by Keith Keffer
The Promises of Demons
The Witch of Whitebridge Book #1
Keith Keffer
Copyright 2018 by Keith D. Keffer
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written consent of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
CH 1 - Normal Ain't What It Used to Be
Morgan watched the red and blue lights dance across the front of her aunt's house as she absently picked at the mud on her jeans. The young officer who drove her home had been gone forever. Or at least five minutes. When you're locked in the back of a police car with nothing to do but stare out the window it all felt the same.
She sighed loudly and imagined Aunt Helen rolling her eyes at her impatience and her cousin, Henry, giggling at the sight. She missed them. If they had been with her now she wouldn't be covered in mud waiting for the cop to tell her it was safe to enter the house.
An eternity later he did. Every light in the house was on, and the front door stood wide open. Morgan really didn't care how long he had taken if it meant she could finally get out of the car. She pushed against the door the moment she heard the sweet click of the latch and jumped out of the vehicle. The cool night air raised goosebumps on her arms. A few degrees colder and she would need to start wearing a coat.
The chill made her think of Henry. He didn't have a coat. He was just going to the library like he did every Thursday after school, and it had been a warm day for late October. The light blue jacket he normally wore still hung in the hall closet.
"It's all clear, Miss Star," said the officer, pulling her back to the present. He couldn't have been much older than twenty-five. A few years older than Morgan, but still just a kid compared to the other officers on the Whitebridge police force. That's probably why he ended up driving her home. Busy work for the new guy.
No one really expected anyone to be waiting to pounce on her, but Chief Grundy insisted. And when the police chief insisted, everyone, including Morgan, went along with it. That didn't mean she had to be happy about it.
"Did you have to leave every light on, and then invite all of the critters of the night inside, Officer..." Morgan struggled to make out his name tag in the darkness. The flashing lights from the roof of the police car didn't help.
I'm Jim," he offered. "Jim Bond, and I'm sorry about the door. Figured you were probably going stir crazy, and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer than I already had."
Morgan blinked. Despite herself, she smiled. "Wait a second. Is your name really James Bond? Did I just get a ride home from friggin' Double O Seven?"
He raised his hands in surrender. "Just Jim or Jimmy if you like. I never go by James."
"Wow. Your dad must have been one serious fan."
"Mom is," said Jimmy. "I think she married dad just so she could name me. God only knows what she would have done if I had been a girl."
He had a goofy grin that was a wee bit contagious, but Morgan didn't have time for this. No, that's not true. She had plenty of time. Too much time now that they had called off the search. It wasn't about time. Right now, she just wanted to be alone.
That wasn't true either. What she really wanted to do was walk in the door, give Aunt Helen a hug and then watch a cartoon with Henry as they shared popcorn and joked about their day.
She wanted things to be normal, and normal didn't include standing around talking to cops in the middle of the night. At least that wasn't the way normal used to be.
"I'm sorry," she said after an awkwardly long pause. "It's late, and I really want to get some rest. It's been a long day."
Jimmy lost his grin and nodded. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I can only imagine what you've been going through this week." He hesitated for only a second before reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a small, white card. "If you need a lift back to the hospital tomorrow, give me a call."
Morgan took the card and stuffed in in her back pocket without looking at it. "Sure," she said. "I'll do that."
Even to her it didn't sound sincere, but she didn't care. It was late, and she was tired. He'll get over it, or he won't. Without another word, she went into the house, locking the door behind her.
The house was silent except for the tick tock of an ugly, old grandfather clock that stood at the base of the stairs. It looked like the trunk of a tree with a face carved into it. The eyes rocked back and forth with each tick, and the hands of the clock stuck out from the thing's nose. When she came to stay with Aunt Helen and Henry it stood in her room, but there was no way Morgan could sleep with that thing staring at her all night. At first, she just threw a blanket over it, but that didn't help. It was still creepy as hell. They moved it out of the room after Aunt Helen found Morgan sleeping on the couch a few times.
Now it greeted her every time she entered the house.
She reached into the closet by the door and grabbed the first coat her hand touched. Without looking at it, she tossed the jacket over the clock. It wasn't as good as a blanket, but at least it covered the thing's face. She didn't need it judging her. Not tonight.
The light blue jacket slipped off the front of the clock and slid to the floor. Morgan's heart felt like it stopped beating. She had grabbed Henry's jacket. The one he should have taken with him to the library.
Horrified by how she had casually tossed the jacket around, Morgan snatched it from the floor and hugged it to her chest. Her shoulders shaking, she slumped down onto the floor. Her back against the door.
The crack of thunder jarred her awake, and she grimaced at the bright light burning overhead. Gusts of wind blew the heavy rain against the side of the house, and for a brief couple of seconds the sound of the clock was actually drowned out by the storm raging outside.
It was always hard to tell the exact time with the old clock since it just had hands without any numbers or tick marks to show the hours, but Morgan could tell it was a little past eleven o'clock. She had been asleep for almost an hour. Her butt hurt from sitting on the floor, and her legs and back protested as she climbed to her feet with Henry's jacket still wrapped in her arms.
"I'm not doing this," she muttered as she smoothed out the wrinkles in Henry's jacket. Then louder, she said, "I don't care what they say, I'm not going to stop looking. I know you are still out there Henry, and I'm going to find you."
Morgan had been letting others tell her what to do ever since her younger cousin went missing, and that had gotten her nowhere. It had been a week and they were no closer to finding him. Hell, the police are calling off the search. Technically, they were changing the scope of the search, but what it really meant was that there will be fewer people looking for Henry after today. Morgan wasn't going to stop. She'd keep looking no matter what the police did.
First, she needed to turn off some of these lights. Aunt Helen wouldn't be in the hospital long, and she'd be ticked if she knew every light in the house had been left on. As if the house agreed, the lights suddenly flickered, and then there was the massive boom of thunder. Well, maybe she would grab a flashlight first just in case the storm took out the electricity. It seems like every time the wind blows in this town, someone loses power.
Once Morgan got moving, it didn't ta
ke long to turn off most of the lights. A few minutes later, she stood outside of Henry's door. His coat in one hand and the flashlight in the other. Not that she needed the flashlight. Except for the one time the lights flickered the power seemed to be staying on even though rain continued to pelt the side of the house.
She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The room was immaculate. Just the way Henry had left it. A lot of eleven year old boys seemed to thrive in chaos and clutter, but not Henry. He liked everything ordered and neat. His bed was made. His toys were neatly arranged on shelves, and Morgan was sure without even looking that everything had been folded before being placed in the dresser drawer.
The police thought he might have wandered off, but Morgan couldn't imagine him doing that. Henry said he was going to the library and then coming straight home. That's exactly what he would have done unless something happened.
Well, no crap. Something did happen. Henry never made it home. They aren't even sure he made it to the library. The books he loaded into his backpack were never checked in. Somewhere in the four blocks between their home and the library he vanished.
Over fifty volunteers from the town came out to help search the woods. They looked for miles in every direction without any sign, and today that came to an end when Chief Grundy sent them home. But, not before Aunt Helen tripped over a loose rock and broke her leg.
Aunt Helen had been exhausted. She hadn't been sleeping or eating properly since Henry went missing. Every moment of her day had been spent looking for answers. Aunt Helen didn't rest even when she could barely walk a straight line. The only reason she was resting now was because the meds they gave her for her leg knocked her out. The doctors talked about surgery and pins. It all came down to Aunt Helen being in the hospital for a few days while they took care of her.
That meant it was up to Morgan to carry on the search. She'd start in the morning. Morgan was just as exhausted as her aunt had been, and it was time to get some sleep before she fell and broke something too or did something foolish. Flicking off the light switch, the room was plunged into darkness, except it wasn't total darkness. A blue glow came from under Henry's bed.
It wasn't like Henry to leave something on when he wasn't using it. Curious, Morgan silently moved across the floor and peeked under the bed. The glow came from a wooden box. It was the only thing there. The glow leaked out from the spacing between the slats.
Morgan switched on the flashlight and swept it around looking for anything else under the bed. When she was sure there were no spiders waiting to scurry out of the shadows, she pulled the box out.
It was Henry's secret box. Well, not really a secret since Morgan knew about it, but he had sworn her to secrecy the day they had found it buried in the back of the attic. It was empty except for an old journal with a silver clasp locking the pages shut. They hadn't been able to figure out the lock. There wasn't a place to insert a key or even to enter a combination, and no amount of prying would release the clasp. The book was a little smaller than one of the three ring binders that Henry carried to school, and from the worn leather cover, Morgan figured it was some sort of accounting journal.
Henry didn't agree. He said the book was magical, guarded by spells to keep it safe. He even tried opening it with all of the standard magical phrases. Abracadabra and Hocus Pocus didn't accomplish anything. Neither did Open Sesame. They had tried for an hour, each phrase sillier than the one before.
The glow came from the book. Specifically, it came from the clasp on the book. It was etched with animals like birds and snakes and cats in a circle around... well, a circle. No, not just a circle. It was the moon. Nothing about the disk in the center of the clasp said moon. It just felt right to Morgan.
It looked just like the book she and Henry had found, except for the clasp, which hadn't been glowing when they took it out of the attic. Maybe it had been coated with something. It reminded her of the stuff they used to put on the hands of watches to make them glow in the dark. If that was the case, the glow should fade away after a few minutes without any lights.
She ran her finger over the circle of animals and the glow seemed to follow her fingertip, clinging to it. When she completed the circle there was a click almost lost beneath the patter of rain hitting the window, and the glow vanished.
Aiming her flashlight at the book, she opened it. There, between the cover and the first page, was a photo of a young couple standing cheek to cheek with a tiny baby cradled between them. She lifted the picture and focused the beam from the light on it. The woman had wavy red hair and bright blue eyes that were turned up to the face of the man at her side. He smiled back at her with perfect teeth. It was that special kind of smile that extruded love and confidence. For a long time, that smile was all Morgan needed to brighten her day.
"Dad... Mom..." Morgan barely whispered the words as she stared at the picture. She shoved the picture back in the book and slammed it shut. "Oh hell! I don't need this now."
Dropping the book back into the box, she backed away from it. Where the hell had Henry found that picture. Mom had been the first person she had lost. A few months later she lost her dad too. It had been almost five years since she moved in with Aunt Helen, and she had never seen that photo before. Henry might not even know who was in the pictures.
Morgan stepped out of the room and closed the door. She didn't need that sort of distraction tonight. It was already really late, and she was filthy from searching the woods this morning. Walking across the hall, she entered her room and draped Henry's jacket over her desk chair. She didn't know why she had carried it through the house with her. Maybe it just kept her from feeling completely alone in the big empty house.
"I'll have to hang you up later," she told the jacket. Based on the clothes scattered about her room, hanging anything up was probably more of a hope than a promise. Henry's need for order was not something the two cousins shared.
Heading toward the bathroom attached to her room, she stripped off her clothes. The shirt and pants hit the pile on top of the hamper and rolled down the side to join a second, only slightly smaller pile circling its base.
The shower was exactly what she needed. After pulling on an oversized t-shirt she ran a brush through her hair. It was the same shade of red as her mother's, although nowhere near as long. Morgan kept her hair barely shoulder length to avoid wearing a hairnet when she worked at the diner. At least that's what she told herself these days. She's been keeping her hair short ever since her mother left.
Where had Henry gotten that picture?
The lights flickered and went out. Almost as soon as they did a great boom of thunder shook the house. Morgan jumped and dropped her brush. Instead of crawling around looking for it, she figured she would give it a second or two. The lights might come back on.
Or they might not. As each second passed the likelihood that the lights would magically come back on by themselves decreased. She decided it was time to go find the flashlight she had carried all over the place while the lights had remained on, and that is when she noticed the blue glow. It came from her right index finger. The same finger that she had rubbed across the silver clasp.
"Great," she said. "Henry, what did you smear on that thing."
Taking a closer look at her finger, she expected to see some sort of ink staining her fingertip, but there was nothing there. It was like the glow was coming from beneath her skin.
She said, "What the hell" as she used the hem of her shirt to try to wipe off her finger, but her shirt did no better than the shower had. Her fingertip continued to glow, not enough to see by but enough to do a ghostly follow the bouncing dot sing along act if she wanted to scare the crap out of some toddlers.
A flash of lightning briefly lit the room. Morgan sighed. The lights were not coming back on any time soon.
Morgan crept through darkness until she reached her desk. Her hand found the flashlight that she had left there. Switching it on was a relief. She waved it around, and nothing seeme
d out of place. Even the glow from her finger wasn't very noticeable in the dim light the flashlight produced.
Henry must have something in his room to clean this stuff up. It was probably all part of a prank he had been planning before he went missing. Well, he'll just have to come up with a new prank when Morgan brings him home.
She was going to bring him home. Whatever it took, she would find him. Both she and Aunt Helen had already lost too many people in their lives. They weren't going to lose any more. The shower might not have gotten the dye or whatever it was off of her finger, but it did help her clarify her thoughts.
College would have to wait another year. The money that she had been saving from her job at the diner would pay for a good private investigator or two and maybe even a fortune teller. There had been this show on TV about this woman who read palms for a living helping families find runaways.
That's what she needed a real, honest to God psychic. It would take some research to separate the scam artists from someone who could really help, but that TV palm reader would be a good place to start.
Going across the hall, Morgan felt confident for the first time in days. She wasn't so naive that she thought it would all be cakes and rainbows from here on out, but at least she had a plan. She was taking charge. Her dad would be proud of her.
Standing in the doorway to her cousin's room, she froze. The book with the photo in it wasn't where she had left it. It sat in the middle of Henry's bed.
"Shit," she whispered. Someone must have gotten into the house.
CH 2 - Late Night with a Book
Armed with a baseball bat and a flashlight, Morgan made her way through the house looking for any sign of an intruder. Someone had to have moved that book. She was positive that she had put it back under the bed.
Hadn't she?
Less than ten minutes later she was back in Henry's room. All the doors and windows were closed and locked. The storm still raged outside, but she hadn't seen spot a single wet footprint anywhere.
