Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 1)

by Jo-Ann Carson

  He leaned into my touch. His eyes lit with desire. “So what if other people are watching. I do not care.” He traced the side of my body with his large hands, as if making sure my hips were still attached. “Come with me to the loft.”

  I wanted him so badly I could barely talk. My brain screamed no, but I could barely hear it now.

  His hands glided to my breasts as if he owned them. “I don’t care if the entire universe is watching. You will be mine, tonight.”

  “See, I’m not so cool about that.”

  “We are in love. There is nothing for you to be ashamed of. There could be nothing more natural than us being together.”

  I followed him up the ladder to the loft and we lay together on the blanket. His supersized body was all muscle, his lips were soft, his kisses more tender than the night.

  I tried to think, because if I didn’t think at that very moment, I wouldn’t have another chance. My body wanted him more than it wanted my next breath. I wanted him pounding into me with a merciless power. “Eric, maybe we should talk first.”

  He groaned and slid his rough hands beneath my blouse. I fought back a moan as my breasts responded to his touch. “You talk. I’m busy.”

  “I want you, Eric.”

  “Mmm.”

  “But . . .”

  “Too many buts.” He grabbed my ass and squeezed.

  I laughed. “Okay, let me ask you this.”

  He groaned.

  “This arcane magic thing.”

  His Viking hands returned to my breasts, which ached for his touch. He sure knew how to change the subject. “Ja.”

  “Could the sorcerer do something to us while we get it on?” I was panting now.

  His hands pressed harder. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but we’re vulnerable.”

  “Lie with me, my love. I will protect you always.” He nibbled my neck, in my never-say-no spot.

  “Eric, I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” He ripped my blouse apart, exposing my bra. “What is this thing you wear on your beautiful breasts?”

  “It’s called a bra.”

  He ripped it and looked upon me, making a deep, guttural sound. “You are so womanly, so lovely.” He brushed my lips with his. “So mine.”

  “Eric.”

  His mouth took mine in a long, deep kiss.

  I nuzzled into his neck. “I’m scared.”

  “You are so beautiful.” He licked my nipple playfully.

  “If we do this . . .” He sucked my nipple and I lost my words.

  He didn’t reply.

  “We will never be the same.”

  Kissing me softly, he shifted his body to look into my eyes. “I have not been the same since I met you.”

  “Eric, surely you sense the danger.”

  “I cannot fall more in love with you. The only danger I see is that . . .” His hands froze.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  He sighed and rolled over to lie on his back. “Yes. The danger is that once we have made love, I won’t refuse Guiden’s offer.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek. “And I can’t live without you in my life. You as you are now, not as some monster that a sorcerer has at his beck and call.”

  He reached over and stroked my cheek. “My ӓskling, whatever happens, you and you alone will always have my heart. You must know that.”

  The timbre of his voice, the purity of his love, pulled at me. I pulled off my pants and panties and rolled on top of him. “Let’s talk later.” I pushed aside his clothing and took him inside me in one quick thrust and my world exploded. We both cried out. My cry was a mixture of pain and pleasure, for he was mighty big, and his one of pure pleasure.

  Grabbing my hips he pulled me off and rolled on top. “Not so fast.” He kissed me hard and long. My whole body felt ablaze. “Now,” I said. “I want you now.”

  “Not yet.”

  His hardened body, slick with sweat, slid down my body, trailing kisses.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Not yet.” I ached for him.

  He kissed my abdomen and kissed lower and lower until he reached my core. His large hands spread my legs. He sighed. “You are mine.”

  Softly he licked my nub and my back arched. “Eric.” I grabbed his hair. I wanted him so badly.

  His finger entered me and he stroked gently inside as he continued to lick and suckle. “Do you care about who’s looking now?”

  For a flash I worried we were being watched, but I no longer cared. I only cared about him. About us. Nothing else mattered. My desire rose and rose.

  “Come for me, Abby.” He stroked harder and harder.

  I screamed as my body exploded in orgasmic pleasure, and my heart in eternal love.

  He shimmied back up so he could watch my face as he entered me.

  “Could we slow down.” I wanted to torture him.

  He laughed and thrust deep inside me, so deep I was on the verge of exploding again.

  “Slow enough?” His voice was ragged and demanding.

  “Uh.” That was the last word I managed for quite a while.

  ***

  Six hours of passionate lovemaking passed as if it were six minutes. We lay entwined in sweet, sweaty love. I sighed as I heard the first rooster crow. “I’ve stopped counting.”

  “Ten,” he said.

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Maybe. But it felt good.”

  “It felt like a thousand. I will never forget this night.”

  “Nor I, my ӓskling.”

  How could I put my thoughts into words, let alone my feelings? Yet I felt compelled to try. Everything would be different when he was a ghost again, so I had to say what I had to say while there was still time. “It’s not just the sex, though it was the best I’ve ever had. Better than anything I had ever imagined.”

  “The sex was good,” he said. His hand reached and squeezed me down there. Nothing subtle about a Viking. “Very good, especially after you got over talking, thinking and trying to be in control.”

  I pushed away his hand. “I’m sore.”

  “I just want to rest my hand there. Feel the softness of your folds.”

  I put his hand back. “Eric, this has been a great gift to both of us.”

  Keeping his hand in place, he lifted himself up on his elbow and looked down on me. His eyes were the color of the sky on a perfect summer morning. “Ja.”

  “And the memory of it will stay with us forever.”

  “Do you always talk so much after sex?”

  “Eric, we don’t have much time left.”

  He traced my cheek with his fingers. “And I don’t want to spend it talking.”

  “Eric!”

  After another romp in the hay, I lay in his arms, cocooned by his love, sated by our passion. More roosters crowed. “Eric.”

  “Mmm? You still want to talk?” He nuzzled my neck. His breath tickled.

  “I just want to say . . .”

  He snored. It was a light sound, but it was definitely a snore. “Eric?” He didn’t reply, so I elbowed him.

  “What? What?” Did something happen?”

  “You fell asleep.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I want to say that I appreciated our night together. Every second of it. And I won’t forget it.”

  He fake snored.

  “Eric?”

  He snored again.

  I elbowed him and he grunted.

  “I don’t want you to do anything for that god-awful sorcerer, Guiden. Don’t let him blackmail you with our love. It’s too perfect. Don’t let him defile it, defile us.”

  He cleared his throat. “It’s almost time.”

  “I guess we should put clothes on.”

  “Okay.”

  As our last minutes ticked by, we sat together, fully dressed, holding hands. There was so much left unsaid, but not enough words in the universe could express the depth of our feelings for one another. He sque
ezed my hand. “Forever, my love. I will love you forever.”

  “Eric . . .”

  The winds of time swept us into a vortex of motion before I could finish saying his name. He pulled me to his chest and hung on to me as time and space swirled around us in a kaleidoscope of life. His corporeal body faded as the swirling slowed and we found ourselves standing in the entranceway of the teahouse.

  Azalea stood in front of us with her fists on her hips. “And where in god’s creation have you two been?”

  21

  I stumbled. It felt as if my insides had been kneaded, torn apart and reassembled in less than perfect order, as if god had become a really-bad Lego-builder.

  “Ӓskling, are you all right?” Eric stepped away from me, shimmering in his ghostly form once again.

  Tears rolled from my eyes. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be all right.”

  His bad-boy grin lit up his features. “That’s as it should be.” Sadness lingered in his eyes and he looked away to hide it.

  “I’m glad you made it back.” Azalea’s usually buddha-like voice sounded crisp.

  We turned back to look at her. Our mixed emotions must have been written on our faces, because Azalea threw her arms in the air. “Great. Just great. You’ve tasted the forbidden fruit.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said gently.

  “Many times,” said Eric with a firm jaw.

  “Azalea, really this is none of your business,” I said. “I know you care about us, but it was our choice.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not how things work. It’s like butterfly wings.”

  Butterfly wings? Before I could ask what the heck she was talking about, the guardian ghost shimmered into view between us.

  Azalea’s chin lifted. “Another ghost. Just what I need.” She turned and strode away.

  “Guardian, what can we do for you?” asked Eric.

  “I have come with news from the council.”

  Before I could ask her what council, she continued, “The grand council of elders who direct me are pleased with your efforts, but before they let you open the spell book they want more proof of your integrity.”

  “What now?” I crossed my arms across my chest.

  “They want you to return Aslog the draugr to her resting place.”

  “Kill her, once and for all?”

  “That’s right. Return her to her grave and prevent her from leaving it. The world does not need draugrs. If you do this, they will grant you the power to open the grimoire and use it as you will.”

  I wondered what she knew about the book calling me. I wondered if that had influenced the elders. Not wanting to muddy the murky waters, I said nothing.

  “I don’t even know where her grave is,” Eric said. Was it my imagination or was he even more handsome now that I knew him intimately? I had a hard time looking away from his scruff.

  The guardian opened her right hand to reveal a slip of paper. “This is the magic potion you need. When you place it on the draugr’s forehead, she will slide beneath the earth, back to the realm of dead blood suckers, and never bother the human mortal plane again.”

  “Okay,” I said. It sounded like something we could do: corner her and mark her with the magic potion. Then again, it sounded too easy. “Will it hurt her?” I hate pain, mine and others.

  The angelic brows on the guardian spirit rose. “Draugrs don’t have feelings. She pretends she does to gain your sympathy. Do not be fooled. She is a cruel beast who must be extinguished, and you two have been tasked to do so.”

  “Executioners! You want us to become your executioners.” Eric said it plainly.

  “Aslog deserves to die. She has killed many.”

  “Let’s see the recipe.”

  The spell was detailed on the weathered piece of paper in an old-fashioned script, written with an ink pen. It smelled of rotten eggs, which Azalea had once told me was a sign of arcane magic, and not the good kind. Below the twenty or so rather mundane ingredients were four instructions:

  1) On a full moon, combine and heat the spell over an open flame.

  2) Bring the potion to a boil at midnight.

  3) When the potion is in a rolling boil, repeat the following incantation. . .

  The magic words looked like Latin, with a lot of “us” endings. I looked up at Eric, who stood behind me reading the page over my shoulder.

  4) Apply it to the temple of the draugr at midnight and stand back.

  “I have no moral dilemma about ending the wicked after-life of a draugr. I’ve known too many. I know too well the carnage they cause on earth. If we let her live it’s only a matter of time before she starts to feed on Sunset Cove.” Eric’s solemn voice prickled the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. “I will protect my people. I will see that it is done.”

  “Good,” the glowing one said as she vanished.

  He turned to me. “Ӓskling, my love, go home and rest. I will bring what we need for the spell and we will make it tonight. It is the second night of the full moon. We need to act on this.”

  “Eric, I’m not comfortable with murder.”

  “It must be done. Not only so that we can open the magic book, but also so that the town will be safe. You need to understand this. She has a wickedly voracious appetite. She told me she’s been feeding on small forest animals, but that won’t keep her happy for long. Draugrs crave human blood.”

  When I didn’t say anything, he added, “And she knows where your children live.”

  That she did. I winced. “I guess I’m in.”

  22

  As the evening darkness gathered, Eric headed back to the teahouse to meet Abby. Most of the stuff they needed had been easy to find: wolfsbane, arnica flowers, basil, bat’s head root, belladonna, sea weed and the like. The instructions seemed clear enough. What worried Eric was the performing of the magic.

  Over the centuries he had witnessed magic on many occasions, enough to know that even good magic could go wrong. That worried him the most. The power and energy in magic could flip in an instant, and this was said to be arcane magic with a volatile personality. When you played with the balance of universal powers, you risked losing everything you cared about.

  Abby met him with open arms and then folded them across her chest. It had only been hours since they coupled, and the memory, still fresh in every part of his ghostly being, made his heart ache. He smiled as he followed her into her kitchen, noting she walked funny. After placing the ingredients on the counter, he followed her out to her backyard where she had set up a small, crackling fire. After stoking the flames, he placed a grill over the top of it. It looked almost ready. They just needed to wait until midnight.

  He blew Abby’s hair out of her eyes. They looked tired around the edges and her sadness made him feel worse than horse dung. He didn’t want to be a source of pain in her life. She had had enough of that. Their affair had happened so quickly it took him by surprise, the biggest surprise of his death. He loved her with all his heart and he knew she felt the same way.

  Many times in the last two years he had asked her if she wanted to be free of him. It didn’t seem fair that such a beautiful woman be chained to the heart of a dead man, but each time they had the discussion she said she wanted to be with him. She said even if he left her, she would still love him for the rest of her life, so he may as well stick around. It seemed like an impossible situation, but the intensity of his love for her gave him hope. How could anything so right be wrong? There had to be a way for them to be together.

  Guiden held the magic to give him eternal life. He only had to say yes.

  He stoked the flames and fed it with more kindling and logs, until there were red hot coals on the bottom. He tried to focus on creating the spell, but all he could think about was Abby. He crushed devil’s root in his ghostly fist and threw it on the fire for good luck.

  Abby brought out a big, old, black cauldron fit for a witch’s brew that she had found in the basement. She went back into the kitchen an
d returned with the ingredients and measuring utensils. They worked together preparing the spell. As the last of the day’s light waned, they stirred their potion with an alder branch. The hoot of an owl broke the silence between them.

  The August full moon, what the pagans called a lightning moon, rose in a clear sky, appearing supernaturally large and magical. He couldn’t remember the last time they had had such a clear night. It shone brightly, but he couldn’t help feeling it had a dark and ominous hand in what they were doing.

  “You know there’s no guaranteeing this will work,” he said as she looked up to see the owl.

  “It’s worth a try. Right?”

  “I miss you,” he said.

  “I’m right here.”

  “I know that, but you know what I mean. I miss you.”

  She smiled.

  “I miss touching your soft skin and feeling your breath on my neck. I . . .”

  “It’s boiling.”

  Their timing seemed perfect. The brown, muddy mixture burbled, and as the rising bubbles burst, sparks of red light released a rose-colored mist into the air. It smelled of decaying flesh and all things vile. He stopped stirring.

  A bolt of lightning crossed the sky and thunder followed. Abby looked at Eric. A moment ago the sky had been clear. How could this be?

  Abby took the alder branch from him and stirred the potion. “Magic is afoot.”

  He nodded. As the seconds edged towards midnight, he said, “On the count of three, we’ll say the incantation.”

  They had memorized the words, but Abby held out the page for them both to read, in case they froze up. It wouldn’t do to accidently create a spiderman or some other mutant beast. “One, two, three . . .”

  They spoke in unison: “Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures. Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures. Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures. So mote it be.”

  Nothing happened. “Maybe we did something wrong.”

  “I looked up the words. It’s a simple healing spell in Latin. I’m guessing it’s the ingredients that make it special.”