The Book of Lost Souls (11 page)

Shayde’s interest in any development in her so-called relationship with Nick had started to get on Ivy’s nerves. She’d spent the last twenty minutes going on about Nick being so much better than Dean.

“If
you
have such a thing for Nick, why don’t
you
go out with him?” Ivy finally asked Shayde.

“Because I
don’t
have a thing for him. What I do have a thing for is seeing my best friend happy. He’s smart and cute. And he has a wicked crush on you.”

“Besides you, who says?” Ivy retorted. “I think Dean kinda likes me.”

“I’d give a bucket of Mr. Nash’s blood to see him dump Tara,” Raven said with a snort. “Of course, there’d have to be more than a bucket left. He’d pretty much bled-out before the medical examiner got there. Pity. We only got a couple of glasses each.”

Ivy grimaced. “I didn’t need to visualize that twice, thanks. Anyway, if Nick really liked me that much
before
the books, why’d he wait until after I’d found them to be so incessant? Okay, yeah. He asked me out twice. Ever since the books came into play, he’s not taking no for an answer. Usually, he’d be on to the next girl by now.”

Raven grinned. “Guys. It’s the testosterone. He can’t stand to see you with Dean, especially if he senses he’s got an edge. And that only makes it worse. Demons
love
a challenge.”
 

“And you’re certainly a challenge,” Shayde mumbled.

“I heard that,” Ivy said.

“Well, don’t you think it’s a bit unfair that you won’t give him a chance because his father and yours were friends?” Shayde asked.

Ivy shot her friend a hard,
that’s off limits
, glare. Shayde shrugged and went back to pulling the last of the weeds from the area she was working on. Shayde was right, of course. It probably was a bit unfair. But whenever Nick was around, Ivy felt like a tangle of nerves. It was as though she was always aware of him and his every move. But, she had to admit that she was a bit hard on him. If she was going to use his help, she needed to give him a break.
 

Careful
, she reminded herself.
Don’t start thinking you really like him.

Ivy shook the thought from her head. After cleaning up a few last grave sites and loading up the golf cart, the girls found themselves staring at Mr. Laughton’s grave.
 

“Dad is coming up here later with Gareth to rebury the bone and fix the grave,” Raven said. “I wonder why someone picked this grave to bury the books in?”

Ivy shrugged. “Maybe they knew that no one visited this row of graves? Random choice?”

“Well, it was a good hiding place for a while,” Shayde said. “I still wonder who put them there and who dug them up.”

“Maybe there’s a newcomer we don’t know about yet,” Raven countered.

Shayde shook her head. “We always know about newcomers. If there’s one around, they’re on the down-low.”

“We’ve actually got a mystery in our pretty boring little town. Exciting, isn’t it?” Raven rubbed her hands together. “So! Who would you suspect? Who did Mr. Nash in?”

Ivy considered Raven’s question. She’d practically thought of little else. Problem was, most of the town was less than friendly with the Nash’s. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Mr. Nash had to have pushed the wrong Kindred too far. He’s always trying to cause trouble. He was just asking for something bad to happen sooner or later. I never thought someone would kill him, though.”

“I’m surprised no one has roughed him up before this,” Raven said.
 

“That’s because Mr. Nash knew that if a Kindred really did pound some sense into him, it’d upset a lot of Regulars,” Shayde replied.
 

“Has he denied any building permits lately, failed anyone on inspection, cited anyone for code infractions?” Ivy asked.

Shayde laughed. “That would be a really long list.”

Ivy agreed. But what other leads did she have? The thought haunted her all the way back to the funeral home and the entire drive back home.
 

All Ivy wanted to do when she walked through the front door was to take a warm shower. Hopefully, her bad mood would wash down the drain along with the dirt and sweat. She’d managed to make it up the stairs and halfway down the hall when the floor creaked and her mother called to her.
 

Mental note to self,
Ivy thought.
Remember to charm that particular floorboard.
The last charm had apparently worn off already.

Pretending she hadn’t heard, Ivy headed straight for the bathroom. Her mother was just concerned, but Ivy had never felt less like talking.

Her mother tried to get her to talk about what was bothering her over dinner, and Ivy did her best to brush it off. When her mother suggested that she was probably just having boy trouble deciding between Dean and Nick, she let her mother think exactly that. With each bit of advice, Ivy nodded on cue and replied with the required
thanks, Mom
. She endured the last of the speech while they did the dishes.

“I’m going to read a little,” Ivy said, hanging the dishtowel up to dry.
 

Her mother smiled warmly, clearly happy to have done her motherly duty by giving her daughter something to think about.
 

Devlin followed Ivy up the stairs and into her room. Ivy shut the door and sifted through her dresser, retrieving a lavender sleep tee. After changing and tossing her clothes in the direction of the clothes hamper, she pulled the book bag out from under her bed.
 

Why had someone buried all three books? Who had left the bag and the remaining books there for them to find? And what did a gardening book have to do with
The Book of Lost Souls?
 

She looked at
The Rise of the Dark Curse
. Her hand hovered over it for a second or two. Giving in to her curiosity, she picked the book up and a sudden surge of energy rushed through her like an electrical current.
 

From his spot on the end of the bed, Devlin whined.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Ivy assured him. She sat on the bed and rested the book on the covers. “Just a minute or two. Maybe it’ll give us a clue on who’s using the other book.”

Devlin whined again and lay down, paws over his snout.

Heart racing, Ivy gently flipped the book’s cover open. The tendrils of black mist twirled and danced as though rejoicing.

She’s back, little one is back!

Ivy paused and listened, but the voices had grown silent. It was her imagination, nothing more. Although the tendrils of mist had died down, the immense cold that began to seep from the pages had not. Ivy flipped through a section of the book, the buzzing in her head, the adrenaline-sugary rush tingling inside her. It was both horrible and exhilarating.
 

The spells within the book bordered dark to down-right gruesome. She read one page after another, each spell more and more like a train wreck she couldn’t look away from. Each spell filled her mind, feeling oddly like they’d settled down for a long visit.
 

Devlin barked. He stood inches from her, snarling, teeth bared. A sudden rage flared through her and Ivy raised a hand, preparing to repel Devlin off the bed—and maybe into the wall—for his uncommon outburst of disloyalty.
 

Devlin lunged. Surprised at her beloved pup’s behavior, Ivy’s spell missed. She jerked back, out of the way of Devlin’s teeth. He clawed at the book, slamming it shut, yelping in pain as one of the tendrils of mist touched his paw. He scurried to the edge of the bed, ears and tail tucked in fear, paw still lifted in pain. But, he was still snarling at the book.

It was the book he’d been after. Not her. He’d wanted her to stop reading it.

Ivy couldn’t believe that she’d almost struck Devlin. She’d
never
do such a thing. But, something had come over her while reading the book. She scooped Devlin into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she repeated over and over. Devlin licked her face in accepted apology, but his eyes darted back to the book.
 

“Yeah. You’re right.” Ivy retrieved her book bag, and using the covers as a barrier, slid the book back into the bag. She exchanged it for
A Botany of Spells—Magic for the Garden
. She zipped the bag shut and pushed it back under the bed.
 

She examined Devlin’s paw, which looked okay. He tentatively set it back down on the bed, applying a bit of weight to it. The book was far too dangerous. She had to get rid of it soon. Ivy glanced at the alarm clock. She’d been going through the book for over half an hour. The longer she’d spent with it, the more engrossed she’d become and more it had affected her. Devlin had seen that and tried to protect her from it. But, it had affected him, too. Beezlepups were very in tune to their owners, and Devlin was feeding off her energy.
 

Ivy scratched under his chin. “Thanks, buddy.”
 

Devlin sneezed, hopefully meaning,
you’re welcome
. He curled back up on the edge of the bed, seemingly at ease with her second choice in reading material. He watched her for a little bit, but soon drifted to sleep with a few short snuffling sounds.
 

Ivy flipped through the first few pages of the gardening book, not knowing exactly what to look for. It wasn’t until chapter three that she stopped flipping through pages and started reading. The chapter’s title was enough to generate interest. It read:
Chapter Three: Ivy.
A faded, penciled-in star appeared next to this. According to the book, ivy was one of the most revered plants in witchcraft. Supposedly, it offered good luck, health, and could ward off despair and disaster. Greek and Roman gods often wore wreaths of holly and ivy.
 

Ivy traced her fingernail across the words that had been underlined: Happiness, health, good luck. She would have underlined another bit of text that exemplified her personality—that although ivy was cultivated and grown in several places in the world and sometimes used to cover buildings in disrepair, it was a plant that
thrived
in nature. Perseverance. Determination. Six spells were included in this chapter, using the plant for anything from hangovers and infertility to sunburn and depression. She read the last sentence in the chapter several times:
The powers of ivy are strongest during the Ivy Moon, which coincides at harvest’s end.
Harvest’s end fell on Halloween this year, six days away.

She continued to browse through
A Botany of Spells
, pausing again on
Chapter eight: Wolfsbane
. Again, a penciled-in star appeared next to the chapter’s title. Fully engaged now, she read on. Aside from the fact the plant was highly poisonous, it also had the qualities of strength, intelligence, and peace. A true spell caster’s plant, the chapter concluded.
 

Bane. Wolfsbane.

Without browsing through the rest of the book, she searched the index for Nightshade. Finding it, she turned to chapter twenty and stared. There was another star here. She paged forward, but none of the other plants had a star penciled next to them. She flipped back to Nightshade. Beauty was the one word that was repeatedly used with the plant, and she read a few spells that used Nightshade. One was thought to encourage one’s artistic abilities. Another was to enhance sight temporarily. Other spells revolved around Nightshade’s powers to sever life.
 

Nightshade. Sever life?
 

Shayde?
 

That was hardly a trait she’d put with her best friend. She paged through the book again. Only three of them had stars next to their chapter headings. Three. Ivy, Wolfsbane, and Nightshade. Ivy, Bane, and Shayde. Coincidence?
 

No. Something said it wasn’t. But why would a gardening book with her name and the names of her friends be included with books on black magic?
 

Either this had something to do with her father, or someone had tried to make it look that way. Which meant, either he’d buried the books, or the person who dug them up was
setting
her up. Maybe both were true. Her thoughts went back to Nick’s father.

“What are you reading, sweetie?”

Ivy jumped, knocking the book from her lap. She’d been so preoccupied that she hadn’t heard her mother enter the room.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just a book on plants.” Her mother picked it up before Ivy could snatch it from atop the covers.
 

Her mother’s face went white, her hands trembled, and tears filled her eyes.
 

“Mom,” Ivy said. “What’s the matter? It’s just a book.” Even without her mother’s reaction to it Ivy knew that
A Botany of Spells
was anything other than
just a book
.
 

Tears spilled down her mother’s cheeks and she wiped at them furiously. “Where?” she asked, her voice nearly choking. “Where did you find this, Ivy?”

“It’s not a bad book, Mom! It’s just about some plants. What’s wrong?”

“WHERE did you find this?” Her mother closed the book and held it to her chest.

“Mom, you’re scaring me.”
 

Ivy’s words must have made her mother come around and she took a deep, controlled breath. “Your father gave it to me the summer I learned I was pregnant with you. I wanted to take up gardening, and he surprised me with this book. I haven’t seen this book...” she paused. “I haven’t seen it since your father left. Where on earth did you find it?”

CHAPTER 14

“One of the books was your
mother’s
?” Shayde blurted out. “You’re kidding.”
 

“Shhh!” Ivy warned. She hurried to her locker and wriggled her fingers. The dial turned right and left and the locker popped open.
 

“Sorry,” Shayde whispered. “Does she know you found it buried in the cemetery?”
 

“I said that I found it stuffed behind some other books on a shelf in the study. She didn’t look at me like I was lying,” Ivy shrugged. “But she did seem surprised to see it. Said she hadn’t seen it since
he
left.”