Chapter Nineteen
“I highly doubt that,” I snorted, “if you were, you wouldn’t have made me wait forever in a closet while you ran out to JoAnn Fabrics to buy a bunch of candles.”
Well, that’s what I tried to say. What really came out was more of a “mmph pffl rrmp kunnmp.”
The pseudo-priestess frowned and did another finger sketchy thing in the air.
“Eximo!” she intoned with great sincerity.
I opened my mouth to try out the Voice again and was promptly smothered by a large Wookie hand.
“You have been given your speech back in order to answer a few important questions,” the priestess said calmly. “Abuse this privilege and it shall be taken from you.”
“Thus shall it be!” chanted all the seated witches.
I snorted with laughter. I couldn’t help it. It was just too BSG.
“So say we all!” I echoed when the hand was dropped from my face. This earned me another backhand to the face. This time from the priestess. I guess she didn’t like being mocked. But then, who does?
“You hit like a girl,” I informed her seriously, after righting myself and running my tongue around my teeth to make sure they were all still there. A girl UFC fighter, but a girl none the less. It might have been a more impressive display of disdain if the blow hadn’t half knocked me off my feet. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts and mine were murderous.
“Bring her to the altar,” the priestess commanded the Wookie and regally led the way through the candles.
I prayed valiantly that her robe would brush one and catch on fire, but no such luck. Now that I was closer to the table I saw the ugly little fertility statue sitting in the center. I had a hard time not staring at the boobs. I really hoped mine didn’t look that huge and saggy when I was done having children. Don’t worry, another part of my brain said, you probably won’t live through this anyway.
Great. Just great.
“Watch and learn, Piper Cavanaugh,” the priestess hissed. “See how great our power truly is and quail before its might.”
I stared at her. Could she be for real? I mean, seriously, I was truly scared here. I was in a dark room, kidnapped by a bunch of witches, who had banged me up a bit and didn’t seem to have my best interest or the best interest of humanity in mind. But really, if she didn’t stop talking like a comic book villain I was going to start laughing again. Nervous laughter to be sure, but laughter all the same.
“Power and might is the whole of the Law!” she cried, and, like a C horror movie the room responded,
“Blood is the law, blood under will!”
What did that even mean? Did they realize how stupid they sounded? While I endeavored to keep a straight face, she pulled a large curved knife out of a sheath hanging at her waist. It was decorated with skulls and fake rubies but the blade looked sharp and serviceable. “Bring the sacrifice!” she called loudly.
“Thus shall it be!” the room chanted again. They were a little off this time. Apparently some of them had missed the chant cue and stumbled in a little late. They’d have to work on it.
The Nerd approached the table followed by two burly men. They were leading the homeless man I had met earlier in the waiting room. He was bound hand and foot, a look of resigned acceptance on his face.
The Priestess stepped forward and calmly sliced the knife through the man’s throat. He dropped to his knees without making a sound, blood spurting from the gash. He was dead within seconds.
I vomited up my lunch. This was all my fault. I never should have come here. Hot tears ran down my face. The taste of salt and bile stung my nose. I sobbed and sank down to one knee by the table still gagging.
The Priestess was looking down on me with a half smile as the men lifted the body and arranged it on the table. She evidently found this amusing. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the bottom front of her robe yet. I found myself wishing that I had aimed higher. I wanted to think about anything except what was being placed on the table. It was hard to believe that one moment someone could be alive and well and the next be just a hollow shell, nobody home.
She took the knife and cut off a piece of flesh as casually as you would carve a turkey. She held it high in the air, blood dripping down her arm, and chanted, “Ex vita adveho nex!”
“From life comes death!” answered all the witches, rising to their feet.
“Ex nex adveho vox!”
“From death comes power!”
“ Ex vox adveho immortalis!”
“From power comes immortality!” They all thrust their left hand into the air making a symbol with their fingers.
The Priestess took the blood that had pooled in her hand and rubbed it on the breasts of the statue. The room grew darker and colder and I felt as if the oxygen had turned thick in my lungs. I spat on the ground and tried to wipe out the inside of my mouth with the shoulder of my shirt. I had given up trying to stop the tears from pouring down my face.
My eyes locked on the knife the Priestess had laid carelessly on the table. She was now holding blood cupped in both hands and dripping it over the statue. I tracked in my mind the movements it would take to grab the knife and plunge it deeply into her chest. I figured I might just have enough time to make sure she was dead before someone tackled me.
I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t do it. It felt like the right thing to do. It probably was the right thing to do, but I had serious doubts about my ability to succeed.
I sagged back to the floor. I couldn’t do it. I still wanted to get out of this and go back to my normal life. I recognized that killing the horrid woman in front of me would accomplish very little at very high cost. I would wait and try to fight another way. A moment later I was deeply regretting that decision.
The Wookie grabbed both my arms and twisted them painfully behind my back. I was yanked up to my feet and half bent over the table. My face was uncomfortably close to the blood smeared statue and my shoulder was brushing the dead man’s shoe.
The Priestess raised the knife again and continued her chant.
“Maiden, we call thee!”
“Nos dico vos!” echoed the room.
“Mother, we entreat thee!”
“Nos obtestor vos!”
“Crone, we beseech thee!”
“Nos queso vos!” They were growing in volume with every chant.
“Dhu'l Karnain! We summon you!”
“Nos postulo vos!!”
I had an awkward view, head half pressed into the table, candles glaring in my eyes, but if they were going for creepy, bulgy-eyed fanaticism they were right on target.
They repeated the last chant ad nauseum. “Nos postulo vos! Nos postulo vos! Nos postulo vos!”
The Priestess made a large slashing motion with her arms and everyone was silent except for one witch in the back who was daydreaming or something and started on another “Nos—” before being elbowed and shushed by the witches next to her. The Priestess frowned in that general direction but didn’t let it distract her from her own pageantry.
“They have come!” she bellowed in round tones.
I was getting a serious crick in my neck trying to not let my face touch the blood spilled on the table cloth. Funny how even in the midst of all this I could worry about a pain in my neck. It beat worrying about the poor dead man and wondering what I could have done differently to save his life.
“Laus quattuor!” the room bellowed back.
The Priestess raised her stained hands in the air. “Oh great ones!” she bellowed again. They were apparently hard of hearing. “We beseech thy mighty powers! We give thee the use of this frail body and ask only that thou bestow its small powers on us to use in thy mighty service!” With that she picked up the knife again.
The thees and thous confused me for a moment but, when I caught on to the meaning, I started struggling in earnest. The slimy, little witches planned on killing me!
I caught the Wookie a good kick in the crotch an
d broke free for a moment before the Nerd jumped in and pinned me back on the table, this time almost face to face with the homeless man.
The Wookie grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back with a little more force than I thought totally necessary. Perhaps he was still angry with me.
The knife grew large in my peripheral vision. No way was this happening! I bucked and fought but was completely immobilized.
“Take this offering!” the Priestess roared in my ear, “Grant us, thy humble servants, the powers of this infidel.”
The knife grew larger. I felt the metal touch my throat, surprisingly still warm and wet from its previous sacrifice. I saw the hand gripping the knife clench in preparation for a violent slash.
I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about my family. “God, please take care of my husband and children,” I prayed.
There wasn’t time to think anything else. The knife parted my skin like tissue paper and blood ran down my neck.
That was when the magic disrupter I had activated in the closet finally decided to explode.