Chapter 3
Three
Grabbing the small Santa saltshaker off the table, I loosened the top and threw it hard at the poltergeist. It arced, Santa’s head coming off midway through the throw, and showered the poltergeist in salt. With a shriek, she flickered backwards and disappeared.
Thank all the gods in every pantheon I could name. Salt had been on the list of “maybe works???” in Laurel’s book. Of all the possibilities, it was the only one on hand.
“Just to be clear,” I said, moving towards King as I looked around the room for any hints of our attacker. “That was just smoke and mirrors. A trick of the light.”
“That touched me,” King said, his eyes wide. He turned towards me, and I saw there was a slight tremor in his hands when he bent to pick up his dropped taser, popping out the spent cartridge and loading a new one.
“That was a ghost,” I said.
“That’s what caused your cold spots?” he challenged, turning to me with a dubious tilt to his head. He re-holstered the taser and shrugged his shoulders, like a boxer about to go another round.
My eyes followed the motion, and I admired the whole physique again.
He was a little taller than me, but not by much.
His uniform and heavy utility belt showed off his broad shoulders and slim hips.
I wasn’t wrong when I’d guessed that under his bulky rain coat he had some muscle, although everything about him looked functional, as though he was a triathlete who didn’t want any weight that he wouldn’t use.
His eyes had a hint of green, making them a warm hazel that accented the golden undertones of his skin. I imagined what they would look like if they were sleepy after a night of fun.
“I think it’s turned into a poltergeist,” I said. “A ghost that’s been poisoned so that it only wants to hurt people.”
He frowned, crossing those yes, please arms over his chest. “That was some sort of transmitted energy. Probably a spell that allows for only short bursts of physical interaction. A child can do those sorts of spells for brief periods of time.”
“Seriously? You’re attacked by a ghost and your reaction is that it’s a kid playing a prank?” I shook my head. “You screamed. I heard you scream.”
“I was startled,” he said.
“You were scared,” I said. “Because it was a ghost.”
“Alchemy laws state that when you die, your energy rejoins the universe. A ghost would mean that your energy could exist separate from your physical self—”
I held up a hand. “Save me the alchemy lecture. Let’s find it, and then you can have your existential crisis.”
There was no magical trace that told me where the poltergeist had gone, but after seeing the ghost, I had a feeling I knew her name already.
Opening the pantry, I grabbed the round container of salt and found another saltshaker next to the stove.
Tossing it to King, I gestured with my head for him to follow me.
“You know much San Amaro history?” I asked as I moved back to the entryway. Before I started the case, I’d done a bit of research. Obviously not enough. But some.
“No,” King said, the word clipped.
Richmond was an unhealthy shade of gray, but his chest was rising and falling, his breathing audible. King bent to reach through his barrier and check that Richmond didn’t have something stuck in his mouth. When he stood, his face was grim.
“You think this is the fae?” King asked.
“No,” I said. The fae were San Amaro’s claim to fame, but this wasn’t fae magic. “I think it’s a poltergeist, but I know who she was, which means we can trap her.”
“Who was she?” King asked.
I started climbing the stairs. “Back in the 1800s, there was a medium who lived here. She was known for doing seances, personal readings, the whole charlatan bag of tricks. When it came out that all of her spooky sounds and evidence of spirits were just special effects her assistant was doing from behind a curtain, she lost everything except her house.”
“This house,” King surmised, looking around.
The renovated interior looked nothing like the photos from when she’d done seances here, but the layout was still there. I nodded.
“Died here a few years later, leaving behind a mass of debt and a lot of her old spiritualist gear.”
“See? Ghosts are just tricks,” King said. “This is just someone who heard about her and wants to scare some people.”
We’d reached the master bedroom, and I looked around. The newspapers at the time had said she’d died here, and this was where the first cold spots had appeared.
“We need to create a binding circle. You want to do it the alchemist way or the witch way?” I asked.
Making a face, King said, “If it’ll prove to you it’s not a ghost, we can do it your way.”
“Witchcraft it is,” I said. “Are they going to take away your alchemist card if you help perform a spell?”
“I’ll get a fine,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe even censured by my teachers.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious, given how at odds witchcraft and alchemy were.
He shook his head, a half laugh bouncing on his words when he said, “I’m not going to be doing any actual witchcraft, so it’ll be fine.
They’ll just make me write sentences on a blackboard. ‘I will not associate with Warlocks.’”
“Must really crimp your dating life,” I said.
“I’m only limited magically,” he said, examining the room. I thought I saw a hint of a flush on his cheeks. “Not socially.”
Smirking, I pushed aside the storage box at the bottom of the bed and made space for some spellwork.
My foster mom had trained me as a Warlock because that was all she’d known, but it didn’t fit my magic.
It was like surviving only on a smoothie made of water and spinach.
I could do it, but not for long and it wouldn’t be pleasant.
Witchcraft didn’t need circles the same way that alchemy did, but this was a binding spell, so I needed lines that would keep the ghost contained. I decided on a triangle, because it was less drawing and would use less magic than a circle.
Shaking out a piece of chalk from a side pocket on my satchel, I bent and sketched a triangle large enough to fit the ghost and give me some room to draw the symbols I needed.
I pulled Laurel’s ghost book out of the bag and flipped to the pages on containing the spirit.
Before I called the poltergeist, I needed to make sure the spell was airtight.
The spell would only hurt a ghost if she couldn’t feed off her remains anymore. There had to be something of her left in the house to keep her here. A lock of hair, a finger, something was keeping her trapped here, in the house she died in.
It couldn’t be her whole corpse. They had to have put that in the cemetery. I hoped.
Either way, once I cut her off from whatever was anchoring her to the mortal realm, she’d fade away. There wouldn’t be enough magic to sustain her. I drew binding symbols in the three corners and pressed some of my magic into them.
It crackled blue and gold, sending sparks into the air.
Like I said, me and witchcraft would look good enough to someone like King, who hadn’t seen enough craft to know better.
But every time my sister saw me do a spell, she made a face like she’d just watched someone drink a glass full of lemon juice.
The symbols glowed and the lines between them powered up faintly. It’d do. I created a door in the spell with another symbol. With any luck, it would act like a mousetrap. The ghost could get in, but not back out. Now I just had to get her inside it. Too bad cheese didn’t work on ghosts.
With my own little Hotel California ready, I stood and realized I was shivering. A glance at King showed that in this perfectly temperature-controlled house, his breath condensed.
“She’s here,” I said. “Get ready.”
King took out his notebook and started drawing a circle. His hands were back to steady, and I watched as he filled in all the details with care. As he finished, the room flickered dark, light, dark, and then there was a ghost screaming in my face.
I swore, using the sort of language that, as a kid, would have gotten my mouth washed out or a backhand across the face depending on the foster home I was in at the time. Grabbing the container of salt from where I’d left it on the bed, I shook some out and the ghost flickered.
Right behind her, King took his finished circle and pressed it between her shoulder blades.
His hand passed through, but the circle stuck and I saw it alight in green, a strange tattoo on her black dress.
The circle seemed to sap at her, tendrils of black seeping away from her body, like she was made of mist.
She flickered out of the room again, but the trail of green remained, a thread of fluorescence in the darkness.
“What is that?” I asked.
King spun in place, one hand still clutching his notepad, the other white knuckled around the saltshaker.
“Tracing spell,” he said. “It should lead us to whoever is casting the illusion.”
I followed the thread with my eyes, out the door and into the hall. King might think he was tracing the witch or alchemist casting the spell, but I’d bet that his trace would lead us straight to her remains.
“Let’s follow it, then,” I said. I picked up my own salt and gestured for the saltshaker that King was holding.
The throw earlier had left it half empty.
He handed it to me, our fingers brushing for a moment and I refilled it, offering it back.
After a beat, King put away his notebook and took the shaker.
I smirked. “Isn’t salt just for ghosts?”
“The purity can disrupt spell work,” he groused. “Even a Warlock should know that, Parker.”
Cautiously, we followed the green thread out into the hall, and then up into the attic. I jerked my chin towards the thin white rope that hung down from the attic door and King made a why me face.
“You’re taller,” I whispered.
“By two inches,” he said. “Shouldn’t the expert go first?”
“What happened to protect and serve? Protect me.” I pointed at the ladder.
Shaking his head, King tugged on the rope. With a squeal that made me wince and whip my head around, looking for our poltergeist, the stairs came down. Pulling down the folded steps, King tucked away the saltshaker and took out a heavy utility flashlight, but didn’t turn it on yet.
He went first, and just to be safe, I drew a circle around the steps with the salt. Following him up, I took a second to get adjusted to the pale light. King kept his flashlight off, and in the darkness, the green of his tracing spell was the brightest thing in the room.
The green ended towards the middle of the attic and I gestured with the hand still holding the salt. King directed his flashlight to the point and flicked it on.
I groaned when I saw what it revealed. Toppled candles, a careless circle drawn in chalk, some charred herbs, and bones.
“Those are human,” King said, approaching. He knelt and brought his flashlight closer, but didn’t disturb the circle.
It looked like a knock-off alchemy circle, and I wanted to crow that at least it hadn’t been a witch’s spell, but given the carelessness, it looked like it was some novice who’d gotten their information from the internet instead of a legitimate alchemy studio or a coven.
“What is this?” King said. “The circle says it’s to... draw a spirit in from the afterworld, but this is...”
“I’d bet it was some thrill seeker who doesn’t know any better,” I said. “Someone who likes haunted houses and wanted to see our ghost.”
King’s mouth went flat. “Those are her bones?”
“That would be my guess. I’d bet eBay. Maybe Louisa Bowman had more value dead than alive.” I shivered. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green flicker like a firefly. “She’s here.”
With a quick spin, King whipped the hand holding the saltshaker towards the ghost. An arc of white crystals spread from the shaker towards her. She dodged, which showed me that our poltergeist was just as smart dead as she’d been alive.
I reached deep and drew on my magic. Names have value. Especially to things like me.
“Louisa Bowman,” I said. “I bind you.”
My magic bubbled out of me, I could feel it spilling across the floor towards the ghost. It’d been too long since I’d used it for more than a basic glamour. For a moment, I thought it would work.
But instead of bending to my will, the ghost shrieked, a sound that left my ears ringing like I was in the front row at a heavy metal concert.
She turned to me, and opened her mouth like she wanted to speak, but the words were beyond her.
The black holes of her eyes narrowed and she lurched towards me, her teeth stained and sharp and ready to eat me alive.
“Well, that didn’t work,” King observed. “Any other ideas, Parker?”
“Grab her bones,” I said. “I’ll distract her.”
How do you distract a poltergeist? I called her name again. “Hey, Louisa? So, how’s the afterlife? Is it like you told your clients? Or, no, wait. You were a fraud. So this must be a surprise for you. Big shock that ghosts are real, huh?”
She hissed, moving with unnatural grace and came at me again. I saw King grab the bones and then look at me.
“Put them in the triangle!” I said, ducking as she swiped at me. I danced out the way. Dance like a butterfly, fight like someone who’s trying out for Jerry Springer.
He took long strides to the attic stairs and then he disappeared down them. Leaving me alone with the ghost. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I grinned.
“This is not going to go well for you.”