To Hex With It Read online

  Damn. I was really hoping not to have this conversation. “What do you mean?” Lilith tried to evade the question but knew that ultimately she wouldn’t be able to for long.

  “You said that you almost beat an inquisitor. This was not the first time you displayed worrying amounts of power out of nowhere.”

  “He does have a point.” Aunt Rose didn’t want to think about it or bring it up but she was on the same frequency as Sir Kain.

  “I...” What’re you going to say? “Oh yeah, no need to worry guys. It’s just the ghost of my older self that regained its memories, is uber powerful for some reason like some kind of magic god, and oh, not to forget, she can possess my body anytime she wants.” Where’s Eve?

  “It is just, I am concerned whatever it is, you don’t have it under control.” Sir Kain put his hand of living stone on Lilith’s knee.

  “It’s hard to explain. Really, I wish I could. Something happened, after Basil Augustine gave my ghostly passenger her memories back. She...future me is a very strong witch. And you’re right, I don’t have control. Not really. Which scares me almost as much as Heinrich Talon’s spell.” Lilith managed to tell the truth but only part of it.

  “Whatever’s going on we can help you,” sincerely offered Aunt Rose.

  “I can help you,” a forth, uninvited voice chimed in. Lilith, Aunt Rose and Sir Kain were surprised and a little scared when they saw who it came from.

  The last time Lilith and her group saw Inquisitor Torrance it was back in San Padre Beach. It wasn’t a good time. He put bubbles around their heads and basically suffocated them to the point of losing consciousness. Then he put them in restraints and delivered them to their mortal enemy to be locked up under Devil’s End Coven HQ. So his arrival was not exactly welcome. Plus...

  “You got a lot of nerve!” yelled Aunt Rose.

  Where did this guy come from? Lilith and Aunt Rose immediately stood up, ready for a fight. Inquisitor Torrance didn’t even flinch. As little as they trusted him and kind of feared him, his body language didn’t convey anything at all hostile.

  “I get it that you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either if I were you. But I know what’s going on with her, with Lilith Blackward. If you just let m-” Out of nowhere, Eve tackled Inquisitor Torrance.

  “YOU’RE SAYING I’M AN Inquisitor?” asked Lilith. She was in the front seat of Aunt Rose’s car. Through the rear view mirror she looked back at Inquisitor Torrance who was squeezed between Eve and Sir Kain. Both of them stared daggers into Torrance.

  “Yes, well no but yes. I can see that you are not alone. Two souls occupy your body,” observed Inquisitor Torrance through his glowing white eyes.

  “Don’t listen to him little girl.” OLG didn’t want Inquisitor Torrance interfering with her plans.

  Eve growled at Inquisitor Torrance.

  “Relax Eve. But if he does do anything fishy, rip his face off dear,” instructed Aunt Rose from behind the wheel.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Lilith.

  “The other one, the soul, your passenger, it’s Inquisitor trained. And by the feel of her, very, very powerful.”

  “And how would you know that?” inquired Sir Kain.

  “It’s part of the training. Inquisitors can track any other inquisitor in this world or the next. How do you think I found you all?”

  “You’re a creep and have been following us. Probably on behalf of Amadeus Essex.” Lilith always had a healthy amount of doubt, never took a person by their word. No detective worth their salt could.

  “Every inquisitor gets a brand. That brand is actually a tracking rune.”

  “Why would you do that? Who would have to find inquisitors? Are you not the most powerful of witches or warlocks in any coven?” Sir Kain didn’t follow. “Who would have to find you. Should it not be the other way around?”

  “It’s for purposes of war. Granted we haven’t had a coven war since that whole thing back in Europe but when there is one, Inquisitors are assigned the most dangerous missions often deep behind enemy coven’s lines. The brands, the tracking runes, they allow other inquisitors to find them if they fear death or something worse.”

  “Even if there is a passenger with me and that passenger is an inquisitor, they’re a ghost. You can even track a ghost?” Lilith felt like Inquisitor Torrance was telling the truth. Which really sucked because she wanted to hate him so much.

  “Like I said, in this world and the next.”

  “So the real question, which ya haven’t really answered, is why are you here? If you aren’t taking us back to that crazy Essex, what do you want?” Aunt Rose’s protective instincts had her a bit on edge.

  “To help. I want to help Lilith with her passenger problem. I want to help you get that spell from my former cohort, Inquisitor Talon. And I want to help you end Amadeus Essex.”

  Lilith, Aunt Rose and Sir Kain all tried to mentally digest what Inquisitor Torrance just told them. Eve just thought about how he'd be a tasty morsel. Over everything, inquisitors were all about loyalty. Other than their magical prowess it was what they were known for. So to hear that the inquisitor in their backseat wanted to turn on the coven and its leaders was shocking.

  “An inquisitor, wants to turn traitor? You expect us to believe that?” Lilith, as she often did and had no trouble doing, said what everyone else in the car was thinking.

  “Expect to believe me? No. But you may not have a choice.”

  “Why would you turn on the coven?” asked Sir Kain.

  “I’m not and never would turn on my coven.”

  “What are you talking about? You just offered your help to do exactly that.” Lilith wasn’t following.

  “I offered to take down Amadeus Essex and his cronies. They are not the coven. In fact, I’m fairly certain he’s used some spell to get members of the high table under his control. Like...”

  “Puppet, yeah we know,” Lilith fully turned around in her seat. “So, what? You finally noticed that everything is all screwed up at home and just now decided to do something about it, after stopping us from doing so?”

  “I... this isn’t an easy decision for me to come to. My whole life I was groomed to be an inquisitor, to follow those rules and to be a loyal soldier. Turning on those who have the right to command me, despite how they achieved that right, it’s hard.”

  “I don’t care how ‘hard’ it is! You gave us to-!” Lilith got a bit worked up.

  “Give him a break dear.” Aunt Rose lowered her guard some. She’d been around much longer than her niece. And she knew that nothing was as cut and dry as the young sometimes see it. “If he’s telling the truth, and that’s still a big if mister, we could use his help. But tell me Inquisitor Torrance. What did you mean about us having no choice but to accept your help?”

  “I meant that without me you guys will fail. I know what lies between you and getting your hands around Amadeus’ throat. Not only do you have to deal with Inquisitor Talon, formidable in her own right. But the members of the high table. They aren’t slouches. The chances that you will be able to beat them all are frankly non-existent.”

  “Unless...?” Lilith could feel that Inquisitor Torrance, as long winded as he was, wasn’t done.

  “Unless you let me help you keep your passenger under control while still being able to control and use the abilities they have. And unless you let me fight alongside you.” Inquisitor Torrance looked over at Eve who bared her teeth at him.

  “Don’t listen to him. He lies! C’mon! A disloyal inquisitor? Those don’t exist.” Older Lilith’s Ghost wanted nothing to do with Inquisitor Torrance. Was it because he would neuter her, he would contain her? Or was he truly untrustworthy?

  You don’t have a say in this.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How will you help me get my ‘passenger’ problem under control?” asked Lilith.

  “Pull over,” instructed Inquisitor Torrance.

  “Like hell! We have to catch your buddy so she doesn’
t get that spell to Amadeus.” Aunt Rose had no plans on stopping until they reached Devil’s End.

  “I need to be able to have uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact with her. I’m sorry, I know it’s a little weird but I assure you it’s necessary. It’ll be better if she’s back here sitting next to me so we can keep going while getting this done.” There was a logic to everything Inquisitor Torrance said. He never portrayed the body language or other signs of lying. And his voice, it never wavered.

  “I do not know about this.” Sir Kain was still very wary of the whole situation.

  “Can I just bite his neck?” Eve was practically drooling.

  “No, don’t rip the poor man’s neck out Eve.” Lilith needed Inquisitor Torrance alive.

  “But it looks so tasty!”

  “Noooo. No!”

  Dejected, Eve slumped down in her seat. To her, Inquisitor Torrance didn’t smell right. As a being governed by her senses and feelings, to her, he was nothing but a threat.

  “Fine. But if you do do anything funny mister, I’ll let her rip your throat out. Please know, I’m not bluffing.” Aunt Rose agreed to pull over. She slowly applied pressure to the brakes as she steered towards the side of the road.

  Lilith got out of the front passenger side of the car as Sir Kain got out of the back passenger side. They switched seats. Soon as they were in their new positions, Aunt Rose started to drive again.

  “Give me your arm,” instructed Inquisitor Torrance. Lilith gave him a sideways look. “Please, I need your arm, sleeves rolled up. Skin to skin contact remember.”

  “Okay.” Lilith rolled up the sleeves on her shirt and presented one bare forearm to Inquisitor Torrance.

  “Now, this is going to be a little freaky. Try not to panic...or let your attack dog over there lunge on me.” Inquisitor Torrance rolled down his sleeves as well. He held up the forearm he was going to lay on Lilith’s. His eyes went white as he mumbled a spell under his breath.

  Tendrils made of glowing white soul energy protruded out from Inquisitor Torrance’s forearm as he was seemingly in some form of trance. They wiggled and reached out for Lilith. Completely freaked out, Eve got ready to attack.

  “No! Stand down!” Lilith got why Eve freaked out. It was extremely creepy, whatever spell Inquisitor Torrance cast. “I’m gonna do this. Just...if anything goes sideways-”

  “Rip his throat out!” enthusiastically yelled Eve.

  “You got it. Now...” Lilith slowly raised her forearm and moved it towards the tendril covered forearm of Inquisitor Torrance. She touched skin with him and the tendrils quickly wrapped around her arm. Within seconds she was no longer there.

  LILITH FOUND HERSELF in a large room filled with people in black ceremonial robes. She’d never been there before. From her vantage point on a balcony above what looked to be some kind of ceremony being performed below.

  It was hard to see past the throngs of creepy robe clad attendees at who was in the middle of all the hub bub. But when Lilith did, she saw it was herself, only slightly older, only a couple of years at most.

  “I remember this night. Clear as day,” Lilith heard a voice that approached her from behind.

  “Do you?” asked Lilith.

  “Of course,” Older Lilith walked up and rested her arms on the railing of the balcony next to her younger self. “It was the most important day of our life.”

  “What’s going on here? Are we getting sacrificed or something. There’s a real ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ type vibe going on here.”

  “We’re being inducted into a sacred order. The order of Inquisitors.”

  “More like the order of creeps. Why am I here?”

  “You can mock this all you want little girl but this right here, this is who you become. And look, look closely at all the good it already did.” Older Lilith pointed down at the center of the ceremony.

  Alizia Blackward recited something that Lilith couldn’t hear. It was in the old dead tongue, from the time before the backwards casting of spells. That older magic was stronger, more virile.

  Lilith watched as her mother reached for something metal in a burning fire, contained by a cauldron. She watched the slightly older version of herself pull down her ceremonial robes just enough to expose her shoulder. Then she watched herself get branded. It was so real she could smell the singed flesh.

  “No. Not this,” Inquisitor Torrance appeared on the other side of Lilith, their forearms attached he dragged her away from that memory into another one.

  Lilith and Inquisitor Torrance were suddenly in Blackward Manor, in the living room. They were looking at slightly older Lilith, fresh from her coronation into the order of Inquisitors, talking to Aunt Rose and Sir Kain. Everyone was talking, no arguing.

  “I just don’t get why you would do this dear. Is it to get in closer maybe, get a bead on the spell to reverse all this?” asked Aunt Rose. Even though it was only a handful of years into the future, Lilith’s aunt looked a bit rough. Time hadn’t been kind. Actually it was more than that. Her clothes looked a bit ragged, as did Sir Kain’s. Her hair was messy, face filthy.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” answered slightly older Lilith.

  “Why do you not even try to make us understand?” asked Sir Kain. “I, we thought we were fighting all of this.” He walked over to the nearby window where snow piled up almost completely covering it. “People are dying out there. By the thousands, millions and you are okay with being holed up in this mansion and just letting them die?”

  “I don’t like it anymore than you do. But...it’s necessary. Think about it.”

  “The very fact that it is something you need to be thought about it is a problem Lilith!” Sir Kain was beside himself.

  “The fact that you haven’t is the problem. I feel bad for them too! You think I don’t!? But the world can’t support them anymore. We can’t support them anymore. And it’s not like we’re letting them all die. Some will survive.”

  “To be what? Your slaves?”

  “Slaves? No, they will have their place in the world, same as witches and warlocks, same as all the creatures touched by magic that have had to spend a millennia hiding in the shadows, hoping some human doesn’t spot them.”

  “What is this really about?” asked Aunt Rose. “Those words aren’t yours, they are your mother’s. Tell us why, in your own words and we’ll leave you be.”

  Slightly older Lilith plopped down on the couch and sighed. “It’s...”

  “What are you lot doing in my house!?” demanded an angry Alizia Blackward as she entered the Blackward Manor living room.

  “This doesn’t concern you Alizia,” fired back Aunt Rose.

  “It does when it’s in my house!”

  “It’s okay mom. They are entitled to what they came for.”

  “Which is what exactly?” Alizia kept her eyes on Sir Kain and Aunt Rose whom she didn’t trust for a second.

  “The truth, the truth as to why I’m helping you build the new world.”

  Alizia looked at her daughter. “And why is that?”

  “Misery. I’m doing it because of misery. Look at them. Turn on the mundane news at any time of any day and it’s nothing but misery. They are murdering each other at historic rates. Bombs are being dropped by unmanned drones on innocent families who’s only crime was to be born in the wrong country. Mankind is miserable. And it’s only getting worse. After this, after these horrors, they can start with a clean slate, being governed by those who can keep them in line. I want to pull them out of their misery.” Slightly Older Lilith hated her own reasons, she hated the words coming out of her mouth. But what she hated more than anything was that she meant it.

  Aunt Rose sat down next to Slightly Older Lilith. She put her hand on her back and rubbed it. “Do you know what we passed on the way here?”

  Slightly Older Lilith shook her head.

  “I passed a car on the side of the road, almost covered by snow. One of the lights were on inside, so we inves
tigated, thinking that they were stuck, maybe just needed some help. Sir Kain dug them out, pried open one of the doors. There was a family inside, dead, all frozen and huddled together in the backseat. They must not have died to long beforehand because the lights were still on, battery still pumping. We left, protected from the elements by a simple barrier spell. You’re not wrong dear. You’re not, but the way you and your mother are doing it, most definitely is. Because there are mundane people out there, innocent people, dying terrible deaths who in no way deserve it.”

  “There are casualties. We know that. And it’s unfortunate. But....” Alizia Blackward’s voice started to trail off.

  “They did it. They actually did it!” Lilith couldn’t believe it. Logically she knew the threat of Heinrich Talon’s spell was very real but she never thought the end of the world scenario would actually happen.

  “We did,” said Older Lilith’s Ghost. “And it was the right decision, despite what comes next.”

  “Oh no, what happens next? I don’t think I want to keep doing this.” Lilith, even in a spirit type form felt nauseous.

  “You have to,” insisted Inquisitor Torrance. “We need to find a point where your passenger takes the wheel and wrestle it from her.”

  “Shut up. I need everyone to be quiet, stop arguing,” Slightly Older Lilith was bent over with her head in her hands.

  “You poisoned her mind! I swear, if I could I would go back in time and kill you before you ever met my brother! Because you are toxic Alizia! Everything you touch you corrupt!” Aunt Rose was in Lilith’s mother’s face.

  “Lilith?” Sir Kain didn’t get swept up in the argument. He was too focused on Slightly Older Lilith and what was going on in her immediate vicinity. The lamp on the end table next to the couch she sat on began to levitate. “Are you okay?” Concerned he reached out to her.

  “Shut up!” yelled Slightly Older Lilith as she sat up, eyes glowing an intense white.

  The hand that Sir Kain reached out with to try and comfort Lilith disintegrated, turning into nothing but floating pebbles. Him, Aunt Rose and Alizia Blackward were all thrown backwards, hard, by an unseen force emanating from Lilith. Everything in the room that wasn’t nailed down floated and swirled around her.