Phantom Quartz: A Stacy Justice Witch Mystery Book 6 (Stacy Justice Magical Mysteries) (13 page)

Chapter 26

I was lying on my stomach, the taser trained at what appeared to be a teenage boy. “Who
are
you?”

“Show me your boobies and I’ll tell you.” He grinned.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. “I’m not—are you—?” I thought of the shifter and realized it didn’t have to be a woman. Could have been a man. Or Ferris Bueller.

I fired the taser, and the charge launched into the air and straight through him.

He completely spun around and said. “Holy shit! Are you some sort of spy?”

Terrific. A ghost. Just what I needed. As if I wasn’t already jumpy as a cat in a fireworks factory. I climbed to my feet and set the taser on the nightstand. My robe was hanging from a hook on the door and I slipped into it.

“What do you want? And make it quick. I’ve got a lot on my plate.” I tied the robe tight.

As Tisiphone had said, I was sort of a guardian of souls. My Geraghty gift was guiding them to the Summerland where they could rest. They often came at the most inconvenient times in the most unexpected places, but most of them at least respected my privacy. I couldn’t recall a single one off them demanding a peep show.

“I could go for a cheeseburger. I’m starving.” With that, he passed by me, a chilly breeze in his wake like a blast from a freezer, and walked out through my bedroom door. I shut and locked it behind him. I sealed my will that he stay the hell out of my bedroom by hanging a sprig of holly on the knob.

I quickly shoved myself into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, pulled on thick wool socks and sturdy boots. Then I went to address the uninvited guest.

He was about my height, maybe an inch or two taller, with a dark mullet, torn Levis and a Bon Jovi tee shirt. He was staring at the tablet lying on the counter.

“Dude, you
are
a spy!” He said when he saw me. He swiveled his head back to the tablet, picked it up and shook it. He held it to his ear as if any minute it would deliver a self-destruct message.

I yanked the tablet from his hands and said, “This is not a toy.”

He grinned at me, revealing straight white teeth and a crooked smile that reminded me of a young Charlie Sheen.

“You’re pretty hot for a spy. Do you like, seduce Russians or something? Are we going to nuke Gorbachev?”

Oh boy.

He walked over to my refrigerator, opened it like he owned the place. “All you have in here is tofu and oranges.” He filtered around in there for a minute and said, “What the hell is Red Bull?”

He pulled out a can and examined it.

“It’s an energy drink, and you can’t have any.”

“Why not?”

“Because dead people don’t eat or drink.”

He cocked his head sideways, sizing me up. “Okay. If you’re going to kill me, spy girl, at least let me see your boobies first.”

It shouldn’t have, but it took me a minute of absorbing his energy to see that this spirit had no idea what he was. Which made my job a whole lot more difficult. This was uncharted territory for me and I wasn’t sure of the best way to handle it.

“What’s your name?”

“Didn’t we just cover this?”

“I’m not going to show you my boobs.”

“Why not?”

“Is that a serious question?”

He leaned up against the counter. “Gretchen Shovler showed me her boobs once. I had to show her mine first.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“We were in second grade.”

I dropped my head into my hands.

“You got any music?” He wound around the counter to explore my living room. “Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC? You’re not into Madonna are you?” That’s when he noticed my sword.

“Check it out!” He yanked it from the wall where I had hung it earlier and I cringed. “You are a
badass
chick!”

It had been startling enough when spirits first began communicating with me. Even more disturbing when I discovered they could touch me. Perhaps most unsettling was the ghost who tried to kill me. But to have one in my cottage, young and untamed and not even knowing he was dead, thrashing my own sword around like a light saber, well, that’s the straw that broke the Seeker’s back. I stretched my hand out and called to my sword. It ripped itself from his grip and sailed into my own.

“Also not a toy,” I said. Though Tisiphone might disagree. I put the sword back in my bedroom and grabbed my phone.

There were a few texts from my mother, but before I had a chance to read them, the kid-ghost yanked it out of my hand.

“Wow, this is awesome! What is it, like some sort of walkie-talkie thingy?”

Did they not teach manners in the eighties?

“Yes, it’s some sort of walkie-talkie thingy. Now put it down, and quit touching my stuff.”

He obliged and saluted me. I scooped up the phone and held it.
I ran my fingers through my hair and asked, one last time. “Please tell me your name.”

“Tell me yours first,” he said.

I so did not have the time or patience for this. I wondered if there was a necromancer support group. Maybe a network I didn’t know about where I could transfer a difficult case to another ghost whisperer? Good goddess, I would pay for that right now.

“Stacy.”

He frowned. “That’s not a very good spy name.” Then he brightened. “What’s your last name?”

Good grief. “Justice.”

He considered the possibilities of my potential to become the next 007 for a moment.

“Nah. Too obvious,” he decided. “I’m going to call you Red. You know, because of your hair.” He glanced at the energy drink in his hand. “Red Bull! Now
that
is a badass spy name.”

I stood there for several pounding heartbeats considering my options. Finally, I decided that this particular situation could wait. Plus, I was getting tired of being asked to flash my headlights. I picked up my tablet, sat the kid on the couch, typed ‘boobies’ into the search engine and told him not to move until I returned.

“Bring me back a cheeseburger!” He called as I rushed out the door.

This was not the most responsible action plan, but the kid was already dead, and I figured I couldn’t possibly corrupt him anymore than he already was.

I was wrong.

Chapter 27

Thor and the white rabbit were gone when I left the cottage. Probably off to some sort of witches’ familiars training seminar. Cinnamon called just before I reached the back door of the Geraghty Girls house.

“Hey, Cousin.”

“Hey, Stacy. Listen, Tony’s parents are insisting I come to dinner tonight and Daphne has a family thing, so I was wondering—and I can’t
believe
I’m going to say this—would you begin training Monique tonight? I’m expecting a post-game crowd and the family was all going to pop over for an after dinner drink, maybe even have dinner there.”

“Sure, Cin, whatever you need. How are you feeling?”

She sighed. “I’d feel a lot better if everyone would stop asking me how I feel.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s not you. It’s everyone else treating me like a wounded bird, but to answer your question, I feel great. I feel strong, actually.”

“You sound good. Just don’t let the clan get to you. Okay?”

“I’m trying. Hey, Stacy, did you ever get a chance to look into that thing we found?”

I knew what she meant. The passage in the book. The one about the child who would join the Seeker. I still hadn’t gotten a chance to ask my mother about that or about seeing Uncle Deck driving in town the other day.

“Not yet. I’m headed into the house now, though. I’ll see what they can tell me.”

We said our goodbyes and I texted Monique and asked her to meet me at the Black Opal at six p.m. if she still wanted a job. She agreed and I stuffed the phone in my pocket. I stood there a few moments, tapping my brain, feeling for the right thing to do. I wasn’t sure if I should bring up the missing page because I was afraid that one of my own had cut it in the first place, but I had no idea why.

After a few seconds, a warmth came over me, a certainty. Like the sky is blue and the grass is green and fairies are real. It was time to ask my mother—no—
demand
that she tell me what she knew about the passage and the missing page that looked to have been so expertly sliced out of the book that whoever did it didn’t even leave a seam. Plus, I had to ask her if my uncle was still alive.

The back door was open and I let myself in. There were trays of wilted cold cuts, stale bread and half-eaten cheese dips spread across the counters. Piles of empty beer and wine bottles overflowed the sink, and plastic cutlery was strewn about the apothecary table like fallen soldiers.

What the hell? This was not how the Geraghty Girls threw a party. They were neat, orderly, borderline obsessive compulsive.

I hurried down the hall and into the living room to find four Italian men—also a small dog I recognized as Carmen’s Bianca—strewn about the sofas and floors like the aftermath of a frat party.

My mother had her coat on, and she was standing at the door, hand on the handle.

“Freeze!” I said.

She turned around and said, “There you are. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

I eyed her suspiciously. “Who was my first grade teacher?”

Mom, at least I thought it was her, rolled her eyes. “Are you going to quiz me every time you see me?”

“Pretty much.”

Mom gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Miss Peabody. You liked her because she smelled of kettle corn and moonbeams.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Now that
that’s
over, want to explain why this place looks like a rooftop party after a Cubs game?”

“Not especially.”

“Mom!”

She let her hand slip from the door reluctantly, danced around Mario and a man who appeared to be Mario’s older twin, and walked over to me. She darted her eyes around the room, making sure no one was eavesdropping. No chance of that, since everyone looked to be in a coma.

“They’ve lost it. All of them. They’re acting impulsive, impatient and just plain goofy. They didn’t even want to do anything we discussed yesterday, and when they finally got around to inviting Cinnamon’s family over, they just stuffed them full of food and booze and...I don’t know—something that knocked everyone out.” She looked around the room, a scowl on her face.

“So you were just going to bail and leave me with this mess?” Because I would have done the same thing, but I’d been putting up with it all my life—she’d had them for five minutes.

A trickle of guilt slid down her face and disappeared like a raindrop. “I don’t have a choice. I have a friend who’s in crisis, and she needs me. It’s really important.”

“
I
need you, Mom. There’s a few things I need to discuss with you.”

Mom sighed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, I swear.” Her eyes trailed the room from limp body to limp body. “They’ll be out for a while. Whatever Lolly laced the food with seems to be a bit more potent than anticipated. They were getting loud and rowdy and the ruckus was giving her a headache.”

Lolly was known for her knockout tea, but I didn’t recall her using her potions in food. “So she still has magic?” That had been begging on my mind for a while. I wasn’t sure what skills, if any, the three of them still possessed.

Behind me, Birdie slurred, “Well of course we do. We’re still witches, Stacy.”

Lolly hiccupped. “Just not very good ones.”

“Like
you
used to be.” Fiona giggled.

I spun around to find my grandmother and her two sisters hammered out of their heads.

“Oh hell no,” I said. “You are not leaving me here with Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, Mom.” But when I turned back, my mother was gone.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and texted her.
I have to work at the Black Opal tonight. You have two hours. And I WILL return the favor.

She texted back.
I love you too, favorite daughter of mine.

I faced the Geraghty Girls again. Pointed over their heads. “Kitchen. Now.”

Fiona snorted. “Oooh, we’re in trouble.” She was wearing a Cubs hat, facing backwards, black yoga pants, and a Batman tee shirt. Not a stitch of makeup.

Birdie bent over and cackled like a crow. Her attire was a bit more her style, Bohemian skirt and gauzy blouse. Although the fedora was disturbing. I suspected that belonged to one of the passed-out partygoers.

Lolly put a finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh. Maybe she can’t see us.” She was wearing jeans and a hoodie.

I tapped my foot. “You’re not invisible, you drunk monkeys.”

One by one I edged them down the hallway, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t keep them from bouncing off the walls like pinballs.

I started off by cleaning up the kitchen—filling Tupperware full of meats and cheeses, crackers and dips. This was a mistake, because when I turned around, they were each sucking on a cold one.

“No. No. No.” I swiped their beers and poured them down the sink, then set about making coffee and wiping the counters.

I stuffed the empty bottles into garbage bags as I waited for the coffee to percolate. “Did you at least find anything out? Anything at all about the shifter?”

Birdie said, still slurring, “Just that Tabby’s a nutfugget.”

Fiona and Lolly giggled.

“Yes, well we knew that, ladies,” I said.

The coffee pot chimed and I pulled three mugs from the cupboard and rosemary oil from the pie safe to speed up the alertness process and hopefully jog their memories. I served it to them black to match my mood.

“Drink.”

There was a round of protests, and since pouring the steaming liquid down each of their throats might be considered elder abuse, I promised to buy them pizza and take them to the Black Opal if they drank the coffee in the next five minutes.

I had shuffled over to the sink to disinfect it when they started snickering. Fed up, I threw the sponge in the sink, pivoted around and said, “What? What is so funny?”

Birdie pointed at me. “You’re in trouble,” she sang it like a kid taunting her sister.

Lolly and Fiona joined in. “So much trouble.”

“Yes, I’m aware. Someone wants to kill me.” I tossed up my arms. “What else is new?”

But wait, I didn’t tell them about the visit form the fury.

Lolly said, “No, silly. The Council.”

“Yeah, Tabby is pissed,” Fiona said.

“So pissed,” said Birdie.

Panic rose within me, slow and measured like a body rising from the grave. “Oh no. What did you do? You didn’t call her drunk, did you?”

Crap, crap, crap. I should never have let them call without me.
I
should have called, in fact. It was my responsibility.

“Nah,” Birdie waved, forgot why she was waving and studied her hand as if she’d never seen it before. “She wasn’t drunk.”

Fiona said, “But you did call her a jacksack.” She turned to look at Lolly. “Was that it?” Then she fell off her barstool.

Lolly tried to hoist her sister up, but dropped her. They collapsed into a heap of giggles.

“Why am I in trouble? Birdie! What did she say?” Because there was no way I was going to be hauled off in handcuffs and tossed in that castle. I’d sooner join whatever cult Monique had run off with. Maybe she would give me their number.

My phone buzzed then. The ring tone indicated the call was being transferred directly from my scrying mirror in the Seeker’s Den. There was only one number I ever had forwarded from the mirror. I grabbed the phone and ran to the pantry.

Tallulah was wearing a hat that resembled a giant sperm and a look that told me I was indeed in trouble.

“I’ll make this short and sweet, Stacy. As of this moment, you have 48 hours to retrieve the locket or you will be stripped of your Seeker’s crown, and Ethan will take your place. You are also on probation for the next year and will have no access to the Pentacle, previously known as the Four Corners. Tell your grandmother she is no longer a member of this council, and that as the Mage, she too is on probation.” Tabby’s eyes flickered. “Oh yes, also tell her,
I win
.” She flashed a wicked smile.

“Tabby, please—”

Her image snuffed out, and the call ended.