“Hence the pressure. Mom’s a firm believer in being the very best you can be. And then going one notch above that. If I live to pass the bar, I’m taking a year off. It’ll take that to let my poor brain and body heal from all this.”
“Well, if you need a place to get away, you know my doors are always open.”
I kept my eyebrows in place, but it was a close thing. It sure sounded to me like Arc had just invited the man to be a houseguest. Without first running it by my cousin, Ruby. I wondered how that would go over when she found out? Then again, he still had time to get her to agree to it. She never had to know that he made the invitation first.
I sure as heck would not tell her. I’d keep my brother’s back on this one.
The two of them talked a while longer, but nothing of real interest came up. Riley had known about the fundraiser, but not the whole dog park thing. Most likely his mom was limiting his local news to keep him focused. Sounded like the kind of thing she would do.
They were just finishing up their conversation when the atmosphere in the room changed. Tingles went down my spine, and I jerked my head around to look at the small crowd hovering around the bed.
I was already running when they screamed my name.
IT WAS REALLY LUCKY that Mom had been using a bit of my stored power from her crystal. That’s what sounded the warning and got me to my feet that single second faster.
That single second may have just been all that stood between my mom and Oblivion.
When I reached her, Mom didn’t have an ounce of color to her. And very little life. I put my arms around her even as the others gathered around me to lay hands—but more importantly, magic — on me. Then I pulled.
Not physically, though there was a fair bit of that too. The swirling vortex that had hold of Mom was nothing more than a pulsating dark blob, but the grip it held was near unbreakable.
For the first time since discovering my unique place in life as a light witch, I was grateful for it. My blooming power was the only way we finally wrestled Mom from its grasp. And it took every ounce of magic I could summon, plus the added punch Archie and Arc lent me.
To quote the great and powerful Oz, we weren’t in Kansas anymore. This was real, and it was terrifying.
Mom held fast, though, even though it couldn’t have been easy. She’s tough like that. People always assume that Opal is the strongest of the two. I might have made that mistake a time or two myself. Not after today.
A lesser woman would have given in to the pull. She did not. She fought with every fiber in her, and every single iota of magic too.
When we finally broke free, we landed in a heap on the floor beside the bed. Mom’s eyes found mine.
“What the bloody hell was that?”
I shivered. “Are you okay?” Sorry, but as far as I was concerned, we’d deal with the who or what later. Right now, I wanted to know that Mom was all right.
Mom stopped for a minute to consider, as we all disentangled from each other and got to our feet. “Truthfully? I’m not sure. That... whatever it was... was doing its best to suck the life right out of me.” Then she paused and shook her head slowly. “No. That isn’t right. It wasn’t after my life.” She swallowed. “It was after my soul.”
The shiver grew as all of our eyes went to the body on the bed. It still breathed, but now more than ever we knew the truth of things.
Martha Donaldson was no longer home.
“And just for the record?” Mom continued. “That wasn’t a natural stroke.”
Nurse Karen was still staring at us from across the bed. She’d been on the other side of it when all the fun started. “Would someone please fill me in? I’m kind of freaking out over here. What just happened?”
Mom glanced over at her. “Martha’s soul spot is occupied. And not by her. By something very, very dark and scary.” She swallowed. “And evil. Definitely evil.”
Karen’s eyes went to Martha and her face set. “Then the question is, how do we get it out?”
See? I knew I liked this woman.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue,” Mom answered. “But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to walk away from this, believe me.” She glanced at me. “We need to figure out how and why it’s in there.”
I knew what Mom was saying. The others probably did too.
Soul centers don’t just change over to gaping and hungry vortexes on their own. It had to have help. With as powerful as this thing was, that help had to involve an entity of some kind. Likely a very bad, very evil, and very powerful one.
This was so not good.
But the thing is that entities, for the most part, work through people. Somewhere, somehow, there was a human being involved in this. That person was the key to ending this.
And the place we had to start.
“So what do we do now?” Karen was hugging herself.
Now that I thought about it, so was I. I tried to relax, but coming that close to losing Mom had really shaken me up. I didn’t think I wanted her to be alone in the room with Martha’s body.
I didn’t think I wanted anyone alone in the room with it. What if that, that thing, grew to have the power to reach outside her soul center? To the world at large? No single witch could withstand that kind of power.
Not even me. And I was about as powerful as a single witch could get.
“I think you need to set up some new rules about taking care of Martha,” I told Karen.
She blanched but nodded. “Consider it done.” Then she hesitated. “You guys are the real deal, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “You could definitely say that, yes. Thanks to the Goddess, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t suppose any of you are interested in taking on a part-time job here?” She hesitated. “Or a full-time one?”
I thought about my busy life and all the things currently heaped on my plate. No way did I have time to take anything else on. Not one iota of that mattered at this point.
If ever there was a job crying out for Team Destiny, fighting this thing was it. You don’t turn away from evil. That never ended well.
“Oh, I think you’ll be seeing a lot of us from here out. Until we get Martha back where she belongs,” Mom said, looking sadly down at the bed. I noticed she was still keeping a healthy distance between her and it, though. Can’t say I blamed her for that.
“I just hope that’s still possible.”
Chapter 8
We made up a working schedule to help provide magical backup for Karen while we figured out exactly what was going on and who was responsible. The sooner the better for that, too.
Martha might be a strong woman, but this had to be taking a toll on her soul. How must it feel to be locked out from your very own body?
I was guessing it didn’t feel good at all. Probably scary as heck, too.
As it turned out, Karen was a live-in staff member. That’s because her job wasn’t just that of a lowly nurse. And no, I’m not saying that the job of a nurse is lowly. It isn’t. Not in any way, shape, or form.
But compared to Karen’s true title of Operational Manager, it might seem that way to some. It was only luck and a nurse call-in that had put her in our path that fateful day.
Yeah, right. That had the imprint of the Goddess all over it. The whole mysterious ways thing again. I was truly starting to believe the old saying that there is no such thing as coincidences. In my opinion, it’s generally the Goddess dipping her hands in things.
And I’d trust that rather than coincidence every single time. I knew She had our best interests at heart. That meant something to a witch like me.
The facility was pretty high tech, as one might expect with the price tag associated with it. There were a total of eight residents currently in beds here. An amazing number when you stopped to think about it.
Eight distressed souls who had lost their way. Poor Karen had her work cut out for her. Hers was a very worthy job. And she was a very
worthy woman. A worthy witch, too.
No, she wasn’t an elemental. But don’t take that as a criticism. It isn’t. It’s just a fact, like any other fact. Like, say, the sky is normally some shade of blue during the daylight hours.
That didn’t mean she didn’t have power. It just meant that she had to work a bit harder at it than we did. To my mind, that was a testimony to the woman, not a downfall.
But anyway, back to that technology part of things. In a normal hospital or convalescence home, the nursing staff had to rely on patients using their call lights if they needed help. As that couldn’t happen here, every single one of those eight patients had a video feed that led straight from their bed to the nurses’ station.
There were two nurses on duty at all times. One on each floor housing residents, and each of them with four charges at a time. The place was earning its price more and more as I learned how it all worked.
I took the first night’s shift, as Archie and Arc had to go to work the next day, and Mom had her Muffin shop to deal with. It was only open for a few hours in the weekday mornings, but those hours started well before dawn.
Truth be told, I thought she was growing tired of the whole business ownership thing, and while her Good Morning Muffins was earning its keep and making a profit, it wasn’t going to make the woman rich by any means. Not that she needed it to do that. She had Archie for that. Plus, my mom hadn’t been exactly poor before she’d married Archie.
The muffins had never been about the money. They had been about proving something to herself. Now that the proof was in the batter, she could move on to something else.
And I’d seen her eyes as she and Karen had talked. Especially when the woman had asked if any of us were interested in a job here.
I knew Mom. The chances of her taking Karen up on that were better than you might think. Not that Mom would want a paycheck. As I said, Mom didn’t need the money.
What Mom needed was an outlet to use her healing powers. This place just might offer that. And be grateful to get it, too.
So while Mom dealt with the Muffins for a bit longer, I was going to pinch-hit the night shift here with Karen.
Those video feeds were nice and all, but I wasn’t at all sure that a camera would catch everything. Before they left for home, we sent Arc out to buy me a thick camping mat and a sleeping bag. I was planning to camp out in the corner of the room.
Yes, I planned to get some sleep too. But not before I set some personal wards. And laid down a thin stream of salt, too. That was another thing Arc brought back with him.
Sometimes the old stories about salt warding off evil and evil’s magic were true. The thin line might not work against a more powerful entity, but I was hoping it would at least cause enough pain to make them announce their presence.
No. I didn’t plan on sleeping all that soundly. If something or someone came into that room via a door, window, or simply materialization, I intended to know about it.
The nurse that took over from Karen for Martha’s floor gave me an odd look, but Karen had told her that my presence was accepted and approved by the family. The nurse coming on shift had shrugged and not argued. It helped that Karen was her boss.
It also probably helped that Martha would be one less patient she’d really have to worry about that night. Martha might not be able to call for help, but I sure as heck could if it was required.
But if I’d have been expecting trouble, I would have been disappointed. Nothing untoward happened. Well, other than me losing a fair bit of restful sleep.
The other, more alarming, part of that loss of sleep was my failure to visit the Ether to dump some of my magical overload. Although, when I really thought about it, I kind of figured that I’d be okay. For tonight, anyway.
Pulling Mom away from that vortex’s hold had taken pretty much everything I had in one quick burst. I’d never felt anything like it in my life.
Hoped never to again, too.
I wasn’t at all sure who my replacement would be the next morning, but I wasn’t really all that surprised to see Lily walk through the door just after daybreak.
Lily, like Karen, wasn’t an elemental witch, either. She was a hedge witch. Not your ordinary and everyday piddle around with magic occasionally hedge witch, however.
Goddess, no. Lily was a very scary hedge witch. Think Aunt Opal without the elemental ties and you’d be really, really close to Lily.
She nodded to me in my little corner, then walked over to the bed and stood staring down at Martha. “No change, I take it? No nightly visitors?”
I shook my head. “Other than the nurse check-ins for vitals and blood sugar checks, no. Not a sign of anyone. Or anything, either.”
She nodded slowly. Then she ever so slowly reached a hand toward Martha’s soul center.
Yes, I might have freaked out a little. Okay. More than a little.
“Don’t touch her!”
Lily froze, then turned her head slowly toward me. “Do you think me a fool, child? Your mother told me what happened yesterday. I have no intention of giving that thing inside her a chance at me.”
“Oh. Sorry, then.”
She turned back to Martha and kept extending her hand until it rested a scant few inches above the soul center. Far too close for my comfort. I really hoped the vortex was securely contained within that still body. If not... well, I wasn’t sure I would be up to the task of saving Lily on my own.
And I really didn’t want to have to explain how we’d gone from one person with wandering souls to two. Especially to Merlin. He might take obvious exception to me losing his woman’s soul on my watch.
Even if I had made a point to warn her of the danger.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then another, and yet another. I waited, my heart in my throat the entire time. I wasn’t about to relax until that hand got a whole lot farther away from that thing inside Martha.
Finally, she pulled her hand back slowly and turned to me. “I think we need to mobilize the team.”
I swallowed. “The whole team?” Not that I thought that was a bad idea. In fact, not knowing what or who we were up against, I thought it was a grand plan.
“Yes.” She hesitated and glanced back at Martha. “But I think I’d start with Shaman Crowe. I’d love to hear his opinion on this.”
Shaman Crowe. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Probably the stress of the last several hours. Coming close to losing one’s mother to a gaping black void could do that to a person.
Then it hit me. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that maybe this has to do with some mythical Native American thing?”
She gave me a grim smile. “That’s just it, dear. I have not a clue what this has to do with.” Glancing back at Martha, she shook her head slowly. “All I know is that this feels very, very wrong. On a level of wrongness that I had not yet encountered in my life. Believe me when I say that isn’t good.”
Oh, I had no trouble believing her on that one whatsoever.
“You think the Shaman will know what it is?”
Lily lifted one shoulder. “I think if anyone can identify it, it would be him. He has spent much of his life studying all the different magical cultures and religions.” Her eyes met mine. “And ever since his Great Spirit has teamed up with our Goddess, his research has doubled. He takes his education very seriously.”
“I’ll call him this morning and see if he can make it down soon.”
Lily nodded. “I have a very bad feeling about this, Amie. You might want to tell him to not dawdle.”
I swallowed. “You really want me to tell Shaman Gaston Crowe not to dawdle?”
She gave me a smile. “Well, not in so many words, no. But I don’t think you can sugar coat what we’re facing here, either. We need him. And we need him now.”
The urgency in her words made me realize one thing. Lily Harper was scared.
And that, in turn, terrified me.
I made the call.
Chapter 9
With the call put in to the Shaman, and Lily there as a magical backup to Karen, there wasn’t much point to me sitting around on my thumbs all day. I had better things I could be doing.
Like trying to figure out just who was responsible for putting that thing into Archie’s friend. As I said, things like this just don’t happen by themselves. Someone was behind this.
Yes, most likely there was a big, bad scary entity involved somewhere at the core of things too. Something we’d have to deal with.
Oh joy. Like we needed more of that in our lives.
But first things first, we had to find the human source responsible. As Gaston didn’t exactly live next door, it was going to take him some time to get there. He’d promised to make an appearance that night. Around the time everyone got off work. His meaning was pretty clear. Whatever the Shaman had planned to do, the man wanted backup.
I could totally understand that. And I’d bloody well make sure I was there to provide it too.
That didn’t mean I had to waste the day, though, did it? I really didn’t have a good feel for where to go to start my investigation, so I decided to just go with the easiest route first.
The Home Owners Association. One, it was the closest option, and two, I really didn’t have enough information on the fundraising event yet. I hadn’t even thought to ask what the event was raising funds for. Now that I took the time to think about it, I realized that might just be important.
Some causes were more than a little controversial. In fact, quite a few of them had their opponents. Maybe the fundraising thing wasn’t such a sure pass as I’d thought it was.
But for starters, the HOA would have to do.
The Donaldsons lived in a mansion that would rival Archie’s Mineheart family home. It was a very large and ornate two-story complex—you really couldn’t just call it a home, as there were far too many walls involved for that—that spread out in more than one direction. The primary structure even had an honest to Goddess turret.
I’d always wanted a turret. Something about the thought of a circular room had always appealed to me.
Team Destiny and Archie's Apparition (Team Destiny Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 5
