To Hex With It Page 9
The floor beneath Inquisitor Talon’s feet transformed. Thousands of hands formed from the marble and jutted out, reaching for anything they could get a hold of. Six different hands grabbed her ankles, feet and calves, immobilizing her.
Having no other viable options in her mind, Inquisitor Talon chose to use a transmutation spell to counter a transmutation spell. Without having to utter a word she cast a spell to turn the marble of the foyer floor into tissue paper allowing her to easily break free. But it was all for not. She heard the crack of a gunshot and fell to her knees.
Alizia, knowing she couldn’t beat an inquisitor in a fair witch fight, decided to fight dirty. She shot Inquisitor Talon in her shoulder, hopefully taking her off the board. There was no time to feel bad about it. The fight just began.
“WE’RE ALMOST THERE! Should we wake her up? Shake her out of it?” asked Aunt Rose as she quickly glanced in the rear view mirror, then back at the road. She sped down the highway towards the exit for Devil’s End.
“Is that dangerous?” asked Sir Kain. He was surprisingly clueless when it came to magic, especially since he lived around it for so long.
“I dunno. I’m not even sure what this guy is doing to her.”
“I’ll wake her up,” said Eve, though as often the case, she was ignored.
Aunt Rose took the turn for the Devil’s End exit a little too fast. But she managed to keep all four wheels on the road. Blackward Manor was only about five minutes from there. They needed their two strongest pieces of the chess board, Lilith and Inquisitor Torrance.
“I mean I think we are going to have to try,” said Aunt Rose.
“Okay, I will do so slowly, just to be safe.”
“Wake up friend Lilith!” Eve jumped out of her seat, across Inquisitor Talon and bit Lilith’s bicep.
“Ow!” Lilith snapped out of her trance, rubbing her bicep. “What the hell?!”
“She’s up!” said Eve with a smile as she laid across Inquisitor Torrance’s lap.
“Lilith dear? Are you alright?” asked Aunt Rose. She took her eyes off the road for a second and looked back to see with her own eyes that her niece was okay.
“Did it work?” asked Sir Kain.
Lilith looked down at her forearm and ripped the tendrils out of her arm, waking Inquisitor Torrance up. She looked down at her hands, slowly opening and closing them. Her eyes glowed.
“Uh oh,” Aunt Rose looked in the rear view mirror and saw her niece’s eyes glowing. Eve’s head was in her hands and she looked excited at Lilith.
“It’s okay Aunt Rose. It worked. I know now.”
“Know what?” inquired Sir Kain.
“I know what I have to do to stop all this.”
“Well that’s great dear. Because we’re here,” Aunt Rose stopped the car at the gates to Blackward Manor. They stopped because there was another car there blocking the way. Two coven police stood outside of it, intent on guarding that entrance.
“Inquisitor Torrance?” Lilith opened the back passenger side door.
“Absolutely Inquisitor Blackward,” answered Inquisitor Torrance.
Inquisitor Torrance lifted the two coven police guarding the entrance off the muddy ground via magic. Lilith used a telekinesis spell to open the police car doors. Torrance threw the men inside and closed the doors. Needing them out of the picture, Lilith used her magic to fling the now occupied cop car into the woods across the road behind them.
“That was...” Aunt Rose watched as Lilith not only matched power with Inquisitor Torrance but was stronger than him.
“Wonderful,” replied Eve.
“Scary,” added Sir Kain.
“Do you think she is really in control?” asked Aunt Rose.
“I say let us think about that after all this is done. Right now, we need her as powerful as possible if we are to have any chance.” Sir Kain made sure to finish what he said before Lilith and Inquisitor Torrance returned to the car. Aunt Rose sped down the long driveway towards Blackward Manor.
“What is there a party or something?” Aunt Rose saw what Sir Kain and everyone else in the car saw. The entrance to Blackward Manor was canvassed with other vehicles. It looked like there was a big gathering.
“Amadeus...he must’ve invited half the damn coven,” commented Lilith. “No matter. We’ll fight however many or whoever we need to to stop that spell from being cast.” She got out the car and calmly walked through the rain towards her childhood home's front doors.
Lilith led the way, hand on the front doors of Blackward Manor. Behind and next to her was Inquisitor Torrance, then Sir Kain, then Aunt Rose and bringing up the rear, Eve. They all took a deep breath. Then Lilith pushed the doors open.
Bodies blanketed the Blackward Manor foyer floor. It looked like there was a fight, a big fight. Sitting in the middle of them all was Alizia Blackward, legs crossed, Indian style. Mascara mixed with tears rolled down her cheeks. From the state of her it looked like she had been a big part of the fight, covered in bruises and cuts. She held a pistol to her own head.
“Mother!?” Lilith was about to step over the bodies to go to her mother when she heard Amadeus Essex’s voice.
“Not so fast Lilith.” Amadeus slowly came from around the corner on the second floor, down the stairs that started in the foyer and ended with the third floor. “I’m afraid your reunion is gonna have to wait.”
“You bastard! I swear I’m gonna kill you!” threatened Lilith as tears formed in her eyes.
“Maybe. Probably. Problem is dude, that I can make her shoot herself before you can kill me. Or maybe I can’t. Who knows? But is that really a chance you want to take?” Amadeus smiled as he kept descending the stairs.
Out from the dining room came Inquisitor Talon, holding the bullet wound on her shoulder, blood spilling through her fingers. Behind her were three gargoyles that Amadeus brought with him. From the living room came Harrison Midnight, a little beaten up but still strong and standing.
“Let her go,” said Lilith.
“We can take them,” whispered Inquisitor Torrance. Lilith ignored him.
“No, don’t think I will. Ya see, your mom, well she’s a dangerous woman. A lot more dangerous than I thought. Seriously. She killed every other member of the high table other than the good Mr. Midnight there. Killed them all by her lonesome. That’s no small feat. So you can understand why I’m a bit hesitant to free her.” Amadeus slid down the railing circumventing the rest of the stairs. His shoes hit with a loud slapping noise when they hit the marble of the Blackward Manor foyer floor.
“Don’t listen to him Lil. Kill him. Stop him. Don’t worry about me,” begged Alizia.
“Don’t worry about you? No matter how else I might feel about you, you’re my mother. I can’t just let you die.” Lilith’s eyes wept but she kept her composure.
“Stop me? Oh, I don’t know how to tell you this dude but maybe it’s better that you see for yourselves. Turn around, take a gander,” Amadeus pointed towards the still open Blackward Manor front doors.
“We are too late,” said Sir Kain as he saw his own breath as he talked and that the rain outside had turned to snow.
“Way to point out the obvious stone man. So you see, there’s no point in continuing to resist. It’s already done. The new world has started. Now don’t go being on the wrong side of history kids.” Amadeus Essex was so pleased with himself as he gleefully stepped over the bodies of his cohorts.
“Kill him Lilith. Don’t worry about me. Kill him,” Alizia continued to beg. She knew she failed and her only redemption would come in the form of her daughter ending the nightmare.
“Shut up mom. I’m not killing anyone.”
“Of course you’re not. You’re a good person. Thing is. I’m not.” Amadeus stood behind Alizia with a hand on her shoulder. He smiled a wicked smile and winked at Lilith. Alizia Blackward pulled the trigger.
“Moooommmm!” yelled Lilith. All of Blackward Manor shook as her powers went out of control.
Harrison Midnight tried to step in between Lilith Blackward and Amadeus Essex. It was a bad decision. Enraged and fully charged up, the former used a gravity spell to lift the greedy shop owner up into the air and slam down against the foyer with enough force to knock him out and maybe even kill him. She didn’t care. All she cared about was making Amadeus pay.
“You son of a-!” The first thing Lilith did was punch Amadeus in the face. She punched him so hard that it knocked out one of his two front teeth. As he went down, he still smiled with his remaining blood stained teeth.
“You’re right, literally. I am a son of a-” Amadeus was cut off by another punch, this one breaking his nose. Lilith screamed a battle cry as she just kept punching.
Extremely angry and in a blood lust, Lilith cast a spell to shatter one of the windows in the nearby living room and floated them over to herself, above Amadeus whom she had mounted at that point.
Amadeus laughed. “That’s it, finish it. Become what you should be.” He spit out some of his own blood. “Become what’s needed to lead this new world. Just like your mother would have wanted.”
“Don’t you ever talk about her again!” Lilith sent the pieces of broken glass down, at a high speed towards Amadeus’s face, shredding it, embedding small shards in his face. It looked like he took a shot of buckshot.
Seeing Amadeus there, helpless, grievously injured by her own hands. Lilith got up. Her fists were swollen, knuckles bloody. “I’m done. No more killing. You’re certainly not worth it.”
“You have to!” protested Inquisitor Torrance through labored breaths. He’d just beaten his injured fellow inquisitor who was at a severe disadvantage. “We both saw what will happen if you don’t.”
“We also saw what will happen if I lose myself. Lose control.” Lilith gave Amadeus one last kick to his stomach. Then she looked over and saw Aunt Rose and Sir Kain struggling against the gargoyles.
Lilith levitated into the air and floated over to the gargoyles. Her eyes glowing, hair moving as if it had a mind of it’s own, she addressed the beasts. “Leave now or be reduced to rubble!” Her voice, supernaturally charged boomed and was enough to scare off the stone guardians.
“I’m so sorry dear,” said Aunt Rose as Lilith came back down to the floor and knelt down next to her dead mother.
“It’s not fair! I was powerful enough. I beat myself. I took him down. But...” Lilith broke down. She fell back and started to sob. Aunt Rose sat down next to her, putting her arm around Lilith. Eve rested her head on Lilith’s lap and whimpered.
Inquisitor Torrance put Inquisitor Talon, Amadeus Essex and Harrison Midnight in glowing restraints. The three of them were lifted off the floor via telekinesis.
“There must be some way we can reverse this. Undo it.” Sir Kain, not equipped to deal with emotions, stood at the front doorway looking out on the heavy snowfall.
“There is,” answered Inquisitor Talon as she regained consciousness. “But the price...”
“How?” demanded Inquisitor Torrance.
“I’ll never tell you traitor!” yelled Inquisitor Talon.
“I’m the traitor? You helped that psycho-” Inquisitor Torrance was interrupted by Sir Kain who walked up to Inquisitor Talon, face-to-face.
“How?” insisted Sir Kain.
“A sacrifice. A powerful witch or warlock must speak these words, but backwards of course. Reignite the light of the earth but extinguish mine. Give my light to end the darkness.”
“I will do it,” volunteered Sir Kain.
“No. It has to be a witch or warlock,” corrected Inquisitor Talon.
Lilith looked at her mother and noticed something. Her other hand, the one opposite from the one still holding the gun, was closed as if it was holding something. At first rigamortis made it hard to get it open but she finally managed to pull it off. And when she did and saw what was inside...and she smiled through her tears.
In Alizia Blackward’s hand was a crumpled up piece of paper. It was from Lilith’s diary. The child inside of Lilith would’ve gotten upset that her mother invaded her privacy like that, except when she saw what page it was, she instantly forgave her.
Lilith recognized the page from her diary. It was from when she was sixteen. The day of her judgment, which she failed. And she knew exactly what she had to do.
“I will do it,” volunteered Aunt Rose. “I’m sorry Lilith dear. I know you’ve lost a lot but we can’t let all these people die.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Lilith with a smile.
“What do you mean? You’re upset dear, I understand. But I have to-”
“No. You really don’t. Not if I can help it.”
“What do you-?”
Sir Kain smiled. “Red Wolf’s Folly.”
“Emit fo sdnas eht ni kcab spets owt,” Lilith recited the spell. There was a loud boom and the sound of screeching raccoons.
“WE’RE ALMOST THERE! Should we wake her up? Shake her out of it?” asked Aunt Rose as she quickly glanced in the rear view mirror, then back at the road. She sped down the highway towards the exit for Devil’s End.
“Is that dangerous?” asked Sir Kain. He was surprisingly clueless when it came to magic, especially since he lived around it for so long.
“I dunno. I’m not even sure what this guy is doing to her.”
“He’s helping me fight myself and get rid of my passenger, the ghost of my older self,” explained Lilith as she woke herself up out of the trance. “Now it’s time to end this.”
“Come again?” asked a confused Sir Kain.
Lilith opened the door to the car, eyes glowing she flew out. Determined, angry and not willing to let history repeat itself, she sped towards the second floor of Blackward Manor. Once she reached it, she didn’t bother trying to open a window, she just flew through it.
“Lilith Blackward? Well, isn’t this a surprise,” said Amadeus Essex, taken aback by the young woman who just flew through a window only feet away from him. “I mean, I knew you were coming but I'd bet money you would’ve used the front do-”
Not in the mood to talk, Lilith cast a quick destruction spell, obliterating Amadeus’ knees. Screaming in pain he fell to the carpeted floor, holding them as if that would help.
“I was thinking the other day, what’s required for you to keep hold of your puppets. How do you control them?” Lilith calmly brushed pieces of glass off her shoulders as she walked over to the now crippled Amadeus Essex. He just moaned and cursed, rolling around on the carpet. “Then it hit me. You need to be able to concentrate. With all the puppets you acquired, it would take a hell of a lot of concentration and focus to keep them all under control. So how do you impede your concentration? I chose inflicting pain.”
“I, I, I , h-h-have your m-m,” it was hard for Amadeus Essex to talk through the pain.
“Yeah I know. You have my mother downstairs with a gun to her head. And yeah I know that you already cast Heinrich Talon’s spell. But...” Lilith stepped on one of Amadeus’s knees. He screamed. “I know how to fix both situations.”
“F-Fine! You win! But you c-c-can’t stop me forever. And we b-b-both know you won’t k-k-ill me!” Amadeus rapidly went from smiling to grimacing in pain to smiling again. A nut job to the end.
“You’re right I won’t. And it’s a mistake. One that I’ll make again.”
“Again?” Amadeus was confused.
“Yup. Thing is Amadeus. She won’t make that mistake again.” Lilith looked up.
Amadeus turned around. He saw a ghost, a ghost of an older Lilith Blackward, enraged and ready to get revenge.
Lilith calmly turned the corner on the second floor hallway to the stairs. She slowly walked down them. Behind her she heard Amadeus’s screams as her former “passenger” took her vengeance.
Alizia Blackward, realizing that she w
as no longer under Amadeus’s control pointed her gun at Harrison Midnight. She walked forward while warding off Inquisitor Talon and the gargoyles.
“Make one move and I’ll shoot him,” warned Alizia. They listened.
“Mom?” Lilith couldn’t help but cry when she saw her mother alive again. Even though she was pointing a gun at a warlock’s head.
“Lilith?” Alizia looked over at her daughter who was at the bottom of the stairs.
The front doors to Blackward Manor slammed open. Standing there in the open doorway was Inquisitor Torrance, Aunt Rose, Eve and Sir Kain. All of them were ready for a fight.
LILITH AND ALIZIA BLACKWARD stood in the back doorway in the manor’s kitchen that overlooked the vast backyard and family cemetery. Both of them looked out at the snow that glistened in the moonlight.
“You know this could be beautiful,” commented Lilith. “If it didn’t mean a whole lot of innocent people would die.”
“You’re right. And I was wrong. I was so damn wrong about all of this,” admitted Alizia.
“Are my ears deceiving me? You’re admitting to being wrong? Stop the presses. Hell has frozen over. No pun intended,” laughed Lilith.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Alizia laughed back. Then she got back to her very serious self. “I’m sorry. I can’t express to you just how sorry I am...for all of this but especially what I put you through.”
Lilith looked down at her feet. “I know.”
“No, you really don’t,” Alizia forced eye contact with her daughter. “ I said it before but I meant it then and I mean it now. I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”
“I know.”
“I love you more than anything else in this world or the next.”
“I know mom. I’ve always known.”
“Can you ever forgive me?”
“Already have,” said Lilith before wiping a tear from eye.