Chapter #51The Minotaur by: Seuzz   You don't like Will Shabbleman's attitude. Not that you ever did, but he's a loose end and a danger. He's had a taste of power, having been inside a mask. Worse, it's a taste of the kind of power that Frank and Joe Durras had. He knows how the masks work, and what kinds of things can be found inside the Libra. He will resent the loss of his Rosalie: his promised wife. You'll have to figure out a way of dealing with him.
First, though, you have to make your own position secure.
You lock yourself in Grandmother's workroom, and from the supplies Aunt Sarah fetched you fashion a new nail, which you use to secure the mask to your face: now there will be no chance of Shabbleman--if he suspects a trick--of trying to pull it off you. Then you hide the Libra behind the secret panel: the double-safe hiding place in the room no one dares enter.
* * * * *
"Grandmother!"
You spring awake at the name and at the rude hands roughly shaking you in your bed. Out of sheer habit you slap at the unfortunate girl. "Leave off, Mae! What's ailing you, girl?"
Mae--who's pushing fifty--continues to tug at you. "Nate said to fetch you quick! He's out at the barns!" Terror shows in her eyes.
You suck in your breath. If her shaking wasn't enough to wake you, this would be. Before you can ask another question, a rifle shot sounds. And then another. "My coat and galoshes, Mae. Now! if you value your heart's blood."
She scrambles from the room, and you're quickly behind her, your old flannel nightgown flapping around your new body. Hair falls in your eyes, and you rapidly twist it into a bun as Mae throws a heavy coat over your shoulders.
It and the boots are Grandmother's old things--too big for Rosalie's body--but they'll have to do as you jog into the chill morning air. A front must have come through during the night, for the air bites hard. "Start the car while I run ahead," you yell back to Mae. "Catch up when you can." You double your speed as more rifle shots sound.
The barns. The Minotaur.
His name was once Henry Wainwright. As a genealogist he'd presented himself to the town twenty years ago; as a magician he'd revealed himself when Nate's father--town constable at the time--had tried to deal with him. It took three chains of enchanted silver to finally bind him after he'd killed half a dozen townsfolk in his attempt to flee. Grandmother could have struck his head off, but she had other plans for him.
So she'd imprisoned him in the old barn near where the town's "crop" grew, and fed him on Cuthbert's numerous stillbirths and abortions, waste products Grandmother had charged within sigils of her own design. Fattened on those gruesome feasts he had grown large and loathsome, bursting his skin and losing his reason, turning into a titan of fury and muscle. His strength is now prodigious, nurtured against the day that any police force too great for the constabulary might try to visit the town.
That day hasn't yet come. Sometimes Grandmother has wondered if he's really worth the trouble. Now you regret that she'd saved him against a day that has never come.
You're nearing the far edge of town when a car horn sounds behind you: Mae with the old sedan. "Nate say what the fool trouble is?" you bark as you jump into the car.
"No'm," Mae gasps. "He only sent word there was trouble at the barns and to fetch you."
"I'll have the skin of him who--"
A pickup looms ahead, and Mae jerks the wheel, sending the sedan flying up onto the sidewalk as the truck squeals past and halts. You and the occupants of the truck are out and on your feet almost simultaneously. "Gabe! What's this fool business about?"
"The Minotaur, ma'am!" Gabe Shabbleman gasps. He casts a terrified glance back up the street whence he and his mates had flown. Another rifle shot cracks nearby. "Nate's trying to lead it back to the woods--"
"How'd it get loose? Where's Bo?"
"Ain't seen, Bo, ma'am. Me and the boys were in the greenhouse when we heard it bellowin'. Good thing Nate and young Will was on hand--"
A horrible bellow breaks out, and you turn. The Minotaur crashes from a screen of trees.
It's ten feet high at the immense, bowed shoulders, and it lumbers along on tiny back legs and the knuckles of its immense arms. Almost lost at the top of the mountainous torso is the tiny, skull-like head.
It leaps along the road toward you; the men yelp and scramble back. Mae screams as the Minotaur draws even with the sedan, and with a flick of its arm sends the sedan shuddering several feet to the side. It is bearing down on you hard, but you stand firm in its path.
"Asterion!" you cry in a hard voice, and the silver emblem stitched into the flesh of its chest blazes forth. "Heel!" you cry, and stamp your foot.
The thing crashes to a halt in mid-leap, bowing like a dog that's been whipped hard. It snarls.
"Asterion! Down! Down!" It drops to its knees and elbows. You don't have your canes here, so you can't deal with it properly; you can only daunt it with the magical words and the seal of control. "Go back to the Big House," you order Gabe over you shoulder while keeping your blazing eyes locked on the Minotaur's. "In the shed in back you'll find a big iron chain. Melody can show you the one if you're not sure. Fetch it here." Nate and Will, shotguns in their hands, appear; the Minotaur snuffles the air and turns at them in a rage, pawing the ground. It takes a half dozen sharp words from you to force it back down. "Hurry, Gabe. I can't hold it here forever."
You're actually surprised you can hold it all. The thing can't be terrified of the words, only of the threat behind them, and you've not got Grandmother's tools here with you.
"What happened, Nate," you ask the constable as you keep a fierce glower bent on the beast.
"It broke loose about fifteen minutes ago, Grandmother," he says. "Will'd been in to feed it--"
"What's this about feeding it?" you demand of your horrible cousin.
"I gave it the skins of them two lowlanders, Grandmother," he says.
Only the need to keep the Minotaur daunted stops you from turning on Will with all your fury. "What happened to Bo?" is all you say. He's the one charged with keeping the Minotaur under control; like you, he knows the words of command, and can make them stick.
"I dunno," Will says. "I threw the skins in to it and left. Was talkin' to Nate and them when we all heard a bellowin', and the thing came busting out of the barn.
"And who told you go feedin' old Henry here, let alone feed him those things?"
"No one, ma'am," Will says sulkily. "It seemed to me a good idea. I know what it likes to eat, and them two's not around to get any use from--"
"Wait for me back at the house, Will," you say. "Have Beater and Biter out for me."
Beater and Biter. Your two canes. You only call them that when you're going loose a really magical punishment on someone. Will says nothing, but you can imagine him swallowing hard.
* * * * *
Gabe returns with the chain; it only has to touch the Minotaur, and the monster swoons. It takes Nate and a crew nearly twenty minutes to loft it onto the bed of Gabe's pickup to return it to the barn.
You go on ahead, to find the ruined holding pen and the other things inside: Bo's body in one corner, and his head--ripped off by powerful hands--in another. Both are already covered with a mat of black, stinging flies.
After the men have dragged the beast into a new pen, you have them dig a deep grave in front of the barn door while Mae goes back to town to fetch a special lime and ash mix. You use this to scatter the flies, then have a thick tarpaulin thrown over what's left of Bo. "Careful you don't touch 'im," you warn the men as they drag his remains to the grave and push them in. You mutter a few magical words over what's left of the keeper, and leave the men to cover him up again. Maybe in death Bo will prove a better guardian than he had in life; thanks to those words, the Minotaur will shy away from the grave and the barn door it lies in front of.
Will is very pale when you arrive back at the Big House; he's laid the two canes atop the sofa. You pick them up, hefting them thoughtfully. "The Minotaur is not your business, Will," you tell him quietly. "And I gave you no orders for its feeding, or for the disposition of those boys' remains."
He says nothing. There's nothing he can say.
"Trousers down, boy. And grab your ankles. This is going to hurt."
Quickly--but with obvious reluctance--he complies. His pale, spotty ass gleams up at you as he bends over. You lay Beater against his quivering cheeks, and draw it back for a slap. You murmur the words that will make it really hurt--
And the cane flies from your hand, clattering loudly to the floor.
Your heart skips. It's never disobeyed you before.
Correction: It's never disobeyed Grandmother before. But you're not Grandmother.
You cover your embarrassment with a quick word to Will. "You understand your disgrace, boy?"
"Yes'm," he mutters.
"Then into the box with you. I'll fetch you in an hour." You keep your back to him as he shuffles out.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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