by Maher Tegan
She shook her head and returned her attention to the book. “Okay, it says here that the ruby once belonged to a—” she paused and ran her hand over her face. “Oh, dear. It’s going to be one of those. The one time I stick my neck out, I end up dealing with a jealous rich girl. It figures.”
“What?” we all three said together.
“How do you know they’re rich?”
She shook her head. “Not the people we’re going to see. The spirit we’re dealing with. It seems the Romani obtained the ruby after clearing the woman from a house, but they hadn’t had time to deal with her properly. Back in the good old days when they drowned you or set you on fire if they suspected witchcraft, magical folks still did what we could to help people. We just had to do it without bringing attention to ourselves.”
I hadn’t quite made the connection yet, but Eli had. “I’ve studied possessions and exorcisms a bit because they’re still a mystery, but if what the movies show is anything close to accurate—which would be a shocking turn of events—it’s a little loud.”
Sybil tapped the end of her nose and winked at him. “Bingo. Messy, too. Plus, it doesn’t take nearly the level of magic to trap a spirit in a vessel as it does to exorcise it from this plane. That one’s a particularly nasty one that those lazy witches I moved here with should have dealt with. Had I known they were serious about dumping that trunk in the bay, I would have done it myself. Instead, I thought it was a good lesson for them to have to untangle the magic on all those items. It was, after all their own fault.”
“So who’s trapped in the stone, then?” Jake asked, making a grab for the “oh crap” strap above his head as the car took a wide, fast swing around a corner. Sybil slid toward him a bit but didn’t seem to notice as she turned back to the book. “Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve read this text. I apologize, but I’ll need a minute to make sure I have my facts straight. It has been over three-hundred years since the incident with the ruby, so it’s probably a good idea to take a refresher, here.”
While she studied the text, I took a minute to think about Luther. Who was he and why was he pretending to be an old man? What did Sybil mean by companion? As I admired the way his raven hair curled around his collar, he caught my eye in the mirror again. I blushed when I realized his eyes were practically twinkling with delight. He was enjoying making us wonder. With a quick wink, he braked hard and took another sharp turn.
“We’re only about two minutes out, Syb,” he said over his shoulder. “Might want to get to it if you’re expecting them to help you at all.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up a finger. “According to what the Romani told us before things got ugly, the spirit belongs to a spoiled heiress who thought her fiancé was cheating on her. He was on his way to visit his sick aunt, but she was convinced he was going to meet a lover and worked herself into a bloodlust. She pulled a woman off her horse, climbed aboard, and whipped the poor animal almost to death chasing him down.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Figures. By all accounts, the horse stumbled right when she was about to overtake her beau. She fell off and was badly injured. He made it back to her just in time to assure her he loved only her, blah, blah, blah. She swore to find a way back to him, then died.”
‘Okay,” Eli said, drawing the word out. “How does she get from dead to locked in a pendant?”
“It seems the next day, her best friend, who had miraculously been near enough when she died to be with her too, began to act strangely. She came on to the fiancé, and he reciprocated without batting an eye. It seems the fiancé was having an affair, and it was with her friend. When she realized that, things got a little Poltergeisty. Her dad called the Romani, who took care of it by capturing the soul in the ruby. Why they didn’t get rid of the soul as soon as possible, I can’t say.”
“So that brings us to now,” Eli said. “What do you want us to do?”
She raised a brow at him. “Do any of you have experience with sucking angry souls from the bodies of innocent people?”
“Uh, no,” he replied. “Can’t say we’ve ever had the opportunity to study it or found ourselves in a situation where we needed it.”
“Then I want you to stay out of my way,” she said. “Luther and I will handle it. Watch. Learn. I don’t know what else was in that trunk, and this may be a skill you’ll need again. Consider the first one a freebie.”
Luther pulled in front of a house that could only be described as middle-class vanilla. It was nice, but it wasn’t amazing, and it matched every other house on the block. Two-story, concrete-block construction, garage in front, door to the left behind a short, arched entryway, and a slate-gray midsized car squatting in the drive.
Screaming and the sounds of crashing furniture and breaking glass poured through the windows. It wouldn’t be long before other looky-loos joined the lone dog walker staring up at the house.
“Hey, you need me to call the cops?” the lady, who bore a comic resemblance to the English Bulldog at the end of her leash, called.
“No thanks,” Luther said, flashing her a million-watt smile. “We are the authorities. Please go about your day. We’ve got this covered.”
The woman and her dog waddled away, though she kept glancing over her shoulder, no doubt hoping to see something juicy. Nothing like being able to go home and tell your hubs that you saw somebody toss a chair through a window or something.
I shook my head as she meandered down the block, stopping every few feet under the guise of letting her dog sniff around. Life’s problems always seem a little less horrible when you know somebody else is in worse shape than you are. And it’s even better if you can be the first one to spread the news. Ah, life in a small town. Boy would she be shocked if she had the real story.
Luther glanced at Sybil and waggled his brows. “Ready to go do a good old-fashioned exorcism?”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” she said, flashing him a saucy wink as they headed up the walk.
An unexpected twinge of disappointment zipped through me. So it was that kind of companionship. Alrighty, then. So what was with the old-man getup? My brain shied away from the more tawdry explanations for that because ... gross.
“Don’t just stand there,” Sybil called over her shoulder as they made their way up the walk. “We have work to do.”
From the sounds coming from the house, we didn’t just have work to do; we had a war to stop.
Chapter 11
S crambling, Eli, Jake , and I caught up just as they opened the front door and strolled right in.
I cringed and a bolt of pity—topped with a good dollop of fear—shot through me when I saw a guy crouched in a corner behind a recliner.
“Mr. Hennessey, I presume?” Sybil asked as if there wasn’t a raving blonde lunatic slinging knickknacks at her.
“Duck!” Eli exclaimed, then snatched me down just as a ceramic puppy flew within an inch of my head. I decided at that point where my attention needed to be.
“She’s lost her mind!” poor Mr. Hennessey, a balding man in his early forties said. “I brought her home that necklace, and within an hour, she was accusing me of cheating, then it was like she has no idea who she is or who I am. She’s not making any sense!”
That was punctuated by a screech from the banshee on the other side of the room. “Where am I, and why doth I wear these rags? Where’s Marissa? I wot thou are hiding her, and I shall dispatch thou both!”
I was used to reading Colonial English, but not much good at hearing it and translating on the fly, but I’d been around enough to be fluent in “jealous psycho” regardless of the language. At any rate, I was at least sure we had the right girl and the right curse.
I pulled in a deep breath as a ceramic angel crashed through the big-screen. It was about time somebody was the voice of reason. I held out my hands in a gesture of peace. “Melony, if you’ll just calm down, I’m sure we can—”
“Mine name is Prudence Payne, not Melony. Why are thou bid
ding me that?” her blue eyes flashed, and her gaze swung wildly around the room. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get her out of there without using magic in front of her husband.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Eli said, then turned to Mr. Hennessey and shot a ball of light at him. “Somnum.”
The energy spiked past me, and the terrorized guy behind the couch slumped into unconsciousness. When Melony-Prudence broke loose with another bout of cursing and screaming, I was almost jealous of him.
“There,” Eli said. “One problem down. Now what?”
“Now,” Sybil said, creeping toward Prudence, “you three don’t let her get away. And don’t pull anything like you just did with her husband. I don’t have time to explain, but don’t mess this up by showing off.”
Prudence leveled her gaze on Sybil, her expression clearing and shifting from scared to shrewd. “Ah, I know what’s going on now. Thou art one of those witches whom locked me 'i the locket. I be not going back.”
She lowered herself into a crouch, shifting her body as Luther and Sybil closed in on her from either side. Her back was to a small alcove, so she didn’t have anywhere to go unless she went through the window. I bit my lip. Surely if Sybil thought that was a concern, she’d have already dealt with it.
“Thou shall not catch me this time,” Prudence said, her lips curling in what I could only describe as evil satisfaction. Blond hair clung to her cheek. “I shall carry on as before.”
“What do you mean?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She tilted her head, and the level of crazy lighting her eyes was enough to send a chill down my spine. “The killing of course. Didst they not notice it restrained when I died?”
I glanced at Eli and Jake, who gave me identical, “I have no idea what the crazy lady’s talking about” shrugs.
A flush spread up Prudence’s cheeks. “The butcher’s wife? The laundress? The handsome milkmaid?”
When nobody reacted to what she was saying, the rage built until I was sure she was going to pop her cork. Luther moved toward her, but Sybil grabbed his arm and pulled him back, held her hands up and started to chant. I moved closer to the door, Eli shifted so that he was blocking the hallway that no doubt led to the back door, and Jake hovered between us, ready to help in case she got past Luther.
“Noooooo,” Prudence wailed as Sybil’s chanting grew louder. Her body became blurred around the edges as if she had an aura. Luther’s deep voice melded with Sybil’s, and the energy levels in the air raised the hairs on the back of my neck. My own magic answered, but I tamped it down.
Prudence’s gaze bounced around the room, frantic, then she spun around and made the one move I’d been afraid of—she dove through the broken alcove window.
The magic in the air dissipated as quickly as it had started as Eli dashed out the front door, the rest of us on his heels. A group of five or six women had gathered out front—thanks to Bulldog Lady calling in the brigade, no doubt—and two of them had rushed forward to where Prudence, or Melony, I suppose, had landed on the grass.
“You!” I snapped at the one woman who looked like she still had her wits about her. The other looked so flustered I’d have been surprised if she’d been able to tell me her own name. “Call 911.”
“I already did,” she replied, her face ashen. “I don’t understand. Pete is one of the best guys I know. He dotes on her, always bringing her flowers and doing nice things for her. This isn’t like him.”
I wasn’t sure what to say because she was right. This was all because he’d been a sweet husband and bought her a nice piece of jewelry. That was a problem for another time, but I couldn’t let poor Pete take the heat for this. “He still is. He didn’t do this, but I don’t have time to explain.” Not much to assuage the gossip, but it would do until we came up with a story.
I knelt beside Melony, who was lying on her back, and gave her a gentle shake. Her eyes fluttered and then opened, and I didn’t see any sign of a crazy Colonial lady anywhere in their depths.
“Melony?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Yeah,” she said, struggling to sit up. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, my gaze roaming over her for signs of serious injury. A scary amount of blood was pooling under her right leg.
“Where’s Pete?” Melony asked, her voice faint.
“He’ll be here in a bit,” I said, pulling my belt off and tightening it around her leg. She wasn’t going to last long if we didn’t stop the bleeding. “Don’t talk.”
The ruby flashed at the pulse point in her throat, and I cursed myself as I grasped it and gave a quick tug to break the delicate chain even though I wasn’t sure if it was of any use to us now or not. Luckily, she was in enough pain and confused enough that she didn’t even notice.
“She just—” one of the women started to say as she jabbed her finger at me, and I at least had enough wits about me to cast a silencing spell before she could call me out as a thief. Thank you, Dimwit Twins, for teaching me to think on the fly. That one had saved Eli and me more than once when they’d tried to rat us out to a teacher.
“Physician,” a man said, pushing through the group of women. I didn’t know where he’d come from, but I was thankful. I was a witch, not a healer. I stood and stepped back to give him space. The wail of sirens brought me back to reality. Witches and cops didn’t have a great history, so I laid her back on the ground and pushed to my feet.
“Time for us to go, kid,” Sybil said, pulling on my arm.
I nodded, loathe to leave Melony but not seeing any option. Us going to jail wouldn’t help catch the spirit who did that to her. Luther had already sprinted to the car, so I made a mad dash and dived in.
“Now what?” I asked, buckling my seatbelt as Luther mashed the gas pedal to the floor, then whipped the wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting a Great Dane.
“Now we’re screwed,” Sybil said, her full lips turned down into a deep frown. “I think we just set a Colonial serial killer loose on Marauders Bay.”
Chapter 12
I was shaking from the adrenaline, so I took a deep breath, concentrating on slowing my heart as I exhaled slowly then pulled in another lungful.
“What the hell happened back there?” Jake demanded.
“What happened,” Luther growled from the front seat, “is that we got cocky.” He glared at Sybil in the mirror, and she glared back.
“I’m not going to tell you you’re right,” she said, “but in hindsight, we should have captured her and taken her somewhere else or at least secured her as you started to do.” She turned to me and shrugged helplessly. “There were five of us, though, so I thought we could do it quick and dirty, as you kids are fond of saying.”
“Nobody says that,” Eli replied, shooting her a dirty look, “especially when it comes to magic.”
“There weren’t five of us,” Luther said, censure tinting his voice. We were a few streets away from the house, so he slowed down. We didn’t need to draw any more attention to us than we already had. “There were two of us who knew what we were doing and three witches there to learn. You were reckless.”
I was surprised Sybil was letting him talk to her like that, which made me even more curious about their relationship.
She sighed. “I guess I will say it, then. I should have listened to you.”
“I’m normally the king of I-told-you-so,” Jake said, a hint of irritation in his voice, “but that’s not helpful right now. What are we going to do? Where did she go?”
“Well,” Sybil replied, “there wasn’t really anywhere for her to go other than into one of those women. We just need to figure out which one.”
“Fabulous,” I said, crossing my arms. “Considering we don’t even know who they are, that’ll be fun.”
“Well,” Eli said, “I thought of that. I actually got the names of three of them. I told them we may need them as witnesses. I didn’t talk to the two who were standing with you, though
I did snap their pictures. And I blurred out the license plate.”
I raised a brow at him. “Impressive! All I did was get the necklace and put my belt around her leg to keep her from bleeding to death, and I’m not even sure if the necklace is relevant anymore.”
Sybil wobbled her hand. “It’s not irrelevant, but I don’t know that it will be helpful, either. You still should probably cleanse it. I imagine Pete will thank you for either returning it or refunding his money.”
“Speaking of Pete,” Jake said, “what are we going to do about him? How are we going to explain this?”
“We’re not,” Luther replied, looking at us in the mirror as he took a right hand turn onto the road that would take us back to Sybil’s. “I altered his memory. Or rather, I wiped it. There wasn’t time for more than that, but at least he’ll be able to say he doesn’t know what happened,” Luther replied, looking at us in the rearview mirror. “I couldn’t leave him like that for the sake of the magical community, and to be honest, for his own wellbeing. I wish I’d have had time to do hers, too.”
He wasn’t wrong, but now we had to figure out how to track down those women before somebody else got hurt, or worse. It was time to call in a favor.
I pulled my phone from my purse and scrolled through my contacts.
“Who are you calling?” Eli asked, craning his neck to see what I was doing.
“Who I have to,” I said with a sigh.
“Oh, is that a good idea?” he asked when he saw where I’d stopped in my contacts.
“Probably not, but I don’t have a better idea. We need damage control, and he has access to tools we need.”