Chapter 21
“Come in,” I tell him, and give Jacques a look. He nods and hurries through the house, making sure everyone else is presentable. Jared steps in and closes the door behind him. I bring him into the sitting room, avoiding the guys in the living room, and motion for him to sit down.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I was in my room watching YouTube videos and suddenly it got really cold.” He pauses, waiting for me to react.
“And?” I say after a few seconds tick by.
“The door opened, but no one came in.”
“Cut the drama, kid. Tell me about the part where you saw the fucking ghost.”
“I heard someone crying. I thought maybe it was my mom, but then she stepped in.”
“The ghost just walked into your room?” God, this kid is big with the drama.
“Yes.” He swallows hard. “She rushed me, knocked me out of my chair, and started choking me. I’ve been keeping salt on my nightstand, you know, just in case.
I was able to kick the nightstand and make the salt spill.
It was enough to get her to loosen her grip and then I said her name.
Her eyes went from gray to blue. And then she disappeared. ”
“Tip your head up,” I tell him, and look at his neck. There are red marks. I bring his hand up, making sure he didn’t do it himself. The marks don’t fit his hand and I don’t think he’s smart enough to think that far ahead. Shit. “Are you okay? Can you breathe fine?”
“I ran all the way here, so yeah. I’m a little freaked out, though.”
“You didn’t happen to go to…say…a national park or see a waterfall today, did you?”
“Yeah, I went with some friends to see the falls. How did you know? Do you follow me on Instagram or something?”
“Stay here.” Running my hands over my face, I go through the sitting room and back into the living room. The guys are in there, all wearing concealment charms. “Pretty sure Pink Dress Ghost went after Jared.”
“She’s close,” Hasan says. “We should try to get her.”
“How?” I raise my hands in question. “Unless one of you has a proton pack lying around, I have no idea how the hell to trap a ghost.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Jacques says like he always does. I’m starting to think he’s just saying that and doesn’t actually believe it.
“I’m short on time.” I look at the digital clock on the cable box. We don’t have long until sunrise. I bring my hand to my forehead, pinching the bridge of my nose. “He’s not going to sit in there either.”
“I’ll babysit,” Gilbert offers.
“Put a shirt on,” I tell him, eyeing his muscular abdomen. “The kid already has self-esteem issues.”
“I am very attractive.” Gil gives me a wink and goes into the laundry room through the kitchen, and then moves to the sitting room to talk to Jared.
Jac brings the grimoire and motions for me to sit on the couch next to him. He flips through the pages, stopping on the section about ghosts. It’s all in Latin, and I watch his eyes scan over the pages.
“Banishing her is a temporary fix. It gets rid of her for a short amount of time, but she can come back.” He flips to another page and runs his finger over the smeared black ink. “This is risky, but it might work.”
“Risky?” Hasan turns, looking down at the book.
“Very.”
“What does it say?” I ask.
Jacques reads it over and then takes a breath. “You’ll be opening the rift again and putting her back through.”
“Shit. That is risky. Does it say how to open a rift?”
“No, nor does it advise to. But, it says it’s been done before.”
“My ancestors shoved ghosts through a rift before?”
“Not ghosts,” Jacques says. “Demons.”
Thomas shakes his head, not liking the idea. “How do we know something else won’t get out?”
“We don’t,” Jacques tells him. “You can’t kill what’s already dead, especially when the ghost has no real form.
” He turns to another page. I’ve looked at this one before and immediately flipped past it.
The handwriting is tiny, the words crammed together, and the ink is faded and smeared in some places.
“Spirits belong in the spirit world,” he goes on. “Bringing one across the veil in the way the ghost in the pink dress did gave her powers she shouldn’t have. She needs to be sent back.”
“How do I do it?” I ask.
Jac looks up, and the expression on his face tells me everything. “It’s too risky on your own.”
“You basically said it’s my only option.”
“The banishing spell works.”
“Temporarily. It’s like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. She’s going to go around attacking people, and sooner or later she’s going to kill an innocent person and that’s on me. I have to do the spell. Just…just tell me how.”
“You can’t,” he stresses. “You need a coven.”
I throw my hands up in defeat. “Of course. That’s the one thing I don’t have. There’s no way to swing this on my own?”
“The spell has three parts. Open the rift, hold a barrier, and put the spirit in. Ideally, you would have two witches working on the same thing. You’ve already proved you’re capable of opening a rift without intending to.
I have no doubt you’d be able to open it and perform the spell to put the spirit back, but my fear is holding a barrier until the rift can be closed. ”
“Can we do it?” Thomas asks.
“I don’t know.” Jacques shakes his head. “Some spells are simple, and if Ace prepared them for us, yes, we could carry it out. The strongest barrier comes from tapping into a ley line, and that is something only an experienced witch could do.”
“Fuck.” I put my head in my hands. “So that’s out. What the hell am I supposed to do? Chase this ghost around with a handful of herbs and do the banishing spell?”
“You don’t know where she’s going to be,” Hasan tells me, missing my sarcasm.
“The spirit is responsive to external forces,” Jacques thinks out loud. “Hearing her name was enough to jar her, and salt made her abandon her victim.”
“Right. Part of her is still in there.” I get up, peering through the foyer. I can’t see Jared or Gilbert, but I hear Gil’s voice echoing through the house. “I’ll give him a smudge stick and tell him to put salt around his bed. That should suffice, right?”
“I’d think so.”
I yawn, mind still going a million miles an hour, but my body is so tired. “I’ll get on it.” I take the smudge stick from my purse as well as a lighter from the kitchen and go back into the sitting room. Jared and Gil are talking about football, and I’m impressed that Gil is able to keep up.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” I start, and hand Jared the sage. “Light this if you think the ghost is coming back. Waft the smoke all around you and it’ll keep her away. In the meantime, line your room with salt if you can, but if you can’t, just your bed will do for tonight.”
“We’re not going after her?” He looks disappointed.
“Not tonight. It’s late. I’m tired and I’ve had one hell of a day. And think about it, kid. She’s a pissed-off spirit with the ability to choke you. We’re at a little bit of a disadvantage.”
“You sound like you’ve done this before.”
I look at Gil, a small smile on my face. “Not quite.”
“But you’ve fought other things?” Jared’s eyes light up.
“Don’t go getting excited on me, okay? This isn’t like the movies. I’ll drive you home and I want you to go to your room, make a safe circle of salt around your bed, and sleep until you have to get up for school in the morning.”
“I’m on summer break now.”
“Really? Oh, yeah, I guess it is that time of year. Regardless, do what I say, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean it,” I repeat, feeling like I didn’t get through to him. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”
Jared nods and looks down at the sage. “If my dad finds this, you’ll have to tell him it’s not pot.”
“That doesn’t even look like pot. But yes, I’ll vouch for you. Though I get the feeling your dad would rather you get caught with pot than sage you burn to banish ghosts.”
Jared lets out a snort of laughter. “You’re not wrong.”
“Come on. It’s late and we both need sleep.” I motion for Jared to follow me. Avoiding the living room, we go into the dining room, through the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen. I put on my shoes and grab my keys, and we leave through the back door.
“Who was that guy?” Jared asks once we’re both seated.
“My boyfriend.”
“No, the other one? I saw you with your boyfriend at my parents’ party.”
I’m not ashamed of my relationship with all four of my gargoyles. I own my sexuality like a motherfucking queen. But telling a teenage boy about it isn’t something I want to tackle right now.
“A friend.”
“And he knows about ghosts?”
“A bit.”
Jared shifts in his seat. “Sorry if I, uh, interrupted anything.”
Oh, right. Jacques was shirtless when he answered the door. “We already finished.”
“Gross.”
I roll my eyes and press on the gas. By car, it doesn’t take long to get to Jared’s house. I pull over but not into his driveway, not wanting to shine the lights at his house and risk either waking up his parents or causing one of the annoyingly involved neighbors to become suspicious.
“Where is your window?” I ask Jared as he unbuckles.
“Second story on the left.”
“Go in, check on your parents, and then go into your room. Turn your light on and off three times so I know you’re up there and things are good.”
“And if they’re not?”
“I’m giving you two minutes. I’ll come in if I don’t see the signal.”
“This is so cool,” he says to himself.
“It’s not. Promise me, kid, that you won’t do anything stupid.”
“I promise.” He gets out of the car and runs through the driveway, hopping onto the porch and entering a code to unlock the front door.
I look at the clock and then back at the house.
A light above the stairs comes on and a good thirty seconds pass by before I see anything else.
That light turns off and another comes on upstairs.
Come on, kid…make it to your room and turn on the damn lights.
I start counting in my head, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. One…two…three…four…five… The light in his room goes on and off. On and off. On and off. It stays off for a few seconds and then goes on. I can see Jared’s shadow moving around behind the drawn sheer curtains.
Letting out a breath of relief, I turn my car around and speed down the road. My eyes are starting to burn and I know I need to sleep. If I’m going to do a big, complicated spell on my own, I need to catch up on my sleep and be prepared. No matter what, this isn’t going to be easy.