The Witch Hunter Chronicles: Hunted

The voices were close, but my eyes couldn’t seem to focus on the speakers’ faces. Someone was holding me up and shaking me gently. I could feel my head lulling back and forth.

“Mackenzie, are you ok?” The words were hushed but insistent. A face came into view as I tried to blink the effects of the vision away. Jordan.

“How long was I out?” I asked quietly.

“Your legs just buckled a second ago, so I grabbed you,” he replied.

That was an improvement at least. I nodded and brushed his hand off my arm. My legs were steady again. “Back up the stairs,” I ordered. “I have an idea.”

They follow my commands without arguing. That’s a neat trick.

This time we stopped at the second floor and took the hallway that led to the railed walkway on the right side of the church. After the gunman walked past the altar and out of sight, we left the stairwell alcove and worked our way to the far end of the walkway.

The walkway was wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. There were six separate kneeling areas along each of the two walkways, all with separate scenes of Jesus before and after his death. Probably. Maybe it was Moses. Regardless, I led us to the end of the dark walkway that bordered the cliff and blew out the candles at the far kneeling area.

“We’re trapped up here Kenzie,” Marc whispered.

I held up Carnwennan and said, “I remembered something about this dagger when I passed out. It makes it harder for enemies to see me somehow. I think if we all bunch together in a shadowy area, they won’t see us. Once they go to the roof, we’ll run out the front door.”

“You think?” Jordan asked.

I sighed. “I’m mostly sure, if that makes you feel any better,” I replied.

“Only slightly,” Jordan amended.

“Crowd in,” I said. “Everyone needs to be touching me for this to work.”

Probably.

I heard the heavy footfalls of the men as they came up the old stairwell. Apparently, you don’t have to sneak up on your target when you carry a machine gun and have the arms and neck of a gorilla. The one with the buzz-cut and the Mediterranean skin tone poked his head out from the stairwell vestibule and looked down each aisle. After barely glancing in our direction, his head disappeared, and I could hear the men heading tromping up towards the roof.

“I can’t believe that worked,” I whispered.

“You can’t?” Jordan asked. “What happened to being mostly sure?”

I shrugged and motioned my friends to follow me. We crept down the stairs and then sprinted to the front door of the church. I stopped to peek out, and my friends crashed right into the back of me. It probably would have been funny under better circumstances.

“Really?” I hissed back at them.

Outside, I could see the two East Indian witches standing out in the open in the courtyard. They wore golden silk dresses tied with red shalls that wrapped around the waists and draped over a shoulder. Gold bands adorned each woman’s wrists and looped gold ringlets dangles from their earlobes. The taller of the two wore her black hair in a tight bun, while the shorter had hers in a loose ponytail that stretched halfway down her back.

Weren’t they just birds? Where did the clothes and bling come from?

The man standing next to the shorter woman wore a skin-tight tee, black cargo pants and combat boots. A long, red scar ran across the right side of his face and even from thirty feet away, I could see that his right eye had a milky sheen to it. His hair had grown out some, and his wavy curls mostly disguised the missing ear. My blood boiled under my cheeks.

Galahad.

I shifted my dagger from hand to hand in nervous anticipation. The locals and tourists were nowhere to be seen, and the place had gone eerily quiet.

Not surprising. Men armed with automatic weapons tend to have a crowd-clearing effect, except maybe at a Republican rally. Not the time Kenz.

With a little auditory straining and a bit of lip reading, I was able to overhear the trio’s conversation.

“Where are my men Galahad?” the taller one asked in a voice that gave me goosebumps.

Galahad held up his walkie talkie and answered, “I don’t know m’ lady. Only the ones in the cathedral are answering, and they say that the children are not inside.”

“Tell them to keep looking,” the tall witch snapped. “We would have seen the brats leave.”

As Galahad barked orders through the radio to the men above us, the shorter witch cozied up to the knight and ran a finger down the scar on his cheek. It was difficult to tell from his reaction if he liked the attention or not. When he finished speaking, she whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and then scurried off down the avenue towards the main staircase and out of sight.

“Jordan, can you head-shot them from this range” I quietly asked.

“With a pistol? One maybe,” he replied, “but not both. If Marc and I shot at the same time…”

I heard Marc sigh, and then he pulled me close and stuck the gun’s barrel in my ribs so hard that I yelped in pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t let you kill Gliton.” I turned and looked into his eyes and saw nothing but sadness. “Believe me, I wish I could.” He put his hand over mine and peeled the dagger out of my hands, giving me a painful jab with the barrel when I didn’t initially comply.

Jordan looked back in surprise, and before he could act, Galahad suddenly appeared in the doorway and snatched the pistol from his hands. The grin on his face was pure evil.

“What are you going to do with that sword little one?” he asked condescendingly.

Lucía stood. Her eyes blazed, both figuratively from emotion and literally with a light that matched whatever was coming off the sword. The smile on Galahad’s lips faded.

“I’ll kill her sister,” Marc said. “I don’t want to, but I will.”

The sword dropped from her fingers and clattered on the stone floor. Out of her hands, it just looked like a normal sword.

Galahad kicked it, and it skidded across the floor. He grabbed Lucía by the chin and said, “You didn’t think you were fooling the sisters, did you?” He shook his head. “So young and foolish.” He looked at Marc and sneered at him. “Are you sure you’re still with us nephew? It looked to me like you were smitten with the little queen.”

“I’ll kill you,” I said to Galahad. My voice shook from the rage I felt. I tried to lunge at him, but Marc put my own dagger at my throat and held me back.

Galahad looked at me without emotion and said cryptically, “It would be a kindness if you did, lass.”

I turned my head and looked back at Marc. “You bastard!” I yelled. “I hate you!” He swallowed hard but wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Control the wench or I will,” Galahad said to Marc. Then he looked past us and said, “Ah, there you are. We will have words later.” The two gunman stood behind us looking guilty. “Vincent, please pick up that sword and present it to Gliten.”

The man with the buzz cut picked Durendal up off the ground and carried it outside.

“You afraid to touch it uncle?” Lucìa asked. “Afraid it will know you’re not worthy?”

Galahad glared at Lucìa for a few long seconds, and I thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he grabbed Lucìa roughly by the nape of her neck and motioned with the gun for the rest of us to follow.

We walked under the arching church doorway and into the courtyard. The tall witch had Durendal and was busy examining the hilt. When she saw us, she grinned and said to her sister Gliton, “It turned out exactly like you said it would sister.”

Gliton – who was basically shaped like a Barbie doll – smiled and replied, “I never doubted that Marc still loved me.”

Marc pulled me to a stop a few feet from the sisters and went to stand next to Gliton. I focused all my hatred on his face, but he still refused to look at me.

Gliton turned to Marc and put a faux-pout on her flawless face. “You made me jealous when I saw the way you acted with this one.” She sneered in my direction, and I sneered right back at her. “I should have known it was all for show.” She reached up and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. He winced slightly but held his ground. “You were just following my instructions after all. I may just make you my new paramour.” She sneered at me again. “The little Queen broke my old one.” She looked at Galahad and sighed, while he just stood with a stoic expression on his face.

“Oh sister,” Gliten said. “You do so love causing drama.” She looked at the sword in her hand and sighed. “All this work and the sword isn’t even Excalibur,” Gliten said, as she lightly waved the blade in the air. “It’s magic though, I can feel that… but it’s not the right magic sword, is it? That’s why the girl…” She looked at me and asked, “What is it you call yourself this time?”

“My name’s Mackenzie Flynn,” I said carefully. “Why don’t you write it down?”

She made a dismissive noise and continued, “Mackenzie couldn’t pull it from the rock.” Gliten pointed the sword at Lucìa and said, “But you could. Why is that?

“That sword is Durendal, the sword of my ancestor Roland, Paladin of the court of the Emperor Charlemagne,” Lucìa said. “And I swear before God Almighty that I will kill you with its blade before the day is out.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the local men looking up at me from the exposed portion of the rock staircase. My first thought was that I had to warn him away somehow. Then I saw him position a rifle along the edge of the cliff and site it on Gliten’s back. I fought hard to keep the shock out of my face.

“Ooh, I like this one,” Gliten said. “Don’t you, sister?”

“No, not particularly, sister,” Gliton replied. “I think I’ll kill her myself.” Then she focused her eyes on me and fixed me with a mirthless smile. I peeled my eyes from the local and stared back at her. “But let’s let her watch us kill the Queenling first.”

“You’ll have to go through me,” Jordan said as he stepped in front of me protectively.

Gliten nodded and said, “I can live with that,” and without warning, she lunged towards Jordan’s heart with the tip of the sword. I yanked Jordan back, but the sword still caught him. He screamed and clutched his shoulder, and we both fell to the ground. At the same moment, a loud shot rang out and a bullet whizzed past our heads.

Gliten wheeled back and threw a hand overhead. From her palm, a shimmering golden bubble grew and quickly enveloped the two sisters, Galahad, and Marc in a transparent dome. More gunshots rang out, and I whipped my head about trying to figure out what was going on. Locals had taken up positions in windows, roofs and doorways and fired on the sisters from all directions. Unfortunately, the bullets flattened against the dome into penny-sized disks and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Two of mercenaries that were left outside the dome were dropped by gunfire before they could use their machine guns. The rest scattered and returned fire.

Gliton conjured blue fire in each hand and threw balls of flame right through the dome. The locals ran for cover as the fire crawled over the stone structures as if they were doused with gasoline.

As the monks began to flee the area, Galahad tried to take the sword from Gliten’s hand. They argued initially, but then the witch handed Durendal to him and touched him once on the forehead. Another golden bubble sprouted from her touch, quickly covering Galahad in a translucent outer skin that continued to morph and harden until it looked like a shimmering suit of golden plate armor.

Galahad snapped the suit’s visor over his eyes and passed through the dome like it wasn’t there – stalking with determination towards Lucìa. She ducked a wild swing of his sword and landed a punch on Galahad’s jaw with a glowing hand – the left one that wore Lancelot’s magic ring. His head rocked back as pieces of armor fell away in brittle chunks. A pair of locals fired a few shots at him, but the bullets just flattened against his armor like they had against the dome.

I got to my knees and looked down at Jordan. He was on his back and clutching his bloody mess of a shoulder. I pushed the hair out of his eyes and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Other than the painful stab injury, I’m peachy,” he said, through gritted teeth. “But we need to get out of here or none of us will live long.” I nodded and grabbed his good arm to help him back to his feet. I looked back at the witches and realized Gliton was looking right at me. She smiled a rather unfriendly smile while holding a ball of blue fire.

“I wanted you to see that I was the one to kill you, little queen,” she said as she drew her hand back to throw.

Time slowed down. I heard Lucìa scream, “No!” but understood right away that she couldn’t get past Galahad’s deadly sword. I saw Gliten laugh as she controlled the shimmering dome and Galahad’s magical armor. I heard gunshots as the locals continued to rain ineffectual bullets. Finally, I saw Marc look at me. Tears were frozen on his cheeks. Then I saw his eyes move and focus on Gliton.

I realized late that Marc’s hand was already moving up, driving my dagger in an uppercut motion. The point of Carnwennan entered just under Gliton’s chin as her arm was parallel with her head. I saw Marc’s lips say, “Goodbye, my love.” The dagger continued upward until the hilt collided with both sides of her jawbone. By then, half the dagger already protruded from her forehead like a grotesque unicorn horn. As Gliton crumpled, the fire fell from her fingers onto her hair. By the time she hit the ground, her entire body was ablaze.

“No, sister!” Gliten screamed, “Not you too!” and the bubble around her and Gliton began to dissolve, as did Galahad’s magic armor. A bullet caught the disgraced knight in the left shoulder, but he didn’t appear to notice. He just stood and stared at Gliton’s burning body. Before I could even think to act, Lucìa was in motion.

She snatched the sword from Galahad’s loose grip and ran towards the remaining witch. Durendal flared white like the dawning of the sun. Gliten let loose one of those horror movie, blood-curdling screams. Her clothes began to fade away to ash, like paper in an open fire, and her face lost some of its flawless perfection. It’s the difference between an airbrushed model on the cover of Vogue versus a paparazzi pic in People – still beautiful but not quite goddess level.

“You’re mine!” Lucìa screamed as she closed the distance in the span of a heartbeat. And then the sword was sticking out witch’s back and Lucìa was face to face with the woman. “I promised you,” she said softly. My friend stepped back and retracted the blade, and Gliton crumpled to the ground, dead.