At the Behest of the Dead by Timothy W. Long Page A

the tip, pulled up sharply, and made a running landing.
    There was a canopy of trees over the birthplace of Seattle called Pio neer Square. A pair of passersby saw me come in and dashed out of the way. The man had his Mariner ball cap on backwards and gave me a look that was pure hostility. Some tourist snapped pictures and then exclaimed as Frank landed on a huge tree branch.
    Buildings rose on either side, casting this part of Seattle in perpetual shadow. Night was approaching so streetlights popped on all over the place. I moved to the sidewalk as quickly as I could because I didn’t want to stand around and answer questions from tourists. Cars whipped by from light to light , barely stopping for the timed necessities. There was a huge pothole and a city bus blasted over it, bouncing hard and causing the riders to leave their seats, and then look surprised as they came down even harder.
    This part of the city was built , in pieces, over old Seattle. A fire was set off by a carpenter and thirty three blocks burned to the ground. The truth was that a band of witch hunters were in town and got wind of a local coven. They were hiding among the ‘seamstresses,’ what the ladies of the evening called their profession when the city was a booming frontier town, and were caught off guard. The fight was fast and furious, with men drawing guns and shooting indiscriminately. I was holed up with a honey haired banker’s daughter at the time and came out to see fireballs ripping across the road.
    A pair of witches went down first. I’d worked from the shadows to draw glyphs as quickly as I could. At first it slowed the men with guns. Then a very angry Meredith Jones, mistress of the coven , strode onto the street in a black dress that swept the ground. She turned her gaze on the men, whispered words that broiled in the air, and tossed shaved brass upward. She accelerated the shards and the men went down with their bodies ripped to shreds.
    It was a hell of a sight.
    Then she unleashed brimstone and left smoldering corpses. That’s when a lucky shot from one of the men hiding in a general store caught her across the shoulder. She spun around and the fire swept from her fingertips and splashed across a carpenter’s shop. It didn’t take long for the wooden structure to catch. We fled the scene a moment later, me struggling, still drunk, into my trousers and a shirt of wool. Damned scratchy old things that always seemed to smell of animals no matter how much they were washed. The banker’s daughter barely got into the first layer of her dress, and we fled because the flames were already leaping into the night.
    Th e smell was terrible, cloying. It stole our breath and we pounded up the street and away as fast as we could. Her bodice was undone, and every time I glanced over her breasts, which were full and milk white, threatened to spill out. I think her name was Ellen or maybe Elaine. She’d later grow up to be a prominent figure in the city, having gotten the wild side out in her youth.
    I was no use. We started drinking a foul brew they claimed was beer and then moved onto the old standby, whiskey. I remember ed the night as a haze, me unable to concentrate enough to get off any spells to help contain the blaze.
    Meredith died that night , and just like that another of our kind was gone. She was a powerful witch in her day, and narrowly escaped the trials and certain death at the stake, but not a date with a fiery end.
    I set my fork in a dark corner, leaned it against a wall , and then added my goggles and helmet. A quick pass and the imbued glyphs camouflaged the gear. It was still there and anyone looking closely would see it. The spell was more of a way of making someone’s eyes slip past. As if to say: Hey, look at that terribly interesting but featureless wall.
    “Are you a witch?” a little voice asked. I looked down and a boy about seven or eight was standing there with a tin y yellow umbrella in one hand.
    Kids. So