Heirloom Magic: Every Witch Way (9 page)

“Are they?” she demanded,
and Mallory nodded again, holding her finger up to her lips, like it was a
secret. Harper felt like her head was going to explode, unicorns and dragons.
It felt like she had just stepped into an alternate reality.

Harper eyed the
box of dragon claws, there must be at least a hundred and fifty. “Did we…kill
the dragons?” she asked, feeling sick at the thought of murdering a dragon,
even if it was to make two hundred dollars a claw!

Mallory laughed
again. “Of course not. They are protected. They shed their talons twice a year,
so we just go collect them after they migrate. Their claws are great in some of
our potions though—we just grind them up.” Harper shook her head. Her life had
changed so much these last few days.

“I didn’t know you
were coming in today?” Mallory commented as she set the box aside and motioned
for Harper to follow her into the back room where it was quieter. The hum of
the crowd disappeared completely as soon as Mallory shut the door, and Harper
was surprised. “It’s sound proofed,” she explained.

Harper stared at
the thin, rickety walls and raised an eyebrow. It looked like she could
probably punch her way through it. “Really?” she asked, and Mallory nodded.

“Magically,” she
amended, and that made a lot more sense. Mallory stood watching as Harper
looked around for a few minutes, giving the witch some time.

“It’s been a crazy
day,” Harper confided at last, and Mallory nodded.

“I heard about
Caspian,” Mallory admitted, making a disgusted face when she spoke his name,
like it was a curse.

“It’s so much
pressure,” Harper agreed. “I just can’t seem to figure this stuff out, and
there is SO much riding on me,” she vented. Mallory looked like she was going
to open her mouth, but Harper interrupted her. “I set the kitchen on fire!” she
blurted out, and Mallory’s eyebrows rose up at that little tidbit. Apparently
Jasper hadn’t told
everyone
.

“You are pretty
new to all of this,” she tried to comfort the distraught witch, but doubt
nagged at her subconscious. Once the power moved from one soul to another, the
magic should become second nature to the witch, even without any formal
training. It was like breathing.

Harper watched
Mallory’s face turn down, deep in thought. “What is it?” she demanded, and
Mallory shook her head.

“I’m not sure. No
one around here is really qualified to help you…” she told Harper.

“Jasper has
offered,” Harper told her friend, and Mallory looked surprised.

“He did?” Mallory
demanded, and Harper shrugged.

“He just wants me
to figure this all out so I can release him from the curse,” she told her
friend, holding up her finger with the ring to show Mallory.

Mallory nodded,
though there was a gleam in her eye.

“I have an idea!” she
said suddenly, snapping her fingers in excitement.

Harper eyed the
vampire warily, not really sure what to expect. “What?”

“I can’t believe I
didn’t think of this earlier. There is really only one person who could
possibly help you.” Harper stared at Mallory blankly, waiting for her to
elaborate.

“Who?” she finally
demanded when the vampire ignored her and began moving around the back, rummaging
through boxes. Harper watched her pull out large, cream-colored candles and
stack them in a pile.

“Gran, of course,”
she said, making Harper’s pulse spike.

“Gran is….” Harper
trailed off, unable to say the word dead.

Mallory knew what
she meant though and nodded. “You aren’t honestly telling me that with
everything you’ve learned lately that you don’t believe in ghosts?” she asked
with a chuckle. “You’re a witch, I’m a vampire. Ghosts are not that much of a
stretch.” Harper gasped. She had never even imagined such a thing was true.

Harper’s stomach
knotted in anxiety. “You’re talking about a séance?” she asked, and
Mallory nodded, making her red curls bounce.

“Tonight at your
house. It’s where her memories will be the strongest.” Harper wanted to argue,
and run out in terror, but a large part of her needed to see her gran one more
time. She’d never had a chance to say goodbye, and she had so many questions.

“Okay...” she agreed
hesitantly, and Mallory beamed at her.

“This is going to
be amazing,” Mallory gushed. “I will bring everything we need tonight—midnight
is best. So I’ll come set up around eleven.”

Harper walked out
of the shop on rubbery legs and climbed into the truck with Jasper. Jasper
looked up at her sharply when he sensed her erratic pulse.

“What’s the
matter?” he demanded, and Harper shrugged weakly.

“Mallory is coming
over later. We are going to summon Gran to help me with my magic.” Harper
looked up in time to see a big smile spread across Jasper’s face.

“It will be nice
to see her again,” he said softly as he started the truck and steered them
towards the house. “And you could definitely use the help!” he added, unable to
resist.

Harper resisted
the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. She was both intrigued and
terrified. She had no idea what to expect.

Chapter Eight

Harper’s stomach was in knots by the time Mallory knocked on the door
promptly at eleven. She opened the door, her eyes widening when she saw the
array of things the vampire had shoved into an enormous cardboard box. “Do you
want me to give you a hand with that?” Harper offered politely, making Mallory
laugh.

“I’m a vampire,
remember?” she smiled. “This box would be much harder for you to carry.” Harper
nodded, blushing a bit for misremembering such a simple thing, and Mallory
shifted the enormous box to one hand just to show off.

“What do you have
in there, rocks?” Harper asked with a joke, and Mallory nodded.

“Yeah, basically.
I have crystals for the séance.”

Harper motioned
Mallory into the living room where Jasper sat waiting. He had insisted on
pushing the furniture out of the way earlier, and Harper had allowed it, even
though she had no idea why.

“Hey, you already
cleared a space,” Mallory approved as she set her box down in the middle of the
floor and began to pass Jasper all sorts of different stuff that he seemed to
know exactly what to do with. Harper sat back, feeling useless, and watched as
they arranged a ring of large crystals in the very center of the floor before
turning to her. Mallory held out a small burlap bag.

Harper’s fingers
shook when she took it. “What is this?” she asked, hating how little she knew
about all of this.

“Salt,” Mallory said.
“It burns our skin, so you’ll have to do the honors.”

“Just sprinkle it
inside the ring of crystals, but be careful the circle doesn’t have any gaps or
spaces.”

Harper started to
sprinkle the salt thickly, careful that the entire circle joined. Contact with
the salt tingled her skin, but didn’t actually hurt. “What happens if there’s a
gap?” she asked.

“The salt keeps
spirits contained inside the circle. If there are any breaks, they could
escape.” Harper looked at the two vampires, her jaw slack.

“It isn’t a big
deal usually, unless we accidentally summon an evil spirit. Summoning them
could allow them to cross over into our dimension,” Mallory told her, and
Harper began heaping on the salt, just in case.

“That
sounds…terrifying,” she admitted to them, and they both nodded. “It can be.
There have been a lot of problems created from people summoning the dead
without the proper safeguards,” Mallory explained.

“Humans usually,”
Jasper interrupted her with a snort, shaking his head in disapproval. “That’s
how you get all the demonic possessions and poltergeists.”

Harper’s mind flew
to every horror movie she’d ever seen, and she pinched the bridge of her nose
as she remembered all the head spinning and demonic vomiting.

“It’s alright,”
Mallory said warmly as she took Harper’s hand in her own cold one. “We know how
to do this right. Everything will be fine.”

Harper nodded. She
was so tired of feeling weak and terrified. It wasn’t who she was, granted in
her old life it had been things like having bigger balls then the men at her
firm, and not being squeamish about the dark, but still... she needed to shake
this weak woman complex. “Okay, let’s do it,” she said, mustering a grin, and
Mallory beamed.

Harper’s new
resolve faltered when Mallory pulled out a ceremonial dagger and took her hand.
“Why does everything need blood?” she asked with a groan, and Jasper grinned as
he used his fangs to nick his own wrist and let his blood fall into the wooden
bowl in Mallory’s hand.

“All participants
must have a connection to the person we are trying to summon, and each person
must make a blood sacrifice.” Mallory handed the knife to Harper and then bit
into her own wrist.

“You can’t do it?”
Harper asked, eyeing the sharp knife gripped in her fingers, and Mallory shook
her head.

“It has to be by
your own hand. If I take the blood, it’s not your sacrifice,” she explained.

Harper took a deep
breath and slid the cold steel across her palm—whimpering a little at the bite
of the blade for the second time that day. She saw Mallory’s nostrils flair as
the vampire held out the bowl and Harper squeezed her hand into a fist over the
bowl, making her blood run down in rivulets.

Mallory sprinkled
in some crushed crystals that started the gory mixture sizzling and then she
tossed the blood across the salt barrier, into the center of the circle. Harper
winced when the blood landed with a splatter on the floor.

“We need you for
this part,” Mallory muttered, watching the circle avidly. “Just repeat after
me.” She cleared her throat and then spoke in a booming voice that was quite
surprising for someone as petite as Mallory. “I call forth the spirit of
Elizabetta Jones.”

Harper took a deep
breath when Mallory turned towards her and nodded. “I…I call forth the spirit
of Elizabetta Jones,” Harper said and then held her breath to see what would
happen. Jasper stepped forward and repeated the same thing, and then all three
of them were staring at the circle, waiting.

Harper thought she
saw the smallest wisp of smoke, but it was gone in the flash of an eye, so
quickly that she thought for sure she’d imagined it. A loud pop exploded from
the center of the circle, making Harper jump.

“Gran?” she asked
hesitantly, stepping back suddenly when a dark shape began to form.

“No,” a gravelly,
masculine voice answered her, and Harper felt a stab of fear. What had they
summoned?

The image
solidified to reveal a man standing in front of them. There was something
familiar about him.

“You don’t
recognize your own Grand-Dad?” the man asked with a chuckle, and Harper
squinted at him harder. He was young looking and dressed in a tight pair of
slacks, a white shirt, and dark suspenders. The clothing era seemed almost
1920’s. Harper took a curious step forward before remembering that her grandfather
had also been a demon, and she stopped.

“Hi,” she managed
to get out, feeling tongue tied as she recognized him from the photo her gran
had always kept beside her bed. The man…demon…in front of her grinned, showing
off pearly white teeth, his dark brown eyes flashing like there was a live fire
behind them.

“You are more
beautiful than Lizzy described,” he said, looking at her in admiration, and
despite the fact that he was a ghost, and her grandfather—Harper blushed.

A swirl of smoke
stirred beside him and then a young woman, probably around Harper’s own age,
stood beside him. “You’re embarrassing the poor girl,” she scolded before
turning her beautiful smile, with her plump cherry lips, on Harper. Harper’s
jaw dropped.

“It is nice to see
you looking so young again, Liz,” Jasper interrupted, and Harper’s young,
vivacious gran turned her smile on him, eliciting a jealous growl from the
demon beside her.

Elizabetta laughed
and put a restraining hand on his arm. “It is nice to see you again too,
Jasper. It has been a lot of years since you saw me like this,” she laughed
again, and Jasper nodded.

“You are just as
beautiful as the last time I saw you,” Jasper fibbed, and Harper’s grandfather
growled again, making Jasper grin a little. “Take it easy old man,” Jasper
said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

“Not in front of
Harper, dear,” Elizabetta chided—Harper was having a difficult time thinking of
this young woman as her gran. “You’ve summoned us here because you’re
struggling,” Elizabetta said knowingly.

“Actually, we only
summoned
you
here,” Jasper couldn’t help pointing out.

“Oh, Jasper, dear.
You have been giving Harper such a hard time. I know it is a difficult thing
for you to resist.” She didn’t seem mad in the least, in fact she was beaming.
“I have been separated from this man for too long, and I won’t be again,”
Elizabetta said lightly, though there was passion beneath her words as she
stroked Harper’s grandfather’s forearm.

Harper looked away
from their affection, but only for a moment, and then her eyes wandered back to
them, wanting to soak in every detail. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Harper blurted
out before she could lose her nerve, and Elizabetta’s face fell for a moment.

“I honestly
thought springing this on you was best, letting you have a normal life before
you got caught up in all of this craziness.” She motioned towards the living
room filled with supernaturals. “I thought there would be more time, and then
there wasn’t…” she trailed off, and a hot tear ran down Harper’s face. “ Don’t
be sad for me, my darling. I’m not gone, this is only another level of being.
I’m happy.” She looked over at the man beside her and beamed. “I am so happy.”
Harper sniffed, trying to reel her emotions back in so she wouldn’t drag the
reunion down.

“You are in a
tough position that none of the Jones witches before you had to deal with,”
Elizabetta said, getting right down to business. “Our line is one of the most
powerful in the world, but because of your demonic blood, everything is so
amplified. It is like your magic is on steroids.”

Her grandfather chuckled
at that comparison, and his chest puffed out with pride. “Once you learn to
harness your powers, there will be none that can rival you,” her grandfather
chimed in, and Liz nodded.

“That is true. It
can be scary, but the entire world is wide open to you. There is so much good
you can do with your talents—so many people you can help.”

Harper nodded
slowly, she hadn’t thought of it like that.

“You’ve already
saved the town and you haven’t even mastered boiling water yet,” Jasper chimed
in, making everyone but Harper laugh.

Harper reached
over and slapped Jasper across the top of his arm, making her grandfather nod
in approval.

“Imagine your
power like a beam of light,” Gran said, drawing Harper’s attention back to the
matter at hand. “The light is bright and thick, and may seem immoveable, but
you have the power to choke it back and only let out a tiny pin prick of light,
if that is what you desire.” Harper imaged a brilliant white beam of light in
her mind and then concentrated and it slowly diminished to just a trickle.

“Will that really
work?” she asked, and both of her grandparent’s nodded. “The power is in you,
and you can control it any way you like. You just have to figure out what works
best for you.”

“Just watch your
temper,” her grandfather warned with a smile. “You have a little bit of the
devil in you,” he said with a wink that made Harper feel a tight knot form in
her stomach, rather than any sort of reassurance.

“You will do
great. I know it,” Elizabetta chimed in, helping to ease some of the anxiety.
Both of the ghosts suddenly looked back over their shoulders at something that
only they could see.

“We have to go,” her
grandfather said brusquely, and Elizabetta nodded.

“I love you
darling. Come talk to us again some time,” she said before they both
disappeared. Harper blinked, and they were gone.

“No,” she cried,
but there was no one there to hear her. The air in the circle began to ripple
and a black hand became visible, like it was trying to claw its way out. Harper
took a step forward, but then just as quickly jumped back when she realized
that it wasn’t her grandparents.

“What is that?” she
asked, moving closer to Mallory and Jasper.

“A demon,” Jasper
said, looking grim as he picked up the bag of salt and threw the contents into
the middle of the circle. The creature gave a shriek that was deafening and
disappeared with a loud snap.

“The connection is
closed now,” Mallory told Harper and then calmly began picking up her crystals
and putting them back into the box. Harper spun to Jasper and put her hands on
her hips.

“What just
happened?” she demanded.

“A demon tried to
get through,” Jasper told her, and Harper was confused.

“Why was it so
different looking than my grandfather?” she asked, remembering the small,
black, pointed teeth with glowing red eyes she had briefly seen before Jasper
had thrown salt at it.

“Not all demons
are created equally. You have your higher ups like your grandfather. His form
is usually human unless he chooses to shift into his demonic self, but that
thing that was just trying to get through,” Jasper paused like he was trying to
think of how to explain it the best. “Think of that as the dregs of the demon
world.”

Harper’s head spun
with information. “So not every demon is the same?” she asked, and this time
Mallory shook her head.

“That thing
clawing its way through the portal was more like an animal. A lesser demon.
They are not capable of rational thought, they just have one purpose and that
is to create death and destruction,” Mallory said.

“That was probably
the reason your grandparent’s left. They didn’t want it to get through,” Jasper
told her as he and Mallory picked up the remainder of the crystals. Harper
stared at the salt on the floor.

“I’ll go find the
broom,” she told them quietly, her mind spinning as she started to walk away,
but Jasper put a restraining hand on her arm. She turned and looked at him
questioningly. “What?”