Witchy Possessions (Witchy Fingers Book 3)

by Nic Saint

  Her eyes were bloodshot, her chapped lips trembled, and she seemed to have lost the capacity to walk like a normal person, now staggering along and ready to jump at sudden noises or snap at the slightest provocation.

  Her hands were tied in front of her, a safety precaution Sam had apparently deemed necessary. He walked in behind Valerie now, and removed her handcuffs. He then fixed Estrella and me with a warning look.

  “Be very careful,” he said. “This woman,” he added, pointing at a jittery Valerie, “is extremely dangerous. She tried to bite Pierre in the car.” Pierre showed his index finger, where a bloody slash indicated that he wasn’t lying.

  “Oh, poor Pierre,” I murmured, and walked up to Valerie. But when I approached her, she snapped at me, teeth clicking violently, and I took a few steps back again. It was obvious that the Valerie we’d known and loved was long gone, and that she was now completely in the possession of the ghoul.

  Her next words confirmed this. “I’ll get you!” she growled, a feral sound. “Just you wait and see! I’ll get you all!” And then she snapped some more, a bad habit her dentist would certainly have had a few words to say about.

  What she was going to get us for, she didn’t say, but then ghouls are not exactly known for their logic and keen reasoning. They’re just being ghouls.

  “I think you should have her admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane,” was Sam’s final word of advice, and then he stalked out.

  “Why didn’t you keep her locked up, if you think she’s so dangerous?” I asked, and Sam halted in the doorway to give me a rather nasty look.

  “Because your Spear Boodle seems to hold more sway with the judge than us NYPD simpletons, doesn’t he?” And then he slammed the door shut.

  Chapter 24

  I didn’t think things could get any worse, but then suddenly Skip waltzed in, apparently having had enough of old wrinkly rockers with a British accent. The moment Valerie caught sight of him she streaked forward, arms outstretched like you see in those old horror movies with Bela Lugosi, and tightly wrapped her hands around the young man’s neck. She was screeching all the while, but no louder than Skip himself!

  Edelie, Estrella and I tried to wrench her hands away from Skip’s neck but she was a lot more powerful than her hundred-pound frame suggested! In fact it was as if her hands were simply glued to Skip’s larynx, and the harder we pulled, the more viselike her grip became. Skip was already turning a nice purple, and it was obvious that if this situation continued, the lack of air supply would render him unconscious, and then, very dead.

  Oh, God, that would be the second dead Skip in one day, and since this was the original Skip and not a clone, it wasn’t something we could condone!

  Not only were we responsible for Valerie but even more so for Skip! There was probably a paragraph in his employment contract about our being responsible for a safe and fun working environment. Being attacked by ghoul-infested clients probably didn’t live up to that particular stipulation!

  So finally, all else having failed, I took a hefty vase—one of Gran’s favorites—you can never go wrong by gifting Gran a vase—and crashed it on Valerie’s head, hoping it wouldn’t do too much damage. But instead of going down like a ton of bricks, like a normal person would, she merely shook her head, fixed me with those red eyes of hers, produced a vicious snarling sound, and renewed her grip on Skip’s throat! This wasn’t good!

  Luckily Estrella had the presence of mind to try a spell. Against ghouls this seemed to be the only solution. She stood back while we were still trying to pry Valerie’s fingers from Skip’s neck and belted, “Uncrullio!”

  It was a spell she’d once picked up to disentangle both her shoelaces and her curly hair, and for a moment it seemed to work: Valerie’s snarl lessened in sheer rage, and she seemed to reconsider murdering Skip. But then, instead of disengaging, her fingers tangled even tighter around the poor ex-baker’s neck as she started shaking him vigorously, like one would an apple tree!

  Oh, crap! Just then, Gran called out from the kitchen, “Lunch is ready!”

  At the sound of Gran’s voice, Valerie suddenly seemed to reconsider this whole strangling and shaking business. Her nose twitched as she stuck it up into the air, and she sniffed loudly. The scent of Gran’s cooking seemed to please her, for her murderous expression morphed into one of delight. And then she let go, and Skip dropped to the floor. I could hear Valerie mutter something that sounded like “Yum!” and then she was off on a trot in the general direction of the kitchen, where nourishment apparently awaited.

  We rushed to Skip’s side, and before long he was gulping in big helpings of much-appreciated oxygen, like a fish who’s been on dry land for too long.

  He then pointed a finger in the direction of the kitchen. “You get her away from me, you hear?! You make sure she never gets close to me again!”

  We eyed each other grimly, and swore a sacred oath to Skip never to let Valerie kill him again. Twice was quite enough for one day. How we were going to keep our promise, I didn’t know, but somehow we would.

  When we entered the kitchen, Valerie had her face buried in a deep dish, and was gobbling up her food eagerly, not unlike a pig feeding from a trough.

  Gran sat watching, a look of grave concern on her face. Silently, we also took our seats, and started eating. The mood wasn’t one of festive cheer, though, and when Skip also sat down for lunch, he did so on the other end of the table from Valerie, and never let his eyes stray from her.

  Valerie was clearly a menace now, not just to herself but to anyone who came in her vicinity, though I had the distinct impression she posed more of a threat to men than women. This might have something to do with her past and with Alex Knuckles in particular. I hadn’t known that ghouls could be so particular, but apparently something of Valerie’s original personality still lingered, and affected the ghoul’s choice of victims.

  It meant that we were safe, and so was Gran, but Skip wasn’t, and neither were any men who came round the house. The mailman, I knew, wouldn’t like it when he came to deliver the mail and suddenly a woman latched onto him and tried to kill him. It might be a welcome change from being attacked by dogs going for his ankles, but I doubt whether he would see it that way…

  “How… how were things at Petunia’s?” I asked Skip now, wanting to lift the heavy silence that hung over the table like a pall.

  “When I left, Petunia was still shooting the breeze with her Blackguards,” Skip said, sounding a little hoarse now, almost like a person who’s almost been choked to death.

  “Shooting the breeze? I thought The Blackguards couldn’t see her?”

  “Well, they were shooting the breeze, she was watching it go by,” he clarified. Then he frowned. “You know the weirdest thing?”

  “No, what?” Edelie asked, her eyes also fixed on Valerie. The gobbling noises the woman was making were obviously affecting Edie’s appetite.

  “I happened to run into a couple of moving guys when I left.”

  “Moving guys?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They said they were there to pack everything up and move out.”

  “That’s weird,” I said.

  “Well, not so weird,” said Estrella. “Rupert probably wants to empty the apartment now that Petunia is gone. Maybe he already found a buyer.”

  “Well, yes, but isn’t this a little quick? She’s only been dead for a couple of hours.”

  But I gave it no more thought. We had other fish to fry. After lunch, we lured Valerie upstairs, by holding a big piece of meat out in front of her, like a carrot to a donkey. This ghoul, whoever or whatever it was, was obviously fond of raw meat, for it followed us like a dog, now on all fours, yapping and snarling like a wild animal. Once upstairs, we quickly threw the meat into the spare bedroom and then quickly closed and locked the door.

  “Phew,” I said, leaning against the door. “At least for now we’re safe.”

  Chapter 25

  After pu
tting Skip on guard duty outside Valerie’s door, we decided to make our way back to Sir Rupert’s, to see if he wouldn’t be able to give us some more names of people who might have meant Petunia harm.

  We’d exhausted the first list of suspects and we needed to populate the list with fresh ones. Until we discovered who was behind this whole thing. It was obvious now that Petunia was the real target here: Valerie was her daughter, and whoever was behind this was obviously after Petunia’s money. First they got rid of Petunia, then her daughter, and possibly even her granddaughter. Which is why we wanted to check with Rupert that Sofia was perfectly safe.

  But when we arrived at the building, and we made our way to the top floor to see if Sir Rupert was still at Petunia’s apartment, we were surprised to find the place empty, a moving crew busily carting out the final remaining items. When we stopped one of the men in his tracks, he explained that their instructions were to empty out the apartment and to make it ready for sale.

  “What do you mean, for sale?” I asked, darting a quick look inside.

  “That’s what the man said,” he said, lifting his cap for a quick scratch.

  “What man? Who ordered this?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

  “Rupert Lohenstein,” he said, reading from a tattered purchase order.

  I frowned. This was so weird. I directed a look in the corner, and noticed that the huge vault was gone, and so was everything else in the apartment.

  “Where did the vault go?” I asked.

  The man grimaced. “Now that was a tough one,” he admitted. “We had to get it out by crane.” He pointed at the window where I could still see the crane. I hurried over, and saw that the vault had been lifted onto a flatbed truck, and as I watched, it moved away, and disappeared around the corner.

  “Where—where are you taking all her stuff?” I asked.

  The man frowned. “What’s with all the questions? Who are you?”

  “We worked for Petunia,” Edelie explained.

  “She hired us to organize her move to the tropics,” Estrella said wistfully.

  “Oh, then that’s all right, isn’t it?” the man asked cheerfully.

  “What is all right?” I asked, confused.

  “Well, that’s exactly where all this stuff is going, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Edelie, as confused as I was.

  “The tropics! This whole lot is being shipped out to…” He quickly took the slightly crumpled purchase order from his shirt pocket again. “Aruba.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t mind tagging along, to be honest. Lying in a hammock, soaking up the rays, slurping from a coconut and paddling in the surf… That’s the life, isn’t it? If you can get it, of course.”

  He rolled up his sleeves, and then helped a colleague move out one of Petunia’s works of art. This one was a pink unicorn with yellow stripes.

  I shared a look of concern with my sisters. “Rupert never mentioned any of this,” I said needlessly.

  “We better ask him, then,” suggested Estrella.

  Just as we were walking out, I heard Petunia’s voice utter a loud lament. “Get your filthy hands off my Lady Petunia! That’s mine!” she bellowed.

  We hurried into what had been Petunia’s study, and saw how the movers picked up a six-foot-high Lady Liberty, only this Lady Liberty had Petunia’s face. And she was holding up a microphone instead of a torch.

  “Put that down at once!” she was shouting, trying to make the men obey. But they couldn’t even hear her, and they now carried Lady Petunia out of the room, like they’d carted off all the rest of her belongings.

  “What’s happening, Petunia?” I asked, though it was pretty obvious.

  “They’re stealing my stuff!” she cried, waving her hands in dismay. “They took everything! It’s all gone!”

  “But why?” I asked. “And why are they taking it to Aruba?”

  She eyed me strangely. “Aruba? But that’s where I was going.”

  “I know. You told us,” I reminded her. “You bought a house there.”

  “I didn’t buy a house,” she said. “I built one! A great place in a great location, with full view of the ocean, but still very private. I even had a state-of-the-art alarm system installed, a private pool, the works. It was going to be my Camelot! Where I would be reborn a happier, better, more relaxed Petunia Hudson!”

  “Rupert,” I said under my breath.

  “Do you think he’s behind this?” asked Estrella, incredulous. “But he’s such a wonderful person! And so very much devoted to Petunia!”

  “What happened to your vault?” I asked.

  “My vault?” cried Petunia now. “They took it! It’s gone! All of my music. Hundreds and hundreds of songs. Years and years of work! My legacy!”

  “Gone to Aruba,” I said quietly. “He’s taking everything to Aruba, and himself along with it, probably. To live a happier, better, more relaxed life.”

  “But how can he? He told us he’s giving everything to Valerie.”

  “He might have been lying,” I said. “Valerie isn’t in Petunia’s will, remember? He was going to include her out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “He must have had a change of heart, then,” muttered Edelie.

  “But why would he target Valerie if she wasn’t even in the will?” Estrella asked with a frown. “That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Valerie could contest the will,” I explained. “And cases like that can drag on for years and years, the estate locked in litigation. He wanted to make sure that Valerie would not be in the capacity to fight the stipulations of the will.”

  And it was likely that in the state she was in, Valerie probably didn’t even realize her mother had died or that there was even a will to contest.

  “But what about Sofia? What did he do with her?” Estrella asked.

  “We’ll soon find out,” I said, gritting my teeth. We hurried from the apartment, passing a moving guy carting off a box with Petunia’s platinum records, and then down the stairs to Rupert’s apartment. It didn’t come as a big surprise to find movers from the same firm busy hauling the last few items away from an almost empty place. Sir Rupert was gone, and when we tried his cell, the call went straight to voicemail. He had skipped out, and he’d taken Petunia’s fortune and legacy along with him, to go and live in the house that she’d built for herself!

  “Oh, god, this isn’t happening!” cried Petunia, darting inside and checking around and then popping out again. “He’s gone! He’s really gone! And he took everything! All of my music!”

  “I didn’t see this coming,” I confessed.

  “Neither did I,” said Edelie quietly.

  “He seemed like such a nice man,” said Estrella. “So kind, and so sweet.”

  “He’s a rotten traitor!” groaned Petunia. “A dirty, rotten scoundrel!”

  Well, that was one way of putting it, and she was probably right.

  Just then, Edelie got a call from Sam, and as she listened, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. When she finally disconnected, she stared at us for a moment, before saying, slowly, “That was Sam.”

  “Yes, we know that that was Sam!” I cried. “What did he say?!”

  She shook her head. “You’re never going to believe this.”

  “I think I am, if you’ll just tell me!”

  “He got a call from social services. Rupert was supposed to pick up Sofia today.”

  “So?”

  “He never did. And now they’re asking him what to do with her.”

  “Oh, no,” said Estrella. “This just keeps getting worse and worse!”

  “He doesn’t need her anymore,” I said. “He probably figured he’d use her as leverage, but now that he’s got what he wanted, he’s not going to bother.”

  “So where is Sofia now?” Estrella asked.

  “Yes, where is my grandchild?” asked Petunia.

  “Well, she’s with Sam at the moment,” said Edelie. “And he’s dropping her off at
the house later on. It was either that or having her placed with Knuckles. He didn’t think that was such a good idea, so he opted for us.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked.

  Edelie grinned. “Gran will be so stoked! Safflower House is welcoming a baby again. At least until Valerie is well enough to take care of her.”

  “Valerie will never be well,” I said somberly. “Not as long as Rupert Lohenstein doesn’t release her from that ghoul he sicced on her.”

  And judging from what we’d just seen, he was never going to do that.

  Chapter 26

  We arrived back at the house just in time to see a police car pull up and Sam and Pierre get out. Sam was carrying a baby in his arms. Sofia Gabby.

  “Oh, dear,” said Edelie as she watched the scene: the powerfully built detective carrying that tiny bundle of joy in his arms. I could see her face twist into something close to an expression of blissfulness.

  “He looks great with a baby, doesn’t he?” Estrella teased.

  “Oh, yes, he does,” Edelie agreed.

  “He looks like a born father,” Estrella added, with a keen look at Edie.

  “Oh, my God, he does, doesn’t he?” asked Edelie breathlessly.

  Sam, who was now looking thoroughly uncomfortable, saw me and handed me the baby, as if it were a nuclear device. “Thank God,” he muttered. “I’ll bet you’ll know what to do with this, right?” He pointed at the diaper. “I think it had a little ‘accident,’ by the way, judging from the smell.”

  “Oh…” whimpered Edelie.

  “Her,” I corrected Sam tersely. “And why are you giving her to me? Just because I’m a woman I should instinctively know what to do with a baby?”

  “Sure,” he said vaguely, then directed his attention to Edelie, leaving me steaming. “I thought you should know this is only temporary. It’s not easy to keep that damned Alex Knuckles away from the kid. He’s going to fight this.”