Keeping track of the occult mishaps of unsuspecting college students can be a full time job, even if its more of a personal mission than any sort of official post. Unfortunately, there are times of the year when a little 'mishap' can lead to far bigger problems. One of those times approaches...

The final part of my contribution to this season's Samhain competition. If you have PTSD issues from wartime situations, you may need to approach this with caution.

Part 4

Corporal Daniels had two little girls and a pretty brunette in Alabama. Everyone had seen the pictures he carried with him everywhere. Smoke swirled through a sharply defined beam of sunlight and with a faint whisper, like a final exhalation, Daniels would never take another quick glance at those photos. He dropped, pieces scattering as though someone had dragged him through a meat grinder and the blood splashed wetly, released all at once.

Voices were yelling, men running... another flying limply across the street, propelled by some unseen force. But under the screams, the demands for answers, the begging for a reason... there was nothing. No explosions, no gunshots... there wasn't anything to shoot at. Just voices... and the hint of a breeze, stirring dust and sand and carrying the metallic taste of the blood.

The other voices were still shouting at him to flee when a shadow took hold of him and dragged him through an unstable wall and across the rocks of the hillside behind it.

The dark surface in the doorway gave under the pressure, but didn't collapse in any way that resembled a shield or ward falling. It rotated and rolled away, nearly pulling the athame with it. The main room, which had been full of people minutes ago, was empty... quiet, except for the muffled screaming still happening from the basement. My hand felt uncomfortable around the hilt, weak somehow. Pulling up the sleeve of the robe, I could see that whatever withering effect had spread most if not all the way up my arm... the skin uncomfortably sensitive and unhealthy looking. It was hard to tell just how far it had gone, but anything that leeched life force away that easily wasn't going to be a simple opponent.

The lights were back on, I realized. They didn't feel like they had returned to full strength, like the building was in a sort of permanent brown out effect. I took a cautious step into the room, eying the Ouija board. Strangely, the board felt closed. Someone had taken the time to properly end the session with it when everything had gone dark. That knocked massive holes in the few ideas that I had about what could have caused this.

There were no bodies. No large pools of liquid that suggested terrible things had happened, just what looked to be a few drink splashes. I started towards the hall only to have a hand take hold of my arm.

“Don't... “ Sophie warned, stopping me. “You can't fight this. It's already won. Taken what it was promised.”

“What it was promised?” I asked her, looking back into her eyes, afraid that I knew exactly what she meant.

“We... we called it from the stone,” she explained, offering a large geode fragment with her other hand.

I stepped back from it, pulling myself free of the hand that was still on my arm. There wasn't anything in the geode... even without touching it I could tell that. They'd pulled it all the way out, which meant it had free rein. Whatever natural power or artificial binding that had been done to lock it in was gone as well. Even if I could fight whatever it was... I couldn't put it back where they'd gotten it.

“What did it give you?” I asked her, more insistently. She looked down, shyly, but I pressed the issue. “Tell me.”

“We... we got the other objects... the Ouija board, the Tarot, the Wand. Only, none of them work like we thought they would.”

“What did you think they would do?” I pressed.

“They should be the most powerful.. the greatest ones in the world.” She was looking at me again, so whatever it gave them as a group... whoever they were... it wasn't what she had personally asked for.

“The most powerful, greatest ones... what?” I growled, starting to get frustrated by the way she was dragging this out. Did she want whatever she'd loosed to run rampant through the city? She didn't have the wild eyed, crazy, evil witch look... for that matter, she didn't even have an apathetic self-absorbed student look.

“The most powerful Ouija board, the greatest Tarot, the... something Wand... I forget exactly what Greg asked...”

“You... stole these from somewhere else using a spirit locked in the geode? You stole random items with vague descriptions without knowing exactly what you would get?”

“Well... not me... but, I suppose...” she went back into shy and demure mode, which pissed me off... and turned me on, at the same time. Ok, I'll admit it... rescuing the damsel in distress is in far too many of my fantasies for this not to be doing 'something' for me.

“You let some sort of spirit or demon loose from a trap for some random objects... “ I took the geode from her, examined it a little more closely to be certain that it was indeed useless, then tossed it at the couch across the room. “and two of the three objects are just tools. Very artistic, probably valuable antique, tools... but just tools.”

“But...”

“Tools. Just objects to focus the inherent ability of the person using them. Why would you need powerful mystic objects to accomplish that? What about the Wand?” I queried. My own use of wands, the athame, and so on... were all uses of tools. I might put some of my own energy into them for use when my reserves were low... but mostly, they were foci or devices to channel my intent. But a request for a powerful wand might really get something useful.

“Greg broke it.”

“He what?!”

“... broke it. He kept saying stupid stuff... like abra-cadabra and pointing it at things,” she explained with a shrug. “It caught on the door frame as he posed to do it again... and snapped right in half.”

“You've got to be...” but she wasn't. These weren't serious practitioners... they shouldn't have been able to dismantle the spirit's trap. They were set up in some way. “Fine. So we don't know what it is... we've got nothing to put it in if we can figure out how to subdue it. Maybe we can at least get the rest of the people out of here so it can't hurt anyone.” I turned to head out of the room, towards where the stairs to the basement were; if I remembered the layout right.

“They're ok,” she insisted, taking hold of my arm again.

“There are people screaming... “ I started to pull away again, but her hand slid along that withered arm sending strange shivers up it and down my spine until she caught my hand and turned me back towards her.

“It's a Halloween party. No one is getting attacked. Everyone is down in the basement because it is safe. It's warded. And there is another exit that people can use to get out if they need to,” she explained, stepping closer. “They're down there so we can be alone up here..”

“I don't...” I mumbled, confused by her sudden show of interest... even... desire.

“It was all set up to get you here... so I could get what I asked for,” she caught up my other hand and pressed herself against me. The scent of her... the heat of her... washed over me.

“But why would all this...”

“Love,” she interrupted, both answering and naming me. I blinked in confusion and tried to pull back, but there was now a cold wall behind me. She continued to press into me as she explained, “I asked for love and then hid the last bits of myself where I thought it would never find them... so I could recover. Because love with you... you would have to be made a girl, somehow.”

“So the rumors... you are a...”

“NO... I'm... you don't understand. That was my room. My room as a guy!” she pulled back from me, letting me look down at her. “I asked for love and it showed me you.”

“You are... were... a guy?” I asked, looking at the very clearly displayed assets that I could see from this perspective.

“Until you broke the wards I had on my room and it took everything that was left,” she sighed, surprisingly not angry or bitter. “Thanks to you, my Destroyer. And the rest of it, too, I suppose now... my Lover, my Mate. All prophesied millennium ago,” she added, pressing herself back against me. “Now that it is done... it doesn't feel so... wrong... to feel like this about you... as a man, my man.”

Feeling more than a little overwhelmed by it all, I disentangled myself from her and paced across the room. Now that I could listen more objectively, I could tell she was telling the truth about the party below. There were screams but also the occasion cheer or shout of the sort that might happen during a contest or drinking game. As I looked back to her, she ran a hand exploring down her body and the other up to her lips.

“Come on,” she complained petulantly. “I've turned myself into a woman to find my true love. I've manipulated an entire party to ensure we have all the time we need to enjoy ourselves. I know everything about what makes a guy feel good. I know you find me attractive. Why is it so difficult for you to take what I'm offering?”

“I don't know... it's a lot to take. I mean... you were a guy,” that wasn't what really worried me, and I was still wary for some reason. But despite thinking about it, I just couldn't place why I was resisting so much.

“I haven't been a guy for months, except for just a couple little parts that I've been protecting... and there's nothing left. It can't recover, ever... I tried to cheat on my price but its gone for good now.”

“But...”

“But nothing,” she stopped me, rushing in and shifting up on tip toes, kissed me as aggressively and passionately as I've ever been kissed. And yet, nothing about that kiss suggested anything about her past... his past. I was kissing a girl. A very desirable one, who wasn't going to take no for an answer.

“See...” she purred, dropping back so she could lean against my chest.

“I suppose I do... I... do.. do you want to see a...?”

“That kiss was wonderful... but if you think I'm waiting until you take me out to a movie or dinner before I get another one... you're crazy. Are you going to leave and force a beautiful girl to deal with her own needs... or are you going to lend a hand...?” she stepped back, starting to pull me along with her.

“I... wait... my hand.” I looked at my right hand in hers, realizing that that was her doing... part of the magic she had intended to change me into the girl in this relationship.

“It'll grow back, over time... as long as we don't remove all of it from you,” she explained, pulling me another step back towards her room. “We could remove more of it from you, give you boobs... even do the lesbian thing if you want,” she added coyly. “But not tonight... tonight, I want this.”

She grabbed the sword belt and pulled me the rest of the way into her room. I resisted a little more... but we both knew that she had won. I gave her what she asked for... and I took my price in return. Neither of us was unhappy with the exchange. It was only the first of many.

My senses were twisted, barely rational, with the haze and confusion of heavy doses of pain killers. I'd seen friends fighting through the mists to make sense of where they were and what they were experiencing... but all I could focus on was the roaring wind and whomping sound of the chopper. Voices raced, inside my head, outside my head. Back and forth. A small man, speaking Arabic and then English, and then something with a very old sound to it, old and powerful.

“Unusual,” he said. “ifrit rarely give up something they take. Destined, it says.” I could feel hands on my back, interrupted by incredible flashes of pain.

Another voice, “What do you mean destined?” That was American... the Captain, maybe... or a medic?

“Father of Destroyer. Terrible destiny. Would leave where found... but unwise to anger ifrit.”

“He'll be lucky if he can ever walk again... let alone be a father...”

The voices faded back into the haze of medications as I took my last flight as an active duty soldier. They would eventually get me put back together, the wounds that had nearly torn me into parts like so many of my friends mended, and they removed layers of skin scarred with ancient script. There were photos of it somewhere in my records, but I couldn't look at them without seeing terrible things. So they had never been translated for me.

But every now and then, I heard that old voice echoing through a drugged haze... terrible destiny. And worried.