by Sonya Clark
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tension pulled me taut as a wire.
He flung the closet door open, yanking out jeans and a shirt. The hangers hit the floor. “I told you some things about you have changed.” His voice was clipped, angry, as he pulled on a dresser drawer and withdrew a pair of boxers. “Well, some things haven’t.” He stalked toward me with the bundle of clothes in one hand. “Now get out or turn around. I’m not putting on a show for you.”
“You don’t scare me,” I said, seething. “You never did.”
“Bull. Shit.” With his free hand he jerked me around, forcing me to face the wall. Transferring his hand to my back to keep me from moving, he put his mouth close to my ear and dropped his voice. “You were always terrified of me. Of what you felt for me. Just like you were terrified of yourself. All the magic inside of you, and you acted like you were ashamed of it. That’s why people treated you the way they did. They took their cues from you, Roxanne. You were scared of yourself and what we could have had together and you still are.”
He moved away. I kept my face to the wall, the rustle of clothes too loud in the painful silence. He hurried past me. I reached for his arm, barely able to touch him. “Ray.”
He stopped and turned me to face him, one hand on my shoulder as he loomed over me. “Right now I’m the one who doesn’t want to talk. So you make up your mind.” He moved his hand from my shoulder to my jaw, stroking my face gently despite the tension that quivered in his big, powerful body. “You wanna go get something to eat?” His voice dipped to a husky whisper. “Or do you want to stay here?”
I didn’t know what I wanted, not until he touched his lips to mine. His kiss was nothing like I would have expected. There was no rush of memory, no nostalgic sense of the past. It didn’t feel like what kissing an old lover should have felt like, comfortable and familiar. Ray was too different, not quite a stranger but not the man I’d known either. He’d changed, as had I, and when he kissed me I caught a glimpse of all the things I might learn about this different man if I was willing.
His touch was tender at first, a soft brush of his lips across mine. At the first sign of receptiveness he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into my mouth as he pulled me closer. I pressed against him, trading the wall at my back for the solid firmness of his body. Heat licked at my skin every place his hands drifted, spreading quickly to the rest of me. Arousal so sudden and strong it almost hurt thrummed in my core. He lifted me easily, his hands under my thighs as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. In seconds we were on the bed.
He pulled my t-shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor. I dropped my glasses on the nightstand and reached for the buttons of his shirt. He kissed the tops of my breasts above the bra cups, one hand sliding down my body to stroke me through my jeans. A gasp slipped out, possibly an unladylike plea to do me hard right the hell now, then a scream as Stack took shape in the air above us.
Chapter 34
“What the hell are you doing here, Stack?” I peered at the spirit over Ray’s shoulder.
“Somebody’s working a spell against me,” said the shimmering image. “Somebody powerful.”
Ray rolled off of me, retrieving both of our shirts from the floor. “God damn it,” he hissed as he shrugged back into his shirt. I couldn’t tell if he was swearing about being interrupted or about my spirit familiar being under some sort of attack. “What do you need?”
I hurried into my shirt. “I don’t know. Stack, what.” The sight of him brought me up short. He appeared as insubstantial as the palest of watercolors and getting dimmer fast. “What is this?”
“It’ll reach you if I don’t go. Hurt you.” He flashed out and back into view. “Find a counter spell. I’ll wait at the juke for your call.” He said more but it was lost as he faded quickly, disappearing. By juke he meant the piece of land where he’d been created, my land where a juke joint had been decades ago.
A full minute passed as we waited for Stack to return but he didn’t. Ray said, “What the hell just happened?”
I reached for my glasses. “Somebody wants me weak.”
“Can running off your familiar have that much effect on you?”
“Somebody thinks so.” I left the bed and headed for the door. My first priority had to be a counter spell, then to find out who attacked my familiar.
Ray reached for me, his fingertips grazing my arm. “Roxie, about what happened just now.”
His touch still lit me on fire. Standing on tiptoe, I pulled him down with my hands on either side of his face to kiss him. “I don’t know. One thing at a time, okay?” I released him with more reluctance than I wanted to admit.
“Yeah.” He ran his hands down my arms. “I know. Just promise me when this is over with we’ll talk. Don’t take off for Nashville without talking to me.”
“I won’t.” I took his hand. “No more leaving unfinished business. I promise.”
The weight of his gaze and the warmth of his hand grounded me, chasing away the fear that was slowly replacing the shock. How could someone be attacking Stack? How would a spell like that work and what did I need to do to stop it? I had no ideas about either question but I was going to have to figure something out sooner rather than later. He would be safe on the land where he was created but for how long? I didn’t have a sense of what I could do without him anymore, so I had no idea if putting him on the bench, so to speak, would weaken me. The past months of working with him had been spent developing my abilities, but I was untested. Somebody wanted to weaken me, or see what I could do on my own, or both.
The doorbell split the quiet open with a shock, making both of us startle. With a grim look he released my hand and strode to the nightstand, withdrawing a handgun nestled in a belt holster from the drawer. It was his personal gun, a Taurus nine millimeter he’d owned for years. He clipped it to his belt, covered it with his shirt tail, and left the room.
I hovered out of sight at the top of the landing. Mackie Parker’s booming voice reached me but I couldn’t make out the words. Ray returned after a few minutes of what sounded like a terse argument. “Andrew Parker wants to see you.” He kept his voice low so we wouldn’t be heard downstairs.
“So I’ve been summoned. We figured this would happen.”
“I’m not letting you walk into that lion’s den alone. Think it’s sexist all you want, I’m not leaving you with no back up.”
“I would do the same for you so how can it be sexist?” I bit my lip, thinking. “I just wish I knew more about what I’m gonna be walking into. If Mackie’s warning about power was about magic and that stuff in the last pages from Britney’s diary are talking about what I think they’re talking about, Andrew’s a practitioner. Question is, how good?”
“He’s in his seventies. And he’s not some frail old man either, not the last time I saw him. Still being physically strong, with all that time to get more and more powerful.” Ray left the thought hanging.
“Whatever’s working on Stack is likely from Andrew Parker.” I liked that better than the alternative consideration. “When did he want to meet?”
“Right now.”
“Presumptuous old bastard. Look, I think I need to go with Mackie alone.”
“But you just said I could go.”
“I know what I just said, and I meant it. But this is a delicate situation and it needs to be handled a certain way. If Andrew is a practitioner, that’s how I need to meet him. As his equal. Not somebody so scared they need to bring back up. It’s got nothing to do with gender. He wants to show me who I’m dealing with. Well, I need to show him the same.”
Ray hit me with the full force of his Grumpy Teddy Bear look. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m not exactly fond of it myself. I’d much prefer to go in there with you and Daniel and a flamethrower and possibly a tank as back up. A tank with mounted flamethrowers. I could totally do without the stupid dick measuring crap like this, but it was bound to happen.”
&nb
sp; “You would think the old man would be happy someone was trying to find his granddaughter’s killer. Help set her soul at peace.”
“That’s another reason I need to meet with him alone. He’s more likely to show any vulnerability to a woman in a private conversation than in front of another man.”
“So much for it not being about gender.”
“I won’t know what this is about until I get there. Either he does want justice for his granddaughter and that’s what this meeting is about, or he doesn’t.” This time I was the one who left the implied meaning hang in the air between us.
“If he’s the one who killed Martin Holt with some kind of death spell, it’s not justice he’s after.” Ray stepped closer, putting a hand on my waist. “Roxie, be careful.”
“Always am. Promise me you’ll keep your mojo hand on you at all times.”
“I always do.” He kissed me, quick and fierce and possessive.
I turned to leave, then thought of something and hurried back to his side. “But if you don’t hear from me in an hour or so, go find Daniel and tell him to take himself off the leash he keeps himself on. He’ll understand.” There was brave and then there was stupid. I might find the bravery or just plain necessity to have a meeting with a practitioner of dubious intentions but there was no sense in leaving my ace permanently hidden up my sleeve in a game where the stakes were so high.
Mackie drove some kind of curvy sports car that screamed mid-life crisis. He seemed reasonably sober and thankfully didn’t try to carry on much conversation on the drive, so it was actually not too bad at first. We were almost there when he laughed.
“He’s not even bothering to hide it.”
I said, “What are you talking about?”
“Take a look in the rearview mirror.”
I did. Ray’s truck was visible behind us, recognizable under the street lights now that we were in town. I said nothing.
The Parker family home was a massive red brick Italianate structure built in the twenties by a railroad family and bought by Andrew’s father sometime after World War Two. It dominated the cul-de-sac that had been built around it, overshadowing the lesser homes arrayed on either side in both size and architectural glory. Mackie parked in the circular drive and I stepped out of the car. A wave of nausea hit, lightning fast and gone almost as quick. I grabbed the hood for support.
Mackie came around the side. “You okay there?” An ugly tinge of pleasure tinged his voice.
I nodded, already feeling better. “No problem.”
We went up the walkway side by side. The closer we got to the house itself, the stronger a sense of foreboding seeped into my bones. Thick like cold molasses, sticky and rot-sweet, the sensation curled itself around every nerve ending. The house was definitely warded, and powerfully so.
Mackie said, “Can you feel that?”
“It’s just a warding spell.”
“I always wondered what it felt like to outsiders. Does it make you afraid? Nervous?”
“Is that what it’s meant to do? Rattle anybody visiting, make them even more intimidated than just the Parker family name?”
That seemed like a decent analysis of both the warding spell and the person behind it. To non-magical types it might have felt unsettling, just another part of being close to the Parkers, their power and mystique. To someone like me it was a warning. As soon as we crossed the threshold we’d be stepping off the map. The space the house filled might as well have been labeled “here be dark magic.”
Mackie’s only answer was a laugh. He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “He’s in a right contentious mood tonight. Best mind your manners.”
“I’ll mind my manners as long as he does the same.” I braced myself and stepped across the entry. The ward became a curtain of wasp stings attacking all over, mercifully only lasting as long as it took to cross the threshold. I couldn’t suppress a gasp, hating myself for reacting and Mackie for the obscene twist of pleasure on his face. How could I ever have thought him remotely charming, or harmless? He was just as much a viper in his own way as the rest of the snakes in his family.
“You have no idea, girl.” He gestured expansively at the dark hallway, indicating a door at the end on the left. “Daddy’s waiting for you in his study.”
Leaving Mackie behind, I headed into the darkness. Halfway to the study was an ornate curving staircase. A woman stood on the third stair from the bottom. Long silver hair and an unlined face were at odds, her age impossible to guess. She wore a tea length pale blue dress with three quarter length sleeves, a smudge of dirt near the hem. Her feet were bare and dirty and she carried a bundle of dried lavender in one hand. With the other she snapped her fingers in an odd rhythm. Her twilight eyes stared back from the far side of nowhere, as if what existence she experienced was so far removed from everyone else’s that reality barely registered with her. Every inch of her pulsed with magic, her aura sending out a Halloween tangle of orange and black. I gave her a wide berth as I passed.
Not wide enough. With no warning and speed that would have impressed Daniel, she grabbed a handful of my hair as I got just ahead of her. Yanking me backward, she leaned against my shoulder. The smell of rotting strawberries, sickly sweet and choking, filled my nostrils. Her breath in my ear, she whispered, “That he is mad, ‘tis true. ‘Tis true ‘tis pity, and pity ‘tis ‘tis true.”
The talons of her fingers twisted tighter in my hair, pulling on my scalp. I scrambled for an answer, hoping someone who quoted Polonius would accept Hamlet as a suitable shibboleth. “I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
She released me, patting me on the head. “Good girl.” She broke off a piece of the lavender and held it out.
Figuring I should probably accept the offering from the crazy Shakespeare quoting witch and get the hell away from her, I took it and nodded thanks. She walked up the stairs backward, never blinking as her dark gaze drilled a hole of fear in me.
Turning around and not stopping until I hit the Nashville city limits looked like a damn fine idea. Smart, too. This was getting too weird even for me and that was saying a lot.
The door of the study opened seemingly of its own volition. The push of magic that made it happen was low in energy expended but heavy with power, a fist barely touching a jaw. Saving itself for the knockout punch.
I took a breath and stepped into the study. As soon as I cleared the door it slammed shut.
Somewhere in the room Andrew Parker waited for me.
Chapter 35
The scratch and hiss of an old record player sounded, followed by guitar and the confident voice of Memphis Minnie. Hoodoo Lady, recorded in the thirties, filled the room. The walls were covered with book shelves, massive heavy wood that looked hand crafted and was stained a dark red. Antique Tiffany lamps provided low illumination. A large leather chair sat on an oval rug in front of the fireplace, a severe masculine throne. The center of the room was split by a long glass curio cabinet, more like something one saw at an antique store than in a home. Functional, the items unlabeled, this was the storage space for a working practitioner, everything in easy reach. Either no one else entered this room or Andrew didn’t much care who knew about his practice. At the far end of the room were French doors that opened on to what might have been a veranda. It was hard to tell in the dark.
Mason jars full of herbs and roots filled one end of the cabinet. Most I recognized, some not. More jars of various sizes and shapes stretched through the middle, filled with coffin nails, iron filings, straight pins, brick dust, shiny dimes, and dirt. At the far end were makings for poppets, both the wax kind and the doll kind. One completed doll figure had a small red fabric heart on its chest with a straight pin stabbed through it. Set slightly apart from the rest was one dressed in rough blue clothing and a gold star.
Meant to catch my eye, no doubt. No, I didn’t think it was justice for his granddaughter that Andrew Parker wanted.
The song ended with an abrupt scratch as the needle was
dragged from the record. The French doors opened, Parker framed in the center. The man knew how to make an entrance, I’d give him that. Tall and slender with thick, slightly shaggy white hair, a close beard with a few hints of the dark hair he’d been born with, and cheekbones that suggested there might have been some Native American in the family tree, he cut a commanding figure in the dim light. He wore a tailored gray suit and a wide red tie over a crisp white dress shirt, shined black shoes and a walking cane in his right hand. His two most arresting features were vivid blue eyes that burned from decades of the use of dark magic and the power that rolled off him in a sickening wave.
“Find anything of interest?” His voice was cultured, unhurried, a Southern gentleman stepped out of time from another era.
“I’d say more educational than interesting.” I had to be careful and not show any disrespect. Or at least, not show too much too soon.
Parker stepped into the room, the doors closing gently behind him with a push of his will he didn’t bother hiding from me. After letting me in here there was no reason for him to hide much of anything. For the first time, a little bit of worry began to creep into my thoughts. “What did you learn? I’d be delighted to hear.”
“I learned you’re not scared of people knowing you’re a practicing witch. And you’re not scared of anyone who can understand what any of this is just what kind of witchcraft you practice.”
“Why should I be scared? Isn’t the point of acquiring power so others will fear you instead of you being the one who’s afraid?” The cane made a slow tap-tap-tap on the hardwood floor as he approached.
“I never thought of witchcraft as acquiring power.” The urge to back up was enormous but I held my ground, hands loose in the pockets of my hoodie.
“Then why bother?” He reached the opposite side of the cabinet, bringing the full bore of his intense gaze on me. “What do you want from magic, if not to use it for power?”
