by Catie Rhodes
My stomach rumbled. Accepting the inevitable, I stopped at a booth selling tropical punches made out of “100% real fruit.” The owners sold moonshine out of the back of the booth. They’d said it came from a recipe in the family for three hundred years.
“Ms. Peri Jean.” The female half of the couple who owned the booth passed me a cup of punch with a slice of pineapple garnishing the cup’s edge. I dug for my money. She raised her chin. “Nope. On the house. That spell you sold us to increase our business really worked.”
I nodded my thanks and cut back into the crowd, guzzling the drink. My tent and maybe more customers awaited. Before long, I reached the row of tents belonging to the traveling community of Sanctuary. Made of a heavy vinyl-coated material, the tents rattled and flapped in the hot wind.
A shadowy figure leaned out from the edge of one of the tents as though taking a peek at me. That cowboy’s mother’s ghost. I groaned.
Some of the spirits I contacted for money weren’t so eager to go back where they came from. I had learned to deal with them in a businesslike way and to act confident.
Spirit, be gone. I drew on my magic and gave it a hard push. The spirit disappeared. I rejoined the throng of drunk townies, wild-eyed thrill seekers, and bored parents walking the dirt path through the makeshift carnival and walked past my family’s row of tents.
I stopped at the sound of Dillon’s husky smoker voice ringing out of the first tent. The sign outside read “Stop smoking with HYPNOSIS! $75 per person.” A peek inside showed me she had a full house.
A Sanctuary member stood just inside the entrance taking a wad of money from a woman whose wizened skin made her look like an advertisement for quitting smoking. The Sanctuary woman, on the run from an abusive husband, raised her brows in question. I smiled, backed out of the tent, and peeked into the next one.
My cousin Jadine sat staring into a crystal ball. Inside the ball, a mist of smoke moved around. The sign next to Jadine read “See into the future. Ask Mistress Jade for a reading.”
“Peri Jean, I need to talk to you.” Jadine raised her head and stared in my general direction. Her accuracy still amazed me, especially since she was blind.
“How’d you know it was me?” I stepped the rest of the way into the tent.
“Your soap. And you coughed a couple of times.” Jadine took her hands off the crystal ball, and the mist stopped moving inside it.
“I think you like catching people off guard.” I moved close enough to give her a playful nudge but didn’t sit at her table. My butt was tired. “What’s up?”
“I’m not sure I should tell anybody this.” Something in her voice raised my drama antennae.
I’d sounded that way too many times not to recognize it when I heard it another woman’s voice. “What is it?”
“Brad’s asked me to marry him.” A little smile hovered on her lips.
I swallowed my first response, which was incredulity. Brad Whitebyrd loved playing the field, loved thinking he was a ladies man. Had Jadine stolen his heart? I counted how many times he’d visited camp, even going as far as to work while he was among us. His actually doing work convinced me. “What’d you say?”
“That he’d have to ask Papaw. What do you think Papaw’d say if Brad asked for my hand?” I thought it over. Cecil would be brokenhearted that the only child he’d raised to adulthood thought herself ready for marriage. His heartbreak would come out in anger and admonitions.
I had my own misgivings. Jadine was only twenty-one. She really ought to date a bunch of guys and make a more informed choice.
But what did I know? I’d married young, divorced quickly, dated a bunch of guys, and still spent every night alone, the man I loved completely cut off from me. By choice.
“Peri Jean? Are you saying nothing because I ought to tell Brad no?” She clenched her hands in the lap of her brown, flowered dress.
“Just thinking.” I came close enough to put my hand on her shoulder. “You’re old enough to do what you want, no matter what I or anybody else thinks.”
She grinned, and I thought I knew why Brad Whitebyrd would swear off bachelorhood for Jadine. She was gorgeous. “So you think Papaw won’t get angry?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. He’ll scream. He’ll cry. He’ll tell you not to do it.” I giggled, and Jadine joined me. “But once he gets over it, he’ll welcome Brad into the family. He’s a pretty accomplished energy witch. Cecil will want him in Sanctuary after he thinks about it.”
“I can see us being happy together.” The look of hope on her young, untested face made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
I’d have never told her she was wrong. Sometimes you just know when somebody’s the right one. I’d leave the persuasive speeches to Cecil and Shelly. Jadine’s adoptive parents, especially her mother, would probably drive her crazy. Shelly viewed her daughter as a princess and thought she’d marry a prince. Brad Whitebyrd was more like a spoiled frat boy.
“Will you go with Brad to talk to Papaw?” Jadine twisted in her chair. I knew this request came from Brad.
“Nope. If Brad’s big enough to get married, he’s big enough to do the hard stuff on his own.” I leaned down and slowly pulled my cousin into a hug. She squeezed tight and let go of me.
“There’s something else. I had a vision, a real one.” Jadine plucked at the rayon of her dress.
My breath caught in my throat. This might be the break I needed, the thing that would make all these weeks with Summervale Carnival worth the effort.
“Something with Oscar Rivera?” I willed her to say yes. The worry about what I was going to do when I found his soul and could dispatch him was eating me up worse than just finding him and fighting him.
She shook her head, frowning. “It was a man asking about us, like he was looking for us. He was in San Antonio at that RV park where we stayed.”
I quickly calculated. Our stay in the city of San Antonio had been two weeks ago. “What did he want with us?”
“I don’t know. But he had a snake for a necklace.” She made a face.
My guts twisted as I considered all the people or things who might wear a snake for a necklace and might be looking for me. Anybody from Sol, my contact across the veil, to a topside supernatural overlord and slave trader I’d nicknamed Mohawk. I turned my attention back to Jadine. “Tell me more about this man.”
She shook her head so hard, her blond waves whipped back and forth. “That’s it. Then the vision flashed to you. You had a hole right here.” She tapped herself on a spot above and between both eyes. “Bright light was streaming out of it.” Her breath came faster. “Those runes—the Coachman’s runes—were floating around you, and they were glowing.” She gulped.
I took a step away from her, freaked out by what she’d seen and unable to make sense of it. Sometimes Jadine’s visions were symbolic. This one would take some thinking.
“I did a search on my phone for the part about the light coming out of your head.” She gave me a sly little smile. I wanted to thump her. Brad Whitebyrd had probably taught her how to talk to her phone and make it talk back.
“Find anything interesting?” I did all I could to keep the amusement out of my voice.
“I found stuff about an evil eye and stuff about a third eye.” Jadine shrugged. That was the extent of her knowledge, which was more than she’d have been able to access on a smartphone a few years ago.
“Okay. Thank you for letting me know. If you think that man is getting any closer, or if you somehow sense him here, come get me. Immediately.” Feeling eyes on my back, I glanced at the tent’s flap, only to see the shadow pull back quickly, as though to avoid detection. That was it. I’d banish this damn spirit as soon as I got away from Jadine. I turned to go. “Good luck with Cecil and Shelly.”
Jadine blew me a kiss and went back to her crystal ball.
End of Sample
Look for Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers #9 in October 2017.
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Dead End
A Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thriller
Copyright © 2017 Catie Rhodes.
All rights reserved.
Published by: Long Roads and Dark Ends Press
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Book Cover Corner
Content Editing by Word Webber Press
Copy Editing by Julie Glover
Proofreading by Deborah Digrispino
First Printing, 2017
ISBN Ebook: 978-1-947462-00-7
ISBN Print: 978-1-947462-01-4
Rhodes, Catie.
Dead End/ Catie Rhodes. — 1st ed.
Visit the author website: www.catierhodes.com