Demons of Bourbon Street (4 page)

He winked in my direction before turning to smile at Mom. “Ms. Calhoun. My apologies. I came up here to take a business call, and then Jade and I were finalizing our travel plans for tomorrow.”

The anxiety swirling around my mother eased. She took a step forward and lowered her voice, “Oh, it’s all right. It’s not that I don’t trust you two, but Gwen can be old-fashioned. You know how she is.”

Unable to control myself, I snorted my disbelief and quickly covered with a cough. Gwen had tried to put Kane and me in the same room for our short visit, but my mother had insisted sharing a room wasn’t appropriate. Since the house only had two bedrooms, Mom was bunking with Gwen, and I was in my old room.

That put Kane on the couch.

As if anything would ever happen on the squeaky bed from hell with my mother and aunt in the next room.

“
Yeah, Gwen can be a little archaic sometimes.” Hiding a smile, I brushed past Mom. “I’ll be outside on the porch. I need to call Kat.”

“
Don’t be too long, Jade. It’s getting cold out.”

It took all my willpower to not morph back into the moody teenager who would have answered “yes, mother” with a chip the size of Mt. Shasta on my shoulder. I shook my head and shrugged into a wool jacket. “I won’t.”

I left and headed off to the sunroom. Before I did anything else, I needed to call Kat. I sat in the same chair she’d occupied earlier in the day and touched her name in my phone.

She answered before it even rang. “What’s up?”

“
Kane found us seats for a flight at eleven a.m. They’re first class, but he says his credit card points will cover all three of us. You okay with that?”

“
First class? Free? Hell yeah!” Kat let out a whoop of exaggerated excitement and then lowered her voice. “I hope you have plans for a thorough thank you.”

“
Kat! Stop. Nothing’s going to happen with my mom and Gwen here.”

She sighed into the phone. “Yeah. That would be a mood killer.”

“
Listen, I’m getting ready to do a spell to find Philip, and I need something of Dan’s to make a physical connection. Do you have anything? I gave everything of significance back to him after we broke up. The rest I tossed.”

“
Sure, the talisman his mom gave me this afternoon. Give me a moment… Hmm, that’s weird. It isn’t in my purse.” A frantic rustling drowned out her next words.

“
What?” I asked.

“
Sorry, I can’t find it. Hold on.”

A soft thunk sounded, followed by more rummaging. I bit my lip and picked up a magazine on the end table.
Beyond the Barn
. Great. I tossed the farming magazine back down, and a shiny piece of metal caught my eye. “Kat?” I called into the phone.

“
Just a minute,” she called back. After a short pause, I heard a faint, “Crud!”

I picked up the silver pendant, fingering the familiar design. The letters engraved on the back were rough under my thumb.
DPT
. Dan Pearson Toller.

Dan had told me his middle name was a family name. I’d never imagined it came from Philip Pearson or that his dad wasn’t his biological father. Had his dad known? It didn’t matter now. Dan’s dad passed away a few years ago, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

“
Kat!” I yelled.

“
Sorry,” she breathed into the phone. “I have no idea what I did with it.”

“
It’s here. You left it in the sunroom.”

“
Thank God. You want me to come over and help with the spell?”

“
Do you mind?” Kat didn’t possess any magic, so she wouldn’t be any help in that department. What she could do is help me focus and give me strength if I got carried away and used too much energy. And, let’s face it, I’d been known to flub a spell or two.

“
Don’t worry. My parents already went to bed. They won’t even miss me. See ya in five.”

I put the phone on the table, picked up the spell book, and shuffled outside. While the rain still came down in sheets, the wind had finally died. I snagged a dry plastic chair from near the side of the house and placed it a few feet from the stairs leading to the back side of the farm.

Wrapping up in my wool coat, I took a deep breath. Mud and fresh pine filled my senses. Memories of Dan and me running through the neighboring woods flooded my brain. That night we’d walked under the brilliant moon, only to be caught in a late summer storm. Goose flesh popped out on my covered skin.

I no longer had feelings for Dan. We’d ended our relationship a few years ago, but I stilled cared about him. There was no way I’d let him spend eternity in Hell.

We had to find Philip. He was our best hope of tracking down Meri.

Magic fluttered against my breastbone, straining to do something. Anything. I opened Bea’s spell book to the finding spell.

First step:
Secure a personal item of the missing person
. Well, the pendant didn’t belong to Philip, but it was as close as I was going to get.

Second step:
Visualize the person of interest
. Tough to do, since I’d never met him.

Third step:
Light a candle to guide the journey
. Finally, an easy one. I ran inside and grabbed some matches and a candle sitting in the center of the kitchen table. It hadn’t been lit yet, but Gwen wouldn’t mind. She had plenty to spare. Psychics used them almost as much as witches did.

Back out on the porch, I pulled the small table in front of my chair and placed the candle in the middle. With an expert hand, I struck a match and lit the wick.

Fourth Step:
Repeat the incantation. Blow out the candle
.

That would complete the spell. I tapped my foot, impatient for Kat to show. It wouldn’t hurt to practice a little, would it?

Magic sparked to life in my chest. Practice was a good thing. According to Bea, I couldn’t get enough. All righty.

I propped the spell book on the table and focused on the pendant clutched in my fist. Facing the flickering candle and the sheets of rain, I spoke, “From north to east to south to west, find the spirit, reveal its nest. Through brilliance and shadows, with nowhere to hide, reveal the angel Philip, with eyes open wide.”

My magical spark warmed, sending a tingle through my limbs. I smiled. The practice had helped. Last week I would have supercharged the spell. Tonight, I’d given the incantation a gentle nudge. Was it enough?

The flame flickered once, then vanished, despite the absent wind. The familiar decaying muddy stench of the Mississippi river assaulted my senses as the rain stopped. The temperature shot up, making me sweat in my wool coat.

Moving toward the steps of the porch, I shed the jacket and gawked. The pine trees had cleared, revealing the New Orleans coven’s circle. The one that sat among half a dozen giant oaks, very near the Mississippi river. In the middle stood Lailah, cradled in the arms of a man I’d never met. One I’d bet my life was Philip Pearson.

Chapter 3

Running down the stairs, I headed straight into the clearing. With dark brown hair, a stocky build, and an eerily familiar face, there was no way the man wasn’t related to Dan. My gaze traveled to Lailah, lying limp in his arms, her face slack.

“
Philip?” I cried as the man strode away, Lailah clutched to his chest.

I ran to catch up, but as he passed through the oak trees, the scene faded, leaving me standing ankle-deep in mud with rain soaking straight through my jeans and flimsy cotton sweater.

“
Jade?” Kat called from the porch. “What are you doing out there?”

I stood frozen, terror seizing my limbs. Lailah was hurt. What had Philip done to her? My body started moving before my brain did. I tried to sprint back to the porch, but the mud trapped my feet in place, causing my upper body to jerk forward. Almost in slow motion, I tumbled and landed face-first in the gooey earth.

Sputtering, I looked up into Kane’s handsome face. “Son of a…argh.”

He offered a hand and pulled me to my feet. “Graceful,” he said, his eyes crinkling with mirth.

“
I need my phone.” Frantic, I wrenched myself from his grasp and tried once more to run to the porch. My feet slipped and this time I would have fallen on my butt if Kane hadn’t caught me.

“
Whoa. Slow down there. I’ll get you inside.” Despite my protests, he lifted me into his arms and carried me in the exact same way Philip carried Lailah in my vision.

“
Lailah’s hurt,” I said. “We need to call Bea or Lucien.”

Once on the porch, Kane stopped next to Kat and set me back on my feet. “What do you mean, she’s hurt?”

“
She was in the finding spell vision.”

“
What exactly did you see?” Kat asked.

I moved to the door and eyed my phone sitting on the end table. Then I glanced down at my mud-caked body. “Can one of you grab my phone…and a towel perhaps?”

“
Here.” Kane handed me his Blackberry.

I shook my head. “No. Bea’s number is programmed into mine.”

“
I have it.” He flipped through his contacts and pulled Bea’s number up.

Of course he’d have her number. She’d once helped him save me from a crazy ghost after he’d imprisoned me in another dimension.

I took the phone. “Thanks.”

“
I’ll get you a towel,” Kat said and disappeared into the house.

I hit send and cringed. My muddy fingerprint was front and center on Kane’s black phone. “Sorry.”

He shrugged.

Bea’s phone rang three times before it went to voice mail. I hung up and started running through Kane’s contacts, searching the L’s. Lacy, Lailah, Landon, Liam, Lloyd. No Lucien. I scrolled back up to Lailah and hit send. It rang twice and went to voice mail.

“
Double damn!” I tapped in a quick text.
Call ASAP. Jade saw something. Need to make sure you’re okay
.

Kat appeared with a towel and my robe. “Here. You’re gonna want to get out of that mess before going inside.”

I glanced down once more. Yeah. Gwen would kill me if I tracked in a gallon of mud. So right there on the porch I started stripping.

“
Jade!” my mother shrieked. “What’s going on out here?”

I dropped my muddy sweater on the porch and faced my mother in only my bra and jeans.

“
Oh my gosh.” Mom rushed over, grabbed the towel out of Kat’s hands, and wrapped it around me. “Get inside,” she whispered harshly.