by Jamie Davis
Dean agreed with her about Ingrid. She was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of person. She wasn’t a person exactly, though. She was a Valkyrie, a type of angel just like Ashley was another kind of angel. He thought about how much he missed Ashley and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I shouldn’t bring up Ashley like that. I of all people should understand that we all need time to grieve our losses. Forgive me?”
“Jaz, there’s nothing to forgive. I lost my girlfriend, but she’s not dead. You lost your whole family. I don’t think it’s the same thing.” He reached out and touched her hand where it rested on the back of the couch. She didn’t pull it away but instead turned her wrist so that her fingers clasped his.
“Thank you for thinking of me, Dean. I’m doing alright most of the time, if I stay busy. Honestly, it’s been the connection to you and Joanna that is helping me get through this.” A buzzer sounded from the kitchen and Jaz pulled her hand back as she finished the last swallow in the wine glass. Then she got up.
“I think the sauce is almost finished. I’m going to start the pasta. It’s fresh so it won’t take too long to cook. Do you want to go and fetch our daughter?”
Dean nodded. He stood up and headed down the hallway to get Jo. While he walked, he rubbed the fingers of his right hand together, remembering the touch of Jaz’s hand. It had been nice. He thought about what it might mean, for him, for her, for the two of them. It wouldn’t be awful being with her, he thought. He wondered if that was just the knowledge that they had a daughter together in the future, or if he really felt like it would work out on its own merits.
He knocked on the guest room door. There was no answer. He knocked again.
“Jo, it’s Dean, I mean Dad. It’s time for dinner.”
He opened the door when Joanna didn’t answer. He looked around the room. There was no one there. He noted right away the open window opposite the door. He went over and looked out. There was a fire escape and he looked down to see if he could spot Joanna. She was nowhere in sight. Damn. Rushing back out to the kitchen, he looked at Jaz.
“She’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone? She just went back there an hour ago.”
“I mean gone, not there. The window’s open. She must have gone down the fire escape. Where do you think she’s gone?”
“She’s our daughter, Dean. I’d be willing to bet she’s gone to fix the problem herself, just like you or I would do.” She went over to a wooden chest by the door. Taking a key from her pocket, she opened it and started pulling out weapons. She slipped into her shoulder holster rig with the pistol on one side and dual magazines and a drop down Bowie knife on the other. It was strange how natural he thought she looked. He was not comfortable around guns in general, but he didn’t feel strange with her being armed.
“So, I guess we go figure out where she would go?” Dean asked. “I hope you have an idea, because I have no clue.”
“My guess is she’s going to cast the spell to find Jill on her own and track that demon down for us. It’s what I would do. If I make a mistake, all I want to do is make things right again. I think she’d react the same way.”
Dean turned and went in to shut off the stove and oven. He placed a lid on the pot of sauce so it would stay warm. Hopefully they wouldn’t be gone that long. His stomach was growling with hunger. He came back to where Jaz was standing by the door. She had put on her leather jacket, covering her weapons from casual view.
“We can finish dinner when we get back. It will keep. Let’s go get our daughter before she does something really stupid without us,” Dean said.
Jaz nodded and pulled the door open for him. They were back on the road again and he thought they made a pretty good team, like a family.
Chapter 25
Jo let go of the iron ladder at the bottom of the fire escape and looked up at the open window above her. She had heard her father come in and knew how disappointed in her he was. She had killed people. Maybe not with her own hands, but she had killed those women in the department store all the same. She had nearly killed her new best friend, first because the demon had attacked her, and then by launching the sunfire spell without thinking about the harm it would cause Marian, too.
She felt her eyes welling up again and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. This whole situation was her fault. She had to make it right. If she could find Jill on her own and banish this demon back to hell then she could make everything better. She could look her mom and dad in the eye again and they would be proud of her.
The plastic shopping bag stuffed in her oversized purse held all the scrying supplies she needed for locating Jill, but she needed a few more things. She could now find Jill, but then she also needed to be able to magically send the demon lord back to the netherworld without harming the woman whose body it occupied. She thought she had come up with a way to do it. The challenge was going to be getting the extra items she needed to do the second spell. It was more complex than anything she had tried before.
Anya, the coven leader, had told her she was the most powerful Wiccan practitioner she had ever tutored. The priestess had also told her that power could be her downfall, if she wasn’t careful. Time to see if she could carry the load or not. Jo set off down the street, hoping the location she looked for existed in this past world.
The long walk across town gave her time to think about what she was doing, and to organize her thoughts and plan for how this was going to work. She knew the demon lord could track her in some way. That was how the demon attacker at the mall had located her. That meant she had to move quickly in order for her plan to work.
The building she sought was on the same street as the police headquarters downtown. If her parents had discovered her missing, they might have put out an alert to find her. It would be just like them to use the mundane police to pick her up and hold her. She stood on the corner across the street from the police building and watched the police officers and cars come and go. It was only eight o’clock, and there was still a lot of hustle and bustle in front of the building as people went about their evening activities.
She decided to walk across the street and down the sidewalk as if she were just another city resident on her way home. Mom had always told her you could go anywhere, enter any building most of the time, if you acted as if you belonged there. It was all about attitude. She hoped she exuded that attitude as she walked down the street now. Surely no one had the time to pay attention to one fifteen-year-old girl.
Jo was sure everyone was looking at her, wondering what she was up to as she passed the front of the police building. Still, nothing happened, and she passed by unmolested. She felt her shoulders relax a little as she passed a few more buildings, until she arrived at the one for which she was hunting. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realized it was there in the past just as it was in the future.
She stood in front of the Elk City Historical Society offices and the local history and lore museum. She walked up the red stone steps to the front door and let herself inside. There was a man at the desk in the vestibule. He was packing up his briefcase, putting files and a few books inside as she approached him. He was balding, with wisps of grey hair on the sides of his head above his ears. It gave him a comical look that only accentuated his scowl when he noticed her standing in front of him.
“I’m sorry, young lady. The museum closed at eight. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“Oh no, Mister. I’ve got a project for school and I have to look at one or two things in the museum to finish it. Couldn’t you open up for just a few more minutes?” Jo tried to look innocent and even batted her eyes at him.
“If I had a dime for every child or parent who came in here at closing time for the last minute school project, I’d be able to retire early.” He looked at her and shook his head. “The answer is no. Call it a lesson in being properly prepared and planning ahead. You’ll thank me someday.”
His answer made her angry. Why
did he have to be such a douche? Why did older people always think everything bad that happened was meant to be a lesson to some young person in need of one? Jo muttered one word, “stop” as she reached up and tapped the man between the eyes with her left index finger. His eyes widened and then he stopped moving. His eyes darted left and right and then stared back at her. She could see the fear in them.
“It’s alright sir,” she told him as she swung her purse around and reached to pull his keys from his hands. “You’ll be fine. It will wear off in a few hours and you’ll be good as new by morning. Next time, maybe you should be nice when someone asks you for a favor. I only needed a few minutes in your museum after all.”
Jo left the man frozen in position behind his desk. He’d be sore from the muscle stiffness he’d have from standing still for so long, but nothing else. She went over to the glass doors of the museum and started trying keys from the caretaker’s key ring in the lock. It took her several tries. What did he need so many keys for anyway? Finally she found the right one and the glass door swung inward to allow her entry into the museum area.
She had come here with her parents when she was younger and remembered the things they had pointed out to her that had Unusual or occult connections. The normal humans had no idea of the true nature of these artifacts held in the museum’s collection, or if they did, it wasn’t on the description cards on the displays.
There was one particular item she looked for and she wasn’t sure if it would be here or not. If she remembered correctly, it was in a small display of Native American artifacts found in various excavations around the city. Like most of the east coast American cities, Elk City was built on or near the location of former native villages. That meant as the cities expanded in modern times, excavations uncovered artifacts from the past on occasion.
She rounded the corner and saw the display she sought. It was just where she remembered it. Rushing to the glassed-in enclosure, she looked over the items inside. There were pieces of pottery, a few flint arrowheads, and a flint knife with a carved bone handle. It was the flint knife she wanted. Her mother had told her it was the enchanted blade of a shaman and was used to fight demons the tribe would encounter from time to time. Jo really hoped this wasn’t just one of those stories parents told kids to make it seem like they knew more than they did.
Inspecting the glass box that covered the items on the table, Jo looked for signs of an alarm or other security device. When she ran her hands around the base of the enclosure, she found what she was looking for. There were two wires extending from the base into the wall. This would be some sort of sensor switch that would alert the alarm company if anyone touched something or tried to remove the enclosure.
Jo looked around and tried to think of how she could do this. She needed that knife. She had to have it, or tonight’s whole plan would fail. In the end she decided on the direct approach. She would break the glass, snatch the knife and leave the building before anyone could respond.
It looked like no one else was in the building since the man out front was planning to lock up things for the night. That meant that any response would have to come from somewhere else. With the police headquarters just a few buildings away down the street, that might be closer than she wanted. Still, she had to take the chance. She had to make this right.
Taking her pistol out of her shoulder holster, she turned it and gripped it by the barrel, wielding it like a hammer and brought it down hard on the top of the glass box over the artifacts. It bounced off. She hit it again and again, striking the glass harder each time. On the fifth strike, the glass shattered inward and she was rewarded by reaching inside and pulling the knife free.
The alarm started sounding almost right away. She stuffed her pistol and knife into her purse and rushed out to the front foyer. The man was still standing there. His eyes looked angry more than fearful now. She waved as she passed.
“I’ll return it, I promise.”
She remembered to slow down and walk at a normal pace as she exited the building. The alarm bells were muted once she was on the street but they were audible to anyone who passed by. If they didn’t automatically call the police, someone walking past would. Time was of the essence now. They would be looking for her in earnest, and if her parents found out what she took from the museum, they would be able to piece together her plan.
Her next destination was to find a place in the city park where she could cast the necessary spells to enact the scrying to find Jill. Once she had a location for the possessed woman, she could figure out the next steps. It would depend on how far away she was. If Jo needed a car to get her, she was pretty much screwed. She couldn’t drive and didn’t know anyone else to call for help in this time and place.
She was a few blocks away when she heard sirens and, looking over her shoulder, she saw several police cars pulling up in front of the historical society building. She picked up her walking pace and looked for a place to turn off the main street onto a side street. She needed to get out of sight. There were probably cameras in the museum and within a few hours, they’d have her photo in every police cruiser in the city.
Jo turned down the first side street on her left and crossed over it while she broke into a jog. It was time to get to the City Park as soon as possible now, she had both her parents and the police looking for her. She wasn’t sure which option would be worse if they found her first. She suspected it would be her parents. The police would just lock her up. Her parents were going to lecture her if they found her. That thought jolted her into picking up the pace and she ran the rest of the five blocks to the park.
Chapter 26
There was no moon and it was very dark in the central, wooded portion of the park. There were streetlights spaced along the paved paths through the trees, but Jo had chosen a secluded area where one light was broken. She knelt in the grass and laid out the materials for the scrying spell on the ground in front of her. The small bowl, a bottle of water, the plastic zipper baggie that contained Jill’s hair, and the small collection of magical herbs she would need.
She poured the water in the bowl and added a pinch or two of the selected herbs while she murmured the incantation. The last thing she did was to lay the strands of hair across the pool of water and herbs in the bowl. She was rewarded with a satisfying glow from the bowl and then she saw the city from above. Jo had been prepared for this, and had her phone open to the maps app, choosing the satellite angle to see the same view.
It was disorienting at first, but once she had the phone turned to match the view in the bowl, she began to focus her mind on the locator spell. With two fingers on her phone scrolling across the map, matching what she saw in the bowl, the Wiccan teen narrowed her search until she had zoomed in on a small storage unit complex on the outskirts of town. She glanced back and forth between the bowl and phone until she was sure she had the same location on both and then tapped her phone to save the location.
Jo heard voices nearby and she closed and darkened her phone screen, dumping the bowl of glowing water over, dousing the light there as well. She slipped back into the bushes beneath a pair of nearby trees, pressing herself against the trunk of one tree as she willed herself into the shadows.
“I saw the light coming from somewhere over here,” one voice said.
“I didn’t see anything. It’s probably just some kids fooling around after dark,” said another.
“Well, they are not allowed out here after dusk. We should run them off. Besides, someone reported a girl running into the park. She could be the one we’re looking for based on that all-points bulletin we heard over the radio,” the first voice said.
Jo froze in place as two police officers with flashlights came down the path to her left. They walked along until they found her scrying bowl, the empty water bottle, and scattered plastic baggies of herbs. The two officers stopped and looked at the strange collection of items on the ground.
One of them laughed, “See, I told you it was just kids.
They were getting stoned and we scared them off. They left their drugs behind.”
The other officer stooped down, poking at the baggies and the bowl. “This doesn’t look like weed. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not marijuana.”
“Who knows what weird internet plants the kids are using nowadays? Every week we get another alert from the poison center about new drugs on the block. Just clean it all up and we can test it back at the station.”
The kneeling officer pulled a larger zipper bag from his pocket and put the scattered trash in it before closing it and standing up. He turned and played his light around the clearing causing Jo to pull deeper into the brush and shadows. He didn’t see anything else worth investigating, and he and his partner continued on their patrol. Their conversation turned to what they were going to eat for dinner later as they walked away.
Jo breathed a sigh of relief. She relaxed and stood to move out of the bushes. She looked at her phone as she did, pulling up the maps app to get directions to the storage facility. As she took a step towards the path, a scaled hand closed over her mouth from behind, pulling her back into the bushes. She felt a blow to her head and she lost consciousness before she could even cry out. The last thing she remembered was dropping her phone to the ground.
* * *
———
* * *
The pounding wouldn’t stop. It just pounded and pounded in her ears until it drove her mad. Jo tried to cover her ears with her hands but she couldn’t. Her arms were secured and she couldn’t seem to free her hands. Why couldn’t she do this? She tried again, struggling both to free her hands and to clear her mind. That was when she realized she was bound, seated and tied up in a chair or something like it. She tried to open her eyes but the bright light overhead seemed to pierce directly into her brain and the painful pounding got worse.