Love Charms (109 page)

“If it's money, I can afford to pay you
double or even triple your usual rate.” Jacob pulled out a checkbook and a pen
from his suit coat pocket.

I waved a hand dismissing his offer. “No
it's not the money. It's just that Mark was my partner. He was my back up.” Now
he was a wisp of cold air that couldn't keep from falling into my linen closet.

“I'll hire a bodyguard.”

“That may not be enough. What happened to
your brother sounds like a pretty elaborate set up. I don't know that a normal
human could've carried it off. I would think at least a dark witch would be
involved.” I frowned. The last thing I wanted to do was tangle with a dark
witch. With my luck, they would bespell me, and I would become a puppet pulled
by magical strings the rest of my life. Good psychics were in demand, and some
people--mostly those dealing with black magic--weren't too ethical about how
they acquired the services of a psychic. This was the reason I had my home magically
warded, to protect myself from being kidnapped or worse. There were rumors of
spells requiring the blood and body parts of psychics.

“It's not a dark witch," a shrill
voice said beside me.

A girl of maybe eight years in age stood
next to me, well, floated actually. She was a ghost. Long blond hair swirled
past her waist, and her white nightgown billowed in a nonexistent breeze.
Mark's hair was always blowing around too, like he was caught in a perpetual
windstorm. The afterlife must have some hell of a weather system.

“Uh, hello. Who are you?” The words were
out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

“My name is Darla. I'm his niece.” She
pointed to Jacob.

I turned to look at Jacob who was rubbing
his arms at the chill of Darla's presence. “Who are you talking to?”

I worried my bottom lip and considered my
options. Tell the truth and have Jacob storm out thinking I was a nut, which
was fine by me. That would be one way to wiggle out of this case. But it might
not eliminate the ghost of his niece, who would probably hound me until I
helped discover the truth of her family's death. I didn't know a lot about
ghosts; the last known psychic who was able to act as a medium between this
world and the next had been dead for over a century and she hadn't left behind
an instruction manual.

Still, since Mark showed no signs of
moving on, I didn't hold out any hope Darla would leave me in peace. If I was
going to get sucked into this one way or the other, I might as well get paid
for my time. How bad could it be? Everyone was already dead, there would be no
rush to save anyone, just gather information and report it to the police.
Simple and nothing like last time.

Or so I told myself. Denial has its uses.

Irate at my long silence, Jacob stood and
walked to the door. “I can see this is a waste of time. Sorry to have bothered
you.”

“Don't let him leave,” Darla shrieked,
fluttering from the floor to the ceiling in distress.

“Wait," I followed him and put a
hand on his arm. “I'll help you, if you'll have me.”

He paused, hand on the door knob. Looking
back at me, he said, “What do you mean by that? I want your help.”

“You might not after you hear what I have
to say. Why don't we sit down at the kitchen table? I'll make us some tea.” My
mother had always broken bad news over tea, although she never topped it off
with rum like I did--an addition I made after her funeral some five years ago.
I walked into the kitchen, the bright yellow walls making the late summer dusk
streaming in through the tiny window above the sink look cheerful. Jacob
trailed behind me, frowning in what I decided was annoyance.

A now calm Darla clapped her hands
together and smiled. “I love tea parties.” I rolled my eyes and hoped she knew
she couldn't eat or drink anymore.

“All right. Tea sounds good. You have one
heck of a draft in here.” He went to sit at the ancient pine table I'd bought
at a farm sale several years ago while I filled the teakettle with water.

“The draft is what we have to talk
about.” I set the kettle on the stove and turned the burner on high. “Jacob, do
you believe in ghosts?”

He shrugged. “Believe in ghosts? I guess
so. I mean, there's witches, vampires, pixies, and elves, why not ghosts? Just
because we haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist. We learned that lesson
when the elves popped up in the fifties.”

“Good, because your niece Darla is here.”
I filled a tray with tea, honey, two mugs, and some spoons. I left the rum
behind since there wasn't enough for both of us. I'd been adding a lot of rum
to my tea lately. The bottles didn't last as long as they used to.

Jacob stood so fast the chair fell behind
him. “Darla? Are you here, honey?” He waved his arms around trying to feel for
her.

I set the tray on the table. “Jacob, calm
down. She's here, but you can't see her.”

Eyes desperate with grief met mine. “Why
not?”

“I don't know. That's just the way it
works.”

Jacob picked the chair up off the floor.
“What is she saying?” Jacob asked ensconced once again in his chair.

“Nothing right now, but she told me the killer
wasn't a dark witch.” I checked on the kettle, which began to whistle. I turned
off the burner, grabbed the kettle with a potholder, and returned to sit across
from Jacob. Darla had seated herself next to her uncle and watched as I poured
the water and dispensed the tea.

“Where is she?”

I nodded in the general direction of
Darla. “She's right next to you.”

Jacob put out a hand and gingerly poked
at the air next to him. His hand went through Darla's body up to the elbow.

Darla grimaced. “Stop it. Make him stop.”

“She doesn't like that,” I said. “Ghosts
don't like going through us anymore than we do.”

Jacob withdrew his hand and wrapped it
around his steaming mug. “Damn, that's cold.”

“He said a bad word," Darla said.

“I know. He didn't mean it.” I squeezed
some honey into my mug.

“What? I didn't mean what?” Jacob frowned
at me, confused.

“You swore.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“Hey, I don't have any tea.” Darla, with
the typical short attention span of a child, had already moved on to something
else.

I stopped stirring my tea and looked at
her. “I don't think you'll like it.”

“I want tea.” She tried to slap a hand on
the table, but it went straight through the wood.

“It's hot. You don't seem to like hot
things,” I said.

“I want tea," she yelled and began
to chant with escalating volume, “Tea. Tea. Tea. Tea."

I winced. Darla had probably been a
spoiled child with a hundred Barbies and far too few spankings. I felt bad
thinking that way, considering she was dead, but brats apparently don’t change
in the afterlife.

“What is it?” Jacob asked.

“She's upset.” I sighed and went to the
kitchen to get another mug, which I set down on the table with more force than
necessary. Taking a new tea bag from the box, I ripped the paper off, dropped
the bag in the mug, poured the water, and pushed the mug over to her.

“Thank you.” Darla smiled at me, her
cheeks dimpling. A cherub replaced the she-devil.

“You're welcome. Now, why don't you tell
me what happened to your family?”

Darla reached to touch the mug and frowned
when her hand passed through it. “It's too hot.”

“I know,” I said as patiently as I could.
“Give it some time to cool off.”

“Okay.”

“So why did you say it wasn't a dark
witch," I prompted warming my hands on my mug uncomfortably aware of Jacob
staring at me.

“Because he said he was a Nomoncher.”

“Nomoncher?” I looked to Jacob who
shrugged.

“Yeah, he makes zombies.” She tried to
pick up her mug again, only to draw her hand back with a sharp gasp.

“Oh, you mean a Necromancer.” My voice
was calm, but my heart began to beat fast as hummingbird’s. This was bad news.
Really bad news.

“Yep.”

Jacob raised an eyebrow at my comment. “A
Necromancer? I didn't think there were any active.”

“Me, either.” Necromancers didn't live
very long. Their nefarious practices took them outside of the law so often,
they ended up on death row on a regular basis. Those who evaded law enforcement
usually died at the hands of their own zombies. Dangerous business, raising the
dead.

“Well, that's what he said. Nec, neco,” she
stumbled over the word again. “Necomoncher.”

“What did the necromancer want?”

Darla whimpered and wrapped her arms
tight around her body. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Darla, it's okay. He can't hurt you
anymore. If you give me more information, I can make sure he never hurts anyone
ever again.” I kept my voice soft, attempting to be soothing.

“He, he...,” she broke off and went for
her mug only to wail in frustration. “It's hot, so hot.” The mug began to
levitate and then fell with a thud landing on its side. Rivulets of steaming
water flowed across the table. I grabbed some napkins and sopped it up before
it could hit the floor.

“Wow. I've never seen anything like this.
Was that Darla?” Jacob looked at me with wide eyes.

“Yes," I said through gritted teeth.
Darla hadn't stopped wailing and it was a good thing ghosts weren't solid or I
would've seriously considered gagging her.

From behind me, a voice I recognized as
Mark's said, “Darla, honey. It's okay. You don't want the tea anyway.”

“Mark!” She floated up and over to where
Mark had manifested in the kitchen, a pleased smile on her face. “You're here.”

“I told you I would be, Squirt. I just
had to take a small detour. Did you meet Sofia?”

Darla nodded. “Yes and she made me tea,
but it's too hot to drink.”

“We talked about that, remember? You
don't need to eat or drink anymore.” Mark leaned down and patted her on the
head. Amazingly, his hand didn't pass through, but made actual contact. My
mouth dropped open in surprise.

“We were just trying to find out what
happened to her and her family,” I said. “I didn't realize you two knew each
other.”

“Who are you talking to? Darla?” Jacob
asked.

I shook my head. “No, another ghost has
joined us.”

“Is it my brother?”

“Sorry, no. Not anyone from your family.”
Jacob opened his mouth to say something else, but I put up a hand silencing
him. “Let me talk to the ghosts, I'm not sure how long they'll be here.” At
Jacob's nod, I turned my attention back to Mark and Darla.

“What did she tell you?” Mark came to
float next to me, bringing Darla with him. I reflexively crossed my arms
against the chill.

“Only that the killer was a Necromancer.
She didn't want to talk about anything else.”

“Do you really need her to?” Mark asked,
gesturing to Darla who was huddled against him and had buried her face into his
stomach at the mention of the Necromancer.

“No, I guess not.” It would be cruel to
force her to relive her death. I could get everything I needed by visiting her
house, or what was left of it.

Mark squatted down so that he was eye
level with Darla. “Remember how we talked about how you can't stay here and you
would have to move on soon?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“I think it's time now,” Mark said.

“No, I want to talk to Uncle Jake.”

“But he can't see or hear you,” Mark held
her by the shoulders and spoke in an even, matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Darla twisted away from Mark looking back
to where Jacob sat watching me conduct conversations with ghosts he couldn't
see. “Uncle Jake, can you hear me?” When Jacob didn't respond, she raised the
volume and repeated her question.

“Jacob, tell Darla it's okay," I
said.

“Okay for what?” A puzzled look crossed
his face.

“To move on. She's fighting to stay
because she wants to be with you.”

“Darla honey, I love you. Don't stay for
me. It's okay to go on. I'll meet you, all of you, there someday.” Jacob's
voice broke at the end, and tears welled up in his eyes.

“Are you sure, Uncle Jake?” Darla also
had tears in her eyes.

“She wants to know if you're sure,” I
said, my voice husky. I couldn't help but be affected by the raw emotions
swirling around me.

“Yes, I am.” Jacob sniffed and clenched
his jaw, his eyes too bright.

Darla turned back to Mark. “If Uncle Jake
says it's okay, then I can go.” Mark nodded and folded her into his arms and
they both slowly faded out of sight.

“She's gone," I whispered, making my
way back to the table to sit down. I sipped my tea on autopilot while Jacob
struggled to suppress his emotions. We both stared at the empty air around us
with wide, glassy eyes. Jacob was lost in his grief and I wondered if it was
possible to kill someone more than once, because, so help me, it was the least
Mark deserved for dragging me into this mess.