The Mantis Synchronicity - Book Five - 19. Chapter 19 - The Witch

Abernathy and his assistant, Croosen, were leaving Teshon City and headed north. They took the Pinewood Path toward the ruins outside of town that the people called Ilin, but before they reached them, the two were stopped by a pair of highway robbers.

“Empty your pockets!” a man in front of them ordered.

“And whatcha got in that purse, lady?” another asked from behind.

Abernathy did not wait to see where the exchange was headed, and to the two men’s surprise, the small machine appeared from his shoulder. He opened fire on the man in front, burning a hole straight through his heart, and the robber dropped dead. Abernathy rounded on the man behind, who staggered back at the sight of his companion. He tripped over his own feet and fell backward as Abernathy fired again.

The orange beam caught the side of the man’s hand and sliced off two of his fingers. He let out a wail of anguish, but Abernathy shot him again, right in the thigh, and the man gritted his teeth and let out a groan. Abernathy laughed and blasted the man’s other leg. He whimpered, and was powerless, as Abernathy shot him in both arms, and finally, right in the face. He turned to his assistant with a satisfied smile.

Croosen dropped to her knees before Abernathy. “You are a god, alchemist, and I worship you.”

He was very satisfied by her words. He looked at the two corpses. “Let’s see what they’re carrying.”

The pair found a sack of coins, a gold watch, two bracelets each with a single diamond, and a tiara with blue and yellow gemstones.

“Who did they take all this stuff from?” Croosen asked, slipping the bracelets on her wrist. “Oooh, isn’t that nice!”

The two of them continued beyond the broken stones of the ancient fort, and Abernathy led Croosen a short distance through the trackless land to a hidden patch of wildflowers that surrounded a small cottage. Despite the flowers, the place was not welcoming. A wooden archway stretched over a narrow path that led to the front door, and affixed to the arch were numerous animal bones and a single human skull. The flowers choked the path on either side, tightening it so that Croosen needed to walk behind Abernathy.

He stepped up to the front door and clacked the knocker.

Nothing happened.

“Is the witch in there?” Croosen whispered, but Abernathy held up his hand to her.

They could hear footsteps from inside, and the lock clicked. A skinny woman was on the other side of the door. To the shock of both Abernathy and Croosen, in the witch’s hand was a penis. It was not a synthetic, sextoy penis; it was a grotesque, severed, human penis. The witch was dressed in a pair of patchwork trousers made of a variety of fabrics in many colors. She was not wearing a shirt, but a sleeveless vest half-covered her breasts, and at the center of her chest hung a long necklace with many tiny bones tied to it, similar to the archway out front. Her hair was unkempt, and little bits of plant matter were tangled in it. The witch’s face had a rather vacant expression, with her eyelids low and a stretched-out smile.

“Hey, ya’ll,” she said in an ethereal voice. “Been a while since I had any visitors. What brings you to my little private paradise?” She waved with the hand holding the severed penis for them to enter, and the horrible thing wobbled in her grip. “Make yourselves at home,” the witch continued, “and don’t mind my apprentice.”

Abernathy and Croosen did not see anyone else.

“Ya’ll caught me in the middle of a spell. Gimme a minute.” She stepped up to her kitchen table where papers were laid out surrounding a large bowl of clear liquid. “Now, where was I?” The witch brought a fingertip from her free hand to one of the pages and she read aloud, “One dead man’s penis, got it right here.” She wiggled it in the air, but she did not look up at Abernathy or Croosen. “Butterflied,” she concluded, and she picked up a knife. Abernathy cringed as the witch slit the penis along its shaft and splayed the thing open. She placed it into the liquid and looked up from her work.

“This needs to sit a while, so why don’t ya’ll tell me what I can do for you? Let’s have a seat in the lounge.” She led them through the kitchen and into a sitting room with a sofa, a loveseat, an easy chair, and a dead woman. The witch stepped over the body, sat right at the center of the loveseat, and waved for Abernathy and Croosen to sit on the sofa. The corpse was facedown on the floor between them.

“Who’s that?” Croosen said more loudly than she intended.

“That’s my apprentice.”

Abernathy frowned at the woman. “What are you training her to do right now?”

“She’s learning how to be my golabulite nursery.”

Neither Abernathy nor Croosen knew the word she said.

“Your what?” Croosen added.

“Golabulites,” the witch replied, leaning forward and lifting the dead woman’s shirt. Beneath it, her skin crawled with something that looked like fat worms. The witch snatched one, let the shirt fall back over the others, and she stuck the squirming thing into her mouth. She chomped it and swallowed. “Golabulites!”

“What on earth was that thing?” Croosen asked in a disgusted voice.

“Whoa, chill out, lady,” the witch replied. “They’re part of nature, part of the cycle of life.”

Croosen could not seem to stop herself from continuing. “How’d your apprentice die?”

The witch’s eyelids drooped further, and she sounded satisfied as she said, “I fed her golabulite eggs in her rice bowl.”

Croosen was appalled, but Abernathy grabbed her hand and indicated that she should stop. He held up a small container to the witch and opened it. The three photonova glands were inside.

The witch’s wide smile extended even more, and her eyebrows rose. “Well, what little beauties!” she declared. She then added, “I accept one mantis gland in payment of services provided,” and Croosen jumped up from her seat.

“One mantis gland?!” she barked, but Abernathy grabbed her again.

“Payment is acceptable,” he stated.

“Abernathy?!” Croosen hissed.

He pulled her back into her seat.

The witch was staring at Croosen. Her smile was gone.

“Payment is acceptable,” Abernathy repeated.

The witch rolled her eyes as she focused back on him. She sucked her teeth in an annoyed way. “What do you want?”

“I want a Demifae master-casting performed on me with one of these mantis glands.” He turned to Croosen. “The third is for you. If you wish, you can have her perform a casting over you as well. I offer the final mantis gland to you.”

Croosen was stunned.

“Watch me go through with the process,” Abernathy added, “and you can decide if you want to do the same.”

The witch stood. “Wait here.” She entered a large storage closet and removed a reflective silver dish. She placed it onto the table in front of Abernathy and set a small glass case beside it. “For payment,” she stated.

He placed one of the photonova glands into it, sealed its lid, and set the container with the two others onto the table.

The witch then began speaking words in a language Abernathy and Croosen did not know. She poured a liquid into the bowl, and fumes began to fill the room with a hideous stink. Both Abernathy and Croosen gagged, but the witch did not react to them or the smell. She poured a second liquid, and the two visitors to her home coughed and choked on the air.

“Put a mantis gland into the acid,” the witch commanded.

Abernathy did as he was told, and the moment it touched the liquid, the foul odor stopped rising from the bowl.

The witch opened all the windows of her house, and she returned to her seat, as Abernathy and Croosen cleared their throats to try and dissipate the vile stench they had inhaled.

Using a pair of tweezers, the witch reached into the dish and pinched the small gemstone. “Lean your head all the way back,” she instructed, and Abernathy obeyed. The witch stood again and stepped behind the chair he was seated in. She brought the photonova gland right above his forehead, and Abernathy and Croosen were both surprised when the witch tilted the gemstone and a tiny droplet of liquid fell onto his forehead.

“Your third eye,” the witch stated. “Don’t move, and don’t touch it.”

She sat again and waited, watching Abernathy.

Croosen was also focused on him. She was not sure that this process was what she wanted from the mantis gland.

“How long do I have to stay like this?” Abernathy asked from his awkward position.

The witch hushed him. “Shhh!”

He took a frustrated breath.

After several more minutes, the witch stood and returned to examine his forehead. “It’s done. Don’t touch it, and be patient. It doesn’t happen immediately.” She turned to Croosen. “What about you?”

Croosen grabbed the case with the final photonova gland, jumped up from her chair, and backed away from the witch. “No thank you. Abernathy, let’s go!”

The two of them headed back out toward the ruins, but up the trail ahead of them, where they left the corpses of the highway robbers, there was now a large group of concerned citizens. Abernathy and Croosen snuck into the forest unnoticed and made their way back to Teshon City through the trees.

When they arrived back at his apothecary, Abernathy’s senses were already beginning to go off like fireworks, and without a word to his assistant, he climbed the stairs in the back of his shop to his private quarters.

Croosen prepared to head home, and she went to place the container with the final photonova gland onto the countertop, but she hesitated. She looked toward the stairs and stuffed the container into her pocket. Abernathy owned a small collection of old Demifae grimoires, and during slower days at his shop, Croosen often flipped through the volumes. She grabbed a specific book, stuffed it into her bag as well, and locked the front door. Croosen rushed to her home, and once inside, she set the little case with the very special crystal in it onto her bedside table. She stared at it. Demifae were forbidden from swallowing photonova glands, but Croosen had another plan for the tiny gemstone.

Anytime a human consumes a Shift’s photonova gland, they get much stronger, and their bodies become nigh invulnerable. If they eat more than one, they mutate into a twisted facsimile of a human. However, if a Shift consumes another Shift’s photonova gland, their bodies are destroyed, and they disintegrate.

Croosen was born a human, but she had undergone a standard Demifae ritual and been enhanced years ago with a large group of her peers during the casting of a spell using a single photonova gland. The enhancement granted her the ability to jump much higher than a normal human. Croosen had sprained both her ankles on her very first jump, and she did not use her rather pointless power ever again.

It was common knowledge that several early Demifae had tried to add the strength of Messiahs to their mystical enhancements, but when a Demifae consumes a Shift’s photonova gland, their body goes through a hideous mutation. Those first Demifae who craved even more power and chose to swallow a photonova gland became twisted monstrosities, each with an addiction-level obsession with consuming more photonova glands. The leadership at the time slaughtered the creatures who had been their peers, and the prohibition was set in place for all Demifae. Almost no one on the outside of Demifae ranks knew what happened when they tried to become Messiahs.

However, a completely different plan had bubbled up in Croosen’s mind from one of the books she had read in Abernathy’s shop; she was going to surgically implant the gland into herself. Croosen had hacked apart enough Shift corpses that she knew right where their photonova glands were located. She also knew it was not possible for her to implant the little gemstone where her own pineal gland was, and even though the witch’s ritual dealt with the center of Abernathy’s forehead right above his pineal gland, Croosen considered that trying to implant the crystal beneath the taught skin of her forehead was an impractical idea.

With the book in front of her, she opened to a page she had read countless times. The first time she read it, the words seemed preposterous, but she was drawn back to this section of the book. The more times she read it, the less unlikely it all seemed. Over time, Croosen came to the conclusion that what she was reading had actually happened, and eventually she had even started imagining what it would be like for herself. Now she would get to find out.

The book stated that several Demifae had lost their lives by attempting to implant a slain Shift’s photonova gland at the site of their pineal gland. Each time the procedure had been attempted, it ended in absolute failure. Others had implanted a gem in one of their limbs, but the process did not provide the subjects with power.

One of the alchemists who was described in the book was said to have achieved successful enhancements of five subjects, who each underwent photonova gland implants in their necks. The book described mental enhancements, each unique to the individual subjects in those early Demifae experiments, and the powers sounded wondrous to Croosen. She wanted them for herself.

The first subject gained what were described as psychic premonitions that were used to help hunt down more Shifts. The second patient was able to lucid-dream realities that the subject had never visited. Another of the Demifae with the implant could suddenly speak and understand four new languages fluently. One was supposedly able to hear people’s thoughts, and the final one listed in the book gained the ability to astral project while conscious.

Those powers seemed magical to Croosen. She did not know why more Demifae had not been enhanced by this process, but she also did not wish to involve anyone who might dissuade her. Croosen knew she could do it herself; she had a high threshold for pain.

She set out her medical kit, looked in her mirror, and began feeling along the side of her neck. “The vagus nerve, the jugular, the carotid artery,” she mumbled. She applied some numbing ointment to her skin and let it soak in as she filled a syringe with a stronger pain-masker, and she jabbed the needle into her neck.

“Ow,” she said through gritted teeth. She grunted as she shifted the needle’s tip several times, getting the medicine deep into her muscles. Pulling it out, she threw it on the table and took a slow breath to calm herself.

After another few minutes of allowing the analgesic to do its work, she steeled herself, and she began. With a towel over her shoulder to absorb the blood, Croosen stared into her mirror, and she cut into the side of her neck. She winced and sucked in a harsh breath as the blade split open her skin and muscle. Seeing the internal meat of her neck in the mirror was horrible, and the painkiller was barely making a difference.

Blood ran down the side of her neck, and she hissed as she inserted a pair of spreaders into the incision. Croosen squeezed the tool’s handle, and she gasped in shock as it opened her flesh. Her hand was shaky as she used a pair of tweezers to insert the photonova gland deep into her neck. She felt the tweezers release the stone, and despite the pain, she used the tip of the tool to force the crystal deeper into her muscle.

Croosen dropped the tweezers, carefully removed the spreader from her neck, and she squeezed the wound closed. She leaned forward and took a quavering breath. Her hands shook as she wadded up some gauze and gently packed it into the small opening. She knew she would need to clean and redress the wound in a day or two, and she applied a bandage. Croosen then chugged a small glass of sleeping draught, and despite the pain, she was soon asleep.

However, after several hours, chaotic dreams thrust Croosen from her unconsciousness, and she sat up with a start. Her mind spun with incomplete and confusing thoughts that did not come from her own mind. Convoluted flashes of what appeared to be caves and otherworldly individuals who dwelled in that strange belowground filled her mind, things she had never seen before. They were vague thoughts she could not stop or control at all, and fantasies about killing Messiahs began nagging at her mind.

Croosen had no way of knowing which of the three dead Shifts’ brains the photonova gland in her possession had come from, and she did not comprehend what would happen from the procedure she performed on herself. She did not know that the crystal in her was from Biological Shift, not from the other two Shifts. The man had obviously spent much of his life in the underground among the other unique inhabitants who lived there, and Croosen did not like the end results of her procedure.

Back at the apothecary, locked in his apartment upstairs, Abernathy’s senses fluctuated out of control throughout the night. He hallucinated sights, sounds, and smells. He manifested phantom sensations in his limbs and around his torso. The air tasted of smoke one minute and apples the next, then broccoli, or soil, or meat, or bread, or lavender, or chocolate, or sulfur, or pine. The entire night spun with chaos in his mind, and when the sun finally rose, he fell asleep.

Before the witch’s spell, Abernathy’s Demifae enhancement allowed him to stand perfectly still like a statue, which he always found useless. When he awoke, he found that all of his senses were enhanced. He could hear a baby crying from blocks away. He could see dust mites chewing on his dead skin cells in the corner of the room. He could smell the perfumes and animalistic aromas from Teshon City’s several pleasure houses. He could taste food being prepared by a vendor down the street. Abernathy could even feel the vibrations of an earthquake happening in a distant part of the continent.

“Now I really am a god.”★