The Fossil Witch
Heil Lake, swallowed by darkness.
I kept my eyes fixed on the water's edge, where miasma seethed and spilled over the shore.
Eerie. Thoroughly, bone-deep eerie.
Today marked the fifth day since I'd wiped out the Ash Witch Heila's legion. By now, she ought to be showing her face.
I tapped my wristwatch with a finger, standing on one leg, waiting. Miasma blanketed the lake like fog, and beneath it, something was holding its breath. The star of this little ambush was none other than Tola, the Fossil Witch — a creature who rode the fossils of sealed strata, surfacing through ruptured terrain to hole up wherever the miasma ran thickest before striking at the living.
I'd sealed off Heil Lake partly for the toxicity of the miasma, sure — but mostly because every instinct I had was screaming that Tola would come sniffing around. It was obvious. A witch without a base of her own would fix her sights on the territory Heila's army had just vacated. Anyone who'd followed her track record in the novel would know as much. Living rough among monster bones, rotting insects, and fish skeletons was pitiful enough, but the moment she secured a foothold, the slaughter she unleashed was something I had to stop cold.
Even her weapons were pathetic — recycled bone needles scavenged from animal carcasses. Leave her alone long enough and she'd get so filthy you wouldn't want to touch her with a ten-foot pole. She'd show up reeking of every vagrant stench imaginable and drive needles into your flesh that looked like they'd been used as dental floss between rotten teeth.
Above all, I couldn't let Jeffbery be the one stuck cleaning up a witch that filthy. The stench alone might make Dwight recoil and sour on her for good. Better to scrub out these dregs of witchkind myself, then go hunting for the artifact that would let Jeffbery Cleanse on her own.
A chill wind hissed across the water. The dense miasma rolled like a dark sea. Tick. Tick. Tick. In time with the second hand of my watch, my magic circle wove itself into a net — denser, tougher, finer with every precise digit I fed into the calculation.
Just as I decided it was ready, something moved through the miasma with the fluid grace of a deep-sea fish, parting the foul air as it rose.
—Whoosh!
Tola shot skyward in a single burst and came screaming straight at me.
Cockroach.
I flung the net at her damp, hurtling body and launched myself upward on telekinesis in the same breath. The net unfurled with a wet snap. Tola, who'd been diving into it like a squid drawn to a fishing lamp, sensed something wrong and tried to bolt.
Fossil bone needles came shrieking toward me in a swarm. This was the kind of grind that would make even the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs look soft. I dodged by locking coordinates on each needle one by one and kept after her. A few still clipped my face. Damn it. Fortunately, the mana barrier I'd wrapped around myself like a hazmat suit sheathed me in a transparent power-suit of pure force. I'd come prepared. This time, she wasn't getting away.
I cast the net again at Tola's retreating back. It sailed through the air like a starfish and swallowed her whole in an instant — the product of cranking the numbers sky-high at the last second, packing the mesh so tight nothing could slip through.
God, that was brutal. Thought my skull was going to split. If only multiplication worked for this. Stitching the whole thing together one addition at a time nearly killed me.
Watching Tola thrash inside the net delivered a solid hit of catharsis. Looking down at the sea of miasma flowing beneath my feet, I needled her.
"Tola… maybe try bathing once in a while. You reek every time you scrape against the net."
"You disgusting bastard!"
Tola snarled up at me and grinned, rotten teeth parting to spit a fossil bone needle straight at my face.
Son of a—
Huff… huff… Easy, Double Crown. Was she the type to go quietly? Of course not. She was baiting me, trying to rattle me enough to wriggle free. I wasn't falling for it.
I shook off the needles that had bounced off my transparent barrier and started cinching the net tight around her.
"Urgh!"
Tola's face twisted into a ruin. There, there — no more struggling. You're a fish that's already been caught. You can't move an inch now. Stay put. Every time you thrash, my nose suffers.
I landed on solid ground with the net drawn shut like a drawstring pouch, Tola bundled inside.
A dry-ice chill of miasma settled over everything. Even with a mana barrier coating my entire body, the aftershock left behind by three hundred witch corpses made my skin want to crawl inside out.
Come on, Igrian. Big brother's joints are killing him.
A motorcycle headlight punched through the murky miasma in the distance and stabbed my eyes.
"Ready when you are!"
Igrian's voice came muffled from inside her helmet. She'd probably layered on two, three coats of protective finish — skin first, death second. I barely made out the mangled pronunciation, then dropped the barrier from my face.
Looking toward Igrian as she trained the camera on me, I launched into my monologue.
I winked and gave the net-pouch a shake for the camera.
I gave a little shrug.
Igrian flashed the motorcycle headlight twice. Code for cut the nonsense and get to the point.
I held up a palm with all the gravitas I could muster.
I kicked up the miasma swirling around my knees, splashing it high so the camera could catch every toxic ripple.
Igrian made a cutting motion with her hand, and I scrambled to throw the mana barrier back on. Ugh — nearly choked out there. Gasping like a nine-o'clock news reporter had drained me a little, but it was enough. The whole empire would know how much I cared about Jeffbery.
Dwight included.
Double Crown — always so flashy, always so impeccably dressed — had thrown himself into the mud for the woman he loved. The pure, devoted love of a villain the likes of which the world had never seen would leave people stunned, and Jeffbery's standing would soar. Wake up, Dwight. I went this far because I saw Jeffbery cry. I've shown you how much I love her. Now it's your turn to prove it.
I hoisted the tightly bound net-pouch onto my shoulder and teleported — to the place best suited for disposing of Tola.
Echo Canyon.
Caw.
A crow circled above the cliff. Even the beat of its wings dissolved into the darkness of a sky so vast it seemed bottomless. Drop Tola into the gap between these cliffs, and she would be sealed forever in the intersecting rifts of dimensions — never to crawl out again.
Clack. Clack. Whoom. Whoom.
Far below, the needles of time and space crossed and turned. Get unlucky enough to catch between them and your body would be shredded to pieces — but that wasn't my problem.
I stood at the cliff's edge, ready to wash my hands of the whole affair.
"Tola. Goodbye."
She'd been silent until then. Now she spoke through a mouth slick with viscous slime.
"Please — spare me. I'll do anything you ask."
A little pitiful… should I let her go? No. No way. You're far too filthy.
I tilted my head and let the net-pouch containing Tola tumble over the edge.
Clack.
She vanished between two colossal clock hands. Looking down into the endless plunge of the cliff face, I said,
"Tola. Next time we meet — let's pretend today never happened."
I turned away with a bitter smile. I already knew she'd claw her way back through hundreds of dimensional rifts and return to this world — in the body of Peggy Ylang-Ylang. That Tola was her past life was a fact only I possessed. Drop that bomb and Dwight would run from Peggy Ylang-Ylang so fast his coattails would catch fire. But everything has to follow its proper course… Tch.
Still tasting that unfinished aftertaste, I lifted my head.
Someone unexpected was standing there.
Jeffbery Shut — the heroine I loved beyond all reason.
"How did you— how are you here…!"
A chill wind scattered her long hair in every direction. The sight of it — fatally, devastatingly beautiful — left me speechless.
The cold words that fell from those beautiful lips froze me where I stood.