One Hour Earlier
(Talisman, part XIII)
 
by D. Monster
 
 
The knock on the door brought Clea away from her play.  Her pulse quickened – time to hide the toys.  The little ones were easy – close the box and shove it under the bed.  She might have taken a moment to transform them all into something inanimate and innocuous, but she didn’t want to interrupt her little spider’s meal.
 
As for Nina, though…
 
She waved her hand and the floating apparition coalesced and fell to the floor as random items of clothing.  That ought to hide her well enough.
 
She walked to the door, pausing only to undo the several buttons of her pajama top just in case…
 
“Lloyd!”
 
She had flung the door open with some force and he looked startled.  But he failed entirely to notice the exposed flesh.  Annoyed, she saw that he was staring past her, his eyes scanning her room.
 
“Hey!  I’m down here.”
 
At that, he looked down.  “Hi,” he said without smiling.  Then he pushed past her, striding into the center of the room, kicking aside a few pieces of Nina as he went.
 
What was he looking for?    “Is everything okay?” she asked.
 
He grunted in response, still surveying the contents of the room.  Did he suspect she was up to something?  Fury welled up inside her, but she decided on a different tack.  She shrugged – exposing more of her chest – and moved in close to him, putting her arm around him.  “Is there anything I can do?”
 
“No,” he said stiffly.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t know why I’m here.”
 
“Sure you wouldn’t like to have a little fun?”  she asked, trying to sound as sultry as she could.  “It’s okay with Katie.”
 
“No….no….not right now.  Sorry.”  And with that he strode from the room as quickly as he’d entered.
 
Clea was worried.   Lloyd was prone to occasional odd behavior, but this was the wrong time and the wrong place for him to be doing something like this.  If he suspected her of something, then her time in this house would be coming to an end sooner than she’d planned.  She’d have to find out what he was up to, find out what he knew…
 
And do something about it if he knew too much.  He was well-protected, both magically and physically.
 
But she’d just dropped a Talisman into his pocket.
 
He belonged to her now.
 
*          *          *
 
Lloyd wasn’t sure what he had been doing, barging in on her like that.  Nor had he had the slightest idea what he was looking for.  Something had felt wrong, but he hadn’t been sure of anything until the very end.  That had told him everything.
 
He moved the painting aside and opened the vault.  Just inside lay the items he sought.  He pulled out the amulet he’d been wearing on a chain around his neck.  It had a dull green gem in its center.  He passed it over the two items on the shelf.
 
Nothing.
 
This was bad.
 
“You are so fucked now.”  The voice came from behind him.
 
He didn’t have to turn around.

“Hello Maya.”
 
*          *          *
 
Prita gasped.  “Lloyd!”
 
“He’s not here,” said Kate.  Then she noticed the expression on Prita’s face.  The labor pains had pierced her typical calm demeanor.  Her emotions were unfiltered.  And she looked scared.
 
“Is he in trouble?”
 
The look on Prita’s face told her everything and Kate started as though to leave.  Prita grabbed her arm.  Her grip was iron.
 
“Stay.  I need you here.”
Then she screamed in pain.
 
Something was happening.
 
*          *          *
 
“You had it pretty good here.  You were part of the family.  We loved you.  Was the power worth destroying all that?”
 
“Those things are nice, even useful when you have no power.   When you have power, though, you don’t need anything else.”
 
“Except more power, it seems.”
 
“In a few seconds, you’re going to be an unthinking wisp of air.  I think I’m quite satisfied with that amount of power.”
 
“You won’t be for long.”
 
“How do you know?”
 
“Trust me.  I know.”
 
“And what if I do want more?   What if I use what I have to take more?”
 
Lloyd was silent for a moment.  “Remind me one of these days to tell you what I know about Grims.”
 
“Sorry buster.  But you’re out of time.  I’d add you to my menagerie, but you’re too good with your magical toys to stay a prisoner for long.  Best that you just disappear.”
 
Lloyd could hear her shift position.  He braced himself.
 
When she spoke next, her voice was terrible.
 
“Goodnight Gracie.”
 
*          *          *
 
“How is this going to happen?”
 
Prita  looked up, sweat streaming down her face.  Kate thought she could see a trace if whimsy trying to peek through the mask of pain.
 
“I’m usually pretty good at seeing what’s coming up, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t the faintest idea.  All I know is that it will happen.”
 
Kate’s reply was cut short by another scream from Prita.  Prita grasped her belly and stared at it.  “Whoa,” she gasped.
 
Kate could now see what was happening.  Strangely, improbably, Prita’s belly was beginning to flatten.  Its bulk seemed to be redistributing itself throughout her body, expanding her chest and straining to lengthen her limbs.
 
“That can’t be good,” said Kate uselessly.
 
And then Prita’s neck split open.
 
*          *          *
 
Lloyd waited for what he knew should come….a dull warmth on his chest.  He looked down to see the center of the amulet glowing a brilliant green.  He moved his hand to his pocket, withdrawing the Talisman than Maya had dropped there and turning to face her at the same time.
 
“Did you think I’d allow something that powerful to stay in my house without building a countermeasure?”  he asked.  Then he lunged at her.
 
She was quicker than he thought she’d be and was nearly to the door when a great bulk rose up to block her escape.”
 
“NO!” snarled Hartmut.
 
Maya dodged away and stopped, cornered.
 
“Okay,” she said.  “Be that way.”
 
She reached into her pocket…
 
*          *          *
 
Prita lay motionless.
 
Her skin had split at her neck, both wrists, and both ankles.  There was also a vertical tear between her breasts.  Kate hadn’t tried to turn her over, but suspected there might be another along her buttocks.  Prita was a few inches taller than she had been  just moments before.
 
There was no blood.  The skin had parted at each tear to reveal a couple inches of skin underneath.  This new skin was smooth, unblemished, and a few shades lighter than Prita’s, though darker than Kate’s.  
 
Tentatively, Kate began to pick at the torn edge of one of the wrists.  She imagined that if she pulled, the skin of Prita’s hand might come off like a glove.  Her hand brushed the new skin between the torn edges and the hand twitched.  The odd way that the hand moved suggested to Kate that her mad notion might be right, so she pulled.
 
And Prita’s skin did indeed come off like a glove.  Underneath, there was a new, lighter-skinned hand.  Its fingers curled and uncurled.
 
“Help me” came a whisper from the torn woman.
 
And Kate began to pull some more.
 
*          *          *
 
Lloyd couldn’t tell what Maya pulled from her pocket and threw to the floor, but he could see what they became.  As each of the four objects landed, it became a half-woman, half bird creature about six feet tall.  Their lower halves were obscured by feathers but their tops were very human, well-formed and bare-breasted.  They appeared to have razor-sharp talons.
 
Harpies?
 
Crap!  thought Lloyd as he ducked to dodge a set of those talons.  The harpy to which they belonged had stringy, greasy blonde hair and a face contorted in rage.  He’d seen a picture of that face before
 
Claudia Strickland.
 
Lloyd felt sick.  Had Claudia been here all along?  What had Maya transformed her into?  He couldn’t imagine what the girl had gone through, but her rage was all too apparent.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a short wand.  He pointed at her.
 
A cloud of what looked like glowing snow puffed from the end and the Claudia harpy slowed down.  She would still be a frightful opponent, but now he’d have time to assess the situation.
 
Only one of the other three harpies seemed to be engaged in battle.  It had been tackled by Hartmut while trying to get to Lloyd.  Despite this, it still seemed intent on Lloyd.  Its face, dark and beautiful, was serene.
 
Nina.
 
The others puzzled Lloyd.  One had Clea’s face.  Was this the woman whose form Maya had most recently stolen with Lloyd’s errant Metamorphosis trick?  And the other appeared to also be Claudia Strickland, but a Claudia much closer in appearance to the photograph Lloyd had seen than the horrible creature attempting to disembowel him.  Was this the woman that the drunk had spotted in Vegas?
 
The faces of these two – unlike the others – registered pain.  They seemed to be resisting the compulsion that the others had succumbed to, the compulsion to kill.
 
Or rather, to Kill Lloyd.
 
He ducked another talon, which sliced into his sleeve, leaving a long scratch.  Another puff from the wand hadn’t seemed to help.  The only offensive device he had on-hand was his blasting stick and he had no desire to use it on people who might be innocents, despite how hard they were trying to kill him right now. 
 
Hartmut grunted.  He was covered with nasty scratches from trying to keep Nina away from Lloyd.
 
Maya was laughing.
 
*          *          *
 
The hands and feet had been easy.  The head was another matter – Kate didn’t want to pull her friend’s face off as though it were a Halloween mask.  But pull she did.
 
The face underneath was radiant.
 
“Hi Katie,” said Callie quietly.
 
“Happy birthday,” Kate said and burst into tears.
 
“There there Katie,” Callie said serenely.  “We’ve a lot to do and not much time to do it in.”
 
*          *          *
 
Maya had a knife.
 
It looked to Lloyd like the large kitchen knife he’d lost several months ago.
 
Not the best circumstance in which to find it Lloyd thought wryly.
 
She hadn’t had much opportunity to use it, though.  Every time she got close to Lloyd, the Claudia harpy attacking him would take a swipe at her.
 
Hmmm.  Control’s not so good with that one.  She must really hate you.  That’s what you get for stealing her life.
 
And the Claudia harpy was between Maya and Hartmut.
 
Tough noogies, kiddo.
 
So Maya turned her attentions to the two motionless harpies, exhorting them to do something, anything.  But they didn’t budge.
 
So she turned them to stone.
 
“Was that really necessary?”
 
The quiet voice cut through the screeching battle like a hatchet.  The two attacking harpies froze as though time had stopped for them.  Lloyd turned and gaped.
 
In the doorway stood Callie, gloriously naked.
 
Her skin was hairless and flawless. 
 
And she was as bald as an egg.
 
As if she sensed what he was thinking, she ran her hand lightly over her scalp and smiled.
 
“See,” she said.  “You’ve started a trend.”  She entered the room and looked back to where Kate now stood, supporting Prita.  Prita had a coat pulled around her, but Lloyd could see nasty-looking welts encircling her neck and wrists.
 
Callie turned Maya.
 
“You’re going to stop now.”
 
Maya stared, dumbfounded.
 
“Oh yes,”  Callie added.  “And you’re going to drop the knife, too.”
 
The knife in Maya’s hands suddenly became very hot and she let it fall.  The pain, however, seemed to bring her into herself again and drew back and threw something at Callie, who reached out and plucked it from the air.
 
“Oh look,” Callie said without much interest.  “A Talisman.  We’d almost forgotten that there was more than one now.   Did you know we taught it that trick?”
 
Maya’s face screwed up in intense concentration and then assumed a baffled expression.  Callie smiled again.
 
“You don’t seem to be having much luck with that trick today, do you?  Here…if it will make you feel better….”
 
Callie held up the Talisman and gripped it tightly in her fist.  She gave a strangled cry as her hand turned to gray stone.  As the wave of petrification spread down her arm, she concentrated and it slowed.  More concentration and it began to slowly reverse.  Then she looked up, grinned, and the stoniness vanished immediately.  She tossed the Talisman back to Maya, who caught it without thinking and then dropped it like it was a live rat.
 
“Saw that little scene in a movie once,” Callie said merrily.  “We thought it’d be cool to try sometime.”
 
“You have power,” Maya said sullenly.
 
“Yup.  And we have to admit that it was no fun finding out, either.  For us or for anyone else.”
 
“Are you okay now?”  asked Lloyd, finally finding his voice.
 
The smile that Callie aimed at him was radiant.
 
“No,” she said.  “Not yet.”
 
All Lloyd could manage in response was a puzzled look, so Callie went on.
 
“I’ve been messed up most of my life.  Self-serving, thrill-seeking, self-destructive, and not particularly stable.  And I had brains, looks, and money enough to indulge myself.  I was never happy and I never had any peace.”
 
She shrugged.  “Maybe it was my latent power trying to find a way out.  Or maybe I was just a nut.  We’ll never really know for sure.”
 
“And then Walt – dear, clueless, wonderful Walt – split us in two.  I became us.  And we found peace and true joy for the first time in our lives.  And when that happened, our power found us.  Together we even altered the nature of the Talisman you’re holding.”
 
“What started as an enchantment became the natural state.  When the Grim recombined us, it wasn’t breaking an enchantment,it was creating one.  And now we can remove it.”
 
She raised her arms and threw back her head.  Green light swirled  around her, spinning faster and faster.  Within the vortex, her shape became indistinct.  There was a bright flash of emerald light and suddenly there were two distinct forms within the vortex.  They were identical.  As the vortex slowly, they turned to face one another.  As they did, one sprouted long chestnut tresses while the other grew a short mop of black hair.  When the vortex ceased, the twin with the chestnut tresses wore a skintight outfit of metallic emerald green that left her arms, shoulders, and back bare, and the other twin, paler than her sister, wore an identical outfit of shiny black. 
 
They embraced.  And kissed.
 
Callie examined herself.  “Green was always my color, after all.”
 
Anna smiled  “And now,” she said, addressing the room, “we end all these enchantments.  All shall be as they truly are.”  She took her sister’s hand.
 
The room was filled with blinding emerald light.
 
*          *          *
 
Kate’s vision cleared.
 
Lloyd sat on the floor, the amulet on his chest gone dull and gray.  In front of him lay a dirty, scrawny, naked woman whose hair might once have been blonde.  A short distance from them, a being whose form was in eternal flux held a doll with dark plastic skin.  A stocky man and a lithe Asian woman, both naked, sat on the floor, holding each other tightly.  Opposite them, a tall, awkward woman with long dark hair stood weeping and transfixed as fragments of what had been a powerful Talisman became motes of pure white light and drifted up to join the diaphanous body of a tiny creature that floated before her.  And in the center of it all stood the twins, hands joined, eyes closed.
 
Kate saw none of this.
 
She did not see the man and the woman flee from the room.
 
She did not see the dirty, scrawny woman pick something up from the floor and scurry into a corner.
 
She did not see the tall, awkward woman catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and run her fingers slowly through her own luxurious hair.
 
She did not see the twins open their eyes to regard the tiny creature of white light.
 
She saw only Prita.
 
Her skin was like gold.  Her eyes burned with fire.  Her hair was pure white.  And she was old, older than anything Kate could imagine.
 
She was the most beautiful thing that Kate had ever seen.
 
And Kate knew in that same moment that Prita was the most beautiful thing that she would ever see.  One could not live long having experienced beauty such as this.
 
“How long?” she asked.
 
Not long.  I’m so sorry.
 
And, gazing upon her, Kate found that she did not mind.
 
“Will I know what to do when it’s time?”
 
Yes.
 
“Will Lloyd love her as much as he loves me?”
 
Naturally.
 
Prita’s eyes and skin had returned to their typical appearance and her hair was quickly darkening.
 
“Thank you,” said Kate, tears in her eyes.  “Did anyone else see you?”
 
“No,” whispered Prita.  “That was only for you.”
 
And then they held each other.
 
*          *          *
 
“What is it?” asked Lloyd, emptying his pockets of now-useless amulets and wands.
 
“A creature of pure magic,” answered the twins in unison.
 
“So the Talisman was actually alive?”
 
Callie nodded.  “Yes.  Geoffrey is very powerful.  I suspect that most of his ‘devices’ are creatures like this one, trapped and enslaved.”
 
Lloyd grimaced.  “That’s awful…but I can see why he might do it.  Nothing I create is nearly that powerful.”
 
Your creations could be,” said Anna.  “Stop treating them like they’re autonomous.   They’re part of you.”
 
“No they’re not,” Lloyd said flatly, staring at the ground.
 
“Yes…” Anna began, but was cut off by Maya.
 
“I’m so sorry,” she cried.  “Oh god what have I done?”
 
She was flanked by the twins, who looked into her eyes as she stared at her own face in the mirror.
 
“And what do I do now?”
 
“You’re going to have to help the people that you’ve hurt,” began Callie.
 
“Yes, I think….” Maya began.
 
And then blood began to gush from her open mouth as her eyes went dull.
 
*          *          *

What happened next happened very quickly.
 
Claudia, having stabbed Maya in the neck with her own discarded knife, fled from the room,  pausing only to sweep up the creature that had until recently been the Talisman. 
 
Callie and Anna were left holding a dying Maya. 
 
Hartmut was the first out the door after Claudia, Lloyd the second.
 
Kate and Prita ran to the side of the dying woman.
 
“Do something!” pleaded Kate, looking from Prita to Callie to Anna.
 
“I can’t,” said Prita.  “No one can.”
 
“Oh Clea,” said Kate, sobbing.  “I’m so sorry.”
 
“I love you,” whispered Maya Howard, most recently known as Clea.
 
And then she died.
 
*          *          *
 
Lloyd rounded the first corner at high speed and tripped over something.  It moaned.
 
Hartmut.
 
“Hart!  Are you…”
 
His hand found something wet and came back covered with a viscous amber liquid.  Hartmut’s blood.
 
“PRITA!!!”  Lloyd yelled.  “HELP!!”  Then quietly, “I’m sorry, Hart.”
 
And then he was off running again.
 
He rounded the second corner and ground to a halt.  He had her cornered.  She stood facing the end of the hallway, her back to him.  She had no escape route.
 
She turned.
 
She still had the creature in her hand.
 
Well, most of it, anyway.
 
Lloyd’s stomach did a sick flip.
 
Black ichor ran over her lips and down her chin.  Her eyes had begun to cloud over black.
 
“No please,” he whispered.   “Please not this.”
 
He was paralyzed, unable to move.  Lloyd realized at that moment that he was unprotected.  She smiled evilly and voraciously gulped down the rest of the creature.  
 
Lloyd could feel it die.
 
She laughed, a horrible hollow sound.  Dark mist began to swirl around her as her features became difficult to discern.  She reached out and touched the wall behind her.  It glowed faintly as a gate began to form.
 
I WILL NOT BE A SLAVE.
 
I WILL HAVE WHAT IS MINE.
 
I WILL KILL ALL WHO FOLLOW.
 
And then she was gone.
 
 
to be continued…