Shifting

Thirty-Eight

I must have blacked out for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, confused and numbed, I was on the floor. The Preacher, Vance and Monika lifted me up and propped me against a relatively undamaged wall. The cold bricks felt good against my hot cheek.

“Tie it off, quickly now,” Wilton was saying, and even through the haze of pain and shock, I appreciated the professional concern in her voice. She was still part human, and I knew from having been part monster, that she was neither all evil nor all good.

The Preacher touched my face and gently guided my chin so I could see his face. “Gannon,” he said, “that was well done. I had not thought you would perform the necessary task yourself. I had thought my axe would have to pass judgment upon your twisted hand. I’m impressed and glad you could do it alone.”

I became vaguely aware that Monika was crying. Others were wrapping up my stump in some gauze and tape.

“Fine,” said Wilton, disgusted with the lot of us. “Just fine, if you’ve been asked to join two witches and refused, well I’ve been judged by the lot of you three times now, and that’s the end of it for me. I’m going off on my own, again, and I’ll not come back. If any of you should want my protection, you can come join me at my lab. Otherwise, you can all rot.”

So saying, she lifted up the lantern from the table and began to hobble out into the parking lot.

The Preacher was in front of her, blocking her way in an instant. His axe had appeared in his hand, and it was upraised.

I tried to struggle to my feet, sliding up against the wall of bricks, using them to steady me. It didn’t work, I felt sick and sagged down again. I thought about vomiting, but held it back.

She glared at the Preacher. “You’re no priest, you are a murderer!”

“I am no murderer.”

“You are a slave to that axe then,” she said, “It rules your mind.”

“The axe is only the executioner, I am the judge.”

The lantern flared up, showing its true brilliance. The prism inside burned brightly again. Perhaps it sensed a new master.

The Preacher’s axe flashed downwards. Several of us screamed. I hobbled forward. The lantern flashed intensely and blinded us all with a silent blast of light. It was like standing in the wake of a thousand dazzling flashbulbs, each of a different shining hue. My retina showed huge purple blotches.

I heard a crash and a tinkling sound. When my eyes could function again, I saw the brass lantern had been shorn apart. The prism inside had fallen and shattered into a spray of sparkling jewel-like shards.

Wilton fell to her knees, sobbing. I thought she was more filled with grief than I had been for my lost hand.

Everyone stepped quietly out to form a circle around her. She groped in the rubble, as if not believing the prism wasn’t there, that wasn’t still whole. She found a purplish shard, for each piece had a color, it seemed, and she held it up, shaking it at us.

“Fools! What great idiots you all are!” she sobbed, “you are like cavemen, striking down what you don’t understand. Trapped on a deserted island with a single radio, you would all gather to smash it in some primitive rite. Even you, John Thomas. I just didn’t believe anyone could be so stupid.”

“Beatrice,” said the Preacher gently, “you must leave us now. In fact, you should be slain for murder. Your body is too riddled with twisted flesh for you ever to survive an exorcism of the sort Gannon has.”

“The Hag would have killed you all if I had not been down in the basement covering your backs,” she retorted.

“Yes, and this is the only reason the axe has not yet taken your head,” replied the Preacher evenly. “But you wanted more than just to save us, Beatrice, you wanted to take the Hag’s place and rule us.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I tried to beguile you so you would help me defeat the Hag my way, that’s true. Perhaps we would not have so many dead now if you hadn’t stopped me.” She struggled to her feet, her hoof scratching a furrow in the powdered cement. The Preacher guided her elbow helpfully, but she shook him off. “I don’t want your help.”

In that moment, Mrs. Hatchel gasped and reached out desperately. A figure moved close to Wilton. The old woman gave a cry of agony. She pitched forward. A huge knife hilt stuck out of her bad leg. She glared back at Holly, who Mrs. H. had wrapped up in her arms. Both Holly and Wilton breathed hard and glared at one another. Wilton’s eyes dropped first.

“You might have killed her!” said Hatchel. “Holly, you don’t know what you are doing.”

“Yes I do,” said Holly. “Let go of me and I’ll show you.”

Wilton struggled to her feet again. She pulled the bowie knife out of her leg and tossed it aside. I was amazed she could get up. I began to believe that she had fought horrors down there in the dark basement and lived.

Wilton held the lavender shard in her hand up in the air for all of us to see. It pulsed and seemed to ripple. “Mind the shards,” she said, “there might be some power in them yet.”

Wilton determinedly hobbled away from us. I wondered how many witches with good intentions had been driven from villages in just such a manner over the centuries. It was dawn now, and we watched her go, remembering the last time she had left us on a fateful day.

The rest of us looked back at the shards on the ground. They sparkled with internal light. It was not the brilliant beam that they had presented us with before, but still, it was clearly supernatural.

“That piece of the prism,” said Vance thoughtfully. “It seemed enchanted.”

Holly knelt and gingerly poked at a piece that looked like an icicle of rich amber. “This one looks like a knife,” she said. “I need a knife that could kill a Hag.”

The preacher stopped Holly with a hand and put up his other hand with fingers splayed. Everyone stopped. “Let’s not take any more of this evil into our hands. We shall bury these shards far from here, without touching them. If you agree, Gannon.”

Everyone looked to me. I nodded, barely able to stand.

A new voice joined us then. It was a high-pitched voice, and I knew it in an instant. It was the voice of Malkin, the elf.

He tsked and clucked his tongue. We all looked up, and saw him looking down at us from the ruined roof of the waiting room.

I took a breath, the others raised their weapons and stared up with wide eyes.

“Are you here to harass us or help us, Malkin?”

The elf walked slowly around the hole in the roof, looking down at us as he replied. “You have done me a favor. You have ridden this place of the Hag. For that, I owe your people. I recognize this debt.”

I noticed that the preacher’s axe was in his hand and it was twitching excitedly. No doubt, it wanted to chop Malkin in half.

“What will you do to repay your debt to us, elf?” I asked. I recalled that in the old stories of his kind, wagers and debts and promises mattered greatly.

Malkin stopped circling up there and pointed down into the mess that was the waiting room around us. We followed his eyes and saw my hand lying on the floor. Blood had leaked to form a dark pool around the severed hand. I looked at it and blinked in recognition. It was strange to see a part of yourself lying on the floor. Everything seemed dream-like at that moment.

“Do you notice a difference?”

I heard a few of the others gasp. I looked at my severed hand again, and in a flash I realized what he meant. “It’s my hand again. The claw is gone.”

“Gannon, I’m so sorry,” said Monika, wrapping herself around my waist comfortingly.

At first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I thought I knew. Perhaps I hadn’t needed to chop off my hand. Perhaps I could have just waited, and when the lantern was destroyed my twisted hand would have returned to normal.

“Yes, yes,” said Malkin, crouching so that his tiny, pointed knees stuck out before him. “Sadness.”

I sucked in a breath and began to grow angry. Anger was good, as it kept away the shock from my injury that fogged my mind.

“That’s it?” I demanded, “you show me that I chopped off my hand for nothing and that’s your idea of repayment?”

“Not exactly. If you would be so good as to send your mad henchman away-” said Malkin, pointing at the preacher with fluttering fingers.

I looked at John and he did indeed look half-mad. A silvery thread ran down from his mouth and he stared up at the elf. His unblinking eyes were all but popping from his head. I could tell that with every word the desire grew in him to cut Malkin.

“John,” I said gently. It took a second or two, but he managed to look at me. “Why don’t you take the others away for a few minutes. This creature might be dealt with peaceably.”

The preacher eyed me. “You have forgotten the heads in the pool in its lair so quickly?”

I shook my head. “No. But I understand something of how this elf thinks. I believe he will not harm us today.”

“They are full of nothing but trickery and deceit!” shouted the preacher. “You are a fool to talk to them. Their kind can never be trusted.”

“Still,” I said, “I ask you to take them out.”

So he did it, but not without many a baleful look up at the tiny figure on the roof.

The last remaining was Monika, who would not let go of my waist. I decided to let her stay there, and hoped she wouldn’t pull out a pistol and have another shot at Malkin.

When the others were safely outside, Malkin hopped down and strutted around on top of the broken furniture. He hopped from table to chair as he walked, looking carefully at the colorful shards of crystal at our feet. He tutted and tsked as he walked.

“Well?”

“Not much here. A thorough job of it. But this one,” he said, jumping down and grabbing up a reddish chunk of the crystal. No sooner had he touched it than the tip of my saber touched his chest.

“This is how you greet a friend working to help you?” he sputtered, backing away from the sword. My sword tip followed him as if fastened to his tunic. I marveled that he had let me get my blade in close. In his greed to grab up one of the shards, he had let his guard down. I knew grabbing the shards had been his goal all along.

“What is it you plan?”

Malkin eyed Monika, who had backed away so I could wield my weapon freely. She had her gun out again, but I wasn’t sure it had any bullets in it.

“How will you protect her, and your children, if you have but one hand?” asked Malkin.

“Children?” I asked, bemused. The thought had not crossed my mind. But he was right, I knew in a flash. If we survived long enough, such things would have to happen.

Malkin, in my distraction, had evaded the tip of my sword and grabbed up my severed hand. It was turning gray, I noticed. Looking at it made my lip curl. Somehow, when divorced from my body, it was disgusting.

The elf held up the red shard and the hand. “Red magic is blood magic. It is a chance. But every minute we wait lessens the odds of success.”

I finally understood what he meant. “No,” I said flatly. “I’m finally rid of that thing. It haunted me for days.”

Malkin tutted at me. “Foolish pride. The claw is gone, that spell is broken.”

“Gannon,” said Monika, standing beside me again, “let him try.”

I looked at her. The pistol was no longer aiming at the elf. She licked her pretty lips and pushed her hair from her face.

“I need a man with two hands,” she said.

I sucked in a great breath and let it out slowly. The dawn had cracked over the horizon now, and a new day was born in pink light. The rain had stopped at some point, I noticed.

I ripped the bandage from my wrist with my teeth. Fresh blood flowed and throbbing, intense pain flowed over me to match it.

I looked away, and the elf did his work with the shard and my dead hand. In a few moments, I felt a cold shock go up my arm as my own dead blood ran up into my veins.

“Is my debt repaid?” he asked in a quiet voice.

I flexed my fingers. They moved. Monika laced her fingers over her mouth. She seemed much happier. She had been playing with baby Carlene. I thought about what Malkin said about future children. I looked at him, and his eyes stared back at me like two black buttons.

“Yes,” I said, “a working hand is payment enough. Your debt is repaid.”

Malkin left without a word. He took great bounds, vanishing from the lobby.

I looked around, but the red shard he had used to reknit my hand to my wrist was missing.