by Martha Carr
“What?”
“It probably doesn’t know we’re here,” Emily added. “But we heard the drumming outside. It’s up to something.”
“This is the worst timing ever.” Nickie put a hand to her forehead and let out a little laugh. “I have to play the lullaby, don’t I?”
“Not with all these people here. We need to get them out, then you can play, and we’ll be ready.”
“Okay.” Nickie swallowed. “I’m gonna…” She headed away from them, then turned back and blinked at her sisters as Chuck walked around a couple and came up behind her. “I’m gonna get Chuck out first,” she mouthed at them.
Laura nodded. “We’ll take care of everyone else.”
Nickie turned away from them and toward Chuck, who gave her a frown of concern.
“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ears.
She nodded and smiled at him. “Yeah. I think that migraine’s coming back.”
“I’ll go talk to Tina—”
“No. Don’t do that.” She grabbed his hands and looked up into his blue eyes, trying to ignore the pounding of the drums in her head. “I’m gonna keep going. I do need a really big favor from you, though.”
“Sure.”
“Can you go to the CVS and grab me this bottle. It’s like… aspirin and acetaminophen and Benadryl all mixed together in one. That’s really the only thing that’s been helping. Some places don’t have it, so you might have to go check out a few.”
“That actually exists?”
Man, I hate having to lie to him. “Yeah. I took the last one I had earlier today. I’m gonna keep playing. I think I can hold on a little longer, but I’d really like to have those in case it gets worse.”
“Yeah, whatever you need.” Chuck pulled her in for a tight hug. “Must be a really bad one.”
Nickie let out a wry chuckle. “Pretty much the worst.”
He kissed the top of her head and pulled away. “Yeah, I’ll go find that stuff for you. Aspirin, acetaminophen…”
“And Benadryl. Yeah.” They nodded at each other.
“Okay. Okay. But if it gets bad, don’t try to push through it, all right? I know you really enjoy playing here…” He glanced around at the inside of Soapy Days and the small crowd who’d come to watch Nickie Hadstrom on a Monday. “But it’s just a laundromat. Most people don’t know about it. Most people won’t know if you have to pull out, okay?”
“Yeah, I know. Hopefully I won’t have to.”
“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed her again and moved through the crowd and rows of chairs toward the door.
Nickie’s hand shook as she raised it to her pounding temple. When Chuck opened the door out onto the sidewalk, she heard the drums all too clearly. Her head jerked up to find her sisters, both of whom stared outside after Chuck. They looked at Nickie with grim expressions.
Nickie watched as Chuck’s car pulled away from the street, and she knew he was safe for now. Looking for a nonexistent bottle of pain-relievers will keep him away while we handle this.
She walked toward her sisters, knowing her five-minute break was almost up. “That was fast,” Emily said.
“Yeah. He’ll be gone for a while. You guys figure out how to get everybody out of here without mass hysteria?”
“Not yet.” Laura glanced through the windows again. The drums were louder, closer, and all three sisters expected to find themselves up against the Gorafrex any minute. “You think you could ask Tina for a favor? Get her to tell everyone there’s a leak in the—”
A car horn blasted in one long, loud honk, followed by squealing tires, a huge crash, and the crunching of metal.
Emily blinked. “That doesn’t sound good.”
30
Everyone inside the laundromat heard the crash, too, and they were too curious to ignore it. They filtered out of the Soapy Days, Tina included. “You guys heard that, right?” she asked, shooting the sisters a wide-eyed glance.
“Yeah, what happened?” Nickie asked.
“No clue.”
The Hadstrom sisters were the last to step through the door. The sidewalks flooded with people now as everyone who’d heard the noise stopped to check it out.
Emily pointed, though she didn’t have to. “Did that semi just hit three cars and the building?”
“Looks like it. That’s a bar on the corner, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Nickie frowned. “I hope everyone’s okay.”
“Chuck’s car is silver, right?” Emily asked.
“Yeah. I thought the same thing. He’s not in one of those cars.”
“Good.” Laura took a deep breath and tightened her grip around the dagger in her hand. “We might be able to—”
The drums rose again, much closer and much louder.
Nickie winced and ducked her head. “Well, everyone’s out of the laundromat. Should we do this?”
“Yeah. Come on.” Laura nodded toward Soapy Days, and her sisters followed.
“We need to make this quick.” Nickie stepped inside as Laura held the door open for her. “This is getting as bad as the last one. Probably worse, since that thing’s so damn near.”
“Okay. Just…sit on the stage.” Laura helped her toward the low step.
“Here.” Emily jumped up on stage to grab Nickie’s Strat and hand it to her. “Play your heart out, sis. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Nickie let out a dry laugh and swallowed. “Here goes.” She closed her eyes and focused on the pounding, furious drumbeat. Her fingers moved over the frets, the pick in her right hand fluidly strumming, and the chords to their Dad’s lullaby fell into the rhythm of the drumbeat. The second she started humming, the drums both her sisters could also hear grew even louder.
“Yeah, I think that got its attention.” Emily turned toward the wall of windows and watched red and blue flashing lights streak toward the crash; the patrol car’s emergency siren wasn’t even close to the volume of those drums.
“Don’t stop,” Laura shouted over the noise.
Nickie couldn’t have stopped anyway. The headache was gone, but the drums beat fiercely in her head, over and over, pushing her to play the song made distinctly for the Gorafrex’s rhythm.
More people trickled past on the sidewalk, heading toward the massive accident to gawk. Yet, one woman moved down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. She walked slowly, deliberately, and stopped to peer through the windows into the laundromat.
“That’s her,” Laura shouted. “That’s the second host.”
The woman faced the sisters square on with a nasty sneer. Blood covered the woman’s cream-colored blouse, staining it almost black, some of it splashed up her neck and the underside of her chin.
“What happened?” Emily glanced at her sister as their dad’s lullaby and Nickie’s playing filled the air. “That’s not her blood, right?”
Laura shook her head. “Can’t be. The human’s pretty much invincible until the Gorafrex checks out. So…that’s gotta be someone else’.”
The Gorafrex-possessed woman eyed the three witches like a hungry predator watching its prey before the kill. Her eyes began to glow with opalescent light.
“It needs to switch hosts again. We need to draw it in and keep it in here long enough to catch it. Keep playing, Nickie.”
Nickie, of course, didn’t have to be told. She was in her own world, snared by the magic of the first Hadstrom on this ship who’d played the same song to put the Gorafrex away so many millennia ago.
The woman outside leaned close to the glass and flared her nostrils, like she was taking a big whiff of the three witches inside. The loud drumming now gave Laura and Emily headaches, too, but they held ground.
“Come on!” Emily shouted, motioning for the woman to come inside.
The woman’s head whipped to the side, her attention caught by something. She ran away down the sidewalk.
&nb
sp; “What?” Laura raced to the door and jerked it open, Emily on her heels. Nickie kept playing as the two sisters caught a fleeting glimpse of the woman disappear around the corner. They took off after her, but before they rounded the side of the building into the parking lot, a bright red flash cast two shadows against the building across the street. The drums cut off, and all they heard were sirens and their own heavy breathing.
Laura and Emily dashed around the corner and stopped, trying to catch their breath and find the Gorafrex at the same time. “Where is it?” Laura gasped. The huge parking lot behind the strip of storefronts, restaurants, and businesses was empty but for cars filling the parking spots. “It can’t just disappear, right?”
“Did you see two shadows when that red light flashed?” Emily bent over and rested her hands on her thighs, taking huge breaths. “Man, I was not prepared for running tonight.”
“Yeah, I saw them.” Breathing a little easier, Laura took a tentative step into the parking lot. “There were two people here. Now there’s no one.”
“What’s that?”
Laura turned to look at her sister. “What?”
“That. Right in front of you.” Emily straightened and pointed to the asphalt at Laura’s feet.
“Oh, no.” Taking a few slow steps forward, Laura reached down to grasp what looked like an ordinary stick. The minute her fingers wrapped around it, her silver ring and the stick flashed with a dull light. “Em, it’s a wand.”
“No…”
Turning, Laura lifted the wand as proof. “Whoever this was, witch or wizard, must’ve been drawn to the drumming—if that’s what the elf meant when he told Nickie about it.”
Emily grimaced and shook her head. “That thing just ignored us and ran here to grab another witch? Why?”
“I don’t know.” Laura sniffed at the air. “But I’m sure the Gorafrex took the owner of this wand.”
“I smell it. It’s definitely human magic.” Emily pushed her hair away from her face. “This is worse than slipping into a few humans and waking up their peabrains, isn’t it?”
“A lot worse. That thing’s got one of us.” They stared at each other. “Nickie…”
“Oh, crap.”
The sisters raced out of the lot and down the sidewalk to the laundromat. Laura flung the door open and let out a huge breath of relief.
“Is she okay?” Emily asked, stepping inside behind her.
“Well, she’s here. Nickie?”
The Strat lay on the stage beside her. Nickie sat with her legs splayed, forearms resting on her thighs, her head hanging all the way between them. “Hey…” Her head swayed a little, like she’d tried to lift it but couldn’t even manage that.
Emily went to the stage and knelt in front of her sister. “You okay?”
“Just…really tired.” Nickie sighed and started to tip sideways.
“Whoops.” Her younger sister grabbed her shoulders and kept her upright. “Okay. Let’s get you home.”
“Did we get it?” Nickie groaned a little, and one of her arms slipped off her thigh.
“No. No, it…” Emily turned to look at Laura, who mouthed, ‘Later’. “It… got away.”
“But we wouldn’t have gotten as close as we did without you.” Laura knelt beside Emily. “That was excellent, by the way.”
“What…”
“Okay, come on.” Together, Laura and Emily helped lift Nickie from the stage and shuffled her across the laundromat.
“Is this supposed to happen?” Emily whispered.
“No clue.”
They got Nickie to Laura’s car and settled her into the passenger seat. “Hey, grab her gear.”
“Oh.” Emily nodded curtly. “Yeah, she’d kill us if we left her stuff.” She darted inside, then came out with both iron daggers in hand. “Can’t leave these, either.”
“Yeah. Wanna stick one in the glovebox? Keep the other one with you. Just in case.”
Emily tried not to open the compartment too hard against Nickie’s knees, tucked one inside, then stared at the last dagger. “Better to be safe, I guess. See you at home?”
“Yep.”
Emily shut the passenger door and went back into the still-empty laundromat to grab the amp, microphone, cords, and her sister’s guitar.
Laura threw on the blinker and waited to pull away from the curb through a lineup of vehicles. She turned around on the street, away from the blockade in the intersection, emergency lights, and gawking pedestrians.
“At least nobody saw us.” She lowered her hand to her lap and patted the wand left behind by the Gorafrex’s victim. “We’ll find your owner,” she whispered.
She saw Tina and Emily talking outside the laundromat. Tina frowned in empathy and took the amp from Emily to help her load Nickie’s gear into the Honda. Then Laura’s phone rang.
“Oh, jeez.” She slowed down to reach toward the floor in front of Nickie and snag her phone from her purse. “Sorry, sis. I have to answer.” She accepted the call and put it on speaker. “Hey, Chuck.”
“Laura, hey. I’m glad you answered. Look, Nickie asked me to go out and get her this certain kind of pain-reliever. I’m not finding it anywhere. Thought maybe you could help me out?”
“Um, I’m actually driving her home right now.”
“What? Is she okay?”
“I think so. She uh…” Laura looked at Nickie, whose head lolled. She wasn’t listening. Laura bit her lip, then lied. “She puked.”
“On stage?”
“Oh, no. No. In the bathroom, right after you left. Then there was this huge car crash just on the corner, and that pretty much took everyone’s attention. Kind of perfect timing, honestly. I mean, unfortunate and all, but, well, you know.” She frowned and glanced again at Nickie, whose head rested against the window. A tiny snore escaped her. “She said she just wanted to go lie down. Sorry. I should’ve called you.”
“No, that’s okay. Can I…can I do anything? Bring over some soup or something?”
“We got it. Thanks, Chuck.”
“Yeah, sure.” He paused. “Can I talk to her?”
“Oh, um…” Laura pulled the phone away from her and faked a few dry heaves. “Probably not right now.”
“Ugh. Sounds bad. Man, that sucks. Tell her to call me when she feels better, okay?”
“I will. Thanks for being awesome.”
He laughed through the phone. “Uh, you too.”
Laura dropped her phone into her purse and gripped the steering wheel with a sigh. “I get why you just don’t think too far into the future in relationships,” she told her snoozing sister, who kept snoring. “That’s a lot of work, covering up with non-magical excuses.” She reached out to rub her sister’s shoulder. “I hope you can handle it.”
Once again, Emily pulled up in her Honda only a minute after Laura had parked her Taurus outside their house. “This might be the first time I approve of you driving so fast,” Laura said as they helped Nickie up the porch steps toward the front door.
Emily laughed. “Thanks? Watch this step.” Nickie stumbled a little inside the front door, and her sisters stopped to look up at the discouraging number of stairs at the end of the foyer. “Just go with the couch tonight?”
“Yeah, that’s probably safer.” They half carried Nickie into the living room and lowered her onto the couch. Emily grabbed one of their throw blankets from the back of an armchair and covered her sister with it. Nickie moaned a little and curled up into the back of the couch. “Think that’s enough?”
Emily raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, I think she’d sleep naked down here without any blankets and wouldn’t notice the difference.”
Laura frowned. “Yeah, we’re not gonna do that.”
“Nope.”
Speed trotted around the corner from the mudroom, his short tongue dangling from his mouth. “Hey, buddy.” Emily knelt to give him a pat hello, and he sat to enjoy the attention. Then she stood and eyed Nickie. “You think you can watch—” The
bulldog sprang with uncharacteristic agility up onto the couch, spun around in a few quick circles, and curled up behind Nickie’s legs.
“Speed…” Laura laughed in surprise. “Did you know he could do that?”
Emily folded her arms and shot the bulldog a playful frown. “Not even a little. He makes me pick him up every night and put him on my bed. You’ve been playing me, dog.” Speed snorted in response and closed his eyes. “Yeah, you’ll do for a guard dog, I guess.”
The sisters stepped out of the living room to let Nickie and Speed sleep. They spent the next ten minutes lugging all of Nickie’s gear into the house from Emily’s car. Laura grabbed the wand belonging to the kidnapped witch or wizard, and they set all of it just off the foyer in the small living room.
“You brought that dagger home, right?” Laura asked, pulling out a chair to sit at the dining-room table for maybe the third time since they’d bought it.
“Yeah, it’s still in my car.”
“Mine too. Good place to keep it for now, I think.”
“And we still have weapons at home.” Emily sat and gestured with exaggerated flare toward the long iron lance and the two spheres on the table. “You think the Gorafrex didn’t step inside to face us ‘cause we didn’t have all the weapons? Like, if your ring helped you make them, they’re probably important.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Laura eyed the abandoned wand in front of her. “I think it was about to come inside, but it got distracted by whoever owns that wand. It’s kinda weird that every time we get close, something comes up at the last second to help that thing get away.”
“I mean, there are a lot of witches and wizards in Austin. Even more humans.” Emily snorted. “It’s not really that weird that people keep showing up when we’re trying to recapture the most dangerous creature on this ship. Probably.”
“I know. It’s just frustrating. But you bring up a good point.”
“Oh, I did, huh?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” Laura smiled. “But I honestly don’t know if we would’ve been able to stop that thing with just two daggers and Nickie stuck in her musical-wormhole thing. I can’t shake the feeling we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle here.”
