Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (16 page)

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, yanking the gun out of my trembling hands and holding it over his head. “I told you not to take this rifle out in public.”

“Calm down, Rambo,” I said, snatching at the weapon, though my diminished height meant I had no chance in hell at getting my gun back. “Laura was being attacked. I had no other choice.”

The scowl on his face softened. “Is she still alive?”

“She’s behind the counter.” I hurried over to Laura, Constantine just behind me. Squatting, my fingers felt her clammy neck. Her pulse was strong, steady, sure. My body sagged in relief. “She’s fine.”

“Good.” The floor creaked as Constantine shifted in his heavy boots. “I told you not to come back here.”

“And I thought I made it clear you’re not the boss of me.” I stood and met his stern gaze head on with one of my own.

“If I’m going to train you, and if we’re going to work together on this, then you need to listen to what I have to say.” He gestured at where Laura lay prone on the floor. “This could have turned out a hell of a lot worse.”

“And you need to listen to what I have to say,” I said. “Just because you’ve been trained in the art of war doesn’t mean I know nothing about how things work around here.”

“You made a stupid decision.” He kept pointing at Laura, who had now opened her eyes and begun to watch the heated exchange. “One that could have gotten your friend killed.”

“Dude, I can speak for myself.” Laura pushed up from the floor and held herself steady with one hand on Wanda’s counter. “It was as much my idea to come here as it was hers.”

“You know what?” Constantine threw his hands in the air as he glanced from me to Laura and back to me again. “Have it your way. You don’t want me to help? Consider me gone.”

Constantine stomped through the broken glass, his shoulders stiff and his spine stick straight. Something bubbled up inside me that I hadn’t expected. I didn’t want him to go. Despite how incredibly irritating this guy could be and despite how much he liked to boss me around, I knew we could really use someone like him around.

“Constantine, wait,” I said, taking a few steps after him.

He hovered in the door for a moment, twisting his neck to look over his shoulder. Our eyes met across the room, and something soft flickered in the depths of his gaze. But his frown quickly zapped that away, the hardness returning to his expression.

“It’s John.” His voice held zero warmth as he turned away. “You had your chance. Good luck.”

***

Back at the house, I brewed two very strong cups of coffee for me and Laura—hers with some healing sage blended in—as we tried to determine our next steps against George. By the time I’d gotten her back to the house, Constantine’s belongings had vanished, the only evidence he’d been here the deep rut his tires had left in the snowy ground.

“It’s a good thing he’s gone,” Laura said as I paced back and forth, nibbling on one of the last few cookies. Even though I felt sleep-deprived and brain-addled, my whole body tensed with pent-up energy. If I didn’t pace, my skin might jump right off my bones and run away. To be fair, I couldn’t really blame it if it did.

“I’m not so sure, Laura,” I said with a frown. “For the first time, we really had a shaman ally, someone who knows stuff about the world. Someone who knows what to do. I know you didn’t agree with his tactics, but you have to admit they worked.”

“We’ve managed on our own before.” She gulped down her tea and reached for the packet of pain killers I’d found in Mom’s drawer. The spirit hadn’t had enough time to do much damage to her soul, but her head pounded and her throat felt raw.

“Yeah, but look how that went.” My frown grew deeper, mind flicking back to Anthony Lombardi, just like always. He was my very own personal ghost, one who wouldn’t leave me alone.

“Besides, you banished that spirit just fine without him,” she said. “Thanks, by the way.”

“Laura.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. I hadn’t yet told her how I’d gotten rid of the spirit. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand, that she’d lump me in with Constantine, who she clearly didn’t like. She’d known I had the gun with me, but I was pretty sure she thought I’d never use it. That I was above doing the unthinkable and killing someone, even if it was truly a some
thing
.

Her eyes dawned with understanding, and a frown played at her lips.

“I know you don’t agree with it,” I said quickly as I eased into the chair across from her, “but it was the only thing I could do. It was your life at stake, and I would have done anything to save you.”

The sigh that came from Laura was one of the heaviest I’d ever heard, but I couldn’t take back what I’d done now. And I wouldn’t even if I could. If I were plopped in the exact same situation again, I’d do it all the same. Laura was more important to me than some moralistic need to save spirits from some extinction they definitely deserved.

“I don’t want you to kill a spirit in order to save me,” she said. I opened my mouth to argue, but she raised a hand. “I’m serious. We don’t know the repercussions of it. If it really is tearing holes in the Borderland, that means
everyone
could be at risk. Just please promise me you won’t do it again until we know for sure what the consequences are.”

Frowning, an objection rose up in my throat, but I clamped it down. I couldn’t promise something like that, and she knew it. But I also couldn’t bring myself to argue with her now, not after what she’d been through tonight. A subject change was needed, stat.

“I think the more important thing for us to worry about right now is George,” I said. “She took the tarot cards.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Laura’s face clouded over. “I can’t believe I gave her the benefit of the doubt. That I basically invited her over the other night. I really wanted to trust her. There was just something about her that…nevermind.”

“We both did,” I said. “Mostly.”

“You didn’t trust her from the start.” Laura sighed and looked up with me with tired eyes. Her face reflected how I felt inside. Drained, tired, weary from the constant supernatural plagues on our town.

“I have an idea,” I said, reaching for my laptop. “She’s from Salem. Let’s see if we can find any info on her before we make our next move.”

Laura nodded as I flicked open the screen. “She said there was some crazy stuff that went down. Maybe there’s something about it online.”

I tapped a few keys and pulled up the browser. “What’s her last name?”

“Proctor.” Laura reached out a trembling hand and placed it on my arm. “Holly, do you think she killed Wanda?”

My fingers froze on the keys as I chose my words carefully. “No, I think a spirit killed Wanda.”

“I mean, do you think George summoned the spirit to kill Wanda?”

I sighed and returned to my key pecking. “Unfortunately, I think it’s a very real possibility that George is behind everything. And yes, that would include Wanda’s death.”

I typed George’s name into the search box and watched the results fill the screen. They were too broad, too many George Proctor’s in the world to make sense of the information displayed. Dozens of Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Instagram feeds. And a quick glance told me none of these accounts belonged to the George we knew.

Clicking back, I typed George’s name in along with the word ‘Salem’. This time, the results were much more promising. Several news reports about a fire in Salem, Massachusetts caught my eye halfway down the page.

I clicked, and when the article filled the screen, Laura sucked in a sharp breath and dug her fingernails into my arm. “That’s her.”

Slowly, I scanned the words, my eyes caught by the photo accompanying the article. George wore her usual nonchalant expression, along with a pair of handcuffs where two cops held her just beside a flashing police car. Behind her, the ashy remains of a hollowed out building crumbled into sooty mist, fingers of black stretching up the buildings on either side.

The headline read,
Teen Wannabe Witch Burned Down Local Magic Shop
.

“What do you think this means?” Laura asked, pressing her nose closer to the screen.

“I think it means she was definitely behind Wanda’s death,” I said, clicking back to the main search results. Another news article caught my eye, and I clicked on the link.

This time, George’s grainy photo showed a much younger version of herself. She was maybe ten, and she was surrounded by candles. She hovered beside a large now-familiar rune that had been dug into a forest’s dirt floor. The rune to lure a spirit. My heart sunk with every word I read.

Local Girl Caught Attempting A Demon Possession On School Friends.

In this photo, George didn’t wear her daily mask. Instead, she looked triumphant, smiling ear to ear as if she’d won the lottery and not had her photo snapped by a hungry news reporter with nothing better to do than spy on some ten-year-olds playing at magic.

Only, I wasn’t so sure she’d been playing.

“Holly,” Laura said slowly. “Are there such things as witches?”

“I don’t know.” Turning away from my laptop, I searched Laura’s face for answers I knew she didn’t have any more than I did. “Mom has never mentioned any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. She’s left out a lot of stuff. This could be one of them.”

“So, George is a witch, and she likes to communicate with demons.”

“Spirits,” I said. “Remember she was calling them demons.”

“You’re right.” Laura’s frown grew deeper. “And if she communicates with spirits, it makes sense why she wouldn’t want people to kill them.”

“So, there must be a reason she took that tarot card deck,” I said.

“Wanda must have known about George and what she’s up to,” Laura said in a rush. “And the tarot cards could have revealed it somehow.”

“Come on,” I said, slamming my laptop shut and standing from the table. “We need to make a move now before she realizes we’ve figured things out.”

Laura followed me into the living room where I threw some supplies into my bag. Astral ran up to both of us, meowing loudly, as if he didn’t agree with what I planned to do. Sighing, I squatted to ruffle his fur and give him a quick cat treat, but for once, that didn’t work to quiet his cries.

“What are we going to do?” Laura asked.

I tossed her my knife and gave her a long, determined look. “We’re going to do what we always do.”

“Approach the situation head on,” Laura finished my thoughts. “We’re going to George’s house.”

***

Even though Anthony had stolen the book that held all of the specialist spells Laura and I had discovered in September, I still remembered each and every slash of one specific rune: Cloak. We’d decided not to confront George head-on quite yet, having learned our lesson from all the other times we’d barrelled into situations without thinking things through. Instead, we wanted to gather as much information as possible, and that included extracting the tarot cards from her possession to see what they could tell us.

We bundled up in winter gear and cast the spell before heading out into the cold. Laura said George lived only half a mile down the road in a small little cabin surrounded by a small, undisturbed forest. As we crunched through the snow, our footsteps left marks of our existence, but no one peeking out of their windows could see us shifting quietly through the shadowy night. When we reached George’s mailbox, it came paired with a gravel driveway leading into a thick brush of trees.

“This is George’s house.” Laura squeezed my hand tighter.

“Why does this not surprise me?” I asked. “It’s exactly where I would expect a witch to live.”

We started up the long twisting drive, passing under the canopy of leafless trees. It blocked out the moon’s silvery light, but we powered on ahead, taking careful steps on the uneven ground. When we finally reached a clearing, I stopped short at the sight before us.

A dark red Mustang squatted in the driveway, the only car visible on the property.

“What the hell is Nathan doing here?” I asked, heart suddenly pounding from adrenaline that hadn’t been there moments before. Had she kidnapped him because she knew we were suspicious? Was she going to use him as some kind of ransom? Had she attacked him in the graveyard with all those spirits and now come back for more?

“Shh,” Laura said, squeezing my shoulder. “We don’t want her to hear us, even if we are invisible. If she’s a witch, she could have witch vision or something.”

“Laura.” I tried to fight back the tears bubbling up in my eyeballs. “Why does she have Nathan? What if he’s her target in order to stop us?”

“Listen.” Laura took my shaking hands between her palms and turned me to face her. Since we were bound, I could still see every single inch of her body despite the fact we were invisible to the rest of the world. Her face had transformed into a calm and soothing mask, holding herself together when I felt like I was anything but. “We’ll find out what she’s doing, and we’ll make sure Nathan is okay. And then we are going to call your dad or that John Constantine guy, and they are going to come kick her ass all the way to Antarctica.”

“Constantine is gone,” I said in a whisper, though her words started to soothe some of my worry. A plan, that’s all we needed. A plan to get Nathan out of there. “I don’t think he’ll come back even if we begged, and my dad doesn’t seem to care that I even exist.”

“That Constantine guy just wanted you to appreciate him.” Laura rolled her eyes and smirked. “If you called him all damsel in distress, he’d be back here in less than a heartbeat.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” I said. “I irritated the hell out of him.”

“Because you didn’t want his help,” she said. “Just trust me. If we need him, he’ll come running.”

I didn’t like the idea of some white knight riding in to save the day. I preferred to take care of myself, thank you very much. But I couldn’t say the thought of help only a phone call away didn’t ease some of the Hulk-sized tension in my shoulders.

Laura and I knew next to nothing about shamanism, and we knew even less about witches, or whatever George was. She could have powers beyond what we could handle.