The Broom #6
“HAW HA!” Dante bellowed, and pulled his coat open, his head thrown so far back his spine curved backward as his chest jutted forward. Ravens flew out of his coat and around the room, dispersing the mist, and the broom fell to the floor.
Haley swore at him and retreated.
The large ravens flapped to a rest on every table and counter. There were at least ten, possibly more. One flew up the stairs after Haley.
Dante continued his guttural “haw ha” sounds, and the ravens cawed back in a terrible symphony. He finally threw off his coat, and it landed with a flourish in the drawn pentagram.
“You wanted to meet my murder, well, here they are!”
“These are the women you took over the years?” Eilonwy asked, stunned at the realization. “I count thirteen, if you’ve been killing every year for twenty-one years, where are the other eight?”
Dante wiped the blood off his nose with his hand, and it smeared across his face.
“I have been in this city for twenty-five years. I arrived with my beloved and lost her four years later. A raven without his mate is a painful thing. I tried to date among the humans, but they know nothing of loyalty.” He walked to the counter and grabbed a handful of paper napkins from a holder, trying to stanch the flow of the blood. Once again outside the pentagram.
“You started killing women when you couldn’t find a girlfriend?” Taran scoffed and stood near the pentagram, but across from him.
Eilonwy stepped back. Taran would take it from here, allowing her to work. She touched the feather in her pocket and searched the floor with her eyes for his blood.
“And what would you have me do? A raven needs either mate or flock.”
“Dude, vampires get dates all the time without having to kill them,” Taran taunted.
The ravens cawed as though they were laughing.
“Shut up!” Dante yelled, and the ravens stopped.
Eilonwy noticed two things: the flock was scared of him, and he threw the bloody napkins down on the floor.
“Dude?” Dante questioned. “You call me dude? And how many women do you have?” he angrily asked, stepping over to Taran.
Eilonwy couldn’t get to the napkins without attracting his attention, and the blood on the floor was impossible to find. Then, one of the ravens hopped off the counter onto the floor and gently plucked up the bloodiest napkin.
Taran saw this but didn’t alert Dante.
“I don’t need to enslave women to feel like a man,” Taran said, his arms crossed over his slightly puffed chest, chin up, two feet from the taller raven shifter, who was hunched enough to meet his eyes.
The second Dante lunged, Taran ducked, punched, spun, and threw the raven shifter down onto his coat in the pentagram.
The raven gave Eilonwy the napkin, and she wrapped it around the feather and uttered her blood magick. “By this blood I bind! On the ground and splayed you’ll find!”
Dante’s limbs immediately stiffened out, his back to the ground, his legs open. He looked like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. “Release me, foul witch! Attack, my beauties!”
The ravens hopped back and forth and cawed in agitation, and then one flew from its perch on the stairs and landed on his chest.
“I said attack them!”
The raven pecked at his face, biting his lip, tearing it in two. Dante howled and began to lay out a curse. “By my wings…” he began.
Eilonwy prepared to silence his spell, but the crow grabbed his tongue, tearing at it so he couldn’t speak.
The remaining ravens swooped in one by one, each picking, then pecking a spot on him until he was a bloody mess bellowing without a tongue.
Blood filled his mouth and nose, making him sound like he was drowning.
Taran ran to the doors and warded them closed, baffling the noise from inside, window by window.
Eilonwy waited.
Haley drifted down the stairs, a crow hopping down with her and perching on the railing post at the bottom. They watched the bloody, writhing raven shifter as he struggled, pinned by her magick. She observed carefully to make sure he couldn’t shift to raven.
Taran stood nearby, his brow furrowed. “How far are we taking this?”
“We are letting them have as much justice as they desire.”
Dante’s flock pecked, tore, gnashed, scratched, tortured, and cawed. It was bloodthirsty work.
Finally, Dante stopped moving.
Haley drifted to the counter. Her voice came out of the radio. “Carey says they will be free when he is dead.”
The raven on the stairway cawed for a few seconds.
Haley continued her translation. “She says they don’t know what will happen, but they have agreed they would rather be dead than bound to him for life.”
“How can she understand them?” Taran asked.
Haley answered, “I understand Carey, but I don’t know what the rest are saying.”
The ravens continued pecking at the motionless body. His clothes in shreds, his eyeballs gone, they were now feasting on his flesh.
“Do you think we can save the ravens? Will they revert to being women? What about Haley?” Taran asked.
Carey cawed some more.
“They don’t know. I don’t care either. I’d rather die than live bound to him,” Haley answered.
Eilonwy nodded. “So may it be,” she said and went behind the counter, coming back with a silver dagger and an empty mayonnaise jar. She unscrewed the lid and put it in her pocket.
“Stand back, ladies,” she said in a loud but respectful voice.
The ravens reluctantly, one by one, hopped away and took perches around the room.
Eilonwy centered herself, smudged the pentagram with her foot, and spoke: “From death to dust, and blood to dry.” She placed the silver dagger on his body. “I collect your ashes from the sky.”
Surprisingly quickly, the body of Dante Valentine dried into a pile of blue, purple, and black sparkly ashes—not even the coat was left—and then gathered up into a swirl.
Eilonwy straightened, with nothing left to touch her dagger to, and held the jar out.
The tornado of ashes wound tighter and tighter, leaving a trail of silver smoke as it dove into the jar. Eilonwy quickly capped it closed.
The ravens cawed softly and looked at one another, waiting.
“Haley, are you still here?” Taran asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“How are you ladies feeling?” Taran asked the ravens.
They bobbed their heads and hopped around, chattering to one another.
Carey cawed again. Haley translated. “She says they feel good.”
“Do you want us to let you out?” Eilonwy asked. “It’s nearly summer, and you can see how you will do. We can keep watch if you have trouble. I don’t know if you’ll change back, but you can come here anytime. My brother and I will be buying this building and opening a coffee shop soon.”
The birds all looked at Taran. “I agree—we will watch out for you, and we’ll be buying this place. I think we’ll call it the Broom.”
The ravens cawed in agreement.
Taran removed the wards and opened the side door. He checked the street for people, and then the ravens hopped out, one by one, and flew up into the night sky. They landed in the tree across the street in the green space, waiting for one another. Eilonwy joined him at the window.
“Carey said she would visit,” Haley informed them.
“I think you might not be a ghost, Haley. You may be a persona. I’ll do some research and see what needs to be done and what your options are,” Eilonwy said.
“In the meantime, I’ll put the door back on your room, and we’ll put your broom back in the office, along with the radio. I think I can fix your mirror, too,” Taran added.
“Thank you, but what will you do about his bookstore? There might be bodies in there, too,” Haley asked, holding the radio herself.
Eilonwy sighed. “I think we’re going to have to tell the Mavens so they can investigate properly. They should know what’s been happening in their city.”
“Can we not tell Uncle Ric?” Taran asked.
“I doubt it. He needs to know you remember now, and we have to tell Wren.”
“Eilonwy, what will you do with the jar?” Taran asked.
“I’m locking it in the cellar with Dad’s jar.”
Taran put his arm around his sister, and she leaned into him as they watched the birds. “Dad might not have loved you the way he should have, but I love you.”
“I know. I love you too, Taran.”