While they waited, the mice brought Connie and Tia two cups of tea and some Fig Newtons. The tea was cold, and the cookies were crusty, and while the mice seemed polite, they were still rodents. They left droppings everywhere, and the place smelled exactly like it.
“She’s been up there too long,” said Connie.
“It’s only been a minute.”
The mice formed a circle around Connie. They stared at her with their cold pink eyes.
“Ah, damn it.”
The lead mouse squealed, and the legion skittered forward. Tia jumped up in her chair, but Connie pressed forward. The mice couldn’t stop her, but some of them scampered up her pants leg and started biting her ankles and calves. She ignored the pain and ran upstairs and kicked open the only closed door.
Thelma was halfway out her bathroom window. Connie grabbed the old fae’s ankle and attempted to drag her back in. Thelma reached into her robe pocket and flung a handful of glittering dust at Connie. She dodged. The dust hit the toilet, transforming it into a giant porcelain frog that hopped off its fixture. Water spilled across the bathroom floor. Connie slipped on the wet tile, and Thelma wriggled the rest of the way through the window.
“Sorry, child!” shouted Thelma.
She flapped her withered wings and jumped into the air. But fae flight was more a product of magic than physics, and her magic wasn’t what it used to be. Yelping, she fell from the roof to land with a thud.
Connie shook the mice out of her pants as she ran downstairs. Tia was busy kicking off waves of rodents. She’d grabbed a lamp and was using it as an impromptu club. She looked like she could handle herself, so Connie dashed outside.
The monster mouse that had knocked over the tree squealed and cowered in a shallow hole.
Thelma limped away on a sprained ankle. Every three or four steps, she’d try flying again, only to land after a brief moment and yelp.
“Give it up,” said Connie. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Thelma leaned against the fence post and caught her breath. “I don’t know anything. I can’t help you.”
“Then why are you running?”
“You’re here to kill me.”
“You said I didn’t have it in me.”
“I’ve been wrong before.”
Tia came out of the house. She tossed her broken lamp aside.
“Conquer all the mice?” asked Connie.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.” Tia reached under her shirt and pulled out a twitching rodent by the tail. She threw it onto the lawn, and it scampered away to join its monstrous brother in the hole.
Thelma pulled her wand from her robe. It had been bent in the fall.
“Don’t do anything stupid, now,” said Connie.
Thelma waved the broken wand over her head. It spurt puffs of glitter before bursting into flames. Hacking, she fell to her knees. A pair of great leather wings burst out of her back as her skin grew dark and leathery. Her neck bulged, and her eyes yellowed. Her hands became red talons. She cracked her spanking new tail like a whip and knocked over the mailbox and what little of the fence was standing. The towering dragon chuckled as she spread her wings. The broken wand had been unable to transform her fully. Bits of flesh remained pale and smooth. Her right wing was an underdeveloped, misshapen thing. Her horns were crooked and malformed. But she was still a fifteen-foot-tall monster. She turned her merciless gaze on Connie as green flames burst from her nostrils.
Thelma spit a baleful emerald fireball. Connie and Tia dove out of the way as the porch burst into flame. Connie rolled, coming up on her feet as Thelma gouged the ground where Connie had stood moments before.
“Damn it. Hold still!”
Thelma swung her tail across the yard. Connie somersaulted over it while Tia hugged the ground. The house collapsed as the limb crushed a corner. Mice ran screaming in all directions.
“There goes my security deposit,” said Thelma with a scowl.
Connie slipped on her knuckledusters and charged the dragon. Thelma slammed her tail in front of Connie and wrapped it around her, pinning her arms and the knuckledusters to her side. The iron burned the transformed fae’s scales, but not enough to make her release her prey.
“I do regret it came down to this.” Thelma smiled. Half her teeth were missing, but the half that were there were sharp enough. “But, in the end, I did promise you a glorious death.”
Connie had been face-to-face with death many times. She’d made peace with the reaper years ago. Literally. She’d met the Grim Reaper, and he’d seemed a good guy only doing his job. He hadn’t told her when she would die, and she hadn’t been tempted to ask. It didn’t matter. Everybody died, extraordinary and ordinary people alike.
But, damn it, she did not want to die like this, eaten by a washed-up fairy godmother. If this was indeed her last adventure, it was a lousy way to go out.
Tia threw a rock that struck the dragon just under her eye.
“Let her go.”
“Tia, stay out of this,” said Connie.
“Yes, do stay out of it. It doesn’t concern you.”
Tia grabbed the burnt remains of Thelma’s wand. “Don’t make me use this.”
Thelma shook her head. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re attempting to distract me so that your friend can pull off one of her legendary last-minute escapes.”
“Am I?”
“I’m not an idiot. Now shut up so that I can end this already.”
“Why don’t you shut up?”
Thelma groaned. “Really? That’s the best you can do? You’re embarrassing yourself and me and Connie. Is this the best sidekick you could find?”
“It was short notice,” said Connie.
“Hey, I’m trying to save your life here!” said Tia.
“You don’t do that by threatening a dragon with a broken wand,” said Connie. “You were better off with the rock.”
“Excuse me for trying.”
Thelma chuckled. Green flames danced at the back of her throat. “I must admit, this wasn’t the way I expected Constance Verity to die, but I suppose there is a certain poetic nature to it. I planted the enchantment. I might as well be the one to finish it.”
“Abracadabra!” shouted Tia as she hurled the wand at the dragon’s back. It bounced away harmlessly.
Thelma shook her head. “Just for that, I’m going to eat you after I’m finished with your friend here.” She turned to Connie, clutched tightly within her tail.
Connie wasn’t there.
Thelma glanced around the yard. “Where?”
Connie whistled from under the dragon. Thelma craned her neck down. “How?”
Connie slammed her iron knuckledusters in the equivalent of a dragon’s solar plexus. Thelma collapsed with a shriek, and it was only Connie’s reflexes that allowed her to jump out of the way instead of being buried under her opponent.
While Thelma gasped for breath, Connie punched the dragon across the jaw. The iron and the blow proved devastating for the fae dragon, who fell limp.
“But I had you,” she said in a rough whisper. “I had you.”
“I studied escape artistry under Houdini’s ghost,” said Connie, “and I’ve fought enough dragons to understand their biology. And a helpful distraction never hurts either.”
“Stop,” said Tia. “You’re embarrassing me.”
Thelma tried to rise, but her strength had left her. She spit out several loosened fangs and slumped on her yard. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“Don’t feel bad. Better bad guys than you have.” Connie tapped her knuckledusters together with a clink. “Now, are you going to help me, or do I have to get rough?”
“I told you, I don’t know anything.” Thelma belched, and fire erupted from her throat. It scorched the non-dragon portions of her half-transformed flesh. “Excuse me. I don’t know what—”
With a painful retching heave, he
r head burst into flame, consumed down to the bone in a green-and-blue explosion. The rest of her flesh followed suit, turning to ash in moments. A smoldering, malformed reptilian skeleton was all that was left behind, and that crumbled to blackened powder when the breeze kicked up.
“Son of a bitch,” said Connie.
“What happened?” asked Tia.
“Bad magic from a broken wand and iron don’t mix.” Connie swept up a handful of ashes in her hands. “I need something to hold this in.”
Tia took off her sneaker and offered it to Connie. “Glad I didn’t go open-toe.”
Connie scooped more ashes into the shoe.
“What are you doing?” asked Tia.
Connie shrugged. “Grasping at straws.”
12
“Can you do it?” asked Connie.
Madam Zura examined the plastic bag filled with ashes. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to channel a nonhuman spirit.”
“Is there any harm in trying?”
Madam Zura said, “Probably not. Most of the time, if the spirit is beyond my reach, nothing happens.”
“Most of the time?” asked Tia.
“There are accidents. When you reach into the Other Side, sometimes you end up grabbing something else. People think the Other Side of death is full of ghosts, demons, and angels. There are far worse things out there.”
“What sort of things?”
“Just things,” said Zura. “Trying to give them labels beyond that will only give you a headache. And that’s not counting all the little things, the unborn spirits, the petty dead, those bitter souls caught between this world and the next, waiting for a chance to reenter ours.”
“Can you do it?” asked Connie.
“Are you sure you really want me to? The answers the dead bring are rarely to our liking. Take it from me. I do this for a living.”
“I know the rules. I don’t care. I need to ask her a few questions.”
“And you’re willing to pay the price?”
Connie wanted those answers, but she hesitated.
“What’s the price?” asked Tia.
“I’ll pay it,” said Connie.
“What price?” asked Tia again, louder this time.
“That’s up to the ghost,” replied Zura. “Providing I can summon her in the first place.”
“The ghost of the person Connie killed only a few hours ago?” said Tia.
“You killed her?” Zura shook her head. “That complicates matters.”
“I didn’t kill her,” said Connie. “Not directly. It was an accident.”
“In my experience, spirits tend to be touchy about those responsible for their deaths, even if those deaths are accidental.”
“I’ll have to take that chance.”
“It’s your chance to take. Give me a few moments to set things up.” Zura, taking the ashes with her, disappeared beyond a beaded curtain.
“I don’t get it,” said Tia. “We’ve dealt with ghosts before. Remember those ghost cavemen? They didn’t seem so tough. I think real cavemen would’ve been tougher.”
“There are different kinds of ghosts,” said Connie. “Every ghost you’ve encountered never journeyed to the Other Side. They haven’t pierced the greater mysteries beyond the Veil. But when a spirit crosses over, it learns things we shouldn’t know.”
“Could you be a little more vague?”
“It’s vague because that’s the whole point. If we knew the mysteries, if we could fathom them, then they wouldn’t be mysteries.”
“This isn’t like a movie where our faces will melt off for daring to transgress beyond limits, is it?” asked Tia.
“It’s unlikely.”
“Unlikely but not impossible.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s far more probable you’ll hear something that drives you steadily, irreversibly insane over the next ten or twenty years.”
“Got it. As long as I get to keep my face.”
Connie almost offered Tia a chance to sit this one out, but Tia wouldn’t take her up on it. She might have been an ordinary person, but she wasn’t an ordinary friend.
“Thanks,” said Connie.
“I’m here for the duration. You know that.”
“I’m not talking about this. I’m talking about everything. There were times when the thoughts of our brunches were the only thing keeping me sane while I was wrestling lions.”
“Funny,” said Tia. “I was thinking the same thing. Remember that time I was kidnapped by robots?”
“Which time? The tall, boxy ones or the squat, round ones?”
“The second,” she said. “I was going through my divorce at the time. Felt like I’d wasted seven years of my life. Then those robots came along and tried to throw me into that volcano—”
“The boxy ones wanted to throw you in a volcano. The squat ones wanted to remove your brain.”
“Oh, yeah. It all starts blending together after a while. It’s not important. Keeping my brain and not getting sacrificed to a computer god put things in perspective, made everything seem easier by comparison. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to make a habit of it. I can’t do what you do. But it’s a nice change of pace now and then.”
Madam Zura called them into the back. They entered the small dark room that smelled of sage and vanilla. Dozens of black and white candles lined the walls. A plastic skull sat on a round table. It was all very much what one would expect from a dedicated séance room except for the soulful music of Aretha Franklin in the background.
“Do the dead like Aretha?” asked Tia.
“No, I like Aretha,” said Zura. “The dead’s taste varies. But it’s my séance room, so I get to decide the playlist.” She nodded at Tia. “You’re new, so I’ll explain how this works. We sit at the table and join hands. You don’t say anything. You might feel some tingling in your extremities, and maybe the table will levitate. Don’t worry about it. Eventually, I’ll reach across the Veil and contact our target. If I’m successful, an ectoplasmic manifestation will appear. Don’t talk to it. Don’t ask it any questions. Don’t say a single word until I give the all-clear. I have to make sure I’m channeling the right spirit and not something else. If it passes the smell test, then I’ll give Connie the go-ahead to start talking. You don’t say anything. Got it?”
“Keep my mouth shut. Got it.”
“And try not to look the spirit in the eye,” added Zura. “It tends to piss them off.”
“Head down. Got it.”
“No. I need you to look at it. It will only exist as long as the three of us acknowledge it. We’re the doorway. If one of us closes it, the thing will either go back whence it came or end up trapped here. That can lead to all sorts of problems.”
“Look at it, but don’t look too much at it,” said Tia. “Got it.”
“She’s no slouch,” said Connie. “She’ll do her part.”
“I’m not worried about her,” said Zura. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure. Stop asking.”
Zura shrugged. “Have it your way.”
They sat at the table and linked hands. Connie and Tia sat quietly while Zura closed her eyes and concentrated. It didn’t take long.
“I’ve got something.”
She sneezed and a globule of pinkish goo burst from her nostril. It floated over the table. The goo shifted and squirmed like the wax in a lava lamp. She belched and spat up another chunk of ectoplasm that joined the mass.
It was disgusting but necessary. Ghosts and spirits on this side of the Veil had their own residual ectoplasm to use, but spirits on the Other Side required one to be built for them. Some things beyond the Veil had never had a form to begin with. As Zura barfed up more goop from her mouth, nose, and ears, the spirit took on the form of a malformed lump. Tia feared the worst. They had summoned something other than their target. Some dread horror that humanity was never meant to encounter brought forth to unleash madness and death.
/> Her face felt itchy. Whether it was a melty kind of itchy or not, she couldn’t say.
The ectoplasm formed Thelma’s face.
“Son of a bitch,” she said. “Not enough that you have to kill me. Now you won’t even let me rest in death’s sweet embrace.”
Neither Connie nor Tia said anything.
Madam Zura exhaled a final bit of magic snot. “All right. It’s her. But I don’t know how long I can hold her. Ask your questions.”
“I didn’t kill you,” said Connie. “You killed yourself.”
Thelma’s ectoplasmic face twisted in a scowl. “Maybe so, but you brought me back. For what?”
“You know why.”
“I do indeed, child, but I don’t know why I should tell you anything anymore.”
“Because this is your last chance to make amends,” said Connie. “You owe me.”
“And I paid that debt with my life.”
“I didn’t want your life. I wanted mine.”
Thelma bubbled as her ghostly face became a skull. “You aren’t going to like what you find if you keep on this course. The sweetest mercy I could offer you would be to leave you in the dark.”
“That’s my problem,” said Connie.
Madam Zura moaned. The candles went out one by one.
Thelma howled like a banshee. The temperature dropped, and every candle went out. Her ectoplasmic face was the only thing lighting the darkness.
“Is that a yes?” asked Connie.
Thelma chuckled. “I’ll give you the answer you seek, but I warn you that it will only lead to more misery. And in return for that answer, I demand that you take me with you.”
“I thought you were pissed that I was keeping you from the Other Side,” said Connie.
“This is too important to miss. I’ve wasted decades banished to the mortal world, and just when things are getting interesting, I’m supposed to totter off? Screw that. I want to see how things play out.”
“Can you do it?” Connie asked Madam Zura.
The medium nodded.
“Do it, then.”
Tia squeezed Connie’s hand harder. Connie squeezed back even harder and shook her head.
“Spirits who seek to forestall their passing are never up to any good,” said Zura.
The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Page 8
