Chapter 2 – where things go REALLY wrong
Disclaimer: see first chapter.
The time was night. The place was...well, it was dark, but also quiet, for the presence of the Gray Witch and her underlings frightened away all that was right and natural, even snakes, spiders and coyotes, let alone people.
And yet, there was a person, who slowly, if not too steadily, made her way to Griselda's hideout...if there had been any observers outside, they would've noticed that the progress was made almost unnaturally slow, and not just in the obvious meaning of the word. But of the observers, there were none, and of the wards around the Gray Witch's hideout, none noticed anything foreign, or hostile, for there was none of that.
They did detect something magical, of course, but that was as expected: Missy Hume still had her Gun with her, didn't she? Otherwise she would be quite grey and old in her own right.
And so the wards let her in.
/
"Gr-Griselda," Missy gasped, as she stood in the doorway. "The skinwalkers have failed. Becky – the girl – is still alive."
"She is? A pity," Griselda rasped, sounding not very upset at both Missy's defeat and Becky's survival. "If she had died, then handling Sinclair would be so much easier."
Missy said nothing – at first. "The skinwalkers said that their debt to you is repaid, Gray One," she finally spoke, almost as an afterthought.
That elicited a response, as something flickered in Griselda's red reptilian eyes. "They said that, did they?" she asked a rhetorical question. "Then they better be all dead-"
"They are-"
"Then we're back where we started. Move closer, girl, and let me see your Gun, that you so conveniently are holding in your holster," Griselda's mood improved once more.
Missy said nothing, and she did not move forwards either. That did not change anything, of course, for Jesup, who had flanked her by now, grabbed Missy by an arm and dragged her to the Gray Witch instead.
"Ah, Missy," the Gray Witch nonchalantly told her former daughter-in-law. "You may be as smart as you think, which isn't all that smart, but it has helped you not. You have far outlived your usefulness," she grabbed the smaller female by the neck and lifted her up, "and it is up to me now to decide who will bear the Guns now." With a snap, Griselda broke Missy's neck as she had planned.
What she hadn't planned was for Missy's head to go flying off with a sound reminiscent of a pierced hot air balloon, just a lot more tinny and ear-piercing, and emitting not hot air, but a certain mixture of various spices and rock salts that made the smell of a skunk's musk smell positively pleasant.
Oh, and a piece of paper as well, with something written on it. Instinctively, Griselda grabbed it and read it.
Dear Griselda, the paper read. If you are reading it, then you have followed your basic urges and killed me. Well, tried to, for I knew that you would try to kill me – you are my mother-in-law, after all, and you never thought me worthy enough of your darling boy, now have you? Fear not, for I would do the same thing to you – your feelings are reciprocated, after all. I am currently looking for a shovel large enough, a grave big enough, and a coffin hard enough to do you in. I already had to bury my own mother, so I know that it will not be easy, but we are family, so it is going to be fun.
And to think that it all could have been avoided, if you had been the better woman. (You are already the bigger one.) But what is done is done, and you listen to me: I am keeping my Gun, it is mine. You don't like it? I am waiting. You are the Gray Witch; I am Deathless One, and Becky Montcrief? She has mastered my husband's Gun even better than my husband had, it seems. We will see who will be left standing.
Respectfully yours,
Missy Hume.
"...the impudence!" Griselda snarled as she finished reading the missive and crumpled it between her claws. "Who does she think she is?"
Then her snarl turned into a wheeze, as the Gray Witch finally registered that Missy's mixture that she used to fill-in her empty substitute did not just smell – it reeked. And it did not just reek – it caused all of her people to vomit, sneeze and weep from every orifice on their bodies. Griselda herself was even more powerful than her minions were, of course, but even she felt the bite of Missy's mixture, and it was a powerful one.
Griselda may have been the Gray Witch and a being from another time, another world, but the effects of Missy's mixture could not be denied, not even by her. Missy Hume had won this round, after all.
/
"Something has happened, Little Bear," the Wendigo rasped, as he and his companion exchanged another round of rum and gunpowder. "Something new has happened, something that hadn't been foreseen before, or even predicted, not even by the wielders of the accursed Six."
"I'm telling you, it's not Six! It is Half-a-Dozen on one hand, Four and One and One on the other. Take your pick!" the Wendigo's much smaller companion grumbled. "And don't call me Little Bear! It's Kalfu the Loa now, remember?"
"You'll be always Little Bear to me-"
"I always hated that name. Call me Carcajou, if you're intent on dragging old names back into the light of day."
"...I thought that you hated that name."
"I hate Little Bear even more. Anyways, you were saying?"
"Something has happened," the Wendigo shrugged. "Something that wasn't foreseen. Something has went wrong – or maybe right. Now, it's anyone's game once again to see what will come forth into the light of day-"
"Sirs," piped some spirit, as it emerged from the depths of an iced-over stream that was located nearby from the two interlocutors in a flurry of excitement. "The Sons of Stone are stirring! The Deathless Ones are walking the world of mortals once more!"
"...Yes, that is something new that wasn't foreseen," Kalfu agreed after a thought-filled pause. "Want to get another drink and see what happens?"
"Do I?" the Wendigo replied.
TBC
