“Aww, how sweet of you to say,” I heard a man’s voice say from behind me. “Here I thought you didn’t like me much.”
My cheeks immediately pinched up into my eyes as I winced. Ugh, of course he was down here. “Hello, Hugh,” I said turning around to face the ruggedly handsome cowboy.
“Hello Mercy,” he nodded at me. His broad smile and twinkling eyes made me want to vomit all over his polished leather boots.
“I’m sure flattered that you wanted to come see me today. And I see that you brought a few of your friends. Ladies,” he added and then tipped his cowboy hat to my friends. Why did he have to be so darn adorable?
“Hugh, dear,” I purred, linking arms with him. I gave the dorm room attendant a giggly smile. I prided myself on being quite the little actress when I needed to be. “The girls and I really need to speak to you, is there any way we could speak in private. Say in your room?”
The man who had stopped us at the bottom of the stairs looked at us girls suspiciously.
“Umm, well, I have class in…” Hugh looked down at his watch. “Five minutes.”
“Oh, it will only take a second,” Holly assured him as she twirled a long blonde lock with her finger.
“Ok, then, sure, my room’s up here,” Hugh said and smiled at the gatekeeper who gave us a little nod and then disappeared down a corridor.
Taking obvious joy in my little theatrics, Hugh kept hold of my arm while we walked up the stairs. I fumed while we walked, angry at myself for resorting to flirting to get upstairs. I never flirted. I wasn’t a flirt. I guessed that Holly’s charms were starting to rub off on me or something.
“In here,” he said and unlocked his room. We all filed in. His room was much less froufrou than mine was. He had a set of bunkbeds with navy blue bedding and his desk had a little fan on it with some books and pencils scattered about. No carpet. No posters. No mini fridge or flat screen television.
“Who’s your decorator?” I asked with a little smile as I leaned up against his desk.
He looked around. “You don’t like my decorating skills?”
“No, no. I like it. Very, um, minimalistic,” I said.
Houston threw his backpack down on his bed and then sat on the top of his desk and looked me up and down with an adorable little smirk. “So, did I leave that big of an impression on you Mercy? You had to come and see me?”
“Yeah, that’s what this is all about,” I said dryly. “I just – couldn’t stay away.”
“You’ve been all she’s talked about since last night,” Alba added with twinkling eyes.
Houston looked me in the eyes, “Isn’t that interesting. I’m flattered.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I rolled my eyes and shot Alba a menacing glance. “Oh, don’t be flattered. We aren’t here for you.”
Houston did his best to look wounded. “You’re not?” he grasped at his heart as he fell backwards on the desk.
“Oh stop. We’re here about our friend,” I said.
“You’re friend? You mean the one that Freddy got frisky with last night? Look…I’m nothing like that, I swear,” Houston said and put his hands up as if to say he surrendered. “I tried to tell you, but you ran off.”
“He’s your friend, isn’t he?” I asked.
“I just me the guy this week! He’s actually my buddy Carl’s roommate. I don’t even really know Freddy. Friday night was the first night we hung out.”
“Do you happen to know Evan?” Holly interjected when she realized I wasn’t getting to the point quickly enough.
“Evan Lancaster?”
Holly shrugged. “Are there two Evan’s here?”
“I have no idea. The only Evan I know is Evan Lancaster. He’s a second year.”
“Stocky guy with a pinky ring?” Holly asked.
Houston nodded. “Yeah. That’s him.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Alba asked.
“I don’t know his room number or anything, but I’m sure he’s in this building.” He narrowed his eyes and peered at the four of us. “Why, what’s going on? What does this have to do with your friend?” Unless Houston was a really good liar, it was obvious he had nothing to do with Jax’s disappearance. He literally seemed like he was clueless about what was going on.
“Well, she…” Sweets began, but Alba stepped in front of her before she could finish.
“She just has a little thing for him, no big deal,” Alba finished. “I suppose we shouldn’t hold you up any longer.
He looked at the four of us like we were on drugs and then slowly nodded. “Ooookay,” he said slowly. “Yeah, it was really nice chatting?”
“Oh, yeah, us too,” I nodded. “See you around.”
We let him open the door for us and then waited in the hallway for him to leave first. He gave us an awkward stare once he’d properly locked his door. “After you, ladies,” he said and motioned for us to go first.
The four of us held our ground. “Umm, I think we’re going to go and try and find Evan, if you don’t mind?” I finally said.
“You’re not supposed to be up here alone.”
“Well, it’s really important that we find Evan. I promise we won’t pull the fire alarms or toilet paper anybody’s room. Trust us?” I asked with the best sweet and innocent face I could muster.
“Hmm. Trust four girls who obviously look like they’re up to something?” He watched us closely. “Eh, sure, why not. But if anyone asks, I escorted you outside and you snuck back in.”
I shot him a huge genuine smile. “Got it. Thanks Hugh,” I said.
He smiled back, his perfect teeth glinted white. “You owe me one, Mercy.”
“Fine, I owe you one,” I agreed.
He turned around to leave and then hollered back down the hallway. “You ladies are my witnesses, Mercy Habernackle owes me one!”
Sweets and Holly giggled as I felt the heat rise to my face. “Now what?” I asked, trying to change gears back to why we were really there.
“We’ve got to find where Evan’s room is. Maybe there’s a dorm list somewhere,” Holly suggested.
“Do you really think he’s got her tied to a stone altar in his dorm room?” I asked.
Alba nodded. “Good point. Where else would there be a stone altar?”
Our eyes all lit up. “Basement!” I cried.
“Let’s go this way, we can’t go back down the main stairs, Grandmaster Flash will stop us,” I said.
“Grandmaster Flash?” Alba stared at me with a small smile on her lips while we headed the opposite way down the hall.
I shrugged. “What? I don’t know his name. The guy who stopped us at the door that looked like a monk.”
Hugh’s hallway ended with another set of stone stairs, which spiraled down to the main floor. At the bottom of the stairs we peered around and noticed we were at the back of a long corridor.
“This way,” I whispered, motioning for the girls to follow me. The hairs on the back of my neck began to move and I felt tiny tingles along my legs. “We’re getting closer, I can feel it.”
We moved down the corridor single file and kept going until we found another set of stairs at the end of that hallway. Quietly we crept down the stairs and found ourselves in the basement of the boys dormitory.
“It’s dark down here,” Sweets whispered nervously.
“Quiet,” I hissed. “This way.”
We slunk down the hallway, guided by my witchly intuition. Full on goosebumps covered my arms and legs now and I was beginning to feel the chills coming over me. I knew we were close.
The dank hallway was like a maze of corridors and rooms. I let my feelings guide me and soon enough I was shivering outside of an arched heavy wooden door. “She’s in here,” I told the girls through chattering teeth. “She’s got to be.”
“Do we just go in?” Holly asked nervously. “What if Evan is in there?”
“Be prepared to do what you have to do to protect yourself. We’ve got to save Ja
x,” Alba told us. “Come on.”
We pushed up against the heavy door, opening it slowly it creaked loudly. The room was dark, but we could hear a muffled rustling noise coming from inside. Sweets and Holly clung to my back and I clung to Alba’s, letting her lead the way.
The muffled sound grew louder until finally, through the pitch black, we heard a timid voice call out. “Who’s there?”
{Chapter Eighteen}
“Jax?” I whispered to the voice.
“Mercy? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s Mercy.”
“Mercy, oh thank god, yeah, it’s Jax. I’m tied down, I can’t move,” she cried in the darkness.
“We’ll get you out of here, Jax,” I promised and the four of us rushed forward blindly.
“Oof,” Holly belted out after we heard a loud bang. “Who put that there? Ouch, that hurt.”
“Holly? Is that you?”
“Yeah, Jaxie, it’s me. Is there a light switch or flashlights or candles or something around here?”
“Holly, on the wall straight ahead of you, there’s a desk. Feel around above your head when you get there, there’s a pull chain,” Jax instructed.
We heard Holly rambling around for a bit and then a click and the room became dimly illuminated. The room looked like a cross between a torture chamber and a laboratory. The stone walls and dirt floor made the room cold and damp. Chandeliers with candles in them hung from the ceiling and there were candles in holders on the walls.
Alba snapped her fingers while blowing on the candles in the center of the room and the candles magically lit at once. She did it again, this time aiming her breath at the candles on the wall behind us and lit them easily as well.
“Cool!” Holly cooed excitedly.
Alba smirked at us and shrugged one shoulder, “Party trick.”
With the room fully lit we were able to see everything better. Jax was lying on a stone table as Holly had envisioned her earlier. Her arms and legs were bound to the table and she had a gag tied around her neck that she must have been able to work free.
“Guys, you’ve got to get me loose, he could be back any minute,” she said, her timid voice trembled and she tried to pull her bruised and bloodied wrists free from her leather constraints.
“Jax, take a deep breath, relax,” I said, trying to be a calming force. “We’re going to get you out of here.” Then I turned to Alba who was rifling through a desk across the room. “Find anything to cut these leather straps?”
“I’m looking, I’m looking,” she said.
“Guys, what is this?” Sweets said, her voice filled with terror.
I turned around and saw Sweets standing in front of a stainless steel rolling cart with a tarp over it and the outline of a body underneath of it. “Jax?” I asked.
“It’s Morgan Hartford,” said Jax. The room went deadly silent and the tension increased tenfold.
Alba swung her eyes towards me. “She’s got to be here, Mercy.”
I nodded and looked around the room. I didn’t see anyone else. “Have you seen or heard from her ghost, Jax?”
Jax began to cry. “No! I’m not a witch, remember?”
The realization that Jax had been here all day and night, scared and alone, made me swallow hard. She hadn’t even had Morgan’s ghost to keep her company. Only Evan and whatever wicked scheme he’d cooked up.
“I’m so sorry, Jax,” I said and fell onto her chest. “This is all my fault. If I wasn’t so mean to you…”
“It’s not your fault Mercy. You didn’t know someone was going to do this to me. But we can talk about all of that later. He’s going to come back, you have to cut me out of these straps!” She pulled her wrists up as far as they would go and tugged on them as I was sure she’d probably done all night and day.
“Who is going to come back, Jax? Is it Evan?” Holly asked, her eyes filled with fear.
Jax nodded. “Evan and that Freddy.”
“Freddy! Freddy had a hand in this?” I asked. “Wait until I get my hands on that creep!”
“He was the one that took me! But Evan is the one that put me down here. I haven’t seen Freddy since he passed me over to Evan.”
“Do you know what they want with you?” I asked.
“Yeah, I know what Evan wants. He has spent the last five hours trying to do spells to stuff my soul into Morgan’s dead body!”
“Stuff your soul into Morgan? For what? How?” Sweets asked.
“Evan said that he found a spell in one of his books that said he could make a mortal come back to life by sacrificing a witch. He was trying to make my spirit come alive in Morgan. But it wouldn’t work.”
Suddenly, my arms and legs went cold and I felt an icy shiver run down my back. “Guys, I’m feeling something.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
Nervously, I looked up and scanned the room. I turned around and there she was. Silently standing in the corner. A tiny featured blonde girl with a gold cross around her neck.
“Morgan?” I asked.
“You can see me?” Her hand flew nervously to the little cross around her neck as she fingered it lightly.
I smiled at her sadly. “Yeah, I can see you.”
“Why can’t they see me too?” she asked nervously. “Aren’t they witches too?”
“Not all witches are mediums,” I shared. “Just some of us are.”
“I take it you’re talking to Morgan?” Jax asked me.
“Yeah, she’s here,” I answered.
“Great, well, we can take her with us. But we’ve got to get out of here!” Jax insisted.
“She’s right,” Morgan said. “He’s a very bad man. If you want your friend to live, you need to get her out of here, now.”
“I found a knife, will this work?” Holly asked and held up a scalpel she’d found in one of the desk drawers.
“Yes!” I exclaimed.
“Hurry!” The panic in Jax’s voice was real. It sent a shiver of fear into me, making my limbs heavy and slow.
Holly handed the knife to Alba, who promptly began to start slicing at Jax’s wrist bands.
“I found scissors!” Sweets called out excitedly and went to the cuffs around Jax’s ankles and began working at the leather bands.
“You’ve got to hurry,” Jax said again. Her arms and legs bounced on the table as she watched the door. “He’s literally going to be back any minute.”
“You’ve got to hold still,” Sweets said, holding a hand over her foot to steady it. “I’m going to cut you if you keep kicking like that.”
“It’s ok Jax, relax. We can take him,” Alba assured her.
Jax shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. He’s a bad bad man. And he’s powerful. He’s been trying spell after spell on me since I got here.”
Alba squatted next to her, working on her wrist cuff. “And look! You’re just fine. His spells haven’t worked!”
“Only because he thought I was witch! He still thinks I’m a witch. He’s been trying to do a spell on a witch, not a human. He’s not doing them right. If he knew I were just a plain old mortal, he’d know that he was doing them wrong, but I didn’t tell him I was just a plain old mortal. He’s been freaking out because he can’t figure out why his spells aren’t working,” Jax revealed with a shaky voice. “We have to get Morgan’s body out of here too.”
Alba freed Jax’s right wrist, while Sweets freed one of her legs. Alba walked around the table and began to work at her other wrist while Sweets began to work on the other leg.
“Morgan, can you keep guard in the hallway?” I asked quietly. My heart was thumping in my ears, scared that at any moment we’d have a psychotic wizard to contend with.
She nodded and then disappeared through the wall.
“Jax, I don’t think we’re going to be able to carry a corpse out of here without someone noticing,” I tentatively told her.
“If we leave her body here, he’ll steal another witch,
Mercy. And this time, it’ll be an actual witch and he’s going to kill her to stuff her spirit into Morgan’s dead body. If he doesn’t have Morgan’s body, then he has no one to do this ritual on,” she said tearfully.
“Jax, do you know, did Evan kill Morgan Hartford?” I asked, making sure that Morgan was still out of the room.
“No, I’m pretty sure Evan and Freddy just stole the body. They aren’t the murderers,” Jax revealed.
With great fanfare, Sweets threw her arms up in the air. “Done!” she hollered and with her arm extended out in front of her she dropped the scissors on the floor as if she were the first to finish her math test.
Jax pulled her feet out of the cut ankle cuffs. “Thanks Sweets! Alba, you almost done with my wrist?”
Just then, Morgan appeared through the wall and back into the dungeon like room. “He’s coming, Evan is coming!” Her voice was shaky and I could tell that she was scared, despite the fact that she was already dead and a ghost.
“Morgan said he’s here,” I announced nervously. “Holly, get the light! Sweets, quick, get behind the door with me.”
“Hurry Alba,” Jax bawled, scared out of her mind.
“There, I’ve just about got it. Got it!”
Jax pulled her other wrist out of the cuff and Alba pulled her tiny frame quickly off of the table. The two of them joined Sweets, Holly and I behind the door. Alba sucked in a deep breath and blew hard, snapping her fingers once again. The candles all flickered momentarily and then the room went dark.
We heard a rattle at the doorway and then it slowly creaked open.
“I think I figured out what I did wrong, my little witch pop,” said the deep male voice as he surged forward into the dark room, leaving the dungeon door open, letting in only a tiny sliver of light in the opposite direction of where we were hiding. When Jax didn’t make a noise, he spoke into the darkness again. “Are you sleeping my little pumpkin?”
My little pumpkin? The words hung in the air, vowing to make me vomit on his shoes. The Witch Squad was finally reunited, huddled behind a door, under extremely unfortunate circumstances. We held our collective breath, scared to breath, scared that he would hear us.
The Witch Squad: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #1 Page 13