Chapter 2 #2
“Pretty nice there, Locke… pretty nice.”
The fuck? My grip tightened on the phone. “Tuck your dick back in, Cap. I know what I threw away. Besides, I thought you were always so worried about my professionalism. Now that she’s broadcasting, you think I wanna hear what you think about the women I’m fucking?” I took a sip of coffee.
“Where are you?”
“Just crossed the Mississippi.”
“Well, get your ass to the precinct. The resemblances are uncanny.”
Yeah. No shit they were. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Nettles hung up first.
I hated that calling her made me sweat like a goddamn teenager. But really, how would that be any different from any other time I was around her? I was either fumbling over my words or holding my textbook over my raging erection.
God, she ruined me.
I still had her pinned to the top of my contacts. I tapped call.
Straight to voicemail.
Dammit.
“Hey, Max… It’s me.” I thought very carefully about my words.
I couldn’t apologize over the phone. That’d be an asshole thing to do…
and I didn’t need any more of those on my resume.
“I need you to watch your back. There’s a serial killer out there taking out sex workers that look exactly like you all up and down the East Coast. I’ll be back in Port Grey sometime tomorrow.
If you go out, take Derek with you, or Katie, but I’d prefer Derek… just… be careful, Max.”
I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute.
I should have slept in the parking lot right there, but the thought of another psycho hunting her kicked adrenaline through me, and the stale coffee and sad beef sticks kept me going a few more hours.
What got me, though, was the goddamn glow of Silas blinking in and out whenever he thought someone could see him.
It’d be morning soon, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I’d been driving for nearly twenty hours—barely stopping for gas or to piss and my eyes were about ready to slam shut at a moment’s notice.
I pulled off to find a secluded spot to sleep in a state park somewhere in Ohio.
“Whatever are you doing, dear boy?” Silas asked.
“Look, man, I can’t go any further, I just need a cat nap. Then we’ll hit it again.”
“Maggie’s in danger. Now is not the time for beauty sleep. What if I were to be of some assistance?”
“How could you possibly—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Silas had jumped into my body. His green ethereal glow seeped into my pores. It was fucking unnerving.
“Dude, what the hell?!”
“Look. Relax your arms.”
I did as he said and Silas took over maneuvering my arms like he was driving. My hands moved without me. Fingers curled around the wheel like they knew what they were doing. “I don’t want you fucking possessing me! Get out!”
“No, no, not possession—animation.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like that shit.” My body shivered. “How did you know you could even do this?”
“Well, I’ve been practicing while you sleep.”
“I beg your goddamn pardon.” I shook him off. The glow snapped out. My arms were mine again. I flexed my fingers just to be sure.
“Oh yes, yes.” Silas materialized back in the passenger seat. “Not to worry. It’s just a simple thing where I take over your movements so we can get closer to my niece without wasting a single moment.”
I blew out a frustrated breath and tried to relax into the seat of the truck. “Fine. But I still don’t like it.”
Maggie
“Maggie, you’re late,” Ruby said, a deep scowl settling onto her brow. “Do you at least have the sample?”
“Sorry. Yes, it’s right here.” I pulled a small glass jar out of my purse and presented it to her.
She snatched it from my hand, whisking it away to the cauldron bubbling over the crackling fire in the center of their patio garden.
“It’s all I could get…” I said, making a beeline to the wrought-iron patio set by the gazebo. “Hunter stirs a lot lately… and I don’t understand why it has to be so fresh.”
“Potency, dear.” Clover carefully tore fresh wormwood into tiny pieces and sprinkled them into the pot.
“Nobody wants stale semen in their anti-obsession spells,” Ruby said, matter-of-fact, leaning over the cauldron with a brow cocked and slow, deliberate smile spreading across her face.
“Of course not,” I agreed with a wary glance in Katie’s direction.
“You’re going to want to relax before we start, Maggie,” she offered, pulling out a chair for me to sit. “Why don’t you pull some cards?”
She slid a purple velvet pouch across the table to me—tarot cards—and rushed inside.
“What’s with her?” I asked, not looking up as I removed the gold-edged cards from the pouch.
“Just the usual, darling… a little vervain should unscramble that brain of hers.” Clover smiled, calm as ever.
I smiled at her and shuffled the deck just like I did every week. Maybe that was the problem. We were doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I doubt a different chant—different herbs, even—would break this godforsaken curse. What I needed was a fuckin’ miracle.
I sighed and doled out the cards, one at a time, laying them face down on the table in a row of three.
“Is it frog’s teeth yet, Clove?” Ruby folded her arms as she stared into the bubbling pot.
“Oh, don’t be a Sally Buggins. We’ve only just begun.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Clover brought a large wooden spoon to her nose and inhaled. “Sally Buggins was a member of the Solstice Committee, years ago, and she had quite the knack for petulant impatience.” She gestured toward the pot. “More Devil’s Dung.”
“Good grief, Clove,” Ruby chortled, “the poor man’s not a demon. Asafoetida’s overkill.”
“Just securing all bases, but if you don’t want to ensure his spirit’s safety, we can do it the hard way.”
“This isn’t the hard way?” I turned the center card face up—the hanged man, reversed.
Dammit.
“Of course not, dear.” Clover selected a lock of my hair from the nape of my neck, leaned over my shoulder for the scissors, and tapped them on the card before cutting. “That’s the hard way.” The quick snip of the blades next to my ear sent an electric jolt down my spine.
“You know, I’m not going to have any hair left if we keep this up.”
“If you’d listen to your cards—”
“Ruby?” Clover placed her hands on my shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. “Keep stirring.”
Ruby’s eyebrows knit together as she gripped the spoon tighter, whipping the cauldron’s contents in a huff.
I shrank and flipped another card. Knight of Swords. Reversed. Its meaning bled into my vision: emotional overwhelm, burnout, recklessness. Recklessness. The word hung in the cold air. Ugh!
“No—” I whined. “Every time. Every damn time. This Knight of Swords shows up. No matter what we change… it’s still there. I’m not about to be a pawn.”
“It’s not the card, dear.” Clover patted me on the shoulder, dropped my hair into her basket and joined Ruby at the cauldron.
Ruby stepped back like she already knew what Clover was going to say, contorted her face, and mimicked every word from Clover's mouth.
“It's how you respond to it."
Katie came back out and set a blanket on the chair next to me. “You know the routine. Tits out, let them catch some moon rays.”
“Can we get this over with already? I won’t be catching any moon rays tonight, and frostbit tits is not a good look.
” I pulled my white dress over my head. “I have to get back before Hunter wakes up. I don’t want him to worry.
Besides, maybe Hunter’s the real deal. We are having a great time together. ”
“Don’t be preposterous, dear,” Ruby said, poking at the fire with the end of her staff. “This is all your doing, and you know it. You have to set that poor man free—”
“…the others too,” Clover calmly announced, setting her basket on the gazebo railing with a soft thud.
“This isn’t going to work.” I gathered the cards and slid them back into their velvet pouch but kept my final draw. My thumb brushed over its embossed edge, the answer I didn’t want still hidden.
“Must you always bring us down, girl?” Ruby plopped onto the gazebo step, her movements sharp as she pulled off her shoes and socks.
“It’s just… we’ve done this twelve times already. Do you really think adding this will make a difference?” I whined, the words turning to fog in the freezing air.
“Makes sense to me,” Katie piped in. She was already naked, the cool winter air raising goosebumps on her arms and turning her knees a raw, blotchy red.
“It better. I’m going to get fucking pneumonia if we keep this up.”
Before joining everyone around the fire, I looked at the last card I’d pulled. Recklessness.
I tossed it into the fire, watching the painted knight curl and blacken, his sword consumed by the flames. I wasn’t about to let the cards determine my life tonight.
“Okay, what are we doing this time?” I asked, assuming my place around the cauldron.
In the center of the fire, the cast-iron cauldron bubbled, a thick, sickly-sweet steam rising from it.
Clover tipped a handful of dried herbs into the brew, followed by my lock of hair, the crackle lost in the roar.
Katie stirred, the long wooden spoon moving in slow, deliberate circles. Ruby inspected the sample.
“How fresh is it?” Ruby asked, holding the vial up to the firelight, the liquid glowing like a trapped pearl.
“Yesterday.”
“Oh, I suppose it will have to do. Same day is best, though.” Ruby uncorked it and poured it into the bubbling mixture.
“We didn’t have sex today. Derek and I did. So, it’s the best I could do.”
“Derek, huh?” Katie gave me a side-eye, understanding flickering across her face.
“Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s just… How’s that platonic fucking working out for you?”
I yanked my hair into a messy bun, the pin stabbing my scalp as I secured it. “I don’t know, Katie… When he’s not fucking me, he’s fucking you, so maybe you’ve got that answer.”
“Mags, I’m not jealous. It just seems like he’s over a lot, that’s all.”
“Just because he’s over doesn’t mean we’re fucking.”
“I know.”