The Supernatural World of Vladimir and Viktor, Chapter 21
"I know it came here. Tell me where it is or I'll set this entire place on fire!" Hannah demanded of Eddie. She pointed her pike menacingly at him.
"Viktor is my son," Eddie responded. "You won't find him. And I am not about to let you get your hands on him."
"Your wha...pssht," sputtered Hannah. "It's an animal! It's mine. Where is it?"
Flames swirled in the grass around the witch in increasingly large circles, over to the barn and right up to Eddie's feet.
Eddie was unconcerned. He caused the air over the flames to move away, leaving the vacuum to starve out the flames.
The lack of oxygen didn't seem to harm Hannah. It did, however, make it impossible for whatever she was ranting about to be heard. She pulled out a small straw figure from behind her leather apron and rubbed her thumb over it and mouthed something until a red goo oozed out of the fibers. She held it out towards Eddie and grinned.
Eddie knew it was one of the spells that Hannah and Rose had used to cause illnesses and deformities. He could feel the pain. He saw the boils forming on his hands and felt them on his face as his hands brushed across it. The pain caused him to drop to the ground from the agony.
Once on the ground, though, it was Eddie's turn again. With a hand touching the ground, he caused a line of lead to form from his hand to Hannah's left boot. The boot turned into lead and then the skin on Hannah's leg up to her knee.
He gave her a few seconds to realize her predicament before releasing his control over the air about her so she could hear him say, "Undo your spell, or I will turn all of your body into lead." Eddie smiled slightly as Hannah tried unsuccessfully to move her leg.
"Never! You will writhe in agony until you die!" Hannah touched the tip of her pike to her leg above the skin-turned-to-lead. A thin line of fire severed the leg. As she held the pike over her head and her body lifted into the air, Eddie saw coils of steel emerge from the stump of her leg and begin to form a framework of steel muscle and bone.
Smoke billowed about her as Hannah rose higher into the air. Soon it obscured any view of the witch and growing metal limb. From within Eddie heard, "I'll find my dragon. And then I'll be back to end your pitiful existence!" The smoke dissipated and she was gone.
"Well, that was dumb of me," Eddie thought to himself. "I should have turned her totally into a lead statue at the start." He laid himself back and tried to find a more comfortable position but there was none. He hurt all over.
It was hard for Eddie to determine how long he laid there in the barnyard until he felt a finger touch one of his boils and a voice say, "They won't heal."
That would be Castiel, trying to heal Eddie's body.
Another voice said, "That's because it's magic. They won't go away until the magician dies. Eww, what it this? There's a real, bloody leg inside this thing!"
And that would be Captain Fyter, just now examining the lead boot. Only the skin of the leg inside it had been turned into lead.
"How'd you guys find me?" Eddie gasped weakly.
"The OZ sigil is still on the side of the barn from the last time I was here," explained the captain. "We can see faint images through the mirrors in Glinda's ballroom. Glinda seems to know this witch. She was fuming and declaring she would take care of this. I saw her storm out of the ballroom with an entourage hurrying behind her as I came through the mirror."
"I just ordinarily pop in now and then for no particular reason," Castiel dead-panned.
"So, Glinda is going to do something?" Eddie tried to reposition himself, but whimpered and settled back down.
"I'm going back to see what is going on," Captain Fyter said. "I'll send back someone to give some medical aid."
He signaled to be returned to Oz and disappeared. Soon there appeared a plain-looking teenage girl with brown hair pulled back into pig-tails and wearing a green dress with a pattern of lions, bears, and monkeys on it and carrying a covered basket. "How can I help?"
Castiel looked over the young girl and replied, "First we need to get Eddie to a more comfortable place."
Immediately Eddie was lying in his bed with Castiel and the girl beside it.
The girl looked about in amazement and exclaimed, "My! And I thought people got about quickly in Oz!"
Eddie moaned, "Ow..."
"Why don't you go visit Timothy in Heaven for a while, Eddie?" Castiel suggested. "There's no point in you staying in your body while you are in pain. Shebbeth can tell you what's going on down here."
"Than...kay...bah..." Eddie's body relaxed and his eyes closed.
The girl pulled a jar of ointment out of the basket and screwed off the lid. "Boy! Things have changed here."
She carefully dabbed a bit of the ointment on Eddie's boils before pausing and exclaiming, "How rude of me! Hello there!" She held her hand out to Castiel. "My name is Dorothy. Dorothy Gale. I'm originally from Kansas."
"Castiel," Cas replied. "An angel of the Lord."
"No wonder you could send Eddie to Heaven," Dorothy mused. "So who is this witch he had a run-in with?"
"Her name is Hannah."
"Hannah?" Dorothy turned pale.
"Yes, Hannah. We met her before in Brammerung. Amazing Bob raised her and another witch. We thought Eddie had killed both of them, but apparently one has to destroy every bit of their body to keep them from rising again. So both of them are back."
"Two of them?" Dorothy ventured. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is the other witch's name?"
"Rose."
"Oh, Lord," said Dorothy. "I know them. I thought I had killed them both."
"You once killed them?" Now Castiel was concerned.
"Yes. My house was lifted in a tornado and dropped on Rose in Munchkinland in Oz. Later I melted her sister Hannah with a bucket of water in the land of the Winkies. They are nasty, evil old hags. The wicked witches of the East and West of Oz."
Castiel pondered her words emotionlessly. He hadn't read Baum's first book about Oz.
Dorothy pulled open Eddie's shirt and resumed treating his sores. As she did, she absentmindedly sang softly to herself, "Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead. Wake up, sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed. Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go, below - below - below..."
She paused and thought for a minute, then explained to Castiel. "The Munchkins were singing this after Rose was killed. It stuck with me. Do you know were the goblins go?"
"I don't even know what goblins are," admitted Castiel.
"They are as evil as creatures can be," Dorothy began. "They have green skin, long pointy ears and and long bulbous nose. They pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the night and pull children–usually bad children–out of their beds. They throw a bag over them and take them with them when they disappear. The children are never seen again. That's what Aunt Em once told me. And that's what the Ozians say."
"So do they disappear into another dimension?" asked Castiel, thinking of the creatures he and the Winchesters dealt with in Montana.
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders.
Castiel decided that, at first chance, he would pay a visit to Eddie's new barn outside Kalispell and investigate the other dimensional link there.
At the same time, Anica Tomesku was settling Beryx's estate in Vienna. She turned loose Vladimir and Viktor on the streets of the city, warning them to behave. No claws and no climbing or flying. Vladimir snatched up the cell phone and off they ran.
Anica completed business and was headed toward the street when the message came from Vladimir.
"Mama! Viktor's changing into a dragon! He can't help it! His tail popped out and his eyes are dragon eyes! Now his wings are trying to break through his shirt! People are coming this way!"
"Okay, okay," said Anica. "Calm down. Where are you?"
"In an alley off of...of...Tooth Lobbin?"
'Tuchlauben,'Anica thought to herself. 'That's just a block away.'
She hurried out into the parking lot and leapt into the rental car.