I shrugged, staring at the table. Another couple had claimed it.
“No, it isn’t. But I can’t hang onto the past. I don’t want to think about how he died, only about how he lived. We caught the murderer, and that’s all that matters. Ulstair wouldn’t want me to get bogged down in a mire. But it’s not easy to be alone again after being with someone for as long as we were together, you know? I’m good on my own, but it’s an adjustment.”
Ulstair’s death hurt, there was no denying that. As one of the Ante-Fae, I felt emotions a little differently than most mortals, or even than the Fae themselves, but the pain was still there, and while I had to walk away, to let his spirit fly free, there was a hole inside me that I had a feeling would take a while to mend.
“If you ever need to talk, Llew and I are here. Both of us.” He gave me another hug, then glanced at the line of customers waiting. “I’d better help out Terra before she gets overwhelmed. She’s the only other one working today. Mark’s out sick.”
I nodded, smiling at him. “Thanks, love. Have a great day and thanks for the sugar fix.” I saluted him with the bag of goodies, then headed for the door, stopping outside to take a deep breath before entering the Sun & Moon.
The Sun & Moon Apothecary was a fully stocked witchcraft shop, and it catered to a lot of the magical peeps on the Eastside. Llewellyn—or Llew, as I called him—made certain the store was stocked with every possible spell component a witch could want. He catered to a number of magical types, but mostly focused on the magic-born.
Llew was sorting through a box of supplies, separating the packages into categories as I entered the shop. He glanced up, a wide smile covering his face. He was a gorgeous man, with glossy brown hair that he braided back in a French braid, and a scruff of a goatee on his chin. He had dark eyes, and was short and sturdy, about five-six.
“Raven! You made it.” His smile was infectious. There was something about Llewellyn that lifted my spirits by just standing near him. He hustled out from behind the counter, grabbing my coffee and bag of pastries and carrying them to the round table near the side window that overlooked the rainy street.
“Yeah, I made it.” I grinned back at him, shrugging out of my jacket. I pulled the scarf out of my tote bag and spread it over the table, then set out my cards and crystal ball. As I sat down, he brought me a plate from the back for my pastries and slid into the seat opposite me.
“I see you already talked to Jordan today,” he said. “Sugar fix much?”
“Sugar fix always,” I said with a laugh. “Your husband makes the best cookies in town.”
“My husband has the best ass in town,” Llew said, his eyes twinkling. “Don’t you agree?”
I took a sip of my latte, reveling in the caramel flavor. It was creamy and rich and just the right touch of sweetness. “I prefer not to answer, but he’s a looker, all right. How goes it?”
“It goes, it goes. I just got a big shipment in, so I’ve got a lot of things to put away today. I’m glad you made it, though. Several customers have been asking when you’d be in again.” He filched a bite of my cinnamon roll, pulling a section off and popping it into his mouth.
I playfully smacked his hand. “My roll. You go get your own.” Then, pausing, I glanced around the store. There weren’t any customers in yet—most people didn’t frequent the shop until afternoon. “I’d like your opinion on something, if you don’t mind.”
“That works out, because I need your help with an issue, too. Jordan and I do, actually. But you go first.” He leaned back.
I sipped my drink, then tore off and swallowed a bit of the cinnamon roll. Finally, I took a deep breath. “All right, here’s the thing. I’m going over to a friend’s house tonight to check on a possible haunting. But her boyfriend doesn’t believe in ghosts, and he’s opposed to me coming over. He’s never really liked me, which is fine—I don’t give a fuck. But I think he’s gaslighting my friend and I’m pissed about it.”
“What does she think?” Llew asked.
“She’s scared. Whatever this is, it’s left her feeling targeted. I’m going, regardless of what her asshole boyfriend says, but if I do find something, how the hell do I take care of it, given his objections? He’s the one on the lease—he’s renting the house and if he finds out I’ve been there, he can order me out.” I had no problems stepping on obnoxious people when the situation called for it, but I didn’t want Tag to convince Lana to cut off contact with me.
“Well, first I’d say figure out whether there’s really a problem, then go from there. Maybe it can be fixed remotely? Maybe on the sly?” Llew leaned forward. “If she’s worried enough to come to you for help, I’d say there’s probably something to worry about.
“I suppose. You don’t think I’m overstepping my boundaries?”
He shook his head. “No, because she asked for help. She’s an adult, I assume?”
I nodded. “Right.”
“Then you’re helping a friend, and he can go shit upstream.” Llew shrugged. “Not your problem what he thinks, as long as she’s asked for you to help her.”
“Thanks.” I sat back, breathing easier. “I can walk all over people and not realize what I’m doing. I’ve lived among mortals for decades, but I still don’t understand all the social nuances and sometimes I steamroll people without realizing it.” I stared at my cards. The backs were decorated in a sun and moon pattern, gold on black. The deck was called the Dark Faerie Realm deck, and an artist who was Dark Fae had created it. “So tell me, what’s going on with you? Do you need a reading?”
He shook his head. “No, I know what the problem is. Follow me.” He locked the front door and put up a sign that read “back in a minute” before leading me through a curtained doorway toward the back of the shop. We came to a staircase leading to the upper floor, which was used for group meetings and classes. As we ascended the stairs, I began to feel a strange tingle running down my back.
“Did you take down your wards, Llew?”
He frowned, shaking his head. “No, I strengthened them just the other day. Why?”
“Because,” I said, pausing on the landing. “I’m feeling something odd here. My radar’s picking up something big and bad.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised. I need you to promise me, you won’t do anything without asking me.” He sounded so grim that I wondered what the hell it was he wanted to show me.
“I promise. What’s going on?”
“Okay, so I’ve tried to mute the energy in this…thing…since we got it four months ago. I haven’t been successful. Jordan and I can’t keep it at home any longer. We don’t feel safe.”
I blinked. What the hell had Llewellyn gotten himself mixed up with now?
We came to the top of the stairs. There were four doors on this level. Llew led me down the narrow hall to the end door. “Remember what I said. Please don’t try to engage it or do anything without asking.”
Slightly irritated—I wasn’t stupid and didn’t need to be told things over and over—I nodded. “I promise.”
He unlocked the door, then stepped through, holding it open for me. As I entered the room, the light seemed almost too bright. I blinked, realizing that we were in the storeroom. An unshaded bulb hung overhead, blaring out an LED light so bright it almost hurt.
I glanced around. There weren’t many boxes or crates lying around. Instead, I spied a glass case to one side, and in that glass case was a creepy-looking doll. On the surface, the doll seemed to be a normal child’s toy—a cute, curly red-haired little baby girl. But as I looked closer, I saw a sentience in the toy’s eyes, a sly look that made me nervous.
“What do you have here, Llew?” I kept my eyes on the doll, skirting the edge of the case.
He let out a sigh and motioned for me to sit with him on a bench against the wall. “Jordan received this about four months ago. It was from one of his aunts. It belonged to his sister. You know he lost his twin sister when they were thirteen, right? A long, long time
ago.”
“No, I hadn’t known he even had a twin sister.” Given Jordan was a tiger shifter, I pegged him for at least a couple hundred years old, though he looked to be in his thirties. “When did this happen?”
“Back in 1953.”
“So he’s only seventy-nine, then.”
“Right. He’s young.”
“What happened?”
Llew stared at the doll. “She died in a freak accident. Fell off a boat when they were slammed by a rogue wave and got sucked into the propeller. There wasn’t much left by the time they got to her.”
I grimaced. “Oh my gods, that’s horrible.”
“Yeah, it is. Jordan doesn’t talk about it much. They were close and her death hit him hard.”
“Everyone has their story of loss. Everyone has their season of pain. Some lives seem destined for great joy, but for most of us, creeping below the surface, you can find death’s handprint everywhere.”
“You should know, sugar. You’re a bone witch.” Llew said it softly, but in his voice I could sense both the fear and the reverence he held for what I was.
Most of those who worked with magic understood the shadow side, even the healers. Most witches and magic-born had been forced to face their own fears and regrets before they came into their true power. The only way to balance power was by accepting both light and dark. And everyone had a dark side. It might be lurking so deep it seemed nonexistent or floating right below the surface, but there was a little bit of the villain in every person walking the earth.
“Tell me about the doll. How does it play into matters?” I leaned forward to examine the red-haired baby doll. About sixteen inches tall, the toy looked like a chubby-faced little girl, but there was something in the eyes…something that warned me this was no ordinary doll. Then, before I turned away, the right eye slowly closed and opened in a wink.
“Crap. It’s alive.” I turned to Llew. “All right, we’ve established that we’re not at Toys R Us anymore. Tell me everything you can.”
“Jordan says that even when he was little, the doll gave him the creeps. For a long time, his sister was obsessed with it. She took it everywhere. But then, when they were on the boat, Jenni told him she was going to give it away. That she felt she had outgrown it. The doll was sitting there when she told Jordan that. Twenty minutes later, Jenni was dead.”
I blinked, glancing back at the doll. “What happened to it after that?”
“Apparently Angelica, one of Jordan’s aunts, took it. The toy reminded Jordan’s parents of his sister too much. But a few months ago, Angelica was getting ready to sell her house. She was going to move to the States. She was sorting out things for a sale when her house caught fire and she was trapped inside. The doll was in the carport. The carport survived, but that’s the only part of the house that did. Her son mailed the doll to Jordan—he remembered that it had been Jenni’s and thought Jordan might like to have it.”
I motioned for Llew to follow me. “Let’s go downstairs. You should open the shop again.”
In reality, I wanted to get out of earshot of the doll. The thing creeped me out, and I had no desire to talk in front of it.
He locked the storeroom door behind us and we headed downstairs. I motioned for him to follow me outside. We stood by the flowerboxes in the pouring rain.
“You have to get rid of that thing. It’s a murder doll. There’s something inside of it. You know dolls are empty receptacles. Most stay that way, but some seem to attract wayward spirits.”
“I was wondering if you could exorcise it. Both Jordan and I have had the feeling there was something inside, but we didn’t just want to give it away, especially if it were to end up with a child.” Llew shook his head. “I put a binding on it, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep it under control. Can you help?”
I thought about it for a moment. I had no doubt that some spirit had taken up residence in the doll, and I was good at ousting things like that.
“All right. Sunday afternoon, we’ll take care of it. I’ll meet you and Jordan here. You put the doll in an iron box until then and lock it. Go out today and buy one if you need to. That will help dampen its energy. Do you trust me? Because I’ll need your help.”
“Of course I trust you, woman.” Llew paused, a grateful light in his eyes. “Thank you. Jordan can’t stand to look at the thing. He blames it for Jenni’s death, too. Even though he’s not much for talking about magic, he knows that whatever’s inside that doll is evil.”
“We’ll send it packing, don’t worry about it.” We returned to the shop and I penciled the appointment into my planner. As I finished my cinnamon roll and coffee, my first reading of the day came in. Her name was Mary.
Mary was human, probably in her fifties. “Today would have been my twenty-seventh anniversary. Frank, my husband, died last year. I was wondering if you can tell me if he’s all right. And can you do a reading to tell me where I might find some of our family assets? I lost a lot of paperwork in a fire.” The loss in her voice was palpable, but there was an odd spark in her eye that put me on alert.
“Let’s see what I can find out.” I set my crystal ball in front of me and pushed aside thoughts of Tag and Lana, and the doll, so I could focus on her question. I closed my eyes briefly as I lowered myself into a trance. When I opened my third eye, I could see a man standing right behind her. I assumed it was her husband. Relieved to see him—it made it so much easier when the spirits were cooperative—I bilocated, stepping outside of my body while still keeping anchored to it. Once I was on the astral, I turned to him.
He looked to be in his twenties, but that didn’t surprise me. Spirits often took the shape they were most attached to when they were alive. He blinked as I crossed to his side, then he glanced at the chair, where my body was still seated.
“I guess this means you can see me?” he asked, giving me a wry grin.
“Well, that’s about the size of it. You’re Frank, right? Mary’s husband? Late husband.”
“Unfortunately so. What’s she want now?”
Taken aback by the churlish words, I hesitated. Usually loved ones were thrilled to be able to connect with their families.
“Well, first off, Mary wants you to know how much she misses you.” I steadied myself. This was the hardest part of spirit-readings. Usually there were tears and recriminations on both sides, but they were almost always underscored by broken hearts.
“Oh, really? I’d say she misses my money more.” He snorted. “Can you help me shake loose from her? It’s like I’m glued to her side and I’m getting tired of it.” He rubbed his temples, looking pained.
That took me aback. I gazed at him, trying to gauge whether he was attempting a joke, but he seemed dead serious.
“What’s going on?” And then I saw something glowing from over his shoulder. I walked around back of him. Bingo! A Keeper’s Seal was attached to the back of his neck. He had been hexed. I stared at the glowing rune. Keeper’s Seals were used by powerful witches. The seals bound spirits to an anchor. And in this case, the anchor appeared to be Mary herself.
“Do you realize you’ve got a rune attached to you—” I started to ask, but his expression told me he knew very well what was going on.
“Oh, yeah. I know, all right. Mary paid a witch to cast it on me while I was on my deathbed. She wasn’t taking any chance on losing touch with me, not as long as I had the information to where I stashed most of my money. But she’s not conversant in magic. I doubt if she has a clue you can see the seal. My wife—I hate even calling her that. I’d call her the bitch, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“How about just calling her Mary?” I said, realizing this was not going to be the simple reading I had expected.
“Fair enough. Mary paid a skud to bind me to her.”
“To force you to give her the financial info, right?”
“Right.” He crossed his arms, glaring. “My guess is that she thinks you’re just a typical m
edium. A few of them have sensed me near, but I’ve ignored them all until now. But you aren’t, are you? A typical psychic?”
I laughed. “No, Frank. I’m not a typical medium. I’m one of the Ante-Fae—a bone witch. So, she paid a skud for the Keeper’s Seal? That sucks.” Skuds were backdoor hoodoo folk, usually sub-Fae or human, and they had no scruples when it came to what they dealt out magically. They were magical mercenaries, with no qualms about disturbing the dead.
“Can you break the seal?” He glanced at Mary. She had stopped crying and was watching my seated body carefully, her eyes narrowing. I was grateful that this little conversation I was having with Frank was happening on another timestream—it would seem to Mary like I had closed my eyes for a mere moment or two.
I examined the seal. It was attached good and tight, but I wasn’t an amateur. I could break it, but I’d need to do so at his graveside. “She didn’t have you cremated, did she?”
“Nope. Does that make a difference?”
“Yeah, it does, for this. Do you know where you’re buried? Your body, that is?”
“Studor Memorial Park. Last name is Prince. Frank Prince.”
I thought it over for a moment. “I can drop by Sunday night. I think I can break the spell, but I can’t promise. I’ll try, though. You won’t be able to be there, given you’re bound to Mary, but if the spell works, you’ll know it. The moment you’re free, come find me there in the graveyard. If it works, you should able to travel where you want.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “Meanwhile, what are you going to tell her?”
“I can’t lie to her, in terms of what messages you might have. That’s my own ethical stance. However, I don’t have to tell her everything we talked about. You don’t want to tip her off, though, so give me something to tell her.”
Even though spirits could lie, I could tell Frank was being straight with me about everything. There was a knack to assessing when a ghost was trying to lead you astray, and that ability was totally in my wheelhouse. So far, I’d never been fooled. Coupled with the fact that Mary had paid a skud to bind Frank to her apron strings until she got what she wanted, I decided to err on the side of believing him.
Witching Hour: A Wild Hunt Novel, Book 7 Page 5