Chapter 4

“The witching hour,” Joe said.

Eron laid Wytchraven on one of the chairs in the small lobby. She was still out.

They were back in the insurance office.

“What?”

Joe tapped his watch. “Kinetic. Don’t need batteries just move it around everyday. Been keeping it up since the spires appeared. Probably a little off, but better than nothing,” he shrugged.

“How’d you deal with the time changes?”

“I just ignored them.”

“As it should be,” Eron nodded. “So… what’s her real name?”

“Uh, she’ll get mad if I tell you,” Joe said.

“I can’t keep calling her Wytchraven.”

“… her name’s London,” Joe sighed. “But, maybe call her Raven, like I do.”

Eron blinked. “Fair enough. I’ll try, but no promises.”

Joe shrugged. “Hey, so what’d you find in the rocks? Is that why Raven’s out cold? And is she going to be okay?”

“Probably. Breathing and heart rate sounds normal, but I’m not a doctor. As for what we saw…”

Eron told Joe about the altar and the bones. Particularly the human ones.

Joe was stricken. His legs gave out as he plopped down into a chair.

Eron didn’t say anything. He had his suspicions.

“Oh man,” Joe held his head in his hands. His voice sound thick. Choking back tears. “Three?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s how many of our people have gone missing. Last one is, was, Mari. My cousin. I don’t get it though. She was like our best magic person. She was a badass even before all this. She did a few amateur MMA fights and she’d wreck me wrestling back when I was in high school even though I had like fifty pounds on her. We were hoping she just went out and was trying to fight stronger monsters since the ones in town were getting too weak for her.”

“Might not be her,” Eron said. He cursed inwardly. He should’ve brought the skulls back and destroyed the altar. Whatever evil entity was responsible wouldn’t like that or might’ve even been harmed. Stupid mistake.

He should go back right now, but then he couldn’t leave Joe and Raven alone in a building that he hadn’t claimed. Monsters might spawn inside or attack from outside.

“Do you think you could identify if it’s her from the…?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t have gold teeth or anything like that,” Joe looked up with watery eyes.

“Anyone else, her mom and dad? Your abuela?”

“My tio and tia didn’t make it.”

“What about her?” Eron pointed at Wytchraven. “She was right on about this evil thing.”

“Maybe…”

“When it’s safe to leave the two of you I’ll head out again. I’ll bring them back and destroy the altar. Tell your abuela. I don’t want anyone accusing me of being the killer when I show up with the bones.”

“Wait… why wreck it? Don’t we need it for evidence? Raven’s dad won’t just take our word for it.”

“Those people have already made up their minds on this. Short of the evil entity dropping out of the sky or something—” Eron’s attention snapped out to the street. He heard numerous claws or nails scrabbling against the asphalt. As he listened the monsters or mutant animals gave his location a wide berth before continuing to the east.

“What is it?”

“Problems for someone else,” Eron frowned. “They won’t want to believe any evidence that goes against the reality they’ve created in their minds. What’ll probably happen is that they’ll just blame us for faking the altar and bones or accuse us of being the responsible party.”

“Fake news,” Joe sighed. “Yeah, I know… I grew up here.”

“I’m planning to kill whatever is responsible for this. Not for the damn cows, but for the people it’s already killed and the people it might kill in the future,” Eron said.

A loud chime sounded in Eron’s ears.

“Whoa! No way! I’ve never gotten one of these aside from the ones at the beginning.”

Eron ignored Joe’s exclamation. He read and listened to the Quest notification.

“How about that… I really hate how it feels like the spires are reading my mind.”

As soon as daylight broke Eron ran back to the rock formation to complete one portion of the Quest. He searched the area around the rock formation for more clues. He wasn’t expecting to find any, but it was also a good excuse to spend more time out in the open under the bright sun. Doing so always made him feel better physically and mentally.

Finding nothing he jumped up into the hole in the formation. Now that he knew what to expect he took a deep breath and held it until he grabbed the human bones, destroyed the altar and made his way back out.

He briefly considered collapsing the entrance, but decided against it. There might’ve been value to leaving the evil entity’s lair open. A trap could be set in the future.

He left a great cloud of dust and dirt in his wake as he sprinted back to town.

A note waited for him back at the insurance office.

He followed it to the same goat warehouse that he had met The Abuela the day before. The thought made him laugh. He was basically in a western at this point.

“Crap!”

Eron realized that he was in a situation reminiscent of A Fistful of Dollars, though he preferred the original, Yojimbo. He hoped that things wouldn’t turn out the same. At least for Joe and Raven. They seemed pretty decent.

He heard the angry voices long before he arrived at the warehouse.

Seems that Raven had a crazy idea and Joe’s people weren’t fans.

The one-sided shouting died down when the people noticed Eron approach.

“Is that them? Is that Mari?” Gabriel demanded as he pushed to the crowd to reach for the bag in Eron’s hand.

He did have the skulls and partial vertebrae inside, but the note had specific instructions.

“Hold on,” Eron held a hand out to Gabriel’s chest.

The bigger man stopped like he hit a brick wall. He tried to reach for the bag, but Eron pushed him away.

“That’s my sister!”

Eron felt for Gabriel. The anguish in his voice was thick and raw.

“We don’t know that, but there might be a way to find out. The question is are you willing?”

“You mean the bruja and her evil bullshit!” Gabriel spat.

“I know you know about magic. Your sister was a magic user, yeah? It’s not good or evil. It’s how you use it.” Eron wanted to believe that. “Now, I don’t know what Raven’s got in mind, but I’m thinking that she’s the best chance to find out the truth.”

The crowd murmured. They were loud and clear to Eron. They were saying a lot of vulgar things about him and Raven.

He was tempted to throw his strength around, literally, but a glance at Raven and Joe, who stood next to The Abuela, Alejandra stayed his hand.

“How about it, Abuela? Do you actually want to know what happened to these people?” Eron held up the cloth bag.

Alejandra glared, but beckoned him forward.

“Okay, London, I’m trusting you. What do you need to do this?”

Wytchraven, Raven, London’s eye twitched.

“London?” Eron grinned.

The young woman glared.

“The emotions are too strong in here with this many people. It’ll mess with my spell.”

“I’ll make them leave,” Alejandra said.

“No, sorry, but the feelings linger. We should go somewhere else.”

“What about the offices? They don’t get much use,” Joe pointed to the other side of the warehouse.

“That’ll work.”

Eron narrowed his eyes. He noticed that London had a small cast iron pot next to her feet.

“Alright, everyone back to work, vamos!” Alejandra raised her voice. The crowd grumbled about Eron and London, but dispersed.

Only Gabriel remained.

“You sure you okay with this, mijo?” Alejandra laid a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“I need to know, Abuela,” Gabriel said through grit teeth.

Eron made a note to keep between Gabriel and London just in case.

The group walked across the warehouse.

Eron could practically feel the tension in the air. Every person still in the warehouse watched them intently.

It was almost a relief to shut the office door behind him.

“Okay, first thing, London, is this going to be dangerous? I need to know if I’m going to need to save you guys from spirits or demons or something,” Eron said.

“No, nothing like that. I’m not even sure that this will work. I’m just going to try tapping into the feelings, emotions of the people in… there,” London hesitantly pointed at the bag in Eron’s hand. “There might be an imprint of their last moments if it was strong…” she shrugged.

Eron understood. A violent demise meant that this emotional imprint would likely be very strong.

“Okay, makes sense,” Eron said.

“No it doesn't!” Gabriel snapped. “This is bullshit!”

“Hush, mijo,” Alejandra said sternly. “If this will tell us what happened to Mari and the others then I want to see. London,” she turned to the young woman, “what is your spelling going to do?”

The young woman was nervous.

Eron didn’t miss the way her hands shook as she placed the cast iron pot on the floor and prepared the rest of her stuff.

“Um… if it works then we should feel what they felt. I’m not sure. I’ve never done this before.”

“Got the instructions from the spire?” Eron was familiar from conversations with other magic users.

“Yeah,” London nodded.

They fell into silence as London continued to get everything ready.

She pulled a small propane stove out of her bag and lit it. The cast iron pot went on the stove. She then emptied a water bottle into the stove.

“Have to get it boiling,” she said mostly to herself. “I’m going to start now, so please no interruptions. No matter how weird it looks.

London began whispering… something.

Eron strained, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. The words were just on the edge of his ability.

He chalked it up to magic weirdness, which was a good sign that London was for real.

London’s whispers slowly built up in tempo and volume.

The chant made the hairs on the back of Eron’s neck stand up. He kept an eye on the other three people in the room. He was ready to intervene in the event that one of them freaked out.

As the water boiled London started adding stuff to the pot.

It looked like leaves, sticks and other less identifiable stuff.

Maybe seven herbs and spices, Eron thought. He missed KFC.

Eron choked when he got a whiff as the contents started to cook.

Okay, maybe not.

“Give me one of the skulls.”

“Which one?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Eron looked into the bag. He picked the smallest one and handed it over.

London placed it into the pot and continued her chanting.

It happened quickly. The steam rising from the pot turned into a thick, cloying smoke.

An involuntary shiver snaked up Eron’s back, but he forced himself to stand still.

He didn’t know what to expect as the foul smelling smoke entered his nostrils.

He waited for a vision or something to overcome him.

He waited and waited, but nothing happened. He looked at the other people in the room.

London was swaying on her knees as she continued to chant over her pot.

The other three had gone deathly still as they stood locked in place.

Eron was alarmed to see that tears poured from their eyes.

Time passed.

About five minutes by his count. The smoke had disappeared. There was no trace, not visually, not in Eron’s superior sense of smell. It was as if he had imagined it filling the room.

Eron itched to ask what they saw, but one look at their faces kept him silent.

London was laying on the floor, breathing heavily.

Eron crouched next to her.

“Are you okay? What happened? Did it work?”

“What? Didn’t you see,” London said dreamily. “I didn’t really see it well. My emotional connection to the person wasn’t strong enough.”

“I saw it,” Alejandra’s voice was raw.

“Mari!” Gabriel shouted as he rushed toward the pot.

Eron moved in a flash and grabbed him before he could grab the boiling hot skull.

Gabriel tried to shove Eron off. When that didn’t work he started punching, elbowing and kneeing.

“You’re only going to hurt yourself, dude,” Eron said.

Joe had taken a seat and placed his head on the desk. “I can’t believe—”

Alejandra rubbed Joe’s back. “I was Mari… no, that’s wrong, I am me… I saw it from her eyes,” she looked at Eron with haunted eyes.

“She burned him with her fire spell, but he kept coming even with his skin charred,” Joe wailed.

“The monster bit her fingers off! Let me go! I’ll kill the pendejo!” Gabriel roared in Eron’s face.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this. You need to calm down.” Eron spun Gabriel around and clamped a choke hold on. Just like Cal showed him. A light squeeze to cut off the flow of blood to the brain. Just a few seconds until Gabriel was out. He was careful to keep it fairly safe. He laid the unconscious man down on the floor. “So, you know who did this?”

“Oh yeah, I recognized him,” Alejandra said. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“Well… who the fuck was it!” Eron was annoyed.

“It was Tony,” London said softly. “I saw his face clearly. He’s my Dad’s right hand man.”

London’s spell had worked. She had solved the mystery. Eron realized that she deserved respect. Calling her Wytchraven was still too much. Raven would have to do.

“Alright, where can I find this guy?”

“No, this is our familia, our business,” Alejandra said. “An outsider isn’t going to get in our way of justice.”

“No, no and no,” Eron said flatly. “I’m not letting this turn into a bloodbath.” The Quest had been specific about that. “How bout I grab him and then you can have your trial or whatever?”

“Daddy’ll notice and they’ll fight,” Wytchraven said.

“I’ll keep them back…” Eron noticed the look of horror on her face, “without killing them.”

“Please, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” Wytchraven pleaded to Alejandra. “Let me do the same spell for my dad’s people. They won’t be able to deny that Tony murdered Mari. They’ll turn him over for trial.”

“Ain’t gonna be no trial, girl,” Alejandra laughed bitterly, “but you’ve always been a good girl and we owe you for letting us see what was done to Mari. You have until tomorrow when the sun rises to come back here with Tony.”