Fifteen Years Ago

Salem, Massachusetts

Karmen sat in another seedy hotel room. After years and years of fruitless hunting Karmen had come upon an ancient old man that swore that he a bunch of his childhood chums had run Diantha, the witch, out of the country after she survived a great fire at her mansion. After more searching it seemed she had come to America, but Karmen had found Salem himself. The city was rich with the history of haunts and witchs but Karmen had found Diantha’s home in the woods.

Dead cats, and bats, and opposums hung about the rooms. Filthy cups, and plates, and cauldrons had littered the counters. Cobwebs and rat droppings covered everything. Diantha hadn’t been there for a long time, she’d probably moved out when Karmen heard she’d been kicked out of Romania. But he was getting closer. Much closer.

Karmen plucked at the piano wire around his ankle the tune vaguely resonated something that sounded like, “kill, kill.” He pulled the knife the Father had given him from his belt and stared at it- promising someone elses blood soon, but that his would have to suffice for now. He slit his wrist and let himself slip off to death for a few hours. He’d never get any sleep if didn’t do this ritual at night.

Two Days Later

Karmen was at the Salmen train station waiting for the great steel beast to take him away. He didn’t know where he’d go, but staying in Salem, choking on the dust in the witch’s old house, and slitting his wrists to sleep wasn’t doing him any good.

“Help!” A woman cried. “Someone stop him! Thief, thief!”

The purse snatcher ran in front of Karmen who clothelined the unsuspecting thief. He tugged the straps of the bag out of the thief’s twitching fingers and handed the bag to the woman. Old habits die hard.

Somewhere in the U.S.

Diantha sat in a fluffy chair beside a fire. I’m a good witch, she thought. Then she laughed out loud. She wasn’t a “good witch” but there was no denying that she was the witch with the most talent. She sure loved curses and she was good at it.

She remembered one such curse that only amused her for so long. A tiny Romanian woman had almost run her down with a horse. She’d cursed the woman with boils, great pus filled things that stunk amazingly. What’s a good curse if you can end it by taking your life, so she’d also given the woman her specialty curse- immortality. Little had Diantha known that the woman was pregnant at the time. Things always go wrong with curses on pregnant woman- she should know, she’d been pregnant when she gotten her curse.

The woman had died giving birth to a wailing little girl. The child didn’t have the same curse; the baby had a mutation of it. The flies that attacked every diseased boil on the woman now swarmed over the dead corpse of the mother and tiny immortal, fly-attracting child.

If only things had gone so well with her own daughter and her curse. Long ago a witch had given Diantha a gift, a great gift, though others called it a curse. She would live forever and be the most powerful and most evil woman alive. She’d passed a similar gift to her ungrateful little whelp.

Lisa had been born immortal; what cruel fate it would have been if the mother outlived the child? She’d been born immortal and good! Lisa liked bunnies, and kittens, and candy. Sins, unnatural holy sins! She grown up and fell in love, wretched brat that she was, with a law man.

Lisa had come to her mother and begged her to let her marry Karmen and to make him immortal just like her. Diantha didn’t let her daughter down; she made the poor fool immortal. But Hell would freeze over before she let her own daughter marry him. What devil-fearing daughter of a gypsy witch married a law man? Diantha wouldn’t stand for it. She’d told her daughter that Karmen hadn’t survived the transformation, and she’d told Karmen that she’d killed Lisa. Perhaps a good strong doze of heartbreak would turn Lisa into the daughter Diantha always wanted. And what would a good long doze of hide and seek with the meddling little law man do for Diantha’s reflexes and sanity?