Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2) (27 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

C
ooper rushed to
Orinda’s side, his face contorted with fury. “Not her,” he roared. “Not her. Ever. Get out!”

“Where would you like me to go?” Orinda hissed. “Not a lot of choices at the moment. Your whore was the only one available. If you’d listened to me and we’d used the other witch, the prophesied one, they’d be here by now. You don’t want to test them. Trust me on this.”

Cooper paled. “Can you enter the other one?”

“Give me a minute,” Orinda grunted. “She’s well shielded at the moment. A little help? If you’re not too busy?” She stood up and ran her hands over her body. She smiled. “This one is strong. Now we’ve both been inside her. Something we can share.”

Meaghan’s fear evaporated, replaced with disgust. “You are the most disgusting pair . . .
trio
 . . . of . . . Gah.” She lifted her lip in disgust and shook her head. “How vile can you get? You’ve both been inside her? Ewww. You deserve each other. Ménage-a-
ewww
. The end of the world is worth it if means getting away from you creepy assholes.”

Cooper and Orinda stared at her, mouths open.

“When did evil get so tacky? So low rent?” Meaghan asked, her mouth now way out ahead of her brain. “Look at yourselves. You’re ridiculous.”

Orinda recovered quickly. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Great,” Meaghan ranted. “If that’s what it takes so I don’t have to endure another nanosecond with you repulsive freaks, have at it. I’d rather be dead than have to listen to any more of this. You’ve both been inside her? It’s not even original.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sid and Owen creeping towards her. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. They were up to something. Cooper and the Power were still focused on her. She needed to keep distracting them.

“So now what are you going to do? Now who are you coming after? It’s me, the well-protected witch, or the . . . whatever the hell Patrice is. All that estrogen, Cooper. Sure you can handle it?”

“She’s not that well-protected,” Cooper snarled as he conjured a ball of fire larger than Orinda’s, even larger than the flames the wizards had conjured when they’d ignited the bonfire outside. He threw it at Natalie.

It exploded about a foot away from her, but instead of dissipating, the sparks formed a flaming lattice. A burning cage now surrounded her. She screamed. The flames weren’t touching her physically, but terror was unhinging her.

“Satisfied?” Cooper said to Orinda. “Takes a little longer, but it gets the job done. Now, get the hell out of there. Take the Fahrayan. We have work to do.”

“Fine,” Orinda said with a pout. The dark cloud oozed from her and rolled across the floor toward Jamie.

Meaghan felt a small hand grasp her wrist and pull her hand behind her back. Something cold and metallic slid into her grip.

The Mangler.

Meaghan felt a wave of hopelessness wash over her as she listened to Natalie’s screams. Her sister was dying. The man she loved like a son was about to die. Something unthinkable was about to be unleashed into the world.

And she was holding a stapler. That was her big plan. Throw a stapler at somebody.

Jamie stood up and stretched. “Wow, this feels kind of nostalgic. Been a while since I ate Fahrayan.”

“He’s human now,” Orinda said, a sour look on her pale face. She looked at Cooper, hurt in her eyes. “You promised you’d never let that thing have me. You promised me.”

Jamie strolled over to her and grinned. “Now, I can be inside you the other way, too. I know you want it.”

Orinda screeched in rage and swung her hand towards his face. He grabbed her wrist and snapped it. She squealed with pain.

“Will you please get your woman under control?” Jamie said, eyebrow raised.

Cooper’s face was white with rage. “You go too far.”

Jamie smirked. “File a complaint with the new management. When they get here.” He ran a hand over the sigils on his chest. “Very soon now.”

Cooper said nothing, his jaw clenched.

Meaghan could see the anger on his face. The ghost of Welland Eldrich had been right. Orinda was Cooper’s weak spot.

“Get the rest of the spell set up,” Jamie said, walking toward Patrice and Natalie. “I’ll check on the witch.” He glared at Patrice, who crouched on the floor, eyes shut tight in concentration, sweat dripping down her face. “Try anything tricky with the floor molecules, love, and I’ll keep him ambulatory long enough so I can beat you to death with his fists. And maybe do a few other things. Would you like that? Some special moments with your husband’s rotting corpse?”

Patrice ignored him, then opened her eyes for a moment and stared at Meaghan.
Now.

Meaghan nodded. “Hey, Cooper,” she shouted. “Catch.”

She flung the Mangler at the wizard with all her strength.

Cooper waved a hand, but the stapler kept coming. It hit a glancing blow on his left shoulder and the side of his head, enough to make him stumble and fall backwards.

Meaghan turned toward Jamie.

“Too late,” he said, smiling. “They’re here.”

Meaghan turned back toward Cooper. The shadows behind him were growing. He scrambled away on all fours toward Orinda, breathing in a high thready whine, but wearing a triumphant look on his face.

Dark red light began to throb within the shadows, growing brighter.

Behind her, Jamie threw his arms wide, an exultant look on his face, the sigils glowing red on his chest. He began chanting in a guttural language, with Natalie’s anguished high-pitched shrieks serving as a horrible counterpoint.

Meaghan wanted to run like hell, but she stood her ground. This was her job. To see. To see with clear eyes what no one else could truly see.

The red glow coalesced into a circle, like a tunnel.

The first thing that hit Meaghan was the smell.

She’d gotten sprayed by a skunk once, years before, when she had found her dog cornering what he thought was a cat. She had thought she knew what skunks smelled like. But up close—it had been like rotten eggs and bulbs of old garlic being sautéed on a burning tire by a chef who’d never bathed once in his life. It was more than an odor—it was like a living presence infecting her nose and mouth.

The odor wafting from the red tunnel, foul and pungent, had a similar effect on her, but smelled like nothing she had ever encountered.

Eyes watering, stomach turning, Meaghan pulled the collar of her T-shirt over her nose and mouth. Breathing through her mouth made the smell marginally less sickening.

The red light grew stronger.

Jamie still chanted, while Natalie screamed.

Then Meaghan heard a shushing sound.

Jamie roared with rage. Cooper joined him.

Meaghan looked back.

Sid and Owen, each holding a fire extinguisher, were spraying the flaming cage surrounding Natalie. The flames may have been ignited magically, but were smothered easily by chemical foam.

Within moments, Natalie was free. She snarled something and shot a spell at Jamie.

Jamie grunted, as if punched hard in the gut, and fell to the ground. The black shadow erupted from his prone body. Natalie snarled and made a throwing motion at the shadow. A flash of golden light blinded Meaghan for a moment and when she could see again, the shadow was gone.

Meaghan turned back to Cooper, who huddled in a corner near the glowing tunnel, eyes wide, gripping Orinda tightly. Both were staring at the tunnel, Natalie and Jamie forgotten.

A tentacle slithered out of the red light as the smell grew stronger.

Meaghan stepped backward. She wanted to run, but she had to watch. A second tentacle erupted from the red tunnel.

Orinda screamed, eyes wild, and tried to scramble away. Cooper gripped her, unmoving, his look of triumph replaced with fear.

Meaghan forced herself to look at what was coming.

The tentacles were gray. Sort of scaly. But no suckers or spikes or anything. The worst thing about them was the smell.

Meaghan felt her fear begin to lessen. She glanced over at Cooper and Orinda. They were clinging to each other, terror etched on their faces. She turned to look at Owen and Sid and Natalie behind her. Again she saw the wide-eyed looks of horror.

All this for a couple of stinky tentacles? The others clearly saw something different from what was actually there.

“Huh,” she said out loud. She called over her shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Meaghan turned back toward the tunnel. A third tentacle emerged.

Owen and Sid tackled Natalie and the three of them fell through the suddenly paper thin floor.

Orinda began to wail, a high-pitched moaning shriek that was much scarier than the three limp tentacles flopping around in the red light.

What the hell did everybody else see?
This is it?
Meaghan thought.
Three tentacles?
She’d seen scarier stuff on TV.

Patrice shouted, “Meaghan!”

Meaghan turned.

Patrice straddled Jamie, one hand on the sigil over his heart. “Duck!”

Meaghan hit the floor.

Patrice bent to kiss Jamie, then sat up, her eyes again obsidian and inhuman. She gave Cooper a triumphant smile and stretched her other hand toward the tunnel.

Jamie cried out in pain and then was still.

Meaghan felt a rushing, like a strong wind, above her. A golden flash of light illuminated the attic, followed by high-pitched screaming, as inhuman as Patrice’s glittering stony eyes.

She turned to look at the tunnel. The flimsy tentacles, blistering in the golden light, squirmed convulsively, but did not withdraw. The red light wavered for a moment and grew strong again.

The building shook.

The pulsing red light flashed off something metallic.

The Mangler lay at the mouth of the tunnel.

At that moment, Meaghan understood what she had to do. Patrice had been right. Meaghan did have a role to play and now she knew what it was.

These things are magic itself? Let’s see them choke on something
impervious
.

Meaghan dove toward the Mangler. A tentacle slithered forward and tried to grab her, but she smashed it with the bulky stapler. With a piercing shriek, it pulled away from her.

Sitting on the floor, Meaghan grabbed the Mangler with both hands and chucked it over her head into the tunnel.

The tentacles retreated. The inhuman shrieking increased for a moment, and then abruptly stopped. There was a loud popping noise and the tunnel disappeared.

Even the smell was gone.

Meaghan sat up and looked over at Cooper and Orinda, still clinging to each other in fear. She followed their gaze and saw Patrice helping Jamie to his feet. The golden aura was gone and her dark hair hung down her back, tangled, no longer floating.

Jamie patted his chest and smiled. He spun around to show Patrice his back, then pulled her into passionate kiss.

The sigils were gone. Not healed or faded. Gone. As if they had never been carved into his skin.

Patrice came up for air and saw Meaghan staring. With a grin, she gave Meaghan a thumbs-up.

Meaghan, now grinning too, turned back to Cooper and Orinda. “Well,” she said, as she pulled herself to her feet. “That didn’t go quite according to plan, did it?”

“This isn’t over,” Cooper said in a shaky voice. “All you’ve done is buy yourself some time. I’ll see you dead for this. As was prophesied.”

“Blah blah blah,” Meaghan said. “I don’t believe in prophecy.” Her grin segued into her most fearsome glare. “Now get out of my town.”

Cooper, still clutching the now weeping Orinda to his side, muttered something, waved his free hand, and the pair of them vanished.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

W
ith the last
shreds of her power, Patrice cleared a safe path across the floor and out of the attic.

Clinging to each other like drunks after a wild party, giggling, Meaghan, Jamie, and Patrice stumbled through the remains of the solicitor’s office and down the stairs to the second floor.

The crowd in Tony’s office erupted in pandemonium when they entered. Like an actor acknowledging an encore, Jamie grabbed Patrice and Meaghan’s hands, and the three of them took a bow to raucous cheers and applause.

Then John was on her and Meaghan didn’t come up for air for a very long moment. When the kiss broke, they still held each other. He murmured in her ear, “You still want to have the date with me?”

She pulled back, laughing and crying at the same time, and gazed into his deep blue eyes. “Yes, I still want to have the date with you.”

Russ grabbed both of them into a bear hug. “Meg! You saved the world. Again.”

“No,” Meaghan said, gently extricating herself. “Patrice did. All I did was throw a stapler at the bad guys. She did all the heavy lifting.”

Russ’s giddy good cheer evaporated. “What the hell is she? Everyone down here is kind of freaked out at the moment.”

Meaghan glanced around and found Patrice and Jamie talking to a small group of witches. They had their arms around each other and big smiles on their faces. Patrice looked completely normal. The glow was gone. And apparently her powers, whatever their source, had gone with it.

But figuring that out would have to wait. Right now they had more immediate casualties to deal with.

“Where’s Marnie?” Meaghan asked, scanning the room.

Russ shook his head and his eyes filled. “Brian got her out of here.”

“When we fell through the floor, the witches they catch us and bring us down so we don’t crash,” John explained. “And then she wakes up. Screaming and crying and trying to hurt herself. I held her the best I could, and Jhoro and Brian came to help.”

Meaghan’s eyes widened. “Jhoro? How’d that go?”

John scowled. “It was very strange. He got to her first. He held her face in his hands, and stared at her.”

“And she stopped screaming,” Russ said. “And then she went limp. Jhoro nodded to Brian, who wrapped her up in a blanket he found somewhere, scooped her up, and left.”

“He took her outside, away from here,” Annie said, suddenly standing at Russ’s elbow.

Russ wrapped his arm around Annie, pulled her close, and kissed her on the forehead. “There’s my girl.”

“What did Jhoro do to her?” Meaghan asked.

Annie shrugged. “No idea. All that empathic stuff I was getting from him has dried up.” She pointed behind Meaghan. “He’s over there with Sid.”

Meaghan looked over her shoulder. Jhoro sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head down. Sid sat next to him, a sad look on his little blue face.

Meaghan turned back to John. “Did you talk to him?”

He shook his head. “No. He has said nothing since Brian took Marnie.”

“The grief is back,” Meaghan said.

John shook his head. “The grief was always there. Some of it always will be there. Better to feel it so one day he can remember how to live.”

Meaghan scanned the crowd and realized who else she didn’t see. “What about Natalie? Where is she?”

John didn’t know. Neither did Sid or Owen or the witches.

Natalie had been nearly burned alive twice in the same morning and now she was nowhere to be found. Meaghan didn’t like that all.

Finally, Meaghan found someone with information. Dana, the young witch and police dispatcher, was sitting on the second floor landing, near the women’s restroom, holding a blue ice pack over one cheek.

Meaghan plopped down next to her. “Hey, kiddo.” She wrapped an arm around the young witch. “I thought we’d lost you for a minute there.”

Dana sighed. “Yeah, me too. Running headlong into a pack of wizards was a really stupid thing to do.”

“Brave, though,” Meaghan said.

Dana snorted.

Meaghan smiled. “The line between stupid and brave can be a fine one. Trust me. I’ve spent more than a little time tap dancing on it.”

Dana leaned her head on Meaghan’s shoulder. “I was so scared.”

Meaghan felt the maternal feelings well up. “You and me both, honey.” She held Dana for a moment and then said, “Have you seen Natalie?”

The girl pointed behind her at the restroom door. “She wanted to clean up a little. She got me the ice pack and then she wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to go too far.” She lifted her head from Meaghan’s shoulder. “She’s really freaked out.”

“Yeah, I thought she might be.” Meaghan sighed. “I’ll take over if you have somewhere you want to be.”

“Like home in bed with the covers over my head for the next fifty years?” Dana smiled. “I’d better go find Heather.”

“Heather?”

“Circe. Her real name’s Heather.”

Meaghan started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. “Of course it is. Of course.” They stood up and Meaghan gave the girl a hug. “You don’t need to be anyone else. Dana’s pretty awesome. Be Dana from now on, okay?”

The girl nodded, her eyes shiny with tears. “For sure.”

When she had left, Meaghan cautiously pushed open the door. “Natalie? Can I come in?”

Meaghan heard a muffled grunt. She stepped into the tiled room. There was some water on the floor, the mirror was broken, and one stall door hung askew, but the facilities were relatively intact for having survived a near apocalypse.

Like many older buildings, city hall contained odd little spaces left over during renovations and updates. This particular restroom had a quiet little alcove off the main area, containing a battered Naugahyde sofa.

She found Natalie curled up, eyes shut, shaking. Meaghan sat down on the far end of the sofa and waited.

Finally Natalie spoke. “I’m sorry I’m being such an idiot. Hiding on the cramp couch.”

Meaghan sighed. “You were almost burned alive. Twice. You aren’t being an idiot. I’d be worried if you weren’t hiding somewhere freaking out.”

“You aren’t freaking out,” Natalie said in a small voice.

“Only because I’m too damn tired. And much better than you at shutting down and refusing to feel things, which, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t such a great way to deal with shit.” Meaghan settled back into the sofa. “Ooh. Ouch. I need a shower, a good night’s sleep, a pot of coffee, and about a zillion milligrams of ibuprofen. Only then will I have the energy to freak out.”

They sat in silence for a long time until Natalie stopped shaking and said, “Do you think they’ll come back?”

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure they’ll try.”

Natalie shuddered again. “Do you . . . what did you see? What did those horrible things
really
look like?”

“What did they look like to you?’

Natalie sat up and shook her head violently. “I can’t . . . it was . . . I can’t even describe it.”

“Well, I can. I saw three tentacles. Three gray, scaly, not-very-big tentacles. They didn’t have suckers or spikes or anything. Kinda squirmy, but that’s it. The worst part was the smell.”

Natalie frowned. “That’s it? Three not-very-big tentacles? Really?”

Meaghan nodded. “Really. Whatever the rest of you saw, it wasn’t real. Those things were screwing with your heads like Eliot said they would. They were even screwing with Voldemort and Cruella.”

Natalie smiled, just for a moment, but it was enough to make Meaghan feel much better. “Really? They were talking like those things were on their payroll.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking not so much. I’m thinking old Coop realized too late that he’d bitten off a little more than he could chew.”

“So these things aren’t dangerous?”

Meaghan sighed. “No. I’m sure they’re dangerous, but I’m also sure they don’t look as big and scary as they would like us to believe.”

Natalie stood up. “Well, now I’m pissed. A bunch of freaking extra-dimensional stinky space squid think they can bamboozle
me
with magic? Huh. We’ll see about that.” She tilted her head, thinking. “Maybe an amulet . . .”

Meaghan held out her hand. “Help me up.”

Natalie pulled and, with some groaning and creaking, Meaghan got to her feet.

As soon as they were both standing, Natalie threw her arms around Meaghan and held her tight. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving me so many times. You were right. About why we’d win.”

Meaghan looked confused. “Which was?”

Natalie pulled back and stared at her. “You know. On the stairs. About how we were family and had each other and all they had was hate and fear.”

Meaghan rolled her eyes. “That was total bullshit. You do know that, right? Me saying something inspiring to prod you up the stairs?”

Natalie punched her gently in the arm. “You’re such a bitch. It worked though, so nyah nyah.”

Meaghan pulled her back into a hug. “Let’s get out of this dump. We still have to figure out a cover story for this mess.”

“Aye-aye, Captain Bullshit,” Natalie said in her ear.