Red House (25 page)

“We need to do the summoning right now,” I said. “Y’all ready?” Mostly I meant Shelby.

“Yeah, I’m–’’ She cut off, alarm widening her eyes. “The bottle!” She pointed at the bottle trap that sat unprotected on the floor under the banquet table, now being examined by the ghost that had no doubt been quite a cohort for Haschall.

The cap on the bottle trap was magically sealed and the spell contained Haschall quite well, but if the glass broke all bets were off. Black-hole eyes glittering and a nasty grin splitting his face, the ghost reached for the bottle. I had no doubt he knew what it contained. What I didn’t know was if he’d be capable of breaking it.

Chapter 21

A blur of pure gold zipped through the room then returned to my side. Daniel held up the bottle trap. “Safe as houses. Now get to work.”

I thanked him with a grin and hurried to join Blake and Shelby. We moved to the center of the five-spot and clasped hands. Shelby began the goddess chant to raise energy while Blake and I focused on giving her as much of our own energy as we could.

Our eyes meeting in wordless communication, Blake and I worked together to relight the quarter candles. Next came the incense and herbs. The soldier ghost attempted to break our three person circle by rushing at Shelby. Blake and I repelled him with a shove of our joined will. She never felt the intrusion or slowed in her chanting.

We brought the altar at our feet to life, the candle flame warm so close to my legs. Smoke began to roll from the incense and herbs. Shelby got louder with each cycle of the chant. Magic swelled in the room, filling every space and every breath. Light and heavy at the same time, I fought a wave of dizziness by squeezing Blake’s hand harder.

The ghost raged around us, screaming and throwing whatever he could pick up. A folding chair hit Blake in the back but he didn’t move. I wasn’t so lucky when one hit me, though I did manage to keep up my part of the circle. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Daniel heading for the shotgun.

“Just protect the bottle.” I had to yell to be heard over Shelby chanting and the ghost raising hell. “We got this!”

Daniel picked up the shotgun anyway but retreated out of the way with the bottle firmly in hand.

“Guardian of Maple Hill, return to this house,” Shelby intoned. “Guardian of Maple Hill, you are needed in this house. Guardian of Maple Hill, your progeny calls to you for protection. Guardian of Maple Hill, return to this house.”

Shelby’s aura became an erratic blend of blues and purples, flashing brighter as she raised a cone of power big enough to send her spell out over the entire mid-state area. Wherever the flood swept Maple Hill’s guardian they would be sure to hear her call.

The ghost appeared behind and above Shelby, gray hands reaching for her. A blast from the shotgun dispersed it. Daniel came from the side and took up position at Shelby’s back, the bottle trap still secured in one hand as he held the shotgun in the other. Shelby never missed a beat.

Blake took up the chant with Shelby, then I followed suit. After several minutes of it the air in the room began to pop with little bursts of indigo light. Finally a waterfall of it poured into the house. A warm, comforting, and most of all powerful sense of magic bathed the room, centering on Shelby. The indigo light coalesced into the form of a woman dressed in servant clothes, her expression serene but with weariness underlying it.

Ester’s presence sent the soldier ghost melting into the floorboards. Shelby broke the circle and approached the house’s guardian. They faced each other for a long moment. I wondered if there was some silent conversation between them. From the look on Shelby’s face it certainly seemed so. After another minute whatever was between them ended. Ester faded from sight, though her presence lingered.

For the first time Maple Hill felt calm. The lights came back on, illuminating just how thoroughly trashed the room was. The rest of the house was probably just as bad, with damage and ectoplasm everywhere. That kind of stuff was fixable though.

I said to Shelby, “Your grandma’s waiting for you.”

She hesitated only a fraction of a second before taking off.

Daniel backed away from me. He could still smell the dried blood on me, of course. Tossing me the keys to the SUV he said, “I’ll see you at home later.”

“Be careful.” What does one say to a vampire who’s slipping away to search for a meal?
Good hunting
seemed wrong somehow.

I tucked the keys in my pocket and knelt to shove all my stuff back into my bag. Blake stayed quiet. I decided not to push. While I finished packing my stuff he searched the floor for the Hello Kitty figurine, finding it in two pieces. He pocketed them without comment. Walking out of the house was a great relief. Julia hugged me twice, happy tears shining on her face. Tyler stayed in the car, eyeing all the strange folk with suspicion. After seeing her in action I wasn’t too worried about Shelby anymore. Her brother might not like her but the girl knew who she was and what she was made of and she’d be just fine.

Shelby pulled me aside as her grandmother spoke to Blake. “I want to hire you. How much do you cost?”

That was unexpected. “Why?”

“I want the house cleared. I mean, completely. That old soldier, any other spirits that might cause trouble. I want them all gone. Then I want to release Ester from her obligation.”

There was no way to know if Ester had taken up the role of guardian for Maple Hill voluntarily or if she’d been forced into it. The weariness of her spirit had been evident though. She deserved to rest and Shelby and I could give her that. “Give it a few days. We both need time to recover from tonight. Then we’ll see what we can come up with.”

A tiny smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. “You mean you’ll let me help?”

“It’s your family’s house. That makes it part of your legacy.”

Her grandmother called her over, so Shelby and I said goodnight with a promise to get in touch in a few days. Blake met me at the SUV. I handed him the keys, not wanting to aggravate my wrist by driving.

Before starting the ignition he said, “This is what you do? Really?”

“Well, you know. The pay’s inconsistent. No benefits. You get hurt a lot.” I raised my arm to show off the blood soaked bandage. “But there’s worse jobs.”

“Yeah.” He made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh as he started the car. “Retail’s a soul sucking nightmare.”

* * * *

He took me home and I invited him to stay. I knew Daniel wouldn’t say anything. After I cleaned up, Blake bandaged my wrist properly. Then I lay on the bed dozing as he took his turn in the shower. No dreams intruded this time. I must have been too tired.

Waking with a start, I glanced at the clock and realized Blake had been in the shower a long time. I knocked on the bathroom door, getting no response. Over the sound of the shower I thought I heard him crying. Privacy be damned, I flung open the door and yanked on the shower curtain.

Blake was leaning with both hands against the shower wall, cold water assaulting his body. I turned the water off and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist. He shook, probably from the cold as much as the crying. Snagging another towel on the way, I led him to the bed, trying to get him dry and warm.

Swearing, he pushed me away. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Do what? What’s wrong, baby?” It had to do with whatever Haschall tortured him with, I was sure of it.

Water dripped from his hair onto his face. “I don’t want to do this thing where I try to be whatever and you leave me because it’s not good enough.”

“What if you leave me because I’m not good enough? Blake, there are no guarantees.” He put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I moved to the floor, wedging myself between his legs so he’d be forced to look at me. “I don’t believe in destiny or sure things or fate or any of that crap. I make my own way and my own choices and the first time we made love meant I chose you. I don’t know how long we’ll be together or what will happen. If we’ll always get along. Maybe we won’t. We might fight a lot. I don’t know. I just know I choose you.”

I had to stop before I started crying too. Blake pulled me into his lap and a kiss that melted my bones. We finished the conversation without words, our bodies saying everything words were too small to express. Magic wrapped around us in a tight embrace, shades of green flowing through Blake’s starfield aura like gentle nebula. I’d always read that color as a particularly powerful emotion, one I realized I felt too. There would be time for declarations later. Right then what we both needed was simply to feel.

Later, he surprised me by talking about things I’d decided not to push him on.

“I was alone. Completely. There was no sound, I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t feel anything. You weren’t there.” We lay facing each other in bed. He ran his fingers over my arm. “Nobody was there.”

I remembered what Daniel had said, debating whether or not to ask Blake about it directly. We’d been tiptoeing around things so far. Maybe it was time to be direct. “Daniel said you think I can save you from yourself.”

Blake rolled over to lay on his back, one arm above his head. “Be nice if you could, but I know it doesn’t work that way.”

“Why’d you come back?”

A smirk lit his face as his aura lightened. “Amazing sex isn’t enough, you want me to talk about my feelings too?”

“I just need to know.”

He was silent for a long moment. “I was working for hedge fund managers.”

Not what I was expecting. “When?”

“After I left here. I have a contact who runs a sort of consulting service. Wall Street types, politicians, big time power players. Her biggest client runs a cable news network. These people hire practitioners like me to do work for them. Mostly ceremonial magic, binding lesser demons to do their bidding, cursing their enemies, making a deal go their way. Whatever. I was paid by a bunch of hedge fund managers to make sure they didn’t get investigated. Ease a few deals through. One of them sold his soul to a lesser demon in exchange for his wife getting a crappy divorce lawyer and his porn star girlfriend to sign a prenup. Though really, I don’t think the demon came out too good on that one, the guy didn’t have much of a soul to sell.”

I’d never heard of such a thing existing but it didn’t surprise me. I tried not to judge Blake for doing that kind of work. People did what they had to do to get by. “Sounds pretty lucrative.”

“It’s very lucrative. And best of all, part of the fee is hiding the money for you in off shore tax free accounts.” His voice took an ugly dip into self-disgust. “So it’s just slimy all around.”

“Coming back here sounded like a better deal, huh?”

“I wanted money. I’d been barely making it for a long time. You saw the dump I was living in. I wanted to fix everything I’d broken in your life. Pimping myself out for a few months seemed like a good plan at the time.”

“You don’t sound like you were too happy about it.” I moved closer, laying my head on his chest.

He hooked a finger under my chin and tipped my head up so our eyes met. “Your dreams were the only thing that got me through it. I hated myself for what I was doing and for what happened before I left. The only time I felt clean was in your dreams.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It broke my heart and made me want to put
him
back together.

“I’ve never known anybody like you,” he said. “The only other people I’ve known who had real power used it for themselves. It’s all I’ve ever done. It never even occurred to me to use magic to help other people. I used it for my own ends, not for others. But the things that you do, God, you just, you leave me in awe.”

I sat up, wanting to disabuse him of any notions he had of my supposed nobility. “I get paid too, Blake. I’m going to see Julia tomorrow to pick up my fee.”

He pulled himself up slowly, still sore from all the abuse he’d taken in Maple Hill. “You
help
people. Your clients are people who need
help
, not people that are greedy and amoral and not much higher on the evolutionary chain as the lesser demons. You might get paid but not nearly what your work is worth. You saved lives tonight.”

“It’s not always like tonight. Sometimes the ghosts are just rude, not homicidal.” I tried to laugh, the sound dying in my throat at the look he gave me.

“Somebody convinced you you’re not worthy of praise and I really fucking hope I get to meet them one day.”

That was dangerous territory so I decided to steer the conversation in another direction. “So basically what you’re saying is, you’ve decided a life of genteel poverty in the service of others is better than pimping yourself out to hedge fund managers?”

He looked away for a moment, shaking his head. “I decided a life with you was better than the one I had without you.” He kissed me with uncharacteristic gentleness, the slow tease of his lips reawakening desire and the connection between us.

“So you really are going to stay awhile?” Of all the weird things I’d done in my life, figuring out how to navigate a relationship with Blake promised to be the strangest.

“I’m here to stay. I told you that and I meant it. And I’ll even work with you some if you want but I had an idea for a business of my own.” The smirk was back.