All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  Tucker snorted. “I’ve got a plan! Here, take one of these to Tilda.”

  Rae looked at him doubtfully but rushed the necklace to her daughter. Because that was the thing, wasn’t it? Protect the innocent.

  Tucker wasn’t so innocent.

  He turned to Coral and Murphy. “Okay, so where Tilda is digging? That needs to be connected to the closest point in the pentagram. See how it’s right by the gate? We’re going to attach the giant pentagram to that, okay?”

  God. Even now, the ghosts from the graveyard were beginning to regard Tilda with interest. He needed to finish what he was doing and seal the spell before they realized there could be a porthole here while he was working.

  “So guys, here’s the scary bit. Part of the pentagon needs to be on the creepy side and part of the pentagon needs to be on the normal side, and,” he added, holding up a finger, “the whole thing needs to be in the middle of a circle. Do you know what that means?”

  “At least two spikes outside of each straight line,” Murphy said promptly. “And the circle needs to intersect the nails of the pentagon.”

  “Oh my God. Seriously. Eighth grade?”

  Murphy nodded soberly.

  “My youth was wasted. Don’t forget a spike in the center so we can attach the pentagram to the broomsticks. Okay, guys, we need this done like now. Your dad’s counting on you!”

  They didn’t even ask him how, they just followed his orders, and Tucker wanted to cry. God, it was just like Damie. Damien had trusted that what Tucker was doing was safe. But Tucker had wanted a family, he’d wanted friends—he’d wanted them so badly he’d put the people he cared about in danger.

  He turned to Rae. “You and me on pentagram duty. We need to leave one outer leg of the circle unclosed, you understand?”

  Rae nodded. “So the thing in Josh can go into it, but then we’ll close it while…. I’m a little fuzzy on this part.”

  “While Josh tries to kill me,” Tucker said calmly. “Now are you ready? They’ve got the first one, and it’s our—fuck!”

  He’d bent down to grab the spool of wire, and his wrist gave with a grinding of bones. His vision went black, and he bent over, trying, oh God, trying, to hold it all together.

  “Tucker!” Angel looked up from his position, back to the kids, then to the creepy side of the graveyard as the kids placed the spikes.

  “Ignore me!” Tucker stood and smiled, trying to get hold of his stomach. “You too,” he told Rae. She’d grabbed his bandaged wrist and—“Oh my God!” he groaned. “Rae, I’m going to puke… just….” He turned away and lost his dinner, spaghetti and garlic bread, into the red dirt of the road. He finished, and Tilda thrust a bottle of water into his hand and handed a towel to her mom. Before Tucker could even reprimand her for shirking her duty, she was back to the post-hole digging, and Tucker could almost see again.

  “Tucker, hold still,” Rae muttered. “Oh my God! Tucker, your neck is bruised. What happened?”

  “I think I have a concussion too,” Tucker told her, because his head was still killing him. “And what happened was….” He closed his eyes and tried to put that sequence of events together. “There appears to have been a struggle,” he said at last, trying for dignity. “And we need to hurry.” He closed his eyes. “Rae, I’m so sorry. Look at this. Your family is in danger, and your husband”—possessed by a really evil ghost?—“is in danger too. My fault. I should never have—”

  “Hush,” she said, wiping his mouth. “Now give me your wrist again. I’m going to wrap it a little tighter.”

  He held it out, trying not to feel pathetic. “I tried to protect him. I know this is bad, but I tried. Angel tried. We didn’t want him hurt. You’ve got to know that.”

  “I know it,” she muttered, ripping the towel into strips with three quick jerks. “I know it. You’re a mess. And this idea of yours is insanity.”

  “I know,” Tucker told her, miserable. “But listen. If this goes like I think it might and the ghost—or any ghost—gets me? If Angel can’t exorcise me, you guys need to put me down, okay? Don’t tell him I said that, but it’s really important. The ghosts here—some of them are twisted, and some of them are evil, but what they will do if they get hold of my body… Rae, I don’t ever want to be responsible for that. It’s bad enough what happened to Josh happened on my watch, you understand?”

  “This wasn’t your fault,” she said, wrapping his wrist just a little tighter. “And I need you to not give up yet, because this plan is the only one we’ve got.”

  Tucker nodded and swallowed back his nausea. “You don’t have a necklace,” he said painfully. “I was hoping you would. You need something, but I need mine for Josh.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Tucker. I’ve got tattoos no middle-aged mother of four should show, you understand?”

  Tucker brightened as she cranked down on another bandage. “Yeah, okay. We can do—”

  Far off—but not too far off—they heard the distinct sound of a vehicle crunching into an immovable object.

  He and Rae met eyes, suddenly on the exact same page. “We gotta get a move on,” she said and then bent down and picked up the broomstick full of wire spools herself. She pulled one of the smaller spools off the stick and called out to Tilda before lobbing it as far as it would go. Tilda looked up and nodded, then went back to post-hole digging—she was about four feet down. Pretty soon, it would be all about wrapping broomsticks with wire and shoving them into the wet earth.

  Rae had Tucker hold out his good arm and balance the end of the broom handle in the crook of his elbow, supporting it with his good hand.

  Then she crouched down on the earth and got to work.

  Tucker held the broomstick still and kept a worried eye on Angel, who was staring the gathering ghostly horde in the eyes while the children placed their nails.

  “How they doin’, Angel?” Tucker called. Angel didn’t risk a look over his shoulder to answer back.

  “They’re getting angry and upset. Tucker, you’d better be right about this!”

  “If I was right about shit, would we even be here?” Tucker asked.

  “Shut up,” Angel said thickly, and Rae jerked a little at the wire.

  “I second that,” she muttered, because apparently she could hear Angel now. “Keep up with me, Tucker. We’re almost done with the first leg of the pentagram.”

  The kids worked fast, and so did Rae, and Tucker managed not to keel over. At the end of the giant star in the middle of the pentagon, Rae very carefully wrapped a long length of wire around the second-to-last peg and left it there to make a final leg of the shape, ready to seal it, imprisoning whatever spirit wandered in. Then she wrapped a length about the center spike and ran the rest of the spool to Tilda.

  “I’m thinking,” Tucker said, trying to stay out of Rae’s way as she worked.

  “Must be rough with a concussion,” she muttered. “Shoot.”

  “Touch, blood, and song,” he told her. “That would make these even more secure.”

  “You want me to bleed and sing?” she asked, laughing.

  “The blood we’ve got!” Tucker told her. He felt another trickle roll down his scalp. “I’ve had a bleeding head wound since this whole thing started. Let me rub some of these bandages on my head, and you can put them in your pocket. Boom. Blood!”

  “That’s sick,” she said. “But I’ll take it, just as soon as you can tell me we’re good to go. Now what about the touch?”

  “You’re doing it,” Tucker said decisively. “Now the song just has to be words. It could be ‘Get out of my husband, goddammit!’ or ‘Josh, get back to me, dumbass!’ But say something when you close the trap and seal it with my blood, okay? I think it will make it stronger!”

  As they spoke, she strung the wire to finish the giant five-pointed star. She finished the first point and looked up. “I assume you want a continuous line for the circle?”

  “Yeah. If I could figure out how to do the whole thin
g without breaking the wire at all, I’d do it.”

  Rae frowned for a bit, squinting at the nails the children had laid so far, and in spite of the direness of the situation, Tucker had to laugh.

  “Figure it out when there’s time!” he urged. “C’mon, hon, he’s going to be here any second!”

  That spurred her on.

  Tucker stayed in the middle of the figure as she wound the wire, and later he would wonder how much magic he’d given his impromptu spell of metallurgy and desperation by simply swaying on the earth, bleeding, whispering, “Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work!” If ever there was a time he needed to direct his mind, his will, and his power, this was the one.

  Josh Greenaway was a good man, just like James Beaufort. He was innocent, like Sophie and Bridget. Tucker could not let another innocent, decent person, be destroyed by the corruption of one drug-addled aristocrat who wanted to wreak vengeance.

  Vengeance.

  “Rae. Rae, as soon as you see him, you need to get the girls to go hide in the car.”

  “Tucker, I’m busy here—”

  “If Conklin’s running the show, he’s….” Tucker shuddered. “He’s not your husband, Rae, and he likes to hurt women.”

  Rae wrapped the wire around the second-to-last peg and unwound enough to finish the final leg. She double-checked the length and then snipped it off with some wire cutters from her pocket. “You told us that. I remember.”

  “Rae, I am afraid for you,” he told her nakedly.

  “Tucker, you and me, we’re going to have a conversation after my husband gets unpossessed. I think this thing you do with Angel is real noble and all, but it’s gonna fuckin’ kill you if you are not careful.”

  She rose from her crouch to start the next stage—the circle. Tucker moved to the middle, turning as she ran the wire, crouched, wrapped it around the next nail, and the next, and the next. He kept his eyes on the property, not sure which direction Josh was going to come running from—if he was going to emerge from the trees, pop out from the dimensional graveyard, or charge down the underbrush at the fence line. Either way, Tucker needed to be ready. The ghosts were staring at the lot of them making a trap in their territory. To Tucker’s left, Tilda was wrapping a broomstick in silver wire. One of the ectoplasmic remnants of bad karma and residual memories started to moan as she threw the thing down the hole and then stood on it, shoving it down until her leg disappeared.

  She grabbed the post-hole digger and used it to thrust the broomstick in deeper, and the moan intensified to a scream.

  Rae looked over her shoulder at the masses of the disembodied dead staring at her and her children and at Angel and Tucker with the ferociousness of murder in their eyes, and spat.

  “Find your way to heaven, you assholes! If you’re stuck here, it’s ’cause you didn’t fuckin’ want it bad enough!”

  The ghost stopped screaming for a moment, and Rae crouched down to start inscribing the circle. She’d finished the first leg in the stunned silence when an anguished shriek stilled her.

  “Rae! Dammit, run.”

  Tucker saw Josh then, right at the tree line beyond the cemetery, and called out, “Angel! Get the kids to the minivan. Stay with them!”

  “Goddammit, Tucker!”

  “Protect the children, dammit! Murphy, Coral, Tilda—you guys get your asses to the car!”

  Tilda was shoving the second broomstick down on top of the first. “Gimme a goddamned minute,” she shouted. “Murphy, Coral, listen to him!”

  “Listen to me!” Rae snapped. “Kids, now!”

  They had three more legs to the circle left, the nails pushed into the dirt, and Murphy finished the last nail as Coral turned to grab the bucket.

  “Leave it!” Rae hollered, clipping off an end of silver wire. “C’mon, Tucker, we’ve got time to finish this. Josh can’t run for shit!” Tucker ran to the center of the pentagram and watched Josh’s progress as Rae wired the center nail of the figure and ran the wire down to the hole.

  “Shit!” they both said together. The ends that connected the whole works to the hole in the ground hadn’t been connected to the post-hole digger.

  “You come here and finish the pentagram,” Tucker hollered. “I’ll get that!”

  Her job required more strength and more finesse—but Tucker wasn’t proud. Feverishly, he wrapped the loose ends, connecting the points of the pentagram with the angles of the pentagon inside the circle. Five points when Rae finished the one she was working on. Five was a good number, wasn’t it? Tucker tried to remember what five represented in numerology, and all he could come up with was the five of wands and how everybody seemed to be running around with their heads up their asses. Whatever.

  “The second broomstick is stopping,” Tilda said, shoving at it with the post-hole digger. “If you finish what you’re doing and give it to me, I should be able to connect it all.”

  Tucker finished the last wrap and handed it off, then swung around to look at their handiwork. It looked good—a sparkling, house-sized pentacle, actually, surrounded by the toxic phosphorescence of the angry dead.

  Beyond the milling ghosts, Josh stumbled, fell to his knees, and for a moment, he struggled. Tucker could see him, pounding the ground in frustration, as Josh Greenaway fought with Thomas Conklin Senior for control of the form they were both currently occupying.

  “You fucker, get out!” Josh shouted, and Tucker froze. Oh please oh please oh please…. Then came a terrible scream, ripped from the throat of a desperate man. “Noooooooo!”

  Josh got to his feet and lurched forward, every movement a tiny war, every muscle fighting itself in a knock-down, drag-out bitch-fight of wills.

  Well, Conklin may have won that battle, but it was obvious that Josh was still in the fight.

  Nevertheless he was getting closer, and the ghosts, no longer put off by Angel’s imposing presence, were beginning to group on the edges of the pentacle. Oddly enough, they respected the unfinished boundary, and Tucker thought they could use that, but he didn’t know how.

  “Rae, he’s getting close.”

  “One more,” Rae panted, yanking at the spool of wire so there’d be enough for the last leg before she snipped it.

  The crowd of ghosts had converged, surrounding the shape wrought in the earth, glaring at Rae in the middle of the figure, and at Tucker, who was protected by the aura of the pendant around his neck.

  Tilda offered him a hand up—she’d finished her task and only needed to get to safety now. Tucker groaned and lurched to his feet, scanning the phosphorescent crowd.

  He saw the face he was looking for—the familiar one, the one that broke his heart. Saw five more, in fact, and gave a faint moan. “Go, Tilda,” he said, thinking about how young she was and how letting Conklin have his way would be unthinkable. He turned away from her and stumbled back toward the silverwork. As he walked, he grabbed the pocket full of rags Rae had given him and started mopping at the mess at the back of his head, staining one at a time.

  “Tucker, come on!” Rae yanked at the wire from the spool on the ground, and Tucker wandered to the center of the next figure, wiping blood off his head as fast as he could. He shoved the wet rags back in his pocket and grabbed the spools, standing up and giving her some slack to work with.

  “Rae, you might not have time—”

  “I’ll have time,” she said grimly. “He’s coming from this direction. We are almost done.” She began her frantic sprint, and Tucker watched as the ghosts tested the boundaries of the trap.

  He’d expected the wire to keep the spirits out of the finished pentagram—but what was happening was even better. The ghosts near the open leg of the figure were pushing their hands against what was going to be the border and stopping, as though thwarted by invisible walls.

  “How’s that working?” Rae asked after a brief glance up.

  “The kids—your witchy kids—must have had a solid idea of what we were making here. They saw it as re
al. You’ll have to tell them how awesome they are when you get into the van with them.”

  “Tilda!” Rae called.

  “Running now!” Tilda called back. She was almost at the minivan. The ghosts had parted for her and didn’t seem to begrudge her leaving, thank God. No, they were saving all their venom for Tucker and Rae.

  “Send Angel back,” Rae called. “And get that thing the hell away from here! Take the kids home—not to the mansion, you hear me? Keys in the car!”

  “Call me,” Tilda shouted, and then she opened the driver’s door and hopped in. Angel came sprinting out from the other side, heading toward Tucker and Rae.

  “What in the hell!” Tucker demanded. Rae should be in that car! “What are you—”

  “I can take care of myself, Tucker. She’ll get them to our house. They’ll be safe there.”

  But what if Conklin wins? What if their father takes this vicious spirit to the place he loves most?

  He didn’t say it. He didn’t even want the thought out there.

  There was only one thing to do—one thing he could say to do, think to do, make happen.

  They had to win.

  “Tucker! Tucker, we’re here. You can’t ignore us. We’re here!”

  It was the first time their voices coalesced, and Tucker looked up to the familiar ghosts and muttered, “Oh hell.”

  Damien looked back at him, his eyes filled with rage.

  “Tucker!” Rae snapped, yanking at the wire. “Stay with me here.” She paused. “Are you passing out on me?”

  “Yes and no,” Tucker mumbled. His head ached, his wrist was on fire, his words were raspy, spoken through a raw throat, but he would have endured all of that a million times over rather than see the bitter recrimination in Damien’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said to the apparition. “Damie, I didn’t mean to. You just… you wanted me, and I’d been waiting so long!”

  “Oh God.” Rae started running that last goddamned part of the circle, and Tucker turned his body, trying to stay in the now, trying to stay with her, to protect her and the kids, but Damien was—

  “Tucker, you killed me! You didn’t do your fucking job, man. I wanted a kiss, and you let me get shot!”