Spell of Summoning (7 page)

“Hold on.” The Jeep veered to the right and stuttered to a stop in front of a neighbor’s house. “Why can’t you be honest with me?”

Blindsided, Rebecca opened her mouth, but nothing came out. No one ever spoke to her like that.

“What?”

“I feel like you’re hiding things from me,” Holden said. “Or glossing over them, anyway.”

“That’s ridiculous.” But he was so right. Scary right. Her job, hell her whole life, was about spinning the slightest ugliness, whether it was an emotion or a burn on a kitchen countertop, into a positive. Spin, spin, spin. “I could ask the same of you.” His near-death experience came to mind.

Holden didn’t fall for her deflection. “Have you been having headaches?”

“Yes,” she growled. What the hell? He seemed to know the answer anyway.

“Extreme fatigue?”

“Yes.”

“Nightmares?”

“Every time I close my eyes.”

“You and I are going to make a pact.”

“Really?” Rebecca grunted in a very unladylike way. “About what?”

“You have to be honest with me,” Holden said. “All the time. About everything. Do you understand?”

“I am honest—”

“Don’t mess with me. No spin, no BS, no faking. 100% honesty. I’ll do the same.”

“Fine. No problem.” But Becca was insulted at the insinuation. Who did Holden think he was, telling her how to act? When he was much less trustworthy than her. So far, he’d made a whole lot of claims with nothing to back them up. “But I have one request of my own.”

“What is it?”

“I want to see you do magic.”

Chapter Five

Do a spell. Sure. Easy.

While Rebecca slipped upstairs to open her apartment, Holden lingered in the Jeep with his cell phone in his lap, preparing himself for what was about to go down. He clicked into his email app and opened Cole’s message about casting with spell marks. Holden studied the images, scrolling up and down the file at least eight times.

“You can do this,” Grams said from the passenger seat. “You’ve got me. You’ve got Cole’s research. All you have to do is stay calm and focus.”

Right. No problem. He got out of the Jeep leading Buster on the leash. Foot dragger that he was, Holden walked his dog to a patch of grass across the street instead of going directly upstairs. Standing still in the warm spring air he inventoried the different colored shutters on the windows across the street. Salmon. Rust. Tan. Because he was in no hurry to prove what a screw up he was to Rebecca.

Holden had never cast a spell before. Not one. He had the ability, but he’d been a little too distracted by seeing the spirit of his dead grandmother to worry about magic. Spell casting had never interested him. Now he didn’t have a choice.

His self-pitying groan disturbed Buster mid-stream. “Sorry, buddy.”

Grams appeared on the other side of the lawn. Buster yipped.

“You’ll need something to draw with,” she reminded him.

He was so unprepared for this. For the thousandth time he wished Cole would take over and spare him not only the upcoming epic failure but the related humiliation as well.

Then Rebecca, trailing a filthy, demonic veil, came down the stairs and crossed the street in his direction. Holden couldn’t give up. He couldn’t fail her. That summoning spell, and whoever was casting it, wanted to destroy her. He may be the only person standing in its way.

“Everything ready?” she called.

“Just about.” He passed Buster’s leash to Rebecca, who almost didn’t take it, and then he snatched a forgotten chunk of sidewalk chalk off her neighbor’s driveway. “Hope they don’t mind.”

Buster dragged a breathless Rebecca across the street, his tail wagging wildly behind him. At least someone was happy.

“I’ll replace it!” Rebecca shouted over her shoulder. “Please help me!”

Chuckling, Holden jogged over and took the leash. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

She inspected the pink flesh of her palms, shaking her head. “No.”

“Good.”

He followed her upstairs to her apartment, and she closed the front door behind him.

“What do you need?” She turned around and, upon seeing Buster loose and smelling her sofa cushions, grimaced.

“He’s very well behaved. Usually.”

“It’s fine. It’s all rented junk anyway.”

Holden hung Buster’s leash on the front doorknob and scanned the room. “A mending spell is pretty basic.” Spotting a small framed photo of Rebecca’s dad and a young woman in front of green and white helium balloons, he snatched it off the end table and promptly smashed it against the table’s corner.

Rebecca gasped. “That’s my sister’s graduation! What are you doing?”

“I’m going to mend it.” The glass was shattered, and some shards had scratched the photo beneath. Perfect. He looked up into a pair of furious brown eyes. “Where do you want to do this?”

Brow furrowed, Rebecca pointed to the slider in the kitchen. “Balcony. And this better be worth it.”

A six-by-twelve-foot slab of concrete opened from both the kitchen and the master bedroom. Rebecca hadn’t decorated it with anything but a patio table and one plastic green chair. Or maybe those had come with the apartment, too.

He shoved the furniture to the far side of the space, pulled out his phone, and re-opened Cole’s email. Holden scanned the notes for the umpteenth time and then squatted with his pilfered pink chalk in hand.

First step, draw a circle. Easy. Holden drew a lopsided oval with about a three foot diameter. Second step, draw spell marks specific to the spell being attempted. He scanned the page again.

Rebecca stepped right into his circle, scuffing it, and snatched the phone out of his hand. She frowned at Cole’s scribblings.

“You really haven’t done this before, have you?”

“It’s a simple spell.” He didn’t need the phone for this part, just sketched a harp to bridge the world of the living and the realm of the dead, a chalice, a scales of justice, and the symbol for equilibrium. One mark on each of the four compass points. He could have added more, but that covered the basics.

“You ready?” Holden whispered at Grams.

She clutched her needles and ball of lavender yarn tight before stepping to the very edge of his circle. “Don’t forget this is my first time, too.”

Rebecca offered his phone back. “Who are you talking to?”

He waved away the phone. He’d already memorized the spoken spell so he wouldn’t look like too much of a rookie. “My Grams. The power for the spell comes from her.”

Cole was a self-proclaimed old-school necromancer who only cast in Latin, so, for the time being so did Holden.

He nodded at Grams. “Don’t hit me too hard, okay?”

He set the broken frame on the ground in front of him, knelt in his spell circle, and said, “
Sarcio.
”

Holden’s fingers tingled, and an uncomfortable heat spread out from his core. He focused on the frame, which lay on the ground broken and unchanged.

He said, “
Sarcio
” again.

Nothing.

“What’s happening?” Rebecca asked.

Complete and utter humiliation. “Let me think for a second.”

Grams set her knitting onto an invisible side table and wrung her hands. “It’s me. I’m no good at this.”

Holden huffed a laugh. “It’s not you.” He double-checked his spell marks, wiping out the harp with the side of his hand. “Let me fix something.” He redrew it with seven distinct strings. Then he checked the other three symbols, confident they were exact replicas of Cole’s.

He rolled his shoulders. “One more time.” Closing his eyes, he cast the spell again.

A sizzling sensation spread up his arms like currents of electricity. Heat blossomed under his ribs to the point of pain.

Trapped, alone, in the living room, Buster barked at full volume and clawed at the sliding glass door.

Rebecca made a strangled noise like a half shriek, half gasp.

Holden’s eyes popped open. Rebecca was fine, and the framed photo was in perfect condition. No more cracks, no more scratches. Like it had never been broken at all.

“Holy shit.” He climbed to his feet.

“Watch your language.” But Grams grinned.

“Holden?” Rebecca backed away, pulling at her suddenly clean and unsnagged clothing. “It’s all gone.” Her eyes bright, she reached out and clasped both his hands in hers, forcing him to his feet. “Now, I believe you.”

* * *

Holden dialed Cole’s cell number and waited through several rings. It had been a long, cold night. After saying good-bye to Rebecca, he and Buster had settled into the parked Jeep to do a little more research where he could still keep an eye on her. And her demon.

“Who the hell is calling me at midnight?” Cole grouched into his phone.

Impolite, maybe, but Holden couldn’t wait until morning.

“I’ve done some light reading.” What a joke. Talk about hours and hours of reading while Rebecca slept in her apartment across the street. “And there is some anecdotal evidence about electricity.”

“Holden?” Cole groaned, and then a door shut in the background. “Are you actually insane? I mean, for real?”

“No. This is serious. Rebecca said the demon turned lights on and off. Plus this site I found—”

“I think I remember something about lightning, but I don’t need to explain to you the problems with that plan, do I?”

“Electricity. Not lightning.” Controlling the weather was a bit beyond Holden’s abilities at this point. “It’s possible to exorcise a demon with electricity.”

A loud sigh. “Possible? I don’t know, man. It’s risky. How much? How often? When? Where—”

“I’m positive if I zap the demon, the current will destroy it.”

“How do you zap the demon without zapping her?” Cole asked.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Holden admitted. So, his plan wasn’t perfect, but at least he had one. “I’ll keep reading, but hang on. I need you to run a couple of errands for me. I can’t leave Rebecca alone. Can you do that?”

“Depends on the errand.”

“You can buy it all legally at an army surplus.” Holden read Cole his shopping list.

“Are you serious with this stuff?” Cole sounded more and more exhausted.

“I told you. I’ve been reading about these electricity—”

“Okay, fine, but I’ve been reading some books and I found something that will honestly work.” Cole paused and then blurted out, “You could summon the demon into yourself. Hear me out. You’re stronger than she is. You can channel power, and then you can exorcise it for good. I can teach you some spells.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Are you serious?” Put a
demon
inside himself? Why not cut his throat right now because it was basically the same thing?

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Stop the necromancer.”

“By electrocuting your girlfriend?” Cole scoffed.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Cole chuckled. “Right. Well, keep reading. I will, too. And I’ll buy this serial killer stuff for you, but only if you swear to me you’re not going to kill anyone with it.”

* * *

After Holden and Buster left, Rebecca changed into pajamas and fired up her laptop to do her own research. Magic. Demons. Necromancy. Ninety-nine percent of the search results had to do with works of fiction. And the one percent? Mostly blogs written by people who took the movies and the novels way too seriously.

She didn’t find anything useful after hours of trolling websites and watching video clips. When she did finally sleep, to say she did so poorly would be a huge understatement. It was fairer to say she got up twice to swallow ibuprofen by the handful and once to put an icepack on the back of her neck.

To top it off, her phone rang at 5:15 a.m. on the dot. Caller ID read “Derek.” Her assistant.

“Who died?” she grumbled into her cell.

“The offer fell through on the Havers Street property. I just got the call.”

Becca sat up, instantly awake and in business mode. Well, shit. So things could get worse. “Did you call the other agent? Find out what happened?”

“Same old story. Cold feet and a bad market.”

She sighed. “This is not what I need right now.”

“I’m relisting it.” Sure enough, computer keys clicked in the background. “I’ll put out some feelers for any interested buyers.”

“Send a photo and a description to my mailing list,” she said. “And get it at the top of our site. Freaking post it on your Twitter if you think it will help, but we have to sell this house. I’m not leaving town with loose ends blowing in the wind.”

“Yes, ma’am. On it.”

“What about Lane Street?”

“No news to report. The open house is still Saturday,” Derek said. “How’s your vacation?” Sometimes she thought Derek needled her on purpose. He knew what a workaholic she was and how much she hated taking time off.

But she didn’t want to talk about it. Because the truth was, she felt like twelve hours past awful. So she needled him back. “Did you pick up my dry cleaning?”

He hung up.

Becca considered crawling under the covers, but that time had come and gone. Instead she took an extra long shower and got ready for her day. So much for a break.

She and Holden had a nine thirty date with a witch, but there was time to swing by the office first. She dressed for work in a pale pink sundress.

The light cotton fabric slid down her body, and she got a mental flash of Holden in the parking lot yesterday reaching for her, wrapping her in his strong arms when her knees wobbled. He was too handsome for his own good, and she should stay a hundred yards away, but they had an appointment in Springfield. That was at least another hour and a half of today in his perplexing company.

The guy seemed to genuinely want to help. Since no one else, herself included, had any better ideas for stopping the headaches and the nightmares and the unexplained phenomena, she put her faith in him.

Because his magic was real.
Like, spooky real.

She couldn’t imagine having his power. And to think he didn’t even use it. What a waste.

Becca paired her dress with a cropped black jacket and a pair of pearl earrings the size of quail eggs. On the way out the door she checked the fridge, but it was bare. Some eggs. Leftover Italian food from two days ago. She grabbed a protein bar from the pantry and headed out into the cool North Carolina morning.