Captive Magic (Mystic's End Mysteries Book 8)

by Leanne Leeds

  He probably wasn’t wrong. I could sense danger, but I couldn’t have put a name to it if anyone asked me to. Didn’t know what direction it was coming from or what ( if anything) I needed to be on guard for. It felt like we had walked into a trap. As if I should anticipate an attack I couldn’t see and probably wouldn’t avoid.

  Suddenly, Miss Bessie’s head popped out of the wall.

  “You’re fine,” the ghost told me. “Mary and I are here watching. If you want to send the boys away, you can. We’re here with you. We can run and get Chris if needed.”

  “Have you been here the whole time?” I asked, unable to cover a laugh.

  “Where else would I be? I’m in jail, Fortuna,” my mother answered sharply.

  Miss Bessie nodded behind her. “Dalida and Gabriel told us you needed someone to watch her.”

  Mary’s head popped out. “That woman has the most gruesome taste in television shows. Just vile. Not surprising for her, considering. But still. Just vile.” The ghost shuddered. “Give me Downton Abbey any day.”

  “Did you overhear anything?” I asked Mary and Miss Bessie.

  “What are you talking about?” Karen asked, looking frustrated.

  “Plenty,” the ghost answered as my mother stared at me strangely. “She still can’t see us. I still do not know why.”

  That was clear. Karen growing more and more agitated by my ongoing conversation with her back cell wall.

  “I even flew at her and tried to whack her about the head a little,” Mary added. “She is entirely blind to the dead. Deaf, too. I had a bit of fun screaming at her.”

  “That was fun for you, was it?” Miss Bessie said, rolling her eyes. “It’s a good thing I don’t have a head, I supposed. I would have been down with a stellar migraine.”

  “You don’t have ears, either. Or a mouth. Didn’t stop you from complaining that I was too loud.”

  “You were too loud,” Miss Bessie snapped back at her daughter. Mary simply rolled her eyes.

  “Do you want us to go?” Chris asked me.

  “Wasn’t the whole point to bring Beau up here so he could listen to what was going on?” Clutterbuck asked the vampire.

  “I won’t be alone,” I told them without elaborating. I stared at Chief Clutterbuck. “Give my mother and me a few minutes of privacy. Let me see what she has to say. I promise Chris will know the second things aren’t going okay, and you guys can rush back in. The guard room is just ten feet away.”

  “The guard room,” Clutterbuck said, raising his eyebrow. He glanced back out toward the more comfortable waiting area, and then once at the small guard room. “You want us to wait in the guard room?”

  We’d walked in through the employees’ hallway—a corridor my mother, as a prisoner, would have been unlikely to see. Since she would also be an unlikely visitor to a church while incarcerated (and yet was seen there?) I had to consider she might know there was a bank of surveillance equipment in the next room.

  But if she didn’t, she’d have no idea the three men would wait in a room with audio and visual surveillance centered right on us. They would hear and see everything—and know that my demand for privacy was a bogus one.

  “Yeah, you guys should wait there. That should be fine, right?” I turned to my mother and deliberately allowed her to veto the idea.

  “Just close the door, so we can have privacy,” she told Chief Clutterbuck. “I don’t want anyone to overhear.”

  The chief nodded and agreed as he shuffled Chris and Detective Conroe into the next room. The heavy metal door between the two spaces clanged shut and then locked.

  My mother stared silently at me, drifting across her cell at a contemplative pace.

  “How could you get into a relationship with the vampire?” my mother asked me.

  “That’s where you want to start this? Trying to play mommy and making comments about my romantic choices?” Vampires had incredible hearing. Even without the audio-visual help, Chris could hear everything happening in this room. My mother had to know that—since she had an army of vampires just a few months ago. What was she playing at?

  She stopped mid-stride and turned toward me. “I don’t have to play mommy, Fortuna. I gave birth to you.”

  “You gifted me like a set of china plates to a rich family. Hoping you could come back and claim the wealth you adopted me into,” I told her while swallowing the resentment I had over my youth. “You adopted me, a part-witch, to a woman who hated me because of my telepathy.” I scowled, remembering the fury of my adoptive mother and my confusion as a young child. “Come to think of it, my adoptive mother would have been right at home at the Holy Grove Church.”

  “Your adoptive parents wanted you specifically because of your powers,” Karen told me. “So, I find your story hard to believe. You were supposed to help them become even more rich, even more powerful. They valued you like any good asset.”

  The bile in my stomach churned.

  “You find my story hard to believe? You have a lot of nerve accusing me of lying. A lot of nerve.” I said, incredulous. She didn’t answer, but I digested the look on her face while resisting the overwhelming urge to punch it. “You know what? This doesn’t matter. None of this matters. I left my family over ten years ago. I made my way in the world without them and without their money. I haven’t heard from them since, and I don’t want to talk about them. I honestly don’t care what you believe and what you don’t.”

  “And yet that’s more words than you’ve ever said to me, daughter,” Karen responded with a knowing smirk. “So, clearly, you care more than you want to admit.”

  “You really are just horrible,” I said with a laugh. “Like, you’re almost a comic book villain. When you were getting ready to incarnate on this earth, and people were lining up for souls and consciences, did you just skip that line?”

  “I didn’t call you here to fight with you.” Karen turned away from me as if trying to get the ordinary toxicity that powered her under control. Or, at least, so it didn’t show through so clearly. “I need your help. Well, I don’t really need your help. We need to do something together. For both of us.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Why on earth would you think I would help you?”

  “Because it’s your fault Conrad Noble’s dead.”

  Sixteen

  “Sure. Of course. It was my fault entirely.” My pronouncement was dripping with sarcasm.

  Karen looked at me as if trying to decide which angle to attack me from. Finally, she tossed her head, and with a sweep of her hand, she strode over to the bed. Spinning back to face me, she sat down primly and crossed her legs. “You haven’t asked me anything about our family history, Fortuna. Anything about my motivations—”

  “That’s because I don’t care about our family history. I know enough. And I definitely don’t care about your motivations. I care about your results.” I grabbed a metal chair and slung it aggressively across the highly polished floor until it came to rest directly across from her. Sitting down, I crossed my own legs and arms for good measure. “I never met Conrad Noble, didn’t know the man. I highly doubt anything I did contributed to his death.”

  “And yet he wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  I ground my teeth in frustration. “Who killed him?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then why would you think I had anything to do with his death?”

  “I didn’t say that you had anything directly to do with his death,” my mother answered sharply. “I said it was your fault.”

  I had the distinct sense I was being toyed with. “You’re playing word games. I’m not in the mood for word games.”

  “If you took some time to understand who I am, you would understand that this is no word game. At its core, the magic simply exerts pressure or influence on something intended to go one way when you want it to go another way. Yes?” she asked serenely as she poured water from a pitcher into a styrofoam cup. “Even your telepathy. Y
ou simply intercept thoughts and feelings that are not intended for anyone other than the person thinking or feeling them.” My mother took a delicate sip of water. “Magic is, ultimately, just a powerful manipulation.”

  I wanted to get up and walk out of the room. I didn’t need a magic lesson. Least of all from her.

  But I couldn’t.

  I was sure Mom was toying with me, knew this moment was some brilliant performance she had practiced multiple times in her mind. An elliptical conversation would follow. One that would circle widely around the information I needed to know while she fed me agenda-laden observations about what she wanted me to believe.

  I somehow had to break the circle, straighten it out into a line, and get her to tell me what I needed to know.

  Even though I wasn’t even sure what that was.

  My face hardened. “And your point?”

  “Our ancestor—our ultimate mother, if you will—knew this about magic. She knew even with magic, the Delphi coven could never stand up against the men that wanted this town for themselves. Despite being witches, we are not omnipotent. It wasn’t just about magic versus weapons.” Karen lifted her shoulders in a smooth gesture of nonchalance. “She knew that neither side could stand on its own without the other. And so she bound them together—”

  “Are you trying to justify the witch that betrayed her coven?” I asked incredulously. “You think that what she did was right? You have to be kidding. She was not the good guy in this story.”

  “I think what she did was necessary for the time. And the women in the bottles never would’ve been there if they, too, had simply supported the town’s move forward into the world.”

  Miss Bessie and Mary watched intently as my mother calmly explained the rationale of an oath-breaking witch over two hundred years in the ground. “Perhaps you should ask her direct questions, Fortuna,” Miss Bessie suggested. “I have a feeling she’s just going to keep pushing for you to see all this as a positive, not a negative.”

  I nodded once. “Why can’t you see ghosts?” I asked her.

  She looked at me in surprise. “How do you know I can’t see them?”

  “Because I can. And you can’t. You can’t see or hear them. Why?”

  “You know I gained most of my power through binding others to me,” my mother said in a muted tone. She looked off into space, her face soft as she remembered. “It’s funny, the strangest places you’ll find an idea. I got this one from a Star Trek film, believe it or not. The Borg Queen?” Without realizing I was doing it, I nodded. My mother took this is as a sign to continue. “I first used the dead to gain stronger powers, more potent energy. After all, the dead were dead. It’s not like they needed any of their residual life force.”

  I recoiled. “You connected yourself to spirits?”

  “Thanks to the curse on this town, it was like shooting fish in a barrel,” she laughed menacingly. “They were all here, so many of them. Just milling about, confused as to why they couldn’t leave. Mystic’s End was so haunted you couldn’t throw a rock in any direction in this town without hitting a ghost.”

  I frowned. “Where’d they all go? There are almost no ghosts here now.”

  She ignored my question. “Spiritual energy is powerful, but it wasn’t enough. And controlling ghosts?” Karen shrugged again. “There’s not much you can do with them. They make wonderful spies, of course. But if you really want to exert pressure with them? They’re not that useful.”

  “So you switched from hooking up to ghosts to hooking up to live paranormals,” I guessed.

  “They were much more useful. I’m sure you realize that.” My mother looked at me knowingly. “Your little boyfriend could tear the throat out of any mortal in seconds. You can’t tell me that isn’t part of his appeal for you.”

  “That isn’t part of his appeal for me.” My voice was suddenly harsh. I unfocused my eyes and stared into the spaces around my mother. Catching sight of several more cords connecting her to something, I contemplated snipping them again.

  “It won’t work,” Karen muttered.

  “What won’t work?”

  “The cord you’re thinking about cutting,” the older woman said with an impatient wave. “You don’t think that’s the only power I had in reserve, do you? Surely by now, you realize that I’m decades ahead of you. You don’t know all my secrets, Fortuna. If you’re going to make a move, be sure the step you take is the one you should be taking. You could make things worse for yourself.” My mother paused ominously. “Or others.”

  There was an icy silence as we stared at each other.

  I jumped up out of the chair. “I have to go to the restroom. I’ll be back.”

  “What does she mean?”

  I’d gone out the door to the visitor’s hallway, circled around, and entered the monitoring room from the back way.

  “Which part?” Chris asked me.

  “Yeah, frankly, it’s like y’all are talking in code,” Beau Conroe said, scratching his head.

  “Explain it to him when I’m back in there,” I told Chris. “What is she talking about? What other power is she talking about?” Chris squeezed my hand, and I jerked it away. He stared at me, his face concerned. “Look, I’m sorry, I just don’t need to be soothed right now. I need answers. Do you know of any other way she gets her power?”

  “Well, she’s a witch, isn’t she?” Clutterbuck said, looking back and forth between Chris and me. “Doesn’t she just naturally have power?”

  “Yes, she’s a witch, but most witches don’t have this much power. I lived in the paranormal world for a time, and even the most powerful witches there couldn’t curse an entire town all at once and keep it going. Or force-control an army of paranormals. This is god-level power.”

  “Are you saying she’s a god?” Conroe asked, his face growing pale.

  “No, I’m saying she’s really working hard to be on that level, but she’s not,” I answered. I tapped the desk impatiently with my fingers until Chris looked up at me. “You don’t know what she’s talking about, do you?”

  “I don’t, Fortuna. I’m sorry. I wish I did. This is the first I’ve ever heard of her being able to connect with ghosts and use them for her own ends.” I could see his regret—and his frustration—that he didn’t have answers. Chris grabbed my hand for a second time and squeezed with his steel vampire strength. This time I didn’t pull away and squeezed back. “Thank you,” he said simply and then let go.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated.” I paced the polished floor and thought. “Okay, so what we know. Karen is a descendant of the witch that betrayed the Delphi coven. To give the town over to the man that showed up and wanted it, she cast a curse on her other coven sisters that if they or their descendants fought the invaders, they would die.” I stopped and turned as if I had an epiphany. “And they wound up in witch bottles so they wouldn’t haunt the town, and so they would continue powering the shield around the town. Which is almost gone.”

  “What if none of them had ever died in that manner?” Clutterbuck asked.

  “Well, then you wouldn’t need the curse on the town anymore, right?” I guessed. “Maybe it only kept going as long as there were witches.”

  “There’s no curse on the town,” Beau Conroe interjected, frowning.

  “There’s definitely, without a doubt, a curse on the town,” I disagreed.

  “No,” Conroe argued. “That’s the whole point of the church. The church rituals make sure there’s a bubble of protection on the town. There can’t be a curse. I mean, we would know it. Well, they would know it. The churchgoers.”

  I turned and stared at the detective. “What do you mean? How would they know it?”

  “Well, the ball glows.” He shared this bit of information without a trace of irony and with no further explanation. “The ball?” He looked from face to face to face, seeing the confusion but not understanding. “The crystal ball that the men take care of. The ball is important because it shows that
the town is still under spiritual protection. After the service is over, it glows white, and everyone knows the town is protected.”

  “The selenite ball,” I said and shifted to look at Chris.

  “Just like the selenite Martin’s mother is encased in,” he countered.

  “How did the church get the ball?” I asked Beau.

  He swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. Looking up, he finally responded.

  “Your mother gave it to them. At the church’s founding.”

  “I want an answer. Why can’t you see ghosts?” I asked her as I stormed into the room.

  “That must’ve been a heck of a bathroom break,” Mary murmured.

  My mother stared at me, shocked at the change in my demeanor. “As I told you, initially, I would connect to ghosts. Obviously, being connected to so many spirits is difficult. Once I had enough power, I removed my ability to see and hear them. They would beg to be set free, and…well, obviously, I would not do that. All I needed was their power. I had other methods to spy on people by then.” She shrugged.

  There was something here. I could feel it. Something important.

  “Tell me about the selenite ball you gave the church,” I demanded.

  A slow smile spread across her face. “Outstanding, Fortuna. I was wondering when you would understand. Now you know why I need you to go to the church.”

  I blinked.

  I didn’t know why she needed me to go to the church.

  But she obviously thought I did, so I played along.

  “I understand why,” I lied, “but I don’t understand what you need me to do. How am I supposed to do it?”

  “I’m shocked you agree so easily.” My mother stood up, her eyes narrowing. “Though I doubt you’re doing it for me. You probably feel sorry for those poor souls. I’m just lucky your compassion will benefit me. With no witch, their rituals are almost useless and astrally projecting? It didn’t work.” She rolled her eyes and stepped toward her television, frowning as she examined the severed cord. “Of course, it could also be your stupid binding spell.”