Bone Lantern Witch

by Kat Simons

  Using the small knife, Mara cut a line in the air down the front of the flames jumping around her circle and murmured a dismissal. The fire collapsed instantly, leaving a charred black circle in the cement and smoke billowing into the air. Without the firelight, the room plunged into a solid darkness. Angie flicked on her flashlight. The beam landed on the smoking circle.

  A physical line through the blackened remains of the containment circle had appeared at Mara’s feet. Angie considered that. When most demon circles collapsed, the “cut” in them wasn’t so visible because that break happened on the magical plane.

  She looked a little closer at Mara. She hadn’t sensed magic in her when inspecting her room, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Mara was at the age where it might only just now be manifesting. Some magic showed up from birth, and was always a part of a person—Angie’s had been like that. Some magic appeared early and then grew, taking a leap at puberty. And still other times, magic didn’t present at all until the hormonal shift of puberty.

  If Mara was coming into magic, that might explain why Grant wanted to use her as a demonic sacrifice.

  After the circle had stopped smoking, Mara moved around the outside of it in a clockwise direction sprinkling water over the top. Not enough water that it would have extinguished any flames, just a sprinkle to seal and end the ritual. It was a final step not all people took when summoning demons, but it was the safest way to ensure they didn’t sneak back into an improperly broken circle. Mara had done her research.

  Once finished, she dumped the rest of the water down a drain at one end of the big room, a drain Angie hadn’t noticed in the dark. Then she collected all her demon-calling equipment and shoved it back into a plain black backpack which had been tossed against the wall. The last thing she put into the backpack was the book. She handled it with a great deal of care. Angie tried to catch the title, but she’d have had to shine her flashlight directly onto the cover to see it, and she didn’t want to make her efforts that obvious.

  “We need to go upstairs,” Mara said. “It’ll be safer to talk there.”

  “Is your mother here?” Sebastian asked.

  Angie noticed a strange note in his voice. Still gentle and quiet to put Mara at ease, but there was definitely more going on here.

  Something to do with the last time he’d come here to hunt a demon…

  Mara didn’t answer his question. She just walked to the elevator, not waiting to see if they’d follow or not.

  On the way past the circle, Angie rubbed her foot over the line of remaining soot, smudging the edge, just to further disrupt it. An image jumped up and stopped her in her tracks, of another circle, another demon. A bargain unfulfilled. An argument between a woman and a man.

  Sebastian.

  The images came in pieces, not a nice easy-to-interpret vision. Not a full scene. Flashes of feelings and snippets of conversation. Fear. A lot of fear. Panic. Desperation. A lot like the feelings she’d picked up in Mara’s room but…older. These things had happened a while ago.

  And Sebastian had been here for that incident too.

  Angie blinked as the images dropped away. Spots danced in front of her eyes, as if she’d been looking into the flashlight beam and now stared into darkness. She kept her gaze on the wall for a few breaths to let her eyesight clear.

  Sebastian had stopped when she had and was frowning at her. She gave a very faint head shake. She didn’t want to talk about this in front of Mara, not until she’d worked out what she’d just seen.

  But she stared at the remains of the circle as the elevator doors closed on the three of them and wondered what had happened here the last time a demon had been called.

  Chapter Twelve

  They rode up to the fourteenth floor, just two from the top of the building. The corridor was comfortably lit, unlike the darkness in the basement, and there was noise coming from the surrounding apartments. The flooring was a solid black marble that would be easy to clean. The walls were freshly painted a pale yellow-cream color. The doors were all uniformly black with little brass peepholes at eye level.

  Mara led them to the far end of the hall, near the emergency exit door, to apartment 14-12.

  She didn’t knock but used a key to let them all inside.

  A part of Angie was relieved she’d had a safe place to be this whole time, not living on the streets or anything. But given what they’d disrupted down in the basement, calling this environment “safe” might be a stretch.

  As they stepped into the small, neat apartment, a woman came around the corner from another room. She looked at Mara, at the two adults with her, and her eyes narrowed. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? The laundry machines aren’t broken, are they?” Then her gaze settled more fully on Sebastian. “You!”

  The woman charged forward, fists raised. And to Angie’s horror, Sebastian just stood there.

  She stepped between the angry woman and Sebastian and raised her own hands, palms out. “Whoa whoa. We’re not starting this meeting with punches thrown.”

  Angie had moved between angry brothers more than once in her life—and to be fair, had had a brother step between her and another brother once or twice, too; probably more than twice—so she wasn’t afraid of taking an accidental punch. Her jaw could take it. But it wasn’t exactly the way she’d like them all to start.

  The woman skidded to a halt, her fist still up as she glared at Sebastian. “What are you doing here?”

  Sebastian sighed. “Your daughter was summoning a demon.”

  The woman blinked. Angie finally took a moment to realize how much she looked like Mara. Both had the same shape and color eyes, blue with dark lashes fringing them. Where Mara’s hair was a light brown, her mother’s was a pale blond threaded with enough gray to give it a silvery sheen. The color was lovely and complimented her rose-toned complexion. There were deep lines between the mother’s eyebrows, and some around her eyes and mouth. She was a handsome woman, the kind who had presence more than any kind of standard beauty. The sort of woman you looked twice at on the street because she demanded it.

  And she looked very out of place in the tiny apartment, dressed in sweat pants and an overlarge t-shirt.

  “Maybe we should introduce ourselves and have a seat?” Angie said, before Mara’s mother could respond to Sebastian’s comment. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

  “I’m not talking with him,” the mother spat.

  “Grant is the reason I’m here,” Sebastian said. “He’s hunting for Mara.”

  “And you led him right to her!” Panic filled the woman’s face. She motioned Mara toward a door. “Go pack. We’re leaving.”

  “No.” Angie raised a hand again. “He doesn’t know where we are.”

  “He’ll have had you followed, you idiot,” the woman hissed.

  Angie sighed and glanced at Sebastian. “Were we followed?”

  “No,” he said. “I ensured we weren’t.”

  “There,” Angie said. “We weren’t followed.”

  “How can you ensure anything?”

  “He’s a demon hunter,” Angie said. “It’s what he does. Now, can we please calm down. Introductions and a conversation are in order. I’ll start. I’m Angela Jordan. Everyone calls me Angie. I’m a witch. You’ve obviously already met Sebastian. There’s a story there.” She cut a look at Sebastian.

  He nodded faintly but his attention was on Mara’s mother. And instead of worry, or offense, or any of the emotions Angie might have expected, the only thing she read in his expression was curiosity. She suspected that if she touched him now, and let her senses open to a reading, she’d pick up a lot of the story since it was so near the surface.

  She wouldn’t invade his privacy that way. Not on purpose. And if he didn’t want her to pick up the history, he wouldn’t let her—willing her to sense only a blankness, a move he’d done to her before. But her curiosity was starting to overwhelm her at this stage.

  Mara glanced betwe
en her mother and Sebastian, her eyes narrowed. “What happened between you two?”

  Thank you, Mara!

  “It’s a long story,” Mara’s mother said, not meeting her daughter’s gaze.

  “Mom,” Mara said, letting out a long breath. “Enough. There’s been too many secrets already. I can’t take anymore.”

  Her mother’s shoulders dropped and she pulled Mara into a hug. “I’m sorry, baby. You’re right.” She looked at Sebastian again, then settled her attention on Angie. “Let’s sit. This will take some time. Do you want coffee? Tea?”

  “No thank you,” Angie said before Sebastian could ask for tea. He was so English sometimes with his tea drinking. When they weren’t in the middle of a demon hunt, she found it funny and endearing.

  That brought up memories she preferred to ignore, though. To bury the memories, she made herself take stock of the apartment.

  Her first impression of small and neat held on closer inspection. The main area was a living room with a couch, a triangular wooden stand with a small flatscreen TV on it pushed into the corner, a basic green rug covering the hardwood floor, and a small glass coffee table under which piles of magazines were stacked. Angie could only see a few of the top magazines. They all seemed to be fashion or architecture focused. A pillow and a blanket were folded up on the edge of the couch.

  Three large windows, all with the thick, green curtains pulled closed against the night, took up most of one wall. There were no hanging or framed pictures around the room, not even a generic landscape or kitschy poster. No knickknacks on shelves. No real shelves, she realized. Only the area under the TV stand, filled with a cable box and a DVD player. There wasn’t really anything personal in the space outside of the magazines.

  The door Mara’s mother had come through led to an enclosed kitchen. Another closed door likely led to a bedroom or bathroom. She couldn’t tell if this was a studio or one-bedroom apartment with that door closed, but what she could see wasn’t a large space. Just big enough for one person. And her daughter on visits.

  There weren’t any extra chairs, just the single couch, which left them very little room to sit.

  Sebastian didn’t bother. He moved to the windows and stood leaning against the wall between two of them, his hands tucked into his pockets as he attempted to appear harmless. He did a pretty good job of it, all things considered. But Mara’s mother continued to throw suspicious glances his direction as she settled on the couch with Mara.

  After a glance at the remaining space on the couch—which wasn’t much and would crowd Mara—Angie decided to settle on the floor. She didn’t want to hover over them by standing because she didn’t have Sebastian’s knack for slouching and looking innocuous. And frankly, she didn’t want to touch anyone or anything that might have memories just yet. She could keep the readings at bay, she hoped, but she didn’t want to take the chance yet.

  Mara’s mother raised her brows as Angie settled cross-legged on the rug. “You can sit on the couch.”

  “I’m good.” At Mara’s mom’s skeptical look, Angie said, “I got used to living with little to no furniture in college.”

  Which was mostly true. She’d shared a small apartment with two other women for two years during college. They’d had a futon for a couch and no other furniture because they couldn’t afford it, so they’d ended up sitting on the floor a lot. She had furniture in her apartment now, but most of her rituals were performed on the hardwood floor with only a pillow to sit on, so she really was used to this.

  “Shall we begin with the last few introductions?” Angie said, pointedly.

  They still hadn’t gotten Mara’s mother’s name. Although, Sebastian might know it. And Angie could glean if from a quick peek at the magazine address labels if she wanted to bypass the formalities. But Angie always found it settled people if she didn’t address them by name before they’d actually said their name aloud.

  Mara’s mother stared at Angie for a long moment, her eyes narrowed. “You’re working for Bart.”

  Angie didn’t raise her brows at the nickname for Bartholomew but she did wonder if the controlled, dangerous man she’d met earlier that day would like being called Bart. It didn’t seem to fit the image he was trying to project.

  “I’m not working for anyone,” Angie reiterated. “I’m just helping a friend save a child.”

  “I’m not a child,” Mara protested.

  “You are,” her mother said firmly. “And I warned you about trying to use that book.”

  “You used it,” Mara said, in perfect pre-teen pout voice.

  So much for not being a child.

  The detail about Mara’s mother calling a demon wasn’t lost on Angie, though. She’d guessed as much, but it was good to have the suspicion confirmed. “Did you summon the demon to counter something Grant was doing?” she asked.

  “How…?” The older woman shook her head. “You’re psychic?”

  “Well, it is one of my skills,” Angie said. “But this was pretty obvious given all the glares you’re throwing at Sebastian and what Mara just said.”

  “How old are you?” the woman asked.

  Angie blinked only once at the non sequitur. “Twenty-seven.”

  “Young.”

  “Old enough.”

  Mara’s mother snorted. “I thought I was old enough too at twenty-seven. I had Mara at that age.”

  Angie nodded, waiting for her to continue, knowing the woman would talk more, given the chance, because she’d been holding on to a lot of secrets for years and she was ready to let them go. Angie didn’t need to be psychic to see that, anymore than she’d needed to be psychic to guess the woman had summoned a demon all those years ago.

  “I was still a baby,” the woman said. “But I thought I was so wise.”

  “Most young people do,” Angie confirmed.

  “You’re young. Do you think you’re wise?”

  “Not at the moment.” She cast Sebastian a look. He smiled back. The look was personal, and intimate, and nothing she could handle just then. “But I have been around the block a few times, you might say. Maybe a little more aware than many my age. I wouldn’t call it wisdom.”

  “You sound smarter than I was just by admitting that,” the woman said with a soft grunt. She hugged an arm around Mara, pulling her close. “I don’t regret any of it, though.”

  “Then it wasn’t unwise,” Angie said.

  “My name is Ellen, by the way.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ellen.”

  Ellen laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “We’ll see if you feel that way by the time this is all over.”

  “If we’re all alive, then I will feel great about having met you.”

  Ellen blinked at that. “You’re sure you’re twenty-seven?”

  Angie just smiled.

  “Do you have children?”

  “No.” She didn’t want children. She loved them. But she had no interest in procreating herself. She’d leave that to her brothers. Especially since her older brother was already working on the effort with his new wife. Being the witchy aunt who could spoil her nieces and nephews and then return to a quiet home while her siblings handled the hard parts of child rearing appealed to her a lot.

  She might get a dog one day, though.

  “It changes you, having kids,” Ellen said.

  Angie nodded.

  “You do things you never thought you’d do.”

  “Like summon a demon?”

  Ellen looked away. “I was in love with Bart when we married. I thought he was the most handsome, wonderful man I’d ever met. I was only twenty. Much too young to look past the exterior, the sophisticated style, the deep conversations. He’s ten years older than I am, and I found that very glamourous at the time. My father tried to warm me that Bart was a gold digger. I didn’t listen.” She glanced at Mara. “Daughters can be willful.”

  Mara rolled her eyes.

  “I married Bart despite my parents’ objections
, and because they loved me, they gave in and accepted him into the family. They bought us a house, arranged for Bart to meet with influential people in the financial industry so that he could get good work, did everything to ensure we had a good start.”

  “What went wrong?” Angie could guess, but again it was better for Ellen to tell the story on her own, out loud. There was relief in finally telling someone your secrets. Angie saw it all the time in her work.

  “At first, I didn’t…I didn’t really understand why things went wrong. We weren’t getting pregnant, despite trying for years. I was disappointed and upset about it. I really wanted kids. Bart just got angry. The more time passed, the angrier he got. He said it was my fault, and I was ruining everything.” Her mouth tightened into a thin line as she paused, staring at the glass coffee table.

  With a deep breath, she continued, “I believed him at first and went to a doctor to see what was wrong. But it wasn’t me. When I told him, he got angry enough he nearly hit me. Raised his hand to, then pulled back at the last minute.” She met Angie’s gaze. “That was the first moment, the first realization that I was with someone I didn’t know as well as I thought I did.”

  Angie tried not to picture the situation, but a hazard of her job was that she could “see” people’s stories very clearly, even when she wasn’t reading them psychically. And she could picture the scene between Ellen and Grant all too clearly.

  “What did you do?” she asked Ellen, holding her gaze.

  “I started looking more deeply into the man I’d married. I went through his things, his files, his desk while he was at work. I searched through his belongings, his drawers. I hunted the entire house to see if I could find out why he was so angry.” She blinked a few times and looked away. “I wasn’t prepared for what I found.”

  “You expected something more mundane,” Angie said.

  “I expected something that made sense. Something real. Not…” She shook her head. “Not demon worship and magic and evil.”