Witch Water

scream.

He’d already seen the animal responsible for those sounds.

He tripped just as he would exit the alley—more rubbish. These people just piled their garbage in the alley? The Wraxall house stood in sight, bathed in moving moonlight, but—

I’m never going to make it, he realized, because he could already hear the nearly mule-sized dog race into the alley’s mouth.

“Fly, Pluto!” a voice shot. “Tear the wizard asunder!”

As Fanshawe scrabbled forward, he heard the huge paws tear toward him from behind. He clawed ahead; he knew that at any second the massive jaws would snap a foot off, then the other, and this would only be the beginning of a slow, unimaginable death—

The image of Abbie flashed in his mind; Fanshawe managed a smile…

He thought he could actually feel gusts of hot breath blowing into the back of his neck, when—

There was a pop! then a long sizzle which accompanied a broad, ball-shaped flash of light that was scarlet with moving veins of green. The light filled the alley; Fanshawe smelled acrid smoke. At the same time, resonant words drifted: “Nattel’gleg shebb m’gy-hotl…”

Fanshawe stared terrified over his shoulder. The blossom of light dissipated a moment later, but now, instead of hunting him, the mammoth Doberman was snarling as if wildly aggravated, and turning circles in the alley. It seemed to be chasing its own tail.

“Pluto! Sic!” one voice called from the alley’s other side.

“Of all the…”

“Look! The wizard’s bewitched the dog!”

Fanshawe still had spots in his eyes from the mysterious flash when he was hoisted to his feet and shoved. A sturdy man in dark clothing pointed toward the open front door of the Wraxall house.

“Who—”

“Stifle thy words!” a whisper snapped back. “And mind thy tongue lest it be the death of us…”

Fanshawe stared into the stranger’s face…

Callister Rood.

“Make haste and close Master’s door!”

“But—”

Another hard shove. “Be off!”

Fanshawe sprinted to the door to the house, closed it as quietly as he could, then turned to peer out of a small glass pane in the side-light.

By now the Doberman had churned its way out of the alley, still snarling, still chasing its tail. Sheriff Patten and the others lumbered after it through the trash-clogged by-way.

Rood rushed to meet them. “Good Sheriff! I glimpsed a hellish light, then spied a man in evil raiments flee thither! Pray, let me aid thee in thy chase!”

“Callister Rood, surely thy vigilance be blessed by God Himself!” Patten barked, then, behind him, “This way, men! Ye divell’s made off this way!” and then the sheriff, Rood, and the rest tramped off down the street till they were out of sight.

Fanshawe’s face pressed against the glass; he exhaled long and hard, and felt relieved when the last of the posse’s footsteps faded to silence.

He turned, to face almost total darkness. The entrance, which was probably just a narrow foyer back then, he guessed. The only light could be seen very dimly at the top of the first stairwell.

“I’m here to see Jacob Wraxall,” he announced loudly to the darkness.

There was no vocal response but—

What-what’s that?

Fanshawe heard the faintest sound, like a muffled, hot thumping…

A heartbeat!

Someone was in the room.

He raised his flashlight, was about to turn it on—

From behind, some form of garrote looped around his neck and tightened. A chuckling like bubbling tar gurgled. Fanshawe’s tongue shot out of his mouth from the tightness of the noose; he had no choice but to drop the flashlight so that he could raise his hands to hook his fingers under the rope.

“Might this break thy starch?” a man’s voice slithered up. Then Fanshawe’s eyes bugged when he was kicked from behind between the legs. Pain bloomed. He doubled over.

He began to choke at once. His heels pummeled the floor; he was being dragged by the noose across the floor, through horrid darkness, then—

thunk, thunk, thunk

—dragged up the stairs.

Fanshawe’s face ballooned as his attacker tugged him along as though he were a sack of feed. He continued to kick, twist, and contort in resistance, all for nothing.

“So,” the mocking voice resumed, “ye venturer desires to be a warlock, aye? He dares quest to be one with ye Squire?”

“No!” Fanshawe croaked out. “I just came to—”

A hard yank of the rope cut off the rest of his garbled words. Up another flight of steps, Fanshawe was hauled, then the last flight, and then down the hall. Splinters from the wood floor lanced through the rump of his slacks and into his flesh; he could only gargle his torment against the noose.

He was dragged to the left, into a room. For a moment, the noose’s pressure lessened; a needed rush of blood shot into his head. Got to get up! he realized, and he’d almost accomplished that when—

whap!

He toppled again when his attacker rammed a fist into his stomach.

If Fanshawe hadn’t summoned the strength to get his fingers back under the noose, he probably would have strangled, because just after the blow, his attacker began to climb the now-familiar rope ladder with one hand, while keeping the noose-rope attached to Fanshawe’s neck in the other.

“Up, up goes ye venturer!”

Fanshawe’s eyes could’ve popped out now: his back and then his feet left the floor as he was suspended aloft by his neck. In hard jerks, he was hoisted up into a room he’d seen three hundred years in the future…

Fanshawe’s vision dimmed, and the pressure made his face fit to erupt. Just as he thought he would die, he was slammed down onto a floor of wood planks.

The noose was taken off.

Fanshawe heaved in air while coughing at the same time. His mind spun like a child’s top; no coherent thoughts formed, which seemed understandable. But as his vision brightened, he was able to see exactly where he was: the secret section of the attic.

He sensed his attacker’s bulk just behind his head. Fanshawe was enraged now; he wanted to fight, as implausible as that instance was. Play dead, he thought.

And so he did.

He lay as if unconscious, while the man who’d dragged him up here puttered with some task. Fanshawe kept his eyes open only to the most narrow slits. He glanced in snatches, each glimpse revealing more of the hidden room: the book shelves, only new and clean, bereft of cobwebs and dust; rows and rows of lit candles; the woodstove, with fire-light showing in the grill-slits of its hatch; and the long tables which housed all manner of the laboratory apparatus of another day. An awful odor permeated the warm room, and that’s when Fanshawe guessed what its source might be:

A large cauldron sat atop the woodstove, eddying ribbons of steam.

He let his eyes veer to the right, and in the wall of candlelight, he got a full look at the man who’d hauled him up here.

Callister Rood.

He can’t be here! Fanshawe thought in consternation. I just saw him on the street!