Peak of the Devil (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  Phineas was frowning. “I suppose it’s possible. A baby is undeveloped, unable to communicate in the same way, but I think they’ve got open sorts of spirits. Willing to experience, to take things in, you know?”

  I nodded. It sounded weird, but I knew exactly what he meant, because it was the same thing I was thinking.

  “She might have been able to give permission, of a sort.” Phineas sighed and shrugged. “It seems unlikely though. Why would Gemma even want to be a baby? They’re powerless.”

  “I doubt she did,” I said. “I doubt she planned to take Diana Warner. I think Suzanne’s death was natural—or Suzanne’s body’s death, anyway—and probably unavoidable. And when Gemma realized what was happening, she latched onto the baby rather than die again. Temporarily, until she could find something better, the same way Megan McGibbons wanted to use Cassandra Mosley.”

  “So she got this nurse to help her.”

  I shrugged. “She can be pretty persuasive. Maybe with the baby too.”

  “If you’re right, it’s not good for the baby to share like that. Diana will go crazy if Gemma doesn’t leave her soon. Go crazy at best.”

  I nodded. I’d thought of that. It seemed obvious that a little baby, whose entire existence was about soaking everything up and taking it all in and forming her own person, couldn’t afford to be another person at the same time.

  “We need to banish Gemma from her,” I said.

  “That’ll be almost impossible, if it’s a willing possession.”

  “I know, but we have to try. Not just for Diana’s sake, but before Gemma finds a more permanent prospect, and starts harvesting hearts again. Zack said he’s never met Amias, but Amias must know about her. Or at least he knows that he’s got a Tanner around somewhere, hence the smugness of his minions. He’s probably looking for a new host even as we speak. What?”

  I’d asked that last question because Phineas was smiling, even though this didn’t feel like a smiley sort of conversation.

  “But for the moment, Amias needs to keep that baby in Bristol,” he said. “And if she wasn’t in Bristol, he’d come for her.”

  Unfortunately, he was going to the obvious place with that. I hated the idea. Using Diana Warner as bait seemed like the worst possible thing we could do to her. But I was outvoted. Phineas argued that we didn’t know how to banish Gemma from her anyway, and that it might take time to find out, so in the meanwhile we should do our best to protect Diana Warner by getting rid of Amias, who was certainly a threat to her in more ways than one.

  “You don’t think he’ll do everything he can to keep Gemma in that body?” he asked.

  I still might have been able to talk him out of it, except when we visited Zack Warner to discuss all of this with him, Zack leaped at the chance to turn his baby over to us for a while.

  “So you could keep her,” he said. “Until this devil comes for her, and then you can do whatever mumbo jumbo you people do, and then give her back without this spirit inside her. Get rid of the devil and the ghost, and just give me my family back.”

  Sure, it sounded like a great deal for him, when he put it like that.

  Arguing the finer points turned out to be futile. Since Diana Warner’s first smile, she’d been getting more and more animated, showing more and more personality. Still an infant’s personality, but the smiles were more frequent, the gurgles more emphatic. The reminders that this was not his baby, at least not entirely, that this child he was caring for was in fact the malevolent spirit that had killed his wife, were nearly constant now. I could see how that would affect his bonding.

  And he was convinced that she was a danger, to him, to his other two children. Which despite her being a helpless baby, wasn’t something I felt wholly comfortable refuting.

  So in the end, I agreed, if only because I was sure Phineas and Zack would go forward without me if I didn’t. Zack left Diana at my house, changed his vacation schedule, and took his two girls to the Caribbean for three weeks.

  Which meant we had three weeks to banish Amias, then Gemma, and return his baby to him in new condition.

  Sure. Because how hard could that be?

  Phineas shut himself in my guest bedroom almost as soon as Zack left, but first he stopped in the kitchen to rummage through my cabinets until he found a blue ceramic travel mug, which he appropriated to make a new vessel to trap Amias in. I told him not to use that one—it was my favorite—but he just shrugged and said he could hardly use a switchel ring this time. I pointed out that there were several other drinking type things in the kitchen. He said he liked blue. Then he waved over his shoulder and closed the bedroom door. Asshole.

  That left me to take care of the baby, which was fine with me. Diana showed no signs of being possessed. At first.

  I carried her around the house, showing her the bookshelf and the knick-knacks over my mantle, anything with color for a baby to stare at in lieu of actual baby things. Zack hadn’t thought to pack any toys for her.

  Wulf, meanwhile, walked low behind me, hackles raised, with the occasional growl deep in his chest.

  “Wulf!” I said finally, sharply enough to startle Diana and make her start to cry. “Honestly!”

  I bounced the baby in my arms to try to calm her while I gave Wulf my very sternest look, but he was unapologetic. He just bared his teeth—which is not a very bloodhound-like thing to do—and growled again.

  Phineas came out of his room. “He can tell,” he said.

  “Tell what?”

  “That she isn’t really a baby.”

  “Of course she’s really a baby!”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Why are you being such a jerk?” I’d been focused on Diana, trying to get her to stop crying. She settled down and fell asleep in my arms, so I stopped walking and bouncing and looked up at him instead. His face was cold, watching me and the baby together.

  “You can’t get attached to her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Of course we’ll do our best for her, but you can’t forget who she is. And you have to accept the risk that Diana might be gone from that body forever before this is over. If she’s not already.”

  “She is in there, and we are going to make sure she stays that way!” I said it too loud. Damn, but I was out of practice with babies. She woke up and started crying again. I shot Phineas a furious look and walked her out of the room.

  As soon as Diana went down for her nap, I called Charlie and told him that I couldn’t see them for a little while, and that they were under no circumstances to come over to my house. Then I called Martha and asked her if she could look into how to expel a spirit possessing a body, if the body was willing. She said exorcism only worked if the body had been possessed by force. I told her I knew that, and that we needed another way.

  She agreed to research it a bit, and to ask her aunts and Max and Jack Nimble if they had any ideas, too.

  Then I called Madeline Underwood.

  But first I emailed her a picture of Diana smiling. That was all she needed to see. She asked, in clipped, businesslike tones, what I wanted in exchange for the baby.

  “I want Amias to come and get her himself,” I said. “Here, in Charlotte. He needs to leave Bristol and do this on his own. Without you or your brother or any of his other lackeys.”

  If being referred to as a lackey bothered her, Madeline didn’t show it. She only laughed. “And we’re not meant to notice that this is a trap?”

  “Oh, I fully admit it’s a trap,” I said. “Which makes it not really a trap, doesn’t it? If there’s no trick involved? Call it a showdown instead. Winner gets the baby.”

  “And if he doesn’t come?”

  “If he doesn’t come, or doesn’t verifiably come alone, Zack Warner will take his baby away and hide her, and Amias’s last hope of ever having a living Tanner in Bristol again will be gone.”

  I didn’t know how much Madeline knew, or if I was giving away Amias’s secrets by sayi
ng this much, but I rather hoped so. She didn’t react to any of it, just said she’d speak with Amias, and get back to me.

  I spent the rest of that day avoiding Phineas and Wulf both. Couple of shithead baby haters. Okay, so she was possessed. If anything that made her more deserving of love and care, didn’t it?

  When she woke up at ten that night, I fed her and changed her and walked her back to sleep again. She smiled at me, and despite the dimples, I couldn’t think of her as Gemma.

  When she woke up at one, I fed her and changed her and walked her, but she did not go back to sleep again. She did not smile. And I had no trouble thinking of her as Gemma.

  It was during the walking part that it happened: Diana opened her eyes and looked directly into mine. And I swear to you, there was recognition and knowledge in those two-month-old eyes. And rage. They were adult eyes—Gemma’s eyes—in a baby’s face, and it was freaky as fucking hell.

  I let out a little yelp, but at least I didn’t drop her.

  Diana’s—Gemma’s—little hands reached out and smacked my face as her mouth twisted and she started to wail. Then all hell broke loose. With emphasis on the broke part.

  We were in the kitchen at the time, and my cabinet doors all flung open at once. Plates and glasses started flying and crashing around me. I yelped again and dove under the table, but not before something shattered against my cheek. I could feel a trickle of blood on my face. I was still holding the baby, and I couldn’t decide whether to grip her against me to protect her, or set her down and run away.

  “Gemma, stop that right now!” I was using my best mom voice. It didn’t work.

  Wulf and Phineas were drawn by the commotion at the same time. Phineas dodged flying kitchenware while he slammed the cupboards shut, whether by force or magic I couldn’t see from my vantage point under the table.

  Wulf, on the other hand, came after the baby.

  I smashed my head on a chair and knocked it over, scrambling to get away from my own dog.

  “Wulf! WULF!”

  I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to kick or hurt Wulf. But I wasn’t about to let him maul a baby either. I kept backing away from him until I hit a wall, then did my best to hold the baby out of his reach. But bloodhounds are tall. His teeth grazed Diana’s tiny heel before I could quite get her out of his reach.

  Several things happened at once. Diana let out a startled cry of pain, a real baby’s cry. The clatter around us ceased abruptly. And Phineas grabbed Wulf by the scruff of his neck and yanked him back.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, but I turned my back on both of them, on the house entirely, and walked outside into the warm, humid night with Diana in my arms. I walked her around the block six times, even though she’d settled down and fallen back asleep after the second one. I was hoping to wait Phineas out.

  But he was still in the kitchen when I came back, vacuuming. There was a neat pile of broken glass and ceramic in one corner. Wulf, who hated the sound of the vacuum, was nowhere to be seen.

  I walked through without a word and went back to my bedroom, where Diana’s portable crib was. Wulf was on my bed. He growled when we came in, and I did something I don’t think I’d ever done to him before: I smacked him on the butt. Not hard, but he yiped like I’d pulled his tail off.

  “OUT!”

  He skulked away. I put Diana down and made sure my door was closed tightly behind me before going back into the kitchen.

  Phineas was winding the cord around the back of the vacuum.

  “You don’t have to clean up.”

  “Seems I do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Only that this whole situation is the biggest fucking mess I’ve ever seen.”

  There was no real way to argue that point, so I didn’t answer. I went to the closet for a hand broom and trash bag, and started getting rid of the big pieces he’d swept into the corner.

  After a few minutes he said, “I know this is hard on you. A baby.”

  I stiffened and didn’t turn around to look at him.

  “How would you know that?”

  “I thought all women had a maternal instinct.”

  Oh, good. He was just being sexist. He didn’t know about the miscarriages or the drugs or the fights with Kevin. There’d be no need to rehash that shit, at least.

  “Phineas, there is a little life in there that we have to protect.”

  “Nobody is arguing that.”

  “Then what are you arguing, exactly?”

  “Nothing. I’m too tired to argue.” He put the vacuum away and went to bed.

  The next morning, I asked him to drive Wulf over to Martha Corey’s.

  “I just got off the phone with her. She said Jack Nimble would love to have a guest for a few days,” I said. “I think we’ve confirmed that he can’t stay in the same house with the baby. Hopefully Madeline will call soon and this will all be over.”

  One way or another.

  Phineas was back to his old cheerful self when he got back from Martha’s.

  “We’re in luck, Martha had some,” he said, and handed me a little muslin bag full of black pebbles.

  “Had some what?”

  “Jet. I’ve enchanted it.”

  I raised a brow, and he gave me a long suffering look.

  “It’s not exactly a superpower, but I do have some skills when it comes to healing and protection,” he said. “You throw it in his face, if it comes to it. It’ll affect his nerves and slow him down.”

  “Then this must be what Penny was throwing at him. In the parking lot.”

  “Probably. Smart girl.”

  “I guess she was. She had a bottle of something, too.”

  “Did she? Could have been sea water mixed with honey and blackberry.”

  “Sounds delicious.”

  “I’ll make some and do a ritual on that, too. Don’t drink it.”

  “I haven’t got blackberry or sea water.”

  “Plain salted water and cloves will work instead, although not as well.”

  “Less tempting to drink, though.”

  An hour later, Wendy Thaggard came to my door. I’d emailed her to let her know what was going on, and she’d come all the way from Bristol to give us each a little stuffed doll. They smelled like the things you put in your drawer, to scent your clothes.

  “So this is what a poppet is?” I guessed.

  “If he tries to direct a spell at you, your poppet can absorb it,” Wendy said. “Wear it around your neck, and make sure it’s visible. Don’t hide it under your clothes.”

  “I don’t suppose you brought some popovers, too?”

  No popovers, but she did have a bag full of shortbread. I thanked her for all the gifts, gave her a hug, and sent her on her way. The less people hanging around to be endangered by this plan, the better. It was funny, we’d been talking about the Bristol devil for so long, the word devil never really registered anymore. But ever since I’d found out Amias might be buddies with the actual Devil, as in the proper noun, I’d been worried. And afraid.

  While I took care of Diana, Phineas spent the afternoon tearing up my thresholds and putting iron nails under the floorboards before replacing them. He nailed more around the windows without even bothering to hide them. That left iron barriers around every entry and exit point, and Amias would only be able to cross them if he was invited.

  For my part, I made sure there was a large bowl of water and sage oil on my coffee table, and that there was a pack of matches beside it.

  So we were ready.

  The plan was, when Amias came, I would invite him inside. Phineas had the vessel that had once been my travel mug. Amias wouldn’t be able to get across that iron barrier to walk out the door. Everything we needed for the banishing ritual was ready in my living room. And we had jet and poppets and clove water. We’d do the ritual, defend ourselves as necessary, and that would be that.

  It was actually a pretty good plan. Especially for me.


  Unfortunately, one of the scenarios it didn’t cover was Amias standing on my front porch with the baby.

  But that’s what happened, on the third day after Zack left her with us. When the doorbell rang, Phineas and I went to get it together. Madeline still hadn’t called us back, but we expected Amias to do something sneaky, and we weren’t about to get caught off guard.

  Except we were. I opened the door to find Amias holding Diana, who was sleeping, oblivious.

  He looked from the baby to me, then Phineas, and smiled broadly. “Isn’t she precious?” When neither of us answered he raised a dark brow and asked, “Are you going to invite me in, or are we meant to do this outside?”

  I gathered my wits, although Phineas was still standing stiff and silent beside me. I had put Diana down for a nap not twenty minutes before. I had no idea how Amias had gotten her, and that was troubling. Even more troubling, if we tried to drag him in and banish him now, she would surely get hurt in the struggle. Maybe even killed.

  But why, if he had what he wanted, had he come to the door at all? Why not just run off with the baby and laugh at us from Bristol?

  There was only one way to find out what his game was, and that was to play it.

  “By all means,” I said in as casual a voice as I could muster. I stepped aside to let him in the house, then closed the door behind him.

  Amias walked with Diana over to the coffee table, leaned over the bowl, then looked up at me and winked. If I didn’t know anything else about him, that would have been enough to make me want to banish him right there. I cannot abide men who wink.

  “Aren’t you two clever? I suppose you put an iron barrier across the threshold as well?”

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t an original plan.

  Phineas finally found his voice, and had the same question I had. “So, you rang the bell instead of running off. I suppose you wanted to gloat, then?” He sounded bored.

  “Not exactly,” said Amias. “I thought, since I was here, that I’d just collect you, too. And I do mean collect. I was going to give some parts to Madeline, in return for her years of service, but I don’t think I will after all. I’d like to put your head over my mantle. Press your tongue behind some glass and frame it. Make a bracelet out of your teeth.”