Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4)

by J. A. Pitts

  I sat there with those pictures on the desk, trying to see myself the way she saw me. The pictures were intimate, quiet.

  What the hell would I ever do without her? I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, fending off tears. I had to figure out what had happened here. That was my mission. Then I could figure out how to bring her home.

  I wrapped the pictures back in the scarf and left them in the bottom of the drawer. I’d take her purse with me when we left.

  I leaned back in her chair and stared out across the room. The desks were tiny. All along the walls were brightly colored posters with Muppets, actors, and athletes saying things like “Gym time is fun time” and “Milk makes you strong”. Katie hated them. Said they were paid advertisements, but it drew money into the schools, helped buy pencils and paper.

  Qindra meandered around the classroom for a few minutes, then made a beeline back to the bathroom.

  “They cleaned up in here,” she called, stepping back to look at me through the open door, “but they did a piss-poor job. Come look at this.”

  I leveraged myself out of Katie’s chair and wove between the desks. This was her domain. Every inch of it radiated Katie.

  I leaned around the doorframe and followed where Qindra was pointing. In the very corner of the room was a supply cabinet. Underneath it something glowed purple, like neon running lights on one of those souped-up street racer cars.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, squatting down and craning my head sideways.

  “Not sure,” she said, looking at me. “Started glowing when I cast a revealing charm on the room. But I’m not touching it.”

  “Seriously?” I went down onto my knees, lowered my torso and reached for the cabinet when Qindra grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me back.

  “You neither,” she said. “That’ll kill you.”

  I looked between her and the purple glow. “And you know this, how?”

  She squatted down beside me and waved her wand in front of the cabinet. She drew three runes I was beginning to recognize from her: Perthro, Nauthiz, and Ansuz. Each one formed the point of a triangle which created a lens to look through. It revealed hidden truths. She’d used it to show me just how utterly fucked up the house out in Chumstick had been with all the necromancer bullshit present.

  I had a flash of CSI: Seattle—Special Dragon Unit. Qindra could have her own television show. Or maybe I just needed more sleep.

  The runic filter showed us the impression of blood on the walls and all across the floor. The janitor had used either bleach or ammonia to mop up, but the psychic residue was not so easily removed.

  As she moved her wand, the lens floated around letting us examine the whole room before she settled it once again near the floor in front of the cabinet.

  It didn’t look like it was going to explode, or bite us, or anything. There was just this hint of secrecy and danger.

  “Blood is powerful,” she said, quietly. “Taints an area. Hard to purge.”

  “Burning sage and lilac helps,” I said, absent-mindedly.

  She looked at me funny and nodded. “Yes, that’s true. You surprise me.”

  I shrugged at her. I’m a quick study. And we’d used it to clear away the negative stuff out at Circle Q after the necromancer had slaughtered Blue Thunder.

  “Maybe we can move the cabinet, see what’s under there without reaching with our hands. What do you think?” I thought it was a grand idea.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Let me try something else, first.”

  She went back out into the classroom and over to Katie’s desk. She poked through the pencil mug she kept there and drew one out that had teeth marks in the wood. She tapped it with her wand once, then brought it to me. “Hold this.”

  I took the pencil and immediately got the strongest sense of Katie. “Yeah,” I said. “This is definitely hers.”

  “Good,” she said, plucking the pencil out of my hand again. She tapped the wand against the pencil again and spoke some words I recognized as probably being Latin. Might have been some German thrown in, I couldn’t rightly tell.

  The pencil glowed a solid throbbing green, calm and peaceful. She squatted down again and rolled the pencil under the cabinet. Whatever was under there didn’t mind the pencil visiting, because the purple glow strobed a couple of times and became green for a few heartbeats. Then the purple began to once again overtake the green.

  “Okay, sympathetic magic,” she said. “Whatever is under there belongs to Katie.”

  “Good enough for me.” I stood up and grabbed the cabinet with both arms. I leaned back, heaving it off the ground and stepped back with my left foot, pivoting. Basically I swung around like a barn door and set the cabinet down with a grunt.

  Qindra whistled. “I forget how freaking strong you are,” she said.

  I shrugged, embarrassed. “Side-effect of the smithing,” I said.

  We peered around the cabinet and saw that the glowing thing was a book.

  “Looks like a diary,” Qindra said.

  Diary? Holy cats, was this her mom’s diary?

  Qindra studied the book through her magic lens for a moment, then looked at me shaking her head. “There’s more wards and spells on that book than I could muster in a year,” she said. “If that belongs to Katie, then Black Briar is way beyond anything we’d considered.”

  Frak.

  I squatted down, picked up the pencil and poked the book with it. Qindra started to protest, but didn’t stop me in time.

  Nothing happened.

  “Your turn,” I said, handing her the pencil. She looked at me dubiously but took it. She leaned in and moved the pencil toward the book, slowly. At about four inches away, the pencil burst into flames.

  Qindra dropped back, swearing and holding her hand. The pencil hit the floor, blazing.

  “Graphite is a conductor,” she said, putting the palm of her against her lips and sucking the burned point.

  “Okay, I can move it, you not so much.” I took a paper cup from the dispenser by the sink and filled it with water, then I poured it over the pencil. The flames went out immediately. The pencil wasn’t damaged. “Freaky.”

  “Indeed,” Qindra said, examining the angry red welt on her palm.

  I picked up the pencil with no trouble. “Here goes nothing.” I reached over and poked the book with the pencil. No flames.

  “I still wouldn’t touch the book itself, if I were you,” she said. I think maybe she was pouting a little.

  “Think I can pick it up if I only touch it with something of Katie’s?” I looked back at her for support.

  “Can’t leave it here, that’s for sure,” she said. “First person to touch it is getting fried.”

  “Good point.”

  “I’d like to bury it somewhere and forget we ever saw it. I have a bad feeling.” She looked worried, that was true. But also frustrated.

  I poked the book again. “Well, we’re not burying it, and since you can’t touch it, I’m taking it out of here. It may clue me in about what happened to Katie.”

  She sighed. “I think if we can wrap it in something of hers, we may be able to pick it up.”

  Okay, she was still in the game. I grinned up at her. “I’ve got just the thing.” I got up and went back to the desk and took the scarf I’d made for Katie out of the bottom drawer. I was careful to leave the pictures. Those were hers alone.

  “How’s this?” I asked.

  She did her little sympathy magic charm and nodded at me when the scarf glowed green.

  I bent down, lay the scarf over the book a couple of folds. The stitches were not the tightest weave.

  Hey, it was my first knitting project.

  I held my breath and scooped the book up. Nothing happened. I walked across the room, set the book on Katie’s desk and pulled the scarf away.

  It didn’t look dangerous, but I understood the nature of magic. Size was not important.

  Qindra performed several more spell
s on the book, yelping once as whatever spell she’d used rebounded and punched her in the face.

  “It doesn’t like to be examined,” she said, rubbing her eye. “But I can safely say whatever exploded out and swept over this region started with this book.”

  I sat on the edge of the desk and poked the book with Katie’s pencil. “Great. Now we have to find out what the hell Katie was doing with it.”

  Qindra looked at me questioningly. “Secrets between you?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t start,” I said. But I didn’t like that thought.

  “Sorry,” she said, nodding. “Your business. Still. I’d like to take the book, but I’m afraid it would explode.”

  I looked up at her, thinking. If this was Katie’s mother’s, then she and Jimmy would kill me for letting it fall into Nidhogg’s domain. On the other hand, I didn’t know any other witches.

  I plunked the pencil back into the coffee mug with all the others and saw a business card tucked inside. I pulled it out and glanced at the name.

  Charlie Hague. Things just got a whole lot more complicated. “Christ,” I breathed.

  “What is it?” Qindra asked, reaching for the card.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, pocketing it. “Katie has a doctor’s appointment. Guess that’s a moot point now, huh?”

  She looked at me. No idea if she saw the lie or not. She didn’t have her wand waving around at the time, but you never knew for sure.

  “And the book?” she asked.

  “I’ll take it,” I said, dropping the scarf over it again. “If this is that dangerous, I think I should hang onto it a bit, see what Katie says when she wakes up.”

  She didn’t like that answer. Qindra was not used to asking, and definitely not used to being denied a request.

  “Fine,” she said, tucking her wand back into her purse. “We know the source of the event. Shall we tend to the victims?”

  “Do you think you can do something?”

  She smiled a sad smile and patted me on the arm. “As you’ve pointed out, I have a knack for healing. I’ll do what I can for them. Then I must get home to Nidhogg.”

  I didn’t blame her. Nidhogg had proven to be more than a little unstable of late, what with her flying out to Chumstick and mixing it up for the first time in a few hundred years. Qindra thought Nidhogg was even more erratic.

  Erratic dragons were not fun to have around.

  “I’ll put this someplace safe,” I said, wrapping the scarf around it and tucking it inside Katie’s huge purse.

  “Fair enough.”

  We walked out into the courtyard and made our way across the parking lot. I hated lying to her on Katie’s behalf. If I have to choose sides, I’ll always err on the side of Katie. I just wish she’d told me about the book.

  And what the hell was she doing meeting with Charlie Hague? Had she met up with him before or after the crazy meeting in Bellevue? Were he and Katie keeping this from me?

  I didn’t like it, not one little bit. Secrets got people killed.

  I’d get a hold of Charlie at the next free moment, but in the meantime I wanted to see what Qindra could do. If she could push Katie on the right path to recovery, I’d love her forever.

  Fifteen

  We drove out to Valley Medical since we were already in Kent. While Qindra stripped off several pieces of jewelry and arranged some things in her trunk, I grabbed Katie’s purse. I had no intention of leaving that out here for someone to snatch. I waited by the elevator while Qindra finished up.

  “Going in as incognito as I can,” she said, smiling. “Too much of the woo-woo stuff, and the electronics get a little wacky.”

  I nodded. All hail the woo-woo stuff.

  It was surreal riding the elevator with her. The music was an odd string arrangement of an old Clash tune and the juxtaposition there made my head hurt.

  We made it all the way to the nurse’s station before anyone even looked at us. Busy people, lots of folks going up and down the halls. And not many people making eye contact. This was a place of hope and pain.

  Qindra did something that allowed her to slip into the ICU unnoticed while I chatted up the charge nurse. There was a lot of equipment in the room, electronics and such which didn’t like magic. Qindra didn’t spend much time in there. She did something, no idea what, because all the alarms started going off and the nurse whipped around and dashed into the room, grabbing a crash cart on the inside. I looked around and Qindra was gone. Could she teleport? Or somehow turn invisible? How awesome and scary would that be?

  While the alarms were still going off, my cell phone rang. It was Qindra.

  “I touched her head,” she said, panic leaking into her voice. “I was using something quiet and low-key to encourage her body’s own abilities to heal when a presence pushed me away. It was strong, Sarah. Something nasty. Then the alarms started going off. Katie opened her eyes, snarled at me, and everything went black.”

  “Where are you?” I asked, glancing around. The hallways were deserted. Several people stuck their heads out of doors along the corridor, but no one was running down the hall or anything.

  “I have no idea what the hell is going on,” Qindra said, getting control over her panic. “She dismissed me. One minute I was examining her and the next I was standing outside my car.”

  I stood by the nurses’ desk, looking in through the huge glass windows, watching them work. Katie was moving around. I saw one arm rise in the air. When the nurses moved around I saw one of her feet wiggling.

  “She’s moving,” I said into the phone. A rattling noise caught my attention and I turned to see Katie’s purse vibrating. I looked inside and to see the book was convulsing. Holy crap.

  “We may have a problem …”

  “I have another call,” Qindra said, clicking over.

  I waited, holding the purse closed and watching the nurses work. A doctor ran into the room after a minute and then a second. Katie was starting to fight them. One of the nurses inserted something into her IV and she settled down.

  So did the book.

  “I have to go,” Qindra’s voice echoed out of the phone. “When I touched Katie, Nidhogg had another fit.”

  The line went dead and I slipped the phone into my pocket. “What the hell is going on with you, Katie?” I asked no one. “What have you gotten into?”

  Or, maybe the question was, what has gotten into you.

  The doctors came out after another five minutes. Katie had never really woken up, they said. She was fighting in her sleep and ripped off several sensors. They were pleased she was showing signs of life. One of them was sporting a fat lip. “She’s a fighter,” he said, grinning.

  I sat in the waiting room and called Jimmy to tell them about Katie’s condition. He tracked down Skella on his own, and within twenty minutes he was chatting with the nurse while Deidre and Skella sat with me, waiting.

  I held the purse in my lap in a total death grip. I wasn’t letting that damn thing out of my sight. I was strongly debating having it around Katie at all.

  I needed to know when she’d taken the diary. Before Christmas Deidre had refused to give it to her, said it was too dangerous. Hell, it had almost killed Jimmy when he touched it a decade earlier.

  But it was her mother’s, right? Why would it be so damn dangerous?

  Did it have something to do with Katie’s parents disappearing? Was there a connection here we hadn’t figured out? It all gave me a headache. Maybe I should just give the damn thing to Qindra and let her figure it out.

  On the other hand, the diary reacted pretty damned negatively to Qindra. I sure as hell didn’t want her getting killed. Who else would control Nidhogg?

  I looked down at my phone. It had been a couple of hours since Qindra had to rush home to a dragon in fits. Had she been in time.

  Which got me to thinking on the nature of magic. How come Qindra could use a cell phone? Maybe she wasn’t leaking magic all the time. I bet when she was doing her squiggle magi
c, none of the phones worked.

  Timing, I guess. It was just so damn confusing. I’d test the theory at some point.

  I held Katie’s purse against my chest and felt the book through the thin leather. As I sat there, I noticed that it throbbed ever so slightly, like a heartbeat. I stood and went to the window, looking in on the room where they had Katie restrained and sedated. I could see the heart monitor, watched as each beat spiked and fell. Spiked and fell in time with the pulsing of the book.

  Maybe this wasn’t Katie’s mother’s book any longer. Maybe it was Katie’s, like the amulet I wore became mine when Anezka had me hold it that first time back last fall. Made me consider if magic was sentient somehow.

  Like my sword, Gram. She spoke to me, sang in my head. She was willful and had her own agenda. Why wouldn’t other artifacts behave the same. Gram chose me, the amulet chose me. This book chose Katie.

  I just wish I knew why it was so damn dangerous. Was that what Qindra had sensed? A connection to the book? I needed more information. Needed to ask questions, but hell if I knew who to ask.

  Sixteen

  JJ died on the operating table around the same time Qindra had touched Katie. I’d bet money it was within seconds. Jennifer called me to let me know. Wendy had to be sedated. Her parents were coming up from Lacey to take her home with them for a few days, to let her find some balance. It was all so damned useless.

  Melanie knew one of the nurses at Harborview who told her that it was like JJ’s head exploded. They were prepping him for surgery when a piece of his skull the size of a quarter erupted, spraying the operating theater in blood and brains. No one had ever seen anything like it. Except maybe from a bullet. There was no bullet, though. Not a physical one, that is. More like a psychic magical trigger of some sort. She said several pieces of the equipment were also fried at that exact same time, like a power surge. Really bizarre.