Mojo Queen (14 page)

Because if I could have, it might not have been such a shock when an invisible force slammed into the side of the house, rattling the kitchen window.

“What the hell?”

I hopped up to sit on the edge of the sink to get a better view, pulling the blinds up. Morning light spilled into the kitchen. Around the edges of my glasses, though, I could make out something else, a formless cloudy gray mass closing in on the house. Some sort of spirit entity, and it had not come in peace. Through the walls of the house and layers of wards, I could feel its malevolence.

“Either Delia’s got you lojacked or she learned how to use the phone book.”

Blake hissed an ugly stream of curse words, and I couldn’t disagree with him.

There were as many different kinds of spirits as there were people. Playful spirits, melancholy spirits, vengeful, desperate, sad. Spirits who did things for a reason, and spirits who were agents of chaos and destruction. Just because they liked it.

The windows above the sink rattled as if something on the outside was banging on the glass. I slid from the edge of the counter, took my glasses off and stashed them in a spare case in the work supply cabinet, grabbing more salt while I had the cabinet open.

“What is it?” Blake said.

“Ghosts.” I tossed him a half empty bag of rock salt. “Spirits, haints, call ’em whatever you like. You may have to make yourself a protective circle if they get in the house.” I gave him a wicked grin. “Unless you don’t mind them resonating all over you.”

I wanted to take a snapshot of the queasy look on his face and frame it. “If they get in, you can banish them, right?”

“Probably.” My auric vision showed me nothing. They weren’t in the house yet, but from the beating and banging on windows and doors they were trying damn hard to get in. A window broke in the living room, the crash sending both of us running.

It was the big double window behind the couch. Jagged shards lay exploded all over the couch, the floor, the coffee table. A thick gray-black haze pushed against the invisible barrier provided by the salt and the wards, but couldn’t penetrate. The front door rattled, splintering in several places as it came under repeated attack. I heard the bedroom window burst, crossed the living room to the hallway to get a look.

Just like in the living room there was glass everywhere, and the blinds and curtains were also ripped to pieces. I could see a haze outside but it couldn’t get in. The bathroom didn’t have a window and the only window in the library had been boarded up years before I bought the place. I went back to the living room to find Blake watching a spirit crashing against the barrier at the window over and over. I wondered what it looked like to him. I didn’t think he could see auras like I could but he clearly knew something was there.

“They’re gonna beat the hell out of the outside of my house but they can’t get in,” I said.

“I knew she could summon minions but I didn’t know she could do something like this,” Blake said.

“I’ve heard of controlling spirits but I’ve never seen it.” What I’d heard was more what you’d call anecdotal than anything else. No confirmation. Not that there’s a whole lot of hard evidence in the paranormal world but some things were more accepted than others, once enough fairly consistent anecdotal evidence came to light. In fact, I’d only ever heard one story about a sorcerer managing to bind ghosts to do his will. It should not have surprised me that Delia would be powerful enough to do that, but even she couldn’t make these ghosts strong enough to cross protective wards and salt.

Without warning the tumult of noise from outside stopped. Blake approached the window with caution, his aura rippling with shooting stars. I came up behind him and peered out into the bright sunlight. Nothing. No sign of anything.

“Do you think they left?” He sounded skeptical, something I could agree with.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I don’t think they can get in but this seems like giving up awful quick.”

A terrible metallic banging started, this time from inside the house. I ran toward the noise, into the kitchen where I flung open the door to the utility room in time to see my dryer destroyed. Something was trying to push its way out, beating against the dryer’s metal skin until it burst through the top, leaving a hole and strips of jagged metal curled out like the petals of a flower. I heard a scream as Blake yanked me back into the kitchen, realizing it was me. He emptied the bag of salt I’d given him across the door’s threshold after slamming it shut.

I put my hand on the door, pulling it back quickly and shaking off the burning sensation. A hollow wail that somehow sounded far away came from the utility room. Competing with it were sounds of destruction, things being thrown against the walls, ripped apart. Little things, big things. I was pretty sure I didn’t have a washing machine anymore, either. Something heavy was thrown against the door, making me jump. Blake caught me, pulled me away. I ran to the cabinet and grabbed another bag of rock salt, tearing it open as we met in the middle of the kitchen. Chunks of salt skittered across the floor. Another heavy slam into the door left a crack in the old wood.

“How the hell did they get in?” Blake took the bag from my shaking hands and poured a circle around us.

“The dryer vent,” I said. “I didn’t even think about the dryer vent being a way in.”

He shook his head. “Hopefully they’re contained now.”

The noise stopped. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

A low rumble ran through the walls. The lights went out. The temperature dropped. Our breath smoked in the air.

“Oh shit,” Blake said. Vivid red swirled through his aura, spiking out and surrounding him like a star.

“They’re here,” I said, fighting panic. Never, never,
never
, had there been ghosts or spirits or anything like this in my own home.

“But how? Did they tear a hole in the wall?”

I saw the confirmation the same time my brain arrived at the idea. An oily gray-black haze came up through the central air vent in the floor a few feet from the utility room door. “They’re in the ductwork.” I took the bag of salt from Blake and ran for the library.

“Roxie!” Blake yelled.

As I turned the corner into the hallway I heard what sounded like the coffee pot explode. I yelled over my shoulder, “Stay down!”

More sounds of crashing and breaking followed me. My car, my dryer, probably everything else in the utility room, now the kitchen. Goddess damn it, I’d had enough of this shit.

I made it to the central air vent in the library and dumped salt all around it, quite a bit falling down into the duct. I dropped to the floor on my hands and knees, trying desperately to calm myself enough to ground.

The act of grounding is pretty straightforward. You are opening a connection between yourself and the earth, a conduit for energy. It can be used to dispel negative energy that’s collected inside you, then replaced with the positive, healing energy of the earth. It can be used to supplement your own energy when you know it won’t be enough. I don’t know if having a connection to the plot of earth where you opened that connection made any difference. This was my home. I’d taken care of it, taken care of the yard, grown things here in this soil. Would that matter? I didn’t know, but thinking of my hands in the dirt of this piece of land helped me focus my concentration. I visualized my hands picking up snapped branches from underneath trees, spreading wide leaves out of the way so I could get to the squash and zucchini growing on the ground, digging holes with a trowel to plant tulip bulbs, placing a bowl to collect rainwater in a depression in the backyard. Walking across the grass barefoot at night, toasting the full moon with Daniel and sharing ghost stories. My feet in the grass, toes in the earth, soles connecting me, plugging me in. I reached for that connection now, opening myself and letting energy flow through me.

I stood, raised my arms, palms up. Angry spirits surrounded me, pressed against me like a suffocating blanket. I could feel the build-up of energy unfurling inside me. I held on to it for a moment then I sent it outward.

“Get out of my house!”

A wave of energy flowed from me, all shades of blue and yellow in the etheric spectrum. I felt it meet resistance from the ghostly intruders but it rolled right over them, catching them in a tsunami and expelling them from the house. Cries of rage sounded as the ghosts wrought as much destruction as they could on the way out. I could sense it when the last one crossed the threshold, felt the air pressure and temperature return to normal. But the wave didn’t stop. All that power, all that energy, was pinballing around my house and I couldn’t stop it. It had me trapped. I couldn’t move, couldn’t break the connection, couldn’t send the energy back into the ground. I couldn’t even scream.

Dorothy in the tornado, that’s what it felt like. My body stayed still while my senses were buffeted by storms. Everything went black. The roar died down to a hum but the energy wasn’t dissipating. I slid closer and closer to unconsciousness.

Hands on my shoulders, turning me around. A starburst of silver in the black. I felt his mouth on mine and grabbed on for dear life.

I almost drowned once when I was a kid. I didn’t know how to swim and wound up too close to the deep end of the pool. I probably could have held my breath, planted my feet, and walked back to the shallow end, but once the water got over my head all rational thought left. There was just panic and fear and flailing around until a lifeguard yanked me out.

Blake wrapped his arms around me, holding me tighter than I would normally have allowed. His fingers tangled in my hair, his tongue invaded my mouth. An hour before I would have pushed him away and not been too nice about it, either. Now it was all I wanted. Every time his lips tugged at mine, his tongue sliding insistently against mine, the feel of one hand snaking under my shirt and sliding up my back, every touch of his body against mine pushed back against the wave threatening to pull me down. I let his kisses pull me through until my head was back above water again.

My knees buckled when he let me go. I sank to the floor, not sure what I was feeling. I looked up at Blake and felt pretty sure we needed to find him a shirt so I could stop being tempted to play with the chest hair that peeked around the bandages. Oh, this was so not good. I kicked myself mentally, realizing I needed to take care of my house and not worry about Blake the Sexy Sorcerer.

“Roxie.” He knelt before me, dark chocolate eyes full of promise. He reached for me again, pulling me into another kiss. This time instead of leveling me out his lips sent me into a whirlwind. It took me right back into the moment we clasped hands the night before, twin lines of energy twisting around each other. From somewhere in my brain a voice told me to run as far from this man as I could get, run away and don’t look back. That voice was shouted down by the humming in my blood. I kissed him back with uncharacteristic fierceness, fingers curling in his thick black hair, pressing myself against his body. I could feel myself climbing higher and higher, Blake right along with me. If he hadn’t tugged at my belt, if he hadn’t tried to pull me down to lie on the floor, I could have stayed in his arms for hours. But he did and it prodded the saner parts of my brain into action.

Slipping away from him, I clutched at the side of my desk and dragged myself up. The thought of looking over the damage to my house made my stomach clench. Staying in the room with Blake was no better option. Breathing heavy, dark eyes clouded with lust, that strange purple and silver flaring from his aura, he looked like he had one thing on his mind and it wasn’t the weather. I had to throw some boundaries up between us quickly, before this got out of hand.

He stepped toward me and I threw a hand up. “No!”

“Roxie.” I didn’t think it was possible for a smirk to be so sexy but he proved me wrong. He took another step closer, placing a hand on my shoulder, rubbing his thumb on my neck. “I’m not so sure you mean that no.”

I slapped his hand away, scowling. “Well, I do.” Barreling past him, I left the room and stalked to the kitchen.

Destruction greeted me. As bad as it had sounded in the utility room, it looked even worse. The door between that room and the kitchen had a large jagged hole in the center. The fridge lay on its side, the door in three pieces. A mess of milk, tea and food spilled out, mingling with shards of wood from the door and the cabinets. Oh yeah, they got the cabinets too, holes gouged in the wood, cans and jars smashed. The only thing still standing undamaged was the work supply cabinet. Probably too much in there with protective powers. Whatever the reason, I was grateful as I retrieved my glasses from it. My senses were too raw to let me block all the gray smudges of leftover energy, not to mention the sparks of color coming off Blake. I needed the shield my glasses would provide.

A quick survey of the rest of the house showed me the damage was just as bad most everywhere else. A few other places were as laden with protective herbs and charms as the work supply cabinet: parts of the office and the hiding place in my bedroom closet. I found my cell and tried calling Daniel again. No answer. Next I called a cab.

“Get dressed,” I told Blake as I passed him in the hallway. I had a duffel bag to fill with stuff from the supply cabinet.

“My shirt was shredded, you know that.” He followed me into the kitchen. “Where are we going?”

“My cousin’s house.” I shoved boxes and jars into the duffel. “You can either come with me as a paying client or you can go back to your hellbitch.” My throat tight, I held back a flood of tears.

“Last call, huh? I don’t have to go home but I can’t stay here.”

I dropped the duffel and stood, stared at his smirk for a moment, unable to form a coherent response. Without thinking about it I smacked him, right across the face as hard as I could.

His head jerked back, my hand leaving a bright red mark on his cheek. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Look around you! My home is trashed because of you and your hellbitch girlfriend.” I choked back a sob, not wanting to cry in front of him. “I’m not gonna put up with you being a smart ass.” My hands fluttered at my side for a moment. I returned to packing the duffel, mindful of how soon the cab might arrive.