The guardian ghost stood in front of the rubble at the end of the tunnel. Her angelic face held enough serenity to sell toilet paper, but I didn’t trust her. If she wanted us to have the book, she could simply give it to us. Why put us through three tests as if we lived in a fairy-tale world? Besides that, she was too darn perfect. Despite my misgivings, I gave her an appropriately pleasant smile. “Good morning.”
She nodded. “Are you ready for your second trial?”
“Yes, oh great one,” said Eric with a slight inflection of his head.
Sheesh, he could really lay it on. Should I curtsy? Hell no. That would feel wrong. So wrong. I pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I thought you said we could explore the rest of the tunnel for the book.”
“Indeed. That is what I said. But are you ready?”
What now? “Uh, yeah,” I said.
The guardian ghost waved her hand and the rubble wall that had blocked the tunnel crumbled and was absorbed by the ground. The tunnel lay open. The guardian disappeared.
“Abby, stay here, keep guard. Yell if you see Aslog or anyone else follow me down the tunnel.”
“Yeah. No.” That just wasn’t happening.
He gave me that frustrated-alpha look, compressed lips and all. “You can never be too careful when you’re on a magical quest. I need you to help me by standing guard here.”
“Cut the fairy-tale talk. This is me and you. We can handle this together.”
He smacked his ghostly head with his hand. “Is this another modern-woman-thing? Really? Now? We don’t have time to worry about your feelings.”
“Follow me.” With my flashlight clicked on I strutted into the dark passageway, leaving him no choice but to follow. I tried to release my jaw, which I had held so tightly it ached. “Being a heroine sucks. I didn’t realize what I signed up for when I had children.”
Eric laughed softly.
I ducked beneath a tree root that hung low from the ceiling. Could that be an omen? I couldn’t resist touching it, and when I did earth fell from its side and a flock of bats flew out of a hole towards my head. Gliding through the space, they made eerie echoing sounds that turned my blood as cold as ice.
I screamed and threw my arms over my head. Five bats smashed into me and flew away through the tunnel. The bat opening closed and the surface looked smooth, as if nothing had happened.
“It’s all right,” said Eric. “Just bats.”
You would think he was talking about sparrows. “Those weren’t ‘just bats.’ They were the freaking mothers-of-all-bats; huge, creepy flying rats, if you ask me.”
“Keep moving and watch your tongue. If those bats are magical, they could return and who knows what they may do to us.”
“What?”
“Just keep going. We need to find the book and get out of here.”
An enormous rat crawled over my foot, and I screamed as if my life depended on it. I hoped it was just a rat.
“Abby, my love, you need to calm down.”
I wiped at the sweat building on my forehead. It would have been easier to stay at the rubble point where all good girls were supposed to stay. Why couldn’t I let myself do the demure female thing? Just this once?
A thundering sound rumbled through the tunnel as if a stampede of horses approached.
“Shit. The bats are returning. And they don’t sound like little bats this time.”
I looked ahead, but could see nothing. My stomach clenched. It didn’t make sense. Why were we being attacked by rats and bats? Did the guardian know they were the two creatures I absolutely hated?
It couldn’t be a coincidence. No self-respecting detective believes in coincidences. This whole experience seemed tailor made, as if it were a digital game created to terrify me. “Eric, this isn’t real.” I took a deep breath. “It’s bullshit,” I said louder. “We have nothing to fear.”
Eric’s eyes widened. “Abby, you’re losing it.”
I swiped sweat away from my eyes. “Nope. I got it. The guardian ghost is playing with my head. She wants me to give up. But no bat or rat or . . .”
The thundering grew louder, deafening my thoughts.
“Or whatever the hell that is.” I pointed forward, and out of the darkness emerged a horde of giant spiders. All I could see was spiders. There had to be a cazillion to make the sound of horse hoofs. Or was that another magic trick. The one thing I hated more than bats and rats was spiders! “Aah!” I screamed, unable to stop myself. My heart-beat pounded in my throat.
The legion of hairy arachnids, each the size of my head, stopped a foot away and focused on me with all their beady eyes. Eric stood behind me but what could he, a Viking spirit, do to a horde of beastly bugs?
“What do you want?” I asked.
The spider closest to me fluttered curly eyelashes on all eight of her eyes. “I want you out of my home,” she said in a voice as gruesome as the grave.
“And if we don’t leave?”
“I bite you and my venom will paralyze your body just enough so that my friends and I can suck your essence. It’s a slow and painful way to die, and your ghost can’t protect you. There are too many of us and only two of you.”
The hair on the nape of my neck stood at attention. “Trust me, spider, we do not want to be here. We will leave as soon as I get what I want.”
The spider blinked. “Feisty one, aren’t you.”
“Determined. I am determined. I’m doing this for my kids.”
The spider stopped wiggling its legs. “Children?”
“Yes. You see I—”
“I like children.” The way she said it made her meaning clear. She considered them an epicurean delicacy.
Enough! I had had more than enough in this god-forsaken dirt hole. “Back off, and leave us alone.” My voice may have sounded confident, but my gut swirled like a smoothie in a blender.
Eric advanced. “Be gone,” he said to the bugs.
The leader jumped back and threw up a leg, sending a web into the air. It hooked on a root protruding from the ceiling. She hoisted herself up to face Eric, her eyeballs to his steely blues. “You want to rethink that, big guy?”
Great, now we had a standoff. Eric would never back down when my safety was at risk. And I had no idea how the spiders would respond to him. It had been a long day. A really long day. So in one smooth move I swung my pack off my back and into the face of the lead spider.
Fluorescent-green goo spurted in all directions. The sound of hundreds of feet tapping the echoed in the small space as the spiders raced away.
I looked at my knapsack with new admiration.
Eric started laughing, but I was too tired to join him. “I want to get out of here.”
“Is there anything else you’re afraid of?” he asked in a soft tone.
“Bats, rats and spiders are my greatest fears.” I started walking forward again, sweeping my flashlight from side to side as I moved.
“What else?”
“I’m scared of strawberries, especially ones covered in chocolate,” I said.
We kept moving. “Nice try. Not strawberries,” he said. “Tell me what else you’re scared of.”
“My biggest fear is losing you.”
“That won’t happen, ӓskling.”
“Hey, you’re dead and we’re in love. I’d say anything can happen.”
“I may be dead, but my feelings for you transcend the boundaries of life and death, space and time. They will not be diminished by anything or anyone. I love you.”
My cheeks burned. My heart trembled. “And I love you. But . . .”
“There are no buts in love.”
“But, I’m afraid you’ll do something stupid.”
“Really? You want to argue about that now?”
“I want you to swear, on your Viking honor, you will not put yourself at risk for me. Ever.”
He chuckled. “No Viking would swear to that.”
“Let me rephrase. I want you to swear that . .
.” The words weren’t easy to find. I didn’t want him to risk his life, death, whatever, for me, but he was too alpha to get that. He was right about one thing. It wasn’t the time or the place for this discussion.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Is that nothing as in, okay, or nothing as in, I’ll get a cold shoulder for a day?”
I laughed. Couldn’t help it. Inter-generational relationships have their perks. “Okay, as in okay. I’ll cherish our night together.”
“I like it when you listen to me.”
“Urgh!” Could any man be more . . . more Viking? As I rolled my eyes, my right foot stepped into a hole and I stumbled onto my knees. “What the heck.”
I got up and wiped the dirt from my clothes while Eric examined the hole. He disappeared into it.
Now what? This wasn’t much better than being left at the rubble barrier. I looked around. At least I was alone. But that wasn’t always a good thing. Before I could manage another thought I heard a voice whispering.
Eric shimmered in front of me, holding a leather-bound book.
19
It took us twenty minutes to get out of the hell-hole of a tunnel, and the book whispered the whole time. It had a soft voice and spoke an ancient tongue. I could barely make out a syllable, but it didn’t seem menacing, just intent on delivering a message.
When we emerged in the basement of the manor the lights in the house danced as if celebrating our arrival. While I noted the miracle of electricity, I was too caught up in the whispers to really care. The book’s voice had a hypnotic quality that calmed me, made me feel as if everything was happening as it should, and I could swear that amid the words I could not understand I heard my name.
In the clear light we took the time to examine the grimoire. Its cover had been made with soft, brown leather and a strap held it together. It smelled of roses in full bloom, the old kind with a strong, sweet scent. An intricate vine motif etched into the surface.
The voice never stopped. “Can you understand what it’s saying? Is it Latin?”
“What?” Eric asked.
“The voice.”
“What voice.” He lifted a brow.
“Don’t you hear it?”
I tried to open the book, but it wouldn’t budge.
The guardian ghost rose from the floor directly in front of us. “You found it.”
I pushed hair out of my face and lifted my chin. “I don’t see the point of this search. Why didn’t you just give us the book?”
“It is not mine to give. The fact that you now have it means you have passed the initial tests.”
Again with the tests. I was not a hunk of meat. “I prefer multiple choice. Just saying.” I pulled the elastic out of my hair and scratched my scalp, hoping no spider babies had nested there.
“The ancient mysteries do not explain themselves. You had to prove you are committed to your quest, and you have done so. You also had to prove that you have a good heart.”
Yada yada. “What good is the book to us if we can’t open it?”
“It will open when it’s ready.”
Oh, for heaven’s sakes. “Trust me, I’m ready.”
“She means when the book is ready.” Eric put his hands on his hips. “You need to explain it to us.”
“I wish I could.” She sounded sincere. “I do not understand all the forces at work here. The book has allowed you to find it, but it is not ready to reveal its contents.”
“It whispers. What is it saying?”
“Ah, you hear it. I thought you might. There is more to you than meets the eye.”
I looked at Eric. He shrugged.
“The book is calling you,” she said.
I stopped breathing. Calling me? What the hell?
“What do suggest we do next?” asked Eric.
“Keep the book and see what happens.”
“But we can’t,” I said. But the guardian ghost had checked out and I was talking to air.
Eric pinched the bridge of his ghostly nose. “Don’t worry, my love. Tonight we will leave the book at the teahouse where it will be safe.” His eyes softened to the color of the morning sky in June. “And we will be together.”
I held it tightly in my hands, wondering if it understood what was happening around it. The guardian ghost implied it did, but how could I tell? It continued to whisper softly, an enchanting collection of sounds not unlike the sound of waves lapping on the shore. I had no idea what it was telling me.
“Ӓskling?”
“Yes, we will be together tonight.”
20
As darkness gathered Eric donned his amulet. Guiden, the sorcerer, had said to trust him, but that was easier said than done. Eric frowned. Who in their right mind would trust such a scuzzy bastard of a warlock? The image of Abby flowed through his mind, warming every part of him. Nej, he didn’t trust; he hoped.
As darkness fell his body transformed before his eyes. As blood circulated inside him he felt the warmth of life spreading to all his limbs. His heart beat once again! He could breathe!
His chest swelled with pure joy as he took a deep breath, his first in over a thousand years, and felt the oxygen bring his body fully to life.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sheer ecstasy of this moment. He had dreamed of being alive every day, every night, every moment of his after-life, but none of the fantasies could match this experience. Being alive, truly alive, is a miracle. One which he would not take for granted. He had six hours.
Where was Abby?
Since he couldn’t shimmer into her living room, he grabbed the teahouse phone and called her on her cell phone.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Abby, it’s me.”
Silence.
“It’s me. I’m alive.”
“Eric?”
“I put the pendant on and the magic began. Come to me at the teahouse.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Come to me.”
“Jillian left a couple minutes ago with the kids. I’ll be right over.”
Five long minutes later Abby arrived and ran through the open door into his arms. He held her tightly and nuzzled her neck.
“You smell like a goddess,” he said, breathing in her scent.
“And you smell . . .”
“Human?” He pulled away to look at her face.
“Like a Viking. Kind of raw and healthy.” She laughed and reached up to kiss him.
He shook his head. “Our time has come at last. I want to take it slowly and savor each moment with you.”
Placing the necklace over her head, he added, “My ӓskling.”
***
The room spun, faster and faster, until I couldn’t distinguish anything around us. The air rushed from my lungs, as magic rushed in, filling me with a tingling sense of awareness, of being both larger than life and smaller than life at the same moment, of being beyond life, beyond time, beyond place; being without dimension.
To shut out the blazing kaleidoscope of colors and images swirling around us, I closed my eyes and anchored myself with one feeling in my heart, and one feeling only, my love for Eric, while his strong arms held me tightly.
The swirling stopped and we tumbled head over heels, over and over again. When our tumbling came to a halt, I swallowed and tried to breathe. Air rushed into my lungs and I took in the masculine scent of Eric. This time I could also smell cows.
He groaned and loosened his hold on me. “We’re here.”
I opened my eyes, stepped back and looked around. We stood in the middle of an old barn with a dirt floor. Light streaked through cracks in the roughly hewn boards that made the walls. A large door stood in front of us with a bar across it, locking others out. I could hear chickens, goats and a horse. I could smell the cows.
In a loft above us was a pile of hay with a couple blankets on top of it.
“This is my father’s barn,” said Eric. “I spent many hour
s here tending to the animals.”
“Did you sleep here?”
“No, but travelers sometimes did.”
“Do you think we’ve really gone back in time, or do you think Guiden has placed us in a mirage to make us think we did?”
Eric ran his hands through my hair. “Does it matter?”
“Well . . .” I wanted to say it did. I wanted it to matter. We were dealing with a sly sorcerer with no regard for human life, but feeling Eric’s touch wiped all rational thought from my mind, creating a reality of its own. His blue eyes softened as he leaned in for our first kiss.
I had dreamed of this kiss from the first moment I met him over two years ago. Not until two days ago did I believe I would actually experience it. Maybe it was the waiting that made it so good. Maybe it was the exotic locale or the fact that it was forbidden. Maybe it was the pureness of our love. Whatever the reason, it was one whopper of a kiss. When his lips brushed mine, every cell in my body tingled with desire.
Never had I wanted a man more. Never had I loved a man more.
“Abby, jag ӓjag, dig.”
I stroked his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and the roughness of his scruff. “And I love you.”
He picked me up as if I weighed nothing and I wrapped my legs around him.
As we kissed he pulled me closer. I opened my mouth to his. Unbridled passion flooded my senses.
Despite my excitement, my brain would not turn off. Sometimes I hate myself and this was one of those times. I had wanted Eric from the moment I met him, yet it didn’t feel right and I couldn’t shake that feeling. “Are you sure we’re safe?”
His breath was ragged. His pupils dilated. He stared at me. “Abby, I want you. Give in to your heart. Let us be one.”
“This feels strange. Don’t you think?”
His Adam’s apple went up and then down again. “There is nothing strange about two people, who love each other, kissing.”
“But what if Guiden’s watching?” I traced his pectoral muscles with my fingers. He was built like a Norse god.
“Let him watch.Who cares about him?” But he placed me back on my feet and glanced around.
I touched his blond hair. It was soft. Everything about him was so alive. It was hard to take it all in. “It feels too good to be true. And you know what they say about things that feel too good to be true. I don’t know that I deserve this much happiness.”
Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 1) Page 10
