“Ooh…” Tori said, looking at Afton’s handiwork. “Everything looks so state of the art. Your followers are going to love this!”
Willow snorted, and the derision couldn’t be missed.
“What was that?” Afton asked.
Willow shrunk into herself and let a lock of her black hair fall over one eye. “Umm, nothing,” she said and headed straight to the kitchen, an enormous gray cat following closely on her heels.
“Is that supposed to be a cat?” Breck asked and followed them to the kitchen.
“His name is Igor,” Willow said. She tapped the seat of a bar stool, and Igor jumped up.
Breck held out a hand to let the cat sniff his knuckles. Igor rubbed his chin against Breck’s hand.
“I’ve never seen a cat like him. Is he on steroids?” Breck asked.
“He’s a Maine Coon.” Willow reached over and stroked Igor’s fur. The cat arched his back into her hand.
“But those feet, and his size. What do you feed him? The loins of your enemies?” Breck was having a difficult time accepting Igor’s size and the absurdly large paws caused by his polydactylism.
“Maybe I do,” Willow said, and returned to the kitchen where she flipped on the stove.
Tori nudged Leif with her elbow. “Willow and Breck?” she whispered with a hint of playful suggestion on her lips.
“He’s single,” Leif mouthed back.
“She is too.” Her smile widened before turning her attention to Afton.
“What’s all this?”
“This is EMME.” The pride in Afton’s voice matched the smile on his face. “She’s the love of my techie heart.”
“She’s very businesslike. What exactly is she doing?”
“EMME can simultaneously detect and record electromagnetic frequency shifts, temperature, touch, vibration and has a thermal imaging camera. Her data is recorded and sent to my main computer and is also backed up in the cloud.”
“Impressive.”
“She’s a sexy machine,” Afton agreed.
“Afton designed the system himself. EMME is only one of four ever built,” Leif said.
“Her sisters are being used by other paranormal investigative teams in the U.S. and one in England,” Afton added.
“Has she ever failed at her job?” Tori asked.
“Shh…” Afton hushed. “It’s bad luck to talk about failure in front of her. And no. She’s always come through for me.”
“Fantastic. I’d love to see what she can do. After tonight, can you show me the videos?” Tori asked. She took a seat on the couch in front of the coffee table.
“Definitely. This is the first time she’s been invited to a séance. I’ll make myself as invisible as possible and monitor everything from the corner. Does that work for you?”
“Sure,” Tori said. “Like I told Leif, you can film or record the entire session.”
“That’s awesome.”
Tori knelt in front of the coffee table, pursed her lips, and blew on the wick of a candle until it caught on fire. The small flame jumped to the next candle, lit the wine colored taper, and then kept going around the table until all the candles were aglow.
“Did you get that on camera?” Leif asked.
“No,” Afton said, shock widening his eyes. “Don’t do anything else until I start recording.” He scrambled to his laptop and started punching the keys.
A sparkling laugh passed Tori’s lips. Leif couldn’t help but want to be the source of her pleasure instead of Afton’s surprise at seeing her magic for the first time. He dually noted Tori’s ability to seduce him and scare him at the same time. His attraction to her was nearly irresistible. Leif didn’t know if he was the only one in the room to be so affected by her, or if all three of them felt it. After seeing Tori at the club, he suspected the latter. Which was one of the reasons he couldn’t be just friends with her. Knowing every man in her vicinity wanted her would never be all right with him, especially when she didn’t make promises of fidelity. Knowing he wasn’t ready for a girlfriend but expected her loyalty wasn’t okay either. Luckily, they had a séance to conduct, and he didn’t need to give his feelings for Tori any further thought for the time being.
With the candles glowing, and Afton’s sudden rush to start recording, Willow and Breck wandered over from the kitchen, cups of hot tea in hand.
“Please take your places around the table. Leave the north side empty,” Tori instructed.
Willow brought fresh calla lilies to the table and lay them down in the center on a silver tray. She placed a jar of hazelnut chocolate spread with a bowl of graham crackers and pretzels next to it.
Tori answered Leif’s question before he asked it. “Some of Delana’s favorite things.”
“Really?” he asked. This so-called séance was getting weirder by the minute.
“What’s with the charred piece of wood?” Breck asked.
“It’s from her house,” Tori said with a shudder.
“You getting all of this?” Leif turned to ask Afton.
He nodded and remained the silent cameraman in the background. Akina couldn't make the session. She and Cora had a consultation appointment in Gresham they couldn’t reschedule. He anticipated Akina’s excitement and envy when she played the videos later.
“Can you give a detailed explanation of what we’re about to see and why the table is set up the way it is?” Breck asked.
Tori glanced across the room. “I could, but there isn’t time. I planned on inviting Delana to join us at exactly ten forty p.m. which is when we move into the new moon.
“And that makes a difference because…?” Breck asked.
“Because the new moon between the Seed Moon and the Planting Moon is the best time to open the channels of communication to those residing in the afterlife,” Tori explained with care. “And if we’re going to have a successful visit, then we want to pick the most opportune window of time.”
“And Delana Smootz is going to join us here in your living room?” Breck continued.
Breck's questions echoed those Leif already discussed with Tori when she told him what she wanted to do. Her answers were more or less the same and her patience held steady. He supposed she was used to it since she worked with non-magic users in her business. He observed and listened closely for signs of wavering or inconsistencies but never saw any. Even if he had a hard time believing in what she did, she didn’t have any doubts. Tonight was a test of his belief system and how far he was willing to buy into the whole “magic exists in its own parallel reality.” His skeptical personality was being threatened. Every oddity and trick he watched Tori perform chipped away a little more of his doubt. She was breaking down a lot of walls he constructed, and he had mixed feelings about it.
“She will, if Willow and I have calculated the moon and planets correctly, brought enough enticements, and she wants to be here,” Tori said with little conviction. “And we should get started.” She glanced across the room, staring out the window.
“Okay. I’m all in,” Breck said.
“You should try to watch and not interrupt too much. That would be helpful,” Willow added.
Leif watched Willow’s color rise and flush a soft pink. She had an interesting look. Not quite mousy, and yet not unattractive. She was medium tall and stick thin. Her hair shined like a crow’s wing and was as straight as her body. The glasses gave her an intellectual appearance, but he thought she had that trait regardless of the rectangular frames. He would like to see her without the glasses because they hid exceptionally blue eyes and thick black lashes. Like Tori, she had an air of the mysterious, but she lacked the overwhelming sex appeal. No pheromones wafted off Willow and drove him ape-shit horny—thank God. He wouldn’t be able to sit in the room if there were two of them. It wasn’t right, the effect Tori had on him. And there he went again, drifting into thoughts about Tori naked and cupped in his eager palms. He swallowed and shifted in the armchair.
“But she’ll see all of us
if she comes?” Breck asked.
“Yes, she’ll see us, and you will be able to see her,” Willow said.
“I guess I’ll believe it when it happens.”
“I guess you will,” Willow said matching Breck’s tone to a T.
Leif watched Breck give Willow an appreciative glance with her last remark. Leif understood that a strong woman, with a mind of her own and willing to speak it, was something to value, not dismiss. His and Breck’s taste in women had that much in common.
Although her face still glowed from embarrassment, Willow’s timidity didn’t seem to be an issue with Breck. Leif wondered if Tori noticed the byplay between them as well.
Tori moved to the edge of her seat and picked up a plain white candle from the table. She lit the wick and held the flame to the contents of a stone bowl on a low pedestal. The aroma of burnt grass or herbs filled his nostrils. The fragrant smoke rose in curling tendrils. Whatever burned inside the basin began to sizzle and crackle. Gold flames danced in the bowl. At the base of the fire, the embers began to spark and glitter in shades of blue and green. Tori left her chair and picked up a carafe from the end of the table in front of him. She poured an opalescent liquid from it onto the tray of Delana’s enticements. When the liquid touched the tray, it turned to fog that began to expand covering the items on the tray. Tori sat back down, and Willow lifted what could only be a wand from her side of the coffee table. The fog crept off the silver tray, and Willow leaned forward placing the tip of the wand to the edge of the fog. Willow’s concentration was palpable, and Leif sat back to give her more room. She directed the wand in clockwise circles. The fog appeared to stick to the end of the wand and expand as she swirled her hand over the table. With care, she moved the fog to the edge of the circle of candles and stopped at the stone bowl. The fog only raised four or five inches, enough to cover most of what lay on the table but leave the candle flames sticking above it. Willow lowered the wand and her hand temporarily disappeared in the unnatural fog. She took her seat across from Tori, and things really got weird. Leif was utterly speechless as the fog crept northward over the side of the stone bowl and swirled with the unexplainable blue sparks.
“Delana Helene Smootz, I ask you to join us now on the Earth plane,” Tori said. “Come visit us from the Summerland. We honor your spirit with gifts and blessings. We open the pathway for an easy passage as the Seed Moon is past and the Planting Moon arrives. Delana, my friend and sister, you are welcome and safe in this place. Come now.”
Igor drifted past Leif’s leg, and he nearly came out of the chair as the cat’s tail brushed his arm. The group’s focus shifted to Leif for a split second and then to Igor as the cat placed a paw on the edge of the table as if to jump up given one more second of free will. Willow grabbed her cat under the arms and heaved him up onto the couch by her side. With the distraction, Leif missed the fog beginning to spiral with the flames. The gray fog coiled with long licks of orange flame and rose skyward out of the stone basin. The fire grew higher until it was eye level with Leif. Tori sat to the east and Willow was on the west. Leif and Breck held their places near the end of the table with a full on view of the supernatural workings before them. The mist and fire began to transform and alter shape and color. The spiral began to coil onto itself.
“In an alternate time. With worlds wide open. Join me here, and have no fear. We call you. We seek you. Your company is requested. Delana, we need you, and you alone. Come quickly and visit your home of old.”
The fire in the bowl continued to sizzle, but a sudden loud crack made Leif jump. He thought the bowl had broken, but when he checked, it was whole. Sensation overload had him on the edge of the chair, and he was glad that Afton set up every detection device and monitor they owned. This would be amazing footage. Just as he had the thought of reviewing the recordings, the candles extinguished leaving only the shimmering pillar of flame and fog as their single source of light. The glow of the orange flames dimmed and turned a pale violet. The strange light left only Tori’s, Willow’s, and Breck’s faces visible. Not many of his cases as a paranormal investigator ever got a rise out of him, but he was fully aware of the fine hairs rising on the back of his neck and the gooseflesh creeping down his arms and up his back. Even the hair on his thighs bristled.
A human shape began to form in the violet light and then it was gone. Total blackness encapsulated him, and he couldn’t even see Breck sitting by his side. He was just about to protest when the candles relit, and a pale violet smoky image of Delana Smootz stood at the end of the coffee table.
“My dear, I heard you calling me from a wonderful distance. What a gift it is to see you.” She beamed at Tori and bent down to kiss her on the cheek.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Tori answered back. “You look amazing,” she added.
“Oh, Goddess, the health benefits of dying can’t be beat!” Delana stared down at her body. “My arthritis is gone at last. Horrid diseases don’t exist on this side. I was in an incredible amount of pain before. You did everything in your power to help me, but I couldn’t take another day of it. Forgive me for leaving so abruptly.”
She spoke to Tori directly, but Leif was transfixed. He glanced at Tori and saw the tear trickle down her cheek.
“I’m not angry with you, Delana. Never angry. And please don’t apologize. I’m only sad we didn’t have more sessions together,” Tori said.
“Thank you for understanding, my dear. The cancer diagnosis on top of the rheumatoid arthritis was more than I could live with.” Delana glanced behind her at the chair. She sat down and crossed her ankles as if joining them in the living room was perfectly natural in spite of being a ghost. The older woman looked around their circle and saw the rest of them for the first time.
“What a pleasure it is to be here with friends. I’m Delana Smootz, and you are?”
“Willow Stravens. We spoke on the phone a few times.”
“Of course. You’re Tori’s assistant and office manager. I would have enjoyed meeting you in person while I was still alive. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave my home much. Moving was a terrible burden for my wretched body.”
“I don’t blame you one bit. If I could stay in my house all the time, believe me, I would,” Willow said.
Delana turned her attention to Breck next.
“Breck Hollingsworth. I’m a detective with the Portland PB and a close friend of Leif’s.”
She accepted his introduction with an acquiescent nod.
“Leif Andersen. I’m a friend of Tori’s, and I’m curious about the circumstances of your passing.”
“I see.” She glanced at Tori and then back to Leif. “Well I can give it to you straight, but it’s an unladylike story. I’m not sure I’m ready to share my secrets. My privacy held the utmost importance during my time in the physical realm. I traveled a great distance to arrive in the Summerland and returning here is more difficult than I would have thought. To tell the details of my death is not a task that I would willingly take on.”
Leif accepted the ghost before him even though every part of his rational mind wanted to figure out how he was being conned or deceived. The inner struggle waged war inside his mind, but he had to keep going. Speaking with a ghost was an opportunity unlikely to ever happen again. But the ghost just denied him the answers he wanted. Tori cut in, and he was spared having to ask Delana again about her death.
“When I left your house the night of our last session, I had no idea how close you were with Weston,” Tori said. “We went to see him in the Ukraine,” she added.
“Oh, my sweet boy. I’m happy to hear you visited with him. How was he?”
“He was mourning deeply. But he was happy with his decision to move to the Ukraine and work at North Star International Resort.”
“We discussed his plans for afterward with great care. He need never work again if he doesn't want to. His inheritance will take care of him and his family, if he ever chooses to start one, for all their lives. He is the so
n of my heart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the two of you were so close?”
Delana glanced at her folded hands before speaking again.
“You don't live to be my age without learning to protect yourself in different social circles. It was not a personal affront to you, or a lack of trust in you, dear. I protected Weston from my social status as much as I could. Just as I kept your talents, and our friendship, away from the media and those willing to expose anyone for a quick buck. Does that help you understand? Weston and I didn’t want his relationship to me exposed.”
“Of course it makes sense,” Tori said.
“I should have anticipated more discord after my sudden departure. Although I did not think it would come from you. With your knowledge of life after death, I thought you would be happy for me. The pain in my body and confusion riddling my mind is no longer. I am exceedingly more at peace in every way possible. Why did you ask me to return so soon? I fully transitioned only a short time ago. I would like to go back now. No offense meant to any of you,” Delana said, acknowledging the rest of the people in the room.
“To be honest, Delana, I’ve been waiting for you to cross the final barrier so I could speak with you again. Weston is under suspicion for your murder. You are the only one who can clear his name.”
Delana put a hand to the base of her throat and inhaled sharply. “Has he been arrested? You said you found him at my North Star Resort.” She was clearly upset and didn’t wait for an answer. “There is no reason to suspect him. He drove me to South Bank Park at my request.”
Leif wanted to interrupt and ask the questions, but he held back. Little by little, Tori seemed to be getting to the answers they all wanted to hear.
A Witch's Fate: Witches of Lane County Page 20