by Annie Bellet
“Charlie?” I asked, touching her arm.
She shrugged me off and kept moving.
“Hey, Charlie. No!”
But it was no use. She stepped up onto the stage. As soon as she crossed the plane, her clothes switched from bad ass biker bitch, to sweet swing dancer with jeweled high heels. My eyes bugged out. I’d never seen Charlie in anything other than jeans and form fitting T-shirts. Dresses were definitely not her thing.
Before long, every last person in the ballroom had crossed into the time warp except for me and Lucien.
We met each other’s gazes.
“Should we call the coven?” I asked Lucien.
“Probably, but they aren’t going to be able to get here anytime soon. The crowds are nearly as bad as Mardi Gras.”
He had a point. All of us, who were here, either lived in the French Quarter or were staying over with someone who did. The parking and traffic would be awful right then. Still, I’d call if I had to, but I wasn’t even sure what any of us could do, if anything.
I pulled my phone out and called Bea.
“Happy Halloween, Jade,” she said cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”
“Thanks the Goddess,” I said and took a step away from the stage. “We seem to have a situation here.”
She let out a low laugh. “It’s Halloween. Of course you do.”
“Bea,” I said. “It’s not funny. We seem to have some sort of a time warp going on. We’re putting on a party for one of Pyper’s clients and all the sudden everyone on the dance floor shifted to some weird alternate reality from the nineteen twenties. Their wearing period clothing, hair styles are totally different, and the music that’s playing isn’t from our sound system. It’s like a worm hole or something.”
“Magic?” she asked.
“Neither Lucien nor I can feel anything.”
“Are there any spirits present?”
It was a reasonable question and one I should’ve thought about. We were in the French Quarter where practically every building was haunted. “Possibly, though I don’t see any.”
Bea sighed in exasperation. “Jade, it’s about time you started to use your gifts instead of running from them.”
I clamped my lips shut, knowing she was talking about my empath gift. I’d spent the majority of my childhood trying to forget I could read people. Had kept it a secret from everyone I could because when I read people’s emotions it made both of us uncomfortable. It was an intrusion of epic proportions. So it was usually my last resort, especially in highly charged situations like a party. I’d already opened up once, but hadn’t probed too deeply. Hadn’t wanted to.
“Use your gift to find the spirit. Then you and Lucien can cast a spell to isolate him or her. Everyone else should snap back into reality.” She said all of this in a matter of fact tone as if we weren’t in the middle of an emergency situation. Compared to demons and black magic, I supposed it wasn’t. But it was still worrisome.
“Isolation spell. Got it. Thanks,” I said.
“And, Jade?”
“Yes, Bea?”
“Try not to trap anyone in the past.”
“Funny.” Although, I don’t think her comment was meant as a joke. “Sorry. I’m a little tense. Can I call if we need more help?”
“Yes, but I’m not even in town, so if you need backup, call Lailah.” She was referring to our resident angel who was in charge of keeping souls safe.
“Okay. Thanks.” I hit END and trotted back over to Lucien. He hadn’t moved as he kept a close eye on Kat.
“She looks upset,” he said.
I nodded. “There’s a weird undercurrent of desperation and despair coming from the dance floor. But I can’t tell who it’s coming from. More than one person. It might be spreading like a Cancer.”
His fists clenched in frustration. “What did she say?”
“She suspects a spirit might be anchoring everyone to the past. If we can figure out who it is, we can isolate him or her with a spell and then this could be over in a few minutes.”
We both turned and stared at the crowd. Because this was a party we were hired to plan, we didn’t know most of the guests. I wasn’t even sure if the host was here yet. Bea had said to use my gift and it appeared that was exactly what I was going to have to do.
“I’m going to start reading people. If I look like I’m going to pass out, take my hand, okay?” I said.
Lucien nodded. He knew that once I opened my senses and took on everyone else’s emotional energy, I’d be toasted emotionally and physically. But if I could focus on one person, especially someone I knew well, I’d be okay.
I cast Lucien one last glance and then braced myself as I focused on Kane. At first all I got was a shot of humor, followed by elation. But as I slipped past his barriers, the happiness slowly faded away and I was left with a cold emptiness. As if his soul was missing or buried.
My heart sped up and my entire body went cold with fear. Kane. No. This couldn’t be happening.
“Jade? What’s wrong?” I heard Lucien ask.
But I didn’t answer. I was too horrified by what I was sensing. Kane wasn’t really in there. He was like a shell of a person, with superficial happiness radiating from him. Like whoever or whatever was pulling the strings wanted everyone to appear normal, when really they were being sucked into an abyss.
I didn’t want to let go of my hold on Kane. It was too painful, too awful, but I had to find out if he was the only one affected or if it was everyone was being pulled under.
With great reluctance, I shifted my focus from Kane to Kat. And although her emotional signature was completely different, her emotions felt exactly the same as Kane’s. Happy, elated, but underneath, there was nothing. Not even a twinge of hope, or sadness, or reluctance. Nothing.
Frantic, I hopped from person to person, experiencing the same emotions, the same zombified dancers…until I got to Pyper.
Wonder radiated off her as she stared into Julius’s eyes, followed by a small underlining trace of trepidation. But she wasn’t fearful. No, more like cautious as if she was afraid what she was feeling wouldn’t last. I focused on her smiling face and did my best to shut out all the artificial joy that was overwhelming the rest of the dancers. All I wanted was Pyper’s emotions.
Hope. Nervousness. Curiosity. Desire. They were all there, swirling around her in a thick cloud.
I opened my eyes and peered at Julius. His expression was soft, tender as he watched my friend stare into his eyes. But as I tried to penetrate his senses, once I pushed through the initial spark of hope, I was overwhelmed with deep-seated hopelessness and despair. All the negative emotions permeating the room where coming from him. His emotions were disconcerting, but they were real. Just like Pyper’s, but unlike everyone else.
What was different about the two of them? Why did they each have their own emotions when no one else did? Was something sinister infecting everyone else and not them?
But I hadn’t felt anything sinister. Nothing even close to evil, except the apparent lack of soul from everyone else in the crowd.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said abruptly to Lucien.
“What do you mean? Have you found the spirit yet?”
“No. I mean, I’m not sure.” I kept my gaze on Pyper and Julius. Pyper certainly wasn’t a spirit. And Julius was clearly a solid man. All the ghosts I’d met before had been apparitions. All of them except Camille who’d managed to possess people to take on a form. My stomach rolled with unease. “Oh, no. I think its Julius.”
“You think?”
I nodded. “I’m not too sure. All I know is Pyper and Julius are the only ones with real emotions other there. Everyone else is in a trance. And I can’t sense any other emotional energy like I usually can when ghosts are present but not visible. I know Pyper isn’t a ghost. Her emotional signature hasn’t changed. I‘d recognize her anywhere. That leaves Julius as the odd man out.”
“No one. Not any of the server
s or guests?”
I shook my head, more and more convinced. “No one. Add in the fact Julius disappeared today and then came back out of the blue. That no one knows where he came from. And the fact this all started right after Pyper and Julius started dancing. It has to be.”
“Okay, then. I trust you.” Lucien held his hand out to me. “Let’s go get him.”
I glanced around, trying to calm the panic setting in. I had no idea what was going to happen once we stepped onto the dance floor. But we couldn’t isolate Julius from here. We had to separate him from Pyper first.
Blowing out a breath, I took Lucien’s hand in mine and together the pair of us crossed the plane into the nineteen twenties.
CHAPTER FIVE
A flash of heat washed over me and then my body went completely numb. But I didn’t seem to care. Life was free. Happy. Full of celebration. I turned to Lucien. “Care to dance?”
He inclined his head and bowed slightly, then swept me up in the music, my feet seemingly moving on their own. All I saw was Lucien’s smiling face and flashes of color as he twirled me around and around among the other dancers.
The music played on one continual loop, never pausing and soon enough although I didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to sit the dance out, my limbs became heavy and a no matter how much I wanted to stop, to take a breath, my limbs wouldn’t respond to my mental commands. And worse, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
I was trapped in a dancing hell, along with the rest of my friends. My eyes met Lucien’s.
He had the same manic expression on his face I feared was on mine. But his eyes were searching mine, silently asking me the same thing I was asking myself. How did we end up here? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was we needed to stop. To get a drink. To do something other than move our feet.
With my limbs not responding, I gathered the ball of magic that lived just below my heart and sent it shooting toward my fingers.
The magic erupted from my fingertips like a bolt of lightning, knocking both me and Lucien backward. We each landed on our backsides, gawking at each other.
“What the hell was that, Jade?” Lucien said, jumping to his feet to loom over me.
I smiled up at him and pushed myself to my feet. “A wake up call.” I waved a hand around the dance floor. “We were stuck just like they are.”
His expression turned blank as his gaze lingered on the fatigued dancers. Then recognition lit in his clear green eyes. “Damn. We were sucked right in weren’t we?”
I nodded and moved to the side to avoid being kicked by one of the dancers. “We need to get to Julius.”
“Can’t we just zap everyone out of their state?”
I glanced down at my white cotton dress and black Mary Jane pumps, noting my devil outfit was nowhere to be found. I shook my head. “It doesn’t look like we’ve left this reality, does it?”
“No, but—”
“Besides, we don’t know everyone’s tolerance for a magical electric shock. It was okay for you and me, but we’re witches. They aren’t.”
He fixated on Kat who was off to our right, his brow furrowed. The worry clinging to him, brushed up against my psyche. I wanted to put a hand on his arm, do or say something to comfort him, but I had no words. And I wasn’t completely sure that if we touched again we’d end up dancing monkeys again.
I was just as upset about what was happening to Kat at he was. She was my best friend. And then there was Kane. He was a demon hunter. If Hell had found some way to take his soul, if that was why I couldn’t reach him, then…I couldn’t even think about it. The situation would be too awful.
“We need to separate Julius from Pyper,” I said.
“How?” Lucien studied the other man, his eyes narrowed.
“Ask to cut in and I’ll invoke the spell?” I wasn’t at all confident that would work as the pair seemed to only have eyes for each other, but it was worth a shot.
“I’ll try.” Lucien took a step forward and then paused. “Zap me if I go back into zombie mode.”
“Will do.”
The one thing about being in the time warp was that emotions weren’t really a huge issue at the moment. Joy and happiness actually filled me up, gave me a bit of a boost for a while until it wore me out. Even the fake kind. It was everything else, such as anger, depression, sadness, that turned me into a basket case.
Lucien hovered around Pyper and Julius, and finally when Julius twirled her into his body and paused for a moment, Lucien moved in, placing a hand on the small of Pyper’s back. She froze and slowly twisted her head to glance at him.
“May I cut in, miss?” He half bowed just as he’d done to me and suddenly I was certain his memory had been wiped clean again. But when he pulled Pyper into his arms, almost against her will, he winked and me and led her awkwardly toward the other side of the dance floor.
Relief flooded me. He’d only been acting the part.
Julius stared after them, a storm of emotion in his dark eyes. I saw the cloud of rage encompass him before I felt it. Pure hatred. Dark anger. The kind that makes men commit horrible sins. And it was all directed at Lucien.
“Whoa,” I said to myself, gathering every last ounce of magic I could grab onto. He needed to be isolated and fast. A small twinge of longing for the help of Bea or the coven hit me, but I knew I could do this. I’d fought worse and won. I could take on one spirit.
I imagined the pentagram I’d conjured earlier in the day, only smaller and as Julius moved past me toward Pyper, I pushed my hands out, aiming for his feet. The pentagram lit on the floor exactly where I’d intended. And Julius was smack in the middle of it.
“Capiantur!” I cried.
The light from the pentagram shot straight up out of the ground, imprisoning Julius within the circle.
The music cut off abruptly and all the dancing stopped. A punishing wave of relief slammed into me as a fair number of the guests sank to their knees, their breathing winded.
I glanced toward Kane and Kat, triumph strumming through me. Kat was clutching her side, leaning into Kane. He was frowning and wiping his brow. He hadn’t seen me yet, but that was okay. I took a step toward them and then stopped dead in my tracks.
No one was dancing. The music was gone. But everyone was still in their nineteen twenties outfits and the gas lights were still burning brightly, despite the fact they were no longer operational in our own time.
We should’ve morphed back to our own time. But we hadn’t. We were still stuck in the time warp, except people seemed to have their senses back for the most part.
“Move!” Lucien called. “Get off the dance floor. Everyone. Go now.”
The group of party goers did as he asked and retreated from the stage. As each person left, I caught a glimpse of their outfits morphing back into their Halloween costumes as they disappeared into the fading darkness surrounding the dance floor.
“Go on now,” I said to a coed and her date. “Drinks are at the bar.” Her date’s eyes lit with interest and the pair slipped back to where they belonged.
I was making my way through the crowd toward Kane and Kat when Pyper’s energy invaded mine, sending fear and pure disgust up my spine.
With my palms sparking with magic, I spun in Pyper’s direction and cried, “No! Let her go.”
Roy, an evil ghost we’d once sent to Hell after he’d tortured both me and Pyper, had his arm around her neck, locking her in a chokehold. Only he wasn’t solid. He was sort of translucent, which told me everything he was doing was on stolen energy. But whose?
“Not likely, white witch. But I’ll consider it, if you give me what I want.” He chuckled, his laugh low and sinister. “Nice try with the protection spell. A lesser spirit would’ve had trouble with that one.”
My body shook with uncontrollable anger. I wanted nothing more than to blast his ass into a million pieces. Only he was likely to just evaporate considering his non solid form. I’d try it anyway, except he was using Pyper as a shield. I�
�d have to bid my time. “What is you want, you sick bastard.”
He jerked his head toward Kane, who was a few feet away, barely being held back by Kat. She was whispering furiously in his ear, both hands clutched around his arm. “Give me his soul and I’ll leave this one alone.” Roy tightened his grip around Pyper’s throat until her eyes bugged out from lack of oxygen.
“Never going to happen,” I said, sounding braver than I actually felt. Though I was fortified by the knowledge that Kane’s energy was back, and I felt every inch of his being straight down to my toes. He’d never been soulless.
Pyper was trying to claw at Roy’s arm, but there wasn’t anything there for her to grab. He was choking her using pure energy. “Let Pyper go or else I’m going to let Kane end you for good.”
Roy cast Kane a side eye glance, the same dark anger that had been surrounding Julius radiated from him. Only it was stronger. Darker. Angier. And felt exactly the same. The cloud hadn’t been coming from Julius. It had been coming from Roy. He’d been here the entire time and had somehow been attached to Julius. Roy jabbed his head toward Kane. “You think that one’s going to take me down? Right. All he ever was good at was throwing a punch. And as you can see, that’s not going to work this time.”
“Think again,” Kane said, shrugging Kat off. He lifted his arm, holding his hand out. A flash of light shot from his palm and when it died down, his demon hunter dagger lay in his open hand, the intricate symbol on the handle glowing blue.
Roy’s gaze locked on Kane’s hand. Fear flashed over his features. A second later his expression went blank. “Forget it. I’ll take her’s.” He jerked Pyper back, indicating he’d steal her soul instead.
“Think again, asshole,” I spat out and then did the only thing I could think of. I launched myself at them, taking Pyper down in a heap of limbs.
She coughed and curled into a ball, rubbing at her throat.
I scrambled to my feet, magic pulsing in my fingers, ready to fight.
Only Roy had vanished.
CHAPTER SIX
