The Isis Collar

by Cat Adams

  I saw my mother through the doorway to my left, playing pool with another woman. My mother’s companion wore dark-rimmed glasses and a platinum blonde wig that was styled like Jackie O’s when she was Jackie Kennedy. Don’t see that very often. The face looked familiar, but only vaguely. I stared at my mother with something approaching disgust. She was so drunk she was swaying on her feet and was using the pool cue as a staff to keep herself upright. “Mom?”

  She turned and squinted at me through glazed eyes. She actually looked better than I expected. When she’d left the prison here, she’d been gaunt and pale—near death. But now her cheeks were filled out a little and the leathery appearance of her skin was nearly gone. “Oh, man. Why are you bothering me again?”

  I let out a sigh, determined not to let her get to me. “C’mon, Mom. It’s time to go back to the island. You forgot to tell them you were going on this trip.” I reached out to take her elbow, but she’d have none of it. She jerked away, nearly sending herself tumbling across the floor. “I want to make sure you get back safe.”

  “Just go away, Celia. I know you don’t give a tinker’s damn where I am or whether I’m safe. You haven’t visited me once. Not … once!” Her eyes filled with tears, but it was a lie. She could turn those crocodile tears on and off at will.

  “You’re not allowed visitors, Mom. I can’t come and see you. Not while you’re still in treatment.”

  Her jaw set tight and the tears magically disappeared. “Treament. Treament? There’s nothing to treat. I’m jusht fine the way I am. Everybody telling me how I’m sick. How I can get better. Well, guess what, Celie honey? I like myself this way. What’choo think about that? Huh?” She was in my face now, blowing hot, whiskey-filled breaths at me hard enough to make me cough.

  “So you’re Celia Graves.” I looked at the platinum blonde on the other side of the green felt. Her voice had a malevolent eagerness that made me immediately tense. “I was told you’d be here, and here you are.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I know you. You’re the spoilsport.” Her laugh gave me chills because I recognized it, and I reached immediately for my knives. I was face-to-face with the witch from the school. The one whose voice had taunted dreams for weeks after the bomb. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper that I could hear despite the music. “You won’t escape this time.”

  Her hand and mine moved at the same time, but before I could get the daggers out, she smashed a charm disk on the table. I saw a recent cut on her hand—like from a double-edged, silver blade. Magic flashed through me in a wave that stole my breath and singed the hairs in my nose. I pushed Mom against the wall, where she stumbled and dropped onto a convenient chair. I jumped onto the pool table and pounced at the witch. But she was gone after sending another blast of energy that slammed me against the wall. Then she sprinted out the door.

  I’d started to get to my feet to follow when something hit me in the head hard enough to knock me sideways and make me see stars. Another missile hit me in the elbow. I let out a yell of pain and bounced against the pool table. I saw something else heading my way and caught it before it struck my leg. It was a billiard ball. The yellow-striped nine, to be specific.

  I heard my mother cry out and watched her get knocked off the chair by a maroon seven to her temple. A trickle of blood started to roll down her cheek and she reached up to touch it.

  “Why do you have to ruin everything?! You’re a jinx! You always have been. Get out before you get me killed.” She crawled out the door into the main bar.

  I couldn’t even think how to respond, because a barrage of pool balls began to rise up from the pockets of three tables and fling themselves at me. Then pool cues pulled away from their holders and hurled through the air, crashing into me. No matter how I tried to shield myself, I got pounded. My best bet was to leave. Taking a tip from my mother, I crawled into the main bar. The spell followed me. Bottles began to lift from the shelves and slam against the walls, ceiling, and floor around me, exploding hard enough to slice through my clothes and skin. Patrons scattered, except for the brunette passed out at the table.

  Mom started screaming incoherently from under a table near the bathroom. “Get out! Leave me alone. You’ve taken it all away. My family. My baby girl. My life. Just get the hell out of here. You’re a devil child. Evil, undead creature! Begone, demon! GET OUT!” she screamed, and covered her face as a glass smashed on the floor next to her leg.

  A bottle hit me in the ribs and it hurt. But not as much as my mother’s words. I wasn’t a demon. I wasn’t undead, and I hadn’t taken her baby away. I’d done everything in my power to save my sister. I grabbed a pool stick and started to use the thick end to bat away the bottles, glasses, and mugs that were coming at me.

  “Cessess!” I heard a woman’s voice and looked up to see Natura and Baker standing in the entryway. Natura’s hands were in the air and a wave of magic made everything clatter to the floor. The roar of sound, followed by the abrupt silence, made my head hurt. Well, actually, that was probably from the pool ball. If the purpling lump on my arm was any indication, those balls had been whizzing at me at near-hurricane speed.

  Baker hurried over to where I was breathing hard and leaning on the pool cue. The other customers and the bartender huddled near the far end of the bar, staring at us with terror on their faces. Baker inspected the lump on my head and the cut above one eye that was starting to drip copper-scented blood into my eye. “I thought I made myself very clear, Celia. You were to wait outside.”

  Natura was pulling Mom from underneath the table and putting her arms behind her; one of my mother’s wrists was already encircled in a spelled cuff. My mother’s face was red, furious, and looked different than I’d ever seen. I wondered if the witch had done something to her or if this was just some new, evil aspect of her illness. “I never want to see you again. I hate you!”

  Even Baker looked up at that, surprise clear on her face. But we both turned when the bar’s door opened and a young blonde girl was silhouetted in the doorway. “Don’t say that, Mom! Don’t you ever say you hate my sister!”

  17

  I recognized the voice. It had literally haunted me for more than a decade. I felt my legs collapse and it was only Baker’s quick action that kept me from crashing to the floor in shock. The long braids were just as I remembered, and she was wearing a striped T-shirt and blue jeans. Just like the last time I saw her.

  Mom dropped to both knees so fast that Natura couldn’t catch her. “Ivy? Baby? Is that you?” She held out her free arm, her anger gone like a switch had been flicked. “Come to Mama, baby.”

  The girl raced forward, her braided hair bouncing on her shoulders, and threw herself against my mother’s chest, arms wrapped around her neck. “Mom!”

  It couldn’t be. I looked down at my hands. I was still the same. I hadn’t suddenly become twelve again. But I couldn’t seem to talk. It was just too much, too soon.

  Mom was sobbing now, her hand continually touching Ivy’s hair, her back. Her face showed the incredulousness I felt. Natura had let her arm go so she could hold her child. I couldn’t help but smile at the sheer joy of the scene.

  Until the child turned her head.

  I felt my heart skip a beat … for I recognized the girl’s face. It wasn’t my sister. “Julie?” I whispered it, but she looked up and met my eyes with a happy smile.

  “I know. Isn’t it fun?”

  Fun? My mother held her at arm’s length for a long moment and stared at Julie’s face. But she was too drunk—all she could see was the daughter she’d lost so many years ago. “I love you so much, Ivy. I’ve missed you.”

  Julie/Ivy smiled and then kissed Mom’s cheek before hugging her again. “Missed you, too, Mommy. But I’m back now and we’ll be together.”

  My stomach lurched and my skin grew ice cold. Oh my dear God in heaven. My sister was possessing the body of Julie Murphy and she didn’t want to give it up. I knew Julie was a spirit chan
neler. But her father, Mick, had told me she hadn’t had an episode of contact since her grandmother had died when Julie was three or four. I didn’t want to frighten her, but possession is a big deal. That’s taking channeling to a new level. I’d seen Vicki do it—twice—but she was an adult. She knew the dangers and was careful not to take it too far. But I wasn’t sure either the girl or the ghost would know how to sever the tie between them. “Ivy? I know it’s wonderful to be able to talk to us, but you have to leave Julie now. Okay?”

  I heard a bicycle slide to a stop on the gravel outside and then clatter to the cement as an older, dark-haired girl entered the room. “Julie! Why did you race away from me like that and why are you in a bar?” She stuttered to a stop when she saw her sister in the arms of a woman she didn’t know. Spotting me, she turned a confused face my way. “Celia? What’s happening?”

  “Beverly, we need to talk. Let’s go outside for a second.” I got to my feet, dusted off my pants, and put an arm around her shoulders. She trusted me but turned back more than once to watch her sister hugging the drunk woman.

  “Okay, but Mom will get mad if we aren’t home soon. I don’t know why Julie ran off like that. I nearly lost her in the traffic. She’s never done anything like that before.”

  Traffic? I closed my eyes, feeling my heart drop. That was just what Ivy used to do and it used to drive me nuts. I guided Beverly out into the bright sunlight. When I stepped outside, the spell over the other patrons apparently broke and all but the bartender stampeded out of the bar and scattered. Beverly and I sat down on the stoop in what was left of the shade. “We’ve got a problem. If you were any other kid, I wouldn’t tell you this, but I think you can handle it. There’s a spirit possessing your sister right now. It’s my dead sister, Ivy.”

  “Ivy? She’s mentioned that name before. She told me just last week that she and Ivy made cookies with Mom, but later when I asked Mom about Julie’s new friend, she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  I closed my eyes. If this wasn’t the first time, that was even worse. Ivy used to love baking when Gran came over to the house. I had no idea Ivy had the ability to do something like that. “Have you ever heard of overshadowing?”

  She nodded. “Sure. That’s when a ghost takes control…” Her eyes went wide. “You don’t mean that Ivy wants to stay inside my sister? Won’t that erase Julie eventually?”

  “It could. I think we need to talk to your parents about this.”

  “But what about Julie? We can’t just leave her like that.” She looked back inside the darkened bar fearfully. I shared the fear, but I didn’t know what I could do about it at this precise moment.

  “Beverly, this is the first time Ivy has hugged her real mother since she died.”

  Her face grew troubled and I saw something close to anger in her eyes. “So to make your sister happy, you’re going to sacrifice mine? That’s not … Celia, you can’t do that.”

  “No,” I said very strongly. “That’s not what I mean. But if I go in there and order her to leave, she might get stubborn and stay just to spite me. And my mother has been distraught for so long I’m afraid she’d break out of jail again and come and steal her.”

  Now she went still. “Oh. That’s … well, that’s not so good.”

  I sighed. “And the guards aren’t going to wait much longer. I’m going to have to think of something.”

  But the something came to me instead. From Ivy.

  “Celia? Mommy? I think I … I think Julie needs … needs—”

  I leapt to my feet and ran into the bar. Julie was sitting on the floor while my mother struggled against Natura, who now held her away from the child she believed was her daughter. “Ivy? Baby? What’s wrong? Let me go, damn you! My baby needs me!”

  I knelt beside her. “What’s wrong, Julie? Or Ivy, or whoever you are.”

  “Celie, I think something’s wrong with Julie. She hurts … here.” She held up the sleeve of her T-shirt to reveal a dark purple bruise that I remembered well. “It hurts really bad.”

  Shit.

  I looked at my mother and she looked at me with sudden panic. “Help her.”

  Trying to keep the fear from my voice, I looked into my sister’s eyes. “Ivy, you have to leave now. Julie’s going to have to go to the doctor to have that bruise fixed. You don’t like the doctor, do you?”

  She made a face. “No. But … I’m having fun. Can’t I stay?”

  I shook my head. “Afraid not, honey.” I thought of something that might work. “Mom has to go back to the island. Isn’t that what you came to tell me? That she’d left?”

  Her head nodded. “Uh-huh. But you didn’t understand. I couldn’t tell you so I went to see Julie and she said she’d help.”

  I touched her shoulder but then moved my hand where I wasn’t touching where the bruise was. It was spreading, as I watched. Oh, crap. She’d kissed Mom. Only on the cheek, but I’d need to talk to Baker before they left so they could all get vaccinated before they went back to the island. “And that’s my fault. I’ll be more careful to listen to you in the future. But now you have to go back with Mom and keep her safe. And Julie has to go to the doctor. Okay? So why don’t you leave now and you can ride in the car with Mom.”

  Officer Natura gave me a look that said she didn’t like that idea. But it wasn’t her choice.

  Ivy nodded sadly and then Julie gave a shudder and collapsed. I grabbed her before her head hit the floor and lightly tapped her cheek with my palm while I spoke softly. “Julie? Time to wake up, sweetie.”

  Her eyelids fluttered and she shook her head weakly. “What? Where?” She looked around, confused at her surroundings. I mean, who wouldn’t be? She looked from my face to Beverly’s. “Celia? Bev? What’s happening?”

  The simplest explanation was the truth. “You helped Ivy come give me a message. Thank you.”

  The entity that was Ivy hovered near the ceiling, torn between staying near Julie and near her … our … mother. I helped Julie to her feet and then went over to Baker while Beverly took Julie to sit on a chair near the doorway of the bar. I whispered fast, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. “You need to get my mother to a hospital. Quickly. Do not take her to the island.”

  Baker looked at me with alarm and likewise spoke quietly. “We have medical facilities that are the equal of anything here.”

  I shook my head and hissed, “It’s not that. Julie has a very serious illness. I just got over it myself. It’s transmitted by saliva and she kissed my mom. Natura might have been exposed also.” I took a pen and the list of bar addresses from my purse. I’d memorized Dr. Gaetano’s number and scribbled it onto the back of the list. “Call Dr. Thomas Gaetano. Tell him I found another case of M. necrose. Have him meet you at whatever hospital you wind up at.” I handed the note to her and put a hand firmly on her arm. “This is serious. You need to get the shot, too. Don’t go back to the island until you do. I’ll make it an order if I have to. You’ll infect the entire island.”

  The two guards looked at each other and Natura went pale. She nearly let go of Mom, then shook herself and held her ground. Baker nodded. “What hospital? Should we follow you?”

  Crap. That’s right. They didn’t even know the area, much less how to get to the emergency room. “Yeah. You keep my mom in your car and follow me. I’ll take the kids. I’ve already had a dose of the antibiotic. Might as well limit the exposure.”

  Baker apparently agreed, because they pulled my mom toward their econobox. A regular cop would consider her digging in her heels to be resisting arrest. But Natura simply kept pulling and eventually they got her in the backseat.

  I looked around, suddenly aware of just what a mess the bar was in. “You’ll probably want a check to cover this, huh?” I sighed. It would be a big check.

  The chuckle that rose from him was both sad and resigned. “Happens once a week at least. Besides, it was that blonde witch that started it. You just got caught in the middle. Don’t worry
about it. Take care of the kids.”

  There was one more thing I had to do before I dealt with the girls. Rizzoli needed to know that the witch hadn’t left town. That, in fact, she’d been right here, just minutes ago. I dialed his number with trembling fingers, but didn’t get him. I had to satisfy myself with leaving a voice mail.

  I sat down with the girls, explaining that I wanted a doctor to look at Julie’s arm. “How long has it been hurting?”

  She touched the bruise and winced. “Not long. I noticed it a day or two ago, but it didn’t start hurting until this morning. Now it feels like—”

  “Someone’s stabbing knives in it?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Do you know what it is?”

  It was my turn to nod. “Uh-huh. They’ll have to give you a shot. Is that okay?”

  Julie shrugged. “I used to get shots all the time. I had allergies when I was little.”

  “Okay, hop in the sedan in the alley. I’ll call your mom to come pick you up.” They moved to obey and then I suddenly remembered why I had Rizzoli’s car. Man, I really was distracted. “Wait a second. Hang on.”

  I held my arm over the doorway so they couldn’t leave the safety of the bar, then poked my head out the door and pointed the remote in my pocket at the car. Whew. Four green lights. “Okay, get in. Don’t worry about your bikes, we’ll take them with us.” Finally, Rizzoli’s monster sedan would come in handy. I was going to bet both bikes would fit right in the trunk.

  Once the girls were belted in and I had both bikes loaded—and the trunk actually shut—I sat in Rizzoli’s car and pulled out my phone to try Dom one more time. “Rizzoli. Go ahead.”

  “I found Mom but also found another problem.”

  “Talk to me.”