Lucky Stars (63 page)

“Does this mean Brenna or Joshua can take over Jack or me?” Belle asked and all members of the quartet nodded.

“Fucking hell,” Jack clipped out.

“My
guess,
and Lewis might be able to confirm,” Lorna stated, “is that’s the way this has to go. Brenna, through you, has to do something, what, we don’t know yet. Or, perhaps, both of you need to do something. That’s what we’ve got to find out. All the players are here, we just don’t know what they have to do to release the children.”

“And how do you find that out?” Jack asked.

“We talk to the wee
ghosties
and hope they know,” Angus answered.

“And if they don’t?” Jack pushed.

The quartet looked amongst
themselves
then their gazes came to Jack. But it was only Angus that shrugged.

They had no idea.

“Bloody brilliant,” Jack muttered.

“So you need to call them,” Belle noted, her eyes going between Lachlan and Lorna.

“Aye,” Lachlan answered.

“And if you do that, it’ll be gently?” Belle asked.

“No harm will come to them, Belle,” Lachlan replied softly.

Jack felt Belle straighten at his side and she declared, “Well then, let’s do that now.”

“Fucking hell,” Jack repeated on a mutter.

“We have another problem,” Cassandra remarked and Jack’s eyes cut to her. “When we figure out how to send the children to the other plane, which we will do, Belle, I promise,” she said to Belle then went on. “We still have the reincarnated soul of Caleb Caldwell walking around. He intends harm. He’s proved that and we need to neutralise him.”

This was precisely what had been preying on Jack’s mind since Dempsey shared his news on Belle’s cottage steps that morning.

“Caldwell is reincarnated in my brother Miles,” Jack told them what they needed to know but he didn’t relish saying and felt all eyes on him.

“You sorted that, lad?” Angus asked quietly and Jack felt his eyes narrow.

“You knew already?” he shot back.

“Got
the niggle
when I first met him,” Angus replied. “The diary I told you about, local lore we’ve been hearing, Cass and me pieced it together. We can’t be sure, unless Cass touches him, but that’s our guess.”

Jack thought of Miles’s visit earlier that week, targeting his Belle who was unprotected and he felt a burn start in his stomach as he asked bitingly, “Did you think maybe to
share
that niggle in an effort to protect the inhabitants of this house?”

“
Laddie
, you’ve made it clear you aren’t thrilled about all the goings-on and Joy is a sweet lass. We’re not sure of that kind of information, information about your brother, we share it with you without any proof to back it,
do
you think you’d pat us on the back and give us a medal?” Angus returned.

“Maybe not but I would have taken measures to protect the inhabitants of this house,” Jack fired back.

Angus had the good grace to look uncomfortable as he muttered, “Point taken.”

It was
done,
all was well so Jack decided to move the conversation on.

“It’s highly unlikely you can confirm this as it’s highly unlikely that Miles will ever return to The Point. This I know since he’s vowed not to do so again,” Jack reported.

“He might not have a choice if Caldwell takes over his host. He won’t even know he’s doing it,” Lorna put in. “Therefore, we need to seek him out and neutralise him.”

“And uh, how would you go about doing that?” Belle asked cautiously.

“A spell, or, more accurately, a potion,” Cassandra answered. “The good news is
,
I have some. The other good news is, I’ve used it before and it works a charm. The bad news is
,
it’s like medicine. You don’t take it once and then,
poof,
entity gone. You have to take it once a month for the rest of your life in order to keep the spirit inside latent.”

“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered yet again.

“I think Miles is unlikely to do that,” Belle remarked and Lachlan stood.

“Then he’ll have to be convinced to do it,” he stated firmly and both Belle and Jack went still then Jack’s body went solid when he saw Angus’s demented smile.

“Lachlan has another gift. My
laddie
here has a way about him. He can convince folk to do a lot of things,” Angus declared.

“Do you hypnotise them or something?” Belle asked curiously.

“Yeah, they go into a trance, a trance caused by his fists,” Lorna muttered.

“Holy heck,” Belle breathed.

“There’s another option,” Cassandra put in at this point and Jack, holding close to his dwindling patience and trying to ignore his increasing unease, looked to her. “We kill the soul he carries.”

Belle gasped and Jack’s body petrified but his mouth moved to say two words.

“Absolutely not.”

“It won’t kill him,” Lorna added quickly.

“How could it not?” Belle asked, her voice rising with each word.

“He’ll change, definitely,” Cassandra explained. “From what we can tell, though, only some of his less appealing traits will be gone. Though, we can’t know that, of course, since he was born with Caldwell in him. But it could be he is how he is because he carries Caldwell’s soul. If we release that, he could just be…
him.
Whoever that is,” she ended on a mumble.

“It’s a ceremony,” Lorna stated. “Mega power and mega cool. But, to be honest, the
traces of a soul being torn from you isn’t
the most comfortable thing and, usually, you’d have to be captured because no one volunteers. And you’d also have to be bound to endure the ceremony because it can get a little intense. But the good news is
,
it holds no lasting effects.
Except, of course, if the personality being torn away makes up most of your own.
Then you can end up being a little,
erm
…
addled.
”

Jack frowned at Lorna then transferred his frown to Cassandra.

Then he declared, “You are not performing this ceremony on my brother.”

“Lad, we get you,” Angus said quietly. “But what you need to get is that, even after those children are released, Miles carries the trace of Caldwell. If he doesn’t agree to take Cass’s potion for the rest of his life, Caldwell could conspire to do harm against you, Belle and your kin. Your brother wouldn’t even know it.” He saved his kill shot for last. “Your brother probably doesn’t know what he’s already done.”

Likely because of all that was happening, and the entirety of it being beyond mad, Belle had not come to understand the fullness of the situation.

Until then.

And Jack knew she did when she whispered, “Oh my God, it was Miles who pushed me.”

Jack curled her close, moving his other arm so he could hold her in both even as Angus said gently, “No, lass, no’ Miles. Caldwell.”

“I don’t believe this.” Belle continued whispering and Jack lifted a fist to below her chin to tip her face to his.

“If this is true, my love, it’s as Angus says. It wasn’t Miles. It was Caldwell.”

And he said that because he had to believe it. If he didn’t, he, too, would go mad but it would be a far different madness than the benign lunacy sharing that room with him and Belle.

She pressed into him, sliding her arms around him. “We have to get him to take that potion, Jack.”

“We do,” he agreed though how they would manage that he had no fucking clue.

“Joy is going to need to talk to him, Jack,” Cassandra stated quietly and Jack’s mouth got tight before his gaze moved to her.

“I don’t want my mother involved in this,” Jack returned. “Hell, I don’t even want her
knowing
this.”

“You’re no’ going to convince your brother to talk with us, lad,” Angus replied cautiously. “And from what we know of the situation, Belle and Yasmin will have no better luck.”

“It has to be Joy,” Cassandra reiterated. “But I’ll go with her.
There’s
a few tricks I have up my sleeve.”

“Lachlan has a way about him,” Lorna put in, “and I’ve got a way about me.” She grinned cheekily. “I’ve been known to be good at slipping in a potion here and there without detection. We make him
docile,
he’ll be easier to talk to. We give him a talking potion, it’ll all come out.”

“See,
laddie
, we’ve got it covered,” Angus announced, throwing his arms out and grinning his demented grin.

Jack wasn’t certain he agreed.

However, he was certain he had no choice.

And he bloody detested it.

“Right,” he said. “We’ll talk to Mum. We’ll call to Myrtle and Lewis and then we’ll reconvene to decide what’s next once we speak to the children.”

“Uh… Jack, that we would be Lorna, Uncle Angus, Cassandra, Belle and me talking to the wee ones,” Lachlan told him. “You can’t be there.”

“Pardon?”
Jack asked low, his eyes narrowed on the younger Scot.

“As you know, we’ve been asking around, gathering
intel
,” Angus cut in. “No master of this house has ever seen the children. They appear freely in front of others, members of the family, servants,
guests
.
But no master.
Not only no current master but also none of the sons. We think there’s a reason for this. Though we
canno
’ say for certain why, whether it’s their wish or if seeing a master puts them in some danger. What we can say is that we need to abide by it if it’s their wish or, if it’s the other way around, no’ forcing their appearance in front of a being that might place them in danger.”

“Okay, I’ll be there and I’ll tell Jack all about it,” Belle offered quickly.

“Aye, lassie,” Angus grinned at her.

“No,” Jack stated flatly and felt Belle’s eyes move to him so he looked down at her.

“What?” she asked.

“No. You will absolutely not be in on this without me with you.”

“But, they’re children and they’ve never harmed anyone,” she reminded him.

“This is true,” he agreed. “But what they could say might be distressing and I’ll not have that either. Let Cassandra and the
McPhersons
deal with this. They can brief us later.”

“I want to be there,” she pushed.

“And I’ll not allow it,” he returned and her brows drew together.

Then she whispered, “Allow?”

“Belle –”

She took a step back, out of his arms but she didn’t go far and immediately dug in for a fight. He knew this when she planted her hands on her hips.

“Inside me is their mother,” she announced.

“Belle –”

“And I’m here to release them,” she went on.

“You’re here because we’re in love with each other and intend to spend the rest of our lives together,” Jack reminded her.

“Well, that too,” she muttered.

Jack pulled in a calming breath then repeated, “Belle –”

“I’m going to help those children, Jack. I’m going to be there when the
McPhersons
and Cassandra talk to them. I’m going to assure them we’re going to do everything we can to get them where they need to go. And then I’m going to do everything I can in order to get them where they need to go!”

“Perhaps, poppet, we can talk about this without an audience,” Jack suggested with strained patience.

“We could, I’m sure.
Though it would be a waste of time because the result will be the same.
I’m going to be there when they talk to the children. And there’s a lot to do so we shouldn’t dillydally,” she declared.

She was lucky she used the word “dillydally” because Jack thought it was cute. If she hadn’t, he’d have lost control of the shreds of patience he was clinging to.

Unfortunately, she used the word “dillydally” therefore Jack found himself biting off the word, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Belle replied, grinning at him, openly pleased she got her way.

“My love,” Jack started to warn, “if you end up with nightmares or sitting in the window of our room attempting your non-thinking in order to get over unpleasant thoughts, don’t come to me. I’ll only tell you I told you so.”

She moved into him, pressing her softness to his frame as she wound her arms around him, tipped her head back, kept grinning at him and whispered, “Balderdash.”

It was. It was complete balderdash.

And he thought that word was cute too.

“Jesus,” he muttered, winding his arms around her as well.

“Can we get to work or are you two going to continue
your
domestic through cuddling?” Lachlan asked and Jack looked over Belle’s head to pierce him with a scowl.

“Getting to work would be good,” Jack told him.

“Excellent,” he murmured, grinned at the floor and left the room.

Lorna followed her brother but she did it grinning at Cassandra who went with her.