Dead Living (Spirit Caller Book 5) (11 page)

Javier tipped his chin at Jeremy. “You’re looking good, Jeremy.”

Jeremy, of course, was in his boxer briefs. Jeremy, however, didn’t feel the total humiliation of being in his underwear. Cultural expectations are a bitch and a half.

“Get. Rid. Of. Them. Now,” Dema ordered.

Javier frowned and cut through the first figure. The zombies roared in unison and rushed Javier, overwhelming him. He shouted in rage and his spirit sword pierced through their manifested bodies. The sword hummed with each new soul added to its vast reservoir.

“Jeremy! Keep Rachel safe!” Isabella shouted. She reached behind her shoulder and a glowing sword appeared in her hand. She carved a path to Javier.

Jeremy grabbed me by the waist and pulled me tight against his body, kitchen knife still in hand.

I watched in sick fascination as Manny grunted and growled, punching the ethereal zombies. His fists would sink through their forms and they faded away. Connie muttered under her breath, sweat poured down her face, and she ripped the, well, soul out of the spirits. Assuming spirits had souls, I suppose.

I shouted at the spirits. “Be gone!” Still nothing happened.

I could feel slippery thoughts entering my mind, fighting for space alongside Javier’s calm litany of comfort. I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried other phrases and things that had worked before, but nothing.

“Why can’t I banish them?” I shouted through my opened window.

“Powerful summoning. Requires a banisher,” Connie shouted back, thrusting two hands into two different spirits who’d turned their attention to the cabin.

“Like those old Viking ghosts,” Javier shouted.

An agonized, heart-wrenching sound escaped Jeremy. I snapped around to look at him, just as he screamed, “Get out of my head!”

“What’s wrong? Jeremy, what’s wrong?”

He continued to scream, falling to his knees and dragging me down with him. “I’m not listening! Do you hear me? I’m not listening!”

“What? What is the matter?” I shook him. “Jeremy, speak to me!”

“They…the voices…I’m not listening!” Anger like I’d never heard in him before rose up in his voice and he shouted, “I’m not afraid, you bastards. Do you hear me? I’m not afraid of you!”

The tension in the air snapped. An energy that made the hairs on my arms stand up washed over me and, just like that, the spirits faded away. Gone nearly as quickly as they’d arrived.

I brushed a hand across Jeremy’s tear-streaked face. “Are you all right?”

Sweat beaded along his hairline. He was trembling, but he gave me a shaky smile. “They tried to get into my head and mess me up. But I’m not afraid of their bullshit.”

I touched his face and wiped away his tears. “I sure am.”

Jeremy laughed, a desperate, choked sound, and he hugged me to him. The others poured into the cabin, and he asked, “What happened? What are you three doing here?”

“Five,” Dema said contemptuously. “Spirit Caller, please tell the Tall Man to learn how to count. Do they not teach that in your prisons?”

“I think you mean schools, Dema,” Connie said.

“Same thing,” Manny said bitterly.

“We’re here to rescue you,” Javier said.

I grasped for the blanket I’d lost in the fall and wrapped it around my semi-naked torso. Anything to cover me up was good. “Why do we need rescuing? And why is Connie here? And why does Isabella have a sword like Javier’s?”

“Um…” Connie said self-consciously.

“Well, see…” Manny began, but he stopped, motioning at Javier.

“Connie is one of mine,” Javier said briskly. “She came to St. Anthony,” he pronounced it
Saint Anthony.
We all rolled our eyes. “I needed someone in Newfoundland.” He pronounced it it
New-found-lund.

“NEWF-in-land,” me, Jeremy, Manny, Connie, and Dema all said in unison.

Javier chuckled and said, “
New-FIN-lund
. Regardless, I sent her to look after Manny. I wasn’t expecting…this.” He gave them a knowing grin. “Young love never really changes, does it?”

“Wait…so Isabella isn’t really your sister?” I asked Connie.

“Oh, she is. She was here to check up on everyone.”

“And Manny knows who you are?”

Manny nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Rachel, she said I couldn’t tell anyone.”

I looked at Dema. “Did you know?”

“The demon child threatened to banish me if I told you.”

Connie rolled her eyes. “I’m a Banisher. Spirits without a true self-will are destroyed forever whenever they are near me,” Connie said. She nodded at Dema. “Javier has instructed me not to harm you. As long as you do not harm or threaten me.”

Dema glared at her before rolling her eyes. “Spirit Caller, I am displeased with your choice in companions.”

“And where exactly have you been?” I demanded of Dema.

“Avoiding banishers,” she said, and I’m sure there was a hint of offense in her voice. “They know of me and sent hunters after me. I had to contact
them
for help.”

“Dema alerted me to the situation,” Connie said. Her fun and frills were gone; replaced with a professional shrewdness I’d never seen before in her. “Isabella was returning to town for a vacation, and Javier was planning to join her. Manny and I helped hide Dema until we were sure the hunters had left town. Then we came to get you two, but you’d already left. It took us a day to find you because we couldn’t risk Dema looking for you.”

“You are a troublesome Spirit Caller,” Dema said disapprovingly. “We must leave now.”

I struggled to my feet and wrapped my blanket tighter. “Let me go put some clothes on.”

Dema gave me a disgusted look. “Modesty is unbecoming of a Spirit Caller.”

“Dema, not now!” I shouted.

I made my way to the bedroom and pointedly shut the door. I jerked and contorted into jeans and a T-shirt, followed by a zip-up sweater. I was pulling on socks when Jeremy walked in, just as happy as you pleased in his flipping boxer shorts.

He hauled on his faded blue jeans, the ones that hung dangerously low on his hips when he didn’t wear a belt. “Javier said we need to hurry.”

“I had to put on socks,” I said sullenly.
Unapologetically
sullenly, I might add. “This was our romantic getaway.”

He bundled me up in his arms, still shirtless. “This is what life is for us sometimes. Me rushing off to deal with accidents or some asshole beating his wife. You rushing off because some weird-ass magical shit is going down. It’s just how it is.”

I made a face at him and began packing my suitcase. When Jeremy asked me what I was doing, I explained in a very calm, reasonable voice that I wasn’t going to let anyone pack up my dirty underwear. I was going to pack my own things and everyone could just wait.

“Rachel! Hurry up in there!” Javier called from the living room.

“She’s packing.”

“Rat,” I muttered at him.

The door flew open. Javier glowered at me. “We don’t have time.”

I motioned vaguely at the great vastness beyond the bedroom window. “We’ll catch up later. Otherwise, get to work and start cleaning the living room.”

“You are a very bossy Spirit Caller.” Javier succeeded in keeping
most
of his annoyance, and mirth, out of his voice.

Dema let out a sigh. “I have told her this, yet she fails to heed my instruction.”

Chapter 10

A Very Bossy Spirit Caller

While we cleaned the cabin —yes, I made them help—I drilled Javier and Isabella on why exactly why they interrupted my romantic weekend getaway.

“Whisperers are looking for you,” Javier said. He was packing the last of the food into our cooler. He snagged an apple for himself and took a big, juicy bit. “They sent those spirits to find you.” Another bite. “We think.”

I zipped up our big suitcase that had our boardgames in it. “What do you mean, you think?”

Isabella deposited our cans and wine bottles into a plastic bag. “They’ve been known to summon the dead and send them after their target. It is easier to track a hundred undead than it is to find one person.”

On cue, five of the flesh-ghosts that I refuse to call zombies shambled up to the open window. Connie heaved a sigh and said, “I’ll take care of them.”

“She’s just a kid,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. Ouch, my knees ached. Was I getting old?

Isabella held up a hand to stop me. “That kid has been doing this since she was little girl. She’s fine.”

“But she could get hurt,” I said.

Connie’s loud, annoyed commands interrupted me. “Go away.”

I smirked.

“Guys, seriously! I don’t want to banish you, but I will,” Connie said. I got the impression she was going to send them to bed without supper if they kept up their nonsense.

The not-zombies didn’t reply. Connie sighed. She looked back in at us and said, “They aren’t hurting anyone. Can we just leave them?”

“Destroy them,” Dema said.

“Dema,” I urged. “Just leave alone.”

“Rach, honey, you’re defending zombies.”

I zipped the suitcase more forcefully than was strictly necessary. “They are not zombies, and I’m not defending them. I just want to pack my things and leave.”

Connie shrugged. “Javier?”

He made a face. “There’s only five of them.”

Connie shook her finger at the not-zombies. “You guys behave.”

“We are here for the Spirit Caller,” one of them said.

“Aren’t we all?” Connie muttered and came back into the cabin.

Isabella ordered Connie around in the manner only an elder sister could do. Connie and Manny brought our garbage outside to the decorative wooden bin, designed to keep the wind and small critters from spewing litter everywhere. The brightly painted moose on the lid was perhaps not completely necessary, but everyone decorated their garbage boxes.

I thrust my luggage at Javier and, with a smirk, said, “Carry this.”

Javier rolled his eyes, but did so. He had been too quiet and far too cranky throughout this entire unannounced visit and I was frankly tired of his black cloud of doom. Therefore, he was punished by carrying my luggage.

We walked by the not-zombies, who moaned and bitched about how they were here for the Spirit Caller. I waved. “Outta here, boys.”

“Spirit Caller, you must not antagonize them.”

“Dema, look. You guys all show up here, still not explaining what’s going on, and are making me leave my mini-holiday. So excuse me for not wanting to play nice.”

We locked up the cabin and piled into the two boats. Manny, Connie, and Isabella went in one, while Javier came with us. Dema balanced her ethereal self on the small safety dinghy we tugged behind us. Jeremy drove the boat again, though he didn’t pretend he was James Bond on a mission this time. My stomach thanked him.

Do you even drive a boat? I realized all of this time living around fishermen and I had no idea what you called it. Well, the boat had a steering wheel, so I’m calling it driving. I used the short ride to hammer Javier for information.

“Why would they summon things when they are trying to stop people from summoning things?”

Javier shrugged, and grabbed a hold of the boat’s edge. “Hypocrites aren’t known for their logic.”

I glanced over at him. His tanned nose was turning darker and redder in the wind. “How many of your…people live in Newfoundland?”

He gave me a wicked smile. “More since you moved here.”

I rolled my eyes.

“So…you and Jeremy are engaged, huh? You’ll have to tell me all about it later.”

“Don’t use your charm on me,” I said sternly. “Am I in any real danger?”

Javier’s smile vanished. He looked out over the white-capped waves and inhaled a deep breath. When he looked back at me, his expression was grim. “I called in over a hundred people to help. We need to get you somewhere safe while we wait for the rest to arrive. I’ll feel better once they’re here.”

I glanced at Jeremy up at the wheelhouse. He couldn’t hear us talking down here. “Is Jeremy safe? Mrs. Saunders? Are they going to hurt everyone?”

Javier shook his head. “I don’t believe Mrs. Saunders is on their radar beyond someone who associates with you. Dema’s with us, so she’s as safe as she can be. If they were going to hurt anyone, it would most likely be Manny. If he’s with us, he’s safe.”

“I don’t want Jeremy hurt, either,” I said. “I mean it, Javier. He’s been through enough.”

“I can try to make him stay behind, but…”

I let out an annoyed sound. “He’d insist on coming. I don’t want him to get hurt again. It’s been…hard on us. I want to have a wedding. Don’t you dare let anything happen to him.”

Javier was quiet for a moment before he said, “I’ll do everything I can.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I looked down and nodded my thanks. I wiped at my eyes and forced down the lump in my throat. I needed to be strong for Jeremy right now. Javier was right about one thing. Jeremy would absolutely follow me no matter what. There was the practical side of having a Mountie with us, in case we got into huge trouble. There was also the comfort of having him by my side.

There was also the terrifying side that he wasn’t one-hundred percent and he could get hurt again. There was even the little voice that told me he might freeze at the sight of a gun pointed at him. Everyone reacted differently. Bringing him could get him hurt. Or, I could get hurt trying to protect him; he’d never forgive himself for that.

I also knew he was thinking all of this right now, too and probably also knew I was worrying. When we got off the boat, he’d put on a brave face and fight through everything because he’d want to stay strong for me.
And
he’d know that I’d know, and he’d still do it all anyway.

“Jeremy probably should come.”

Javier nodded. “You won’t be able to stop him from helping.”

“He can be pretty stubborn,” I admitted.

“We all can be when we want to be.”

We made landfall. Jeremy and Isabella tied the boats up. Manny pulled out his phone to call his mother. He walked around a bit until he announced he had a bar of service. “Hey Mom. I’m about to lose service. Rachel didn’t need help at her cabin after all. She says thanks, though. Can you drop by and see Mrs. Saunders? Rachel was supposed to visit her today, but we’re all going down to Bonne Bay for a drive. Thanks, Mom.” After a pause, he muttered, “Love you.”