The Sorceress (14 page)

“Senator Provost, I can't work here anymore. There's something peculiar about Ethan. He frightens me.”

“I realize he's different than other children his age. He's autistic, but he's still only a little kid,” Senator Provost said, his tone, crisp and confident, making Jen feel a little foolish. “He's really harmless, Jen. And he's grown accustomed to you.”

The senator was right. How much harm could a scrawny little kid do?

“This is really an inopportune time for Catherine and me to interview nannies. As a special favor to us, couldn't you stay until after the election?”

Senator Provost's words, posed as a question, held such authority…such command; Jen could not stand up to him. And then there was that little crush she had on him.

“Sure, I can do that.” Boy, she was such a softy; melting over the sound of the senator's voice.

“Great! I'll see you tonight.”

“Okay. Bye.” She released a long breath and hung up, blushing
as if her employer had whispered lustful promises of a steamy night in bed. Her Senator Provost sexual fantasies were becoming tired and worn.

Jen had been using him to fuel the lust during her self-pleasuring sessions for so long that she was running out of fresh material. She decided to substitute the senator with the hot cop. Tonight, when her hand worked its way between her thighs, she would see Hot Cop's face; she'd feel his lips and his burning touch.

What else could she do except fantasize? She'd never meet any men if she continued to be cooped up in the house with Ethan. Most nannies in the area got to prance around the pricey shops on Germantown Avenue and meet people when they took the kids in their charge to the many activities planned for them on a daily basis.

But not Jen. She was imprisoned inside the house. Among a host of dislikes, Ethan despised the outdoors. So until she got some time off to search for a boyfriend, she'd have to continue to masturbate and mentally hop from the senator's bed to straddling Hot Cop inside his police cruiser.

Ooo, that was such a naughty thought, but with the bad sex drought she'd been experiencing, she'd be a fool to save herself for a bona fide boyfriend. She'd settle for a fuck buddy in a hot second. The weather was changing; she had to hurry up and get a sex partner before she ended up cold and alone in her little nanny bedroom.

She stood still for a moment, pondering her sad fate. The woman on the bridge crossed her mind. The recollection seemed more like something she'd dreamed than actually seen. The woman seemed ghostlike…imaginary…not flesh and blood. Not real.

If there had been a naked black woman on the bridge, cars would have careened. There would have been pile-ups and such a big commotion, Carmen and Lizzy would have heard about it on the news by now. Yes, she'd been under a lot of stress and her imagination was running wild.

Dealing with Ethan was not easy but she'd have to survive the terrible tot if she expected to get that prestigious position with his father.

X
avier had pulled another prank. He'd had Eris thinking she was running toward freedom. But once again the joke was on her. That bridge—a wooden link to earth and mankind, cut off. Again. Sending Eris spiraling back to the Dark Realm.

The fall was long and terrifying. And though she was unharmed, she felt traumatized. And helpless. How dare Xavier to continually manipulate her, pull her from the Dark Realm on a whim, and then just as whimsically, send her spiraling back.

Angrily, she kicked the soot; exasperated at being at the mercy of a cruel, demented child.

Eris came up with a plan. Xavier was a prankster, taking his bogus childhood to an extremely annoying level. He had deceived her twice and obviously did not intend to help Eris escape.

But Eris was not to be toyed with. The next time he engaged in child's play and tried to tantalize her with a teleported bridge that could lead her out of the Dark Realm, she was going to use some muscle to get out of this hell.

She'd outsmarted Xavier before, joining him when he escaped the Dark Realm through his mother's birth canal. She'd done it once and she could do it again. Xavier had better beware. Eris
intended to exact revenge on him once she broke free from the Dark Realm.

“What's your name?” she asked the ghoul who sat bent over, blowing away the lingering smoke from his phallus, which she'd burned.

He gave her a surly look. “What's it to you?”

“Answer me before I set your balls on fire.”

He yelped, scooted back, cupping his scrotum as if it were a sack that contained gold nuggets.

“My name's Boozer,” he muttered.

She turned up her lip. “What kind of name is that?

“My last time on earth…I was a thief, a scoundrel, and a helluva a mean drunk.” He smiled at the recollection. “I was known as Boozer. My name is the only thing I ever came by honestly.” He chortled.

Eris smiled wickedly. She'd found her muscle. Boozer would make a perfect minion on the earth plane. “Shut up, you fool!” she ordered, eyeing his scrotum with her blue eyes narrowed and mean.

He clamped his lips together and grabbed his testicles protectively.

Eris was pleased. Boozer had displayed an appropriate degree of fear and obedience. “How'd you like to take a trip with me?”

He groped his appendage and looked at her with tawdry desire. Though the burning hole was causing him pain and seeped a nasty, bubbling green secretion, Boozer was more than willing to forget his discomfort and roll around in the soot with Eris.

Eris kicked him. “Not that kind of trip, you vermin.”

“Sorry.” He stopped stroking himself and, instead, began doctoring his wounded appendage, gingerly placing bits on soot on the smoldering hole.

Eris looked around and then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I'm making an escape soon, and I'm considering taking you with me.”

Boozer's eyes widened to twice their size. He slapped his thigh. “Hot damn! How do you plan on doing it?”

Eris gave him a faint smile. “I'd be a fool to tell you.”

He nodded in understanding.

“Can you run fast?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Boozer was Eris's kind of fiend. But she was curious about the time frame of his last incarnation and where he came from. Was he an earthling or from some other realm like herself?

Once all the fiends were clumped together inside the humid environs, it was hard to distinguish their origin. On the Dark Realm, everyone understood each other, speaking a universal language, via telepathy.

Evil was what they all had in common. But some were more so and possessed powers—like Xavier had. Xavier had honed his skills while on the Dark Realm and managed to retain some of his powers now on the earthly plane.

“Where's your former home?” Eris inquired.

“Mississippi.” Boozer puffed up, proud, seeming to forget that his fellow Jacksononians had shot him down like a dog.

Good, an earthling. An American earthling and a Southerner, at that! Eris was extremely relieved that Boozer hadn't come from a foreign country or another, less-intelligent realm. She needed a cohort that could speak English and knew American ways. She hoped he could remember his way around the South.

“You're sober now, so I hope you won't stagger and fall like a drunk when I'm ready to use your services?”

“No, I ain't had a drink in…” He looked upward, his bushy
brow crinkled in confusion as he tried to process time. Unable to come up with exact dates, he went on, “I ain't had a drink since I made my last batch of moonshine,” he said.

“What happened after that?” Eris had logged into the Stovall man's computer and done a quick study of American history during her last earth life. Moonshine sounded like an expression that was around during her first visit to earth.

“Some fellas shot me down. Claimed I'd been raping all the women in the town while the men were away at war. They also blamed me for the bringing a bad case of the claps down on the whole town.”

“Did you?” Eris giggled.

“Somebody gave it to me. I reckon I passed it on to twenty or so females who I had my way with.” He scratched his head. “But I ain't spread the claps to the whole doggone town.”

“Where was this town?” she said, hoping it was Roanoke.

“Jackson, Mississippi.”

Eris sneered. “How far is that from Roanoke, Virginia?

“By buggy?” Boozer scratched his head. “Hmm. Probably…”

“No! By car!” she snapped.

“By what?” Boozer frowned in confusion

“An automobile, you moron! How long will it take to drive to Roanoke?”

Scowling in bewilderment, Boozer raked a claw back and forth across his scalp. “I don't know nothing about that 'mobile thing, but we could probably hop a freight to Virginny. I reckon it would take a week or so to get to Roanoke.”

“You reckon?”

“Can't say for a fact. I never stepped foot out of Jackson.” Boozer grinned. “I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some Virginny rump.” As though readying his shaft for mayhem, he flicked bits of soot from his injured appendage.

Boozer was a numbskull for sure. She considered giving him another blast of heat for being so stupid, but she restrained herself. She needed him for his brawn, not his brains.

Fuming mad, Eris thought about those damned Stovalls… Bryce, Ajali, and the little jewel-thieving brat, and how they were all living like royalty in the old Stovall plantation. They were nothing more than brazen squatters. It was she who had kept the master's bed warm when his ailing wife couldn't. She was entitled to the deed to that mansion. The Stovall plantation rightly belonged to her!

She looked at Boozer. “As soon as we get out of here, we're heading for Roanoke. I have lots of nasty work for you to do. I'm going to let you loose on a couple of folks who deserve to be ripped, limb by limb.”

Boozer giggled maliciously.

Wondering if the creature would be a hindrance as she maneuvered around modern day America, Eris asked, “You never answered my question. Can you drive a car?”

He held up his clawed hands. “I don't know what that thing is, but I can drive the heck out of a buggy.”

Disappointed, Eris's shoulders slumped. No telling where that bridge would lead her. She'd have to find herself a chauffeur to drive her to Roanoke to pick up her jewelry Of course, she'd take Boozer along to do what he did best. Maim and murder.

On her behalf, of course.

He could start with Xavier, for taunting her.

The Stovall family, next.

“When the time comes…when I'm ready to leave, I'm going to need you to pick me up and carry me. Follow my explicit instructions and run like the wind. Can you do that?”

Devilment shone in his beady eyes. “That's easy. When are we leaving?”

Exasperated, she scorched his arm with her burning glare. “Stop pestering me with idiotic inquiries. I'm a goddess and you're a mortal moron. I expect you to follow my directions without questioning me.”

“Ow!” He rubbed his arm and patted at the puff of smoke. “All right. I'll shut my trap,” he mumbled.

“You won't be able to see our transportation, but I will,” she confided. “Being a goddess, I possess special powers.”

Boozer nodded dumbly.

“When I snap my fingers, scoop me up in your arms and run as fast as you can. I'll point out the direction. Understand?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That's not an appropriate response to a goddess.” She gave him an evil look.

He shrank back. “O-okay. What should I—?”

“You should say, yes, goddess!” Eris informed.

“Alrighty. Yes, goddess,” Boozer obliged without batting an eye. The woman had powers and she was his ticket out of hell. He'd call her whatever name was pleasing to her ears. Boozer was already thinking up ways to stir up trouble with his neighbors in Jackson.

The fact that more than a century had passed didn't enter his mind.