by Dana Davis
Chapter 4
Shadows and Strangers
They took a swim before lunch and Daisy reheated the pool with an inferno spell. The water helped get her mind off the mystery man—or men. At this point, she still wasn’t sure whether the one she’d seen and the one she had dream sex with were the same. After her last encounter, she had little doubt the one in the suit existed. What or who he was, well, that needed more speculation.
Daisy had never been haunted before and had no idea what to expect from a ghost. Her one unfortunate experience with a séance as young girl cured her of that curiosity faster than a rattler could snare a gecko.
“I love that you can do that,” Noah said, bringing her to more mundane thoughts. He grinned. “Bet we save a fortune on electric bills.”
“Glad to be of service.” She gave him a tilt of her head.
He pulled his sunglasses down on the end of his nose and peered at her with a sensuous gaze. “Oh, you’ll be of service, all right.”
With a giggle, she splashed him and took off to the other end of the pool.
“Come back here, wench!” He swam after her, accosting her on the beach entry, and kissed her breathless.
Afterwards, she reclined in the water and gazed at him, one hand caressing his bare chest.
“Wanna go to a movie this afternoon?”
“Nope.” She gave him a sly smile. “I picked up some DVDs yesterday at an estate sale. Figured we’d watch them before I auction ‘em off.”
He chuckled. “You mean test them to make sure they don’t have any scratches or anything?”
“Of course.” She said in a haughty tone. “I hafta stand behind my merchandise.”
She stood and walked up the beach entry and out of the pool. Noah was quick to point out that the cold air made her nipples hard. Daisy giggled. Her robe and sweatpants lay on a nearby chair and she hastened into them. Another laugh pushed out when she saw Perky at the patio door, paws on the glass, like a felon in a cell.
“We’d better let him out before he digs his way to freedom,” she said, getting a chuckle from her husband.
She let Perky outside and he immediately ran to inspect the pool. They let the dog swim during summer but the air was cool this time of year and he tended to get respiratory infections. Noah got out of the pool and shooed the dog away, distracting him with a toy.
With her bathrobe over her wet bathing suit, legs warmed by sweatpants, and dripping hair wrapped in a beach towel, Daisy pulled one of the lounge chairs into the sun and sat to watch the dog play. Noah, also in robe and sweatpants, tossed the toy saguaro across the granite yard and the dog took off after it. Perky paused to relieve himself on the lantana’s orange flowers then pranced over with the toy hanging from his mouth and dropped it at Noah’s chair. He pawed it a couple of times to make it squeak then gazed up at Noah with his tongue lolled out.
Daisy must’ve dozed because when she opened her eyes again, Perky was asleep on Noah’s lap. The sun had gone behind one of the rare winter clouds and the air grew colder.
The dog woke when she moved and she patted her thighs, causing him to jump the narrow gap from Noah’s chair to hers. Noah still dozed. She stroked Perky’s head and gazed out at the wash to see a man in a brown suit and hat, standing in front of an unruly palo verde tree. The same place she thought she’d seen someone last night. Her heart jackhammered. This was the same man she’d seen on the trail earlier today, she was certain of it, given his attire. And the one who’d invaded her bedroom and stood by her closet. Who the hell was he? And what did he want?
Could he be attacking her sexually too? She still wasn’t certain she hadn’t dreamed those attacks, since they were pleasurable sometimes. But this guy was definitely real. She glanced at Noah but he was still asleep, so she leaned forward to study the stranger, all the while keeping a trussing spell on the end of her tongue.
The man smiled and tipped his early 1960’s style hat. She couldn’t get a clear visual of his features so she pulled her sunglasses to the end of her nose and peered over them to take a better look. She waited silently, not wanting to scare him off this time. Though she wondered whether she should be screaming right about now.
The man startled her when he walked through the iron slats of the view fence. His steps made no noise on the gravel. No man could walk through a fence or noiselessly across a granite yard. No man alive anyway. He took long strides to her and she pulled Perky close. That’s when she realized the dog hadn’t barked. Perky always announced himself if strangers came into the yard or to the door. Hell, he yipped if some kid squealed from the other side of the wash. But he didn’t seem to notice this man. Despite what mortals thought, dogs didn’t bark at spirits. They simply couldn’t detect them. Had Perky been a cat, his hackles would have been up. Probably why cats got their reputation as being paranormal.
The non-corporeal stranger stood near her but he wasn’t making any threatening movements, so she decided to wait before trussing him. Hell, she wasn’t even sure spells would work on him. When he moved, she could see through him, slightly, like looking through muddy water. Not something she would have noticed from any distance.
She nodded to herself. Definitely a ghost.
Explained why Noah hadn’t seen him. Mortals could get a full sighting now and then but those were rare. They mostly caught shadows or mist. For the most part, only a paranormal with a certain level of power could see ghosts in this form, much less interact with them. Mediums, usually. But Daisy was no medium, so why would a specter visit her?
He looked in his mid-forties from what she could tell, a few years older than Noah. He looked familiar too, and she suspected it was because of their encounters the past two days. His mouth, shadowed from his hat, moved as though he tried to convey something.
“What?” she said just above a whisper.
His mouth moved again but no sound came out. Noah stirred and she glanced at him. When she turned back, the stranger was gone. Her gaze drifted to the wash but she saw no one. She drew her robe tighter and fought a shiver.
Chapter 5
A Knock at the Door
“I needed that nap,” Noah said as he stretched. “Ooh, it’s getting chilly, hon. We should go in. We didn’t put extra sunblock on after our swim, either. Don’t want to burn.” He stood and held a hand out to her and she took it. “You all right?” he said as he pulled her close. “You’re trembling.” He took Perky from her and set him down.
She hadn’t realized she was so shaken. The towel slipped from her head and she reached back to catch it. “I saw that man again.”
“Oh?” His eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses.
“He walked through the fence. Stood right here and tried to talk to me. I couldn’t make out what he said. Then he just disappeared.”
“Were you sleeping again?”
“No. I had been, but I woke up and was holding Perky.” She glanced at the dog, who was busy attacking his squeak toy. “I’m pretty sure he’s a ghost. That’s why you and the dog don’t see him. Only I don’t know what he wants with me.”
He took her in his arms. She wrapped her own around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t like this,” Noah said.
“Then you believe me?”
He stroked her back. “You’ve always had special powers, Daisy. I’ve never denied that. Maybe this is just another one showing itself.”
“I see dead people?” she quipped, using a line all too familiar in pop-culture.
“I hope not.” He chuckled. “That’s all we need. A bunch of spooks taking up residence in our home.”
She pulled her head from his shoulder and grinned up at him. “Haunted desert home. We could give tours. Maybe even get our own TV show.”
“You don’t think our home was built on an ancient burial ground, do you?”
“Very funny.” She gave him a playful smack on the arm. “I’d be running like hell if it was.”
He smiled, fi
ngered her neck and kissed her. “I’ll help if I can but I’m no witch.”
She gave him a smirk. “You do all right. For a mortal.”
“Oh, do I?” He closed his mouth over hers for a long, sensuous kiss. “I’ll show you just how well I can do, wench.”
Once she caught her breath, she said, “Later, big boy.” She giggled and led him into the house with Perky trotting behind.
After a quick shower, Daisy went into the office and made her way up the spiral staircase that led to the converted attic. Their modest library housed magickal supplies, books, family heirlooms, Noah’s childhood baseball cards, and items Daisy sold on the internet. With the new space, they could keep the clutter out of the rest of the house and didn’t have to worry about visitors stumbling onto her magick stuff.
Here, she scoured through her mom’s old books on witchcraft. Well, they were Daisy’s books now. These weren’t the type found in public libraries or bookstores. Some had spells and incantations dating from before the Christian era, even older, and others quite dangerous. They’d been copied and handed down through generations of inherent witches for safekeeping.
Daisy’s mom, Penny, had inherited these books from her mother, who’d received them from her parents and so on. These weren’t the only ones in existence, of course, but Daisy didn’t know who had the other exact copies, since family members had different books in their possession. Magick books and grimoires were too dangerous and valuable to keep every one that existed in a single location. Thus the reason for splitting them up. These books weren’t for the faint-hearted. Or non-paranormals.
If Daisy needed, she could borrow other witches’ books by simply logging online and putting in a request, along with the magickal marker that denoted her as an inherent. Ah, the joys of the internet.
She plucked another book from her stash and began to thumb through it. This one was a newer volume that contained advice on how to get rid of blemishes and unwanted facial hair. Daisy smirked at the drawing of a girl in a plain dress, standing next to a thatched hut. The scenery looked to be someplace in ancient Ireland. Or maybe Scotland.
Daisy had memorized most of the easier spells from the books by the time she was a teenager. Through the years, she’d cast one spell or another from all but three of the books. Those three had been written in some ancient language she couldn’t translate, much less read. In fact, no witch today recognized the symbols and no one knew how to decipher them. That knowledge had gotten lost somewhere in the distant past.
Daisy had even shown the symbols to several archaeologists and linguists without luck. That’s how she met Noah, at a linguists’ conference. Like now, he was a software programmer, working with a company started by one of his childhood buddies, but his father had been a linguistics professor at Arizona State University. Noah dabbled in linguistics himself, and Daisy sensed that he had a natural talent no university could teach.
She’d gone to a local convention to see if anyone there could decipher the ancient symbols. Of course, she took only photocopies of one page. That little feat took four different spells and only gave her a few hours before the photocopy ink faded. Powerful spells protected the books and no one could disable them for more than a short time. Transcribers were once a special sect of inherent witches whose ancestors dated back to the very first scrolls. No one today knew the spells used to transcribe the books and grimoires, not even Daisy. Another lost art for witchkind. Sometimes, she thought inherents were too damn paranoid.
Several experts at the conference told her the symbols were fake and refused to look into them further. Noah believed otherwise and took an interest them, which eventually led to an interest in her. He still hadn’t translated the books but he kept trying. His notes lay on a nearby shelf. Daisy smiled and glanced at the papers stacked next to their old laptop computer.
“Whatcha doin’?”
Daisy’s heart hammered against her chest as she snapped her head around. “Shit, Noah. You scared the crap out of me.”
“I hope not.” He chuckled and put Perky on the floor. “Thought you were taking time off with me. What’re you doing with the books?”
“Looking for something to explain that man I’ve been seeing.” She scratched behind Perky’s ear and he flopped down, chin resting on her knee. “The one who tried to talk to me outside.”
“That’s not all he’s been doing from what you’ve told me.” He sounded worried. And she thought she heard a touch of anger. “I wish I could help you with him.”
She smiled, wanting to keep him calm. Anger wouldn’t help. And she hated seeing him upset. “I’ll figure it out. Besides, I don’t think the one who’s been having dream sex with me is the same man—or ghost—or whatever the hell he is—that I saw in the wash.”
Noah seemed to calm as he sat at the small table and gazed out one of the double-paned windows they’d installed when they converted the attic to a library. Arizona homes weren’t known for usable attics but Daisy had always liked the ones she’d seen on TV and in movies.
“Oh,” Daisy said. “I meant to tell you Jake called yesterday. I told him you’d call this weekend. He really should get a computer so he can just email you.”
“He’s too old.”
Noah, now thirty-nine, was the youngest of four boys and a surprise, since his mother was almost fifty when she conceived. His parents died a while back, before Daisy and Noah had even met, and his siblings were either retired or considering it.
“He’s not too old to learn to use a computer,” Daisy assured him. With that thought, she reminded herself to put in a request on the witches forum, see if anyone online had information she could use.
“No, but he thinks he is.”
She chuckled and shook her head. She’d had her thirty-fifth birthday last month but still felt much as she did in her twenties, though her body didn’t always respond the way it used to. Especially during workouts. Sex was better now, though, and she smiled to herself.
“Here’s something,” Noah said. He’d been searching a pile of books near the table. “Ghosts, Apparitions and Spirits. Sounds like what you’re looking for.” He grinned as he handed it to her.
Daisy turned the book to inspect the spine and gave a light kick to his shoe. “Very funny. That’s one of those series books from the 1980s. Dad used to get them for Mom as a joke.”
“I wish I could’ve met him.”
“He would’ve liked you. I’m sure of it.” She offered a smile and Noah winked. Her father hadn’t been a strong witch but he was quick and could recite a spell after just a couple of read-throughs. Daisy wished she’d inherited his memory genes.
She growled in frustration and Perky’s ears went up. “I’m not having any luck with these.” She put the current magick books aside with several grimoires and turned to another stack.
Most sat on the vintage bookshelf she’d salvaged from an estate sale. And boy was that thing a bitch to get up the spiral staircase. They had to take it apart and reassemble it. But some were just too damn big. Those she kept in a cedar trunk that had once belonged to her grandmother. Right now, several of the oversized magick books were stacked on the Navajo rug similar to the one in the master bedroom.
She and Noah perused two more books before her vision began to blur and a vicious yawn escaped. “I need a break. Want some cocoa?”
“That’d be great.” Noah stood and stretched. “And some of those cookies you made.”
“Sure.” Perky jerked to life at her change in pitch. “Oatmeal goes great with chocolate.”
They made their way to the stairs when a tingle caressed Daisy’s senses and she froze.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” The sensation became stronger when she turned to her left, and she followed a suspected magickal trail. It led her to the lowest shelf of the bookcase. While in a squat, she moved one hand slowly in front of the book spines until she found the culprit. “Here.” She gaped at her husband and sat, legs folded.
“That’s a first. I’ve never felt one of the books before.”
Noah planted himself behind her and peered over her right shoulder, Perky cradled in one arm. “What’s in that one?” he said.
One hand caressed her back and she allowed the motion to soothe her nerves. “History and general information mostly. A few minor spells.”
“Like what?”
“Ancient anti-shrouding spells to make something lost appear. Like candles, jewelry, trinkets, stuff like that.”
“You have spells for that?”
“I have spells for just about everything. You have to remember the times these were written. A misplaced candle or match meant darkness or no heat and food.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
She glanced over one shoulder and smiled at her husband. “How do you think I found your keys last week?”
His eyes widened. “Really? I thought I’d just missed seeing them on the desk.”
“No. I used a spell to locate them. On the laundry room floor beside the washer. They fell out of a hole in your pocket.” A mischievous grin grew on her lips.
“Isn’t there some law about personal gain?”
She laughed. “Only in the movies.”
She’d explained her paranormal heritage to Noah briefly, when they got serious about each other, enough that he understood she had powers. She’d expected him to run screaming but he’d seemed unfazed by the whole thing. After a few startling demonstrations anyway. They’d been married five years now and he’d never frowned on magick, but except for trying to decipher the mysterious books, he hadn’t actively wanted to learn more. Until now. She caught his confusion and decided to give him a more in-depth lesson on paranormals.
“I’ll explain more downstairs.”
She glanced at a few more pages. General history about coven laws and what to do if an outsider stumbled into a meeting—most covens these days were simply online groups. There was a warning on séances, which Daisy intended to heed. She might be an inherent witch but no sense tempting fate by dabbling with the dead, even if one of them had contacted her. They were just too damned unpredictable. Besides, she wasn’t a medium. She motioned Noah up and took the book downstairs to peruse on the comfort of the couch.