“Can she really see the GNATS drone?” Tori asked in a hushed voice.
“She can,” Greer said, “and she appears to be issuing an invitation.”
“Well, we’re not going to accept it, right?” Tori said.
Just then, a little girl dressed as Raggedy Ann ran past the Strigoi Sisters. Ioana casually put a foot out and tripped the child. The girl fell forward, landing hard on the grass and bursting into tears.
I watched in horror as Ioana immediately scooped the child up and began talking to her soothingly, caressing the little girl’s cheek with her fingers. My stomach twisted in knots at the memory of Tori’s description of those razor-sharp nails, but then Ioana took it a step farther. She ran her index finger over the girl’s scraped knee coating the digit in blood. As we watched, she raised the finger to her lips and licked it clean, closing her eyes in pleasure at the taste. I wanted to throw up.
Seraphina, who watched the whole thing with an expression of obvious delight, turned her attention back to the camera and repeated her beckoning gesture. This time, however, she plainly mouthed the word, “Now.”
“Okay,” I said, “that’s it. We roll. Chase, take Greer and Lucas through the cobbler shop and try to get around to the backside of the square without being seen. Mom, Gemma, Tori, you’re with me. Everyone else stays here. I don’t care what happens, do not leave this building. Festus, you’re in charge.”
“I can get a message through to the Registry,” he said. “You want Barnaby and Moira here?”
“There’s no time,” I said. “This one is on us.”
When we came up the stairs and into the shop, Beau and Dad knew instantly that something was wrong. There were a few people drinking coffee in the espresso bar, waiting to see if the storm would hit or not.
“Uh, hi,” Dad said, “the four of you going over to the carnival?”
Mom went to him. “We are,” she said, “and I want a hug before we go.”
Dad opened his arms to her, but as he held her, his eyes grew wide. Mom was whispering in his ear telling him what was going on. When she released him, she said, “We’ll be back in a little bit.”
“Uh, yeah, sure, okay,” Dad babbled. “Be careful . . . the . . . weather’s looking bad out there.”
At the door, I turned back and saw Dad go behind the counter to speak to Beau, who inclined his head to listen. After a few words, the colonel’s head came up with a stricken look on his face. It was too late to stop us, and Beau knew it.
On the sidewalk out front, Gemma said, “How are we playing this?”
“I have no idea,” I replied as we started across the street. “Wing it, I guess.”
“We need to try to get Seraphina and Ioana away from the square,” Mom said. “There are too many innocent people in the line of fire.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Tori asked.
“They want Kelly and me,” Gemma said. “So we offer to go with them.”
“Can’t say I’m loving that option, Mom,” Tori said.
“Me either, kiddo,” Gemma said, “but we may have no choice.”
Seraphina and Ioana met us halfway across the lawn. Ioana was still holding the little girl, whose eyes were now wild with fright. Once again, the sounds around us faded out, but not the way they had the first time we encountered the Strigoi Sisters. Out of the corner of my eye, I could still see people walk by and detect the faint pulsations of the music. The elder amulets were working.
“Hi!” Seraphina said brightly. “We’ve just been dying to see you all again. Oh. Wait. We’re already dead!”
Beside her, Ioana cackled insanely.
“Put the child down,” I said. “This is between us.”
“Oh,” Ioana pouted, “I like her. She’s my little doll, aren’t you sweetheart?”
The girl looked at me with enormous blue eyes. “I want my mother, please,” she whimpered.
“It’s okay, honey,” I said, “we’ll get you back to her in just a minute.”
Seraphina’s lips curled. “You’re not in charge here, witch,” she snarled.
“Fine,” I said. “Let the girl go and you can be in charge all you want.”
“Now, why,” Seraphina said, “would I let our little snack go toddling away when we’ll just have to catch her all over again? Children are such tasty little sweetmeats.”
Beside me, Mom stiffened, and I felt her power rise. She wanted a piece of this bitch as much as I did.
I honestly can’t tell you what would have happened next if Anton Ionescu hadn’t walked through the wavering field of energy around us and jammed what looked like a taser hard against Ioana’s neck.
The jolt would have sent a human flying backward, but the weapon’s charge reacted differently to the strigoi, bathing Anton and Ioana in a crackling web of energy. Thankfully, the initial blow startled Ioana enough that she dropped the little girl.
Mom was by me in a flash, gathering the child in her arms. When Seraphina lunged for them, my mother raised her hand and let loose with a wicked stream of blue fire. It hit Seraphina square in the chest. The Strigoi paused, but she didn’t stop. If Gemma hadn’t tackled her, Seraphina would have been on top of mom and the terrified girl.
That’s when I saw Greer outside the thin envelope surrounding us. She stood against the wind that lifted and tossed her flaming hair as if it were a living creature. Her eyes burned with iridescent green flames that merged with the crimson fire pouring out of the ruby ring on her finger. Over the howl of the storm, the words of the incantation she chanted solidified and time literally stopped. She was giving us the cover we needed.
Rolling from Gemma’s tackle, Seraphina collided with Anton, who clutched at her with his free hand. As his fingers closed around her arm, the field of electricity spread over her body as well. Through the static bursts, his eyes met mine. “Finish it, witch,” he gasped. “I can’t hold them much longer.”
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
“Call down the lightning,” he said. “It’s the only way.”
Above me jagged flashes of light branched through the roiling clouds. I felt Tori take my hand and then she reached for Gemma, who in turn clasped mom’s hand. As one, we called to our magic, channeling the power through our bodies and sending it up into the deepening heart of the storm.
The storm answered.
I felt more than saw the lightning strike. Just before the world flashed white and hot around me, Seraphina and Ioana threw their heads back and screamed.
When my vision cleared, the Strigoi Sisters were gone, and Anton lay crumpled on the ground, his clothes smoking from the blast.
At first, I thought he was dead, but then he raised a blackened and charred hand, beckoning me to come to his side. Dropping to my knees next to the fallen man, I reached for his hand and then hesitated. His whole body was covered in burns. I was afraid to touch him.
“Are they dead?” he rasped, barely managing to squeeze the words out of his ruined lips.
“Yes,” I said. “Now lie still until we can get you some help.”
“There is no help for me,” Anton said. “Promise me.”
“What?”
“See that I am buried properly,” he pleaded. “Please do not let me become a monster.”
As gently as I could, I took his hand. “That won’t happen,” I told him as tears spilled out of my eyes. “I promise.”
The dying man looked up at me. “I’m afraid,” he said in a small voice.
“Shh,” I said. “You’re not alone. I’ll stay with you.”
I don’t know if he heard me before he died. I hope so.
Epilogue
Greer did her job well. She stopped time and held it while we cleaned up the mess. Cezar Ionescu and his men arrived minutes after Anton died. They lifted their fallen chieftain onto their shoulders and carried him off the courthouse lawn like a warrior of old leaving the arena on his shield.
“He will be buried according to ou
r customs,” Cezar assured me.
“What was the weapon Anton used against the girls?” Tori asked.
“It is a modified form of taser,” Cezar explained. “We use them as mobile feeding devices when we must be away from home.”
“So Seraphina and Ioana are really dead?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” Cezar said. “The bolt of lightning incinerated them.”
On my cue, Greer released the people at the festival, but not before she gently erased the little girl’s memory, leaving nothing behind but the recollection of a scraped knee. As for the larger crowd, they remembered the storm, and some thought lightning might have struck the rod on the top of the courthouse, but no one knew a magical fight had taken place right under their noses.
Even though it was hard to get back in the spirit of things, we had to put on a good front through Halloween. Tori suggested we close the shop, and all attend the carnival in costume. “We seriously need to lighten up,” she said.
No one argued with her.
Letting Darby in on the fun didn’t pose a problem. He just turned invisible and followed my dad around all night. Instead of a costume, dad put on his fishing waders and a cap overloaded with lures. When people asked, he told them he was that Jeremy Wade guy from River Monsters.
Beau went in uniform, with Rodney tucked inside the collar of his tunic. Mom and Gemma dressed up as Lucy and Ethel, which was too appropriate for words. Tori figured she was good with the hair, but she threw on a tiger-striped t-shirt for good measure. I embraced my inner truth and dressed as a witch.
In part, I selected the costume so Glory wouldn’t be left out. When Chesterfield miniaturized her, he only gave her three magical powers: the ability to run the chessboard, fly on her broom, and plaster herself flat on the side of a coffee cup.
As it turned out, she could actually still manage the plastering thing on any surface, including the front of the pointy black witch’s hat I wore to the festival.
Crowds of people packed the square. During the evening, Amity Prescott awarded the digital camera to Lester, the sole surviving Bigfoot hunter, in recognition of the still photo he submitted lifted from the baseball video. We knew it was Duke, with teeth bared charging the camera, but skeptics argued it was just dust blowing off of home plate.
Hilmer Eastwood won the contest for best decorated house for painstakingly setting out 100 tombstones in his front yard complete with mannequin hands reaching up out of the dirt. Personally, I think it was the dry ice fog that pushed him past Etta Louise Morewood’s display of giant spiders and their webs.
Much to Aggie’s delight, a Walking Dead fan took top honors for his walker costume complete with disgustingly convincing disembowelment.
Irma couldn’t have been happier with the success of the whole festival and was already talking excitedly about SpookCon2. Given what we’d been through that week, it was nice to see someone happy about how things worked out.
Don’t get me wrong. I was glad we were free of the Strigoi Sisters, but I found myself genuinely grieving Anton Ionescu. Yes, he did awful things, but he did them from the depths of terrible grief and, twisted or not, from love.
That’s exactly what I was thinking about as I sat at our table on the lawn listening to the music and watching the couples on the dance floor. As I let my gaze wander idly over the scene, I noticed a man in white tie and tails wearing a top hat. His face was covered with a Phantom of the Opera mask, and he had a girl on each arm. Both were dressed like Victorian-era streetwalkers, but their faces were covered by feathered Mardi Gras masks.
As the trio passed me, the man lifted his hat and bowed. “Good evening,” he said, “enjoying the festivities?”
“Very much,” I said. “And you?”
“Immensely,” he answered as he strolled away.
My witch’s hat was sitting on the table beside me so Glory could have a good view of the dance floor. Suddenly, the hat began to tremble violently.
Picking up my drink to disguise the fact that I was talking to a piece of headgear, I said, “Glory, are you alright?”
“No,” she said in a breathless, fearful whisper, “I’d know that voice anywhere.”
“What voice?” I said. “You mean that man who just spoke to me?”
“Yes,” she said. “That was Mr. Chesterfield.”
What the . . .
Turning quickly in my chair, I scanned the crowd to find the figure again. I finally spotted him in the pool of light cast by the streetlight on the corner. He and the women on his arm were walking away. As if he felt my gaze fall on him, the man turned and looked back toward the square. When he did, both women reached up and took off their masks. Even at that distance, I recognized them.
Seraphina and Ioana.
See what I mean about nothing ever being easy in my world?
About the Author
Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. As a writer, Juliette's goal is to create strong female characters facing interesting, challenging, painful, and at times comical situations. Refusing to be bound by genre, her primary interest lies in telling good stories.
Six of Juliette's series are currently available. The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries opens with Witch at Heart, a lighter paranormal tale featuring a heroine who possesses powers she never dreamed existed. Jinx has been minding her own business working as a waitress at Tom’s Cafe and keeping up with her four cats. Then she inherits her Aunt Fiona’s store in neighboring Briar Hollow, North Carolina and learns that her aunt has willed her special “powers” to Jinx as well. They say admitting you have a problem is the first step and Jinx has a major problem. She’s a new witch and she has no earthly clue what that means — until she’s given the opportunity to use her magic to do a good thing.
In Book 2, Witch at Odds, Jinx accepts her new life as a witch and is determined to make a success of both that and her new business. However, she has a great deal to learn. As the story unfolds, Jinx sets out to both study her craft and to get a real direction for her aunt’s haphazard approach to inventory. Although Jinx can call on Aunt Fiona’s ghost for help, the old lady is far too busy living a jet set afterlife to be worried about her niece’s learning curve. That sets Jinx up to make a major mistake and to figure out how to set things right again.
By Book 3, Witch at Last, A lot has changed for Jinx in just a few months. After the mishaps that befell her in Witch At Odds, she just wants to enjoy the rest of the summer, but she’s not going to be that lucky. As she’s poised to tell her friends she’s a witch, secrets start popping out all over the place. Between old foes and new locations, Jinx isn’t going to get her peaceful summer, but she may just get an entirely different world.
Book 4, Witch on First, has Jinx walk out the front door of her store in Briar Hollow on a Sunday morning only to find her werecat neighbor and boyfriend, Chase McGregor, staring at a dead man. Under the best of circumstances, a corpse complicates things, but Jinx has other problems. Is her trusted mentor lying to her? Have dangerous magical artifacts been placed inside the shop? Join Jinx and Tori as they race to catch a killer and find out what's going on literally under their noses.
Book 5, Witch on Second, opens just a week before Halloween. Jinx and Tori have their hands full helping to organize Briar Hollow’s first ever paranormal festival. Beau and the ghosts at the cemetery are eager to help make the event a success, but tensions remain high after the recent killings. Without a mentor to lean on, Jinx must become a stronger, more independent leader. Is she up to the task in the face of ongoing threats? Still mourning the loss of Myrtle and her breakup with Chase, Jinx finds herself confronting new and unexpected foes.
In Book 6, Witch on Third, Jinx and crew have just survived Briar Hollow's first annual paranormal festival -- SpookCon1 as Tori calls it, but on the last night, they get a nasty surprise. The Strigoi Sisters are alive, and they're working with Creavit wizard Irenaeus Chesterfield! With Chase still stinging fr
om the breakup and Lucas Grayson more than a little interested, Jinx has plenty on her plate without a new evil trio in town. As the team works to discover Chesterfield's motive, something happens in the Valley that changes everything for the Hamilton family.
Six volumes of the best-selling Lockwood Legacy are currently available. The story chronicles the lives of three sisters who inherit a ranch in Central Texas following their father's suicide. The titles include: Langston's Daughters, Baxter's Draw, Alice's Portrait, Mandy's Father, Irene’s Gift, and Jenny’s Choice. The seventh, Kate’s Journey, will appear in 2017.
Descendants of the Rose is the first installment of the Selby Jensen Paranormal Mysteries. The second book, Lost in Room 636, will also be available in 2017. Selby's business card reads "Private Investigator," but to say the least, that downplays her real occupation where business as usual is anything but normal.
And don't miss the hilariously funny "cozy" Study Club Mysteries, a light-hearted spin off of The Lockwood Legacy. Set in the 1960s, this series takes on the often-absurd eccentricities of small town life with good-natured, droll humor. The first book, You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet, is already listed in the Amazon store with You Can't Put a Corpse in a Parade will be coming in 2017.
Juliette has also made forays into the arena of short fiction arena with Before Marriage, a light, sweet romance and Langston’s Ghost, a short-story companion to The Lockwood Legacy books.
Fermata: The Winter is the first in a four-novella post-apocalyptic survival series. Five years after an unknown virus divided the world into the living and the dead, four survivors stumble into a winter sanctuary. Brought together by circumstance, but bound by the will to stay alive, a concert pianist and a girl from South Boston forge a friendship and a purpose to cope with their new reality.
For more information . . .
Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels) Page 24