Devil Days in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  I held up my hand and wound up my middle finger, flipping him off.

  Natalie dug in her heels, literally leaning back on them while she jutted her chin at Cooper. “I’m staying. My girl needs me.”

  His mouth thinned. “Screw Parker. I need you to still be breathing later.”

  I harrumphed. “What you need, Cooper, is a good hard kick in the—”

  “Violet,” Doc interrupted me. He tossed his coat down next to me on the desk, and then bent over to give me a quick “hello” kiss with cool lips. He smelled fresh, like a forest, making me want to roll around in some pine needles with him. “Be nice to Coop, Tiger,” Doc said under his breath. “He’s been working for almost fifteen hours.”

  “I was being nice,” I whispered. I wondered where Doc had been all afternoon, but didn’t bother asking him now. He was wearing the same shirt and pants he’d had on earlier, but his hair looked finger-plowed. Or maybe that was from the wind. “I was going to say ‘caboose,’ not ass.”

  “ ‘Caboose’ is the same thing,” Cooper said, eavesdropping. “And don’t forget that I saved your ass today … again. You owe it to me to be nice now.”

  “Saved her from what?” Natalie asked him.

  “What’s with the tequila in the bag?” he shot back, dodging her question.

  “It’s for celebrating.” Natalie poked him in the chest. “Saved Vi from what, Coop?”

  “What are you celebrating?” Doc asked, returning to Cornelius. “Is that new?” He pointed at the ghost-ometer.

  Cooper took the bag from Natalie, pulling out a full bottle of tequila. “You forgot the limes and salt.”

  She grabbed the bottle back and brought it over to me. “You don’t need accessories if it’s good tequila, right, Vi?”

  I gave two thumbs-up and then took the bottle, palming it while I scanned the label. Ah, she’d splurged on the good stuff. “You know the ol’ saying.” I winked at her.

  She grinned, holding up her pointer finger in the air like she was standing on a podium about to deliver a grand speech. “All things in the universe are possible so long as you have enough tequila to finish the job.”

  “Hear, hear!” I raised the bottle in agreement.

  “It’s my Eddy,” Cornelius told Doc, handing his ghost detector to him. “There’s been steady activity, but mostly in the hallway.” He tightened the belt on his bathrobe while looking at Natalie and me. “Celebrate what? Did you have a premonition about the open closet door?”

  “No.” Natalie hopped up on the desk next to me.

  What was an ‘Eddy’? Was that a nickname for his newest expensive toy? Whatever it was, Doc was following in Cornelius’s previous footsteps, holding the device out and observing the digital display as he stepped out into the hallway.

  Meanwhile, Cooper watched Natalie like she had crucial evidence hidden somewhere on her body. “Celebrate what?”

  Natalie squirmed a little but met his gaze. “You know, the usual stuff—the kids’ good grades, Zoe’s big glass order, Vi’s upcoming television debut, Doc’s success in the finance wo—”

  “I know about the flowers,” Cooper cut in.

  She shot me a scowl. “Bucket mouth.”

  I held up my hands. Once again, I was innocent. Well, mostly. “It’s not my fault. Cooper came over earlier to rescue me from Rex.”

  My ex’s name snared Doc’s attention. He frowned at me over the top of the “Eddy” gadget. “What’s this about Rex?”

  “It’s nothing,” I said, not really wanting to discuss that particular devil’s doings at the moment. Rex blaming me for his hives seemed like small potatoes next to the Hellhole issue … and the caper-sus crap.

  Doc came closer, holding up the device in front of me. “According to this, you’re lying.”

  I smirked. “Good try, Oracle, but that thing measures electromagnetic field variations, not my blood pressure and pulse spikes.” At least that was my guess on what the detector did.

  He handed the “Eddy” back to Cornelius while staring at me. “It’s sexy when you bandy about paranormal terms like that, Tish.”

  “Oh, God,” Cooper groaned. “Don’t you dare speak French to him, Parker.”

  Before I could switch into Morticia Addams mode, Cooper spilled the beans about Rex’s visit, the bastard’s reaction to the flowers, and Cooper’s arrival in time to save the day and send Rex on his way.

  I harrumphed. “You didn’t save the day.”

  “What are you talking about, Parker? When I walked in you had a stapler in your hand, cocked and ready to throw.”

  “I wasn’t going to throw it,” I grumbled. I’d just planned to beat the jerk over the head with it until he scampered away with his tail between his legs.

  “Shit.” Natalie sighed. “I didn’t expect Rex to show up here and give you trouble, babe.”

  “What did you think would happen?” Cooper asked.

  She shrugged. “That he’d break out in hives and be miserable for a day or two like the last time.”

  Last time? She’d done that to Rex before? I loved her twice as much now. I patted her leg. “You were successful. If we’re lucky, he’ll be miserable all next week, too.”

  “I also figured I’d be the one to tell you the good news about the flowers, which was why I brought tequila with me, but I was held up down in Rapid this afternoon.” She sent a worried look my way.

  “Don’t give me that face,” I told her. “I loved that you sent him flowers. Ask Cooper. He had to send me to the bathroom because I was laughing so hard at Rex’s itching and snarling.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t like Rex harassing you. I think I’m going to have to pay that dipshidiot a visit again.”

  “That’s a bad idea,” Cooper said.

  I pointed at the detective. “What he said.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts, no coconuts.” I leaned back on my hands, watching Doc, who’d returned to the closet to peer down the trapdoor opening. It was time to change the subject before Cooper went into full-on cop mode and started lecturing us about the downfalls of spending life behind bars. “Besides, I needed a good laugh after my rendezvous with Prudence and Mr. Black up at Zelda’s.”

  “What?” That got Doc’s attention. “You went back again today?”

  “Not by choice. I was basically summoned.”

  Doc came closer. “Let’s hear it, Killer.”

  I started with the phone call from Zelda and Prudence while I was at Bighorn Billy’s, told him about my brush with the imp behind the Opera House and the piece of honey-flavored candy it threw at my windshield, and wrapped up with the news about this caper-sus dilemma.

  Cooper started cursing midway through my story, and Doc was grimacing at the floor while squeezing his forehead by the time I’d finished.

  Natalie was the first to speak. “So you mean to tell me that there was a female undertaker in the old days who was also an Executioner?”

  I nodded.

  “What was this undertaker’s name?” Cornelius asked from the dark hallway. He was out there again with his fancy meter.

  “They didn’t say. Mr. Black had to leave lickety-split for some reason and Prudence refused to say any more after he was gone.”

  “Why?” Natalie asked. “Was she pissed at you?”

  I shrugged. Prudence was always pissed at me, it was simply a matter of degrees of pissed-offed-ness each visit. “She up and left Zelda’s body without any further insults and disappeared into thin air, as she’s prone to do. Harvey and I left shortly after that.” I looked at Cornelius, who’d returned to the room with the salt shaker that usually sat on the small counter next to the napkins and coffee maker. “As you were saying earlier, some spirits can choose when they want to be seen or not.”

  What was he doing with the salt?

  “I need to head back down to the library in Rapid City.” Doc frowned toward the Hellhole. “There was a section on cults that might have something mor
e on this caper-sus insignia’s history.”

  “I’d ask Mr. Black to give us more details on the past, but I need to brush up on my summoning skills. Do you think sacrificing a chicken would work in lieu of ringing his doorbell?” I joked, trying to make light of my bad news.

  Doc turned back to me, his smile returning. “Nice try, Tish.”

  I blinked at him several times and purred, “Merci, mon amour,” in a flirty Morticia voice.

  “How are you going to get into Sanford Lab?” Cooper butted in before Doc could take the bait, returning the focus to Mr. Black’s instructions.

  “I know a way,” Natalie said.

  “Legally,” he added.

  She tilted her head. “How is this ever going to work between us, Coop, if you’re going to insist on me and Violet doing everything on the up-and-up all of the time?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll keep you handcuffed to me and lock Parker in her aunt’s basement.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Cornelius said, stroking his goatee as if he were seriously pondering it.

  Natalie laughed.

  “Uh, yes it is,” I said.

  “I don’t mean literally,” he said, pulling out a handful of stones from his other robe pocket and setting them in the middle of the floor. “Telepathically, I mean.” He unscrewed the top of the salt shaker, saying to Doc, “Violet and I need to be tethered before we start.”

  “Start what?” I was afraid I already knew the answer.

  “The séance.”

  Damn, I hated being right. “I thought we weren’t doing that tonight.”

  “We’re still doing a séance.” He poured salt in a circle around the stones on the floor. “We’re just not going to seek out Wilda.” He pointed at the open closet door. “Tonight we’re going to ask your dead boss why she cleared a path to the Hellhole.”

  Maybe I didn’t want to know that answer. Ignorance was bliss, and I was a big fan of obliviousness. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Natalie asked.

  “Because I’m hungry and I read that you should never channel while hungry.”

  Cornelius looked up at me from arranging the stones into an eye formation. “What is your source on that?”

  “Thin air,” I mumbled.

  “If you’re only going to ask Jane why she opened the closet and the trapdoor,” Doc said to Cornelius, “why do you think you should be tethered to Violet?”

  “Because our channeler tends to wander in the middle of our séances, and I’m not sure we want her going near that Hellhole until we know her dead boss’s reasoning.”

  “I do not wander.”

  Doc gave me a look.

  “Okay, I don’t wander on purpose, anyway.” I returned to Cornelius. “Can’t this wait until some other night when I’ve had more time to mentally prepare to talk to Jane?”

  It was one thing to channel someone whom I’d never met. But I’d shared meals with Jane, talked about my career hopes, listened to her struggles with her ex-husbands, and celebrated my first sale with her. I wasn’t sure how making a connection with her ghost was going to hit me, but I would hazard a guess that a wrecking ball might be less damaging if I wasn’t ready for her.

  “We can’t leave now,” Cornelius said. “She could close the door on us at any moment. And we have five of us here—it’s the perfect number for a séance.”

  “I thought four was the magic number.” That’s what he’d told me when we snuck in Ms. Wolff’s apartment in the Galena House that first time we held a séance there.

  “Four is good for delving into the past to seek a spirit. Five is perfect for communicating with an entity that’s already here.”

  Where did he get this shit? Was there some instructional manual for paranormal junkies out there?

  “We have to do it, Vi.” Natalie took his side. “Jane must want you to see something down in that Hellhole.”

  What if I didn’t want to see what was in the Hellhole? I wasn’t even a little curious. In fact, my vote was to fill it full of cement and seal the damned thing off for good.

  “I don’t know about this, Cornelius,” Doc said, watching me. “Our channeler looks like she’s ready to bolt. You and I both know that the medium needs to be relaxed and ready in order to open a channel.”

  “It feels too rushed,” Cooper added.

  “That’s because you’re a cop,” Natalie said. “You’re used to planning everything and writing reports about it later.” Her smile took any sting out of her words. “Spontaneity makes you itchy, hot cop.”

  Whereas Natalie shot from the hip most days.

  I crossed my arms. “We’re forgetting about my first objection—I’m hungry.”

  Cornelius pointed at his protein drink that still sat on a bookshelf by the door.

  I scowled at him. “I’m not drinking that stuff.”

  Doc chuckled. “You could mix it with tequila.”

  “Channeling while hungry will sharpen your focus.” Cornelius finished making his rock art and laid a line of salt in front of the closet door. “Violet, please.”

  Crud. He rarely ever asked me nicely. In fact, I wasn’t sure he even knew that word until now. I sighed. “You promise that we’re only going to stay in this room and ask her questions?”

  “Of course.”

  “How can you be sure we’ll reach her and we aren’t wasting our time?” Cooper asked.

  “Because she’s already here.” Cornelius set the salt shaker next to his protein drink. “She’s been here with us pretty much since I came down here.”

  “What?” I gaped at him and then Doc. “I thought she’d disappeared after leading Cooper and me in here.” Cooper hadn’t mentioned still being able to see her since then. “Why didn’t either of you two say something?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure at first that it was her energy I was picking up.” Cornelius was the first to speak. “She’s being very shifty tonight.”

  How was that different from normal? Jane had left us a message previously to stop watching her. She didn’t like being videotaped against her will, apparently wanting to reach out on her own terms.

  “I’m only catching a little from her, and even that is iffy. Something is different tonight, which must have to do with why she’s opened the door,” Doc confirmed. “Coop, you seeing anything?”

  He shook his head. “Not since she lured us in here earlier.”

  I chewed on my lower lip. “What do you think, Doc? Should we do this?”

  He shrugged. “We can keep it short and simple. Have you ask a few questions and then ask her to lock the door and shut off the lights behind us.”

  I frowned at the open closet door. I could do this. I’d faced off with a pack of Chimera, for Christ’s sake. What was one ghost—and a nice one at that?

  “Okay, let’s do this and be done. I have a date with a hot guy, three kids, some cheese, and a television tonight.”

  While Cornelius moved the furniture around to his liking and positioned Natalie and then Cooper, who was even less thrilled than I was about doing the séance, I called Aunt Zoe. When she asked what was holding us up, I told her there were two problems—Jane and a Hellhole. That spurred a lot more whispered questions, but I assured her I’d fill her in on it all as soon as I came home if she’d save Doc and me a couple pieces of the meat-lovers pizza she told me she’d bought for an easy Saturday night supper.

  After our deal was made and she’d warned me to be careful and stay out of the “dark,” referring to the realm where I’d run into trouble more than once while channeling, I hung up.

  When Cornelius pointed at the chair placed alone in the center of the room, I cringed.

  “Why do I have to be the monkey in the middle?” Before Cooper could get a smartass comment in, I pointed at him. “If you say one word, I’ll drag you into the dark with me.”

  He grinned, but kept his mouth closed.

  “Because you’re channeling.” Cornelius held
the ghost meter up again and pushed a button.

  “Why do you call that thing ‘Eddy’?” I asked as I took a seat.

  “Because it’s spelled E-D-I.”

  “It’s sort of an all-in-one ghost hunting tool,” Doc explained as he sat down on the floor next to the closet door. I wondered if there was a reason for him choosing that spot and if so, did it have anything to do with keeping me from going down through that trapdoor.

  I turned back to Cornelius. “So, you’re watching for signs of Jane’s energy via changes in the electromagnetic field in here?”

  He nodded. “And any fluctuations in temperature, humidity, and air pressure.”

  “Is she in here right now?” Natalie asked. She got to sit over near the file cabinet, lucky girl.

  “No, but there still seems to be something out in the hallway causing a spike in readings. When I move closer to it, the entity shifts farther away.”

  Jane had been a pretty private person when she was alive, so it was no surprise that extended into death.

  “What’s the plan?” Cooper asked. He stood in the office doorway for some reason. “And what am I supposed to do with this rock?” He held out a black stone that Cornelius had handed him a moment before.

  “That’s hematite,” Cornelius explained. “It will ground you, help balance your energy, and eliminate stress.” He pointed at Natalie. “You have a piece of lepidolite, which will help you feel more connected to our surroundings tonight. Your goal is to stay alert and watch for signs of trouble while the rest of us are under.”

  “Will do!” she said, palming her stone.

  “What’s mine?” I asked, holding up the polished rock he’d given me while I was on the phone with Aunt Zoe.

  “Black tourmaline. It will help you block out negative forces that might try to keep you from succeeding.”

  “How come Doc doesn’t have a stone?” Natalie asked.

  “Because he’s an Oracle. He stores the visions of his stones in his mind’s eye.” Cornelius sat cross-legged on the desktop, facing me. “Now, I will begin while you focus on the candle flame, channeler.”