Dance of Flames

by Janni Nell

  “This is all Emilia’s fault,” Lily grumbled. “She should have told us it was high in alcohol. Where is she? I’ll want a word with her.” For a moment she sounded just like Mom.

  “Emilia’s gone, along with all her things, but don’t worry, the jewelry’s still in the safe.”

  “Honestly,” Lily mumbled, “how can it be so hard to get good help?”

  I didn’t bother explaining that Emilia wasn’t from the agency. Didn’t have time. I was already running for my room. The pieces had fallen into place, but it was too late. I locked my door, rolled aside the rug and pried up the floorboard. Just as I’d suspected, the small space beneath was empty.

  How had Emilia found it? More to the point, was she a witch? I was still staring at the empty space beneath the floor when Casper appeared.

  “I’ve found a place to release Ignacio,” he said. “We can go there immediately.”

  “Not going to happen. Emilia spiked the sangria. When everyone was passed out, she took the obsidian.” I sagged, head in hands. “I’m such an idiot. I should have found a better hiding place.”

  Casper touched my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. She’d have found it no matter where it was hidden. Witches can sense the presence of an imprisoned soul in much the same way you sense the paranormal.”

  “Their toes itch?”

  “Not exactly. They’re drawn to it. Once she got into your room, it wouldn’t have taken her long.”

  “You could have told me Emilia was a witch. How long have you known?”

  “About a minute.”

  “Well,” I said, replacing the floorboard and rug, “this is out of our hands now.” I couldn’t say I was sorry. I mean, I was on vacation and I had the promise of flamenco lessons with Felipe. Life was looking good.

  “It’s not out of our hands,” Casper said, oh so serious.

  “Lighten up. Emilia will rebury the obsidian somewhere safe. Ignacio’s evil won’t be able to cause any more bad dreams. Everyone’s a winner.”

  But his serious expression didn’t change. “Do you remember what I told you about angels disagreeing with how witches dealt with evil souls?”

  “Sure, but come on, can’t you let this one go?”

  “The Powers-That-Be have given me the job of bringing this soul to justice. If I don’t deliver, who knows what they’ll do? They might demote me from being your guardian angel.”

  I leaped to my feet. “We’ve got to get that obsidian back.”

  Chapter Five

  Mom didn’t know Emilia’s address or phone number. She couldn’t even tell me the woman’s surname. “Maybe Lopez?” Or maybe Mom was getting her confused with J.Lo. It was up to Casper—with a little help from his angel buddies—to locate Emilia’s tiny house in Málaga. Turned out her last name wasn’t Lopez, which was fine since her first name wasn’t Emilia either. In her real life, she didn’t wear glasses and her dark silky hair hung past her shoulders.

  “How did you find her?” I asked Casper.

  He held a finger to his lips. “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.” His standard response when he didn’t want to reveal the esoteric ways of angels.

  “It was the hospital, wasn’t it?” I’d wanted to go there myself, but my lack of Spanish made questioning the employees impossible. “Have you been holding out on me? Do you speak Spanish? And don’t give me any more of that ‘Don’t ask. Don’t tell.’ crap.”

  Reluctantly he admitted, “I learned the language from one of my morsubs.” Morsubs was short for mortal subjects, which was angelspeak for the people they watched over.

  Turned out Casper had done some snooping at the hospital. He’d discovered the names of the doctors and nurses who had been on duty when Consuela was brought in. One of the nurses belonged to a local coven.

  “When she saw Consuela’s injuries she must’ve put two and two together,” Casper said. “Then she posed as Emilia to steal the obsidian.”

  Now we were going to steal it back.

  We watched Emilia’s, I mean Beltrana’s, house from a bar at the other end of her narrow street. Our table was on the sidewalk, giving us an unobstructed view. At my feet was a bag containing my flashlight and plenty of room for the obsidian. I’d taken the precaution of dressing in black—trousers, shirt, even my runners.

  “You look like a cat burglar,” Casper said.

  “Good.” I surveyed the house. “You sure the obsidian’s in there?”

  “Has to be.”

  “But you didn’t exactly see it.”

  Casper had become invisible and cased the joint, so to speak. He said, “When I was inside, I felt like I was fading away the whole time. It has to be in there somewhere.”

  Since I didn’t want to risk losing my angel to another bout of obsidian-induced illness, I volunteered to continue the search.

  A light went on in Beltrana’s window. I said, “Looks like she’s staying in tonight. I don’t like my chances of breaking in.”

  “No problem.” Casper produced a canister. “Smoke grenade. I’ll set it off in her kitchen.”

  Nobody saw him turn invisible in the shadows near Beltrana’s home. By the time smoke billowed from her windows, he had reappeared in her small front garden. She ran out of the house screaming. He caught hold of her arm and led her away from the house, murmuring soothing words in Spanish. Taking advantage of the open front door, I slipped inside and shut it quietly behind me. The house was tiny and smoke was thick downstairs. I kept a lookout for Beltrana’s familiar, but there was no creature of any kind lurking about. Maybe it didn’t live here. Familiars came in all shapes and sizes. My friend Wanda had a cow, much to her embarrassment. Her mentor had a spider, who was usually perched on her shoulder. Buttercup, being a cow, spent most of her time in a field.

  The smoke got thicker. Trying not to inhale too often, I hurried through the entire house hoping to feel a tingle in my toe that would lead me to Ignacio’s prison. When my toe refused to tingle, I wondered whether Casper had been mistaken about the obsidian being in the house. Or perhaps my toe was malfunctioning again. I still had the scar from an old coral cut I’d got on a reef near Tahiti. I’d spent several anxious days waiting for the cut to heal and my toe to respond to the paranormal again.

  Hoping my main advantage in the investigation business wasn’t malfunctioning again, I did the only thing I could—set about searching the old-fashioned way. I worked quickly. By now someone would’ve called the fire brigade. I didn’t want them to catch me inside snooping.

  Beneath the sofa I found a colony of dust bunnies happily multiplying. Cake crumbs, coins and a bottle cap nestled beneath the cushions. Mom would’ve been appalled.

  The glass-fronted cabinet contained mostly vases and ornaments. There were a few basic witches’ charms lurking behind Lladró figurines, but as I’d suspected Beltrana wasn’t a particularly gifted witch. There was no sign of either a clance, the purple feather awarded to the best witches, or a kirican, a form of protection even more powerful than a pentagram.

  I held my breath as I tackled the smoky kitchen. Eyes watering, I shone my flashlight into the cupboards, the fridge and freezer. I’d have liked to sample the chocolate swirl ice cream but it was hard to eat when you were coughing.

  After opening a window to inhale a breath of slightly less smoky air, I completed a fruitless search of the laundry and headed upstairs again. The obsidian wasn’t in Beltrana’s closet or her bathroom or the spare bedroom. Had she already taken a trip to the country and buried it? If I were Beltrana, that was what I’d have done—right after I left the villa. No messing about hiding it at home. Too risky.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. I kept searching, but I misjudged time. Before I knew it, the fire engine had parked outside and firefighters were clearing a path through the bystanders. There was no longer
any chance of me leaving by the front door.

  I headed out back and into a tiled courtyard. A wrought iron table and chairs stood amongst potted geraniums. The branches of a neighbor’s tree cast moon shadows. Something moved in the overhead foliage. Ignoring whatever lurked in the tree, I climbed on a chair and scoped out possible escape routes over the neighboring walls. In one direction I was separated from freedom by several courtyards, numerous walls and a barking dog. Deciding not to challenge the dog, I checked out the walls on the other side of Beltrana’s courtyard. I was celebrating the fact that there were no vicious animals, when my toe began to itch.

  I climbed off the chair. The pavers beneath my feet were slightly tilted as though they’d been badly laid. Dropping to my knees, I clawed them up, exposing a patch of freshly turned soil. I dug with my hands until I literally hit pay dirt. The black rock was only a few inches below the surface. Nearby, inside Beltrana’s kitchen, the firefighters were moving around. Soon they’d discover the canister and realize there was no fire.

  I stowed the obsidian in my bag along with the flashlight. Hoisting it on my shoulder, I climbed onto the chair again. It wobbled dangerously as I swung one leg over the neighbor’s wall. The creature swooped from the tree. A small shape, dark as night. I swiped at it, and the thing retreated, but as I dropped into the neighbor’s yard it flew at me again.

  Getting under my guard, it sank its teeth into my bare arm. Warm blood trickled down my skin. A small tongue lapped the blood. I fumbled for my flashlight and shone it on the creature. Not a bird. A bat. And not just any old bat—one of the vampire variety. Probably Beltrana’s familiar trying to stop me taking the obsidian.

  I didn’t like hurting anything so small but this was an emergency. I knocked it unconscious with a well-aimed punch and lay the little critter carefully in a corner of the courtyard.

  After scrambling over several more walls, plunging my foot in an ornamental pool and dodging a feral cat, I finally reached the street. My knees were grazed, my hands scratched and blood dribbled down my arm from the bat bite. I’d be lucky not to get rabies.

  I headed for the park where Casper and I had agreed to meet. We couldn’t risk being seen back at the bar after our little stunt with the smoke bomb, but the deserted park was perfect. I waited near a monument to Picasso, coughing up inhaled smoke and pressing a tissue against the puncture marks on my arm. The bleeding had almost stopped when Casper arrived.

  “Did you find it?” he asked. “No, wait, I can feel…” With a glance at the bag on my shoulder, he put some space between us.

  “Let’s smash this thing and get it over with,” I said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  * * *

  I stowed my bag and its contents in the trunk of the car, then took a detour by the villa to pick up the cocktail umbrella and my protective clothing. I’d hoped to get in and out unobserved, but Mom was lying in ambush with college brochures. How had she got them so quickly? Sometimes the internet was positively evil.

  “Not now, Mom, I’m in a hurry.” Hadn’t I told her I wasn’t going to college anytime soon?

  “I thought you’d like some more information. You promised you’d think about—”

  “I will, honestly, just not right now.”

  “Where are you going at this time of night with those—?” She looked more closely at the black leather in my hands. “Are they biker’s clothes?” Her hand covered her heart. I wasn’t sure whether she was more upset about the possibility of me being involved with a biker or going for a midnight ride.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said. When she started to speak again, I grabbed the college brochures. “Thanks for downloading these. I can’t wait to read them.” I dashed out the door.

  “What’re those?” Casper asked, as I tossed the brochures in the trunk along with the protective clothes.

  “Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Now where are we going?”

  He directed me out of the built-up area and into open countryside. “We’re heading for a ruined monastery. Nobody goes there. The people who live nearby believe it’s cursed, and it’s too far off the beaten track for your average tourist. There are two underground chambers connected by a passage. It’s the perfect place to trap Ignacio’s soul.”

  I drove fast and it wasn’t long before Casper gave a low moan. Traveling in a car was always difficult for him, but being so close to the obsidian added to the discomfort of his usual motion sickness.

  Even in the dim light, he looked so bad I told him, “Get out and fly.” When he hesitated, I said, “Go, you look terrible.”

  “Are you sure you know the way to the monastery?”

  “Go to the end of this road, turn right once, left twice, and drive until I see the ruins.”

  “I’m not sure I should leave you.”

  “I’ll be fine. Anyway don’t you have to summon the angels?”

  He knew I was right so he didn’t argue.

  “Promise me something,” he said.

  “Only if you promise not to puke in this car.”

  He gave a sickly laugh. “Promise you won’t go inside until I get there.”

  “Yeah, sure, sure. Now go.”

  I continued along deserted country roads. For a while the only light came from my headlights and the sliver of moon. A car appeared behind me. It followed, tailgating until I pulled over to let it pass. Then it was just me and the moon again. I yawned. The night was growing old. Through my open window the warm breeze ruffled my hair. I slowed when I saw the ruins. There was no parking lot so I made do with a patch of dusty ground.

  Much of the original monastery was open to the sky. My flashlight picked out crumbling cloisters around a square of dry grass. The external walls of a chapel were mostly intact although the roof had fallen in. If there had ever been any stained-glass windows or lovingly polished pews, they had long ago been stolen or destroyed. Whatever beauty this place had once possessed had been eroded by the centuries.

  I searched until I found a flight of stone steps that I figured led to the underground chambers. The steps were in really poor condition with weeds poking through the cracks and loose bits of stone flaking off beneath my feet. At the bottom was a small stone-flagged area in front of a door that wasn’t part of the original structure. There was a modern lock and a scrawled sign in Spanish. I guessed it read Keep Out or Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted, or maybe something silly like Julio Was Here. No offense to any Julios out there.

  I had planned to do nothing more than an external reconnoiter. I’d promised Casper I wouldn’t go in, but my curiosity got the better of me.

  I’m nosy. Deal with it.

  First thing I had to do was break that lock. Fortunately there were plenty of chunks of rock lying around. It didn’t take long to smash the wood around the lock and kick my way in. Cool musty air drifted out to greet me.

  Behind the door was a stone-walled passage that stank of age and something I couldn’t name. Casper had promised there would be two chambers connected by a passage. In the first, I would release Ignacio’s soul. In the other, the angels would wait for me to lead Ignacio to them. Even though I’d broken my promise not to go in, I had no intention of getting the obsidian from the car until I was certain the angels were in place.

  I followed the passage, which led to the first chamber. Serious mistake. Now I knew why Casper had insisted I wait outside. If l’d known what this chamber contained, I’d have kept my word. It was no fun stepping into my nightmare.

  Ignacio’s torture chamber came slowly alive under the beam of my flashlight. There was the slab on which I’d been chained. Nearby lurked the wall where his big sweaty assistant had leaned. Opposite was the black hole of the fireplace where Ignacio had heated his branding iron.

  Dark patches of old blood stained the floor. The stink of death and fear an
d iron had retreated to the shadows, but it was still there if you inhaled too deeply. This place needed to be broken apart and exposed to strong cleansing sunshine.

  I stood at the edge of the chamber, terrified that if I entered, Ignacio would magically appear and chain me to the slab again. I used to say I wasn’t afraid of anything, but I’ve learned that wasn’t true. There were things that scared the crap out of me. My stomach churned. When I realized I was hyperventilating, I made a conscious effort to breathe normally. Didn’t want to pass out in here.

  Suck it up, Allegra. This is no time to connect with your inner wuss. Ignacio is in his prison safely locked in the trunk of the car.

  I stepped into the chamber. One step, ready to run if necessary, but everything remained as it was. Not even a breeze disturbed the quiet of this place. By the time I’d crossed the torture chamber, I was trembling. Refusing to give in to my fear, I marched down another passage and reached the dead-end chamber where the angels would congregate. It was disappointingly empty.

  “Hey, angels? Anyone there?”

  When there was no answer, I headed back the way I’d come. Outside, dawn was breaking. I perched on part of a stone wall and sucked in lungfuls of fresh morning air. It was going to be another hot day. I hoped Casper wouldn’t take too long to arrive with the angels. While I waited, kicking the dusty ground, I noticed strips of flattened grass. Tire tracks? Not mine. I was parked on the other side of the ruins. Had they been there when I arrived last night? I’d never have seen them in the darkness.

  I was tempted to call out, Is anyone there? But I figured the angels wouldn’t be traveling in cars. Not that all angels suffered from motion sickness, but why drive when you have your own pair of wings?

  The sun rose higher. Sweat made my skin clammy. When my mouth got dry, I found a half-empty bottle of water in the car. Took a sip. Hot. Blech. Could I risk dashing off to buy more water? How far was the nearest mall anyway? Didn’t really matter. I couldn’t leave, not even for a few minutes. I had to be here when the angels arrived. Carefully, I recapped the water bottle, conserving what little remained.