by Leanne Leeds
“Of course, I feel sorry for the churchgoers. You’ve convinced them an army of paranormals is coming to attack their town in retribution for something that only you remember happened.”
My mother lifted her head and stared at me, her eyes glittering.
“I don’t think she’s talking about the churchgoers, Fortuna,” Mary told me in a strangled voice.
“Mary, what do you know?” Miss Bessie asked harshly.
“I know nothing, Mom. At least not for sure,” Mary answered. She glared at Karen in disbelief. “But Fortuna severed all the cords on her mother several months ago. And yet now there are more. She’s like an energy vampire, but from everything she said? It sounds like she can only pull from two kinds of beings. Ghosts, and paranormals.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Who are you talking to?” my mother asked, her voice edgy.
“Mary Wilcox,” I told her.
“That tart?” With casual ease, Karen turned and cast her eyes around the room. “Just another one of the women Marty Salvatore thought he could control. Mary, you’ll be happy to know that he completely forgot you. I made sure of that. Thanks to your magical lessons, in fact.”
“If I had hands? They’d be around your neck right now,” Mary seethed.
“It must thrill her to be watching me: me, the person who got everything that she wanted. The money, the magical power, the man,” Karen said with a cheerful smugness. “You were instrumental, Mary, in helping me achieve my ends. I should really thank you. I would thank you, in fact.” Her eyes suddenly looked fierce. “If you weren’t dead.”
“Can’t you hit her with a fire-bolt or something?” Mary asked me.
“I got them all out of the way. Mary, Anna. All of them,” my mother continued as Miss Bessie tried to calm her daughter down. “All the women that thought they could stand in my way. In the end, none of them could.”
“All so you could be with Martin’s father?” I asked her.
“Well, look at what it got me!”
“Mother, you’re in jail!”
“Temporary setback.” She waved her circumstances away as if they were a fly that had buzzed too close. “Once you go to the church and you help those yokels perform the ceremony on the crystal ball, my power will return. Well, enough of it, I can leave this ill-appointed cell without a single legal entanglement. Once that’s done, I can rebuild my empire—hopefully with you at my side. Once you understand.”
“Your empire?”
“Yes, my empire! You don’t think those men thought up all of this on their own, do you?” Karen asked me. “I brought Martin Salvatore up from nothing, from a petty street criminal to a titan!”
“And the key to it all is that crystal ball?”
“Yes,” she told me, her eyes wide. “It is the last of my adjunct power, my tie to Anna’s life force, and once we get it back, daughter, you and I will be able to—”
There it was.
“So, you keep all of your adjunct power in that crystal ball?” I asked once more, just to be sure.
“The power’s not in the ball, Fortuna. The ghosts are in the ball, and I pulled my power from the ghosts, and Anna Salvi.”
Blank faces.
On me, on Miss Bessie. On Mary.
Then puzzled faces.
Then horror.
“There are ghosts in that crystal ball?” Miss Bessie asked.
“But it’s so…well, I guess we were in bottles, so…” Mary looked shocked.
“I just want to make sure I’m absolutely clear, Mom,” I asked, trying to sound as helpful as I could. “You need me to do a ritual with the church because there are ghosts locked in the crystal ball.” She nodded excitedly, pleased I was finally getting it. “And this ritual does what, exactly?”
“It keeps them from degrading, of course. The town has to remember their ancestors, to keep their memory alive.” My mother stared into my eyes. “If they don’t, the souls will degrade and then just disappear. Degraded souls have a lot less power.”
I blinked.
I blinked again.
I swallowed. “How many souls are in the crystal ball, Mom?”
Karen stared at me with a combination of relief and exhilaration. “Why, all of them, Fortuna. The entire town. Everyone who’s died since the curse was cast.”
Miss Bessie stared at my mother, her face outraged, as in appalled silence we tried to absorb what we had just heard.
Seventeen
We all jumped at the sound of metal slamming against the cinder block—even the ghosts.
A bellow followed the jarring sound, courtesy of a furious Chief Clutterbuck bursting through the door. “Did you shove my wife in a crystal ball?” the chief roared, marching up to the bars. Chris followed him closely, his face tight with concern. “Karen, did you imprison my wife in a crystal ball?” He glowered contemptuously at her. “Answer me!”
Detective Beau Conroe crept in slowly. His face was pale, and he looked around with a sort of dumb amazement—as if he couldn’t quite believe all that he’d just observed.
“Did I personally imprison your wife?” My mother tossed her head casually. It seemed intended to infuriate Clutterbuck. “Your wife—well, everyone really—was imprisoned in this town before I drew my first breath, Terry.” The self-congratulatory way she announced this turned my stomach. “I just made their prison ball a little smaller. That’s all. They are ghosts, after all. It’s not like they need much room. None of this is because of me. I just took advantage of the situation.”
Clutterbuck looked enraged—and overwhelmed. I sensed the confusion churning within him, thoughts racing through his mind and being discarded almost in the same moment. The man had an overwhelming desire to rescue his wife—and the overpowering feeling he was helpless to do anything against these forces he didn’t understand.
“Take a breath, Chief,” I whispered. “We’ll figure this out.”
He didn’t respond.
He didn’t even look at me.
“Are you telling me…are you telling me the church has been working against the town all this time?” Beau Conroe asked with glassy-eyed horror. “All these years, you’ve roped my mother into doing these things, thinking she was on the side of the righteous, and yet...she’s effectively been a prison guard.” Conroe squeezed his hands into fists. “A prison guard for people you are exploiting. People she cared about. Members of our family.”
“Dead people…I was exploiting dead people.” Karen tilted her head. “Are dead people really people? I mean, if you stop to think about it, they aren’t really people anymore, are they? Nothing has happened to anyone in town that’s alive, Detective. You’ve all had your little small town existence unencumbered. It’s just your death I interfere with.” My mother nodded as if her agreement was all that mattered and then turned to me. “And thank you for violating our privacy. I see you’re not grown-up enough for me to trust you.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “All I asked for was a conversation with my daughter, a private one. You couldn’t even do that.”
“Why on earth would you think you could trust me with this garbage?” I responded with disgust. “Right now, I am mortified that I’m related to you in any capacity. You seem to get savage enjoyment out of screwing people over, out of exploiting them, out of getting away with it. You are a horrible human being!”
“Watch yourself, daughter. Haven’t you heard about apples and how they don’t fall far from trees?”
“Shut up!” I shouted, my head pounding. Stars sparked in front of my eyes.
Everything about my mother was infuriating me. That she gave birth to me, that she gave me away like a lucky rabbit’s foot. Somewhere in my brain, I knew Chris had stepped beside me, but I could barely feel the pressure from his hand.
“Fortuna Delphi,” my mother scolded, but my shout stopped anything else she would say to me.
“You are severely mentally ill, or you’re twisted, or you’re just plai
n broken—”
“Careful, daughter,” Karen said as she stepped toward me, her palm held toward me. “Once you get over the shock of finding all this out, I’m sure you’ll see that my way is far better than—”
“Shut up! Shut up!” I shouted, my voice shaking with blistering anger. The sparks before my eyes grew bigger. “Undo this! You can’t do this to people!” The room felt frozen as if I’d suspended it in time. I could sense no one else other than my mother, and what I was sensing from her would haunt me for the rest of my life. If I was fire and fury, she was ice cold.
My mother reached through the bars to grab my hand. “Fortuna—”
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted again, shoving her hand away with every thought, every feeling, every emotion I had.
Things must’ve happened fast.
I mean, looking back on it, I know it was fast.
It didn’t feel fast.
The first thing I noticed was a rushing sound in my ears, like the pounding surf at high tide. My mother’s face looked uncertain for the first time, her eyes wide as she stared at me in dismay—but then it disappeared from view as if enveloped by fog. The last thing I saw was her hand still clasping mine.
Then there was the light. It was so bright. Almost blinding. As if the sparks that popped and crackled in front of my eyes supernova’d, then shot forward with almost comic exaggeration toward my mother.
The crack of energy was almost deafening.
Chris, of course, dove at me to shield me from whatever was happening. “Are you all right?” he asked me as we lay together on the floor, his body protecting mine.
“I’m fine,” I told him, shivering. I was cold. It was as if all the heat had just fled my body. That the ice cold vampire’s body was several degrees cooler than mine wasn’t exactly helping.
“Are you sure?” he asked. He turned my face toward him and stared deep into my eyes.
I blushed with embarrassment while nodding. “I’m okay. What happened, though? Was that me?” He didn’t answer. “I think that was maybe me.”
Then I heard a dog bark.
The four of us stood outside of the cell and stared in.
The greyhound looked back at us, its soft eyes calm.
Every once in a while, the dog blinked.
“You turned her into a dog,” Clutterbuck said, his face pale with open disbelief. “Fortuna Delphi, I think you turned your mother into a dog. How on earth did you turn your mother into a dog?”
The greyhound wagged its tail and barked again.
I didn’t answer.
Detective Conroe looked queasy and stumbled toward a wastebasket. Unattractive sounds followed.
“Well, I guess that takes care of her,” Mary Wilcox said, her words reverberating with a sense of triumph. “I’ve studied a lot of magic, and I’m almost sure that greyhounds cannot cast spells. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”
“I think your ending pronouncement may be premature,” Chris told Mary.
“What about Gideon?” I asked her. “He can send telepathic images.”
“Only to you. He’s your familiar. Different situation,” Miss Bessie responded. The ghost floated down toward the dog and waved her hand in front of its face. It barked and stuck its wet nose out to sniff her hand—looking surprised as its nose floated through it. “She can see ghosts now.” The older woman stood back up. “That shows to me she doesn’t have so much as a drop of magic anymore. She cast that spell on herself, the one that blocked her ability to see us. It did not go with her into her new species. She’s done. Finally.”
“What are you all saying?” Clutterbuck asked.
I told him.
“Her new species? Her new species?” Clutterbuck asked, his eyes blinking rapidly to clear the glaze of confusion. “You’re going to leave her a dog? You can’t leave a human being as a dog. Not even that one.”
“Well, she can,” Mary quipped with unconcealed amusement. “She’s done it before.”
“Mary,” Miss Bessie frowned with disapproval.
“What? You know you were thinking it.”
I didn’t answer Chief Clutterbuck. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Fortuna is not sure how she accomplishes transmogrification,” Chris offered to the chief helpfully. “This is only the second time she’s done it, and as far as I’m aware, she’s not yet learned how to reverse it.” I nodded in agreement. Chris looked down at the greyhound. It was sitting quietly and gazing from person to person. “Unfortunately, Karen will have to stay a dog for the foreseeable future.”
“Is that really so bad?” Mary asked the chief with a puzzled frown, but Clutterbuck could not see or hear her.
“For once, you and I agree,” Miss Bessie nodded at her daughter. “Normally, I’d tear Fortuna here a new one for not having control of her magic, for letting her emotions get the best of her. Heck, for just being downright dangerous.” Bessie waved her hands in front of the dog again, and the dog barked back happily. “In this case, though, well done. Honestly, Fortuna, I think Karen looks happier than she’s ever looked.”
I pouted in silence.
Chris caught me in his arms. “Fortuna, it’s going to be fine.”
I spat out a very unladylike epithet and looked down in embarrassment.
“Fortuna,” Chris whispered in that low, sexy voice only I could hear. “I know it was an accident, and I know you’re a little embarrassed, but I think Miss Bessie may be right. We were having a lot of trouble undoing what Karen had done. I know you didn’t mean to do it, but now that’s done? It may be the best thing that could’ve happened.”
“There is so much I didn’t find out,” I replied in a whisper into his granite-like chest. My voice sounded flat, weary. “I wanted to find out who our—Dalida’s and my—birth father was. Or is. If he’s still alive. Why she had the three of us. I mean, why three? Was there a reason? Was Angie more than a means to an end? And who were her parents? Why was she the way she was?” As I complained, I suddenly realized none of these questions seemed important—until I knew I might never get the answers.
“You are a combination of everything you know and everything you have chosen to become.” Slowly, deliberately, Chris pulled back and tilted my head up with one hand. There was no doubt in his eyes. No fear that his girlfriend might turn him into a dog in a fit of pique. “Those answers would not have changed you. The damage she could have done to you? That might have.”
“As much as I have sympathy toward you, Fortuna, for the emotional moment you’re having with your boyfriend, I’d like to point out that we are not alone here. How am I supposed to explain the disappearance of a prisoner awaiting trial?” Chief Clutterbuck asked the group in stunned disbelief. “For that matter, how am I supposed to explain why there’s a greyhound in this jail?” Suddenly, his eyes grew wide. “This whole room, this whole situation, is being recorded!”
Chris kissed me quickly on the cheek and shot out of the room so fast no one’s eyes could follow.
After a few seconds of silence, Clutterbuck cleared his throat. “He’s not going to drink the guards, is he?”
The sound of Beau Conroe’s retching resumed a few seconds after that.
“I have taken care of the recording,” Chris said as soon as he reappeared. “The camera and audio into this room will have to be repaired, Chief Clutterbuck. My apologies, but there was no other way.”
“The dog?” Clutterbuck asked, gesturing toward the reddish-colored dog. It was, at that moment, excitedly attempting to squeeze its wide-barreled chest through the bars. The chief paused for a moment and then looked at me. “Is that a dog? I mean, does she know she was a human and was just turned into a dog? Or is Karen just gone?”
“I don’t know. Ella Grayson—”
“I thought Ella Grayson got on a plane and got out of Dodge?” Clutterbuck asked me, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Well, she almost made it to her car, and I think she was going to the airport,�
� I told him sheepishly.
“I can stop having anybody look for Ella Grayson?” the chief asked with irritation.
“You can.”
“I hope we don’t have a murderous dog running around eating people.”
“Nope. I’m well acquainted with Ella as a dog,” I told him. “She’s made somebody an excellent pet.” I decided not to explain his daughter’s dog was the murderous fugitive. Watching me turn my mother into a dog was probably enough excitement for one night.
“Speaking of, my two questions still stand. How am I supposed to explain Karen White’s disappearance, and how am I supposed to explain a dog suddenly appearing in the jail?”
“Can we just fake a breakout?” Chris asked, his eyebrow raised. “We just disabled the audio and visual equipment. There will be no fingerprints. We can unlock the cell door and leave it open. After a search, you can bring the tunnel underneath the police department to everyone’s attention.” Chris looked down at the greyhound. “I can sneak the dog out using the tunnel for now.”
“And bring it where?” Beau asked with distaste. “Don’t we need her to free the town from the crystal ball prison?”
“I don’t know,” Chris said, turning toward me. “Do we?”
“I don’t think so,” I told him, shaking my head. “She doesn’t have any magic anymore. It’s going to be up to me—well, probably me and my sisters—to figure out a way to get everybody out.” I looked at Beau Conroe. “I need that bottle. You’ve seen what’s going on here, enough to understand what we’re trying to do. That bottle is another prison, and someone’s trapped in it. I need to get them out.”
“There’s someone in that tiny bottle?” Conroe gasped.
“Yes, just like there’s apparently an entire town full of people stuck in the crystal ball. Anyway, that has to be the next step because the witch bottles’ witches were feeding the curse. The curse was partially the boundary. If the overall curse comes down,” I said, thinking it through as I talked, “the parts of the magic that are this colonial curse thing should be done with. Then we only have to deal with the magic Karen herself cast to imprison the ghosts in the crystal ball.”