by Faith Hunter
“The Civil War?” Evan asked.
“Yeah. And when he reappeared in Hainbridge in 1870, several years after the war ended, there weren’t enough people there to remember him. Sherman did a number on the town.”
“Is it true that Sherman was a werewolf?” I asked.
“No such thing as werewolves,” Evan said firmly, raising up the foot of his oversized recliner and pushing back. “No such thing as weres at all.”
Jane and I looked at each other and said nothing. There were witches and vampires and at least one skinwalker. Who could say about werewolves? “Anyway,” Jane said, “when he came back to town, he was all into treatments for lunatics and research.”
“His son was still alive,” I guessed.
Jane shrugged and curled her legs under her. She was long and lean, dressed in a T-shirt and worn-out, skintight jeans, her boots left at the door and striped socks on her feet in shades of fuchsia and emerald; the socks were a gift from me. I doubted that she ever wore them unless she came here. Jane Yellowrock didn’t have the most jocular of natures, but she was desperately appreciative of any small gift, which made my heart ache for her.
I shook my head as I remembered the storm that destroyed the mobile home we had lived in until a few months past when Angie’s power awakened way too early and ripped the place apart. Jane had saved us all that night by turning into a mountain lion and calming Angie long enough for Evan and me to bind Angie’s powers tightly to her. As if she knew what I was thinking, Jane met my eyes, glanced at Angie’s room, and shrugged as if it had been nothing. It hadn’t been nothing. If I believed in miracles, I’d say that was one.
“So, then he involved some witches who had come over from Ireland—a woman by the name of Ester Wilkins, her daughter Lauran, and her sister Ruth. They’d started a coven, under the covers, so to speak, out of sight, but they provided the doctor with herbal tinctures, decoctions, and concoctions.” She tilted her head. “There’s a difference between decoctions and concoctions?”
“Big difference,” Evan said. I had thought he was asleep, sitting in his big chair, fingers laced over his middle, ankles crossed, and eyes closed. I laughed and he smiled, opened an eye, and blew me a kiss.
“Yeah, okay,” Jane said. “You two need me to leave?”
“Nah,” Evan said, his belly moving with silent laughter. “We took care of that before you got here.”
“Ewwww,” Jane said, shuddering with a breathy laugh.
I threw a couch pillow and hit him squarely in his beard—which just made him laugh harder. “Back to the vamp and witches,” I said, trying to sound prim, but likely not succeeding.
“I don’t know what happened next, but I do have hypotheses,” Jane said. “I think the doctor kept on with his research for decades, coming and going to protect his identity. And then he involved the witches in a more personal way. I think he either tried to get witches to create a conjure to cure his son’s lunatic-ism, or tried to get witches to let the kid drink witch blood to cure it, or he was trying to cure the leukemia that had made his son sick in the first place. Or something along those lines. I think he went to a witch one night and tried to force her to help. And of course the witch had warded her house. I think the ward transferred to the stethoscope when she tried to stake the vamp or he tried to drain her.”
“Lots of unknowns in any of those situations,” Evan rumbled.
“True, but any of those scenarios explains what I remember about the smells. . . .” She stopped dead, still not sure what Evan remembered of the mountain lion who saved the day when Angelina had her awakening. “I have a really good nose. I can smell some magics and some vampires.”
Big Evan nodded, his expression unchanged, and Jane went on. “Any of those scenarios explains what I remember about the smells in the house, and the odd way the stethoscope protects the house. But, really, none of the specifics matter,” Jane said. Evan widened his eyes in surprise. Jane leaned forward, turning her body directly to his, her elbows on her knees, her clasped hands hanging between her legs, partially mirroring his posture. “All we need to know for sure are the following.” She held up a closed fist and one finger went up. “Did the stethoscope get the ward by accidental—or even by deliberate—transference?” Another finger went up. “Is the witch’s ghost still in the house, which I don’t think, but is important to know?” Followed quickly by a third finger. “Is the vamp still living or did she kill him true-dead with her spell? If she killed him, then that makes it blood magic, and much stronger and more unpredictable, right? And blood magic changes how you guys get rid of the spell.”
Big Evan was staring at Jane intently now. Jane’s lips went up slightly. “What? You didn’t think I was smart enough to figure all that out?” When Evan didn’t reply, Jane said, “The most important thing to figure out, though, is how you guys get paid.”
“We don’t,” I said automatically.
“Why not?” Jane asked, still holding Evan’s gaze. “You get rid of the ward and the apparent poltergeist effect, or the house can’t be used. If the house can’t be used, then somebody is out a lot of money spent on renovations so far. Getting rid of the scary stuff sounds like part of the renovations to me.”
Evan smiled, showing teeth between mustache and beard. “You think the Hainbridge coven is getting paid, but knew that Molly was an easy mark. They planned to let her do the work and they get to pocket the money.”
Jane sat back, her tiny smile in place.
“I am not an easy mark,” I said.
Jane made a snorting sound. Big Evan said, “Sweetheart, you are the biggest mark alive. And that’s why I love you so much. If you weren’t so easy to fool, you’d never have married a big galumph like me.”
“You’re not a galumph,” I said.
“See?” To Jane, Evan said, “What’s the name of the construction company and what’s the house going to be used for now?”
“Hainbridge General Construction. And it’s owned by and is going to become a lawyer’s office.” My husband started to laugh.
• • •
The next morning Big Evan called Shadow Blackwell, the Hainbridge coven mistress, and suggested that I take over the job, informing Shadow that her coven could get a finder’s fee, if one could be properly negotiated. Shadow Blackwell was not pleased, but it wasn’t like she had much to fume about. She had tried to get the job done in an underhanded way, and had been caught.
Once the local coven was out of way, Evan contacted the owner of the construction company, speaking in my name. The contractor had an ironclad agreement with the owner of the property that he would not be responsible for “acts of God” above and beyond what his company’s insurance covered, and that insurance did not cover what amounted to an exorcism. Unfortunately he had not told the client that his office was haunted.
Last, my wonderful husband called the lawyer, one Chauncey L. Markwhite II, who was not a very cheery-natured man and refused to pay one red cent to me for my services. When it was explained to him that all construction had ceased on his property, and would not be starting again until the little matter of magical flying mallets was resolved, he accused Evan of extortion. Which totally ticked off my hot-tempered husband. Evan suggested that it was possible to prove the problem to Chauncey and a meeting was set up for the next morning before the start of business—meaning we were to meet him at his haunted house promptly at eight a.m. Promptly was the lawyer’s term, and he expected Evan to abide by that. He clearly did not know my husband, who was not one to take orders.
I had kept out of the picture while all phone conversations took place, but I needed to be present during this one, as I would be speaking as the “witch expert,” to keep Evan hidden in the witch closet. Jane wanted to be present too, as an outside witness, but I privately thought it might be more along the lines of wanting to watch Evan play with a lawyer the way a big-cat oft
en plays with its dinner before killing and eating it.
By prearrangement, Jane was the first to arrive at the haunted house, watching for the lawyer, her cell phone ready. The moment the lawyer’s car got there, she hit SEND and Evan started our car. We were ten minutes out, making Chauncey wait. As Jane had said, “Witches one, Chauncey zip.”
When we got to the house, the front door was hanging open and neither Jane nor Chauncey was to be seen. We both were out of the car while it was still rocking on its suspension, Evan saying, “Good Golly, Miss Molly. You don’t think she mistook him for a bloodsucker of a different sort and staked him, do you?”
I sputtered with laughter and was still laughing when we reached the front porch, which I am certain Evan had intended. Inside, Jane was leaning against the stairs, her arms crossed in her own particular stance, and a grin on her face. It was, by far, the ugliest grin I’d ever seen her wear, and she was making little huffing sounds of laughter under her breath, like a cat. The lawyer was six inches inside the parlor, standing as if frozen. His face was white, his eyes were at half-mast, and his skin stood up all over in goose bumps. Jane looked at us in the doorway. “The spell made you afraid that you or your family was going to die. I wonder what fears Lil’ Chucky is experiencing.”
“If we sit and watch until he dies, we don’t make any money,” Big Evan said, sounding totally rational, if unconcerned.
“Spoilsport,” Jane said. But she leaned in and grabbed Chauncey by his collar and yanked him back into the foyer. He took a breath and started gasping; his lips were blue. I had a bad feeling that he had not taken a single breath while he stood, frozen, inside the parlor. His knees gave out and Jane pivoted him to her, holding him off the floor by collar and belt. She gave him a little shake. “That’s the first part of the spell, Lil’ Chucky. You wanna work in this room?” she asked him. “You wanna maybe make clients wait in this room for their appointments?”
“No,” he wheezed. “No, I . . . Jesus—”
Jane dropped his belt, slapped his face, and had his pants again, the motion so fast I wasn’t sure what I had seen. “No blasphemy, no swearing, no dirty language. Got it?”
Chauncey nodded. His color was looking better, and Jane set him on the steps to the upstairs. “So it’s a haint, not a demon?” he asked when he’d caught his breath. Jane nodded. “What’s part two of the spell?” he asked her.
Jane. Not me.
I stifled a small smile, watching my friend at work. I had never seen this part of her.
“You spend too much time in the room, Lil’ Chucky,” she said, “and things start flying around. Hammers, ladders, broken furniture from upstairs. And I’d say the flying debris is aimed at anything human, and with fatal intent. Now”—she pointed to me—“this nice woman put her life in danger yesterday to figure out what was wrong with the house. She thinks she can undo the spell and free the property for development, but it’s dangerous. So here’s the deal. You pay her a flat fee for her efforts. And you pay her another fee, plus expenses, when she’s successful. You draw up the contract today, and as soon as her husband and I are satisfied, she goes to work. You get left with a usable building with a great history and a haunted house tale to delight your clients. Maybe hang a plaque on the wall to tell about it.”
“How much?” he asked.
Evan named a price that made me wince.
“I spoke to the contractor,” Chauncey said. “He had a deal with the Hainbridge coven for a lot less.”
“They can’t do the work. It’s a complicated spell,” Evan said. “They called in my wife, and she can. So you work with her or you can think about it for a few days, while the contractor starts another job somewhere and you get left with an unfinished building.”
“I have a contract with Hainbridge General Construction,” Chauncey said.
“With an ‘act of God’ clause in it. Haints fall under that category.”
“And you can’t negotiate with a haint,” Jane said, amused.
“Will she do the job for what I was paying the coven?” he hedged.
“No. And it isn’t extortion,” Evan said, eyes narrowing. “Haints are dangerous. What my wife will give you is a solution to a bigger problem than you knew you had. Let us know when you make a decision.” With that, Evan hustled me out of the house and Jane followed, her boots pattering down the front steps.
Before we reached the bottom step, Chauncey raced from the house, squealing like a child. A metal bucket barely missed his head. Jane must have been expecting it, because she caught it out of the air and handed it to him, shaking her head. “Bet you had to touch the stove to see if it was hot when you were a kid. Idiot.” But it sounded like good-natured ribbing more than insult. To me she said, “Later, Molly.”
Big Evan said, “See you around, Jane,” and opened my car door for me. I got in. Evan came around to his side and got in, his bulk making the old rattletrap rock. Jane keyed on her used Yamaha motorcycle. And Chauncey caved. “Wait,” he yelled. Jane turned off her bike. We got out of the car. To Evan, he said, “I can’t afford the fee you named. I can go . . . maybe half that.”
Evan and he dickered for a few minutes over price, and I had to turn away. My services were going to cost a lot more money than I thought they were worth, but they finally settled on a four-figure sum that meant I could get a new refrigerator and put something toward that new car we’d been saving for.
“I’ll draw up the contract,” Chauncey said. “I can fax or e-mail it over in two hours.” He looked at me and said, “Can you get rid of the haint today?”
I almost said yes, but Jane shook her head, very slightly. Right. Negotiation. “By Wednesday,” I said. “Sooner, if possible, but I can make no promises.”
“Okay.” He stuck his hand out at Jane. “Deal.”
Jane pointed at me. “Your deal is with the lady and her oversized galumph.”
• • •
We spent the rest of the morning flying spells. I write incantations, conjures, spells—which are pretty much, but not always, the same thing—out in longhand on legal pads. When I reach a point where the spell stops working, I fold it into a paper airplane and fly it across the room. Big Evan balls his up and plays trash can basketball. What we wanted was a spell that would keep us safe in the house, and a totally separate but overlapping conjure that would allow us to see the moment in time when the warding/keep-away spell transferred to the stethoscope. That transference had caused all the house’s problems. A spell that should have died had instead mutated and found a way to persist long after its creator was gone. It was going to be tricky, and that was even before we tried to dismantle the spell and free the house.
We spent lunchtime in the Hainbridge Historical Society, looking at photos of the people who had lived in the house, and photos of the townspeople, so if we happened to see one or two of them when we went searching for the pivotal, instigating event, we could call them by name. Then Evan and I went home for dinner and explained to Angelina that we’d be going out. She wasn’t happy at being left behind, but when Regan and Amelia showed up carrying an armload of old movies on DVDs, a bag of popcorn big enough to feed an entire family for a month, hair color to add blond streaks to their reddish hair, a dozen shades of nail polish, and a bottle of wine, she perked right up. I was jealous of the girls’ night I’d miss, but I was smart enough not to say so. We left the three watching the opening credits of an old black-and-white version of Cinderella, the scent of popcorn filling the house and the volume on the TV turned up high enough to rattle the walls.
• • •
At dusk, Evan and I entered the house, Jane behind us. I knew she had other things to do—tonight was belly dance class—but here she was, curious as any cat. And she had brought a cooler with colas, iced tea, and sandwiches, two battery-operated lights, a first aid kit, and a bedroll. She was dressed for business in heavyweight denim jea
ns with stakes and blades strapped on her waist and thighs. When she saw me staring at the pile of supplies and at her silver-plated knives she shrugged. “Insurance, not that I expect to need any of it.”
Evan, who was carrying a basket filled with candles, a batch of dried herbs, and a small camp stove for heating water, just nodded. “Good thinking. Glad to have you watching our backs.”
It was the first time Evan had shown open approval of Jane, and she ducked her head to hide a pleased smile. I decided they were going to play nice, letting me concentrate on the seeing spell Evan and I had settled on. The math of any spell was hard—altering physical laws by will and intent was a job fraught with danger and the likelihood of mistakes. A loss of concentration, a stray worry, and everything could fall apart—or blow up, which was rare, but a lot more scary.
First thing I did was to damp mop the foyer, concentrating on the area of floor directly in front of the parlor. Then, while the floor dried, I cleansed the house with a stick of burning dried sage. Once the house was cleansed I asked Jane, “Did you remember to bring your shirt?”
She lifted her brows and handed me a Ziploc bag with her filthy T-shirt from the day before. “You gonna tell me why you need my dirty laundry?”
“I’m going to shake the dust into a bowl and give it back.”
“Least you could do is wash it first,” she grumbled. At my expression she lifted a shoulder and added, “Just sayin’.”
I shook my head and drew a circle about five feet across on the wood floor with white chalk and set a cut-crystal bowl in the center. I filled it with bottled water and put the empty in my bag. Using a compass, Evan set new, white pillar candles inside the circle at the cardinal points, and draped a silver cross around each. Outside, it was getting dark, making it very hard to see in the foyer. No electricity would be used tonight. Jane sat on the bottom step, out of the way, her knees drawn up and her arms around her ankles, as Evan lit the candles. I stepped into the circle and closed it with the piece of chalk. Evan backed away toward Jane and set the candle at magnetic north, which was to my left side and back a bit, the parlor opening facing east.