“What do we do now, Peter?” Olivia asked anxiously. “She can’t see us.”
“Pick something up,” I told her. “Let her know we’re here.”
Olivia looked around for something large enough to notice and small enough to move. She spotted her brush under the bench and retrieved it. “What is this doing here?” she wondered.
Cameron touched Susie’s arm. “Look,” he murmured softly. “Is that her?”
“Move the brush up and down,” I ordered. Olivia complied and Susie watched it with an annoyed frown.
“Stop playing games, Olivia,” she demanded. “Show yourself.”
“Side to side,” I said. The brush bobbed left and right.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Susie complained.
“Maybe she can’t show herself,” Cameron suggested. Olivia made the up-and-down motion again.
“Why not? She used to be able to.”
Olivia looked at me doubtfully. “What should I do?”
“This isn’t going to work,” I told her. “Let’s go upstairs so you can write her messages.”
Olivia followed me out of the room, still carrying the hairbrush, but Susie and Cameron just stood there. Olivia returned to the doorway and waved the brush at them. “Now what is she doing?” Susie asked irritably.
“I think she wants us to follow her,” Cameron said. Olivia dipped the brush in acknowledgement. “Come on, let’s see what she wants.”
“This better be worth it,” Susie grumbled, but she allowed herself to be led out of the bedroom. “Helping people is too much work.”
7
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing some jerk get his come-uppance, like getting pulled over by the police after cutting you off in traffic or choking on that last donut you were hoping to snag. Karma often gets the credit for this – or the blame, if you’re the jerk in question – as if karma is some invisible cosmic hand just waiting to smack someone upside the head for being an asshole.
Karma doesn’t work that way, though. According to karmic theory, your actions and thoughts today influence your future happiness and well-being in this life and the next. Karma is a life-long continuum of cause and effect. It generally doesn’t rap you across your knuckles every time you step out of line.
I think most people would agree that if you think good thoughts and play well with others, your life should turn out to be pleasant. I’ve tried to adhere to these principles in my eighteen years on earth. However, despite the fact that, as a Christian, I don’t actually believe in reincarnation, I must have been a real bastard in my past lives. It’s the only rational explanation for how my life is going these days.
Susie and Cameron followed the brush upstairs into the kitchen, where Olivia grabbed the notepad and a pen and carried it to the table. She sat there and looked at me expectantly, ready to write.
I let my breath out slowly, not looking forward to this. “Okay, write this: Peter is dead.”
Olivia looked like she was going to argue with me, but then she nodded and complied. Susie and Cameron leaned in to read the words appearing on the paper.
“Peter’s not dead,” Susie insisted, shaking her head.
He is, Olivia wrote. He’s a ghost now.
“He’s not! Stop saying that!”
“Susie –” Cameron placed his hand on her shoulder but she shook it off angrily.
“He’s not! I don’t care what that stupid ghost says, he’s not dead.” She crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders. “I’d know,” she said to herself.
Olivia looked up at me helplessly. “What should I do?”
I shook my head resignedly. “Let it go, it doesn’t matter right now. Just tell them what happened to you this morning.”
For a long while, the only sound was the scratch of the pen across the notepad as Olivia summarized the events leading up to Dara’s precipitous exit through the balcony window. “Should I tell them about you showing up afterwards?” she asked doubtfully.
“Leave me out of it for now. Tell them that we think the same guy possessed Mrs. Phipps and made her break into the library last night.”
Susie scowled at the new sentence. “Who’s Mrs. Phipps?”
One of the library assistants, Olivia transcribed my explanation. She was looking for Dr. Bellowes’ ring and journal in Mrs. Kendricks’ office.
“This journal?” Susie frowned, hefting the book in her hands. Olivia and I both nodded before remembering to write Yes on the paper. “Why did he – she – whoever it was think it was there?”
Because it was. Olivia’s retelling of Mrs. Kendricks’ encounter with Not-Peter took the rest of the page and most of the next. We need to find Dara and see if she can read that journal. Maybe it can tell us how to destroy the ring.
“Why don’t I just kill this guy?” Susie grumped. “That would be a lot easier.”
“Because that would be murder,” Cameron reminded her.
Susie face twisted as she wrestled with that notion, finally spitting out a grudging “Fine.”
Open a portal to wherever Dara is and we’ll get her to check the journal for anything we can use, I instructed her through Olivia. In the meantime, get Mrs. Kendricks’ wardstones from her office and bring them to her at her house. Make sure she’s okay. We’ll meet you back there as soon as we can. Okay?
“Why am I doing all the work here?” Susie complained. “I haven’t even had lunch yet.”
“I’ll make you something before we go,” Cameron offered.
“After she sends us to Dara,” I interjected and then I pointed at the paper. “Quick, tell her that before she gets distracted.” Olivia scrawled a hasty line and Susie rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
She trudged downstairs with the rest of us in tow and went straight to the night table, extracting the condom blazoned with the number 1. She set it on the bench, dropped Dr. Bellowes’ journal beside it, and stepped back, spreading her hands. Her rings flared and a moment later, the fiery pentagram reappeared around the marble bench.
“Are you ready?” I asked Olivia. She nodded jerkily and I took her hand, earning myself a nervous smile. We stepped into the pentagram together and waited but nothing happened. “What’s the holdup?”
Susie’s brow creased and she cast a sidelong glance at Cameron. “Do you think they’re standing there?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“I can’t hold this open forever,” she complained.
“Give them a minute.”
“Wave the notepad at them,” I told Olivia and then I noticed that her hands were empty. “Where is it?”
“I left it upstairs,” she said doubtfully. “Do we need it?”
“How else are we going to talk to Dara?”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh, no!”
“Quick, go grab it!” She spun around and ran out of the room. “And the pen too!” I shouted, in case she didn’t think of it.
“Has it been a minute yet?” Susie grumbled.
“More like fifteen seconds,” Cameron informed her.
“That’s long enough,” she declared. “I’m getting tired and we have better things to do than standing around here all day.”
“Like what?”
“Like eating lunch.” She dropped her arms and the glow around her rings faded out.
“Wait, we’re not ready!” I tried to jump out of the pentagram but it was too late. In a flash of white, I suddenly found myself standing on a meandering path worn into the limestone bedrock, with a muddy river on one side and an expanse of scrubby pine trees on the other. The journal and Daraxandriel’s condom were there, too, sitting on top of the bench, which in turn stood on the bedroom rug, looking completely out of place in the wilderness. “Great,” I muttered. “Thanks a lot, Susie.”
I turned around in a circle, trying to sort out where she sent me. If that was the Brazos River, then this was probably the walking path leading t
o the cove that kids used to launch their tubes upstream from Kimball Bend Park. The more important question, though, was where was Daraxandriel? There was absolutely no one else in sight.
Susie managed to pinpoint Olivia and she’s a ghost, I mused. Why didn’t it work for Dara? I eyed the purple square gleaming under the Texas sun. Does that have a weaker connection to her? No, that can’t be it, Susie recognized it as hers without any problem. Dara has to be around here somewhere. Maybe she moved before I got teleported.
I checked left and right for a glimpse of orange cloth or a flash of crayon red hair through the trees, but I was completely alone. I flipped a mental coin and decided to follow the sluggish flow of the river, figuring she’d be more likely to be heading to the park than away from it. But what’s she doing way out here in the first place? I wondered uneasily. We’re miles away from the apartment.
I took two steps and then stopped, looking down at the journal. I reached for it and my fingers passed through it without any resistance at all. It was far too valuable to just leave here where anyone could walk off with it but I couldn’t just stand here and hope Daraxandriel would wander by. “God damn it,” I muttered. “What else can go wrong?”
“Dara!”
I spun around. That was Olivia’s voice, somewhere in the distance. I hurdled the bench like a track-and-field star and sprinted upstream. “Olivia!” I called. “Where are you?”
“Peter! Over here!” She sounded closer now, somewhere ahead. “Dara’s here and Amy’s with her! Hurry!”
I rounded a curve in the path and finally spotted Olivia, anxiously looking back for me. She waved both arms and hopped up and down on her toes to get my attention, beckoning me closer.
“How did you get here?” I asked when I got close enough.
“You were gone when I got back to the room but I wrote a note for Susie to open another portal,” Olivia explained. “She wasn’t very nice about it,” she added resentfully.
“Well, at least you’re here. Where’s –?” I started to ask, but then I spotted them further down the path. Daraxandriel seemed to be in bad shape, using her sword like a cane as she stumbled over the uneven ground. Amy was in her usual tweener form, having no problem keeping up despite her shorter legs. “Dara!”
Daraxandriel paused, but only to prop herself up against a tree trunk, hanging her head wearily. Amy stopped as well, heaving a visible sigh and crossing her arms as she looked around. There was something in her icy blue eyes, though, a pensive look I’d never seen on her before.
Amy said something to Daraxandriel, who nodded and pushed herself upright, girding herself to continue on. She still wore the orange hellhound t-shirt Olivia mentioned, but it was smudged with dirt and ripped in a couple of places. All Amy had on was a thin-strapped tank top and striped panties.
“Maybe it gave up,” Amy said, looking back over her shoulder. Her gaze swept right through us.
“Nay,” Daraxandriel told her with a weary shake of her head. “This respite is fleeting, alike the others.”
“You should just let it catch up,” Amy grumbled. “It’s not like it’s going to kill you or anything.”
“Nay! I needs must retain what powers I have, that we might confront our nemesis.”
“I thought I was your nemesis,” Amy smirked.
“Thou art bound by Metraxion and Lady Nyx,” Daraxandriel reminded her. “Thou art no threat to any.”
“That’s what you’d like to think,” she muttered, but it wasn’t clear whether Daraxandriel heard her.
“Stand in front of them,” I urged Olivia. “Get their attention. We need to find out what’s going on.” Olivia ran past them and waved the notepad at them, but neither of them noticed. Daraxandriel’s attention was focused on the ground at her feet and Amy was looking back at me again, or rather, at the trail behind me. “Poke them or something,” I ordered. “We don’t have any time to waste.”
Olivia reached out to tap Daraxandriel on the shoulder but the instant her finger touched her skin, Daraxandriel whipped the sword up and around, slashing through the notepad and passing completely through Olivia’s torso. Olivia jumped back with a startled squeak while the two fugitives watched the severed scraps of paper flutter to the ground.
“Whence came this parchment?” Daraxandriel asked doubtfully.
Amy bent down to pick up one of the pieces. “Isn’t this the grocery list from the apartment? This part says to follow Peter.”
“Look, more floats upon the air.” Daraxandriel cautiously reached out with her sword to poke the remains of the notepad in Olivia’s hand and she jerked it back. “This is no random happenstance,” she breathed. “Olivia, art thou with us?”
“Yes!” Olivia exclaimed. “I’m right here!” She waved her hand in front of Daraxandriel’s face, to no avail.
“Write her a note,” I told her. “Find out what happened to them.”
Olivia nodded and set to work, although the lack of a table to write on hampered her efforts. Daraxandriel and Amy stood almost forehead-to-forehead as they watched the words appear on the paper. Daraxandriel’s features were drawn and haggard, like she’d been awake for days. Her eyes were literally black, showing none of their usual reddish glow, and her lips were dry and cracked. Her tail hung out of the bottom of her shirt like an old rope. Amy, on the other hand, seemed no worse for wear, other than a few scrapes on her bare feet. I wondered where they’d been for the past few hours.
“Our situation is more dire than I feared,” Daraxandriel breathed, her shoulders slumping as she read Olivia’s retelling of the encounter in the library. “No incubus I have ever encountered could have vanquished Dame Kendricks so easily.”
“What was that?” I interjected. “Incu-what?”
Olivia scribbled a hasty question. What’s an inkabus?
“Incubus,” Daraxandriel corrected her. “’Tis a malevolent spirit that possesses men and enthralls women to slake its carnal appetites. They are rare but troublesome. This one, though ...” Her voice trailed off uneasily. “I fear for Peter Simon Collins. His soulstone should have protected him. How did this creature overcome it to possess him?”
“We can probably thank Dr. Bellowes’ ring for that,” I predicted. “She’s wrong, though. I’m not possessed. I’m dead.”
“Do we tell her that?” Olivia asked quietly.
I shook my head. “Not now. It’ll just upset her and it doesn’t really change anything. We need to pick up the journal before someone finds it and see if there’s anything in it that can help us get rid of this incubus thing.”
“Where is it?” Olivia frowned. “Is it still back at the apartment?”
“No, it came with me,” I assured her. “It’s just down the trail where Susie dumped me. Tell them to follow you. I’ll go ahead and make sure nobody’s trying to steal it. I’ll call you if I need you to hurry.”
I headed back down the trail as Olivia scrawled instructions on her last sheet of paper, hoping that the combination of the bridge repairs and the blazing mid-day sun were keeping any would-be visitors well away from the park. The bedroom rug was sure to attract the attention of anyone walking along the trail and we couldn’t afford to lose that book.
“Peter, wait!” Olivia sounded worried. I looked back and saw her looking back at Daraxandriel and Amy. Neither of them had moved and Daraxandriel’s sword was raised warily.
“What’s wrong?” I called.
“They don’t want to go this way. Something’s been chasing them ever since they left the apartment.”
“What has?” I looked around but I couldn’t see anything but trees.
“I don’t know.” She moved closer to them, listening to their whispered conversation. “They think we’re leading them into a trap!”
“What?” I could maybe understand Amy having misgivings about following the orders of a ghost but Daraxandriel and Olivia shared a bed most nights. I started jogging back towards them. “Don’t they know it’s you?”
&
nbsp; “I told them who I was! I think,” she amended. “I’m pretty sure I did. Hang on.” She wrote something on her paper and waved it in the air at Daraxandriel, who took it and shook her head.
“Nay, I do not doubt thee, Olivia,” she said, “yet thy wouldst lead us into peril. We have tarried here too long. We needs must make haste, ere we are lost.” She used the sword to point further along the trail, away from me and the journal.
“We have to get the book,” I insisted. “We can run off wherever they want to go afterwards.”
“I’ll tell them, but – oh my God!” Olivia gasped. “Peter! Look out!”
“Huh?” I twisted around and gaped at the writhing shape hurtling through the trees straight for me. It was man-sized and man-shaped but there all resemblance to a living human being ended. It was a knotted, twisted mass of glistening black vines, tipped with vicious red thorns and shrouded in smoke. “Shit!” I’d encountered the manifestation of the Dread Lord’s curse once before and survived its touch only because of my Philosopher’s Stone, which I no longer had. “Run!” I shouted.
I turned to follow my own advice but the thing was insanely fast and it had me locked in its sights. I didn’t take more than three steps before it was on me.
“Peter!” Olivia’s shriek was drowned out by my own howl of pain as the curse latched onto me and set every nerve I no longer had on fire. The searing agony was thankfully brief, though, as smothering darkness rose up and swallowed me whole.
* * * * *
Consciousness crept back into my skull timidly, afraid of what it might find in there. It poked around a bit, sending streaks of shooting pain through my body when it touched a particularly sensitive spot, and then took up residence once again. It told my body to open my eyes and when it refused, it grabbed my eyelids and hauled them up. Light stabbed right through my head and I groaned.
“Peter!” Olivia bent over me, clasping her nightgown over her heart. “You’re alive!”
“No, I’m not,” I argued. My throat was dry and raspy, as if I’d been screaming for a while. “I’m dead.”
Sudden Death Page 10
