“It should have been, yes,” Karen said. “But we just found out a little too late that isn’t really the case after all. Someone has been tampering with Martha’s medicine. It’s tainted.”
I noticed Trevor was watching Martha closely. Not that there was any change that I could see.
“How long would that insulin last in her body? And what would happen if it was no longer present? Would she wake up?”
Mom stared at him for a minute, then looked to Shaman Crowe. The Shaman shrugged. “Never been in this situation before. No way to know.”
“Best guess?”
The Shaman didn’t move a muscle for over a minute. Apparently, he didn’t believe in making wild, unsubstantiated guesses. He had to think things through first.
I got that. So did the others. We waited.
“By my way of thinking, that tainted medicine was the link they were using to connect Martha to Kalfu. Without that link in place, the connection should end.”
“And when it ends?” I asked.
“Several things could happen. The ending could be violent enough to put far more stress on the body’s organs than they could handle. Or, and this is the best-case scenario, it could simply dissipate and allow Martha’s soul to reenter her body.”
“Her soul?” Betina squeaked. “And who the heck is Kalfu?”
Oh yeah. How had I forgotten she was still in the room? We probably should have seen her out before continuing our discussion, huh?
Too late now.
AT LEAST NOW WE HAD a plan. Of sorts.
Betina had been fired. I agreed that there wasn’t really any way that Karen could justify keeping the girl employed after this. But we had sent her off on pain of legal charges if a word of any of this got out. That included, especially, her friend at the pharmacy.
We didn’t want anyone finding out that we knew that medication was tainted. If the person responsible found out, they would undoubtedly take further steps. We didn’t want that. Not until we had Martha back.
Mom and the Shaman were in a deep conversation in the corner by Martha’s bed. Arc, Trevor, and I went with Karen to retrieve the other vials of insulin from Martha’s supply. First things first. We needed to be absolutely certain that the insulin was indeed the culprit. And if any of the vials were pure.
They weren’t.
“Looks like I get old man MacCallister back out in the cold,” Karen said, reaching for her phone.
My hand darted out to stop her. “Don’t tell him it’s for Martha.”
She tilted her head at me. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed? I hadn’t thought it all the way through yet, but my intuition was telling me we didn’t want that pharmacy to know. After all, who said the vial hadn’t been tainted before it was even delivered?
Her face cleared, and she smacked her forehead. “Duh.” Then she paused. “So what do I tell him?”
“Ask him if you could send someone to pick up Frank’s prescription. You would have to have done that if things hadn’t gone so very badly, right?”
She nodded and made the call, then we sent Arc and Trevor to make the run.
Now all that was left to do was wait.
Well, wait and get that blasted insulin pump off Martha. We sure as heck didn’t want any more of that poison entering her body.
“How long before the insulin is out of her system?” I asked quietly.
Karen shook her head. “Nothing definite, but we should know something within eight hours, I should think.” Troubled eyes met mine. “Do you think we should call her husband? Let him know what’s going on?”
“I think that would be a good decision for Archie to make. He knows the family best.”
As if I’d summoned him, Archie and Merlin walked through the door. I rose to give my Uncle Merlin a hug. It had been a while since I’d seen him.
“I had a feeling I might be needed here tonight,” he whispered.
I nodded. I kind of thought we should all be there tonight. The next eight hours were going to be very rough. Waiting was never easy.
Waiting with a possible big bang at the end? That was doubly hard to do.
Chapter 22
Archie said no to alerting Mr. Donaldson. According to him, there was no sense in worrying the man when he was thousands of miles and an ocean away.
It did make for a rather tense video chat session, though. We let Archie, Mom, and Merlin handle that. The rest of us waited it out down in the lounge area. Might have been rather difficult to explain why the whole bloody family was there.
Well, almost the whole family. Which reminded me. I turned to Arc.
“Exactly where are Opal and Ruby?” It wasn’t like them to not be present in situations like this one where a little extra magical push might make a huge difference.
He shook his head and shrugged. “They went on a Mother and Daughter retreat to reconnect. No cellphones and no internet. That was part of the deal. They don’t have a clue what’s going on back here.” His expression hardened. “If they did, they’d be here. You should know that.”
“Just rotten timing then, huh?”
He nodded. I studied him a minute or two longer.
“Anything else about this retreat that I should know about?”
“Nope. Not that I’m aware of, anyway.” He frowned. “It did come up rather suddenly, though, now that you mention it. They didn’t give much warning.”
“Uh-huh.” I thought about that for a bit. I didn’t much care for the sounds of it truthfully. It might be different if the two of them did this thing all the time. But they didn’t.
Never had, in fact. Funny that it happened now just as a spur-of-the-moment thing. I mean, I could see Opal doing something like that if there was a major change about to happen, but Opal was already married. What change could there be?
Then my mouth dropped open, and I slapped his arm. Not lightly, either. “You son of a biscuit-eater! You proposed, didn’t you?”
At that point, I was kind of glad we’d sent Trevor off to feed and take care of the animals. He’d already been using the word fiance to describe me, but he sure as heck had never made it an official proposal kind of thing. I was still waiting for that.
Looks like Arc had beaten him to the draw.
I knew from the color rushing into his cheeks that I’d guessed right.
“Well, I sure as heck didn’t expect to cause her mom and her to go and run off on a rustic retreat.”
I grinned at him. He might not have, but that would be just the kind of thing my Aunt Opal would do. Finally, I relaxed a bit. Their absence must have been worrying me more than I’d consciously known. It was nice to have a tiny bit of the worry load off.
My brain kicked it up a notch, thinking-wise. I glanced over at Shaman Crowe who was smiling into his teacup.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.” Then he paused. “That is my answer to the question you wish to ask. Yes, you may have to be the one to propose to your man. He seems to have forgotten that he has failed to do so.”
Now Arc was grinning too as I felt the heat hit my cheeks. “That wasn’t my question.”
The Shaman lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Okay, so it wasn’t the question I was going to ask him. It was just a question I was currently asking myself. Big difference.
“I wanted to know more about who you think might be Kalfu’s practitioner. You said something like this would be personal. The closest I can come is the dog park thing at the HOA. But do you think that would be personal enough?”
He shrugged. “To a madman’s mind, perhaps. But does anyone from that HOA have access to Martha here? Have any of them been to visit her? Have relatives or friends on staff that would let them in?”
I chewed my lip for a minute. No. I’d been through all the camera feeds from the entire facility already, excepting the ones from the patient rooms. And I trusted Karen on her viewing of them. There wasn’t anybody unaccounted for on the videos.<
br />
“Not that I know of.”
“How about the pharmacy that supplies the insulin?”
Now Arc was shaking his head. “No way. Old man MacCallister runs the tightest ship I know of. No one touches the prescriptions but him. He runs a small shop, but that’s just because he doesn’t like to relinquish control.”
For just a second, I’d swear my heart stopped beating. My eyes flew to Arc’s even as his flew to mine.
MacCallister!
Of course, that’s when my magic twinged. Something had just hit one of the crystals on the circle’s pentagram.
Kalfu was coming.
And, once again, we were running.
WHEN WE BURST INTO the room, the rest of our party whirled to face us. All three of them had bewildered expressions. A glance at the video monitor showed me that, luckily, their call to Martha’s husband had ended. Good thing. I really didn’t think he’d want a front-row seat for what was about to happen.
“What the...” Archie started. That’s all he got out, however, before the circle’s light show started. Whirling back toward the bed, he shouted, “Positions!”
Mom darted forward and back in the blink of an eye to uncover Martha. Then Archie, Mom, Merlin, and the Shaman took up positions on four of the five pentagram points. The fifth was left open. I started forward, but Mom shook her head at me.
Positions? Not that I had much time to ponder what that one-word warning meant. Because at precisely that moment, Kalfu broke free of Martha’s body.
When Martha started to float above the bed, I got the idea of what they had planned. Although I really wished I’d been in on that planning. It would have helped. Then again, we had kind of thought we’d have more time after the scheduled call.
Surprise!
The thing about circles is that it binds evil within or without. In this case, it would bind Kalfu to within its limits. The bad news was that he shared that confinement with Martha. At least for now.
I could tell my Grand’s levitation spell when I saw it. But they needed a diversion.
Stepping forward, I whistled. Kalfu’s soulless voids turned to me. I stopped a couple of inches from the circle’s boundary, knowing full well that if that beautiful work of art didn’t hold, I’d become the first sacrifice to the god’s hunger.
Not that he could claim my soul. That might be beyond his reach, but he’d already proven that taking a life was not.
“You!” He screamed.
Forcing down the terror that his mere presence brought to full force, I waved at him. “Hi.”
It wasn’t elegant, but it was all I could force out at the time. The main thing was keeping his attention fully on me and not the floating woman behind him as she inched toward the circle’s edge.
His arm darted out, but his fingers stopped just short of the boundary. Gone was the amusement from earlier. Kalfu didn’t like the possibility of his easy snack being taken away. It was probably a novel experience for him.
“This magic is potent.” His gaze once again rested on me. Flames now danced in the dark voids. “I may have underestimated you, but I believe you have done the same for me.” Then he upped my terror even more when he gave me a slow smile of pure evil intent.
“And when I break this binding, I will taste your blood. I will devour your strength and power and make it my own.” His smile grew. “With your power, I will be stronger than ever before. It almost makes losing this contract worth the price.”
His head cocked as sounds of running steps echoed down the hallway, heading for the room. I was really hoping it was Trevor, but a sinking feeling told me we would not be that lucky.
“But then again, perhaps I will not lose it after all.”
This last was said as the door flew open to reveal James MacCallister, Senior sporting eyes that were almost black and flaring nostrils.
Crapsnackles.
We should have made two circles.
Chapter 23
As Kalfu was facing me, he did not know that the woman he had preyed on for so long was almost outside his grasp. He thought he still had a bit of the upper hand.
Even as I held my breath, her body approached the circle’s border. Mom wasn’t as proficient at that levitation spell as my aunt was. It was taking her far longer than it should have.
Unfortunately, James MacCallister quickly changed things. He raised his finger and pointed, cursing. “Stop them, you fool!”
Even as the words spewed from his mouth, he must have realized his mistake. If Kalfu had been angry before, he was furious now. Luckily for us, his fury wasn’t directed our way.
That was, however, very unlucky for MacCallister, who quickly started spouting apologies and backing away. It didn’t work.
Kalfu disappeared from within the circle, even as MacCallister ran from the room, trying to escape his upcoming doom.
“Is he really gone?” Mom asked, looking over at the Shaman. “How is that possible?”
The Shaman frowned. “Kalfu has a powerful presence in that man. He must have been able to transfer his essence from the circle to fully in him. But now I fear we face a bigger problem.”
When MacCallister, or what used to be MacCallister, showed back up in the doorway, I had to say, I kind of agreed with him.
“Everyone into the circle,” Mom yelled.
I really hoped they all listened to her. I wanted them all safe, dash it all. Even if I was about to do something idiotic.
Like stand my ground against the Voodoo god of moon and night.
“Amie!” I heard Mom yell behind me, but I couldn’t let myself be distracted by the plea in her voice.
All of us retreating into that circle would do us no good at all. All Kalfu would have to do would be take a single hostage and threaten harm to them. Not a single one of us would ever allow that to come to pass.
In other words, the protection circle was a nice thought, but not all that practical once Kalfu was on this side of it.
Luckily for me, as scary as it was facing down a god-infested madman, somehow it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as facing down the image of Kalfu himself.
I had to think that was the Goddess trying to tell me something. Like maybe I was only facing a man. A human man with god-induced illusions of grandeur.
It was a nice thought, anyway, and led to my plan. And no, I wasn’t all that comfortable risking my life on it. But what choice did I have?
There were a couple of options open to me. I could use my magic, or I could rely on good old-fashioned security technology.
In a split-second decision, I thrust out my wrist in his direction and activated my protection bracelet. It wasn’t anything near as strong as the Shaman’s circle, and I knew within reason it wouldn’t hold him long.
It didn’t. But that movement accomplished two things. Two very important things.
One, it centered Kalfu’s attention solely on me. That’s what I wanted. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out a plan to get the others out of that circle. Or maybe he already had, and I was that plan. That sounded about right to me.
Two, however, was that it gave me just enough time to dive to the table and my waiting purse. I pulled out my handy-dandy taser that Trevor still insisted that I carry on a daily basis and took aim.
Kalfu laughed. “A gun? You should know that this body is no longer living, child. Not in the traditional sense. So I fear that your bullets will be useless against it. This body will, however, last for long enough to take care of the lot of you.”
He stepped forward, and I pulled the trigger. The lead hit him and MacCallister’s body spasmed.
Yeah. Death was one thing. It probably was possible for a body to keep on operating for a time, even after Death occurred. There was that whole chicken with its head cut off saying after all. That had to come from some truth, right?
So, yeah, Death was one thing. But fifty thousand volts of electricity is another. Living or not, that’s gonna wreak a little havoc on a body.
> Or a lot.
“Wise choice, child.” The Shaman’s voice from directly behind me made me jump. But it still wasn’t enough for me to take my eyes off that still jerking body in front of me. I should have known within reason that the others wouldn’t have stayed in the circle.
Even though they should have. I was pretty sure they could have backed me up from within its boundaries if they’d needed to. It only stopped evil, right?
Kalfu tried his dangdest to work through the jerking, but the electricity took its toll. Within less than a minute, the body stopped moving.
I swallowed. “Is it over? Or is that... thing gonna come back to life?”
The Shaman’s hand fell to my shoulder and squeezed. “No, child, I do not foresee that happening. The body of that god’s servant has been well and truly used up.”
Another swallow. “Good. That’s good.” Then a horrible thought hit me. Kalfu was out of the circle. “Could he take another body to come after us?”
I didn’t like the Shaman’s hesitation. “In time, yes. But there are rules about gods walking among humans. They must have a strong tie with a human to visit them in this realm.” He smiled down at me as he reached me a hand to help me stand.
How had I ended up on the floor, anyway?
“I do not think there are that many practitioners of Kalfu in Michigan.” He got a thoughtful look. “But I am thinking I might need to buy stock in the company that manufactures that weapon of yours. I am going to recommend that all witches add one to their arsenal to supplement their magic.”
Good idea. And I really owed Trevor for saving my skin once again. Even if the man had missed out on all the fun.
“Just out of curiosity,” Mom said slowly. “What would have happened if Amie had thrown her magic at him?”
Team Destiny and Archie's Apparition (Team Destiny Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 14