"Marry a Witch, You Marry Her Family"
May. 21st, 2022 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Marry a Witch, You Marry Her Family"
(12/29/-12/30/2014)
I.
At four-thirty, Jeremy Bane was ready to close up shop. He had been in his office all day, except for a twenty-minute lunch at Five Guys around the corner on 2nd Avenue. It was one of those slack periods which recur in the Midnight War several times a year, when the creatures of the night seem to settle down and gruesome murders are sparse. The one chance for a client had been a drab woman who thought she was being spied on by the government, and Bane had treated her politely enough but after a few minutes conversation realized she had not the slightest evidence. Nor was she a likely candidate. She had never posted anything controversial on a message board or associated with radicals of any ideology. He recommended she pretend to act as boring as possible for a few weeks to make any watchers lose interest and she thought that was a fine idea. She would come back and let him know how it worked out.
After she left, the Dire Wolf sighed almost inaudibly. There had been a temptation to go with her, search her apartment for small cameras and microphones, but his instincts told him it would be wasted time. He had been born with an enhanced metabolism that gave him superior reflexes but also left him perpetually restless and in need of stimulus. At fifty, he was still slim and athletic, with just a few grey strands in the black hair and faint lines at the corners of the mouth. His pale grey eyes were still his most striking feature, stabbing out at the world under heavy brows. The day had been spent catching up on his messages and getting in touch with friends he had not seen in a while, so it had not been completely wasted. But he wanted trouble. He had read his FBI file and one analyst said he was a rare profile that thrived in high-stress situations. True enough. The Dire Wolf decided to give it another half hour and take off at five.
As always, he was dressed all in black- slacks, turtleneck, sport jacket. His monotonous wardrobe was practical for sneaking around in the middle of the night but it had also become a sort of uniform widely recognized in the Midnight War.
At one minute to five, he went to the closet for his long overcoat and just as he touched it, the doorbell rang. Bane strode through the tiny waiting room with its coffee table and two chairs and checked out the monitor up in one corner of the room. White male, well-dressed with expensive shoes and tailored suit. Maybe five feet ten, two hundred pounds, dark brown hair and medium brown eyes. Nothing remarkable other than a nose a bit too large. As Bane watched, the man glanced nervously down the short hall toward the lobby three separate times. That clinched it. He opened the door to the hall and said, "Can I help you?"
As soon as he saw Bane, the man tried to shove into the waiting room and get out of sight. Bane stepped aside to let him in and closed the door. "Someone after you?" he asked calmly.
"Ohhh, yes! No doubt of it. You ARE Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, aren't you? I'm in real danger. Just by coming here, I may have doomed myself but I can't take it any more!"
"All right, settle down. Come in here." Bane closed the door to the inner office behind them and heard the lock click. He ushered the visitor to one of the leatherbound chairs in front of the desk and then went around to take his seat behind that desk. "First, your name?"
"Derrick Mancuso. I work for Sunrise Software, I'm an engineer. Mostly I design features the public never notices."
"Good so far. Go on."
"Three years ago I met and married a young woman. Amelia Giles. It was almost overnight, we met by accident and just seemed to hit it off. I proposed within a month and she accepted. We have a house in New Rochelle and have been trying to have children."
Bane waited, then finally said, "But what brings you to me?"
"My wife is mixed up with very dangerous people, including her family. She's not at all what I thought she was. I don't know if you.... Mr Bane, do you believe in the supernatural?"
"Absolutely, I've been dealing with it most of my life."
Mancuso stared at Bane and saw conviction. He went on, "They are all Witches. Not the harmless modern Wicca hobbyists, but genuine no-fooling Witches. Like in the old country. My grandmother raised on stories about La Strega, with hexes and curses and the Evil Eye. The things I've been through in the past few months..." He started shaking visibly. "Maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I just have epilepsy or schizphrenia but I don't think so."
"Tell me more. Tell me everything."
"Amelia's family wants her to have babies with me, with what they call a Mortal. That's why she lured me into marriage. She has been playing a role all this time. And now that no babies have been produced, the family figures it's time to get ride of me so she can try again with another Mortal. I..." He broke off and whispered, "Cordelia....!" in a horrified tone.
As Bane watched, Mancuso staggered to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him. "No. Cordelia, don't!" Black smoke billowed up around him from nowhere, swirling like a tornado. Mancuso screamed for just an instant and was gone from the room. The black smoke dissipated, leaving only a sulfurous residue on the floor.
II.
The Dire Wolf was dumbfounded for once. Something was stinging on his chest. Through his shirt, he touched the protective Eldar talisman he wore and found it hot to the touch. This was black magick. His grey eyes flashed with new intensity as he realized what had just happened. A man had come to him for help and had been taken away...spirited away. Bane was suddenly furious.
Still at his desk where he had leaped to his feet, the Dire Wolf forced himself back down to his seat. How dare ANY enemy kidnap someone from his office...! He took it as a personal insult. Grabbing his laptop from where it hung in a satchel at the side of his desk, Bane flipped it open. With the modifications Trom Girl had made for him, he could get past almost any security without being detected. He typed in DERRICK MANCUSO and SUNRISE SOFTWARE. Instantly, he got a few hits. Mancuso apparently had a good track record and had won a few awards. Bane dug deeper, pulled up a picture and saw it matched the man who had been in his office. Another try and he got a home address. 1138 Brickyard Road in New Rochelle. He erased his searches and put the computer away.
Getting up, Bane threaded the .38 Colt in its detachable holster behind his left hip. He was already wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes and he never went anywhere without the matched silver daggers sheathed to his forearms. He grabbed his long coat from the closet and yanked it on, along with thin leather gloves from its pockets. Bane snapped off the office lights just as the doorbell rang again. Now he was all keyed up and alert. He stepped into the waiting room and stared up at the monitor. A young woman, not more than twenty-five, pale blonde hair and blue eyes, quite pretty. She was wearing a down-filled blue jacket and had a white scarf around her neck, and she looked as frightened as Mancuso had been.
Turning the camera mounted up in the hall by the exit door, Bane could spot no one else out there. He frowned and tugged the hilts of the silver daggers to make sure they were ready to be drawn. Suspicious as a real wolf sniffing the air, he opened the hall door. "Yes?"
"Mr Bane? This is the Dire Wolf Agency, isn't it? Please, may I come in?" Her crystal eyes darted involuntarily to the lobby and back. "Please."
"This far," he said and admitted her to the waiting room but not the inner office. He had been through some bad experiences inviting children of the night over threshholds. Bane gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs and she obeyed with a puzzled expression. He remained standing, touched the Eldar talisman on his chest and found it had cooled off.
"I don't understand..." she began, then sat up straight. "Was my husband here just now? Derrick Mancuso?"
Still boiling with cold anger, Bane said, "Why do you ask?"
"Well. Because I'm looking for him. Was he here?" She tilted her head, gazing up at him with those big turquoise eyes and it would have worked on most men but Bane was not receptive.
"Do me a favor first," he said, slowly sliding one of the daggers from under his sleeve. Their silver blades had been ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin, making them ensalir, strong against evil of any sort. He held the dagger toward her and was going to ask her to place her hand upon the blade. But as soon as the weapon was in sight, the blonde had shrunk back away from it, wheezing and gasping as if unable to breathe. Bane sheathed the dagger again.
"I thought so," he said. "You'd find it easier to pick up a red-hot coal, wouldn't you, Amelia?"
She managed to catch her breath. "You know about us? Derrick told you?"
"I've fought Witches before. I smashed Red Sect when I was still a kid." He loomed menacingly over the woman. "So what does your family plan to do with your husband? The next sacrifice holiday is months away."
Unexpectedly, she began crying. Not faked or praciced, but genuine weeping until her nose was running. A Witch crying? This was something new. He waited and eventually she began to talk, "You don't understand. I've never been like my family. Not deep down. They always said I had the soft heart of a Mortal. That's why I was chosen to breed."
"They want half-Witch half-Mortal children?"
"Yes. I thought you knew about us. We are the Calveron, 'the ones apart.' Back in the Darthan Age, we were just Human sorcerers but as millenia passed, our use of magick changed us. We are different inside. We live to be very old, but bearing children is difficult and uncertain. Every century, our numbers dwindle."
Bane said, "Why don't you breed with Humans, Mortals as you call them? Raise them as your own?"
"Once we could. But we have grown too far apart. My mother is the Matriarch and she decided it was for me to try. Because of the way I look, I would be able to interest Mortals and lead them to marriage. Most of us look our age. Three hundred, four hundred years old, we are not enticing for the most part."
The Dire Wolf felt no sympathy for her. He still stood with arms folded, ready to draw the silver daggers instantly. "So you seduced Derrick Mancuso, got him to fall for you, led him to marriage. It could not have been a church wedding."
She had started to sniffle again. "Of course not. We got married in City Hall with his brother as a witness."
"And it was all a lie. You were using him the way farmers use a bull to breed with a cow. Now that children haven't started popping out, his usefulness is over. Right?"
"No!" She was crying again. "You don't understand. No one believes me. Somehow, I DID fall in love with him. I can't explain it, but I'm happy with him. I want the two of us to be together and for my family to just leave us alone. Why doesn't anyone understand something so simple?"
III.
Bane wasn't sure why he believed her. He had been trained by experts to spot deception and he saw none here. Just the actual tears rolling out by themselves were evidence. Some of the edge left his voice. "Amelia. Listen to me."
As she stared up, wiping her eyes so her mascara smeared, she said, "Yes?"
"Your husband was here. He came to me. A cloud of black smoke took him and he said 'No, Cordelia, don't.'"
"That's my mother! Oh Dread Draldros..."
"Don't call on that name here," Bane said. "Listen. Stay in that chair. I will be back out in two minutes and we will go rescue Derrick. I swear it!"
"I believe you. Hurry, please!"
The Dire Wolf went back into his office, flicking on the lights and locking the door behind him. Moving quickly,he swung the bookcase in a half-circle on its hidden casters to reveal a pit in the floor. From a black laquered trunk, he tugged out a heavy waist-length jacket. He did not take time to put on the full field suit, but he wanted the jacket because it had an inner layer of the Trom armor and its own Eldar talisman fastened inside the high military collar.
There was one other item he wanted. A soft chamois bag that held a double handful of glittering golden powder. This was all that was left the Cyrinkyl 'star-snow' that Kenneth Dred had left him so long ago. He did not know if he ever obtain more, but if he ever needed the sacred Cyrinkyl, it was now. He tucked the bag inside his jacket and slid the bookcase back in place. That was when he heard the scream from the waiting room that only lasted a few seconds before being cut off. The Dire Wolf rushed to open the door and wasn't surprised to find Amelia gone. On the thin beige carpeting was black soot where her feet had rested.
"Cordelia..." he growled. Reaching behind him, he turned off the office lights and closed the door, then went out into the hall, locking the front door behind him. He headed through the lobby with a determined stride and out into the night. This time of year, it was dark right around five-thirty and a cold wind was blowing. Part of his mind reminded him that this could of course be a trap. Maybe Amelia was just an exceptionally skilled actress, maybe Derrick was in on it and had played victim to lure him in as well. It didn't matter. He was on the hunt now. Swinging left, he sprinted down to 40th Street and got his car from the IMPERIAL GARAGE. At the moment, he was driving a silver Toyota Matrix. The green and blue lights blinked to show it had not been touched. Bane headed north, to Westchester County.
As he drove through the night just over the speed limit, he searched his memory for what he had learned of the Calveron. It wasn't much. They weren't like most Human warlocks, who either used artifacts or learned specific spells with great effort. The Calveron seemed to be more like the Eldarin or Darthim. They tapped into gralic force at will to produce effects. They kept a low profile and were seldom encountered. Many Midnight War scholars felt they were extinct. Well, it seemed not to be the case.
Bane got to New Rochelle and found Brickyard Road. No sign of a brickyard, though, that was probably ancient history. Just miles of nice neat lawns and nearly identical houses in rows. There was the address he was looking for. He kept going another half-mile, turned right and parked behind a line of cars. The Christmas decorations were in full garish bloom. His car was next to an inflatable Santa Claus lit from within, bobbing in the wind. Walking quickly down the sidewalk, he saw the house he was looking for. The windows were dark, not even the porchlight was on. There was no car in the short driveway. The Dire Wolf walked up to the front door as if he owned the house, drew back his elbow and smacked his palm just above the doorknob. The lock snapped with a faint clink and he went in. This had to be quick.
Taking a pencil flash from his jacket, Bane searched rapidly. It did not take too long. In a drawer of a cabinet next to the kitchen table was a mass of bills, envelopes, receipts and stamps. This was evidently where Derrick and Amelia handled their mail. Among the papers, he found a ripped legal envelope with a return address headed CORDELIA GILES. Bane knew the town listed, Winslow Corners, was about ten minutes away from where he was standing. Headlights pulled up to the driveway and he raced through the house, out the back door, and was a block away before the police got through the front. That he might be setting off a silent alarm when he broken in had occured to him. Hard to spot in his black outfit in the winter night, the Dire Wolf got to his car and pulled away.
On his way to Winslow Corners, he pulled into a convenience mart to fill the tank and to check the tires and wipe the windows. It seemed obsessive that he did this so often, but when chases and running firefights started, there wouldn't be time. Finally, he drove past an elegant two-story home on a slight elevation, separated from neighbors by hedges surrounding a huge yard, with an attached garage and a patio out back. There were three cars in sight, and apparently every light in the structure was on. As he went by, he saw an elderly man struggle out of a Chrysler town car and pause for breath before starting toward the door.
Again, he parked a half-mile away and stalked back through the night. The houses were set well apart out here. Decades of Kumundu training and pointers from his old partner Shiro Mitsuru let him approach like a shadow. He found an angle from which he would not be spotted and close. There was a sentry about fifty feet from the back of the house, staring out into the night. Bane wished he had his anesthetic dart gun with him, this would be a perfect opportunity to drop the guard silently and get in the house. As he approached slowly, moving only when the sentry was looking the other way, the Dire Wolf felt the Eldar talisman under his shirt grow warm. This was definitely the place.
He had neared the house as much as he was likely to get without being spotted. A fourth car pulled up to park almost on the lawn near the side toward him. A couple got out and hurried around to the front door, muttering about the cold. The sentry had watched them without reacting and now he went back to his post. Bane reached to a pocket at the rear of his field jacket and drew out a round metal device the size of an egg. He twisted a ring set in one end and held it. Now he had to wait. Long minutes crawled by before the sentry turned and started walking in the other direction, looking from side to side. As soon as the man was facing the other way, the Dire Wolf lobbed the smoke grenade so it rolled to a stop right under the latest car to arrive.
The throw was better than he had hoped. He would have been happy if the grenade had landed anywhere near the car but it actually came to a halt directly underneath and detonated with a sharp cracking retort. Thick white smoke poured out of it, much more than could seemingly be produced by such a small object. A cloud of the smoke rolled out to engulf the car completely. Bane only carried two of the smoke grenades and had seldom found opportunity to use them, so he was unreasonably pleased now. Of course, the sentry had spun around and ran toward the scene. A few seconds later, faces appeared at the window and people began hobbling outside. Someone yelled for a fire extinguisher.
As soon as the guard had gone past, Bane was hurtling toward the back door, finding it unlocked and diving through. He was in a breakfast nook. There was a round table with wicker chairs and a folded newspaper someone had left. He moved through, down a hallway with stairs to his left that went up and an open doorway to his right from which red light glimmered. An elderly man emerged from that doorway and limped toward the front door. "Coming, coming!" he yelled.
Bane cautiously went through that door and down steep wooden stairs. Here was a furnished basement with a high ceiling, wood paneled walls and a dozen comfortable chairs arranged to face where Derrick and Amelia Mancuso were dangling upside down by their heels, their heads just inches above lit candles.
IV.
In a few seconds, the Dire Wolf leaped down the remaining steps, knocked over the candles and got them out. The smell of burning hair was repugnant. The two were tied by their ankles with thin silk cords that had cut into their skin. Holding Amelia around the waist, he sliced through the cord with a single swipe of one dagger and lowered her to the cold cement floor. He did the same for Derrick, and found that they had not been badly burnt. Yet. The Witches would have slowly lowered them closer to the candles for a slow and agonizing death. Amelia was moaning and not quite conscious. Derrick had passed out from the blood going to his head but he was coming around.
"Bane?" he asked after a moment. "You came for us somehow? Thank God. Did you see what they were going to do to us? They're monsters."
"Well, marry a Witch and you marry her family," the Dire Wolf answered. "Looks like Amelia is starting to come out of it. And here comes your in-laws."
As he spoke, a half dozen old men and women came carefully down the stairs, one step at a time, holding the bannister firmly. They wore suits and ties, evening dresses and even a gown on one dowager. Despite their physical frailty, there was nothing about them to inspire sympathy. Cruelty and decadence lined their faces deeply. When they saw Derrick and Amelia half sitting up on the floor, an angry muttering ran among them. Then they saw a gaunt man all in black, glaring at them with icy grey eyes, and for the first time some of their arrogance left them.
There was something deadly about the man, even though he was just standing there with folded arms.
The last to descend the stairs was tiny, not quite five feet tall, dry and hard like a withered piece of wood. She wore a white gown with bell sleeves and a scarf draped over one shoulder. Although she looked to be well into old age, her face was heavily made up. Long false eyelashes, black lipstick, plucked and arched eyebrows, all set on a wrinkled background, gave a grotesque appearance. The fingers were gnarled and the nails long as talons.
"Don't tell me," said Bane. "You must be the infamous Cordelia. Right?"
The Matriarch of the coven did not answer with words. A barely visible wave of hatred swept around her, swirled and picked up speed and then crashed full on the Dire Wolf. He did not flinch. The Eldar talismans under his shirt and inside his collar flared up painfully hot but he himself was not harmed. A second bolt of malice had no more effect, but Cordelia weakened at the knees and had to be supported by one of her gathering.
"He is protected somehow," the Matriarch hissed. "Strong magick but I will break it yet."
"Allow me, madame," said the sentry. He was a big guy with a bull neck and close-cropped blonde hair. "It's what you pay me for." He stepped past her and started to raise the automatic in his right hand. Before it reached waist level, there was a blast and a bullet thumped home in the center of his chest. Bane had drawn and fired so quickly it looked like a trick. The guard fell to his knees without a word and slumped to the cement at the base of the stairs. The automatic clattered from his hand. Bane holstered his gun again.
"That firearm will not harm us," said one of the Witches. She hobbled forward and gestured and a black snake three feet long seemed to slide from her sleeve to slither like lightning across the cold floor. As it got within reach, Bane's arm whipped in a figure eight move and the snake fell in three thrashing segments. The silver dagger almost shone with cold pure light in the basement. As the snake died, the Witch who animated it fell lifeless also.
"Ensalir!" said one of the old men. "I thought there was none left in the world." He stepped forward slowly, leaning on a thick cane carved of oak with a dragon head for a grip. "No matter. You shall not leave our meeting place with your life."
"No, Dominik. Let us parley with him," piped in one of the elders. "We can offer him wealth, young women, drugs, whatever he desires."
"What he desires is our deaths!" said Dominik. "Can't you see that in his face?" With each step he took, the old man straightened and grew more steady. He did not look any younger but he moved with the smoothness and confidence of a man in his prime. As he neared Bane, Dominik raised the cane in one hand and swung it up and back behind his head, ready to bring it down like a cudgel. In that instant, he was wide open and the Dire Wolf lunged in like a fencer. The silver dagger darted in and out, piercing the man's chest and leaving a narrow wound that went right to the heart.
"No..." gasped Dominik as he fell backwards, and the cane dropped from his clawed fingers. His eyes remained open, staring upward. Cordelia stepped back, almost falling herself as she avoided his body dropping at her feet.
The three remaining Witches started to back up the stairs but Cordelia stopped them with a look. "There is no fleeing for us, fools. Mortals have been our prey and our playthings for ages. I shall end this. Dread Draldros, hear me. Blood and fire I offer thee, my lord Draldros.."
"Be still thy lips," said Amelia, who had gotten to her feet and was standing next to Derrick. "Empty be thy words, let not the Dread One hear thee."
Cordelia gasped. "You do not dare defy me, child."
"Watch me! For my love, I would defy worse than you. With these two men to draw strength from, I am more than your match. Let thy heart grow still, your limbs heavy, your spirit flee. Die, Cordelia!"
The Matriarch reeled back, seizing the arm of one of her followers. "Hear me, Lord of Fanedral! Strike down this rebel and-"
"Die, Cordelia! Die as you deserve!" shouted Amelia in a voice that had a hollow echo to it.
And as the ancient Witch sank to the cement, the three remaing elders went with her. Six withered forms were sprawled in that cellar, breathing their last and beginning to crumble. Without the gralic force binding them, their bodies fell apart into masses of dried tissue that looked like sawdust. The expensive clothes flattened out. Only the Mortal sentry remained intact.
Amelia was breathing heavily, and she herself swayed unsteadily. Suddenly she turned and fell against Derrick, who held her in an embrace.
"Well, that was unexpected," Bane said, cleaning his bloodied dagger on a gown and sheathing it. "Nice work, Amelia. I didn't know you were capable of that."
"I had been living in fear. I was under my mother's thumb for centuries. But then Derrick dared go to you, knowing he might be killed. And you stood up to the coven. I knew I could do the same." She gazed down at the empty clothing scattered on the floor. "It's over now. I feel free."
The Dire Wolf faced the couple. They looked so young to him, almost like kids. "I think we should get out of here. There's only one body left for the police to find, but all these Witches are going to be reported as missing sooner or later, and the cops will be here. What about you two?"
Derrick Mancuso was holding Amelia tight. "I think I understand better what was going on the past few years. I guess we have the rest of our lives to do what WE want now."
"I have decided I will foreswear my powers," said Amelia. "I want a normal life. No more magic for me."
Bane raised one eyebrow dubiously. "Never?"
"Well... hardly ever," she answered with a faint hint of a smile.
2/12/2014
(12/29/-12/30/2014)
I.
At four-thirty, Jeremy Bane was ready to close up shop. He had been in his office all day, except for a twenty-minute lunch at Five Guys around the corner on 2nd Avenue. It was one of those slack periods which recur in the Midnight War several times a year, when the creatures of the night seem to settle down and gruesome murders are sparse. The one chance for a client had been a drab woman who thought she was being spied on by the government, and Bane had treated her politely enough but after a few minutes conversation realized she had not the slightest evidence. Nor was she a likely candidate. She had never posted anything controversial on a message board or associated with radicals of any ideology. He recommended she pretend to act as boring as possible for a few weeks to make any watchers lose interest and she thought that was a fine idea. She would come back and let him know how it worked out.
After she left, the Dire Wolf sighed almost inaudibly. There had been a temptation to go with her, search her apartment for small cameras and microphones, but his instincts told him it would be wasted time. He had been born with an enhanced metabolism that gave him superior reflexes but also left him perpetually restless and in need of stimulus. At fifty, he was still slim and athletic, with just a few grey strands in the black hair and faint lines at the corners of the mouth. His pale grey eyes were still his most striking feature, stabbing out at the world under heavy brows. The day had been spent catching up on his messages and getting in touch with friends he had not seen in a while, so it had not been completely wasted. But he wanted trouble. He had read his FBI file and one analyst said he was a rare profile that thrived in high-stress situations. True enough. The Dire Wolf decided to give it another half hour and take off at five.
As always, he was dressed all in black- slacks, turtleneck, sport jacket. His monotonous wardrobe was practical for sneaking around in the middle of the night but it had also become a sort of uniform widely recognized in the Midnight War.
At one minute to five, he went to the closet for his long overcoat and just as he touched it, the doorbell rang. Bane strode through the tiny waiting room with its coffee table and two chairs and checked out the monitor up in one corner of the room. White male, well-dressed with expensive shoes and tailored suit. Maybe five feet ten, two hundred pounds, dark brown hair and medium brown eyes. Nothing remarkable other than a nose a bit too large. As Bane watched, the man glanced nervously down the short hall toward the lobby three separate times. That clinched it. He opened the door to the hall and said, "Can I help you?"
As soon as he saw Bane, the man tried to shove into the waiting room and get out of sight. Bane stepped aside to let him in and closed the door. "Someone after you?" he asked calmly.
"Ohhh, yes! No doubt of it. You ARE Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, aren't you? I'm in real danger. Just by coming here, I may have doomed myself but I can't take it any more!"
"All right, settle down. Come in here." Bane closed the door to the inner office behind them and heard the lock click. He ushered the visitor to one of the leatherbound chairs in front of the desk and then went around to take his seat behind that desk. "First, your name?"
"Derrick Mancuso. I work for Sunrise Software, I'm an engineer. Mostly I design features the public never notices."
"Good so far. Go on."
"Three years ago I met and married a young woman. Amelia Giles. It was almost overnight, we met by accident and just seemed to hit it off. I proposed within a month and she accepted. We have a house in New Rochelle and have been trying to have children."
Bane waited, then finally said, "But what brings you to me?"
"My wife is mixed up with very dangerous people, including her family. She's not at all what I thought she was. I don't know if you.... Mr Bane, do you believe in the supernatural?"
"Absolutely, I've been dealing with it most of my life."
Mancuso stared at Bane and saw conviction. He went on, "They are all Witches. Not the harmless modern Wicca hobbyists, but genuine no-fooling Witches. Like in the old country. My grandmother raised on stories about La Strega, with hexes and curses and the Evil Eye. The things I've been through in the past few months..." He started shaking visibly. "Maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I just have epilepsy or schizphrenia but I don't think so."
"Tell me more. Tell me everything."
"Amelia's family wants her to have babies with me, with what they call a Mortal. That's why she lured me into marriage. She has been playing a role all this time. And now that no babies have been produced, the family figures it's time to get ride of me so she can try again with another Mortal. I..." He broke off and whispered, "Cordelia....!" in a horrified tone.
As Bane watched, Mancuso staggered to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him. "No. Cordelia, don't!" Black smoke billowed up around him from nowhere, swirling like a tornado. Mancuso screamed for just an instant and was gone from the room. The black smoke dissipated, leaving only a sulfurous residue on the floor.
II.
The Dire Wolf was dumbfounded for once. Something was stinging on his chest. Through his shirt, he touched the protective Eldar talisman he wore and found it hot to the touch. This was black magick. His grey eyes flashed with new intensity as he realized what had just happened. A man had come to him for help and had been taken away...spirited away. Bane was suddenly furious.
Still at his desk where he had leaped to his feet, the Dire Wolf forced himself back down to his seat. How dare ANY enemy kidnap someone from his office...! He took it as a personal insult. Grabbing his laptop from where it hung in a satchel at the side of his desk, Bane flipped it open. With the modifications Trom Girl had made for him, he could get past almost any security without being detected. He typed in DERRICK MANCUSO and SUNRISE SOFTWARE. Instantly, he got a few hits. Mancuso apparently had a good track record and had won a few awards. Bane dug deeper, pulled up a picture and saw it matched the man who had been in his office. Another try and he got a home address. 1138 Brickyard Road in New Rochelle. He erased his searches and put the computer away.
Getting up, Bane threaded the .38 Colt in its detachable holster behind his left hip. He was already wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes and he never went anywhere without the matched silver daggers sheathed to his forearms. He grabbed his long coat from the closet and yanked it on, along with thin leather gloves from its pockets. Bane snapped off the office lights just as the doorbell rang again. Now he was all keyed up and alert. He stepped into the waiting room and stared up at the monitor. A young woman, not more than twenty-five, pale blonde hair and blue eyes, quite pretty. She was wearing a down-filled blue jacket and had a white scarf around her neck, and she looked as frightened as Mancuso had been.
Turning the camera mounted up in the hall by the exit door, Bane could spot no one else out there. He frowned and tugged the hilts of the silver daggers to make sure they were ready to be drawn. Suspicious as a real wolf sniffing the air, he opened the hall door. "Yes?"
"Mr Bane? This is the Dire Wolf Agency, isn't it? Please, may I come in?" Her crystal eyes darted involuntarily to the lobby and back. "Please."
"This far," he said and admitted her to the waiting room but not the inner office. He had been through some bad experiences inviting children of the night over threshholds. Bane gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs and she obeyed with a puzzled expression. He remained standing, touched the Eldar talisman on his chest and found it had cooled off.
"I don't understand..." she began, then sat up straight. "Was my husband here just now? Derrick Mancuso?"
Still boiling with cold anger, Bane said, "Why do you ask?"
"Well. Because I'm looking for him. Was he here?" She tilted her head, gazing up at him with those big turquoise eyes and it would have worked on most men but Bane was not receptive.
"Do me a favor first," he said, slowly sliding one of the daggers from under his sleeve. Their silver blades had been ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin, making them ensalir, strong against evil of any sort. He held the dagger toward her and was going to ask her to place her hand upon the blade. But as soon as the weapon was in sight, the blonde had shrunk back away from it, wheezing and gasping as if unable to breathe. Bane sheathed the dagger again.
"I thought so," he said. "You'd find it easier to pick up a red-hot coal, wouldn't you, Amelia?"
She managed to catch her breath. "You know about us? Derrick told you?"
"I've fought Witches before. I smashed Red Sect when I was still a kid." He loomed menacingly over the woman. "So what does your family plan to do with your husband? The next sacrifice holiday is months away."
Unexpectedly, she began crying. Not faked or praciced, but genuine weeping until her nose was running. A Witch crying? This was something new. He waited and eventually she began to talk, "You don't understand. I've never been like my family. Not deep down. They always said I had the soft heart of a Mortal. That's why I was chosen to breed."
"They want half-Witch half-Mortal children?"
"Yes. I thought you knew about us. We are the Calveron, 'the ones apart.' Back in the Darthan Age, we were just Human sorcerers but as millenia passed, our use of magick changed us. We are different inside. We live to be very old, but bearing children is difficult and uncertain. Every century, our numbers dwindle."
Bane said, "Why don't you breed with Humans, Mortals as you call them? Raise them as your own?"
"Once we could. But we have grown too far apart. My mother is the Matriarch and she decided it was for me to try. Because of the way I look, I would be able to interest Mortals and lead them to marriage. Most of us look our age. Three hundred, four hundred years old, we are not enticing for the most part."
The Dire Wolf felt no sympathy for her. He still stood with arms folded, ready to draw the silver daggers instantly. "So you seduced Derrick Mancuso, got him to fall for you, led him to marriage. It could not have been a church wedding."
She had started to sniffle again. "Of course not. We got married in City Hall with his brother as a witness."
"And it was all a lie. You were using him the way farmers use a bull to breed with a cow. Now that children haven't started popping out, his usefulness is over. Right?"
"No!" She was crying again. "You don't understand. No one believes me. Somehow, I DID fall in love with him. I can't explain it, but I'm happy with him. I want the two of us to be together and for my family to just leave us alone. Why doesn't anyone understand something so simple?"
III.
Bane wasn't sure why he believed her. He had been trained by experts to spot deception and he saw none here. Just the actual tears rolling out by themselves were evidence. Some of the edge left his voice. "Amelia. Listen to me."
As she stared up, wiping her eyes so her mascara smeared, she said, "Yes?"
"Your husband was here. He came to me. A cloud of black smoke took him and he said 'No, Cordelia, don't.'"
"That's my mother! Oh Dread Draldros..."
"Don't call on that name here," Bane said. "Listen. Stay in that chair. I will be back out in two minutes and we will go rescue Derrick. I swear it!"
"I believe you. Hurry, please!"
The Dire Wolf went back into his office, flicking on the lights and locking the door behind him. Moving quickly,he swung the bookcase in a half-circle on its hidden casters to reveal a pit in the floor. From a black laquered trunk, he tugged out a heavy waist-length jacket. He did not take time to put on the full field suit, but he wanted the jacket because it had an inner layer of the Trom armor and its own Eldar talisman fastened inside the high military collar.
There was one other item he wanted. A soft chamois bag that held a double handful of glittering golden powder. This was all that was left the Cyrinkyl 'star-snow' that Kenneth Dred had left him so long ago. He did not know if he ever obtain more, but if he ever needed the sacred Cyrinkyl, it was now. He tucked the bag inside his jacket and slid the bookcase back in place. That was when he heard the scream from the waiting room that only lasted a few seconds before being cut off. The Dire Wolf rushed to open the door and wasn't surprised to find Amelia gone. On the thin beige carpeting was black soot where her feet had rested.
"Cordelia..." he growled. Reaching behind him, he turned off the office lights and closed the door, then went out into the hall, locking the front door behind him. He headed through the lobby with a determined stride and out into the night. This time of year, it was dark right around five-thirty and a cold wind was blowing. Part of his mind reminded him that this could of course be a trap. Maybe Amelia was just an exceptionally skilled actress, maybe Derrick was in on it and had played victim to lure him in as well. It didn't matter. He was on the hunt now. Swinging left, he sprinted down to 40th Street and got his car from the IMPERIAL GARAGE. At the moment, he was driving a silver Toyota Matrix. The green and blue lights blinked to show it had not been touched. Bane headed north, to Westchester County.
As he drove through the night just over the speed limit, he searched his memory for what he had learned of the Calveron. It wasn't much. They weren't like most Human warlocks, who either used artifacts or learned specific spells with great effort. The Calveron seemed to be more like the Eldarin or Darthim. They tapped into gralic force at will to produce effects. They kept a low profile and were seldom encountered. Many Midnight War scholars felt they were extinct. Well, it seemed not to be the case.
Bane got to New Rochelle and found Brickyard Road. No sign of a brickyard, though, that was probably ancient history. Just miles of nice neat lawns and nearly identical houses in rows. There was the address he was looking for. He kept going another half-mile, turned right and parked behind a line of cars. The Christmas decorations were in full garish bloom. His car was next to an inflatable Santa Claus lit from within, bobbing in the wind. Walking quickly down the sidewalk, he saw the house he was looking for. The windows were dark, not even the porchlight was on. There was no car in the short driveway. The Dire Wolf walked up to the front door as if he owned the house, drew back his elbow and smacked his palm just above the doorknob. The lock snapped with a faint clink and he went in. This had to be quick.
Taking a pencil flash from his jacket, Bane searched rapidly. It did not take too long. In a drawer of a cabinet next to the kitchen table was a mass of bills, envelopes, receipts and stamps. This was evidently where Derrick and Amelia handled their mail. Among the papers, he found a ripped legal envelope with a return address headed CORDELIA GILES. Bane knew the town listed, Winslow Corners, was about ten minutes away from where he was standing. Headlights pulled up to the driveway and he raced through the house, out the back door, and was a block away before the police got through the front. That he might be setting off a silent alarm when he broken in had occured to him. Hard to spot in his black outfit in the winter night, the Dire Wolf got to his car and pulled away.
On his way to Winslow Corners, he pulled into a convenience mart to fill the tank and to check the tires and wipe the windows. It seemed obsessive that he did this so often, but when chases and running firefights started, there wouldn't be time. Finally, he drove past an elegant two-story home on a slight elevation, separated from neighbors by hedges surrounding a huge yard, with an attached garage and a patio out back. There were three cars in sight, and apparently every light in the structure was on. As he went by, he saw an elderly man struggle out of a Chrysler town car and pause for breath before starting toward the door.
Again, he parked a half-mile away and stalked back through the night. The houses were set well apart out here. Decades of Kumundu training and pointers from his old partner Shiro Mitsuru let him approach like a shadow. He found an angle from which he would not be spotted and close. There was a sentry about fifty feet from the back of the house, staring out into the night. Bane wished he had his anesthetic dart gun with him, this would be a perfect opportunity to drop the guard silently and get in the house. As he approached slowly, moving only when the sentry was looking the other way, the Dire Wolf felt the Eldar talisman under his shirt grow warm. This was definitely the place.
He had neared the house as much as he was likely to get without being spotted. A fourth car pulled up to park almost on the lawn near the side toward him. A couple got out and hurried around to the front door, muttering about the cold. The sentry had watched them without reacting and now he went back to his post. Bane reached to a pocket at the rear of his field jacket and drew out a round metal device the size of an egg. He twisted a ring set in one end and held it. Now he had to wait. Long minutes crawled by before the sentry turned and started walking in the other direction, looking from side to side. As soon as the man was facing the other way, the Dire Wolf lobbed the smoke grenade so it rolled to a stop right under the latest car to arrive.
The throw was better than he had hoped. He would have been happy if the grenade had landed anywhere near the car but it actually came to a halt directly underneath and detonated with a sharp cracking retort. Thick white smoke poured out of it, much more than could seemingly be produced by such a small object. A cloud of the smoke rolled out to engulf the car completely. Bane only carried two of the smoke grenades and had seldom found opportunity to use them, so he was unreasonably pleased now. Of course, the sentry had spun around and ran toward the scene. A few seconds later, faces appeared at the window and people began hobbling outside. Someone yelled for a fire extinguisher.
As soon as the guard had gone past, Bane was hurtling toward the back door, finding it unlocked and diving through. He was in a breakfast nook. There was a round table with wicker chairs and a folded newspaper someone had left. He moved through, down a hallway with stairs to his left that went up and an open doorway to his right from which red light glimmered. An elderly man emerged from that doorway and limped toward the front door. "Coming, coming!" he yelled.
Bane cautiously went through that door and down steep wooden stairs. Here was a furnished basement with a high ceiling, wood paneled walls and a dozen comfortable chairs arranged to face where Derrick and Amelia Mancuso were dangling upside down by their heels, their heads just inches above lit candles.
IV.
In a few seconds, the Dire Wolf leaped down the remaining steps, knocked over the candles and got them out. The smell of burning hair was repugnant. The two were tied by their ankles with thin silk cords that had cut into their skin. Holding Amelia around the waist, he sliced through the cord with a single swipe of one dagger and lowered her to the cold cement floor. He did the same for Derrick, and found that they had not been badly burnt. Yet. The Witches would have slowly lowered them closer to the candles for a slow and agonizing death. Amelia was moaning and not quite conscious. Derrick had passed out from the blood going to his head but he was coming around.
"Bane?" he asked after a moment. "You came for us somehow? Thank God. Did you see what they were going to do to us? They're monsters."
"Well, marry a Witch and you marry her family," the Dire Wolf answered. "Looks like Amelia is starting to come out of it. And here comes your in-laws."
As he spoke, a half dozen old men and women came carefully down the stairs, one step at a time, holding the bannister firmly. They wore suits and ties, evening dresses and even a gown on one dowager. Despite their physical frailty, there was nothing about them to inspire sympathy. Cruelty and decadence lined their faces deeply. When they saw Derrick and Amelia half sitting up on the floor, an angry muttering ran among them. Then they saw a gaunt man all in black, glaring at them with icy grey eyes, and for the first time some of their arrogance left them.
There was something deadly about the man, even though he was just standing there with folded arms.
The last to descend the stairs was tiny, not quite five feet tall, dry and hard like a withered piece of wood. She wore a white gown with bell sleeves and a scarf draped over one shoulder. Although she looked to be well into old age, her face was heavily made up. Long false eyelashes, black lipstick, plucked and arched eyebrows, all set on a wrinkled background, gave a grotesque appearance. The fingers were gnarled and the nails long as talons.
"Don't tell me," said Bane. "You must be the infamous Cordelia. Right?"
The Matriarch of the coven did not answer with words. A barely visible wave of hatred swept around her, swirled and picked up speed and then crashed full on the Dire Wolf. He did not flinch. The Eldar talismans under his shirt and inside his collar flared up painfully hot but he himself was not harmed. A second bolt of malice had no more effect, but Cordelia weakened at the knees and had to be supported by one of her gathering.
"He is protected somehow," the Matriarch hissed. "Strong magick but I will break it yet."
"Allow me, madame," said the sentry. He was a big guy with a bull neck and close-cropped blonde hair. "It's what you pay me for." He stepped past her and started to raise the automatic in his right hand. Before it reached waist level, there was a blast and a bullet thumped home in the center of his chest. Bane had drawn and fired so quickly it looked like a trick. The guard fell to his knees without a word and slumped to the cement at the base of the stairs. The automatic clattered from his hand. Bane holstered his gun again.
"That firearm will not harm us," said one of the Witches. She hobbled forward and gestured and a black snake three feet long seemed to slide from her sleeve to slither like lightning across the cold floor. As it got within reach, Bane's arm whipped in a figure eight move and the snake fell in three thrashing segments. The silver dagger almost shone with cold pure light in the basement. As the snake died, the Witch who animated it fell lifeless also.
"Ensalir!" said one of the old men. "I thought there was none left in the world." He stepped forward slowly, leaning on a thick cane carved of oak with a dragon head for a grip. "No matter. You shall not leave our meeting place with your life."
"No, Dominik. Let us parley with him," piped in one of the elders. "We can offer him wealth, young women, drugs, whatever he desires."
"What he desires is our deaths!" said Dominik. "Can't you see that in his face?" With each step he took, the old man straightened and grew more steady. He did not look any younger but he moved with the smoothness and confidence of a man in his prime. As he neared Bane, Dominik raised the cane in one hand and swung it up and back behind his head, ready to bring it down like a cudgel. In that instant, he was wide open and the Dire Wolf lunged in like a fencer. The silver dagger darted in and out, piercing the man's chest and leaving a narrow wound that went right to the heart.
"No..." gasped Dominik as he fell backwards, and the cane dropped from his clawed fingers. His eyes remained open, staring upward. Cordelia stepped back, almost falling herself as she avoided his body dropping at her feet.
The three remaining Witches started to back up the stairs but Cordelia stopped them with a look. "There is no fleeing for us, fools. Mortals have been our prey and our playthings for ages. I shall end this. Dread Draldros, hear me. Blood and fire I offer thee, my lord Draldros.."
"Be still thy lips," said Amelia, who had gotten to her feet and was standing next to Derrick. "Empty be thy words, let not the Dread One hear thee."
Cordelia gasped. "You do not dare defy me, child."
"Watch me! For my love, I would defy worse than you. With these two men to draw strength from, I am more than your match. Let thy heart grow still, your limbs heavy, your spirit flee. Die, Cordelia!"
The Matriarch reeled back, seizing the arm of one of her followers. "Hear me, Lord of Fanedral! Strike down this rebel and-"
"Die, Cordelia! Die as you deserve!" shouted Amelia in a voice that had a hollow echo to it.
And as the ancient Witch sank to the cement, the three remaing elders went with her. Six withered forms were sprawled in that cellar, breathing their last and beginning to crumble. Without the gralic force binding them, their bodies fell apart into masses of dried tissue that looked like sawdust. The expensive clothes flattened out. Only the Mortal sentry remained intact.
Amelia was breathing heavily, and she herself swayed unsteadily. Suddenly she turned and fell against Derrick, who held her in an embrace.
"Well, that was unexpected," Bane said, cleaning his bloodied dagger on a gown and sheathing it. "Nice work, Amelia. I didn't know you were capable of that."
"I had been living in fear. I was under my mother's thumb for centuries. But then Derrick dared go to you, knowing he might be killed. And you stood up to the coven. I knew I could do the same." She gazed down at the empty clothing scattered on the floor. "It's over now. I feel free."
The Dire Wolf faced the couple. They looked so young to him, almost like kids. "I think we should get out of here. There's only one body left for the police to find, but all these Witches are going to be reported as missing sooner or later, and the cops will be here. What about you two?"
Derrick Mancuso was holding Amelia tight. "I think I understand better what was going on the past few years. I guess we have the rest of our lives to do what WE want now."
"I have decided I will foreswear my powers," said Amelia. "I want a normal life. No more magic for me."
Bane raised one eyebrow dubiously. "Never?"
"Well... hardly ever," she answered with a faint hint of a smile.
2/12/2014
