Mrs. Delaney clears her throat and all heads turn to her. “It’s true. I felt its power.” She takes a couple of deep breaths. “It tried to pull me in too, and it almost succeeded.”
When Vicky’s expression doesn’t change, Mona walks up to her and puts an arm around her shoulders. “If this thing kills all of you, there’s no one to stop the Devil. We can’t let that happen.”
Vicky blinks away a tear. “You just lost the one you love, and you’re comforting me?”
Mona gives her a sad smile. “We’re all sad about this.”
With a loud sob, Vicky grabs her and pulls her close, the box wedged between them. “I never told D’Maeo how much I care about him. How much I appreciate what he does for us. That he’s such a good Shield leader and a good man.” Tears stream down her face. “And I never told Jeep anything like that either. I lost two of my closest friends, two of my only friends, and they don’t even know how much that hurts me.”
Mona strokes her back and hushes her. “It’ll be okay, Vicky. You’ll get a chance to tell them both.”
“Of course you will,” I say, putting my arms around them both. “Because we won’t give up, ever.”
I kiss them both on the temple and let go. “How about some pizza and a good night’s sleep? I think we can all use that.”
Vicky shakes herself, and her puffed up face returns to normal. “Sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize,” I say. “You can’t be tough all the time.”
She throws back her blonde-tipped hair with a small grin. “Sure I can.”
Then she looks down at the box. Her chest moves as she lets out a silent sigh.
“Can you keep this safe, Mona?” she asks, holding the box out to the fairy godmother.
“Of course.”
I beckon everyone to follow me inside. In silence, we wait for the pizza to arrive, each of us lost in thoughts and memories.
No more negative thoughts, I remind myself. Which is great in theory, but a whole lot harder in reality.
CHAPTER 4
I wake up revived and happy. Vicky is still sleeping, and I watch her for a couple of minutes. It’s nice to relax and enjoy a good view for once. No rushing, no fighting, no one throwing ominous predictions or threats at me. Just me and my beautiful girl, lying in bed with the early sunshine on our faces.
Vicky stirs and lets out a soft moan. I reach out to touch her cheek, already looking forward to the moment she opens her deep blue eyes and smiles at me.
“Good m─” The words get stuck in my throat when she vanishes into thin air.
I shoot up and touch the empty spot. “Vick?”
With a loud curse, I jump out of bed and put on my clothes from the day before.
There’s a soft knock on my door. “Dante? Is everything okay?”
I shake my head and pull open the door. “No, Mona, it’s not.” I gesture at the bed. “She vanished again.”
With a concerned look, Mona taps her chin. “We should really do something about that.”
Images of Vicky’s breakdown yesterday fill my vision. “I agree. Vicky has been through enough. Fighting two curses at the same time and battling demons in between? No wonder she couldn’t take it anymore. We need to help her. This has been going on for way too long already.”
“Didn’t you make a sketch of the woman who cursed your dad?”
“I did, and Gisella found her. It’s her aunt.”
Mona nods thoughtfully. “Okay, so I suggest you go see her today. Even if the next Cards of Death arrive, you do this first. I’m afraid there won’t be much of your Shield left if you don’t.”
“I agree, but what if─”
She places a hand on my arm. “No, Dante. No more buts. Keeping the Devil in Hell is your first priority, but please remember that you probably need all of your friends to do that. You can afford to lose one soul, not to lose one of your friends.”
With a smile, I shake my head. “How did you become so wise, Mona? It’s like you always know exactly what to say.”
Her cheeks turn red, and she shrugs. “Hundreds of years of experience, Dante. And still I don’t know everything.”
I kiss her on her warm cheek. “You know enough.”
“Do you want me to wait for Vicky with you, or should I go make some breakfast?”
“Breakfast would be great. I’ll be fine here.”
“Okay, honey.” She turns and blows me a kiss full of sparks from the doorway.
As soon as she’s gone, I sit back on the bed and stare at Vicky’s spot. “I don’t know if you can hear me, babe, but I want you to know that we’re going to get rid of the curses today. Or at least one of them. I’m sorry I made it so hard for you by postponing this for so long. It’s just… everything that’s going on… sometimes I still can’t believe it’s all real. All that evil and us being chosen…” I close my eyes and shake my head. “It’s as if the world has suddenly gone crazy, or as if I got trapped in a nightmare. Or… no, not a nightmare, a dream. With you in it, it could never be a nightmare.” I wipe a tear from my eye. “If you can hear me, please follow my voice back. I can’t do this without you. And even if I could, I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to live without you either.”
I inhale so suddenly that I get stuck in a coughing fit.
“Not that I’m alive,” Vicky adds with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Oh, thank goodness!” I exclaim, throwing myself forward and pulling her close to me. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Although I was in the Shadow World again for a couple of seconds.”
I rub my cheek against hers. “Don’t worry, we’re going to fix all of this first.”
She pulls back her head to look at me. “We are? What about the cards?”
“They will have to wait.”
She tilts her head in thought. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
I plant a small kiss on her nose. “Very sure. A clever old lady told me.”
“I heard that!” Mona calls out from downstairs.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I meant a beautiful, clever young woman,” I correct myself, winking at Vicky.
During breakfast, I discuss the plan with the others. Or rather, we come up with a plan, because honestly, I have no idea what to do when we meet Gisella’s aunt.
“Kasinda is a powerful Black Annis witch,” Gisella tells us. “She has protected herself against spells and incantations, which means it will be very hard to fight her if it comes to that.”
I sigh. “Which basically means she’s just as hard to defeat as the chaos residue. Maybe even harder.”
“You know what we need, right?” Charlie asks after a long discussion on how to make Kasinda break the curse.
I rest my head in my hands. “No, please tell me.”
“We need something to bargain with.”
“There’s only one thing she wants, Charlie,” I answer with a sigh. “The Book of a Thousand Deaths, to raise her daughter from the dead. We can’t give her that.”
“Well, maybe there’s something else she wants too without realizing it, you know.”
“Like what?”
He stares at the ceiling for a couple of seconds. “Some kind of… weapon?”
Taylar’s mouth falls open. “You want to give a weapon to one of the most powerful witches alive?”
“Well, no, of course not,” Charlie mumbles with a guilty expression on his face. “But if that’s what it takes to make her break the curse on Vicky…”
Vicky shakes her head feverishly. “No way. Who knows what she’s going to do with it.”
Charlie clears his throat. “I thought we could put a trap in it. Something to strip her powers or kill her.”
Gisella slaps him on the shoulder. “That’s a great idea! We put a spell on the object instead of on her. That way she won’t notice!”
Taylar wrinkles his forehead. “You seem awful
ly eager to kill your own aunt.”
Gisella nods. “I am. You see, family or not, she’s dangerous. She doesn’t give a shit about me or anyone else, and she cursed one of my friends. The sweet aunt I knew is long gone. In her place there’s a woman who wants nothing but to destroy. Why wouldn’t I want to kill her?”
“In this case ‘family’ is nothing but a word,” Charlie adds. “Judging by what Gisella told me about Kasinda, I’d say she has lost all ability to care about others, except for her daughter. She no longer has the right to call herself family. Family is what we are.”
Gisella gives him a quick kiss on the lips. “Nicely put, Lee.”
Taylar shrugs. “A bit cheesy, but I get your point.”
I scratch my head. “Did you try talking to her yet, Gisella?”
The werecat-witch throws me a slightly guilty look. “No, not yet.”
I push back my chair. “We should try that first. She might have changed.”
She snorts. “Sure, for the worse.”
“You don’t know that.”
She smirks at me. “I saw her. Trust me, talking won’t do us much good.”
I munch on my lip for a second. “I do trust you, but I still want to try. There’s good in everyone. I have to keep believing that.”
Taylar tilts his head. “Even in Lucifer?”
I can’t hold back the sigh that rises. “Come on, you know what I mean. There’s good in every human being. And seriously, I’d feel bad if we didn’t give Kasinda a chance to do the right thing. I can’t really blame her for going a bit crazy. Maybe we can help her deal with her daughter’s death.”
Gisella raises her hands. “But that will take time, which we don’t have much of to start with. We also have Taylar’s unfinished business to take care of and three people to search for.”
“I know, and I hate it! I hate this pressure of solving everything at the same time. I hate the danger constantly looming over us, ready to strike at any moment. This whole situation scares the hell out of me. But we shouldn’t let our fear lead us anymore. That’s what we’ve been doing so far and look where it got us.” I gesture irritably at the empty seats around the table.
Silence answers me, and I drop back into my seat, suddenly very tired.
Maël is the first to move. She leans forward and looks at us one by one. “I agree with Dante. Fear is a bad advisor, yet we listened to it. I cannot say that this has led to our losses, but it has played its part. I also agree that we should approach Gisella’s aunt with kindness, not hostility. Not with fear, but with caution.”
I rub my face and try to find back my optimism. When I look up, Gisella is wearing a reluctant expression.
In a split second, I make a decision. “No one will force you to come with us, although I would prefer it if you did. I understand your anger against your aunt, and I agree that there’s a slim chance she will cooperate. Still, killing her without even talking to her will make us just as bad as they are.” I hold up my hands when Taylar and Gisella moan at the same time. “I know that sounds lame, but there’s a reason you hear this a lot in movies.” I look them in the eyes one by one, hoping they will understand. “It’s true.”
“You’re damn right it’s true,” Vicky responds, slamming her fist onto the table and making everyone jump. “We are the good ones, here to protect everyone on Earth. If we start killing without cause, what does that make us?”
Taylar studies his fingers while Gisella just stares at me. After several uncomfortable, silent seconds, she finally sighs. “Okay, you’re right. It would make us horrible people.”
Maël leans over the table to take the werecat’s hand. “Do not let anger lead you either. Focus on the good in people.”
Gisella smiles at her. “I will.” She turns her head back to me. “And I am definitely not staying behind. As I told you before, I am with you till the end.”
“The end of Satan,” Charlie adds, holding up his hand.
Gisella gives him a high five. “Exactly.”
“Great,” I say, relieved that we came to an agreement without losing anyone else.
I pull out Dad’s notebook. “Then I guess it’s time for another spell.”
While the ghosts vanish to find out as much as they can about Gisella’s aunt, I try to write a spell. Charlie, Gisella and Mona jot down what to say to Kasinda.
To my relief, I find a spell called How to curse an object. I didn’t expect to see anything like that in Dad’s book, since it is a book filled with good spells. Cursing an object sounds pretty evil to me, which is why I can’t concentrate on rewriting it. My gut keeps telling me it’s wrong.
I shake my head vigorously to lose the doubts and squeeze my eyes shut several times. Come on, focus. We’ll only use this if she refuses to lift the curse. There’s no reason for her to punish Vicky, so if she doesn’t want to help, we have no other choice but to force the curse to be broken.
I bend over the page again, and finally the words start flowing. Within minutes, I’ve adjusted the spell.
Mona puts a steaming mug in front of me. “Did you think of an object to use? Something that she will accept?”
“Since there’s only one thing she really wants from us…” I tap the notebook with my finger.
Mona frowns. “You’re giving her your father’s book?”
“Of course not,” I answer with a chuckle. “I’m giving her an old book that will look like the Book of a Thousand Deaths.”
Gisella looks up from her writing. “Do you even know what it looks like?”
I smile. “Does she?”
She shakes her head slowly. “Probably not.”
I tap the lines I’ve written in my own Book of Spells. “I’ve put it in here, just in case, so hopefully it will look exactly like the real thing.”
As soon as they’re finished, Gisella and Charlie go outside for a walk. I don’t blame them. I wish I could do the same with Vicky, now that we finally have a small break. But she’s still in… well, I don’t know, in wherever they go to speak to other ghosts.
Mona takes off to a fairy godmother meeting, leaving me alone at the kitchen table for the first time in what feels like forever.
I try to remember what I used to do when I was alone. Read a book? Not something I can concentrate on right now. Watch some TV? I shake my head as I realize I haven’t even moved mine here yet. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t imagine anything on TV able to keep my attention for more than a couple of minutes. I could play darts, if I brought my board with me. Let off some steam. Then again, throwing my Morningstar around would probably work better.
Eventually, I settle for drawing, with another cup of tea and some cookies on the side. I haven’t gotten around to completing my monster collection for a while, and I really want my Demon Guide–the name popped into my head when I flipped through my previous drawings–to be complete.
Soon, I forget everything around me. All I see are lines and shapes. All I hear is the soft scraping of the pencil on the paper. It’s been ages since I felt so calm. Until…
I tilt my head and look up sharply. Nothing moves. Still, I’m sure I heard something. A voice calling my name.
“Dante?”
A shiver runs up my spine. I know that voice. It’s one I can never forget, one I’ve been longing to hear for years.
I stand up so quickly that my chair tumbles over and my notebook slips onto the floor. I ignore both, look left and right, behind me, above me. There’s nothing, no one.
“Dante?”
“Yes! I’m here!” I call out. My voice trembles. My mind is screaming. Please let this be real.
“Son?”
Tears run down my cheeks. I have to hold on to the edge of the table because my legs are suddenly like jelly.
“Dad, is that you?”
CHAPTER 5
I must be hallucinating. Or someone is playing a trick on me. Because the face, the person, that become
s visible at the other end of the table can’t be Dad. He looks so different, but also the same. His strong jawline has weakened, but his dark untamed eyebrows haven’t changed. His gray moustache, beard and sideburns, sprinkled with black spots, are still there. But his face and body are smaller. There’s hardly any fat in his cheeks or on his arms, and his legs look like twigs. His face is disturbingly pale.
“Dante. Finally.” He smiles, and my heart stops for a second.
“It is you, isn’t it?” My voice is hoarse.
His brown eyes are wet as he looks at me. “I’ve been trying to reach you since I…” His voice falters. “Since I died.”
I’m torn between slamming my fists against his chest and throwing myself in his arms. I’ve missed him so much, and at the same time, I can’t forget what I saw. Him burning that Keeper of Life to get the Book of a Thousand Deaths, his face devoid of emotion.
Images of us camping in the woods together are pushed away by a burning man. I want to cry and laugh at the same time. Eventually, I stay where I am, put on a poker face and ask, “Why?”
“To warn you.”
“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” The words come out bitter. I guess the bad overshadows the good after all.
Dad shakes his head. Except for his transparent state, he doesn’t look much different than the last time I saw him all those years ago. Years of struggling with Mom’s fits and wondering what happened to him. And then…
“It’s not too late,” he interrupts my thoughts. “There are still four souls left to save. But there’s something you should know. Something they’ve been trying hard to hide from you.”
Anger boils to the surface as his words sink in. Is he really talking about the Devil? He’s been gone for years, and this is the first thing he says to me?
I grit my teeth in an attempt to control the bubbling rage under my skin. Too late. With a frustrated cry, I propel myself at him.
Dad doesn’t even move. With a hurt expression on his face, he waits for me to knock him over. The next second, I’m falling through him. I hit my head against the frame of the back door and grunt.
The Sixth Ghost: a supernatural urban fantasy action adventure (Cards of Death book 6) Page 3