Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2)

by Laura Kirwan

  The first thing that hit Meaghan was the smell.

  She’d gotten sprayed by a skunk once, years before, when she had found her dog cornering what he thought was a cat. She had thought she knew what skunks smelled like. But up close—it had been like rotten eggs and bulbs of old garlic being sautéed on a burning tire by a chef who’d never bathed once in his life. It was more than an odor—it was like a living presence infecting her nose and mouth.

  The odor wafting from the red tunnel, foul and pungent, had a similar effect on her, but smelled like nothing she had ever encountered.

  Eyes watering, stomach turning, Meaghan pulled the collar of her T-shirt over her nose and mouth. Breathing through her mouth made the smell marginally less sickening.

  The red light grew stronger.

  Jamie still chanted, while Natalie screamed.

  Then Meaghan heard a shushing sound.

  Jamie roared with rage. Cooper joined him.

  Meaghan looked back.

  Sid and Owen, each holding a fire extinguisher, were spraying the flaming cage surrounding Natalie. The flames may have been ignited magically, but were smothered easily by chemical foam.

  Within moments, Natalie was free. She snarled something and shot a spell at Jamie.

  Jamie grunted, as if punched hard in the gut, and fell to the ground. The black shadow erupted from his prone body. Natalie snarled and made a throwing motion at the shadow. A flash of golden light blinded Meaghan for a moment and when she could see again, the shadow was gone.

  Meaghan turned back to Cooper, who huddled in a corner near the glowing tunnel, eyes wide, gripping Orinda tightly. Both were staring at the tunnel, Natalie and Jamie forgotten.

  A tentacle slithered out of the red light as the smell grew stronger.

  Meaghan stepped backward. She wanted to run, but she had to watch. A second tentacle erupted from the red tunnel.

  Orinda screamed, eyes wild, and tried to scramble away. Cooper gripped her, unmoving, his look of triumph replaced with fear.

  Meaghan forced herself to look at what was coming.

  The tentacles were gray. Sort of scaly. But no suckers or spikes or anything. The worst thing about them was the smell.

  Meaghan felt her fear begin to lessen. She glanced over at Cooper and Orinda. They were clinging to each other, terror etched on their faces. She turned to look at Owen and Sid and Natalie behind her. Again she saw the wide-eyed looks of horror.

  All this for a couple of stinky tentacles? The others clearly saw something different from what was actually there.

  “Huh,” she said out loud. She called over her shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Meaghan turned back toward the tunnel. A third tentacle emerged.

  Owen and Sid tackled Natalie and the three of them fell through the suddenly paper thin floor.

  Orinda began to wail, a high-pitched moaning shriek that was much scarier than the three limp tentacles flopping around in the red light.

  What the hell did everybody else see? This is it? Meaghan thought. Three tentacles? She’d seen scarier stuff on TV.

  Patrice shouted, “Meaghan!”

  Meaghan turned.

  Patrice straddled Jamie, one hand on the sigil over his heart. “Duck!”

  Meaghan hit the floor.

  Patrice bent to kiss Jamie, then sat up, her eyes again obsidian and inhuman. She gave Cooper a triumphant smile and stretched her other hand toward the tunnel.

  Jamie cried out in pain and then was still.

  Meaghan felt a rushing, like a strong wind, above her. A golden flash of light illuminated the attic, followed by high-pitched screaming, as inhuman as Patrice’s glittering stony eyes.

  She turned to look at the tunnel. The flimsy tentacles, blistering in the golden light, squirmed convulsively, but did not withdraw. The red light wavered for a moment and grew strong again.

  The building shook.

  The pulsing red light flashed off something metallic.

  The Mangler lay at the mouth of the tunnel.

  At that moment, Meaghan understood what she had to do. Patrice had been right. Meaghan did have a role to play and now she knew what it was.

  These things are magic itself? Let’s see them choke on something impervious.

  Meaghan dove toward the Mangler. A tentacle slithered forward and tried to grab her, but she smashed it with the bulky stapler. With a piercing shriek, it pulled away from her.

  Sitting on the floor, Meaghan grabbed the Mangler with both hands and chucked it over her head into the tunnel.

  The tentacles retreated. The inhuman shrieking increased for a moment, and then abruptly stopped. There was a loud popping noise and the tunnel disappeared.

  Even the smell was gone.

  Meaghan sat up and looked over at Cooper and Orinda, still clinging to each other in fear. She followed their gaze and saw Patrice helping Jamie to his feet. The golden aura was gone and her dark hair hung down her back, tangled, no longer floating.

  Jamie patted his chest and smiled. He spun around to show Patrice his back, then pulled her into passionate kiss.

  The sigils were gone. Not healed or faded. Gone. As if they had never been carved into his skin.

  Patrice came up for air and saw Meaghan staring. With a grin, she gave Meaghan a thumbs-up.

  Meaghan, now grinning too, turned back to Cooper and Orinda. “Well,” she said, as she pulled herself to her feet. “That didn’t go quite according to plan, did it?”

  “This isn’t over,” Cooper said in a shaky voice. “All you’ve done is buy yourself some time. I’ll see you dead for this. As was prophesied.”

  “Blah blah blah,” Meaghan said. “I don’t believe in prophecy.” Her grin segued into her most fearsome glare. “Now get out of my town.”

  Cooper, still clutching the now weeping Orinda to his side, muttered something, waved his free hand, and the pair of them vanished.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  With the last shreds of her power, Patrice cleared a safe path across the floor and out of the attic.

  Clinging to each other like drunks after a wild party, giggling, Meaghan, Jamie, and Patrice stumbled through the remains of the solicitor’s office and down the stairs to the second floor.

  The crowd in Tony’s office erupted in pandemonium when they entered. Like an actor acknowledging an encore, Jamie grabbed Patrice and Meaghan’s hands, and the three of them took a bow to raucous cheers and applause.

  Then John was on her and Meaghan didn’t come up for air for a very long moment. When the kiss broke, they still held each other. He murmured in her ear, “You still want to have the date with me?”

  She pulled back, laughing and crying at the same time, and gazed into his deep blue eyes. “Yes, I still want to have the date with you.”

  Russ grabbed both of them into a bear hug. “Meg! You saved the world. Again.”

  “No,” Meaghan said, gently extricating herself. “Patrice did. All I did was throw a stapler at the bad guys. She did all the heavy lifting.”

  Russ’s giddy good cheer evaporated. “What the hell is she? Everyone down here is kind of freaked out at the moment.”

  Meaghan glanced around and found Patrice and Jamie talking to a small group of witches. They had their arms around each other and big smiles on their faces. Patrice looked completely normal. The glow was gone. And apparently her powers, whatever their source, had gone with it.

  But figuring that out would have to wait. Right now they had more immediate casualties to deal with.

  “Where’s Marnie?” Meaghan asked, scanning the room.

  Russ shook his head and his eyes filled. “Brian got her out of here.”

  “When we fell through the floor, the witches they catch us and bring us down so we don’t crash,” John explained. “And then she wakes up. Screaming and crying and trying to hurt herself. I held her the best I could, and Jhoro and Brian came to help.”

  Meaghan’s eyes widened. “Jhoro? How’d th
at go?”

  John scowled. “It was very strange. He got to her first. He held her face in his hands, and stared at her.”

  “And she stopped screaming,” Russ said. “And then she went limp. Jhoro nodded to Brian, who wrapped her up in a blanket he found somewhere, scooped her up, and left.”

  “He took her outside, away from here,” Annie said, suddenly standing at Russ’s elbow.

  Russ wrapped his arm around Annie, pulled her close, and kissed her on the forehead. “There’s my girl.”

  “What did Jhoro do to her?” Meaghan asked.

  Annie shrugged. “No idea. All that empathic stuff I was getting from him has dried up.” She pointed behind Meaghan. “He’s over there with Sid.”

  Meaghan looked over her shoulder. Jhoro sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head down. Sid sat next to him, a sad look on his little blue face.

  Meaghan turned back to John. “Did you talk to him?”

  He shook his head. “No. He has said nothing since Brian took Marnie.”

  “The grief is back,” Meaghan said.

  John shook his head. “The grief was always there. Some of it always will be there. Better to feel it so one day he can remember how to live.”

  Meaghan scanned the crowd and realized who else she didn’t see. “What about Natalie? Where is she?”

  John didn’t know. Neither did Sid or Owen or the witches.

  Natalie had been nearly burned alive twice in the same morning and now she was nowhere to be found. Meaghan didn’t like that all.

  Finally, Meaghan found someone with information. Dana, the young witch and police dispatcher, was sitting on the second floor landing, near the women’s restroom, holding a blue ice pack over one cheek.

  Meaghan plopped down next to her. “Hey, kiddo.” She wrapped an arm around the young witch. “I thought we’d lost you for a minute there.”

  Dana sighed. “Yeah, me too. Running headlong into a pack of wizards was a really stupid thing to do.”

  “Brave, though,” Meaghan said.

  Dana snorted.

  Meaghan smiled. “The line between stupid and brave can be a fine one. Trust me. I’ve spent more than a little time tap dancing on it.”

  Dana leaned her head on Meaghan’s shoulder. “I was so scared.”

  Meaghan felt the maternal feelings well up. “You and me both, honey.” She held Dana for a moment and then said, “Have you seen Natalie?”

  The girl pointed behind her at the restroom door. “She wanted to clean up a little. She got me the ice pack and then she wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to go too far.” She lifted her head from Meaghan’s shoulder. “She’s really freaked out.”

  “Yeah, I thought she might be.” Meaghan sighed. “I’ll take over if you have somewhere you want to be.”

  “Like home in bed with the covers over my head for the next fifty years?” Dana smiled. “I’d better go find Heather.”

  “Heather?”

  “Circe. Her real name’s Heather.”

  Meaghan started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. “Of course it is. Of course.” They stood up and Meaghan gave the girl a hug. “You don’t need to be anyone else. Dana’s pretty awesome. Be Dana from now on, okay?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes shiny with tears. “For sure.”

  When she had left, Meaghan cautiously pushed open the door. “Natalie? Can I come in?”

  Meaghan heard a muffled grunt. She stepped into the tiled room. There was some water on the floor, the mirror was broken, and one stall door hung askew, but the facilities were relatively intact for having survived a near apocalypse.

  Like many older buildings, city hall contained odd little spaces left over during renovations and updates. This particular restroom had a quiet little alcove off the main area, containing a battered Naugahyde sofa.

  She found Natalie curled up, eyes shut, shaking. Meaghan sat down on the far end of the sofa and waited.

  Finally Natalie spoke. “I’m sorry I’m being such an idiot. Hiding on the cramp couch.”

  Meaghan sighed. “You were almost burned alive. Twice. You aren’t being an idiot. I’d be worried if you weren’t hiding somewhere freaking out.”

  “You aren’t freaking out,” Natalie said in a small voice.

  “Only because I’m too damn tired. And much better than you at shutting down and refusing to feel things, which, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t such a great way to deal with shit.” Meaghan settled back into the sofa. “Ooh. Ouch. I need a shower, a good night’s sleep, a pot of coffee, and about a zillion milligrams of ibuprofen. Only then will I have the energy to freak out.”

  They sat in silence for a long time until Natalie stopped shaking and said, “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  Meaghan nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure they’ll try.”

  Natalie shuddered again. “Do you . . . what did you see? What did those horrible things really look like?”

  “What did they look like to you?’

  Natalie sat up and shook her head violently. “I can’t . . . it was . . . I can’t even describe it.”

  “Well, I can. I saw three tentacles. Three gray, scaly, not-very-big tentacles. They didn’t have suckers or spikes or anything. Kinda squirmy, but that’s it. The worst part was the smell.”

  Natalie frowned. “That’s it? Three not-very-big tentacles? Really?”

  Meaghan nodded. “Really. Whatever the rest of you saw, it wasn’t real. Those things were screwing with your heads like Eliot said they would. They were even screwing with Voldemort and Cruella.”

  Natalie smiled, just for a moment, but it was enough to make Meaghan feel much better. “Really? They were talking like those things were on their payroll.”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking not so much. I’m thinking old Coop realized too late that he’d bitten off a little more than he could chew.”

  “So these things aren’t dangerous?”

  Meaghan sighed. “No. I’m sure they’re dangerous, but I’m also sure they don’t look as big and scary as they would like us to believe.”

  Natalie stood up. “Well, now I’m pissed. A bunch of freaking extra-dimensional stinky space squid think they can bamboozle me with magic? Huh. We’ll see about that.” She tilted her head, thinking. “Maybe an amulet . . .”

  Meaghan held out her hand. “Help me up.”

  Natalie pulled and, with some groaning and creaking, Meaghan got to her feet.

  As soon as they were both standing, Natalie threw her arms around Meaghan and held her tight. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For saving me so many times. You were right. About why we’d win.”

  Meaghan looked confused. “Which was?”

  Natalie pulled back and stared at her. “You know. On the stairs. About how we were family and had each other and all they had was hate and fear.”

  Meaghan rolled her eyes. “That was total bullshit. You do know that, right? Me saying something inspiring to prod you up the stairs?”

  Natalie punched her gently in the arm. “You’re such a bitch. It worked though, so nyah nyah.”

  Meaghan pulled her back into a hug. “Let’s get out of this dump. We still have to figure out a cover story for this mess.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain Bullshit,” Natalie said in her ear.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  The official story was a natural gas explosion precipitated by a freak earthquake. Although rare, earthquakes were not unheard of in Pennsylvania, and—to use Natalie’s name for them—the extra-dimensional stinky space squid had provided the necessary seismic shaking to make the story plausible.

  Magical intervention and standard Eldrich denial were sufficient to smooth over the rough spots in the story—like how almost all the windows in city hall had been blown out eighteen hours before the supposed earthquake.

  Not everyone returned to a state of blissful denial. Within a week, for-sale signs began sprouting on lawns throughout Eldri
ch. For many, the reality of life in Eldrich could no longer be denied. They wanted out.

  But some people could deny anything. The mayor, for instance. Brian had returned the Escalade to Tony’s driveway with an empty gas tank, blood stains on the backseat, and a note of apology.

  Tony never responded. A few days later, he traded in the Escalade for a Range Rover. He appeared to accept the earthquake story without reservation, and pledged loudly to seek state and federal money to rebuild. But the weak cover story would unravel rapidly if subjected to the scrutiny that would accompany a request for disaster funding for such a localized catastrophe.

  Owen came through for them again. His employer, a reclusive venture capitalist, generously agreed to donate the necessary funding to restore city hall and to finance Ruth and Eliot’s efforts on behalf of the refugee Fahrayans.

  Owen was all over town negotiating sweetheart cash deals with desperate homeowners. At the rate he was scooping up houses, they’d have everybody indoors by Halloween.

  Meaghan wasn’t clear on whether Owen still expected her to try to negotiate access to Matthew’s redacted files. Owen told her they could worry about it after they took care of the Fahrayans and processed the events of Labor Day weekend.

  “Those things will be back,” he said. “You know that.”

  “One crisis at a time,” she told him. “The stinky space squid will simply have to wait their turn.”

  Without the influence of the love spell—or more accurately, spells— general sanity returned. There were even some happily-ever-after stories—the best one belonging to Tim Lyons, the police officer purloined by the Order in front of Jeff’s garage.

  Despite Meaghan’s fears for his fate, the wizards had merely abandoned the magic bus—Lyons unconscious in the back—in the employee parking lot across the street from city hall. Injured, he made his way to the nearby home of a woman he’d known since childhood. Recently divorced, back in Eldrich, and love hexed, she had spent the day mulling over old photos of her childhood friend, Tim Lyons.

  Each had nursed an unrequited crush on the other for more than twenty years. When he knocked on her door, dazed and bleeding, it was mutual love at first sight.