Poltergeeks (23 page)

  Mom's car was cruising along Shepard Road and I could see the billboard-sized sign advertising the Calgary Rugby Union less than a block away. I reached out with my magic to feel if Hudibras was nearby and felt nothing, so I assumed it was safe to pull into the parking lot. We came to an abrupt halt in the parking spot nearest the main gate and I let out a nervous breath.

  I looked around the parking lot for any cars and all I could see were a few dozen squashed Tim Horton's coffee cups and a plastic bag rolling across the pavement in the breeze. I took another nervous breath and turned to Betty and Marcus.

  "Okay listen, Hudibras may already be here and if he is, he's probably using a veil. Betty, can you sniff one out and let me know?"

  The big dog nodded once. "Yes I can, and if I detect one, we'll have to move very quickly to set up a defence."

  "I'll draw magic circles all over that field," I said, patting the hip pocket of my black cargo pants. "I've got lots of chalk. Marcus, I want you to stick close to me when we hop out of the car because we're going to run like heck to the main gate."

  "Right. I'm glue. Gotcha," Marcus said in a surprisingly firm voice.

  I took a last look around the parking lot and opened the door. "Okay everyone," I said resolutely. "Let's do this."

 
 

 
 
 

I tore across the parking lot and leaped over a concrete barrier fetching up under a huge arch that led to the main gate. Marcus was on my tail and Betty galloped like a clumsy gazelle, her thick black lips flapping in the breeze.

  "So far so good," I whispered, as we ducked behind a stack of plastic trash cans. "Betty, can you sense a veil?"

  The big dog was panting now, her huge pink tongue pulled back and forth in her giant mouth. She licked her chops. "Nothing that I can detect," she said between pants. "He's not here yet."

  I poked my head around the trash cans and gazed through the chain link gate. There were two enormous stacks of red and blue bleachers alongside the field and I spotted a tractor hitched to a huge rolling grass cutter. I clenched my jaw and decided it was too obvious a target for Marcus to start launching the witch's chaff from, so the safest and most effective way to employ Marcus would be for him to constantly switch firing positions beneath the bleachers in hope it would provide some cover.

  "Okay, this is where we part company," I said firmly. "I'm going to hex the lock and throw open the gate. As soon as I'm done, Betty and I will run into the center of the field and I'll set up a magic circle in case we need to fall back. Marcus, I want you to take the bags of witch's chaff and scoot underneath the bleachers. I'll signal you when I want you to start launching them and make certain you see where I draw the circle because if things go badly that's the Alamo, got it?"

  Marcus threw his arms around me and squeezed. "Understood. Julie, be careful, okay?"

  I hugged him back and gave him a gentle bonk on the forehead. "We can do this," I said softly. "You can do this, Marcus."

  I stood up and pointed at the large padlock and whispered, "
Hexus".
There was a spray of fine sparks and the lock fell to the ground, dragging a length of chain with it. I gave a last glance of confirmation to Betty and Marcus and pushed the gate open with a tiny effort of magic. They swung wide, their squeaking hinges cutting through the silence of the night like a blade through flesh.

  "Go!" I whispered, and Marcus took off like an Olympic sprinter. I gathered my focus into a tight ball and reached out, looking for even the tiniest trace of dark magic. The only thing I felt was the beating of my heart and warmth of Betty the dog next to me, so I scrambled ahead until I was in the center of the rugby field. I laid flat on the ground, kind of a dumb idea given that I had a one-thirty pound Great Dane standing next to me, but it was instinctive. I held my breath and listened only to hear Marcus scuttling between the long steel poles holding up the bleachers. If Hudibras was here, he had a hell of a veil.

  "What do you think, Betty?" I whispered.

  The big dog dropped onto its belly and stared straight at the gates. "I think you need to get that circle drawn as quickly as possible. I'll keep an eye out for the enemy."

  "Good plan," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a thick rectangular stick of white chalk. I dropped my backpack beside Betty and ran about twenty feet behind her, then reached down and started tracing my circle onto the cool turf.

  "Hurry!" Betty half-growled.

  "I'm just about done!" I said, as I completed the irregular circle. I did a quick scan of the bleachers and then dove back onto grass next to Betty. We lay in silence, the darkness of the rugby field made it near impossible to see beyond the bleachers, impossible for someone other than a Shadowcull, that is.

  I could still hear Marcus and I spotted his aura flickering away like a candle. I reached into my backpack and pulled out my father's grimoire along with the copper box and stuffed them both in my other cargo pocket as we waited patiently for Hudibras to arrive.

  It was 2.57am and my gut told me that Hudibras would make his presence known at the top of the hour. Why? Because three in the morning is the time of most deaths and the time of most births, look it up if you don't believe me. It marks the end of the three-hour period known as the witching hour and it is thought the end of the witching hour is when witches are most vulnerable.

  But I wasn't most witches.

  I wore the cloak and copper band of a Shadowcull and my instincts – a Shadowcull's instincts – told me that all hell was going to break loose in less than three minutes.

  I took a deep breath and drew my hood over my head, then I stood up in the center of the circle. "Get ready, Marcus!" I called. My voice bounced off the bleachers and filled the stadium. I pulled back the thin black sleeves of my sweater to reveal my Shadowcull's band on my left wrist and the quick magic cheat I'd scrawled on my right forearm in permanent ink. Betty stood beside me and tensed as she sniffed the air while I adopted a defensive position and drew into my spirit for the battle to come.

  And come it did.

  Every single light in the stadium lit up like a thousand welders' torches and I shielded my eyes against the glare. The ground trembled beneath me and suddenly an ear-splitting screech echoed through the stadium. Betty's lips drew back and she raised her haunches as she let out a guttural growl. She dug her claws into the turf and hunched down, her pointy ears flattened against her skull, her gleaming white set of teeth bared.

  What happened next made my blood freeze. A swirl of dirt and debris drew up from the ground into a spinning pillar, quickly morphing into a whirlwind's funnel. Oh yeah, Hudibras announced his presence by calling up a tornado that sent the huge metal gates flying a hundred feet in the air. The garbage cans we'd been crouching behind only moments earlier shot across the field like they'd been launched from a battery of cannon crashing into the turf and sending clumps of sod flying in all directions.

  The explosion of twisting and twirling debris was deafening and I covered my ears to block out the noise. The spinning cloud of wind and deadly projectiles tore the first set of bleachers from their concrete footings, battering the red and blue seats until they were nothing more than sheets of twisted metal. I glanced at Marcus who raced below the second set of bleachers. He opened his backpack and pulled out the first bag of witch's chaff and then crouched low and took aim with his sling shot.

  "Fire!" I shouted, and Marcus sent the bag of chaff directly in the path of the funnel cloud. I grated my teeth together and snarled a hex at the bag which immediately exploded in a multi-coloured flare of light. A cloud of chaff-laced smoke was sucked into the lumbering vortex and it seemed to lose a small amount of momentum, so I threw a small binding spell at it and shouted for Marcus to launch another volley.

  He fired again and I threw another hex at the bag of chaff. It exploded in another flare of light and I knew that I'd short-circuited Hudibras' spell. Now it was time to turn it back on him. I gathered together strands of white-hot magic, willing them together into a blast of energy that erupted from the tips of my outstretched fingers in four concentric rings of force. They buffeted the ground in front of the vortex sending, blasting through the alcove like a truck, smashing everything in its path. An enormous plume of thick brown dust blasted high into the air. Betty started barking like a rabid dog as I stretched out my hand to feel for Hudibras' location.

  "He's on the move, Julie!" Betty howled. "Be on your guard!"

  I hunched over to collect my breath. Repelling Hudibras' first attack had taken its toll, and I felt like someone had kicked me in the ribs and knocked the wind out of me.

  The ground started shaking again as a flash of photonegative light exploded through the alcove. Giant clumps of turf and gravel flew out in a wide arc and shot across the field. I braced myself for impact as I drew upon the power of my copper band and threw up a shield that ignited the air with a wall of Theban. The dirt and debris shattered into a shower of soil, blanketing the grass with earth. I coughed hard and Betty sneezed sending out a spray of dog snot and drool.

  So far, I'd withstood everything that Hudibras had thrown at me, but fatigue was setting in and I had to do something to gain the upper hand because Hudibras could keep on pummelling me until I was too exhausted to defend myself. I couldn't physically see Hudibras, but I sensed his presence and gauging from the direction of his attack, he was probably at the entrance to the alcove. I decided that rather than wasting my energy, I'd take an unconventional approach and draw him out.

  I stepped outside the magic circle and motioned for Betty to stay put. I pulled back the hood and brought my hands to the side of my face and started shouting for all I was worth.

 

  "
'Has not this present Parliament
  A Lieger to the Devil sent,
  Fully impowr'd to treat about
  Finding revolted witches out
  And has not he, within a year,

  Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?
 

  Some only for not being drown'd,
 

  And some for sitting above ground,
 

  Whole days and nights, upon their breeches,
 

 

  "I know you're here, Matthew Hopkins and this is one witch who's going to kick your sorry ass before this night is over! Show yourself and face me you fourhundred year-old freak!"

  An eerie calm descended on the rugby field. The only sound I could hear was the rush of the wind blowing through the bleachers and a panting Great Dane standing at my side.

  But only for a moment. The sound of footsteps echoed across the concrete surface of the alcove as Hudibras cleared the gates and strode out onto the field.

  And he was a
she.

 
 

 
 
 

Betrayal is one of those crushing experiences in life that you never,
ever
see coming. It's always someone close to you who becomes a turncoat and you feel like they've kicked you in the stomach so hard that you can't even breathe. A poisonous rage mixed with the sting of humiliation surges through your veins and you wind up feeling like a complete idiot for having allowed yourself to fall victim to it. It's a slap in the face from someone you trusted. Someone you thought you knew. Someone who is so fucking clever they can hide their true intent right up until the very moment they stab you in the back.

  I'd fully expected someone taller and definitely male. Instead, I stared across the field at none other than Marla Lavik, and from the glowing coals where her eyes were supposed to be, I could tell that Marla had left the building and wouldn't be coming back any time soon.

  I'd known Marla since Junior High. We'd hung out together; shared secrets together, schemed together and even dreamed together from time to time. I stood by her when her parents declared war on each other and she faced the custody battle from hell. I cried with her when she showed up on my doorstep after her mother refused to let her see her dad for what seemed like the hundredth time. I studied with her, went to the movies with her. Christ, my mom and I even took her to a spa on my fourteenth birthday and now she stood before me, her body vibrating with supernatural power.

  But Marla wasn't a practitioner like me. True, she emitted the tiniest of magical signatures but if she had any abilities at all, I had always assumed they were probably of the Ouija board variety.

  The kind of Ouija board a complete amateur uses when they're trying to summon a spirit.

  I didn't have a clue what Marla had against me that would drive her to make a pact with a force like the spirit of Matthew Hopkins and it didn't matter. She'd just displayed an unimaginable level of power and that told me Marla was drawing on Matthew Hopkins' centuries-old hatred of witches to make her magic work. She just hadn't planned on winding up as his puppet when she summoned him and she probably didn't have a clue that the price of her pact might just be a shattered mind once this was all over.

  And then it hit me.

  The scorched symbol behind the toilet in the girls' washroom. She'd summoned Hopkins' spirit in that bathroom stall just before all hell broke loose.

  "That's my girlfriend!" I whispered to Betty. "That's Marla Lavik. She set me up!"

  Betty the dog snorted. "She certainly dresses in a depressing fashion."

  Marla had gone all out in her choice of wardrobe for our duel.

  She was clad in a tight, black corset with a sheer black blouse, teamed with a pair of black hotpants beneath a leather trenchcoat. A pair of patent leather boots that gleamed under the bright lights of the field covered her legs up to her knees. Her jet-black hair was crimped and pulled back by a spider-shaped comb and her face was chalk white, with a thick coating of black lipstick on a pair of lips that wore a snarl.