“You need no special skills with these. For basic use, put the pointy end in the bad guy. More importantly than that, they’re magically enhanced. Their purpose is to be siphons for your magic. Think of them as extensions of your arms, as long as you don’t cut off a limb handling them.”
My fingers traced over the cold steel, leaving wisps of swirling emerald in their wake. “Don’t think this changes anything. I could have killed her with a touch from the second she woke up. Sharp objects don’t make the prospect any more enticing.”
“I would judge you horribly if it did.” Reaching over the seat, she brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. I couldn’t help but bristle. “You really have changed from the frightened young girl I once knew. Then, you took on traits from those around you, so desperate were you to fit in. Now, it appears you’ve finally found comfort in your own skin. I’m proud of the woman you’ve become, Octavia, and any small part the coven and I may have played in that.”
Biting my lower lip, a hot rush of tears burned behind my eyes that I refused to shed. “I was happy with the coven, for a time. But I wasn’t meant to be there. I found home… along the way.” My voice trailed off, lost in the memory of the love and acceptance I felt whenever Elba enveloped me in his embrace.
“I won’t pry. There has been far too much oversharing here tonight.” Eyebrows raised, Dina jerked her head in the direction of the handsy couple. “But there is one thing you need to be aware of—”
Feeling the weight of obligation tied to the swords, I slid them off my legs and eased them to the floor. “I didn’t ask anything from you, nor do I need anything. My plan is to find the wraith’s talisman. If I can find it, I’ll destroy it. Then, I can give Nikki a chance at a pants-less happily ever after with the good doctor.”
Elbows on the seat back, Dina laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her knuckles. “I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do—as much for Nikki’s sake as for your own piece of mind. However, there is one small element of this equation you’ve failed to consider.”
Lifting my chin, I met her stare and refused to waver. “What is it you think I’m missing?”
“Wherever that talisman is, I doubt that whomever put it there will want to part with it. There was a baby dying. Someone acted out of desperation when they evoked that kind of magic. Giving it up means risking the child’s health failing. If a mother can move a car to save her child, imagine what one would do to protect the artifact keeping her baby alive.”
“You think it’s the mother?”
Dina shrugged. “I have no idea who it is: a parent, grandparent, or perhaps a well-meaning neighbor. The point is, someone was willing to risk anything to keep that baby alive. Whoever it is won’t be eager to hand over such a treasured artifact now. One way or another, you’re going to need those swords.”
Chapter Ten
“In retrospect, Tim and I never would have worked as a couple,” Nikki mused as she turned the steering wheel hand over hand to guide us into the Dews’ posh subdivision. “He’s just too obsessed with me. I mean, ask some damned questions, man! I was in the morgue. Didn’t that seem like a matter we should have discussed?”
“You didn’t seem to object to his… ahem… exuberance.” In a passive-aggressive statement about Nikki’s driving, Dina steadied herself with one hand on the roof of the car.
Biting her bottom lip, a rosy hue filled Nikki’s cheeks. “It was a hell of a goodbye. Right up until that cop showed up. To be honest, I’m strangely proud that I got a ticket for indecent exposure after death.” Double-checking the house number with what she wrote on her palm, Nikki edged the car alongside the curb in front of the Dews’ suburban utopia. After throwing the car in park, she swiveled to face me with an elbow on the back of the seat. “It was the perfect send off, and I’m ready to go. There’s nothing left for me here. I realize that now. I don’t know where I went after I died, but I do know I was happy there. I don’t fear it. Not anymore.”
“What?” My gaze flicked to Dina, fearing she was using magical influence to pry the words from Nikki.
Sitting board straight, the elder Wiccan stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard a thing.
“Whatever that thing in there is,” Nikki jabbed her thumb at the beautiful, colonial-style house with giant hydrangea bushes out front, “it killed me. You didn’t bring me back for a second chance, Octavia. I’m here to help you find a way to stop this thing. Let me do that, please.”
My mouth opened with a pop, ready to argue otherwise, when the front door of Casa de Dews flew open. Huddled in each other’s arms, Betsy and Brad dashed off the porch and into the yard. Behind them, onyx tendrils coiled and lashed with venomous intent.
Shoving a sleeping Bacon off my lap, I wrenched open the car door and palmed both swords. “This conversation isn’t over. Watch my pig.” Hoping those wouldn’t be my dying words, I bolted from the car. Feeling the threatening pulse of dark magic crackling through the air, I sprinted toward the trembling couple.
“The boys are still inside! We have to help them!” Pushing away her husband, Betsy tried to shove her way past him.
Clamping his arms firmly around her waist, he held her back. “You can’t go back in there. We barely made it out alive!”
“What happened?” I yelled over the freight train roar of lashing winds roosting in the Dews’ home.
“I… don’t know.” Tears welled in Betsy’s eyes, slipping from her lashes in torrents.
“Some…thing in there grabbed the children and chased us out.” Brad’s chest rose and fell in frantic pants.
Filling my lungs to capacity, I adjusted the grip on my newly acquired swords. “I’m going in there. No idea what the hell I’m going to do when I get there, but where’s the fun in having a plan? Before I go, any chance either of you have seen any sort of talisman laying around?”
Confusion momentarily halting her sobs, Betsy’s forehead creased at the question. “A… talisman?”
Glancing back at Dina, I jerked my chin in her direction. “Hey! Have you seen the talisman thing? What does it look like?”
Cupping her hands around her mouth, Dina screamed over the raging gusts. “Being evil in origin, it was shaped in hell’s blazing inferno and engraved with the crown of Lucifer!”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s stamped with horns and really shiny!”
Heavy storm clouds closed in, lightning flashing within their swelling wall of blackness.
“Stamped with horns and really shiny,” I repeated, translating English to English.
Betsy shook her head, her worried stare locked on the house. “No, we don’t have anything like that! Please, if you have any way to help our—”
“It’s in the basement!” Brad interrupted, face reddening. “We were desperate! I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Every moment was spent bracing for the worst. One night, after Gideon had to be intubated yet again, I did a random search on the Internet. Found the damned thing on eBay. I didn’t think it was real! I was exhausted and damned near delirious. I didn’t think anything would come of it, but then the nurse died and shit got weird!”
“And once it started siphoning the years out of your eldest son, you didn’t think to get rid of it?” Even as I posed the question, I peered into the house and tried to remember where the basement stairs were.
“I tried!” The words tumbled from Brad’s lips in a panicked gush. “I threw it in the river, ran over it with my car, tried to burn it; nothing worked! It just kept showing back up in my wallet! Out of ideas, I buried it in the basement!”
Thunder boomed, shaking the ground beneath our feet.
“How do I get down there?”
“The stairs are in the dining room. I buried it in the northeast corner.” Wisps of hair blew back from Brad’s thinning hairline.
Nostrils flaring, I stared into the front door that hung open like ravenous jaws. “Dina, any idea how to destroy the talisman?�
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“A wraith is a harbinger of death. That’s your area of expertise! Use your powers!”
“I totally got this. May not even die a brutal and ugly death.” Crossing the swords in front of me, I uttered the spell that reversed my magic and took life away. “Spirits from beyond the grave, I brought thee into light. Without your help, I cannot stave. Return thee into night.” Had I been touching Nikki when I uttered those words, life would have faded from her like a wilting flower. With the swords in my grip, it evoked emerald energy that licked over their gleaming metal. Acting on the fleeting rush of confidence that ushered in, I launched myself into the swirling vortex of the unknown. Wind whistled past my ears, my eyes watering as I pushed against the torrential gusts.
My bravado got me as far as the foyer.
That’s when crippling fear took over.
Roiling black death swirled in the Dew’s sitting room, festering in an ominous blockade. Before I could plan my next move, tendrils of darkness snaked around my waist and yanked me off my feet. My head whipped back with a sharp snap, the breath knocked from my lungs in a painful wheeze. Hair lashed around my face with a force that made it feel the strands were being ripped from my scalp. Grip on my swords slipping, I held on as tightly as I could. Centrifugal force pinned my arms out wide, the winds crushing against me. Of one thing I was certain: I wasn’t alone. Someone or something else was in that cyclone of pants-wetting fear with me. Squinting into the storm, I could faintly make out two figures suspended mid-air, slack and lifeless. The kids. The wraith was feeding off them, while I was powerless to prevent it.
“How’s the hero mission going?” Appearing in the doorway, Nikki raised her voice to be heard over the screaming winds.
“Not great!”
“You’re a stubborn ass. You know that about yourself, right?”
“It’s a flaw I’m working on! How is this thing not affecting you?”
“Huh, I don’t know.” Nikki let one shoulder rise and fall in a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe because I’m its never-ending food source? You know who was not cool with seeing me? Mrs. Dews. She didn’t take my resurrection as well as Tim did. He passed right out. Which, honestly, is probably the saner reaction.”
“Help us!” a small voice called out from within the tornadic bluster.
With every ounce of strength I had behind it, I tried to throw my shoulder forward, the efforts earning exactly zero ground.
Folding her hands in front of her, Nikki tilted her head. “Do you feel good about that attempt? Strong, independent woman who don’t need no help?”
“Kids could be dying, Nikki! Pick a better time to be condescending!” I tried to track her in each swirling rotation around the room.
Hands falling to her sides, she strode straight for the wall of cyclone winds. While her hair danced around her face in a wild halo, her features remained a resolute neutral. “There is another way. You know how to weaken this thing right now. Stop denying the inevitable. My time here is done. I’m at peace with my decision. You have my permission to do what has to be done.”
I tried to shake my head, but could only manage a twitch of my chin as the winds launched me into yet another nauseating swirl. “That’s not an option! We’ll find another way.”
A bittersweet melancholy stole over Nikki’s features. “No, sweet girl. We won’t.”
Those would be her last words as she stepped directly into my twisting path. My sword was in my hand, yet—to my great dismay—I maintained no control over its route. Nikki closed her eyes and threw her arms out wide. The point of my sword sank into her middle, burying itself to the hilt. Her lips paled, crimson gore seeping from the wound.
The winds died down in an instant, their roar hushed to an ominous silence. The Dews kids fell to the ground, the slight rise and fall of their chests acting as the only indicator that the wraith’s efforts had been thwarted… for the moment, at least.
Dropping my swords as if their touch was scalding, I caught Nikki in the cradle of my arms and eased her limp form to the ground. “Nikki! Stay with me! Focus on my face. You’re going to be okay. You hear me? We’ll get you help!”
Nikki’s complexion faded to a ghostly white, a peaceful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. With her unblinking stare focused on the infinite oblivion, her head lolled slack against my arm.
“There’s nothing you can do for her now. Help my brother, please,” a faint voice uttered behind me. Head snapping around, I gasped. Griffin, the older Dews boy, had regressed farther still. His skin was transparent, with a gelatinous look, revealing every blue vein running beneath. A child his age should have been nestled safely in their mother’s womb, not speaking in full sentences while still looking out for his brother. “Make her sacrifice mean something.”
Sweet baby Gideon had aged to a little old man with swollen and arthritic joints. Curled into the fetal position, his frail form shook with each labored wheeze. The wraith was playing the two against each other in a malicious game that would kill them both.
Wiping a tear off my cheek with the back of my hand, I rose on quaking legs that threatened to buckle under me. I moved through the fog of confusion to retrieve both swords, making a conscious effort to ignore the blood dripping from one blade. Weighing them in each hand, I stared toward the basement stairs with a vein throbbing in my temple. “Stay with your brother. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’m twelve inches tall and I’ve lost the ability to walk,” Griffin rasped. “Where am I going to go?”
I inched down the stairs with my alert gaze on swivel. With each step, Dina’s warning echoed through my mind. If the wraith feels threatened, it will spread its essence like a plague. Nikki’s martyrdom landed the first strike, one that pulled back the guillotine of impending doom I could feel pulsing through the air.
“Northwest corner of the basement, he said,” I grumbled into the darkness and pulled the cord of a bare bulb overheard. “Like I have any idea where the hell that is.”
The light flickered on to reveal a surprisingly cellar-like basement with dirt floors and exposed steel beams strung overhead.
“Seems they blew their budget on the main floor and opted for the Freddy Krueger furnace room.” Boots scuffing across the floor, I dragged the points of my swords through the dirt in search of disturbed ground where the talisman may be buried.
I made it as far as the water heater when a low moan echoing all around made a shiver of unease prickle up my spine. The timbre could never be confused with human. Fire and brimstone writhed in its cadence. Swallowing hard, I forced my head to turn in that direction.
Nothing… except thick shadows I was certain hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Acting on instinct, I recharged the only real weapon I had. “Spirit from beyond the grave, I brought thee into light. Without your help, I cannot stave. Return thee into night.”
Once more, those green flames of crackling energy swelled to bolster my resolve.
“That… doesn’t suck,” I smirked, holding one fiery blade up before me.
“Witch,” the deathly rattle bounced off the walls, assaulting me from all sides.
Lifting my chin, I hitched one brow in open challenge. “I’m a hell of a lot more than that. Come on out and let me formally introduce myself.”
Birthed in the shadows, a nightmare swelled before me. It had no facial features or recognizable traits of any living thing. The thing could only be described as the embodiment of sheer terror.
Arms sagging at my sides, I pursed my lips and shook my head. “I don’t even have a quippy comment, dude. You’re straight up terrifying.”
Something that looked like a jaw stretched from the lump of its makeshift head, opening into a ravenous maw that spewed forth black tendrils. They lashed through the cellar, churning up yet another storm of thrashing winds.
Salvation came in the form of the spirits I called to my swords. They were to thank for me flipping the hilt of one sword into an overhand
grip with masterful technique. The sword pulled my arm back, not the other way around, and launched forward in a lethal strike. Crackling green flames sliced through the core of the soul sucking entity, earning a malicious hiss as it recoiled.
I could hurt it.
The magic within me—that I spent most of my life running from—was the key.
“The tables just turned, you ugly SOB.” Holding both swords out in front of me, my nose crinkled into a snarl.
As it turned out, this particular demon was not a fan of trash talk.
It retaliated by exploding into a mushroom cloud of malintent that leaked out the cracks in the foundation and through the broken seals of the cellar windows.
“That,” my lips parted with a pop, “can’t be a good sign.”
Heart thudding in my chest, I dropped to my knees and resumed my frantic search for the wraith’s talisman. For safety’s sake, I kept my swords firmly in both hands.
“Octavia!” Dina thundered down the stairs, stumbling down the last three. Her stare stayed locked on the main floor she fled from, her complexion drained ashen. “We need that talisman… now.”
“Oh, you need it now?” I parroted, sarcasm dripping from each word. “I was down here looking for a good place to plant an herb garden, but if you have a more pressing issue—”
“Remember what I said we absolutely did not want to happen?” she interrupted, oblivious to my snark. “It happened.”
Footfalls shook the bare wood stairs where a football team worth of people thumped down with slow, deliberate strides. Betsy and Brad led the charge, followed by what I guessed to be their well-dressed neighbors, a mailman, and a gardener who still held hedge clippers clutched in his fists. Their eyes morphed to haunting black orbs, while a breeze only they could feel tossed their hair about in a rippling current.
As they lumbered closer, smoke puffed next to the right hand of every member of the horde. From that foggy mist materialized ivory blades that settled into each waiting palm.
Wake the Dead (The Journals of Octavia Hollows #1) Page 6