“God damn it….” Paul dropped the paper down on the dining table and then after a few moments picked it up with a look of weary disdain and started re-reading the article.

  “You can lead a horse to water but you just can't make em’ drink.” Paul tossed the paper on the table once again and stood up rubbing his forehead while taking off his reading glasses and folding them into his pocket.

  “What’s wrong with the article? The photos are friggin’ amazing. I want to print off the one that shows cursed burning on the hood of that big Ram truck.” Alanah reached across the table to grab the newspaper that Paul had just thrown away in disgust.

  “My informant did a crap job putting the story together.” Paul walked to the kitchen and poured the last of a pot of coffee into his mug. There wasn’t much left as he had been drinking it all day.

  “No mention of the old hag. Nothing. This was the whole god damn point. She needs to feel the pressure. We need her to want us to stop.”

  Paul turned and stared hard at Alanah. “This whole thing backfires on us if all we do is succeed in makin’ more enemies for you both.”

  He started pacing methodically between the kitchen and the dining room. Walk to the dining room table, pause, turn slowly and walk back to the fridge, pause, turn and repeat.

  After his seventh circuit he stopped and looked at Alanah who had found a pair of scissors amongst the mess on the table and was carefully cutting out the picture of the burning truck.

  “Alanah…”

  She looked up briefly from the extraction she was performing on the newspaper “what, you didn’t want this and I do so just hang on…”

  “No, don’t worry about that, I can get you the real pictures mounted and framed as trophies if you like. I wanted to ask you, are you willing to go back one more time tonight?”

  It was a quick discussion, Amos wasn’t involved and even if he was, he wouldn’t have offered any opinion anyway, he would have just sat there in his expressionless, unmoving fashion.

  Earlier Alanah had confided to Paul that it was becoming very creepy to be around Amos, and she was very worried about how much of Amos really remained and if the curse could even be reversed at this point.

  He wasn’t sure. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure about anything, but he trusted his intuition and he had told Alanah that he thought that the boy could still be saved but he felt that that they were fast running out of time.

  “We need to get in and out. It’s really a big risk going back in there but we gotta’ take it. Again, we are gonna’ be in and out real quick and that is it for us in the North End but when we are done we will leave no doubt.”

  “Then what, we wait? What if they don’t give up?” Alanah had very much enjoyed the revenge aspect of what they had been doing to la Famigilia but Paul’s earlier frustration at the lack of detail in the story had worried her. What if they directed all of their anger at them and not the old witch?

  “There is one last operation. It is smaller in scale but I know enough about the people at the top of la Famigilia to know that our last hit will really piss them off.” Paul headed towards the staircase and his bedroom.

  “I need two hours of sleep then we are going to go to the range and blow off some steam and then just relax until tonight. You an’ Amos can drive to the grocery store and buy a bunch of food. Quick, filling meals is what we need. Next door is a hardware store. Buy another two cans of red spray paint too.”

  Crack….ping

  Crack….ping

  Crack….ping

  Amos was holding a Geissele Super Duty MOD1 rifle in the Rhodesian ready position like Paul had taught him but he wasn’t following much else of Paul’s shooting instructions.

  Paul wanted Amos and Alanah to get used to the “ready up” into firing position, get two shots off, hopefully hit the target and then swing to the next target as soon as it appeared. The range had a course filled with smaller jump up and swinging targets and they cycled into position very quickly.

  Paul led the kids through the first run through of the course and despite his fatigue, he managed to put shots on just about seventy precent of the targets. Alanah went next and started off well but she quickly got flustered and started misplacing and rushing her shots and ultimately ended up missing most targets.

  When Amos took his turn he was ahead of every target, he had the gun barrel in position before the target had clicked into place and he hit each target with just one shot.

  Crack….ping

  Crack….ping

  After he hit the last target, he just stood there in the ready position waiting for the next one to appear.

  “Ok Amos, well done, well done, let’s move you off and give Alanah another try.”

  “Forget that, I’m driving from now on and the Terminator here can ride shot gun. Jesus Amos, how the hell did you do that? It looked like you were actually waiting for the targets at times and they were late showing up.”

  Paul guided Amos to the bench where Alanah had been sitting and watching him shoot and had him sit down. “That’s enough for today then, let me pack these rifles up and we will get a move on.”

  “Actually, Alanah, grab your handgun and put another couple of mags down the range. You’re good with the pistol and I need you feeling comfortable with it so keep shooting till you feel confident again.”

  While Alanah started shooting Paul went over to Amos and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Amos, do you hear the targets before they move?”

  The boy stared straight ahead watching Alanah as she shot at a variety of standing metal silhouette targets. “I hear a click and then a hiss of air. I can tell exactly where the target will be appearing from so I move the rifle to that spot and the target swings into place.”

  “Hmmnnn…so you hear the cylinder moving the target up. What is the click?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds like the sound a light switch makes before the light comes on.”

  “Ok, and what do you see when you are shooting?”

  Amos paused for a bit and then answered. He seemed confused by the question.

  “I see the target, I don’t see much color but I see the target moving into place and I can make it seem to slow down so I know where to shoot.”

  Paul was considering his next question when he heard Alanah.

  “Hey, what are you guys so serious about now? What are you talking about? Did you even watch any of my shooting?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Paul turned, clearly lost in thought and distracted. “Umhhn, no, but I heard the pings so it sounds like you are back on form. Anyways, we got to eat and rest, big night tonight so let’s get home and get everything in order.”

  He grabbed his rifle cases and Alanah’s handgun and stowed it away and then walked swiftly to the Jeep. Alanah had half a mind to ask Amos what they were talking about and then decided not to. She really did not like talking to Amos, especially on her own and lately she tried to avoid it whenever possible.

  Something was not right with Paul. This trip to the range had hardly been a tension buster as he had put it. He was up to something with Amos and she wasn’t sure what it was.

  This was not a good feeling, she felt helpless enough as it was, she didn’t want to lose faith in Paul, even if he was pretty much a stranger to her still. She didn’t have much left to work with these days as it was.

  “Mama, what are you going to do, it’s not working how you wanted is it?”

  Alessia stood nervously as she wrung her hands together. There was still blood all over her fingers and on her sweatshirt. Silvio had come home earlier that afternoon with bruises all over his face and a bloody nose.

  Anyone associated with Nonna Conti these days was not very popular and just earlier a group of boys had chased her son down and had given him a beating.

  “No one understands about the curse. They think it’s all your fault and that you have brought this on the neighborhood. No one understands Mama…”

  Nonna Conti looked up from her desk. She had been reading her old books about the witches of the City of Benevento and accounts of The Donne di Fuora from old Sicily. Since casting the curse these old accounts had become much more important to her and she had been rereading the worn pages, looking for any guidance with her cause.

  “They will understand, it takes time. They just need to see. They haven’t seen yet but they will soon. Soon the boy will be desperate, and he will come on his knees…”

  In a rare moment of courage and frustration in front of her mother Alessia stepped towards her while throwing her arms out in exasperation.

  “They have seen PLENTY Mama. They have seen too much now. Everyone has seen it and everyone is talking and la Famigilia is so freakin’ pissed off about it now.”

  ‘They don’t know what they have seen. They don’t know what it means. They don’t…”

  Alessia spun away in frustration, “Everyone knows what it means Mama. Everyone knows that we can’t do nothing to stop this. It gets worse and worse now and they are blaming me, blaming you, they just attacked Silvio on the street…”

  The old woman stared at her daughter. She was angry too and she was tempted to make Alessia pay for her insolence but she was so tired these days . The excitement and the activity of the last few weeks had started to catch up to her but what was worse was the doubt.

  The curse had worked but she had no control. She had never used any magic so powerful as this before and she wasn’t sure anymore about what would happen next.

  Alessia caught herself. Don’t make her upset, she could rage at her and Silvio for days afterwards and Alessia had nowhere safe to go now. Tony had told her to stay away from the bar for a bit and apparently Giorgio had been taken for a long ride and Alessia knew exactly what that meant.

  “Mama, we gotta’ make it stop. Ok? Please, you gotta’ make it end. It’s gonna’ get real bad soon, please Mama.”

  The old woman gave her a small smile. “Go see your boy, tell him not to worry. His Nonna knows what she is doing.”

  Alessia knew she had been dismissed and she also realized that she had said more than she ever would have thought possible. Maybe her mama would do something now to fix this mess. If only the old bag would just die already. That would probably fix everything. Curse or no curse she could get out of here after that.

  Alessia got Silvio cleaned up and then she took him to a small restaurant she had frequented years ago over in Central Square in Cambridge.

  It was a pub and there was nothing Italian about it. They had Hamburgers and fries and watched a soccer game from England on the wall mounted TVs. For a brief while she was able to forget about her troubles at home and how things might get even worse in the days to come.

  “What are we doing here, do they run this cab business too?” Alanah was peeing out at the squat one storey concrete building with ugly security mesh over each window. There was a large parking lot in back that was surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire.

  “Nope, I just have a special arrangement here that helps me get around the city when I need to without anyone paying much attention to me.” Paul hopped out of the jeep and walked up to the chain-link gate and unlocked the heavy padlock and chain wrapped around the gate post.

  After they had driven in and parked the Jeep, Paul had ushered them over to a nearby taxi. It was an older Ford Crown Victoria with the familiar Metro Cab logo in green over the white paint of the car. He held up a key ring and then reached down with it opened up the driver’s door.

  “I’ve paid a guy for a fleet key for years. It’s nothin’ fancy but it allows me to use any of the older cars they have in the yard. Most drivers don’t want the older one, you use too much gas driving these big Crown Vics around all night. No one pays much attention to a cab with people already in it so we can sneak in and out a lot easier now.”

  They loaded their gear into the old cab and headed across town towards the North End. Alanah could tell that Paul was worried about going back so soon but she trusted his judgment, if he thought that the risk was worth taking then it probably was.

  It was well after two am when the big white cab eased around the corner onto Nonna Conti’s narrow street. Anyone that saw the car would just see a city cab with a couple of young passengers, not at all uncommon, even at this time of night.

  Alanah and Amos climbed out and then started walking along the street towards Nonna Conti’s brick townhouse. Paul continued on slowly in the cab, even flicking the for hire indicator light back on they way cabbies did after dropping off a fare.

  Alanah was walking slower than usual, she was trying not to splash herself while she spread out the contents of her large jug evenly along the road. The liquid oozed out behind her in a steady, wet trail that glistened slightly in the streetlights.

  “Keep listening Amos, what have you heard? Has anyone woken up or opened any doors or windows?”

  “No.”

  Alanah was getting pissed off with his one-word sentences but tried hard not to show it, not that Amos would care anyways she thought to herself.

  As they passed the house she carefully squeezed the last bit of the bottle out onto the road next to the cars parked up ahead. She touched Amos on the arm and guided him back to the old woman’s house.

  “What can you hear Amos, tell me everything.”

  “There are a few TVs on. There is a car moving down the next block but its going away from us. There is a motorcycle on the highway a few blocks away that’s going really fast and someone is calling for their dog in a back yard just up ahead.”

  “Jesus, what’s the dogs name?”

  “Toby”.

  “All right then, let’s hope Toby is a good boy and comes when…”

  “She’s awake.”

  Alanah startled by Amo’s unexpected interruption. She lowered her voice and asked Amos “who…. who is awake.”

  “The old woman from the restaurant. I can hear her breathing. It is the same woman. I hear the same wheezing that she had in the restaurant. She is wide awake.”

  Alanah looked up at the windows of the old woman’s home. The old curtains were drawn and the windows were dark. She couldn’t see anything.

  She felt a spasm of fear pass through her. She was supposed to quickly spray a message on the house and then they were to run but they had assumed that the old woman would be asleep by now.

  This was far more risky if she was awake. She suddenly felt quite stressed out over the situation and very vulnerable. She didn’t know what to do and Paul couldn’t tell her. He was down at the end of the street waiting in the cab. They didn’t have much time.

  “Amos, what do we do? Should I do it?”

  Her friend didn’t respond, he just stared up at the second floor windows with his dark expressionless eyes.

  “For fucks sake.”

  Alanah dropped the large container she had been carrying and she pulled out her handgun and in a shooters stance she began to shoot out the three upper windows in Nonna Conti’s house.

  Blam Blam Crash Blam Blam Crash Blam Blam Crash

  The shots were loud, harsh and sudden in the still quiet of the narrow street.

  The gunshots were replaced by the sounds of many dogs barking at once and the sound of bits of glass breaking away and falling down onto the sidewalk below. Then the high pitch of Alanah’s voice easily rose above all of these new sounds.

  “Who is fucking cursed now you old Bitch? Who’s got problems now? We won’t stop coming. This won’t fucking stop so come and take a good look at what you’ve done.”

  “There was no sound or movement from the upper windows of the house.

  “We heard you breathing you old witch, I know you’re there.”

  The roar of the cab filled the night as Paul gunned the engine and reversed back towards the two kids veering from side to side, almost hitting a building until the car screeched to a stop just a few yards from the kids.

  “Light it up and let’s go…..let’s go.”

  Alanah turned away from the building and grabbed a long lighter from her pocket and bent down and lit the glistening trail she had made earlier. A gout of blue and orange flame erupted and moved along the cars parked on the side of the street. The flames quickly grew to a few feet in height making all the cars inaccessible from the drivers side and almost impossible to move.

  Alanah pushed Amos to the back of the taxi and opened the door and pushed him in and then scrambled in after him. Paul wasted no time in accelerating away from the flames and the cab sped away down the road. There was a flurry of activity as doors and windows were opened along the street as those feeling the most brave amongst the residents attempted to see what the hell had just happened.

  Paul drove with skill and determination, resisting the temptation to go to fast and possibly crash. The route had been planned out and memorized as well as two alternate options in case there was a blockage.

  Within three short blocks and three sharp turns he felt safe enough to slow down and start driving as if there was nothing wrong.

  As he reached up to flip off the for hire indicator he asked the question that had him about ready to fly off in a rage.

  “What the fuck happened back there?”