First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (31 page)

Where was he?

Chapter Ten

“Go now. Go now. Now. Now! Now!”

The Mustang growled as it plunged around the corner. Karl felt the rear tires struggling for traction, skidding sideways out of the lane. The drivers behind and beside him slammed feet on brakes and hands on horns. Shock, terror poured adrenaline into his system and Karl blinked rapidly. His mouth dry he swerved between cars, heading for the emergency lane. Seconds later he pulled his car off the road and sat, head in hands, shuddering. His face was numb, and blood pounded in his ears.

What the hell had gotten into him?

Karl burrowed his fingers into his hair and pulled. The sharp pain cleared his mind a little further and he raised his head to peer out of the windshield. It was full dark. Passing cars were little more than brief flashes of light on this unknown road. Karl struggled to focus. He could remember driving, but not for how long. He could still feel the pressure of the steering wheel under the palms of his hands. His legs were cramped from working the clutch and gas, but he could not remember what he’d been driving toward or away from. The past … minutes … hours were a blur. He shook his head as another car passed and realized that not only had he been speeding, but he’d been driving in the dark with his headlights off.

He rubbed his face and groaned.

Magic again. That was the only explanation.

He’d walked into that gym and after that … nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing could do that except magic.

Karl clenched his fists, raised his head, and shrieked. He beat his hands on the steering wheel, howling out his frustration.

They’d attacked him. Again magic had taken hold of him, shut him down, and thrown him. He wanted to crush someone, something. He wanted to grab the bastard responsible for controlling him and choke the life out of him.

In his mind echoed the command,
go, go now
.

Karl twisted the key in the ignition and pushed in the clutch, but did not engage the gear. He twisted his hands over the leather, trying to choke the life out of the steering wheel until his bruised hands protested. The engine growled, then sputtered into silence as he lifted his foot from the clutch.

Go. Go. Go.

No. He couldn’t drive. He’d cause an accident. He needed to go, but he’d get there on foot. Safer that way. Karl threw open the door and staggered out of the car. He had to keep moving. Keep going. It wasn’t safe to stand still.

So many hours sitting in the car left him cramped and clumsy. He walked along the side of the road, the chill wind of the passing cars pulling at his clothes.

Go. Go. Go
.

Karl pressed his hands to his ears, trying to crush the voice that echoed in his mind. Magic, magic was driving him crazy. Magic was driving him, period. In all those years since college … during college, magic had been driving him and he hadn’t known it. Someone had decided to make him a victim, a target. His steps quickened. Jogging down the littered road Karl covered his eyes with his hands.

He didn’t want to be a victim. Stupid, stupid thought. Who did? But he was stuck. Someone had made him ground zero for metaphysical shit. No one could free him. No one cared enough to make the effort. No one had the ability. The one who had him in her control could pull his strings at any time and he would dance. Why fight it?

He stumbled and pulled his hands away from his face, then lengthened his stride, breath tearing at his throat. His lungs burned in familiar pain and his heart beat frantically.

He was only in pain because he wasn’t home, echoed in his mind.

Yes. If he could just get home he would be safe. Everything would go back to the way it had been. He’d been getting by, every day like every other. Predicable. Quiet. No stress.

No pain.

No one asking difficult questions. No one making him think thoughts that led to him running like a mad man down the side of a road at midnight while cars chased him like wolves. The headlights slashing across him. The car horns howling, tearing sanity away in searing strips. If he could just forget, forget about magic, he would be all right. But for now …

He had to go home. Get home. They were just behind him. He had to go … go … go.

Forget magic. Forget Amber and go home.

I want to help.

I promise.

His foot caught on cracked asphalt. Loose rocks tore into his hands and knees as he slammed to the ground. Momentum rolled him across the debris of old cigarettes, soda cans, and loose paper. He lay panting on the side of the road, ignoring the cars, the lights, the trees. As the minutes passed his heart settled back to normal rhythm and his breathing eased. Slowly he lifted his bloodied hands and studied then in the intermittent light.

“Shit.”

He dropped his hands onto his chest, wrapped himself around the pain, and closed his eyes tight.

Amber wants to help, he forced himself to remember; Magical Amber was helping. She’d driven him to Buffalo. She’d called Davie and started searching. She’d listened to him and believed it all. She knew it was real.

Distantly Karl could hear the whispered command to go, but now it lacked the power to drive him.

Of course, she was pretty damn weird. Magical. Being chased by dream wolves probably was nothing new to her and her crazy family.

He scowled as the memories returned. The gym. The sudden compulsion to run, drive. Get the hell out of there. That rat bastard Running Weasel had done something to him. Well, fine. All that meant was that Karl now knew that Running Idiot was involved. And he now had an additional crime to hold against Albert when the time to settle up finally arrived. Karl walked back to his car, cursing at the burning pain in his hands and knees, his face settling into a grim smile. If Karl had anything to say about it, the final accounting wouldn’t be decided in any law court. After all these years, he wanted blood, real blood from somewhere deep under the skin of whoever was responsible.

With luck, gentle Amber wouldn’t be around when the settlement took place. He didn’t want to upset her delicate sensibilities.

Ha!

Amber was rock solid. He didn’t want her there because she might try to stop him for his own good. Isn’t that what women did in those noir films? Take the gun away? Tell the hero he shouldn’t sink to their level?

To hell with that.

Any level was okay as long as he had his hands around the bastard witch responsible for this.

* * * * *

The college had kept their records. It was on their private intranet and she’d had to talk fast to get access. Eventually Amber was set up with a temporary password and limited access to the information that had been removed from the internet.

It’d been surprisingly easy to find when Gloria had started college. She’d joined the student newspaper staff only a few days after the first semester had begun and by the second semester was the senior editor, both actions unprecedented in the university’s history. After she’d taken, command every issue contained photos of her and articles with her byline. As Amber scanned each item her frown deepened. As soon as Gloria had control she changed the simple college gossip sheet into her very own witch’s journal.

Amber scowled at, then printed out a well-written but wrong discussion on the ethics of witchcraft. Gloria had taken the Wiccan Rede “
An it harm none, do as thou wilt
,” left off the “
An it harm none,
” and used the Rede to instruct people to go after everything they wanted with both greedy hands. The university administration became increasingly distressed about the expense and the content. In vitriolic editorials Gloria criticized the administration for their penny pinching ways and suppression of freedom of religion and expression. Amber suspected that the excerpts of letters from the dean printed next to Gloria’s replies had been heavily edited or even fabricated. The woman seemed to thrive on the turmoil she created.

After a few semesters the front page articles became the venue for an attack on the university president who was trying to, as Gloria put it, “crush the spirit of the students.” The battle between the president and student editor had continued until Gloria was expelled. It had been that fight that had prompted the report in the city paper about Gloria. Amber’s lips twisted. Davie was a sneaky bastard. If he’d read this thing in the city paper he would have known about Gloria’s interest in the occult – it was all over the city paper, but he hadn’t mentioned it.

Why?

Probably because Davie was intentionally obscure as a form of recreation. She would worry about it later.

But the result of Gloria’s rule was that both the university coven and the university paper were put on probation for three years. The coven disbanded within weeks of her departure. There was no record of it reforming.

Amber gathered a pile of paper from the printer. It was time for her to think about finding somewhere to spend the night. She had some reading and a lot of thinking to do. In the morning, if she hadn’t heard from Karl, she would rent a car and decide what to do next.

Instead of leaving the library she grabbed her phone. Davie’s reply was immediate.

“Did you find anything interesting?” he sent.

Amber nodded at the little screen, then hesitated. How much could she tell Davie? Would he have enough cynicism to ignore the magic references? Would he, like Karl, consider magic an aberration, self-delusion, and laugh at it?

“You’re not kidding,” Amber replied, “I don’t know what this woman’s pathology is, but she has it bad. She’s overboard into magic, of all things.”

“She’s got some sort of power.” Davie replied. “I’ve accessed some information on that one you might enjoy. Would you believe that she doesn’t pay her own bills?”

“So?” Amber shrugged, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “She has an accountant. I wish I were organized enough to have one. Or she’s lazy.”

“No. No. Her apartment is paid for by members of her old coven, has been for years. Used to be that only one of them paid, but she has two places now. A bigger, more expensive place in Washington that takes three of them to pay for it. That guy, Running Wolf, pays her electricity bill at the Albany place. Someone else that I’m looking into – he’s not part of the college crowd – pays for her phone bills. You get the idea? She has huge, hidden bank accounts, credit cards, and hasn’t paid taxes or a penny of her own expenses for years.”

Amber got the impression from the speed of his typing that Davie was delighted.

“This lady even got someone to pay off her student loans and her outstanding credit card bills a few years ago.”

“Who?” Amber asked. She’d no precognitive ability, but her heart missed a beat.

“That senator that she works for. The one trying to get nominated for president. Thomas.”

Amber reread the text, then covered her eyes.

“Great steaming gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,” she said with great feeling and sincerity. “Politics.”

Amber tossed her shopping bags onto the hotel bed and toed herself out of her trainers. Having to go shopping for clothing and basic hygiene items on top of everything else she’d done today had used her last atoms of strength.

Amber prowled the quiet room unable to settle down. Her thoughts chased each other. Where was Karl and what was he doing? How could she find him if he didn’t contact her? Maybe if they both got pulled into the energy drain she could ask him? Maybe … maybe lots of things.

She considered just reaching out and drawing in strength from Air or Earth, but discarded the idea when she lifted her hands and studied the faint trembling.

Food. She would follow her own best advice and eat. Karl … Where was Karl? That was her number one worry. Close behind was the thought that she still had no idea of the purpose of the spells she was peeling off his psyche. What if she’d stopped at a dangerous spot? Some spells worked in synergy with others, requiring both charms for balance. What if she’d stopped too soon, left half a spell dangling dangerously? Amber flipped through the room service menu and put it down again without making a decision.

Her stomach growled its opinion of her action and Amber checked her watch. She hadn’t eaten for hours. Fatigue dragged on her body and spirit and still she could not rest. If Karl was wandering lost and confused while the spells she’d mangled attracted all the negative beings of the spirit world it was her fault. Karl’s sanity and safety were her responsibility.

Her first real magical problem and she’d lost him. Actually, he’d lost himself, but that wasn’t the point.

Her cell phone rang and she dove across the room to grab it.

“Hey, Amber,” came Smoke’s familiar voice. “What the heck is happening? How did Karl end up in Canada?”

“Canada?”

Smoke laughed. “Yeah. Maybe. As near as we can tell. The road number he gave me doesn’t make sense unless he’s in either California or Canada. Thing is, he doesn’t remember driving through any border checkpoints, so he isn’t sure. There are no police on his tail so it’s unlikely he ran one. He’s looking for another road sign.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Karl. He just called us to ask for directions. He doesn’t have GPS in that classic of his.”

“Oh, good. Great. Wonderful. But why did he call you?”

“He doesn’t have your cell number, just the house one.”

Amber rested her head against the chair and closed her eyes.

“He can’t be that far away,” she said. “He left just a few hours ago.”

“You can travel a fair distance if you’ve a mind to,” said Smoke, “and from what Karl said he was doing a good speed.”

“What did he say happened?”

There was a pause at the other end before Smoke continued slowly.

“It’s hard to get a straight answer out of our friend Karl. He’s being very defensive. Not that I blame him at all. He said that someone called ‘Running Nose’ gave him a magical push and the next thing he knew he was driving in the dark with his lights off and he has no idea where he is.”

Amber chuckled.
Running Nose, indeed.