Chapter 26
Kris
My husband routinely killed things that went bump in the night, so to absolutely no one’s surprise, the door couldn’t put up much of a fight. Bye, door.
Yes, NSYNC’s song “Bye Bye Bye” echoed through my head as the door gave up the ghost. No pun intended.
Zhen chased his way through the house, which meant I chased my way through the house.
Guo loped along at my heels because the doorways of this house were way too narrow for two of us to go through at a time.
I went through a very small and compartmentalized series of rooms until I was out the back door, and why I bothered, I didn’t know.
Jo Jo already had the man pressed against the house in a stronghold, one of the guy’s arms twisted up behind his back.
Jo Jo stood there like he could do this all day.
He probably could. For all that he claimed he was a better curse breaker than slayer, he still had the natural strength of a slayer.
The shady practitioner was making sad noises and jerking a little, testing Jo Jo’s strength.
He was skinny, almost anorexic, smelled like herbs stewed in vinegar, and I suspected he dealt in things he shouldn’t because his teeth looked to be in poor condition. Not to mention the bags under his eyes.
“Why you gotta do this, man?” he whined at Jo Jo.
“Because you’re kidnapping spirits. That upsets me.” Jo Jo’s drawl was the epitome of I don’t give a fuck.
Speaking of, Yan Yichen was still inside somewhere. I left Zhen and Jo Jo to deal with the shady guy and went hunting.
It didn’t take much, really, the house was tiny anyways and you could cover it entirely in about three minutes.
In the very back room was this little altar thing on a folding table.
Sitting in the center of it was a spirit doll, bound with black thread and knots looping around it?
I’d never seen the like. But it looked like chains to me.
Yan Yichen stood there, expression resigned, but when I entered, his head came up sharply and I could see the relief. “Kris!”
“Hi, Yan Yichen! We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“There’s a bad practitioner here who caged me!” he warned sharply.
“No worries, no worries. Jo Jo and Zhen have him in hand. I’ve come looking for you. Ah, that said, I’m a little scared to undo those knots. I might make things worse. Can you hold on?”
“Of course.”
He was just excited the cavalry was here. Couldn’t blame him. Interestingly, those black threads knotted around the spirit doll reflected on his spirit self, only they looked like thick iron chains wrapped around him. I hadn’t expected that, but it also made sense once I realized what it was.
I had a thought as I left the room and called Detective Romero. She likely wouldn’t thank me for this, but it was kidnapping, and the whole house smelled wrong. I had a feeling Mr. Shady dealt drugs too, so she could at least get him on the drug-related charges. I hoped.
She answered, sounding cautious, which I couldn’t blame her for. I only called her for weird shit. “Hello, Kris.”
“Hi, Detective. Sorry, I’m calling you for things that might be outside your jurisdiction.”
She gave a long sigh. “I was afraid of that. What’s happened now?”
“Well, short version is, a spirit got kidnapped.”
There was a long pause as she digested my words. “How do you even…?”
By this point I’d gained the back door and signaled Zhen to come back in, that I needed him. He nodded but pointed at my phone and mouthed Who?
“Detective Romero,” I answered softly. “Hey, Detective, let me put you on speaker with Zhen. So, here’s the thing.”
I explained the whole situation to her in a CliffNotes version, and she listened intently. She always was a good listener. I ended the summary with “And we found him, but he’s got these black knots all over him and I think he’s chained down by them.”
Zhen frowned and loped into the house. I followed him, stopping in the doorway to watch as he sort of stalked around the table, looking at it from all angles.
“Yeah,” he grunted, glaring at the knots in question. “Yeah, those are binding chains, all right. Good instincts, lao po.”
See? I paid attention to all those impromptu lessons! I was proud of me. Good brain, good brain.
“Do not touch anything until I get there,” Romero ordered sharply. “I have to take videos for evidence. What’s the address?”
I had to step outside the house to give her street and house number, and she reported she could be there in twenty minutes. She was bringing a second squad car with her to handle Mr. Shady.
Romero had me stay on the phone with her as she drove in, and I headed out to the back, where Zhen and Jo Jo still had Mr. Shady pinned. I had questions of my own to ask.
“Hey, why do this? Who hired you, because I doubt this was random.”
Mr. Shady eyed me sideways, like he was confused by what he was looking at. “You’ve got to be the strangest fucking mage I’ve ever seen. How is that your familiar?”
I glanced at Guo, who still followed me around, and realized what it must look like from his perspective. This blonde chick wandering around with a massive black dog probably did look like a mage, didn’t she? Huh.
“Not my familiar, I’m not a mage.” Which did leave the question of what I was, but I didn’t have an answer. “Guo is Pack.”
Guo gave me a little head boop against the shoulder because I’d made him happy, apparently. I gave him scritches on his massive forehead.
Zhen glared at Mr. Shady. “Answer my wife’s question.”
“She’s a hunter’s wife,” Mr. Shady muttered bitterly under his breath.
“Fucking figures. Ow! Stop poking me. I’ll answer, okay, just stop that.
I, uh, was called up by this chick. Friend of a friend sent her my way kind of thing.
She, uh, she had this request to grab that guy, Yan whatever, and hold him.
Said she’d be by in, like, four days to get him, maybe five.
No skin off my nose. I told her my price, she paid me up front. I got records to prove it!”
He sure was quick to throw her under the bus. Then again, there was no loyalty there.
I sighed because I had a very good feeling who had done this. “Name Luna Martin ring any bells?”
He stared, jaw dropping. “Oh damn, you know her? She psycho, man. Batshit, you got me?”
“Oh, I know. Trust me, I know.” I shared a long speaking look with Zhen. Figured it was her. Who else would want Yan Yichen all to herself? Who else was obsessed enough to think caging his spirit was a good idea? Only one person leapt to mind.
Sirens neared as the cops arrived and loped around to the front of the house via driveway this time. Romero was quick to get out, a squad car pulling in behind her, blocking the street entirely.
Romero was all business while she greeted me. “All right, show me this guy first.”
“Sure.” I led her back around.
She took one look at him and shook her head. “You really should have kept your head down. Getting the attention of these guys is a terrible decision. What’s your name?”
“Price. Mitch Price.”
“Mr. Price, I’m going to need you to stay still while I cuff you. Someone will read your rights to you.”
“I was just hired to summon a ghost, that ain’t illegal!”
“Still kidnapping.” Romero was having none of his shit as she slapped cuffs on him. “Now, we’re going inside and looking at what you did, aren’t we?”
Two other officers joined us, silently looking through the house.
They didn’t have a warrant, but that didn’t stop them from looking around casually.
I tried to stay out of the way as they collected their evidence.
I was worried about Luna, though. Just what the hell had she been thinking?
What other lengths would she go to in order to have Yan Yichen completely to herself?
Locking up this one man wouldn’t stop her, not in the long run.
Guo caught my eye and said, “Not enough room.”
“Sure, go.” He was likely feeling cramped in here and would prefer to lurk in the shadows.
Romero met us at the altar room after Price was thrown into the squad car.
She let out a huff. “Fortunately, the laws were recently amended for this sort of crime, so I can press charges for spiritual kidnapping. And this was blatant enough to warrant an arrest. Plus, we did find some meth cooking up in the kitchen, so good call, Kris. We’ve got him on double charges now.
Zhen, can you undo those knots and let this poor man be free? ”
“I can, but I’d rather Jo Jo do it.”
Jo Jo’s hand sprang up into the air, matching the energy of his smile. “Me, please!”
Romero gave him a once-over, brow quirked. “And who exactly are you?”
“Jo Jo Ramshaw. Uh, you can say my family’s like the Barre’s. We specialize in wards and curse breaking.”
“Ah-ha. You visiting?”
“Yeah, I was part of the crew that captured Annabelle.”
Romero shuddered from head to toe. “God, that scared the living shit out of every first responder in the city. I’m so glad you guys didn’t call us in for support or whatever. That was way above my paygrade.”
Well, she couldn’t have helped. None of the normal police could have. Except maybe to cordon off the Walmart, but no one sane was going near the place while we were battling it out with Annabelle anyway.
“All right, so you’re an expert. Awesome. Have at it.” Romero waved him on.
Jo Jo had at it. His fingers flew as he undid the knots, and you could tell he’d done something similar countless times. I bet he could do it blindfolded, that’s how fast and sure he moved.
Within five minutes, the knots were undone. The chains around Yichen also faded like they had never been, leaving him unbound. Yan Yichen stretched his arms up and gave a loud sigh of relief and satisfaction.
“Finally, I can move. Thank you so much, all of you. I’m going to leave here.”
“Wait!” I blurted out. “Don’t disappear completely, Boss was trying to summon you because we have potential matches for you to look at. Oh, and reassure your grandfather you’re all right, we called him looking for you.”
Yan Yichen’s little head tilted. “You really have been busy. Thanks. I’ll go speak with both now.”
And just like that, he was gone.
Zhen lifted the doll, side-eyeing Romero as if unsure of her reaction. “We have to break the doll, at least a little; otherwise, anything can jump into it and use its body.”
“I want a haunted doll in my evidence locker about as much as I want a stick in my eye,” she said bluntly. “Absolutely do what you need to. Just don’t break it so much I can’t identify it in a courtroom.”
“Oh, that part’s easy.” He detached the head and then dropped both back onto the table. He wrote a quick warding spell in the inside of both, making them inert to spiritual energy. “All we need to do. I would burn it later, though, after the trial is over. My ward won’t last long.”
“Bless you. Now, you said this woman’s name is Luna Martin?”
“Right. She’s got a restraining order in the works from Jennifer Davis, who was Yan Yichen’s former girlfriend.”
“So this girl’s nutso.”
I shrugged because yeah. Basically.
“I’ll start looking for her. She did pay someone to kidnap the poor guy, after all. She needs jail time at the least.” Romero rolled her eyes. “And a boatload of therapy, sounds like. Kris, forward any information you have about her to me.”
“All I’ve got is a name and phone number.”
“I’ll take it.”
Hopefully it would save her some work and make it faster to find Luna. I was good with that. I forwarded the info along to her, and then just sort of prayed she found Luna before she caused any more trouble.
At that point, we were done here. I was happy to get back in the car and drive home. It had been a wild day, but at least we’d found poor Yan Yichen before he’d become Luna’s pet spirit boyfriend.
Jo Jo leaned between the front seats as I backed out of the driveway. “This Luna woman, I feel like she’s solar powered but it’s nighttime. I mean, seriously, this whole thing was a level of bizarre I’ve never seen before.”
“Obsession will do that to you. It’s why people do things like love potions and curses.” Zhen shook his head. “Sad how she can’t let go even after he’s died. Grief can turn some people into monsters.”
“Truly.”
I had an entirely different question. “I wonder why she was waiting to pick him up?”
“Afraid she’d be the first suspect when people realized he was missing?” Jo Jo offered. “If we’d come to her first to look for him, she could honestly say she didn’t have him. She’d be cleared and then could go get him.”
“I mean, logically, that would make sense. She was my first suspect. But I knew she didn’t have the skills to pull off a spiritnapping.”
“It was the sole error in her plan. I don’t think she realized we could track Yan Yichen’s spirit in another way. Then again, she isn’t trained in this stuff.”
If she had been, it likely wouldn’t have been this easy to find Yichen and break him free. I was glad for that. I had enough on my plate as it was.
A call came through from Charlotte and I answered with a quick tap on my dash’s screen. “Hey, we’re done, we’re—”
“Kris?” Her voice shook with panic.
Something in me went ice cold in fear. “What’s wrong?”
Another voice entirely answered. “Give ’im back to me! Give ’im back right now or I’ll slit ’er throat!”