The Hag's Blood Incident

Chapter 13

     The next morning, I woke up and went outside. Mrs. Gretchen's sedan sat alone under the heavy clouds in the parking lot. She and her family had been so busy with Tam in the hospital that no one had come round to get it yet. In a melancholy kind of way, I was kind of grateful for that.

     The little rocks crunched under my feet as I strode out to the vehicle and opened the rear driver's side door. I got down on my knees, and reached under the seat searching for the equipment we had left there. Sharp edges dug into my knees through my pants as I rooted around in the back of the car. I found Tam's shoulder rig first, then I reached across the midline and found the utility belt under the other seat. I threw both over my shoulder and stood up and walked around the back of the car closing the door behind me. I opened up the front and got Ari's fancy crystal doohickey out of the glove box.

     I took all three weapons back to our shared space and threw them down on my futon. I dealt with the belt first. I checked the pockets and pouches, pepper spray, handcuffs, pistol, radio, flashlight, baton, an extra magazine. It was all there, so I flipped the leather around my waist and fastened the clasp as securely as I could. One side of the belt still hung low over my right hip. I tightened it again, but the strap threatened to cut me in two, so I loosened it and adjusted it on my hips until it rode mostly to my satisfaction.

     Tam's gun was next. I went to his section of the room and got on my hands and knees and pulled his lockbox out of the corner beneath his hammock. I thought he had left it open, but when I tried the lid I found that his lock box was shut up securely.

     Frustrated, I moved to Ari's section of the room and tried to open her jewelry case to replace her crystal tool, but it was magically locked, too. Ugh! How come my friends have to be so safety-minded.

     I looked around for a place to stow the weapons safely, but came up blank, so I ended up placing Tam's nine millimeter under Ari's mattress. I know what you're thinking, don't worry, I took out the bullets and made sure the safety was on.

     thought about putting Ari's crystal with it, but I didn't want someone coming along and laying on the bed, crushing it. She might have said it was difficult to break, but it just looked so fragile. So, I tucked it into my front pocket. The crystalline tool made a bulge in the front of my pants. I looked down at it disappointingly and shifted it around until it was riding, not comfortably but, securely.

     While I was looking around, I found a few dollars hanging around the room in all three of our spaces. I counted it up. Twenty-seven dollars, geez. But, since Ari had taken my wallet, it was all I had. I pocketed the money, made our beds and closed up the unit. I locked it behind me, pocketing the padlock key opposite Ari's crystal.

     I went down to the workshop and tried to remember everything I knew about magic. There was something about distribution and power cycles combined with an exponential effect. There was math in there. I knew it. But, I'll be damned if I knew what it was. I pulled out a handful of healing charms and strung them together on a leather thong and placed them around my neck.

     I pulled out a luck bracelet and affixed it to my right wrist. The metal beads that held the magical charge quickly began to heat up on my wrist. I yanked it off and threw it down on the table. I remembered what Ari and my ninth grade arcana teacher had said about magical feedback. Too many magical artifacts operating in too close a proximity produced unintended consequences. I tried tying it to my right. I held my wrist away from my body after the knot was complete and squinted. The luck bracelet seemed stable. I thought about doing what I had with the healing charms, stringing them together, but Ari had said that luck didn't work that way. Either you had a little of it or you didn't.