“I don’t use familiars, they’re too unreliable. How did it get in there?”
“Beats me. You should look for it when you get there.”
“I will.” She sounded annoyed. “In fact, why don’t you meet me there? I want to go over what I’ve learned and it’ll be easier to do that face-to-face. Bring Olivia if you can.”
“Okay, we’ll head right over.” Olivia nodded her agreement. “She’ll vanish when Dara wakes up, though,” I reminded her.
“That’s fine, we’ll deal with that when it happens. I’ll see you soon.”
“All right. Goodbye.” I hung up, feeling vaguely uneasy. “If that cat is Prescott’s familiar, we can’t let it see Dara in demon form. But if I wake her up to get her to disguise herself as a human, you’ll disappear.”
“Maybe she’ll stay asleep while we’re gone,” Olivia suggested hopefully.
“Maybe.” I doubted it. Lilith was going to wake up soon and when she did, she’d get Daraxandriel up as well. The clock was ticking. “Let’s go. We need to find out what Mrs. Kendricks is planning.”
I unlocked the bathroom door and hurried to Susie’s room, tapping on her door before poking my head inside. “Susie?” She was at her desk soldering something again.
“What?” she said without looking up.
“I need you to keep Dara indoors until I get back. Agent Prescott has a familiar watching the house.”
She paused and looked over her shoulder. “A familiar?”
“A black cat. I saw it yesterday.”
“A black cat? Seriously?” she snorted scornfully and turned back to her labors. “No imagination.”
“Regardless, can you keep Dara inside for me?”
“Lilith says I’m not your slave.”
“Did Lilith say anything about not doing everything Lilith says either?” I snapped irritably.
Susie paused thoughtfully. “No.”
“Look, I’m in a hurry. Just do it, please? I’ll even pay you. That way you’re not my slave.”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Deal. Call me if anything happens.” She shrugged noncommittally. “Thanks,” I said dryly. I shooed Olivia back out into the hallway and hurried towards the front door.
“Can I drive?” Olivia asked me hopefully, jogging along beside me.
“No. I don’t need you disappearing in the middle of an intersection.” I paused at the end of the hall and peered around the corner into the kitchen. Dad was nowhere in sight. “The coast is clear. Let’s go.”
26
I sometimes wonder why people have children. Back in the old days, you needed a constant supply of new bodies to do all the work that needed to be done and replace the ones that died from accidents or disease. Nowadays, the average life expectancy is over 80, at least here in the US, and machines take care of a lot of the hard labor. We don’t really need children to keep things going anymore.
Children are also time-consuming and expensive. The cost of raising a child to adulthood is nearly a quarter of a million dollars now and I strongly suspect that most parents never recoup their investment. They’d be a lot better off if they just took all that money and stuck it in an index fund for twenty years
Sure, people talk about the joys of parenthood, but children are just a never-ending series of headaches and crises from the get-go, from diapers and teething, to walking and potty-training, to adolescence and driving lessons, to college and jobs and marriage and grandkids and divorce and on and on and on. The problems never go away, they just evolve and mutate over time.
Medical science figured out what causes pregnancy a long, long time ago and there are a wide variety of options for preventing it, the misguided views of certain religious groups notwithstanding. There’s really no excuse for anyone to have unplanned children these days, unless alcohol was involved. Or Netflix.
I parked beside Mrs. Kendricks’ BMW and jumped out, getting halfway up the steps to the front door before I realized that Olivia was still sitting in the car. I ran back down and opened the passenger door for her.
“We’re in a bit of a hurry, you know,” I reminded her irritably.
“There’s always time to be polite,” she insisted, stepping out and carefully settling her nightgown around her legs.
“I’ll be sure to say please to Agent Prescott when I beg him not to kill Dara. Come on.” I took the steps two at a time and reached the top without breaking a sweat or even breathing hard, which was something of a surprise given my generally sedentary lifestyle. Olivia followed at a more sedate pace. “Why are you going so slow?”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“About what?”
“Well, about Mrs. Whatshername. What if she decides that the best way to help Dara is to banish me or something?” Olivia was a lot harder to see out in the morning light but there was no mistaking her uneasy expression.
“She wouldn’t do that,” I assured her. “She’s trying to help both of you.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I mean, why is she helping us? That Prescott guy isn’t and he’s a witch or a warlock or whatever, right?”
“Well –” That was actually a good question. Mrs. Kendricks was helping mostly because I asked her to, but that was back when she was still trying to get me into her bed. Now that that option was off the table, I couldn’t help but wonder if she might be having second thoughts about saving a demon. “Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine.” I really hoped I was telling the truth.
We reached the doors and I tried to open one, but it was locked. The others were equally immobile. “I guess they’re not open yet. Mrs. Kendricks must have gone in through the side door.”
“I’ll check.” Olivia steeled herself and walked through the nearest door, leaving me alone on the landing. She reappeared a few seconds later. “The lights are on,” she reported, “and that cat was sitting on the star again. It ran off.” She sounded peeved at that.
“I’ll call Mrs. Kendricks and let her know we’re here.” I pulled out my phone and then froze in surprise. A black cat sat at the far side of the landing with its tail wrapped around its feet, glowering at us with narrowed yellow eyes. “Olivia,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “That’s not the cat you saw, is it?”
“What cat?” I pointed and she blinked at it. “It can’t be. The other one ran down the hallway. How could it get out?”
“It doesn’t have a collar so it’s not Agent Prescott’s familiar. Maybe it’s the one Dara and I saw this morning. Shoo!” I told it, waving my hands at it. It just flicked an ear at me. “Go on, shoo, get out of here!”
“Leave it alone, Peter,” Olivia chided me. “It’s not bothering anyone. Here, kitty kitty, come over here.” She bent over and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers, but the cat hissed, arched its back, and bounded down the steps out of sight. “Why don’t cats like me anymore?” she complained.
“They’re just fickle that way.” I dialed Mrs. Kendricks’ number. “We’re here,” I told her when she answered. “We’re out front.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she promised and hung up.
“She’s coming,” I reported. We stood there watching the traffic on Milton Street slowly build up until one of the doors clacked behind us and swung open, revealing Mrs. Kendricks in her usual blouse-and-skirt combo.
“Good morning, Peter,” she said with a welcoming smile. “You made good time.” She looked around curiously, her gaze passing right through Olivia twice. “Is Olivia here?”
“Right here.” I held my hand over Olivia’s head and Mrs. Kendricks’ peered right at her face, but she shook her head with a grimace.
“Sorry, I still can’t see her. Come on in.” She stepped back to let us enter but didn’t leave enough time for Olivia to pass before she followed us in. Olivia had to scamper out of the way and glared at her resentfully as Mrs. Kendricks walked across the star to the hallway beyond. “We�
�ll go to my office,” she said. “The rest of the staff will be getting here soon.”
“Did you see the cat?” I asked her. “Olivia said it went down this way.”
“It could be anywhere in the building by now, Peter,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll ask everyone to keep an eye out for it.”
“No, I mean just now. It was on the star back there before Olivia chased it off.”
“I didn’t chase it,” Olivia grumbled. “It just ran off.”
“No, I didn’t see anything,” Mrs. Kendricks said, looking a bit worried. She lifted a tentative hand to the wands pinning her hair up but then let it drop. “Very strange,” she murmured, but she continued on.
I remembered Mrs. Kendricks’ office from Melissa’s initiation, but there was no sign of any magical paraphernalia when she waved me inside. This time she shut the door right in Olivia’s face.
“How rude!” Olivia muttered as she phased through the door.
“You’re just going to have to deal with it,” I told her. “She can’t see you, remember?”
“Hmph.” Olivia plopped down into one of the guest chairs and crossed her arms.
“Is there a problem?” Mrs. Kendricks asked, seating herself behind her desk.
“We’re still getting used to the whole ghost thing.” I took the other chair.
“Ah. So where is Olivia now?” She looked around her office curiously.
“Over there, in the chair.” I pointed and Mrs. Kendricks peered intently in that direction for a long moment.
“I can almost imagine a shape there,” she murmured. She pulled her wands from her hair, letting her locks tumble down, and then traced a symbol in the air with one of them. I watched carefully but I didn’t see anything different.
“Did that do something?” I asked finally.
“Nothing useful,” Mrs. Kendricks sighed, setting her wands aside. “I don’t have any practical experience with ghosts, I’m afraid.” She sat back and tapped her lips with her forefinger. “Olivia, can you move something for me? Nothing breakable, preferably,” she added.
Olivia glanced at me and I just shrugged. She stood and looked around and then reached for a book sitting on top of a stack on the side of Mrs. Kendricks desk. It shifted a fraction of an inch and Mrs. Kendricks sat back, startled. Olivia couldn’t seem to get a grip on it, though. “It’s too heavy!” she complained. “My fingers are going through it.”
“Is she moving that book?” Mrs. Kendricks asked a bit breathlessly. I supposed it looked a lot creepier for her than it did for me.
“Yeah, that’s her. Try something lighter,” I suggested. Olivia blew her breath out in frustration and then reached for one of Mrs. Kendrick’s wands. She had no problems with it at all, waving it around like she was trying to cast a spell. Then she poked me in the shoulder with it. “Ow! Stop that!” I grabbed the wand from her and handed it back to Mrs. Kendricks. “Sorry about that,” I said, glaring a warning at Olivia, who didn’t look in the least bit contrite. “She’s still trying to be bad.” That earned me a flash of her tongue.
“She wants to be bad?” Mrs. Kendricks asked doubtfully, turning her wand over in her hands.
“Yeah but don’t worry, she’s not very good at it.” Olivia sniffed and turned her back on me. “So what’s the plan?” I asked. “How are we going to free her soul?”
“An acquaintance of mine called me as I was leaving work yesterday. That’s why I was late getting to your house last night.”
“Oh?” I prompted hopefully.
“He gave me the number of someone who developed a ritual to remove captive souls from demons, a fellow named Roger Vandermeer. I’ll call him later this morning to get the details.”
“Really? That’s great!”
“It might not work, Peter,” she cautioned me. “I gather he only tried it once and things didn’t go as planned. He apparently knows what went wrong, though.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly deflated. As far as I was concerned, staying on the run from Agent Prescott the rest of our lives was preferable to losing Daraxandriel in a faulty magic ritual. “Maybe we shouldn’t try it, then.”
“No!” Olivia protested. “Call him right now! I don’t want to disappear again!”
Mrs. Kendricks noticed my distraction. “Is Olivia saying something?”
“She wants you to call him now but I don’t know. If it’s not going to work –”
“Peter!” Olivia stamped her foot without making any noise whatsoever.
“Roger lives in Oregon,” Mrs. Kendricks explained. “He’s probably not even awake yet. It’s still worth looking into, Peter,” she insisted. “If we have any doubts about the ritual, we won’t use it.”
“I guess,” I said reluctantly.
“I’ll let you know what I find out.” She twisted her hair into a loose rope and coiled it atop her head, stabbing it into place with her wands. “Before that, let’s make sure your Philosopher’s Stone isn’t going to cause any problems. Could you take it out, please?”
“Problems?” I echoed uneasily. I pulled the chain out from under my shirt and let the Stone dangle from my fingers.
“Just a moment.” Mrs. Kendricks locked her eyes on the Stone like she was trying to hypnotize it and then her gaze moved sideways to where Olivia was standing. “The trace is very strong now,” she observed. She rose and walked around her desk, standing in front of me and reaching out with her forefinger, almost but not quite touching the Stone. Then she drew an invisible line through the air that ended right in the middle of Olivia’s forehead. “Is Olivia here?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. Olivia leaned away from Mrs. Kendricks finger, looking cross-eyed at it. “Is that a problem?”
“I’m not sure.” She returned to her chair, looking thoughtful. “You said the Stone keeps her close to you?”
“Olivia said she can feel it pulling her.” Olivia nodded.
“That may be to our benefit. We might be able to use it to pull her out of Dara once we start the ritual. Or –” Her voice trailed off.
“Or?”
“Or her bond with the Stone will block the spell.”
“So it’ll either work great or fail miserably?”
“Basically,” she smiled. “We can try it and see. If it doesn’t work, we’ll break the bond. We’ll need Susie for that, since she cast the original spell.” She eyed the Stone and then frowned. “What’s that light?”
“What light?” I looked down at the Stone but it seemed the same to me.
“There’s something twinkling inside.”
“Oh, that. It started doing that a couple of days ago.”
“How very odd. May I see it?” Mrs. Kendricks held out her hand and I pulled the chain over my head. As soon as I dropped it into her palm, a wave of dizziness swept over me and I had to close my eyes. “There’s a lot of energy building up inside,” I heard her say.
“Is that bad?” A jaw-breaking yawn nearly swallowed my question.
“Are you okay, Peter?” she asked worriedly.
“I’m fine,” I said, although I could barely hold my head up. “I was up all night and it just hit me all of a sudden.” I leaned back in my chair and let my head roll back. “I’ll get a nap later.”
She didn’t respond and I felt myself drifting down into darkness. Then something touched my hand and I suddenly snapped awake. I looked around, startled, and found Mrs. Kendricks standing over me, pressing my fingers around the Philosopher’s Stone. “What did you do?” I asked. My exhaustion had completely evaporated.
“Nothing,” she told me. “You’ve been drawing life energy from the Stone to keep yourself awake. When you gave it to me, you lost contact with it and your body didn’t have enough energy to keep you going on its own.”
“Really?” I stared at the Stone dubiously. “So I’ve been running on battery power all this time?”
“Something like that,” she smiled.
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s pretty cool, act
ually. How did I do that?”
“It’s bound to you by your blood, remember. It’s probably been doing this all along but you never noticed until you starting doing something unusual.”
“Like staying awake all night.” She nodded. “So I never have to sleep ever again?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” she said, shaking her head. “You might not feel tired while you’re wearing it but you still need sleep to rest your mind and your body. I suggest you go home, take it off for a while, and get a real sleep.”
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “I need to keep an eye on Dara. What if that familiar sees her?”
“Just keep her inside and out of sight. If Ryan’s familiar doesn’t report seeing her, he has no reason to go over there.” I still hesitated and she made a dismissive motion with her hand. “Go. There’s nothing else you can do here anyway and it’ll take me a few hours to contact Roger and sort out the ritual. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
“All right,” I said reluctantly, getting to my feet as I slung the chain over my head. We’d left Dara unguarded for too long anyway. “Are you ready to go?” I asked Olivia.
“I guess,” she shrugged. “What about the cat?”
“What about it?”
“It’s still running around here, isn’t it? Shouldn’t someone be looking for it?”
“Someone’s bound to see it.” Mrs. Kendricks had a bemused expression as she listened to my half of our conversation. “Olivia’s asking about the cat,” I explained.
“I’ll tell the staff about it,” she assured us. “If we find it, we’ll call the animal shelter to take it off our hands.”
“Don’t forget the one outside, too.”
“There’s another one?” I nodded. “Another black cat?” I nodded again. “And one at your house?” I nodded a third time. “That’s … odd.”
“You don’t think they’re all familiars, do you?”
“I can’t imagine why they would be. None of the witches in the coven have familiars.”
“What about Agent Prescott? Maybe he has more than one.”
“Who?”
Soul Mates Page 34
