“I need some air.” I squeaked out.
“You have to ignore it, Lenny. Push through. This thing wants to send us running out of the house.” Esme said. Block it out, I know you can.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and pictured my Grandma baking a cake and my Papa making hot cocoa, and those scents suddenly filled my nose. I was able to breathe again.
A low growl in the corner of the living room caught my attention, and then something that looked almost like a large animal darted into the kitchen. When it got there, the thing stood up and took on an almost human form. Seconds later, it vanished.
“Did you see that?” I whispered to Esme.
“I did.” She answered, and I was unnerved by the tremor in her voice. “That wasn’t a ghost, Lenny. Don’t you dare leave my side.”
I shook my head, yes, and we walked toward the kitchen together. Esme hadn’t revealed to me what the plan was, and I’d started to suspect there wasn’t one. But, her confidence gave me assurance.
There was nothing in the kitchen except a cold spot and a sense that someone or something was watching us from a distance. When we walked back into the living room, we heard the thumping and running upstairs.
“Is it coming towards us?” I felt disoriented, and I had to concentrate hard to shake it off.
“No, it’s trying to get us to come upstairs.” She said with her face set in grim determination. “Let’s give it what it wants.”
Esme led the way upstairs, and I followed right behind. I hoped that one day I would be as confident in my abilities as she, but I figured until then, I would fake it.
We reached the landing, and Sally’s bedroom door began to swing open and slam shut repeatedly. It was then that I understood. The entity had worn Sally down until she let it in. It’s why she’d looked healthy again when we arrived.
It wasn’t until after that she woke up completely and realized that it had deceived her. I’m sure the demon had promised relief from its torment, but it had delivered none. I was surprised that it had allowed her to reach out to us, but the truth was that this was a trap. I had almost banished this fiend the last time I was here, and now it wanted to kill me. Esme made the deal even sweeter.
“How do we get it out if Sally let it in?” I whispered.
“Just because she let it in, that doesn’t mean that it had free reign over this house or Sally,” Esme said as we moved down the hallway. “The evil ones just want you to believe that. This one is weak. You can tell because of all of the banging around and…” She hesitated for a moment. “Well, the tantrums. A truly strong malevolent spirit wouldn’t need all of this showboating.”
Just like that, a man in a tuxedo appeared before us. On the outside, he looked to be a distinguished gentleman with neatly combed silver hair and soft, wise eyes. His appearance was a trick. It was a masterful deception, but I could see through it. Underneath the surface was an undulating mass of violence and hate.
He laughed and took a step toward us. My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt my stomach lurch. All the time that I’d been focused on the demon, I hadn’t noticed that Esme was next to me murmuring an incantation, and the spirit had made the same mistake.
“Back from whence you came.” Esme finished and snapped her fingers.
A black hole opened up in the floor just behind the demon. Fire shot out of it and arms reached from its depths and grabbed onto the fiend’s legs. He shifted back into his natural form of a dark, twisted angel. He snarled and cursed us as the creatures below dragged him back to his eternal cell.
“Well, that was that,” Esme said nonchalantly. “Now, let’s get one of those Ramses burgers you told me about. You’re totally buying.”
“You made that look really easy,” I said.
“I told you he was kinda weak. You should have called me in the first place.” She said with a smirk.
“I’ll remember that.”
Chapter Fourteen
After burgers and shakes, there was nothing left to do in Alexandria. Esme and I bid Sally farewell and drove back to Tree’s Hollow. I was feeling exhausted, and Esme said that was one of the side effects of being so close to a demon. I wasn’t sure how Sally had lived with that thing in her house for so long, but at least her ordeal was over.
I decided to go home and crash. I called Nate and promised him that I’d pick him up for breakfast the next morning. I really wanted to see him, but I was so tired that it was no longer safe for me to drive. I called Brad after I hung up and he said he’d drop in and make sure Nathan was doing alright.
The moment I walked through my front door, it became apparent that a good night’s sleep was not in the cards for me. At first, I thought the man sitting on my sofa was Nathan. It took less than a second for me to realize that it was Dr. Mountebank.
“Where is Jezebel?” I asked. “If you hurt her, you’ll live just long enough to regret it.”
I surprised myself with how self-assuredly I’d confronted the doctor. He looked confused for a moment.
“Who is Jezebel?”” He asked. “Oh, the cat. The cat wasn’t here when I arrived.”
Something told me that Dr. Mountebank wasn’t a demon. If he was a demon, he’d have planned for Jezebel in advance. He was most likely just an idiot who’d stumbled into dark magic. I could handle him.
“What are you doing here?” I had to buy some time while I figured out exactly how I would handle him, though.
“You had one job, Lenora.” He spit. “All you had to do was keep Nathan away from Irene, and you failed. What kind of witch doesn’t use her powers to keep her love at her side?”
“Uh, that’s not love,” I said flatly.
“You know nothing. I loved Irene, but she wasn’t well. She didn’t love Nathan. Her mind was in a trap. Why didn’t you use your powers to restore him?” He practically whined. “Why did you just leave him that way? You could have prevented all of this.”
I went to say something, but he kept rambling like a madman.
“You made me kill her. I couldn’t let her be with someone else. I couldn’t let them get married. If I didn’t have her as my own, then no one was going to have her. And now, I have to punish you for what you made me do.”
He pulled a long knife out of his jacket and lunged for me. I spun to the side and avoided his blade. Why was he trying to stab me? If he was a warlock, Dr. Mountebank had powers he could use against me.
“He can’t use them because of me.” A gorgeous Creole woman stepped out of the shadows. “And this has gone on long enough.”
She waved her hand, and the doctor fell back onto the sofa. He appeared to be unable to move or speak.
“You’re the nature angel. You’ve come to save me?”
“Oh no, honey. You don’t need me to protect you. This would have all played out with you being the victor, but there’s no want for that. You’ve passed your test.” She said with a smile. “I believe a call to the police is in order.”
Epilogue
“Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Nathan, Happy Birthday to you.”
We were all gathered around Nathan at my kitchen table. Brad, Esme, Helen, Lincoln and I sang off key while he blew out the candles on the gourmet pecan praline cake that Abby had helped me bake. Jezebel slept at his feet purring softly.
Nate hadn’t even remembered his birthday was coming up until his father called me to tell me we’d need to plan something for him. We were all a little disappointed that his memory hadn’t come back yet, but we’d all done our best to rebuild our relationships with him.
“I got my wish!” Nate hollered, and he jumped up so fast that he knocked his chair over and sent Jezebel scrambling across the kitchen floor. “Oh, sorry Jez.” He said sheepishly.
“What was your wish?” I asked baffled by his outburst. “Oh wait, you can’t tell anybody.”
“He can tell you now that it’s come true,” Esme said and swiped her finger through the cake’s icing
. “You just can’t tell someone before, or it won’t come true.”
“So, what was it?” Helen asked with a perplexed smile on her face.
“Everybody can it, and let the man speak.” Brad teased.
“I remember,” Nathan said and pulled me up and into his arms. “I remember everything.”
And then he kissed me.
***
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Copyright© 2017 Sara Bourgeois
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
Brewing Boys Page 8