by J. R. Rain
“No!” Elise snaps from meek to furious in an instant. She lunges toward Peyton, pointing at her face. “I’m tired of being scared. You were never supposed to be. I did not want to summon you. You snuck through my gateway without permission. You’re going back where you came from!”
“Little fool. Your blood brought me here. I won’t leave without taking more. Much more.”
Abigail lights a sage bundle, and walks around, smudging the area. “Let the sacred smoke take the unwanted energy, the dark thoughts, the dark forces, and carry them back to the Source.”
Leaving Rick to hold Peyton in place, I take my position at the southeast point. Colleen stands at Earth, Elise at Air, Tamika at Water, and Caius at the Spirit point in the north.
“Let them be transformed,” I chant, along with the others. “Let the Goddess reshape that which is dark and bring new light.”
Once the smudging is complete, Abigail draws her athame sword and walks the circle three times. The shadow inside Peyton continues tormenting Elise with random comments about how much it loved killing her father, or mocking her for being sad over her dead mother. Each remark seems only to make Elise angrier. It’s a strange look on the slight young woman. Unsettling, even.
When Abigail passes me on her third circle, I stoop and light the candle representing Fire. Colleen plucks a pinch of soil from the ground and filters it through her fingers. Elise lets a feather float. Tamika sprinkles water, and Caius bows his head in focus on the Spirit.
Abigail stops in the middle of the circle, resting her sword over her shoulder, point skyward. “We combine our magic. We bridge the world of spirit with the world of earth. We call that which has always been. Rise up from the earth, feast upon the fire, take power from the air, and seek the wisdom of water.”
“Blessed be,” I chant, in unison with the others.
Rick looks around at us, his right eyebrow stuck up in an expression of perpetual WTF. If he hadn’t seen Peyton’s eyes go solid black, he’d probably be wisecracking. Fortunately, he stays quiet.
Abigail waves the sword around. “I create a circle of sacred space to protect us from this dark energy, this energy unwanted, this energy we seek to return to the veil. Goddess, we ask for your presence and blessing.”
Flames dancing upon the shrouded candles at the five star points grow long and bright. The mood of the air changes; I bask in the presence of the Goddess. Peyton’s gone quiet. She shivers and sniffles, acting meek and afraid, but her eyes are still black.
“Darkness beckoned, darkness banished,” chants Abigail.
We repeat it.
Elise steps forward, clutching a thick square of folded paper. My jaw tightens, hoping she’s not using hex magic. I’m sure she’s written something about her desire to undo what she did, to banish this entity back into the ether. She chants:
“Once, I beckoned into the veil.
“To hide from sorrows’ lonely wail.
“Unwanted shadow, go away.
“Over me, you hold no sway.”
Elise sets the folded paper in a bowl close to Peyton’s feet. Colleen and Tamika each add a handful of mixed herbs. Abigail offers Elise a small bottle, which she takes. When she pours the oil over the paper and herbs, the fragrance of angelica wafts up.
“You will bleed,” says Peyton in the dark voice, rattling her handcuffs. “Light that spell and you will suffer.”
Elise doesn’t look up from the bowl as she removes a lighter from her pocket and sets fire to the oil. In seconds, her letter and the herbs are engulfed. A thick shaft of blue-white smoke rises from the bowl.
“You have no power over me. I banish you from whence you came. I call upon the Goddess, Lord Cernunnos, and Morrigan to drag you into the veil. I call upon Brighid to heal my scars, within and without. I reject your presence and your claim on me.”
Peyton starts to laugh, but stops with a shocked expression when Elise pulls a small knife from her pocket. “You bitch!”
Elise draws the blade across her left hand and makes a fist. Blood dribbles between her fingers.
“I cast you out!” She flings her hand at Peyton, spritzing both her and Rick with blood.
Peyton screams, an inhumanly deep roar.
A wisp of smoke rises from the amulet around her neck.
Shit! I dart into the circle and pull the pendant off her, breaking my binding spell.
“Shadow beckoned, shadow banished!” shouts Elise, flinging blood.
“Shadow beckoned, shadow banished!” chant the rest of us.
Peyton wrenches herself to the side, nearly slipping away from Rick, and winds up face down, howling in agony.
Elise waves her bloody hand at the girl again. “Shadow beckoned, shadow banished!”
We all chant, “Shadow beckoned, shadow banished!” Even Rick seems to be muttering along with us, though he has a ‘what the hell am I doing?’ expression.
Peyton lapses into a seizure. Black vapor wells up from her mouth, spinning into a whorl in the middle of the circle above all of us.
“Unwanted spirit, you have no place here,” calls Abigail in a commanding tone. “Begone!”
The shadow rushes around, but flattens against an invisible barrier at the edges of our circle. Back and forth it blurs as Abigail repeats her invocation. The third time she commands it to be gone, the mass of dark vapor explodes into a rain of tiny particles that settle over the grass.
A mood of deep oppression, which I hadn’t noticed building, breaks with such abruptness, the rush of positive energy hits me with almost physical force.
Peyton gurgles, coughs up bile, and moans. Two blood tears run down her face, but her eyes have gone back to their deep-sapphire color.
Elise slumps to the ground, clutching her cut hand. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispers. “It’s my fault. I killed my family.”
“Child.” Abigail crouches behind her. “We are your family. The shadow is gone. You shall not live in fear from this day on, and you shall be welcome as my kin.”
Caius smiles. “You are welcome here, sister.”
“What happened?” croaks Peyton. “Why am I tied up?” The handcuffs click and rattle. “Ow. Hey, what’s going on?”
“She good?” asks Rick.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Hang on, kid.” Rick pulls her up to sit. “You had a little demon problem.”
The rest of us resume our places at the star. Abigail leads us in chanting our thanks to the Goddess, Cernunnos, and the elements for empowering and shielding us. She walks widdershins three times and comes to a stop in the middle of the area.
“Our ritual is done,” says Abigail. “Our intentions true. Goddess and God, I call to you.” She raises her athame again, pointing it at the north end of the stone pentacle. “This circle, I now close.”
I shut my eyes, basking in the sense of energy rushing up from the ground, flowing through Abigail and down the blade into the earth once more.
Handcuffs ratchet.
When I open my eyes, Peyton is rubbing her wrists. Rick puts the cuffs back on his belt holder and cuts the zip ties off her legs with a utility knife. They’ve left an angry red mark, but she hadn’t cut herself.
“Did you kidnap me?” Peyton seems to finally notice me, and stares. “I know you. You were at the church.”
I crouch beside her. “Yes. Do you remember me telling you that a demon had affected Pastor Waters?”
She nods, opens her mouth to speak, but gasps. “It… No… I had a gun!” She looks back and forth between Rick and me a few times, yells, “You’re cops!” and bursts into tears, holding her face in her hands. “Am I gonna go to jail? It wasn’t me! I swear. I was like dreaming or something. I couldn’t move or do anything but watch.”
“You’re not going to jail.” I glance at Rick to make sure he’s on the same page.
He nods.
“We don’t believe you fired a gun at anyone.”
“But…” She shivers. “I remember stand
ing in Waters’ office, thinking about how he lied to us. I wondered if everything had been a lie. If people just made God up to make money. I doubted Him, everything.”
I rub her back, trying to be reassuring. “You doubted your faith when you saw the pastor had lied. Don’t. Your faith isn’t the problem, just one con man.”
“Guy seemed pretty open-minded now,” Rick says, chuckling. “Maybe he’ll try to be a real pastor.”
She manages a weak smile and grasps at her chest. “Oh, no. My cross is gone! I―” Peyton starts to breathe like she’s going into a panic attack, but she catches herself. “No… I threw it. It’s probably still in the church office.”
“We’ll give you a ride back.” Rick stands and helps her up.
“Come dear,” says Abigail, grasping Elise’s arm. “Let me get that hand cleaned up.”
“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.” She sniffles. “Is it really gone?”
“For now.” Abigail gazes into the clouds. “It cannot come back on its own, but it may try to slip through if someone else opens a doorway. But today was an unpleasant experience for it. Painful, even. It should know that more of the same awaits it should it come sniffing around here again.”
Elise nods and takes a step with Abigail toward the house, but stops, glancing back at Peyton. Her meekness is gone. In her eyes lurks a quiet confidence burdened with sorrow. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this. I’m the only one you should blame for anything.”
Peyton opens her mouth to speak, but words fail her. Instead, tears spring from her eyes and a moment later, the two young women are embracing.
I notice Rick fighting back tears, and when he notices me noticing him, he cracks his neck and turns his face away. I chuckle.
Caius heads over to me. “You okay, sugar butt?”
“A bruise or two I didn’t have this morning. Nothing major.” I lean against him, resting my head on his shoulder. “For sending that bastard thing home, I’ll take it.”
Tamika and Colleen walk up to me.
Peyton pulls away from Elise and gasps at them. “You’re…”
“Witches,” says Colleen.
“I can’t believe you used church girl here as a spirit trap.” Tamika sets her hands on her hips. “Guess that’s kinda poetic justice.”
I shake my head. “No. It isn’t. That entity was influencing Waters to cause trouble for us, trying to get at Elise. What I can’t believe is that Elise just used blood magic and Abigail was okay with it.”
“Special case.” Colleen shivers. “She did it as a kid to open the gate, so they decided blood was necessary to properly close that loop and seal it away.”
“That makes sense, but it’s still unnerving to be involved in a blood spell.” I nod toward Peyton. “I need to take this girl home.”
Tamika hugs me. “All right. You gonna fill me in on everything soon?”
“Sure. I’ll head right back here after I drop her off, barring an emergency issue with work. And Rick’s car is still at the church.”
“Nice thinking with that trap.” Colleen leans in for a hug. Her smile is much more genuine now that she’s no longer dealing with an abusive boyfriend.
“It wasn’t exactly a well-thought-out plan.” I tuck the small pentacle amulet in my jean pocket. Gonna need to cleanse the magic off it before I put it on again. I look at Peyton. “Too much to ask for the girl caught in between, but I’m sure she prefers it to winding up in jail.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” says Peyton. “I’m a little wigged out being around you guys, but you’re nothing like what Pastor Waters said.”
I can tell she wants to get the heck out of here ASAP, and is probably keeping quiet for fear of us changing our minds and charging her with attempted murder for Waters as well as me. Or maybe she thinks we might use her as a sacrifice or something. I sigh. Considering we technically did kidnap her―the court system doesn’t recognize shadow entity possession after all―I think we’re even.
“Gotta go real quick. Be back.”
“What are you gonna do with me?” asks Peyton.
I smile. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“We’ll take you back to the church… or home if you prefer. By the way, your flip-flops are in my back seat.”
Rick and Peyton follow me to the Silverado while the others begin the long walk across the field toward the manor house. Ugh, my stomach hurts from where she got me with a knee. That’s gonna leave a mark. Peyton climbs in the back seat, a slight shiver in her still.
A few minutes into the ride, the girl breaks the silence with, “Is God real?”
“That is a question that you’ll need to answer for yourself.”
“You were talking about a Goddess. Is she real?”
A sense of warmth fills my chest. “I believe so, with every scrap of my being.”
“Have you ever seen her?”
“No, only felt.”
She’s quiet for a little while. About halfway back to town, she blurts, “I think God is real.”
“Good.” I smile at her via the rearview mirror. “Are we bringing you home or should we drop you off at the chapel?”
“I still need my car,” says Rick.
“I’d like to go to the church. My dad’s picking me up there at two, and I want to look for my pendant. Is Pastor Waters all right?”
“Might be fall-down drunk by now,” mutters Rick.
“What?” asks Peyton.
“I said he’s got a lot of spunk. I’m sure he’s all right.” Rick whistles.
Well, that’s one major thing dealt with. No more creeping shadow entity causing random death and mayhem. Elder evil banished back from whence it came: check. Helping a teen girl with a crisis of faith: check. Finding a serial killer should be easy by comparison.
As soon as a red light lets me stop, I close my eyes, and ask the Goddess to give my spell a helpful little nudge before the killer strikes again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tea
Sunday Night – July 23, 2017
We spent Saturday night at the manor house having dinner with the whole coven. Other than a bandaged hand, Elise seemed to be in good shape after a few hours. It’ll take her a while to adjust to life without constant nightmares―well, at least the ones from the entity. Actual nightmares will probably last for a while.
I’m restless all day Sunday, dreading the phone will ring at any minute with news of another body. I can’t help but throw myself into the case, going over the portion of Ford Ranger registrations I took from Rick. For each one, assuming they’re not an elderly person, I try to pin down their whereabouts during the time the killer followed Angela out of the parking lot.
Around 7 p.m., Caius walks in, lifts me out of my chair, and carries me into the dining room, where he plops me down in front of a tortellini dish.
“Was I too focused to hear you or did you just decide the redhead needed a transplant?”
Caius leans down and kisses me. “Your new flowerpot isn’t as soft, but there’s food.”
“Turns of phrase and tortellini. What more could a girl want?” I sniff at said food, and nearly get high off the garlic. “Ooh! It smells wonderful.”
He pulls up a chair and sits next to me. “Simple, but it was made with love.”
As we eat, he reminisces about our trip to Finland with After Purgatory when they toured their Penumbra Spiral album. For two months, I got a taste of the rock star life, the life I’d spent years dreaming about before I wound up in the police academy. So much crazy stuff went on, we could talk about this trip for a week and never repeat anything. He brings up the time the guys locked Krol―Kristen Rollins, their drummer―out of her hotel room stark naked and almost too drunk to stay upright. She wound up streaking all the way down to the hotel restaurant, convinced some random waiter had her room key. Of course, not to be outdone, the bassist, Marty, takes a four-story naked cannonball leap from his room’s balcony into the pool.<
br />
Caius runs from one wild thing to the next, making it damn hard to eat between peals of laughter. Half the things he mentions, I don’t remember. The entire band had been committed to keeping me as intoxicated as possible the whole time they weren’t on stage. I wasn’t technically part of the band, but I did add guest vocals for that whole tour… a tiny taste of the dream.
For almost an hour, I don’t offer a split second of thought to that damn serial killer.
It doesn’t hit me until we’re cleaning up the dishes what Caius did. I glide up behind and wrap my arms around him.
“Thank you. I really needed that.”
“A break from work?”
“Yeah.”
He smiles, but keeps loading the dishwasher. “You know, I can send a feeler overseas. Maybe it’s time we do that again.”
“Tempting but also not so much.” I chuckle. “For one thing, it’ll never live up to the memories. For another, I’m not twenty-eight anymore… or a patrol officer. That ‘vacation’ thing is a myth now.”
He sets the last pan in the dishwasher and closes it. “Age doesn’t matter. So you scale back the drinking a little.”
“Far easier said from a kitchen in the United States than done backstage in Helsinki.”
“Easily fixed.” He glides by with a quick peck on my cheek. “I’ll schedule them for Norway instead. Much tamer.”
I turn, watching him drift out of the kitchen. “Where are you going, mister?”
“Important issue I need to deal with. Be back in a few minutes.”
That either means he’s heading to the bathroom or to a phone to call his assistant.
Back to the laptop for me.
It’s too late to call around and check up on people from the car registrations, not that I had much luck with that anyway on a Sunday. I spend about ten minutes reading and re-reading Angela’s ME report before Caius walks in with a roguish grin. Without a word, he scoops me up again. This time, he carries me upstairs, and right into the bathroom. Warm, steamy air tells me right away he’s drawn a bath for me.
I hug him a little tighter. How did I get so lucky?