The Witch Hunter Chronicles: Hunted
Chapter 8 - Tragedy

I stuck out my left arm to protect myself from the oncoming witch, squeezed my eyes shut, and braced for impact. After a short moment of standing there stupidly with my arm up in the air, I realized I was still alive. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was blood.

Dad and Jordan were both on the ground and bleeding. Dad was cut somewhere in his hairline, and the right side of his face was covered in blood. Jordan had a similar gouge on his forearm, and it was deep enough that a pool of blood was forming on the ground under his elbow. My heart slammed in my chest my legs felt like my bones had been secretly replaced by gelatin.

They’re getting up so they’re ok. Wait, where’s the witch?

I looked around in horror as things buzzed and flashed past me, screams filled the air and bodies ran in all directions. It was all happening so fast that the world melted into a noisy swirl of color with patches of darkness. I scanned past a rolling ball of motion twice before I realized it was Lucía rolling around on the ground with the blond witch.

She needs help. Why can’t I make my legs work?

Strobing white lights and a sound like cats fighting drew my attention back towards the plane. In the spot where the hawk was earlier, a dark-skinned woman covered in a skin-tight bodysuit of glimmering lights floated a few feet above the plane’s wing. She burned so brightly that I had to squint and shade my eyes. Flowing braids undulated slowly in the air as if the witch was suspended in water. The sound of cats turned out to be some strange chant that carried through the air like it was amplified by a microphone.

“Adolebitque!” Merlin roared from somewhere behind me.

I felt a wave of heat, and I jumped to my right as a spout of flames leapt from Merlin’s hands and washed over the witch’s shimmering form. Blue-white fire swirled around her body, licking at her hair and face.

The witch continued chanting, oblivious of the flames, until a screeching roar answered her call. Down at ground level, a wet tear slowly opened in the middle of thin air, and something with long claws and black scales began ripping its way out of the inky portal. Merlin turned off the fire show and his jaw dropped open.

And she has a pet pterodactyl…

The sound of the jet engines roaring to life pierced the sound bubble of the witch’s chants and the screams of the angry pterodactyl. I looked to the cockpit and saw the pilot frantically motioning me with both hands to board the plane. I looked for Dad and Jordan, but I had so much adrenaline pumping through me that all I could see clearly was whatever was directly in front of me. And what I saw was the blond witch straddling Lucia’s waist and attempting to press her sparkly sword through my new knight’s heart.

Lucía had hold of the crazy chick’s wrists, but the point of the sword kept dropping lower and lower. Before I realized what I was doing, I was sprinting towards them. Lucía cried out as the point of sword pierced her skin, and a second later my foot connected with the witch’s face.

Goaaaaaaaaaaal!

The blond witch tumbled off Lucía and landed in a heap. The sparkly blade clattered across the ground for a few feet before exploding in a shower of sparks. When she rolled over and hissed at me, I knew concussion was too much to hope for. The hiss turned into a growl as her incisors lengthened, her back broadened and arched, and golden fur replaced milky-white flesh.

Once fully cat, she opened her mouth wide and roared, and my knees buckled as I just about fainted on the spot. Then two sounds back-to-back, loud like close thunderclaps, nearly deafened me. The cat’s eyes widened in shock, and then rolled up in her head as she toppled over with a wet thud.

As bright red blood leaked onto the asphalt from ragged holes in the beast’s back, the lion slowly changed back into the form of a pale, blond woman. She lied there, face down and unmoving on the blacktop. Behind me, my dad stood with a large pistol resting between his hands.

Dad owns a gun? Dad can shoot a gun?

“That’s for Jennifer,” he said.

“Sister!” the dark-skinned witch screamed in a voice that seemed equal parts sadness and rage. The loss of focus must have ruined her spell because the tear in the sky began to close back up. The nightmare creature that was 90% claws and fangs screeched in an unnervingly high pitch as it struggled and eventually failed to squeeze itself out of the rapidly closing portal.

Merlin took advantage of momentary distraction and reached towards the witch with a grabbing motion. In answer, an invisible force plucked the woman right out of the air – where for a moment she dangled above the plane’s wing like a marionette on strings. Merlin turned and made a throwing motion, and the witch flew violently end-over-end ten feet above the wizard’s shoulder. Unfortunately, the witch righted herself in mid-flight with the grace of a gymnast before morphing back into a hawk. After a few flaps of her wings, she began to circle back towards us.

I helped Lucía to her feet, and she immediately put herself between me and the remaining witch. I heard gunshots again, and I turned to see Dad standing between us and a man that was as tall as a basketball player and broad as a gorilla. He wore the blue coveralls of the airport staff, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t employed by the airport.

That’s because he held a sword in one hand – and not sparkly glass like the witches, but an actual metal blade that glowed a dull red – and in the other a shield painted with a white background and a peeling red cross. He had wavy black hair, a square jaw, and a nasty sneer on his lips that marred an otherwise handsome face.

Dad hunched down and squeezed off another shot. The loud bark of the gun was immediately followed by a hollow ping, as the bullet bounced harmlessly off either the shield, or the green metal armor that was peeking out from under the man’s coveralls.

The giant roared and rushed at dad. I screamed. One more shot ricocheted away, time slowed, and I ran towards the man as he thrust the glowing blade forward. Dad cried out as the sword passed through his chest and sprouted back out from between his shoulder blades. Dad gasped and the gun fell from his hands. My legs gave this time and I dropped to one knee to keep from falling.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no...

Dad looked back towards me, and we locked eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound escaped. Still, I could read his lips. Run sweet girl and plane. Then he whipped his head back around and head-butted the giant in the chin. The man staggered back in surprise, and I had my chance. I didn’t take it.

Something in my chest felt like it snapped in two. I started walking slowly towards the man, and I finally remembered there was a giant knife in my hand. My vision went red-tinged, and I screamed and lunged at the big man’s face with Lucía’s dagger. His sword remained buried in my father’s chest, and the giant tried to pull his shield across his body to ward off the blow. He was fast, but not as fast as my grief-fueled anger. The blade struck bone and cut a ragged line across the right side of his face from eye to jaw. The force of the impact nearly crushed my wrist bones to powder. The man screamed and dropped his sword, and my dad fell limply onto his back. Dad’s eyes remained open, but they looked glassy and unfocused.

I screamed and advanced on my father’s killer as tears rolled down my cheeks. He wiped fresh blood from his ruined eye onto the shoulder of his coveralls and glared at me with the good eye.

“That other eye’s mine too, Cyclopes,” I said. My hand was shaking, and I gripped the knife as hard as I could so I wouldn’t drop it.

He chuckled, and it threw me enough that I never saw his fist coming until it was too late. Luckily, Jordan was there to grab the man from behind as the metal-gloved hand whizzed past my face. Lucía flashed by me and landed a looping overhand right that landed square on the man’s chin. He stumbled back a pace and dropped his shield before recovering his footing. He reached back and flung Jordan aside like he was made of paper and sent Lucía reeling with a backhanded slap.

Behind the attacker, I caught site of the plane slowly moving away from us in the direction of the runway. A strange yelping sound drew my attention to my left, and I turned to see massive column of swirling flames barreling towards a sprinting hyena.

Seriously?

The witch with the pet monster was nowhere to be seen, so it seemed likely that she had morphed into this new form. I mean, as likely as any other explanation in this context. Merlin’s arms whirled overhead as he attempted to smash the towering flames into the cagey animal. I glanced one more time at the plane, but I knew I wasn’t going to chase after it.

The large man grinned as he followed my eyes to the plane. “You’re going to miss your flight little queen,” he said. He bent down and retrieved his shield.

“I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye,” I replied, waving the knife in a way I hoped looked menacing.

I got ready to lunge again, but Lucía popped up and put herself between me and the armored cyclops. She had her gun drawn, and the man quickly pulled his shield up to cover his unarmored head. Jordan started circling around the man, but Lucía yelled, “Get out of my sight-line kid.”

“Your little toy won’t even scratch this relic, cousin,” the man said, shaking the shield at her. “This is the Shield of Evalach. It’s protected by the blood of St. Joseph of Arimathea.

“Yeah, well, as soon as you pop your fat head over your precious shield, uncle, I’m gonna blow it clean off,” Lucía replied. “Will that make the blacktop magic?”

He snorted. “Why do you protect this little girl-Arthur? What is she to you? Just walk away child. I have no quarrel with your family.”

The man took a step forward and Lucía fired at his feet. He didn’t back up, but he also stopped moving forward. I stole a glance towards the plane. It was parked on the runway waiting for us.

“Last chance, child,” the man said. Lucía answered with a bullet that sparked off the very crown of the killer’s shield, and then the man was rushing forward, using the shield as a battering ram. He crashed into Lucía, knocking her into me with enough force to send us both sprawling to the ground. I lost my knife in the fall, and when my head stopped spinning, I realized that Lucía had lost her pistol.

The man stood over us, grinning like a madman. Blood flowed down the side of his face where I had cut him, and his left eye was swollen shut. He stepped over to my dad’s lifeless body and placed a metal-plated boot on his chest. He gripped the sword’s hilt, and the metal again took on the dull red sheen. With an effortless pull, he yanked the dripping blade free of my dad’s body.

“I’ll never tire of killing Arthurs,” he said as he raised the glowing sword above his head. I lay stunned below him, waiting helplessly for the killing blow.

“You were the perfect knight once,” I said. “Why did you betray me?”

The man stopped short like I’d just slapped him. His look of shock changed back to hate as fast as it had appeared, and then I heard a gunshot and the man’s left ear disappeared in a fine pink mist. His remaining eye went wide, and he let out a blood-curdling scream. A series of shots followed, but those bounced harmlessly off the man’s shield as he turned to face my wild-eyed bestie.

“Take out his legs!” Lucía yelled.

Jordan aimed lower and squeezed the trigger again, but this time the gun only clicked. He pulled the trigger a few more times, then threw the gun at the man for good measure. It bounced harmlessly off the shield.

When the armored man realized no more shots were coming, he slowly dropped his hands and then, tentatively at first, began to laugh. The laugh grew in intensity until he was cackling like some lunatic out of a cheesy 90s action movie. The shield dropped from his hand and clattered noisily to the ground. The pupil of his good eye was dilated and unfocused and his face was covered in blood, bruises and sweat.

I need to move while he’s in shock or we’re all dead. I don’t know how I know, but I know.

I stood slowly, quietly picked up my knife, and broke into a sprint. Halfway there, I realized I was going to be too late. The killer was already turning towards me, his good eye suddenly focused clearly on my face. Just as he reached out an arm to intercept me, he was yanked off the ground by an unseen force and flung a dozen yards in the direction opposite that of the plane. He bounced a few times and came to a grinding stop in a cloud of dust and sparks.

“Arthur,” I heard Merlin say, his voice booming unnaturally across the open ground. “Take the plane and go.”

Just then, the hyena-woman barreled into Merlin, and they both went down in a tangle of limbs, paws, and fangs. The animal’s forward momentum took them behind one of those big refueling trucks and out of sight. I started moving in that direction, but Lucía grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me back.

“Let go,” I yelled, as I yanked my arm free.

“Look,” she said, pointing to the man in armor. He was between us and the truck, and he was already getting back to his feet. His coveralls had shredded, revealing a suit of green plate armor underneath. “We have to get you to the plane.”

My father’s killer was already making his way towards us, albeit slowly and with a slight limp. Jordan was standing with us, his face blank with shock, and looked in no condition to fight.

Leave now or we all die.

Lucía grabbed my hand and I grabbed Jordan’s, and I let her lead us towards the plane.

We sprinted across the empty tarmac and scrambled through the open doorway. Jordan came through last, and Lucía sealed the door behind him.

“Go,” she yelled towards the cockpit. The plane lurched and then slowly began to pick up speed.

Suddenly the plane shook and dipped slightly to the left.

“What now?” I asked Lucía.

She turned and ran towards the emergency exit on the wing, and I followed a few steps behind. When we reached the door, I could see the problem through the door’s window, and my heart lurched. Standing on the wing of the plane was the dark-skinned witch who’d been fighting Merlin.

Does that mean Merlin’s dead?

The witch’s glittering armor was gone, and she stood there, streaked with dirt, covered in what I hoped were very painful patches of road rash, and very, very naked. Her braids were tangled and singed, and what used to be her eyebrows were now raw patches. In her right hand, she held a sparkly glass sword, and she drew it back like she planned on stabbing it through the door’s small window.

I’m pretty sure we need that window to fly.

Lucía put her left hand up to the windowpane, like she was planning to block the sword with her palm.

“Lucía, no!” I yelled as I reached for her, but her other arm shot out faster than I could react. I got a stiff-arm to the chin for my trouble and lurched backwards awkwardly.

I watched helplessly as the sword struck the small window, but instead of skewering Lucía’s hand and covering us with a tiny bit of jagged glass, the sword shattered in a flash of light and a shower of tiny prisms. The force of the blast blew the witch backwards off the wing of the plane and into the blackness of the night.

Lucia yelped as she quickly pulled her hand back. “Hot, hot, hot,” she repeated, clawing at a ring on the hand.

The plain gold band, glowing white hot, fell to the floor and began to singe the navy-blue carpet.

Lucía rubbed her hand as she looked over at me and said, “My liege, I apologize for-” before stopping short. Then her eyes went wide, and she formed a surprised “O” with her lips. She pointed at my stomach and said, “Mackenzie, you’re hurt.”

I looked down. Blood soaked my shirt on the right side of my stomach, just below my rib cage. I realized that stars were swimming in the periphery of my vision.

How weird, it doesn’t even hurt.

The room spun and darkness swallowed me up completely.