Evil - Chapter 12
“What are you doing here?” I asked, walking up the steps to Margaret-Regina. A wooden plank had been strewn across the left side of the steps as a ramp. I hopped up them to greet her.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
It's not easy being the Antichrist.
Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.
Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.
She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.
They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.
She longed for excitement.
So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?
It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?
Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, walking up the steps to Margaret-Regina. A wooden plank had been strewn across the left side of the steps as a ramp. I hopped up them to greet her.
Margaret-Regina shrugged, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “You’re not the only one who can sneak out.”
The screen door opened, and Carl walked out. “Welcome home. I told your friend that if you didn’t come home on time today, you’d never be able to leave the house again, so she decided to wait. Took some doing to get her up here, but we figured it out.” He sat down on the rocker. “I told her she could go inside with June. She said she preferred it out here. A girl after my own heart.”
“This cocoa is helping, Mr. Campbell,” Margaret-Regina said. “And I generally run hot anyway.”
“Me too,” Junebug said from the screen. “Mine’s from menopause, though. You all better get in here before you catch your death of cold.”
“Actually.” Margaret-Regina set down her cup. “I need to run some errands for my mother, and I was wondering if Anjelica wanted to come with me.”
Carl groaned. “I don’t think—”
“Pleeeeease,” I said. “I finished all my homework on the bus.”
Carl thought for a second, then looked at June, who shrugged and went back inside. “Have her back by 4:30?”
“Of course,” Margaret-Regina said, wheeling down the makeshift ramp. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
Carl looked down at his watch. “See that it doesn’t. Anjelica’s on a special kind of grounding right now.”
“Apparently, the kind of grounding where we still let her out the house,” Junebug said from behind the screen. “Have a good time, I guess.”
“We will!” I shouted back, then turned to my friend. “So, before we go, can I ask what your real name is?”
Margaret-Regina laughed. “My mom’s given me a lot of them over the years, but I guess I liked Margaret the best. Since that’s how you met me, you can call me that.”
“Cool, cool, cool.”
I followed Margaret to the white van. She stopped. “Can you get this for me? It’s easier to get out than in.” I opened the back door and watched her slide in, and then pull the wheelchair inside before slipping into the driver’s seat. “Coming?”
I jumped into the passenger’s seat as Margaret put it in gear and started to drive. I sat next to her, amazed. “How can you—How are you driving with no legs?”
“I can use my legs, just not well.” She looked over at me. “But the answer to that, and most things in life, is magic.”
“Magic?” I asked breathlessly. “So you are a fairy.”
She shook her head. “Not quite, at least I don’t think so, but my mother is a powerful witch.” She snapped her fingers, and a small flash of fire danced in her hands. “She thinks it skipped a generation. It didn’t. I just can’t do fancy stuff like her.”
“That’s frigging awesome!” I shouted. “I wish I had cool magic.”
“You do! You’re the only person who has ever been able to find me a second time. You must have some really powerful sorcery.”
I looked down at my black opal necklace. “No, just a strong protection charm.”
She slammed the steering wheel. “Of course. That would explain it. Mom said she moved here because it was a fount of magical energy, and now this.” She shook her head. “Sorry, this is like the first time I’ve been out of my house aside from the hospital since I turned twelve, and—” She trailed off.
“And what?”
“Nothing.” She thought for a second. “Hey, do you want to go to the mall?”
“I’ve heard about this mall,” I said. “Is it any good?”
“Honestly, I’ve never been to one, but they’re supposed to be real cool.”
“Wow, you really are sheltered, huh?”
“Told you.” Margaret shrugged. “Now, hold onto your butt cheeks. We’re about to travel an hour in about ten seconds.”
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly we were no longer on a country road, but driving through the blackness of—well, I wasn’t sure where we were. She looked over at me and smiled, and then, with another snap of her fingers, we appeared inside a parking lot. “Oh, thank god. I’m so glad I didn’t crash this thing.”
My eyes went wide. “Was that a possibility?”
She nodded. “Anything’s a possibility inside the ether, Anjelica. Can I call you Angie, by the way?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Then I won’t.” She slid off the seat toward the back. “Now, like I was saying, the ether lets you move from one place to another. For instance, we just moved about sixty miles in a couple of seconds.” Like Kimberly and Ollie. “I can see by the look on your face that you know what I’m talking about. It’s really not all that impressive. Low-level magic stuff, at least the way I do it.” She pushed open the door. “Can you help me? This is so much easier with two people, and we don’t have much time.”
***
The North Crescent Mall was nice. It wasn’t anything special, but not everything had to be special. There was this misperception about Los Angeles that everything was glitzy and perfect all the time. Really, most of Los Angeles was achingly normal. Yes, there were places in Los Angeles, like Rodeo Drive, that fell into the category of glitzy, but everyone I knew frequented small bodegas, rundown thrift stores, and back-alley dive restaurants, saving the “glamour” of the city for visiting tourists.
“Come on,” Margaret said as I stopped to admire the single-story mall.
The main thoroughfare of the mall was end-capped by a JCPenney’s on one side, and a Macy’s on the other. Between them were all manner of stores, and right in front of us was an Orange Julius, a Los Angeles staple. The sight of it brought a tear to my eye, though it was much too cold to enjoy one.
“What are we looking for?” I asked as we turned onto the main strip of the mall. “You seem to be on a mission.”
She looked back at me. “You were the only person who has been able to see me, really see me, in years. The confusion spell Mom has on our house forces everyone who comes to our door to forget about it once they lose sight of it.” She narrowed her eyes. “I think it all goes back to that necklace. Can you tell me about it?”
I nodded. “Kimbe—a friend gave it to me. She said it would prevent me from be—You know, I am not sure that I should be telling you. It’s like, no offense, or anything, but I barely know you.”
“That’s okay,” Margaret said. “I get it. I’m very intimidating.”
“I think the point is that you aren’t, which might make you the most threatening person I’ve ever met. I don’t know magic well, but I do know it’s sneaky like that.”
“Oh, you’re not wrong about that,” Margaret said, searching the storefronts for something she hadn’t found yet. “Magic is bonkers, you don’t have to tell me. It’s enchanted, though, right—the necklace? You don’t find a lot of teenagers wearing black opal. It’s not super fashionable.”
“It’s enchanted,” I replied. “I can tell you that much, I think.”
She stopped. “I’ve been stuck inside for the past fifteen years, my only respite is when we move from town to town, and I’m kind of sick of it. Mom says I can’t go out without risking—well, since you are being coy, perhaps I should be too, but suffice to say, I shouldn’t be out right now, and I’m exposing a lot to do so, assuming I trust my mom, which I do—aha. There!”
She pointed to a jewelry store, Dan Beer’s Jewelers, and rolled across the slick floor toward it. I followed behind her, still not sure why I was there but enjoying having a low-stakes adventure for a change.
“What are we looking for?” I asked.
“Black opal has several very interesting properties about it, not the least of which is that it absorbs magical energy around it. My theory is that whatever it is doing for you, including making you immune to my mother’s charms, it could also do for me, and if that’s true, I might be able to have a real-life—real friends.” She looked over at me. “I haven’t had a real friend since I was young—before the accident and…I really want to have a normal life, or as normal as I can, given—”
She trailed off as a pudgy store clerk with a shiny tonsured head stepped out from behind the jewelry cases and walked toward us, straightening his black tie.
“Good afternoon. Welcome to Dan Beer’s. How can I help you?” He looked directly at me, and I pointed over to Margaret, who smiled at him. “We shopping for a special occasion today, little miss?”
Her lip twitched, trying not to internalize the insult of being called little. “Do you have any black opal?”
The man’s forehead furrowed. “Don’t get a lot of requests for that kind here. Let me check the back. I don’t think we have anything on the floor.”
The man hopped away, and Margaret turned to me. “There’s no chance of them having black opal in the stores by us, which is why I had to come here.”
“Why don’t you just go to like Los Angeles, or Portland, or anywhere with a magic shop?”
“First off, if I’m seen in a magic shop, somebody’s definitely gonna know I’m not supposed to be there, and second, I’m not very experienced as a witch. I can’t zap too far away from my house. And doing it more than twice a day kills my energy. This is about the furthest part of my range right now. Maybe someday in the future… I can’t wait until I can.”
A few minutes later, the portly clerk came back toward us holding a small pendant. “This was a return that we were about to send back to corporate. It’s the only black opal I’ve seen in these parts for a while.”
Margaret took the pendant from the clerk’s outstretched hand and examined it. Disappointment washed over her face. “You don’t have anything bigger?”
He shook his head. “Nothing in store, sorry. I could special order something for you.” He leaned down to Margaret and whispered to us. “There’s another jeweler in this mall, but frankly, they are smaller than us, and I doubt they would have any, either.”
“How much for this little pendant?” Margaret asked.
“Well, the good news is that this is a flawless black opal. We sell only the best here at Dan Beers, so you’re getting top quality. The bad news is that it’s quite rare, and so it’ll set you back two hundred dollars.”
Margaret thought for a second and then pulled a wallet out of her jacket pocket. She opened it and pulled out two crisp, hundred-dollar bills. “If you throw in a chain, then you have yourself a deal.”
The clerk took the money with a smile. “I think I can make that work.”
I looked down at my watch when we left the store. It had been about half an hour, which meant I had half an hour to get home. Maybe they had a coffee shop, because I could really use something warm to prepare me for the cold outside.
“Happy now?” I asked as we left the mall.
“Never,” she replied, smiling. “But I am content. Thank—” Her voice changed, and I followed her gaze. Two men wearing black suits with sunglasses were marching toward us. Two more people, a man and a woman, dressed the same as the others, came at us from the other direction.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.