Beyond the triangle, the demonic face pressed its snout into the pentagram, fighting through the agony of its diseased flesh wicking away into ash. The pentagram failed, allowing its corpulent mass through. The stench of it, like a rotting corpse, made her stomach roil with nausea.
“Now or never!” Rumpus cried.
“I concur,” Felix shouted. “Completely. Whole heartedly!”
Ruby swept her hand inward, toward Blair. At the same time, Blair mirrored her movement. The triangles spun through the air until they met, colliding in a shower of sparks. When they ceased their spin, the triangles formed a star.
“In the name of the Witch-Saints,” both women chanted. “I send you far!”
The star spun through the air and struck the corpse-dragon-thing’s half-annihilated snout. It opened its fetid mouth in a roar of tragic defeat as it began to fade back to its own dimension.
“We did it,” Ruby said, sighing in relief.
The demon made a sound akin to Rumpus coughing up a hairball. Just before it faded away, it spat out a gobbet of ichor. It splattered against the wall, a fat glob which seemed to seep through the very rock of the lighthouse. Then it was gone, leaving behind only a trickling slimy patch on the kitchen wall.
“Um,” Rufus said. “What was that?”
“The inevitable consequence of not using a proper D.I.R.L.,” Rumpus quipped.
“Trouble,” Ruby said in dismay. “That was trouble with a capital T.”
Fifteen
Despite an hour’s long search, they were unable to find whatever had vectored through the plague dragon’s throat and disappeared through Ruby’s wall. Only a glistening coat of ectoplasm indicated it had ever existed in the first place.
Ruby called a cab to take Blair to her hotel room, because it was far too late to begin an exorcism, and the banishment spell had left Ruby close to depleted of eldritch energy. Even with a ley line running right through the lighthouse, Ruby preferred not to take her chances with the clever apparition which had attempted to burn her house down.
They planned to meet up later the next day. Blair was on a working vacation. Her job was to cover the tourism trade in Fiddler’s Cove for her website, TheShoot.com.
“Honestly, I’m just observing and recording, not really researching a specific story.”
Still, she technically had to work, which was fine with Ruby.
“You don’t like Blair much, do you?” Rumpus asked.
“I want to like her, but I can’t.” Ruby heaved a sigh. “And no, it’s not because she has perky tits and rolls out of bed looking like a cover model.”
“It’s the Madwand thing, isn’t it?” Rumpus looked intently up at her from the floor, his ears radaring forward.
“Partially. Most witches have to undergo rigorous training and practice to cast spells. Madwands somehow manage it by themselves. Everything is too easy for them. Plus she lucked out and got electromancy, which means she can plug into a light socket and recharge her batteries, so to speak.”
“I don’t understand,” Rufus leaped up onto her lap and stretched languidly. “I thought you said Hydromancy was the strongest Talent.”
“Well, from a certain point of view. Most of the Earth is covered with water, after all. There’s even water in the air.” Ruby waved the fingers of one hand in the air. The other hand stroked Rufus’ soft fur.
“But you can’t recharge like she can? A little to the left…oh, yeah…”
“No, Hydromancers have a different gift. It has to do with phases of the moon. In full moonlight, we can multiply our eldritch reserve and cast bigger, stronger spells—”
Her phone pierced the air with its generic ringtone. Ruby reached out and glanced at it, expecting one of her socialite friends from New York to have been calling again. For some reason, she didn’t feel like talking to any of them. She could deal with her past life in Fiddler’s Cove or her present life in New York city, but not at the same time.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t—wait, I wonder if this is Trixie?”
“One way to find out,” Rumpus said from where he lounged in the warmth of a sunbeam.
“Hello?”
“Ruby? Did I call at a bad time?” Uncertainty crept up around the edges of Trixie’s tone.
“No, not at all. I just didn’t recognize the number at first. What’s up?”
“Do you remember Felicity Jacobs?” Trixie’s voice held an expectant note. “From Biology 101 and Grammatical Analysis?”
“No, I—wait, did she have the horn rimmed glasses and go on and on about Sylvia Plath?”
“Um, yes,” Trixie laughed as if scandalized. “Well, she got Lasik so the glasses are gone, but she’s still a huge book nerd.”
“Is this going somewhere, Trixie?”
“No, we’re going somewhere. As in to her book club.”
“What?” Ruby scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Felicity was on the fringes, but she was still part of Karen’s old crowd.”
“Oh, come on, Ruby, try and let bygones be bygones.”
“Tell that to them. They’re the ones who think I ruined Roger. They probably think his death is my fault, too.”
“C’mon, Ruby,” Trixie’s voice took on a wheedling edge. “Please? I have to go, and I don’t want to go alone.”
Ruby leaned forward, her mouth falling open. “Trixie! You don’t want to go, either, do you?”
“No, I don’t. They can say it’s a book club if they want to. We all know it’s an excuse to get together and gossip.”
“I see that’s still the Fiddler Cove official past time. If you don’t want to go, then don’t go. Why make me suffer as well?”
Trixie heaved a heavy sigh. “To answer the first question, Karen’s husband is on the Fiddler Cove Country Club board of directors. They’re the ones who decide who gets approved for memberships or not.”
“And your husband wants to join the club,” Ruby said, words issuing forth rapidly as she reached comprehension.
“Bingo. I don’t know if I can keep myself from committing suicide with a cheese knife unless I have back up. Please, Ruby? If you do this for me, I’ll owe you one.”
Ruby ran a hand down her face, trying to think of a good excuse not to go and failing miserably.
“You have to go, Ruby,” Rufus said. “It’s too good an opportunity to ask around about Roger Abernathy and the Busta Kapp guy.”
“I know,” Ruby hissed, covering the speaker with her hand. She inhaled through her nostrils, let it out slowly through her mouth and spoke into the phone again. “What are we reading?”
“Yay! Thank you so much. I promise there will be expensive wine to dull your pain. Felicity’s husband is in international trading. He gives her a wine allowance of fifty grand.”
“Per year? That’s a lot.”
Trixie laughed. “No, sweetie. Fifty grand per month. Should I pick you up, say around eleven tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah, okay,” Ruby said. “What book are they discussing?”
“Not that it will come up much, but To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“Well, that’s one I’ve read, at any rate. I guess I’ll download it to my kindle and freshen up.”
Ruby finished her tea and went to bed, dreading and anticipating the brunch book club date. On the one hand, it would be nice to see some familiar faces, even if those faces hated her guts. At least she could remember a time they’d been friends.
For another, Rufus had been right. The potential to gather information about the murder case was just too good to pass up. Not to mention, she actually liked Trixie’s company. Trixie was…effusive. Childlike without being childish. She still laughed about getting foam on her nose when she drank cappuccino. Trixie wasn’t afraid to enjoy life despite reaching the dreaded middle ages.
Ruby wanted to learn from her, to steal some of that energy. Besides, how bad could it truly be?
She had her answer the next day, when she and Trixie walked i
nto Felicity Jacobs’ sun-splashed tearoom. Every pair of eyes in the place turned their way, and none of them seemed friendly. Especially when the gazes focused on Ruby, specifically.
“It’s so bright in here,” Ruby muttered. White, white, white was Felicity’s go-to color for décor. The gauzy curtains letting in a gentle sea breeze were white. The tablecloth beneath the opulent setting of brunch fare was white. The walls were white. Even the fireplace had been framed with off-white marble. The result was a room too bright by far to be comfortable.
Worse, many of the women wore white or off-white dresses. It seemed that her black silhouette dress with peplum skirt marked her as surely as the bright pink floral baby doll Trixie had adorned herself in.
“Oh, you made it.” Felicity approached them, an eager smile on her face. Ruby decided her pleasure was genuine. After all, two more members of the book club would only add to her prestige. “Trixie, always good to see you.”
The women hugged, careful to keep their blush-covered faces from smudging their garments. Felicity turned to Ruby, a smile on her fine-featured face. Felicity had always been ninety-eight pounds soaking wet. A touch of gray in her hair near the temple was probably left there deliberately, because the rest of her mane remained raven black.
“Ruby Rivers! I’m so glad you’re back in town. How have you been?”
They shook hands, Ruby forcing a smile to her face. “Good, things have been good. You?”
“Oh, I can’t complain. I’ve got the whole domestic thing going on. Husband, kids, life of a housewife, what can you do? I barely have time to read any longer.”
Yeah, right. Pictures of your children on the walls, but not a toy in sight, nor the sound of feet. Your nannies and household staff do most of the raising around here.
Ruby struggled to keep her thoughts from her face. “Listen, thanks for inviting me today.”
“Oh, you’re most welcome. Did you read the book? Because I’ve broken down a formalistic feminist critique that I think you’ll all find most…”
And she was off. Ruby and Trixie ate their food and politely pretended to listen or understand Trixie’s long-winded dissertation on the patriarchal underpinnings of a book ironically written by a woman.
The wine flowed freely, just as Trixie had promised. As the presentation wound down and the gossip began to fly, Ruby found that she and Trixie stood in an isolated spot away from the main group.
“We’re grown women,” Trixie growled. “So why do I feel like I’m back in the cafeteria in Junior High?”
“Because a lot of them never left. The dynamics are the same. Come on, let’s go mingle. You want your husband to be able to golf with the guys who consent to sleep with these harpies, right?”
Trixie laughed. “I do, indeed. Here goes nothing.”
They managed to insinuate themselves into the conversation, which seemed to center around who was sleeping with whom around Fiddler’s Cove. Ruby endured as best she could, sipping wine and nibbling on the fare rather than offering her own comments.
I want to scour my ears out with Clorox after hearing this filth, Ruby thought.
“You know who I heard had her eye on Gloria Dorrance? Chief Miller.”
Ruby winced as Karen joined the fray, her eyes lit up with delight. “Oooh, not Johnny Mumbles? And here I thought he just liked playing with his balls at the station house.”
Catty laughter rose up from the gaggle and Ruby struggled to hide her contempt.
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Felicity pointed at Ruby. “Chief John’s taken an interest in our recently returned Ruby Rivers.”
“How convenient, hook up with a cop as soon as your ex-boyfriend gets murdered,” Karen said.
Ruby’s face twisted into a scowl as laughter tittered out of numerous slender throats. Karen saw Ruby’s expression and waved it off. “Oh, come on, Ruby, you know I was joking.”
“Yeah. I’m going out for a cigarette. Excuse me.”
Ruby headed outside, followed by Trixie. “I thought you didn’t smoke?”
“I don’t, but I was on the verge of drowning a Karen.”
“You can’t let them get to you. Come on, let’s go back in and show them that we’re not afraid.”
Ruby grimaced. “I don’t know—”
Her phone rang, and she sighed. “Saved by the bell. Hello?”
“Ruby?”
“What is it, John?” His voice was tinged with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I wanted to call you as soon as I heard. You need to be careful. Trevor Whitley made bond. He’s back on the streets.”
Sixteen
Ruby ducked into the book club long enough for a polite but firm fare well. Felicity invited her back to next week’s book club. Unfortunately, as far as Ruby was concerned.
Trixie used the fact she was Ruby’s ride to extricate herself, as well. The two women stood on the porch looking out over the gray waves gently lapping the beach below. The sudden overcast sky suited Ruby’s mood perfectly.
Ruby said a single, guttural syllable in the arcane tongue and a lit Virginia Slim appeared in her hand. She took a long drag on it while Trixie laughed.
“I thought you didn’t smoke?”
“I don’t—anymore.” Ruby sighed. “This is illusory.”
“It smells real.”
“The illusory nicotine hits real, too. It won’t last, though. As soon as the spell is over, so is the nicotine high.”
“Sounds like you’ll be worse off than before.”
“Yeah.” Ruby laughed as they trotted down the steps toward Trixie’s car. “Worse off than before. Kind of describes this entire trip home.”
“Don’t be that way. Things aren’t all bad.”
Ruby looked over at her quickly. “Oh, Trixie, I don’t mean to sound like I’m not grateful that we reconnected.”
“I know. I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything of the sort, either.” Her eyes sparkled. “I was thinking of our Chief of Police. He likes you. Everyone can tell.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Ruby shook her head. “Half the time he shows up at my door it’s with bad news, or to accuse me of a crime.”
“He likes you,” Trixie said firmly. “I think he did back in high school and college, too, but he didn’t have the tools to express it.”
“My familiar quips that he’s a Pokémon who evolved into a higher form.” Ruby slid into the passenger side of Trixie’s BMW and glanced at her sharply. “A Pokémon is a—”
“I know, I know, I have kids, remember?” Trixie laughed. “He was a late bloomer, that’s for sure. Unlike Roger, who peaked his sophomore year of college.”
“Yeah. Poor guy. Never got to climb those mountains.”
Trixie pulled the car out into the streets of the sequestered subdivision. Harper’s Hill was where the ‘good’—i.e. rich—Fiddler Cove denizens lived. The city proper lay below, seeming vulnerable somehow.
The BMW hugged the sharp curves as they descended toward town. Many an unwise motorist had burst through the reinforced guardrails and plunged to their deaths while coming down from Harper’s Hill.
There was said to be a particularly nasty ghost who haunted the most extreme curve, nicknamed the Hairpin by mutual consensus. Ruby had never seen him, though she felt a definite sensation of coldness at times when she passed through the turn.
That day, she didn’t feel the coldness. Her heart seemed to chase away and cold with warmth, giddy and high on the idea that John might be interested in her.
“You know, I never climbed any mountains, either. Other than the one trip to the Motherland, I’ve never left the country. I just married a mundane man and started having children.”
“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Trixie. At least you’re not forty-one and alone, like me.”
“You might not be alone for much longer, if you play your cards right with Johnny Mumbles.”
Ruby laughed. “I’m tired of playing games. I guess…maybe I’m ready
for something more real? I don’t know, it sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t. There’s nothing wrong with craving comfort and stability.” Trixie smiled as she steered around the last of the extreme curves. “I love my family, and I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.”
Ruby smiled. “That sounds nice.”
“Here we are,” Trixie said, moving around the statue of Fiddler’s Founder and parking in front of the police department. “Tell Chief Miller I said hi.”
“I will, but this is hardly a social call. We’re going to talk about the case.”
“Can it be both?” Trixie winked. “Call me later, I want all the details.”
Ruby exited the car, then turned around to peer through the open passenger side window. “About the case, or me and Roger?”
Trixie laughed. “Again, can it be both?”
Ruby parted ways, feeling the return of a type of warmth she’d not known for many years. A warmth born of familiarity and shared experience. Ruby and Trixie had been friendly, but not close back before Roger left her at the altar. Now, it seemed as they clicked as mature adults.
Ruby entered the station house. Miller appeared at the door to his office, a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. Stacks of folders bulged beneath his stout arm. He motioned toward Ruby with his free hand.
“Come on back, if you would.”
Ruby smiled politely at the desk sergeant and moved past the counter. John used his hip to push the door fully open for her ingress. Ruby turned to the side, but couldn’t help brushing against John as she sidled through the door. He felt warm and smelled nice. Ruby feared he could hear the sound of her rapidly beating heart.
“Have a seat.” He gestured at the straight-backed wooden chair pulled up on the opposite side of his wide, walnut desk. Ruby couldn’t drag her eyes away from the pinball game dominating the north corner of his office and walked that way instead.
“Hot Pursuit, huh?” She ran her fingers over the glass. “It still have all the original parts?”
“Most of them. I did have to replace one of the lights on the scoring display, so it’s noticeably brighter than the rest.”
You've Got To Be Kitten: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Cozy Mystery Page 9