Chapter Four
Misty, Oklahoma's distance from Muskogee was about a twenty-minute drive if Shooty pushed it, if he didn't fiddle around, if he didn't act lackadaisical about it. He donned normal, everyday clothing like all the other students wore, and took off the eyeliner and everything goth. He wanted to present himself as a normal kid with absolutely no interest in anything except working. When he parked in the parking-lot around four o'clock in the afternoon, he noticed Faith's Diner had a position for a busboy.
The dinner crowd slowly drove into the parking-lot, but it was only a sparse amount of people. He looked around for a moment, and it was a small, well-built town, the kind of town every whitebread family wanted for their children. Misty didn't know anything about the darkness that permeated through Muskogee. He noticed that immediately upon arrival to the place. He didn't even look at the rooftop of buildings for predators lurking like he did in Muskogee. He walked into the diner without any cares at all, and walked right up to the counter, and said, "May I have an application." He looked directly at the woman with the chocolate hair that flowed so eloquently, brown eyes, and sweet disposition. He smelled her magic. It was like heated passion bubbling over, and he knew it was Diana without asking. The darkness in her was like a pile of molten chocolate. He often masked his aroma with a colognes in the hopes Wiccan Vampires wouldn't be able to sense him before he recognized their wickedness. But Diana walked around carefree, like she didn't have a clue her powers attracted evils of all types and hues. Quickly, he filled out the form, and handed it back to Diana.
"I can start right now," He said with a smile.
"I need to go through the applications," she said smilingly.
He smirked. "You only have one application. Go through it now," he said.
"How do you know that?" She asked with a serious look on her face.
"It's because of the way you move about," he said, "I know nobody's applying for it. It is what it is."
"Oh. Well you're very perceptive," she said.
"Besides, I need the money," he said with a smile. The manager walked by, and he immediately cringed because it was Patsy, an acquaintance of his Momma's. They didn't hang out anymore because of a tiff some years back.
"Shooty, what are you doing here?" She asked while she smacked on her gum. "Your Momma done cut you off like she did me?
"She buys me the Camero, and then tells me I have to pay the insurance," he said. "It's because I wanted the Camero over the Fiat.
"Diane, I vouch for this one," she said, "I used to change his diapers. You still messin' around with that Asian girl? What's her name?"
"Tiffany and I aren't dating," he said calmly. "Well, nothing officially anyway." He asked himself how she knew about Tiffany because nobody outside his immediate circle knew about their one night stand. They did hang out together all the time, and somebody might have gotten the wrong impression.
Immediately, Shooty started working at the diner on the word of Patsy, and when people weren't looking he used his powers to clean multiple tables at once. In addition, he used his powers to clean the dishes, so he could keep an eye on the door. He suspected the same Wiccan Vampire who turned Harley would come after Diana because vampires with the ability to use magic were few and far between. He swept the floor of the dining area, but it was more for show. He had already used his powers to clean it. The diner closed at ten o'clock, and then he used his magic to clean up everything. When Patsy walked into the kitchen, she paused for a moment. She looked over all the dishes, and then back at Shooty.
"How in the hell did you clean up so fast?" She asked.
"Clean as you go," he said. "Work smarter not harder."
He arrived at home about twenty minutes to eleven o'clock, and he paused for a moment before ascending up the steps. Kai stood next to the gate with his boyfriend, Chad, a white man about nineteen-years-old. He was already on his first year of college, but he was the fifth member of the circle. He stood approximately sixty-nine inches, brown hair, and a rough looking beard. He didn't appear to be gay on the surface. In fact, he was in the circle for six months before Shooty realized Kai had affections for him. Of course, when he found out about their relationship, he made a big deal about it because he didn't know.
"Why is there a rumor all over the Christian Academy that you two are in relations?" Shooty asked Kai. "I'm hearing a rumor that you and Chad were caught hooking up at the track meet."
"Is it any of your business?" Kai asked. His lips turned downward with a disgusting look on his visage.
"Listen, when something happens that can affect the circle, then it's my business," he said.
"Nobody says anything about you and Harley, but when it comes to the gay guy, you're all up in arms."
Angered, shooty exited the conversation because he needed time to evaluate himself, his feelings, and his understanding of the situation. He knew what he felt wasn't right. For a short second, he thought he interfered out of concern, but it was out of prejudices. He recalled earlier in the year that Harley had mentioned her paternal uncle was gay. He said, "Cool. You know nobody needs to be in the closet." After thinking about it for a second, he was perfectly fine with gay people as long as they were gay away from him. Immediately, he discerned that he wasn't merely prejudice. He was a bigot. Since that moment, he spent a lot of time understanding his prejudices against the gay community. He grew up in a private, Christian schools with an indoctrination that made it hard to accept Kai's gayness. He wasn't trying to move past his prejudices because of Kai, but because he wanted to be a better human being and a better Wiccan.
"Where's Edge?" Shooty asked as he stood on the steps outside the mansion.
"She's on the porch," he said calmly. "Mister Wallace believes you're avoiding him. He also said he wants Edge at the diner and not you."
"I will discuss my decision with Mister Wallace on why Edge and I switched up," he said, "He has my number. You all have my number." He paused for a moment, and then said, "Muskogee is quiet for now."
"No it isn't," Edge said from the porch. "There's a ninth grade boy named, Eric Cantor, who's missing."
"For how long?" He asked.
"Didn't report home from school," Chad said. "About four hours."
"That doesn't mean anything," Shooty said, "Four hours doesn't really signify something ominous. What are you thinking?"
"Vampires," She said.
"There's more than vampires here," Kai said as they ascended up the steps. "That's for sure."
"I fear the average man more than any monster," Shooty said. "Most of the beings we refer to as monsters just want to be accepted. We have to remember that."
They walked into the large house, a two story Victorian home with all the triangles and fixtures, and an image of an old, Voodoo Priestess hanged proudly on the wall. In the middle of the lavish living room set the Green's Book of Shadows on the coffee table, and a bookshelf of books on ancient witchcraft spells stood against the north wall. With the wave of his hand, Shooty moved the coffee table to the other side of the room.
"I wish I had active powers," Chad stated.
Laughingly, Edge said, "They're more problems than they're worth."
"I was born into this," Shooty said calmly. "My family's magic goes back way back some five thousand years that I know about." He looked directly at Edge, and said, "I'd be lost without them." He handed Chad the chalk, and said, "Draw the pentagram."
Chad drew the pentagram, and let out a huge sigh for a moment. He acted as if he had a problem with drawing the image, but Shooty decided to let him work without hovering over him. Edge sat in the old, Victorian chair near the bookshelf. Its arms curved upward, and the back of the chair looked regal. Shooty sat on the couch for a moment, and then he felt Edge push him. "Get up." He didn't realize he had fallen asleep, but he wanted to stay asleep. But since everybody else used their personal time to find the child, he thought he had to do the same.
It was near twelve in the morning before Chad finished with the image, and most of the crew had droopy eyelids. Shooty stood at the bottom right of the pentagram. According to the literature, they had enough bodies to perform a strong location spell as long as they had a name, and a map of the area. First, he stood over the map, and asked, "What's the kid's name again?"
"Um. Eric Cantor," Chad said.
"Hold hands," Shooty said. When everybody clasped hands, he said, "Once you listen to my words, start repeating them." The map was at the bottom of his feet, and several small pebbles were next to it. If the spell worked, the pebbles would crawl to Eric Cantor's exact location on the map. In a strong voice, he said, "Eric Cantor, te potest expeiri ad abscondere. Temptes currere potes effugere Wiccan Cat." He said the chant approximately five times before the rest of the team harmonized the chant. Kai was the first one to help with the chant, then Edge, and then Chad. The pebbles moved into the place, and they remained in position.
Shooty looked down at the map for a moment, and marked the area with a pencil. He drew a series of lines from his home on the map to the pencil dots. "There's a small, little house in a flood zone on the road that goes to Braggs, Oklahoma where the boy is located."
"How long will it take to get there?" Chad asked.
"Approximately thirty minutes," Shooty said.
Old Flood Prone Brown House:
The house stood in a floodplain on the right side of the road driving towards Braggs, Oklahoma. The shack looked nice from a distance, but it had extensive flood damage. It wasn't a viable property in that location, and Shooty shook his head in disbelief when he saw it. Edge walked with him up to the shack, and then he stopped for a moment.
"Smell that?" He asked as he looked over at Edge.
"You mean the hog crap?" She asked.
"No," he said, "The vampires are pumping the boy with drugs, and then getting high off his blood." When he walked into the decrepit home, three vampires hovered over the boy, and they fed on him from the wrists and ankles.
"You didn't even try to flee," Shooty said to the vampires as they fed on the boy.
The vampires turned towards him, and said, "Soon, the master will come. He'll abolish all the Wiccan Warriors." The child lay on the ground, and he was near death from what Shooty could tell.
"There are humans willing to give themselves to you," Edge said, "Why are you feeding on innocent kids?"
"Because we can," he said. As soon as he said that, the young warrior pulled out his sword, and sliced him in half.
"I'm trying not to upset the balance of things in Muskogee, vampires," he said calmly. "You leave the humans alone and we leave you alone."
"You can't tame us," one of the vampires snapped. Edge pulled out her sword, and removed his head. When the other vampire tried to run, Shooty shot him with a fireball that ripped him into pieces. He looked over the boy for a second, and then Edge spoke.
"Can you revive him?" She asked.
"I'm not sure," he said with a grimace. "All I can do is try." He knelt beside the boy, placed his hands on his chest. "Edge, place your hands on my back."
"Okay," she said. He felt her hands on his back, and they were warm to the touch.
He then chanted, "Ignis, terra, spiritus, et animae potest facere deum tuum totum sanguinem. Si illic 'aliqua vita aut anima non potest oriri et in illo veterasce." Repeatedly, he said the chant for almost an hour, and sweat poured off his head. The boy finally shook his head, and setup. He didn't realize what had happened to him. When he saw the Wiccan Warriors, he immediately panicked, ran, and tripped on the front porch. He fell face first into the soft ground, and didn't move for a second.
"Calm down," Shooty said. He walked out the house, and let Eric find his balance before taking off. Once the boy hopped to his feet, he walked over to the car where Shooty and Edge stood. "How did you end up here?"
"This girl in my math class led me up here," he said softly.
"Can I have her name?" Edge asked.
"Vicky Lance," he said.
Three Weeks Later…
It was Monday, October twenty-ninth, twenty-eighteen, and Shooty had worked in the eatery for nearly three weeks without seeing one Wiccan Vampire make an attempt to molest Diana. In fact, he hadn't seen a vampire in Misty, Oklahoma, and he had a knack of sussing them out of a crowd of people. He mopped the main dining room, cleaned the tables, and put on fresh table cloths. He then took the dirty ones, and washed them in the washing machine in the rear of the facility.
Diana walked around the restaurant ensure everything was in the proper order. She wore her dowdy clothes with no flare at all, and when he walked into her office to remove the trash, she had a bag of bacon on her desk. He didn't want to say anything about her dietary habits, but she appeared to be letting herself go. When he picked up her bag of bacon off the desk to toss it in the trash, she barged into her office like she knew what he was doing.
"Don't take my bacon," she snapped.
He placed it back on her desk, and then when she sat down, he noticed a redness around her neck. "Are you dating anybody?"
She looked up at him for a second, and then asked, "My personal life isn't any of your business." She paused for a moment, and then said, "But if you need to know, I'm choosing to be alone so I can raise my child how I see fit." He smiled at her, and then she said, "This bacon is quite good."
The crowd thickened. People of all types roamed into the eatery on that Monday, and Shooty cleaned tables, washed dishes, and made silly jokes to pass the time. Diana constantly took money out of the cash register, back to the safe, and did her bookkeeping. Pasty made some tea for Diana at ten o'clock in the evening. Shooty acted the same as always, and used his powers to clean up the restaurant as quickly as possible. He watched Diana closely in her office. She acted tired. As soon as ten-thirty hit, she raced out to her car, and went home.
About eleven o'clock in the evening, he drove to her house. He parked his car on the other side of the tarn, and turned off the engine. He called up Edge on the phone, and she was on a date with another young man. It upset Shooty so badly that he immediately went into a rage.
"You're dating somebody?" He asked.
"Yeah. Just out on a date," she said in a calm voice.
"You didn't tell me you had a beau," he said.
"Wait? I didn't know I had to clear my love life with you," She quipped.
"So, I'm sitting here thinking I'm your boyfriend," he said, "How did I get this wrong?"
"Oh! The fucking games you play, Shooty Green. I don't know all your cues and I'm not the guessing type. You tell me what you want or you stay away from me."
"I want you," he said.
"Oh. Okay," she said. "Worked like a charm."
"What did?" He asked.
"I'm not on a date, idiot. It's Monday," she said.
"Well. I will be over later to say it in person," he said.
After he hung up the phone, he leaped through the air, and landed on her front porch. He looked into the house, and she lay on the couch asleep with the television set blaring loudly. The tarn had a rotten fish smell that drove him insane. Quietly, he walked around to the back of the house, checked to make sure everything was okay. It was hard for Shooty to move past the idea of trespassing on his boss's property as he understood the law-breaking it, and then having to explain himself if she caught his shenanigans by mistake. He waved his hand across the back door, and it unlocked immediately. Opening it, he listened for a bell or some kind of alarm, but he didn't hear anything. When he shut the door, he locked it back.
Shooty stood in the kitchen, a messy kitchen at that, and the dishes filled the sink almost to the top. He walked into the living room where Diana slept on the couch, and slid his right hand down his body. He cloaked himself. On the surface, he looked like a pervert roaming through his boss's house, but some Wiccan Vampire was taking her through the conversion process. And whatever bloodsucker cradled her, he or she intended to do it according to the ancient ritual. He sat at the table, and relaxed for a moment. As soon as he sat down, he laid his head down and snoozed for a moment.
He might have been asleep for thirty-five minutes when he heard the lock turn on the front door. Patiently, he awaited to see who would walk through the door. When it opened, he saw Patsy and Leroy standing at the entrance, and they had the aura of Wiccan Vampires. When she shut the front door, he walked into the living room, laid next to Diana, and reappeared. Once Patsy walked in front of him, she said, "Didn't expect this."
"Just kill him," Leroy said.
Shooty started laughing, and said, "It's been awhile since you've been around Muskogee, Patsy."
She sighed. "So, I pretty much figured you didn't come to the diner for work," she said.
"We all make mistakes in judgement every now and again," he said. "It's unfortunate for Diana that I have to kill her staff."
"There's two of us," she said.
He placed his right hand on the back of Diana's neck, and gave her a jolt of energy. She awoke immediately. 'What the hell?" She asked as she slowly sat up. "What are you doing in my house?"
"I'm about to kill your staff, Diana," he said.
"Wait? What?" She asked.
"Oh. Did I tell you that you're going to help me?" He asked. When he stood up off the couch, he donned his Afro-goth clothings, and then said, "I'm a Wiccan Warrior, and I'm trained to kill monsters. You've preyed on my Wiccan sister long enough, and I'm not letting you get away with it."
Leroy charged at the young warrior, and he hit him with a fireball that caused him to fly into the front door. "You think your dark magic will save you this time?" Patsy asked.
"You're a witch?" Diana asked.
Shooty looked at her for a moment. "You need to wake the hell up, Diana." He paused for a moment. "They're here to change you into a vampire. What part of that don't you understand?"
She ran over to the mirror, looked at the wound on her neck, and then said, "I thought this was a rash."
"It's why I was asking about your love life," he said. "These two knuckleheads are trying to sire you."
Patsy hit him in the face, and it caused him to fall over the couch. When he hopped to his feet, Diana was hitting her with a series of punches to the face. He shook his head for a moment, and said, "It's late. I'm tired. I'm done playing." Suddenly, he struck her with a powerful right hook that broke her neck. He then took out his sword, cut off her head, and blood flew straight in the air.
"Oh my gawd," Diana screamed, "I'm going to need a paint job!"
Leroy stood next to the door with a scowl on his face. "Who sired you?" Shooty asked.
He pointed to his head, and said, "I'll never tell." He laughed.
"I'm seventeen. I've killed so many demons in the last two years. Oh. I'm going to kill you too, Leroy."
"Do you have to do that?" Diana asked.
"Oh! Do you want me to let him live?" He asked.
"He's a good cook," she said. As soon as she finished the sentence, Shooty removed his head. Diana screamed. "I said spare him."
"Wait? He's a good cook means spare his life?" He asked. "If you're going to change how the English language works, I'm going to need advance warning."
"You're very condescending," she said.
"Go check on your son," he said.