The Witch's Demon

"Do not trouble me with trifles," John said contemptuously in a Spanish accent. "After twenty-five years, my grandmother's soul will be avenged. There will be blood tonight!"

Hilda shook her head at her sister and cousins. "Star Wars?" she asked.

"The Princess Bride," said Agatha. She hugged her sister. "Be careful, you horny, foul-mouthed bitch."

"And you, you stuck-up, repressed nerd."

They looked at Claire. She took them in, family and new-found friend alike. She nodded her head shortly.

"Let's go."

They opened the back door and filed slowly out into the night.

%%%

At the jail, Grant's body rose from the bench in response to an unseen signal. Outside, the last of the daylight was fading from the Iowa sky.

It is time, the demon thought. Time and past time. By this time tomorrow the Chamberlain Coven will be smoldering ashes. First the main nest with the men and their whores. Then the rest, scattered and leaderless.

With a gleeful glare he surveyed the cell. The rancid stink of fear was thick on his tongue. He savored it as a human would a fine meal, growing stronger on its power. Hard, vicious men shrank away from his gaze. With a sneer he bent and ripped a leg off the metal bench, then began furiously striking it on the bars of his cell, telling the hour of doom.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

"Pigs!" he shouted. "Pigs! Come out and play, pigs! Come out and play!" He continued banging and screaming until a door slammed open at the end of the hall.

"By God and Jesus Christ his Son, I have had enough of this shit," snarled an officer. He stomped up to the door of the cell. Doyle stood behind him, looking anxious. "Put out your hands, Grant. You are going into solitary, and by God, tomorrow you are going to the hospital to be evaluated. You are seven different kinds of fucked up."

The Dark One allowed Grant's hands to fall, hiding his glee. So easy. It is so easy. They are just like cattle.

"I...I think you're right, officer. I feel so odd. So strange. Nothing makes sense anymore," he moaned, lifting a worried face to him. He dropped the metal bar with a clatter and offered the officer his wrists.

From behind, Doyle offered, "Jenkins, maybe you should have his hands cuffed behind his back. I think he's dangerous."

Jenkins snapped the cuffs closed around the Dark One's wrists. "Too late now," he said cheerily. He heaved the cell door open. "Now, just walk along in front of us, nice and URK!..."

Doyle would not have believed anything human could move that fast. In a blink Grant had lifted his shackled hands above his head and bludgeoned Jenkins to the floor, striking him mercilessly on the back of the neck. Before he could move he found his neck caught in a vise-like grip, then flung sideways into the wall. His head struck the concrete and he blacked out.

Whistling happily, the Dark One pulled the key-ring from Jenkins' belt and undid his cuffs. His wallet was next, and then his car keys. He was about to pull out Jenkins' service revolver and shoot him when a hoarse shout shattered the air.

"Officer down! Officer down! Officer down!"

The Dark One glared at Kowalski, but moved his hands away from the gun. "Damn you," he hissed. From the corner of his eye he could see Doyle groggily rising to his knees. He dropped the cuffs on Jenkins' motionless body and heaved himself to his feet, keeping the key ring. Moving swiftly, he unlocked an outside door, exiting the jail just as alarms started to scream.

%%%

It really was amazingly easy these days, he thought. He had stopped at a grocery store and bought a box of glass bottles with narrow necks, just big enough to stopper with a dishcloth. He bought a set of those, too. A stop at a service station got him all the gasoline he would need and a cigarette lighter.

A few hundred years ago I would have had to spend half the night piling brush and logs around the house. And if it rained I was fucked. Who says that humans don't have their uses? He giggled maniacally to himself as he poured the gasoline into the bottles and considered the best way to burn down the house.

Have to cover both doors, he decided. But most of the lights are off. Guess the little dears are asleep. He smiled wolfishly.

Doors and downstairs windows first, he decided. Then lob some through the upstairs windows. With any luck I'll be able to hear them scream as they roast alive.

Walking swiftly but carefully, he hauled a cardboard box full of bottles around to the back of the house. Keeping his distance from the disgusting garden and its foul reek of greenery, he set it down. He glared at the door. It was covered in a fine metal mesh, and any attempt to lob a bottle through it would result in it rebounding back to him.

Thwarted. Always thwarted, he snarled to himself. He set the box down and climbed onto the deck, looking for an object to hold the screen door open so he could throw the bottle through the glass of the inside door.

Suddenly floodlights blazed on, pinning his shadow against the back of the house. From the terrible, horrifying garden, stinking of fresh food and life, four shapes emerged. They held knives in their hands, and he could see the menacing glint of silver.

He turned to run, to flee from the light, but even as he did so a triumphant yell tore loose from Claire Chamberlain's lips.

"NOW, SYBIL!!" she shouted.

Water! Disgusting, clean water, reeking of sanctity and holiness, spouted up from a half-dozen spots around the deck, raining gently onto the wooden planks. He shrank back, cringing away from its searing touch. His eyes cut right and left, seeking an avenue out, but there was no escape.

"This is for our dead," Claire said softly, and there was no mercy in her eyes. None at all.

"Take him."

The Coven charged forward as one, knives held low. Desperately, The Dark One flung himself to one side, seeking to evade the rush. He slipped by a blow from Steve, catching the cut on one arm, whimpering with pain, but hope leaped in his chest as he spied a narrow aisle through the coven. If he ran and jumped off the deck, through the falling water, he might make it. He would be terribly burned, but...

He was just gathering himself for the leap when the knife hammered into his chest and through his heart.

Grim as death, Hilda held the Dark One's squirming vessel in place. She raised her pale face up, stomach heaving in revulsion as Grant's dying body fought to pull away from the knife, mindless as a fish on a hook "Help me!" she shouted.

John and Steve lunged forward, pinning him down. With a knee in Grant's back, Steve's knife hammered into his neck, severing the spine, as John's punched into the kidneys.

And Claire Chamberlain, head of the Chamberlain Coven, pulled Grant's face up for one last look at the sky before she cut the Dark One's throat with a sweeping slice of her blade.

She stood there, spattered in blood, and watched as the life faded from Calvin Grant's eyes. She saw, as did her children and lover, the Dark One desperately try to free himself from Grant's mind, and then be dragged down into the void.

She stood and took a deep breath, smiling at the star-spangled sky, which was, for this night at least, just a bit cleaner, the air a bit purer, the water a bit sweeter, than it had been the night before.

She wiped the knife clean on Grant's shirt and stuck it in its sheath.

"It's done" A weary smile crossed her face. "Come on, kids. Let's wait for the police."

%%%

The police, truth be told, seemed very unsure of how to react. It was one thing to get a 911 call from a frantic teenager, reporting that a crazy man was trying to burn down her house. It was another to be greeted by eight calm men and women, four of whom freely confessed to killing the man in the struggle which had followed, apparently with ceremonial knives which they were using for their own religious rituals.

"Well, we do have the restraining order," a confused sergeant was telling the homicide investigator.

"And we have the report from the state troopers who took this nutball in earlier today," Lieutenant Kerr replied testily. "And we have the fact that this guy went completely off his rocker at the station and attacked Officers Doyle and Jenkins. And we have what seem to be a large amount of Molotov cocktails in the car he stole and in a box near the house. And we have a long history of violence and erratic behavior, considering this man has a record in nine different states, including a beating that he gave this Steven Johnson fellow just a few weeks ago. We have that report from Officer Rawlins. What about this does not scream self-defense to you, Sergeant?"

Stewart flushed, but met Kerr's eyes solidly. "The knives, Lieutenant. Are we supposed to believe that they just happened to have those knives handy and used them to kill this guy?"

"They've already told us they used the knives to kill the guy when he attacked them. Owning a knife isn't a crime. And there is a little chapel in there with a pile of cut-up apples and pears. Apparently they worship some sort of pagan Goddess who is really into agriculture.

"So if it were me and I noticed a guy who had threatened to burn me alive earlier in the day sneaking around the house, I think I'd grab the first handy weapon too, Sergeant. And no, before you say anything, having a religious ritual in your house is also not a crime."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We have two choices, Bobby. Either this guy was a complete whacko who tried to burn eight people to death in their own home and was only stopped because the owners got really lucky, or these people somehow lured him here and killed him for no good reason at all. And don't forget that they had to somehow arrange for him to escape police custody to do it. I know what side I'm coming down on."

"But the force they used? Was lethal force really necessary?"

"When someone tries to burn down my house, I'll let you know, Bobby. Let's wrap this up and get the hell out of here. This entire business gives me the creeps."

%%%

"Well," Sybil said softly, as the last squad car drove away. "That went better than I expected."

"Then why do I feel so awful?" Hilda asked. She sat hunched on the sofa, trembling, her hands clenched together.

"Because killing should never feel good, darling," said Sybil, gathering her daughter in a gentle embrace. "It might be necessary. Even a desired outcome. But taking a life is never a good thing."

"You're right, though, Aunt Sybil. The cops did let us off awfully lightly," said Eleanor. "I figured Mom and Hilda and the boys would be arrested, at least. Maybe not charged, seeing how Grant and the Dark One had behaved over the last couple of weeks. But at least questioned a lot harder than what happened tonight."

"That's because we told the truth." said Claire. "We were worshiping. We were using the knives to cut fruit. We did go outside when we became aware of Grant. We did see him planning to burn the house down. And we did kill him in the following struggle.

"The only thing we did was not tell them certain things. Such as how we expected Grant to attack us, and how we prepared for it."

"What happens next?" said Susanna.

"I think," said Agatha, "that we won't be seeing the police here again. At least not about this. They want the simple explanation. And they have one. Calvin Grant had a psychotic episode, went insane, attacked two police officers, escaped custody, and attempted to burn down a house belonging to some people who he had a grudge against. You see that sort of story on the internet every week.

"Also, they won't want to come back."

"Why not?" asked Steve.

"Because of all the charms we have put on this place over the years. And on Mom's place too, of course. The look-aways. We always meant them to guard us against nosy neighbors and the Dark One, if he ever showed up here. But the police aren't going to want to come back here."

They all say quietly, considering Aggie's words. Finally John rose to his feet. "Well, I'm going to take a shower and then go to bed," he said. He brushed ineffectually at his jeans, which were coated in mud. "That garden is full of dirt, Mom. I think you should do something about it."

"I'll get right on that, Johnny," she said solemnly.

Chapter 5

The next six weeks were wonderful. Spring and summer mated and made love in the Iowa cornfields, blessing the days with abundant sunshine and soft breezes, seasoned with long, gentle rainfalls which made the farmers fall down and weep for joy at their good fortune. The deep, earthy smell of growing things seemed to have an effect on the good people of Des Moines, as Claire and Sybil were amused to see. Interest in their small stock of erotica and tantra books shot through the roof, and Claire finally threw her hands up in exasperation and ordered a full hundred copies of The Kama Sutra just to keep up with demand.

Steve continued his work with the road crew, but found plenty of time to spend with John and Susanna and the rest of the Chamberlain family. John had found work as a stockboy at the Hy-Vee, while Susie scored a paid internship with the local phone company, helping to update their records as they switched over to a new database.

After a grueling telethon one Saturday, which included using Claire's fax machine to send off copies of every proof of his identity he had, Steve found himself the astonished recipient of three checks from various insurance companies totaling more than three hundred thousand dollars. He immediately deposited them into the bank, and on Sybil's advice, broke them into several different accounts. He also was able to take and pass his high school equivalencies, and had started looking around for colleges to apply to in the next school year.

Two weeks after the confrontation with the Dark One, they were formally notified that there would be no charges stemming from Calvin Grant's death. It was declared to be a matter of self-defense. The body was cremated in a pauper's funeral, as Rachel Grant had no money to pay for a casket or tombstone. She went back to her own people in Arkansas, where Steve hoped she could find some measure of peace.

And, of course, they all continued to screw each other like oversexed rabbits. Steve was walking around with a smile permanently plastered to his face, and John and Susanna looked ridiculously smug. Hilda, as she claimed happily, "finally had all the cock she could handle", and was practically glowing with good cheer, while Eleanor was scraping the depths of her imagination for new ways for them to debauch themselves. This, at one point, included Agatha, herself, costumes, and a role play where the girls were addressed as "Galadriel" and "Arwen".

Even Hilda thought that one was a bit weird.

But Steve enjoyed it quite a lot.

Independence Day came and went, and July was passing, when Agatha asked for a formal meeting of the coven one Saturday afternoon. She refused to say why, which confused her sister and mother immensely.

Claire closed the door of the store on the last customer of the day and turned the sign around to read "closed". She entered the back room and sat down at the new table, lengthened to include all eight of them.

She frowned. "I don't like this business with a head and a foot of the table," she said, "even if I am at the head. But we don't have room back here for an eight-sided table."

"If we keep selling how-to sex-books like we are, we'll be able to buy out the gyro shop next door and expand," Sybil suggested. "I don't know what's come over people. It's like someone's pumping aphrodisiacs into the water supply."

"No such thing," said Aggie and Steve simultaneously, and they grinned at each other.

Hilda shrugged, "Who cares? Anything that makes people horny and happy is okay with me. Maybe magic is coming back into the world after all," she suggested.

Claire smiled. "Wouldn't that be a hell of a thing? For five hundred years of technological advances to be shown to be nothing more than a veneer over the spirit world? For the old gods and goddesses to come back and have a hand in things?"

"Might not be totally comfortable," Eleanor noted. "Some of the old gods weren't the sort you'd like to spend time with. Especially if you were a woman."

"Anyway," said Sybil, dragging the conversation back to where it belonged, "you had something you wanted to say, Agatha?"

"Yes, Mom," she said. She looked at the group. "Summer is passing. John and Susie will be leaving for Champaign in a few weeks. Has anyone thought about what we're going to do then?"

"Give Steve a supply of Viagra?" asked Hilda with a strained smile.

"No need for that," said Steve. "The spirit is willing. But the flesh is weak, spongy, and easily bruised." He looked at Agatha. "I think you have a solution in mind."

"I do," she nodded. She set out a series of folders on the table. "This is my acceptance to the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign," she said formally. "I've decided to transfer.

"Drake is a second-rate engineering school, Mom," she said to Sybil's astonished gaze. "We knew it when I applied there, but we decided that I would be better off closer to home.

"That was true then, maybe. For the purposes of the coven and for my emotional well-being. But it has been a disaster for me academically and professionally. Right now I'm a big fish in a little pond. And no one is going to look at me twice after I graduate unless I've got a big-time degree next to my name. The U of I can do that. Especially if I stay there for post-grad work. It's been a top-ten engineering school for decades."

"And if you're there..." Susanna's voice grew excited. Agatha smiled and nodded.

"Then I can get a place for myself off-campus. A place where my cousins are always welcome and can screw without being worried about their roommates barging in. A place where my cousin can drop by and satisfy my perverse lusts."

"You've got it, Golden Girl," John said with an affectionate smile.

"And Steve," she said, nodding to him, "won't be forced to wear his pecker to a nub trying to satisfy five women at once."

"No indeed," said Steve with a crooked grin. "Now it will only be four. But that's an improvement."

"Might be down to three pretty soon, honey child," said Sybil. "Larry and me...I won't say it's serious, but it's approaching it." She looked at Claire. "He's got a brother, Sis. Almost as good-looking as he is, and open-minded, too. What do you say? Want to go on a double-date, just like the old days?"

Claire rolled her eyes fondly at Sybil and looked around the table. "Does anyone oppose Agatha's suggestion?" Silence greeted her, though Sybil's face was grave at the thought of her daughter leaving home. She nodded. "Very well," she smiled at her niece. "Good luck, Aggie."

"Does anyone else have anything we need to discuss?" Eleanor asked, unbuttoning her shirt and lifting John's hand to her lips, eyes hot with lust. He licked his lips, returning her smoldering gaze. Across the table, Agatha had already pulled off her blouse and was sitting on Steve's lap, moaning as he kissed the back of her neck, hands cradling her breasts. Susanna looked on, wide-eyed with passion, hands hidden below the table. It seemed that the long-promised, long-delayed orgy was finally about to occur. Sybil and Claire, smiling lovingly, were at the door, planning on a discreet exit.