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

by Tricia O'Malley

  “Oh, I like that,” Clarence laughed, “Very submissive of you, wife.”

  “Now I know you ain’t talking about Luna being your wife, you crazy old man. I’ve heard about you. Clarence le Loup. You’re a dirty old bastard, aren’t you?” Miss Elva asked, bringing his attention back to her.

  Luna got to her knees – her hands still wrapped around the syringes. While his attention was turned, she began to move quickly down the line of people, injecting the antidote into their saline bags.

  “Who are you calling old? I’m younger than you,” Clarence seethed, his attention fully focused on Miss Elva.

  “Like hell you are, old man. I think you got a little power-hungry, didn’t you? What makes you think you can hurt innocent people like this?” Miss Elva said, pulling an item from her bag and holding it in her hand.

  Luna kept moving, not looking up, focused only on the saline bags.

  Bag, after bag, after bag. It hurt her heart to know that so many people would have been killed or turned into some kind of awful science experiment because of one power-hungry man.

  “That’s what I think you don’t understand, old woman. I get to do what I want. In fact, I always do what I want,” Clarence said softly. His tone sent chills down Luna’s back and she threw a glance over her shoulder just as Clarence raised his hand and shot a bolt of shimmering red light from his palm directly at Miss Elva.

  Luna froze.

  Miss Elva swatted the shot of power away, and it ricocheted against a far wall, causing cinder blocks to fall from up near the ceiling and shatter on the concrete floor. Luna shivered and kept moving. When she finished the back line, she started on the front, staying in the middle aisle so as not to draw too much attention to herself by walking in front of the row of cots. She needed to get to Mathias and see if he was still breathing.

  Another blast shook the building and Luna’s head shot up over a gurney in time to see Miss Elva and Clarence in a real-life magick battle. Torn, Luna looked down at the antidote and back to where Miss Elva stood, firing off her own flash bangs at Clarence.

  Should she help Miss Elva?

  Luna was still holding her shielding spell to cover all the victims as well as herself and Mathias. If she tried to run too many other spells, her most important one might lose its power. Luna suddenly realized she was thinking too hard about this. Not all spells had to be complex and demanding.

  Popping her head up again, she looked over at Clarence and ran a quick spell under her breath. Kitchen magick, really.

  She was rewarded when Clarence slipped on the patch of black ice that appeared beneath him, his head crashing against the floor with a resounding thud.

  “Nice one!” Miss Elva called and Luna chuckled, going back to her task at hand. Ten more bags to go.

  As she reached the end of the line, back to where Beau was now struggling to sit up, a high-pitched, keening wail rang out in the warehouse, startling her.

  “What’s happening?” Beau asked as she reached him. She crouched to wrap an arm around his shoulders as they watched the spectacle unfold.

  Miss Elva stood over Clarence as he lay on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head as he wailed. She chanted over him, her words indecipherable as Clarence cried and flailed his limbs.

  “Is he shrinking?” Luna whispered.

  “I… think so?” Beau said.

  And so he was. Clarence seemed to shrivel up – just a little at first, as he fought the power of Miss Elva’s magick, but soon he was down to doll-size. Luna watched with her mouth hanging open as he seemed to disintegrate before her eyes, flowing into a small container Miss Elva held. She scooped the lid over the top of it and continued to chant. Sweat poured from her brow as the container seemed to bounce and shake in her hands.

  “Holy shit,” Beau said.

  “No kidding,” Luna breathed. She’d seem some magick in her days, but this was beyond anything she had ever been witness to.

  “There we go. Locked up for eternity now, aren’t you?” Miss Elva said, tucking the container back into her purse. Luna could swear she heard sobbing coming from the bag, but decided to ignore it.

  “Mathias,” Luna said suddenly, racing from Beau’s side to where Mathias lay on the ground. He began to shift and move; apparently whatever spell had been put on him was releasing its hold now that Clarence was contained.

  “What happened?” Mathias said, rolling over onto his back as Luna looked down at him, her heart pounding in her chest. She was so grateful he hadn’t been hurt.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Luna whispered, putting her hands on his arms and looking down into his eyes. “Can you move?”

  Mathias held her gaze, and the moment lengthened as a current of electricity seemed to stretch between them, warming Luna from inside.

  “Well, are you going to kiss him?” Miss Elva demanded, breaking the moment.

  “What? No, jeez,” Luna said, heat creeping up her cheeks.

  “But I’m going to kiss her,” Mathias declared as he sat up and wrapped his arms around Luna, pulling her lips to his. Luna gasped against his mouth, surprised to be kissing him, and even more surprised by the response that seemed to whisper through her gut.

  This one.

  Mathias pulled back, his eyes locked on hers as he brushed one more gentle kiss across her lips.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” he said.

  “So we will,” she murmured before pulling back from him, quite certain that her face was a billion shades of red.

  “My, my, my! It seems like I’ve missed quite a lot,” Beau said from his cot.

  “Shut it.” Luna said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So what happened exactly?” Mathias said, standing and stretching. Luna tried not to look at the glimpse of his abs when his shirt lifted from his pants.

  “Um, I think you got frozen or something,” Luna offered, her eyes on the patients who were all slowly beginning to wake up.

  “I just remember launching myself at him. That stupid smile of his made me want to take him down,” Mathias said, rubbing a bump on his forehead.

  “Yes, we appreciate you trying to do that. But in the future, let us handle the bad men,” Miss Elva said sweetly.

  “I can’t promise that,” Mathias said evenly and Miss Elva chuckled.

  “I knew I liked you.” Miss Elva walked over to him and reached up to brush her hand over the knot in his forehead.

  “Hey, what did you just do? That helped,” Mathias said immediately, dumbfounded by Miss Elva’s power.

  “Just a little something to take the pain away,” Miss Elva said with a smile before moving away to go to Beau.

  Luna decided not to tell Mathias that she’d also taken the bump away.

  “So why do I even practice medicine? If you all can fix everything with magick? Why isn’t there some magickal hospital that everyone can go to and get fixed up?” Mathias demanded.

  “Child, it just doesn’t work like that. Plus, there aren’t enough of us to heal all the problems this world has. We just have to make our impact one person at a time. Isn’t that all any of us can do?”

  Mathias paused, thinking over her words before nodding.

  “You’re right. That’s how I feel as a doctor. I want to save everyone from hurting, but I can only do my best to heal the patient in front of me.”

  “And to them, you did heal their world. We are all little universes coexisting with each other. In some respects, every time you heal someone, you do save the world. Their world,” Miss Elva said, before turning to embrace Beau.

  “That’s probably the most succinct description of what I do for a living I’ve ever heard,” Mathias muttered to Luna.

  “Miss Elva’s a deep one. You’d be surprised,” Luna said, smiling at him.

  “I’ve been surprised since the moment you walked into my practice,” Mathias admitted.

  “Yes, we tend to have that affect on people,” Luna murmured, her eyes leaving his
as a cry broke out from a cot.

  “We need to help people,” Mathias said.

  “We do. And I have to call Chief Thomas,” Luna said, crossing the room to where she’d dropped her bag behind Beau’s bed. Digging in her bag, she couldn’t help but watch as Mathias began to move from bed to bed, reassuring people that everything would be okay. It came naturally to him, and watching him in action made Luna like him even more.

  “Where’d you snag this one? He’s yummy,” Beau said, looking down at her as he swung his legs to the side of the bed.

  “Actually, you found him. If it wasn’t for your dumb ass having to get that damn margarita, we’d never have taken you to the hospital or his clinic.”

  “Of course I found him. And he isn’t on my team,” Beau sighed dramatically before sliding off the cot. Miss Elva grabbed his arm as he wobbled a bit on his feet.

  “You’ve got that delicious Dylan, if I recall correctly,” Miss Elva reminded him.

  “True. Doesn’t mean I can’t look,” Beau pointed out. Miss Elva laughed, turning to Rafe, who hovered behind her.

  “See, Rafe? Looking doesn’t mean anything.”

  The pirate ghost nodded, but his expression was sober.

  “Rafe what’s wrong?” Luna asked, surprised that his usual exuberance was absent.

  Rafe floated over to her and looked at Luna’s face seriously.

  “Witch, I owe you an apology. I’ve always been suspicious of you, but you blocked that nasty man’s shot at me, and well, I want to thank you. I’ll be forever indebted to you,” Rafe said, sweeping his hat off in a graceful bow.

  Luna was flummoxed. She’d never expected the pirate to be on her side.

  “Of course, Rafe. I couldn’t let something happen to you. Miss Elva loves you,” Luna pointed out.

  “But you don’t love me. You didn’t have to do anything,” Rafe said.

  Luna sighed and pushed her hair away from her face.

  “That’s who I am, Rafe. I help people. And you’re one of my people, okay?”

  Rafe measured her with a long look before a smile broke out on his face. He zoomed back to Miss Elva.

  “Did you hear that, my lovemountain? The witch said I’m one of her people,” he crowed.

  “Good for you, baby. Now, we need to start helping some of these people here,” Miss Elva pointed out.

  “And I’ve got to call the Chief,” Luna said, wondering how she was going to explain about Clarence.

  “You leave the explaining up to me, Luna. For now, just let him know everyone is safe,” Miss Elva said as she ran her hand over a man’s forehead. “And we gotta figure out how to get everyone home.”

  “I’ll have him send backup,” Luna said.

  “We could take one of these trucks? Load it up and get everyone over to the hospital to get checked out if they need it?” Beau said, gesturing toward one of the shiny red trucks.

  “That’s a grand idea. Mathias,” Miss Elva called, “Can you drive a truck?”

  “I can.”

  “I like him more and more,” Beau murmured and Luna swatted him.

  “Let’s load these people up and get them home, then,” Miss Elva ordered.

  After Luna got off the phone with a very distressed Chief Thomas, she watched as Mathias spoke softly to an elderly woman, lifting her into the truck and settling her on a bench, before patting her leg in reassurance. He caught her eye when he turned, and strode across the room to her.

  “Can you take my SUV back? I’ll drive the truck over to the hospital. Then we can go to the clinic and get your car?”

  “Sure, I can do that,” Luna said, taking the keys from him, her hand staying in his for a moment.

  “You did good today,” Mathias said, making Luna laugh a little.

  “So did you. For what you were up against.”

  Sirens approached from the distance and Luna stepped back from Mathias. Now was not the time to get into more detail, though she could tell Mathias had a thousand questions to ask.

  “Don’t scratch up my car,” Mathias said, a smile quirking his lips.

  “Please, like I’d do that?” Luna laughed over her shoulder and went to where Miss Elva and Beau stood at the end of the truck.

  “Girl, you got little hearts dancing around your head,” Beau said.

  “I should’ve left you under that spell,” Luna muttered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Now that Dr. Delicious isn’t here, tell me everything,” Beau gushed from the back seat of the SUV Luna was driving. She shot a look into the rearview mirror and rolled her eyes at him.

  “Well, you know, in between crying over your sorry ass and trying to save a bunch of people, we met a cute doctor,” Luna grumbled.

  “You love me. You’d never leave me to die,” Beau said cheekily.

  “I do love you. And I’d never leave your cute butt to suffer a horrible death. But don’t pull that on me again. I almost lost my mind when you went down at the bar,” Luna said.

  “Oh god, I can’t even imagine. I’m going to have to watch the security tapes on that one. Did everyone freak out?”

  “Oh, we freaked,” Miss Elva confirmed.

  “Thank goodness Miss Elva thought to bring the drink with us. Without it, she wouldn’t have been able to figure out an antidote.” Luna said as they wound along the highway in the dark.

  “What was in it?” Beau asked, leaning back onto the seat, almost crushing Rafe in the process. Luna bit back a smile as Rafe moved without complaining.

  “It’s old voodoo magick. It’s called zombie dust. Essentially it’s a powerful mix of toxins that throws your body into stasis. Doctors can’t even get a pulse. The person is then declared dead and later the body is dug up and stolen by the person who administered the poison. It was used to steal people and force them into slavery, back in the day,” Miss Elva explained.

  Beau’s mouth dropped open.

  “That’s...that’s…wow, that’s some shit right there,” he finally managed.

  “It is. Powerful shit,” Miss Elva said, and Luna couldn’t help but giggle. The term “powerful shit” was just too funny, and soon the whole car was chuckling.

  “Okay, so I drink it, go down, and then what happens?”

  Luna tuned out a bit while Miss Elva explained the chain of events that had led from Beau blacking out to waking up in the warehouse. Her mind was on Mathias and her powerful attraction to him. Luna wondered if it was just one of those things that happened in stressful situations, and whether she would even still be attracted to him in the morning.

  She wondered if she’d even get a chance to find out.

  “Earth to Luna,” Beau sang out and Luna snapped her attention back to the people in the car.

  “Sorry, what was that?”

  “I asked if you’re going to go out with the hunky doctor?”

  Luna shrugged. “I don’t know. He hasn’t asked me.”

  “You can ask him too,” Beau pointed out.

  “Thanks, Beau, I know,” Luna said, pulling the SUV from the highway and following the truck towards the little hospital in downtown Tequila Key.

  “No need to get sassy with me. He’s probably going to ask you out,” Beau said soothingly.

  “I don’t care if he asks me out!” Luna all but shouted and silence met her words.

  “Mmhm, child, that certainly doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t care,” Miss Elva observed as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  “Would you stop talking about this? He’s coming over here,” Luna hissed, as Mathias was walking towards the car after opening the back of the truck. Chief Thomas sprinted from the hospital with Dr. Kingston by his side.

  “I’ve got to help here for a bit, if you want to take Beau and Miss Elva home?”

  It was more of an order than a question, so Luna just nodded.

  “I’ll be back in thirty minutes?”

  Mathias glanced behind him to where Chief Thomas was helping a woman
from the truck.

  “Sure, that’ll work. Thanks.”

  “Ohhhh, he wants to be alone with youuuuu,” Beau sang out as Luna pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed towards Miss Elva’s house.

  “Would you just?” Luna exclaimed, annoyed with Beau and feeling a little fluster of excitement begin to work through her.

  “Fine, fine, fine,” Beau sighed dramatically and flopped back in his seat.

  Luna watched the lights of Tequila Key flash by as a thought niggled at her brain.

  “Miss Elva… can you explain what happened at the end there? Is Clarence dead?”

  “Now, you know Miss Elva ain’t no murderer,” Miss Elva said, looking at her aghast.

  “Yeah, my queen isn’t a murderer,” Rafe muttered.

  “I’m just trying to understand what happened,” Luna pointed out.

  “He’s in limbo. Old magick, my child. I couldn’t send him to the dark world because he’d thrive there. The light won’t take him either. So he’s in between, where he can’t harm anyone,” Miss Elva explained.

  “What happens if he gets out of the container?”

  “He won’t. I’m going to contact one of my angels. They’ll take care of it,” Miss Elva said.

  “Angels?” Luna and Beau asked at the same time.

  “Sure, angels. You know, earth angels? The ones that haven’t ascended yet? They’ll take care of him. He’s a special kind of bad. I can only do so much. I can contain him, but we’ll need some divine influence to keep him tucked away,” Miss Elva said simply, shrugging her shoulders like it was no big deal.

  Earth angels, Luna thought. How about that?

  “I kind of like that actually,” Beau said from the backseat, “It’s comforting to know that angels walk among us.”

  “That Dr. James is quite an angel. Our magick didn’t even faze him all that much,” Miss Elva pointed out as Luna pulled to a stop in front of her house. “I’d hang onto this one.”

  “I don’t know if I have anything to hang onto,” Luna said, exasperated with them both.

  “Well, go find out,” Beau said, hopping out of the SUV as well. “I’m going to stay with Miss Elva. Go get yo’ man, girl.”