Tequila Will Kill Ya: (The Althea Rose Series Book 2.5)

by Tricia O'Malley

  “Forget the food.” Chief Thomas was at a dead run when he hit the front door.

  Miss Elva and Luna gaped after him. Luna felt dread fill her heart as she went over the words in her head.

  “Too many people at the emergency room? Was that what I heard?” Luna asked, turning to grip Miss Elva’s hand.

  They both screamed when Beau went down with a crash, his arms slapping the bar with a loud thud, before his body rolled to the side and hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.

  “Beau!”

  Chapter Four

  “No, no, no,” Luna swore as she rounded the bar and knelt on the floor, disregarding her white linen pants.

  Beau lay crumpled on the floor and Luna was alarmed to see that his chest wasn’t rising. Without a second thought, Luna began gathering her magick in her core.

  “What’s happened?” Miss Elva said, groaning as she came to her knees on the floor. Voices swelled around them, and Luna vaguely heard someone calling 911.

  “I don’t know. He’s non-responsive,” Luna bit out as she raced through spells in her mind.

  “Hold him,” Miss Elva ordered.

  “Hold him how?” Luna asked, feeling panic begin to rise. Beau’s face was losing color.

  “Magickally. Stay with me here, girl. Hold him; don’t let whatever’s going on inside him get worse. Put his body in a holding pattern and make his organs work,” Miss Elva said.

  Luna gaped at her. “I don’t know if I can…”

  “Do it,” Miss Elva ordered, bending over to put her ear near Beau’s lips, which were already turning blue.

  Luna sat back on her heels and closed her eyes, pulling one of Beau’s hands into hers, forcing down the panic that was threatening to claw its way into her throat. Blocking out the chaos around her, Luna began envisioning her magick as a life support machine, sending her white light flowing into his blood. In her mind, she pushed the magick through Beau’s body, firing the engine in his heart, whooshing the lungs open and closed to draw in air. She bit back a cry of relief when she heard the faintest of breaths leave Beau’s mouth.

  “Keep holding him. Stay with him. This is nasty stuff,” Miss Elva observed, moving out of the way so Beau’s kitchen staff could muscle their way into the small space and lift Beau from the floor.

  “Put him in my car. We’ll get him to the ER,” Luna gasped, speed-walking next to them as she held his hand, her mind running in loops as she forced oxygen to Beau’s brain by sheer force of will.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for the ambulance?” Jason asked, worry etched on his face as he held one of Beau’s legs.

  Luna remembered the squawk of alarm from Chief Thomas’s walkie-talkie.

  “They’re too busy,” she said tightly. Jason nodded, panic ratcheting across his face.

  Miss Elva headed for the driver’s side of Luna’s car. “I’ll drive.” In her hand she held the to-go cup of margarita. Looking at it, Luna felt her blood begin to boil.

  “If that piece of shit man poisoned –” Luna began to rant, but stopped short when Miss Elva stepped forward and slapped her clear across the face.

  “What the… ?” Luna gasped, her cheek stinging with the pain. Tears prickled into her eyes.

  “He’s dying. Focus,” Miss Elva ordered, and Luna realized she’d let go of her spell.

  “Oh god, I’m sorry, Beau,” Luna cried, crawling into the backseat with him and holding his still-warm body against her chest. She closed her eyes and went within. Luna barely registered the squeal of the tires across the pavement as she stroked a hand across Beau’s forehead, crooning in his ear as her magick kept his heart pumping.

  “What the hell?” Miss Elva swore as they bumped over a curb and landed in a disabled parking spot in front of the hospital.

  Tequila Key’s small hospital was overwhelmed with people. With such a small town to service, the Emergency Room only had a smattering of rooms and few ER nurses and doctors on call. A crowd gathered around the doors and people were shouting and crying. Luna watched in astonishment as a woman ran from the glass doors of the ER and stumbled to the ground, curling in a ball as she sobbed.

  “Go to Urgent Care,” Luna ordered, closing her eyes and returning her focus to the magick. Her heart pounded in her chest, right where Beau’s head lay; she wondered if he could hear it or if he was too far gone.

  His head jerked against her body as the Bug bottomed out when Miss Elva hopped the curb again, cutting off a vehicle careening into the hospital parking lot.

  “You would’ve made a fearsome warrior, my beautiful queen,” Rafe said to Miss Elva.

  “Thanks, sugar. Do me a favor, will you, and find that nasty margarita man? Bring me all the information you can get on him. I think we have a major problem,” Miss Elva said. Rafe nodded before blinking out of sight.

  Luna kept her thoughts focused on flooding Beau with her white light, praying it would be enough to keep him holding on.

  “Only two cars in the parking lot here,” Miss Elva observed as she tore into the lot and parked on the sidewalk. She was out of the door in a flash, the car still running as she raced into the Urgent Care center. Luna paused to take in the sight. The fastest she’d ever seen Miss Elva move was a slow walk. To see her run was unheard of.

  Which quickly drove home how serious the situation was.

  Luna moaned and closed her eyes, holding Beau tight. He just had to go and get the stupid margarita, she thought, shaking her head slightly as she poured her light into him.

  And wondered if it was too late.

  Miss Elva returned, trailing a handsome man wearing stethoscope around his neck and pushing a gurney. A name badge indicated that he was the doctor of this clinic.

  “I have to stay with him,” Luna said, sliding from the seat as the doctor lowered the gurney to the side of the door. Together they pulled Beau from the car, rolling him onto the gurney as Luna cringed at the lifelessness of his body. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Beau.

  Luna held Beau’s hand as they pushed through the cool green tones of the Urgent Care waiting room. The doctor was already barking orders to a harried nurse, who raced around the side of the desk and held the door open for the gurney. They rolled Beau down a sterile white hallway before arriving in what looked like an operating room. The doctor already had his stethoscope in place and was listening to Beau’s chest as the nurse rolled a defibrillator machine into the room.

  “Tell me what happened,” the doctor ordered, and Luna slid her eyes away from Beau’s face to take in the man’s image. He looked to be in his mid-30s, with tanned skin and dark hair. He radiated competence, which soothed Luna – minimally.

  “He drank a poison,” Miss Elva said.

  “Do you know what kind?”

  “We don’t. From the margarita truck. The hospital ER is overflowing,” Miss Elva supplied and the doctor glanced at her for a second.

  “Are you saying there’s been a town-wide poisoning?”

  “I am.” Miss Elva nodded.

  The doctor shot a glance at his nurse. “Prepare the rooms. Get our anti-toxins ready and make sure you’ve got the number to Poison Control ready. We need to identify this poison and get ready to fight it.”

  Luna closed her eyes as the doctor strapped Beau to the gurney and locked its wheels, then began to thread a tube down his throat.

  “Will this help? Hasn’t he absorbed the poison already?”

  “Even the effects of fast-acting poison can grow worse if they aren’t eliminated from the body. This is the quickest way to get it up. There you go,” The doctor said as Beau heaved and began to vomit into the small bucket the doctor had placed below his mouth.

  Luna was too worried about Beau to stop her magick, so she waited as the doctor went through his procedures, asking questions about allergies and checking his pulse. He poked and prodded Beau, injected him with something, inspected his eyes and fingertips – and still she pushed her light into Beau.

  Luna and Miss Elva st
ood back briefly as the doctor cut Beau’s shirt from his chest, stopping to attach wires and tape. In moments, they were all staring at the heart monitor.

  “Flat line.” The doctor swore and moved to put his hands on Beau’s chest, shouting over his shoulder for the nurse.

  Luna screamed in her head and gripped Beau’s arm with both hands, pushing all her magick into his body. Miss Elva began to keen and rock, saying something indecipherable. The moment stretched, almost to the breaking point, when finally – finally – they were rewarded with a loud beep from the heart monitor.

  All eyes flew to the screen as they waited for another beep.

  Beep!

  “Oh thank the Goddess,” Luna said, tears flooding her eyes. She watched the tracings on the monitor as Beau’s heart began to stabilize on its own. The nurse stood by, the defibrillator in her hands.

  “Ladies, I want to get him hooked up to some oxygen, just in case,” the doctor ordered and Luna stepped back, sliding a glance to Miss Elva.

  “Is he really stable?” she whispered to Miss Elva, who shook her head slightly.

  “I think so. Lucky he didn’t drink any more of that drink,” Miss Elva said softly, her hands twisting around a pouch she had pulled from her purse.

  “No kidding. I don’t understand it,” Luna shook her head, uncertain of what had happened. Her mind flashed back to the weird man with the deathly pallor, serving drinks from the truck.

  The doctor straightened as loud voices sounded from the waiting room.

  “Take care of that, will you?” he said to his nurse.

  Luna found herself staring into the bluest eyes she’d seen in a while as the doctor openly assessed her and Miss Elva.

  “How did you keep him alive?” he asked point blank, not trying to obscure what he meant.

  “What… what do you mean?” Luna stammered, feeling suddenly shy under his piercing gaze.

  “Magick,” Miss Elva said easily. Luna felt heat creep up her cheeks.

  The doctor looked between the both of them, then nodded.

  “He’s damn lucky you have magick then, as this seems to have been a fairly serious neurotoxin. I’m surprised he made it.”

  “What do we do now? Will you keep him here? Should we bring him home?” Luna wasn’t sure she wanted to be away from Beau, in case he had trouble breathing again.

  “We’ll keep him under observation here. It sounds like it’s going to be a long night,” the doctor said. He was already moving to the door, where the nurse whispered to him in panic.

  “Miss Elva – should we just leave him?” Luna hissed, worried beyond belief.

  “One moment, Hun,” Miss Elva said as she dug deep into her satchel. In a moment, she’d pulled a jar filled with a brilliant blue powder from her purse. Looking around the room, she moved over to the sink and pulled a plastic drinking cup from the dispenser. Miss Elva tapped some powder into the cup, then added a few drops of water and swished it around in the cup until it looked like a neon-blue Kool-Aid. Luna felt the wash of power hit her as Miss Elva intoned some words over the cup before moving to Beau’s side.

  “Help me here,” Miss Elva instructed. Luna held Beau’s head up slightly so Miss Elva could pour the small amount of liquid down his throat. They waited a moment to see if he would cough, but aside from a raspy wheeze, Beau lay silently and his expression remained unchanged.

  “That should hold him. We’ve got to figure out what this poison is. We have to help the others,” Miss Elva said, running her hand down Beau’s arm briefly.

  “But… what if he stops breathing?” Luna asked, stubbornly refusing to leave Beau’s side.

  “And what if there’s a madman out there who’s going to poison everyone in town? Beau’s stable, child. But we’ve got a monster to stop.”

  “Go.”

  Luna jumped as the doctor’s voice sounded from the door.

  “Um, doctor, I didn’t catch your name.” Luna felt a little foolish as she nervously smoothed her hair.

  “Dr. Mathias James,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “And you are?”

  “Luna Lavelle and Miss Elva,” Luna said.

  “Well, Miss Lavelle, if you and your friend know any way to stop this madman, then do it. Because my waiting room is piling up and if we don’t solve this, we’ve got a mass murder on our hands, and the murderer gets away.”

  “But… what if he stops breathing?” Luna tore her eyes away from the cute doctor to look back down at Beau.

  “I will call you immediately. But if you really can do magick, then I suggest you do something that will hold him while you’re gone. I’ve got to go. Please leave your number on this form,” Dr. James handed Luna the clipboard, his eyes holding hers for a moment before he raced from the room to answer the shouts from the waiting room.

  “Can we do a magickal holding spell? Like a bubble of protection?” Luna turned to Miss Elva.

  Miss Elva crossed her arms across her ample chest as she thought about it.

  “We can. Let’s modify the shield of protection ritual,” Miss Elva decided. “The intent should be to stop the toxin from working further, as well as protect Beau from any further harm. We’ll cocoon him.” Luna nodded, reaching out to take one of Beau’s hands as Miss Elva took the other, forming a circle of protection.

  “I call upon the Goddesses…” Miss Elva began and Luna went deep inside herself, drowning out Miss Elva’s voice, as she built her magick into a powerful ball, thrusting it up and out of her when Miss Elva demanded it, and cocooning Beau in an invisible shield of protection.

  As Miss Elva closed the circle, Luna looked down at Beau.

  “We love you, Beau. We’re going to catch this guy,” Luna whispered, bending to brush a kiss over his forehead.

  “Come on, Luna. We’ve got to test this drink and see what the toxin is,” Miss Elva ordered. Luna followed her into the hallway, her heartbeat racing as she saw the line of people in the waiting room.

  People she knew. People who were her customers, friends of hers. Her heart all but stopped as she watched Dr. James and his nurse rush between patients, administering first aid on the spot.

  “Go,” Dr. James shouted at them.

  Miss Elva crouched by his side and pulled a jar from her purse. Dr. James tilted his head at her in confusion.

  “One part powder to three parts water. This is more than enough for the whole room. Use it. Don’t ask questions.”

  Dr. James held her eyes for a moment, before sweeping a glance over the heaps of bodies falling on top of each other in his waiting room while others wept over them.

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Even Dr. James knew better than to question Miss Elva.

  “Will that save them?” Luna shouted as she sprinted to where her car sat, still running, on the sidewalk.

  “It’ll hold them until I figure out what we’re dealing with here,” Miss Elva said, panting as she heaved herself into the front seat of the car.

  “Drive like you’ve never driven before, girlie,” Miss Elva ordered, “We’ve got to get to my house.”

  Luna slammed her foot down on the accelerator, and prayed that she wasn’t leaving one of her best friends behind to die.

  Chapter Five

  Luna slowed her car as they approached Miss Elva’s house, not wanting to slam on the brakes and spill the drink in the cup holder. She kept glancing at it, amazed at how such an innocuous little container could be the difference between life and death.

  It took all of her self-control not to scream in frustration.

  Instead she kept her mouth shut as Miss Elva opened her door and got out of the car, turning back to look at Luna.

  “Don’t touch that drink, child. I’ve got it,” Miss Elva said, picking the drink up gingerly between her fingers and turning to climb the steps of her weathered porch.

  Miss Elva lived on a fairly normal street in the old part of Tequila Key. Not too far off the water, where houses fought for space. Her cedar shake shingled
house boasted a large front porch and a second story, which was atypical for the houses in this area.

  “Follow me, girl,” Miss Elva instructed as she flicked a switch inside her front door, illuminating two lamps behind a couch. Luna barely registered the chaos of Miss Elva’s front room as they pushed through to a small kitchen in the back with bright track lighting in the ceiling.

  The kitchen was small, which wasn’t unusual for the Keys, with a buttercream and white décor going on. Miss Elva promptly disappeared into the pantry and Luna was left to stare at the Styrofoam container sitting in the middle of the butcher-block island.

  She wanted to pick the cup up and smash it against the wall. Luna’s hand twitched on the counter and she had to force herself to turn away from the cup. Her anger would do no good here.

  “We need to test this, child,” Miss Elva said, coming out of the pantry with a basket full of jars and pouches. She placed the basket gently on the counter, then pulled two pairs of rubber cleaning gloves from the basket. Tossing one pair to Luna, she reached up and pulled down a stack of glass bowls from a cupboard.

  “How are we going to do that?” Luna asked, honestly wondering if Miss Elva had some sort of toxin kit up her sleeves.

  “I’ve been mixing up potions since you were in diapers. I know what reacts to what. And if this is what I think it is – we’ve got a big problem on our hands.”

  Luna bit her lip as her heart sank, worry for Beau and for her friends in the town almost making her sick.

  “Put your gloves on,” Miss Elva ordered and Luna slid the bright red rubber gloves onto her hands. The gloves went almost to her elbows; unless they dropped or splashed the liquid, she would be safe.

  “Take the top off the cup and pour an equal amount in each glass bowl,” Miss Elva ordered, pulling liquid-filled bottles with eyedropper tops from her basket. Luna nodded; calling on her magick, she ordered her trembling hands to still. Reaching out, she calmly picked up the cup and pulled the top gently off, leaving it upturned on the island as she delicately poured liquid into each of the bowls. When she’d finished, the cup was empty. Luna gingerly put the top back on, pressing down until it was secured, grateful that none of the liquid had spilled.