Obsidian Curse (2 page)

“Don’t you have enough on your plate without looking for trouble where there is none?” she snapped.

“Deny all you want, but if it’s in the Blessed Book, you can be sure I’ll find it.”

The Blessed Book was a written history of our family’s theology. It contained pages filled with the names of my ancestors and gods, lists of the ancient high kings, stories of legends, recipes, references, spells, charms, and even predictions for future generations. Some of it was hard to decipher without Birdie’s help. After all, it was her mother, my great-grandmother, who compiled it. It belonged to me now.

“So how’s your cousin Cinnamon?” my mother asked.

“Nice segue.”

“I thought so.”

She really wanted to keep this from me, whatever it was, and I didn’t have time to argue about it. “Still pregnant and ornery as ever. We have a pool going to see how long and how many doctors she goes through in the delivery room before she completely snaps and takes matters into her own hands.”

Mom grinned. “Put me down for twenty. I say four doctors in half an hour.”

I heard Thor, my Great Dane familiar, bark. It was loud, penetrating as if he had trained his vocal cords to my thought waves.

Which, I decided, was exactly what he had done. I couldn’t hear Thor, or anything for that matter, in this room. Chance had designed it to be virtually soundproof.

“Mom, I have to go. Gotta get ready for work.”

“All right. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

I disconnected the call, stepped out of the room, and grabbed the tranquilizer gun. Thor barked once more. Urgently.

I was about to power down the laptop that still had the front security camera engaged when, on the monitor, I spotted a
Star Trek
baseball hat bobbing across the porch railing.

Chapter 3

“It can’t be,” I whispered.

I ducked through the opening that led from the Seeker’s Den to my bedroom and bolted out the front door, my tranquilizer gun tucked inside the back of my yoga pants.

Thor was right behind me, his muscular legs pumping fast, his massive black and tan head darting this way and that.

We covered the perimeter of the cottage, even checked in the bushes. We found no one.

But I knew that hat. And it didn’t belong to a human.

“Pickle!” I hissed, careful to say his name just the one time. If I said it three times in a row it would surely summon him, although I didn’t think my cottage was on a leyline, which is how he would travel here. The woods behind the Geraghty Girls’ House—the bed-and-breakfast owned and operated by Birdie and her sisters—was most certainly linked to the realm of the Fae, however.

This, I learned all too well on my twenty-ninth birthday some weeks ago. That was the day I officially blossomed into a true Geraghty. A true witch.

I looked at Thor. He sat, ears perked and alert, one pointed forward, the other to the side listening for the slightest rustle.

“Anything?” I asked.

Thor harrumphed, frustrated that he didn’t catch his target.

I crossed my arms, scanning the woods for signs of a fluorescent green light, a clear indicator that the fairies have come.

Again, nothing.

“Maybe we imagined it,” I said to Thor. “It’s getting close to Samhain. The veil between the worlds is thinning. Maybe it was just an energy surge. A crossed wire that picked up on their realm.”

Thor cocked his head toward me.

“I know.” I scratched behind his ear and looked back toward the woods once more. “Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it.”

But if it was Pickle I saw on the monitor, what was he doing here? What danger had he come to warn me about?

Because I had to say, I could have gone an entire lifetime without seeing Danu and the Morrigan again.

I showered and dressed in jeans, a purple sweater, and boots as quickly as possible, trying not to think of the Otherworld, or the Web of Wyrd, as I had since learned it was called, and prayed that I wouldn’t wake up in a freaking birdcage tomorrow.

Yeah, those Celtic goddesses could be real whacknuts. They loved messing with humans. I wouldn’t recommend mouthing off to one, as they desperately lack anything resembling a sense of humor. They’re like the mean girls of the divine.

I tossed my work laptop into a bag along with a yogurt for me and some roast chicken and mashed potatoes for Thor, and we were on our way to the newspaper.

The office of the paper was only a few blocks away so we usually walked, but I was running late, so we drove through the fall morning sunshine down to Main Street.

There were a lot of cars parked along the street for a Monday morning, but fall was the busiest season for tourists. Many of the hotels, restaurants, inns, and bed-and-breakfasts were booked solid in October. In fact, though we were a town of just a few thousand, most years a million visitors passed through our neck of the woods. Amethyst, you see, was one of the gems of the Midwest. Perched on the corners of three states—Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin—it wasn’t pancake-flat like so much of the heartland. Rather, it was hilly and lush, with gorgeous bluffs, the occasional waterfall, the mighty Mississippi, rolling green pastures, and a quaint Main Street filled with restored buildings that seemed to have sprung straight from a Dickens novel. It was an old steamboat and mining town, and it had seen its share of hardships as well as triumphs, including the nine Civil War generals and one president the locals were proud to claim as their own.

While business was excellent for the economy, it was hell on parking. The paper had a small parking lot, but overflow from the nearby lodging facilities often spilled into it. I finally squeezed my car into a spot after three loops around, and Thor and I headed inside.

Monday morning meetings were my partner Derek’s idea. Personally, I hated meetings. I thought if you were adult enough to hold down a job then you were adult enough to work unsupervised. Besides, there were only five employees total, so anyone who needed to discuss an assignment could just walk across the hall, tap the person on the shoulder, and, well, discuss it. But Derek liked to think of himself as a young entrepreneur and he read in
Forbes
or somewhere that business meetings were a doorway to success.

Or maybe he saw that on a cat poster; I couldn’t be sure.

Anyway, since I was responsible for getting him shot at once and I still felt bad about it, I didn’t give him too much trouble when it came to business decisions, aside from the fact that I was the controlling partner of the
Amethyst Globe
.

The minute I walked into the conference room, I was smacked with an overwhelming perfume even a prostitute would find tacky.

“Well, it’s about damn time you showed up,” said a high-pitched, irritating voice.

So actually, there was one decision Derek made that I would never get used to, and there was a strong possibility it would be my only defense against a murder rap.

“Monique, lovely to see you as always. I guess this means there’s a pole somewhere missing its stripper?” I unclipped Thor’s leash and he sauntered down the hall to the water fountain and helped himself to a drink.

Derek licked his lips. “Um, ladies.”

Monique snorted and winked one false blue eyelash at me. “Well, if I was a stripper, you could bet that I’d be on time.”

“On time, on a lap, on your back,” I said.

Iris, our gossip columnist, stifled a laugh.

Monique shot the grandmotherly woman a glare and Iris quickly pretended to read her notes.

“You know, I’m not sure, but I think that’s sexual harassment.” Monique stood and pointed a bright red talon at me. Her white blouse was unbuttoned so low, I was afraid one of her implants would jump out and dance across the table.

“Really? Because if anyone should know, it’s you,” I said.

Thor came back into the room, his huge jowls sopping wet, and shook his head, showering Monique with spittle.

“Ew!” She spun to face the dog, shaking her hands free of the slime. Her leather miniskirt didn’t shift with her and we all saw more of Monique than anyone should before breakfast.

Thor sat, innocently blinking at her. I was so proud.

“And that damn dog! Why do you let him drink from the fountain? It’s disgusting!” She ran her fingers through her hair.

“Well, to be fair, we let you drink from it.”

Monique stepped forward aggressively as if she were about to strike.

I raised one hand. “You better think long and hard before you make your next move, Lolita.”

Monique paused, shifted her eyes away.

Derek said, “Okay, that’s enough.”

I slammed my hand on the desk and both Gladys, the research assistant, and Iris jumped. “It is enough.” I pointed at Monique. “I am your boss, so you better damn well treat me with respect if you want to keep your job. This arrangement was supposed to be temporary, if you recall.”

Derek had hired Monique right before I left for Ireland and I warned both of them then that her sex column—don’t even get me started on what a stupid idea that was for our conservative town—would be on a trial basis only.

Unfortunately, I didn’t bank on our small hamlet being full of sex-starved geriatrics with adult toy collections and fetishes that would make Hugh Hefner blush. Needless to say, the column was gaining popularity.

Monique slithered over to Derek, wrapped a hand around his shoulder. “Oh, I hardly think that will be a problem.”

I looked at her sternly as she smirked, her red lipstick thick as maraschino cherries. “What are you talking about?”

Monique feigned a “golly, gee, I don’t know” look and sucked on one finger. I was about five seconds away from chopping it off at the knuckle.

I shot darts at Derek with my stare. “What is she talking about?”

Derek straightened his shirt, fiddled with his cuffs, but wouldn’t look at me when he spoke. “I believe she means the new contract.”

Stunned didn’t even come close to what I was feeling at that moment. No, I think rage would better describe it.

“Office. Now.” I said through gritted teeth.

Derek protested. “We’re not done with the mee—”

I slid over the desk, grabbed my young partner by the ear, and dragged him through the door, down the hallway, and into the room with the title “Office of the Managing Editor” etched in the glass door.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” he stammered.

I slammed the door shut behind him and whirled around.

Derek’s chocolate-colored cheeks had a touch of red in them. “Damn, woman, how could you do that in front of the crew?” He rubbed his ear with his neatly manicured fingers. “That wasn’t very professional.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” I was flabbergasted. “I’m not being professional? You give that walking petri dish a contract without consulting me and I’m the one who’s disrespecting you?”

“It was when you were away. I forgot to tell you.” He kicked at a loose thread in the carpet.

“Are you sleeping with her?”

Derek looked up. “What? No.”

I tossed my hands in the air. “Then why? Why in the name of all that is sanitary would you give the person I most loathe in the world a permanent position?”

Derek flung his arm in the air. “What is it about her that rubs you the wrong way?”

“You mean besides the fact that she acts like a stray cat in heat? Or that she’s tried to steal every man both my cousin and I ever had?” I pretended to think for a moment. “Well, let’s see, perhaps it’s because that woman has all the finesse and charm of a whoopee cushion.”

Derek laughed. “I love those things.”

Monday morning and already my patience was spent. “Show me the contract.”

He reached into his desk just as Monique barged in on her platform thigh-high boots.

I gave her an exasperated look. “Monique, for Pete’s sake, even a trained monkey knows when to knock.”

She ignored me and said to Derek, “I’ll be right back. I need to take care of that errand I told you about.”

Derek lifted his head up, said okay, and went back to searching his files.

Monique stuck her tongue out at me and shut the door.

“Where’s she going? What about the meeting?” I asked.

“You hate the meetings anyway.” He shuffled through some paperwork, his smooth skin wrinkled in thought. “I thought it was in here,” he mumbled.

“That’s not the point. She gave me attitude for being late and now she’s taking off.”

Derek opened a file folder, shut it, and reached for another.

“Well, you should know where she’s going. She’ll be with your boyfriend.”

I don’t think I blinked for the next thirty seconds.

Derek stopped sifting through his files. “What, he didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head.

No. No he didn’t.

Chapter 4

I had a hard time concentrating the rest of the morning. What was Chance doing meeting with Monique and, more importantly, why didn’t he mention it to me? I suppose he could have been bidding on a job. Monique owned a nightclub called Down and Dirty, which was across the street from my cousin’s bar, the Black Opal. Maybe she needed some work done. I guess I would find out that night from Chance because I had no intention of dealing with her anymore that day unless it involved a shovel and a bag of lime.

Thor was bellowing for food, so I loaded the chicken and potatoes into his bowl and fed him in my office. I was too pissed to eat myself, so I stuck the yogurt in my mini refrigerator and sat down to do some work.

It was going to be a busy news week. Busy for Amethyst, anyway. There was a town council meeting on Wednesday, a costumed parade on Friday—the day of Samhain—immediately followed by a multi-class reunion (costumes optional) that evening, and a Saturday morning farewell brunch for the classmates. At the park on Sunday, an Oktoberfest featuring the best homemade brats and beer contest was also on the agenda, but I’d be skipping that and spending time with my family.

A multi-class reunion may sound strange to some, but when you live in a town as small as Amethyst, the graduating class could be as little as thirty people, so the committees sometimes teamed up in an effort to cut costs, combining classes that spanned decades. This year’s reunion covered the classes of 1930 through 2003. An interesting mix of folks to say the least.

Thor scratched at the door, so I let him out of my office to do his business and went to talk to Gladys.

Derek would be covering the parade and the Oktoberfest, since his specialty was photography and both events would certainly prompt some amazing photo ops. Iris would handle the meeting, because meetings were boring as hell and I fell asleep during the last one, while Gladys and I would take the reunion festivities.

The research room was in the basement, so I darted down there and found Gladys surfing the web for Samhain ritual garb. Gladys had a fascination with all things witchy. She’d been dying for an invitation to one of Birdie’s Samhain festivals ever since I could remember, but Birdie’s holiday guest list was restricted to a fairly tight-knit group. Mostly distant relatives, members of her original coven, her sisters, and myself. I don’t even think Gramps was ever invited, which was just as well. Magic could be powerful on Samhain so the chances of my grandmother turning her ex-husband into a snail were pretty high.

“Hey, Gladys.”

She turned around, a sheepish look on her face. “Oh, hello, Stacy,” she said in her thick Polish accent.

I motioned toward the monitor. “Maybe this is the year.”

Her face brightened. “Oh, yes, I hope so.”

“Listen, Gladys, I was wondering if you could find me the names of any valedictorians from Amethyst High School for the years 1930 through 2003 and any updates on what they’re doing now, special achievements, things like that.”

She nodded. “I can do.”

“Perfect.”

My cell phone rang. It was Cinnamon. I thanked Gladys, asked her to call or e-mail me with an update at the end of the day, and stepped into the hallway to take the call.

“Hey, Cin.”

“Stacy, come and get this damn dog before I string him up a flagpole.”

“Thor? He’s there?”

“Yes and he’s driving me insane. He’s following me all around the house. He wiped out a lamp with his tail, and he just ate three steaks I had defrosting on the counter.”

“Three?”

“Yes, three. One for me, one for Tony, and one for the baby. You got a problem with that?”

Oy. Cinnamon’s temper was volatile on a good day. Now that she was six months pregnant it was downright frightening. Like a cross between John McEnroe and Mike Tyson. On steroids.

“Be right there.”

I popped my head into Derek’s office to tell him I’d be back in a bit and headed for the car.

Thor was originally Cinnamon’s dog. He showed up one day at the Black Opal a few years ago while I was living in Chicago. At the time, Cinnamon was separated from her husband, Tony, and she welcomed the companionship. It didn’t hurt that the dog weighed in at 180 pounds, stood over four feet tall, and had a look about him that warned customers if they stepped out of line, they’d have a set of two-inch canines embedded in their backsides. Cinnamon had that look too, so I guess you could say Thor was the backup bouncer. When I came back to live in Amethyst, Thor quickly attached himself to me as if we had known each other in a past life. Since Cinnamon wasn’t the type to get emotional over animals, she didn’t mind sharing her dog until eventually he adopted me.

Fiona, my great-aunt whose gift was communicating with animals, once told me that Thor had been searching for me, biding his time with Cinnamon until I came home. After I had confided in her that I had indeed been having numerous dreams about a fawn-colored Great Dane while still living in the city, she confirmed that Thor was my familiar. He’d been with me ever since.

That is part of my gift. Dreams of premonition. The other part is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to—communicating with the dead. At first, it wasn’t so bad. They would come to me in a dream, via a spirit guide, or through the ethereal form at the most inopportune times. Like in the drive-through of a fast-food joint. Poof! I’d turn my head and a ghost would be sitting in the passenger seat coaxing me to order him a bacon double cheeseburger. And no, they can’t eat, but those residual memories of life in corporeal form tended to linger. Or I’d be shopping for new boots and suddenly an old salesclerk would show up, insisting that brown was not my color. Luckily, no one has ever appeared in the shower, or I’d be sporting dreadlocks by now.

It wasn’t until I began honing my particular skill set that they started touching me.

And boy did that freak me out.

So now, I can’t walk past a cemetery without a ghost grabbing my arm and asking me to send a message. Usually it’s something completely mundane like “Tell my granddaughter that my wedding silver was supposed to go to her except that sneaky cousin of mine made off with it.” Things like that.

And if they can touch you, that means they can hurt you. A lesson I hold in the forefront of my mind at all times. This was why I took the car to Cinnamon’s place. I had to loop around the long way to my cousin’s house now, because the direct path would send me straight past one of the oldest cemeteries in the state. Those are the worst. Mostly, the ghosts there wanted to argue about politics, unsettled feuds, urban sprawl, and how screwed up today’s young people were. You can only listen to so many “in my day” stories before your ears start to bleed.

I pulled up to Cinnamon’s two-bedroom ranch over on Ruby Lane and parked the car in the driveway. There was a cement sidewalk that led to my cousin’s door, and I followed that to three carved pumpkins sitting on the porch next to a plastic skeleton who leaned back in a wooden chair as if he’d just been reading the newspaper. Someone had propped up his hand and he was flipping me the bird. The pumpkins had to be Tony’s doing, because Cin was not the type of woman to decorate, let alone acknowledge holidays.

I suspected that she was the one who arranged the finger.

I knocked once and heard my cousin yell, “It’s open.” That’s the type of community we lived in. Everyone left their doors unlocked, the keys in the car, and the children unsupervised. That kind of thing made me uneasy because I’d written enough obituaries in Chicago to know that we were never that safe, no matter where we lived.

Predators roamed every town, in every form.

However, Cinnamon was heavily armed and could shoot a pen out of someone’s hand from twenty yards away. Her father, my uncle Declan, was the chief of police in Amethyst for many years before he left this plane not so long ago. He was obsessed with making certain his little girl knew her way around a weapon and how to defend herself. I supposed my own mother, his sister, was the same way. Except the self-defense she had instilled in me was in the form of spellcasting, potion making, intuitive clarity, and inner strength.

The door creaked as I opened it and I was surprised at the sight before me.

Cinnamon was sitting on her blue couch looking like a bomb about to explode. Her dark hair was clipped high on her head in a mass of knotty waves. She had no makeup on and she was wearing one of Tony’s Bears tee shirts, cut off at the sleeves, with a ketchup stain dribbled down the front. Thor was perched next to her, his rear on the sofa, paws on the ground, and his huge head in my cousin’s lap.

They both looked uncomfortable. But here’s the thing about Great Danes. When they don’t want to move, it’s nearly impossible to get them to do so, short of renting a forklift.

I bit my lip, knowing that if I laughed, which is what I really wanted to do, my cousin would disembowel me with a toothpick.

“Thor, buddy, are you bothering Auntie Cinnamon?”

Cin shot daggers at me with her eyes. “Do. Not. Call. Me. That.”

“Oh, come on, it’s kind of cute. He must be protecting you because he knows you’re with child.”

“With child? Do you want me to punch you in the throat?”

“Fine. Knocked up. Better?”

“Can you please just help me?”

I circled the coffee table and sat in a black leather chair across from them. “Thor, look at me.”

He wouldn’t take his eyes off of my cousin.

“Big Man, I promise that Cinnamon and the baby will be just fine without your protection.”

The dog shot me a doubtful look. Like,
Oh please, I’ve had to bail you out of more crap than I leave in the yard
. Which was true, but still hurtful.

He turned his head and rolled on his back, eyes still on Cin.

I decided to try another approach. “Cinnamon has Tony to protect her, Thor.”

At this, my cousin balked. I knew what she was thinking.
I can protect my own damn self.
I held up a hand warning her not to vocalize that thought.

I continued. “But who will protect me? I need you, buddy.”

He swiveled his head my way and Cin shifted. He looked conflicted. The Great Dane stared at me, then Cinnamon. He decided I could take my chances and nuzzled closer to my cousin.

“You’re not helping much,” Cin grumbled.

I blew out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, Thor, you win. What do you say we come and check on Cinnamon and the baby once a week.”

“What?” she flared.

Thor considered this. He lifted his head and righted himself. He looked straight at me and then flung his giant jaw on the back of the couch, pretending to watch the birds fluttering in the trees. He sighed as if the weight of the world lay solely on his broad shoulders.

I stood up. “Fine, twice a week.”

“Stacy—” Cin growled.

I shushed her.

Thor turned his head and sat upright, scooting away from Cinnamon, but he didn’t get off the sofa.

“Three times a week, Big Man, and that’s my final offer.” I parked a hand on my hip, letting him know I meant business.

Cinnamon said, “Are you nuts?”

I kept my eyes on the dog when I said, “I prefer the term
eccentric
.”

Thor stood up on all fours, shot my cousin an
I’ll be back
look, and sauntered over to the screen door. He smacked it open and walked out of the house like he was John Wayne looking for a man who had wronged his woman.

Cinnamon tried to extract herself from the sofa and failed. I didn’t dare offer her a hand.

“Don’t you dare offer me a hand, or I swear to God, I’ll break your finger,” she said.

Geez, we had two more months of this? Poor Tony.

After three attempts, she rallied and catapulted herself to a standing position. She blew a stray hair from her eye, adjusted her tee shirt, and glared at me.

“Why did you tell him that?” she snapped.

“What did you want me to do? Because I’ll tell you right now, if Tony had seen that, he would have insisted something was wrong and you’d be spending the night in the emergency room with an armed guard blocking the door.”

Cinnamon considered this. Her husband had become overly protective ever since she got pregnant and it was all she could do not to check herself into the Holiday Inn just to get some peace. While some women loved to be doted on, for a woman as independent as my cousin, it was I-want-to-pull-my-own-hair-out frustrating.

Finally, she acquiesced. “All right, but if he comes unsupervised again, I cannot be responsible for my actions.”

“Understood.”

We talked a little bit about the reunion to be held later that week. Cinnamon had won the bid to cater the party, but Tony insisted she turn it down.

“We’re still going, just so I can watch Monique make an ass of herself and lose what little customers she has left,” she said.

Monique had been the second choice, although her bar wasn’t big enough to host the event, so the committees decided to rent out Grant Hall.

I walked toward the door as she added, “I’m just glad I don’t have to work with her on the damn thing. Not like you.” She nudged me.