Faces pressed against the museum window. People spilled onto the brick sidewalk.
Leo helped him lift one of the sacks, and they poured more salt into the barrel.
I jammed my sleeves to my elbows and pulled them down again. If those bells were damp from the holy water, what would the salt do to them? Xavier and Leo dumped in the second bag, covering the bells completely.
“Now, son.” Xavier came back into the museum and stepped inside the velvet rope. Leo wheeled the wine barrel behind him.
Hastily, I scooped up the discarded salt sacks from the sidewalk and followed.
Xavier raised his hand over the barrel. “Like the holy water, this salt has been consecrated. Holy water is a vehicle for purification. Salt, a pure mineral of the earth, is able to receive and hold both positive and negative energies. By placing the bells in salt, I have broken any negative energetic contact between the curse and the bells. Now, to ensure that contact is not renewed, I shall place the bells inside a consecrated binding box.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not without getting all that salt off first! I edged through the crowd and grabbed the feather duster from behind the counter.
Herb marched forward and handed what looked like a shadow box across the velvet barricade to Xavier.
“Young man?” Xavier asked. Leo straightened. “Would you please hold the binding box for me?”
Leo’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “Sure.”
Xavier hinged open the glass side of the box. A mysterious-looking symbol had been drawn on it in black marker.
And then the crowd closed ranks and I couldn’t see anything. Frantic, I waved my feather duster in the air, hoping Leo would notice.
A hand grasped my arm. I turned and was nose to nose with Jason. My lips parted.
He released me. “Need some help?”
I stepped away, feeling myself flush. “Thanks.” I let him guide me. The crowd magically parted for us, leaving us a clear path up to the cordon.
Xavier lifted the bells from the barrel. As I’d feared, they were encrusted with patches of salt. He turned away.
“Leo!” I hissed, and handed him the duster. He passed it off to Xavier.
Xavier blinked, but nodded. Chanting something incomprehensible, he whisked the salt from the bells and onto the checkerboard floor.
I could clean that up later.
Intoning in Latin, Xavier carefully placed the bells into the box. They fit perfectly, seeming to hang on some sort of inside hook. I had to hand it to Herb. He may have snuck in a whopping extra charge, but he’d delivered a quality show.
Together, Leo and Xavier hung the box on the wall.
Leo stepped away. Xavier shut the glass front and raised his hands in a final benediction. “Strengthened by the intercession of angels and all heavenly spirits, I cancel all negative energies connected to these objects. I declare these bells bound!”
A thick silence fell.
I found myself holding my breath, and I slowly released it. So that was it. The curse was—
A woman shrieked. “Something bit me!”
My hands clenched. GD! I whipped my head around, searching for the cat. It wasn’t like him to bite a customer, but the crowd might have upset him. Finally, I spotted the cat perched on top of Gryla’s cave.
He stared down at me. His whiskers twitched with amusement.
Another woman squealed. “Ow! I’m bleeding! I’ve been bitten too.”
“It didn’t work!” someone shouted.
Xavier turned to frown at the bells, safely inside their binding box. “It is working. I can feel it.”
The crowd swayed like an ocean tide. Someone jostled me and I staggered, nearly falling to the floor.
“Everyone, stay calm,” Jason said. “It’s probably just the cat.”
We needed to get both exits open ASAP. “Leo,” I shouted. “Bookshelf!”
He climbed over the velvet barricade and forced his way through the crowd.
I pushed through the masses to the front door and flung it wide.
People stampeded from the museum.
Glass smashed and I winced. The flow of people emptying onto the sidewalk became a stream, and then a trickle, and then it was just me and the open door.
Shaken, I stumbled into the museum. A display case lay on its side. A starburst of broken glass glittered on the linoleum floor. The bronze skull rocked to a halt beside my feet.
Leo and Harper leaned on opposite sides of the open bookcase door. Leo’s face was pale. “Wow.”
I bent and set the skull on the counter.
Adele stormed through the open bookcase, her hands on her aproned hip. “What happened? What was that all about?”
“Emergency exit.” Jason scanned the room. “Thanks for helping out.”
She hadn’t helped out, but the compliment seemed to mollify her. She smoothed her apron. “That’s another three tea cups broken. But at least no one was hurt. Was anyone hurt?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t think so,” Harper said.
Muttering and rubbing their chins, Xavier and Herb craned their necks at the bells. “It’s working,” Xavier said. “I don’t understand what happened.”
Harper straightened up off the bookcase and walked to the bells. Her eyes narrowed.
“There must be more than one cursed object in this museum,” Herb said. “It was probably that bronze skull that attracted the dark spirit. That plus the energy of the crowd would have been powerful.”
“Or the throwing knives,” Xavier said. “I get a bad vibe from those.”
The two reporters, their blazers askew, hurried over to the exorcists. “What happened? Why did the ritual fail?” the redhead from Sacramento asked.
“It didn’t fail.” Xavier’s salt-and-pepper brows drew downward in a scowl.
“Says you,” I muttered.
Harper waved a hand over the bells, her expression thoughtful.
Jason gripped my shoulder. “You tried.”
Glum, I nodded and surveyed the destruction. Two haunted photos had been knocked from the wall, shattering glass and frames. A creepy doll lay on the floor. I picked it up and smoothed the skirt. “I guess it’s back to Plan B. More research into how to debunk the curse.”
“I thought that was Plan A,” he said.
“It might have been your Plan A,” I said, “but I hate having to debunk my own exhibits.” I motioned toward the exorcists and the reporters, at Xavier stabbing his finger at the bells. “No one believes that binding box is any good!” And I’d paid five hundred bucks for it.
“It was a noble effort,” Jason said. “You were right about the problem being psychological. The so-called ‘bites’ were probably mass hysteria.”
“Thanks.” I walked him to the door. “But I think I’ve made things worse.”
We stepped onto the sidewalk. Sunset was on its way, and the sky had turned a dusky blue.
He smiled. “No one was hurt. We’ll figure this—” He suddenly shoved me sideways and I ricocheted off the wall.
A gray sedan jumped the curb and whizzed past. There was a sickening thump. Jason flew into the brick wall and fell hard to the sidewalk.
fourteen
“Oh my God.” I knelt beside Jason, limp on the sidewalk. Lightly, I ran my hands over him, checking for any blood or bones out of place. Something seemed wrong with his shoulder. Blood streamed from a cut on his head, making scarlet ribbons down one side of his face.
He groaned and sat up, and his dark skin turned gray.
“Don’t try to move,” I said.
The sedan squealed around a corner.
Leo and Adele ran onto the sidewalk. “Mad, are you hurt?” Adele asked.
“No, but Jason is.”
The two reporters banged out the front door, and Herb a
nd Xavier followed. The reporters whipped out their cell phones and took pictures.
“Stop that,” I said, shrill.
“What’s going on?” Herb asked, and then he caught site of Jason. The little man’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted. Xavier and Harper leapt forward, catching him beneath the shoulders and lowering him gently to the brick sidewalk. Harper loosened Herb’s bow tie.
“What happened?” the reporter from Sacramento barked.
“Adele,” I said, “call 911! Tell them an officer’s been hit by a car.”
She raced into the tea room next door.
Fear and anger tangling inside me, I examined Jason’s head. The cut didn’t seem deep, but it was bleeding like crazy. “Leo! First aid kit.”
He ran inside the museum.
“Detective,” the red-headed reporter asked, “do you think this was an attack by the same person who killed Bill Eldrich?”
“Will you shut up?” I snarled.
“I’m only doing my job,” she said and snapped another photo.
Leo skidded back out the door and wrenched open the ancient first aid kit. “What do you need?”
Scrabbling inside the dented metal box, I pulled out a gauze pack. I ripped it open and pressed it to Jason’s forehead. It darkened with blood. The gauze wasn’t enough. “Get the cheesecloth from the Gallery.”
Leo raced back inside.
“It’s only a cut,” Jason said.
“Be quiet.”
“What about Herb?” Xavier fanned the paranormal collector.
My brain stumbled. What did you do for someone who’s fainted? “Put something under his head. Keep him warm.”
But Harper had already done that. Her suede blazer was draped over Herb’s torso, and her thick scarf was folded beneath his head. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “Take care of the detective.”
Xavier sat back on his heels and scratched his salt-and-pepper goatee. “This curse is worse than I thought.”
Mike, the sandy-haired local reporter, squatted beside me. “Can I help?”
Panic welled in my throat. “I think he’s dislocated his shoulder—”
“I’m sitting right here,” Jason said tartly.
“—and head wounds always bleed like crazy. I think it looks worse than it is.” But who knew what sort of damage had been done to Jason internally?
Leo returned with plastic bags of the cheese cloth. Kneeling, I ripped open a bag in quick jerky motions. My bloody hands stained the white cloth. I laid it against Jason’s forehead and prayed the only injuries he had were the ones I could see.
A siren wailed in the distance.
Jason was alive, and the ambulance was on its way, and I was not going to give in to my fear.
A blue muscle car screeched to the curb. Laurel leapt out and sucked in her breath. Knocking me sideways, she took my place beside Jason. “Slate. What happened?”
“Hit and run,” Jason said. “First three letters on the license plate were XSH.”
“What color?” she barked.
“Gray,” I said.
“Blue,” Adele said.
“I thought it was green,” Leo said.
“You two were inside,” I said. “How could you see anything?”
“Through the window,” Adele said.
“It was gray,” Jason said through gritted teeth.
Laurel cursed and raced to her open car door, bumping into paramedics on their way up the sidewalk.
I scuttled away and let the professionals take over. Then I remembered I had another guest in distress and hurried over to the two exorcists.
Herb groaned and sat up. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” Xavier said.
“What? Why?” Herb glanced at the blue-shirted paramedics, at the blood dripping down Jason’s chin. His eyes rolled up and he sank to the sidewalk again.
“He’s got a phobia about blood,” Xavier said, apologetic.
“So he became a collector of haunted objects?” Harper asked.
White teacup in hand, Adele knelt beside me. She handed me a cloth napkin. I wiped my hands and realized too late I’d ruined the white fabric. Customers from the tea room clustered in its open door.
Herb twitched and sat up on his elbow.
“Tea?” Adele walked to him and extended the delicate cup.
“Thank you.” He reached for it, noticed the paramedics, and sagged.
“Oh no you don’t,” Harper said, shifting sideways to block his view. “Herb, you will not faint!”
Color flooded his cheeks and he straightened, then took the cup from Adele. “Thank you, miss.”
Adele glanced toward the tearoom. “I’d better return to my customers.”
“Thanks for everything.” I rose to hand her the napkin, remembered the bloodstains, and crumpled it in my hands. I glanced at the paramedics. They still huddled around Jason, blocking him from view.
Smiling tightly, Adele walked to her tea room. She gently shooed in the gawkers and closed the front door behind her.
Herb raised a bony finger. “The first thing I want to say is, this was not my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?” I asked, stumbling to my feet.
“Those bells are now bound,” Herb said. “I’ve checked the energy around that box, and no negative energies are entering or escaping. The bells had nothing to do with that man getting hit.” He slurped his tea.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s okay. I knew that.” The maniac behind the wheel was responsible and no one else. Except for maybe me. Me and my stupid idea to hold an exorcism for cowbells I’d never believed were haunted in the first place. So much more could have gone wrong. What if someone had been trampled? What if Jason was hurt worse than I thought?
“I can’t explain the bites that people claimed to experience,” Xavier said, “but Herb’s probably right—there’s another object in your museum that’s causing the problem.”
Harper shook her head and looked away.
“Now if you like,” the exorcist continued, “I can examine the museum and determine which objects are problematic. I charge two hundred dollars an hour.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for serenity. But when I opened them, Xavier and Herb were still there. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, “but thanks for the offer.”
They shrugged. Xavier helped Herb up and they walked into the museum.
The paramedics wheeled in a stretcher, gouging a chunk out of a nearby plum tree. They helped Jason onto it, and I jogged over to them.
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked as they raised the stretcher.
“I’ll be fine.” Jason grasped my hand.
“Jason, I’m so sorry.” I blinked rapidly. “If I hadn’t held this event—”
“This isn’t your fault, Maddie.”
“Ma’am?” one of the paramedics asked. “We need to go.”
“Sorry.” Releasing Jason’s hand, I followed them as they loaded him into the ambulance and shut the rear doors.
Back on the sidewalk, I rubbed my face. Cops in blue uniforms strode about the rooftop opposite.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Laurel scowled down at me, her neck muscles cording. “What happened?” Her short blond hair was rumpled as if she’d escaped a windstorm.
“Jason and I walked outside,” I said, voice flat. “Someone drove up onto the sidewalk and hit him.” And Jason had shoved me out of the driver’s path.
“What was Slate doing here?”
“He was here for the event. What were you doing here?” Laurel had arrived awfully quickly. Almost as if she’d been surveilling me.
“What event?” she asked.
My shoulders hunched. “A ritual to de-curse the cowbells.”
She blew out her breath. “Tell me that lunatic Herb wasn’t involved.”
“He’s inside.”
She turned on her booted heel and strode into the museum, stopping just past the doorway. “No he’s not.”
“Maybe he’s in the Fortune Telling Room.” I squeezed past her. Herb and Xavier were nowhere to be seen. “He likes to hide in the spirit cabinet.”
Leo sat on the barstool behind the register. “Where’s Herb?” I asked.
He shrugged. “He and his friend left through the tea room. You know how he feels about cops.”
Laurel cursed and charged to the bookcase. “Where’s the damn secret lever?”
“On the book that says Open.” I trotted to her side, but she’d already opened the case. She ran into the tea room and down the elegant hallway that led to the alley.
Leo stared at me. “Is the detective …?”
I swallowed. “Detective Slate will be okay.” I only hoped it was true.
Not even Harper and Adele were able to cheer me up after the disaster. Once I’d cleaned up the museum, all I’d had the heart to do was go home and eat pizza. The only good news I got before going to bed was a call from Slate, reassuring me that all he had was a dislocated shoulder and a few stitches in his skull.
I hadn’t been reassured. This was my mess from start to finish. I’d bought the bells, publicized the curse, and had the bright idea of a public binding ritual.
The museum was closed on Mondays, but that morning I went to work anyway. My first project was to scrub at a blood stain on the sidewalk—Jason’s blood—with my ragged mop. I squeezed out the dirty water and rubbed the mop across the bricks. Spots of blood flecked the brick wall as well.
GD, observing from the open doorway, sneezed.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s easy to criticize when you’re not doing any work.”
The cat yawned and retreated inside the museum.
Thirty minutes later, I peeled off my rubber gloves and studied the area. I’d gotten rid of most of the stains, along with several pieces of hardened gum. If I looked hard, I thought I could still see blood. But I doubted anyone would be crawling around Sherlock Holmes-style inspecting the brickwork.
Deja Moo Page 14
