by Ann Charles
When my pulse had finally slowed and the pain had eased slightly, I pictured a candle flame in my mind.
What about Cooper?
Tears filled my eyes. I’d have to try to come back for him later. Right now, I had to get away from the banshee.
I fixed my thoughts on the black candle. The sight of the small, flickering fire surrounded by darkness soothed my nerves. As I stared into the dancing flame, my shoulders relaxed, my pulse slowed, my heart …
Long bony fingers reached out of the darkness. They wrapped around my arms, gripping me tight. I tried to pull free while fingernails bit into my skin.
I shrieked, matching the banshee note for note, as something dragged me kicking and screaming into the darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
A hand covered my mouth, muffling my screams. I thrashed and kicked out in blind panic, struggling to escape.
“Stop her … kicking,” I thought I heard, although the ringing still echoing in my head from the banshee’s wails made the actual words hard to make out.
The bony fingers let go of me only to be quickly replaced by a firm weight on my sternum that flattened me on the tiled floor, forcing me into submission. The faint smell of ammonia filled my sinuses as I gasped for air.
“Violet.”
Did somebody say my name? It had sounded as if I were being hailed from the other side of a valley.
I froze in the dark, listening. The ringing was fading, along with the stabs of pain in my head. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears like a big Hawaiian drum. Boom-boom! Boom-boom! The beats reverberated clear to my toes.
The hand lifted from my mouth.
“Violet.” This time the voice was closer. “You are …” Something clanged. “… Dead.”
Dead. A whimper escaped my throat. That stupid banshee bitch! I didn’t get to say good-bye to my kids or Doc or Nat or …
“Why in the hell did you tell her that?”
The voice spoke right above me this time. Actually, it sounded more like a growl.
My breath caught. I knew that growly voice. Cooper! I found him! Or he must have found me somehow.
But his fingers weren’t long and bony like the ones that had come out of the darkness. Those looked more like …
“So she could mourn,” Cornelius said. “Violet.” Something poked me in the cheek. Twice. “Why isn’t she opening her eyes? Did she hit her head on the other side?”
“Not on my watch,” Cooper answered. “But I wasn’t there at the very end.” The pressure on my sternum eased. “Parker!” Something snapped me in the forehead, right above the bridge of my nose.
“Ouch!” I reached up and rubbed the spot. “That stings.”
“Then it worked. Now open your eyes. We have company.”
Still rubbing my forehead, I did as Cooper ordered, blinking in the semi-darkness. Cornelius’s narrow face with his pointy goatee loomed over me. I smiled up at him. “Hello, Prince Charming. You’re a sight for sore eyes. I think I left my glass slipper back at the Banshee Ball.”
He frowned across at Cooper, who was looking down his crooked nose at me. “The banshee must have broken her brain.”
Cooper scoffed. “I think it was broken long before tonight.”
Cornelius shined his flashlight in my eyes. When I squinted and turned my head to the side, he reached down and plugged my nose.
I gasped for air, slapping both of his hands away. I glared up at him. “What did you do that for?”
“I was making sure you were breathing.”
“Of course I’m breathing. I was talking to you. You can’t talk if you’re not breathing.”
“I beg to differ. Ghosts talk to me all of the time, and they aren’t breathing.” To Cooper, he said, “She’s breathing, but I’m not sure which nostril she’s using.”
“Good.” Cooper sounded distracted. He stood and walked away.
“I’m using both nostrils.” I craned my neck to check out my surroundings, relieved to see I was back in the jail cell. Cornelius had said something about me being dead, but the floor was hard under me and I could smell the underlying musty mix of urine and dust.
But where was Doc? I looked over at the larger cell. Shadows shrouded the back corner, but the beds were empty, and as far as I could tell so was the rest of the cell.
“I doubt that’s true, Violet,” Cornelius said.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked, breathing just fine out of my nostrils now that he wasn’t pinching them shut.
My gaze shifted to Cooper, who was peering out through the window in the steel door. Déjà vu, I thought with a smirk. I wondered if he could see anything. I couldn’t from my spot on the floor. It was dark on the other side of the glass, same as two of the last three times I’d tried to look through the dang thing.
But where is Doc?
Something fluttered in my stomach. I tamped it down. Everything was going to be fine. There was no visible reason to freak out. And in spite of Cornelius’s talk about death, I seemed to be alive and kicking still. Well, not kicking at the moment, but I had been a few minutes ago. Besides, Cooper and Cornelius were here with me and the banshee wasn’t.
I glanced back at the shady corner in the group cell, watching for any movement in the shadows. At least I hoped she wasn’t here.
“I’ll tell you why your statement is likely not true.” Cornelius readjusted so that he was sitting cross-legged next to me. “It is a well-known fact that human nostrils divide the job of breathing so that only one nasal channel is fully open at a time. I’ll demonstrate.” Cornelius plugged one side of his nose and then the other, breathing noisily so I could hear the difference. “You see, it’s called the nasal cycle. While you breathe through the clear nostril, the tissue in the other nostril is flooded with blood. This is a similar physiological occurrence as an erection, when blood rushes into the penis and causes it to engorge to a size nearly two to three times that of its normal flaccid state.”
“Great balls of fire!” I covered the upper part of my face with my hands, pressing the meat of my palms into my eyes, attempting to block out the imagery going on behind my eyelids.
“This has nothing to do with testicles, Violet.”
I lowered my hands to glare at him. “I told you yesterday during my bath that you and I are never going to talk about erections. Ever.”
Cooper shined his flashlight back at us, putting us both in the spotlight. “You two were talking about erections while bathing?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I pushed up onto my elbows.
“Violet was the only one in the tub,” Cornelius explained. “I was just giving her relaxation advice.”
Cooper lowered his light to the floor. “So, Parker was bathing and you were helping her find ways to relax?” He chuckled. “That’s not legal anymore in Deadwood.”
“Shut up, Cooper.” I turned back to Cornelius. “You’re supposed to check if my chest is moving up and down, not plug my nose.”
One of his black eyebrows cocked upward. “Where does it say that in the rule book?”
“What rule book? I’m talking about CPR.”
“You mean a common-pool resource?”
“No. The other CPR.”
“Conditional pre-payment rate?” His mouth twitched, giving away his game.
I held my fist in front of his nose. “Now you’re just messing with me.”
“Maybe, but it’s good to see the snap back in your garters, as my grandfather used to say.”
Cooper strode over and grabbed me by the elbow, hauling me to my feet in one quick tug. “Let’s get out of here before I give in to the voice in my head telling me to lock you both up in a single cell and toss the key out the window on my way home.”
“Give me a second.” I held onto Cooper for a few beats as I steadied myself, looking around the room to make doubly sure the banshee wasn’t with us. I paused on the empty group cell. “Where’s Doc?”
“He’s downstairs with Nat and
Uncle Willis.”
Doing what? Something was odd about this setup.
Cooper turned my chin in his direction and aimed his flashlight at my eyes.
I recoiled. “What are you doing?”
“Checking your pupils. Curion was too busy plugging your nose to make sure you’re not in shock.”
“I’m fine.” I pushed his light away.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Cooper. I’m sure.”
He pointed his light at where I was holding onto him. “Then why are you digging your fingernails into my arm?”
“Sorry.” I loosened my grip, but still held on. Until we made it out of this damned room, ghost- and banshee-free, I wasn’t sure I wanted to let go.
“Maybe the banshee is inside of Violet and trying to claw her way into you next,” Cornelius joked and aimed his flashlight at my eyes, too.
I shoved his flashlight to the side. “Shine that in my eyes one more time, Spirit Miser, and I’m going to light up your prostate with it.”
Cooper laughed. “Okay, she’s proven she’s the one and only pain-in-the-ass Parker.” He unhooked from my grasp. “Hold steady here a second.” He returned to the door, peering out the window again.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’re hiding from the law,” Cornelius explained, shining the light beam through his fingers. “I think my bones are growing. Does that seem normal to you?”
“It does if you’re a Nachzehrer.” I frowned toward Cooper. “Why are we hiding from the law?”
“We’re not hiding.” He returned to where Cornelius and I were waiting. “We just need to get out of here before trouble finds the three of us together.”
Who was going to find us? And why hadn’t Doc been waiting here for me when I came out of the dark? He was usually the first one I saw when I opened my eyes.
I rubbed my temples. Nothing about my current situation was anything close to normal. I’d like to go home now, hug my kids, and forget this whole banshee bullshit ever happened with the help of Doc and chocolate or tequila. And maybe a handful of cookies. Probably all of the above.
Focusing on Cooper, I asked, “When you say ‘trouble,’ are you talking about those five ghosts?”
He shook his head. “They already know we’re in here.”
“You can still see them?”
“Yes, Parker.”
“All of them?”
He cut me a glare. “Do you want me to draw you a map showing where each one is standing?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Maybe I do, darn it, because I don’t understand what’s going on here, and you two have done a crappy job of filling me in.” I pointed at Cornelius. “And why on earth did you say I was dead?”
His brow crinkled. “I didn’t say anything close to that.”
“Yes, you did. After you dragged me out of the dark, you said, ‘You are dead.’ I didn’t dream that.” At least I didn’t think so. Although the banshee had been saying something similar to me before her siren scream made my ears practically bleed and my head nearly explode.
“I said, ‘You art is dead,’ which is entirely different.”
I huffed. “No, it’s not.”
“It is. There’s a distinct ‘t’ at the end of my version.”
Huh. The banshee had added a “t” to the end, too.
“So why are you putting a ‘t’ at the end of ‘you are’?”
“Because it’s not ‘you are.’ ” Cornelius pointed at his mouth. “The word I’m saying is spelled e-w-a-r-t, but pronounced ‘ewe-art,’ not ‘you-are.’ As in ‘Ewart is dead.’ ”
I blinked. That was about as clear as a slice of meatloaf.
“Okay, I’ll play along. What is ewe-art? Is it some kind of new-age art fad specializing in adorable baby sheep paintings or quilts? And why is it dead? I wouldn’t think that sheep go out of style.”
“Actually, a baby sheep is called a ‘lamb.’ A ewe is an adult female sheep. I’m surprised you don’t know that with your extensive background in wool fashion.”
Of course I knew that! I pinched his arm through his black wool coat.
“Ouch!” He stepped back. “What did you do that for?”
“Quality testing the thickness of the wool fibers in your coat, smartass.” I turned to Cooper, who’d been observing our asinine vaudevillian act with his hand unsuccessfully covering his grin. “What in the ever-loving hell is a ‘ewart’?”
“Ewart is the last name of the docent who locked us in here,” he explained.
“You mean the little old guy in the foyer with the green suit and clover pin?”
He nodded. “And at the risk of starting your Abbott and Costello comedy routine again, I’m going to clear this up in four words: Mr. Ewart is dead.”
My hand flew to my chest. “You’re kidding? He died while we were in here searching for clues?”
He nodded. “He had a heart attack, but managed to call 911 before he died.”
How horrible! Here we were having fun and the poor guy was dying all alone. Well, I wouldn’t actually call our time in this old jail fun, especially after we ran into the … The banshee’s wailing voice echoed in my memory: You-arrrrt!
“Ohhh! That’s it!” I told Cooper. “That’s what the banshee was saying all along when I was asking her who she’d come to warn. It was Ewart.”
Cooper nodded again. “I realized that, too, after Nyce pulled me out of that place and Nat told me that the medics were out front trying to revive him.”
I smacked my forehead. So, true to the myths, the banshee had been here to warn about an upcoming death—as in the death of Ewart, the docent. Not my death.
Lordy, I was such a bonehead.
On the other hand, Doc had pulled Cooper out. That meant he’d found us “out there” and been able to save my bacon yet again. It sure was nice to have an Oracle on our side.
I puffed my cheeks, blowing out my breath as I checked the shadows again for the banshee. “What are the chances of this happening at your birthday party, Cooper?”
“Surprisingly good. I have bad luck when it comes to my birthday.”
I remembered Natalie mentioning something about Cooper saying that. “As bad as what happened tonight?”
“Last year, I got shot on my birthday.” He patted his shoulder. “It was just a graze, luckily. The year before that, I was breaking up a bar fight and caught a Bowie knife in the thigh. Four years ago, I got bit by a stray dog I was trying to rescue. Seven years ago—”
“Okay, I got it. Lesson learned. You need to be wrapped in bubble wrap and locked in the basement when your birthday rolls around next year.”
“You need some salt,” Cornelius said out of left field. When Cooper and I both gave him a confused look, he added, “Bathing in salt water is said to remove negative energy from the body.”
I snorted. “Cooper would need an ocean’s worth of salt to pull that off.”
“Do you two really expect me to buy into any of this hoodoo bullshit?”
“Oh, this has absolutely nothing to do with the hoodoo religion,” Cornelius answered. “But we could test a few hoodoo spells if you like.”
“I thought you’re supposed to sprinkle salt around your house for protection.” At least that was something Aunt Zoe had mentioned to me before.
“Yes. Putting it in corners will keep bad energy out.”
Cooper shook his head. “I don’t have bad energy, just bad luck, but I’ll tell you what, Curion. I’ll get a horseshoe tattooed on my ass and we’ll call it good.”
“You still see those five specters in their post-death states, right?” Cornelius asked.
Cooper stared over my shoulder. As in right behind me. “Sure.”
I spared a wary glance behind me, finding nothing.
“Have you considered that the negative energy surrounding and inside of you is distorting your spectral vision?” Cornelius continued with his inquisition.
Cooper’s gaze snapped back to
Cornelius. “So, you’re saying that with a bit more salt in my life, I’d no longer see ghosts?”
“No. Fortunately, your third eye is wide open now, and there is no closing it short of your own death.”
“Fortunately? Ha!”
“However, there might be adjustments you can make that will affect how you see ectoplasmic entities.” He shrugged, brushing off his coat sleeves. “It’s up to you if you’re interested in testing some of my theories on which adjustments might benefit you—salt being one of them. In the meantime, that banshee made me hungry. Violet, I need a protein bar.”
I looked down at my hands and then back up at him. “Do I look like a protein bar tree to you?”
“You typically carry a bar in your purse. I’d like to eat it.”
“My purse is out in Harvey’s truck. You’ll have to wait until we leave.”
I looked at Cooper, who had returned to the steel door. He opened it a crack, listening to whatever was going down on the other side. I tiptoed over to him.
“Do you hear anything?”
“No.” He waved Cornelius closer. “I think we should sneak downstairs and into the jail’s reception room until we get the all-clear from Nyce or Nat.”
“You don’t want to wait up here for them?”
He shook his head. “There’s only one way out of this room. Down there, we have more options.”
“Why are you so concerned about being caught with us?” I asked.
“I know most of the officers on the Spearfish police force, and several of the fire crew members around here, too. The last thing we need is word getting back to Hawke about Curion, you, and me being here at the time of Ewart’s death. He’ll have come up with fifty new conspiracy theories about the three of us and a new murder case before the weekend is out.”
I didn’t doubt that for a moment.
“Hawke needs a girlfriend,” I said, nodding for emphasis. “Someone who will let him vent some steam and sidetrack him from his obsession with us. It’s too bad you had to work your love magic on Natalie. She’s great at running distractions.”
“Yeah. I know all about her ability to mess with a guy’s head. But she’s off the market.” He grabbed my upper coat sleeve. “Let’s roll. Come on, Curion.”