Phantom Quartz: A Stacy Justice Witch Mystery Book 6 (Stacy Justice Magical Mysteries)

by Barbra Annino

  There was something vaguely familiar about the separate yet collective energy I was receiving, as if all the ingredients mixed well together. A perfect recipe I couldn’t pinpoint.

  I decided to save the confrontation for after I processed this whole thing and examined the photos. I needed to identify the blond woman. Then maybe I could draw a connection as to what brought them together. Did it have something to do with the car? With Ponyboy? I was fairly certain he belonged to one of the skeletons in that truck, but until I found out who he was, I didn’t want to assign that label.

  Suddenly, an overwhelming tug drew me away from the house. It lassoed around me, pulling me down the hill inch by inch toward the deep maw in the side of the earth. I found myself standing in front of the abyss that had claimed two souls, maybe more. The remains had been removed, but the truck was still there. Wooden beams that hadn’t been there before anchored the ceiling of the cave to its floor—likely to ease extraction of the vehicle. I stepped over and around some boulders, my feet sliding on a bit of gravel, as I ducked inside the earth.

  It was damp and musty, reeking of worms, decay, and lost dreams. I moved around the truck, my hands hovering just above the metal surface, trying to draw a vision from it. Images flashed in my mind, faded and worn. A faceless man, vibrant, determined. Then soft hands on a steering wheel. Snippets of conversation, laughter. A winding dirt road leading to the river’s edge. Suddenly, the pictures drew sharper.

  Rumbling, shaky ground, the stir of birds—no—bats. Flapping of wings and the earth groaning. The sound of a pickax, rough hands caked with dirt and blood, something shiny in their grip. Galena—lead ore.

  A swarm of bats flew over my head, and I realized that the last few flashes of visions weren’t in my mind, but were right here, right now, in reality. The earth burped and shook, wheezing like an old man trying to catch his breath. Dirt crumbled all around me, the thunderous roar of a wounded animal, and I knew the cave was about to collapse, but I was transfixed, my legs unable to move as the man—or was it a boy?—with the pickax stared me down, his clothes dripping from him in tatters, eyes a glowing red, his mouth moving, but saying nothing.

  Another tune from Eddie and the Cruisers played in my head again, a thumping beat. “The dark side is callin’ now, nothin’ is real / She'll never know just how I feel / From out of the shadows she walks like a dream / Makes me feel crazy, makes me feel so mean.”

  A static volt shot through me as two hands seized my shoulders, yanking me backwards before I had a chance to grab a weapon or turn around. In an instant, I tumbled to the street, and a body pounced on top of me as the cave collapsed into a heap of soil, wood and soot, coughing out a cry of relief. I felt cold leather and warm hands, the aroma of musk, adrenaline, and something I struggled to identify...duty.

  Leo.

  Chapter 31

  He hovered over me, staring at me with those kaleidoscope eyes I used to get lost in, worry lining his face. “Are you okay?”

  I grunted. “I’d be better if your gun wasn’t stabbing me in the ribs.”

  He grinned. “That’s not my gun.”

  Leo hopped up and helped me to my feet before I could slug him.

  “What are you doing here?” I brushed gravel and dirt off my dad’s coat.

  “I’m investigating the scene of an accident, because that’s what police officers do.” He pointed to his chest. “See, they even gave me this shiny badge and a car with flashing lights.” He crossed his arms. “What are you doing here, Stacy?”

  I was thankful for the long boots and the bulky coat that covered my outfit, although the fact that my face was painted like I was about to go on stage as Cleopatra was harder to hide.

  “Researching a story,” I said as if it were obvious.

  He gave me that look again that told me he knew I was lying, but before he could ask another question, I heard the door open to the house above. “Gotta go. Thanks for, um, saving my life.”

  I dashed around the corner and up the street to where my car was parked. I jumped in just as my mother stepped out the front door. She scanned the yard as if she knew something was amiss, but she didn’t spot me. I sped down the other side of the hill toward the bar.

  The Black Opal was dark when I got there. Monique was standing in front of the building looking put out.

  “You’re late.” She snapped her gum.

  “You’re observant.”

  The keys to Cinnamon’s place were wound around a ring large enough to toss to a dolphin. I flipped through the set until I landed on the one labeled with the bar’s name. We entered the building and I showed Monique to the back office where we shed our coats and gloves, hanging them on a set of hooks. It wasn’t quite cold enough for hats yet, and since there wasn’t any snow in the forecast, I wasn’t wearing one.

  I opened up a locker and explained to Monique that she could stash her purse in there. There were a few premium liquor bottles Cin also stowed in her office, some worth more than my first car, and I explained to Monique that if someone ordered a tumbler of one of those brands, such as Louis XIII, she’d need to tell me so I could fetch it. I rambled on a bit more about the setup, how we stocked the bar and a few other rules of the Black Opal, but stopped when I realized Monique hadn’t responded to me.

  I spun around, thinking maybe she had left, but she was standing there, mouth agape, flakes of disbelief jumping off her body like glitter.

  “What?” I circled around the way a dog chases his tail thinking maybe I had torn my shorts when Leo tackled me to the asphalt.

  “What the hell are you wearing, Justice? You look like, like...” Her blue eyes were stuck on the girls.

  I could tell she was grasping for a good simile, but the woman wasn’t the sharpest blade on the mower, and she came up short. Probably because she could only compare my getup to her own normal attire, and she didn’t want to insult herself.

  Tonight, however, Monique wore a white tuxedo blouse with only the top two buttons unfastened. Her blond hair was pulled back into a barrette, and her slacks were black and pressed, with a slight sheen to them. Tiny gold hoops dangled from her ears and her boots were chunky and rounded. She was sporting the same nude palette of makeup she had last time we’d met.

  We both stood there for several beats, sizing each other up like opponents in a wrestling match.

  I shrugged. “I thought it’d be good for tips.” I glanced at my own tuxedo vest and matching shorts, the lace hose peeking through the boots. “Hey, we almost match.”

  Monique had the look of a fat kid on a diet watching the other kids eat cake.

  “Come on. Let’s get the bar stocked.”

  She grumbled out the door and we both made our way behind the bar. She wasn’t a bad bartender when she owned her own place, so I didn’t bother explaining to her all that needed to be done before we opened. Instead, I manned my own station, thinking about all that was happening in my life.

  It was strange, but I still felt like myself, despite the excess power surging through me. The reversal spell had worked perfectly. A little too perfectly. How would I be able to restore the Geraghty Girls’ gifts? The locket surely would do the trick, but I didn’t know where it was or who had stolen it. Who would want to banish my magic and destroy the Seeker’s Den? Someone with something to gain, or a helluva lot to lose. Either way, the shifter had failed to do either, but she had managed to take my amulet, and I desperately wanted it back. Or he. I needed to keep reminding myself that it could have been a man. But was it really my magic the shifter wanted to take? Or was the locket the key all along? Was that elaborate spell designed to incapacitate me just to take the locket? Because surely the intent wasn’t to make me stronger. Was it? Was I being played like a chess piece trapped in some kind of game from hell? Could Tabby have planned this whole thing right from the beginning?

  My thoughts drifted to Uncle Deck as I peeled lemons to make twists. If he did fake his own death, what was he doing here? And why h
adn’t he visited Cinnamon? Or Angelica? His only granddaughter was coming into this world soon—was he hoping to catch a glimpse of her? But if there was a dangerous reason he’s stayed hidden these last few years, then surely he would be risking his life if someone exposed him. And what was that map business all about?

  Something nagged at me about the five people who’d been sitting around that table. Other than the fact that one of them had been dead for a dozen years. I thought about how the energy they emitted seemed so familiar. Five separate, yet surging, banks of power. Mom’s mystical potion-making ability was certainly the strongest one I had felt. There was the spirit of a fighter there, too, that I thought may have wafted from the blond I didn’t know. A protective web around another—Evelyn, perhaps? And the vibration of law and order. Of justice. I was sure that came from my uncle. Then there was the imaginative thread. Did that belong to Penny? I recalled she had appeared in a play my mother had taken me to see. A local theater production.

  As I focused on their collective kinetic waves, a pattern danced and churned in my head until it formed a perfect square, then burst into a pentacle.

  That’s when I knew what they were.

  “Oh my goddess.” I lifted my eyes and the sharp knife sliced clean through my finger. The cut burned as my blood mixed with lemon juice.

  I swore and ran to the sink.

  Monique said, “You okay?”

  “Just a cut. No big deal.”

  I turned the faucet on, running my finger beneath the water. The cut was deep—to the bone—and it hurt like hell. The water ran pink, then red. I focused on the blood going down the drain, imagined a white light of Birdie’s healing energy engulfing my hand, circling, compressing, sealing.

  Monique stepped up behind me. “You need a bandage?”

  Sparks flew from the drain, and in a flash the cut had healed.

  Monique stared at me wide-eyed. “Wh-what was that? How did you do that?”

  “Do what?” I plucked the crisp towel from my belt loop and dried my hands. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

  Monique looked from me to the sink to the cutting board where the bloody knife still lay. “That’s a lot of blood.”

  “Nosebleed. Happens all the time in the winter. I saw the blood and thought I’d cut my finger.”

  Monique looked skeptical, opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again.

  She walked back over to her station and started working on her own fruit, glancing at me every now and then.

  I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and flipped through the pictures I had taken earlier, studying the people in the images. The Mage, the Warrior, the Guardian, the Scribe, and the Seeker.

  The pentacle. Or rather, a pentacle.

  The blond I hadn’t recognized earlier suddenly felt entirely familiar. Like I knew her. I concentrated on her face, her light skin, honey-blonde hair, blue eyes. She had squared shoulders that conveyed the confidence of a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. Her jaw was angular, her cheekbones cut high. She was attractive, a bit older than my mother. Sixty? Sixty two? She may have been even more attractive if she wore a touch of blush, a sweep of mascara.

  Monique said, “Are you going to help me stock the coolers, or are you just going to play Angry Birds all night?”

  I lifted my head to say something sarcastic back to her and my breath caught in my throat. I stared at Monique’s honey colored hair and bright blue eyes. I held my phone up, comparing the faces.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  She marched over and swiped the phone out of my hand. “Why are you taking pictures of me?” She looked at the phone, then at me. With a jutted hip and a fierce voice, she said. “Why the fuck do you have a pic of my mother on your cell phone?”

  Chapter 32

  “Why would I have a picture of your mother on my cell phone?” I stalled.

  Think, Stacy.

  “That’s what I just asked you.” Monique waved the phone at me.

  I accessed Fiona’s magic, conjuring an image of Thor in my head. “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s not your mother.” Focusing on the phone, I concentrated on sending the image in my head to my phone. “It’s a pic of my dog.”

  For the love of Artemis, please let it work.

  Monique squinted and examined the phone once again. Her face scrunched up and she did a double take.

  “May I have my phone back please?”

  She plopped the phone in my hand and scratched her head. “Sorry. The woman’s been on my mind a lot lately. She’s driving me batty. She’s been all clingy this week like every time I step out the door, she thinks I’m going to be hit by a bus.”

  That was curious. “Oh? I wonder why.” What were they up to? I had never known my mother to be friends with Farrah Fontaine. She had been a few years ahead of my mother in school and Mom never really talked about her. Come to think of it, I hadn’t known she was friendly with Evelyn Leary either. Although Evelyn was close with Chance’s mother, so perhaps they had met at some function I couldn’t recall.

  “Who knows? My mom’s never been a warm and fuzzy kind of gal. It’s creeping me out, and not in the same way you do, either.”

  I casually opened the cooler, pretending to assess the beer situation. “Maybe something happened. Did she mention anything?”

  There was a clipboard on the bar and I grabbed it, checking the boxes for the beer we would need.

  Monique finished cutting the limes and piled them into a plastic tub at her station. “Not really.” She paused, thinking it through. She pointed a bottle opener at me. “Actually, now that I think of it, she has been going out more.” Monique shrugged. “I just thought she had a new boyfriend or something, but she doesn’t really date.”

  If the resemblance wasn’t so uncanny, I would have sworn Monique had been adopted. “Maybe you should ask her what’s going on. Sit her down for a chat.”

  Because that’s what I was going to do with my mom. After I tied her to a chair and slipped her a truthing spell.

  A wistful fog crossed Monique’s face, then she stiffened. She cocked her head to me and said, “What are we, friends now? Mind your own damn business, Justice.”

  I sighed and continued with the inventory, thinking about my own Pentacle. As the Seeker, I was one point of the star, there was also the Guardian, John, the Warrior, Ivy, Blade, our latest addition, was the scribe, and Birdie was the Mage. The design was implemented when the Tuatha Dé Danann gifted their treasures to the first Druids. Both parties signed a treaty and throughout the ages, people have been chosen to guard the gifts at all costs. Those appointments now came directly from the Council.

  So how could I be feeling the same kind of energy from the people sitting at the table?

  A gust of wind blew through the bar, and the jukebox roared to life with another song from the same old movie. This time it was Wild Summer Nights, a punchy tune that made you want to speed down an open road in a muscle car with the top down and your shoes kicked off. “Gears are power shiftin’ down the Old Escape Road / All the kids are dancin’ as the jockey spins gold / Everybody’s fakin’ that they’ll never grow old...”

  Monique jumped out of her skin. “Jesus Christ! What the hell? Is that on a timer or something?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  Ponyboy sauntered up to the bar and I said, “Monique, can you grab a case of Chianti from the basement, please? I think that may be the drink of choice for the crowd tonight.”

  She looked at me blankly. “You want me to go in the basement? No way.”

  Ponyboy thumbed to Monique. “She looks like she’s packing some ammo under that blouse. You should tell her to open the curtains a bit wider.”

  I held my eyes on Ponyboy as I wiped the bar down. “Fine, then you can take out the trash tonight and hose down the spill mats.” I knew she hated dealing with anything sticky, which was ironic, given her history.

  Monique blew out a weary sigh. “Isn’
t the basement where they found the body a while back?”

  “Yes, but she’s not there anymore, and you are getting paid.”

  Ponyboy said, “A dead body in the basement? Cool. Was that your case?”

  Monique exaggerated a shiver. “Fine.” She tossed the towel she was using to wipe down the bottles on the bar. “But if I see a ghost, I’m out of here.” I tossed her the keys, and she clunked off toward the basement door .

  Ponyboy watched as Monique tried to navigate the key ring, fumbled, dropped it, then tried six keys that didn’t fit into the lock before she finally found the key labeled ‘basement’. She twisted it into the lock, turned on a light, and clunked down the stairs.

  Ponyboy stared at the space Monique was just inhabiting, a bemused look on his face. “Your partner doesn’t seem too bright.”

  “She’s not my partner. Now what are you doing here?”

  He bounced up and down on the stool. “Thought maybe you could use some backup. I know some sweet moves.” He did what he thought was some kind of Jiu Jitsu chop-kick combo.

  “I don’t need your help, kid.”

  He feigned a wounded look. “Now see that hurts, Red. I thought we were developing a rapport, and then you go and call me kid.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “You can’t be here, Ponyboy, I’m serious. You’re fifteen. Fifteen–year-olds are not allowed in bars.” Pointless, yes, but worth a shot to get rid of him.

  “Oh come on, I won’t order a drink or anything. You don’t have a TV, and you took away that booby gadget. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Why don’t you go home?” Maybe if I could coax him to go to his own house, I could convince him he didn’t belong on this plane any longer. Why was he here anyway? Had he been murdered? Did he die tragically? Was it him in that car? I made a decision then to stop at the paper on the way home to see if I could locate any archives about a missing kid and a missing car. Most of the original archives had been mistakenly wiped out long before I took over the paper, and a fire had destroyed the library hard copies, but there was a collector in town who’d been working with Gladys, our researcher, to load them onto drives.