by Lori Drake
Please work, please work, please work…
I felt a jolt up my arm as the spell impacted and staggered back against the wall, but I was in no way singed. Cat had never steered me wrong before, and this time was no different. The golden ring around my index finger was uncomfortably hot from absorbing the spell, but it’d done its job. Still kneeling, Chad stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.
I pointed the ring at him and smirked. “Reditus.”
The absorbed spell shot out of the ring and flew at Chad, hitting him squarely in the chest. Flames licked up and down his torso. His shirt lit up like a bonfire in the blink of an eye. He screamed and went down, rolling on the concrete floor in an effort to put himself out.
I ran for Amber. She was working on extracting herself from the pile of linens she was half-buried under. I kicked the box out of the way and grabbed her gloved hand, hauling her to her feet. We ran for the stairs. I pushed Amber ahead of me. She stumbled, and I caught her under the arms, pulled her up, and got her going again. The open door at the top beckoned like the gateway to paradise.
A rage-filled bellow from below spurred us onward. Heavy steps thudded behind me on the stairs. There was no way we were going to get out of the house before he caught up to us. I spun to face him again near the top step, desperate to buy Amber a little more time. I lifted the gun, but he barreled into me before I could take aim. I tripped over the top step and went down under him, falling into the pantry. The gun went flying and skittered across the linoleum.
“Amber! Gun!” I managed to shout before Chad’s hands grasped my neck and proceeded to try to wring the life out of me. I punched him repeatedly in the side. His fingers only tightened. He glared murderously down at me, his face an angry red that matched the patches of blistered skin showing through the char-edged holes in his shirt.
As the world grew fuzzy around the edges, I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed his shoulder and jammed my thumb into the bullet hole there. He screamed. His grip slackened, and I sucked in a grateful lungful of air, then rolled him off me. He crashed against the pantry wall, upsetting the lower shelf. Heavy canisters and bags of dry goods thumped down on him while I scrambled out of the pantry and to my feet. Amber stood out there holding the gun in a shaking hand.
I spun back toward the pantry, hearing more thumps from within. Chad was shaking off the debris and getting to his own feet. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t mounted another magical offensive, but I knew when he made up his mind to do it. It wasn’t fire this time. He’d learned his lesson. The air around his hands crackled as purple and white energy danced there. I had no idea what that was, but I knew Cat hadn’t given me a charm for it, and with the shield charm in Amber’s hand—or left behind somewhere in the basement—I was a sitting duck.
“Amber, shoot!” I dove aside, but not quickly enough.
Chad clapped his hands together, and honest-to-goodness lightning arced through the air between us, tagging my hip. Blinding hot pain shot through me. Every muscle in my body went rigid. My back bowed. My jaw was clenched so tightly I couldn’t even scream.
I don’t remember hitting the floor.
I don’t remember closing my eyes.
But when I opened them, what I saw changed everything.
24
I stood on a deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The sun warmed my skin. The ocean breeze ruffled my hair and tickled my nostrils. The wooden deck was warm beneath my bare feet. I curled my fingers around the railing and breathed deep, sucking in the salty air.
It smelled like home. It smelled like her. A phantom whiff of familiar perfume brought my head around, and there she was. Standing there in a bikini top and cut-offs.
“Leti.” The sight of her stole my breath, but I managed to wheeze her name despite the fist clenching my heart and the tears suddenly stinging my eyes.
Her answering smile unmade me. I closed the distance in the blink of an eye and swept her up in my arms, crushing her against my chest and burying my nose in her dark hair.
“Mi amor.”
The words, or maybe it was her voice, sent a shiver down my spine—not to mention a spike of heat straight to my groin. I tipped her head back and claimed her mouth in a searing kiss. She melted against me, her lips moving against mine in a familiar dance. It’d been a while, but we still remembered all the steps.
When the questions spinning in my head wouldn’t go away, I pulled back and just looked at her, framing her face with my hands, tracing the lines of her cheeks with my thumbs.
“What’s going on? How are you here? Where is this?” As reluctant as I was to take my eyes off her, I cast a glance past her to the beach house behind her. It was a modern design with a wall of glass facing the beach. It was familiar, yet not. Like something out of a dream, or perhaps a distant memory, too fuzzy to fully surface.
Her pretty brown eyes turned somber. “You don’t remember?”
It came back to me in flashes. The dilapidated house. The basement. Chad’s hateful glare. The lightning shooting from his hands.
The realization staggered me. Leticia held on. My love, my anchor. “I died?”
She wobbled her head. “Sort of.”
“Sort of dead? Is that like being a little bit pregnant?”
Leti smirked and pinched my arm. I yelped an objection, but at least now I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I gave her a pleading look. She sighed and dipped her head.
The world dissolved around us, and I found myself in Chad Smith’s kitchen again. Leti was gone from my arms, and my phantom heart skipped a beat before I felt her hand squeeze mine. I laced my fingers with hers and looked down at my body where it had fallen after being zapped. Amber knelt beside me, frantically attempting CPR. I didn’t see Chad anywhere.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” I said.
“Mmmhmm.”
In the real world, Amber pinched my nose shut and sealed her mouth around mine, forcing air into my lungs.
I turned my gaze away, focusing on Leti instead. She gazed back, her dark eyes as fathomless as the ocean.
“Now what?” I asked.
She faced me fully, catching my other hand in hers. “Now you decide.”
“Decide?”
“If you’re ready to move on.”
Confusion drew my brows together. “I get to choose?”
She nodded.
A thought occurred to me, and it came out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Did you get to choose?”
She shot me an annoyed look. “Of course not.”
That look alone told me it really was her and not a figment of my imagination. I wanted to kiss her again, but instead, I looked down at my body. It’s a damned strange thing, looking down at your own lifeless body. I don’t recommend it. The pain and heartache of the last few years—hell, the last four days—descended upon me in full force as I thought about what was left for me: an endless parade of friendly and unfriendly ghosts, a power I couldn’t begin to fathom how to control, friends I couldn’t be around for fear they’d end up caught in the crossfire. Isolation. Loneliness. Pain. That had become my lot in life, somehow, and I hadn’t realized quite how miserable it was until that moment.
I ended up on my knees, hugging her hips, my face pressed to her stomach as she stroked my hair and murmured soothingly in Spanish.
“Make it stop,” I said. “Please, make it stop…”
“I can’t, mi amor. You have to decide.”
“It’s so hard, baby. It hurts so much. So fucking much.”
She took my head between her hands and urged me to look up at her again. “I know. But living’s not all bad, is it?”
Images flashed before my eyes, layered in front of her lovely face. Riding my bike, with the wind in my face and the open road stretched out in front of me. Swimming in the ocean. Video games. Jessica and Lucy having a tickle war on the couch. Cat sipping tea and weaving protective spells. Sadie licking my face.
Trish
… oh God, Trish.
Leti’s face came into focus again. She tilted her head, regarding me quizzically. “What about Trish?”
Shit. Had I said that out loud? How do you tell your dead wife you kind of have a thing for her dead sister? Leave it to me to make things excessively complicated. I decided to start with the basics.
“She died, a few months ago. Car accident.”
Sorrow flickered across her face, followed by confusion. “You seem worried for her now, though.”
“She’s been, well, haunting me. I’ve been trying to get her to let me help her cross over. If she doesn’t…” A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of Trish, trapped like countless shades before her, slowly losing herself until she went full Sandra Ellen Watkins. Then again, tethered to me as she was, there was no telling what might become of her if I died—or, rather, stayed dead.
Leti’s scrutiny never wavered. “You’re in love with her.”
Hearing her speak the words I hadn’t even dared to think made my chest tighten. “No, I— Of course not.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince. Her or myself.
One corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “Liar.”
A wave of hopelessness washed over me. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of emotion. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.” Her soft lips brushed my forehead. “Trust me, I’m all wise and shit these days.”
I could practically feel her love wrapping around me, balm for my many emotional wounds. I tightened my hold on her. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s not your time, though. Is it?” She tucked a bit of hair behind my ear, and I made a mental note to get a haircut before I died again. She smiled at me. “But I’ll be here when it is.”
Tearing my eyes away from her, I looked over at my body again, watched Amber give a few more chest compressions and another breath. Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention up, and I saw a bloody hand curl around the pantry doorframe a moment before Chad pulled himself into the kitchen. He was bleeding from two gunshot wounds now, the one I’d given him in the shoulder and another Amber must’ve given him in the stomach.
Still, the guy kept coming, like some monster out of a horror movie. Her back was to him, and I doubted this would end well for Amber when he reached her. I was running out of time.
Anxiety twisted my stomach into knots as I dragged my eyes back to Leti. My Leti. A day hadn’t gone by since she died that I hadn’t missed her. Hadn’t wished I could be with her again. But now that I had my chance, I wasn’t sure it was worth the cost. Giving up might be an end to my suffering, but a fat lot of good it’d do to those I’d leave behind. Would my conscience allow for a peaceful afterlife if it cost Amber her life? What if it cost Mindi and Trish their chance at a peaceful afterlife?
I wish I could say that peace and resolve filled me as I made my decision, but my stomach remained in knots. I stood and gazed deep into Leti’s eyes, then kissed her lips softly. “Time to go be a hero.”
She smiled knowingly. “Te amo, mi amor.”
“I love you too.”
I felt a tug, as if the simple act of choosing to live was pulling me back to my body. Or maybe it was Amber’s valiant efforts to bring me back from the other side. Either way, I stared hard at Leti as if I could burn her image into my brain, then closed my eyes and gave in to the insistent tug pulling me away.
Leti got in one final request, whispered to me as if across a long distance: “Tell my sister I’m waiting for her too.”
25
Let’s get one thing straight right now. Coming back to life hurts. From that first lung-searing breath to the ache of every seizing muscle, there’s no midnight charley horse in the world that compares. It took me a few seconds to orient myself—and, truth be told, regret my choice a little bit. It was just long enough for Chad to grab Amber by the hair and haul her backward across the floor. Her piercing scream threatened to shred my tender eardrums, but I didn’t have time for a leisurely recovery.
I rolled onto my side with a groan and hauled myself to my feet, doing my best to ignore the pins and needles shooting down my legs and across the soles of my feet. I cracked my neck and looked around, then walked over and grabbed a kitchen knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. I knew not to bring a knife to a gunfight, but I figured anything was better than nothing when facing a psychopathic witch.
Armed, I turned back. Chad had Amber in a headlock with his good arm. Her face was rapidly turning an alarming shade of red, and her wide eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing. She wasn’t even trying to free herself. I did my best to play it cool.
“It’s over, man. Whether you kill her or not. You think I came here without backup? The Seattle coven is going to bust down that door any second.”
He licked his lips and glanced toward the back door. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I— Okay, that would be a pretty good thing to lie about. But I’m not. I might not be a witch, but she is.” I motioned at Amber. “And from what I hear, the High Priest is pretty cheesed about a witch murdering girls in his town, not to mention one that didn’t introduce himself.”
His eyes narrowed, and he edged toward the living room, dragging Amber with him. She came back to herself suddenly and clawed at his arm as she stumbled along. Her frantic eyes met mine, pleading. I realized then that his bare forearm was in contact with her neck. I didn’t want to think about what her gift might have shown her about him. She didn’t deserve to have to carry that around for the rest of her life.
Familiar anger rose within me, bubbling to the surface, and my tongue got away from me. “What, you don’t want to cut on her first? That’s your thing, right?”
“Shut up!” His face flushed, but he continued dragging Amber along. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“No?” I moved forward, shadowing him. “I know you’re an ugly motherfucker—inside and out—that’s mutilated and murdered at least two women. Let me guess… turned down for dates too many times?”
His face was almost as red as Amber’s. A vein stood out on his forehead and everything. “Shut up!” The knife flew from my hand and across the room, where Chad caught it. “Back off, or I’ll gut her!”
Before I could formulate a response, Amber ran out of air. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp. Chad struggled to hold her up with one arm, then gave up and let her go, pressing his newly freed hand to the wound in his stomach.
I charged him, leaping over Amber’s prone form along the way. We crashed into the wall, grappling over the knife. For a guy with two bullet wounds, he held his own surprisingly well. Then again, I wasn’t exactly in top form. I’d just returned from the dead, after all. I caught his wrist and slammed his hand against the wall once, twice, three times. His head collided with mine, and stars exploded in my vision. I lost my grip on his wrist. He wrenched his hand free and buried that damn knife in my gut while I was still reeling.
Shock froze me in place. Agony radiated in angry pulses outward from the steel embedded in my flesh. His eyes bore into mine, glittering pools of malevolent darkness.
Smirking, he shoved me away, retaining the knife. “Where’s your cavalry now, hero?”
I stumbled backward, tripped over Amber, and went sprawling on the kitchen floor. My hands went to my stomach, desperately trying to stanch the flow of blood that only seeped between my fingers.
Chad pushed off the wall and sank to his knees beside Amber. He lifted the knife high, his ugly mug alight with glee, and brought the blade down.
“No!” I scrambled over and deflected the downward arc with my arm. The sharp steel sliced through my leather jacket’s sleeve and cut into my flesh beneath.
Chad’s lip curled in a snarl. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I rolled onto my back, half-draped across Amber, giving myself a front row view of the knife as it plunged downward again. I caught his w
rist with both hands this time and fought with all the strength I had left. The knife hovered mere inches from my chest as I pushed back against the downward force.
The point of the knife sank lower and lower as I lost by degrees. All the while, my stomach screamed bloody murder. My vision grew fuzzy at the edges. I was going to lose. It was over. None of Cat’s charms would protect me from a knife-wielding maniac. I had nothing left. Or maybe just nothing left to lose. A crazy idea formed somewhere deep inside my lizard brain, borne of sheer desperation and maybe a little spite. Someone had to stop this guy, and so help us all, I was the only one there.
I called on the power within me, opening myself up to that icy stream that raised goosebumps along my arms and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The knife kept sinking lower, its point slicing through my T-shirt and cutting my chest. I swear I could see my labored breaths mist in front of my face. When my bones started to ache from the cold, I focused my will and unleashed that power with a single word.
“Out.”
Chad’s brow furrowed in confusion as his face shimmered and split before my eyes. I watched as his spirit separated from his body, peeled free like a cellophane wrapper. Said body went limp, and though I managed to push the knife-wielding arm aside, the rest of his body slumped over me.
“What the— What did you— What the fuck did you do?” Chad shrieked, dare I say it, like a girl. No offense, ladies.
The weight of Chad’s body on my chest made it difficult to breathe, much less speak. But far be it from me to pass up an opportunity to get the last word. “Fuck. You.”
While Chad continued freaking out, I squirmed out from under his limp body and flopped back on the kitchen floor. The popcorn ceiling swirled overhead as I pressed a shaking hand to my stomach again. The frigid power still flowed through me, albeit more weakly since I’d let some of it out.
“Trish,” I whispered around chattering teeth.
She appeared beside me within seconds, fists planted on her hips. The annoyance melted from her face once she took in the scene, and she swiftly moved to my side. “Dean! What the hell did you do, you idiot?”