The Candle (Haunted Series Book 23)

by Alexie Aaron

  Mia took a deep breath. “I know we seem like we’ve lost our hold on reality, but it really did happen. I think we should muster in the aerie. Let you guys listen to our tale and judge for yourselves. And yes, I should put some clothes on. I just had to make sure we all made it back. Magic is magic, but sometimes fate throws a curveball. Mike, I’ll reimburse Glenda for her vodka,” Mia promised. “Tell Altair I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  Mike smiled and saluted.

  Mia tugged on Ted’s arm. “Come on. I better settle the kids down.”

  “I think Dieter has it all under control. Minnie Mouse, you scared us,” Ted said.

  “Well, you got yourself blown up.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I warned you about making your own explosives,” Mia said.

  “I apologize for my explosive teenage personality,” Ted said, not believing a word of the tale so far. But still, Burt and Murphy were corroborating some of it. And he knew about Cid’s magazine. It wasn’t Cid’s. It was Ted’s, and he hid it there when he was thirteen. How did Mia know about it?

  “I also know about how you and Cid would take his mother’s Saab convertible out after dark when his parents were away.”

  “Damn, you’re scaring me, Mia.”

  The group was assembled in the aerie’s large library when Mia and Ted walked in. Cid had put together snacks. Altair smiled when he saw Mia. He waved her over. He pulled her down next to him and spoke in a soft voice, “I was on patrol when, suddenly, all these alternative memories poured in. I landed and found your place full of the people from the memory assault. I found a giant bottle of Grey Goose in the fridge and helped myself. Burt walked by me in a daze, so I knew you were successful.”

  “Mia, would you like to start?” Burt asked.

  “Excuse me,” she said, getting up. “Where’s Murph?”

  “Here,” he said, manifesting behind the couch.

  Mia looked at everyone first. “First of all, thank you for being kind and listening to our story. We’re going to do our best to tell you in the shortest way possible who, what, where, and when, but I’d love for you guys to help come up with why,” Mia said. “It all started when Audrey and Orion had us choose candles…”

  After Mia, Murphy, and Burt finished, Altair filled in how Orion ended up flying to the rescue with Angelo and Nicholai. “It became very apparent that there were players in this candle thing, or because of this candle thing, who were determined to do away with Mia. They thought, incorrectly, that she was vulnerable. True, Mia did not have the gifts she has as an adult, but she had the knowledge, and she had all of you to help her in her quest. I was preparing to protect her if she didn’t succeed.”

  “How?” Mia asked.

  “Nordin and I were going to adopt you, and I was interviewing a suitor to protect you when I passed.”

  “Where?” Mia asked, wrinkling her face.

  “NOLA.”

  “No…” she said, a deep blush forming.

  “Yes.”

  Murphy started to laugh.

  “He wouldn’t remember this stuff, would he?” Mia asked nervously.

  “Don’t know?”

  “Who are we talking about? Not Angelo!” Ted growled.

  “No, Sticks,” Mia managed.

  “Oh. How interesting,” Ted said, his eyes dancing.

  “Mia has a type,” Murphy blurted out. Mia smacked him on the arm.

  “I don’t understand,” Audrey whispered to Orion.

  “Sticks evidently bears an amazing resemblance to Ted as a teenager, although he’s a demon and is made up of branches and sticks,” Orion said. “However, I’m worried about Angelo tagging Mia’s mind house.”

  “We’ve got time to work this out,” Audrey said confidently.

  “To sum this up,” Burt said, “I evidently made a wish or said the words I wish when we were blowing out the candles, and this wish took us back twenty years.”

  “Why didn’t it happen immediately?” Cid asked. “Mia said she woke up twenty years ago, and when Burt snapped the candle, we all woke up at night. Shouldn’t we have been there at the table?”

  “That’s a very important observation,” Orion said and looked over at Altair. “Someone must have slowed the process.”

  “Maybe, or slowed time,” Altair said.

  “Does it have to be a conspiracy?” Audrey asked.

  “I’d like to think it was completely innocent,” Mia said. “I’d love to put it behind me, but I learned too many things in the past that bother me.”

  “You know I don’t believe in a lot of this malarkey,” Glenda said. “But I find the story plausible, and I too worry about motives. I’m glad we all made it back. How many of you died?”

  Burt, Ted, and Mia held up their hands.

  “I died twice,” Mia said. “But thanks to all of you, the Others didn’t kill me.”

  “You mentioned you saw the contract,” Mike said.

  “Yes.”

  “Who took the contract out?” he asked.

  “Fredericka Cooper,” Mia said.

  Orion’s face fell, and Altair seemed to find a certain amount of clarity in the answer.

  “Before any of you feel sorry for me, I want you all to know that each one of you has contributed to make my life full and wonderful. We can’t help the family we’re born into, but we can help who we call our friends. I’m very fortunate to have all of you. I will do my best to repay your kindness.”

  “I’m sorry about the candles,” Orion said. “That’s on me.”

  “It was my crazy idea,” Audrey admitted.

  “Please, don’t go there,” Mia said. “We survived, and I’m going to eat cake for breakfast until it’s all gone. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to go home and sleep until my little guys wake up.”

  Ted watched Mia as she looked in on the kids. She tapped on Dieter’s door and walked in and planted a kiss on his sleepy forehead. “I missed you,” she whispered. “You have brought such joy to my life.”

  “Aw, I bet you say that to all the teenage boys you adopt.”

  “Knucklehead,” Mia said with a smile and closed the door.

  Mia turned into Ted’s arms. He guided her into their room and closed the door. He tenderly kissed her as he undressed her. Mia clung to him. “Do you know how much of a dirty old lady I felt like when you first kissed me?”

  “I kissed you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I kissed a girl when I was thirteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn, I wish I could remember that.”

  “It was like this,” Mia said and tenderly kissed Ted.

  “Wow,” he said and kissed her again. “You could have had a do-over, but you fought to come home to me. I shall never forget this.”

  He kissed Mia deeper and deeper, both of them lost in the other’s pleasure. Time seemed to suspend itself to grant them time to enjoy each other until they were sated.

  Altair walked down the hill and over to where Murphy was laying looking up at the night sky.

  “This answers the question, ‘Do ghosts daydream at night?’”

  “Pull up a piece of the hill and sit down,” Murphy invited.

  “How bad was it?” Altair asked, reclining and looking up at the stars.

  “At times horrible. To see her go through so much pain. She had to fight that demon that was inside her while trying to make sense of what was happening and what she had to do. If she had survived it but not been able to return to this time, I’m afraid she would have been too dangerous to have around.”

  “This is why I wanted to take care of her. I could watch for signs that revenge had become her priority.”

  “I’m not going to betray our friendship by telling you what she had planned for whomever she found responsible for her losing her children. At one point, when the realization hit her that all of the positive things she fought so hard for wouldn’t happen, she was heartsick, and when she added that Mark woul
d resume his prophesy of being an angel hunter, she was so overwhelmed, she died. Ted and I had to revive her.”

  “It seems like your friendship survived this adventure,” Altair said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re much calmer than when you came back from the GSD.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still going to wait for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not going to spoil her marriage.”

  “No.” Murphy turned and looked at the archangel. “You see, she needs all the humanity she can get. I’m dead. I can’t give her children or do the things she does with Ted and the others. I’ll wait until she’s dead, and then, and only then, will I ask her to spend eternity with me.”

  “I wish you luck,” Altair said.

  “You’re not going to put a monkey wrench in this are you?” Murphy asked.

  “No. You were there for her and endured things that would have broken anyone else. It’s good to see the real Stephen Murphy back.”

  “Who did this to us?” Murphy asked.

  “I’m not sure. But there are only so many entities powerful enough to have this much control. The list is small, and as far as I know, none of them have motives. I’m kind of thinking that it may fall under ‘shit happens,’” Altair said.

  “Bad Altair,” Murphy said.

  Orion turned over on his back. Sleep was evading him. Thoughts he took for granted, and had long ago retired, were now keeping him awake. It was bad enough to find out Fredericka had used him as a sperm donor, but to have her treat Mia this horribly turned his stomach. But she couldn’t have engineered all of this by herself. Who else was involved? And then there was Angelo. He would seek out a private conference with Altair so they could discuss Angelo and, also, the disappearance of Quazar. Gargoyles just didn’t simply fade from existence. He had searched his mind and found that he had no memory of this Quazar past Mia’s twelfth year.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Mia enjoyed her long shower. She couldn’t get it into her head that she hadn’t been gone a week. She dressed carefully, knowing that she still had company on the property. Ted had slipped out when Varden woke up so she could sleep in. She had panicked when she woke up and he wasn’t there.

  “When will I ever be able to lose this fear?” she asked herself. She looked in the mirror and searched for the twelve-year-old.

  Ted walked in and stood there staring a moment before he said, “Cid says if you don’t get your butt down for breakfast, he’s going to toss it all out. The Stavros family has been gone for hours. Cid says Mike and Burt are working in the office. I’m not sure where Glenda is, but Cid informs me that everyone has eaten already.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mia said. She turned to Ted. “I missed waking up with you this morning.”

  Ted smiled. “Varden will wait for no one. Come on, Cid’s rather testy today.”

  “I’m sorry I woke everyone up in the middle of the night.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re so perceptive,” she said, walking over and hugging him.

  “Are you ovulating?” Ted asked.

  Mia stepped back and stared at him. “I keep forgetting how romantic you are, Teddy Bear.”

  “No! I didn’t mean that. I was just worried about, er, last night, this morning, you know…”

  “Oh, gee, would it be a problem?” she asked.

  “Not with me, but you said, you didn’t want to be a broodmare.”

  Mia kissed him. “We’ll just see what happens.”

  Ted kissed her again. “Let’s schedule some time away from home. I miss my noisy bride.”

  “Yes. I’d love that.”

  “Good.”

  Cid watched the entwined couple walk down the hall. He needed to ask Mia about something away from Ted. He’d hoped Ted would go to the workshop after waking her up, but instead, he looked like he was going to spoon-feed Mia breakfast.

  Brian, who was sitting at the kitchen table coloring, with Varden looking on from his highchair, shook his crayon in the air disgusted. “Spit! Mom, Varden insists on sucking on my crayons.”

  Mia walked over, sat down, and examined the crayons. “These look a bit gummed. Why don’t you and I go to the art store and pick out some nice new crayons?”

  Brian’s face lit up. “They better not be toxic because he’s a tricky guy. Watch.” Brian set a soggy purple crayon down just out of Varden’s reach.

  Varden reached over the tray of the highchair and banged on the table causing the crayon to roll towards him. Mia snatched the crayon before her youngest son scooped it up. Mia gently lifted Varden’s chin and looked him in the eyes. “These are Brian’s. Maybe we should find you something tastier than wax and paper to suck on.”

  Ted, who watched from the corner, said, “I find it hard not to jump up and down with joy seeing engineering ability presenting itself.”

  “Still, he has to learn not to take things just because he wants them,” Mia said. She was concerned that the taking had more to do with the birdman DNA. Didn’t Angelo behave just this way? She changed her focus. “Brian, I love your picture. You’re so creative. Why is this cat looking down from the building?” she asked.

  “It’s not a cat. It’s a gargoyle.”

  Ted cast a shadow over the picture as he leaned in to get a better look. “By golly, it is a gargoyle. Does he have a name?”

  Mia wasn’t surprised when Brian answered, “Quazar.” It looked like the wizard. But how had Brian come in contact with him?

  “Isn’t he the guy you went to see about the candle?” Cid asked, walking over to look at Brian’s picture.

  “Yes.”

  “Brian, when and where did you see Quazar?” Mia asked.

  “When Ralph was taking me shopping. He was sitting on the edge of a building staring down at the street. He was made up of stone, but I knew he was just resting and he was really a gargoyle.”

  “You’re very preceptive,” Mia said.

  “Grandpa Charles taught me to not take the oblivious as the oblivious.”

  “Don’t you mean the obvious?” Cid asked.

  “Yes! What did I say?” he asked.

  “Oblivious, which means not aware, and obvious means easily perceived,” Cid taught.

  “All these words,” Brian said gruffly, “make my head hurt.”

  “You have a better understanding of them than I do,” Mia said and kissed him on the forehead. “I met Quazar when I was a little girl,” Mia told him, “and I think you captured not only his image but his intent too.”

  “Yes, he’s watching us,” Brian said.

  “Son, do you know why he’s watching us?” Ted asked.

  “No. Do you?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll look into it. Maybe you and I could figure out what building he was sitting on for a start. I bet Jake can help.”

  Brian’s eyes opened wide, and he said with an airless voice, “I get to work with Jake?”

  Mia smiled in spite of herself.

  “Yes, but you let Daddy type on the keys. Jake gets mad if you pound on them.”

  “Yes, he does. One time when you were in the bathroom, I did that, and all the screens lit up full of barking mad dogs!”

  Mia had to turn around so Brian wouldn’t see her tears of suppressed laughter. Cid did and handed her a napkin and suggested, “Mia, would you eat breakfast so I can clean up?”

  Mia got up and obediently walked over to the island and sat down.

  “Brian, would you like to go and work on this now?” Ted asked.

  “Mom?” Brian asked.

  “It’s okay. We’ll wait for our shopping trip until you and Daddy get your work done. Varden and I’ll hang around here with Uncle Cid.”

  Brian gathered his crayons and piled his pictures neatly before he slid from the chair. He grabbed the stack and followed Ted to the back door.

  Mia walked over, picked up Varden, and sniffed his butt. “Hey, I can’t call you s
tink pants today.” She hugged him and pulled his highchair over so he wouldn’t be sitting by himself. “Here you go. Uncle Cid’s got something on his mind. Let’s see if we can listen quietly while he talks.”

  Cid turned around surprised. “How’d you know?

  “It’s eleven and you saved me breakfast. I know the rules: kitchen closes at nine, no excuses.”

  Cid pulled out the warmed plate from the oven and set it in front of her.

  “Well, you did have a bit of an adventure last night,” Cid said.

  “So did you. But you don’t remember it, or do you?” Mia asked.

  “Nothing. What I wanted to talk to you about was, you were in my house the day Ted was locked in the locker. I remember coming home, and Candy being there.”

  “I hate her,” Mia said. “I’ve never hated anyone more at first glance. That’s not right, I never did see her. But I heard her and hated her enough to shred her clothes.”

  “I remember we had a big fight that day. Candy was supposed to stay at home and watch me, but she took off.”

  “She went to the college party.”

  “It was the lowest day of my life. She made me feel like an ugly monster and so unloved. I couldn’t even look at myself for months after that. I never felt so verbally abused and alone.”

  Mia looked at the concern on his face. “The first time, Murphy and I stayed the night. The second day, we waited until she left and stole your mother’s car.”

  “Which time was better for me?” Cid asked.

  “The first time. You were with us when she was home. Later, Murphy and I stayed with you.”

  “Um, can you tell me about when you and Murphy were there?”

  Mia did her best to give Cid a short outline of the night watching television with Murphy acting as a chaperone.

  “I would like to replace the memory I have of that day with this one. Is it possible?”

  Mia got up. “It’s possible. But are you sure you want this? Sometimes the truth is better; it forms the man,” she said.

  “This truth stops the man,” Cid said.