“Will you protect her?” Drake asked.
Another nod. I wasn’t sure how it could be possible, but I was pretty sure the dog understood all of our words. And not only that, he was responding with the correct answers.
“Chien.” Drake let his icy fingers wriggle across Daschel’s stomach, causing Daschel to roll over and crawl to the foot of the bed. His fur dragged against my calf as he did.
“Has anyone… reached Ryan?” I asked. Thoughts of Ryan were never far from my mind and I longed to know if he were okay.
Maggie shook her head. “Lovie and I have called him repeatedly and we’ve been to his house a few times but still nothing.”
My heart dropped and the urgency to find out if he were okay became, almost suffocating. Obviously I couldn’t walk to his house, so the next best thing…
“And what about my phone?” I asked Maggie.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t find it. I’ve called it a bunch of times but it’s nowhere near here or, if it is, we can’t hear it.”
“Or it’s set on silent,” I said.
“Or that,” Maggie nodded.
“Where’s Lovie?” I asked.
“She’s outside on the veranda, waiting for you to wake up,” Maggie said.
I nodded and started to get up, but Maggie and Drake were instantly in my business.
“Is that a good idea?” Maggie asked.
I noticed Dashchel was right next to me and I reached down to pet him, feeling instantly better. “I think I’m strong enough,” I said. “And I’m not going to relax until I know Ryan’s okay.”
Drake grumbled something beside me but I couldn’t understand his words. With Maggie on one side, Daschel on the other, and Drake behind me, I made my way through the few rooms that separated me from the garden.
Lovie was seated there, hunched over a book that she held in her lap. Three tarot cards were laid out in a row in front of her.
I recognized the deck. On the back, the cards were embossed with a ring of baby blue pentacles. On the other side, the artist used images from famous oil paintings to create traditional tarot imagery. Normally, I would have considered such a scrapbook design commercial and inauthentic; but this deck was crafted with meticulous care. It looked as though a Renaissance master had actually painted the story of the tarot, rather than taking bits and pieces from different works.
“Hi,” I said.
“Honey,” she responded as she turned to face us with a beaming smile.
“Maggie said you went to Ryan’s, but he wasn’t there,” I started.
She nodded. “We’ve been there a couple o’ times but there’s no answer when we knock on the door.”
“And his truck?” I started.
“Parked in the driveway,” Lovie answered.
“Maybe we should call the police and file a missing person’s report?” I asked.
“Give ‘im a little more time, Peyton,” Lovie said.
“But who knows what happened to him!” I started, my nerves getting the best of me.
Lovie looked at me pointedly. “If somethin’ happened to Ryan, the police can’t do a damned thing about it. You’re better relyin’ on Angharad an’ myself an’ ya need to believe me when I tell ya we’re workin’ on it.”
I nodded because she was correct. If black magic were involved, the police would be useless. I just had to be patient and hopefully, Ryan would show up on my doorstep any minute, like he always did.
I went to sit with Lovie and took a second to admire the cards. The first one on her left, which signified the past, was a man sitting on a throne. He was holding a cup. The card in the center represented the present. It was a man on a horse with a yellow sky behind him. The last card shook me: death. Mounted on a skeletal steed and waving a black flag. That card represented the future.
“Please tell me… those cards… have nothing to… do with me.”
Lovie looked up and smiled. “How ya feelin’?”
“Better actually,” I answered as I reached down to stroke the dog. “And I think this dog has everything to do with it.”
Lovie looked at Daschel who was busily wagging his tail. “Yeah, I thought I picked up certain… energy from ‘em. He’s a healin’ spirit.”
I didn’t know what that meant but I didn’t ask. I was more interested in the cards at the moment. “So,” I started.
“Yeah, it’s a spread representin’ you, Peyton,” Lovie answered as she returned her attention to the cards before her.
“The Death card?” I asked.
Lovie looked up from her reading. “It’s not really death, not usually. It would have to be accompanied by something else.”
“It sounds like Death, and it feels like Death,” I said, referring to my physical state. “I think it’s best to just accept it is Death.”
“If that’s how ya feel, then the stakes are your life,” she said, sweeping the cards up.
“Wait, just like that?” I asked, surprised.
Lovie went on to explain. “Readings are limited to seventy-eight symbols—twice that if ya read cards upside down, but all those clues are still just clues. An’ that’s all Tarot offers the reader—clues. Sometimes to decode the message, ya gotta turn to the person you’re readin’.”
“Can the prophecy be changed?” I asked.
Daschel was resting against my calf. Lovie patted him on the head and looked up at me. “It can.”
“How do you know it can?”
Lovie let her finger trail down behind Daschel’s ear. “Ya have a choice an’ control. Ya can say ‘no’ just as easily as ya can say ‘yes.’ Ya can choose your own path an’ make your own decisions that will lead ya to a different outcome. The future is dependent upon nothin’ but the choices ya make.”
“But what about the woman I keep seeing in my visions? The one with the black veil?” I asked. “She said she was all knowing and she told me I would die.”
“No one is all knowin’,” Lovie said.
“What about divination… and prophecy then? What… good are they?”
“Let me show you.” I sat across from her, watching as she took the cards out, closed her eyes and started murmuring under her breath. She tapped the top of the deck three times and gave the cards to me.
“What do I do?”
“Focus as hard as ya can on whatever question ya wish for an answer to.”
I closed my eyes and thought about my own survival and freeing myself from this curse. And I also focused on Ryan.
After a moment, Lovie asked, “Do ya have it?”
I nodded.
“Now spread the cards all over the table. Don’t be shy. Just don’t think about anythin’ other than your question.”
I swept my hand across the deck, spreading the cards as she indicated. It felt like a toddler using spaghetti sauce as finger paint.
“Now put ‘em back together, an’ don’t lose your focus,” Lovie continued. “That’s the most important thing.”
With the picture of my future in my head, I plucked each card and placed them into a single pile. When I was finished, Lovie asked me to take the first card off the top, then the second, and finally, the third.
She laid them in a row, face down so I couldn’t see them. I was still jittery when she turned over the first card. It was a painting of a coyote standing in front of a lake. He was howling at a giant moon above him, and there was a scorpion climbing onto shore.
Lovie stared at the image, taking long, slow breaths. She cleared her throat softly. “The moon. It would seem ya were subjected to dark magic.”
“What kind of dark magic?” I asked.
She pulled another card off the top of the deck and showed it to me. It was a woman tending a bush covered in yellow pentacles shaped like coins. They looked like ripened fruit waiting to be picked.
Lovie put that card below the first one.
“The curse will manifest soon,” she said.
“What curse?” I asked.
&nb
sp; “I can’t give ya an exact answer, Peyton. I can only tell ya what I see in the cards.”
“Could it be the zombi curse?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said, nervous because the cards revealed something I already imagined was the case.
Lovie flipped over the next card, which looked like it was designed to shock. Naked and tormented souls being thrown out of a leaning tower struck by lightning. Below them, there appeared a group of demons, using their pitchforks to spear a pile of corpses.
Lovie stared into the picture and sat back in the chair, still entranced. “This card represents a crumblin’ foundation in your life an’ the disaster that follows. If there’s such a thing as a forebodin’ card, this is it.”
My heart sank. “Could it be talking about my sickness?” I asked.
She nodded. “I think so. The first card is a catalyst for the second. The moon is the dark magic that occurred in the past, an’ the tower is whatever you’re currently experiencin’.”
She reached forward to turn over the next card.
I interrupted her. “I’m not sure I want to see it.”
She smiled at me consolingly. “Just know, the future is seen as a combination o’ the past and the present as well as other variables. It’s not prophecy, it’s simply the most likely conclusion.” Her eyes shifted to the other two cards, and I realized what she was thinking. No good could possibly come from black magic capable of destroying the foundation of my life—neither figuratively nor literally.
She was about to clear the table when I picked up the tower card. “I’ve heard you can find other clues if you really look at the cards.”
“Sometimes,” she said, “but ya won’t always know what the clues mean, an’ they might not be relevant. Sometimes the cards are nothin’ more than ink.”
I pointed to the tower featured on the card. “I think the building means something.”
“Okay,” Lovie said, nodding. “Whaddya see?”
“I don’t see anything really, but it occurred to me that I was in the same place in all of my visions: The Place D’Armes Hotel.”
Lovie took a second before responding. Then she began to nod.
“Do ya believe you’re meant to visit the hotel?”
I cocked my head to the side as I considered it. “Maybe?”
“Is that something you’re comfortable doin’?”
Behind her, the neighbor’s giant eucalyptus thrashed in the wind—a wind that curiously just picked up in the last twenty minutes or so. I watched the tree’s branches bending this way and that while I tried to decide whether or not it was a good idea to visit the hotel. On the surface, the answer was clearly “no.” It was probably the worst idea to confront whatever this dark magic was, but on the other hand, I wasn’t sure if there was another way around it.
I needed answers and, so far, I only had questions. If the Place D’Armes Hotel could provide me with a path towards the answers I needed to find, it was the only option I had.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” I said.
Lovie put her cards away and closed the book that was resting on her lap.
“Peyton, The Place D’Armes is one o’ the most haunted hotels in the world.” She took a breath. “D’ya have any idea how much energy there is in your average haunted hotel?”
I shook my head.
Lovie gave a sharp laugh and relaxed in her chair. The sun had mostly set; it darkened her skin and stained her indigo tignon a navy blue. But her eyes maintained their glimmer.
“In some places, the ghostly energy is so thick, it would be impossible for ya to move without touchin’ it. That’s your average haunted hotel. Maybe you’ll see a little girl bouncin’ a ball or jumpin’ rope every six months. The Place D’armes is a straight up sauna of activity an’ if ya keep seein’ the hotel in your visions, I’ll bet it has something to do with this curse o’ yours.”
“Will you come with me?” I asked.
“Ya don’t have any choice but to go, an’ I’m not lettin’ ya go alone.”
“Are you sure, Lovie? Christopher told me how you felt about The Old Absinthe House,” I started.
Lovie nodded. “Lafitte an’ I had a run-in in the past an’ I prefer to stay clear o’ that place for that reason. The Old Absinthe House is the only building in New Orleans I won’t enter.”
“Thank you,” I said but there was more on my mind and she could sense it.
“What else?”
She straightened herself in her chair and adjusted her skirt.
“I’m worried about Ryan.”
“Maggie an’ I went over there two more times now,” Lovie said with a sigh. “An’ either he isn’t home or he’s refusin’ to answer the door.”
“I saw something when I was with Ryan the other night,” I said as the memory began to return. It was hazy still and lost in the fog of my thoughts but still there just the same. An image of Ryan that frightened me and buried itself into my subconscious mind was only now just resurfacing.
“You saw something when you were with him?” Lovie repeated, appearing confused.
I cleared my throat and glanced over to where Maggie was picking roses from the garden. She wasn’t close enough to hear me and Drake was confined to the house, unable to leave its boundaries. I didn’t know where Angharad was, but she wasn’t here, which was just as well. There was only so much of her I could take. Lovie and I were as close to being alone as we could ever be.
“I saw something while Ryan and I were making love,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed that I was airing our very private information.
“What’d ya see?” Lovie asked with no sign of bashfulness.
“Ryan’s eyes were glowing white, like when you gave us Tincture of Nepenthe. I think you said he was still in the spirit world when that happened?”
“An’ when did this occur?” Lovie asked, her eyes narrowing as she studied me.
“At the... the end of our…um… at the end.”
“Yup,” Lovie said, nodding. “That’s sex magic. Not something ya hear about often.” She was quiet for a moment as she tapped her fingers on her lips.
“And I said something to him,” I continued. “But I can’t remember what the words were. They were in a foreign language and I have no idea how I knew them,” I said as I caught the memory and it unraveled like yarn.
“A foreign language?”
“Maybe Spanish? Or French? I can’t remember. All I remember is that I was speaking a different language and Ryan recited the words right back to me, as though he understood them.” I took a deep breath. “That was the night before I woke up in my garden.”
“Hmm, I wonder if Ryan is behind this magic?”
“Ryan?” I asked, shaking my head. “He’s not even comfortable around lit candles.”
“Not Ryan per se,” Lovie corrected herself. “But, someone usin’ Ryan, usin’ his body as a vehicle. White eyes are a sign o’ possession, Peyton,” she explained.
“Possession?” I repeated, the idea completely throwing me off.
“Has he been actin’ different lately?” Lovie continued.
I was quiet as I considered her question. “Now that you mention it, he has. He’s been much angrier lately and we’ve had more arguments than we ever had.”
“That’s usually a sign,” she said, not sounding exactly surprised.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she was faster. “I suggest ya stay away from Ryan for the immediate future.”
“Maybe he’s abiding by that same advice,” I grumbled as I thought about the fact that no one could reach him.
“Whatever’s goin’ on, he’s affected too,” Lovie said. “An’ if he’s possessed by someone or something who wishes to do ya harm…” She didn’t finish her statement but she didn’t have to.
“Let’s go to the hotel,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-One
Daschel stayed by my side when I walked into my house. There was nev
er a moment when I didn’t feel his fur brushing against my skin. Even when I stepped through the door, he squeezed through the space between my leg and the doorframe, keeping us in uninterrupted contact. I reached down to scratch him between the ears and my mind raced.
Could Ryan be possessed? Could Ryan be the reason all of this crap was happening to me? Could I be a zombi? Not like the walking dead, or a brain besotted idiot, but more like a slave? Obeying the orders of someone else?
“Non,” Drake’s voice echoed from the other side of the hall. “Just what are you doing?” he asked.
“It won’t hurt anyone,” Maggie answered.
“I still do not like it! Spirits and salt do not agree!”
“It’s just salt in the corners, Drake, to ward away bad spirits and you aren’t bad, so what are you worried about!?”
“I am worried this witchcraft of yours has not been practiced correctly!”
Maggie smiled at him gleefully, before walking into the kitchen with a bowl of salt and a cup of water.
“Ma minette!” Drake complained beside me. “L’ enfant will drive me to an early grave!”
“You’re already dead,” I grumbled. “And I said she… could bless and… protect things, Drake.”
“Mon Dieu! I give up,” Throwing his hands up in exasperation, he propelled himself backwards to the table.
“Maggie,” Lovie said as she reached inside the satchel she wore around her waist and handed Maggie a handful of herbs. “Will you make tea with these?”
“What are they for?” Maggie asked, taking the bag of herbs.
“They’re to calm me down long enough so I can think straight. An’ add this too, after ya boil the water.” Maggie’s mouth dropped open when Lovie handed her two tiny bottles of rum.
“I’ll take some too,” I said. I needed a shot of booze and then some.
“Mon cher, I too would take a cup, if only I could,” Drake said before he approached the table.
Even though I felt better in Daschel’s company, who was still plastered by my side, I was so exhausted that I needed to rest. I pulled out a chair and sat down before Daschel placed his head in my lap.
I took a second to gather my thoughts and my courage. “When do you… want to leave?” I asked Lovie.
If You've Got It, Haunt It: A ghost romance (The Peyton Clark Series Book 4) Page 20