by Bonnie Lamer
Unfortunately, this adds another layer of mystery to the situation. “Why would some be harder to exorcise than others?” I ask no one in particular. After all, Tabitha exorcised one just a bit ago. “Is it because they are so old and shriveled? Does that make them stronger?” It seems the opposite would be true, but in the world of magic, very little makes sense to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Felix sniffing around the refrigerator. He is not one to scrounge for food like Taz. “Are you hungry, Felix?” I ask my Familiar.
Startled, he jumps and backs away from the kitchen appliance. “No,” he says. “Thought I smelled something is all.”
He is acting so strangely tonight. “Okay, but if you are hungry, you can say so.”
“So you can harass him like you do me?” Taz sniffs.
“Felix doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds,” I counter. I’m exaggerating, of course. He’s probably closer to ninety-nine.
“Ignore her,” Taz tells his friend. “She gets cranky when she’s feeling ignorant.” It’s true, I do. I will not admit that aloud, though.
The door opens and Isla and Garren walk through it. Glancing around the room, Garren notes, “This is a sad bunch of faces.” Tabitha mumbles something about adding a body part or two of his to the popcorn pan. Grimacing at Kallen, Garren adds, “I take it some new crisis has emerged.” He’s getting as used to the idea as the rest of us. He’s barely even fazed by it now.
“I have only recently become involved myself,” Kallen tells him. “Xandra can explain it better.”
Suggesting they sit down first, I tell them everything that has happened in the last half an hour or so. I leave out the part about Tabitha’s magic not being strong enough to exorcise the spirit. Maybe that will earn me some extra butter on my popcorn. Turns out, though, she seems to think it’s an important part of the story. “Takes someone stronger than me to exorcise some of them,” Tabitha admits. Garren raises his brows but is wise enough not to say anything. He must be remembering which body parts of his could end up in the popcorn pan if he says something stupid.
“How odd,” Isla says. After a pause, she surprises us all when she adds, “I had a vision of this.” My eyes open wide. Isla rarely speaks about her visions because they can be misleading and could cause things to become worse if acted upon. “I saw you struggle with your magic but I did not think it could be true.”
Uh oh. That does not sound good. Tabitha’s face has paled and she stammers, “Am I losing my magic?”
Isla sighs. “This is why I do not speak of such things. Of course you are not losing your magic. I simply saw you struggle with a spell. I could not make out which spell it was at the time, but it must have been this one.”
Tabitha glares at her. “A little forewarning could save a Fairy a bit of humiliation.”
Cocking her head, Isla says, “And if I told you, you would have second guessed doing any spell.” She has a point.
“I still say it was a fluke,” I interject before the two older Fairies start flinging words they might regret and the rest of us really do not want to hear. Both of them can be quite creative when sparring with each other. Many, many years of practice, I guess.
“Perhaps,” Isla nods. “Are you feeling well?” she asks Tabitha.
“I feel fine,” Tabitha snaps as if she didn’t do a self-assessment just moments ago when asked the very same question by Kallen.
“Have you heard of some spirits being more difficult to exorcise than others?” I ask Isla, hoping to steer the direction of the conversation to calmer waters.
Pursing her lips, she considers. Finally, she shakes her head, “I have not, but it is not impossible. It could be the spirit was strong magically in life and carried this with him or her.”
We are about to find out. Mouth open in a silent wail, a spirit zooms into the kitchen through the still open back door. It heads straight for Adriel. Once again, several flavors of magic shoot forth and it is caught before it can give her another case of major brain freeze. Turning to her husband, Isla says, “Garren, try to exorcise it.”
Despite Kallen and Kegan’s opinion, Garren is not always a stupid Fairy. He knows perfectly well what Isla is implying. His magic is weaker than hers, and mine, and Kallen’s, and probably Adriel’s. She wants to know if he is strong enough to exorcise the spirit.
Giving Isla a ‘we are going to have words about this later’ look for the magical pop quiz she is making him take, Garren turns his attention to the vengeful spirit pounding against the magic restraining it. The thing is making sucking motions with its mouth. Was it going to try to suck out Adriel’s brain? Is it the vengeful spirit of a zombie? Whether it is or not, we will never know. When Garren says the exorcism spell, the thing disappears. Much to Tabitha’s annoyance. She is even more annoyed when Garren can’t hide his smirk when he glances her way. I take it back, he is always a stupid Fairy. He is going to need Isla to taste test his food for a good month, at least.
“Smug son of a bitch,” Tabitha mutters as she transfers popcorn into bowls. I am surprised several of them don’t break considering the force she uses to slam them onto the counter in front of her. I’m going to search my bowl carefully. I prefer my popcorn ceramic-shard free.
“I do not believe anything was proved here,” Kallen says in Tabitha’s defense. Smart guy. He knows whose side to take if he wants to eat Tabitha’s cooking instead of his or mine. Neither of us is talented in the kitchen. “We were discussing the possibility that some of these spirits may be stronger than others. This one could have been weaker than the last.” Now it’s Tabitha’s turn to smirk. Garren glares at his step-grandson. Oh, I haven’t thought about his and Kallen’s relationship like that before. There is no way in hell Kallen will ever call Garren his grandfather. Or any other term that implies they are related. Especially in front of strangers. Or acquaintances. “A more important question,” Kallen goes on to say. “Is where are they coming from? Why is there a sudden influx of vengeful spirits?”
“Good question,” a deep, velvety voice says from the doorway. My biological father is standing there with his arms crossed over his broad chest. “One passed me on the way here. I assume you took care of it.”
He is looking at me so I nod. Not to necessarily take credit for it, but to avoid the angst fueled competition between Tabitha and Garren. “It’s gone,” I assure him. Garren opens his mouth to take credit for the deed but Isla elbows him hard in the ribs. He is now too busy gasping for breath to say anything. She’s standing at an awkward angle to him at the moment. She may have inadvertently hit his sternum instead of his ribs.
“You didn’t need to come all the way here,” I tell my father. “We have things under control.”
Dagda’s brows rise. “Considering the conversation I overheard on my way to the door, I suspect that is not true.” Wow, we’re really loud talkers if he heard us through the closed door.
“Okay, maybe ‘under control’ was stretching it a bit, but we can handle exorcising the spirits. Wouldn’t you rather be at the palace making certain Zac doesn’t see any of them,” I say pointedly.
My biological father has the decency to get a little color in his cheeks over the chastisement. Regardless, he defends his actions. “Tana is more than capable of protecting him from troubling sights,” he points out. “As King, it is my place to be where the problem is.” Touché. Obviously, Kallen sent him a message with more detail than I thought.
A scream from the other room has us all rushing from the kitchen in that direction. In the living room, Mom and Dad are huddled in the corner. Two shriveled spirits are before them, mouths wide in silent wails. I instantly pull magic, but to my surprise, Kallen puts a hand on my shoulder. “Wait,” he says quietly. “Look closer.”
Pissed, I shrug his hand off my shoulder. Look closer at my parents being attacked and traumatized by vengeful spirits? What the hell is he thinking? I again prepare to fling my magic at the situation when I see it. I see what Kallen is seeing. My parent
s are not being attacked by these awful creatures. In fact, the vengeful spirits are maintaining their distance. As we watch, the things calm. Their mouths close and their silent wails stop. They seem to be studying my parents. There is no other word for it. Their savaged faces bear a sign of curiosity. Until one of them notices us. It now loses any semblance of sanity on its ugly face and it shoots across the room toward us. Well, toward one of us. A particularly unhappy Fallen Angel of Death. Its intentions are clear. To freeze her brain. Permanently, if possible.
Magic is slammed in its path and before any of the rest of us can say them, the words to the exorcism spell are being spoken by none other than Tabitha. She has something to prove. And prove it she does. The room is suddenly empty of vengeful spirits because she exorcised two for the price of one. A satisfied smile covers her plump lips.
Isla is not quite as impressed with Tabitha as the Fairy is with herself. “The other spirit was not attacking. Further study would have been beneficial,” she notes dryly.
She’s right. While the one spirit went on the attack, the other stayed near Mom and Dad. It could not take its eyes off them. It was almost, for lack of a better word, worshipping them. Seeking something more important than revenge. “No way,” I mutter and turn wide eyes to Kallen.
“Sanity. Wholeness,” my gorgeous husband says as if he read my mind.
“What?” Dagda demands, lost to our conversation. To be fair, he hasn’t heard the entire story yet. He doesn’t know about my conversation with Rashnu.
“I believe you are correct,” Isla says, aggravating Dagda even further in his ignorance of key information. The King of the Fae’s head may explode if we keep torturing him like this. On the other hand, people are always telling me that patience is a virtue. He could stand to be a bit more virtuous.
Turning to Adriel, I say what is obvious to those of us with all the information. “They’re not hear because of you. They’re hear because of Mom and Dad.”
Nodding, Adriel continues the thought. “When they find me here, they see me as a threat and they attack. I am more of an afterthought than an actual goal.”
Excited now, I exclaim, “We figured it out!” I half expect Raziel to reappear before us and congratulate us for our wisdom and cleverness.
Until my gorgeous husband bursts my happy balloon. “We figured out a small piece of the puzzle. We still do not know how they know about your parents, where they come from, how to stop them from invading our home from now through eternity, and why some may be harder to exorcise than others.”
“Details,” I mutter, more annoyed with myself than him since I leapt to the end when we haven’t even left the beginning of the problem.
“They are seeking us out?” Dad asks in surprise.
“You are enigmas in the world of spirits,” I point out.
“It is your magic holding us here in this form. Shouldn’t they be seeking you out?” Mom asks.
“The magic with which Xandra is holding you is virtually undetectable,” Isla reminds her. “It is possible these other spirits do not know Xandra is behind your superior state of being.”
For once I’m not being blamed for something? Am I in an alternate universe? Though technically, I should say, I’m not being given the credit for something. That actually occurs more often than I like. But Kallen is right. Discovering the reason they are here does nothing to solve the problem. It only points out how big the problem really is. “So, is this going to be an issue for the rest of their existence now that their secret is out?” I ask the room in general.
Horrified expressions form on both Mom’s and Dad’s faces. I can’t blame them. Being dogged by creatures who can only wish they were in as fine of shape as Jabba the Hutt and as pretty as Freddy Krueger for the rest of their lives? I mean, these things need their own horror genre. “For the rest of our existence?” Mom echoes. “These things will seek us out?”
“We’ll figure out how to stop them,” I rush to assure her. Don’t have a clue how, but we will.
My words go unheard by their intended audience. In a panic, Mom says to Dad, “Zac will be forced to see these creatures? We can’t do that to him. We can’t let him see what we will become.” Her voice is rising and hysteria is filling her words. “We need to let go before that happens.”
So, she really didn’t believe me earlier when I said that it would never happen to her and Dad. “Mom,” I begin, but Dad talks over me.
“Julienne, we are not going to end up like that.” Good, at least one of my parents has faith in me. “We will figure this out. We are not doing anything rash in the meantime,” he tells her, folding his arms around her and pulling her close. I miss that. I miss being able to hug them when things have gone completely to hell. Which they do a lot around me.
Unconvinced still, Mom pushes Dad back. “Promise me,” she demands. “Promise me we will make Xandra let us go if we can’t stop them. We can’t ruin Zac’s childhood any more than we already have. We can’t do to him what we’ve done to Xandra.”
Dad presses his palms against her cheeks and forces her to look at him. “I will follow you to heaven or hell before I will let anything destroy our children.”
It’s like the rest of us aren’t in the room and it’s pretty darn uncomfortable being caught watching such an intimate conversation. And such an inane one. I mean, how exactly have they destroyed me? “Uh, as one of those children you are discussing, I think you’re overreacting a tad bit.” Under my breath, I mutter, “I don’t think I turned out that bad.”
Horrified, Mom rushes to me and throws her arms around me. And partially through me. Maybe I don’t miss hugs as much as I thought I did. “You are perfect, my darling,” she says into my hair. I’m pretty sure I have a frostbitten earlobe from her being so close to it. “I just meant,” her voice catches in a sob, “I meant how hard we made things for you. How hard it was for you to have a set of ghosts for parents and be forced into hiding your whole life. How it affected your emotional well-being.” Hmm, I am somehow not comforted by her words.
Ducking out of her frozen embrace, I reply, “Still overreacting, Mom. Things turned out just fine for me.” I glance at Kallen and smile. Yup, just fine. He loves me for all of me. Even my affected emotional well-being.
Dad has joined her now and he is a bit more reasonable than she is. Thank god. “Julienne, she’s right. Our children have turned out just fine.”
“Glad to hear it,” I snark under my breath. Kallen puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me gently to his side. Okay, his hugs I do still crave.
“I am certain we will find a solution less drastic than the one being contemplated,” Dagda says. I turn surprised eyes to him. There was a day when he would have probably done a happy dance upon hearing that my parents wanted to move on. “Zac would suffer more harm from the loss of his parents than from seeing creatures you will never be.” Now I want to hug him. Instead, I stay tucked in Kallen’s arms and give my biological father an appreciative smile. He gives me a slight nod in return. Our relationship has reached the point of silent communication. I like it.
The awkward conversation is interrupted by the smell of burning popcorn. Tabitha was cooking another batch when we heard the screams. She utters a few choice words as she hurries back to the kitchen to put out any stray flames. After a moment, she calls out, “There will be no popcorn tonight.” Hey, what about the stuff she already put in bowls? I guess she decided if there isn’t enough for everyone, no one gets any. My stomach is very disappointed by her absurd need for fairness in regards to popcorn consumption.
Taking the opportunity to steer the conversation toward a less depressing subject, Kallen says, “We need a plan. Something in place to keep the spirits at bay while we attempt to figure this out.”
“I took their voices away. Maybe I could ban spirits from entering the house,” I suggest.
Isla frowns. “That would be tricky. You may inadvertently affect your parents if you attempted to do so.”
>
“Not to mention, you would make your parents prisoners of their home,” Dagda adds. “If you were able to exclude them from your spell, they would still be dogged by these spirits if they attempted to leave.”
Dad shakes his head. “That is not much of an existence. We left our realm for the freedom to move about here.” Even in Colorado, though, they could leave the house since we lived in the mountains and there were no other people for miles.
“Okay, what about making some sort of deterrent spell,” I say thoughtfully. “Something like a ward to keep them away from you.” Sort of like vengeful spirit deodorant.
“That would not stop them from gathering here,” Dagda points out. “They may not be able to approach your parents, but they may still congregate in the area.” Meaning the rest of us, and the realm, would still have to deal with them.
“If you can come up with a spell to keep them from attacking me, I am all for that,” Adriel grimaces. “Unless I get called back, I have a lot of mortal years ahead of me.” She says that with enough confidence to make me wonder if Raziel has given her an idea of how many mortal years she has ahead of her. He must cheat a little bit with her since she is a full blooded Angel and not necessarily as tied to freewill as I am despite being mortal right now. “It would be nice to spend them without attacking vengeful spirits.”
“Whiner,” I say and grin at the nasty look she gives me.
“Until we do have a solution,” Isla says to Adriel, “you are not to be alone.” I try not to snicker at Adriel’s annoyed expression. She likes her privacy and independence. Being an Angel of Death is pretty much a solo gig. At least while she is working. Turning her eyes to Mom and Dad, Isla adds, “Neither are you.”
“We can take shifts guarding them,” I suggest.
“Working in pairs would be best,” Kallen adds. “The more eyes and magic the better.”
“They are sneaky little things,” I agree. “They can come from any direction.”
“And now we can’t hear them coming,” Adriel reminds me accusingly.