Cursed Lines (A Peg Darrow Novel Book 2)

by Camille Douglass

  “We’re bad ass,” I mumbled.

  I took her responding grunt as an agreement.

  “You two comfortable?” Pammy called at us.

  “Yes,” I mumbled.

  “Good, now I don’t believe you’ve ever been in the presence of a binding spell, Peg. These things can be—uncomfortable. Dorothy you know the drill.”

  The chanting began, and magic filled the room. If by uncomfortable she’d meant it felt like your magic clawed its way as far inside yourself as possible like a thousand little needles to your skin, then yes, I’d say that it was uncomfortable. Magic didn’t want to be bound.

  After some time had passed, the chanting stopped, and all that was left was a buzzing on my skin that didn’t seem to want to go away. Pammy’s face loomed over mine.

  “All right, ladies, she’s bound up like a Christmas goose. Now I have just enough juice left to give you two a little health back. The way I figure it, two witches on their feet are better than one old crone, but I’m going to need you two to handle the bodies if I do this. Is this something you two will be able to do?”

  “Yes,” Dorothy croaked.

  “Peg?” Pammy's umber skin had a sheen of perspiration on it, and fine lines that I’d never really noticed stood out. The realization hit that she was just as wiped as both of us, and she didn’t really have the energy to do what she offered.

  I really wished that I could just go be put in George for an hour, but even though Pammy had it all figured out, there wasn’t time for that. The plane lore came back to me in detail. The goblins used it as a power source. No matter where they were, they could call on the wealth they’d hidden there. Being only part goblin, I didn’t require the wealth portion, only the magical realm. How did they access it?

  “Just give me a few minutes, Pammy,” I mumbled.

  My magic was already buried deep inside of me. Convenient that I needed it there to search the innermost places of my soul. I put myself into a trance, the buzzing on my skin helped keep me from falling into the other side of wakefulness. At first, I just searched within myself, finding nothing I hadn’t sensed before in my own soul. A minute passed, and I knew soon Pammy would just pelt me with a healing spell even though she didn’t have the juice.

  Something clicked, and I remembered that George was not intrinsically part of me. He was his own being that had chosen to bond with me. With that, I called out in my mind’s eye for him. Almost immediately, he appeared, and a door opened in my magic’s soul.

  Energy, a warm light lavender like the sky of George covered my vision. The buzzing on my skin became a comforting magical tingle. The magic kept filling me, reviving me. Once I felt like I could no longer hold any more, I gently closed the door, thanking George, who sent one final warm zing along our bond.

  I sat straight up, and Pammy took a startled step back, looking me over. “What in the world?”

  “You have your secrets; I have mine.”

  She gave me a hard stare. “I can guess at yours.”

  “You can, and you may be right, but I’d prefer if you’d let me tell you in my own time.”

  She thought about it for a moment and gave me a nod.

  I stood, my legs no longer shaky. I felt like I could run a marathon. I looked around at the people present. The sheen of sweat and wrinkles prominent on Pammy’s face hid the unhealthy gray tone to her skin. Then I looked to Dorothy.

  “Is she passed out?”

  “Yup, too much strain along with the concussion.” Pammy’s voice had tremor to it that she’d managed to almost hide.

  “Should we be letting her sleep with a concussion?”

  “Figured she’d be fine given that I’ll be hitting her with some healing in under five minutes.”

  “Uh yeah, I think you should leave the healing to me, starting with yourself. You’re exhausted.”

  Her mouth turned into a hard line. “My witches come first.”

  “Pammy, you’re our strongest magical warrior. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of their group show up. I want you healthy first to watch my back, and we don’t have the time to argue about this.” I thrust my hand forward, placing my hand over her heart.

  Magic poured out, not so much a healing spell since I saw no signs of injuries other than bruises and a few scratches. Her current issue was magical depletion. Pammy used what little energy she had to give me a hard glare that even a week ago I would have cowered at. Instead I tilted my chin, looking down at her with my best “whatcha gonna do about it” look. She shook her head in annoyance, but then I felt a shift in her magic. Pammy had shields on shields on shields. Her magic moved in a way that almost felt mechanical, like a vault opening one lever at a time. A tiny crack opened, and my power flooded her. Startled, she took a step back but then stood straight as the warm undertones returned to her skin.

  Any moment now, she’d have teetered over, and Bruce would have been stuck carrying four witches to safety. After a few minutes, Pammy’s hand came up to grip my wrist, signaling that she was good. She turned to help Dorothy, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. My energy levels were still stupid high, and I didn’t want Pammy to drain herself again. Dorothy was still out, which made her more receptive to my healing.

  Hand again over her heart, I began to push my energy into her. This time, however, I also recited a small healing spell to counteract the bump and accompanying concussion. She began to stir but didn’t remove my hand as she sat up slowly. After a few minutes, it was Pammy that pulled me back.

  “Let’s not drain you, my dear.”

  I wanted to argue because I could just ask George to open the door once more, but she was right, and on second thought, I should really ask Deval or even Delmy or Griselda if there were limits or rules. I didn’t want to mistakenly hurt the plane that so kindly offered up a magical boost along with a safe haven. Dorothy stood up with a slight wobble, but she was standing. She looked over at me with cautious eyes.

  “Thanks for the boost.”

  “No problem.”

  “Now, Dorothy, this is one of those need-to-know things. I trust you to keep this to yourself.”

  Dorothy looked between us for a moment. “Not sure what exactly I’m keeping to myself, but of course I will.”

  I got the impression that Dorothy had been told to keep a lot of things to herself over the years, and as Pammy hadn’t hunted her down yet for betrayal, that was good enough for me.

  “Should we wake up Yvette?” I asked, concerned about the witch that still lay on the ground.

  Pammy reached down and felt the woman’s pulse. “No, our little miss here is going to need some specialized care, being almost drained, and she’ll be going into withdrawals as well. I want her in a safe house before that starts. Pulse is good, and the magic has pulled itself in tight. Poor little bird is traumatized but not in any danger. Besides, she probably wouldn’t enjoy watching us dispose of the bodies.”

  “Why? Aren’t we just going to call BBTT?”

  “Nope, Sug, too much dark magic can wreak all sorts of chaos on a corpse. We need to burn the bodies, preferably while our evil sleeping beauty watches, so she’ll give us some information.”

  “I need to call my husband to tell him I’ll be late.” Dorothy accepted Pammy’s statement just like that. “Did I hear you mention in my semi-unconscious state that you’d foot the bill for some cupcakes?”

  “Course I will. Call the Hemlock Bakery and have them bill it to me. It’s near your home right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have John pick them up. I just need to pop over to the car to get my phone,” she said as she walked to the exit.

  “You ladies sure know how to show an old bear an exciting time.”

  I jumped a little; he’d been so quiet up until now. I looked over, and he sat on the built-in couch along the wall. One of the drainers lay at his feet, the blood from the heart stabbing and throat slitting seeping into the carpet.

  Bruce stood and opened the
door for Dorothy. “Care for a tagalong? I figure we’ll want to use my truck for transport, and I don’t think any of us should wander off alone in this area.”

  “Take him with you, Dorothy,” Pammy ordered.

  “Sheesh, woman, I was planning on it.”

  “Sorry, been hanging out with this one too much lately.” She pointed her thumb at me.

  “Are you indicating that I’m a problem child?” I deadpanned.

  “Not indicating it, stating it. Now shoo, you two, we’ve got hours of work left for us before this night is over.”

  19

  It was always helpful to have a friend with a truck when you needed to dispose of bodies. Sure they would have fit in the back of my Jeep, but I’d rather clean off blood with a hose than a scrub brush and upholstery cleaner. Pammy put the live one, still unconscious from when I’d bounced her head like a basketball on the floor, in the trunk of her car just in case the woman had some tricks up her sleeve when she woke. Bodies loaded, we searched the trailer.

  The trailer had plenty of damning magical literature, which included various tomes on the art of the sacrifice. The ages varied with some so old the bindings were cracking to more modern spiral-bound notebooks. At a quick glance, they appeared to be in the same handwriting, but we could look at that closer later. Pammy was always prepared and pulled a few empty file boxes out of her trunk before we stuck the witch in it. Pammy set the wards she had on her trunk, making me wish I had a trunk to set magical locks on.

  We filled all three-binder boxes to overflowing and did a final search before Pammy started the first fire of the night. Her magic was an inferno contained to the expensive RV, not touching any of the dry brush that surrounded it.

  While the fire raged, I stood next to Pammy, my hand on her shoulder as a focus while her arms outstretched, controlled the most volatile element. It burned on and on, its smoke stuck in a magical field so as not to alert the neighbors. They could still see it if they drove by, but the vehicle itself had oozed with malevolent magic and needed to be destroyed. The heat stuck inside burned hotter and hotter until all that was left was charred metal. Pammy closed her outstretched palms into fists, reversing her arms and pulling her elbows straight back. The flames winked out, and the field broke, bringing the smell of charred rubber and ozone.

  We turned to walk back to our vehicles. Bruce and Dorothy already sat in their cars, ready to get the show, or body disposal, on the road.

  As we approached, I couldn’t help but wonder out loud. “Why didn’t we just burn the witches along with the RV?”

  Pammy didn’t stop her forward stride. “Right now it’s an old RV that got burnt up by some delinquents. No one is going to report it missing, and I doubt the McAllisters have a direct tie to the title on the vehicle, but if we were to leave some charred bodies behind, we’d need to deal with the human authorities.”

  “Why would that matter? We police our own.”

  “We do, but then there’s paperwork. Who were these witches? How did they die? If it was an execution, I need to justify it. I need to pay for disposal. Yada yada yada. Besides bones carry magic, so we’re taking them to a designated site to burn and dispose of them where we will then salt the earth, so no blundering police officer can take a witch’s bone as a trophy to show his kids only to have weird shit start happening in his house with the cop blaming it on us.”

  “Has that really happened?”

  “It has. Now get your ass in your car. Try to keep up, grandma.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I jogged back to my Jeep, and we pulled away from the wash that now had a crispy RV to add to the ambiance of brush, tumbleweeds, and mesquite trees. Pammy pulled out first followed by Bruce and then Dorothy. I took up the rear, so I’d have plenty of time to see the various turns made from the three cars in front of me. Pammy was kind and kept her speeding to a minimum. It likely had more to do with her having a witch in her trunk and less to do with me being at the rear of our caravan. We drove over an hour, heading east into what I’d thought was state park land. The last half an hour was all dirt roads, making me bounce along in my Jeep. I cringed thinking of Dorothy in her little compact car.

  We came to a stop in a small valley between two rocky hills covered in cholla cactus, known to some as jumping cactus, but I liked to kept simple and call it Satan’s plant. Unlike its surrounding landscape, the small valley didn’t have any rocks or gravel in it, just dirt. Rocks could absorb magic, so this area had been cleared. To the far right of the area sat a large woodpile. Knowing what this place was for gave me the heebie-jeebies. The witches we were disposing of were already dead, but burning, hanging, crushing, drowning were all triggers for a witch with any sense.

  “Peg, get out of your car and go start gathering wood. Take it to the center of the field.”

  I hopped out and went about doing Pammy’s bidding. When I grabbed the dried-out mesquite wood, a small bite of magic startled me. I looked harder at the wood and saw that it was emitting a soft white glow. Purification magic. Dorothy helped me gather the wood while Pammy took the pieces, creating an intricate design out of them. Bruce carried over the two bodies, and Pammy had him lay them in the center of the patterned circle, one on top of the other in a cross pattern.

  “All right, girls and boy, we have four here tonight, so let’s do this right. Bruce you have any objections to joining a witch’s circle?”

  “No, ma’am, I live for the excitement of it all.”

  “You take the west, Peg take the south, Dorothy the east, and I’ll grab the north. I’ll do the chant. Hum along once you get the rhythm. Dorothy you know the chant, so feel free join once you have the cadence down. Peg, try and listen to the words. This is a good learning opportunity.”

  “All very Magic School Bus,” I responded.

  “Smart ass.”

  I grinned at her, couldn’t help it when I thought of this as a weird-ass macabre study session.

  “Bruce, will you help me grab the crazy bitch in my trunk?”

  “Like I said, the excitement of it all.”

  They brought back the woman, who was still unconscious. It was the first chance I’d had to really look at her. Even when I’d been banging her head against the floor, I’d been in a frenzy for survival and hadn’t studied her, I did now. The woman looked to be in her seventies at least, though her strength earlier would suggest otherwise. Her skin, wrinkled and loose, hung off her bones, so gray she looked like a corpse. The dark circles and thinning dishwater-blond hair that hung in lank pieces made it possible to see her age-spotted scalp. I shuddered.

  “You going to wake her up?” Dorothy asked Pammy.

  “Yup, these people are cold hearted, but I’m hoping that some purified fire may make her tongue looser.”

  “She has to know she’s going to die. Why would the fire matter to her?” I asked, questioning Pammy’s reasoning.

  “She knows she’s gonna die, but is she gonna die quick like her friends, or are we going to throw her on top of their bodies to burn alive?” she asked.

  Revulsion crawled along my skin. “Would you really do that?”

  “Don’t have pity for her, Peg. She’s a walking blight on our people, and she would burn you alive in an instant.”

  “Does that make it better?”

  Pammy sighed. “I’m going to try and avoid it, Peg, but if she doesn’t answer our questions, I will do it. I never want to see this family or another like it near my territory again.” Just like that, our hard as nails, relentless, fearless leader returned. The shiver that ran down my spine competed with the warm fuzzy feeling I had knowing Pammy would do whatever she had to do to protect me.

  Pammy stepped past me to the unconscious woman. For a moment, I thought she was going to kick the woman awake, but instead she reached down and sent a sharp zap of electricity into her prone form. I winced, having been on the end of one of those during childhood fights with my sister that had gone too far. The juxtaposition of childhood
versus adult games was not lost on me.

  The nameless woman went from the fetal position to sitting up in one swift movement. It looked odd and possibly against the laws of physics with her hands tied behind her back. She stared around at all of us and literally hissed, baring her teeth, before speaking in a low guttural language that made my skin crawl and had me wanting to take a step back.

  Pammy just laughed. “Do you really believe I would be so stupid as to not bind your powers? You’re in Arizona, bitch, and you belong to me to live or to die as I choose.”

  The woman spat at Pammy, managing to land some spittle on her boot. “I belong to no one. Death does not scare me, and you do not have the power to hold me forever.”

  “I don’t need forever, Sug.” Pammy walked behind the woman, grabbed her harshly by the shoulders, and forced her to face the pyre that contained her comrades. “If you weren’t scared of death then why feed on the living? Your friends here have already paid the price. What price do you think I’ll make you pay?”

  “You are too weak,” she stated, clearly looking into the dusk. “There was no torture. You killed them true and clean. You want answers from me, but my family will come for me. I won’t be so kind.”

  “Keen observations. You’re right. Their deaths were quick, a mercy really, but I have no doubt you’ve been alive years longer than I due to your atrocious feeding habits, so you must know by now that the weak often pay for other’s mistakes. Peg over here knocked you out by physical means not magical ones, how embarrassing for you. Since you were so easy to put down, I have no doubt that you will give me the answers I seek because you wouldn’t be able to handle real pain. Them.” She gestured toward the two bodies. “They probably could have handled it, but I don’t plan on torturing you. You have two simple choices. Talk, I’ll kill you quick. Don’t talk, and I’ll make a new pyre, special, just for you. Olden time justice. European tradition never goes out of style.”