The Witches’ Bane
by Edward Ahern
Gordon Lormor is a defrocked priest and con man. And something more. He walks a precarious path between light and dark magic. When a former lover calls him, pleading that he help free her from a coven, Gordon leaves his business behind and travels to upstate Vermont.
Death arrives before he does, and Gordon is thrown into a worsening spiral of assaults and murders and the threat of an infant sacrifice. He is joined by his assistant, AJ, and helped by a Catholic cardinal in chipping away at the wall around the witches’ conspiracy. He soon realizes he is teetering ever closer to his own spiritual and physical death.
Chapter 22: Meeting Hester
She loomed silently. A sour odor seeped through the room, and its temperature crashed. “You killed Barghest.”
“Yes, but not before it chewed on me. That beast was really fast for an old-timer. It tried its damndest to guard the baby for you. What’s left of it is in your sitting room. The kid’s gone from the cellar. I activated a beeper and put it in his bedding. By now, the staties are swarming all over him.”
The tousled hair on Hester’s head seemed to writhe. “You’ve condemned me. But you’ll get to die first.”
Hester quivered violently as she developed the spell. Miasmas of black slime swirled around her hands and then launched toward Gordon, who sat motionless. The blackness lurched to a stop in the air between them, then swelled and arced backwards, plunging into Hester’s torso. She screamed and crumpled to the floor.
Gordon raised his voice so she would hear it over her screams. “Apparently not. I had the time to take the shower drain apart and find some of that marvelous hair of yours. I also dipped some of your excretions out of the septic tank, and used them both in the spell of rebounding.” Gordon raised the Glock with his good arm. “You know the spell: Whatever curse you try rebounds back onto you. Let’s talk.”
“You mincing little scum sack. And you’ll shoot me if I try anything physical?”
“Uh-huh. Hollow points filled with consecrated host.”
Hester’s arms and legs were twitching violently, but she was able to talk. “And you figured things out?”
“By little stuff. You had a just discernible Adam’s apple on that crepy neck, and the sea anemone hair of yours was over the top. You lied to me early on, almost unnecessarily, and you probably shouldn’t have kept the same initials — Hester Waltrout /Horace Wittson. Stuff like that.”
Hester studied him for several seconds. “You must know, Gordon, that you belong with us, that you’re teetering almost uncontrollably. You’re killing your brothers and sisters for a faith you’re abandoning.”
“You shouldn’t have killed Judy.”
“You’ve killed many times over to avenge her. And by taking the baby, you’ve condemned me.”
“It would have been sacrificed in a renewal spell to keep you alive?”
“Of course.”
They were both silent again, then Gordon spoke. “I have a favor to ask of you; call it a professional courtesy.”
“What?”
“Drive away. I need a fall guy for all this and, if you’re missing, it’s easier to blame you.”
Hester smirked through the pain. “It’s no wonder the master lusts after you. If I survive this, I’ll rot out your insides so you’re pissing pus.”
“You won’t survive, but you can leave and gain some time to try. If you don’t, I kill you here and now.”
Hester staggered up, turned wordlessly, and stumbled out. The car lights reversed their arcs toward Barre and disappeared over a hill.
Copyright © 2018 by Edward Ahern
