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"Marry a Witch, You Marry Her Family"
May. 21st, 2022 07:07 pm"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.
( the rest of the story )
(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.
( the rest of the story )
