Mark drifted in warmth and darkness. Images flashed through his mind; random, jumbled but tied together by a subconscious narrative thread that defied logic.

He could hear knocking. Steady, regular. It tugged at him, puncturing the womb that his mind floated in. Awareness leaked in.

No, he thought, not knocking. His mind processed the sound, rising from the depths of his dream. There was a weight on his chest, restricting his breathing. The weight twitched in time to the sound.

Hyunk! Hyunk! Hyunk!

The fog cleared from his mind in an instant. His eyes snapped open and saw two flat green disks staring back at him.

Hyunk! Hyunk! Kaff! Squelch!

The cat’s mouth opened and a lump of partially digested food, grass and hair appeared on the duvet. The severed head of a mouse stared at him with dead black eyes.

“Oh God! Gerrofoutofityabastard!” he yelled, throwing back the covers.

The cat leaped from the bed and vanished into the darkness. Within moments he could hear it being noisily sick somewhere else in the house. He looked at the alarm clock. 4.15am. Mark groaned.

“Please Mark”, he whined in a falsetto imitation of Joanne. “Look after Mr. Whiskers while I go away. It’s only for a couple of days and he’ll be no trouble.”

Yeah, right. So far the thing had stolen his dinner from the plate, sprayed acrid urine across his laptop and now blown chunks of mouse all over the duvet. This was not Mark’s definition of being no trouble.

He got out of bed and felt something warm squelch under his feet. He put on the bedroom light, and sure enough, there was the rest of the mouse – stretched out over the floor of the bedroom - a drawn out string of entrails with sporadic patches of blood soaked fur that poked out from between Mark’s toes.

“Aw man, that’s gross!” he muttered, and hopped to the bathroom to clean his foot.

Jo had inherited the cat; a scraggy, flea bitten ginger tom, from her aunt about a month ago, after the silly old cow had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken her neck. Mark had disliked the cat instantly. There had been times when he had caught it looking at him with a strange expression on its face that made him uneasy. When Jo had to go away on a business trip, she had pleaded with him to housesit and look after the animal. He was regretting his decision.

He walked back to the bedroom, pulled on a pair of shorts and headed downstairs, ensuring that the lights were on so that any other presents lying around on the floor could be avoided.

Sure enough, on the stairs was a reddish brown mass with wisps of steam curling from it.

Nice, he thought, stepping around it and continuing down the stairs. A flash of orange fur between his feet made him stumble, and for a moment he teetered, stepping backwards to catch his balance.

Squelch!

”Oh for…are you trying to kill me?”

The cat flicked its tail at him and wandered off into the living room. Mark was sure it was laughing. Cursing he hopped to the downstairs bathroom to clean his foot again, and then headed to the living room. Mr. Whiskers was lying on Mark’s suit jacket, that had fallen from the door where he had hung it the night before. The cat scratched itself and clouds of ginger fur filled the air, coating the expensive black material with a layer of hair and flecks of dandruff.

“OK Mr. Whiskers, I think it’s time you went outside for a while,” he said, and reached towards the animal.

Mr. Whiskers disagreed. The cat arched its back and growled at him; swiping Mark’s outstretched hand with razor sharp claws. Blood welled up in the parallel tears in his skin. The cat ran past him before he had a chance to react, disappearing into one of the other rooms.

“Bastard cat! I’ll deal with you later,” he growled after the retreating animal. He headed to the bathroom to dress his wound, leaving spots of blood on Jo’s expensive cream carpet in his wake.

After ten minutes or so, the bleeding had stopped. Mark’s head was thick with fatigue, but there was no point in going back to bed. He had to be up in an hour, and there was still the matter of cleaning up the mess.

Jo kept the cleaning things in the cellar, along with her suitcases and a bewildering array of junk that she refused to simply throw away. Holding his injured hand, he opened the cellar door and peered into the darkness below. At the bottom of the steep wooden stairs, lay Jo. Dressed in her business suit, her legs bent beneath her, and her head at an unnatural angle.

“Oh my god! Jo!” he yelled, and ran down the stairs to reach her.

Something orange and hairy entangled itself in Mark’s legs and he plummeted head first down the stairs. As he fell he saw Mr. Whiskers on the staircase, licking his genitals.

“I’m going to kill that fucking cat,” he thought, before he landed besides his girlfriend with a wet snap.

Mark lay on the concrete floor twitching. He couldn’t move his body – couldn’t even blink.

Blackness closed in around the edge of his vision as he watched the cat strutting down the stairs. The animal brought its face up to his, filling his vision with malicious flat green disks.

Mr. Whiskers turned around and raised its tail into the air.

“No!” he thought, “It wouldn’t!”

It did.

The acrid urine hit Mark square in the face, burning his eyes and nostrils. Mark watched Mr. Whiskers saunter back up the stairs, pausing at the top to glance back at the dying man. The last thing Mark saw was a grin on the cats face, and a last contemptuous flick of the tail before the darkness claimed him.

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©2011 Graeme Reynolds

Graeme Reynolds has been called many things over the years, most of which are unprintable. By day, he breaks computer programs for a living, but when the sun goes down he hunches over a laptop and thinks of new and interesting ways to offend people with delicate sensibilities. He lives somewhere in England with two cats, three delinquent chickens and a girlfriend that is beginning to suspect that there is something deeply wrong with him.
 

See Graeme’s blog at:   http://www.graemereynolds.com

The Daughters of Warring: Part 10

Suzette knew trouble was coming the day she saw Paula in the general store.

She hadn’t heard from or seen Paula, Janice or Katherine since Isabel’s trial, and she counted that as good fortune. Before Katherine left town, she told Suzette that there was a score to settle between them. Paula’s message certainly meant that Katherine was now ready to see that debts were repaid.

After she returned home from the store, Suzette looked in the bushes and around the outside of her house. She was looking for any signs that one of the witches might have left something behind–a sack of herbs, a folded piece of paper, anything that might have indicated a spell.

She found nothing, but that didn’t ease her fears. Later that evening, while her family slept, she sat by the window, staring out at the moon.

Suzette had never really believed in the power, until she saw it in the others. Gathered in a circle, she watched as Katherine called forth fire. She felt the wind blow up in a gust of humid air when Janice called the winds. The cold ground turned warm beneath Suzette’s feet when Paula called to Mother Earth.

Katherine told Suzette that she sensed a power within her. They had taken time in approaching her - a Reverend’s daughter could obviously be a dangerous choice, if she were not willing to leave behind the beliefs that she grew up with. It was a secret. You feel different than the others in your family, in your circle of worship, don’t you? Katherine had whispered. You must know that you are set apart.

Suzette felt privileged, part of something bigger than herself. For the first time, she was included.

The others each taught her a different part of the craft . She learned about herbs used to cleanse, the invocations used to call up the spirits. Though her knowledge was nothing compared to Katherine or Paula, she was able to perform simple spells.

Suzette’s sisters may have teased each other about Stephen’s good looks and social standing, but she was sure that he was what she wanted from the beginning. It was an unpleasant surprise when she realized that he was interested not in her, but in her youngest sister, Isabel.

Suzette went to the coven.

“I need powerful magic. Something that will make him hate Isabel.”

Paula shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. There is balance in nature. That’s something you must not forget. Whatever you do returns to you, many times over.”

“There are such spells,” Katherine said. “ But there is no use in making him dislike Isabel. What you really want is a spell to make him desire you alone. It is always easier to draw something to yourself than repel one person from another.”

“Do you love him?” Janice asked.

Suzette looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Love was not her consideration. The life that he could afford was her utmost concern.

“Well there’s the answer for you,” Paula sniffed.

“Rather hard to do a proper love spell for one you don’t care for. You’d have better fortune doing a spell to draw a stranger to you,” Janice said.

“I’ll give you instructions,” Katherine said. “It’s an incantation to make him desire you. You can manage it on your own. Two things you must remember. Cleanse the space you’re in before you do your ritual. And prepare yourself. No thoughts about Isabel, or how you might dislike her. You’re not to think about anything concerning the two of them together. Concentrate on Stephen.”

Suzette said she would.

Maybe that’s what went wrong , Suzette pondered, looking up at the moon. She hadn’t been able to keep her mind clear of her anger. The week after she cast the spell, she followed Stephen and Isabel into the woods. She watched as he held Isabel in his arms and kissed her mouth.

Shaken from her thoughts by a gentle clicking sound, Suzette stood.

The knob of her bedroom door was turning.

***

Margaret was sleeping.

Though she was exhausted, Margaret had been at the edge of her wits all night. Worrying about Isabel. Worrying about her parents. The low gnawing of fear curled up in her stomach and made her ache.

On her bed, she tossed and turned.

In her dreaming, she heard strains of music. It was a Christmas song. A favorite of hers, one she sang every year as a child. A hymn about the appearance of the angel Gabriel.

Margaret dreamed that she stood in the snow, amongst a group of carolers. The melody flowed from her lips true and clear. It was a while before she realized that though she kept the melody, the people around her were singing other different words.

Their eyes were wide, pools of blackness. Curls of darkness surrounded them–the curve of black, silken wings.

***
 
Reverend Warring had just gotten home when he heard a scream from upstairs.

“Margaret,” he cried, running into her room. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I was…dreaming,” she said, pulling her covers around her. “I’m sorry, I….”

“Where’s your sister?” he demanded. Margaret brushed her hair away from her face. She realized that her Father was trembling. Still wearing his coat and gloves, water dripped from his coat. In the moonlight, she saw the outlines of his face, twisted by anger. And fear.

“What?” she said.

“Where did Suzette go?” he yelled. “She’s not here.”

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©2010 Lori Titus

You can keep up with the author’s latest scribblings on her blog, The Darkest of Lore at:  http://loribeth215.wordpress.com/  , or follow her on Twitter as Loribeth215.