Chapter 18
“He’s dead! ” she screamed. “ Dead! ” Her face was shiny as tears streamed down her cheeks. She was shaking and she kept screaming, “ Dead! ”
I glanced over my shoulder at Moran. Did the woman mean what I thought she meant? I snatched a tissue from the holder on the desk and dropped into a crouch in front of her.
“Hi, I’m Zoe and this is my friend Olive.” I heard a hiss behind me and realized belatedly that we probably shouldn’t give our real names. Oops. “We’re here to help.”
The woman stopped screaming and blinked at me.
She began to cry, rocking back and forth in a self-soothing motion.
Her shoulder-length curly brown hair was mussed and shot with gray.
She wore a blue-and-pink floral silk blouse with a bow at the neck and a pleated skirt in a matching blue.
She was wearing sensible low-heeled brown pumps and looked every inch the part of middle-aged office administrator.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Shelly. Shelly Dabrowski. I’m the interim director here because Mr. Moran…Mr. Moran…” She glanced at the man frozen in place at the desk and started to hyperventilate.
“Don’t look at him, Shelly, look at me,” I instructed. “What happened to Mr. Moran?”
“He died,” she wailed, growing louder with each word. “Two weeks ago he passed away from a surgical complication. I went to his funeral and everything. He’s dead, but today he showed up here and tied my hands and taped my mouth and shoved me in the closet!” She started to wail.
Olive let out a put-upon sigh and turned to Shelly. She opened her hand, then closed it into a tight fist. Shelly continued screaming, but no sound came out. This seemed to freak her out even more and her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped to the floor.
“How did you do that?” I gestured to Moran. “And that?”
Olive stared at me.
I was undaunted. “What sort of witch are you?”
Olive’s scarred eyebrow lifted, but she didn’t answer me. Can’t say I was surprised.
“Well, that’s not very helpful.” I gestured to Shelly’s unconscious form. “I had more questions for her.”
Olive shrugged. “I’m not good with screamers.” She took her phone out of her pocket, tapped it a few times, and held it up to her ear. “Jasper, we have a situation. Yes, the sooner the better.”
She ended the call without another word and I wondered where Jasper was on his tour and how he would manage to get out of it and get here in a time that would satisfy Olive.
I stood up and gestured to Moran. “How did you know he was dead?”
Moran’s eyes flitted from me to Olive. It was the only part of his body he could move. I would have felt sorry for him, but he looked almost relieved to be frozen in place. Weird.
“It’s a gift,” Olive said, which I took as a nonanswer. I resisted the urge to roll my own eyes.
She turned back to Moran. She raised her hands again and this time her incantation was soft, almost like she was crooning a lullaby to a sleepy baby. Moran’s shoulders slumped, then his neck wobbled, his spine bent, and he sagged back in his chair.
“Who brought you back?” Olive asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Olive tipped her head to the side, studying him.
“Did he get blasted with the same spell you used on Shelly?” I asked.
Olive gave me a side-eye. “That would never happen.”
“Then why can’t he speak?” I countered. “He was fine when we got here.”
“Mr. Moran, who brought you back?” Olive asked again.
He tried to form the words, but he started to choke.
Olive spun away from him and sat on the edge of the desk. “Someone is controlling him.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because he clearly wants to speak but can’t.” Olive crossed her arms over her chest.
“Could it be because he’s newly dead?” I asked. “Maybe he doesn’t have control of his vessel yet.”
Olive frowned, considering, then she shook her head.
“No, the newly deceased usually have more muscle memory than the more aged dead, which is why I didn’t catch on that he was undead right away.
According to Dabrowski, he’s only been dead for two weeks.
He should be able to talk, jog a marathon, or—”
“Choke someone out?” I cried as I grabbed Olive and yanked her away from Moran’s outstretched hands. He had lurched to his feet and was reaching for us, clearly with the intent to harm.
Olive immediately raised her hands and repeated the spell that froze Moran in place.
The same chill permeated the room, but this time I was ready for it.
Reaching across his desk with his hands out, it was clear Moran had been about to strangle one or both of us.
His face was a mask of resistance, with teeth clenched and helplessness in his eyes.
It was obvious he’d been fighting whoever had compelled him to do harm.
“Someone really has a hold on him,” Olive observed. “Thanks for the assist.”
“No problem.” I was surprised by the surge of pleasure I felt at her thanks. “Do you think someone planted Moran here to try to keep us from finding out what happened to my mother?”
“Potentially, but it seems like a lot of work just to keep us from asking about your mother’s death. Still, he’s not as malleable as they’d like. I believe they reanimated him for a more nefarious reason.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t think it was me he was trying to strangle.” She gave me a pointed look.
My stomach dropped and I glanced at Moran. Had he been trying to kill me? I didn’t like that. Not at all. “Do you think it’s the same person who is after the grimoire?”
“Seems likely, as you don’t offer much else of value,” Olive said.
Ouch! So much for the warm fuzzies I’d felt a moment ago.
“But given the potential power of that grimoire, with spells dating back centuries, I believe there could be more than one person looking for it. And, of course, they’d need you, dead or alive, preferably dead if they’re a necromancer, to be able to use the grimoire, as it’s spelled to respond only to you. ”
More than one? This did not reassure me. Shocking, I know.
A knock on the door startled me, while Olive didn’t look surprised at all. She probably had the hearing of a bat and knew they were there before they knocked.
Eloise entered, with Jasper right behind her. She took in the scene with wide eyes. “I think you’ve had a much more adventurous visit than we did.”
Jasper glanced from Moran to Shelly. “What do you need me to do?”
Was there anything more attractive than a man offering his services, especially for a chore such as this?
No, there was not. Or maybe it was just Jasper, offering assistance in his deep British voice, with his dark hair swept back from his handsome face as his arresting pale eyes assessed the situation with the professional gaze of a person who worked in crisis management.
“Shelly, the interim director”—Olive gestured to the woman still unconscious on the floor—“needs to go to the infirmary where she will recover, believing this was all a really bad dream due to dehydration.”
“Right.” Jasper crouched down and, with a snap of his fingers, released the zip ties around her wrists. He scooped Shelly up with one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees. “Consider it done.”
With that, he departed like a superhero flying an injured person to the hospital.
“He’s quite dashing, don’t you think?” Eloise asked me.
I felt my face grow warm and hoped I hadn’t been staring after him, looking like a middle schooler with her first crush. Mortifying.
“He’s all right.” I shrugged and turned to Olive. “What do we do with Moran?”
“You’re the necromancer,” Olive said. “You have to break the hold the other necromancer has on him.”
“Oh, sure, no problem,” I said. “How do you suppose I do that?”
“If I knew, it would be done already.” Olive didn’t bother to keep the derision out of her tone.
“I might have a suggestion,” Eloise said. “Your grandmother Toni used to recite a spell when she ran into corpses that were in the thrall of another necromancer.”
Olive’s gaze sharpened. “Do you remember the phrase?”
Eloise scrunched up her nose. I wanted to tell her not to do that for fear that her nose might fall off. I kept my mouth shut, but it was a struggle.
“Not being a necromancer myself, I didn’t pay much attention, but I think it went something like Hmm-hm-hmm-hm sat on a wall. Hmm-hm-hmm-hm had a great fall.”
“Humpty Dumpty?” I asked. “Mamie recited the Humpty Dumpty rhyme to get rid of reanimated corpses that were not her own?”
Eloise paused, considering. “No, that can’t be right.”
Olive sat in a chair and propped her feet up on the desk, making herself at home while Eloise thought it through.
“Four score and seven…no, that’s not it either.” Eloise paced around the room. “To be or not to be. Nope.”
I wanted to help. I did. But given that I had nothing beyond a foundational knowledge about magic, spells, or necromancy, I needed to be quiet and listen and hope for the best.
“I know!” Eloise snapped her fingers, but the sound was muffled by her gloves.
I didn’t think she should be taking such a risk with the remaining digits she had left.
She spread her arms wide and in a deep voice, she said, “Regressus ad mortem corpus! You try it. You’re the necromancer. It should work for you.”
“Worth a shot.” Olive looked at me.
Was it? Was it really? What if I failed? Wisely, knowing there would be no sympathy from Olive, I did not express my self-doubt aloud.
“Regressus ad mortem corpus,” I mumbled, feeling incredibly awkward.
As one, we all glanced at Moran. He didn’t move, but his eyes flitted from side to side as if he was saying no dice with his eyeballs.
“I think it needs more oomf ,” Eloise said. “You didn’t sound as if you meant it.”
“Well, he did try to choke us,” I said. “If this doesn’t work, do we really want him mobile again?”