by Gary Jonas
“Joseph Sinclair?” I asked.
He nodded. “He was supposed to pay me to keep an eye on them, but the money vanished from my account. Then he disappeared, and the binding spell he used on the Dark Ones broke.”
I’d defeated Sinclair and his men a few weeks ago. I guess he had a couple of surprises in store should my father prove to be too much for him to handle. “Wait a second,” I said. “You were working for Sinclair?”
“I needed the money.”
“Whatever. Go on.”
“The Dark Ones are methodical,” Gene said. “They started on the west side of Houston, and they’ve been consuming all the ghosts, and feeding on fear, but they haven’t been focused on the living people, which means they’re on the move for a reason. There are more ghosts in Galveston than anywhere else in Texas.”
“When it comes to the United States, there are more ghosts here than just about anywhere other than Ellis Island,” Lakesha said.
“But there’s a more important reason for them to come here than the ghosts,” I said. “I stopped Sinclair, so they must be after me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lakesha laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
She kept laughing, and went so far as to pat her ample thighs with her hands.
I stared at her and waited.
Gene stared, too, because, like me, he was in the dark.
Tears streamed down Lakesha’s cheeks, and she wiped them away.
Isis pushed through the beaded curtains to see what was wrong with the witch she owned. Isis gave a questioning meow.
Lakesha took a moment to catch her breath. “Oh dear,” she said. “That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.” And she laughed again.
“What?” I asked, getting defensive. “I stopped Sinclair.”
“So the story goes,” she said, still chuckling. “But for you to think the Dark Ones would know or care about that and come hunting you is too damn funny.”
I scratched my head. “I don’t see the humor there.”
“Sinclair didn’t see you as a threat, so there’s no way he would have given the Dark Ones any kind of orders about that. You’re a third-rate slacker with delusions of grandeur.”
Gene pointed to the ceiling with his index finger. “One moment, please,” he said. “Am I to understand that you defeated Joseph Sinclair?”
“I didn’t stutter.”
“And yet I was able to manipulate you with a simple spell?”
Lakesha shook her head. “This one has power, but lacks knowledge, drive, demeanor, focus, and intelligence.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing,” I said.
“You say that with him sitting right here?” Gene asked.
“I’m being blunt,” she said, “but I’m also being nicer about it than his father.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“I don’t care about magic,” I said.
“Who is his father?” Gene asked.
“Nathaniel Masters,” Lakesha said.
Gene looked at me. “No,” he said, stretching it out so doubt dripped from the word.
“Yes,” Lakesha said.
He looked like he was about to say no again, so I folded my arms, leaned back and glared at him. He had the grace not to continue down that path.
“Is he powerful enough to dispatch the Dark Ones?” Gene asked.
“Not without taking half a city block with them,” I said.
“We wouldn’t want that.”
Lakesha shrugged. “Depends on which block.”
“Can we draw from him?”
She nodded. “Blood magic is powerful, but if we lend our control, our own power is enhanced, which could be problematic. If we destroy the Dark Ones, that magic would come back at us three times.”
“If we spread it across the entire coven, we might be able to handle it.”
“I’m lost,” I said. “What’s this three times stuff?”
“When a witch uses magic, it comes back at her three times. If that magic is used in a positive manner, that means three good things will happen. If we use our magic in a negative manner, three bad things happen. As these things are relative, and Dark Ones would take an immense amount of energy to destroy, you can see the problem.”
“That was a lot of words there.”
She sighed. “Good or bad reflects three times.”
“But destroying a Dark One would be a good thing,” I said.
“Destroying things is not a positive use of power.”
“So when you use magic to zap my ass, you pay for it three times?” I asked.
She grinned. “In that case, it’s worth it.”
“Ha ha,” I said.
“What do you think?” Gene asked Lakesha. “If it’s spread out, can we survive?”
“No clue,” Lakesha said. “It’s still a lot of power coming at each of us. And it might be divided up based on the skill level of each individual witch or it might be divided equally. If it’s equal, any low level witches would certainly die.”
“You got anything to drink here?” I asked. “Beer? Whiskey?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m bored, and if I have to listen to more witch nonsense, it would go down easier with alcohol.”
“Being bored is a sign of low curiosity,” Gene said.
“Bingo,” I said. “Your problems don’t interest me. I should at least be able to get drunk.”
“I don’t keep alcohol here,” Lakesha said.
“With all these herbs, you must have something to make me happy and relaxed. Maybe some GSC?”
“What is that?” Gene asked.
“Ignore him,” Lakesha said. “He’s an idiot.”
“I want to know. What is GSC?” Gene asked again.
“Girl Scout Cookies,” I said.
“Oh, I love the Thin Mints,” Gene said. “I always buy three boxes when the neighborhood troop is camped out at the grocery store.”
“Me too, but I prefer the Samoas,” Lakesha said. She glared at me. “If I had any cookies here, I wouldn’t share.”
I sighed. They obviously didn’t get GSC, and I doubted they’d get Gorilla Glue Number Four, either. “Never mind.”
“Now I’m hungry,” Gene said. “Cookies sound good.”
“They do,” Lakesha said. “But we should discuss the problem with the Dark Ones.”
“I don’t care about any of this,” I said. “Wake me when you’re done.” I rested my arms on the table and put my head down so I could take a nap.
“Oh no you don’t,” Lakesha said and pounded on the table.
“Come on,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Die die die, Regina said.
“Great, you woke the damn ghost,” I said.
Die die die!
Go back to sleep.
We need to die.
You’re already dead, I told her. Leave me out of it.
Time to die!
“She won’t shut up,” I said.
“You shouldn’t try to avoid your responsibilities,” Lakesha said.
Die die die!
You asked for it. I mentally sang “It’s a Small World.”
Die, you evil man, die!
The song got stuck in my head, and while Regina tried to fight it, her words couldn’t penetrate it. Some magic doesn’t require blood. Then again, I had to suffer through the song, too. I kinda regretted my decision.
“This is your fault,” I said, pointing at Lakesha. “My least favorite song in the entire world is stuck in my head now. Well, one of my least favorite songs. I think ‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber might take that bottom spot, but… oh no, now that’s getting stuck in my head.”
“Serves you right,” Lakesha said.
Make it stop! Regina screamed in my head.
I wish I could.
Stop! Regina disappeared in there somewhere.
I broke into the chorus of “All Abo
ut That Bass” by Meghan Trainor.
Lakesha and Gene stared at me like I was crazy, but it worked and after a few runs through the chorus, I managed to knock Bieber out of my head.
“I think I’m good now,” I said.
“I don’t,” Gene said.
“Your father wants you to help people,” Lakesha said.
“That was not helpful,” Gene said.
“Whatever, dude.”
“No,” Lakesha said. “Your father wants you to assist people with their problems, and Mr. Black has a doozie that could affect the entire city. You have to learn to use your magic, and this is a perfect opportunity.”
“I don’t want to do it. I need my beauty rest.” I saw she wasn’t buying that one, so I tried again. “Who says there are any Dark Dudes, anyway?”
“I do,” Gene said.
“I don’t know you.”
“There are Dark Ones,” Lakesha said. “I know what he’s saying is true, and if you look deep, you’ll know it too.”
“Look deep? What kind of bullshit is that?”
“You’re just being lazy. It’s your job to help people in trouble now. That’s why your father is paying you a stipend.”
“I doubt my old man wants me to help thieves.”
“You’re a thief,” Gene said.
“As my father doesn’t want to help me, I rest my case.”
“He helps your uncle,” Lakesha said.
Uncle Paul loved stealing shit, and my father had helped him many times over the years, so my case didn’t get to rest for long.
“Well, shit,” I said. “He doesn’t want me to help witches?”
Lakesha gave me a slow blink.
“I know,” I said. “He doesn’t want me to help ghosts? I mean, who cares if these Dark Dudes eat up a few ghosts. Right?”
“You want them to destroy Demetrius?”
“No.”
“Then I rest my case.”
And her case stayed rested.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“So how long have you been a warlock?” I asked.
Gene and I were alone in Lakesha’s backroom because she’d gone out to deal with a customer. I wasn’t sure what to say to the old man, so that seemed like an okay way to make small talk. He looked at me like I was retarded.
“I’m a witch,” he said. “Part of the coven.”
“Yeah, but male witches are called warlocks. Right?”
“I call myself a witch.”
“So you think of yourself as a chick?”
“Witch is a gender neutral term,” Gene said.
“I hear the word witch and I think chick. If I were you, I’d call myself a warlock because it sounds cool.”
“You, sir, are a moron.”
“It’s not my fault you chose an effeminate occupation,” I said.
“I don’t think of it as an occupation, I think of it as who I am at my core.”
“A chick?”
He sighed and shook his head.
“Go with warlock,” I said with a nod. “Unless you’re gay. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care one way or the other. It’s cool if you blow dudes in your spare time, and if that’s the case, being a witch makes sense. But if you want a strong masculine job, you should definitely call yourself a warlock.”
“Shut up.”
“Just saying.”
Lakesha returned. “Are you two getting along?”
“No,” Gene said.
“Yes,” I said at the same time.
“I don’t want to know,” she said.
“It seems to me that girly-boy Gene here might not be as honest as he claims,” I said.
Gene shot me that look that suggested I was mental again. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You show up out of nowhere, expecting us to help you. Seems mighty convenient to me. Like the lobster dude in the Star Wars movies says, ‘It’s a trap.’”
Lakesha gave me the same look Gene did.
“Boy, did you smoke something while I was gone?”
“Yeah, you were gone so long, I rolled up some coriander and sage doobies,” I said. “Witchiepoo here didn’t want any, so I kept it all to myself and I feel so much better now.”
“He’s lying,” Gene said. “He didn’t smoke anything.”
“I know that,” Lakesha said.
“So why did he show up the way he did?” I asked.
“You don’t believe him when he says he needs a witch to fill the coven or are you still trying to get out of doing anything?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t like trusting him when he’s known thief and ghost-napper spinning yarns about Dark Things coming to eat people.”
“The Dark Ones feed on souls,” Lakesha said. “They kill people, but they don’t eat them.”
“How do we know this isn’t a trap? Maybe they kidnapped Sabrina, and they have her at an underground bunker where they can do Shakespearian double, double toil and trouble shit to her. Abigail could be guarding her right now, fixing to chop her up and stir her into a cauldron of nasty boiling gunk.”
Lakesha rolled her eyes. “Why do you say that?”
“Have you seen Sabrina today?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. You know who else we haven’t seen? Abigail. And Abigail is a witch, so she could be torturing Sabrina while we’re sitting here with Gene.”
“For the last time, my name is not Gene.”
“You’ll always be Gene to me,” I said.
Lakesha rubbed her temples. “You’re giving me a headache, Brat. I’m a witch, and I don’t do the whole Macbeth routine. But, fine. Let’s set your mind at ease. You have a phone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Call Sabrina.”
I hesitated because she had to bring logic into the situation. All this magical influence stuff was messing with my mind. Besides, how can you trust some dude who wants to be a witch instead of a warlock?
After taking a few breaths and staring at Lakesha longer than I should have, I pulled out my phone, scrolled through my “recents” and called Sabrina.
She answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Brett?”
“You okay?”
“Of course. Why?”
“You didn’t come home last night.”
“So?”
“So I’m here with a suicide ghost pecking the inside of my head, and a couple of witches telling me we have to stop the Dark Ones, and—”
“Stop talking,” Sabrina said. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Where did I lose you?”
“You haven’t expelled Regina yet?”
“So I lost you right from the start? I thought I was the one who needed things in six words or less.”
“Fewer,” she said. “Sorry, I can’t help correcting you.”
“Whatever. Can you come to Lakesha’s store?”
“I’m with Michael.”
“Bring him along.”
“Sunlight is not his friend.”
“Then leave his ass behind.”
“He drove.”
“Uber it.”
“Is there some emergency?” she asked.
I covered the microphone on the phone, and faced Lakesha. “When do we need Sabrina? Or do we need her at all?”
“She’s a mid-level wizard, so yes, it would be good to have her along when we face the Dark Ones. Your vampire friend would be welcome, too.”
I uncovered the phone. “When can you and Michael get here?”
“After the sun goes down, so eight thirty or nine?”
“That will have to do,” I said, but I knew from the previous night that Regina would get extra antsy as eleven o’clock rolled closer. I’d be ready to party, and she’d be ready to die. Stupid ghost was already dead. Still, I was handling her better than Abigail had. Unless Abigail had been faking it.
Yeah, I have trust issues.
I finished the call and gave Lakesha a shrug. �
��She’ll be here by nine or so.”
Lakesha nodded. “Where are the Dark Ones now?”
Gene hesitated. “They’re holed up at Alsup’s Auto Salvage in South Houston, but they’re difficult to track, so it’s possible they could have moved on by now.”
“That’s an hour away,” I said.
“So?”
“So I have a suicidal ghost in me, and she gets more motivated as her death time approaches.”
“The Dark Ones won’t leave their base until midnight unless there’s a mass murder or major accident to feed on.”
“Ghosts are more active after people go to sleep,” Lakesha said.
“The Dark Ones feed on ghosts because they’re easy marks,” Gene said. “The living tend to fight back, and when they kill people, it tends to attract wizards and paranormal warriors, so they prefer the low hanging fruit. But these two have been feeding, so they’re a lot stronger than you’d expect.”
Lakesha considered that for a moment, then pointed at me. “You, go home and get that black onyx necklace. We need to make preparations for your coming battle.”
“My coming battle?”
She grinned. “Picked up on that, did you?”
“Kinda hard to miss.”
“It was more than six words, so I thought I could slip it past you. Maybe you pay more attention than you claim.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Fight the Dark Ones. You’ll have help. Sabrina and Michael can assist you in the fight.”
“But you witches are going to sit it out?”
“If we attack something with magic, it comes back at us three times. That’s not a problem for wizards or vampires.”
“This is sounding less and less like something I want to be a part of,” I said.
“Too bad. Go get the necklace.”
“What about Regina? You going to help me get rid of her?”
“We’ll deal with that later.”
“So I’m going to have Dark Dudes trying to kill me from outside, and a ghost trying to kill me from inside?”
“You’re a member of the Masters family,” Lakesha said. “This should be child’s play for a wizard of your stature.”
“Seeing as how you haven’t taught me a damn thing about magic, and neither has Sabrina, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.”