by Angie Fox
Grandma rolled her eyes. “It’s got ‘kinetic potential,’” she said, as if I should immediately agree. “Creely tested it. Cliff rented the place out for the day, and the coven started prep right after brunch while you two were otherwise occupied.” She waggled her bushy gray eyebrows at us.
Yes, well, with the spirit knocking on my subconscious, I couldn’t afford to get too close before the main event. We didn’t want to tip him off. Besides—I glanced at Dimitri—I’d needed that distraction.
“My pleasure,” he drawled, giving me a wink.
God, he was gorgeous. I hoped our babies got his eyes.
My hand was resting on my stomach before I even realized I’d moved it there. Dimitri covered it with both of his, pulling me into an embrace. The warmth of pure griffin goodness flowed through us, almost melting me into a puddle. I could stay like this all day.
“Get your rears in gear, lovebirds!” Grandma called out from the front door. “We’ve got less than an hour to defy the laws of space and time before that ward runs out!”
Right. I grabbed for the ward bag again, but holding it now wasn’t as comforting as it had been a few hours ago. It quivered, the spells holding it together losing power by the minute.
I kept Dimitri’s hand in mine and walked over to the bowling alley. “Let’s see what’s happening in here.”
My mind was still my own, but I didn’t know how much the spirit could see or hear. Grandma was right. It wouldn’t be long before he pushed through.
Walking into Flower Power’s Bowl ’n Roll was like crossing over into a hippie-slash-raver psychedelic concert hall. The overhead lights were off, but the black lights more than made up for it. Cartoon flowers in hot pink, lime green, and bright orange glowed under black light, festooning the walls, the chairs, even the alleys and bowling pins themselves. Underneath, subtle but there, hundreds of softly glowing white lines marked the floor and the lanes, swirling together like strands of DNA. The bowling balls looked like tiny planets all lined up, and the air was filled with the crash of scattering pins, the pings of the automatic scoring systems keeping track of who did what—and underneath it all, the unmistakable crackle of magic in the air.
Instead of sitting around meditating or chanting, witches bowled every lane. A few of them nursed beers. I thought I smelled nachos. In the distance, I heard Crazy Frieda cackle, “Seven-ten split, ladies! Who’s yo mama?”
I picked my jaw up enough to speak. “What…the…hell?”
“Talk to Creely,” Grandma advised, giving me a little push. “She’s in the center lane. I’ve got to trade my boots for bowling shoes or we aren’t going to get this thing off the ground.” She gave me a small nudge. “It’s all hands on deck.”
Dimitri’s hand tightened around mine. “I thought they’d be taking this a little more seriously,” he muttered.
Me too. “There has to be a good explanation.” I led the way to the center lane, which now that I got closer, seemed to be set up differently than the others. There was something like a cave here, a canopy of hundreds of white threads that glowed so brightly I had to blink to clear the stars from my eyes. Pinned between the threads were a bunch of random objects, everything from pictures to individual cigarettes to a do-rag with a laughing skull pattern on it.
“What the…” I drew closer to take a better look. One of the pictures seemed familiar. “Oh my gosh, I recognize him. That’s Carl!” Carl was Frieda’s hubby, dead and gone for longer than I’d known her. I’d met him once. He’d been a nice guy, for a ghost.
I carefully rounded the cave of twinkling threads, taking in each precious memory. Every item was a memento of a person we’d loved who had died—mostly Red Skulls, but I saw my fairy godfather’s address book tucked against the bottom. Tears warmed my eyes. I hadn’t been able to save Uncle Phil from the succubus in Las Vegas, but he’d promised he’d always be with me, watching over me. I felt it now.
Creely popped up next to me like a jack-in-the-box, startling the heck out of me. “Good, you’re here,” she said, ignoring my indignant gasp. “Watch where you step, okay? Don’t smudge the lines, they’re what’s powering this whole thing.”
Now that she mentioned it, I could see the connections between each thread of the glowing cave and the lines on the floor. It was like nothing I’d seen before, nothing I could have imagined in a million years. “How are they powering it? And why bowling?”
Creely nodded, her Kool-Aid red bangs bobbing around her eyes. “It’s really quite remarkable. Think of it like this.” She pushed her hair back. “We’ve got to conjure up enough power to get you and Xavier to the spirit dimension, right?”
So far, so good. “Yes.”
“And then we’ve got to have enough energy saved up to keep you there long enough to sever the connection with the spirit.”
Still following her. “Yep.”
“Now, we don’t know how long that’s going to take. The last thing we want is for a witch to faint or a candle to burn out while you’re stuck over there. It would be… disastrous.”
“Yes, I’d like to come back,” I agreed.
She nodded heartily. “Usually when we cast this spell, we juice it hard and fast. This time, though, we need something more like a battery.” She waved at the gossamer tent.
“Powered by the connection to each person’s spirit,” Dimitri concluded.
“Exactly,” Creely agreed. “Every bowler’s ball is spelled to pass its energy, its sense of group and cohesion and spirit of the coven as it rolls down the lane. The energy is transmitted back to the cave along the spiral lines I marked out, and it all gets stored in this, our Cave of Visions, to be used by Xavier as needed. Think of it like…slingshotting your spirit across the dimensions, only the slingshot never entirely lets go.”
I exchanged a glance with Dimitri. “I like it,” I told her. Leave it to Creely to come up with exactly what I needed for any given job. She’d never let me down in the past.
Dimitri smiled as well. “It’s good.”
Creely cracked a grin and tucked a strand of her vivid red hair behind her ear. For once, her hair wasn’t the brightest thing in the room. “Don’t worry, the goat skull is waiting inside the cave.”
“Sure.” You couldn’t forget that. I’d had it for every other vision quest. “Any guppies?” I asked. “Or birds, or heck, even a bunny or two right now?”
Creely snorted. “Consider Xavier your guppy.”
Yikes. “That’s not reassuring.”
“We’re flying by the seat of our pants,” she admitted. “But it should work. Just…be careful.”
“I always am,” I promised.
I touched the nearest photograph. I thought it might be a young Betty Two Sticks—the crew cut was the same, even if her hair wasn’t gray in the snapshot. She’d been careful as well, only it hadn’t been enough.
“Where you’re going, we can’t follow,” Grandma said, stepping down into the sitting area where the cave had been built. “But maybe the memory of our loved ones can. It’ll be all right,” she assured me, and herself.
I smiled as best I could.
I looked around, taking in all the activity with a new perspective. The witches bowled hard and fast, and I could see the cave get brighter and brighter. They were all working for this, for me. I was surrounded by my loved ones right now.
Even Hillary and Cliff were here, three lanes down, bowling with Ant Eater and Sidecar Bob. A quick glance at the score told me that, surprisingly, Hillary was kicking butt. Then again, if Hillary Brown was going to do anything, she was going to do it impeccably.
“Better get in there soon, Lizzie,” Grandma said, looking down at the ward on my wrist. “I think you’re about out of time.” She pulled me into a hug. “Remember, no hesitating. Don’t let it talk to you. You’re there to kick ass, not take names.” She let go and gruffly cleared her throat. “All right, clear a path. I need to get a ball.”
Wait. “Where’s Xavier?” He hadn�
�t bailed, had he? If he’d run off…
“He’s already inside the strands,” Creely said, “meditating.”
Interesting. I wasn’t used to my father being quiet. I wasn’t even sure he had the capacity not to talk himself up at every turn.
I was stalling, and I knew it. I took a deep breath and turned to Dimitri. He was worried. I felt it, even though it didn’t show on his face.
“You’ve got this, babe,” he said. His hands trailed from my shoulders to my waist, pulling me in close.
“I do.” I had to. “We’ll be fine. All four of us.”
He laughed, but now I could see the glisten in his eyes. “Come here.” He leaned down and kissed me hard, deep and rapturous, a glory of a kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned into it for all I was worth. I wanted more. I could never get enough of my husband. And now we had a family.
We were both breathless when he broke the kiss. “You’d better leave before I can’t let you go,” he whispered.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Lizzie.”
Burgeoned by the kiss, surrounded by my friends and family and the memories of our loved ones, I crouched down and crawled inside the glowing Cave of Visions.
Holy whoa…all the sound outside, the ringing and chatting and clatter of pins, it was all nonexistent in here. It was like stepping into the Matrix.
The bright white floor had a slightly ultraviolet glow under the black lights. Xavier sat cross-legged, his hands open on his knees, his eyes closed. I sat down across from him.
The goat skull stared up at me from where it was placed in between us. I stared at it for a moment and felt a little better. At least something about this ceremony was familiar.
“Lizzie.” I glanced up and met my father’s gaze. He appeared healthier than he had this morning, like being in the cave was recharging not just his power but also his vitality. I tried not to let that make me uneasy. He had to be strong if he was going to guide me to the spirit dimension and tether me there. “Are you ready?”
Ready as I’d ever be. I double-checked the utility belt around my waist. “What happens next?”
“Next, I need to connect with your spirit. Once I’ve got a grip, you’ll release the ward bag. When the spirit appears in your mind, push toward it. Follow it back to its source. I’ll make sure we don’t get caught in any interdimensional whirlpools along the way.”
That sounded bad. “What’s an interdimensional whirlpool, exactly?”
Xavier smiled. “Nothing you’ll have to worry about as long as you don’t fight our connection.”
Oh yeah, and he was making that real easy. “You sound a lot like the spirit, you know.”
“Lizzie.” He reached out with his hands, but didn’t take mine. “I swear to you, I won’t take anything from you. I’m only going along to give you a way back. I’ll do everything I can to ensure your comfort with me—you’ll hardly even notice I’m there.” His smile went kind of lopsided. “And when this is all over, I promise, you’ll never have to see me again.”
Strangely, that didn’t fill me with glee. But I could wonder about that after we got back. “All right.” I took his hands. His grip was firm and dry. “Let’s go.”
“There’s one last thing.”
Just what I needed. “What’s that?”
Xavier looked at me seriously, no smiles to be seen now. “Even with the coven’s power, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold onto you. If I pull on the tether, you have to come back immediately, whether you’ve managed to cut the ties between you and the spirit or not. Otherwise, your spirit will be stuck there.”
I’d figured as much, but it was more than a little scary to hear it laid out in black and white like that. I swallowed hard. “I understand.”
“All right. Look into my eyes and try not to tense up.”
I didn’t even have a chance to wonder why I would get tense when, abruptly, the color washed out of Xavier’s irises, leaving two filmy semicircles that stared creepily at me. His hands went cold, and a moment later mine did too. Veins stood out in his forehead and neck, black and pulsing. He looked like a dead man. I flinched.
“Just relax,” he murmured. “Almost there…”
Suddenly the cold sensation of his hands in mine popped like a bubble. In fact, I couldn’t feel his hands at all, even though I could see we were still connected. I didn’t feel the pressure of my butt on the floor either, or my legs pressed together.
“Your consciousness has moved to your spirit, but your body will still respond,” Xavier assured me. “Remove the ward bag.”
I didn’t think I’d have to. I could feel it suddenly give way, the fairy stone splitting in half. A second later, the spirit flooded back into my mind.
Elizabeth, really. He said, amused. If you wanted to join me this badly, all you had to do was ask.
“Push against it with your power, Lizzie!” Xavier commanded. I did, striking out with my demon-slayer powers. The spirit fell back easily—maybe too easily, but there was no time to second-guess myself.
It fled. And as if I was born to it, I pursued it across the dimensional plane. Xavier acted like a compass, gently nudging me when it seemed like I might careen into a patch of dark, bubbling green Hell or the livid purple of a corner of Purgatory.
I was doing it. I would catch the spirit, and when I did—
All of a sudden I felt myself tumbling head over heels, physically sensed it even though I had no physical form to sense. I tried to stabilize myself, but it was like being tossed around in a hurricane—there was nothing to hold onto, nothing to grope for, just the buffeting winds of fate or chance lashing at me until there was no up or down. I wasn’t sure I could still feel Xavier’s presence with me. I wasn’t sure I could feel anything at all.
Hitting the ground with a thump a moment later was a rude awakening.
18
I hit the stone floor hard and groaned, rolling onto my side. I couldn’t keep doing this while pregnant. At least right now, I hoped the babies were too small to feel the impact.
I pushed myself to a sitting position and found myself in a large circular room lit with narrow windows that let in anemic slants of light. The walls were stone, just like the floor, but they looked like sections of honeycomb, with hundreds of small holes carved into them. In each little niche lay what looked like a scroll, all of them tightly bound with bright red string.
Strange. I turned to look behind me, searching for the one feature I hadn’t seen yet—a door.
There was nothing but more scrolls.
“Ah, Lizzie,” purred the spirit, his voice clear. He was outside of me now. “You made it.”
I swung toward the voice, one hand reaching down to my utility belt as I pushed myself to my feet. I didn’t see anyone.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
Don’t talk to him, Lizzie! Xavier’s voice whispered a warning in my mind, but it was faint. I had the sudden, irrational thought that I was glad to hear from my dad.
At least he’d kept hold of me.
“Elizabeth, really.” The spirit stepped forward out of the shadows. He had taken the form of a handsome, bald man, and he wore a tan robe that touched the ground when he walked. His lips quirked. “You know who I am. We’ve been getting to know each other for a while now.” He spread his arms a little, smiling. It made him look like a viper flaring its hood. “Or is it just that you’re surprised to see me in the flesh?”
I kept a hand on my switch stars. “You don’t have any flesh.”
That could be a real problem for me.
I snuck a quick glance at the tower room that had me trapped, noticing the thick parchment of the scrolls, the solid floor under my feet. Everything here felt real, but… “This is just an echo.” It had to be.
“My dear Lizzie,” the spirit crooned, as if he had a right to call me anything. “You are correct. His dark eyes followed my gaze. “In my earliest incarnation, I worked in the Librar
y of Alexandria. It was one of the greatest repositories of knowledge ever to exist, and I was a cataloguer there. I had access to magic that no one today can even imagine.” He inhaled slowly, deeply, and a breeze fluttered across the room.
It was as if he inhabited the entire space, as if everything in here were him.
He gave a small smile. The spirit was in no hurry.
He had me trapped.
“I had immense power at my fingertips. You know what that feels like, don’t you, Elizabeth?”
“Don’t include me in whatever sick game this is,” I said. Only he already had. It was why I was down here, after all.
“So young,” he mused. His expression darkened. “So arrogant.” He took a step toward me, then another. “You see, Elizabeth, I was born without any special abilities, cursed to watch others fail to be all that they could be while heaped with gifts from the gods.”
I gave no reaction, letting him talk, letting him get close.
“There are spells even the most hopelessly mundane can cast,” he continued, “if you have enough heart for it.” I really didn’t like the rather murderous sound of that. He continued his advance. “Freeing my spirit from my mortal cage was one of them. Siphoning the spirits of my targets was another.”
Great. He was like a teenager with a plastic tube, and I was a full tank of gas. He’d gotten close enough. I reached into my pouch for a spell jar, only to jolt when my hand passed right through it instead.
Amusement burst over his features. “You think you understand where you are, but you have no idea. Knowledge really is power.”
He stepped closer, and I saw for the first time that what I’d thought was smooth skin was in essence more of a shell. Beneath his placid visage roiled dozens of others, new faces taking turns to press up against the glass like animals in a zoo, some gnashing their teeth, others screaming in silent rage and pain.
I felt my jaw drop. “Holy shit. What are you?”
“I am magic,” he replied pleasantly, “and those are the spirits of my prey.”
Cripes. He was his own portable Hell.
My throat tightened. I cleared my throat and spoke around it. “Who are they?”
