"Is that a ring?" Dharma said as she leaned in next to Ivan.
Crwys looked up to see everyone kneeling over him. "Looks like it." He turned the box left and right. "And it looks like it's in the shape of a snake…or is that a worm?"
"What? Is everyone afraid to touch it?" Kyle reached his fingers in the box.
"Don't!" Arden and Dharma said at the same time.
Too late.
Kyle froze, his fist just above the box in Crwys's hand. His eyes stared straight ahead, and his mouth made a perfect O.
"Kyle? Hey…" Ivan said as he reached out to touch Kyle's shoulder—and was abruptly thrown across the room and into the wall, missing the fireplace by inches.
"Ivan!"
Seconds after Dharma's scream, something shoved Crwys backwards as well. He registered flying through the air and being stopped by the wall with an abrupt and painful end as it knocked the wind out of him.
He landed on his side, still conscious as he blinked a few times and saw everyone had been knocked away, and they were moving and recovering on the floor by the walls. Everyone except Kyle, who remained kneeling on the floor, his hand still in a fist held out in front of him.
Struggling to get air into his lungs, Crwys pushed himself up on all fours as he watched a light surround Kyle. At first it looked like an outline, as if he were kneeling in front of a bright light. But that outline crept over the Witch's shoulders, making it harder for Crwys to watch. He put up his hand to block out the light just as wind brushed against him.
"Dharma!" Arden shouted as the wind picked up in strength and speed. "Weigh it down!"
Crwys didn't have a clue what that meant as he ducked a vase as it flew past his head. A spot obscured his vision as he looked away from Kyle and watched as Ivan and Levi struggled to get to the door. The smaller objects in the home started swirling around the room first, carried on the wind as it created a vortex within the four walls, a funnel with Kyle in its center.
Moving felt like swimming through a pool filled with syrup as he braced himself against the wall and got back up on his feet. In his true form, he'd be able to withstand this kind of wind and counter it with his own. He hadn't transformed since he'd been locked in the Faerie dungeon months ago, but given the fact he believed Sleep was coming, Crwys didn't want to try any kind of half transformation and be stuck with Dragon parts he couldn't fold back in.
The couch scooted across the room and slammed into the door out of the living area just as Ivan and Levi got to it. Luckily, the runaway furniture missed them, but it blocked their only way out.
A sound joined the wind, and Crwys thought he heard a voice inside of it. He couldn't make out what it said, but it was definitely a man's voice.
What the hell is this?
Ashur's voice distracted him, and he barely avoided being hit by a coffee table as it smashed into the window, shattering the glass. There was a way out now, but no one could get to it. I don't know. But it started when he touched the ring.
No, I mean take a look at Kyle. Don't look at him, but look around him!
Easier said than done. He crouched down low, thinking closer to the ground was a better place to be until he was broadsided by a lamp. It struck the side of his head, and he fell to the floor as pieces from the broken ceramic took off into the funnel.
"Crwys!" That voice was both in his ears and in his mind. It was Levi's voice.
Other voices came and went as he tried to stay conscious. What the hell is wrong with me, getting taken out by lamp?
"Now you…you would be the power I would need," came another voice. This was a man's voice, grizzled and hollow, and not one he recognized. He refocused on the tornado of whirling furniture above him and saw an older man, dressed in what looked like a priest's cassock, as he bent down and put his hands around Crwys's neck. Crwys reached up and tried to grab the man, but his hands went through him. This was where the grisly voice came from. "Yes, yes. You will be the power that brings me back to my full—"
Silence rushed in, deafening in the sudden lack of noise and activity. That silence lasted about a second before everything the wind had caught up in its grasp crashed to the floor. With the ghost priest gone, Crwys dropped to the ground again, coughing. He curled up into a fetal position to protect himself from falling debris and made a noise when the couch landed on top of him.
He wasn't sure how long he lay still, the world dark, until voices came back. They were distant at first and grew louder as light brushed his eyelids and he felt himself move.
"Sweet Lady! Look at his head."
"Crwys, we need you to open your eyes."
But he didn't want to open them. He stood on a desert, covered in golden sands. In front of him was New Orleans, an oasis in this desert. Behind him was a path into darkness. Oblivion. Sweet, comforting sleep.
Sleep.
No…not yet. I can't Sleep yet!
"Come on…his eyes fluttered. Look at me Crwys. Do you recognize me?"
Levi's was the first face he saw, and Crwys understood why his old friend asked that question. When Sleep came, it prepared him for the mind numbing emptiness. It brushed away his present and his past and gave him no adventure for the future. To have regrets or dreams was to dismiss Sleep or to wake before it was time and be nothing but a shade on the Earth, unable to find himself.
He felt a pang of joy when he recognized Levi, and then Dharma. They both looked a bit beat up, and Dharma was going to have a shiner under her eye. Levi, of course, would mend with blood. "Yeah…I'd know that ugly face anywhere, Ashur." He used the Demon's name on purpose just to signal to his old friend that he was fine. And he was still here.
Everyone moved back as he sat up and then grabbed his head as tiny little dwarves with jack hammers started in behind his eyes. "Ow…"
"You got beaned by a couch," Ivan said as he leaned in behind Dharma. Ivan looked better than everyone else. "How do you feel?
"What about Kyle?" Crwys mumbled as he pushed himself into a kneeling position and peered over their heads.
Kyle lay on his side, his eyes closed with Arden hovering over him. She had her hands on his shoulder and hip with her head bent.
"Arden's helping him," Dharma said as she sat down on the debris-strewn floor. The altar was gone, all of its contents scattered about the room.
"Is he okay? Where did the ghost priest go? Did he stop it? Is it gone?" Crwys looked at the others. "Will someone fill me in?"
"Ghost priest?" Ivan said.
"We're still not really sure what happened," Dharma said. "Other than Ivan did this Call of Duty belly crawl over to Kyle."
"You did what?" Crwys looked at Ivan with surprise. Moving below the line of flying debris had been a good idea, and it was probably what saved him from more serious injury.
"I ninja'd over to Kyle. I figured if this started when he touched that ring, then it needed to be stopped the same way. So…" He held out his hand. In the center of his palm was the serpent ring looking completely harmless.
"Apparently, when Ivan touched it," Levi said, "it shut down…whatever the hell that was."
"And you feel okay?" Crwys looked at Ivan.
"I feel fine. You look like shit. But what was this ghost priest?"
"I saw and heard a guy in a cassock. He had gray hair and a gray beard and he looked…insane." Crwys put his hand to his neck. "He was choking me."
"A ghost was choking you?" Dharma said as she moved in close and looked at his neck. When she gasped and moved back, wide-eyed, he felt a bit vindicated. "You've got marks on your neck. But how could a ghost choke you?"
Arden came up behind them and bent down to touch Crwys's neck. "One who already has a foot in this world could."
SEVEN
The last two people I expected to see at my bed in the middle of the night were Kyle and Ivan. Kyle's touch woke me—not that I'd been sleeping too deeply—before he turned on a light. I gasped when I got a good look at the two of them. Ivan looked relatively okay.
But Kyle had a cut across his cheek, what was going to be a serious black eye, marks on his chest just above his ripped t-shirt, and a split lip.
He looked drained, as if he'd used a lot of magic with no rest. His eyes had a hollow look that didn't mix well with the dark patches under his eyes, and he was standing at an odd angle.
"You look good, Sam," Ivan said as I sat up and gaped at the two of them.
I held up my hand. "What the hell happened to the two of you? Ivan—grab that chair over there and pull it up so Kyle doesn't fall on his butt."
Ivan did as I asked, and Kyle dropped into the chair. I situated myself and patted the bed so Ivan could sit on the edge. Kyle started on the events of their night, beginning with going with Arden to the house where I lost my Sylph. He told me how Ivan sensed something in the floor, so they moved the rug and pulled up a few slats of hardwood. "When Crwys held the box up with the ring in it, I sort of felt this compulsion to touch it. Like I had to have it."
"Like it was precious?" Ivan chuckled.
I smirked at him. "Well, Sméagol, did you take it?"
"Oh, he touched it all right and all hell broke loose. I was the first one that got thrown against the wall, then everyone else. Furniture went flying…coffee table, chairs, you name it. Everything got tossed around like the place was a kid's dollhouse. Actually turned into that tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz with all that stuff spinning around. And right in the middle of it was Kyle, holding that ring."
"You…you touched it, and it created a tornado?" I blinked at Kyle. "What do you remember, other than wanting to touch it?"
Kyle leaned to the side in the chair and rubbed at his eyes. "That's just it. I don't remember anything. Everything's black from the moment I touched it until Ivan took it away. Then I was on the floor with Arden hovering over me."
I was half out of the bed, monitors, wires, and tubes be damned. "Kyle, give me your hand."
I took his hand in both of mine. I summoned Spirit and took a close look at his. It burned bright—brighter than I'd ever seen before, but it also had a few cracks in it where the flame dimmed in some places. "What the hell kind of thing does that?"
"Does what?" Ivan and Kyle said together.
"Your spirit, aura, chi, ka, soul, whatever you want to call it, has fissures in it. They're healing but…Lady Darksome, don't you ever pick up someone else's buried rings again, okay?"
Kyle laughed. "I didn't know, Sam. No one did. None of us felt a thing, not even Dharma and Arden with their Water."
I let go of his hand and had to steady my heartbeat, which was causing the monitor to beep really fast. I didn't want to have to explain them being in the room. But then with Ivan there, I was pretty sure he'd already hacked the security system, as well as this room's electronics, and the nurses were probably clueless. I looked at Ivan. "And you took the ring?"
"Yeah."
"And it stopped."
Ivan snapped his fingers. "Just like that."
Kyle nodded to Ivan. "Apparently the ring has no effect on him."
Ivan shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and produced a silver ring. He held it out to me in his open palm. I didn't touch it. Unlike Kyle, I had no desire to touch it. If Kyle's touch started up a tornado in a house, I didn't even want to guess what my touch would do. "Did Arden or Dharma try to touch it?"
"No. Arden won't go near it. Neither will Dharma," Kyle said.
I looked at Ivan. "How come it doesn't mess with you?"
He shrugged while still holding it out. "The working theory is that my magic is too foreign. That my connection to the etheric cyberworld is in a way kin to that of a ghost's, or a spirit's, since in a way I disengage from myself when I deep dive into the grid."
My jaw dropped as he spoke, then I closed it when he finished. "That's a damn good explanation for a working theory."
He beamed. "Kinda catchy, isn't it?"
I nodded. "Let's go with what you said."
Kyle snorted. "So it boils down to he's weird."
"Beats setting off a crazy ass…" I blinked. "What is this thing?" I summoned my dex and aimed it at the ring. The ring actually wobbled in Ivan's palm, which freaked him out, but I told him to hold steady as my spell surrounded and penetrated the little thing's defenses.
Finally, the dex gave me a word. And it wasn't a word I'd ever run across before. "Dybbuk."
Ivan tilted his head. "Huh?"
"It says Dybbuk. Isn't that a malicious spirit or something?"
Kyle slowly shook his head. "I've heard of a Dybbuk cabinet, but not a ring."
"Well, let's call it a cursed object for the time being. Ivan, I need you to research Dybbuk and find out all you can. Make sure Dharma's with you and put that ring in the safe in the basement of the shop, okay?"
"Will do." Ivan shoved the ring into his jeans pocket again.
"And me?" Kyle said.
"You're going to go home and rest. But first, I have to tell you two something." I went over what happened earlier, what I saw in the vision of the storm.
"You had a vision?" Kyle grinned. "Sam, does this mean you have a Dianic Gift?"
"I hope the hell not. I don't ever want to do that again. I just need you to research Storm Magic for me, okay? Find out if there are any—"
"Wait." Kyle put his hand on the bed railing. "Nadeen Lefebvre."
"Mambo Nadeen? What's she got to do with this?"
"Wasn't she a Storm Warden?"
My eyes widened. "You're right. I heard that from Ina once. But I never really knew what that meant." Then I looked at Kyle. "You keep saying was."
"She's dead."
Now it was my turn to drop my jaw. I'd met Nadeen a few years ago. Ina had been the one to introduce us. I had needed some answers to questions about voodoo, and she'd been the perfect one to get those answers from because she always told the truth and always played things honestly. She was also a pillar of the community, someone a lot of people looked up to and a lot of people went to for help. Even the church over near St. Louis Number One referred parishioners to her in times of great need. My memories of her were of a strong, patient woman with a soft, warm heart. "Who… How? Why by the Lady's name would anyone want to hurt that woman?"
"I don't know. Crwys didn't give me any specifics, but he wants me to help him with it."
I assumed Crwys wanted Kyle's help because he'd hooked Kyle up with a man named Solomon Dumaine. He was a local conjurer, also known as hoodoo. I didn't know that much about him personally, only through reputation. When you're in the magical community, you sort of know a little bit, but not a lot, about everyone.
Papa Dumaine, as most people called him, had been teaching Kyle since April and Kyle's power and knowledge had grown exponentially. "Then you do what Crwys wants and keep me in the loop."
"How long are you going to be in here?" Ivan asked.
"Hopefully I can spring myself later this morning. I plan on brow beating the doctor to let me out. Now, you two go back and tell Arden and Dharma about the vision, and send Crwys in here."
"How did you know he's here?" Ivan said as he slipped off the bed and helped Kyle out of his chair. I gave Ivan a face, and he grinned, then winced when the expression pulled at his split lip. "Never mind."
They left and I'd just gotten myself presentable when the love of my life came in. He looked as disheveled as they had. I put my hand on the bruise at his temple, but it was the marks around his neck that alarmed me. He stopped me from saying a word with a long, lingering kiss before he buried his head under my chin. I held him to me, and before I knew it, he was in the bed with me, his boots on the floor.
I ran my fingers through his hair and waited for him to say something. "I broke every speed record getting here," he said, and his voice sounded so small and muffled against my chest. He lifted his head, and I saw more amber than fire in his eyes. He still looked tired. I mean he had circles under his eyes, which seemed odd on that handsome face of his. "I love you."
"I love y
ou too, you big Dragon. Now…I've talked to Kyle and Ivan about what happened in the house. But you're going to have to explain these marks."
He grunted as he put his head back down. "A ghost priest in a cassock tried to kill me."
Now that's not something you hear every day. "Say that again?"
"I'm serious." He lifted his head. "It came out of that whirling mass of crazy in that house. And at first he looked transparent and gray, but he was solid. Solid enough to make me see spots. And he was hella strong too."
I was quiet for a few seconds while I tried to reconcile what Ivan and Kyle told me with Crwys seeing a ghost. "Did anyone else see him?"
"No. No one else did. But the marks on my neck made Arden believe me. She said the only way a ghost could do that was if they were half in this world, whatever that means." He put his head back down.
A ghost priest in a cassock? Was the ghost part of the lingering ritual? Was he the spirit Kyle said the herbs were combined to summon? And where did this ring fit in? A ring with a Dybbuk, or a ring that is a Dybbuk? A ring that either used Kyle's power to make an inside storm, or a ring that possessed the power to make a storm and was activated by Kyle's touch—but not by Ivan's. Was it because Ivan's magic was so different? Alien?
All this in the same house and room where my Sylph cut his ties to me.
Thunder shook the window in its frame and I looked outside. No rain, but I did see lightning. "Finally, we're getting rain."
"Not yet." Crwys turned his head to his left and took my hand in his. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. "It's just sort of hanging up there. Before the sun went down it looked like overcast clouds—you know the ones that sort of sit there just above at city and block out everything else?"
"Yeah. What's the weather say?"
"Dunno." He yawned.
"Kyle told me about Mambo Nadeen."
He groaned. "He wasn't supposed to tell you."
"Well, you're not going to keep her death a secret, babe. She was a fixture in that neighborhood. But what you are going to do is get a whole lot of backlash if you don't find out who killed her." I moved my finger along his ear. "How did they do it?"
Elemental Storm (The Eldritch Files Book 6) Page 6
