The more I thought about how only Celestina and I had seen him and how he’d vanished so quickly, the more I suspected that…the man wasn’t a man at all, nor was he a paranormal creature. There was only one explanation. He was a ghost!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Who had the ability to contact a ghost? My mother. Who else? Zephora. And her aptitude to contact and command every paranormal creature obviously extended to ghosts.
Celestina hadn’t even known that she’d seen a ghost! Neither had I, for that matter.
Below me, rather than turn away to find Alexis (or me, from his vantage point) to discover why she’d reacted so out of character, Nolan headed back to the microphone with an expression revealing that he’d forsaken reason in favor of allowing instinct to take over. “This would have been a good show,” he said with certainty, watching the crowd for their reaction.
Heads bobbed in total agreement without the least bit of dissension.
“Lower your phones and cameras,” Nolan said. “Erase any footage you’ve taken tonight.”
A dozen people pressed buttons on their handheld devices, while every one else stared at Nolan, awaiting further instruction, obviously brainwashed.
I stared in awe at the scene unfolding before me, shocked that Nolan had somehow found the ability to not only push thoughts into one person’s brain but into an collective of minds. That went far beyond anything Alexis could accomplish.
“You’ve seen our performance,” Nolan continued. “We rocked this place!” He nodded his head, and the faces before him mimicked his gesture, their eyes straight ahead and unblinking.
No one shuffled or spoke. The entire building was silent.
Astounded, yet floundering, Kendall managed to nod at him with fervor. “Keep going. Whatever you’re doing is working.”
Without the hesitation that marked his last statements, Nolan grasped hold of complete confidence. “Everything you saw on YouTube? Our performances? The same thing happened tonight.”
The crowd clapped and cheered. The volume increased with every succeeding second.
“You’ll never forget our performance,” Nolan continued, shocked but excited by whatever power convinced the entire room to agree with everything he said. “We are…Salem’s Curse, and we’ll see you next time!”
The crowd screamed their approval. Some jumped up and down. Others whistled.
Nolan turned to Kendall with a haunted expression, but when I looked further, I noticed he took great pleasure in his ability to brainwash an entire room of people. Having seen Kendall need plenty of focus to compel the woman in my home earlier tonight, I knew that doing so took plenty of concentration and skill, but to witness Nolan do likewise with around one-hundred and fifty people appeared effortless, almost like an afterthought.
It seemed I’d discovered one more of Nolan’s demonic powers. His accomplishment stunned me into silence. I trailed him as he left the crowd and hurried down the hall, glanced inside the room my body lay inside, and skidded to a stop beside me. “What happened?” he asked, his face mired in confusion. When he saw my bloody shoulder, he reached out, but stopped short. “Her shoulder…Did you call the paramedics?”
“No time,” Brandon said, almost out of breath.
“Oh, my God!” Kendall said from the doorway. She yanked a cell phone out of her pocket and dialed with trembling fingers. A second later, she alerted dispatch to the issue at hand and hung up. She hurried inside the room. “What happened?”
Brandon, who had continued doing CPR on me, was too busy concentrating on keeping my heart viable to notice that she’d spoken.
The last time Celestina attempted to recharge my unconscious body, I was unfamiliar with my abilities and had no idea I could separate from my body, but once more presuming that she wouldn’t be able to revive me without my soul inside my body, I raced over and tried to rejoin it. My spectral form bounced off my body as if a shield blocked my entrance. I tried again, but once more, my spirit pushed backwards.
Celestina kneeled on the ground beside me, rocking back and forth with a troubled expression on her face. “It’s all my fault.”
Brandon paid her no mind, but Nolan turned his attention to her. “What do you mean?” he asked. “How did you get here? Never mind, it’s not important.”
Noticing my niece’s discomfort, Kendall looked from Celestina to Brandon, knowing something unordinary had occurred but unsure what it might have been. “You’re here now,” she said. “Can you help her?”
She cringed and a gulley of torment entered her dimples. She turned toward me and extended a hand toward me, “I’m sorry, Aunt Serena!”
“You can see her?” Nolan asked, looking in my direction. “Where is she? Serena?” He swung his head left and right, a frantic expression on his face making him more anxious than I’d ever seen him. He spun around in a circle as though hoping he’d see me. “I can help. I did it before. I can do it again.”
“No!” I said to my niece. “We don’t know that.” Part of me believed it. The other part suspected that Nolan had somehow latched onto an ability that allowed him to give strength, not just take it. But he didn’t know how he’d called upon that ability. “If he tries again, he might steal whatever life I have left. We can’t risk it.”
Celestina looked at me and glanced at Nolan. She winced, obviously uncomfortable getting between us.
“What?” he asked with a frantic expression. “What’s wrong? Do you see her? Did she say something?”
“Aunt Serena thinks I should try first.” Pleased with such a diplomatic answer, she nodded emphatically as though nothing Nolan could say would change her mind.
“Dammit, Serena, get back to your body,” Kendall commanded, looking all around to express her anger. “Do it. Now!”
Their fear and my failure to return to my body made it difficult for me to concentrate.
“I don’t think she can,” said Celestina. “I couldn’t help her a few minutes ago because her soul wasn’t in her body. But now, she’s dying because of the wolf bite. That wouldn’t have happened without magic. Only magic can cure bad stuff like injuries that come from magic.”
I agreed with my niece’s logic, so I concentrated on finding a way to reconnect with my body. Not one idea presented itself, but how would it? I’d only been astral projecting for a few days, and I’d never encountered anything like this before. Then an idea came to mind. “What if the ghost cursed me?” I asked Celestina.
“Ghosts can’t curse anyone. Only people with sensitivity to the paranormal could—” She didn’t bother completing her sentence, because in this instance, the ghost was supernatural. She slammed an open palm against her forehead. “But a ghost can only haunt you if…” For the briefest moment, Celestina’s face clouded with fury before returning her attention to my fallen form. “Zephora must have told the ghost to haunt you.”
“That can happen?” Nolan asked. “I thought ghosts only haunted places.”
Celestina shivered. “Not always.” She scooted closer to my body, knocked Brandon’s hands aside, and placed one hand on my injured shoulder while setting the other over my heart. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.
Celestina turned to Nolan. “I need a knife.”
He drew back, startled. “What for?”
“I need it. Get one. Now!”
With complete trust in their gazes, Kendall and Brandon nodded their heads, and as though speaking with one mind and one heart, they simultaneously said, “Do it!” Startled, they scrutinized each other, attempting to determine if it wasn’t a fluke but fate illustrating their connection was deeper than friendship.
Nolan had already read the scrawled black permanent marker writing on half-a-dozen boxes before tearing open a cardboard box. He removed a silverware knife, hurried back, and held it out for Celestina.
An irritated expression hit her face, making it clear she’d had something sharper in mind. Still, she placed the knife to her palm, licked her lips, an
d pressed it down hard into her palm…but she didn’t slice her skin. Frustrated, she handed it to Nolan. “Cut my hand.”
“What?” His face scrunched as though considering the idea absurd. “I’m not going to cut you.”
She gestured to me. “Aunt Serena was bitten by a werewolf. Do you want her to turn into wolf?”
As a terrified expression held him captive, I imagined the consequences of that outcome. Thick hair sprouting across my body. Nails growing long and pointy. Sharp and deadly teeth longing to tear flesh from human and animal victims alike. Howling in the moonlight as my clothes tore from my body before I darted into the woods on all fours.
Please, Celestina, I hope your magic heals me!
“Take the knife!” Celestina shouted at Nolan.
Reluctantly, he did as she asked.
“Now cut my palm.”
Nolan looked at her hand.
The floor began to rumble, forcing the shelving units to rattle against the ground, while the items inside dozens of boxes shifted. “Stop wasting time!” she shouted. As in the past, when Celestina had no outlet for the anger or anxiety that rushed through her, the ground quaked.
Kendall and Brandon glanced at the quaking shelves and swung their heads toward Nolan. Once more, they spoke as one: “Do it!”
Nolan nodded. He swiped the knife from her hand, and without a second thought, he grabbed her hand, pressed the knife into it, and dug deep down, striking a rivulet of blood.
A rush of heat and tremendous energy flowed through my soul.
Celestina removed her cut hand and placed it against my injured shoulder. She shuttered her eyes and began whispering under her breath in a language I’d never heard before. After ten more seconds, she snapped open her eyes. “Try it again, Aunt Serena. Now!”
I darted on an intercept course with my body, and this time, I slipped into it effortlessly. A second later, I turned over, gasped, and coughed for air. Those around me probably assumed I did so because I’d lacked oxygen, but unbeknownst to them, I took in a gust of air from fright, thinking I might not have returned to the land of the living.
I turned to my friends and felt a little stronger. My right shoulder no longer throbbed. When I glanced at it, I discovered that my skin was still bloody, although the gnawed flesh was no longer grated but smooth and untouched.
Celestina had obviously repaired my wound.
“Is it true?” Nolan asked, his eyebrows darting up in fright. “Did a werewolf attack you?” An antagonistic expression took hold of him. “First ghosts and now werewolves? What’s next? A visit from the Lochness Monster?”
In no mood or shape to respond sarcastically, I said, “My sister set a pack of werewolves on me. One of them bit me.”
Kendall rushed to the spot opposite Celestina. “Why does your mother have it out for Serena?”
Shriveling like a flower without sun or water for weeks on end, Celestina seemed to burrow into herself as she shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Hey!” I said to Kendall. “Relax, okay? I’m all right.”
Kendall sensed my niece’s discomfort, so she slackened the severe expression on her face.
No longer under attack, Celestina scooted closer to my body. “What about the werewolf venom?” I asked my niece. “Will it turn me?”
“No. When I healed you, my blood killed the venom.”
I trusted her implicitly. “Thank God!” Although my niece had healed me, she hadn’t resuscitated me. When that occurred in the past, I needed time to regain my bearings. I’d been so disoriented that I’d momentarily forgotten my name. Now, I awoke with complete awareness. “But how? Vampires have recuperative powers. I didn’t think witches had that ability.” Once more, I wondered how Celestina had more than three abilities. It seemed like she was picking up a new ability every day! I shivered at how casually my niece had flicked her wrist at Kendall and Brandon, only to have them soar eight feet through the air and collapsed in a heap on the ground.
“How did you fix her?” Brandon asked Celestina, refraining from looking her way. “How can you be sure she’s fine?”
Celestina cracked a wicked grin. “I read The Book of Souls. If someone is missing a limb or a body part, I can’t heal them because I’m not a doctor. I can’t do bypass surgery or whatever you call it. I can heal injuries, or shock your heart to beat again, but that’s about it.”
How had Celestina remembered that spell, among all the incantations and all things magical that generations of witches in our line had added to our family grimoire? Not only that, but as the owner of the book, Celestina had the ability to ask it three questions and receive answers. That still mystified me. After all, how could a book respond? Then again, nothing seemed ordinary about that book, so I couldn’t rule out anything when it came to The Book of Souls.
For the briefest of moments, as though she shouldn’t have allowed the thought to infiltrate her mind, Celestina appeared proud of herself, and then she quashed her assured expression as though it had no place in her life.
“But that book is huge,” Kendall said, her face crinkling in disbelief. “You read the whole thing several times?”
“No, I just read it once.”
Everyone stared at her, confused.
Had Celestina taken up speed-reading? I doubted it. Although she hadn’t displayed social awkwardness among adults, I figured that flaw only arose around those her own age, which might have made it difficult for her to concentrate in school, which probably explained why her peers mocked her. Of course, I’d only assumed she had difficulty keeping up with her fellow students when it came to her studies. Perhaps I’d misjudged her. Still, how many thirteen-year olds wanted to speed read, much less accomplish that goal? Something didn’t add up.
“And you memorized everything in the book?” asked Nolan as fear and doubt crossed his expression.
“Yep. It was sooo easy.”
“That’s impossible,” he said.
Celestina cracked a grin. “The book had a spell to remember stuff.” She tapped her left temple. “Every sentence of every page is all up here.”
I put a hand on my niece’s shoulder without the least bit of discomfort and pulled her into an embrace, unable to shake the gratitude settling inside me. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She shrugged as if to say, “You’d die.”
“You scared the hell out of us,” Brandon told me. He leaned back and allowed his shoulders slump before directing his attention to Celestina with complete admiration, all the while remaining silent.
Rather than allow Brandon to question her, which I sensed would soon happen, whereupon she would probably fumble for an explanation, I released my niece and turned to Nolan. “It wasn’t me out there.” It took tons of patience and understanding to banish the desire to chastise my bandmates for not recognizing my sister’s attempt to impersonate me. “Alexis pretended to be me.”
Anger flashed through Nolan’s eyes.
“We’ve gotta do something about her,” Kendall said a second too late before remembering Celestina sat beside her. “Your mother can’t keep doing this to us. You know that, right?”
Celestina looked down.
“Hey,” I said, catching my niece’s attention. “Stop it. Don’t act as if you’re not worthy of having an opinion. You’re important to me. You’re a strong young woman. Start acting like it!”
My niece’s head snapped up and she looked at me with resolve. “I know Mom wants more power, and I know she knows it’s Zephora in Granny’s body, but…I saw you fighting her. You heard the prophecy.” Her lips trembled. “Please, Aunt Serena. Don’t fight Mom. You need to promise me.”
My heart sank at her request, not because I wanted to hurt Alexis, but because I suspected my sister would attack me, and I’d need to defend myself.
“Please,” Celestina said, wincing with an ache in her voice. “Please, just, please promise you won’t fight her.”
“Celestina, I—”
“If she tries to hurt me, I can’t just—”
She shook me with the confidence, not of an uncertain teenager, but someone much older and wiser. “I need to trust you. Let me trust you, Aunt Serena.”
I stared into that innocent face, the person who had revived me once and saved me from turning into a werewolf. I had no doubt that Alexis would try to hurt me again, but my niece had rescued me twice. How could I deny her this request? With every bit of intuition in my body telling me not to address her question, I said, “Okay, Celestina. I promise.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We’d left the bar before the paramedics arrived. At my suggestion, Kendall and Brandon had taken Nolan’s vehicle, while he now sat in the passenger seat of my car. In the rearview mirror, I glanced at Celestina’s injured hand. We’d cleaned and disinfected it before wrapping it up in white gauze. I still couldn’t get over Celestina’s selflessness in healing my wound. She gave cutting her hand no thought, as though assisting injured people on a daily basis was a normality rather than an infrequent incident. Many friends and family might do that for one another, but they would certainly give it at least a moment’s thought. Celestina acted without hesitation, almost as though…she’d foreseen the need to do so.
“Did you foresee healing me a little while ago?” I asked her.
“Yep,” she said as though visions assailed her on an hourly basis.
“When did it happen?”
“This morning.”
“So you knew I’d need help today?”
“Nope. I never know when it’ll happen.” Sensing that I’d continue to question her, Celestina said, “I might get a vision and it might not happen for a month, or who knows, maybe even three years. That only happened once. It’s the furthest out my visions ever went.”
Bloodstone Page 14