Crash.
I shot straight up, blurry-eyed but most definitely awake. How long had I been asleep? The light from the streetlamps filtering through the window told me it had been at least a couple of hours. The television was going haywire—first with static and then with wild, zigzagging lines. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes the crash was repeated by a louder one. What the hell?
The phone—where was the phone? I couldn’t remember where I’d left it, and I hadn’t turned on the lights before I fell asleep. I had to get to the phone in the kitchen. As I stood, a wave of vertigo raced through me. Could we be having an earthquake? I felt for a rolling under my feet, but the room itself was steady. Just then, a swirl of energy shifted and a vortex sucked me in, a dark and swirling whirlpool of chaos.
“What the hell…” Even as I spoke, I knew where the movement was coming from. Mr. B & U was on the prowl. I had to get out of this house. Mist had risen, blinding everything around me, and even my thoughts clouded over. Another wave hit and sent me reeling. Too dizzy to stand, I grabbed the arm of the sofa and lowered myself to my hands and knees.
Get to the kitchen… I had to get to the kitchen. Why? The phone, that’s right. I needed to get to the phone.
More crashing from upstairs. Then, after a lull, other sounds came from my room—scratching noises—fingernails screeching on chalkboards. Footsteps raced across the ceiling as a series of knocks reverberated through the walls. What was up there? So far Mr. B & U had been nebulous, without much form, but this… this sounded solid. Had he managed to manifest? Was there some monster, some hobgoblin, crawling around my house, looking for me? And then, then I knew. The mirror had been a portal, and when he managed to break it, he was free to come through.
Inch by inch, I forced my way to the kitchen. The bruise on my knee burned brightly as I reeled with every movement. By the time I reached the archway, I was drenched with sweat. As I slid onto the cool kitchen tiles, something skittered loudly, racing back and forth overhead and I ducked, wondering if it would come crashing through the ceiling onto me.
Moonlight reflected into the pantry through the curtains over the kitchen sink. I debated. I could either try for the alcove or try to make it to the door. But if I went outside, I’d be barefoot, without my keys or purse. Could I make it over to Horvald’s? The ice was so slick and I was so confused that I didn’t know if I could manage to reach his house.
Another crash. Goddamn, couldn’t anybody hear this from the street? If I heard crashes coming from a neighbor’s house I’d be calling the cops.
The noises were near the stairs now, and I began to panic. How long before Mr. B & U came downstairs and found me? In the dim light from the window, I caught sight of the phone and grabbed the receiver, praying for a dial tone. I sat on the floor, back pressed against the wall, trying to punch in Andrew’s number. I was so nervous that I had to dial twice before I got it right. Meanwhile, I kept my eye on the living room door and one ear trained on the noises coming from upstairs.
Andrew came on the line, and in hushed whispers I spilled my fear into the receiver. “Can you come over right away? There’s something in the house here and I can’t get to the door.”
“Call the police—just do it! I don’t care if you’re afraid of looking psycho—dial 911. I’m out the door.” The click of the receiver promised that he was on his way, but could he get here in time?
Should I call the cops? What could they do? Call in a priest? But maybe, just maybe, their presence would make it stop long enough for me to get out of here. I dialed 911. The emergency operator was so calm that her voice gave me strength. I told her that there was someone in my house. She dispatched a unit and I hung up, praying that they would get here soon.
Thump, thump, thump. The noise was on the stairs now. Shit, I had to get out of here. I eyeballed the door to the backyard, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself crawl even that short distance to freedom. Confused by the kaleidoscope of energy that assailed my senses, it was all I could do to drag myself into the pantry and curl up in the corner. I wiped my nose and looked around for a weapon, but the only thing I could find were canned goods. I stacked a few cans of peaches in front of me, thinking I could throw them if nothing else.
What had Nanna taught me about psychic attack? I struggled to remember her words through the cacophony that sounded around me. Oh, yes—build a wall of energy between the attacker and me. I caught my breath, struggling to remain calm.
“Nanna, if ever I needed your help, I need it now.” My whisper was lost in the rush of noise that raced through the walls, through the floor, but it must have gotten through to the other side, because I felt a gentle hand rest on my shoulder as a faint whiff of lilac perfume embraced me. The presence didn’t last long—just for a few seconds—but it was enough to steady my nerves and give me the strength I needed to envision a wall of light stretching across the pantry door, a wall I hoped would keep out anything supernatural, anything that meant to harm me.
The noise was snuffling around in the living room now, coming closer.
I closed my eyes, pushing myself back into the corner as far as I could go. I had done what I could, set up a warding that might or might not keep Mr. B & U out. Grateful that my children were safe, I swallowed my tears and straightened my shoulders. Murray would take care of them. How had it come to this? How and why? I had tried to help, had tried to do what felt right. Was this going to be it? Here, on the floor of my pantry?
Damn it, I thought—no! I wasn’t going out without a fight.
I struggled to my feet, leaning heavily on the shelf next to me. Maybe I could make it out, could let adrenaline push me through the haze, but if I moved now, I would draw the attention of whatever was out there in the living room. I was out of time—I couldn’t make it outside before the mayhem broke into the kitchen.
The noises in the living room grew louder. A booming started up, vibrating the walls with thuds and high-pitched squeals of glee as whispers began to cascade amid the thundering. I straightened my shoulders. Mr. B & U would have to drag me screaming into the abyss if he wanted me. As the voices neared the kitchen doorway, I heard something in the background. At first I couldn’t make it out through the din around me, but then it was clear and bright—a sound so sweet that I almost cried. Sirens, wailing into my driveway.
There was a sudden hush from the living room as the energy pulled back, rolling away from the kitchen like an ebb tide, away from me, away from the house. As the police broke through the back door, the lights came on in a dizzying flash and I cried out once.
I DON’T FAINT. In fact, I’d only fainted once in my life. But the sudden release of fear made my blood pressure drop. The moment I saw the officer’s face peering into the pantry, I keeled over, deadweight.
By the time the medics had arrived and I managed to come around, Andrew was standing behind them, pale and drawn. When I opened my eyes and croaked out, “What happened?” he took a deep breath and slumped against the doorway.
“You’ll be all right; your leg looks banged up and you cut your lip. Otherwise, I can’t find anything wrong with you. Your blood pressure is a little high but not dangerous.”
“What time is it?” I scooted back against one of the shelves.
Andrew checked his watch. “About 9:00 p.m.”
One of the policemen knelt down beside me. “Ms. O’Brien—could you tell us what, if anything, you saw and heard?”
“Is my house completely trashed?” I wanted to help them but couldn’t focus until I knew the extent of the damage.
The cop exchanged glances with Andrew, but I couldn’t read what they were thinking. Then he turned back to me. “No; in fact, nothing appears to be out of place.”
Andrew joined him. He reached out to take my hand. “Everything’s okay, Em, not a scratch in the house, nothing broken, nothing overturned.”
“That’s impossible. I had heard them wrecking my house. It sounded like a freight train was rumbl
ing through the rooms—”
The cop broke in. “We’re not sure what happened, Ms. O’Brien, but we found no signs of any intruder. Maybe it was bad plumbing? That can sound pretty bad. Noises always sound louder at night.” He flipped his notebook shut and I could tell that this was going to be his official explanation.
“If you could just help me into the living room…”
The medics shrugged and helped me up. Andrew pushed by them and lifted me in his arms, carrying me gently to the sofa. “I rather like rescuing you,” he said softly.
The younger of the two paramedics grinned. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” I shook my head. “Then please sign this form stating that we showed up and you feel okay and we’re free to go.”
“Don’t worry,” I grumbled as he handed me the pen. “You aren’t going to get sued, and I’m not holding you liable for whatever happens to me because I didn’t let you strap me to a stretcher.” I scribbled my name across the bottom.
They gathered up their gear and followed the cops out of the house. I wondered just what the neighbors would be thinking now—cop cars and Medic One units, all with lights flashing in front of my house in the dark winter night.
Andrew saw them to the door, then returned to the living room, where I was gingerly examining my freshly purpled knee. I’d be okay, but crawling across the floor hadn’t helped the bruises any. Definitely no marathons in the near future. I tried to shake off the ringing in my ears and the tingling that jolted every nerve in my body as I looked around the room.
Everything was in its place; nothing had been upset or tipped over. After what I had heard, I expected every knickknack to be on the floor, broken. But if a tornado had roared through my house, there was no sign of it now. I glanced out the window, but it was so dark that I couldn’t see anything. Bad plumbing, my ass.
“You can’t stay here, so don’t give me any grief about it, woman. I’m taking you home with me.” Andrew snagged my coat from the hallway.
“He was coming for me.” I mutely accepted the coat and slid into it. “Mr. B & U was headed straight for me. He would have killed me.” Andrew helped me with my boots.
“Yeah.” His voice was thready. “I could hear what was going on when you called me on the phone. I was terrified that I was going to find you dead.”
I couldn’t help it, I began to cry, tears boiling up from the anger and fear that the evening had wrought. “I’m sick of it. I don’t want to run away, I won’t let that creature have control over my house! I just want whatever this is to go away.”
“Ssshh… Murray will come over tomorrow, and then you can take care of it and the kids can come home.”
I called Murray and told her where I’d be and why. Then, leaning heavily on his shoulder, I let him help me out to his car. As we pulled out of the driveway onto the glittering street, I took a last look at my house. Yeah, I was running away tonight, but Murray and I would be back, and we’d kick some ghostly ass.
* * *
Chapter Twenty
THE DAY WAS more hectic than I thought possible. The only bright spot was the hour I got to spend with Miranda and Kip at the shop before White Deer picked them up to take them back to Murray’s after school let out. Miranda was irritable. She wanted to come home. “Mom, when are things going to get back to normal?”
“We’re doing our best. If things go right, after tonight you’ll be able to come home and so will the cats.” I promised that Murray and I would be careful. I only hoped that I would be able to keep my word.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened the door, but the house seemed relatively quiet. Murray slipped in behind me and opened her backpack. She piled an assortment of little packages on the kitchen counter. Dried lavender for peace of mind; black peppercorns to drive out evil; cedar for purification; and dragon’s blood resin, which boiled like blood when dropped on hot charcoal. She added a small package of gum mastic, a resin that helped open the mind to peer into other realms; a packet of jasmine flowers; and a tiny box containing red sandal-wood powder.
“I have some of these, you know.” I picked up the gum mastic, staring at the pale translucent droplets, each no bigger than the end of a pencil eraser. “This stuff’s insanely expensive.”
“We won’t need much. And I thought it was better if I brought everything just in case you were out of some of them.”
“This isn’t all Native American medicine. You’re mixing traditions now?” I grinned at her; she’d been the one to insist that it was time to “go back to her roots” several years earlier.
She blushed. “Well, I talked it over with White Deer. She convinced me that you have to use what works, whether or not it’s part of your path.”
“Umm-hmm… good lesson.”
Murray ground up dragon’s blood, peppercorns, sage, and gum mastic into a fine powder. She used my coffee bean grinder to do so, and I immediately jotted a note on the dry erase board hanging on the fridge to buy a new one. She looked up from the concoction she was making. “Do you have any Florida water?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking about the stash of herbs and other oddities that I stored in a little cupboard in the pantry. Not everything fit into Nanna’s trunk. I fished through the cupboard. Rose water and lavender water, there—another bottle of Florida water bought from a Santeria shop in Seattle. “Here we go. Time to lure Mr. B & U out of hiding.”
“Right. Then we perform the exorcism. After we drive him out, we close the portal using the energy from this incense I’m making.” She frowned, making sure that all the ingredients had been powdered to dust. She opened a small container and tapped a white powder into the incense. Saltpeter, to provide some sparks when the incense hit the charcoal burner.
“Sounds lovely… sounds hard. Where did you put the incantations I gave you?”
“I rewrote them on index cards and stuck them in your grandmother’s journal. While I ask the spirits to bless the incense, why don’t you get everything else ready? The journal is back in the trunk.” She closed her eyes and began to chant in her tribal language. I couldn’t understand the words, but the power behind them was chilling.
Murray had tucked two sets of cards into the journal. I had translated Nanna’s ritual and adapted it for our use, making sure both the ritual and the chants were easy to remember. Basically, it was a directive to “get out and stay out.” By the time I had everything ready, Murray joined me. She tapped the powdered herbs into a small jar and fixed the lid on.
I took a deep breath as she gave me the same look she used to in college when we were about to pull some incredibly stupid stunt. “Ready?”
“No, but that’s never stopped us before.” I tucked the book and water into a bag for easy carrying. She added the incense and draped the bag over her shoulder. The stairs looked overly steep, though I knew it was just my reluctance to attack the spirit. “Lead the way.”
“Ready to rumble?” she asked, putting her foot on the first step.
My stomach burbled. “Sounds like it. Let’s go.” As we neared my bedroom door, I wondered just how we were going to convince Mr. B & U to show up. “It isn’t quite like calling a dog… Here, boy, come here, boy,” I said.
Murray stopped a couple of yards away from my room and nodded toward the door. “I don’t think you need to worry. I think he’s waiting for us.”
I followed her nod. A faint blue light glowed from beneath the door. “What the hell?” Torn, wanting nothing more than to turn around, go back downstairs, and get out of this house, I leaned against the wall and made sure that I’d affixed the seax dagger onto my belt. The weight hung, comforting, against the gauze of my skirt. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m tired of being afraid.”
“Wait.” She fumbled in the bag and pulled out the Florida water, yanking the stopper with her teeth. She handed me the bottle and picked up the bag with Nanna’s book and the incense in it. When we were ready, she opened the door.
The e
ntire room oozed with tendrils of neon-blue light.
Thick, with an oily feel that slid over the skin, the light seeped into the corners and pillowed like thick, viscous lava. Startled, I pulled back. Murray slipped past me and placed a censer on the end table near the door. She dropped the ouroboros into the brazier and then struck a match to a charcoal round, which she placed atop of the pendant. After the charcoal had lit, she sprinkled a good pinch of the incense on top.
Light emanated from behind the vanity, where it flowed out from an oval-shaped opening right where my mirror had been. Here it was at its brightest, and my eyes hurt when I looked directly at the vortex. Like a blowtorch, I thought, but I really didn’t look forward to meeting the welder. A thin mist filled the room, hovering over the light. We moved forward, one step at a time, until we were standing in the middle of the room.
A line of goose bumps rose on my arms, and I shivered. The acid reflux level in my stomach warned me that I was well on my way to an ulcer. Oh, God, if I could be anywhere but right there, but I didn’t have a choice. Nobody else could clear out this room, nobody else could undo the damage that Kip’s spell had caused. Murray and I were on our own. I tried to push down the swelling panic—spirits, like dogs, responded to the scent of fear, and my pheromones were dripping with it. I cautiously loosened the dagger for easy access while keeping one eye on the vortex. The door slammed shut behind us, and we both jumped.
“Shit!” Murray looked over her shoulder, but I was too scared of what lay in front of us to turn around.
I hissed at her to catch her attention. “What do you see?”
She gulped. “Nothing. Nothing at all. The door just slammed by itself. I gotta tell you, Em, my respect for you just shot up 100 percent. If what you went through last night was half as scary as this, then just the fact that you actually stepped back into this house makes you a hero in my eyes.” She opened the book, flipping the pages until she found the cards with the ritual I had prepared.
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