Crossroads (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 7)

by Catie Rhodes

  I wrinkled my nose. I saw my future, and it was gross.

  I read from the spell. “We also need grave dust and black salt.” Then I read further and groaned. “But it says you have to create an upper and lower circle of power, like the life tree, and you need amber to protect yourself.”

  Mysti clasped her hands in front of her face and frowned. Finally she nodded. “We can handle all those things.”

  Mysti and I started the unpleasant task of mixing ground-up bone and grave dust into the stinkingest wax I’d ever smelled. We then had to use our bare hands—just as I suspected— to fashion the wax into the shape of a man. We coated it with more of the powder from the ground-up runes. I picked up a container of coarse black powder.

  “We forgot something.” I inwardly groaned at the idea of starting over in any form or fashion. As it was, I figured I’d never get the stench of the tallow wax off my hands.

  “No. That’s black salt. We’re going to use it as part of the banishing ritual.” Mysti packed up the rest of her things. She opened the door, and seven wary faces turned our way. “We’re going to the site where Camilla stood because that’s where the Coachman died.”

  We walked out of Finn and Dillon's camper. My family crowded around us.

  “Peri Jean has mentioned to me that you can combine your power as a family as long as she’s the hub.” Mysti settled her gaze first on one face, then on the next.

  Cecil nodded. “But I don’t know how to do it.”

  “There’s no special procedure. You’ve given your raven tattoos the power to bind you together.” She smiled at me, and I could almost hear her voice in my head over the crying. Magic is mostly about intent.

  Jadine turned her back on Brad, who’d been talking a mile a minute while Wade was gone, and approached us. “If the tattoo and not the blood make the difference, I’m in.”

  Finn and Dillon had a hushed conversation a few feet away. Dillon had wrapped Zora in a heavy blanket and pulled the toddler across her lap. She held Zander’s chubby arm in the other hand. The little boy did everything he could to pry his mother’s fingers off him so he could waddle off. She wasn’t having it.

  “But I need to help,” Finn raised his voice.

  “Well, I want to help too, but we need to stay here with our kids.” Dillon went ahead and yelled her answer so we could all hear.

  “What if me being there is the difference between getting Zora back and not?” Finn gestured at his still little girl.

  “Tell them they can stay here.” I spoke into Cecil’s ear.

  “We need all the power we can get to make it work,” Cecil whispered back. He approached the arguing couple. “The Coachman’s coven will make an effort to get Zora. His rebirth can’t be completed without her. Dillon, why don’t you keep the kids in the rec room? It locks from the inside.”

  Dillon slouched. “Why can’t I bring my kids with me?”

  “There’ll be nobody to watch them.” Cecil’s words had an edge of impatience. “We’ll have plenty of power with Peri Jean and the three of us. It is no place for the kids, and you certainly don't want to put them in danger.”

  Dillon eyes hardened. “But if I don’t go, and I never get Zora back, then I’ll always have to wonder if things could have been different.” Her voice wobbled on the last word.

  A gray-haired woman approached. “Eric and I would be happy to watch over them, either at the spelling place or in the rec room. Sanctuary used to be about family.”

  Griff stepped forward and turned to the older gentleman, presumably Eric. “Know how to use a shotgun?”

  Eric smiled. “I duck hunted until my arthritis got too bad.”

  Ten more minutes of arguments ensued about where the couple would watch the kids. Wade finally took the batteries out of the keypad lock on the rec room door so only the lock on the inside worked.

  “They can’t get in here from the outside,” he told Dillon.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and danced around. If she insisted on bringing the kids with us, it would put them in a lot more danger. Finally she nodded.

  We packed up our supplies and took two golf carts and a four-wheeler down the trail in the dark. It ended at the field where Griff had died in a past life. I wondered if, now that he knew the secret of the place, the horror of its past would still affect him.

  Cecil cut across the field without stopping. I watched Griff with concern, but he showed none of his earlier symptoms. Maybe his former incarnation had just wanted his story told. Another, smaller clearing lay beyond the first one. Nothing marked it as the former site of a palatial home.

  Only a brick-lined hole on one edge of the property hinted people had once lived there. Another neighborhood, built pretty much on top of Camilla’s grounds, peeked through the thin screen of skinny pine trees and overgrown vines.

  We climbed out of the golf carts, and Mysti and I began setting up. Once we had our pentagram drawn in the dirt with her candles set in their usual places, she directed my family, both blood and chosen, to their places around the circle. She turned to me. “Once we get the Coachman into the wax effigy, you’ll have to enter him and rescue Zora’s spirit. Move as quickly as possible. Every second we delay completing the spell is another chance to lose him.” She held my gaze. “You can do this. Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  Mysti raised her athame over her head and began to speak.

  I call upon the east and the element of fire

  I call upon the west and the element of earth

  I call upon the north and the element of air

  I call upon the south and the element of water.

  She stopped speaking and signaled I should start. I took a deep breath, cleared my mind, and tapped into my power. I expected nothing but a weak ping, but being in Samantha’s hideout had somehow given me a second wind. That too-full sensation of the power backing up as it tried to make its way into my magical center throbbed at the center of my chest. But some must have gotten through. My limbs and fingertips prickled with the force of it. The movement of the trees under the wind became a dance, and the wind a language of its own.

  I call upon the living world

  I call upon the dead world

  The ground moved underneath my feet, and I steeled myself to keep from gasping and ruining the moment.

  Surround us above and below

  Protect us on high and on low

  Bless our work, bless us this hour

  Let evil be banished into the darkest tower.

  The hum of power surrounded us, electric, pure, and terrifying. A charged wind blew around our circle. It flowed over me, testing me and moved on to Finn who stood next to me. He clenched his jaw, and it moved on to the next person. Jadine gasped when it hit her.

  But then my power and that of my family connected with an almost audible click. The voices Finn dealt with crowded my head. Dillon's power to persuade fluttered through me, confident and proud. Cecil’s ability to see ghosts opened my mind to another, darker world, so different than my connection to the spirits. Then Jadine’s light hold on the waking world inched into me. Somewhere I saw a circle of people chanting. The Coachman’s coven. They were getting ready for their own strike.

  Mysti laid the wax figure at the center of the circle. She and I stood facing on opposite sides of it.

  “Everyone, it’s time to focus your energy on the wax doll. Imagine it as a vortex, pulling the Coachman into it. When he gets in there, focus on keeping him there.”

  We got a few sets of wide eyes and nods in response. Only Wade stood calmly throughout it all.

  Mysti handed me the long-stemmed utility lighter.

  By the power of earth, air, fire, and water

  Let this wax doll represent Oscar Rivera.

  She gestured at me, and I burned a hole in the wax figurine’s chest. I rolled up the slip of paper on which Mysti had written the name and stuck it in the soft wax. I stood and raised my athame over my head.


  I call upon the power of earth, air, fire and water,

  Draw this spirit into the hell of his making and stay him.

  The ground moved again under my feet. The Coachman was coming. I braced for whatever lay in store. Dirt blew up from the center of our circle, and the Coachman took shape. His translucent form wavered toward the wax figure, but he fought his way away from it. His rage and frustration bounced around the circle. Someone moaned, and I hoped they didn’t lose it. Jadine chanted, “Go in. Go in. Go in.”

  The Coachman wavered again. His struggle filled my mind and body, drawing energy from me. His intent and its results spurred me into action. “I banish thee,” I shouted. “You will reside here.” I pointed my athame at the wax form.

  Mysti’s eyes snapped open.

  “I banish thee as well.” She pointed her athame at the figurine as well, hand shaking with effort. “Reside here.” Each person in the circle pronounced the Coachman’s banishment.

  A wispy tendril of the Coachman inched toward the figure. I kept up my concentration, ignoring the exhaustion aching inside me. I willed the Coachman into the wax figure. A little more of him went inside. His presence brushed my mind. His coven chanted inside my head. We had to hurry. I focused my power and poured all my strength into pushing the Coachman into the wax figure. My body shook with the effort.

  He shot into the wax figure. It jittered on the ground, turning black with the taint of the Coachman’s evil, negative spirit. Using Jadine’s ability to walk in dreams, I propelled myself into the Coachman’s being. The door to Zora’s prison loomed big in front of me. I rushed toward it.

  The chanting of his coven splintered at my hold on the Coachman. Then it began to push at me. I fought my way toward the huge door, each step its own battle. I fell to my knees and slid backward. I clawed at the wood floor, splinters wedging themselves under my fingernails, but still I slid backward. Then I was back in my body. “I couldn’t get her. They pushed me out.”

  “You what?” Dillon's furious voice came from a few feet away.

  “It’s okay. Let’s just get him bound to the wax figure.” Mysti, out of breath, had to gasp the words.

  As one, we spoke the words Mysti and I had made up.

  Oscar Rivera, we bind your soul

  We bind you from harming the living

  We bind you from theft of souls

  We bind you from contacting the living.

  Mysti signaled to me, and I picked up the wax figure in both hands. The cold coming off it burned my skin.

  The Coachman’s voice surrounded us. “Not good enough. You lose.”

  The chanting came again, this time all around us. The candles on the outer edges of our circle flickered. Behind them, something moved. I focused my vision into the darkness and saw the shapes of other people, transparent, but here all the same.

  “Oh Mysti. Do you see them?” The memory of the Coachman’s many pieces, made up of those who summoned him, came back, and the truth slammed into me. As long as these people were able to provide the Coachman energy to exist, they bound his spirit to our plane of reality. It didn’t matter what we bound him to or how we tried to destroy his spirit.

  “What is it? See who?” Mysti’s voice trembled.

  “They’ve got us surrounded. They’re countering everything we do.” Bile stung the back of my throat. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “I see them.” Jadine’s chest heaved. She clung to Wade’s hand. I didn’t blame her. I wished I could run over there and do the same.

  The wax figure grew so cold it burned my fingers. I yelped and dropped it. It hit the ground and shattered into a dozen pieces. The Coachman rose from the trap we’d built for him, his spirit emanating more power than any of us had after we exhausted ourselves trying to send him away. He slammed into me and knocked me backward into Cecil.

  “Catch her Papaw,” Finn screamed. “Don’t let her break the circle.”

  But it was too late. Cecil stumbled away from me, and both of us fell out of the circle. The Coachman’s face appeared in my vision, and the chants of his followers filled my head. His tainted, sickening presence violated every inch of my psyche, pushed me to my feet, and made me run from my friends. I was too weak to stop him.

  20

  LOSING control of my own body was like falling off a cliff and having only a sea of black waiting at the end. I came to rest somewhere in my mind, vaguely aware of the blood whooshing through my veins and the thunder of my own heart. Voices rose somewhere at my back, Wade’s among them, and I forced my eyes open but found the Coachman was already using them.

  I hurtled through the night, arms pumping, feet painfully striking the earth. Branches, stiff and winter-dead, slapped at my face and gouged my skin. I ran faster than I’d ever pushed myself. The Coachman was at the wheel, and he didn’t care how much he hurt me. He planned to kill me and use my blood to be reborn in Zora.

  Got to get control back. Got to get him out of me. I pushed against the heavy presence glommed onto my mind. It felt like hitting a wall of bubble gum. It stretched but went nowhere. I pushed again. My body’s movements slowed and then stopped.

  This is it. The Coachman’s voice rumbled in my head. You’re defeated. Give up.

  I will never stop fighting until I am dead. I tried to make my words roar like the Coachman’s, but I just sounded like a redneck whore after a three-week drug binge.

  The Coachman herded my body deeper into the woods and made me huddle behind a curtain of dead vines. His presence widened and lengthened until my brain swelled with it. My head pounded as though it would burst open, spraying bone and brain all around me.

  I tried to run, but I couldn’t move.

  The Coachman gave my mind a push, and the image of all my calloused and rotten layers of memory rose up before me, the mantle resting white and shining on top like a layer of angel clouds. I slammed into the scar tissue at full speed. It swallowed me whole.

  I ran down a wide, brightly lit corridor, the smell of hospital strong in my nose. Oh no. Not this again. Footsteps pounded the linoleum behind me. I jerked myself out of my thoughts and started running again.

  Strident, annoyed voices yelled, “Peri Jean? Come on back here, sweetie. It won’t help to run.”

  Anxiety whipped around inside me, erasing all reason. Hadn’t I escaped the mental hospital and grown up with Memaw? I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that I had to get out of that place. I didn’t want to grow up there. But I didn’t know where to go.

  A row of numbered doors came up in front of me. I grabbed the handle of the first one, ran inside, slammed it behind me. I leaned against it and breathed so hard my chest ached. The room, half-dark with the shutters drawn, looked empty. Maybe I could rest here.

  “Who is it?” a nervous voice whispered from inside the room.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered back and tiptoed further into the room.

  Hannah Kessler lay on the bed, hair greasy and wild, a crop of acne on her oily cheeks. Her eyes widened when she saw me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Somebody’s after me. I need to hide here.” The truth was, I couldn’t remember who’d been chasing me. It seemed whatever I’d been running from already had me, and it was too late to change things.

  “But I told them not to let anybody in here. You especially, Peri Jean.” Her voice rose, and by the end of the sentence she was screaming at me.

  Tears stung my eyes, and my stomach did a dizzy flip.

  “I don’t want to even look at you.” She crumpled a piece of paper that had been sitting on her tray, and I recognized the stationery. It was a letter from me. I sent it before Rainey told me the private hospital for trauma victims where Hannah was recovering had stopped accepting mail for Hannah. Had I been the reason she had her mail stopped?

  I took another step backward. My throat ached with unshed tears, unspoken apologies, and wishes it would have been me instead of her. The horror she lived through happened because of me.

 
“Every time I look at you, I see those fucking fucks climbing all over me, over and over again.” She reared her fist back and slung my wadded-up letter at me. It hit me in the chest and bounced off. “It should have been you.” Her hateful glare burned me to my core.

  I took a step backward and bumped into her dresser. The items on its top jingled and rattled. Something slid off and broke. I jumped, cheeks burning.

  “Now see what you’ve done?” Her freckled face reddened, and her mouth contorted with rage. She picked up her water glass and chunked it at me. It hit the floor a few feet from me and sprayed glass fragments and water all over my bare feet and legs. In the very back of my mind, the last of my sanity whispered plastic. But I was too freaked out to make sense of it.

  The cold water ran between my tiny little girl’s toes. My skinny legs sticking out of the hospital nightgown began to tremble.

  “Get out.” She spoke with her teeth clenched. Before I had time to react, she picked up a doodad and pressed a button on it. An alarm blared in the hallway.

  “It’s okay.” I held out my hands. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just hiding from…” What was I hiding from? It had been so important. I’d been so scared. Now I couldn’t remember.

  “You already hurt me.” Hannah’s mouth twisted, distorting her words, but I understood just fine. They stabbed right through the center of my chest and leaked stinging poison all over my body. “Wade was right, you know? It would have been better if they’d killed me. Because now I don’t have anything to live for.”

  Arms closed around my middle, and my father spoke into my ear. “You bothering normal people again, Peri Jean?” He dragged me out of Hannah’s hospital room and down the wide hallway.

  “Daddy, please help me,” I whispered. “Please. I don’t know what to do any more.”

  “Oh, we’re gonna help you, all right. Make it where you won’t hurt anybody else, long as you live.” He dragged me into a room with a stretcher and lifted me onto its black rubber cushion.

  “Daddy, wait. What’s going on?” He pushed me down on the stretcher and buckled the straps across my chest.