by Anna Abner
“You can break the summoning spell,” Derek said to Holden, his voice tinged with an undertone of accusation. “You did it before.”
“I can’t.” Holden glanced at Rebecca and then away.
“Yes, you can.”
Derek despised Holden Clark, and it appeared the feeling was mutual. But how was it possible? Rebecca hadn’t started dating Holden until the time right around Derek’s accident. And the last time Jessa had seen Holden he was standing on Derek’s front step with Rebecca expressing sympathy. And then Derek left.
She was missing something, and she made a mental note to discover what had gone on between them.
“Things were different then,” Holden said. “I had the responsible caster right in front of me. We don’t know who’s casting this spell.”
Derek gripped the edge of the table. “If you had him in the same room,” he swallowed thickly, “you could break it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Derek twitched, as if tormented by either his answer or what it meant for the future.
Holden and Rebecca shared a look, and then she took him by the hand. “We’ll be in the kitchen,” Rebecca announced. “You two need your privacy, and we could all use a breather.”
Jessa had to admit it was a relief when her former boss and her brooding fiancé left the room. Leaning forward over the table, she scrutinized Derek’s face. All the right parts were there—brown eyes, blond hair, strong jaw—but so much was different.
“Magic is real,” he said flatly.
“Of course it is,” she said, mocking him a little.
“You witnessed a spell,” he said gesturing to the fresh bloodstain on the tile floor. “Only a powerful necromancer,” he grimaced, “could have healed me.”
There was no need to inspect the blood for authenticity. She still had smears up and down both arms. It was genuine.
“A necromancer,” she said, testing the weight of the word on her tongue. She’d never heard the term before, but it didn’t sound good.
“That’s what people like me are called,” he said. “I can see ghosts, and I can channel their power into spells.”
“What kind of ghosts?” she asked. A lot of her family, most importantly her younger sister Jolie, had passed away. Was it possible to contact them? She would do anything—anything—to be able to have one last conversation with Jolie.
“Not all ghosts stay,” he said. “Most move on and find peace.”
“Oh.” She sat back. Jolie would have crossed over. She deserved to find peace, and Jessa hoped she had. She didn’t want to think of her sister stuck anywhere during her afterlife, especially when it was Jessa’s fault Jolie had an afterlife at all.
“Some necromancers use magic for evil,” he said, glancing away. “The very worst is…”
Derek struggled to finish the sentence, his chest tensing and his mouth working fruitlessly.
“Take your time.” She reached out to reassure him, but he snatched his hands off the table and clenched them in his lap.
“The Dark Caster,” he finally spit out. “He’s trying to open a Chaos Gate.”
“A what?” The term brought up fantasies of braying monsters and bright flames.
“A doorway,” Derek explained. “Demons will cross into our world and possess people.”
“What would they do then?” she asked, imagining cartoonish mayhem.
“Torture. Murder. Rape.”
Okay, that was worse than she could imagine. “I see.” In other words, the worst cruelty humans can inflict upon each other.
“They’ve done it once. A few days ago. And,” he curled inward, “you’re the second victim.”
The silence expanded around them until her ears rang.
“What?” She’d never been a victim before. Never been robbed, cheated, tricked, or abused. Never.
She’d lived a charmed life, she was just realizing, and didn’t even know it. The idea of being victimized sent a sick, twisting pulse through her guts. She felt afraid. And small. And helpless.
Three sensations she usually kept tightly under wraps.
“You’re under a summoning spell,” he said. “They’re trying to put a demon inside you.”
She was tempted to laugh, but then she remembered his disappearing wound.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“Mayor Paul Westfield,” he said, “and his cabal.”
“Paul?” she exclaimed. “The mayor of Auburn is an evil necromancer?” Then she did laugh. “Derek, do you hear yourself?” The theory that his head injury had flared up and was causing delusions became her best theory yet. “Do you think it’s possible, even a little, that your accident is responsible for you saying all this?”
Derek leaned forward, his knees clamping around hers, and started to argue, but Holden’s voice drowned out his words.
“He’s telling the truth.”
She tore her gaze from Derek’s. “It sounds preposterous.”
“It does,” he agreed, emerging from the kitchen.
“But it’s all true.” Rebecca followed Holden into the dining room. “The spell marks are floating around your head. There’s no doubt about what they want to do to you.”
Necromancers? Spells? Demons? Classic paranoid delusions.
Except Holden and Rebecca were backing Derek up. And, to Jessa’s knowledge, neither had ever suffered from mental illness.
“Why can’t I see them?” She caught her reflection in the rain-speckled window. Tangled hair, blood specks, and wide green eyes. Nothing otherworldly.
“Only necromancers and spirits can see spell marks.”
Jessa glanced at Derek. They all sounded so sure of what was happening, so sure of the magic stuff, they must have a plan. “Can you stop it?”
“Yes.”
She wanted to believe him. “How?”
Derek stared back, mute and trembling.
Chapter Seven
Derek studied Jessa’s face, just as overwhelmed being in her presence in the diner as he’d been in her apartment. There was something special about her, and it wasn’t simply her beauty. Or her intelligence. Or her kind heart. She brought up feelings and desires he’d feared he’d lost forever. Being close to her, their legs brushing under the table, made his whole body quiver and stir. And he’d thought certain physical parts of him were lost too. But not today. Today, Jessa had brought him back to life.
Not that he would act on these new instincts. He was filthy, inside and out. He wouldn’t infect her with his touch, no matter how much he wanted to feel her soft skin beneath is hands. She was in enough trouble without him making everything worse.
Holden and Rebecca may have been saying something over his head, but he wasn’t listening. “I need to take you somewhere safe,” he announced.
Yes, they must have been talking because it got real quiet as they all stared at him. He was acting crazy again.
“Sparky’s is safe,” Holden said.
“No.” The restaurant’s layout was too cramped. Small dining room crowded with fifties memorabilia, small kitchen, and a tiny office with absolutely zero style. There wasn’t room to spread out. And she deserved a real bed in a real house. It wasn’t her fault the Dark Caster had targeted her. Actually, it was his fault. “She needs to sleep in a home. In a bed. She’s not a prisoner.”
He’d hoped Holden would have broken the summoning spell by now. Or at least begun to cast something. But since he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help, Derek was forced to come up with a plan B.
“I’ll stay in my apartment tonight,” Jessa said, nodding once as if that settled it.
“You can sleep at our place,” Rebecca offered instead. “It’s been blanketed with protection spells.”
Nice try, but Derek would cut his own throat before he played house with the caster who’d stolen his memories. “I can protect Jessa’s apartment.” There was no other option.
“If you’re sure,” Holden said, sounding unconvinced.
“Yes.” He dis-entangled his legs from Jessa’s and stood.
“You’re not all going to follow me home, are you?” she asked.
“Just me,” Derek said.
She looked him up and down, her eyes critical. “Okay. I guess.”
Jessa started for the door, but Holden stopped Derek before he could follow. “Things are bad out there. Spell the apartment fast. Spell the car. Spell the whole neighborhood if you’ve got the strength.” His voice lowered. “Cole killed the cabal’s witch. But like some mythical monster, two more have replaced her. Be careful.”
Witches were being murdered? What was to stop some maniac from killing him? Or Jessa once her usefulness wore out?
“I don’t have a spirit,” Derek said, losing confidence by the second in his ability to protect her.
Holden scowled. “Then call yours. Or borrow mine. But you’re not leaving here without juice.”
A memory of his spirit’s face flashed through his mind. Robert had been kind and patient with Derek, but Derek’s summoning spell had destroyed him. Because everything Derek touched turned to ash.
He glanced at Jessa, and his stomach soured.
Holden’s child spirit materialized beside him, and Derek instinctively backed away. She may appear as a sweet-faced girl, but on the day Holden had taken his memories, she’d become an angel of destruction. Something deep inside the recesses of his mind trembled.
“No.” Derek would never channel her power. He could barely share space with her.
“He’s got me.”
He spun at the familiar female voice. The woman from Jessa’s apartment floated behind him.
“She’s my sister,” Jolie added. “I’ll help you do anything to protect her.”
“Jessa’s your sister?” Holden asked.
She shrugged.
“Fine,” Derek agreed. “Let’s go.”
“Hold up,” Jessa said, moving between Holden and Derek. Holden backed away, but Derek didn’t, and she got very close. Too close. “What did he say?”
“He said Jolie’s your sister,” Derek answered. His mind was playing tricks again. Her proximity was intoxicating. Silken blonde hair, shiny green eyes, and the softest, sweetest mouth…
“Derek?”
He snapped to attention.
Her lower lip quivered. “You knew Jolie?”
Jessa couldn’t hear or see spirits. She’d never been touched by the other side. At one point in his life, he would have felt sorry for her that she wasn’t special like him. Now, he was beginning to think she was the lucky one.
He shook his head. “But she’s going to help me tonight.”
Jessa stared at him like he’d gone mad. Maybe he had.
“Necromancers can see ghosts,” Holden reminded her. “Your sister has been hanging around Rebecca for a few months. We didn’t know she was your sister, though.”
“Not that Rebecca would have listened, anyway,” Jolie grumbled.
The shine in Jessa’s eyes swelled into full-blown tears. One hung, suspended from her lower lashes like a tiny diamond, and Derek stared, mesmerized as it rolled over her cheek.
“She’s here right now?”
Holden nodded.
Jessa flattened herself against Derek’s chest, her surprisingly strong arms wrapping around him. He stumbled away, terrified she would be sullied. That his touch alone would curse her.
But they were caught together, and she came with him as he banged into the glass door.
“I can talk to her?” Jessa’s voice was muffled.
Unable to extricate himself from her embrace, he froze stiff instead, becoming a statue built of fear and angst.
“Yes,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell her it’s okay,” Jolie said, her own voice suspiciously wobbly. “I don’t know where to start, either.”
“Come on.” Derek opened the door for her. Thankfully, she released him and cool air rushed to fill the space she vacated. “Let’s get you home.”
But the moment they escaped the diner, Holden’s layers of protection spells vanished. Inside Jessa’s car, Derek felt no safer. There was nothing and no one to save them from an attack by the cabal.
“If anything strange happens,” he declared, checking his rearview mirror and then both side mirrors, “stay close to me.” He didn’t mention there was no spell circle on the vehicle or glyphs anywhere on his body. Though Jolie’s power was there to tap, without a glyph, Derek couldn’t cast a shield spell.
They were defenseless.
“I need the truth,” Jessa said, climbing in after him. “Specifically everything you know about my sister.”
Derek exhaled slowly. She was right. It wasn’t fair to keep her in the dark.
“I can see spirits, and I can,” he’d never explained this to anyone before and the words stuck in his throat, “channel their power into spells.” He swallowed, but it didn’t help. “I can cast magic,” he concluded.
“Like what happened in the diner?”
“Holden is a necromancer. So’s Rebecca.”
She burst out laughing. “Be serious. Rebecca Powell, superstar, is a witch?”
“Not a witch. A necromancer. And she wasn’t always,” he said. “She’s newly made.”
Another black mark in his personal logbook. He’d cursed Rebecca. He had caused her and Holden untold suffering.
“How do you become a necromancer?”
He was not exactly an expert. He’d always been proud of being a born caster and had looked down on the few made casters he’d run into. He certainly hadn’t concerned himself with their origins or experiences.
“You get touched by the other side,” he said. “Or you die and cross over,” he explained. “Then your body is brought back to life.”
“And then you’re magic?” Her voice veritably dripped disbelief.
“Sometimes.”
“Was Holden born one?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but Rebecca was made not that long ago.” He clenched his jaw tight. By me, went unsaid.
“When?”
“Before I left.”
“Before your accident?” she asked.
“It wasn’t an accident.” There had been nothing accidental about Holden barreling into his lair and dropping him like a sack of garbage. Or about Holden casting on his helpless body, leaving it in a car on the side of the road.
“Then how did it happen?”
“She was possessed by a demon.” A demon Derek had summoned.
“Like me.” Jessa’s face paled. “They were right. This has happened before.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be one of those things too?” she asked. “I’ll die and then be a necromancer?”
For the briefest moment, Derek felt a bewildering kinship with Holden Clark. He must have felt the same helpless rage when he’d discovered Rebecca was under a summoning spell. It didn’t mean Derek could ever forgive him, but he understood him a tiny bit better.
“She didn’t die,” he said, “and neither will you.”
“But?” she prompted.
“But if you’re possessed,” he replied, “you’ll be touched by the other side. You’ll change.”
“And then I’ll be like you. I could see ghosts. I could see…”
“Jolie,” he finished for her.
* * *
Jolie clung to Jessa’s vehicle, eavesdropping on her and Derek’s conversations, wanting to butt in, but not sure how.
Finally, they hit a lull, and she spoke up. “Why won’t she talk to me?”
Derek glanced at her in the rearview mirror, and then away. “Jessa, do you want to talk to your sister?” he asked.
Jolie watched carefully for Jessa’s reaction. Her sister didn’t bounce with glee. No. She curled inward slightly, bowing her head.
She didn’t say a word.
“She’s ignoring me,” Jolie said with depressing resignation. “She knows
I’m here, and she doesn’t want to talk.” She had assumed Jessa would jump at the chance to communicate with her again. It’s all Jolie had been dreaming of for months.
Derek tried again. “Your sister wants to talk to you,” he said gently. “Is there anything,” he paused, “you’ve been keeping inside?
Jessa’s eyes widened in apprehension. “I don’t know.” She searched the backseat as if she could see Jolie, but when her eyes landed on her, Jessa saw right through her. “She’s here? Now?”
“She’s been watching you for a long time,” he answered.
“I have,” Jolie admitted. “As much as I could bear. You can tell her it’s hard for me too.”
“She stays because she loves you,” Derek added. “She misses you.”
“I miss her so much,” Jessa murmured, “but I just don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay.” Derek nodded. “When you’re ready.”
“What if she’s never ready?” Jolie asked him. “I can’t believe she doesn’t have a damn thing to say to me. To her dead sister.” She swore loudly.
* * *
Derek steered left at the next intersection, setting Jolie’s issues aside for the moment. He’d become adept at ignoring spirits, and the skill came in handy as he worked on getting Jessa safely back to her apartment.
He could feel her gaze on his face.
“We’re going to stop the demon from even happening, right?” she asked.
Afraid to say yes, he nodded instead. If Holden couldn’t break the summoning spell, and no one knew which caster was channeling the spell, then he wasn’t certain it could be stopped.
“What will happen to me?” Jessa asked. “If you can’t?”
Images popped into his head he wished would pop right back out again. Fantasies of Jessa in pain, Jessa in a rage, Jessa wreaking havoc.
“You’ll get sicker,” Derek explained. “At your weakest,” he cleared his throat, “the demon will break through.”
“Go on,” she prodded, her voice shaky.
He wasn’t sure he could. He hadn’t said so much aloud in months. “The demon will control you.” He swallowed. “Paul will try to keep you as a pet.”