Sudden Death

by Donald Hanley

  “Why aren’t they fighting?” Olivia asked doubtfully.

  That was an excellent question, but it was answered a moment later when I got a good look at Mrs. Kendricks’ face. Her eyes were dilated, just like Agent Morgan’s. “Oh, shit,” I breathed. “She’s still under his power.”

  “Didn’t you do that Simon thing to her?”

  “Of course I did!” I insisted. “At least, I think I did. Didn’t I?” I searched back through my memories and came to the inescapable conclusion that I hadn’t. When Mrs. Kendricks found us back in the library, she seemed perfectly normal and I just assumed she’d broken free. Now it was obvious she was just pretending the entire time, biding her time. “God damn it. We are so screwed.”

  Mrs. Kendricks raised her phone to her ear. “It’s done,” she said. “Peter’s dead. No, they got away.” She listened for a minute, pursing her lips. “I agree. All right.” She hung up and favored Morgan with a mocking smile. “Even a hedge witch can banish an incubus,” she quoted.

  “He was waiting for me,” Morgan sniffed. “I didn’t even have a chance to raise my hands.”

  “Susie’s portal probably alerted him that someone was about to come after him. She should have set you down out of reach.”

  “Live and learn,” she said wryly. “So what happens now?”

  “He’s on his way over. I don’t think he trusts either of us to be out of reach for very long, not after Susie and Melissa got away.”

  “They’re dangerous,” Morgan noted somberly. “Susie’s portal spell makes her unpredictable and neither of us can hold out against Melissa’s powers for every long. We need to find them and kill them, quickly.” She spotted her badge lying on the ground beside Susie’s toppled chair and picked it up, wiping it off before tucking it inside her blazer.

  Mrs. Kendricks shook her head. “They’re too valuable. He’ll reclaim them easily, now that he has better control of the ring. Dara’s the one we need to eliminate before she can find a way to stop us. Amy, too,” she added thoughtfully.

  “Amy?” Morgan asked scornfully. “What can she do?”

  “She can read that journal they stole, if nothing else. Better safe than sorry.” She walked over to the smoking pile and I backed out of her way as she nudged it with her toe. “That was a very impressive spell,” she remarked.

  “Thank you,” Morgan smiled.

  “I’m not sure it did much good, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Peter – this Peter – was already disembodied. You destroyed the body the Dread Lord’s curse gave him but I doubt his soul was affected.” Her eyes narrowed and she slowly scanned the back yard. “Can you detect ghosts?”

  “No, why?”

  “I was blinded when the lightning hit but I could have sworn there were only four pentagrams when Susie took everyone away. Peter and Olivia might still be here.”

  “Uh-oh,” I murmured.

  Now Morgan looked around warily. “That’s going to be a problem.”

  “I told Tara to come over here as soon as she can. Our Peter will take her and I’ll have her get Mrs. Phipps released from jail. She can be our ghost sentry. In the meantime –” Mrs. Kendricks chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “Let me try something. Wait here.”

  She went into the house while Morgan drew a symbol on her forehead with her fingertip. Her eyes gleamed brightly, as if they were lit from within. “Peter,” she said grimly, “if you’re here, you might as well surrender. Don’t make me hurt you again.”

  “Maybe we should get out of here,” Olivia whispered nervously.

  “She’s bluffing,” I assured her. “She already said she can’t see us.”

  “I’ve been fighting demons for a very long time,” Morgan went on, “and I’m very familiar with their spells and rituals, including the ones they use to capture and torment souls.” She gestured and a trio of greenish-gray spheres spun out of her hand, trailing smoke as they slowly orbited her. Olivia and I both retreated onto the grass.

  “Peter –” Olivia begged me, tugging on my arm.

  “It’s just a trick,” I insisted, clearing my throat nervously. “We have to find out what they’re planning.” The spheres spiraled further away from Morgan – and closer to us – at every pass.

  “He was hiding under the bed.” Mrs. Kendricks reappeared in the doorway, holding Merlin in her arms. He wriggled and growled, clearly unhappy to be there. “Olivia mentioned that cats don’t like her. Let’s see what he does.”

  “Uh-oh,” Olivia and I said in unison as she tossed Merlin into the center of the patio.

  The cat landed gracefully and crouched low with his tail flicking as one of the spheres passed over him. His glared all around with his baleful yellow eyes but he didn’t seem inclined to move, until Morgan nudged him with her toe. He hissed irritably and moved out of range, closer to where Olivia and I stood in a wary huddle.

  For a moment, it looked like Merlin was going to slink past us and hide around the side of the house, but then he froze and arched his back, the fur rising on his back and neck. He looked right at us and spat before darting off in other direction.

  “There!” The shadowy spheres suddenly accelerated and looped around Morgan like heat-seeking missiles. I didn’t want to know what would happen if any of them touched us.

  “Run!” I shouted, grabbing Olivia’s hand.

  We raced across the yard, angling for the river, and the spheres chased after us, quickly closing the distance between us. I cut left, dragging Olivia along with me, but the spheres kept on going and finally sputtered out into nothingness. She can’t track us, I thought with relief. She was just shooting at us blind.

  I chanced a look back at the patio, wondering if we could circle back, but Mrs. Kendricks had corralled Merlin again. They’d know as soon as we got close. “We need to find Susie and the others,” I told Olivia.

  “How are we going to do that?” she asked plaintively. “Where did they go?”

  “I have no idea,” I confessed. “They could be anywhere. No, that’s not true,” I corrected myself. I slowed to a jog, still bearing away from the house as I considered the options. “Susie’s exhausted, so she’s not going to be able to jump all over the place, and she has to go somewhere she’s been before, I bet.”

  “The library?” Olivia asked doubtfully. Seeing her bounce along beside me was very distracting so I tried to keep my eyes pointed straight ahead.

  “That’s the first place Mrs. Kendricks would check. The apartment’s out, too, since the incubus is probably using it as his base.”

  “Didn’t Mrs. Kendricks say he was coming here?”

  “Susie doesn’t know that. She doesn’t even know that Mrs. Kendricks is still, um –”

  “Evil?” Olivia suggested.

  “She’s not evil,” I insisted. “She’s enthralled.”

  “She’s helping a demon enslave women and she’s trying to kill you!”

  “Well, yes, but not in an evil way.” Olivia gave me a look, which I pretended not to notice. “It doesn’t matter if she’s good or evil or something in between. We need to stop her from capturing everyone in the coven.”

  “How?”

  “By getting to them first. If we can warn them about the incubus, they can keep from getting enthralled and help us destroy him and the ring.”

  “Do you know their phone numbers?” she asked with a dubious frown.

  “Well, no,” I admitted. I only sat in on one meeting at the library and I barely remembered half their names. “But they’re all in the same coven. Susie and Melissa have to know some of them well enough to have their numbers.”

  “Mrs. Kendricks knows all of them. She’s probably calling them now.”

  “I know that!” I snapped. I regretted it instantly when Olivia stopped and turned away from me, hugging herself and rubbing her upper arms like she was cold. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said contritely. “I’m worried too.”

  She dipped her h
ead in a nod. “Mrs. Kendricks and Agent Morgan are too strong, Peter,” she said quietly. “Are we going to have to kill them?”

  “No,” I told her firmly. “We’ll find a way to free them without hurting them.”

  “But we have to kill the incubus,” she persisted, “or he’ll just keep enslaving everybody.” Now she turned to face me again. “We’re going to have to kill you.”

  “Just enough to get him to leave my body,” I reminded her. “The Philosopher’s Stone will save me.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.” I didn’t but I didn’t want to lie to her, so I stayed silent. “I don’t want you to die, Peter,” she said quietly, looking forlorn. “I thought it would be okay if you did because then we’d be together, but everyone else would be sad and they’d miss you. I don’t want that.”

  “I don’t want that either,” I told her, “but if that’s what it takes to keep everyone safe, so be it. Being dead with you wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” I added with a rueful smile.

  She looked up at me, searching my face with those big blue-gray eyes, and I pulled her into a hug. She resisted for a startled moment and then laid her cheek on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around my back with a contented sigh. We stood that way for a long time. She felt nice in my arms, soft and firm in all the right places, and she fit perfectly under my chin as I stroked her wavy hair. I could get used to this, I thought bemusedly, as long as Melissa never finds out.

  Little Peter, unfortunately, agreed with my assessment and made his presence known, nudging Olivia’s hip. She pulled away from me, glancing down in surprise, and then looked up at me. Her eyes were dilated too, but for a very different reason.

  I carefully released her and stepped back, clearing my throat awkwardly. “I, um, we should get going.”

  What’s the rush? Little Peter demanded. She’s standing right there, she wants us, and she’s naked. We might not get another chance like this.

  Shut up! Now that the idea was lodged in the primitive part of my brain, it was going to be hard to shake. I didn’t need any more complications in my life right now, though, at least not until our current crisis was over. I unbuckled my police utility belt and tossed it aside.

  All right! It’s about time you got with the program, Little Peter gloated eagerly as I started to unbutton my uniform shirt, exposing the t-shirt underneath.

  “Peter,” Olivia breathed in hopeful disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  “Here.” I shrugged off my shirt and held it out to her. “Put this on.”

  She blinked at it like I was offering her roadkill. “Why?”

  “To cover yourself up.”

  Now she looked shocked. “Don’t you like me like this?”

  “I do,” I admitted. “That’s the problem. You’re too, um, distracting.”

  She considered that and a smile crept across her lips. “You really think so?” She swiveled her torso back and forth, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

  “Definitely,” I assured her. “Now put it on.”

  She complied, keeping her gaze on me the entire time. She took an extraordinarily long time settling it on her shoulders and she only fastened it up halfway. “How do I look?” she asked, spreading her arms and spinning around. The shirt was way too large for her but at least it came down to mid-thigh. Little Peter especially enjoyed the way the top part gaped open.

  “Fine,” I said with a rough hitch in my voice. “Very, um, professional.” Professional, in this case, meant the hands-down winner of the Women of the Hellburn Police Department centerfold contest. “Let’s get going.”

  I held out my hand and she took it with a shy smile. I led us south, wondering how in the world we were going to find Dara and the others. If I could just use my powers, I thought glumly, we could just Teleportal to them. And while I’m at it, I wish I had a million bucks. Neither of those things happened, so we continued on.

  “You realize this is just going to disappear in a few minutes.”

  “What is?”

  “This shirt.” Olivia tugged at the collar. “Like my nightgown did.”

  “It might not. Maybe all it needs is for a ghost to keep touching it.”

  “You think so?” She didn’t seem terribly enthused by that possibility.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” I shrugged philosophically. “I think we should head for the apartment.”

  “I thought you said that was a bad idea.”

  “No, I said Susie probably didn’t go there. I want to see if the incubus left anything there we could use against him.”

  “What if he comes back while we’re there?”

  “We’re ghosts, remember? What’s he going to do?”

  “Bring Agent Morgan and Merlin with him?”

  “Er, yes, well, we’ll boot out of there if that happens. Come on.” I angled a bit more to the west and then stopped dead in my tracks as a fiery white pentagram appeared on the ground not ten feet in front of us. “That’s Susie’s portal!” I exclaimed eagerly. “She must be trying to find us. Hurry!”

  I hauled Olivia forward but the pentagram winked out just before we got there. “What happened?” Olivia asked in dismay.

  “I’m not sure.” I looked around, wondering if something was interfering with Susie’s spell, but there was nothing in sight except trees and scrubby bushes. “Maybe she’s having trouble following a moving target. Let’s wait for a bit.”

  We stood there for a good minute or two, waiting for a glimpse of another portal. “What if that wasn’t Susie’s portal?” Olivia asked uneasily.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that other FBI agent taught her that spell, right? What if Agent Morgan knows it too and she’s trying to grab us?”

  That was an unnerving thought but I shook my head. “If she knew the spell, she wouldn’t have needed Susie to teleport her to the incubus. Besides, Susie changed the spell. It works differently from the original.”

  “If you say so,” she said doubtfully. “Oh, look, there it is again!” She pointed behind me, where another portal blazed around the base of a tree. “What is she doing? Is she trying to steal trees now?”

  “Her aim’s off. I don’t think she can pinpoint us properly.”

  “Because we’re ghosts?”

  “Maybe, or maybe she’s just tired.” Before we could do anything, the portal fizzled out again. “She’s not going to be able to keep this up,” I said worriedly. “Let’s hope the next one is closer.” If there is a next one, I thought.

  The wait was longer this time and I began to think Susie had given up. Before I could suggest moving on, though, a third portal appeared just two steps away. I grabbed Olivia and pulled her into the center of the pentagram and wrapped my arms around her to make sure we stayed together. The portal flickered and flared and then the universe blinked and we were standing in the middle of a small room somewhere.

  Susie knelt in front of us, still wearing her borrowed dress. She had a wand in one hand but it slipped out of her grasp and bounced on the carpet as she closed her eyes and slowly slumped to one side, curling up on the floor.

  “Susie!” Melissa knelt beside her, shaking her shoulder. “Wake up! It didn’t work!” Susie mumbled something inaudible. “You have to keep trying!”

  “Mayhap Dame Morgan interferes with her spell,” Daraxandriel suggested. “Neither Peter Simon Collins nor Dame Kendricks has come through the portal.” She held her sword out and down, ready to slash something at a moment’s notice.

  “Or maybe it worked just fine,” Amy noted casually. She was sitting propped up against the wall, still reading Dr. Bellowes’ journal.

  “There’s nobody there!” Melissa pointed out, waving in our direction.

  “Nobody you can see, anyway.”

  “Dost thou pretend that Olivia is among us now?” Daraxandriel frowned. “Canst thou now perceive spirits?” Amy smiled to herself but she didn’t bother to respond.

  “Q
uick!” I told Olivia. “Find something to wave around!”

  The room looked like a makeshift workshop, with a table strewn with papers, crystals, and jars of herbs and two bookcases stacked haphazardly with notebooks and romance novels. I half-expected to see a grinning skull perched somewhere but the only overtly witchcrafty thing was the large pentagram drawn on the carpet with what looked like colored chalk.

  Olivia grabbed the closest light object, Susie’s wand, and lifted it in the air. Melissa and Daraxandriel drew back in surprise and then leaned forward. “Olivia?” Daraxandriel asked. “Is that truly thee?” Olivia raised and lowered the wand to indicate yes. “Dost thou know the whereabouts of Peter Simon Collins? Is he well?”

  Olivia started to raise the wand and then hesitated. “You’re not really well, are you?” she said doubtfully. “You’re dead.”

  “I’m discorporated,” I corrected her. “Say yes. We can argue about the details later.”

  Olivia bobbed the wand up and down and the two women sighed in relief. “So where is he?” Melissa asked. “Did he get away okay?” Olivia jabbed the wand in my direction. “What does that mean?” Melissa frowned.

  “This is going to take forever,” I told Olivia. “Find something to write on.”

  There was plenty of paper on the table but it took a while to find a working pen amid the clutter. Finally, Olivia was able to scribble a note explaining that I was a ghost again and Mrs. Kendricks was still under the control of the incubus.

  “This is dire news,” Daraxandriel said, shaking her head dolefully. “We are sorely outmatched.”

  We need to contact the other witches and warn them, Olivia wrote.

  “My phone’s in my purse,” Melissa noted in disgust, “back at Mrs. Kendricks’.”

  Susie’s phone is at the apartment. We all looked down at Susie. She was completely out of it. It was going to be hours before she’d be able to teleport us over there.

  “The coven’s mailing list is on my computer,” Melissa suggested. “How are we going to get over there, though? My car’s at Mrs. Kendricks’ too,” she added resignedly.