As she approached, she shone the light up at the dark house, and her heart froze midbeat as she saw the curtains in one of the second-floor windows stir. Dread crept into her resolve, making her draw on the last reserves of her courage to keep going. Okay, she could do this. She would do this. She had to do this. Her heart was pounding like it was trying to beat its way out of her chest as she walked up to the front door.
Suddenly, Declan was by her side. He sunk his teeth into her parka as he tried to drag her away from the door.
“No!” she exclaimed, glaring down at him. “I’m going in. This has to be done.”
Declan still tried to tug her back, a high-pitched whine whirring in his throat.
“Let go!” she said, struggling to dislodge her jacket from his jaws.
Reluctantly, he released her, but he sniffed around the front door and whined again.
“Look, I’m not exactly looking forward to this, either,” she said, her voice shaking as she bent down to retrieve the spare key from where she remembered her advisor had said it would be.
The wooden door stuck, having warped somewhat with the cold, and it took a solid slamming of her body into the door to dislodge it. She stumbled inside and choked.
No wonder Declan was trying to keep her from going in. The place reeked of gas. One wrong move on her part, and the whole place would probably explode. She left the front door wide open then went around to each window in the whole house and forced them open. Tomorrow—if there was a tomorrow—she’d call the gas company. She bit back a semi-hysterical giggle at the thought of how inane that thought was, how practical and real compared to complete craziness and impossibility of everything else she was dealing with. Gas leak? Ha! Small potatoes.
Her eyes began to adjust to the different darkness inside the house, and she could dimly distinguish steps, walls, and doorways. She worked her way back from the newer addition of the farmhouse, with its spacious bedrooms, modern kitchen, and large bathroom. The oldest part of the house was small, just a single living room with a fireplace and an attic bedroom above. One flight of extremely steep, narrow steps led up to the bedroom. Large wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself in the dark. “Now what?”
Seconds of silence turned into a minute, turned into two minutes. She stood completely still in the middle of the living room, waiting for something to happen. The quiet grew heavy and oppressive, and she could feel her pulse speeding up to an almost painful velocity. Something was going to happen. She knew it. But, it was like being in her own private horror movie, and the suspense was literally killing her.
She couldn’t help yelping in terror as suddenly, hundreds of wolves began to howl. Their cries were fierce and piercing, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as shivers ran through her body.
“Oh my fucking God,” she sobbed as abruptly, the front door slammed shut, the deadbolt turning without any hand touching it. She saw all the windows in the living room slam shut and heard the latches click into place, and then in the background, she heard the windows in the rest of the house shut and lock.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she whispered frantically, the now familiar surge of panic throwing her mind into overdrive for a change instead of just freezing it in place.
“Shit, okay, come on,” she whispered to herself as she ran to the kitchen. “Come on, where the fuck is it?”
She threw open all the cabinets, ruthlessly tossing out all the boxes and bottles she found in them until she laid hands on a can of salt. Then, she dashed back to the living room, frantically searching around the hearth until she found matches. She crept back into the middle of the room and set the flashlight and the matches on the floor. With shaking hands, she poured a thick line of salt in a circle around her. Who knew if it would really work against ghosts and demons, but it was a protection of long-standing in folklore, so it couldn’t be completely wrong. Could it?
The howling outside grew so loud that she put her hands over her ears, as if that would keep the sound from shattering her eardrums. She glanced out the windows to see all the wolves standing with their backs to the house, forming an outward-facing protective ring. Maybe the sound was part of how they protected her? Her mind felt like it was moving at warp speed, every synapse firing connections like a machine gun.
Sound was made up of sound waves, a kind of energy. Right? So, if sound was energy, then the wolves were constructing a wall of energy around the house. Maybe there was something about the sound waves that other types of energy could pass through? So were they keeping something out or trapping it in?
Ava looked around the room again, slowly revolving inside the circle.
“Goody Barrows!” she called out, her voice coming out weaker and shakier than she had expected. She took in a shuddering breath and braced herself, forcing herself to let go of everything and yell. “GOODY BARROWS! SHOW THYSELF!”
She hoped that using archaic language would trigger a stronger response. All kinds of things she had learned about witchcraft and demonology sloshed around in her brain, a prickly arsenal of language and folklore. From African Voudun to simple knot magic, it was all there on the tip of her tongue. Her mind bubbled with phrases from seventeenth century witch trials, suddenly understanding for the first time the true majesty and power of the stilted sentences and formality of the language.
“Goody Barrows,” she yelled, feeling a surge of power make her entire body tingle. “I summon thee to judgment for thy crimes against God, the Lord Almighty! By the common blood in our veins, I bind thee to my words, as sure as I were to fix thee with a knot. Show thyself, witch!”
Breathless, she watched as out of nowhere, a white mist seemed to coalesce into the loose form of a person. There was nothing defined about it, no facial features, clothing or anything recognizable, which made even more terrible and frightening. The only thing that made Ava sure she had summoned Eve Barrows was the tremendous malice that the misty, faceless figure exuded.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Ava whispered, tears of panic springing up in her eyes as she fought to stay anchored in reality—an awful reality that contained so much more beyond life and death that could never be fully explained.
She could almost taste the malice in the air around her. It prickled against her skin like tiny needles as she stood staring at the mist. She caught her breath as a lamp flew off the table and straight at her head, leaving her no time to duck. A dull thud resounded in her ears as it took a moment for her to realize that the lamp had struck her in the head. She had fallen to her hands and knees, her hands on the ground outside the circle of salt.
Quickly, she drew her hands back inside, just as the mist moved to cover them. Waves of pain and nausea throbbed and ebbed, and she got to her feet again, only to catch sight of a wooden chair lift off the ground then go hurling through the air at her. This time, she managed to duck, and she realized that the spirit was trying to knock her out of the protective circle she was in.
“Eve Barrows,” she gasped, instinctively clutching at the crucifix around her throat. “I command thee to cease thy conjure! I am protected by the Lord Almighty, and thou shalt not touch His servant!”
The ghostly shape grew more opaque and seemed to give off a sickening, green luminescence. As its ghastly glow grew, the flashlight flickered and went dead. Ava stared down in horror as the apparition seemed to draw energy straight out of the battery. If it could do it to a battery, what could it do to a human body that was just like a giant battery?
As if in an instantaneous response to her question, Ava felt her legs turn to jelly and her arms tremble from weakness. Her heart began to lurch irregularly as it struggled to keep beating.
“No!” Ava said, bracing herself. “You can’t do this! No, old language, old English…think, think…Thou shalt not prevail! Thy malefica and charms have no dominion over me. I am thy blood and thy bone, and I stand equal to thee in all things.”
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br /> In the moment the words left her lips, she felt her mind expand and the full realization of what she had to do exploded across her thoughts.
“Bone and dust!” she cried as the figure reached out with transparent arms and fingers that seemed to grow into evil tendrils that shot out toward her throat. The tendrils stopped, jerking back as if burned when they reached the boundary of the salt circle. The apparition grew in size to tower over her, raining sickening hatred down onto her as she felt drained even further. She slumped to her knees. She wouldn’t last another minute at this rate. Her heart was already starting to slow down, making her dizzy, and it was hard to take a full breath.
“Dust to dust!” Ava screamed, lurching to her feet one more time. She grabbed two fistfuls of dirt from her pockets and threw them at the shade of Eve.
The grave dirt didn’t fall to the ground. It seemed to be caught in the mist, floating as small clumps and flecks, bringing the apparition’s outline into clearer focus. Ava threw all the dirt she had at the form, gasping and sobbing as it began thrashing to try and break free of the grave dirt.
Finally, she stood face-to-face with the trapped entity. Its hatred and evil were like the blast of an Arctic storm, but Ava knew it couldn’t go anywhere. The grave dust of Ezra Barrows had trapped his wife, the ultimate revenge.
“Dust to dust,” Ava panted as she picked up the matches. “And, ashes to ashes.”
She took a deep breath and stared at the ghost of Eve Barrows.
“Go to hell,” she spat, then struck a match and threw it at the imprisoned shade.
The world exploded around her.
Chapter 24
Everything was dark and peaceful. There was a great stillness and silence all around her. Ava felt herself to be deep in the darkness, and yet, something seemed to pull her upward, like the invisible tug of a coming sunrise on the night.
The darkness lightened to shades of beige and gray, and finally, she recognized the orange of daylight playing on her eyelids.
“Ava?”
Robert! That was Robert’s voice! She’d know it anywhere. She’d know it from her grave. The last bit of darkness fell away, and she opened her eyes to see her handsome, brave Robert sitting on the edge of her bed, smiling down at her, relief lighting up his golden eyes.
“Luphplth,” Ava said, trying to speak, but finding her lips were heavy and numb. She frowned and tried again. “Blohbluth.”
“That’s the narcotic wearing off.” She recognized Dr. Nasir’s voice and saw him come over to her bedside. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and he wore one of the most hideous argyle sweaters she had ever seen. She wanted to smile, but she was too tired. It was easier to stay still.
“Robulth,” she tried again, and Robert leaned over and kissed her lips tenderly.
“I’m here, love,” he said. He patted his side, wincing slightly. “I’ll be fine in a day or so. Werewolves heal quickly.”
“Wha huppnth?”
“I was attacked by Them,” Robert said briefly, his expression closing and becoming stern and forbidding. “That’s all you need to know.”
No, she wanted to know more, but it was too hard to speak. Besides, something itched under her nose, but her arms and hands felt too heavy to lift, even to scratch the itch.
“That’s the cannula with your oxygen,” Dr. Nasir said, touching the tip of her nose as she twitched and wrinkled it, instinctively trying to dislodge the plastic tubing she now felt. “You inhaled a lot of gas and smoke, and you need oxygen. I took some blood and sent it for testing. We’ll do a CBC, BMP, and an arterial blood gas just to make sure there’s not more damage. Inshallah, all you will need is oxygen and maybe an inhaler for a week or two.”
“You’re gonna be okay, baby!” Sean bounded over to her and jumped on the bed, bending over to kiss her drug-numbed lips.
“Get up, Mr. Obvious.” Declan chuckled, hoisting Sean off the bed and more gently taking his place. “The last thing our Ava needs is a puppy dog bouncing all over her.”
“Go fetch something,” Sean retorted, grinning.
“I heard that was your specialty, tummy rub boy.”
“Who told you about that?”
“Nobody. I guessed. And, I was right. Did she give you a cookie, too?”
“At least I got an ear rub out of it. You’re just a grumpy old dog who can’t learn new tricks.”
“I got plenty of tricks in my bag.”
Ava managed to get her lips to twitch toward a smile, and she looked up to see Robert laughing. Her body felt pleasantly heavy and warm, and she let her eyes drift closed again, deliciously surrendering herself to sleep.
* * * *
“Oh, sorry, Ava,” said a soft, musical voice as Ava was lifted out of sleep by a cool touch on her arm.
She looked up to see Zara Nasir smiling down at her, a blood pressure cuff in her hands.
“I just want to take your vitals, okay?” Zara said, patting Ava’s cheek lightly.
“Yup,” Ava replied, pleasantly surprised to find her lips working again. Awareness began to burn slowly through the fog of sleep, and questions began to roll in, jumbling together and clamoring for answers.
“What happened?” Ava asked as Zara wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm.
Zara held up her finger for Ava to be quiet as she took the reading, and Ava looked around, recognizing her room in the Molineaux mansion. A moment later, Zara unwrapped the cuff from her arm and began to take her pulse.
“Well, which part of ‘what happened’ do you want to know first?” she asked, looking down at her watch, pausing between words as she counted. When she was done, she stuck a thermometer under Ava’s tongue and wrote something on a scrap of paper.
“Everything,” Ava mumbled around the thermometer.
“I heard her voice! She’s awake? Ava, are you all right?” Sean’s voice carried through the thick panels of the door, and a moment later, Sean, Declan, and Robert all rushed in, surrounding her.
Ava smiled at the amazing feeling of being so cared for. The brothers touched her hands and her face, kissing her fingertips and forehead and smoothing back her hair.
“I’m fine,” she said. “At least, I think I am.”
“It seems that you are, surprisingly enough.” She looked up to see Dr. Nasir walk in and look at the note Zara handed him. He smiled fondly at his wife and nodded. “Your vitals are nice and steady. The blood work came back clean. I’ve prescribed you an albuterol inhaler to be used in conjunction with a mild cortico-steroid inhaler for about two weeks. I want to make sure we get ahead of any lasting inflammation of your bronchial tubes.”
He paused and looked at her wonderingly, then added, “The true miracle is that you were not burned. Not even a mild skin irritation from the heat.”
“I wonder if that has anything to do with the circle we found her in?” Declan said, stroking her hair with his rough fingers, the touch soothing her and almost putting her back to sleep.
“Salt,” Ava managed to articulate tiredly.
“What do you mean, ‘salt,’ sweetheart?”
“Salt circle. Protection.”
“Salt—sodium chloride—is combustible, though,” Robert said, rubbing her leg gently. “If anything, it should have caused a flare-up.”
“When I went back there to look this morning, the entire house had burned except for the circle where we found Ava,” Sean said, beginning to pace in front of the foot of the bed. He turned to face her. “What happened? What caused the explosion? The last thing we heard you say is, ‘Go to hell,’ and then all hell broke loose.”
“Very funny,” Declan muttered.
“I lit a match,” Ava replied. She wanted to say more, to explain what had happened, but speaking required a lot of energy, and it was easier to just lie there and bask in the slight pink fuzziness of the ebbing pain meds and the warm affection of her lovers.
“You fucking lit a match?” Robert exclaimed. “With a gas leak in the house?�
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“Ashes to ashes,” Ava said, trying to draw in a deep breath and feeling the tight pull on her lungs as the bronchial inflammation squeezed her airways. “First farmhouse burned down. Then Aristide’s house. Everything had to burn. Ashes, see?”
Her breath came in short, shallow gasps as she spoke, and she gratefully allowed Zara and Dr. Nasir to prop her upright and hold an inhaler to her lips. The rush of albuterol eased her lungs, and she took in the air gratefully.
“What about the dust?” Declan asked, his face grim as he watched her struggle to breathe.
“Grave dust,” Ava replied. “Those compulsions I was having? I think they were from Ezra. I think he was trying to get me to find his grave, and last night, he led me to it. It was under a pine tree, marked with a rock. On the rock, someone or something had scratched, ‘Exsequor Exequor,’ which means to follow to the grave.”
“Are you sure it was Ezra’s grave?”
Ava looked up to see Grace Murray enter the room, Father Edlow by her side. She felt a twinge of jealousy at how effortlessly beautiful Grace looked, her soft golden hair gleaming in the light, and at the way all the men in the room shifted to show her respect. In comparison, Ava felt drab and sticky and about as unattractive as she had ever been, lying in a sick bed with sweaty, matted hair and the smell of smoke still clinging faintly to her.
“What makes you think it wasn’t Ezra’s grave?” she challenged, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice, hoping it would pass off as the hoarseness in the throat from the smoke.
“I don’t know,” Grace said, smiling uncertainly. “I just have this feeling that maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Eve’s grave, and Ezra led you to it.”
“What about the inscription?”
“It could easily mean that you had to either take Eve to her grave or bring her grave to her. Also, if you look at dust to dust, it could mean that only Eve’s grave dust could trap her.”
Blackthorne, Fiona - Moonstruck [Blue Moon 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 17