Darkangel (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill) (9 page)

I nodded, albeit sadly. I wanted to feel that conviction. I wanted to look up and suddenly meet those cool green eyes I’d seen so many times in my mind, and know the doubt and worry were over at last. How I wanted that more than anything in the world. Wanting something, though, wasn’t quite the same as actually getting it.

“Why, you’re seeing him already in your dreams. He wants to come to you, just as you want to come to him.”

“Well, he’s taking his sweet time,” I remarked, my tone a little more acid than I’d intended. Her brows lifted, and I hastily added, “I know, I know. These things happen as they’re meant to be. But I barely have two months left.”

“A lot can happen in two months, even though it might feel like an eternity to you. The worst thing you can do is allow yourself to become discouraged. That only leads to a lowering of your spirits, and that makes you vulnerable.” Her mouth tightened. “And that is the thing this clan needs the least.”

Something in her tone told me she was making an oblique reference to the spirit or entity I had seen. “Did you — did you feel it?” I asked.

She didn’t bother to inquire what I’d meant by “it.” A nod, and she replied, “Faintly. I was sitting here, napping a little, I suppose.” Another pursing of the thin wrinkled lips. She didn’t like to admit to any weakness, even something as harmless as taking an afternoon nap. “It felt to me like a cold draft blowing through a crack in the wall. Then it was gone, and until Rachel sent out the call to the coven, I thought I must have imagined it.”

“It is — it is gone, though, isn’t it?” Even though I could sense no trace of that malevolent presence, it still nagged at me, as if it were hiding somewhere just out of range.

“As far as I can tell. It was a good cleansing. I sense no negativity here now…unless you want to count the drivers going over the mountain cursing as they have to slow down to ten miles an hour to get through town.”

That remark made me smile. I guessed she’d made it on purpose in an attempt to banish my lingering worries. “So what should I do?”

“As you have done. Be vigilant, of course, but don’t let yourself worry too much. Everyone is here for you, and will be, no matter what happens.”

I regarded her steadily. “And you, Great-Aunt Ruby? Will you be here for me, too?”

She didn’t blink. Those blue eyes were sharp as a hawk’s. “You’ve got to take off the training wheels sometime, child.” Then she made an impatient gesture with one hand. “That’s enough for now. You go — your aunt will need you at the shop. It’s almost eleven.”

If it had been anyone else, I might have tried to argue, press her for more details…plead with her to hang on until I’d found my consort. Maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t. But that time would be of her choosing, and none of mine.

I got to my feet. “I’ll talk to you again soon,” I said firmly.

“I’m sure you will,” she replied, tone neutral.

After bending down and giving her a swift kiss on the cheek — the expected farewell — I went back to the front door and let myself out. A cloud moved over the sun in that moment, and I barely kept myself from flinching. Heck of a way for the McAllisters’ next
prima
to act…jumping at shadows, always looking over her shoulder.

Shaking my head at myself, I went down the hill to my aunt’s store.

I didn’t look back.

A
s Sundays went
, it was busy but not horribly so. Enough to keep me somewhat occupied, but not so much that I couldn’t keep worrying at the nagging problem of the unwelcome spirit who’d shown up here the day before. Yes, everyone seemed to think it was gone, and I’d have to accept that for now, but the one topic people seemed to be avoiding was the question of what it actually had been. Maybe no one really had a clue, and so didn’t want to profess their ignorance. It made some sense; in Jerome, I was the ghost girl. And if I didn’t know what that thing was, how could I expect anyone else to figure it out?

I decided I’d better go directly to the source.

We closed the shop at five, and Aunt Rachel went upstairs to check the roast she’d left cooking in the crock pot all day. Tobias would be coming for dinner, as he did every Sunday, but we wouldn’t be sitting down until six-thirty. I had some time.

Except for the few tourists staying at the local hotels and B&Bs, and a few stalwarts who remained behind to squeeze one last dinner out of their weekends, Jerome tended to clear out on Sunday evenings. I slipped down to Hull Avenue and around the corner of Spook Hall, a place where Maisie tended to hang out…if you could call what a disembodied spirit did “hanging out.”

“Maisie,” I whispered, as the sun began to drop behind Mingus Mountain and the shadows lengthened. “I need to talk to you.”

Nothing at first, which didn’t surprise me. It was quiet down here; the wine tasting room a few doors down had already closed, and the hall wasn’t hosting any events that day, so there wasn’t anyone else around. I leaned against the cold cement wall and waited. True, Maisie had much more time on her hands than I did, but acting impatient or agitated was the surest way to keep her from appearing at all.

At last I saw her shiver into existence a few feet away from me, her form slowly becoming more substantial as I watched. She wore a simple white high-collared blouse and dark skirt, and looked a lot more respectable than most people might think a mining town prostitute should. Then again, she may have decided she didn’t want to spend eternity wandering around in a camisole and corset. Her curly blonde hair was pulled up into a loose knot on the top of her head, although a few tendrils waved around her face, and moved in a breeze that had little to do with the wind currents in Jerome at that time of day.

She showed no surprise at seeing me. “Angela.”

“How are you today, Maisie?”

Her mouth quirked, and she raised an eyebrow. “’Bout the same as always, I reckon. What did you want?”

“Can we talk a bit?”

Her lopsided dimple deepened. “Sure. Not like I have anything else I need to do right now.”

This sort of an exchange had turned into a ritual for us. It had always seemed sort of rude for me to jump right into asking her for what I needed, and so we always shared a little banter to get things started. “Let’s go down to the stoop.”

About halfway down the side of the building was a raised area outside one of the exits. I settled myself on the edge, but Maisie remained standing. I’d actually never seen her sit down, but I didn’t know if that was personal preference or because she really couldn’t sit.

I settled myself in place, and she watched me from a few feet away. It always startled me how much she looked like a regular girl, even in her 1890s getup. If someone had seen her, they’d probably think she was just a local historical reenactor of some sort. There really was no way to tell that she’d died only a few feet from this spot almost a hundred and twenty years ago.

As far as I could tell, though, I was the only one who could actually see her. Anyone passing by would see me standing there and talking to myself, but that sort of behavior was mostly ignored in Jerome.

“So, Maisie,” I began, then hesitated. There really wasn’t an easy way to ask the question. “Did you feel…or see…or hear…anything strange late yesterday afternoon?”

She’d been staring past me at the square, stolid bulk of Lawrence Hall, but her gaze sharpened at once. “Laws, yes. I was wondering if you were going to come poking around and asking about that.”

I should have been relieved at a chance to clear up the mystery. Somehow, though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say. “So you know what it was?”

“Now, I didn’t say
that
. I just said I felt something strange.”

“What did you feel?”

“Cold. I shouldn’t feel cold…I don’t feel anything at all, most days, although every once in a while I fancy I can feel the wind on my face. My imagination, I s’pose, but there it is.” A frown pulled at her fair eyebrows, at skin that would never see a line or wrinkle. I always had to remind myself that Maisie had been younger than I was now when she died.

“I felt it, too,” I told her, and tried to repress a shiver, not all that successfully.

She shot me a curious glance. “And you don’t know what it was, neither?”

“That’s why I was asking you. I thought you might know something more because you’re a, well — ”

“’Cause I’m a ghost.”

“Well, yes.”

Her shoulders lifted. “Never felt nothing like it before, that’s true. It wasn’t one of
us
.”

By “us” I knew she meant the thirty-odd spirits who’d made Jerome their permanent abode. I’d already guessed that much, since I knew all of them as well as I knew the members of my own family, or the residents of the town who weren’t McAllisters but were trusted with our secret.

“But do you — do you think it was a spirit who used to be someone?”

“I
am
still someone.” — Somewhat indignantly.

“I know. I’m sorry.” I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. Or rather, I attempted to and was stopped by a tangle. My hair tended to drive me nuts, since it was halfway between wavy and curly, and could never make up its mind what it wanted to be. “I just meant the spirit of someone who died.”

“Not like any I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.” I’d never thought I’d see a ghost looking scared, but at the very least she looked troubled, if not downright frightened. “I didn’t like it. See, we all know each other here, the good and the bad. We rub along. But this — ” Another shake of her head. “I’m glad you made it go away.”

“So it is gone.”

“Far’s I can tell. And I think I’d feel it if it was still here.”

That was something. Not much, but better than nothing.

“Thanks, Maisie.” I pulled my cell out of my jeans pocket to check the time. Six-ten. Aunt Rachel would want me back home to help put the finishing touches on dinner. “You’ll tell me if you feel anything else strange, won’t you?”

“If you come and ask,” she said.

That was ghosts for you. Always wanting it done their way.

“Sure,” I replied. “You take care of yourself.”

“Bit late for that, I think,” she said tartly, and disappeared.

Since there wasn’t anything left for me to do, I began to walk up Hull Avenue toward the back entrance of my building. Even as I went, my mind worried at the problem. So it wasn’t a ghost. Other types of spirits existed, dark entities whose purpose was anything but benign. They had their counterparts on the light side, but of course what I’d felt was definitely not good. And if one of those dark, inhuman presences had somehow decided to make me its prey, it might require more than a cleansing ritual and a charmed pentacle on the door.

Suddenly the shadows of the buildings around me felt too black, and I found myself hurrying home, hurrying toward the safety, however spurious, of my aunt’s house.

H
e came
to me in my dreams that night. Another change, because this time he stood beside me, although for some reason I still couldn’t look up into his face. But he held my hand in his, the two of us standing there in the soft twilight as snow began to fall all around us. I wasn’t cold, even though I was wearing only a flannel shirt and jeans and boots, no jacket or gloves or hat. His fingers were warm in mine, strong and welcome, and I squeezed them slightly, as if even in my dream I had to reassure myself that he was real.

Something in the air seemed filled with anticipation, as if I knew at any moment he would pull me into him, would cup my face in his hands and bring my lips to his, so I’d know at last I’d found him, found the one I’d been waiting for all these years. He shifted, and in my dream I smiled, knowing what was going to come next.

Only as he moved, he became shadowed, as if his whole body had turned to black, had turned as featureless and frightening as the figure that had stared at me in the shop the day before, and the fingers holding mine were no longer warm, but deathly cold. In my dream I tried to wrench my hand away, but he was too strong, and not only held on to that hand but grasped the other, pulling me against him, the chill of his body leaching into mine. Then we were falling to the snow, a weight as cold and heavy and black as the depths of the ocean on top of me, holding me down, smothering my heat with his ice, and though I pushed and pushed, I couldn’t get away, couldn’t take a breath, couldn’t force one scream….

“Angela!
Angela!
”

My aunt’s voice, and her hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake. I blinked, and saw her worried face peering down into mine, outlined by a yellow rectangle of light — the open doorway to the hall, with the overhead fixture bringing welcome illumination to my dark room.

“What was it?” she asked, voice urgent. “A nightmare?”

I wanted to say it was only a nightmare, but I couldn’t say for sure. Mine was not the gift of seeing visions, or the future, but all witches had flashes of precognition from time to time. I didn’t want that to be the case here. I wanted it to be only a nightmare, only a horrible dream put together from my worries and fears and the frightening experiences of the past few days.

“I…don’t know,” I said at last.

“Tell me,” she said, and I knew from her tone that she wouldn’t let me get away with any evasion.

So I told her everything I remembered, no embellishment, no speculation, just the bare bones of the dream. That was enough; her face, pale already without its daytime makeup, went even whiter.

“It got through,” she murmured. “Even through all the wards we set up….”

“It was only a dream,” I said, but the protest sounded halfhearted even to me.

“We don’t know that for sure.” She reached out and touched my hand where it lay on top of the embroidered bedspread. “You’re like ice.”

That was true enough; shivers still wracked my body. “What should we do?”

“Bring in reinforcements,” she said immediately. “You’ll have to be watched around the clock.”

As much as the dream had bothered me, that idea upset me even more. Wasn’t my life circumscribed enough? Was I now going to have some kind of McAllister version of the Secret Service dogging my every step?

Yep, that was about the size of it.

Margot Emory, one of the clan elders, and Boyd Willis, a warlock noted for his strong spells of protection, and Henry Lynch, one of Great-Aunt Ruby’s grandsons, all set up camp in the living room that night, watching over me, watching over the house, making sure that no trace of evil or ill will could enter. And the next morning another group of three took over, only to be replaced by yet another trio the following evening. They attempted to stay out of the way — well, as much as they could with my aunt worrying about what she should cook for them all — but it was trying, to say the least.

I retreated to my studio and tried to concentrate on twisting wire and setting stones and choosing gems for the next round of pendants and earrings and talismans after the ones I was working on were done, but I had a hard time focusing. More than once I clipped a wire in the wrong place, or placed a stone crooked so I had to pry it out and start all over again, but I supposed it was good I had something to occupy myself. And in an odd way the very presence of the stones reassured me, the quiet strength of garnet, the gentle warmth of rose quartz, the serene coolness of jade. I took solace in their touch, and thanked them for their beauty as I set them in shimmering silver and vibrant, glowing copper.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, Sydney texted me.
R U coming 2 try on dresses tomorrow?

I really, really hated text-speak, even though I supposed it made sense in a twisted sort of way when you were trying to save time and effort. Even so, I always replied using proper sentences.
I’m under house arrest. Can you come up here?

Her reply came back almost at once.
No prob. See U @ 4. Dinner @ Grapes?

Okay
, I texted back. I had to hope that the restaurant was close enough to home that I could go out to eat with a friend without having to drag my bodyguards along.

S
he showed
up around four-thirty the next day, a garment bag slung over one shoulder. I’d given up on my jewelry for the day and was pretending to make myself useful by dusting some of the more obscure corners of the shop, but I had a feeling Aunt Rachel saw right through that tactic.

When Sydney came in, I gladly abandoned the feather duster. “We’re going upstairs to try on our stuff for the Halloween dance,” I told my aunt.

That day’s “bodyguards” were sitting at a table off to one side, pretending to browse through books on local history. They’d all looked up as soon as Sydney came in, but since she was clearly not a threat, they turned back to their books, ignoring us. Well, ignoring her, anyway.

Aunt Rachel smiled at Sydney and said hello, but couldn’t spare much more than that, as she was in the middle of showing a turquoise cuff to a husband and wife at the time. Taking advantage of her distraction, I all but dragged Sydney upstairs.

“Who were those dorks?” she asked, jerking her chin over her shoulder as we climbed the stairs. “And what’s this about house arrest?”

I really didn’t want to go into the whole thing. “Let’s just say things get a little weirder the closer I get to my birthday without a consort.”

“O-kay,” she replied, drawing out the second syllable as a means of registering her disapproval. “You’re not going to have to drag them along to the
dance
, are you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not. But I have a feeling they’ll be there, only not so obvious. Kind of like Secret Service guys in black tie at a White House function or something.”

“Are they going to wear those little earpieces?” she asked with a giggle.

I didn’t want to explain that witches really didn’t need that sort of thing. “Probably not. Anyway,” I added, hoping to distract her, “let’s take a look at these dresses.”

That did the trick. She went over to my bed and laid down the garment bag as I shut the door, glad that the watchdogs didn’t insist on being as close to me as Secret Service agents were to the President. It was enough for them to be in the building, keeping the wards strong, continually checking for any whiff of something that didn’t belong. So far they hadn’t sensed anything at all. Whatever was trying to come after me seemed to have backed off for the time being. Or maybe it was just playing with us, waiting to see if we’d get lax after a while.

If that was its game, it obviously didn’t know the McAllisters very well.

“Okay, so, here’s the one I brought for you,” Sydney said, pulling out a long red dress with intricate flounces along the bottom, all edged in black sequins, and with red and black beading on the bodice. It was low-cut, but I’d already resigned myself to that. “
Please
tell me you found some decent shoes.”

In silence I went to my closet and produced a pretty pair of black leather Mary Jane–style pumps. They were my aunt’s, but she and I wore the same size, and she was all too happy to let me borrow them. Actually, I think she was just as tired of the cowboy boots as Sydney was.

“Oh, those are pretty good,” she said, eyeing them critically. “Go ahead and try it on, then.”

I took the dress from her and used the standing mirror in the corner as a sort of screen as I pulled off my jeans and flannel shirt. One look at the bodice of the dress told me I couldn’t wear a bra with it — there were cups sewn into the gown itself — and so I reluctantly unhooked my bra as well before climbing into the dress and sliding it over my hips and all the way up. The zipper would’ve been impossible to manage by myself…if I weren’t a witch. It glided up smoothly, pulling the gown closely against me. It was snug but not too tight. Even so, I knew it showed off a whole hell of a lot more than I was used to.

After taking a breath to fortify myself — and realizing that those cups in the bodice were a lot more padded than I’d expected — I emerged from behind the mirror. “Is it okay?”

Sydney’s eyes widened. “Okay? It’s…way more than okay.” She got up from the bed, where she’d been fussing with her own short, sparkly dress, and came to stand next to me. “That’s spectacular.” Then her eyes lit up, and she hurried back over to her purse, rummaged through it, and pulled out a tube of lipstick. “Put this on.”

I took the lipstick from her and spread a thin coat over my lips. It was dark red, almost a perfect match to the dress. With it on, and with the bodice of the gown cut low over my breasts, I almost didn’t recognize myself. My eyes glowed green in contrast to the red of the gown and the ruby of my lips.

“See?” she demanded in triumph. “I always knew you could be beautiful if you just put a little effort into it.”

At any other time I would have protested, but now, with that familiar-yet-strange face looking back at me from the mirror, I thought Sydney might have a point. I put the cap on the lipstick and started to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.

“No, you keep it. I have a feeling you don’t have anything that color, right?”

That was a joke. My entire lip collection consisted of my Burt’s Bees balm and a single tube of peach lipgloss that got worn maybe twice a month, if that. “Thanks,” I said.

She looked over my reflection, then gathered up my unruly hair and twisted it into a quick knot low on the nape of my neck. “We’ll do your hair like this, and then a red flower….”

“Aunt Rachel has some dangly gold earrings I can borrow, too.”

“Perfect! No one’s going to recognize you.”

“Well, especially with a mask on,” I pointed out.

Her face fell. “Are we really going to wear masks? I hate those things. It always feels as if my lashes are jamming into the eye holes.”

“It
is
a Halloween party, you know.” Then again, I didn’t know for sure if everyone wore masks to the dance or not. Maybe I’d bring one along and see what other people were doing. I mentioned this to Sydney, and she brightened a little.

“Okay, that I can work with.” She turned away from me and held up the shimmering gold dress she planned to wear. “What do you think? Not as spectacular as yours, but….”

“It’s gorgeous,” I said truthfully. “And it’ll look perfect with your hair.”

She ran a hand over the beaded fringe and nodded. “I found this awesome pair of gold heels to go with it, too. I just have to hope that I won’t break my neck walking down the street in them. I swear, I don’t think there’s one level sidewalk in this town of yours.”

“Probably not.” There didn’t seem much point to staying in the red dress any longer, now that we’d determined it fit, and so I moved back behind the mirror to take it off. “I still can’t believe Madison was okay with just giving these away.”

“Well, I
might
have offered to give her free highlights for the next couple of months in exchange….”

I stuck my head out from behind the mirror. “That was generous. What can I do to chip in?”

“Nothing,” she said blithely. “It’s good practice for me. I don’t mind.”

Past experience had taught me that it was no use insisting, so I only said, “Okay, but let me get dinner at least,” before going back to getting the dress off and putting it back on its hanger. As quickly as I could, I slipped my bra back on and pulled on my shirt and jeans.

“Deal.” I heard the bed creak a little as she shifted on it. “Hey, Anthony has next Saturday off, and he and a couple of friends —
not
Perry — are taking their four-wheelers up to Crown King. Want to come?”

Crown King was a ghost town about seventy miles south of Jerome. Well, not completely a ghost town. A few people still lived there, and even more had summer homes on the mountaintop, but the place’s biggest claim to fame was its saloon…and the bragging rights of driving over more than twenty-five miles of dirt road to get there. I knew a few people who’d made the trip, and it always sounded like a lot of fun, but it would’ve been a stretch at the best of times, and I knew it sure wasn’t going to happen now, not with the whole McAllister clan watching my every move.

“I don’t think so,” I said slowly, and came out from behind the mirror, dangling my boots from one hand. “But you guys have fun.”

For a minute Sydney didn’t say anything, only watched me carefully, blue eyes scanning my face, looking for what, I didn’t know. Then she said, “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”

I gave her as guileless a look as possible. “Nothing is going on.”

She crossed her arms. “How long have we been friends?”

“About seven years now, I think.”

“And have I
ever
let slip any secrets about you? Told anyone the truth about your family?”

“Well, no,” I replied, not sure where she was going with this.

“Then
why
won’t you tell me what’s wrong? I can tell something isn’t right. You’ve got those people who look like refugees from Hogwarts camped out in your aunt’s store, you seem all jumpy, you won’t come up to Crown King even though technically it’s still in your ‘safe zone,’ whatever that means. So why don’t you trust me to tell me what’s going on?”