by Catie Rhodes
THE END
(Keep reading for a sample of Forbidden Highway, Book #5 in the Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thriller series)
Forbidden Highway
(Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers #5)
A bloody smudge of dawn streaked across the autumn sky, marking the meeting of day and night. The abandoned wreck of Priscilla Herrera’s cabin came into silvery focus. I stubbed out my cigarette and exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke. It was time.
I lit the kerosene lantern and stepped inside the cabin. My ancestor lived in this one room shack until the day a lynch mob dragged her away to be hanged for practicing witchcraft. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d end up the same way, especially as I delved deeper into the world of magic. It didn’t matter at the moment. In order to move forward with my search for the Mace Treasure, I needed to speak with Priscilla’s spirit.
Despite my numerous attempts to contact her, she’d been silent since the day I found out who really murdered my father. I hoped calling her spirit in the place where she lived and raised her children would get her communicating again. The Mace Treasure would remain lost to me without her help.
I set the lantern on a windowsill and looked over the supplies I’d set up in the pitch darkness while I waited for dawn. I sure hope I brought everything. Mysti Whitebyrd, my mentor in all things magic, warned me this method of contacting my ancestor didn’t allow for careless mistakes. My need to find the Mace Treasure before another evil treasure hunter hurt me or my friends made it a necessary risk. I scanned over my supplies one more time. My breath caught.
The instructions. A bolt of panic shot through my chest. Had I left it at home? If so, I’d have to start over tomorrow. The spell had to be done at dawn. No exceptions, Mysti said.
I dug through my crummy, discount store backpack. No sign of it. I shuffled through my memory. Did I recall the chant to call a circle? The details of the spell itself? Hell, no. I hadn’t done it enough times. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this, even though Mysti swore I was.
A memory of carefully folding my notes and putting them in my front pocket popped into my mind. I halted my frantic search and leaned my head back. If I couldn’t do this without my notes, what the hell did I think I was doing?
I pulled the notes out of my pocket and scanned over Mysti’s fat cursive and my spiky notations. At the very end bottom of the paper, I noticed something I hadn’t before. Mysti had left me one final order. “Do not chicken out. This is the only way to learn. I love you and believe in you.”
Time to get this show on the road. I took a deep breath and began the process of centering myself.
Feet shoulder width apart and arms spread wide, I imagined roots growing out of my feet, passing through the boards on which I stood, and quickening in the soil below the cabin. I breathed deep again and focused on finding the grains of magic mixed into the particles of sand, the pieces of root, and below that, the water connecting everything. The magic seeped into me, its current tickling against my skin until it found the black opal necklace. The gemstone warmed and delivered a pinprick of electricity into my skin. We were both ready. Time to cast the circle.
I had trouble remembering the method Mysti used for calling a circle. She encouraged me to create my own way. She gifted me with my own athame, which still looked like a funky little pirate’s dagger to me, to use in the process. Practice, practice, practice, she said. Gripping the black metal handle of the dagger in my right hand, I started at the north point of the circle and went sunwise—or deosil as Mysti liked to call it—around it three times, using a chant I cobbled together from examples.
“I call upon Water to nourish my need,
I call upon Earth to strengthen my plea,
I call upon Sky to bless me this night,
I call upon Fire to augment these rites
I call to the ancients three times three—” I stopped, unable to remember what to say next, and grabbed the sheet of notes. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to read off it.
“I call to the spirits alive in me,
I call for their aid, their wisdom to guide,
I call for protection, their strength will abide
I call upon powers residing in me,
Let no evil enter, so mote it be.” My final words echoed in the still dawn. A raven’s caw answered me, raising the fine hairs on my arms.
I set the athame on the two-by-four serving as my altar and poured an offering of cornmeal and rum onto a pewter plate. Next to the plate, I set a picture of Priscilla Herrera herself, young and beautiful, showing off her tattoos in an age when women didn’t show much skin, much less have tattoos. A mini treasure chest Priscilla used to curse the Mace Treasure went next to the picture. Her spell book went next to that. On the other side of the book, I set a bowl filled with dirt from around the cabin with a birthday candle stuck in the middle. The ancestor altar was complete. I hoped it was enough.
I opened a jar of black paint, took up the cheap paintbrush I’d bought at the discount store, and made the first line of the sigil Mysti’s instructions said to draw on the plank floor.
A current came from nowhere and fluttered over my skin. The air dripped power, its chilled weight draping over me and sinking into me. A metallic taste filled my mouth. My heart thudded heavily, jarring me. I drew in deep breaths. Stay calm. Stay calm. Keep drawing. I made more strokes with the paintbrush.
A hum filled my head, swimming around until dizziness rippled my vision. I kept drawing. The hum increased with each stroke until my teeth ached from the vibration. The sigil finished, I put down the brush. Moment of truth.
I picked up my cigarette lighter and spoke the words Mysti taught me. “I request the honor of Priscilla Herrera’s presence when I light this candle.”
I thumbed my lighter and touched the flame to the birthday candle. The hum in my head intensified, vibrating in my teeth. I clenched my jaw and clapped my hands to my ears. The air around me cooled. The first currents of panic threaded their way through me.
This wasn’t what Mysti said would happen. I glanced at the sigil and realized I’d drawn it upside down. I reached out to paint over it, to correct it, to do something. I wasn’t fast enough.
The oil lamps went out. I sucked in a panicked lungful of air. The flickering light of the birthday candle grew, leaping taller and blazing brighter and brighter until it burned my eyes, forcing me to drop my gaze. The heavy air seeped deep into my body, down where all my fears and self-doubts hid. The candle winked out.
“Oh, shit.” My voice sounded like the squeak of a mouse trapped by a mean tom cat.
A frosty wind gusted through the pitch black room. My clothes flapped around me, reminding me of the way flags sound on a windy day. The wind pulled harder, separating my consciousness from my body and spiriting it away into the morning mist.
I settled in a dim place, one where the still air smelled stagnant and damp. A match hissed, and the smell of sulfur overrode the other odors. A flame appeared in the darkness and moved a few inches. The flickering light paused, and a candle glowed to life a few feet in front of me. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light, revealing a figure sitting across from me. I recognized the sharp chin and high cheekbones right away. Priscilla Herrera had answered my call her own way, maybe punishing me for messing up so spectacularly with the spell.
She leaned forward, getting ready to speak. The black opal heated. The gemstone’s magic would allow me to hear my great-great-great-grandmother’s voice, but it would draw my energy in return.
“Not a bad way to get my attention. You’re improving.” Priscilla Herrera leaned toward the candle and narrowed her eyes at me. “But it’s still not enough.”
“I-I-I…” Fear jammed up my words. This wasn’t one of those sweet grannies who handed out milk and cookies. Priscilla Herrera would scare me into doing things her way. She would hurt me if she deemed it necessary. “I-I need the spelling stones to remove the curse from the treasure. They’re wherever your earthly remains are buried. Can
you—”
“Hear this, granddaughter.” She pointed one finger at me, and I noticed even that small part of her body was adorned with tattoos. “Until you’re ready to take the next step in your journey, we’ve nothing to discuss. Someone else needs you now.” She cupped one hand under her mouth and blew out the candle.
My consciousness must not have weighed much. It fluttered away with the puff of wind Priscilla’s breath created. The smell of dampness faded, replaced by the smell of woods, pine and cedar trees, and damp, freshly turned earth. I’d gone back in time, and it was night again. Footsteps pounded the ground, and ragged breaths cut dead silence. My floating consciousness sped toward the noise, and I hit the runner hard. I passed through cold, sweaty flesh and lodged somewhere deep in her mind.
Then, I saw the world through her eyes, and I knew what it felt like to run from death.
The runner’s legs ached, the muscles like balloons filled with hot water. A needle of agony burned at her side. She clutched at it and whined deep in her throat. She had to keep running. If she stopped, she had no chance of survival. Even this slim chance of eluding her killer was better than giving up.
The black opal’s magic pulsed through me in waves, grounding me in the vision. Something about this person felt familiar. I should know who this is. I concentrated on every sensation.
The runner’s thoughts snarled in an ugly, red welt of fear and surprise. My gift would allow me to interpret them no further. Dark shadows loomed around her. She was too scared to identify them, and I couldn’t use her eyes to see things she couldn’t see herself.
The sensation against her bare feet drew curiosity. I would have expected a rough carpet of pine needles, thorny vines, and rocks. Instead, the ground beneath her feet felt slick, almost soft. Familiar. I filed it away for future reference.
The girl’s bare toe slammed into something hard and unforgiving. She screamed and pitched forward. Her hands slammed into the soft, damp ground. She got to her knees and crawled several feet. Her head cracked against a cold wall. Weeping, she flopped over on her side. The will to live left her body. An emptiness replaced it. She stared at the glittering stars and waited to die.
“Least the stupid bitch went to the right place.” The flat twang froze the blood in my veins. The speaker laughed, a high whinnying sound. Me-he-he-he.
My consciousness tightened itself into a scared ball. I would have screamed had I been inside my body. That voice. I’d hoped to never hear it again. Its owner was languishing comatose in a prison hospital somewhere I didn’t know or care about. This had to be a memory. No way he’d been let out to play his awful games again. I wanted out of this vision.
I concentrated on the part of me inside this scared, doomed girl, finding its limits and edges. Gathering myself, I gently pulled myself away from the girl. At first, it seemed to work. I quit feeling her emotions. Her tired muscles no longer ached as though they were my own. I pictured Priscilla Herrera’s cabin, imagined my physical body there, and pushed toward it. Nothing happened. The girl’s horror and pain snapped back into place.
A rough hand grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, squeezing so hard the muscle felt like it might pop right out of the skin. The girl shook, her frayed nerves nearly making her convulse.
“The paint can,” said Michael Gage.
He can’t be here. This must be a memory. Is this something he did to Rae before he killed her? I didn’t want to see this. Why would Priscilla send me here? She loved terrifying me, but her sadism usually served a purpose. This had no purpose other than to hurt.
A paint can was thrust into the girl’s hand, her fingers forcefully closed around it.
“Write what I say.” A flashlight came to life, illuminating the face of a white wall. I was too scared to try to identify it, even though I knew it. “Hello, Peri Jean.”
The girl stood frozen, an animal finished with the fight. A punch landed in the middle of her back. Her forehead cracked against the wall, but she was too far gone to react emotionally or to the pain. The hand jerked her to her feet again.
“Write it.”
She shook the paint can and pressed the spray nozzle. Words slowly formed. Excess paint ran in thin lines, glowing like blood in the moonlight. Then it was finished.
HELLO, PERI JEAN
A white hot line burned across the girl’s throat. She couldn’t breathe. Hot liquid flowed down her arms and dripped to the ground, mirroring the drying paint on the wall in front of her. She brought her hands up to press at the wound. Her ebbing strength drove her to her knees, where she knelt on the soft earth, gagging. Her vision faded.
No, no, no. I don’t want to be inside her mind while she dies. I gathered myself and reached for the black opal’s power. One hard push, and I separated from her.
I woke on the floor of the cabin, the rough plank floor scratching against my cheek. The morning’s first sunlight glowed softly through the windows. My first deep breath made me gag. The taste of blood still flooded my mouth. I rolled onto my back. The movement set my stomach tossing. Sharp bile stung my throat. Uh, oh. I scrabbled to my feet and hit the cabin door at a run. I crashed through the brush surrounding Priscilla Herrera’s cabin and grabbed a skinny tree to hold onto while I yarked.
I trembled all over. My knees wobbled like the bones had gone to jelly. Fatigue siphoned off the last of my energy, and exhaustion settled in. I staggered a few feet away from my mess and eased down on a felled tree. Its rotted trunk squished underneath me, bringing thoughts of crawling, stinging insects, but I couldn’t move any further.
Had Priscilla thrown me into that vision—or whatever it was—just to scare me? She didn’t mind scaring me into doing her bidding, and she knew my deepest fears. She could torture me into insanity if she wanted.
Michael Gage’s neighing giggle came back to me. Leaves rustled as something big moved through the woods. I leapt to my feet, peering into the forest’s shadows, heart slamming. A shudder ripped through me, and I cast my gaze about the clearing. The sun’s light, still soft and malleable, wrapped around the trees and draped itself over their limbs, and cast a glow on the dew still clinging to the leaves at my feet. I pulled a calming breath deep into my lungs.
“It’s not him.” I took my cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one with shaking hands. “Can’t be. I beat his head in, and he’s gone.” The panic passed, and I stomped back to the cabin and packed up my altar. As I shoved the garbage into a plastic grocery sack, Priscilla’s words came back. The next step on your journey.
All this for nothing. I didn’t even accomplish what I set out to do. Would I ever get the hang of using my abilities? The idea of struggling every day for the rest of my life pissed me off. I couldn’t live like that.
“What the hell do you want me to do now, you mean old woman?” I yelled at the empty cabin. Silence answered me. “That’s what I thought. Scare the life out of me and won’t even tell me what to do.”
I toted the bag to the cabin’s door and got ready to make the little drop to the ground. Two invisible hands planted themselves in the middle of my back and shoved. I pitched forward, tripped over a rock, and sprawled head first into the rotted log where I’d sat and smoked after I puked. Bright lights flashed behind my eyes. I slid off the log and leaned against it.
“You mean old lady.” I shouted the words, too angry to worry about my ghostly ancestor’s reaction. I rubbed at my forehead where it knocked into the tree. There’d be a knot there for sure. I got my legs under me and rose again, determined to get out of this place.
A little breeze blew through the clearing, jostling the litter of leaves and fallen branches. Something glinted on the ground at my feet. I knelt to pick it up. A lighter, once mine from the looks of it.
Cold fingers crawled over my skin. The last time I came to this place someone I should have been able to trust tried to kill me. The visit before that, I watched someone kill my father on this piece of land. All because of the Mace Treasure.
Turning a slow circle, I used the location of the cabin to get my bearings. Unless I was wrong, the tree I’d conked into was the same one I, as a little tiny girl, told my father would have to be moved if he wanted to find the treasure. Why did I tell him that? Because Priscilla Herrera’s ghost told me. Even back then, she liked fucking with me.
A glow traveled through the woods, weaving and bobbing its way toward me. I held my breath as I watched its progress. I couldn’t hear footsteps crunching through the carpet of dry leaves and branches on the forest floor. Whatever was coming wasn’t human. I reached into my bag and pulled out my athame. The black opal heated on my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I directed my words toward the silent, dark cabin. “I do think you’re a horrible, mean woman, but I shouldn’t have said it out loud. Whatever you’re sending…it’s not necessary because I’m sorry.”
The bobbing light hovered a few feet from me now. I remembered the spooky stories Mysti Whitebyrd and her boyfriend Griff Reed told me about supernatural beings they’d battled. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t know what to do. The bobbing light came close enough to touch. It faded, and in its place stood my daddy.
“Daddy!” I whispered.
My daddy, Paul Mace, forever twenty-four and impossibly handsome, smiled at me. He came to stand at my side and pointed at the sky. Bruise colored clouds billowed over the clear morning sky. Lightning threaded through them. Thunder grumbled, and the wind picked up, swaying the tops of the tall pine trees. The whisper of the rough pine needles scraping together filled the clearing.
A frigid arm fell over my shoulders, holding me in place. “Storm coming.” My father’s voice faded, scratching and buzzing like a distant radio station. “Gotta do…what she says…figure it out.”
Rain rushed toward us, a silver wall hissing and pounding in the trees. It peppered its way across the old homesite and stung my skin like icy needles. I turned to speak to my daddy’s ghost, but he was already gone. I ran for my Nova, already soaked by the time I jumped inside. Teeth chattering, I took out my cell phone. There was a message from Tubby Tubman saying he needed to see me. I deleted it and punched in a text message to Wade Hill.
