Welcome to the future, where women have been infected with a virus that turns them into witches and men have formed a militarized cult to exterminate them-the Witch Doctors. You can survive here, if you're lucky; but only if you swear to one of the dominant practices-Puritanism or witchcraft-and are willing to check your humanity at the door. Because in the future, being a man means donning black and white and carrying a fire-breathing musket-the better to incinerate witches by-while being a woman means to live as the undead or a white-eyed practitioner of the black arts. Either way, humanity is doomed. That is, unless a single man and woman can resist-and in so doing, find the courage to cooperate, even love, again.
Will it be Satyena, the beautiful young witch prone to kindness and compassion? Patrobus, the salty platoon sergeant with a secret past? How about Aluka, the intersex witch-doctor caught between worlds? Dive into these tales of the Sex War to find out-tales told in the dystopian tradition of
Fahrenheit 451
and
Logan's Run
-stories at once brutal and beatific, halting and surreal. Do it today, before the future they portend becomes shocking reality ...
From
The Witch-Doctor Diaries:
Malachi suspects something-has suspected, it's clear to me now, since the raid on Medea Coven. I can see it in his eyes as we stare at each other across the War Wagon: something cool, dispassionate (even behind the smoked lenses of his gas mask), predatory, like a cat. He is on to something, he knows.
My headset crackles as the driver updates our status: "Fifteen minutes to target. Check your belts and harnesses-it's going to get bumpy."
I check my belt and harness, the wagon starting to rock, our tanks clinking and sloshing. Jeremiah offers me a stick of gum-but I shake my head. Nobody says anything.
"Remember, we're going in fast and we're going in hot," crackles Patrobus (as though he has taken up residence in our very minds), "Find the lab, extract what you can, air it out, and then
get out.
Is that clear?"
Although he doesn't mention him by name, we all know who he's referring to: Malachi, who once let a witch escape just so he could prolong the pursuit. A
witch.
A woman. A carrier of the M24 virus. Something to be killed on sight.
"It is clear, Captain," says Jeremiah, glancing at his friend-at Malachi. "I'll make sure Doctor Aluka leaves him some targets. We'll keep him occupied."
"Find the lab, Jeremiah. Find out what it is they've been doing there. Then get your men back on this side of the Transom."
And then he is gone and there is just the twelve of us, our buckled hats canted low on our brows, our flame-retardant Puritan tunics black as night and white as snow, our muskets charged and ready to spew fire.
At which moment Malachi looks at me, seeming to smirk behind his mask (which has been spit-shined to a gloss), and says, "How about it, Brother Aluka? A contest! Who can kill the most women? That is-if you still have the
jewels
for it."
"Lay off him," says Jeremiah. "The Medea raid was tough on everyone. Besides, his record's better than any of us."
But I don't say anything, only use the time remaining to dissemble and clean my weapon, wondering: What did he see and how much does he know? And what will happen when I can no longer hide my eyes-which have begun to turn white when I sleep, witch's white, and take longer to clear each morning? How long is it until I-who am not fully man nor fully woman-have at last become neither; neither male nor female, neither Witch Doctor nor witch?