“You’ve been in there this whole time?” I asked.
“I mean… no,” Meri said.
“What? What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Okay, so sometimes, I can go from one location to another, like through space-time or whatever. I hadn’t done it for a very long time. Mostly because it usually requires me to use a particular tunnel in the house, and I lost it.”
“You lost a tunnel?” I asked.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “But here I am. So, what are we doing? Does this guy have anything good in the fridge?” Meri asked.
“We’re not here to burgle him,” I said.
“I just want to see what’s in the fridge,” Meri protested.
“Meri,” I warned.
“Fine, we won’t borrow any of his food.”
“You can’t borrow food,” Reggie said. “I mean, unless you go to the store and buy new food and put it back.”
“Nobody asked you,” Meri snarked.
“I’m going to start looking around. We don’t know how much time we have,” I said.
“What are we looking for?” Reggie asked.
“Anything that might tell us why Al would have murdered Richard,” I said.
“I think breaking into this man’s house to prove he killed Richard when you already know it was a Satanic ritual murder is as dumb as taking food from the fridge,” Meri said.
“Oh! If we think Al might be a Satanist, I’ll go check the back of his closet for Satan-type stuff,” Reggie said and darted off down the short hallway that led from the living room/kitchen area to the bedrooms and bathroom.
“I just want to dot all of the I’s and cross all of the T’s,” I said to Meri. “This is important, so we need to turn over every stone.”
“I’ll keep watch out the front window for his truck,” Meri finally relented.
“Thank you,” I said.
With Reggie looking through the bedrooms, I decided to focus on the kitchen and living room area. There was a small dining table between the two rooms, and it was covered with envelopes and paper.
I started sorting through them and noticed right away that many of them were past due bills. At first, it was just his utilities, but I found his mortgage statement too. Al was already two months behind on that, and the bank was letting him know that if he got six months behind they would begin foreclosure. The letter implored him to call them so he could get back on track before that happened. He’d circled the number with a black pen and then drawn a sad face next to it with a blue pen. I touched the sad face with the tips of my fingers, and when I closed my eyes I could see him on the phone near tears. He’d already gotten bad news.
Underneath the mortgage and past due utilities was a ton of credit card bills. All of them were behind, and most of them were threatening collections or a lawsuit. There wasn’t anything really extravagant around the house, so I had no idea what Al had charged to those cards to run so many up so high. I thought, at first, that maybe he had some sort of expensive hobby that wouldn’t be evident in the house. Maybe his garage was full of toys, or perhaps he had some kind of health condition.
My suspicion was confirmed when I started combing through the actual credit card statements. All of the payments were either to various doctors, the utility companies, or the grocery store.
Al must have had some sort of medical issue that had him on the verge of bankruptcy. Then with the accident, he couldn’t work. His whole life was about to collapse, and it was all because of Richard.
But why hadn’t his insurance paid to fix the truck? I found that answer in another stack of paperwork next to the bills.
He’d missed an insurance payment on the truck. I found a letter stating that while he’d made up the missed payment, the accident had happened during a fifteen-day waiting period to reinstate coverage. The insurance company wouldn’t cover the damage because of some arbitrary nonsense. He’d paid his premiums, but because he was late they got him. My blood boiled for him.
Under that were letters from two separate lawyers. The people who owned the parked cars he hit were suing him personally. Well, their insurance companies were anyway.
Al was toast legally and financially, and it was Richard’s fault. If Richard hadn’t been stumbling around Coventry drunk off his behind and fighting with his girlfriend, Al’s life wouldn’t have been good, but it wouldn’t have been as much of a disaster.
It seemed like a motive for murder to me.
The only problem was that the letters arrived after Richard was already dead. It had happened so fast after the accident that it was hard for me to tie the two events together in my mind.
Sure, maybe someone had told him the information over the phone. Then he’d gotten the official letters days after he’d already killed Richard. But it seemed unlikely. What insurance company moved that fast?
Nobody would have given him an official decision within, like, a day, right? These seemed to add up to a terrible coincidence.
“We’ve got company,” Meri said.
“Is it Al? Is he back?” I asked as I put the papers back down.
“No,” Meri said and jumped out of the window. “It’s Esadora.”
“What?” I asked. “Are you sure she’s here?”
Reggie appeared in the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“Yeah, she’s parked in the driveway. She was getting some bags out of the back of the car. We need to scram,” Meri said. “Unless you want to get busted in here.”
“She can’t do anything to me,” I said, but even as I said it, I was heading for the back door. If she got too close, she’d feel the baby. Esadora had told me as much.
“Not magically, but she could still call the police,” Meri reminded me.
“Okay fine.” I really wanted to ask her what she was doing there, but Meri was right.
I put him back in my bag, and Reggie and I slipped out the back door just as Esadora came in the front. We couldn’t leave the way we came because Esadora was parked in the driveway, so instead, we ran across the backyard and left through the back gate.
Chapter Eight
As we were leaving, Reggie got an emergency call from the nursing home. The doctor had changed her grandmother’s medicine again, and her grandma was having some sort of anxiety attack. The nurse on duty begged Reggie to come help calm her down.
“Do you want me to take you?” I asked.
“No, it’s okay. Just take me back to my car,” she said, but I could tell she was distressed.
“I don’t think you should drive like this,” I said as gently as possible.
“I’m fine. I need my car. I might have to stay there into the night, and I don’t want to depend on anyone to come get me.”
“Alright,” I said and reached over to place a hand on Reggie’s shoulder.
I would never interfere with someone’s free will, but a little empathy magic to calm her nerves was okay. I watched Reggie’s shoulders relax, and the tears threatening to spill over dried up. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“You just magicked me, didn’t you?” she asked with a chuckle.
“I don’t want you driving upset,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said with a relieved sigh. “You’re right, but I feel much better now. It’s better for my gran if I go in there calm too.”
“I’m going to go back to the shop so you can get your car. After I check on the glass guy, I’m going to make you some protection and calming items for your grandma’s room, okay?”
“Thank you,” Reggie said and almost started crying again. “Thank you so much, Kinsley. You never had to do any of this for me.”
“Yes, I did,” I said. “You’re my sister.”
“Best friends forever?” she asked and offered me her pinky.
“Of course,” I said and linked mine with hers. “Best friends forever.”
It was a silly gesture that kids did all the time. I remembered pinky swearing over everything
as a child, but at that moment it wasn’t silly at all. It was one of those little rituals that meant more than anyone could ever know. A promise stronger than blood or magic. Even Meri emerged from my bag and booped his little nose against our interlocked fingers. He understood.
After I’d parked the car and given Reggie one last hug, I found the window guy packing up his things.
“Excellent timing,” he said. “I’m all done here. The shop is yours again. Now, I’m off to get some of that amazing coffee over at the Brew Station.”
He left, and I set to work making things for Reggie’s grandma. Meri lounged on the counter next to me and swished his tail back and forth. He’d reach out a paw and touch my hand whenever my magic needed a boost. Or, whenever he thought my magic required help.
By the time we were done, it was the regular closing time. I locked up the shop and headed home. All of the day’s excitement and my afternoon of magical workings had left me exhausted and starving.
I went home and sent Thorn a message asking him what he wanted for dinner.
Can’t come in time for dinner. Short-staffed because of Lincoln thing. If I’m too late, okay to let myself in? Want to check on you, he texted back.
Yes, use your key. I’ll leave you a plate in the fridge. Love you, I answered.
Love you too, babe.
I was really craving a cheeseburger and fries and thought about picking up takeout from the diner. But I was exhausted. The easier solution was to make some burgers and throw fries in the air fryer, so that’s what I did.
After I ate, I tried to stay awake waiting for Thorn to show up, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to fall asleep on the sofa if Thorn wanted to sleep there, so I dragged myself upstairs to my room.
I threw on my alien print pajamas and fell into bed. After devouring two hamburger patties, Meri seemed more than happy to go to bed too.
“You realize that not even toddlers go to bed this early,” he said as he settled in next to me.
“Need sleep. Don’t care,” I said as my eyelids forced themselves closed. “Good night, Meri,” I said as I felt his tiny back press against mine. He didn’t always sleep right up against me, but most of the time, he did.
What I thought was just a few seconds later, I rolled over and felt something scratchy against my face. When I opened my eyes to see what on earth in my bed could be causing the strange sensation, I realized I wasn’t in my bed.
I was lying in a pile of hay. It wasn’t until I tried to push myself up to a sitting position that I realized I had the black book in my hand. My father had taken it to the crypt, and I’d retrieved it.
In my sleep.
The first order of business was to figure out where I was. I set the book down close to me and sat up. There was moonlight coming in through a window, and it gave me enough illumination to vaguely see my surroundings.
The floor beneath me and the walls around me were both rough wood. I stood up and walked over to the window first. It was just a giant square hole cut in the side of the building, so I wasn’t in any house. The straw sort of gave that away…
Looking out the window, I could tell that I was on the second floor of the structure. There were bales of hay and a tractor parked outside.
That gave me a pretty good idea of where I was. Well, at least what kind of building I was in, and my suspicions were confirmed when I walked over to the edge of the loft.
I was in a barn up in some sort of hayloft. I had no idea why I was up there, but I needed to get out of there so I could figure out where I was and how I would get home.
I climbed down and found a door. Outside it became apparent that I was out in the middle of nowhere. There was one house on a hill off in the distance. All of the lights were out in its windows because it was… probably around three in the morning again.
It wasn’t like I could go up and knock on their door. I was trespassing on their property in my nightgown, holding a book that contained a powerful Satanic ritual. At the very least, I’d scare the bejeezus out of them. At worst, they’d defend their house with a shotgun or call the county sheriff.
“What am I going to do?” I asked the muggy night air.
How had I gotten out that far? I mean, obviously, I’d used magic to walk faster than any other human could, but how had no one seen me?
The magic veil.
The spell that protected Coventry kept anyone who did see me from registering what they saw. Once I got out into the country, there just wasn’t anyone out there.
Was I going to do the same thing to get back? That time there wasn’t anyone asleep in their car to give me a ride, and once again I didn’t bring my phone.
Then I remembered what Meri had done. He’d used some sort of magic to teleport into my purse. He said he’d used one of the tunnels in the house wall, and I couldn’t do that. But, maybe there was still a way. If I could stop myself outside of Hangman’s House instead of going all the way back inside.
I’d need his help. The problem was that he didn’t wake up when I went on a sleepwalk. He was home in bed, blissfully unaware that I was out in the middle of nowhere.
If I could reach him, though. Maybe he could teleport out to me and help me get back. I needed his help creating a port big enough for me to move through, but perhaps I could create one big enough for me to send a message all on my own.
I closed my eyes and imagined that all of the space between us was a very narrow tunnel. I couldn’t walk through it or even reach my hand through, but when I moved it the right way, I could see Meri sleeping peacefully on my bed.
Meri
The word didn’t come from my lips, but instead, I said it using the connection between us. The silver thread that connected us snaked its way through the tunnel all along, but when I said his name, it lit up like the moonlight suddenly hit it.
Because it had. Meri was then connected to where I was. His eyes opened, and he stretched.
It took him a second to realize what was going on, but when he did, Meri jumped to his feet.
“Kinsley.” He said the word out loud, but we were connected through space-time, and I could hear him.
“I’m here. I’m out here all alone. Please use your tunnel and come get me,” I said.
I felt a sudden wave of nausea, and the connection closed. I was woozy, and just opening and maintaining that connection had drained me. If he could make it out to me, it would take everything I had to get back. I’d have to lean on Meri’s magic to even have a chance.
He appeared next to me.
“Meri!” I said and clapped my hands together. “You’re here. Oh, thank goodness.”
“Where are we?” he groused.
“I don’t know. Somewhere out in the country,” I said. “But what’s important was that I could reach you. And you could come here to me.”
“Yeah, but now we’re both stuck out here,” he said. “Well, at least we’re together.”
“We’re not stuck,” I said hopefully. “You can teleport us back. We can do it together. I think I can stop us before we hit your tunnel in the wall.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“We have to, Meri. I think it will take less energy to do that than for me to try and speed us back. I don’t know exactly where we are, but I have this feeling it’s really far away. I must have unconsciously used so much of my magic to get out here. Porting back is our best option.” I tried to convince him.
“We should just wait here for a couple of hours until dawn. We can go up to that house and ask to use their phone. Maybe they’d even give us a ride,” he replied.
I felt a chill run down my spine. “Something’s wrong. We can’t wait,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes and studied me for a moment. Then, I watched as the hair on his back stood up and his little tail fluffed out. Meri could feel it too.
“Alright, fine. We’ll give it a try, but if it doesn’t work we just have to wake those people in the house up. I’m sure you
can convince them, either with magic or a good story, into helping us. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said.
“Okay, so do the same thing you did before, except that you make the tunnel bigger,” he said.
“I can’t, or I would have just done that before. I would have just come home,” I protested.
“Right, that’s why you have to connect with that tunnel in the wall. I’ll augment your magic to make the tunnel big enough for you to move through. You will have to use some speed because we won’t be able to hold it for long.”
“I don’t know what the tunnel in the wall looks like. I’ve never been in there,” I said.
“You just start the vision, and I’ll join you. I can fill in that part. Now, here’s the most important piece. Once we move through it, you have to stop us before we get to the house. Otherwise, you’ll end up squished in the wall,” he said.
“Your best bet is to count to five when we step through and then stop us,” he said. “No, three. Do three.”
“Is it three, or is it five?” I asked. “Be sure.”
“How can I be sure? I’ve never done this. Anyway, do three. Even if we just get back to Coventry, we can walk the rest of the way. Closer to the ley line, it will be easier for you to use other magic.”
That’s why I had drained so fast. I was so far from the ley line that ran through Coventry and gave us our extra magical strength.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I said. “We’ll open the tunnel. When it’s big enough for me to walk through, I’ll step in, count to three, and hopefully end up on the front porch.”
Meri gave me a nod, and we began. I opened the vision, and just as he’d said, he joined in. I felt a little dizzy as I tried to open the tunnel, but with Meri pressed against my leg, I had the strength to do it.
He joined the tunnel to the house, and it grew large enough for me to enter. I didn’t hesitate because I feared it would snap shut at any time. I barely held it and myself together.
I bent down a little, and Meri jumped into my arms. One step into the tunnel…
One
Book of Dark Magic Page 10
