Southern Belle (24 page)

"You really want me haunting your prison cell?"

Max thought about it and shuddered. "Shut up."

It took about fifteen minutes to reach Ernest's house. Max parked a few doors beyond to be safe. "Stay here," he told Drummond. He expected a protest, but Drummond waved him on, the detective more interested in talking with his coat pocket than arguing with Max.

Max strolled up to the house as casually as he could manage, taking furtive glances around, seeking any sign of trouble. Nobody watched him. Besides, at such a late hour, anybody still awake was probably drunk.

Or an insomniac happy to watch my every move and report me to the police.

He fought off the avenues of thought that wanted to take him and focused on the job. From Drummond he had learned to act with confidence when doing what one shouldn't be doing. Observers would fill in the most plausible explanations if he behaved as if everything was normal. So, Max didn't hesitate when he reached the house. He walked straight to the back door and pulled off the tape he had recently cut.

Had he time to plan for this break-in, he would have brought along a flashlight. Instead, Max had to pop on his cellphone. The bluish hue cast across the crime scene accentuated the claw marks in the walls and disarray of the rooms. The air smelled damp and dead. Every footstep creaked.

Ignoring all the messages his brain screamed at him, all the instincts to run away from this horrible place, Max pressed straight for Ernest's room — the man's last stand. He stood at the closed doorway to Ernest's room, breathing hard though he had done little more than walk into the house. Courage, bravery — these were acts one took despite the fear raging in one's mind. He wished Drummond were here. Or Sandra. Anybody who could tell him if ghosts occupied the house or if he stood alone in an empty hall.

When Patricia Welling attacked his wife at the church, she had not been alone. Yet Drummond had not mentioned any other ghosts since then — except for whatever Leed had become. But surely, the other coven ghosts had followed them.

"No," he said to the house. "They followed their High Priestess." Wherever Patricia had taken Sandra's body, that was where the other ghosts would be found.

Then I'm alone here.

"Okay, then. Go." Max threw open the door, rushed in, and headed for the closet. The symbols on the walls designed to protect Matt Ernest seemed to slither away in the dim light. He flashed his cellphone around until he saw a stack of boxes. He poured through these as fast as possible, holding his breath most of the time as if to gasp the air in the room would be to inhale evil itself.

On the third box, he struck gold. Well, blue. The candles were square at the base, thin, and as long as his forearm. He grabbed four, stepped away, came back, and took two more — just in case.

Moving fast, he headed down the hall when he heard Ernest's bedroom door slam behind him. Max froze. He tried to sense any change in the air — a drop in temperature, a bright perfume or a foul odor, the general aura of the room. Anything that might hint at a ghost — benign or otherwise. But it was no use. Whatever wiring in his brain allowed him to see and interact with Drummond went no further. He was as blind to other ghosts as any everyday person.

The door banged open and closed again.

Max walked straight toward the back door, not wanting to look behind. As he reached out to open the door, something ice cold tapped across his neck. He whirled around and saw nothing. Fumbling behind him for the doorknob, his eyes darted around the darkness.

Though he could hear the shaking in his breath, he opened his mouth wide and said as firmly as he could manage, "You go tell the High Priestess I'm coming for her. You tell her that if she harms my wife, I'll curse her with the worst things I can find." He swore he could hear confusion and uncertainty in the air. As his hand found the doorknob, he couldn't resist adding a final blow. "Oh, and tell her the spells will come from your own Grimoire."

He opened the door and turned, but before he could exit, the door shut hard enough to crack the panes. An icy touch clamped around his neck. He tried to inhale, but what little air managed to get through chilled his lungs painfully.

Max tried to force the door open. He pulled and kicked at it, but it refused to budge. The darkness in the room grew even darker. Little spots of color danced before him. Max lifted his hand for the doorknob one more time, but his fingers only slapped at it. He couldn't breathe, couldn't feel the air in his lungs, couldn't hear the subtlest wheeze. He fell back, the candles tumbling to the floor, and he had long enough to regret not being able to save Sandra.

"Max?" Drummond's deep voice echoed in the room.

Max saw the detective pop through a wall. Drummond acted fast. Leaping above Max, Drummond engaged in a bizarre fight where his opponent could not be seen — at least by Max.

The grip on his throat loosened, and he coughed and sputtered while Drummond threw punches into the empty air. Drummond ducked, popped back up, and shot a deep uppercut. With his chest puffed, he stared at the corner of the room for a moment before turning to Max.

"You okay?"

Max got back to his feet. "Thanks. Is it a witch?"

"Definitely. Let's get out of here before she wakes up."

Collecting the candles, Max nodded. "Why did you come in, anyway?"

"A car pulled up, parked, but nobody got out. I think the cops are staking out the house. Maybe they found a connection with Connor's murder."

"Or maybe Modesto is playing both sides. The Hulls do have influence with some of the law."

"Doesn't really matter. You've got to sneak out of here without them seeing you. Crouch down, follow me, and do as I say. It'll be easy."

Even as Max crouched before the back door, he rolled his eyes. Drummond passed through the wall and reappeared outside the house. Here we go. Max opened the back door and slipped out. Keeping low to the ground, he duck-walked around the corner. His thighs burned with the effort, turning his quads into sharp rocks that ground into his bones with every waddling step. But pulling a quad seemed a better risk than getting picked up by the police.

Drummond pointed to a telephone pole. "See the shadow from the streetlight?" A thick black line ran from the base of the telephone pole clear up to where Max squatted. "You can stand and walk in that shadow right up to the pole. Our friend is parked across the street. Stay in that shadow and he won't see you."

When Max stood, his legs screamed in both relief and pain. He wanted to move fast along the shadow, but with his muscles protesting every motion, he had to take small, slow steps. Probably saved his hide. Had he raced over to the pole, he would have most likely slipped out of the shadow's narrow confines. Taking a deliberate pace meant he could place each foot carefully.

Once he reached the telephone pole, Drummond pointed down the street to his car. "This is the hard part. When I tell you, you're going to have make a run for your car. Sprint down there, get in, and drive away."

"But —"

"Trust me. Wait for my signal." Drummond slid into the amber pool of the streetlight. "We'll give you as much time as we can."

"We?"

"Be quiet and wait."

Drummond reached into his coat pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he had it shaped as if he held something, but Max saw nothing. Drummond bent over and whispered to the nothing. Leed?

From the look on Drummond's face, Max discerned that Leed had zipped away. A moment of silence passed. As Max wondered what Leed would do, he heard a car alarm go off several houses up — away from his car. Another alarm went off, this one complete with flashing headlights. Max watched Drummond, waiting for a signal. He rubbed his thighs with his free hand, his other clutching the candles against his body — Sandra's life rested in those candles.

A third alarm went off, the kind that changed tones every few seconds. Whatever Drummond had waited for happened. He clapped his hands and waved Max on. "Come on. Go!"

Max shoved off the telephone pole and rushed for his car. He wanted to sprint, pour every ounce of power into his legs, but his thighs buckled. It took all his will to keep upright.

He snatched a peek over his shoulder and saw a man standing next to a car. The man placed his hands on his hips and looked up the street at the increasing number of car alarms. Though Max only had time to see the man in silhouette, he saw enough — Stevenson, FBI.

That got his legs moving. He half-jogged, half-skipped his way to his car, slipped in the driver's seat and turned the engine over. People had come outside to turn off their alarms only to have the alarms start up again. All that noise and confusion masked Max's engine, and as he drove away, he saw Stevenson in the rearview mirror — standing with his hands on his hips, watching the bizarre car alarms.

* * * *

By the time Max returned to Leed's house, his adrenaline rush had worn off, dropping his tired body a few notches further toward exhaustive collapse. He stumbled into the house and leaned against the living room wall. As his eyes closed and his breathing slowed, he heard Drummond's deep tones arguing with someone.

"They're not going to understand. Hell, I don't get it either."

With his back, Max pushed off the wall and moved closer toward the hall leading further into the house. Drummond stood near the end of the hall, yelling at his hand which cupped nothing at all — which meant probably the ghost of Leed.

"Shut up already. I appreciate what you did but that doesn't give you any right to meddle here. Patricia Welling is my responsibility. You did your part ... What? ... I'm not still in love with her ... You don't know what you're talking about ... If I had known then ... that doesn't prove I knew anything. And besides, raking over the past won't change where we are now ... Don't tell me to calm down."

Drummond's gray face flushed red for a split second. Max cleared his throat loudly and when Drummond spun toward him, Max nearly fell back from the man's glare.

"What do you want?" Drummond said, his brow turned down sharp, his voice graveled as if he had smoked all night. A haze of darkness lifted off his shoulders.

Max tried to keep his face calm. Inside, every synapse fired off red alert warnings. "Drummond? You in there? Calm down. Stay with me."

"You blame me for this, don't you? For what's happened to Sandra. Everyone blames me."

"I don't blame you for something you did long ago and out of love. And I need your help now. Please, don't turn. Stay the man I know. Come on ... Marshall."

Drummond's face relaxed. He lifted his head and looked around as if unsure how he got to the house. "About time you got here." As he moved into the living room, he placed the object in his hand back into his coat pocket. "Best get this spell done before the sun rises. They tend to be stronger when the stars and moon are visible. At least, that's the lore."

Max gawked as the ghost pointed to the empty space by the living room window.

"That should be a good spot," Drummond said. He raised a quizzical eyebrow to Max. "What?"

"Nothing," Max said and gathered the items needed for the spell along with the Grimoire. He ignored Drummond's odd expression, ignored the pressure mounting in the dusty air, ignored all the warnings blazing in his head. If Drummond turned now, Max didn't see anything he could do to stop it. Only way forward was straight through — do the spell, find the handbell, summon Patricia and his wife, hope he figures out what to do after that.

Max opened the Grimoire to the appropriate page and set the book on the seat of a wooden chair. He then sat on the floor in the spot Drummond had indicated. For his part, Drummond went to the book and guided Max.

"First thing you do is put one candle at each of the four compass points."

Max picked up one candle. "Which way is North?"

Without looking up from the book, Drummond pointed toward the kitchen. Max reoriented himself to face the kitchen and placed the candle in front of his crossed legs. Then he set the other three candles to either side and behind him.

"Next thing you do is fill the goblet with water and set it down in front of you."

Max did as instructed. He went to the kitchen to fill the goblet from the sink, and as the water streamed in, he tried to avoid looking at the wall where he had seen Leed murdered. He thought of all the rage and hatred that gave Patricia Welling the physical and mental strength to destroy that man. "She's not going to like it when I get this bell." The thought brought a grim smile to Max's face.

He returned to Drummond, sat as before, and set the filled goblet in front of him. Drummond leaned closer to the book and read. "Light the incense, then the candles." Max did so. "Now you meditate."

"I what? I don't know how to meditate. I've never even tried to do it before."

"Guess you'll be trying it out now."

"Is there another way? I don't want to screw this up."

"You'll do fine. Listen, in the '70s there were plenty of people coming through my office trying all kinds of stuff. Sex, music, drugs. Lots of drugs. I swear they did so much of the stuff that, even dead, I got a contact high. They also experimented with meditation. I think the Beatles had something to do with that."