“Jemmy—can you heat up the chamomile tea for me?”
She patted his shoulder. “Sure thing, hon. I’m sure glad you’re here.” And she moved into the kitchen.
I’m fine.
He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
Yes, I am.
“I’ll win.”
Oh?
“I spank.”
Ooo . . . wasn’t sure I wanted to know this side of Darren McConnell. You going by McConnell or McKinty?
“McConnell. It’s my mother’s name. McKinty was the name I used when I bartended.”
My lower jaw started to ache from jutting out so long. Geez . . . how long did these things—
Beepbeepbeep . . .
Dags took it out before I could and looked at it. His dark eyebrows arched up, and he looked at me with puckered lips. “You’re going to bed.”
Huh? Why? I took the thermometer and looked at it—102.6
I blinked. This thing is broken.
But Dags was already standing and taking the cup he’d brought out back to the kitchen. He said a few things to Jemmy—in French!—and then came back to me. I pointed at him. You spoke French.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did. Now—” He reached down and took my hand and pulled me up. “Upstairs. Get under the covers, and I’ll—”
He went rigid—his hands at his sides. His palms burst into light, and Maureen and Alice were back.
Only—
They’d done a wardrobe change.
Holy shit.
Before—when they were just there—the two of them seemed kinda normal. And whatever it was they were wearing seemed sort of nondescript. So much so that I couldn’t remember what it looked like. Not much detail.
Yet now they were both dressed in what I would call armor—only with a very female style. And they both looked the same age—my age—one was dressed in white, the other in black. They were the queens on a chessboard.
Wait—bad-ass queens on a chessboard.
And Dags was in the center.
What the hell—
“The Cruorem,” Dags said. “They’re nearby.”
That name rang a bell—that was the name of Bonville’s group—which of course was some wacko Ceremonial Magic cult. What is with all the groups? It’s like a Yahoo! Group Who’s Who list of the Weirdest Idiots of Atlanta. After remembering that night—I’d also sort of remembered that I considered them a joke. But Dags and the girls didn’t look like they were joking.
“There were a few that were actually pretty powerful,” Dags said, as Maureen moved in one direction, long, shimmering obsidian sword at the ready, and Alice went in the opposite direction, crystal weapon unsheathed. “And one of them got the Grimoire—the book where Allard took the spell that created the Shadow Door? Remember the pages and the contracts?”
Uh-huh. Memory was still a little fuzzy. I remember being full.
Jemmy came jogging out of the kitchen, a pretty impressive-looking cannon clutched between her hands.
I stood up. Whoa!
Dags turned and looked at her. “Desert Eagle?”
“It was my husband’s.”
“Warded?”
“Damn straight.” She held it close, barrel pointed up. “Hollow silver, stuffed with belladonna and a little bit of my own special recipe. Where are they?”
“Outside,” Maureen said from the side.
Dags looked at Maureen. “How many this time?”
“Just the same two that have been shadowing us since Savannah.”
Two Cruorem? Shadowing them since Savannah? I waved at him. You were in Savannah?
“Long story. No time.” He put his palms together in front of him, pressed, then pulled them apart. My jaw nearly hit the floor as a long, two-toned sword formed between the two. Once it was there, he grabbed it with his left hand and held it up.
I shook my head. Okay. You win. You got weirder.
He winked. “I told you. Now we just have to defend against whatever it is these creeps will do.”
What are they after?
“Me.”
???
“Told you—long story. I’ll tell you over coffee one day. I—”
He stopped and frowned. I looked from Maureen to Dags to Alice . . . and got really dizzy. Suddenly I was not feeling too good.
Maureen said, “They left.”
“Uh-huh.” Dags nodded. “I don’t think they even approached this house. Probably sensed Nona and Rhonda’s wards.”
Oooh . . . don’t mention her name.
Dags turned to me, and the sword vanished as if it’d never existed. Maureen and Alice suddenly looked normal again too—er—as normal as two ghostly women could look. “Zoë, you’re going to have to—”
That’s when my knees buckled. I couldn’t stop myself from going down, and Dags was right beside me. Every muscle in my body was shaking—and it felt like when I hadn’t eaten anything in a while.
Wait . . . what was the last thing I ate?
Milk Duds?
I was on my back, and the ceiling was spinning . . . really fast.
This wannabe Wraith was swiftly losing steam. Fatigue covered my shoulders like a warm blanket on a snowy day, and I felt my eyes closing.
“Zoë? Don’t! Zoë!”
Poof.
3
I got sick . . .
THREE days.
I’d lost three days!
And this time the dreams were sucky. No kisses. No love. No sex.
Though to be honest, sex wasn’t really a priority with me right now. Without Daniel—I felt sexless. And what was worse—during the whole time I was sick, Daniel never called. Though Jemmy and Tim told me Dags called Detective Frasier several times.
Dags was there all the time, every time I woke up. He usually had something warm for me to drink, or a cold compress for my forehead. He kept his hand in mine, and I always squeezed it for him. It was nice seeing him there, before whatever it was he’d given me knocked me back out.
Sometimes I woke up, and he was asleep, either curled up in the chair he’d moved closer to the bed or on the foot of the bed. Once I woke and found him sleeping soundly next to me, his face turned toward mine.
I lay on my side, watching him, my head pounding. He looked so . . . different. I reached out with my hand and touched his face. He was warm. I moved stray strands of dark hair from his cheek, noticed how his nose turned up on the end. He really was a nice-looking guy, and I could see how Rhonda had fallen for him.
Tim was in the room, standing behind Dags, near the window. “He likes you.”
I smiled. I like him too, Tim. He’s nice.
I kissed Dags on the cheek and snuggled next to him as I drifted off again.
Captain Cooper actually came by—though he’d been stopping by Miller Oaks to see my mom ever since she’d been placed in their care. I found that out from the nurses. Always avoiding me though. Which was why I thought it was strange that he came by to see me at the shop.
Dags brought in a doctor—a new once since my old doctor got possessed, stole my mom’s body for his old lover’s soul, then got gacked by a couple of Eidolons.
This guy reminded me of Grand Moff Tarkin. Dude . . . he looked like Scorpius.
Have I overgeeked yet?
He had the bedside manner of a mortician—but Dags swore by him. And it appeared my only friends in the world were a Guardian, a—I had no idea what Jemmy was except damn scary sometimes—and two ghosts? The real mystery was what exactly was wrong with me. I had symptoms of a bad flu—but he insisted that wasn’t what it was.
I just knew my hair hurt.
And I couldn’t get comfortable. And I was sick of always waking up on my back.
Wait . . . that sounded funny.
Either way, Dr. Scorpius treated it like a flu. Bed rest, fluid, and aspirin.
And, oh, I needed the aspirin.
But what was really a hoot was what happened on the third morning . . .
Heh . . . with my hospital record? I’m a pro.
Once I was upright and not in any danger of tipping over, I made a header for the bathroom. Hydraulic pressure was my gas—I had to seriously pee. When you drink that much fluid in a body that’s not used to drinking that much fluid?
Lots of bathroom breaks.
After the dam broke, and I was able to walk without serious pain, I ambled to the mirror—and we all know how that goes.
I looked awful. My hair was a mess of burls—tangled—teased—a veritable eighties salute to big hair. And as I was combing it down—or trying to—I noticed something else.
The streak was gone.
Christ!
Fuck!
Holy—
“What the hell!” I bellowed. I leaned in close to the mirror and looked. It was my natural blend of coppery black and brown. All there. No more white.
So I’ve lost my OOB, my mark, and my white streak?
Well, yeah, it’d all been a scary pain—but this was like—imagine Harry Potter waking up and discovering he was a Mug gle again with no scar!
I heard footsteps coming close and knew from the pattern it was Dags. I turned with the guilty side to the door.
When he appeared, we stared at each other.
I kinda figured why he was staring at me—I looked like a freak’n banshee.
I was staring because the guy was wearing a pair of loungers. That’s it. Just a pair of low-slung blue-and-purple loungers.
Pajama bottoms.
My eyes traveled from his feet—skimming past clothing—directly to the man-girdle at his thin waist, to his pecs, then to his arms and shoulders. The only thing I could compare it to was the difference between Peter Parker before the spider bite and after.
When I met him, it was before the bite.
And now?
Yowsah.
And it didn’t hurt that his hair was all tousled and had that JBF (just been fucked) look. Man . . . if Rhonda could have seen him—she’d be drooling. I kinda was.
Which was just . . . wrong.
“Are you okay?”
I pointed to my hair. “Look—look at this, Dags—the streak is gone! What is up with this?”
When he didn’t answer, I fixed him with an intense glare. I didn’t feel particularly powerful about it—since I didn’t have any Wraith mojo to back it up.
His eyes were wide. And I mean WIDE. And he was pointing at me. “Do—do that again.”
I held my hands out to my side. “What?” What was I wearing? I looked down.
Oh . . . a long tee shirt.
And no underwear.
“That! What you just did!”
Okay, I was confused again. I shook my head. “Dags—I’m too tired to—”
And theeeeeen it hit me.
SMACK.
I was talking.
I WAS TALKING!
I. WAS. FUCKING. TALKING!
EVERYONE was up now. Dags called Jemmy, then he called Dr. Scorpius, who told him to tell me to gargle with warm salty water.
Right, like that was gonna happen.
Jemmy and Dags and Steve were in the kitchen making breakfast—a portable one. Jemmy was going to open the store again while Dags and Tim and I went to Miller Oaks to see Mom. It felt like a lifetime since I’d been there. He’d talked to Cooper, who said there’d been no change. I reminded myself to get him a thank-you card.
Only I wasn’t sure where to stick it (yeah my imagination went happy on that one too).
We were also going to spend the day at as many of the occult shops as possible, looking for anything that might explain what had happened to me. The big book shrugged when we asked it. No medical dictionary on Wraithy woes.
I took a shower, tamed down my hair, braided it, and put on a pair of jeans—that were suddenly a size too big—and a light long-sleeved tee shirt with a Kevin Barry’s logo on it. Dags had brought it back from Savannah for me, and it was very soft. I had to stop and sit down a few times, and I was light-headed.
But when I smelled that bacon, buttery eggs, biscuits, sausage, and pancakes—my stomach sounded the alarm.
There was coffee made when I got down the stairs. Kona coffee, something else Dags had picked up for me. I wasn’t a bean aficionado, but I did love a good Kona.
Dags was dressed in jeans, a white long-sleeved shirt, untucked, and white socks. He wore a stunning blue pendant around his neck—and then I recognized it as the one Joe had given me at the Phoenix and Dragon.
“Found it on the floor in the botanica when Jemmy and I were cleaning up.” He reached around to unfasten it. “Want it back?”
“Nah,” I said, just excited to hear my own squeaky voice again.
Mental note: lalalalalalala.
“You keep it.”
“Sure? It’s Joe’s.”
I glared at him. “So?”
He smirked again, and instead of a portable breakfast, we decided to share one at the larger table in the tea shop. Jemmy had already nibbled and was getting things ready to open. The bakery had delivered several pies and breads, and she had teas drying and steeping and a fire cranked in the fireplace.
She was set.
And I was famished. I ate my fill and had three cups of coffee. So now I was full and wired.
Jemmy had stepped outside to sweep the front porch, and she came back in, a thin manila envelope in her hands. “Dags—this is addressed to you.”
The tea shop got real quiet.
He wiped his mouth and offered his hand as she came to the table. He glanced at me, and his left hand glowed from the palm as he passed it over the envelope. When he smiled, I smiled. “It’s not cursed or anything.”
Well, that’s good, right?
He opened it and I watched his eyes track back and forth as I chewed on a piece of bacon. After a few minutes he handed it to me.
I wiped my hands on my napkin and took up the paper. It was parchment—of course—and the script was handwritten with a quill. I could tell because there were a lot of ink spatters on it.
Darren Gregory McConnell,
It’s come to our attention that your abilities have transcended those of a normal Guardian and that you have the ear of the Wraith. We also know of her mother’s condition, as well as the Symbiont who possesses her soul.
We know how to call her mother’s soul back—a spell within the Grimoire holds the secret.
We would like to offer a swap. The spell to save the Wraith’s mother’s soul, in exchange for your familiars. Meet us at the Center for Puppetry Arts Thursday night at midnight. Failure to appear could lead to some very nasty consequences.
Jack Klinsky
“Jack Klinsky?” I looked at Dags. “Not very imaginative for a bad guy. I mean, couldn’t he have called himself Voldemort or Darth Vader or something?”
He didn’t look amused. I thought it was funny.
Mental note: Dags lost his sense of humor—gained abs—but lost his sense of humor.
“Klinsky was Bonville’s second-in-command, Zoë,” Dags said. “What I’m worried about is how they know about you—and Nona? Or even Archer?”
I wasn’t as worried—though I thought I should be. “I’m sure there’s some sort of Abysmal psychic spiritual secret society blog somewhere on the Net—where all the bad guys can share evil deeds. Kinda like Dr. Horrible.”
Nope. Still no smile. Not even a twitch. Maybe this was a message—that even though I had my voice back I shouldn’t talk. I looked at the letter again. “Wonder why he chose the puppet place.” That’s when I gave an involuntary shudder.
Puppets.
I hated puppets.
“He works there.”
I did a double take
at Dags. Was he kidding? A nutcase Ceremonial Magician worked at a puppet theater? “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
I skimmed the letter again. “Do you really think they have a ritual to call Mom’s soul back?”
“I doubt they do—I also doubt they’d really know that for a fact. A lot of those spells were written in French.”
Lightbulb! “And you speak French!”
That time he smirked. “Last time I was around Klinsky, he barely spoke English well.” He nodded to the letter. “He didn’t write that.”
“So do you have any ideas besides this ritual?”
He shrugged. “Short of somehow stealing the Summoning Eidolon back from Rodriguez—nope. Which is why I want to take a look into a few occult shops.”
My ears perked up at what he said. “Why didn’t I think of that? If I use the Eidolon on Mom’s body, her soul has to come back, right? That’s the way it was used on me.”
That got Dags’s attention. He held up a finger. “No.”
“But that would work, right?”
“No, Zoë. He’s too dangerous.”
“Well, like he’s any kind of threat to me now? I’m not even a Wraith anymore.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then stopped. “No, you’re not. So . . . he couldn’t command your Wraith anymore. But he doesn’t know that.”
Oooh . . . he was thinking up something devious. And he noticed me looking at him. “I’m not serious yet, Zoë. I don’t even know where Rodriguez lives. And even if I did, I doubt he’d keep the Eidolons in an obvious place.”
I felt deflated. He was right. It was a hard bet that Rodriguez was just going to leave those Eidolons out for someone to sneak in and steal. And even though I wasn’t a Wraith at the moment (I was thinking positive here), that wouldn’t stop Rodriguez from kidnapping me and trying whatever experiments he had on his mind.
Uh-uh. He might separate me from my soul. Permanently.
Phantasm Page 3
