He sniffed the potion and scrunched-up his face. “Heal the draugr by sending her to her grave? Give her a natural death. That makes sense. Maybe we have to say it again.”
“Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures. Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures. Tui gratis lovis gratia sit cures.”
***
A cold breeze swirled around us. The limbs of the cherry tree in the back yard cracked in the wind. A green smoke rose from the pot and, in that mist, written in black, were the words: “Everything must die.”
Every cell in my body cringed in terror. I swallowed my scream. What the heck? I felt as if I were communicating with someone. But who? This magic stuff was too dark, too scary, too out of my league. I clenched my fists tightly, digging my nails into my palms so that the pain would still my anxiety. “I guess it’s ready.”
Eric used his powers to move the hot pot back to the kitchen and placed it on a hot pad on the counter. The rolling boil eased as the steam evaporated. We watched it for five minutes, but it no longer moved or spoke in mist.
I took out a mason jar. As he lifted the pot to pour the potion into it, a dog howled in the distance. It startled him and he spilled some. A tablespoon of it fell upon the floor. I gasped as I watched it run along the old wooden planks and slip between them.
Eric continued to pour the potion into the jar and we capped it. “Azalea warned me that magic spells have a mind of their own.”
“I think we’re okay,” I said, wanting to believe it. “We have a jar of the magic stuff and the rest disappeared.” We had enough. Everything would be okay.
That was when the floor started shaking. What was it they said about the road to hell? Paved with good intentions? How about slimed with a magic potion. Why these rambling thoughts hit me then, I’ll never know. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, funny about watching black steam rise from the shaking floor-boards.
“What the hell,” said Eric.
I grabbed the edge of the counter as if its solidness could steady my world. “What’s happening?”
From the black mist, three figures rose. Ah, son of a dragon’s nest. They looked like Aslog’s cousins. Dead, decaying creatures of the night. Draugrs!
The teahouse shook. The cupboards in the kitchen opened and closed. Fires crackled in fireplaces that had been empty only moments before. The walls undulated, and the chandeliers I spent hours dusting rattled as if the end of the world had come. I swallowed. Never had I seen the teahouse so upset.
“Enough!” boomed the unearthly voice of the middle beast, the tallest and strongest of the three. The spot they had come from sealed with a red liquid that looked like blood. I screamed.
Eric faced the three draugrs. “Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare,” their leader replied.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“We rise from the dead to live again.”
“Not in my world,” I said as I threw the heavy black pot at the middle one.
He laughed a maniacal laugh as he jumped out of the way, leaving the pot to smash against the far wall and slide to the floor. “You are no match for us, breather.”
“I bet she tastes good,” said the short one on the left who had only one ear.
I reached for the mason jar. “We’ll see about that.”
Eric shook his head at me. “Tell us your mission,” he said to them.
They looked at us as they vanished into thin air, leaving us with their wicked laughter and the horrible smell of rotten eggs.
23
The usual ghosts in the house had been playing their usual game of poker when the draugrs appeared and the teahouse rocked in anger. They rushed into the kitchen to see what was happening. The pirate arrived first and narrowly missed one of the draugrs with his sword before they disappeared.
Headless Joe arrived just in time to watch them escape. His bloodshot eyes had a crazed look. “Mon Dieu. Not them. Tell me it’s not them.”
Next came Leroy, the cop. “What have you brought into the house, Eric? You should know better.” The gentle lilt of his Irish accent did little to smooth the harshness of his words.
Rufus arrived with Charlie. They looked jumbled up, as if they had been busy. Their reddened ghost cheeks became white as they looked around. “What did we miss?” asked Rufus.
The creaking and groaning of the house eased as a cold, dead silence slid into the room. Three more ghosts arrived and looked at Eric for an explanation.
“We have a problem,” he said.
“That’s an understatement,” said the pirate. “I’ll get Azalea.”
Leroy grumbled. “I’ll stand guard outside to make sure they don’t return.”
***
Ten minutes later Azalea arrived with her niece Joy. The pirate stayed in the reception room, arguing with the Irish cop. Their voices carried through the house. No one was their usual, jovial self. Damn the undead. They can be as stubborn and ornery as the rest of us.
Eric’s silvery-blue shimmer dulled to a pasty white, his jaw slackened and his eyes looked older than his years. “I’m sorry about this mess,” he said to Azalea.
“What did you do?” she asked. Her body stiffened as she sniffed the air.
“We didn’t mean to,” I said. “It was a mistake.” I couldn’t let Azalea fire me for this. That was my worst fear. I needed my night job as the janitor to feed my kids. I couldn’t let the social workers take them away from me. No foster homes for my kids. I did not want them to bounce around between dysfunctional homes hoping for love. I had been there and I didn’t want it for them.
Why did I ever think I could be a detective? Talk about hubris. Talk about stupidity. My attempt had done nothing but harm the people I loved, and now, it could take my paying job.
Swallowing my fear, I said, “We were making a magic spell.”
They all looked at me with expressions of incredulity as if I had lost my mind. Fair enough. Maybe I had. “We need it to extinguish Aslog.” I talked fast, as if my life depended on it. “You know, the draugr who haunts Graystone Manor and who is, well, a draugr. By doing this a guardian ghost assured us we would attain . . . No, never mind about that.” I waved my hand in the air, trying to rid myself of the weight of a full explanation. “Let me fast forward to what really matters. As we poured the magic potion into the jar, a bit spilled onto the floor and slid—actually it kinda glided—into a crack between the floor-boards.”
“And three draugrs rose from the floor,” Eric said.
Azalea put her hand to her mouth. “Your magic opened the portal and they escaped into our world.”
“Yes, but the teahouse fought back.”
“That’s what we felt,” said the pirate. He turned towards Azalea. He moved his hands in the air as if that explained it all. “The walls moved in and out as if the place was panting, the ceiling shifted up and down, the floor melted and the windows and doors opened and closed, and then came the lightning.”
“I heard the thunder from blocks away,” said Azalea.
“Yeah, that too,” said Headless Joe.
Lilith, the black teahouse cat, jumped up onto the counter. Her tail stood straight up and her coat looked slightly singed. She gave a long, soulful meow.
Azalea exhaled noisily. “I see.”
As usual I had no idea what she saw, because it undoubtedly involved a lot more than normal people see.
The older woman adjusted the bun on top of her head. “The house has closed the portal, but three of the creatures who had been banished from earth escaped and are now in our town.” Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Eric. “In addition to Aslog.”
“We must find them,” said Leroy.
“They will be hungry and will go to the closest food supply,” said Eric.
Silence filled the room. “Human blood?” I asked.
“That is their preference, but if they are hungry enough they will feast on the first mammalian blood they find.”
Leroy tipped back his hat
. “We’ll split up and find them. You say you have a magic potion that gives them their final death?” Leroy looked at me.
I nodded, but shuddered at the thought of putting it on their rotting, stinking heads. “We have enough to kill one.”
“Wait here. I will take the north end of town. Pirate, take the middle, and Headless Joe, take the south end. The rest of you,” he said, turning to the other ghosts in the room, “can team up with whoever you wish. Abby stay here with the potion. Eric, protect her and Azalea.”
“You plan to capture them and bring them back?”
The old policeman smiled. “Don’t worry, Abby, we have our ways of taking life when we need to. These ancient vampires don’t die easily, so we will make them lose consciousness. In that state you can work your magic. If we don’t find them, we’ll meet back here at dawn.”
Without a further word the ghosts disappeared into the night.
I looked at Azalea. “I’m so sorry.”
She lifted a thin brow. “There must be a reason this is happening, but I can’t see it. I just can’t see it.” Her eyes glazed over and acquired that marble look they had when she read tea leaves. She stood stock still for a minute as if she were a mannequin, and then her body relaxed and her eyes returned to normal. “If you’ll excuse me, Lilith and I will retire to her room and meditate.” The cat followed her out of the kitchen, making choking sounds as if she had a fur ball. I guessed the teahouse tantrum had taken its toll on her metabolism.
Alone again, I looked at Eric. “I can’t believe we messed up so badly.”
“The night is not over.”
“Shouldn’t we make more potion?”
“I don’t want to risk it. Let’s see if this stuff works first.”
“Can the ghosts handle them?”
“I hope so.”
24
As the predawn light shimmered across the horizon, Leroy returned to the teahouse towing one of the smaller draugrs by a ghostly chain. I had fallen asleep on the worn sofa in the reception room and awoke to the sound of the rattling chain with the mother of all headaches. Eric hovered by my side, having stood guard all night.
“I have a creature for you,” said Leroy in his Irish brogue. “He smells worse than any slum I ever walked through.”
My pulse raced looking at the thing. The walking corpse lacked the glamor of Hollywood zombies. He was more rotten, more smelly, more . . . evil than anything I had ever seen. “Was it hard to get him?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
Eric nodded at him and he nodded back.
Azalea came out of Lilith’s room. “Don’t waste time talking. “Use the magic.”
I grabbed the mason jar and walked over to the beast who appeared to be asleep. Giving him a final death would be a mercy. I took a deep breath and unscrewed the top of the jar. I didn’t want to touch the magic potion. Who knew what would happen. So I poured it carefully onto his decaying forehead.
At least, that had been my intention, but when I started to pour the solution it flowed more freely than I expected it to, as if it had a life of its own and wanted to escape its imprisonment. It splashed onto the semi-corpse’s head.
The draugr groaned the most unholy of groans, deep and guttural, as if it were death itself speaking of the injustice of its plight. The sound soaked into my pores and made me want to weep with sadness and scream with horror at the same time. The jar slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.
Azalea grabbed my hand and the warmth of another living soul calmed me. We held each other’s hands as a stiff, cold wind rose from the floorboards and enveloped us. It swirled faster and faster through the room, as if it were a cyclone creating a funnel of energy. It carried the draugr down below. Below, I know not where, but below the house. A gaping hole opened in the floor as if it were a normal occurrence and swallowed its traveler. When the creature had completely disappeared, the wind stopped, and the room warmed. A thin streak of the red liquid outlined where the hole had been and then vanished.
“Good work,” said Leroy, as if I had cooked up a batch of tasty muffins.
I stared at him. “This has to be the worst day of my life.”
“Don’t say that, Abby.” Eric’s eyes darkened.
“He’s right,” said Azalea who gave my hand a last squeeze and let it go. “It’s like asking for more trouble, and trust me, the universe can do worse than this.”
A final shudder racked through my body and I suddenly felt unbelievably tired. “What of the others? We have no more potion.”
The pirate and Headless Joe arrived as I spoke, but they had no prisoners. Dawn had arrived. One draugr down, two to go. Well, three if I counted Aslog. And we had no magic potion left.
“Tonight, on the third night of the full moon, we’ll make a triple batch of the spell.” The words sounded ridiculous. Who was I to triple-batch magic? And yet it seemed right.
Azalea’s gray eyes appraised me. “Be careful. You now know how dangerous dealing with magic can be. So many things can go wrong.”
What could be worse than letting three creatures from hell roam our quiet small town? But I didn’t ask, because I really didn’t want to know.
25
When I got home, Jillian took one look at me and said, “I’ll take the kids back to my place.” I could have argued, because she had had them all night, but I didn’t. I needed a break and I guess my exhausted face conveyed that. I wished for the hundred-millionth time that I could tell her what was going on with me, but I couldn’t. Despite the strange things that happened in the cove, she didn’t believe in ghosts. I had hinted of their existence many times, but she didn’t get it, so there was no way I could tell her about vampires roaming the town. I hugged her hard. The kids would probably be safer at her place, because Aslog hadn’t been there. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise,” I said.
“No worries. You know I love your kids as if they were my own. Get some sleep.”
Sleep? If only. It didn’t seem fair that my life had turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours. My night with Eric had been everything—no, scratch that—more than everything I had ever dreamed of; a night with a Viking warrior, my Viking, the love of my life. We had sealed our love, done the deed. Eric was my soulmate, and now nothing could part us. Dead or alive, we were meant to be together. I had no doubts at all.
It angered me that the freaking draugrs had brought our happy-time to an abrupt end, and that I had fouled up the magic to get rid of them. Big time. Who did I think I was, making magic spells? Now the town would pay for my hubris. Two draugrs, well, three, roamed our community searching for fresh blood.
I couldn’t bring myself to phone Zane, the local policeman who knew about the supernatural side of life in the town; not when I had been the cause and there would be so much explaining to do. He probably couldn’t do anything anyway. Vampires don’t listen to men in uniform. I had to fix this mess on my own. I had made it and I needed to fix it.
At ten o’clock in the evening I returned to the teahouse. I did my janitorial duties and waited for Eric. He had said he would gather the fresh ingredients we needed. That was no minor task, but I hoped he would arrive soon. The magic had to boil at midnight.
That gave me time to ponder my thoughts, not always a good thing. On the one hand, I had never felt more loved and cherished. On the other, I had never felt more terrified. The supernatural world seeped into my life and yet I had never felt more alive.
The light of the full moon flowed through the windows of the teahouse, dancing in the colorful stained-glass partitions, illuminating the rooms with a spectrum of colors, as if it were the embodiment of magic itself. I had three empty jars washed and ready on the counter.
Eric arrived at eleven thirty. His shimmer dulled by fatigue, he said little and we set to work. As the clock in the town center struck midnight, we brought our magic potion to a full boil over the open flame in the backyard and chanted the ominous healing spell in the light of the Au
gust moon.
My hands shook as I opened the jars in the kitchen and Eric poured the solution. One after another they filled. No spillage this time. I felt dizzy with excitement. We had done it. Now we needed to find the draugrs.
As I capped the last jar, the pirate shimmered in the doorway with his trademark grin, sexy enough to wobble the knees of every woman in town. Beside him stood Azalea, as solid as an Egyptian statue. “I just wanted to tell you we’re heading out for another search,” he said.
Azalea said, “I’ll stay here and watch over two of the jars. Eric, you and Abby take care of Aslog with the third.” A soulful weariness laced her words. “Let’s end all of this tonight.
“I told Zane the whole story, by the way, and he’s on the lookout for the walking dead. He made it sound funny, but I know he’s been patrolling non-stop and will continue to do so until he gets the all-clear from one of us.”
“So there’ve been no bad reports?” I asked.
“Zane said there was one incident.”
I put my hand to my mouth, trying to hold my tongue for a change. Getting all human wouldn’t help matters.
Azalea shook her head. “It wasn’t that bad. A goat was killed and bled. The town can live with one less goat, but we need to get these creatures before they taste human blood. Then there will no stopping them.”
I gave her a quick hug. It was the first time I’d hugged Azalea and it wasn’t something I had thought of doing before this moment. She was my boss, supernatural, and just plain stand-offish. To my surprise, she hugged back.
“Be careful,” she whispered in my ear.
A shiver ran from the top of my spine down to my little toes. Did she see visions of my death? I didn’t want to know. I grabbed a jar off the counter. “It’s a little late for that warning, don’t you think?”
Azalea put her hands to her face. “Forgive me. I’m tired. I’ll go back to Lilith’s room for a spell.”
As we headed to Graystone Manor in my Mini, I turned to Eric and said, “You don’t think she saw . . . ”
Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 1) Page 12
