The Candle (Haunted Series Book 23)

by Alexie Aaron

  “What the hell!” Mike said, surprised.

  Mia lowered them. “I forgot I named them.”

  “What are those?”

  Mia smiled. “Assassin knives.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Inside me. And you were worried about Ted pulling something over on me,” Mia giggled.

  “May I?” Mike asked, putting his hand out.

  “Careful, they come in pairs,” Mia said, handing him one dagger.

  Mike grabbed the hilt, and soon the other dagger flew out of Mia’s hand and joined the first, blade to blade. “Wow!” He handed them back. “Show me how they work.”

  Mia allowed her daggers to be absorbed and looked around in the moonlight to find something to demonstrate on. She walked over to where the Duprees had stacked some old fence posts. Mia set one post upright, securing it with the others on the ground. She walked back a few yards.

  “Romeo and Juliet,” she called. The daggers appeared in her hands. Mia tossed them at the post. One hit the post, and the other circled around back and joined the other dagger, splitting the post in two. “Romeo and Juliet,” Mia called, and the two daggers arrived back in her hand.

  Mike ran over and examined the post. He could see where the daggers met. “Amazing.”

  “Thank you, but it’s mostly magical. Although, I have a great aim.”

  The porch light went on.

  “What the blazes are you two doing outside?” Glenda asked from the open door.

  “Just playing with knives, Ma,” Mike responded.

  “You two get your behinds inside before I tan them,” she ordered.

  “Yes, Ma.”

  Mia followed Mike into the house.

  “Get cleaned up and into bed,” Glenda ordered. “Mia, you’re in the room next to the bathroom. I put your pack in there.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Dupree,” Mia said and climbed the stairs. She walked into her room and decided not to wear Cid’s tee. Pajamas seemed like the smarter choice. She walked out of her room and headed for the bathroom.

  “Mia,” Mike hissed from down the hall.

  Mia tiptoed across the landing to the open door.

  Mike stood there. “What do I do about the ghost?”

  “Surround your bed with salt.”

  “Mia, you really are amazing. I can see why Ted will think you’re a superhero.”

  “Thank you, Mike. Goodnight,” she said and walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Ted, who was sitting in the darkness on the steps to the third story, waited until Mia was safely in her room and had shut the door before he climbed the stairs and joined Cid in the guestroom. He had shadowed the two when they went outside, shivering in his bare feet while Mia and Mike talked. He never really bought that Mia and he were married until Mia expressed how she couldn’t now stand in his way. Such sacrifice convinced Ted that Mia was not a twelve-year-old. And when he saw her producing the knives, he knew that magic existed. This wasn’t just a wild adventure he and Cid were on. It was vitally important that Mia succeed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took a while for Orion and Wyatt to stop posturing and start listening. Sticks stood in the corner reminding Nicholai and Angelo to behave themselves. Nordin served a late-night meal and was removing the plates when Orion asked, “Is Mia possessed?”

  “Not in the way you think. I’ve looked into her mind and found truth in her story.”

  “What story?” Orion asked.

  “Mia claims that you and your wife purchased candles from a vendor at a farmers’ market. She instructed…”

  “I don’t have a wife,” Orion argued.

  “Please listen to the whole story, and I’ll answer any questions I can,” Wyatt said.

  Orion nodded.

  “Your wife instructed each of the party guests to take a candle and place it on the cake. The candles were lit, and as is the American custom, they were blown out as wishes were made. Harmless tradition unless someone plants a volo candle.”

  “Volo candle…” Orion thought a moment. “Oh dear, where…”

  “May I continue?” Wyatt asked, annoyed.

  “Sorry, please,” Orion said.

  “Mia, who maintains she was a thirty-two-year-old married woman with children, went to bed as one, but she woke up a twelve-year-old. No, she didn’t wish to be twenty years younger. She came to me when she needed help figuring out what happened. Evidently, we are friends in her time. We determined the cause, the volo candle, and then made a list in order to find out who made the wish that caused this situation. The magic can be reversed. If the candle is snapped in two by the wisher before the next full moon, time starts again at the point of the wish. We confirmed it wasn’t your wife - who is a delightful teenager by the way - and then created a ruse to get to you.”

  “So that’s why the book became available,” Orion confirmed before taking in that he married a woman in her thirties while he, a birdman, was well over 480 years of age.

  “Yes. You’re not the culprit, not even a stooge. We crossed you off the list,” he told Orion. “It was pointed out to me that I’m being constantly watched, so I had Stephen Murphy, a spirit friend of Mia’s, go with her to eliminate the others from her list and to find the volo.”

  Angelo cleared his voice. “May I speak?”

  “If you have to,” Wyatt said.

  “I’m sorry for my reaction when I first met Mia, but when the volo did its magic, it brought her whole mind back with it. Even though she was quick to block my entrance to her mind, I knew I had been there before. Confused, I thought it may have been a soul jumper who preys upon little girls. After I had calmed down, I knew that the mark I left was indeed a tracking mark, but put there out of love and not to warn others of a soul jumper.”

  “So, you were in love with her twenty years in the future?” Nordin asked.

  Angelo raised his hands. “How am I to answer that?”

  “Moving on, I see Orion’s eyebrows knitting. What is it you came all this way to tell me?” Wyatt asked.

  “I may have inadvertently, in my investigation into Mia Cooper, caused her to be put on the extermination list of the Council of Women.”

  “How?” Wyatt asked.

  Orion told the story of his conversation with Fredericka Cooper, ending with him listening at the window. “Her own grandmother ordered her to be killed. They weren’t pleased with the product of their manipulation, and now they can try again. But Mia must be removed before the Coopers have another child. Why? I think it’s because she would love the child and once more stop the creature from becoming a bitter, demon-hating assassin. Two Mias would attract attention. So, our Mia must die.”

  “We can protect her,” Wyatt said. “But I have to find her first. Angelo, does your tracker still work?”

  “I have no idea. It has a very short range. I didn’t feel her near until I landed at your house.”

  “There are two Others from an extermination squad watching this house. I don’t know if they know yet that she isn’t here. I don’t know how they would find her unless they can backtrack and find where I manipulated the weather. Anticipating this very thing, I landed them a good walk from their destination.”

  “Do you have the list of names?” Orion asked.

  “We have more than that. We also have the location, as of two days ago, for all but Burt Hicks.”

  “Burt Hicks?” Angelo questioned. “Is he a child?”

  “Maybe a teenager, why?”

  “I think there is a missing persons report out. Let me explain. My vocation is to save children from demons, monsters, both human and not. I have access to police reports. Birds bring me information. Let me call out, and we’ll see if Burt Hicks is still missing and where he went missing.”

  “Do you think the council already has him?” Wyatt asked.

  “I don’t know.” Angelo excused himself and walked out onto the balcony. His eyes searched the street where he saw the Others stan
ding in the shadows. He mentally called out to his little spies and gave them instructions before he walked back in. “There are Others out there. I think we can still work under the assumption that they think she is here.”

  “But for how long?” Wyatt worried.

  “I think we should follow the trail and see if we can be of assistance,” Orion said. “You, Wyatt, and your interesting henchman are welcome to join us.”

  “I think I’ll attract too much attention. You birdmen have a knack of moving unseen, where Sticks kind of stands out.”

  “He seems to be a lad of high caliber,” Nicholai said. “But he is young.”

  “There are no age requirements on heroes,” Nordin stated.

  “Gentlemen, because of his advanced age, my host is tired. You’re welcome to spend the night here. Nordin will make the arrangements. Sticks, thank you for your service. You have proven to be a friend in whatever dimension you are residing in.”

  Wyatt and Sticks left the room, Sticks for his trees and Wyatt for his bed. Nordin stood ready to either escort the birdmen out or prepare the guestrooms.

  “Nordin, may I ask an intrusive question?” Orion asked.

  “You can ask, but I reserve the right to not answer.”

  “Very well. Why were you in the park?”

  “We were assessing young Sticks’s qualifications as a suitor for Mia should it fall to her demon bloodline to protect her. Hybrids aren’t thought of very highly, and Wyatt thought that by having her bound in a marriage contract with an earth-residing demon who hadn’t come of age yet, he would be guaranteeing her safety from the demon race.”

  “But she’s human,” Angelo said.

  “She’s a quarter human, a quarter birdman, a quarter angel, and a quarter demon. I understand in her thirty-first year she exorcises the demon. I also understand she is transfused with superhuman blood and takes on crone DNA to fill the void left when the demon leaves. She is not human; she is all,” Nordin stated. “Sticks had no problem with taking on a creature like Mia.”

  “I think that is very admirable, but I don’t see Mia as damaged goods,” Nicholai spoke up. “She is the best of all of us. Sticks will be getting a good mate.”

  “No, no, no,” Angelo said. “I’m sorry but don’t we have as much claim to Mia through her grandfather? Orion, you may be needed to step up and claim her. If you do so, bind her to me,” Angelo requested.

  “Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves,” Orion protested. “I believe Mia may succeed in her quest. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure this happens. There is too much at stake. Not just a girl’s happiness but the balance. We must keep the world in balance or there will be no world.”

  ~

  Burt opened his eyes once again to the darkness. He looked at his watch and saw that it was late Friday night. He had been in the cell for four days. His stomach started holding food yesterday, but the previous trauma had left him too weak to work on chipping away more bricks. He did manage to rip down enough of the padding to make use of it on the floor to keep the chill off his injured hip. He was also tearing long strips of the wall covering and braiding them into stronger strips with the hope of making enough rope to help him escape from the cell when he was able. The material was mostly rotted, so he didn’t hold much hope in the endeavor.

  He did his best to dispose of his waste so that disease would not spread into his cold prison. He was running low on water but estimated he had two days before it would become a problem. There was liquid in the soups he had emptied in the two large thermoses thinking he would be feeding himself and Mike.

  Burt reran the last tape he recorded. The most he could record was forty-five minutes at a time. But still, it kept him occupied. Sitting in the dark was hard. He felt eyes bearing down on him. The employment of monitoring the content of these tapes helped him to keep his sanity. He knew better than to run his flashlights. He would reserve them for an emergency or to save them to try to attract someone to the window when he heard the cross-country bikes again in the valley below.

  The last tape didn’t have anything on it, so he set it up to tape again. Burt rued that this was not the age of digital recorders. There was a lot of technology out there in 1998, but for Burt, it was cost prohibitive. He was a high school senior with a paltry allowance and a part-time job at the grain elevator. He was always short on cash. Burt had always invested in his hobby that would become his career. Even after his team of amateurs had broken through into cable television with the help of Mia Cooper, there wasn’t much income. New equipment was the second priority, the first was resting lost souls and rescuing frightened homeowners.

  “Rule number one, never investigate alone,” Burt said. He put in the first tape he had made in the cell at night. He kept this tape because there was a voice on it. The voice was male and angry. Burt could not make out all the words, but bash, skull, and fungi came out very clearly. Tonight, Burt was going to work on deciphering the other words.

  A series of pings echoing in the building stopped Burt from pressing play. The pings and pops seemed to be coming closer. He kept an eye on the broken ceiling and the open hatch in the door. The room above lit up, and a multitude of glowing orbs swept down from above and bounced off the protected space the salt line gave him. The orbs regrouped and came at Burt en masse. They bounced off. This went on for ten more minutes. The intensity of the lights fell off with every attack. Soon they drifted out of the room via the open hatch.

  “Fabulous light show. Reminds me of little space ships.” He grabbed for a tape he had prepared for his observations and pressed record. “Just been visited by orbs. Ted, you’re so quick to discount orbs as dust particles and insects getting picked up in our night-vision recorders and flashes from our cameras. But I just witnessed what looked like…” he gave his report and sat back. There was a distant rumble. Could it be the gurney that periodically rolled back and forth down the hall? It wasn’t as steady as he had heard before, but energy was at a premium here at the asylum. A flash of light outside gave Burt another explanation. A spring thunderstorm was on its way.

  He was prepared. He got to his feet and took the tiny, flexible, plastic window he’d made out of the bag he was given when he purchased the batteries and pieces of wood that he splintered off the two-by-four. He jammed it in the space between the layers of bricks and adjusted the salt line. The last thing Burt needed was for a ghost to come in from the outside into his circle while he slept.

  This activity tired him out. He switched his tapes around and pressed record. He then did one sweep of the cell with his light before he extinguished it and let sleep take him.

  ~

  Mia was nervous, and her body reacted accordingly, making her bladder wake her up in the middle of the night. She slipped out of bed and opened her door a crack. There was no one about, so she walked quickly to the bathroom. She took her time appreciating the soft lines of color Glenda had added to the old farmhouse’s bathroom. She washed her hands and extinguished the light before she opened the door.

  A flash of light blinded her, and she stumbled. Another brought her to her knees. The rumble of thunder shook the house. Mia slid down the wall, bringing her knees to her chest. She put her head down and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  Cid was in the tiny bath upstairs, so Ted slid down the banister and headed for the second-floor bathroom. Lightning flashed through the high windows over the front door, momentarily blinding him. He would have tripped over Mia had he not heard the small whimper. He looked down to see the little ball made up of pajamas and white hair.

  Ted dropped to his knees. “Minnie mouse, what’s all this?” he asked.

  Mia sniffed and lifted her head. “Nothing good comes from lightning.”

  “True, it usually brings a weather front. Just when you get used to the cold, it brings a warm front. Which I believe is what this is. Unfortunately, it means we’re in for some rain. Good for the crops, but lousy for walking through a river valley.”


  “The demons travel in flashes of lightning,” Mia said. “But their bolts come up from below. Right now, out there in the prairie, is a line of Wanderers. They are the dead the storm picks up. They walk like zombies just ahead of the downpour. It’s important to not get in their way. They can hurt you. Once when I was a tot, I got caught out in the rain. I balled up and pretended to be a rock. One bumped into me and picked me up and carried me. By the time the storm’s energy played out, I was miles from my home.”

  “I’m not going to let the storm take you,” Ted said. “I may be a lot of things, but I’m handy in a pinch. Speaking of pinches…” He slipped a necklace he had made out of some bendy straws and silver duct tape over Mia’s head. “Inside is salt. You only have to pull this piece of duct tape off and you have salt. If you want to have it spray. Just put your mouth on one end and blow.”

  Mia looked at Ted’s invention and said, “Teddy Bear, you’re a genius.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “What’s it like in that big brain of yours? I tried to mind-read you once but couldn’t get by all the math.”

  Ted chuckled. “I think in code, or so my father says. He said when I was a little shaver, I lined up all the alphabet blocks and then vocalized the binary code for each letter. He thought I was slow. Instead of voicing A, I said 01000001. B was 01000010 and so on. It wasn’t until he related it to his friends at work did he find out I wasn’t slow at all but a genius.”

  “I wonder how many kids were put on the small bus when they should have been attending Harvard?” Mia mused. “Our son Brian is smart. Varden is more athletic, but he’s talking early like Brian, so I think he is also like his father. Your genes are very strong. We also have an adopted teenaged son named Dieter. He’s from Nigeria, and he’s an Attrpeur-âme, a catcher of souls. We met him when he helped us out with a house that fell into a pocket dimension.”

  “Pocket dimension?” Ted said. “But how?”

  “I don’t know, you figured it out,” Mia said. “You’ve got a ways to go yet. Stay in school, Batman.”