Love Charms

by Multiple

  I threw back the covers. “Mark are you here?” I stood and raised my arms over my head, stretching. There was no answer.

  Barefoot, I padded to the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice to soothe my dry throat, topping it off with a couple of aspirin. Sipping my juice, I checked the apartment with bleary eyes, looking for Mark, but he was nowhere to be found. As usual.

  I dumped a bit of vodka in my juice with a yawn—my own personal hangover cure—and downed it in two quick swallows. Between the aspirin and the vodka, my skull no longer felt as if a quick movement would shatter it like a grenade in a glass factory.

  After letting hot jets of water pound the remaining alcohol out of my pores, I threw on a T-shirt and some sweats and curled up on the couch nursing my hangover with saltines and screwdrivers heavy on the vodka. I surfed through all one hundred cable channels before finally settling on a movie about a psychic teenager trying to cope with her abilities back before anyone knew what they were. I stretched out on the couch and watched, grimacing as the young heroine accidentally read her prom date’s mind, discovering he was only with her on a bet. I remembered those days all too well.

  I must’ve fallen asleep as the next thing I knew, the phone was ringing, interrupting my dance with the prom king. I sat up and grabbed the phone.

  “Hello, Sofia?”

  “Yes?” I cleared my throat to get the raspy just-woke-up-from-a-nap sound out of my voice.

  “It’s me Jacob. I need some help.”

  “With what?” Why was he calling me now? Our meeting wasn’t supposed to be until after I’d recovered from my hangover. I put a hand on my forehead to keep it from splitting open. I must’ve crossed the line from hangover cure into giving myself one.

  “My apartment has been ransacked.”

  “Call the police. I don’t do B&E cases.” I pinned the phone to my shoulder with my chin, and located the aspirin on the table next to the couch. Shaking two into my hand, I walked to the kitchen for some water.

  “I don’t think whoever did this is alive.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re being haunted.” I popped the pills into my mouth and washed them down with lukewarm tap water. I couldn’t say how I knew Jacob was being haunted, but something pinged my intuition. I’d learned to listen to that ping, which, coincidentally, had started just after Mark died. Maybe it was a two-for-one psychic power special: Kill your boyfriend and see ghosts with free intuitive ping!

  “Or there’s a demon, black magic, witches,” he started to name all the other potential sources.

  I cut him off. “Usually the most obvious answer is the right one.” I didn’t mention the ping under the same reasoning I didn’t talk about seeing ghosts. It made me sound crazy.

  “I’ll bow to your expertise in that area. Could you come over though and help me get this under control? Whatever it is, it’s flooded my bathroom twice.”

  “Wow, that’s a pretty strong manifestation.” Mark couldn’t even manipulate his environment like that. I wish.

  “So will you come?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Where do you live?” Jacob gave me directions, and promising to arrive within the hour, I hung up.

  After starting the coffee maker—I needed caffeine if I was going to have to deal with more ghosts I shouldn’t be able to see—I went into my bedroom and exchanged my sweats and T-shirt for jeans, a lavender knit top with a scooped neckline, and tennis shoes. A quick stop in the bathroom to brush my hair and pull it back into a ponytail, and I was ready to go. But first, I poured myself a cup of coffee, siphoning the rest of the pot into a travel mug. The addition of a little cold water made the first cup cool enough for me to drink just as fast as I had taken my shots the night before. It didn’t taste good, a lot like brackish water, but taste wasn’t important. I needed caffeine and the faster, the better.

  Gulping the last of my coffee, I grabbed the travel mug and headed out the door. Out in the parking lot, Malcolm was just getting out of his green electric hybrid car. He raised his hand in a wave when he spotted me. I gave him a half smile in return, hoping I didn’t look too enthusiastic. I still wasn’t sure about him, and I didn’t want to encourage anything I wasn’t ready for.

  I quickened my pace wanting to be in my car before Malcolm was out of his and tried to start a conversation, but a petite woman, her dark hair styled in a professional bob, blocked my way. Black framed cat-eye glasses sat on her nose, outlining startling green eyes. A light flashed followed by the whirring of a camera.

  A reporter. Super.

  I sighed as she spoke. “Hello. I’m Wanda Walker from the Boston Herald. I was wondering if you had time for an interview.” She smiled brightly at me, teeth white and shiny. The better to rip me to pieces with.

  “No, I don’t. I have no comment either,” I said knowing she would ignore me.

  Sure enough, she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’m doing a follow up piece. You know, see how you are doing after the accident and dismissal of charges against you for involuntary manslaughter.”

  I winced at the last part and the unpleasant memories it raised. “I have no comment,” I repeated and started to brush past her.

  She kept pace with me, even though she was walking backwards, and continued her spiel. “I was hoping you would talk to me, since we have so much in common.” She toyed with a gold chain around her neck, drawing my eye to a small pendant in the shape of a pentagram.

  Were we still so clueless about psychics and witches and everything else out there? The answer to my question stood in front of me. Frowning in annoyance I said, “I’m not a witch and neither are you. If you were, you would know there was a difference between being psychic and being a witch.”

  Her smile vanished and she opened her mouth to defend herself, but I walked away with a shake of my head and shut myself in my jeep. I watched her lips move from the safety of my car, glad I couldn’t hear her. Since The Great Coming Out we had learned a lot about witches. For example, true witches had Sidhe blood in them. Everyone else was just a wannabe, a fluffbunny as the true witches called them. They were all fluff and multiplied like the proverbial rabbit, hence the nickname. No matter how many pieces of jewelry in the shape of a pentagram they owned or how often they danced under the light of the full moon, they would never have any power unless they had some Sidhe ancestry. That didn’t stop the fluff bunnies though. That was the biggest problem. Nothing stopped a fluff bunny.

  I put the jeep into reverse and eased out of my parking spot noticing Wanda had latched onto Malcolm and seemed to be interviewing him. Probably asking him if he knew me. Right after my arrest for manslaughter, the reporters had descended like locusts talking to every tenant in my apartment building. Hell, they had even gone through my garbage looking for ‘dirt’. It got so bad I had to sneak trash out under the cover of night, drive several miles to the local strip mall, and put it in their dumpsters. Not that I had anything to hide, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of someone pawing through my used Kleenex or worse.

  Besides, some reporters weren’t above using a little magic now and again to get a story. Having something of mine would have enabled them to pull all sorts of unethical and dirty reporting tactics. I’d since paid for special charms on the complex’s garbage bins to avoid future problems.

  Now the reporters were back. Wondering how I was doing. If I had been interested in talking, I would’ve said, not well, but I had no desire to feed the public’s appetite for gossip and scandal. Nor, it appeared, did Malcolm because he pushed past Wanda and trotted to the safety of the apartment entrance.

  Relief swelled up in me. Some of my neighbors had seen all the media attention as their chance to grab their fifteen minutes of fame. They told horrible lies about me, all to ensure their name would be in print or that the local television station would put them on camera. They said I was a witch, a voodoo priestess, rich, mean—you name it they said it. All those lies explained why people like Wanda thought I was a witch. So when Malc
olm refused to put another nail in the coffin holding the remains of my reputation, I was relieved. And grateful. Maybe I would take him up on his offer of coffee after all.

  *

  I found Jacob sitting outside his high-rise apartment, wincing as a loud crash came from his inside his penthouse suite.

  “What are you doing out here?” I stopped in front of him noticing he wore jogging pants and a gray T-shirt with a frayed collar. Quite a contrast to the slick, polished lawyer I had met the day before. I liked it though. The shirt showed off the lean curves of the muscles underneath. Jacob was no stranger to the gym. The same attraction I had felt when I first saw him hit me again, but I quickly squelched it with thoughts of Mark.

  “It’s safer out here, than in there.” Another loud crash proved his point. We both jumped when the door suddenly opened and then slammed shut so hard the air vibrated with the force of it.

  “When did this start?”

  “Last night, but it’s been a madhouse for the last hour.”

  “All right, then. Our first order of business is to get this under control,” I offered him a hand up which he ignored. “C’mon, there’s no time like the present.”

  “Do I really have to go in there?”

  “Scared?”

  “No, it’s been throwing things at me.” He lifted his arm to show me a bloody gash.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” I patted him on the shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said twisting the door handle and pushing the door open. Nervous and prepared to duck, I entered the apartment.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked making no move to stand.

  I ignored him and concentrated on the scene in front of me. The spacious apartment, with its bachelor accouterments of black leather and gleaming chrome, was a disaster. The screen on the large plasma TV was cracked. Clothes littered the floor and books had been thrown from the bookcases, some traveling as much as twenty feet by my estimate. The small aisle kitchen was a mess of open cupboards and a large puddle on the floor lapped at the entrance to the living room.

  On a metaphysical level, the negative energy swirling through the apartment hit me so hard I had to put a hand on the wall to steady myself. A black, formless miasma of energy hung heavy in the air, pregnant with anger. This wasn’t a ghost, but something else entirely. I had never felt anything like it and had no clue as to how to make it go away.

  “Holy crap.” I ducked as a football sailed over my head. I took a deep breath and yelled, loud as I could, “Stop it!” Several books came at me in response and I had to retreat, pulling the door shut behind me like a shield.

  “Some plan,” Jacob said as a succession of heavy thuds sounded from the other side of the door. “Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait, I did.” He shook his head. “Guess what? It didn’t work.”

  “Give me a minute.” I cracked the door open again and peeked into the apartment. Silence. I inched the door open and entered the apartment for a second time. Sensing my presence, books began to levitate and then zoom toward me, aiming straight for my head. I took a deep breath and, acting on instinct, dropped my shields, reaching for the black energy with my own. Infusing my voice with all the power I could muster I said, “Stop.” It responded by ramming into me like a hurricane from hell, but I quickly pulled my shields back into place and held firm until the black cloud sagged and finally ran out of steam, vanishing with a metaphysical ‘pop’. I’d worn it out. As strong as it was, it didn’t have much staying power.

  The books dropped like stones. I released the breath I had been holding and walked over to the kitchen to shut off the water. A thick wad of paper towels plugged the sink, the ragged edges swaying like white seaweed as the water flowed onto the floor.

  I turned to Jacob who hesitated in the doorway. “I think it’s safe to come in. At least for now.” The energy hadn’t really disappeared. I could feel it in the air, vibrating with anger. It would manifest again as soon as it recovered.

  Jacob came into the apartment cautiously stepping over books and clothes. “ What did you do?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I used to think I knew what it was to be psychic, that I understood how it all worked, but Mark’s death had rendered my knowledge base obsolete. I waved my hand in the air, “I just focused on it and whatever it was fell apart. But it’ll be back.”

  He surveyed the damage with a frown. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Neither had I, but now wasn’t the time to discuss it. I had no doubt the cease fire was temporary. There was no time to waste. “We should probably check the bathroom. I bet the water is on in there too.” I could hear what sounded like water thundering into a bathtub from where I stood.

  He nodded and led the way to the back of the apartment. Both the bathtub and sink were overflowing. I turned off the tub faucet and opened the drain while Jacob fished a washcloth out of the sink drain and turned off the water there.

  I grabbed towels off the rack and threw them onto the floor to soak up some of the water. Handing some to Jacob I said, “Here, you’d better go put these down in the kitchen before your neighbors complain of a leak.”

  He took the towels without comment and headed for the kitchen leaving me to rummage through the linen closet for more. I mopped the bathroom floor with some beach towels and then began to wipe down the vanity, sloshing water back into the sink with my hands.

  The bathroom was standard white tiles with white walls, and, in typical guy fashion, Jacob hadn’t bothered to decorate it beyond the basics. The only personal touch was the cologne sitting to the side of the sink faucet. From the emerald colored bottle, I recognized it as a brand put out by the Djinn. Curious, I sniffed the bottle, inhaling the scent of sandalwood and something I couldn’t name, but it tickled my senses and I felt my skin flush and my breath quicken.

  I put the bottle down and rubbed my nose to get the smell out. The amount of magic allowed in consumer products was strictly regulated, so I wasn’t worried about the cologne making me fall madly in lust with Jacob, but, even so, I didn’t like to be manipulated. I already found Jacob attractive enough without snorting his cologne, there was no need to make it worse than it already was.

  I rounded up the remaining dry towels and took them to the kitchen. Setting them on the kitchen counter for Jacob, I went to the living room and started picking up clothes.

  He paused from mopping the floor. “You don’t have to do that. You’re not the maid.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “It’s all garbage anyway. It’ll be an easy clean up.”

  I frowned noting the label on the shirt in my hands said Armani. Not exactly throw away clothing. “Why is it all garbage?”

  He crossed the room and took the shirt from me, turning it until I could see the burn marks. “While I was sleeping, something ironed my clothes and burned them all.”

  “Did anything survive the iron?”

  “It doesn’t look like it.” He sat on the couch and cradled his head in his hands. “Why is all this happening?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, but I haven’t seen a ghost per se, so I think we’re dealing with some kind of supernatural backlash.”

  “What? I don’t get it.”

  I went to sit next to him. “Sometimes when people die, they stay on this plane as ghosts. For whatever reason, they don’t move on. Then there are people who die and move on, but some of their emotional energy stays behind, lingering in the metaphysical plane and attaching itself to people it recognizes.” There wasn’t a lot of information out there on ghosts, but what did exist, I’d read and reread until I had it memorized. In the absence of a ghost, it had to be some sort of residual energy that had focused on Jacob.

  “So, the day I was in your apartment it was a ghost. Today it’s a supernatural energy tornado?”

  “Something like that. Your brother’s death and that
of his family probably left a lot of volatile energy behind and it seems to be focusing on you.” I moved a pile of clothes to the side so I could sit next to Jacob on the couch.

  “How do I make it stop?”

  “I would bring in a witch. There may be some charms that can blunt its effect. What I did here tonight isn’t going to last.” Already I could feel the energy building, weighing down on me.

  “What about if we find the killer? Would that help?”

  I shrugged. “Possibly.”

  His eyebrows went up. “What do you mean possibly? I thought you were an expert?”

  “Your niece was only my second ghost.”

  Jacob held up a hand. “Wait, I don’t get it. I thought you were a top notch investigator.”

  I shook my head at his all-too-common assumption. “I got my P.I. license just before Mark died. I’ve only had one case. The one that killed him.”

  He blinked. “Oh.”

  “I know in the papers they said I was some hot shot psychic detective, but that is not true. I’m really just an antique dealer who took a few night classes for her PI license.” I took a deep breath and fought not to flashback to the night of the accident. Sometimes the memories came hard and fast, something the social worker had warned me would happen. For a moment, even though my eyes were open, I didn’t see Jacob’s apartment, but the road before me on a dark winter night, and then, the vision of a young girl being strung up by her wrists to hang from the ceiling. It had been the vision that obscured my view of the road so I couldn’t see the curve. I tensed waiting for the crash to come.

  When Jacob touched me on the shoulder, I started and gave a soft cry of surprise. Slowly Jacob’s apartment came into focus, replacing the dark memories I’d been lost in.

  He jumped back as if I had burned him. “Sorry. You were gone there for a moment.”

  “Yeah, sometimes the memories…” I trailed off. Silence fell between us.