Red House (15 page)

Trust was such a hard thing to bestow, yet so necessary. So many people in my life had given me so many reasons to withhold trust, including Blake. Perhaps rather than something to do with him, it was some peculiar folly of my own that made me lean over and brush my lips against his.

The closed door provided a polite fiction of privacy considering Daniel’s vampire hearing, a fact I resolutely pushed from my mind. Goddamn, it was definitely time to move out.

Chapter 11

Blake poured his second cup of coffee. “So because of the flood, all these ghosts and spirits are out of whack?”

I finished chewing a mouthful of scrambled eggs before answering. “Yes. They’re agitated, thrown out of their homes and routines. Like the one I told you about.”

“Haschall?” I nodded. “He killed his family when he was alive. Did he have any abilities? The way you talk about him, that he can impose his will on living beings and make them believe their worst nightmare is happening, sounds to me like he must have had some psychic or magical ability.”

“Yeah, that’s what a local historian thought too. It was just conjecture, no real proof.” Carrying my now-empty plate to the sink, I let that idea roll around in my head. I didn’t like the taste of it. “Whatever I do, I have to deal with him first. Which means I have to get him out of the house.”

“The usual didn’t work?”

“We jumped out a window,” I deadpanned. “No, I’d have to say the usual methods aren’t going to work.”

“If he were living I’d suggest a binding spell. I’m gonna make more toast, you want some?”

“No. Hey, you know you probably shouldn’t still be here when Daniel wakes up.”

Blake popped two pieces of bread into the toaster oven. “If you want some space, just say so. You don’t have to use him as an excuse.”

But Bubba made such a handy excuse, a nice fanged firewall. I didn’t know what I wanted, be it space or otherwise, so I let that line of conversation drop and went back to thinking about Haschall.

A hardcore binding spell would have been just the thing, but I’d never done one on a spirit. I had heard of such a thing, but only anecdotally and I had no idea if it really worked. I was willing to give it a go but it would involve going way above and beyond what I usually did for a client. Specifically, it would involve going home.

“I’ll need graveyard dirt.”

“Huh?” Blake brought his toast to the table and grabbed the butter.

“I might be able to bind Haschall but I’ll need graveyard dirt. Both from his grave and the family members he killed.” An unpleasant lump settled in my stomach.

“Okay, so do you know where–’’

I cut him off. “A little farming community outside Blythe.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“About two hours from here.” Maybe I could avoid seeing anyone I knew. Maybe no one would recognize me, or if they did, they’d just ignore me.

“So what’s the problem? Because you have all the enthusiasm of someone scheduling a root canal and a colonoscopy on the same day.”

I laughed, some of the tension draining away. “That’s about right. Blythe is where I grew up.”

“Oooh.” He narrowed his eyes, mouth scrunching adorably. It was weird to think of Blake as adorable but apparently he had it in him. “And you don’t want to go. That bad, huh?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Freak, weirdo, why can’t you be normal like everyone else. Blah, blah, blah.”

He dragged his chair closer and took my hands. “Let me go with you. I can help.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Another magically inclined person would come in handy. Blake was turning out to be good company too. If he didn’t do something assholish soon I was going to start to worry. “Let’s go today, then.”

“I want to stop by the hotel, take a quick shower and change. That’s all I need to do.”

I’d already showered. Keeping Blake out of the shower with me had been a chore but the knowledge of Daniel’s vampire hearing was never far from my thoughts. “I’ll get what I need and we can go.”

* * * *

The drive to Blythe was leisurely on state roads. Summer sun poured down on fields full of corn and soybeans. Every small town we passed through seemed busy, full of teenagers with nothing better to do than cruise around. There were a few places where flood damage was still evident. Blake spent most of the trip looking out the window, asking the occasional question. He didn’t know what soybeans looked like and the Mennonites we saw at a gas station confused him, what with looking vaguely Amish but driving a black truck.

The radio had been left on Daniel’s favorite classic country station. Blake was gazing out the window again, his arm stretched across the seat and his hand on the back of my neck. I thought of how much I didn’t know about him and decided to see what he’d tell me. That was a better option than worrying about going back to Blythe.

I turned the radio down. “Where are you from, Blake?”

He stayed quiet so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. “Chicago.”

His tone suggested he didn’t much want more questions but I forged ahead anyway. “You miss it?”

“Nothing there for me to miss.”

“Do you not have any family there?” My vampire ancestor was the only family who would have anything to do with me but hell, I’m Southern. Talking about family was something we did, no matter how we get along with them.

Blake turned away from the scenery to look at me. “I don’t have any family anywhere, Roxie. I never knew my father. My mother OD’d when I was fourteen. I lived in foster homes and group homes until I was eighteen, then I got the hell out of Chicago. I don’t go back.”

I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Sure you did. I told you as much as I did because I want you to understand why I don’t want to talk about it. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” We lapsed into silence. I was afraid to ask more questions. Sometimes it’s best to let the past stay in the past, and that’s exactly what I was going to do. There were plenty of things in my youth I didn’t care to talk about.

He reached into the backseat for his backpack. “I just don’t have what you do, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“A home. A cousin, best friend, whatever you want to call Daniel.” He withdrew something from the backpack before placing it on the floorboard. “So there’s nothing to talk about.”

I wanted to pull the car over and crawl into his lap and smother him with kisses, but I didn’t want him to ever think I pitied him so I kept driving. Instead, I found another radio station. Catching sight of what he was doing made me do a double take. “You’re putting black polish on your nails.”

He held his hand up to examine the two nails he’d done so far. “I wanted to look my best in case I get to meet your mother.”

I giggled. Indicating his black t-shirt with large white numerals
three-three-three
printed across the chest I said, “So what exactly is that supposed to tell her?”

“That I’m only half evil, silly.”

That gave me the excuse I needed to pull over and kiss him.

* * * *

I skirted around Blythe and found the old church cemetery where the murdered Haschalls dwelled in their eternal rest. Leaving pennies at the gate to appease any guardian spirit the place might have had, I entered and headed for the spot I remembered.

Much of the cemetery was fairly new and the church had been rebuilt after a fire in the seventies. There were even a couple of the shiny new black gravestones with pictures of the deceased lasered onto the marker. The older graves were close to the edge of the woods. Some were unreadable, some destroyed by time or vandals. The Haschalls were grouped together, some of the engraving barely legible but with enough information I was sure I had all of them. I’d never paid attention to them before, though I knew right where their murderous son was buried.

I sat on the ground and pulled what I needed out of my bag. Blake approached, carrying a bouquet of carnations I’d stopped to buy, cover in case someone came along. “What can I do?”

“Mostly just keep a lookout.” I wasn’t expecting anyone to show up in the middle of the day during the week, but it was still a good idea to have someone around to watch my back.

He kissed me, quick and light. “You do your thing and I’ll wander around, pretend I’m looking for great-uncle Obadiah.”

“As old as some of these graves are it wouldn’t surprise me if you found an Obadiah.”

Blake stepped away to give me space. Not so much physical space but magical space, enough room to stretch my energy and do what I needed to do without running up against his considerable aura. I liked not having to explain concepts like that to him.

It was time to turn off everything else and focus on the task at hand. With a trowel in one hand and a plastic two-quart bowl in the other, I moved closer to the Haschall graves.

Resting on my knees, fingertips tracing over the grass, I slipped easily into a trance and visualized a circle of energy around myself and the Haschall graves. The barrier snapped into place. Noise fell away. No more birdsong, no more sound of summer wind rattling through the nearby trees. I hung my glasses on my shirtfront, my vision sliding out of focus.

“I petition for your aid.” I kept my voice quiet and respectful, using the tone Rozella taught me. “Help me bring him back. Help me bring him to heel.”

I pushed the trowel into the earth of the first grave, twisting it to loosen the packed dirt. With my bare hand I scooped some out and dumped it into the bowl. With my clean hand I reached into a pocket and withdrew a shiny new dime, dropping it into the hole. I smoothed the remaining dirt to cover the hole, then picked up my stuff and walked on my knees to the next grave.

I worked my way through all of them the same way. I’d done this kind of thing plenty of times before. I didn’t always call up a circle but I wanted the protection it gave me. There was a lot of residual energy leaching out of the whole area, especially the woods. Haschall had done a lot of damage to a lot of people before a witch brought him under some semblance of control. It left echoes in the land, and those echoes pressed against my senses like a low pressure system on the leading edge of bad weather.

Even stranger, I could feel something pushing against that, something separate from my own energy. What else was out here? I hurried, wanting to leave as soon as possible. After a brief note of thanks I packed the bowl away and pulled out a smaller one, eyeing the woods. I didn’t want to go in there but I’d given it a lot of thought and decided it was necessary. Haschall’s ghost spent decades confined to that patch of land. He felt ownership of it. I could tell that when I’d first encountered him years ago. It may have been a sort of prison, but it was his prison. Surely earth from that land would call to him.

I glanced at Blake. He was close to the church, tapping the bouquet of red carnations on his thigh as he paced. His aura seemed brighter, sharper, the waves of indigo more pronounced. Blake the Badass Sorcerer on high alert? This place certainly gave off a freaky enough vibe to warrant it. I put my glasses back on, not eager to see whatever energy lingered where I was headed next.

With reluctance I walked into the woods. I blinked away flashes of the last night I’d been here, panicked screams and images of a dead friend. Even with Haschall’s spirit a hundred miles away, there was a taint in the air. Something dark and rotten hovered at the edge of my senses.

“Just an echo,” I whispered. Not that talking to myself ever helped, but sometimes speaking aloud was the only talisman I had. I found the spot where Jody died, the center of Haschall’s geographic influence, and knelt. Except for an unusual quiet, there was no outward sign anything bad had ever happened. I hurried through the task of collecting dirt, only slowing down when it was time to pay the toll. A dime wasn’t enough. Not near enough, not at the site where a friend of mine drew his last terrified breath.

Opening my bag, I fished out the pint of whiskey and pack of cigarettes I’d bought for Jody. I opened the bottle and took a drink, grimacing, then poured the rest into the hole. I couldn’t find a lighter in my bag and briefly considered yelling for Blake, but I didn’t want to scare him. Besides, this was a private moment.

If I could light a candle surely I could light a cigarette. I tore open the package, fumbling and dropping one on the ground. I pulled out another and tossed the pack into my bag. I’d never been a smoker but back then all my friends had been. They drank more than I did too, smoked way more pot, got in a whole lot more trouble. Had a lot more sex too, or so they thought. I was the mascot, the weird little good girl. I didn’t belong with them and they knew it, but they were okay with it. With me. Freak was a term of affection for a change. I’d never told any of them what I could do. They thought it was cool I hung out with the crazy old lady witch doctor, but they thought all I knew how to do was crush herbs and mix tinctures. I had a lot of secrets back then. Jody and the others were my friends, but I kept them at arm’s length out of fear. When even family had no use for me, any hope of being accepted by anybody else pretty much died on the vine.

I could have been a better friend to Jody but there was nothing I could have done to save his life. I might not even be able to do something like that now, and I’d leveled up a bit over the years. The only thing I could do was try to send Haschall on his way, or at least put him back on a leash. Sometimes with ghosts like Haschall that was the best one could hope for.