The Witch Who Saved Christmas

(Excerpt from short story)

Artemis stood in the middle of her living room, in the blinking light of her artificial Christmas tree, arms crossed as she glanced at the circle drawn on the floor. You’d think I’d be better prepared than this, she thought, frowning slightly at the fact that the circle was made of brightly colored sugar sprinkles, the sort of thing more appropriate for drizzling over the top of fresh baked cookies than for casting a circle to give her access to the Afterlife. I am a witch, after all, she thought. Granted, not the best witch. And, arguably not the brightest witch. Since she was having to made a mad dash into the Afterlife to retrieve a spirit she’d sent there only days earlier.

How was she to know the spirit she was crossing over was the Holiday Spirit? It’s not like her client has been very forthcoming on that particular detail. The contract had simply said the spirit had been haunting her client since childhood. It was a standard, long term haunting that had to be dealt with. How was Artemis supposed to know she’d been duped into banishing the Holiday Spirit, thereby ruining Christmas (and Hanukkah and Diwali and Eid and Thanksgiving and Veteran’s Day and…well, every holiday ever) for millions of children around the world? It was just a job and she’d needed the money to pay for, well, Christmas presents.

Resigned to seeing her name in the headlines of Witch World Daily once again in a negative light, Artemis sighed. She glanced up from starring at the sugar circle, giving the woman sitting on the couch next to it a slight smile. “If this fails and I don’t come back, at least I won’t be around for all the hexing that’s sure to follow.”

Mira arched one eyebrow, an ability Artemis found mystifying and enviable, and shook her head. “Oh, no. You’re coming back. With that damned spirit in tow. I’m not explaining to my mother that my girlfriend is the one responsible for wiping out her favorite holiday.”

“You could just keep that to yourself. Your mom’s not a witch. Keep her away from the magical news sources and she never needs to know.”

Mira smirked. “Oh, sure. That’ll work. First, since we started dating, she’s got her own subscription to Witch World Daily. And Supernatural Times. Second, do you really think this is going to be kept in magical circles?” 

Artemis winced. “No. I guess not.” 

“Damn straight. If you don’t get this straightened out, your name is going to be plastered across every newspaper on the planet. Not to mention, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC News . . .”

“All right, all right. I know. I messed up.” She sighed. Not that it was terribly surprising that she’d messed up. She was only a general witch, after all. The real good witches all specialized. And given her family, she should have been a good witch. A very good witch. Martingales did not do general witchcraft. They were one of the most powerful magical families in the country, maybe the world. General witchery? So very, very far beneath them.

And yet, here Artemis stood, in the living room of a small one-bedroom she shared with her ditzy familiar on the not-quite-sketchy side of town. Her brothers and sisters lived in McMansions, brokered deals with presidents and kings. Diana had her own television show on Oprah’s network. Eris was on staff at the White House. Pol was tenured at Southeastern University of the Occult. And her mother was a bloody Senator.

Artemis was quite familiar with being a disappointment.

Still, this was one mistake she had time to correct. It was a week until Christmas, surely that was enough time to get in, grab the ghost and get back to the real world

Taking a steadying breath, she looked toward the stairs to the second floor. “Rio, come on. It’s time to go.”

There was a crash upstairs that made both Artemis and Mira wince. A crash followed by a thump, then the sound of something broken being swatted across the floor. Artemis closed her eyes and cursed silently. A disappointing witch with a decidedly odd familiar.

Rio came bounding down the stairs, looking for all the world like a large, long haired, gray and white spotted cat. Yes, a cat. Because there’s no familiar more cliche than a cat, is there? He wandered over to Artemis, his squirrel-fuzzy tail leisurely flicking back and forth. His green eyes, which always look just slightly out of focus, as though he’d been smoking something herbal and illegal, narrowed in on the ring of sugar on the floor.

**Ooooh! Yum!** He made a dash for the sweet. He would have made it too, if Artemis hadn’t been expecting it and scooped him up at the last second.

Rio pouted at her, settling in against her shoulder. **Tease.**

She grinned at him, fuzzling up the fur around his face until he looked like he had a lion’s mane. “That’s me. Always teasing. You ready to head into the Afterlife?”

**Do I have to go? I had planned some serious napping this afternoon.**

“Yes. You have to go. What part of familiar do you not understand?”

Rio gave her his trademark blank look.

“Uh huh. Anyway, you’re going with me.” She bent down to pick up a carefully packed bag, slinging it over her shoulder. She looked at Mira, leaning over to give her a kiss. “And you’re staying here. I need you to anchor me.”

Mira smiled. “I’m your lifeline, no worries.”

Artemis smiled, then sighed. Mentally, she went over her preparations. Necessarily supplies? She patted the bag on her shoulder. Check. Annoying familiar? Rio was kneading two set of needle claws into her neck while sucking on her shirt. Check. Anchor to the real world? She smile at Mira. Definite check. She nodded. “Okay then, see ya in a few.”

Then she stepped into the middle of that brightly colored sugar circle and everything went dark.

Excerpt from The Witch Novel

(This excerpt is from a currently untitled novella I’m working on, concerning a witch, a werewolf and a demon haunting post-Katrina New Orleans.)

The wind blew through the broken houses dotting the ruined landscape of the post-Katrina 9th Ward.  It was dark, the sliver of moon barely illuminating the shadowed houses. From her perch beside the broken road, Salem watched and waited.  It had been a year since the storm. A year since the world had fractured for her, for so many in this town.  Standing here, it was as if no time had passed at all.

This wasn’t the place Salem wanted to be. She’s much rather be at her Gramma’s always full house, with her brothers and sisters, arguing over something or other. Or maybe hanging out at the Black Cat.  Anywhere but here.

And yet, here she was. Why? Because people had begun returning to New Orleans over the last few months. And they’d started dying.

Now, in New Orleans, people dying wasn’t anything new. People dying violent deaths wasn’t anything new either. And in the wake of Katrina, people killing themselves wasn’t news. But Salem had noticed something.  The death rate out here, out in the ruined wild, was too high to be natural.

She shifted, groaning inwardly as the wood beneath her feet creaked and popped. She was perched on the porch of what had been a double shotgun house. The house was mostly gone now, but the porch was still there. Thanks to the fall of the debris and a stubborn crepe myrtle, she could watch the area unseen.  Something was out here. She could feel it. It wasn’t just the random drug dealers that had returned or the stray survivors that were trying to rebuild. There was something unnatural here.

Salem had chosen her spot purposefully. Across the street, half a block up, a lone man was living in a FEMA trailer. By day, he cleared away the wreck of his home and argued with insurance companies.  He’d come back alone, to do the work that would allow him to bring his family back home.  His name was Fred Ahern. Salem had talked to him two days ago when he’d come into her sister’s bar for a drink.  He was a quiet man, determined the way so many in this town had become and she’d liked him on the spot. When he’d told her where he was living, she’d known she had to watch over him, make sure whatever it was that was haunting this place stayed far away from him.

The wind picked up again, echoing through the hollow houses like a great cat yawning. She steeled herself against it, leaning forward to catch any scents it carried. It passed, but the noise did not.

Instantly, she straightened, eyes alert and searching.

For a moment, the thought she had imagined it. Imagined she’d heard the sound of Something moving, getting closer to Fred’s shiny trailer. Imagined the sense of power that pressed against her, the certain feeling of Wrongness that flooded her senses.  Her eyes saw nothing unusual. Just the heavily shadowed night and the outlines of broken homes and fallen trees.

And then it moved.

Now that she saw it, Salem knew what was haunting the ruins of New Orleans. It stood a little more than five feet tall, with skin the mottled grey of a winter thunderstorm.  It didn’t look toward her, but she didn’t need to see its face to know it had round, red eyes and a mouth full of teeth to scare the dead.  Blight demon, she thought, and she felt power moving inside her.

She hadn’t fought a blight demon before, but that wouldn’t stop her. By her count, this thing had already claimed a dozen lives in the past three months.  They fed on despair and hopelessness, luring their victims into a spiral of depression that nothing could break. Well, almost nothing. Despite the night and danger, Salem felt herself smile.  Blight demons weren’t anything a little magic couldn’t cure and wouldn’t you know, she just happened to be in possession of some.

As she moved, careful to remain silent to preserve her advantage, she summoned the magic of this place. There were few places in the world with as much natural magic as New Orleans. It wasn’t all sweet, white magic, but Gods knew there was a lot of it.  The power that drew the blight demon here, all the lost hope and death and longstanding despair, was there for any witch to tap.  It was potent and frightening and a lot of witches wouldn’t touch it for fear it would corrupt them.

Luckily for Fred Aherns and the others who had returned to this isolated stretch, Salem wasn’t one of them.

She opened herself to it, breathing it in like oxygen, letting it spill in from the sole of her feet. It was warm, then scalding as it flooded her.  Her skin expanded, flushed bright pink then a darker red as the magic settled down to her bones.  She could see suddenly, the night alive with vibrant radical color. For a few seconds, nothing was hidden, nothing could escape her sight.  She could feel, could hear, could be everything and everyone that haunted this land.

And they were angry.

Her eyes narrowed on the blight demon, she moved.  Buoyed by her borrowed magic, she was faster than her human body had a right to be.  Beneath her feet, the ground was eeriely silent, as though it too did not want to alert her prey.  From the corners of her eyes, she could see the shades of the demon’s previous victims trailing her. They were not resting. They could not rest. Not now. Not until this was done.

The demon was standing near the door of the trailer now, hand reaching for the handle. He stopped suddenly, head jerking up, swiveling around. Something had caught his attention, but Salem was certain it wasn’t her. He did not look her way and she did not stop moving, although she did glance around to see what had caught his ear.

From the darkness, a large, furry shape emerged, ramming straight into the blight demon with a growl. The demon hissed, a wet, liquid sound that broke through the breezy night like a shattered glass.  It twisted, rolling away from the furred shape, its claws raking along its assailant’s back with a sickening rip.

Salem stopped, watching the pair roll away into the darkness. Inside the trailer, Fred woke. She could hear his stumble in the dark, heard him reach for a light, reach for a gun. She frowned. Now was not the time for him to come out.

With one hand, she sent a pulse of magic toward the trailer door, pushing it closed even as Fred tried to open it. She could sense his surprise, felt the tension and frustration. Better frustrated than dead, Fred, she thought, using her power to firmly latch the door. She set the spell for an hour — surely, whatever was going to happen would be done by then — then turned toward the snarling from the darkness and ran toward it.

With her heightened sight, she found the fighting pair easily. It was clear now what had attacked the demon and Salem swore.  A fucking werewolf. Gods dammit, this was the last thing she needed.

The wolf was huge, easily twice the size of the demon, with a deep grey pelt striped with black and white. From the size, Salem guess it was an alpha. Lesser wolves usually didn’t get that big.  It was also bleeding heavily. For all its size and strength, a wolf wasn’t much match for a demon.

The blight demon slashed and ripped, tore at the wolf with a fury. It had been deprived of its prey this night and it was not pleased.  It had claws that riveled the wolf’s own and teeth made for tearing. And then there was the poison. Salem shook her head. Stupid, stupid werewolf. It was as good as dead, even if she did manage to drive the demon away.

Neither of them had noticed her, which gave her quite the advantage. For a moment she toyed with the idea of letting them kill each other — ridding her city of a demon and a werewolf? It was a deal almost too good to pass up. Still, the wolf was trying to kill the demon. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

Besides, the souls of the demon’s dead were still with her.  They demanded justice. Or at least vengeance.

As the wolf distracted the demon, she drew upon the magic she’d borrowed, crafting it into a ball of anger.  She packed it tight, pouring the fuel of the years of mistreatment and discrimination and abuse the people of the Ward had suffered into it until it was almost too large for her to handle.  When she was shaking with the effort of holding it back, she released it, straight at the demon’s heart.

It hit, exploding in a riot of light and heat. The demon screamed, throwing itself back from the werewolf. The wolf slumped to the ground, curling into a ball, snout tucked under paws.  The demon staggered back, swaying on its feet. And Salem waited, holding her breath. Waited for it to implode, fold in on itself and die. But it didn’t. It staggered, it swayed, it started to fall, but it did not die.

It looked at her then, looked at her and took her measure. She felt cold jolt through her. The magic tried to recede, but she grabbed it, held it close and refused to let it go. She wielded it before her, a shield against the power the demon threw at her. For a moment it seemed to waver and she could began to sink, an arch of despair beginning to pulse through her.