To Seize a Wayward Spirit

by R. L. Naquin

  “Dude.” I wiped the sweat from my brow. “She’s out. Dial it down, please? You’re terrifying all of us.”

  He sucked the tube into himself and nodded. “Sorry.”

  I stared at the woman at my feet. “She just wanted to be recognized for her talent. Everybody else got the awards and the honors.”

  In the end, didn’t we all want to be recognized?

  * * *

  After everything that had happened that evening, on top of having to walk around all day in plastic glass slippers which weren’t, as it turned out, nearly as comfortable as I’d hoped they’d be, I thought we were done.

  As was often the case, I was wrong. In my exhaustion, I’d forgotten one very important thing.

  I tried to leave the ballroom so we could go back to the boarding house and I could crawl into bed. Pete appeared in front of me and held up his hands like a traffic cop.

  I sighed. “Come on, Poor Dead Pete. I’m too tired for charades. Can’t we talk tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. One hand remained straight out to signal me to remain stopped, and his other hand waved the other lane of traffic to proceed. Or at least that was what it looked like.

  I rubbed my sore eyes and tried not to snap at him.

  Tahm touched my sleeve. “Look.” He pointed up.

  Ash gasped. “Have they been up there the whole time?”

  I nodded. “Mostly. I completely forgot about them.”

  Pete continued to beckon to the loose souls to come down to us, while I quietly slipped my pendant out from under my costume. They drew closer until they hovered together at eye level with us, glancing back and forth between Pete and me.

  “Ladies, I think your unfinished business is complete. Don’t you think so?” I spoke quietly, as if trying to coax a wild dog into a cage.

  They exchanged a worried look, then nodded.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and held out my scarab beetle. “I don’t think I can pull you both in at once, but it won’t take long. Thank you for your help tonight. You were wonderful.”

  Felicia drifted forward and nodded. I moved the stone closer to her and gave a tiny pull. She turned to a silvery liquid like mercury, first at her feet, then dancing up the rest of her body. The stream flowed into the stone and disappeared. I repeated the process with Wendy, and both souls were exactly where they were supposed to be.

  We’d completed our mission.

  I turned to Pete to thank him, but he was gone.

  Three silver lights shot across the surface of my soul stone.

  I gave the stone an affectionate rub. “Thanks, Pete.” I slipped the pendant under my dress and let out a satisfied sigh.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Center of the Universe in Tulsa, Oklahoma, though interesting, wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped it would be. I stood in the circle in the middle of a bustling city and listened to my own voice echo back to me. Weird, sure, but not the magical experience I’d expected.

  “Hello!” My voice sounded a little funny, like there were two of me and we were standing next to each other. I played with it several times before stepping out of the circle and giving Ash a chance at it.

  Her hair was back to its normal dark blond, and she’d piled it on top of her head to have her ears uncovered, as if that would improve the experience. “Hello!” She grinned, and her eyes grew wide. “That’s so cool. Hello! I’m Ash. Hello. Hello.”

  I laughed. “Did I sound that stupid?”

  Tahm chuckled. “Yes, actually.” He pulled me toward a low wall. “I have to talk to you about something.”

  My stomach fluttered. Whenever someone said something like that, it was serious. Was it about how he’d almost kissed me on the stage? Was he going to tell me he’d gotten to know me now and decided to go home and tell them the wedding was off? Did I even want him to do that?

  I did my best to look like I didn’t have a million thoughts racing through my head. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

  He tipped his head toward Ash, who was still shouting her name at the buildings around us and listening to an echo only she could hear. “What do you know about her family?”

  Of all the things I thought he might want to talk about, Ash was not one of them. “Only what I’ve told you. They ignored her. Made her take care of the other kids. Didn’t even remember her birthday.”

  He shook his head. “Not her foster parents. Her real ones.”

  “Oh. Well. Nothing, really. She only has one gem, so she has to be half djinn. She didn’t even know that herself until I found her. Why?”

  He watched her with a strange intensity. “Have you noticed that birthmark on her shoulder?”

  I’d seen it but hadn’t thought much about it. The spot was brown, about the size of a dime, and shaped a bit like a spider. “Sure. Why?”

  He rolled up his sleeve and pointed to the inside of his elbow. He had the same mark. “See?”

  I frowned. “What does that mean? Are you... Did you?” I couldn’t quite get the words out.

  “I’m not her father, Kam. Don’t be silly.” He rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff. “But my brother has that same mark.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Was he here? You think...” I was having all kinds of trouble speaking, which was so unlike me. But the conversation had taken me by surprise.

  Tahm took my hand in his and nodded. His eyes were filled with excitement. “I think she could be my niece.”

  “Holy crap.” I stared at him in disbelief. “If that were true, he’d know who her mother is, too. That would be amazing.”

  “What would be amazing?” Ash must have grown tired of listening to her own voice. A family of four had taken over the spot.

  Tahm flashed me a pleading look and a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He wasn’t sure yet, and if it was true, it was his news to share with her. Besides, if we got her hopes up, and it turned out Tahm was wrong, it would break her heart.

  I grinned up at her. “A replica of Stonehenge. We have to go through Wichita to get back to Headquarters and hand over these souls. Wichita has a junior version of Stonehenge.”

  “Nice.” Her arm shot up. “I vote yes.”

  “Well, you know I’ll always vote yes.” I stood from my seat and moved a few steps away from Tahm. “How about you? Yes?”

  He pretended to think about it. “As long as it’s on the way, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Yay! Stonehenge.” I clapped my hands.

  My pendant grew warm and shifted on its chain. Poor Dead Pete was excited, too.

  Tahm shook his head. “We’re never going to get these souls recaptured at this rate.” He shuffled off toward the car, but I could tell he was faking his irritation.

  Ash and I followed behind, swinging our arms and smiling.

  Ash nudged me with her elbow. “Hey.”

  I nudged her back. “What?”

  “Were you two holding hands?”

  I stopped and looked at her. I’d been so shocked by the idea that she might be Tahm’s niece, it hadn’t sunk in. “You know what? I think we were.”

  I grinned all the way to the truck. Sixteen more souls to go. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad plan after all.

  * * * * *

  Curious about Kam?

  Read on for an excerpt of FAIRIES IN MY FIREPLACE to find out how we first met her in the MONSTER HAVEN series from R.L. Naquin.

  Chapter One

  Scuttling sounds over my head let me know the harpy had made it into the attic. The pull-down stairs rattled around the corner, and Maurice appeared, looking frazzled.

  “She’s in.” He lowered his voice. “You have got to convince her to have a bath. She smells like a warthog who’s wallowed in a vat of expired buttermilk and discarded diapers.”

  I hel
d up a finger to get him to wait a second. “Bernice, I’ve got to go. Let me know if anything comes up.” We said our goodbyes, and I replaced the phone in my pocket.

  Maurice’s eyes grew wide, glowing in the darkened hallways. “What the hell happened to the carpet?”

  “Tiny dust devils. A whole bunch of them. Weren’t you the one who let them in?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve got to set some ground rules around here.”

  I opened my mouth, but the sound of the doorbell made me snap my jaw shut before I could answer him. I groaned. “I’ll get it. It’s probably the fire marshal telling us we’re over capacity.”

  I stepped over a sleeping chimera and skirted a family of gnomes on my way to the door. Apparently, they’d made it out from under the back porch and into the living room. Unless this was another family of gnomes. What were the odds? Pretty good, the way things were going.

  I really needed to get a head count.

  I opened the front door. The dust devils flew from the kitchen and blew outside, shoving past me and around the blinking woman staring at me from my porch.

  She was tall and curvy, with dark eyes, flawless skin and blue-black hair that was teased up on the top of her head and held in place with a piece of fabric. I had to know why she was dressed like Pat Benatar in the “Love Is a Battlefield” video. The exact same dress, all poofy green and white rags. The same fingerless gloves, stacks of bangles on her wrists and beads dripping from her neck, as if she’d stepped right out of MTV in the 1980s. If I didn’t let her in, I would die of spontaneous combustion due to curiosity overload.

  She craned her neck and looked into the living room at the menagerie inside.

  “Should I have made reservations? I didn’t know it would be so busy here. They said it was a safe place. This is a safe place?”

  Across the yard, my skunk-ape bodyguard, Iris, stood with his hairy arms folded, deep in conversation with what looked to be a tree branch. I squinted my eyes. No. I could make out the tiny figure of a brownie, probably not Molly, but maybe one of her kids or her husband, Walter, perched on the limb. If they’d let this woman past, they didn’t consider her a threat. Though, seriously, I was having boob envy again for the second time in an hour. Apparently, that wasn’t the kind of threat Iris and the fairy-ring alarm system were set up to catch. My brand-new insecurities were my own problem.

  I sighed and stepped out of her way. “Safe as houses.” I waved her in.

  She stepped across the threshold and whipped her head around, taking everything in.

  “Nice,” she said. She grinned at the gnomes huddled together, then plopped down on the sofa. “This is totally awesome. Do we get HBO? Is there a bed I can sleep in, or should I sleep on the couch?” She bounced on the cushions. “It’s comfy. I can sleep here. No problemo. How many people are staying here?”

  She ran her fingers over the fabric of the couch, then rose to touch each of the decorations on the fireplace mantel, examining photos, squinting at the carved wooden whale, exclaiming over the chunk of gargoyle rock that was a gift from Maurice’s brother-in-law.

  “Hey,” she said. “Is this a real snot rock?”

  I nodded. “It saved my life a few months ago. I had a bad-luck curse on me for a couple of weeks.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I did a quick check of her emotions to be sure she wasn’t faking, but she was so sincere it was humorous. Delight and amazement rolled off her in feathery waves. Her excitement was contagious.

  She dashed around the corner into the hallway. “How many bedrooms are there? Do I get to share a room? Can we make popcorn?”

  I laughed. “Slow down. You’re exhausting.” I waved my hand at her and she followed me into the kitchen. “Sit. Take a deep breath. You’re safe here. But I need to know who you are and what you’re running from.”

  Her eyes darted around the room and she licked her lips. “Can I have a drink?”

  Two glasses of strawberry lemonade slid in front of us. Maurice stood over me and winked.

  My visitor took a long sip through her bright green crazy straw, closed her eyes and sighed. “So good. I needed that.”

  Maurice grabbed the chair next to me and we waited. She opened her eyes again and grinned. “Awesome. Bed monster? Attic?”

  “Closet,” he said.

  She took another drink. “That’s the first thing I’ve had to drink in a long time.”

  I frowned. “How long?” She must’ve been running pretty hard if she couldn’t even stop for a drink of water.

  She shrugged. “Not sure how long. What year is it?”

  “2013,” Maurice said. “What year do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know or I wouldn’t have asked.” She sucked down the rest of her lemonade and made a show of slurping the dregs as loud as she could. Maurice took the cue and refilled her glass.

  I watched her take another long sip until she finally slowed. “Honey, why don’t we start at the beginning? I’m Zoey, this is Maurice. Now, your turn.”

  She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled. “Kam. It’s short for something, but it’s better if you don’t know the whole thing.”

  “Kam. Okay. I’m not sure how to put this without sounding insulting, but what flavor of Hidden or human are you?”

  She held up her bangle-covered wrists. “Duh.”

  I blinked. Her jewelry told me nothing, and I looked at Maurice for help. He smiled and patted my shoulder.

  “She’s djinn.” He pointed to the wider gold bracelets nestled under the gloves and thinner jewelry. “See? Nice camouflage, by the way. I didn’t even notice.”

  “Thanks,” she said, fiddling with the bangles to line them up. “I made the outfit myself.”

  “Djinn.” I took a swallow from my own drink to give me a second to collect my thoughts. “So, like a genie? Three wishes, open sesame, phenomenal cosmic powers?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, like that. I prefer ‘djinn.’ That three-wishes thing isn’t exactly accurate, though. And I don’t know if I’d call my powers ‘phenomenal.’ It depends on how much juice I’ve got, I guess. Takes a while to recharge.” She slurped through her straw again, signaling the need for another refill.

  Above us, something in the attic crashed. In the second it took me to glance at the ceiling, Kam lurched from her chair, sending it toppling to the floor, and crouched into a defensive stance, as if she was about to go all Kung Fu on the next person who moved.

  I shivered. Her pupils had expanded, and flames danced within their depths. One minute she’d been a cheerful anachronism, and the next she looked like a deadly, magical assassin.

  “Hey,” I said, my voice soft and reassuring. “It’s just a harpy up there getting comfortable. You’re okay. I told you, it’s safe here. Really.”

  Her shoulders relaxed, and she bent to pick up her chair. She kept her guard up, though. Her gaze moved about the room, scanning for exits and potential threats. The enthusiastic chatterbox was gone, and in her place was a wary runaway. Or maybe a killer. I wasn’t sure.

  Once she settled in her seat, I put a gentle hand over hers. “Kam, who’s after you, sweetie?” I turned my head toward Maurice without losing contact with the frightened djinn. “She’s probably starving. Can you make her a sandwich or something, Maurice?”

  He nodded and went to the fridge.

  Kam clutched herself and rubbed her arms as if chilled. The metal bangles on her wrists jangled against each other. “The Master didn’t check the lock on my box last night after he put me away. I waited until he was gone and escaped. He hates when I get out. He’ll be coming for me soon.” She stood again, this time in a slow, careful movement. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry. He’ll find me here. I have to keep moving. It’s the only way.” She made for the back door. “Thank you for the lemonade.”

  Maurice was closest t
o the door. He was also infinitely faster than I could ever be. He blocked her way before she got two steps.

  “Kam, you have to stay,” he said. “Do you know what an Aegis is?”

  She nodded. “They take care of the Hidden. But they’re really rare. I’ve never met one.”

  “Zoey is the only Aegis in the country right now. If she can’t keep you safe, nobody can.”

  She looked at me, sizing me up. “There was a gremlin in the Master’s hotel room. He told me to come see ‘the lady.’ He didn’t say why.”

  “Well, that’s why. This master guy can’t get past the skunk-ape or the fairy ring. Stay with us, Kam. There’s no place safer.”

  Her anxiety dropped from her shoulders and disappeared through the floor. Relief took its place and settled over her like a warm shawl, but exhaustion clouded her face. “I’m so tired of running. The same thing, every twenty years or so. I slip away and get a glimpse of what life would be like if I were free. A few days here, a few weeks there. In the Twenties, I managed almost three months. But I always get caught again eventually.”

  “You’re going to be okay, Kam,” I said. “Whoever this guy is, we won’t let him have you.”

  I hoped with all my heart that it wasn’t a lie.

  Don’t miss FAIRIES IN MY FIREPLACE by R.L. Naquin.

  Available now wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.

  www.CarinaPress.com

  Copyright © 2013 by R.L. Naquin

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my in-laws Julie, David, Bethany and Dana for giving us the grand tour of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and joining us at the Center of the Universe in Tulsa. Any excuse to see you is a good one, but you went above and beyond to get me the information I needed for this book.

  Special thanks to my editor, Rhonda, for a great three-book run. You’ve been a joy to work with, and I hate to see you leave. Go be spectacular, foxy lady!

  Thank you to Sara for having my back and keeping me together when my brain pegs all shook loose.