by Ward Parker
“Would you consider a magick treatment to heal your existing kidneys?”
“Bah! No magic can do that.”
“I know of some that I believe can. They’re a combination of the tradition of earth magick that I follow plus secret spells of the native Timucuan people who once lived here.”
“I want real American magic.”
“Ophelia, they were the real Americans before the Spanish got here.”
“Whatever. I tried everything I could. Before they took my magic away.”
“You only knew black magic. That’s not for healing. This magic is.”
“I don’t know.”
“It can’t hurt to try. And I mean that literally. Unlike black magic, this magic doesn’t hurt people. And there’s no demon to come after you if it loses its temper.”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to meet someone. Don Mateo, are you around?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“My ghost.”
“You enslaved a ghost?”
“With white magic, you don’t enslave other entities. He’s attached to me willingly. Don Mateo, are you there?”
He appeared with an audible “pop” next to the television.
“At your service, Madame,” the ghost said, giving a stately bow.
“Can you see him, Ophelia? Only people with magic in them can.”
“Yes, I can see him. Even though they took away my magic.”
“Don Mateo, this is my birth mother. Ophelia, meet Don Mateo. He was a very accomplished wizard in the early sixteen hundreds and fled to Florida to avoid the Spanish Inquisition. He compiled a grimoire of powerful spells that he developed in partnership with the shamans of the Timucuans. They include powerful healing spells.”
Her mother seemed to pay more attention.
“What ails you, Madame?” he asked Ophelia.
“Why does he talk like that? It’s kind of effeminate.”
“That’s how sophisticated people spoke during the seventeenth century,” Missy said.
“Bah!”
“You’re more ornery than ever, which means you still have some fight in you. You can beat this disease if the magic works.”
“No one answered me about her ailment,” Don Mateo said.
“Kidney failure.”
“How horrible! I am pleased to say, however, that several elders of the tribe were cured with this spell.” The ghost turned to Missy. “The ‘Double Cypress Inveniam Viam.’ It’s in my addendum to the grimoire.”
“You’re just making that up,” Ophelia said.
The ghost smiled. “Give us a chance, and we will demonstrate its effectiveness.”
When Don Mateo said “we,” he really meant Missy. Ghosts can’t conjure magic. Some can do scary supernatural stuff, but they can’t perform a spell step-by-step and harness the energies necessary to make it work.
Missy left her mother in the living room, watching TV, while she fetched the grimoire from its hiding place in the bottom of a kitty litter box. Next, she spent the next hour at her workbench in the garage using a mortar and pestle to grind herbs, seeds, and dried bird bones. She mixed in rare oils and a touch of water from the River Nile to make a poultice.
Her mother was glued to the television still when Missy passed through the living room to the kitchen. There, she drew a giant magic circle on the tiles and lit five candles around the circumference. She set the grimoire up on a recipe book stand just outside of the circle.
“Ophelia,” she called. “Please come in the kitchen. We’re ready for you.”
Don Mateo hovered near the ceiling, just below the ceiling fan.
Moments later, Ophelia shuffled in, grumbling about how stupid it all was.
“Please come into the circle with me.”
“You’re doing it all wrong. Where’s the inverted pentagram?”
“This isn’t black magic. Just let me do my thing, okay?”
“Whatever. I’ll play your silly little game if you insist.”
“Sit down now!”
Ophelia plopped down on the floor next to Missy.
Now, Missy began the spell, gathering the energies within her spirit, from deep within the earth, the air, the water of the canal and sea outside, and the flames of the candles. Then she recited the words of the spell, a mix of Latin, Old Spanish, and Timucuan.
To achieve maximum power, she grasped the Red Dragon, the carved-metal talisman that was handed down from the ancient era.
Power buzzed in her hand, ran up her arm, and filled her solar plexus. Her entire body throbbed with powerful energy.
The lights in the house dimmed, and the bowl containing the poultice glowed as if it held embers.
“What the heck are you doing?” her mother complained when Missy spread the poultice on her mother’s back, just beneath her rib cage, the closest point to her kidneys.
“It's burning!” Ophelia said.
Missy ignored her, remaining in the quasi-trance state.
The ointment glowed like lava on her mother’s skin.
Missy shouted the final verse of the spell, and the power rushed from her body like a great wind. Her mother jerked as if hit by a heavy blow, her body convulsing.
Ophelia then collapsed on the floor in the fetal position and began snoring.
"Fini," Missy whispered. She, too, was about to collapse.
She wiped away a section of the circle’s outline. And the spell was broken. Missy crawled from the circle and slumped against the kitchen island.
“Well done,” Don Mateo said.
He drifted down from the ceiling and hovered above Ophelia. He ran his immaterial hands across the woman’s torso, then he sniffed her. Ghosts shouldn’t be able to sniff anything, but who wants to tell him that?
“I believe her kidneys are healed,” he said. “You should summon a physician to bleed her with leeches to know for sure.”
“I’ll bring her to see a nephrologist tomorrow.”
Missy sat there on the floor, too exhausted to move until the tea candles burned down and went out. Her mother continued to snore on the inside of the broken circle. Don Mateo eventually faded away.
“Thanks, Don Mateo.”
Missy looked at the frail old woman she had hated since their first encounter. Could she ever learn to love this woman like she did the adoptive mother who raised her?
Nope.
But she would try to know her better and see how it went from there.
Over the next two weeks, Ophelia underwent a series of tests of her kidney function. The nephrologist in Jellyfish Beach determined her kidneys were the healthiest he’d ever seen in a woman of her age.
Test results were sent to Ophelia’s doctor near her home. Missy helped set her up on a video call with the doctor. Ophelia explained to him she’d had the tests down here because she was visiting her daughter.
“I didn't know you had a daughter,” he said.
“Apparently, I do.”
He said he simply couldn’t believe the results.
“I’ve never heard of kidneys in the state of failure yours were in recovering like this.”
Of course, Missy and Ophelia couldn’t explain that magic was involved.
Ophelia said goodbye so she could return home and endure many of the same tests again under her doctor’s supervision. They hadn’t bonded much, since Ophelia had spent all her waking hours in front of the TV drinking beer or out on the porch smoking. Still, Missy felt a little closer to her.
“Next time I see you, I’ll share some secrets about our family no one alive knows but me.”
“Next time?”
“Yes. When you give me expensive gifts for my birthday.”
“Gotcha.”
Ophelia thanked Missy genuinely for her help and for the magic. Before she got into her car, she gave Missy the closest semblance to a sign of affection ever: an air kiss. It was better than nothing.
After her mother’s car disappeare
d down the street, Missy petted her cats who had been terrified of the old ex-sorceress.
“You guys wouldn’t know how many times I thought I’d have to kill that old bird one way or another.”
The cats mrrred in agreement.
“I know you. You would never kill her,” Don Matteo’s voice said, though he remained unseen.
“Why do you say that? I’m not an angel. I’ve staked vampires before.”
“Yes, you have,” Don Mateo said. “But no vampire in the history of this planet has ever been as terrifying as that woman.”
22
Vampires Don't Enjoy Sunrises
After Missy's last patient visit of the night at Squid Tower, she walked to the end of the boardwalk that crossed the dunes and sat down on a bench.
Dawn would come soon. An almost imperceptible lightening of the sky above the ocean began. She leaned back against the wooden backrest and breathed in the salty air. It seemed all the drama of recent weeks had played out, and it was finally time to relax. Her mother would survive, and Missy still had both kidneys. The secret existence of the vampires, werewolves, dragons, and other supernatural creatures would not be revealed to the human world.
Most important, she was still alive and not a drowned body on the bottom of Lake Paul.
It was good to be alive. Literally. And she was happy to be alive in Florida where, on most mornings like this, she could sit by the ocean year-round and not freeze her butt off.
It would be nice to live on the ocean, she thought. Too bad it was impossible for a home health nurse to afford it. She wondered how vampire Detective Affird would afford to move to Squid Tower. Retired cops received generous pensions, though, she'd heard.
The sunrise began gradually, with a glow of purple that became orange. Low clouds were in the Eastern sky, blocking the sun’s triumphal entry into the world, but making a fantastic image of contrasting colors.
Once the sun’s disc broke the horizon, the sunrise accelerated. The clouds broke apart, and the sun appeared in all its glory above the ocean, with a reflection running atop its surface, like the Yellow Brick Road, straight to Missy.
Vampires could live forever. But they couldn’t enjoy sunrises like this.
Now that the view of the ocean was bright enough to require sunglasses, Missy wearily stood and trudged along the boardwalk toward the building. She looked forward to sleeping all day.
Movement caught her eye at Squid Tower. Someone was on their balcony.
That was impossible. Any resident would be sun-torched at this time of day. It must be a repairman.
But as Missy got closer to the building, she got a better view of the occupant of the balcony.
It was Marvin.
No doubt about it. Marvin was moving about, looking for something on the balcony.
Marvin who was supposed to be dead.
Marvin, whom she thought she'd seen at MegaMart.
She raced inside the building and took the elevator to the Fourth Floor.
When the doors opened, she ran to 409. The door was locked. She rang the bell, then knocked loudly.
No one answered. Marvin didn’t want to be discovered, naturally.
She knocked again, more loudly.
Or had she been mistaken? It wasn’t Marvin she saw; it was a contractor. Or she had counted floors wrong, and the person she’d seen was on another floor. Perhaps, she had hallucinated seeing anyone at all.
She pounded on the door again.
The door of 410 opened.
Ethel Simmonds peered out, a sleep mask pulled down around her neck, a sheen of skin cream on her pale, vampire skin.
“Stop all the banging,” Ethel said. “It’s enough to wake the dead. Why are you banging on Marvin's door?”
“I thought I saw him on his balcony.”
“You young people and your drugs.”
“I’m not young. I’m forty-three.”
“Show some courtesy for those of us who need our sleep.”
Ethel closed her door and clicked the deadbolt.
Missy considered getting the spare key to Marvin’s condo from Agnes. Or maybe she should give up this wild goose chase.
The door flew open. A hand grabbed Missy by the shoulder and yanked her inside.
“Why are you bothering me?” Marvin asked.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I’m undead.”
“No, you’re not,” Missy said. “I saw you on your balcony in the sunshine a few minutes ago.”
The man looming over her was unquestionably Marvin, but there was something odd about him.
“I was in the shade.”
“So, if you’re alive, who was sun-torched on your balcony?”
“My cousin.”
“You have a cousin who’s a vampire?”
“Yeah. Mike from Pittsburgh. Great guy. What a shame about his passing.”
Missy’s spell had given her a strong indication the ashes had belonged to Marvin, but she hadn’t been certain.
“Did you keep him locked up in the guest bedroom?” Missy asked. “You have a deadbolt on the outside of the bedroom door.”
“That’s because Mick sleepwalks.”
“Mick? You said his name was Mike.”
“Mick’s his nickname.”
“Something about this just isn’t right. Where have you been since Mick or Mike was sun-torched?”
“I’ve been out of town. Taking care of business.”
“Right.”
Missy glanced around the apartment. A box of paper files sat near the front door. The computer hard drives were in the process of being loaded into another box.
“Why are you packing up all this stuff?” Missy demanded.
“I’m done with all this garbage. It’s a waste of space.”
“All your Reptilian research? That’s your pride and joy, I thought.”
Marvin blinked at her in befuddlement. He struggled to find an answer.
That’s when Missy finally realized what was strange about his eyes. The irises and pupils were vertical instead of round.
She stepped backwards. Come to think about it, Marvin seemed taller than she remembered. His bald head towered above her more than it should have.
And his nose seemed off. Instead of the bulbous nose she remembered, this one was a bit flatter, the nostrils more like slits.
“You’re not Marvin, are you?”
The man stared at her with his unnatural eyes.
He shook his head no. She had the most outlandish thought.
“You wouldn’t happen to be from the Alpha Draconis star system, would you?”
The man nodded. Make that, the Reptilian nodded.
Marvin and Bill had been correct. Reptilians really existed and could shape-shift into human form. The two conspiratorial vampires only got it wrong when they thought dragons were the Reptilian aliens.
Missy quickly conjured up a protection spell around herself.
The Reptilian must have sensed it. “I will not harm you.”
“Why did you kill Marvin?” she asked.
“It was an accident. All I wanted was to take away some sensitive digital images he had of my comrades. I kept him as a prisoner while I searched his data and refined my transformation into his likeness.”
“Then you killed him so you could take over his identity?”
“I was going to impersonate him and make internet videos denouncing his theories about my race, saying I’d been mistaken, and Reptilians really didn’t exist after all. I would destroy all his data. Finally, I would find some rich Hollywood actor to impersonate and rule the world with their evil cabal. I didn’t mean to kill Marvin. Once all the videos spread of him denouncing his own research, his credibility would be ruined, so who cares if he made more videos about us? I locked him on the balcony to keep him out of my way. How was I supposed to know the sun would kill him? There aren’t any videos about that on the internet.”
Missy wasn’t sure what to
do. Should she trap the Reptilian with a binding spell and bring him before the HOA board, so they could punish him?
Or should she allow him to continue his work, tamping down the insidious conspiracy theory that caused people and vampires to lose their minds and create mayhem?
While she was trying to decide, the creature’s human clothes dropped to the ground. The Reptilian had shape-shifted into its natural state: tall, bipedal, green with glistening scales, a face like a gecko’s. It sprinted to the balcony door, yanked it open, and leaped over the railing.
She went to the balcony and saw the lizard person sprinting over the sand dunes, across the beach, and into the ocean.
Missy shook her head, then left the condo. If encountering a Reptilian was the only freaky experience she had today in Florida, she would consider herself lucky.
It was a rare evening out for Missy and Matt. Normally, her working nights and his working days complicated planning anything that resembled a proper date.
Breakfast was their most common meal together. These meetings happened after Missy got off work and before Matt headed for the newsroom. Occasionally, they’d have a quick dinner before Missy went to see patients. Rarely, did they have drinks or dinner when they both had no obligations afterwards. When they did, it was to discuss strategy in the middle of solving a mystery.
Missy preferred it this way. She hadn’t wanted Matt to shift the events into romantic dates.
Now, though, she was more open to a bit of sugar after dessert.
Matt appeared to be as well. Tonight, he was wearing a sports coat. She’d never seen him in one before. He had even trimmed his beard and shaved around it.
And he selected a nice steak and seafood place on the Intracoastal Waterway. It wasn’t the surfer dive bar he normally frequented.
Matt ordered an expensive bottle of Pomerol.
Missy raised her eyebrows. “Is this a special occasion?”
“Any occasion with you is special,” he said with a grin.
“Good answer. Your years writing articles have paid off with the bon mots.”