“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, taking the container.
We watched as the two women went into Tori’s apartment and closed the door.
“Are they going to be okay in there?” Tori asked.
Dad nodded. “They’ll be fine,” he said. “Kelly knows how to talk to her.”
He must have been right, because half an hour later, when the moms came back out, Gemma’s eyes were red, too, but she was completely composed — composed enough to go behind the espresso bar, slip her arm around Tori’s waist and kiss her daughter on the cheek.
I heard her say, “Temporary setback, kiddo. We’ll get him to come home.”
Tori leaned against her mother for a long minute and then Gemma said, in her normal voice, “Where’s my barbecue?”
Thanks to a little bit of enchantment, the meat in our sandwiches was still warm when we sat down in the storeroom to eat. Dad volunteered to deal with any customers until we were finished.
No sooner had I taken my first bite than I heard the bell on the front door. Just as I was getting up to see if my father needed a retail rescue, Beau stepped into the storeroom.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said. “May I join you, or is this gathering exclusive to the female contingent of our merry band?”
You gotta love the way Beau talks.
“Not exclusive,” I said. “And you are certainly in a good mood.”
Pulling the wooden chair away from the small work table where we prepared bundles of fresh herbs, Beau sat down and crossed his long legs. He must have worked for hours to get a shine that fine on his boots. The black leather fairly gleamed. Which made me think how much Chase would appreciate that polish job.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I was not going to start mooning about Chase McGregor. For all I knew he was still in the Valley. What’s that saying? Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
Beau’s next words snapped me back to being fully present. “Have you ladies ever eaten a rather remarkable fried pastry referred to as a funnel cake?”
When we all laughed, he added, “Did I say something amusing?”
That only made us giggle more.
“Colonel Longworth,” Gemma said, wiping her eyes with her napkin, “you have no idea how much I needed that laugh.”
Although he was thoroughly perplexed, Beau is ever the gentleman. “I am pleased to have been of service, dear lady,” he said, “but while I am apparently the author of a witticism, I confess I do not understand its content.”
Going to his rescue, I said, “You can’t be at a carnival and not eat a funnel cake. We were just laughing because it’s so cute the way you discovered them for the first time.”
Beau thought about that for a minute and then said, “Ah, I understand. The appeal of a modern pastry to an individual late of the 18th century proves the confection’s addictive properties transcend time.”
That touched off another round of laughter.
“And now you are amused by the complexity of my analysis,” Beau said. “Am I not on what you refer to as a ‘roll,’ Miss Tori?”
“You are indeed, Beau,” Tori said. “And your timing is perfect.”
“As I said,” he replied, chivalrously inclining his head, “I am most pleased to be of service.”
We all went back to eating and listened as Beau described the scene on the courthouse lawn, ending with, “I would say the crowds portend a most successful week of festival going. May I tend to the establishment so you may all partake of the revelry?”
Tori and I exchanged looks. “Uh, Beau,” she said, “do you know how to make a latte?”
The colonel looked offended. “I am not without my resources, Miss Tori,” he replied.
“You mean you’ll get Darby to do it for you,” she said. “Cheater.”
“I do not believe that relying on a versatile member of our staff to operate a piece of modern machinery may be referred to as cheating,” Beau said, with a twinkle in his eye. “It is more a matter of creatively solving a problem in advance.”
From the doorway, Dad said, “For once would you hens just trust the roosters to mind the barnyard? Go already.”
“Jeff,” Mom said, “you don’t know any more about making fancy coffee drinks than the Colonel does.”
“Like he said,” Dad replied, “we’ll get Shorty to do it.”
The night my father met Darby he’d given him the nickname, and now the two of them were thick as thieves. So it didn’t surprise me that Darby instantly materialized when Dad called him.
“Good evening, Master Jeff,” the brownie said, looking up at my dad with open admiration. “Are we going to make trouble?”
Dad was trying to get Darby to lighten up in the vocabulary department, which so far was leading to nothing but hysterical examples of vernacular twisting.
“That’s ‘get into trouble,’” Dad corrected him.
“Which means to do something most interesting and potentially adventuresome,” Beau said. “I believe the appropriate phrase for which I am searching is, ‘Sign me up.’”
Can you see why we were nervous leaving the store in their care?
It took some wheedling, but we finally gave in and headed across the street. Beau’s description hadn’t done justice to the scene on the square. He was right. If the crowds were any indication, the festival committee had a hit on their hands.
When I look back now on the scene that played out on that lawn full of laughing, talking people, I see it as a clip from a movie. A little girl had just walked past us with a Jack O’Lantern balloon. She was dressed as one of the Disney princesses. I can never keep them straight.
The band played that old song Monster Mash, and we were watching a bunch of guys doing the Frankenstein walk out in the middle of the street. Then someone called Mom’s name.
We all turned around at the same time, and suddenly, I couldn’t hear the music anymore. The scene around us blurred out until the four of us stood alone in a bubble of clarity. Two black figures moved toward us. I remember thinking, “They are taking the Goth look way too far.”
Neither one of them could have been more than 16 years old. Bright red lipstick stood out starkly against their pale skin, and both were sporting masses of Seventies hair worthy of Farrah herself.
As usual, Tori’s smart mouth came to the rescue. “Whoa,” she said, “how many cans of Aqua Net died for that hair, ladies?”
The girl on the left opened her mouth and let out with an honest-to-God hiss, which was when we saw the fangs.
Yeah. Fangs. As in vampire. Which I had been told did not exist. Had to be fake, right? Keep reading.
Beside me, Mom gasped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her reach for Gemma’s hand. The taller of the two girls laughed when she saw the movement. “Little mouse Kelly still hiding behind big, bad Gemma,” she said in a nasty singsong voice that made me hate her instantly.
Gemma waded in next armed with a razor sharp tongue. “You are supposed to be dead,” she said flatly. “And frankly, I liked you better that way.”
“You can’t keep a good girl down,” the shorter one purred.
“I’m sorry, Sally Beth,” Gemma said, “exactly when were you ever a good girl?”
That won her another hiss accompanied by the snarled, “I go by Seraphina now.”
“Finally decided to embrace your roots, huh?” Gemma said. “And speaking of roots, yours are showing.”
For just a fraction of a second, I thought the Goth chick was going to whip out a mirror and check her hair. But then she reclaimed her evil self, curled her lips, and flashed the pearly, pointy whites.
Gemma turned to the taller girl, “So, Jo Anne, I guess that makes you Ioana, now. News flash, honey, the Seventies are over.”
“News flash, honey, so are you,” Ioana said, raising her hand.
On instinct, we all answered with the same gesture, and suddenly there was a wall of power in front of us six inches thick.
“Let’s
just stay on our respective sides of the fence, ladies,” Gemma said. “One of you want to explain what you’re doing back from the dead rocking the whole Elvira, Queen of Darkness look?”
“We are Strigoi,” Seraphina said.
“Yeah, we got the memo,” Tori said. “You’re supposed to be dead Strigoi.”
“Then you know nothing of the ways of our people,” Seraphina answered. “We came to this pathetic gathering tonight to make ourselves known to you. And when you least expect it, we will be back.”
And with that, the scene around us righted itself. Seraphina and Ioana were nowhere to be seen. The music swelled, and we all hastily turned off the power we were putting out — just in time to see a group of people walk onto the courthouse lawn.
Nothing seemed unusual about that, until all the lightbulbs on the square dimmed and one of the band’s amps blew up.
I know it didn’t really happen this way, but in my mind, I saw the strangers coming at us in slow motion with some theme from a bad spaghetti western playing in the background. They looked normal, but my Spidey sense told me they weren’t.
“Oh, great,” I said. “Anybody want to tell me who they are?”
Beside me, Mom whispered, “They’re the Ionescus.”
16
The dramatic, slow motion movie effect existed only in my mind. No one else on the lawn noticed a thing. All around us people went on eating barbecue, playing games, and having a good time. Even the brief electrical show didn’t interrupt the activities.
The band dragged out a replacement amp, asked the crowd how they liked the pyrotechnics and broke into a decent cover of Witchy Woman by the Eagles.
If I hadn’t felt quite so much like I’d just been run over by two freight trains with bad mascara, I might have laughed.
Gemma’s brain kicked in first. “We need to get back to the store,” she said. “We’re too exposed out here.”
Her suggestion triggered an old caution in my mind — something dad used to say when Tori and I would head into the woods for day hikes. “You two come up on something that wants to eat you,” he warned, “don’t run. Don’t ever look like prey.”
“Hold on,” I said, plastering a fake smile on my face and answering the wave Irma shot my way from the vicinity of the dunking booth. “We can’t let the Ionescus think they’re scaring us.”
Beside me, Tori croaked, “Even if they are scaring us?”
“Especially because they’re scaring us,” I said. “We’re going to just turn around and walk back across the street like nothing is wrong. Can you guys handle that?”
Tori and Gemma agreed immediately, but my mother stood rooted in place. “You can do that, right, Mom?” I prodded.
At first, I didn’t think she heard me. Then she blinked as if she were coming out of a trance and gave me a jerky nod. Her reaction worried me, but this wasn’t the place to have a mother/daughter talk.
As a group, we moved, and instantly that slow motion effect took over again. In my perception, agonizing hours passed before my hand turned the knob and I held the front door of the store open, so the others could go in first.
For once, we caught a break; no customers in sight, just Dad and Beau playing cards in the espresso bar.
“What’s going on?” Dad asked. “You all haven’t even been gone 20 minutes.”
No one answered him. Instead, Gemma turned back toward the now closed door, raised her hands and commanded, “Et immundum ne admittito.”
Admit not the unclean.
The spell attached itself to the top of the door frame and flowed down over the wood and glass until it reached the floor. The barrier briefly shimmered and coalesced into a solid, transparent rectangle before dissolving into invisibility.
Gemma instantly turned on her heel, went to the back door, and repeated the incantation.
During all of this, Mom stood alone in the center of the store with her arms wrapped defensively around her body. Dad got up from his chair and went to her.
“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked.
All she could do was look at him and shake her head, so he tried with me. “Jinx, what is going on?” he demanded. “Somebody talk to me.”
What was I going to say? “Oh, you know those girls Mom thought she killed back in high school? Yeah, they’re alive.”
Mom held out one trembling hand, which was all the signal Dad needed to fold her in a tight embrace. Finally, in the safety of his arms, she found her voice.
Pulling back just enough to look up at him, she whispered, “They’re not dead. It was all for nothing, Jeff. We gave him up for nothing.”
He looked down at her in complete confusion. “What on earth are you talking about, Kelly?”
Gemma came up beside them and laid her hand on Mom’s back. “Jeff,” she said, “we just ran into Sally Beth and Jo Anne Ionescu and they definitely weren’t dead.”
Before dad even had time to digest the words, the basement door opened, and Festus limped through.
“Sorry to eavesdrop,” he said, “but I can save you all some time getting up to speed on this one. Those chicks may not be dead, but trust me, they’re not alive either.”
Behind him, Chase appeared in the doorway holding an iPad in his hand. “We need to talk,” he said. “Can you all come down to the lair?”
Any plans we might have had for keeping the store open through the evening were out of the question now. Our current concerns were far bigger than selling coffee and t-shirts.
Without hesitation, I locked the front door, turned the “Closed” sign over, and flipped off the lights.
“The lair is the best place we could possibly be,” I said. “Somebody get Rodney. I don’t want him up here alone. Gemma, are you sure that spell will work against Strigoi?”
“Technically,” Festus said, “those two dames aren’t Strigoi. They’re vampires.”
You want to know how casually he threw that one into the mix? Substitute the phrase “Sunday school teachers” for “vampires.”
I don’t know how anyone could be blasé about the blood-sucking undead, but Festus pulled it off.
Everyone froze, except Beau. He was just coming out of the storeroom with Rodney on his shoulder when Festus dropped the “V” word. Instead of being creeped out or registering shock, Beau said, in a fairly clinical tone, “If they are indeed vampires, we now enjoy double protection.”
Every head in the room, including Rodney’s, swiveled in his direction.
“How do you figure that?” Gemma asked.
“I promised Myrtle I would be of assistance to Jinx,” Beau said. “To fulfill that promise, I am laboring to correct my ignorance of the Fae world. For some weeks now, I have been researching the Strigoi.”
That explained the mountains of old books Darby pulled from the deepest stacks in the basement and piled on Beau’s desk daily.
“It is my personal belief,” Beau continued, “that the Ionescus hired the assassin, Ferguson. At any rate, I have consumed a rather vast body of literature regarding vampires. Bram Stoker and other novelists drew on the Strigoi legends for inspiration. In endeavoring to separate fact from fiction, I have determined that the creatures cannot enter a home into which they have not been invited. Since the store is also our home, the Strigoi are naturally barred from entrance.”
“Good to know,” Gemma said, “but I’m not taking down that spell.”
Dang straight she wasn’t.
Beau inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am ever the advocate of the secondary plan, dear lady.”
Dad calls that being a belt and suspenders man.
Tori hadn’t said a word since we left the courthouse lawn, so I didn’t realize just how scared she was until she started to babble.
“Are you sure? Because maybe we should find some garlic. Which isn’t going to be easy since coffee shops don’t really need garlic. But vampires and garlic, bad mix, right? Which is good for us . . . ”
I put my hand on her ar
m to halt the flood of words. “Unless you’re craving lasagna,” I said, “we can pass on the garlic.”
Under my fingers, I felt her shaking, but I knew what I was doing. Tori has a superpower. She rises to every occasion. Sometimes you just have to activate the ability by throwing her a straight line.
The shaking began to subside. She took a deep breath before asking in a stronger voice, “So, are you saying lasagna is an option here?”
“Lasagna is always an option,” I grinned.
Her eyes locked on mine, and I saw she was back. “Then I’m in,” she said.
Everyone took that as a signal to follow Chase and Festus down to the lair where we all more or less collapsed into the nearest available seat. Bless Darby’s ever-attentive heart. He showed up immediately with trays of steaming coffee mugs, and when Mom shivered, he was instantly by her side with a heavy cardigan.
“Thank you, Darby,” she said, accepting the sweater.
“Please tell me if there is anything I can do to help, Mistress Kelly,” Darby said earnestly. “I do not like to see my friends so upset.”
Mom smiled at him and scooted over a bit on the sofa where she and Dad were sitting. “Come sit by me,” she said. “I’d like that.”
Darby happily accepted the invitation, snuggling into the space between Mom and Gemma. Dad, who was on the other side of Mom, said, “Okay, now, will one of you please tell me exactly what happened out there?”
I gave him the short version of our encounter with Seraphina and Ioana and watched as he realized what Mom meant when she said “it was all for nothing.”
When I finished, Dad slipped his arm around Mom. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder, while he kissed the top of her head. Neither of them spoke. They were too shocked. The death of those two girls completely changed the course of my parents’ lives. Had it all been a hoax?
Festus said he could save us some time on the learning curve, so I tossed the ball in his court. “Festus, you seem to have some idea what’s going on here,” I said, “so talk.”
While I had run down the encounter on the courthouse lawn for dad, Festus assumed his usual position on the hearth. Now, he sat up and shook his head. “I don’t know everything,” he said, “but I’ll tell you what I do know. I was watching from the front window of the cobbler’s shop when the Strigoi pulled that mesmerizing stunt. That stuff doesn’t work with cats. We don’t see light and color the way other humans do.”
Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels) Page 12