Hag Night by Tim Curran Page A

I’m one of those things before you go using that,” Megga said to her.
    Wenda kept sharpening the stake. “I’m not a killer. I don’t get off on death and pain. I leave that to people like you and the rest of the McVampire groupies of the wet-panty brigade. Unlike you and the rest of those deluded idiots, I know badness when I see it. I know what evil looks like and how it smells. I won’t be killing anyone. But I will destroy those things. If you want to give yourself up to them, go ahead, but I’ll get you and when I ram this through your chest, it won’t be out of hate, Megga, it’ll be because it’s the right thing to do. That crone might have blinded you to her true nature, but I saw it just fine. Do what you want. But before you find a coffin to sleep in, think about Bailey. Think about how she needs you. Think about what a disappointment you’ll be to her when she learns how weak you really are.”
    “Fuck you,” Megga snarled.
    But that didn’t even move Wenda. Christ, the way she was it was like trying to insult a rattlesnake that was going to bite you.
    Megga turned away from her, pissed off and hating. Why in the hell did she mention Bailey? She did it because it has power over you and she knows it. You can expect her to rub it into your face again and again if you don’t step off the train to the graveyard here and reassess you’re thinking. She’s simply trying to goad you into realism.
    Megga wondered if Wenda was still pissed because she’d tried to kiss her…well, she had kissed her. Funny, that. She’d never had any feelings for her. A co-worker. That was about it. She was friendly with her, cooperative, but she harbored no romantic impulses. Yet…after Wenda had slashed the crone upstairs, she had wanted her like she’d never wanted anyone, male or female, before. She told herself it was just some weird hypnotic aftereffect.
    But was it?
    She didn’t know.
    In fact, other than feeling a mad hot-blooded desire for Wenda, she couldn’t really remember a lot of what happened up there. Th ey’d gone into the room. There’d been someone on the bed under a sheet…then it got a little grainy and distorted like a dream recalled half way through the day. Images of Wenda. Images of a woman. A strange woman who was beautiful and alluring with crystal blue eyes and platinum hair that hung in a long braid over one shoulder in the European style. She remembered the woman had been smiling…a sweet, friendly, harmless sort of smile that made her feel at ease. In her mind, only the image of the smile remained like that of the storied cat: a huge smile of gleaming white teeth.
    You saw that crone up there. You saw what she was.
    Wenda’s words. And to Megga they were incomprehensible. Crone? What crone? There had been no crone, just that beautiful blonde woman holding her arms out to her, wanting to embrace her. Megga had even heard her speak. She said something about how glad she was that Megga was safe, that those awful things outside had not gotten to her. That she needed to be wary of them. And that she—the woman herself—could protect her if only she came into her arms.
    She was nothing but a walking pestilence.
    No, no, no, Wenda, you’re wrong. It wasn’t like that…but as Megga began to remember she was no longer seeing the beautiful European woman. She was just seeing those blue eyes, which were deep and fathomless like drowning pools. In their depths, she saw dark mountains capped by black impenetrable forests rising above little villages tucked in remote valleys. Deserted villages where the wind blew dust devils up empty avenues and winding cobblestone streets were edged by silent half-timber houses falling to ruin and doorways pooled with sinister shadows. And as darkness fell over the rooftops like oil, she could hear the strident giggling of unseen children and the sound of chattering teeth from the overgrown churchyard on the hill, and see white hungry faces peering through