Last Witch Standing (Mountain Witch Saga) Read online

  Who, in all the Cosmos, commanded such forces as she?

  Katie raised her tiny fist into the air, as her vision returned, and grinned.

  ***

  Katie descended onto her cliff, a string of capacitors following like a tail on a kite. She hovered, carefully lowering the line carrying the devices onto the ground in front of her cave.

  Safely relieved of the burden, the sorceress landed. The amount of energy she had managed to acquire and store during this most recent trip into space was minuscule. She kicked the side of the cave as hard as she could. The stone did not yield and Katie fell backwards onto her behind, dress ruffled.

  The work with capacitors was a dead end. At least for the moment.

  Katie needed a witch. One that could serve as a battery for a sorceress. Where to get one? The Citadel would be wary of her, prepared. Not from their planet, then, but many witches came to them from other worlds. It only remained for her to find one of these worlds. Find and obtain a newly channeling witch before the old bats of the Citadel did.

  Over the next days, as she sat on the cliff, with its breathtaking scenery, condors flying overhead, clouds forming abstract shapes as they rolled past, a plan gelled in Katie’s mind.

  She could pass herself off as a Mountain Witch – even to the point of duplicating their earthy, forest smell. They were silly little creatures. Pets of the Citadel and the Witches’ Council. Yet their very inoffensiveness could disarm any suspicion. There would be some stooping involved, particularly in rolling around the forest floor to transfer soil and pine scent to her body, but she could stoop. For the amount of power obtainable, yes, she could do that.

  Maybe, she would even find an intelligent one. One to talk to, one to share in her explorations.

  Chapter 10

  35 Years Later

  October, 2010

  Earth

  A sensation, a stirring in the Power caused Katie to stop mid-flight and land on one of the well-manicured lawns of the residential district she was passing through. Somebody was channeling. Another witch. This town of Melville had more than its share – this was her fifth find in less than two years. What was attracting them here? Whatever it was, she needed to locate this witch before she stopped channeling and the signal died.

  The Power spiked again. This time Katie got a direction – what her navigation book called a line of position. The signal was strong: either this one was more powerful than the rest, or she was very close. Katie followed the line, intent upon intercepting her prey, hopping through the air to gain speed, stopping from time to time to see if she had overstepped the signal.

  The strands of power strengthened measurably after Katie passed a neighborhood park, and into even finer and larger houses. The signal came from within a two-story house. Upstairs, she could see the silhouette of a girl through the curtains. Katie knew instantly that was her witch.

  Powerful. This was the jackpot! The other four had all been such abject failures, so disappointing —

  She leapt onto the yard, using the Power to mute the sounds of her landing. As she knelt beside the front door, Katie put her palms to the wall. The Power. She had to move quickly – this witch, in her ignorance – was channeling enough power to attract the attention of any member of the magical kingdom within hundreds of miles. Even if no other creatures were present to catch the signal, the Citadel witches periodically scanned the worlds for pulses of power. An upper floor of their Academy held rooms with row after row of globes of many worlds, Earth included. These models were linked by the Power to their respective planets or inhabited moons. This foolish girl was channeling enough to show a spike on the Citadel’s Earth model.

  If they happened to be looking this way, they would surely come for this child-witch.

  Katie followed the yard’s fence and used the storm drain to climb onto the roof. Flying, at this point, would be risky. Here, under the cover of the oak tree, like a sailor climbing a rope ladder up the mast, she scaled the building.

  At the roof, she paused and scanned the area. Through her sorceress-heightened senses, she could tell a person was on the bottom floor, stirring. A woman. Across the street, a young man pulled up in a rundown late model Toyota Celica. Katie waited for him to go inside his house before she started towards the upper floor window where the girl was channeling.

  The branches of the oak tree provided cover from the street and Katie was glad she did not need to channel to approach unnoticed. First approaches were always the most risky; Katie did not know the witch, the area, or whether or not she was the first to discover this witch.

  Katie peered through the gap in the curtains. A dark-haired girl of about sixteen lay upon the bed moving marbles, that were set about the bedspread, with the Power.

  Katie rapped against the window. The girl looked up, eyes narrowed, as if caught in the commission of a crime.

  Katie tapped the window again, this time gently.

  The girl jumped up and faced the bedroom door. For a moment she hesitated, as if trying to decide whether to flee or check out the strange noise.

  Katie tapped a third time. The girl turned towards the window and was at it in a few strides. She pulled the curtain back at the corner of the sill and looked out at an angle onto the roof, body shielded. Katie waved. The girl jumped back. A second later, the latch clicked and the window opened. The girl stared at Katie.

  “How did you get here, sweetie?” The witch-girl stared down at the sidewalk, probably looking for whoever put the child onto her roof.

  “May I come in?”

  “What? How did you get here? Are you okay?” The girl put her hands out and lifted Katie into the room.

  The things I do for science. This child-witch will have to be taught not to touch me. For the moment I will tolerate it – the potential gain is too large not to.

  “I am not a child, witch.” Katie forced a smile and looked up at the girl.

  “Pardon?” The girl held the sorceress tightly by the arm, as if afraid she could somehow fall back out the window.

  “Please let go of me. I need to speak to you about what you are doing with the marbles. It is very dangerous.”

  The girl let go and stepped back. Katie watched as awareness dawned upon the girl that Katie was not a child – at least not a human one – and that the sorceress knew what she was up to.

  “I have come to help you.” Katie looked up at the witch, counting upon her blue eyes and baby face to resonate benevolence. She touched the child on the arm. “Let’s take a seat on the bed and we can talk.”

  When they were seated, Katie began, "My name is Katie. I am a witch myself. A tiny one." She held out her hand to the girl.

  "I'm Rachel."

  "You are probably very confused right now. I can help you. Please, ask me anything you want about what is happening to you." Katie glanced down at the marbles the girl had been moving with the Power.

  “How did you know what I was doing?”

  “Unshielded channeling sends up a signal. You may as well have stood on the roof of your house and fired a flare into the sky that said ‘here lives a witch’.”

  “Why is that dangerous?” the girl asked.

  “Because, the magical world is filled with malevolent creatures as well as benevolent ones. You are very lucky that I am the first magical creature to find you. I shudder to think of what may have happened to you if I had not found you.”

  “How do I shield my channeling?”

  “For the moment, you lack the ability. What you need to do is limit your channeling to small amounts. I can help shield you provided you do not exceed a certain threshold. Over time, as you become more proficient, you will learn how to shield yourself.”

  The two talked for over an hour, stopping only when Rachel was called to dinner.

  "I cannot impress upon you enough how important it is that you not channel unshielded. Right now, you are sending up a signal to any witch in the area that you are here. As I said before, some of them
are malevolent." Katie stood up.

  "I won't," Rachel answered.

  "On my next visit, I will bring you a book about the Power. Reading it will help you understand your new world."

  Rachel escorted Katie to the window. Katie waved as she climbed over the sill, onto the roof tiles. Rachel returned the wave, closed the window, and watched Katie until she had scaled the tree branches and dropped out of view.

  This is the culmination of many years of work. Soon, I will have my own witch to use and can explore the Cosmos, no longer limited by my inability to store the Power.

  ***

  "I was worried you wouldn't show." Rachel held the window open the next evening and Katie scurried through. “I thought you may have been a dream.”

  "Do not worry. I keep my word." Katie set a satchel on the bed, smiled, and withdrew a book. “And I am no dream.”

  Rachel hurried over. Katie pushed it to her and the girl opened it.

  “Wow. There is so much out there I don’t know. I thought I was alone,” Rachel said.

  “No. Not any longer. I will help you.”

  “I really thought I was going crazy.” Rachel paused at the section on Mountain Witches. “Oh, my goodness. That’s what you are?”

  Katie smiled. “We will be good friends, together.” Katie put her hand out.

  Rachel took the sorceress’s hand.

  Good. This girl feels in my debt. She is dependent upon me for knowledge and guidance. If I move slowly and carefully, I can maneuver her to my Pangea – by force, if necessary. This one is a keeper.

  Chapter 11

  The Present

  Earth

  Would the disguise hold? Candice Strong walked back along the path she had taken the night of her disappearance. This time it was midday and she was on a mission for Queen Annalisse: to contact the man and his son in Melville and have them wait on standby for the queen’s summons.

  She fingered the magic emerald necklace Queen Annalisse had given Candice to screen her appearance. Candice had been missing on Earth for nearly a year; her sudden appearance would cause a tremendous stir which could compromise her mission for the queen. Besides disguising her, the necklace would also allow her to do minor conjuring trick – tricks that would be necessary to convince Dan Edwards of what, Candice was certain, he would see as a fantastical story – his little sister, Katie, who died forty years before was now a sorceress in another universe and wreaking havoc throughout the Cosmos.

  Karen, from the Citadel, had provided ample U.S. currency for Candice to meet her needs. Still, it would take all the skills she had gained over the course of her law enforcement career to conduct an operation while living on a cash basis and without an identity.

  At a variety store near the park, she purchased a digital camera, a cream-colored bed sheet and some tacks. Back at the park, she sat on a bench near the restrooms and waited until the ladies’ was empty and nobody was in the area around it.

  Water ran down the side of the concrete ramp leading to the bathrooms. Either there was a leaking pipe, or somebody left the water on. Once in, she would turn off any faucet still on in the ladies room; no point in attracting the attention of park maintenance.

  A large oak, with its gray-brown bark, bright olive-colored leaves and unripe acorns, towered over the bench upon which Candice sat. Midnight black crows cawed from the tree’s innumerable appendages, raising a racket. Ambient sound from the nearby freeway created a background hum, punctuated by the roar of powerboats as they sped along the river parallel to the park, wakes trailing behind. The smell of engine oil and gasoline, from the boat launching ramp behind her, mixed with the scent of grass, oak leaf and wildflower, creating a hybrid odor Candice found unpleasant.

  Hard to think, I used to see this park as a quiet, peaceful place. My dear sisters among the Mountain Witches did not have such hideous devices as gas engines, and the trees held singing robins, sparrows, blue jays, and other colorful and musical birds.

  Ten minutes passed without anyone entering or exiting the restroom. Candice dashed inside, turned a corner faucet off, the culprit for the flooding, and surveyed the inside.

  Light from the front windows illuminated the far end, which, thankfully, remained clean and dry, its log wall perfect for her purpose. Candice unwrapped the sheet and tacked it to the wall, adjusted her hair, programmed the camera in front of her for an automatic shot, time-delay set at fifteen seconds and returned to the wall. The camera flashed.

  Candice checked the resulting photo on the screen at the back of the camera. Good, but she could do better, so she shot several more, hastily pulling down the sheet when she heard voices approaching.

  “Hello,” Candice said to the three teen-aged girls who entered.

  “Oh, hello,” one answered. She wore tight pants and a shirt that exposed her navel. The other two were similarly dressed.

  The others gave Candice a quick smile.

  How different children are raised today compared to my day; I would never have been allowed to leave the house dressed this way.

  After she was certain the pictures would do, Candice called a taxi from a payphone in the park.

  “Where to?” the driver, an older man of middle-eastern descent, asked Candice as she settled into the back seat.

  “Uh, the Melville Mall,” Candice stuttered.

  The cabbie looked at her from his rear-view mirror, and Candice knew he was evaluating her sobriety and ability to pay the fare. She would have to get used to this world again and the human interaction that came with it. Simple questions like where did she want to go? couldn’t trip her up.

  Candice took out her wallet, visibly counting out several twenty-dollar bills. The driver relaxed into his seat and they pulled onto the freeway.

  The first stop was an electronics store where she purchased several pay-as-you-go cell phones and prepaid debit cards. The mall had a copy place and Candice printed out half a dozen 2 x 2 inches photos. Next, she used desktop publishing software on one of the shop’s computers to produce an employee identification card. She fumbled with the mouse and cursed. The mountain witches did not have computers and she was out of practice.

  Using the computer’s Internet access, Candice activated the first of her cell phones and entered the number onto her employee ID. The company was Lysse Corporation. No such entity existed, but she needed some sort of ID in order to function in modern society. Using her real driver’s license and other identification were out of the question.

  From the mall, she took a bus downtown and checked into a weekly motel.

  “I’m so sorry, I was carjacked and my purse stolen. If I didn’t have this employee ID around a clasp around my neck, they would have got it too. It is all the identification I have right now.”

  The hotel clerk examined it closely, comparing the picture to Candice. “Okay. Can you pay the week in advance, plus a security deposit of $150.00?”

  “Yes, my husband Western Unioned me enough cash.” Candice removed six hundred dollars from her front pocket and handed it to the man.

  His breath smelled faintly of brandy, causing Candice to wonder if the hotel was too inconspicuous.

  “And a newspaper please.”

  The man removed a copy of the Melville Times from behind the counter and handed it to her without looking up.

  Once inside the hotel room, Candice closed all the curtains and turned the “Do Not Disturb” sign on. She removed the emerald from around her neck and held it in her open palm. Green light shot from its facets. Candice concentrated. The bed turned into a Christmas tree. A moment later, the bureau became a staircase with two children, a boy of eleven and a small girl of four, peering out from behind the rails. The room’s lights dimmed as Candice channeled the Power through the gemstone. The images flickered, going in and out of focus, returning to their natural state, then back to the illusion. She focused and the view stabilized. Her breaths came slowly; a bead of sweat rolled down her face. Candice relaxed and the illusion d
isappeared. She would need more practice. Much more. This had to be perfect.

  Candice collapsed on the bed and spread the paper before her. It would take a few days to get up to speed on current life. She had lost eleven months of Earth time. The fate of the Cosmos hinged upon her ability to complete the task Queen Annalisse of the Upper Mountain Witches had set her to.

  Chapter 12

  The Present

  Earth

  Candice watched the house from inside her van. She had a good idea of their schedule. The mother taught elementary school and was home by 4:00. The boy returned from Melville High School between 3:40 - 3:50. The father returned at 5:00. She needed to get the father alone. Alone and for a long time.

  She turned the key and pulled away from the curb. She had parked the opposite way so she didn’t have to pass the house a second time. Beside her lay several maps. She didn’t need them, but explaining your presence to suspicious neighbors or police was much easier if you could pretend to be lost and had pulled over to check a map.

  Back at her motel room that evening, she logged onto the Internet and went directly to Google Earth. Candice plugged in Dan’s work address, the NOAA station outside Melville, and studied the pictures. In-person surveillance would still be necessary, but the less she drove around, the safer she would be from discovery. Candice’s cover would not hold long should she be pulled over and questioned by the authorities.

  The area behind the station was rocky and spotted with trees. That might be a safe approach, if she decided to corner the man there. She could park elsewhere and advance unseen on foot.

  Candice took the portable cameras from the bag. If she set the cameras up the night before, she could link the feed to her tablet computer. This would allow her to avoid being surprised by any bystanders or coworkers in the area. She needed him isolated. Alone and quiet. He was a good man, stable in mind and character, but what she had to do would shake anyone.