TALES OF THE WITCH CLAN
NINJA NIGHTS


     The ninja team followed their shidoshi, gum soled tabi moving soundlessly across the packed clay forest trail. To cover their numbers, the five men moved in single file. The shidoshi stopped in his tracks, and spread his arms. This was the signal for the team to melt silently into the surrounding woods. He counted, one, two, and turned to see he was alone. Very good. The practice was going well today, and he would arrive a full half hour early to the rendezvous. The master might well be impressed with his efforts at training these men. But then, the master was a very unpredictable man. If he could truly be called a man. The shidoshi clicked his tongue, in what might sound like a single cricket chirp. He then held his arms out in a crescent shape, and the team silently reappeared on his flanks in a shallow, semi-circle formation known as the deadly Crescent Moon. He was very proud. The men were in top form today. He brought his hands together and pointed forward, and the team fell back into the single file formation.


     Jonathan Storm advanced his team to the rendezvous point. Perhaps he would get there before his father, and set up a mock trap with the team. It was almost, too much to hope that they might actually surprise him, but there was never a better trained team to try it with. There was Seth , Goldberg, Jones, and O’Brian in this group. All of them had, at least some military experience. The National Guard, the Marines, and Army Rangers were represented in this group. Jonathan smiled to himself. If nothing else, these men would experience the impossible.

As they were approaching the campsite, Jonathan could smell the faint whiff of a wood fire. He slowed the team down, and entered the area in full stealth mode. There, seated on a log, in front of a smokeless campfire, was the familiar black leather, broad brimmed hat and duster. The old man’s back was to them. Jon spread his arms into a crescent, and the team silently formed at his flanks and began drawing their mock weaponry. Plastic knives and chalked tennis balls appeared in five sets of black gauntleted hands as they formed a silent semi-circle at the master’s back. Within ten feet of their mark they let their weapons fly with devastating effect. The chalk marked the black leather coat, at the points of impact. The hat and coat slumped down on the log, empty of all but the sticks that had held them in place. The team looked on in amazement at the uninhabited hat and coat.

“They NEVER look up,” came a familiar voice from high in the tree, on the other side of the campfire. It was an old ninja proverb. Jon and the team looked up to see the master, dressed in his black ninja gi with the red belt of rank, standing on a branch, about twenty five feet off the ground. The old man smiled and waved, as he casually kicked a twelve foot long log, with ropes attached to each end, out of the tree. As the log hurtled earthward, the rope hidden in the underbrush, behind the team, raced to its master, catching the entire ninja team, behind their legs and sweeping them onto their backs on the forest floor. Jonathan blinked for only a moment, only to find his father standing in their midst, marking the team with a chalked, wooden sword.


     “You’re early,” the master said cheerfully. “That was good planning.”

“I notice that it didn’t help,” Jon said ruefully, brushing himself off.

“To the novice, we say?” prompted the master, cupping one ear to hear.

“Expect the unexpected,” groaned the team in unison.

“To the advanced student, we say?” Storm prompted, yet again.

“BE the unexpected,” they responded.

“Well, I was. Wasn’t I?” the master quipped. “What did you expect?” and he turned to clean off his hat and coat.

* * *

     It was a weekend long ninja practice meet. They came out, in minimal ninja equipment, on Friday evening. They would stay Friday night through Sunday afternoon, living off the land and learning not to leave a trace of their existence in the process. True invisibility. They used their short bladed ninja-to as long knives and machetes, to build shelters and tools to harvest wilderness food for survival. The weather was warm, sunny days, with cool, moonlit nights. Even if they made mistakes, they wouldn’t be terribly uncomfortable.

Several pine bough, lean-tos sprang up immediately, and a couple tree hammocks, with the small smokeless fire pit Storm had already provided. Some cattail piths, cut with the reeds for bedding, along with some berries, duck potatoes, milkweed greens and sulfur shelves made up an ample dinner, prepared in a half dozen mess kits. The master dug into his duster pockets, and pulled forth, a fistful of packets of ranch dressing, and some salt and pepper packets that he passed around to the grateful woodland diners. It was his way of telling the boys that he thought they did very well today. Jonathan thought so to, even though they failed to mark his father. They almost never do, but he expects them to always try.

His father believes the advanced warrior must be as much wizard, as warrior. Regardless how well they become such, each will come away knowing something about their world that they didn’t know before. Any food droppings and leftovers would be deposited neatly on a rock, outside the campsite’s perimeter. Some thought it a mystic offering to the woodland spirits, which are said to be plentiful here. The master was familiar with these, but insisted the practice gave the night prowling raccoons and such, a tasty treat and distraction away from the camp itself. The stronger smelling attractants would be in easy reach for them. With ready food, they would be less inclined to dare come closer to the sleeping humans.

Jonathan found ninja practice, an endless source of amusement and comedy. In a dive into the tall grass, Goldberg learned that most important of all lessons, ‘Look before you leap.‘ In that face first dive, while fading soundlessly, if not odorlessly, into the tall grass, he learned that the lovely white tailed deer he had spied so often, left reminders of their existence, in little piles. He was formally nominated, by his class, for the not-particularly-coveted, Disappearing Circle Award. Seth Balrog, as originator of said award, would be officiating at tonight’s campfire.

Seth was retelling the incident, of his first night practice in the woods with Jon and the master. An S.U.V. had appeared on the road in the woods. Jonathan and old Storm seemed to fade out of existence. Suddenly deprived of any night vision, and not knowing the whereabouts of his two companions, he had become disoriented. Seth began running in circles, looking for a place to hide. Dressed in the familiar, black ninja garb, all he really had to do was adjust his posture to disguise his human silhouette, and look down and away from the light, and tuck his fingers so that no skin with recognizable features was exposed. That is what Jon and old Storm had done, and Seth immediately mistook their dark forms for shadowed underbrush. Seth had stopped running in circles when he found a tree to hide behind. As he found it rather suddenly, running into it, he hugged the trunk and hid on the side facing the coming vehicle. Fortunately, his black hooded night suit, rendered him unseen from the truck’s driver, who had his eyes, pretty much on the road for crossing animal life. From that point on, they would all joke how Seth had used the mysterious Disappearing Circle technique to confuse all onlookers into the illusion of invisibility. In the group’s newsletter, ’Shadows Of Tong Kwoon,’ the Disappearing Circle Award became the ninja version of the comic section of the newspaper. Goldberg was assured that his story would grace this month’s issue.

The campfire story telling then quieted down to the usual ghost stories about ‘The White Lady’, a Rochester phenomenon that was known to haunt these woods. The most common, local version of it was that she was the ghost of a lady, who lived in one of the finer homes near by. She and the ghosts of her two white German shepherds, would avenge any young woman whose virtue was brutally taken within the north eastern area of Durand Park woods. The predators responsible would never be seen or heard from again, at least, not in any recognizable form. Jonathan had heard just about every version of it, and was looking about for his father. There, at the very edge of the fire light, stood a lone dark form, peering into the darkness beyond. Jon left his comrades to their story telling to join his father. The tell tale sounds of dry leaves crunching and the occasional twig snapping, gave evidence to Jon, that his father was watching the night prowling creatures visiting the rock they left their food offering on. It seemed that daylight and darkness were all the same to his father. Jon’s night vision was excellent, but his father actually seemed to be comfortable in the dark.

“People might think you were antisocial, preferring the darkness, out here, to the campfire,” Jon said quietly. He did not want to disturb the animals nearby.

“People think all sorts of strange things, Jon” his Dad replied in a hushed tone, “Some think I’m a biker. Some think I worship the devil and make blood sacrifices. My mother thinks I’m as evil as my father. It took time, son, but I gave up claiming any responsibility for what people think.

I’m comfortable, and I’m where I belong.”

“Living on the edge?” Jon said wryly.

“Yes,” the master said. “…on the edge of their little world, peering into the darkness beyond, knowing intimately those things which go ‘bump-in-the-night’, as it is as much my world as theirs. I am a responsible citizen of more than one world and species. Not fully one or the other, but carrying within, the best of both, as you do.”

“Who are we responsible to?” Jon asked, knowing himself as his father‘s son.

“I thought that would be obvious,” his father chided, “We are responsible to any who are smaller or weaker than ourselves, and to the One who framed the worlds with His Word. To whom much is given, of them, shall much be required.” The old wizard went on, “Doors open into other worlds every day, and who among them, is ready to see it? Some go mad when their ‘reality check’ bounces.” Jon glanced at his father, for his odd quirk with metaphors. His father continued, “For instance, if that foraging skunk at the offering rock, was a rabid wolf instead, who among the human celebrants, huddled around their campfire, would have any idea that they might be stalked by something they can’t see, because their eyes are not adjusted to that kind of light? But you and I, we know what is out here. We belong somewhere between the mysterious and the mundane. That rabid wolf would have much less chance against the likes of us, than ignorant humanity. I say again, I won’t claim responsibility for anything they believe, but I am accountable, before the Maker of Worlds, for what I know, and I station myself accordingly.”

“So this is what makes you the wizard protector?” Jon asked.

“Actually, I was made what I am, and this is what I am best suited to do,” his father explained, “ and you as well. The ninja lessons are to train you, not to view war craft and wisdom, as two separate things. Seth and the boys, are my tools to train you, and spread a bit of much needed wisdom into the human gene pool. We make better men of them, and I train my son in the process. I am making a force, capable of keeping the worst of the darkness at bay. In so doing, I make the world a little better place to live.”

“I’ve always loved the martial arts, Dad,” Jon said. “I always felt so proud when we went to visit other schools and we’d share knowledge, but I feel very lacking as a wizard, though. It’s like you and Melanie got the best of the magick, and all I got, was card tricks.”

“I won’t lie to you, son,” his father said. “There’s been more than a few times, I wondered if any kind of wizardry was in you. The curiosity was there, but the knowledge seems to take you a bit longer to grasp fully. But when it does, I noticed, you’ve got it. When you drop your own limitations, Seth and the boys, can’t keep up with you. They never will. You are more human than your father, as I am, but considerably less so than them. We are not to be measured or weighed as a full blooded human being. We are LIKE them, but we are not EQUAL. But there’s a bit more to do, to prepare you. Tonight, I would like to initiate you, a bit more fully, into your non-human side.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Jon wondered aloud, “Will we cross over into the Otherworld tonight?”

“No need to,” his father said. “This is a place where it crosses over to us. Over there, you will feel like the alien. Here, you will meet others, remotely like yourself, in ways that humans are not. I’m thinking that if you see similar traits, in creatures that are obviously not human, you will understand that part of yourself, that much better. When the boys bed down for the night, place Seth on camp watch, and you and I will pay the White Lady a little visit. I’ve been needing to introduce you two.” The old man moved back to the campfire and the boys, to boil some water for tea in the kettle of his mess kit. Jon stayed and contemplated the darkness, reaching out of himself for things he felt related to there.

* * *

     Every one was bedded down for the night. Seth sat up, by the fire, occasionally tossing a dry stick or twig in to make more light. Flashlights were not allowed in this type of outing. Jon and his father were making their way, in the pitch blackness of the forest, down a trail known as the Emerald Tunnel. This winding trail, covered a large distance through the park, along the ridge of a series of hills, through hardwood forest. Its hard packed clay trail was worn smooth over decades of feet and bicycles traveling it. The crabapple trees, hawthorns and wild grape vines formed an arched, emerald ceiling above the trail. When speeding down its winding path, it was like shooting through an emerald tube, thus the name. At night, the light of the moon and stars did not reach here. The glow of fireflies and foxfire were the only illumination to be found. Jon’s father could negotiate these places easily. He followed his father’s black-on-black form southward, to a meadow on a hill, bounded by white oaks.

“Some words of knowledge are in order here,” said the old wizard, as he removed his weaponry to place on a granite bolder in the moonlit meadow. For a brief moment, the men had to squint in the light of the meadow, as their eyes adjusted from the blackness of the forest. After the ‘Emerald Tunnel’, the full moon seemed like high noon. Jon followed his father’s lead and divested himself of weapons at the rock.

“I take it, you plan on having a friendly chat with the White Lady’s ghost,” Jon assumed. “But what about her dogs? Are they safe?”

“When you say ‘ghost,’” his father lectured, “I must assume that you are speaking of the disembodied spirit of another human being.” He pulled his son to face him. “First: the White Lady was never human. She’s fae. She’s a Sidhe of an order known as Bean Sidhe, commonly referred to as a ‘banshee’ or the White Sidhe. They are a higher order of faery creature. The human woman form she assumes, is one she took from the woman, whose family she had ties to. None of them are left, but the Sidhe remains. As the woman was mistreated in life, this Sidhe is inclined to deal with such predators in the way she deems fit, as this is her ‘haunt.’ It’s not hard to understand why she likes this area, and stays even though the family is gone. She is, in actuality, thousands of years older than the woman, everyone thinks she might be, and has been linked to her family for untold generations.”

“Much as Shabriri and others have been linked to ours?” Jon questioned.

“Precisely so,” said his father, “and the dogs are not white German shepherds. They are white wolves, of a sort. They are not just the animals they would seem to be. They are both guardians and familiars. The mere presence of these, would suggest an even higher order of banshee is what we’re dealing with. In ancient times, such would only accompany a goddess of some degree, and not just a common fae.”

“So she’s ‘nobility?’” Jon asked.

“In Ireland, she’d hold a high rank in the Seely Court.” His father explained, “Here in these woods, she holds a very high status in the local fae court. Sometimes, I’m allowed to attend, sometimes not. But I’ve seen her there before. When you refer to her as ‘Lady’, say it like you mean it as a courtier would. You will not offend her.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with this and the wolf thing, “ Jon said uneasily. “Are you sure we’ll be safe?”

“I never said anything about being safe,” his father corrected. “She doesn’t care much for humans, and doesn’t like men at all. She doesn’t even think too greatly about the intelligence of the women who let themselves be victimized here. It’s her nature to behave as she does.”

“And you want to introduce me to her?” Jon asked, incredulously. “A human eating, man hating, ancient goddess from hell?”

“That’s my point, son.” The wizard continued, “You already know about humans, but very little about that fraction of you that is Sidhe. The White Lady will know you for who you really are. Human or Sidhe. I’m half human, I get along alright.”

“What if I’m not so very Sidhe as you?” Jon queried nervously. “What’re my chances of surviving thus encounter?”

“If there was no chance, son,” his father said softly, “I would not have brought you here at all. You would live your whole life, and never see this part of your heritage. If I erred in my judgment, then I alone, am your chance at surviving this meeting, and my vote here, also counts for something. Just follow my lead. Do not look long in her eyes, but rather look at her feet and be aware of her in your mind. She is a lot easier to look at with your eyes closed, then you see her through less deceived senses. Show no fear, to her or the wolves. They are not corporeal, but they can hurt you, or worse. We won’t give them a reason to, as it is our nature not to be the kind of creature they prey upon. This is where you meet and identify your nonhuman side. That’s why we came here tonight.”

The old wizard directed Jon to remove his tabi, and they both turned and faced the full moon, barefoot, and with their eyes closed. Jon was to visualize a ‘moon goddess’, a feminine aspect of the silvery illumination, as his father suggested and only open his eyes when he felt a feminine presence. A pair of low growls to the right hand and left, were Jon’s first clues that they were no longer alone on the hilltop meadow. He was wishing his keen edged, ninja-to was not on the rock, so many feet away. His father began a halting litany in ancient Irish, and the growling subsided. In the moonlight. Jon could make out the clear forms of the white wolves to either side. Their heads were low and their eyes held an unnatural gleam of fire. They made no move to advance. The old wizard was making a fist with his right hand and touched it over his heart, and extended it, palm upwards and open, to the vision of the White Lady, standing before him, as though he was handing her his heart. The Sidhe, in turn, made a motion as if she were picking up, what he offered, and was touching it to her own heart. As she completed this move, the old man declared the meeting would be a safe one.

The Sidhe appeared as a lovely, doe eyed, woman in white, and covered in flowing, white, gossamer veils. As Jon studied her features in more detail, he found the image to shift uncomfortably in his mind to something that more than suggested certain, gruesome death. He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, and viewed her in his mind. There he saw a luminous creature, that held traits like compassion for innocent victims, and unholy recompense for unrepentant violators of the weak, in an extreme light. Where a human might possess these passions to a mixed extent, in a subdued kind of candle light, this creature had no mixed feelings, and had the glare of an arc lamp, as opposed to a human candle. He could feel her getting closer to scrutinize him more fully. He never felt so naked and vulnerable. His hairs stood erect as if electrified, as her gaze swept him up and down. His knees began to tremble, and Jon was hard put to control them to stop. He could understand, what the fae and his father had in common. But he could not find it in himself, not like this. Then she flooded his mind with visions of women violated and murdered over the centuries. Scene after gruesome, unrelenting scene, imposed themselves on his memories until he could control himself no more and roared his rage to the universe. The spectral wolves howled in an eerie harmony with him. Deep down in his soul of souls, Jon felt that if there was one such person, capable of inflicting that kind of woe on another, he would have to remove such from this plane of existence, without any human remorse. There was none to be found in him. The White Lady seemed to smile at him, but it was a fierce smile. She nodded, and vanished in the mist rising out of the tall meadow grass. Jon sank to his knees, weeping.

“Are you okay, son?” his father asked gently, his hand on his shoulder.

“I never knew I could hate something so much,” Jon sobbed.

“It pleases me to note,” the wizard pointed out, “that it is a ’what’ you hate, and not a ’who.’ There is a time for all things, love as well as hate. All of these have an appropriate place. You’ve never had to make decisions based solely on these things in your past. The Lady felt you alienate yourself from her, and she showed you that given the same choices, you were very much alike. That, and other things, comprise your nonhuman side.”

“It makes me feel lucky I have a human side.” Jon concluded, “I would not want to live so long in a world of such glaring extremes without toning it down a notch.”

“I have to do that all the time.” His father confided, “Sometimes, I feel that such evil moves so easily through this world, and brings such grief to good people, because they allow the evil to get away with it. They tone down justice, when it’s needed undiluted, and then the evil strikes yet again and again. All the time, it is the innocent who are made to suffer for it. It is very difficult for me, to not take matters into my own hands. I have to remind myself, that I do not know ALL of the answers… but what if you saw, what the Lady has seen? How would human justice temper your response?”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t slow my hand a single second.” Jon glared, “If I knew guilt, beyond any reasonable doubt, that person’s heart would not know another beat. I’m afraid of what I’ve become!”

“You didn’t just become this way, Jon.” His father explained, “She only showed you what was already there. Your passions reflect your Sidhe nature. I married your mother for her very human qualities, the best of such, I could give you. You see exactly why I love her so, and can’t bear to live with her? It‘s the extremes. Our bounds are further stretched than humans. They make things a lot easier to take, with moderation, and yet that same moderation can drive us mad at times, when it seems inappropriate. Only a very obsessed human can relate to a fae wavelength. It‘s not healthy for them in the long run. A healthy Sidhe will burn as bright as a star, for centuries longer than a human and not be hurt by it, but in turn, will lack certain human traits depending upon its archetype. Without these traits to balance one extreme from another, you can understand why a fae living in a human society would wind up wreaking havoc. Some think we were never meant to co-exist, and that hybrids, like ourselves, never meant to exist at all. This is what you need to know about who you are, and how you may expect to be received. It was literally, a life or death decision with the entity you had just met. She’s mellowed a lot since we first met, believe me. She wasn’t likely to accept my fae blood until she could smell it, at first. Having established that, it took decades in our court, working as a protector in her very back yard, that she began to really accept me. They used to have to protect me from her, by not holding court with both of us present at the same time. ”

“I can’t believe you would actually expose me to something like that,” Jon scolded his father.

“Call it, a calculated risk,” the old man grinned. “If I didn’t, you’d take years trying to find that part, and doubting yourself. If something like what she showed you, happened before your eyes, you would react instantly and in the extreme, and never understand why. Besides that, you’ll never fly without fae help.”

“Dad, I’ve flown Cessnas, Apaches, Chinooks and more,” Jon shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“She gave us a parting gift tonight,” his father said. “They don’t happen all that often, but I love it when they do. Have you ever flown a zephyr?”

Jon looked oddly at his father as they put on their shoes and resheathed their weapons in their garb. The old man turned back to face the full moon, and gave a rising whistle and raised his arms, palm upwards. To Jon’s amazement, his father started rising in the wind that whipped at his hair and coat. He rose about thirty feet and motioned his hands downward and began to drift back to the meadow where Jon stood.

“Uh, we’re expected to fly a circuit of the park tonight and discourage vandals and other kinds of bad guys, son,” the old wizard said. “You’ll want to get the hang of this. Signal with your hands, that you want to execute the ascent or descent in your mind. We lose this by sunrise, so let’s get started.”

It seemed too simple, but it worked. His father explained it was the air elementals known as zephyrs, that made this possible for them, and that they were, by nature, very intelligent. In the bright light of the full moon, it was a rush to be carried on the very wings of the wind. It was like a wild dream, except he could feel the cool night wind whipping at his face as they flew. His father pointed north, to the beach area. It must be past midnight, so Jon doubted they would find anyone there. But he was wrong. On the not-so-quiet, night time shores of Lake Ontario, some teenagers were dancing around a bonfire, drinking and drugging themselves sick. His father gave out a loud, long whoop and descended to about twelve feet off the ground and buzzed the bonfire. The celebrants shrieked in terror at the sight of the black clad team, swooping down at them out of the summer night sky.

The demonic duo wailed and howled like banshees, spurring their terror to new heights. When someone looked like they might intend to return to the beach, they would knock them down in the sand, asserting their reality on the miscreants. It was over all too soon, and then there wasn’t a soul left on the beach. The old man made several trips to the shoreline, filling his big leather hat with water, and used the rest of their beer, to douse the fire. The exception being the six bottles he tucked into the deep pockets of his big, black duster. Then back into the air, they went again to patrol the park a bit further east, before heading back to the campsite in the deep woods. There were some sheriff patrols heading to the parking area by the beach, where the teens were puking, and piling into waiting cars to leave the area.

To say Jon and his father were in high spirits, would have been like saying the great undersea explorer, Jacques Cousteau, dabbled in water. If the fatigue of the day, hadn’t been catching up with the pair, they would have fallen out of the sky upon day break. They landed in an open clearing by the stream, near the campsite. They noted, with satisfaction that neither it, nor their fire, was visible from above. Jon watched his father stash the beer bottles under an overhang in the cold stream.

“Is Seth still the youngest of this group?” his father asked.

“Yep, he turned twenty one, some months back,” Jon replied. “Is that beer for later? My mouth is hot and dry from all that screaming.”

“It’s for Saturday night’s campfire time,” his Dad said, “They’ve done real good this year. It’ll be a nice touch. Let‘s go get some sleep.”

* * *

     Saturday morning came all too early, the team was up and combing the woods for edibles. Seth had managed to find a few sassafras saplings and yanked up some roots for some hot sassafras tea. The old man pulled some sugar packets out of his voluminous pockets and enjoyed the brew.

“You wouldn’t have some flapjacks and sausages in those pockets of yours, huh?” Seth asked the old man.

“I might surprise you,” the wizard replied enigmatically, and tossed him two sugar packets for his own cup.

* * *

     The leftovers were again gathered and taken to the offering stone. The boys broke camp, and made the area appear as if they were never there. Practices of the day, included sparring on logs over the stream, the loser got wet, and shuriken practice along with knife throwing at some deadwood targets they set up in a clearing. Later in the afternoon, they had water training in one of the many ponds in the back of the park. Canvas ninja gi, swelled up with air bubbles as the boys tied off the thighs and waist to keep them afloat. In the process of exploring the cattailed shrouded back section, the boys caught two perch, about twenty crawfish near the rocks, and a really large snapping turtle. They later released the snapper, because no one remembered exactly how they might prepare the meat. When two more snapping turtles were found to be the size of large wash tubs, it was decided they should clear out of the pond, lest someone lose a limb to the large, amphibious carnivores.

Back at the stream, where it fed into the pond, were numerous flat stones. Searching these, back another hundred yards, yielded another three dozen crawfish. More duck potatoes were dug from the mud close to shore, and the boys mixed some milkweed sap with water to splash on their skin to keep the bugs off. It was a really good day to be out in the woods. A new camp was built, closer to the stream, and when all was to comfort specifications, a hearty meal consisting of steamed crawfish tails and duck potatoes and greens, was prepared.

“These taste like shrimp,” Seth remarked. “You wouldn’t have any cocktail sauce and maybe some cold beer in those pockets of yours, would you? He kidded with the old man.

“No cocktail sauce,” the master replied, rummaging through his pockets, “But I’ve got a few packets of ketchup and some cold beer.”

“Ketchup will do okay,” Seth accepted gratefully, “and WHAT?”

The master reached down, under the overhanging stream bank, and hauled up six bottles of beer, one for each of the amazed ninja trainees. He toasted the men on their fine work and great meal, after which, they thoroughly enjoyed the woodland shrimp dinner with a hearty cold brew.

“So, how did you come up with that beer?” Seth asked the master.

“Magic,” the old wizard grinned.

“No, really,” Seth insisted. “You’ve been hopping, climbing and dancing around us since yesterday, and I’ve never heard the single klink of a single bottle. How’d you do that?”

“They were obtained by purely magickal means,” the master laughed.

“Okay… Jonathan, how’d he do it?” Seth was squirming with curiosity.

“Like he said,” Jon replied mischievously, “it was by magickal means.”

“Can’t one of you tell the truth?” Seth said exasperatedly.

“If you MUST know,” Jon drawled, “We flew out to the beach, last night, and found some stoners, partying their little buns off. So instead of biting their throats, we decided to take some of their beer. So we flew back, and stashed it in the stream to keep it cold and have for tonight‘s dinner.”

“Okay, I’m not going to get a straight answer out of either of you.” Seth conceded. “Just forget I asked.” Jon and his father looked at each other and laughed themselves to tears. It was a great meal to cap off a great day.

After the sun had set, it was time for night practice. Dressed in their night suits, of hooded, unbroken black, the men split into two groups. No flashlights were allowed, they had to develop their keen night vision and learn to negotiate the darkness. The master took O’Brian and Jones northward to the beach area and then to the western park boundaries. Jon took Seth and Goldberg northeast, past the golf course and picnic areas to the east of the King’s Highway and then they would wind their way in the dark, back to the campsite. There would be a covered kettle of sassafras tea, cooling next to a doused fire pit. The sun had set a little after nine o’clock. They estimated that they should all be back by one a.m.

Jon’s team had just cut across the golf course at one corner, and were making their way uphill to the King’s Highway near the playground area, when they spied a van, parked off the road in the darkness of the trees. The headlights and engine were off, but the faint cracks of light, gave evidence that the internal lights were on. The van was rocking sporadically and the muffled sounds of a struggle could be heard from within. Seth and Jon looked at each other and Seth whispered he could bet what they were doing inside.

     Jon could taste and smell blood and fear on the breeze coming from the direction of the rocking van. He motioned the men to stay put, as he stealthily made his way to the van to investigate. The smell was certainly stronger near the van. Mimicking moves he had seen his father do, Jon pressed the palms of his hands to the side of the van, closed his eyes and projected his consciousness within. The sensations shocked him like a plunge into an icy lake.

A young redheaded woman, was bound naked, and gagged with duct tape. The smell of fear, sweat and human blood were coming from her. A heavy set, middle aged man was ecstatic, as he had just finished carving a large “M” on each cheek, above the gag. He was currently carving a valentine in her soft abdomen. The smell of manly musk and sexual arousal came from him. The man was feeling that it was much too long since he last had this pleasure.

Jonathan’s awareness suddenly snapped to his position outside the van. To his companions surprise, Jon started pummeling on the walls of the van with his fists.

“Go away,” the man called out. “You’re not wanted here.” The desperate muffled scream of the tortured girl could be heard faintly from Jon’s position. Seth jumped up and grabbed Jon’s elbow.

“Hey, bro,” Seth whispered hoarsely, “It’s just a pair of young lovers, seeking a little privacy. Be cool, huh?” Jon pushed Seth away hard, and punched through the passenger side window of the van and unlocked the door. He nearly ripped the door off its hinges as he jumped into the front of the van and pushed his way through the curtains to the back.

* * *

     It all happened so fast, as Seth was regaining his feet. The side door of the van burst open and a middle aged fat man came tumbling out, gripping a tire iron in one hand and a bloody hunting knife in the other. Seth put his hands up to calm the man down.

“Take it easy,” Seth pleaded. “It’s just a misunderstanding.” To which, the man swiped viciously at him with the tire iron, striking him on the forearm. Seth was sure the arm was broken. At this point, Jonathan came flying out of the van, as if launched by a catapult, knocking the fat man sprawling. He tossed Seth a cell phone he had wrapped in a sandwich bag in his pouch for emergencies.

“Balrog, Goldberg,” Jon barked orders. “Get lively and get this woman an ambulance. PRONTO! The maniac is MY project.” The fellow in question had bolted for the woods, and Jon was hot on his trail. Seth and Goldberg peered into the van to see the bloody mess. Goldberg used his ninja-to, to cut the bindings on the woman, and tore down the curtains to cover her and staunch the bleeding.. Seth began unwrapping the cell phone with one hand to make the call, while looking for something to splint his arm with. He was wondering how Jonathan knew what was really going on in the van.

* * *

     Jon’s whole world, narrowed down to a warm body, moving away from him about thirty yards ahead in the benighted woods. He could smell the woman’s blood and the man’s sweat coming at him as a warm, pungent miasma trail in the cool night air of the forest. The man was crashing blindly through the trees and underbrush like an enraged bull. Jon would not lose his trail. His senses were all focused keenly on his prey, and he was on the hunt. In the distance, he could hear the unmistakable howls of the white wolves. The White Lady was coming from the other direction. Jon was hoping he’d get to the man first, but it was not out of any sense of mercy. His whole being was lost in this hunt, whatever humanity was in him, was not responding at this time. Jon could feel the body heat of the man ahead of him, now by only twenty yards, the sound of that heart laboring under a layer of fat came to his ears, louder than his own footsteps. He knew there was a trail at the bottom of this hill, that bordered the pond they swam in earlier this day. The man could sense Jon was closing in on him and ran all the harder, picking up momentum down the hill, crashing through branches of hawthorn that tore at his skin. Jon could smell the fresh blood, and the fear in the man’s sweat as he too, picked up speed.

At the bottom of the hill, where Jon expected the man to go either right or left, the man kept going as though he couldn’t stop and plowed noisily into the pond. Jon stopped at the edge and watched as the man tried to swim across. He was deciding whether to run around the pond to catch him or swim after him. From the opposite direction the White Lady was gliding slowly across the surface of the water towards the man, her arms were upraised and her mouth moving, as if she were singing. Jon thought he could hear her voice in his head, albeit faintly. It sounded like an ancient dirge. The man was watching Jon, over his shoulder and paddling for all he was worth. In the moonlight, Jon could see what appeared to be the wakes of two submerged Volkswagens, converging on the corpulent swimmer. Damn, those snappers get big, Jon thought. The fresh blood in the water, drew the carnivores to a ready meal. The man screamed and then gurgled for help, while Jon and the White Lady remorselessly watched him going under, still thrashing. When the pond was calm again, Jon looked up to the Lady on the pond, and made the gesture his father had made the night before with his fist to his heart, and then held out, palm upwards to the White Lady. As before, she gestured as if taking the gift to her own bosom, and then vanished in the mist forming on the water. Jon ran back to the van to assist the team.

Upon returning, Jon found Goldberg tending the young woman and Seth working a splint around his forearm with some of the duct tape in the van. Seth indicated that an ambulance from the local volunteers would be there shortly. Jon gave Goldberg his weapons and any gear the police might find questionable, and told the men to make their way back to camp. Jon would stay to meet with the police. The men melted into the darkness of the forest as the first cars pulled up. Jon was standing in the road waiting for them with his mask and hood off. His father was on good terms with the local police, and known for his night time nature hikes in the woods, so Jonathan wasn’t too concerned about what they might make of him. He gave the police a report of what he found while hiking along the trail near the road and how the man had run westward, into the woods, towards the pond before Jonathan lost track of him. The ambulance crew were already enroute to Rochester General Hospital, only five minutes away. The woman would survive, but she would be scarred for life. When the officer was satisfied that he had all the information Jon could give him, Jonathan faded into the forest like a ghost.

The men debriefed around the small campfire that night. Some hot sassafras tea and a chance to talk about what they had seen and how they would deal with it, seemed to settle everyone. The master was looking long and hard at Jonathan, his concern written plainly on his features. Jonathan stared long in to the dark of the forest, alone with his thoughts. Balrog and Goldberg went to sleep feeling like heroes. Jon wasn’t sure what he felt like, but it wasn’t human. He was trying to define all the new emotions he was feeling, like the fierce joy of flying, the wild hunt, and cold passion, all of which defied human terms.

They broke camp by nine a.m., Sunday morning. All traces of the campsite were made to vanish. They even erased their trail out of the woods. They all met for coffee and showers at the master’s apartment near the southwestern boundary of the park.

The police divers found part of the badly chewed remains of “Mad Mike” Mimsy, in the pond Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t all there, but then, his lengthy rap sheet claimed he was never “all there,” as he was in and out of mental institutions all of his adult life. Jon couldn’t help but feel it was a fitting end to a bloody career, but was at odds with himself.

Jon’s human side, tried to argue pity for the deranged and deceased man. His fae side had none to give. Any creature that fed on the fear and pain of others, was evil, and evil was always insane. The man did not die directly, by his hand, but Jon felt close kinship to the forces that sealed his fate. He felt the world was just a tiny bit better for it, but his own world had expanded uncomfortably. He had always loved and looked up to his father, and wanted to be just like him. Until now, Jon never knew what that might entail. He loathed himself as a heartless monster, but his father was anything, but heartless. He could seem so at times, but usually the goal he was pushing to, required that extra effort… which may have seemed cruel, but needed “heart” to pull it off. Jon was finding the balance he needed to survive as a mixed species. No matter what species you were, there was always another to keep your numbers in check. When the wolves were hunted out and chased out of the west, and the rattlesnakes hunted to near extinction in certain areas, the rabbits, prairie dogs and rodent populations grew to epoch proportions. Cattle and horses were going lame from stumbling into the multitude of burrows to house the critters. Swarms of mice and rats plagued various areas in New Mexico, and Arizona and carried the hanta virus. One might try to label a creature like a wolf or a pit viper as evil, but the truth was, they were never meant to harm man, but keep the food chain below them healthy, and in turn, feed their own. Their own numbers would never exceed the amount of food available to feed them. The natural world maintains balance, so does the universe at large. Jonathan was becoming an adult who knew he belonged to a bigger world than his friends ever imagined.

Once it was fun to imagine his father as “eccentric.” It made him shiver to realize how much sense the old wizard actually made. Whether the world thought him mad or no, the old man knew what he needed to do. Jonathan understood that patient look in his father’s eyes at times, he was looking at his children and waiting for help. The witch clan served a purpose bigger than itself. His father once quoted to him from someone’s literary work.

“Evil prevails when good men do nothing.” Jon thought, “Not on MY watch.”

Impressum

Texte: John Stormm
Bildmaterialien: John Stormm
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.01.2010

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