The Witch From Laramie Valley

Witch

Perry didn't know how long he'd blacked out for, but when he came to he was laying on something soft. Looking around quickly, he realized Ekor was gunning for the nearest door, and he pushed off of whatever it was that caught his fall – broken glass, dirt, maybe some plants, too – hurrying after the ogre.

Neither of them noticed the wreckage they had left behind, or the young researcher working late that night, staring around her in shock before fixing her eyes on the door.

This was different, but not that unwelcome; now their chase had them in a small, narrow hallway, lined with white marble and gray concrete, the light fixtures sunk into the ceiling. Ekor was having trouble moving in the limited space, but Perry was going back and forth between the left and right walls, keeping pace easily.

Suddenly, the lights started to flicker, and the air seemed heavier. Perry bounced off the ogre's sweat-slicked back when he didn't realize that Ekor had skidded to a stop as much as he could.

The lights were weird, but they didn't bother Perry; however, when he looked up, he noticed that normally dark green ogre was a sickly pale color, eyes wide and terrified as he had begun to tremble.

Taken aback, the vampire wracked his brain: What is it that could scare an ogre like that?

Nothing came to mind.

Not until they both heard a distinctive thump! down the hallway behind them. Both men turned, not quite believing what they were seeing. Just a few feet away, coming from the door of the large room under the skylight they had just left, was a monster.

There wasn't anything else Perry could think of to call it. His already cold body suddenly chilled further, and his own eyes widened, mirroring the expression he'd just seen on Ekor.

The thing before them was a tree – but not a tree. It had humanoid features – thick legs that slimmed upward into a curvy torso, then into equally thick arms with talon-like hands. Its body was covered in bark, the legs and arms dark and brown, but the torso had bright green vines growing upward, over the voluptuous chest and up the thing's thin neck. The head was undoubtedly feminine, the features delicate and graceful – even when made of bark. Branches grew out of the top of the creature's head like horns, dozens of them winding around each other, some bare and some covered with glowing leaves and small flowers. It was almost as big as Ekor, which was impressive just by itself.

What it was, though, Perry had no idea. He'd never seen anything like it.

There was a ripping sound before another loud thump! and Perry realized it had taken another step toward them. His eyes moved down, to its feet. Or what you would call the feet, if he had to take a guess. The trunk-like legs more or less just continued to swell downward until they abruptly ended. Even stranger still, it seemed that with every step the creature took, it was trying to root itself into floor; that was the ripping sound he'd heard before, Perry realized, as it took another step toward them. Grass and flowers had grown in its footprints, and the ripping was roots tearing away as the creature pulled its large leg up and took another step.

Suddenly, Perry realized that though it was getting closer to them, it was extremely slow. Even slower than Ekor. Thankfully the ogre seemed stuck to his spot, unable to move out of fear of whatever the thing was. Perry took a step toward the ogre, thankful for the creature for at least ending the chase, and he started to take a small pouch from inside his jacket. The ogre needed an extra large pair of handcuffs, which were kept in a compact bag that had been made with magic. It could hold multiple things ten times larger than the bag itself was, and these had become standard issue for the police department quite some time ago.

The creature was still coming their way, but so slowly that Perry would deal with it once he was done with the ogre.

Or so he thought.

That was the moment Ekor let out a single sound, a murmur Perry heard clear as day but couldn't believe: “Witch.”

The vampire's lips parted in surprise as he spun around, just in time to see a wooden claw zooming toward him through the air; he let out a startled yelp as it grabbed him around the torso and slammed him sideways into the wall. It did it again, and then again, making it hard for Perry to get his bearings, but he finally was able to lock back onto the creature, and sure enough, that was the owner of the hand clutching him like a girl's ragdoll. It hadn't moved from where it stood before, but its arms had grown exponentially longer, and its eyes were solid black and hostile as Perry had every seen. It was angry, but what about, he had no idea.

He braced himself to be smashed into the wall a few dozen more times, trying to come up with a solution quickly, when the whole thing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The lights stopped flickering, the hand crushing him disappeared, and the creature at the end of the hall was gone. Standing up, he realized the other hand must have grabbed hold of Ekor and slung him into the other wall. There was small sense of satisfaction that whatever the hell that was hadn't been angry at just him, but both of them. He paced over to Ekor, checking vitals and injuries; the ogre wasn't bad off, just knocked out pretty thoroughly.

After handcuffing Ekor, Perry turned and walked cautiously back down the hallway to see if the creature from before had left any trace.

As he neared some rubble, he realized maybe it hadn't really disappeared.

Maybe it just passed out and changed back into a small woman with curly brown hair and a lab coat.

Sighing heavily and rubbing his head, Perry stared down at the sleeping frame, breath even and calm, in shock and dismay – and more than a little disbelief.

“What the f**k?”