The Crone's Stone

my fingers along with his face, as agony streaked the nerves of my knuckles.

  He punched my side repeatedly, winding me with the stun gun. Yet, despite the savage pain, the voltage didn’t have much impact. The plastic parts of the stun gun crackled and bubbled, melting to the skin of the kidnapper’s hand. A sizzling bolt ricocheted up his arm and over his whole body. He bellowed and released me, a shadow contorting in pain, and tried in vain to shake the molten blob from his fingers. I cradled my middle and battled to draw a breath, watching in mute horror. Swearing and stumbling over tree roots, he wore a balaclava and dark clothing perfect for an ambush.

  Then Hugo barged between us. He lifted the man from his feet, and with one mighty rend, snapped his neck. I would never forget that crunch as long as I lived. My attacker slumped to the judge’s flattened garden and Hugo spat on his limp form with a fierce growl of hatred.

  “Reap what you’ve sown in the Devil’s embrace. Enjoy the infernal underworld, rancid grub.”

  The whole episode took seconds, but time always slows for the worst events. A wail built from deep in my bursting chest. One minute I was walking along in my own safe, little world, the next, I was mugged and a witness to murder. It felt like I’d been tipped upside down. Bea materialised behind us. She was hardly taken aback by the dead stranger at her feet, not even wasting a prolonged glance. The night air filled with the pungent liquorice odour of crushed plants.

  “Anathema? So soon!” she said.

  Buried somewhere in my mind, I’d heard Seth mention that name. But I was too busy trying not to vomit to care. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at the corpse.

  “This scourge on our doorstep is no coincidence! Did you do this, Hugo?” Bea’s eyes narrowed in the gloom.

  Of course he did! Who else could have done it? I was incapable of snapping a green twig, let alone someone’s vertebrae.

  “He killed him,” I stuttered and shook. “He killed him!”

  The two of them ignored me. Not a speck of what they said made sense, as Hugo offered my aunt an explanation.

  “No! I did not lead him here. He is a scout, yes. But the rule is never to engage a prime target, once found. I think he’s gone rogue. Anathema will be rudderless without their priestess. It is not ideal, but could be far worse. He is here for someone else. I am sure this was merely a crime of opportunity, Beatrice.” Hugo spoke as though describing the weather. Had he even broken a sweat?

  “A most unfortunate mere opportunity,” Bea said. “I have never been a fan of coincidence.” She pivoted to me and clutched my shoulders. “You must touch him, Winsome.”

  “Pardon?” I croaked.

  “Like this.” She placed two fingers on her forehead between her eyes, kneeling to reef the mask off. I battled to look anywhere but at his exposed face.

  “He’s dead!” My heart jumped spastically between my ribs. “I am not touching him!”

  “You must do as I say. Touch him, before we are caught out here.”

  Dazed and sickened, I kept the dead man in my peripheral vision and bent to do as I was told. I could not avoid a glimpse of his limp hand, a scorpion tattoo prominent between his thumb and forefinger. The skin of his face was still warm and I fought to keep down my canapés. Was she ensuring my fingerprints were printable, so I took the blame? I could not believe this of her and felt ashamed for even entertaining the idea.

  “Excellent! Come along, Winsome. We must get you home and into a bath before the shock sets in.”

  I considered pointing out how far beyond shock I’d gone, but my lips refused to cooperate. Hugo picked me up and I was too stunned to object. We would all go to jail: one for homicide and two for aiding and abetting. Could I complete a Genetics degree in prison? My mind veered wildly from one inane topic to the next. Our lives were ruined. Should we concoct some sort of cover up? Conspiracies never succeeded on TV.

  “The police will come. What are we going to tell them?” I asked.

  “Trust me, Winnie.” Bea’s tone was the gentle one she used when I had a fever as a child. “It will be fine. I know it doesn’t seem so, but there will be no repercussions. Hugo has saved your life, and more besides, from an evil man. We should be extremely grateful.”

  Gratitude was not amongst the emotions pinballing my insides. What conflicted, crazy, blasé message was Bea sending me here? Where was the sanctity of life, ‘do unto others’, ‘love thy neighbour’, ‘burn in hell for this sin’ outrage?

  Sure, my rib axed when I tried to inhale. My fingers throbbed. I had scratches and bruises to rival a boxer, and I was frightened and utterly ignorant as to the reason for the weirdness throttling my days like red algae. But one overriding thought kept intruding: Aunt Bea had sanctioned murder. My Aunt Bea!

  Nine

  I tossed and turned violently all night. In his nook, Hugo snored softly, occasionally mumbling unhappily. How could he sleep so well after what he’d done? I expected assassins to at least pace a little after a kill. He’d clearly had practice – how many times had he done it? And Bea had chosen him as my security! Were there no candidates more suitable for the job?

  All the certainties I’d formed about my guardians shrivelled to nothing. They were suddenly strangers capable of acts I could not grasp. Consciousness lost to coma around 3 am when exhaustion and stress finally pulled me under. Snippets of my dreams and the story Bea had made me recite from the diary merged and warped in a horribly vivid montage, until I could no longer distinguish between what I’d lived and what was fantasy.

  “Finesse?” I rolled over groggily. “Seth.” Someone took hold of my hand, two slabs sandwiching mine.

  “You are safe. He cannot find you here. And she is trapped.”

  I sculled up through quicksand, eventually waking to early morning gloom. “What are you doing, Hugo?” He’d pulled a chair up to my bed.

  “You had a bad night. Very understandable,” he snorted ruefully, patting my hand. I noticed he wore a gold ring on his right index finger that had ‘L&H 4ever’ engraved on its flat, diamond-shaped surface.

  “You killed someone.”

  “I did.”

  “What is Anathema? Bea mentioned them last night.” I didn’t tell him that name had appeared my dreams, as well.

  “Not what, who. They are …” He paused, searching for the right phrase. “What would you call them? A cult. A sect devoted to self-gratification, no matter the cost to others. They worship the Crone and do her bidding.”

  The Crone? The surreal experience of having others speak of Bea’s yarn and my fantasy as though they were real happened too regularly for my liking. And the so-called witch-demon was not real. It was not possible. Was it? Before I could scrape up the gumption to ask, Hugo shot me a question.

  “Are you familiar with the legend of Faust?”

  “He was a man who sold his soul to Mephistopheles, the Devil, for extra years of life to do with as he pleased. When the time came to surrender his soul for eternity, regret overwhelmed. Those extra years on earth were worth dust through his fingers compared to what he’d given up. The story is an allegory for the price we pay for taking shortcuts to get what we want, instead of earning it.”

  “You are clearly very well read. The price we pay,” he said. “And sadly, it is usually not ourselves who pay. Those we love bear the burden for such failings, such greed and laziness.” His jaw clenched and he was still for a long time, before the words finally ground out between his teeth.

  “In South Africa, my father was a great military man, a jet pilot and a legendary soldier. When I was a little boy, I wished more than anything to follow in his footsteps. But I was born small and sickly and short-sighted like my fragile mother.” This frail, flawed image did not gel with the specimen before me at all. “Growing up, I committed to the most arduous training regime, building my body and gaining strength. It was not enough. The Air Force elite commands perfect vision, they refused me.”

  Hugo released my hand and slumped back in my re
ading chair. He was normally so rod-straight, this sagged defeat forecast his sorrow more than any words. I hauled myself up and wedged the pillows against my bedhead.

  “My blindness extended far beyond any problems I had with seeing. Anathema track those they consider prime for exploitation. They offered me my greatest dream: to be the world’s best gladiator on the most hazardous of missions. All I had to do was perform tasks on demand without hesitation or conscience.”

  “But could they fix you physically?” Was this another fabrication? Another story meant to teach me some obscure lesson? “How is it impossible one moment, and then possible the next?”

  “Yes, that should have been the obvious question,” he laughed mockingly at himself. “Barely out of impetuous youth, greed for my promised prize stole common sense. Their deal as a mercenary for hire in exchange for physical rebirth didn’t seem so bad. And Anathema delivered, once I signed their pact in blood.”

  “In your actual blood?”

  Hugo nodded. “I thought it a silly bit of symbolism at the time. Never did I dream they had such power over any who signed up, that they could be so evil.”

  “It worked?” I asked incredulously.

  Maybe Anathema were a sect of genetic engineers, who’d tailored a growth serum for Hugo using blood from the page. This explanation was beyond sci-fi, but the other option, the supernatural one, was too incredible to contemplate. Confronted