well. Along with part of Grandma Mobley.”
“When we are gone, she will be all that’s left. We don’t know if the man will kill her then or if he will force her to live on, suffering in eternal torment.”
Max asked, “Why don’t you just grab the bricks and put them somewhere safe?”
“We don’t know where they all are, for one.”
“Do you know how many there are? If your spirits are tied up with the clay, then there could be one for each of you. You could be diffused over hundreds of them, or —”
“Two.”
“Two?”
She clenched Grandma Mobley’s hand tighter. “If there are any others, we haven’t been able to find signs of them. Besides, their most likely targets will be the two of us. We are the two most prominent and powerful in the coven. Without us, the whole thing falls apart.”
“You don’t have successors?”
“Of course we do. We chose Laverne and Candace for that honor.” Lifting her chin as if to rise above her dark thoughts, she said, “Understand that until this all began, we had no idea that anybody other than the man himself knew what to do. Smashing the bricks, destroying them physically, does not harm us. It is saying the man’s name while carving a special symbol that burns the spirit out of the clay.”
A dread silence fell on the room. Max felt bad for the women, despite them being witches, and he wanted to help them — if for no other reason than to help Sandra. He knew this meant more to her than most cases. The witch connection touched a note in her that sustained long after it should have quieted down. But it was Sandra who broke the silence.
She walked over to Grandma Mobley and put out her hand. The old witch slowly shifted in her bed until her gnarled, broken fingers found Sandra’s. Max watched an understanding look pass between them.
“We will find the bricks for you,” Sandra said. “We will help as best we can.”
Grandma Mobley’s lips — thin flaps of wet skin — twisted into the approximation of a grin. Max wanted to throw up.
Chapter 17
WHEN MAX WOKE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, his muscles ached as if he had been throwing punches all night. He could not recall his dreams, but they hovered close enough to the edge of memory that he sensed they were dark and unpleasant. Despite the uneasy sensation, one look to his right dispelled all the darkness — Sandra slept next to him.
Careful not to wake her, he slipped out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. Max’s mother had the boys under her personal house arrest, so he knew nobody would be knocking on their door that morning. Drummond might pop in — they hadn’t seen him since Lena forced him into the Other — but that ghost would read the situation and get out.
In a few minutes, Max had coffee brewing, bacon cooking, bagels toasting, and eggs whisked up and ready to go. Humming an aimless tune, he set the table for two, poured a small glass of cranberry juice for each of them, and decided to place a candle on the table. Who cared if it was morning? Love never followed a timetable.
When he heard the toilet flush upstairs, he set the eggs in the pan. By the time Sandra thumped downstairs, Max had plated their breakfast and handed over a mug of coffee with a big grin and bright eyes. She took a sip, sat down, and frowned.
Not the reaction he had expected.
“What’s the matter?” he said as softly as he could manage.
“We’re not good right now. All of this — we’re not at this stage yet.”
“But I thought — I mean, I told you I’m behind you on all of this.”
“That’s not what you’ve been doing.”
“I made a mistake. A lot of them. What else is new? But that doesn’t mean —”
“Don’t dismiss me like that.”
“I’m not.”
Between bites of bacon, she said, “Listen to yourself — Oh, what else is new? I make mistakes. You know me. But my heart’s in the right place, so don’t worry if I stomp all over your privacy and act as if I don’t trust your judgment.”
“That’s not at all what I was saying, and you know it.”
“Do I? Because not too long ago, you told me you were okay with me becoming a witch, and then suddenly we’re back to the fear of what it’ll do to me.”
“I never agreed for you to become a witch. I agreed for you to study them, learn about them, research them.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Clearly.”
Sandra chewed her bagel with more force than necessary. Max watched her aggressive display and couldn’t figure out how this morning had gone off track so fast. Washing down her food with more coffee, she stabbed some eggs and followed that with a little more bacon.
At length, she said, “This isn’t going to work if you continue to doubt me, if you won’t trust me.”
“I do trust —”
“Stop saying you do, when I can point to numerous times that you’ve done the exact opposite of trust. Trust is supposed to be the core of us. If we’re to keep going forward, then we can’t lose that.”
