Lonely Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 3)

by Amanda A. Allen

  Her eyes narrowed but I really did not have any desire to tell her of my experiments. Or that I knew exactly how careless I had been when I had mixed and swallowed those three potions without even glancing down at the methods I’d used or the ingredients. I had just swallowed the mix, crossed my fingers, and gone out to face the bad guy.

  Portia examined me for a moment and then said, “You are ever a surprise, Veruca Hallow.”

  “It’s Rue. Where’s Chrysie? Is she ok?”

  “Elizabeth’s team recovered Chrysanthemum’s hand. Elizabeth said we can reattach it.”

  “Ew. Also, wonderful. I hurt,” I finished, wishing she’d get out of my way, but not feeling up to making her move.

  “Go back to bed. I’ll bring you meds.”

  I shook my head. The energy potion—I’d taken a triple dose—wasn’t going to let me sleep for a while not now that I was conscious again. And I didn’t want to stare at the walls in my room.

  “Lovely,” I said. “I’d like to see Chrysie.”

  “She’s in a magic-induced sleep while we continue to pump her full of blood, calories, and magic.”

  I just shrugged and went to the kitchen. I was going to see Chrysie. But first…drugs. I limped down and found the shifter, Markus sitting in one of the large, sturdy kitchen chairs.

  “Rue,” Markus stood as I entered. “You look horrible.”

  I cocked my head at him and then said, “You look like you’ve been for a brisk walk. Why aren’t you bloody and broken?”

  “Shifter magic,” Markus shrugged and grinned. “I’d like to ask you for a favor.”

  I just looked at him and then said, “I’d like a burger please. With avocado and lots and lots of cheese.”

  He smiled as if my turning him into a short order cook didn’t bother at all and began digging through the fridge while I waited for him to tell me what he wanted.

  “You seemed very shifter just then,” he started, “asking for food and ignoring the request.”

  “Cut to the chase,” I said, laying my head on the table and praying for the meds to work more quickly.

  “Gwennie was taken from our home by the dark witch. Despite the wards we paid a witch to place.”

  I waited, but I knew what he wanted. I only had so much to give and my magic wasn’t notable enough to be worthy of a favor. Not when lives were on the line.

  “Elizabeth and your family council agree that the dark witch will likely come after her and Chrysie both.”

  “You want to bring her here. Since Martha is something of a fortress.”

  Markus nodded as he formed hamburger patties and dropped them into a large black pan. “I don’t think there is any better protected house in all of St. Angelus. And Gwennie can’t travel far. Bacon? Plus, I have some ideas.”

  “Sure,” I said. “So you think we should gather up where the dark witch can get us all at once.”

  Markus considered, checked the bottom of the burger, and then said, “Better than being picked off, one by one, horror movie style.”

  I dropped my head to the table and let the smell of cooking meat fill my lungs. I was too tired. I once thought I was morally challenged. Now, I was starting to come to the conclusion that I was certainly morally challenged. Because, I thought, that the dark witch would come after us too. Gods….Felix, Jessie, Cyrus and I—even in Martha—were no match for the dark witch.

  We might survive though with a bunch of shifters as cannon fodder. I swallowed bile and decided I hated myself a bit. Maybe more than a bit.

  “If she comes after us, Martha isn’t going to be enough. Any set of wards can be broken down—and the dark witch won’t care if Martha is destroyed in the process. Not like the Hallow Family Council.”

  “You have your witch friends.”

  “Cyrus has done a half dozen spells. Felix is talented, but not at battle type stuff. Jessie is still working on execution of theory. The four of us don’t have much to offer beyond Hallow House.”

  “The Dark Witch won’t get through your wards.” He sounded so confident as he put my burger on the bun and handed it to me. I made my way to the fridge and grabbed the mayo and sat back down. I was tired in the way that left you sick to your stomach. “And I said I’ve got some ideas.”

  “We can’t stay here forever.” I wasn’t going to. At no point was I going to camp inside of my house, afraid to come out. So, the dark witch had to go. Preferably before I missed too many classes. We were college students. Would they give Chrysie an absence pass for recovering from a dark witch? Would she have to drop out? How long would it take her to recover? Would she recover?

  “No,” but he grinned an animal, hungry, hunting smile and I realized that he wanted to end the dark witch even more than I did. “I said I have some ideas.”

  “You want her to come.”

  “Indeed, I do. I very much want to feel her blood on my hands and to see her die a slow and horrible death.”

  I should have been a little sick. But I had seen my cousin handless and I’d dug up his little sister. In a meadow full of graves. Who had the others been? Had we left any others alive? Had…had that first spirit belonged to Chrysie or someone else? Oh, how I wanted to feel the dark witch’s blood on my hands as well. I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to feel it between my teeth. And I was not the shifter in this duo.

  “We already have the bait,” I started.

  “And she won’t expect my kind. Not if she’s coming after Chrysie. Get your friends. Have you got some place to do magic in this joint?”

  I nodded and got my coven, following Markus and a couple of wolves to the magic room to listen to his ideas. And maybe think about putting them into play. The truth was—if they were workable—I would do them. The “real” witches of Elizabeth, Saffron, and the Hallow Council would be going after the dark witch tonight. These were just-in-case measures, nothing more.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When I entered Chrysie’s room, I didn’t expect an IV with fluids. I didn’t expect the oxygen tube in her nose, and I didn’t expect the way I didn’t feel her spirit. On a normal day, when she slept, she seemed to fill Martha with light—as if there was something about Chrysie that was ineffably her filtered through our home and changed its flavor.

  She was as white as could be, one shade warmer than death. Her lashes were dark streaks across her face, and her lips faded into her skin. Chrysie—the girl who always seemed to be on the edge of dance or flight lay so still, she seemed to be spelled that way. I licked my lips, pressed them together, and took a deep breath through my nose. Maybe if I kept my mouth still, I wouldn’t start crying.

  Felix sat next to her in the chair, his head in his hands, his—suddenly less nasty—dreadlocks hung down hiding his face. I glanced around and found Jessie and Cyrus sitting side by side on the window seat that had hanging lights above it. Their hands were clasped and their eyes looked at me with the same sadness I felt.

  Above them were glitter butterfly lights, I hadn’t realized Chrysie had added to her room. They seemed childlike until you saw how they fit into the space. There was something about glittery butterfly lights that were ineffably Chrysie. My room was sort of stately and princess-like. It was too nice for the scrub I was, but it seemed to fit me anyway. Maybe it was the witchcraft paraphernalia or the way it oozed magic. Maybe it was the two things that didn’t go together.

  Chrysie—though—she was a clear-cut creature of light. It was in the way the room was full of brightness or the way it seemed to sparkle a little. Or maybe it was the way her things seemed to stand on the tips of their toes as if they were about to break into some sort of dance just like she used to. Her bed was carved and white and had an actual canopy that was sheer enough to let the light filter through.

  “Oh Hecate,” I said as I realized something more was wrong with Chrysie than seeming ill, “Where is she?”

  Felix shifted and sat up, but he said nothing. Our gazes met and together we turned to Chrysie.

>   Jessie rose and came over, saying as she did, “I think she’s in there. Just really deep.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Cyrus said, stepping up behind Jessie.

  I took a deep breath, the sadness welled up and I shoved it back down. I had a freaking arsenal of spells. A deep well of them. I had been quizzed and trained and taught since my earliest memories. I could create a pinnacle from muscle memory—with a perfect circle. I was good at witchcraft. Given enough time, I would fly. And I was not going to leave my cousin and best friend like this. Gods, it was only as I stared down at her that I realized she was my best friend. Besides Branka, she was the closest human to me on the planet, and I loved her like I loved my sister.

  Thinking of my sister, Bran stirred in my mind. She must have been thinking of me too. I could just sense that was she all right. Chrysie, however, was not. I filtered in my mind through the things I could do—and there was nothing that would help. No spell I could do would make Chrysie wake up herself. If there were, Portia would have done it already.

  “Hestia, goddess of home and family,” I whispered to my friends, “We’re going to have to tell her mother.”

  And it was too much. It was just too much. I slid down to my knees to face her and felt shame such as I had never known. What had I been thinking? We were barely adults. Chrysie and Jessie were partially trained at best. Felix was young in his magic still, as was I. We were no match for a dark witch. And we’d just blithely pranced our way through St. Angelus thinking that we’d somehow outsmart a dark witch who’d been practicing under the noses of the Hallow Family Council and the master level witches who taught and worked at the college.

  “We were so stupid,” I said, my eyes fixed on Chrysie’s unmoving face.

  “Hey,” Felix said, he squatted down next to me, but he didn’t touch me. He didn’t add anything to that objection. And what could he add? We had been stupid.

  “Can you believe they think that I might be the fated Keeper?” My laugh was unamused and I shook my head.

  Martha rumbled slightly and I could feel her disagreement. Her love. But she was a house. Covered in spells and power that had given her something of a personality. She didn’t know.

  “That’s enough,” Cyrus snapped and surprised us all. “We might have been stupid.”

  Jessie and Felix interjected, “We were.”

  “We might have been,” Cyrus agreed. “But you guys, at least, are witches. And there must be something we can do. So, quit moping and let’s do every single thing that might help.”

  I looked at Cyrus. He looked back at me with zero give in his gaze.

  “What if we just…did some spells,” Jessie said vaguely.

  Like what? Didn’t they understand? Portia would have done whatever could be done. I glanced at Jessie and then at Felix who shrugged. We looked back to Cyrus who wouldn’t take a a denial.

  “What if we mess up again?” I rubbed my hands over my face so I wouldn’t have to see Chrysie lying so still.

  “Portia will probably fix it. Or Elizabeth,” Jessie guessed. And I figured she’d rather try and fail than do nothing. I didn’t want to be a witch who relied on others to catch her mistakes, but I also didn’t want to be a witch who was afraid to use her magic.

  “We have to be careful,” I said.

  They all nodded. I started with the obvious basic. A pentacle that I had to draw under and around her bed. My skill set was pretty amazing, but even I had to stop and think a couple of times as I struggled to form it around everything. This time the pentacle wasn’t born of desperation—it was born of caution and worry. But when it was done and I let my magic senses flutter along its edges, I could feel that it was right. It hummed with a bare hint of magical energy.

  I looked at the others, they looked back at me. I wasn’t sure what to do with the blank slate, and I wasn’t sure if they had any ideas. It was quiet for minutes as we considered. Jessie rose and left and came back with a stack of books. I picked one up and fluttered through. There wasn’t going to be a bring-your-vampire/ coven-sister/ best friend/cousin-back-to-herself-after-a-dark-witch-attack spell. The book I was glancing through was no more than a dictionary of runes. I stopped on one page and stared down at the stark lines that translated to the rune of music.

  My fingers tapped against it as an idea occurred to me. I didn’t really need to look up the rune I wanted, but I did anyway. And I stared down at the rune for safety. I glanced at Felix who seemed to immediately follow my thought process. He shrugged one shoulder and I placed it in the center.

  Jessie leaned forward, nodded, and said, “A magical message to Chrysie? What about peace?”

  I placed that one at the tip of the star.

  “And love,” Felix said. I agreed putting it in the Northwest point of the pentacle.

  “Friendship,” Cyrus added. I placed that one at the Southeast point of the pentacle.

  “What about Return?” Felix pointed to the Northeast point of the pentacle and I nodded, adding it. We were flying in the dark, and I had no idea if this would work.

  We all stared at the final point of the pentacle. We needed something. A placeholder felt wrong.

  “Health,” Jessie said.

  It was so obvious I would have felt ashamed, but I was already flooded with my limit of that emotion.

  “Let’s kneel outside the pentacle,” I said. Each of the others picked a point of the pentacle. We left Chrysie at the tip, and then we reached towards each other. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It was a ward of sorts. A calling to Chrysie. It was an invitation to come back to us. We needed her to feel—us. We hoped it would be enough to entice her to wake herself.

  I hummed. The others joined in. Fingertip to fingertip, we surrounded our friend and infused the pentacle with our energies, giving life to each of the runes until the pentacle flared with light and then faded into lines of chalk. But a person who used their witch’s senses on it would feel what we felt for Chrysie. Perhaps it would be enough. Perhaps it would be a beginning. Or an easing of her way back to us.

  It gave me another idea.

  “I need to go,” I said as I stood.

  “You're leaving?” Felix asked. He didn’t sound happy. And honestly, I looked as if I had been beat up. Of course, that was accurate. But, I needed the potions lab at the college. Mine was excellent. But it was also 20 years behind, while theirs was one of the best I’d ever seen.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “But I need the lab at the school.”

  “It’s a school day,” Cyrus pointed out. “It’ll be full once the school opens.”

  I made a face and then nodded. I hobbled down to the workroom off the gardens where the potions ingredients that had grown and been preserved were kept, as well as those that had been stocked in the house. The table was ancient. The cupboards were dark wood. There were no windows since light would affect a lot of the ingredients housed in the room. The floor was stone with a drain, and it was a brewer’s paradise. Outside of my lab, it was my favorite room in the house.

  I pulled out some frankincense, blue chamomile, blue tansy, spruce, and cinnamon. That would help with peace and anxiety. But I wanted it to smoke. I rummaged until I found magically cleansed and purified wax. I tossed it back and forth while I leaned my aching body against the work table and then put it back, going instead for crystal orbs that could hold a smoke potion.

  I couldn’t use the school labs. I was shocked to find I was missing school and not caring, but it was world literature and guitar day—so whatever. I was also missing Necromancy 101, but I hated that class. And nothing mattered outside of Chrysie. I couldn’t use the school labs. My labs were not as efficient, but maybe if I…

  “What are you doing?” Felix asked from the doorway.

  “I’m making a potion for Chrysie,” I said.

  “You’re avoiding calling Elspeth.”

  I swallowed. That was also true. He tossed me my phone. I picked it up, tapped it against the w
ork table. My hands were shaking. I wanted to demand why it was me who had to call. But I knew why. I was the coven leader—even if our coven was only days old. I was the relative. I was. I was the one who had to do it.

  I didn’t want to, but it was time to girl up. I picked up my phone, scrolled until I found Elspeth, and pressed my fingers lightly to her name. The ringing seemed to echo through the workroom and through my head.

  “Hello,” Elspeth’s voice was bright and the memory of the tight squeeze she’d given me before she left, the feeling of love she conveyed to me, that mix of emotions rose high in my mind. “Rue, dear, how are you?”

  “I…” My voice broke. It was the croak of a frog trying to form words but unable to.

  “Oh gods,” Elspeth breathed. “Is she alive?”

  It took me several attempts to say yes.

  “Will she be ok?”

  “I don’t know.” Words were coming easier now, no less painfully but I could form them. “I think maybe.”

  Elspeth’s breathing was harsh in the room. I guessed she was trying not to cry, to scream, I couldn’t imagine how she felt. She’d already faced so much with Chrysie. A daughter sent to college, murdered, turned into a vampire, and now this.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  I told her. I took responsibility. I explained the mistakes we made. And what happened.

  “Rue,” Elspeth said, and I could feel her fighting to think. “None of us are responsible for the actions of the wicked.”

  “We shouldn’t have gone,” I said, refusing the excuse she provided me.

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But you still aren’t responsible for the actions of my daughter. If I am not mistaken, she is actually older than you.”

  I felt responsible. I didn’t understand why she was being nice to me. I helped pave the way for her child to be, yet again, put in danger. So I told her about the first time. How I hadn’t liked the feel of our dorm room. How I had done spells to protect just my side. How maybe I had been the target the whole time and Chrysie’s death was the consequence of my not spelling the whole room.