Spell of Shattering

by Anna Abner

  Holden caught Jolie staring and gave her a quick, reassuring smile. “And somehow he’s managed another summoning spell.”

  Jolie flicked her gaze pointedly at Rebecca as if to communicate the question, Is she okay?

  Because Rebecca didn’t look okay. The malt machine, having been well cleaned, was drying in pieces on a clean towel. Rebecca shifted her focus to the items standing on the lunch counter. Methodically, she rearranged each salt and pepper shaker, ketchup bottle, and napkin dispenser into rectangular towers with right angles.

  The conversation picked up again.

  “We wouldn’t have all felt it,” Willow said, “every one of us, if the pillar wasn’t raised.”

  “So, a possessed human being is running around Auburn right now?” Rebecca asked. She finished with the condiments and paused behind the lunch counter, her eyes searching for her next victim.

  “If we don’t prevent the cabal from completing the next two pillars,” Willow said, “we’ll be chasing a lot more than one demon-possessed person. Stopping the gate is our only priority.”

  “What do we do?” Holden asked.

  “We have to find the cabal,” Willow said. “We have to keep them from casting the final two spells.”

  “What are the final spells?” Rebecca asked, approaching the cash register with a gleam in her eye.

  Holden, though, caught her before she disassembled it too. Shushing her objections, he pulled her into a bear hug.

  “I love you,” he cooed, barely loud enough for Jolie to hear.

  Rebecca fisted his shirt so tightly a seam ripped. “I can’t lose you,” she whispered back.

  “You’re not going to.”

  Cole spoke up, and at the sound of his voice, everyone else shut up. “The first two pillars are possessing innocent human beings with demons. They’ve accomplished it once. They should be able to do it again fairly quickly. I don’t know if we’ll have time to stop it. But the third and final spell is a magical sacrifice.”

  “Can you be more clear?” Rebecca asked, fidgeting with her rings, including one egg-sized diamond on her left hand.

  It shouldn’t piss Jolie off that the beautiful Realtor and her introverted boyfriend were engaged, but it did. Jolie would never have that opportunity. And worse, she wouldn’t be around--in the flesh, anyway--to savor Jessa’s eventual marriage or babies or promotions. It made her angry that someone as sickeningly perfect as Rebecca Powell, who wouldn’t even deign to speak to her, got everything she ever wanted.

  Not fair.

  “They will use sacrificial blood to open the gate,” Cole answered.

  Talia Jackson clung to his side, her eyes wide and terrified. “Oh, my God.”

  “Our first step has to be to find the cabal,” Daniela said.

  “Talia used to work for them,” Cole reminded them, pulling his girlfriend even closer.

  “So did Derek Walker,” Holden added over Rebecca’s head, obvious distaste in his tone.

  Derek Walker. The name sounded familiar. Jolie wracked her brain.

  “Where is he?” Daniela asked.

  “He disappeared,” Rebecca answered, her voice muffled against Holden’s chest.

  “Well, he’s out of luck,” Daniela exclaimed. “He can’t hide until this is all over. He was a member of the cabal and we may need him. He knows the Dark Caster’s identity. He knows where the cabal meets. He probably knows all kinds of extremely helpful intel.”

  “What about the angels?” Talia pressed. “Can’t we wait for them to close the entire production down?”

  “They probably will,” Cole conceded. “But just in case, we have to do everything we can from our side.”

  “Where is the cabal, Talia?” one of the witches shouted over the cacophony of voices. “Why won’t you tell us where they are?”

  “I wish I could help,” Talia said. “I’m honestly not trying to be evasive, but I was an initiate. They didn’t trust me with important stuff like real names or meeting places. The members I knew are dead. The Carver. Jeff. The White Wraith. Harvey.” She shuddered. “The only others I talked to are spirits and they won’t answer my summons anymore.”

  “Then who does know?”

  Rebecca turned in Holden’s arms. “Derek knows everything and everyone. He used to be the Dark Caster’s number one caster.”

  And then something clicked in Jolie’s mind. Her sister Jessa had told her stories about someone named Derek Walker. He was a cute, rich, sort of condescending assistant who worked at her office. She’d tried to kiss him, and he’d brushed her off. She’d been fighting tears of embarrassment when she told Jolie the story.

  But if the man was mixed up with the Dark Caster, why was he hanging around her sister?

  “Derek Walker,” Holden grumbled. “He’s the one person I don’t ever want to see again, but now he’s the only one who can help us.”

  “I hate to say it,” added Willow, “but he was part of the failed summoning spell. He may be important in stopping this one.”

  “Magic is funny that way,” Cole agreed. “If Derek’s attack on Rebecca was part of this possession spell, then he has added power to break the overall incantation. It’s all one big weave of magic, intention, and power.”

  “So, we have to find Derek Walker,” Rebecca said with little joy at the prospect.

  “More precisely,” Holden grumbled. “We have to drag his sorry ass back to Auburn and convince him to help us stop the people he used to work for who now want to kill him.”

  * * *

  “Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  Derek cracked open his eyes, coming to consciousness in a rush, a myriad of aches and pains fissuring out from his spine.

  “Are you trying to freeze to death?” Bo continued, yanking him to his feet.

  Derek’s stiff knees and hips complained, and his vision wavered. Had he really slept on his cabin floor all night? Bo was right. He was lucky he hadn’t died of hypothermia sleeping outside in nothing but jeans and a flannel.

  “S-sorry,” Derek said.

  “What happened? You drink too much? Cause that’s not like you.”

  “I f-fell off the roof.” And then it all came back to him. The black magic. The Chaos Gate. “Oh, sh-shit.”

  Bo guffawed. “‘Oh shit’ is right. Good thing I came to find you when you didn’t show at dawn or you might’ve turned into a polar popsicle.”

  The Chaos Gate. Derek ducked around Bo and dry heaved in the yard. The Dark Caster was opening the Chaos Gate. For real this time. Derek gagged again.

  There was nowhere to hide. Not even Bear Lake, Alaska was far enough away.

  “You need a doctor?” Bo asked, actual concern entering his voice for the first time.

  “No.” Medicine couldn’t clear out the demon-summoning magic infecting his system. He just needed a few more hours to get his equilibrium back.

  “I can’t go hunting,” Derek said, still bent over.

  “No, no, of course not,” Bo said, “but for Pete’s sake get back to your trailer and sleep it off.”

  Nodding, Derek left all his tools and gear at the cabin and stomped off across the yard. A hundred yards to the south sat a sad, rusted trailer he’d been living in for the past four months as he worked as Bo’s assistant and driver.

  “…Should have died of hypothermia…pathetic waste of space…”

  Shaking his head to clear it didn’t help. The spirit raged on, and Derek’s headache worsened.

  He climbed inside, stumbling over the hound’s-tooth rug he’d knitted himself and emptied his pockets into a crystal bowl he’d bought cheap on eBay.

  He checked his messages, expecting to hear a gloating call from the Dark Caster. But the only person who had called him overnight was Jessa McAvoy. And she’d left three separate messages.

  Derek hit play, and her sweet voice shot through him, illuminating the shadowy recesses of his mind.

  He pictured her beautiful face lit up by bright and
friendly green eyes. Four months away from her hadn’t dulled those memories. He may have forgotten a lot of faces from his past, but Jessa’s wasn’t one of them.

  She wanted him to come home.

  He couldn’t.

  She wanted him to sell his house.

  He couldn’t risk it. The property in North Carolina didn’t mean anything to him, but selling it would bring him into contact with people and businesses in Auburn and someone from the dark cabal might be tempted to book a flight west.

  The Chaos Gate was opening, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He was a necromancer without a spirit, which made him goddamned pathetic. He couldn’t help, couldn’t prevent it, and couldn’t stop anything. The ball was already in motion. Someone else would have to be the hero.

  Derek had changed a lot in the past few months. He no longer desired a demon on a leash. Or even power with a capital P. After suffering at the hands of both the Raleigh coven and the dark cabal, he just wanted to live quietly and in peace.

  But he was no hero.

  The phone vibrated, signaling a new voicemail.

  “Derek, it’s Rebecca. I know you asked me not to try to find you, but I hope you’ll hear this message anyway because it’s important. You probably felt it too. There’s a demon loose in our world. But that’s not why I’m calling you.” She cleared her throat delicately. “Derek, tell me who the Dark Caster is. Tell me where he lives. You owe me. You know you do. So, tell me everything. Email it, text it, send it by carrier pigeon. I don’t care. Just send it. Lives are at stake. Possibly our own. I’m counting on you.” The call ended.

  Derek stared at the phone for a long moment.

  He wasn’t going home. He wasn’t spilling his guts to Rebecca.

  Derek deleted the message and tossed the phone onto the tiny dining table.

  Still exhausted, even after passing out most of the night, Derek pulled his coat a little tighter around him, dropped onto his narrow bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

  “…loser…you feel the gate cracking open? All thanks to you, devil boy…Guess what?”

  Derek turned onto his side and stuffed a pillow over his head.

  The spirit’s voice reached him anyway.

  “We have the next victim all lined up. She’s a pretty little thing…won’t be long now.”

  Chapter Four

  Jolie stayed later than anyone else after the coven’s meeting at Sparky’s. Even after the necromancers went home, even after the witches drove off in a single minivan, Jolie couldn’t leave. Nothing they had said clicked. A gate opening between earth and hell? Demons infesting humans?

  She looked to the last two people in the diner for more fulfilling answers.

  Rebecca and Holden were supposed to be locking up the diner and taking their dog Buster home, but instead they stood in front of the cash register holding each other. For a long time. An uncomfortably long time.

  Buster rose from his favorite spot behind the cash register, stretched his back legs, and started barking at Jolie.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Jolie said, hoping to startle Holden and Rebecca out of their tight embrace so someone—anyone—would talk to her.

  Rebecca, she noticed, pointedly ignored her presence. The way she always did. Which pissed off Jolie to no end.

  “I’m so scared,” Rebecca said into Holden’s chest.

  “We’re going to be fine,” he said, pressing soft kisses to her hair and throat. “We stopped it before. We’ll stop it again. For good this time.”

  “But Derek never got this far,” Rebecca returned. “He didn’t raise the first pillar. This feels different.”

  That was it. It was one thing for Rebecca to ignore her. She did it all the time. But Jolie couldn’t handle Holden ignoring her too.

  Her power crackled, and the walls vibrated. “What is going on?” she shouted. Rebecca’s little towers danced on the lunch counter as if caught in an earthquake.

  Rebecca squeaked.

  Holden, though, wasn’t scared. He seemed intrigued. “Did you do that?”

  If he wasn’t going to recognize her existence then he didn’t get to know how she played her little parlor tricks.

  “Look,” Jolie barked. “You’re not allowed to ignore me. Because you two are some of the only people in the entire world who can see and hear me,” her voice cracked, “so you can’t pretend I’m not here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rebecca said, meeting her gaze. “You’re right. I’ve been so caught up in denying my necromancy, I’ve been neglecting you too.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Holden said. “But how did you—”

  “Forget the salt shakers!” She was getting angry again, which wasn’t helping the situation. “Please, just tell me you can close the Chaos Gate.”

  “If the cabal opens the gate, then we’re all screwed,” Holden said slowly.

  “But you can stop it, right?” Jolie asked. They had to stop it. Earth was an important place. Her sister was walking around earth. “Right?”

  Holden paused a millisecond too long. “Yes,” he said, glancing at Rebecca. “The Dark Caster was defeated by agents of heaven the first time. The second time Becca and I shut down the summoning spell all by ourselves. Of course we can shut this one down too.”

  Jolie didn’t believe him. “What if you can’t?”

  “Let’s not dwell too long on the negative,” Rebecca piped up. “We’re going to stop it, and that’s where we should focus our energies.”

  Jolie wouldn’t have globbed onto Rebecca and Holden so quickly if she’d known how unsatisfying the relationship would be. They were so into each other and so consumed with their upcoming wedding, they weren’t casting much, which meant Jolie had very little to do. And Rebecca hardly talked to Jessa anymore, anyway, which was the whole reason Jolie had sought her out after becoming a spirit.

  Jolie had imagined sending messages of love and support to her big sister through Rebecca and watching as Rebecca periodically checked in on Jessa to make sure she was okay. But Rebecca barely spoke to Jolie and talked to Jessa even less now that they didn’t work together anymore. Jolie needed a new necromancer.

  With a huff of frustration, she focused on Cole Burkov and vanished.

  * * *

  By five o’clock, when most people were clocking out for the day, Jessa was preparing inspection reports on one of Ryan’s properties with no end to her day in sight. The ibuprofen had long since worn off, and she cradled her forehead gingerly in her hand as she navigated real estate software.

  Worse, Derek hadn’t called her back. How was she supposed to convince him to fly home by Friday if he wouldn’t return her calls? Did the mayor expect her to fly out there and shake some sense into him? Well, he was out of luck, then. She didn’t have the time or money to book a flight to Alaska at the last minute.

  When the mayor’s number showed up on caller ID a few minutes after six, she did her best to force some enthusiasm into her voice.

  “Hello, Paul,” she greeted. “How are you?”

  “I’m better,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation earlier and I realized I may be asking too much of you.”

  “No,” Jessa exclaimed. “It’s not too much, but until he’s ready to travel, one thing we can do,” she rushed on, “is send the forms to him so he can sign them, and then mail them back.”

  “That’s not going to cut it for me, young lady. I need to see him in person. I don’t trust long distance deals.”

  Jessa closed her eyes briefly. “I’ll keep trying, sir.”

  “Why don’t you try contacting Bo Reynolds in Bear Lake, Alaska? And let me know what you discover.”

  Jessa hung up, and a moment later, she was dialing a number with an Alaskan area code.

  “This is Jessa McAvoy from Auburn, North Carolina,” she greeted when a gruff voice answered. “Do you know a Derek Walker?”

  “You a friend or something?” he returned suspiciously. “Cuz I never met any of
his friends. Started to think he didn’t have any.”

  She bounced in her chair. Her luck was turning around. Finally. “Yes, I am.” Or, was. “Can I speak with him?”

  “He’s out in his trailer sleeping off a rough night, but I’ll give you his cell number. He usually answers.”

  “Thank you.” She wrote down the number he gave her, though it was the number she already had. Which meant he’d been ducking her calls for months. The realization stung.

  Well, two could play at that game. She hung up and dialed Derek’s number with an office phone that showed up on caller ID as private.

  She held her breath as it rang twice.

  “‘Lo?” He sounded half asleep.

  “Derek?”

  “Hmm,” he replied in the affirmative.

  Exhaling in relief, she announced, “It’s me, Jessa. Please don’t hang up. I need to talk to you.”

  There was a pause so long she wasn’t sure if they’d been disconnected.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have answered,” he finally murmured.

  Ignoring the sudden flash of pain behind her ribs, she rushed ahead, not giving him a moment to hang up. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but the mayor gave me your number because he wants to buy your house,” she admitted. It’s nice to hear your voice too, she inwardly grouched.

  “Wait. What?”

  He was alert now.

  “I need you to come home for a couple days. And if you can’t afford it, I’m sure he’ll reimburse you. Or I can—”

  “Wait. What?”

  “He wants to buy your house, and he’ll pay so much money you can hide out in Alaska forever—”

  “Paul came to you asking about me?”

  “Yes. You and your property.”

  “Stop. No. Just stop. You can’t talk to him again.”

  Jessa’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Why not?”

  “Don’t talk to him. Don’t even go near him.”

  “Will you listen, please?” Was he hung over? His friend Bo had mentioned a bad night. Or had the brain trauma simply worsened over time?

  “Jessa.” Derek’s voice boomed over the line. “Go to Holden Clark and Rebecca Powell. Go, right now, and don’t talk to Paul again.” He made a strangled sound. “Tell them the cabal wants to hurt you.”