Spiritdell Book 1 (17 page)

* * *

Darkness and pain. I'm not in a whale, or the trunk of a car. I'm awake, but I'm not going to open my eyes.

A man is singing—no, chanting—and someone else is telling him he's doing it wrong and correcting him. That would be Heidi.

I'm tied to something.

Well, come on guys, let's get this party started.

I'm back in my body, after visiting the girl I love, who's never going to wake up from a coma. There's never been a better time to have my powers stolen and my memory erased—or better yet, be killed. As soon as I'm dead, I'll float back up out of here and go to Austin. We can sail together, on that sparkling blue sea, forever.

I can hardly wait. I wish Heidi and Newt would hurry up already.

“He's conscious,” Newt says.

“Is he crying?” Heidi asks.

“No,” I say through the gag. “My eyes are itchy.” The gag's been loosened a bit, and my speech sounds almost human, like a ventriloquist's dummy.

“There, there,” Heidi says, wiping at my face. I don't have to open my eyes to know she's using her spit on a hankie. Please, just kill me now.

“Watch out, there's another one,” Newt says. Something slaps against a hard surface. “Got it. Little bugger. Your friend stung me, but you can't, because you're dead, dead, dead.”

Heidi says, presumably to Newt, “His defensive power is kicking in, but it's a little too late, and he has no control over it.”

Around my gag, eyes still glued shut, I say, “What?” I'm flat on my back and tied down, but I don't know where. I struggle to look around, but my eyes won't open. Have my eyelids actually been glued? “What's happening?” I repeat.

“Your little bees, Zan,” Heidi says. “Bzz bzz, your bees. The ones you summon and control, like my lovely black crows, only you don't know what to do with your bees, do you?”

My eyes won't open, and despite my efforts, all I can muster from my face is what I imagine is a stern frown.

“Don't worry, it'll all be over soon,” Heidi says. “We had to work so hard, Newt and I. We investigated a good number of paths, but you're a lucky one. I nearly had you, back at the cottage, but your little bee and your little friend ruined all my nice plans. We had to recalibrate everything to get you here, like this … in this state.”

Around the wet gag, I ask, “Why can't I open my eyes?”

“Your spirit is weak from all the time you spent away from your body,” she says. “Silly boy. You're weak. So weak. Just relax and we'll make you all better.”

“Good,” I mumble. They said they'd take my power and my bad memories, but I know they'll take more. They'll take everything, and I ache so bad right now that maybe I don't mind. They can have it all. I surrender.

Newt asks about which bowl to set up for the blood and Heidi chews him out for not knowing it's
glass, always glass, preferably crystal
.

A female voice—not Heidi and definitely not Newt—whispers in my ear, “Are you going to lie there like an undercooked sausage? What a waste.”

“Austin?” I mumble.

I hear her voice again, but only inside my head. I mentally push away the sounds of Heidi and Newt talking so I can hear Austin more clearly.

Austin:
I can hear your thoughts, you don't need to say it through the gag. It's all dirty and grimy and kinda yucking me out. I can actually taste what you're tasting, isn't that weird?

Why are you here?

To get your dumb butt out of this mess. I feel partly responsible, like the hostess who serves her guests too much wine at dinner and they leave and allow themselves to be kidnapped by witches.

Austin, I'm done with this life. I'm going to either be with you, on the spirit plane, or forget you. It's win-win.

She doesn't answer for several excruciating seconds. Finally, she says, still in my head,
I have someone here who wants to say something.

My eyes are still closed, but I feel Austin near me, standing by me as she speaks.

Suddenly, I'm seeing, but through my closed eyelids. Austin is glowing, and a dog—a cocker spaniel with big, velvety ears—stands by her side.

Austin glows brighter and divides in half, as something glowing even brighter steps out of her toward me. This new thing is so brilliant, I can't make out any details. My senses are screaming to turn away for safety, like when you look right at the sun.

The glowing, painfully bright area speaks:
Zan. The problem with your power, the one you access with your belly button, is it's only half-functioning.

This voice isn't Austin, but another woman. She's the one I've been hearing these last two weeks.

All you see is the bad
, she says.
Don't you want to see what you'll be missing if you choose to die right now?

No
, I say, but my refusal sounds petulant, and I know I don't mean it.

You always were an obstinate child
, the glowing woman says. She reaches forward with one blazing arm and plunges it into my center.

Mom?

Is that ... my mother?

I'm on fire from the inside. Someone turned on all the lights and cranked everything to eleven. This is not like any of my visions, or the inside of Austin's mind, or floating outside of my body. This is like one million music videos, shot straight into my veins.

I see everything.

I see Gran getting married, and the loveliest bride you've ever seen, even at seventy. Me, graduating high school, graduating college, and all the time, James and Julie by my side, sharing my happiness. There's an alternate one, a parallel time line, where I'm the same age but not in college. James is there and we backpack up mountains. And yet another, where I'm jumping out of a helicopter and taking photos with a camera that's yet to be invented. All these possibilities exist, and they're all real, and yet they haven't happened. And I know something: they won't happen if I don't get up.

Images flash by, of children—Julie's—and grandchildren, and golden retrievers, and sunsets, and cold mountain lakes.

Enough
, I tell my mother.
Overkill. I get it, I get it. I'm not going to lie here and let Newt and Heidi do whatever witchy voodoo they were planning. I'm going to get up and punch that old lady right in the face, and I'm going to keep fighting, are you happy?

Yes I am
, says my mother, who's still glowing, but softly now.
I'm happy, and I love you
, she says.

Behind my mother, Austin puts one hand on her hip.
I love you too,
she says.

I try to run to my mother, but I can't move. That's right, I'm still tied up, strapped down to something.

Mom!
I call out.

She's shimmering, fading at the edges, disappearing.

Don't leave me again!

She blows me a kiss.
I'm with you always.
She reaches one arm to me, sparks flying out of her fingertips. All at once, she turns into a tower of diamonds that explode, showering down on me.
Strength
, she says, from all around me.
I give you strength to fight and see the good.

My hands. They're tied up. I don't like being tied up! From within my body, within my mortal lungs, I let out an animal scream as I rip my hands out of the restraints.

I blink, back in my body, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting.

I'm in a basement, a partially finished one, with open wood supports visible along the ceiling.

Heidi's standing to my right. My body moves, seemingly on its own, and I punch the old lady right in the face. My left fist impacts her jaw, and her stone-gray face wobbles off to the side.

“Sorry,” I say, but Heidi doesn't say anything. She just drops to the ground.

Newt, who's wearing yet another ill-fitting suit, this one tweed, gasps and staggers back.

Please, let him be having a heart attack
, I pray. Lit by flickering candles, his shocked face looks like melting wax.

“Are you okay?” I call out to him, feeling awful for wishing him ill. Maybe Newt's not so bad.

His back to me, Newt grabs a battle-ax off the wall, raises it over his head, and starts up with the chanting again.

“Oh, hell no, old man!” I yell as I attempt to jump off the thing I'm lying on.

One problem: I haven't untied my feet yet, and they're preventing my escape. I desperately grasp at the bindings around my ankles, but unlike the straps that held my hands, these ropes are thick and well-knotted.

“You're a waste of magic,” Newt growls. “Useless.”

“You're a waste of ... tweed.”

He narrows his eyes and raises the weapon higher. The glinting edge tells me this ax is definitely genuine, and not a prop for playing Dungeons and Dragons down here in this basement, as I had briefly hoped.

“Don't kill me,” I plead. “You can't get my magic out if you chop my head off.”

He grins malevolently.

“Um. Or can you?”

He laughs. “It's the
only
way.”

“Hold on, wait,” I say to the maniacal old man holding an ax above his head, about to cleave me a new one. “I think Heidi's trying to tell us something. Something important.”

“She had her chance,” he says. The ax must be heavy, because Newt's arms are quivering.

“I think she's really hurt though. Shouldn't we check on her? She'll be really angry if you don't do anything to help her, won't she?”

He's confused by my concern, his gaze darting back and forth between me and her. He steps sideways toward her, keeping the ax between us, and kneels down.

I reach behind me, to the edge of the table, where three daggers lie—probably arranged there in preparation for killing me. One dagger falls to the floor with a clatter.

“Don't you move, boy,” Newt commands.

Heidi's head moves as she stirs back to life. I had hoped she was out cold, but this works too. With Newt momentarily distracted, I grasp one of the daggers and slowly move my hand over to the ropes on my feet, where I begin to saw.

Newt is talking softly, apologizing to Heidi. “How was I supposed to know he had such strong arms,” he says.

They don't notice me sawing away at the ropes. I glance down to gauge my progress, and my heart pinches in my chest. I've barely frayed the rope. What I really need right now is a battle-ax, and I think I know where to get one.

I sneak another quick peek at my surroundings. I'm on a hospital-style gurney, next to a wood table. I'm on a gurney? Who sacrifices someone on a gurney? Were they worried about getting blood on their antique table? I give it a test wiggle to confirm I'm on wheels. Even better, the wheels aren't locked in place.

“Look out, Newt!” I yell. “Heidi's trying to take all my power for herself!”

Newt says, “Huh?” and steps back just as I push off from the wood table, aiming my gurney, feet-first, right for him. Heidi, crouched on the ground, lashes out with her gray, stony arms, and I'm falling, falling, tipping sideways, gurney and all, to the ground. Much to my disappointment, my feet are still locked in place.

“Sneaky one,” Newt says and he whips the ax up high above his head. At the apex of his swing, the ax smashes some pipes running along the ceiling, lodging itself in one of the wood beams. Newt lets go of the handle and stupidly stares up at the ax as it hangs there.

I'm still tied to the gurney, but my feet are contacting the ground, and the bindings are loose enough for some movement. In a flash, all those gym-class crunches to build core strength finally pay off, and I'm upright. I grasp the ax, dislodge the blade, and bring it down swiftly between my feet and the metal gurney. I've sliced off the side of my shoe, and possibly some toes, but I'm loose.

“Don't let him get away!” Heidi yells.

I push the gurney against them, and they go down like bowling pins as I race for the stairs leading up from the basement, still clutching the ax. Heidi and Newt are a scrambling pile of limbs and outrage, still alive, and as ticked-off as a dropped hornet nest.

At the top of the stairs, I pull open the door and emerge screaming, ax high over head, prepared to cleave anyone else between me and escape.

I find nothing but an ordinary-looking kitchen with an abundance of cow-themed decor items. I drop the ax and slam shut the door to the basement.
Please let this door lock from the upstairs
, I pray. I'll be good. I'll do nothing but good, for the rest of my life. Please let this door lock.

It locks.

I sink to my knees and kiss the door. As I do, I smell something—gas. Newt and Heidi are yelling and banging on the door from their side. I knock on the door and tell them to snuff out their candles.

“What? Let us out, dearie,” Heidi says.

I repeat, “Put out the candles. I think there's a gas leak down there! Newt hit some pipes with the ax!”

“He's a liar!” Newt yells. “Don't believe him!”

“Fine, don't believe me, you miserable pair of ... witches!”

I get up and look around the kitchen again. Some keys are sitting on the counter, so I grab them and run outside to the black Cadillac parked in the driveway. Heidi and Newt took my entire body while I was on a Spirit Walk, so I think it's only fair I borrow their car.

I squeal out of the driveway, and even though it's not safe to talk on the phone while driving, I start looking for my cell phone.

What'll I do about Heidi and Newt if they keep pursuing me? I'll have to tell Gran ... and I guess I'll have to get a restraining order. Hands shaking, I locate my cell phone in my jeans pocket, right where I left it. I ease off the gas a bit, for safety, and begin making an emergency call to report the gas leak at the house.

I'm wondering how restraining orders work, exactly, when the house explodes. I put down my phone and watch in my rear-view mirror, but don't stop driving.

I hope Heidi and Newt were out of the house when it exploded, but I have to admit I also hope they weren't. If those two weren't evil, they were sure close. I was so blinded by my grief over Austin, I almost walked into their trap. Something else came out of my pocket with my phone—the address Newt gave me. I take a look, and I'm surprised to see the address is for a completely different street than the one I'm on.