Nineteen
Death and Retribution

In the brief split second before Blondie leapt I could have sworn I heard her scream some sort of profanity.  The air suddenly whooshed around us like it was being sucked out of the room from one direction, sort of like someone opened a spaceship airlock in some cheesy late night sci-fi movie.  The yellow haired witch threw up her hands and as an explosion of books, metal frames, and splintered wood blew a hole in the shelving unit next to her with deafening crash. 

Debris shot through the air only to be slightly deflected off a faint blue glow Blondie seemed to be maintaining by keeping her arms up.  Her clothing was instantly streamed with small bloody slashes as bits of shelf blew by her.  The whoosh of air increased, gathering the splintered pieces into a messy cyclone in front of her.  She recovered her balance slightly and watched through raised arms, as I did in while I dragged myself further backward up the aisle.  In a rush of battering air and swirling wreckage, a glowing red figure of a woman stepped through where just moments ago hundreds of old books had been resting.

“Stand down, bandraoi!  You have threatened the charge of a servant of Isis!”

Aerin’s voice, backed by an imposing chorus of echoes, was a menacing boom through the open room.  Her arms were in front of her chest and crossed at the wrists, the miniature scythe that had dispatched Fish-Food in one hand.  Beat leather jacket and dark jeans were billowing rapidly, and the reddish glow seeming to emanate from everywhere around and inside her.  It was, quite simply, one of the most utterly amazing yet completely freaky things I had ever seen.  Yet amid all the chaos, somewhere in the back of my head there was a part of me surprised to see them both in the same place at the same time.  When she spoke again the maelstrom of shelving pieces gathering between her and Blondie seemed to pick up intensity as her voice did. 

“You are an abomination!  One who dares raise the name of the Holy Mother in conflict and draw strength from the realms without her blessing!”

The debris storm grew between them, roughly forcing Blondie back against the shelf behind her as she cried out and pushed arms up, the pale deflection shield of light growing slightly brighter.  I noticed through the madness a dimly lit figure, probably a library guest, who appeared at the far end of the aisle.  The silhouette watched only for a second then disappeared. 

What the hell must this look like from a distance? I wondered for a moment.

Aerin took a step toward Blondie, the spinning windstorm of lacerating edges moving forward again with her.  When she spoke the storm pushed into her adversary with each emphasis.

“YOU-”

Debris crashed against where Blondie shielded herself.

“-ARE NOT FIT-”

Paper and bindings started flying in all directions as the storm ripped through the old volumes on the second shelf, the sound of cracking wood and the shriek of breaking metal barely audible over the roar of wind.

“TO WALK-”

The storm surged upward, seeming to rise almost into the roof while looming down on its target.

“THE HOLY – MOTHER’S – EARTH!”

And with that, the swirling funnel of lethal debris doubled in on itself and plunged into the shelving where Blondie was trapped.  The entire row of books behind her shredded instantly into a confetti storm of ripped paper and wood splinters, all collapsing on top of the young woman and her ethereal bluish shield.  There was an enraged psychotic scream from inside the destruction, and then everything settled, falling solidly down on where Blondie had just been standing.

Everything stopped.  The orange lights still lit the area around us with the exception of the ones above which had been shattered when the debris rose.  Outside through the skylight thunder boomed again, and wind strewn sheets of rain fell repeatedly over the glass.  In the distance I thought I heard sirens, but I wasn’t sure if they were real or just my ears ringing.

“Jay, are you hurt?”

Aerin was beside me, kneeling down.  She put her hand on my shoulder and I looked up at her eyes, two pools of blue set into smudged ivory skin with a reddish glow in the center of each.  I grabbed her arm, the leather almost hot to the touch, and pulled myself up.

“That... that was her,” I stated, nothing else coming into my head.

“Yeah, kinda figured that out.”

Aerin stood with me and looked back at the huge pile of splintered wood, metal, and torn paper.  There was a whining in my ears, rising and falling in pitch. 

“Hey do you hear something?” I asked.

She paused and tilted her head slightly sideways.

“Rain, thunder...” she sighed and looked at me, “Goddess be damned, sirens.  We need to get outta here.  Now.”

She grabbed my arm as she spoke the last word and started walking me up the aisle.  As we reached the end she opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted suddenly by a high pitched scream and a crash of noise as the pile behind us erupted.  Before either of us could even turn around there was a blur of blonde hair between us and glinting metal around Aerin’s neck.  The Witch’s hand brushed mine, and then seconds later something that looked an awful lot like a sandaled foot in my peripheral cracked me solidly upside the head and sent me sprawling onto the floor. 

For the first time in my life I literally saw stars.  My eyes rattled around in their sockets as I tried to figure out which way was up.  Peering through flashing white spots I blinked down the aisle, my only concern now what had happened to the Witch.  What I was witness to next, I now know, was a conflict the likes of which no man had likely seen for about two thousand years. 

The White Witch and Blondie were tangled in a struggle for leverage on each others throats.  Not, however, locked onto each other while staggering down the aisle on foot.  Instead, linked at the arms and twisting through the air, they spun like a gigantic human pinwheel almost so fast that they blurred together; a gyrating power struggle at the center of a black and pastel circle.  Screeching and cursing through the air, I could have sworn they were arguing about something.  Phrases like “...the rift cannot be risked...” and “...no place at her table...” slipped out amid outright screams and swearing. 

As I stumbled to my feet (yet again wondering if I had any serious damage from getting knocked in the head so many times) and caught my balance the insane struggle shifted.  Blondie’s legs stopped spinning and shot up behind above her head to snag the top of the remains of the shelf, giving her some kind of weird leverage and halting the human pinwheel altogether.  As Aerin twisted mid-air to break her grip the yellow haired psycho pushed off and flipped completely over and behind the Witch, pulling her down so she landed unsteadily on the floor with the cold squiggly blade pressed against her throat.  My heart skipped a beat as I watched for the inevitable slice, caught between the knee-jerk instinct to help and the infuriating knowledge that I was entirely out of my league.

The squiggly knife didn’t connect though, and suddenly I was staring at the Witch’s back instead, the woman with a blade to her throat now sporting blonde hair.  Then it was Aerin.  Then Blondie.  Then Aerin again. 

Jesus Christ, I thought, they’re fucking morphing through each other. 

One after the other, they jumped backward toward me.  Sliding through each other in a weird thick fog and struggling for a split second to run their weapon through the others neck before losing their grip and becoming the one in peril.

Too late I realized I was directly in their rapidly moving path and a split second later Blondie materialized in front of me, arms gripping Aerin’s throat from behind.  The Witch vanished, and a strange reddish fog that smelled vaguely like a melted plastic action-figure slid quickly through the bitch, through me, and suddenly I had Aerin’s scythe blade at my throat. 

“Wait!” I yelled frantically, hoping she wasn’t in full battle mode and noticed she’d done the funky fog float through both Blondie and me. 

I spun around as the blade lowered off my neck, a confused look on the Witch’s face as she took in her position.  Her eyes darted to me, past me, and then she quickly sprung into action. 

Blondie...  

In my haste to not be decapitated I’d taken my attention off the real danger.
 
“Move!” Aerin shouted, pushing me with almost inhuman strength sideways as I felt something bite into the skin on my torso.

I fell against the edge of the shelf, scattering books onto the floor and twisting back to look at her.  And then-

...Then my world stopped.

In my strange and unprecedented experiences in this realm and the ones beyond, only twice have I ever been frightened, saddened, and entirely filled with anguish so instantly to the point that I lost all hope and perspective of the world around me and just wanted it all to end.  To burn up in a fiery inferno of rage, my pain materialized and spat out on the Earth causing all to suffer with me.  That night, deep in the tome filled rows of the Boston Public Library, was the first time.

Blondie stood, legs crouched ready and arm outstretched, with her hand clutching her blade.  The only visible part was the firmly gripped hilt.  The rest of the squiggly dagger was buried in Aerin just below her ribcage.

Everything slipped away from me.  The storm, the increasingly loud sirens, the total chaos of the fight... all of it just ceased to be.  The only thing that moved was Aerin’s head as she turned to look at me.  She opened her mouth a little as if to say something, but only coughed up a spattering of blood that ran down the sides of her mouth.  She blinked once and two clear lines of tears rolled down her cheeks, sliding into the trails of blood on her chin and mixing a shiny path of watery red which gathered on the edge of her chin.  Then she slid off the blade and fell in a fragile, crumpled heap on the floor at Blondie’s feet.