October Girls: Crystal & Bone by L C Glazebrook

the gunk poured down on the Judge’s head. He wriggled his hood in an attempt to flee, but the hem of his robe was caught in the marble stonework. He squeaked and groaned.
    A couple of drops of the tar bounced onto Bone’s cheeks, and she flinched in expectation of a good scorching. Instead, the gooey substance was cold and hardened instantly against her dead flesh.
    Within moments, the Judge was encased in the tar, frozen like a statue, leaving his outstretched hand holding the key. Bone plucked it away and stuck it in the mausoleum gate. She was just swinging the squeaky gate open when Tim appeared by her side, wearing his skeletal grin.
    “What do you think?” He raised his puny arms and flexed flaccid biceps.
    “Not bad. What was that stuff?”
    “A bucket of instant karma residue,” he said. “The groundskeeper was mopping up around John Lennon’s grave and just left it lying around out back.”
    “Christ, don’t they know kids hang around graveyards? What are they trying to do, poison them with toxic waste?”
    “Well, you got your key.”
    “Yeah.” She looked down at it, then at Tim’s wan, wistful face. “Appreciate the help.”
    “Sure. Anytime.”
    “About this Royce thing—”
    He waved his hand. “Never mind.”
    “I got to run. I’ll be late for the party.”
    “Yeah.” He lifted his chin as if listening for Poot Owl wings in the night sky. His eyes glistened under the moon, and she figured it was probably the wind, not tears.
    Probably.
    She ducked into the shadows of the mausoleum and vanished before he had a chance to say anything else.

Chapter 7
     
    D empsey Van Heusen rubbed his hands together. The gesture was melodramatic, the gimmick of a B-movie mad scientist about to open Pandora’s Box, but it was satisfying nonetheless. And a measure of showmanship was expected by his little coven, though they were a little distracted by the smoke of wolfsbane and datura. The burning herbs were just for show, along with the blood-red candles scattered around the room, and he’d weakened their resistance with a Dempsey Van Heusen movie marathon.
    Not that they’d offered much resistance. In classic brainwashing technique, the manipulator deprived his subjects of sleep, isolated them from contact with the outside world, and engaged in a long campaign of systematic depersonalization.
    But brainwashing required brains, and Dempsey had chosen followers who had precious little gray matter.
    “When do we get to the black candles?” Lacey Summerhill said, giving her 16-year-old pout. She was a spoiled brat, but Dempsey needed her, since her father was county commissioner. If religion failed, he could always turn to politics.
    “Black candles are for midnight mass,” Dempsey said. “And it’s nine in the evening.”
    “Boring,” she said. “Do the dark arts have to have so many lame rules?”
    Dempsey did the thing with his eyebrows where he made them arch into arrow tips. “The coven must be of one mind,” he said. “And that takes discipline. Without discipline, there are no disciples.”
    “I thought we were acolytes,” said Willard. He was sipping Dr. Pepper from a bottle, using a straw. His acne and freckles gave him the aspect of a strawberry. Willard was a social-media genius, working Parson’s Ford’s teenagers and spreading the good word about Dempsey’s movies. It was his Facebook and Twitter efforts that had brought Dempsey’s little inner circle together.
    “We’re all servants, no matter the name,” Dempsey said. “This is about serving the vision.”
    “The television?” Snake said, all red-eyed. Dempsey suspected the teen was a stoner, but he was in no position to judge. Right now, he needed warm bodies, grass-headed or not.
    He thumbed the remote so the sound died on the movie. On the flatscreen, a monster prop constructed of trash bags and dryer hose was wallowing over the scantily clad body of a screaming woman. The creature suffered from a lack of passion,